It is completely illogical for this report to assume that jobs are created because of H-1B visas being hired. In fact, these jobs were created in spite of the H-1B visa.
If H-1B visas were made unlimited, there would be little or no employment in the technical trades for American-born workers.
This Fake Employment Theory has to be challenged because both the Democrats and Republicans are buying into these faux facts.
Greenspan to U.S. middle class: "First, we will give away your jobs. Then, we will give away your houses."
Time for everyone to visit the NumbersUSA website and petition your elected representatives for lower immigration levels and enforcement of our existing immigration and employment laws.
The CBO says The Housing Bill will help about ~400k of homeowners out of the expected 2.2M foreclosures.
Looking at that tsunami fast approaching, is it a drop in the bucket for people who actually own homes?
And is 2.2M further foreclosures low?
Just this month we had 272.171k homes foreclosed on, a 55% increase from 1 year ago and looking at this graph it looks like the hurricane is moving right into regular mortgages.
Would they even qualify under the Housing bill and what is the critera?
Old man Greenspan doesn't give a *!#*! about American workers. He tried to take credit for keeping inflation low when it was really American workers who paid the price due to global wage arbitrage. It is pathetic how his huge ego won't let him "retire" so he continues to contradict himself only to look like an even bigger fool than he already is.
the lesson here is that offshoring jobs doesn't neccesarily reduce prices, but they do take control over the macro economic fundamentals that drive the economy out of the hand of our elected government and turn it over to the multinational corporations.
Clearly the economy did batter in past decades when taxes were much higher across the board.
I am not sure I am buying the need for further corp tax cuts - especially on the principle that it will encourage avoidance.
The key will be finding a way to tax the offshore avoiders - either thru vats or some sort of pay to play set up
Afterall these multinationals need the US market for their goods and services and benefit from the infrastructure and protection of the US govt -therefore have amoral obligation to contribute back into society at large.
write up the history of the corporate tax code as a blog post?
Some of this I really don't know and could use some references too.
But, what I was focusing in on is the common sound byte claiming "remove tax incentives to offshore outsource your job" that we hear coming from Democrats.
Well, precisely how is that going to happen when they cannot nail down exactly how corporations are moving money, offshore and coming up with a zero tax bill as it is?
This post really is a lead in for others on this.
It's a great idea to give tax disincentives to offshore outsource and incentives to invest in the US, but ya know, if they don't nail down the fact these large corporations already are paying hardly any to zero taxes, what difference can it make?
Then, another question is if they are forced to start paying taxes, these multinational corporations can very easily simply move their headquarters to some offshore subsidiary and make their domestic operation a subsidiary.
Haven't you noticed almost no one is really analyzing the details on that policy claim?
....I remember it from the 60s, 70s and whoa them St. Ronnie 80s those were the days.
I just wonder....
Did you know that when St. Ronnie of Obama ascended to Governor of CA where I was a DFH, bigtime dudes, attending UCB corporations paid 80% of all the revenue collected by the state in the form of income taxes?
The citizenry payed up the rest.
Did you good people further know that when St. R of O left office the ratio had reversed? Presto chango....
Citizens paid 80% and corps paid 20%.
Is this maybe why we can't rebuild our schools, roads, dams, waterworks, bridges, tunnels, Universities, and all the rest of the infrastructure which the two Browns, Edmund G. and his son Jerry, lavished tax money on in the 50s and 60s?
Anyone care to guess what the growth rate of the CA economy was after the two Bs spent all that tax cash on infrastructure?
Check it out. Yer eyes will bug out of yer skull!
See...I am of the opinion that most everything the citizenry 'knows' about the economy is just plain wrong. Decades of the corporatist press filling the airwaves and papers with outright lies have really dumbed the citizeny down.
Last six times this story ran it just sort of 'went away...' after a while.
I understand your frustration with both parties and honestly I don't think you're alone and I believe this cuts across party lines.
This blog is to write details on all things economic and I think everyone one here wants fact based policy instead of this corporate lobbyist/special interest propaganda we get on a daily basis.
How to get more people demanding true changes, deep structural changes in how our Government monitors and crafts economic policy...well, the first step I believe is we must have people, in mass, demand it.
To date, renters rights, except in a few cities, is pretty much non-existent.
That said, a tax rebate for energy improvements in secondary property, does that exist currently or not?
I like the idea about cash for clunkers too and then seriously pressuring the big 3 to make fuel efficient cars, even if they have to license the technology from Japan.
The problem is DC is the place where great ideas go to die.
What can we do to get some of these very practical, based in deep research, policy recommendations actually adopted, turned into legislation and passed on Congress?
I know on the H-1B front, just getting a bill introduced is pulling teeth and then of course it gets 2 or 3 co-sponsors where it is sent to committee to die.
In the meantime, corporate lobbyists have no problem getting their bills passed and even onto GOP and Democratic platforms.
Seriously, the US is going down the tubes and still, while there are some brilliant thinkers out there, experts, truly good ideas...it's like Congress, Politicians seem to think it's all an exercise for the reader. The public at large knows something is wrong but I doubt has the time to really understand all of these details to demand it from Congress.
What's the answer? Ban lobbyists? Ban the money? They have been trying there for years and we are nowhere.
I have been a Republican all my life and have voted generally for Republican-backed economic polcies, but this election of 2008 (and if I am blessed w/ many more opportunities to vote thereafter), I will vote "Independent" meaning I will not be swayed by either party on this issue. I believe in Free Market Capitalism, but UP TO A POINT, because human greed, left to it's own devices w/o any restrictions or barriers, can only lead to abuses (both economically and socially), both here and abroad.
Globalism, while helping some poorer countries raise their standard of living, has also enriched & empowered a privilege few while subsequently and arguable lower standards here. Of course we still have one of the highest standards of living tin the world, but it can also be argued that it takes now two incomes to raise a family of, say 4, when in the 50's one income sufficed. On local trade, I have encountered many businessman who exploit the policies of Free Trade w/o regard to the effect it has on our local community, which was had a once-proud labor force. It would take me too long to list the negative effects and how they outweigh the positive ones, but suffice to say both parties have failed on this issue miserably. If it means NOT voting for anyone who refuses to stand for the interest of the American people from now on, then so be it. I will no longer fall for the "choice of lesser evils". Either elected official represent our collective interests and respect our viewpoints or they don't.
I believe and know that an equitable & fair balance can be agreed upon that will allow America to be competitive (like comprehensive tax incentives for businesses who remain in the mainland) while at the same time preserving it labor force and offering higher wages based on productivity, but there is simply too much "money" being exchanged in Washington that no one is willing to take up the battle of fine-tooling our policies on Free Trade. Furthermore, how can John McCain claim that his strong suit is not economics, yet so easily throw the "protectionist" term to anyone who disagrees on certain policies as if he were an expert on economics? Clearly, he shows he is another stooge for Globalist forces and not as "independent" as he has tried to portray himself. As for Obama, the less I say about his "economic expertise", the better. My point is no matter who wins this fall, the American people can only lose...and bigger than ever before.
Like a national cash for clunkers program that would both cut gas consumption and provide an economic stimulus.
I've got this idea for a piece on what a national program aimed to create an economic stimulus through capital investment in energy conservation would look like.
You know like getting the government in to buy up 1985 Cadillacs that get 10 miles per gallon and create horrible amounts of pollution and offering a combination of a high buying price and zero interest financing with limited amounts being made in grants to replace wasteful vehicles with more fuel efficient vehicles, and contracting with Detroit to do it. WTO rules exclude government spending, so no one can bitch when the newest generation of American's fuel efficient cars comes out of American factories.
Secondly, I think that the time has long past to have a real push to do something about getting older buildings, particularly rented buildings properly insulated.
In my piece of shit apartment in downtown Lafayette, my rent was only $400 a month, but my heating was over $200 a month in the winter. And I had an electric furnace.
The windows were like sieves though, and once I weatherized them, I could literally see the wind blowing the plastic sheet up and down. The windows just didn't stop the wind at all.
Now a replacing all 5 windows would probably have only cost $1,000, and that would have paid for itself in heating cost savings in a little more than a year. But there was moral hazard, because the tenant paid for utilities, and the landlord had to install new windows.
Imagine the energy that could be saved if landlords were required to meet certain energy efficiency standards in order to rent. I mean get HUD on the case and require federal registration of rented properties. Germany apparently already requires this.
$1000 in savings over the course of a year would have a huge impact for people getting by on 14K or 15K a year. And they'd actually spend the money, which is the point of a stimulus package. Even matching landlord spending on a 1-1 basis would still be effective. Even better require them to report the results of testing with estimated utilities to all potential tenants. That alone would create a huge incentive for landlords to spend on energy conservation measures.
did a study, which I wrote about in the Emperor Has No Clothes. It is also listed here, on EP in the Studies section (top link).
Then, there was a House Science Committee hearing on this as well, I wrote about it in Globalization vs. Free trade.
Pardon the blog posts as references, but when I write these, I have all of the study, testimony references in the links, so if you want to ignore my commentary and points, it's kind of one stop shopping for the relevant materials on how they sure as hell are moving up the food chain to get the best jobs in the US (other nations).
It is completely illogical for this report to assume that jobs are created because of H-1B visas being hired. In fact, these jobs were created in spite of the H-1B visa.
If H-1B visas were made unlimited, there would be little or no employment in the technical trades for American-born workers.
This Fake Employment Theory has to be challenged because both the Democrats and Republicans are buying into these faux facts.
Greenspan to U.S. middle class: "First, we will give away your jobs. Then, we will give away your houses."
Time for everyone to visit the NumbersUSA website and petition your elected representatives for lower immigration levels and enforcement of our existing immigration and employment laws.
The CBO says The Housing Bill will help about ~400k of homeowners out of the expected 2.2M foreclosures.
Looking at that tsunami fast approaching, is it a drop in the bucket for people who actually own homes?
And is 2.2M further foreclosures low?
Just this month we had 272.171k homes foreclosed on, a 55% increase from 1 year ago and looking at this graph it looks like the hurricane is moving right into regular mortgages.
Would they even qualify under the Housing bill and what is the critera?
The Instapopulist is the latest quick moving, short posts in the forums.
We know have a new RSS feed so you can quickly scan all of the new ones in a reader without any additional clicks.
You see on the left, in the fly out menu (if your site look is not the blue one) at the end you will see the feed.
On the main menu, you now see blog RSS and Forum RSS.
Old man Greenspan doesn't give a *!#*! about American workers. He tried to take credit for keeping inflation low when it was really American workers who paid the price due to global wage arbitrage. It is pathetic how his huge ego won't let him "retire" so he continues to contradict himself only to look like an even bigger fool than he already is.
the lesson here is that offshoring jobs doesn't neccesarily reduce prices, but they do take control over the macro economic fundamentals that drive the economy out of the hand of our elected government and turn it over to the multinational corporations.
New Deal Democrat has some additional graphs here on inflation in the forum, with statistics.
The only thing that isn't inflating is American's wages or the standard of living they can have.
Since inflation on imports is 21.6% this year the myth that just died is:
If we offshore outsource your jobs it's good, it results in lower prices.
Man, when (if ever) is our government going to get a clue. I might be too late before they do.
Here is the BEA official release. Import inflation was +21.6% over the last year.
NDD do you have any more details on that? I missed it.
I think that can be good....if jobs return which surely would strongly lag.
Clearly the economy did batter in past decades when taxes were much higher across the board.
I am not sure I am buying the need for further corp tax cuts - especially on the principle that it will encourage avoidance.
The key will be finding a way to tax the offshore avoiders - either thru vats or some sort of pay to play set up
Afterall these multinationals need the US market for their goods and services and benefit from the infrastructure and protection of the US govt -therefore have amoral obligation to contribute back into society at large.
Now Germany too.
Germany I can understand, they have been outsourcing jobs, all sorts of problems. They are blaming a construction slump.
write up the history of the corporate tax code as a blog post?
Some of this I really don't know and could use some references too.
But, what I was focusing in on is the common sound byte claiming "remove tax incentives to offshore outsource your job" that we hear coming from Democrats.
Well, precisely how is that going to happen when they cannot nail down exactly how corporations are moving money, offshore and coming up with a zero tax bill as it is?
This post really is a lead in for others on this.
It's a great idea to give tax disincentives to offshore outsource and incentives to invest in the US, but ya know, if they don't nail down the fact these large corporations already are paying hardly any to zero taxes, what difference can it make?
Then, another question is if they are forced to start paying taxes, these multinational corporations can very easily simply move their headquarters to some offshore subsidiary and make their domestic operation a subsidiary.
Haven't you noticed almost no one is really analyzing the details on that policy claim?
....I remember it from the 60s, 70s and whoa them St. Ronnie 80s those were the days.
I just wonder....
Did you know that when St. Ronnie of Obama ascended to Governor of CA where I was a DFH, bigtime dudes, attending UCB corporations paid 80% of all the revenue collected by the state in the form of income taxes?
The citizenry payed up the rest.
Did you good people further know that when St. R of O left office the ratio had reversed? Presto chango....
Citizens paid 80% and corps paid 20%.
Is this maybe why we can't rebuild our schools, roads, dams, waterworks, bridges, tunnels, Universities, and all the rest of the infrastructure which the two Browns, Edmund G. and his son Jerry, lavished tax money on in the 50s and 60s?
Anyone care to guess what the growth rate of the CA economy was after the two Bs spent all that tax cash on infrastructure?
Check it out. Yer eyes will bug out of yer skull!
See...I am of the opinion that most everything the citizenry 'knows' about the economy is just plain wrong. Decades of the corporatist press filling the airwaves and papers with outright lies have really dumbed the citizeny down.
Last six times this story ran it just sort of 'went away...' after a while.
Maybe not this time.
I intend to blog about it that's for sure.
I understand your frustration with both parties and honestly I don't think you're alone and I believe this cuts across party lines.
This blog is to write details on all things economic and I think everyone one here wants fact based policy instead of this corporate lobbyist/special interest propaganda we get on a daily basis.
How to get more people demanding true changes, deep structural changes in how our Government monitors and crafts economic policy...well, the first step I believe is we must have people, in mass, demand it.
To date, renters rights, except in a few cities, is pretty much non-existent.
That said, a tax rebate for energy improvements in secondary property, does that exist currently or not?
I like the idea about cash for clunkers too and then seriously pressuring the big 3 to make fuel efficient cars, even if they have to license the technology from Japan.
The problem is DC is the place where great ideas go to die.
What can we do to get some of these very practical, based in deep research, policy recommendations actually adopted, turned into legislation and passed on Congress?
I know on the H-1B front, just getting a bill introduced is pulling teeth and then of course it gets 2 or 3 co-sponsors where it is sent to committee to die.
In the meantime, corporate lobbyists have no problem getting their bills passed and even onto GOP and Democratic platforms.
Seriously, the US is going down the tubes and still, while there are some brilliant thinkers out there, experts, truly good ideas...it's like Congress, Politicians seem to think it's all an exercise for the reader. The public at large knows something is wrong but I doubt has the time to really understand all of these details to demand it from Congress.
What's the answer? Ban lobbyists? Ban the money? They have been trying there for years and we are nowhere.
I have been a Republican all my life and have voted generally for Republican-backed economic polcies, but this election of 2008 (and if I am blessed w/ many more opportunities to vote thereafter), I will vote "Independent" meaning I will not be swayed by either party on this issue. I believe in Free Market Capitalism, but UP TO A POINT, because human greed, left to it's own devices w/o any restrictions or barriers, can only lead to abuses (both economically and socially), both here and abroad.
Globalism, while helping some poorer countries raise their standard of living, has also enriched & empowered a privilege few while subsequently and arguable lower standards here. Of course we still have one of the highest standards of living tin the world, but it can also be argued that it takes now two incomes to raise a family of, say 4, when in the 50's one income sufficed. On local trade, I have encountered many businessman who exploit the policies of Free Trade w/o regard to the effect it has on our local community, which was had a once-proud labor force. It would take me too long to list the negative effects and how they outweigh the positive ones, but suffice to say both parties have failed on this issue miserably. If it means NOT voting for anyone who refuses to stand for the interest of the American people from now on, then so be it. I will no longer fall for the "choice of lesser evils". Either elected official represent our collective interests and respect our viewpoints or they don't.
I believe and know that an equitable & fair balance can be agreed upon that will allow America to be competitive (like comprehensive tax incentives for businesses who remain in the mainland) while at the same time preserving it labor force and offering higher wages based on productivity, but there is simply too much "money" being exchanged in Washington that no one is willing to take up the battle of fine-tooling our policies on Free Trade. Furthermore, how can John McCain claim that his strong suit is not economics, yet so easily throw the "protectionist" term to anyone who disagrees on certain policies as if he were an expert on economics? Clearly, he shows he is another stooge for Globalist forces and not as "independent" as he has tried to portray himself. As for Obama, the less I say about his "economic expertise", the better. My point is no matter who wins this fall, the American people can only lose...and bigger than ever before.
has had some very good policy suggestions.
Like a national cash for clunkers program that would both cut gas consumption and provide an economic stimulus.
I've got this idea for a piece on what a national program aimed to create an economic stimulus through capital investment in energy conservation would look like.
You know like getting the government in to buy up 1985 Cadillacs that get 10 miles per gallon and create horrible amounts of pollution and offering a combination of a high buying price and zero interest financing with limited amounts being made in grants to replace wasteful vehicles with more fuel efficient vehicles, and contracting with Detroit to do it. WTO rules exclude government spending, so no one can bitch when the newest generation of American's fuel efficient cars comes out of American factories.
Secondly, I think that the time has long past to have a real push to do something about getting older buildings, particularly rented buildings properly insulated.
In my piece of shit apartment in downtown Lafayette, my rent was only $400 a month, but my heating was over $200 a month in the winter. And I had an electric furnace.
The windows were like sieves though, and once I weatherized them, I could literally see the wind blowing the plastic sheet up and down. The windows just didn't stop the wind at all.
Now a replacing all 5 windows would probably have only cost $1,000, and that would have paid for itself in heating cost savings in a little more than a year. But there was moral hazard, because the tenant paid for utilities, and the landlord had to install new windows.
Imagine the energy that could be saved if landlords were required to meet certain energy efficiency standards in order to rent. I mean get HUD on the case and require federal registration of rented properties. Germany apparently already requires this.
$1000 in savings over the course of a year would have a huge impact for people getting by on 14K or 15K a year. And they'd actually spend the money, which is the point of a stimulus package. Even matching landlord spending on a 1-1 basis would still be effective. Even better require them to report the results of testing with estimated utilities to all potential tenants. That alone would create a huge incentive for landlords to spend on energy conservation measures.
did a study, which I wrote about in the Emperor Has No Clothes. It is also listed here, on EP in the Studies section (top link).
Then, there was a House Science Committee hearing on this as well, I wrote about it in Globalization vs. Free trade.
Pardon the blog posts as references, but when I write these, I have all of the study, testimony references in the links, so if you want to ignore my commentary and points, it's kind of one stop shopping for the relevant materials on how they sure as hell are moving up the food chain to get the best jobs in the US (other nations).
hey, did you see the button on how to make a link? Or the way to make one in the user guide? ;) hint hint.
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