Every time I see a program like the OCC Foreclosure Review, HAMP, etc, I think it's just about keeping hope alive. People, especially the Democratic Party rank and file, have to "believe" that their leader, and their party are going to help them. The GOP is pretty clear that it's going to give more money to the wealthy etc. But the Democrats have to preserve the illusion that maybe, one day, if the big bad GOPers will let them, things will get better. Otherwise, people might start to wake up to the fact that we are screwed, and act accordingly.
So in a sense, killing hope in the Democrats is one of the most important things that we can do to mobilize people.
So very glad I found you here..., looks like a great site as well. Will be checking in regularly. You are absolutely right..., the first step..., or maybe high hurdle is a better description..., is recognizing and acknowledging the fact that there is going to be a shortage of jobs for a good long while. We have reached the end of growth as an economic engine these days and we can't fix a problem until we admit that we have a problem. Right on partner..., write on.
Why doesn't the Fed or SEC or DOJ or anyone do anything other than settle with them and allow them to make returns on their crimes at 1,000X? Easy answer, because the Fed is actually controlled by the very same bankers. And for those that don't have a literal seat at the table (like Dimon does on the Fed Board of NY), then there's lobbying. Just check out how much money these people spend lobbying Treasury, SEC, and DOJ. And if lobbying doesn't work, there's always the promise of a sweet job that pays six or seven or eight figures upon leaving government service if you just toe the line and don't ask any uncomfortable questions of your future employers (whether they work in the banks, defense, pharmaceuticals, accounting, hedge funds, energy, etc.). Look how many counts of forgery banks could have been busted for regarding robo-signing Linda Green's name. Imagine a person forging one name one time on one document and submitting it to a court to be registered - that's one felony and at least one year for each signature. These banks did it tens of thousands of times and no one goes to prison, no forfeiture, no probation. Why doesn't anyone step in and send anyone, someone to jail for massive criminal conspiracies? Uhm, because the criminals run the show and own the government?
When (not if) there's another bubble, I predict it will be in retirement funds. They won't stop until they "privatize" Social Security, and all that extra money in the financial markets will make today's casino look like a bingo game. Then, of course, all the profits will disappear into their hedge funds and offshore accounts, leaving most of us with nothing. Financial fraud ought to be a capital crime, you'd see a lot less of it then.
And spitting in the face of the non-banksters, regular global populace continues. How many billions in payoffs in USD, Yen, Pounds, Euros, AUD, CAD, and every other currency have already taken place to water down the Basel III requirements and to get this delay until 2019? How many more bribes will be exchanged until 2019? How many more bank and government manufactured crises will occur until 2019 that will, of course, force the issue to be revisited and the watered-down requirements to actually be completely made useless and/or delayed until the next century? Complete farce (and an expensive one at that). Watch how many people that helped write the rules and delayed their implementation move back and forth from banks to regulators to political halls of power during all this time. That revolving door sure does pay well for people of low character.
So I guess with all these capital requirements being eliminated or reduced substantially and delayed endlessly, regular bank customers can keep $1 in their savings and checking accounts without penalties? They get free checking? They get fantastic mortgage rates? Credit cards have 0.1% interest rates? CDs pay out at 10%? No? I'm sorry, I forgot, customers and citizens count for nothing, it's the people with their hands in the till and stealing the customers' money that meet with global banking officials/administrators/regulators and politicians and write/call the shots.
Rule #1 - rules and laws and social mores that apply to the regular populace don't apply to the big banksters, big corporations, and their puppets in the media and government. Rule #2 - when in doubt, refer to Rule #1.
Well written sir, however the 14 largest banks again are part of this "so called" deal. I ask why haven't the massive non-bank servicers that lurk under the governments so called radar. The Crooks I speak of are the companies like Nationstar Mortgage Lewisville,TX part of the fortress group. This company is a known foreclosure mill. They Nationstar llc" have been buying massive amounts bad loans from gmac, wells fargo etc etc. Some of this servicers shady business dealings aren't hard to find heck just type in Nationstar on the SEC's website and look at there dealings since 2007-2013 just some info for people to review whom may be interested in corruption at its height. its a shame business like this even exist however they haven't been fined once by any of the settlements AG's Fed's nodda. Seems it will never end unless somebody whom hasn't been paid off by these crooks speaks up the middle class or whats left of it. just my two cents and Thanks again for the great reading here. Tell me guys why hasn't the fed stepped in? Even the new CFPB isn't touching this servicer for there theft and lies could it be even they have money from such a criminal Enterprise? Ryan MN
Kurtz wrote:
=========================================
People exercising their 1st Amendment rights are being targeted by snipers and intimidated and somehow government attorneys or public servants are going along with this? That's unacceptable in any democracy/republic. The Fed represents the 99%? Just more proof that it doesn't.
=========================================
Kurtz,
Thank you for posting the URL above. I thought that it was highly informative. And freaking unbelievable. It is unbelievable that someone such as Michelle Gluck is now Legal Counsel to the Richmond Federal Reserve. UNBELIEVABLE. Are shysters now advising the Federal Reserve Bank?
It's pretty sick the way for-profit colleges are advertising their "partnerships" with Adobe, Microsoft, etc. as if these companies and colleges are going to take $50,000 - $100,000 in federally subsidized loans and somehow turn out people that are definitely going to be hired by Microsoft or Apple or Goldman, pay off the loans before they turn 500 years old, and get promoted over a long, healthy life to collect a sweet pension and gold watch? Bull. There is some tax incentive or kickback scheme involving schools, corporations, and the government that is creating these new lies. And when I speak of "for profit," I should also include Ivy League schools, public Ivies, large public schools of all ranks, mid and small schools, community colleges, etc. - basically every school under the Sun. Because when these people are pulling in six and seven figures in faculties and administration buildings across all schools and majors and grad fields, hiring TAs that work for free and often can't teach effectively because they simply cannot teach well and don't understand English, and kids are leaving schools with educational debt loads of $50,000 - $200,000 that they can never escape no matter what subject they majored in, what school they went to, and how bright they are, it's all for profit.
Healthcare? Classic high-priced education that leads to nothing, those jobs are passed out to visa applicants quicker than a bedpan can be changed. If someone can actually land one of those gigs, it will pay him/her a sweet $10-$15/hr. - good luck paying off a loan that outpaces loanshark rates while dripping in feces for the pleasure. The same thing happens in the food industry. Everyone watching Food Network and is into food/cooking thinks they need to drop $20,000 - $100,000 on a culinary education and they too will be opening restaurant after restaurant and become a celebrity chef. Reality hits them hard when they start at the same wages people were earning before culinary degrees somehow became important. Only now they have massive debt and can compete with people willing to work for $2/hr. Architecture? Law? Engineering? There's no field or sector that's getting better, no job that's safe, and no area that doesn't have people at the very top pulling some crime or scam to loot the desperate people below looking for any way possible to improve their lot despite getting financially raped or fleeced by the tiny criminal elite at the top. And all the words spoken and written by those with a clue aren't changing anything. Can't wait to see how it all ends - should be a doozy.
It is astounding the MSM coverage. They act like all is fine and now 100k, 150k monthly job gains is great when it is not. That's why I lay out these monthly figures, even though the resolution isn't good enough really to figure out the percentages of good jobs to crappy ones. They tell us only health care, or taking care of sick people is growing and that is not an industry to bet the economy on.
We don't need to see some growth - we need massive, unprecedented growth. Is that going to happen? No, because the reason we need such massive growth (I'd settle for 500,000+ good jobs/month because why should we settle for less when so many are unemployed) is the very same reason we won't see it - jobs are being destroyed/sent overseas/Americans are being replaced. So why should things change and why expect change after 2007, 2008, 2009 . . . Large corporations are making record profits and the status quo suits them and the govt. just fine. It's like asking a billionaire that doesn't break a sweat and enjoys three homes, two mistresses, and one fat wallet to do something different so someone else can share his wealth and control of the government. Why would he? Status quo suits him just fine. And as for the parents of college grads and the college grads and unemployed veterans that are unemployed for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+ years, and every other American among the 28+ million unemployed, change isn't going to come from those enjoying the status quo. And I think they are getting awfully tired of hearing "start a business, be an entrepreneur," "work for free,". Start a business and get crushed by large competitors (e.g., Walmart)?. Pay taxes while large companies get tax breaks? Take out a loan when most small businesses fail and lose any money they might have saved while struggling to survive? Work for free while idiot sons of corporate thieves never worked their entire lives and still earn billions from their families? Really? Race to the bottom is in full flush mode and cynicism and contempt should be rising with every passing day. Unless the next election in 2014 or 2016 or 2018 or 2020 or the Democrats or the Republicans or the Democrats, no the Republicans will fix it this time. And with every passing day, how many people are ignored and needlessly suffering?
From 1870 to 1932 they had federal troops breaking up strikes, private and public forces shooting and killing and beating on crowds of men, women children who wanted nothing more than an 8 hour day or fair compensation. Paid for by corporations.
Peaceful protesters were attacked by politically motivated police administrations. They were hung and imprisoned on false charges, sometimes charges trumped up as they were acquitted from another charge.
Police lined up on the dock in Everett and shot people out of boats and killed them in the water for daring to come speak in public.
And the nation's newspapers editor's, reports and interviews from citizens and business owners said many approved heartily of the hanging and executions and imprisonment. They even applauded hanging whether the charges were proven or not, because the "threat" from these anarchists, (who, in the end, wanted 8 hour work days, no child labor, respect for their brothers and sisters), made them dangerous.
I wouldn't count too much on the people "rising up" against anyone but the protesters (and that's what we are seeing - does no one read history any longer?) unless someone is willing to do the hard work and dying of organizing in much greater numbers. (They barely got as many to show up as there are bankers and the politicians who do their bidding. What kind of show is that?). They seem to expect people to log onto their web site to show "solidarity". rofl. That's not how one builds the kind of human spirit it will take to defeat the bastards.
For example:
__________________________
Chicago, April 1, 1932. Five hundred school children, most with haggard faces and in tattered clothes, paraded through Chicago's downtown section to the Board of education offices to demand that the school system provide them with food.
__________________________
Why do you think FDR was able to pass those relief programs? They were sending police out to stop protest esters from GETTING to D.C. The programs were passed to protect the capitalists from further violence.
(Maybe call a meeting in Washington D.C. of everyone, all 26 million, who want a job to demand that Congress quit sending subsidies to corporations and create a jobs program. Get all the students of all ages who got a degree and can't find a job to gather in D.C and demand a suspension of our $1 trillion in student debt and a free people's university system. (Or just start one. That's how colleges started here in the first place)).
There is a dearth of depth, spirit, and feeling outside their little encampments. Tha should not be allowed. Maybe go caroling with labor o protest songs through the neighborhoods, give stump speeches and organize the old way? Ring doorbells and talk, talk, talk. Occupy put the focus on themselves, and it needs to be on the struggle that is still going on.
They should read the experiences of the organizers of the 1870's through 1933 - all those decades it was legal for companies to break your union in nearly any way they wanted to, and all workers had was their solidarity. Even Gompers in the AFL, the traitorous little bastard, broke up the steel strike in 1919, got a lot of good people hurt, just so he could side with business. Just because someone says they are on your side...
Until whatever group grabs onto some of those old industrial union ideas and realizes the long haul they are in for, they will never be strong enough.
There are homeless people who have and are "occupying" parks longer than Occupy did, with goals that gained them just about as much.
If Occupy would ally with the old folks and everyone else they could fuse the revolutionary spirit of the young with the wealth, practicality, and experience of those that are older, (all of them have the same enemy, btw), and would be unstoppable. They need to set their sights not on defending a space to play clappy games of communication in the park but on a struggle for freedom, respect, food, shelter, etc for the 50,000 people who are being evicted every month, the 26 million who say they want or need a job, or sufficient food for the 47 million now on inadequate food stamps.
Instead they want to run around and wave an FBI paper and talk about how beleaguered THEY are. Any kid who doesn't get to eat every day is a lot more oppressed than most any protestor, and if they aren't working to stop that, or put bankers in jail, or do something bigger, they should just go home and quit getting people hurt for nothing.
Maybe they should start printing millions of $1 t-shirts that say "I'm Being Watched By the FBI", or "They are reading YOUR email too" - so we can ALL wear them and talk about this?
Excuses...I'm tired of hearing them.
Thank you for your excellent posts, btw. Great information, and obviously a labor of love and a lot of work on your part.
We have two major sites linking to our ISM manufacturing overview today. Thanks very much!
I want to tout my own horn and point to this overview on wages where the raw data is number crunched and graphed. Written over the holidays it has not been read and I personally think median wages from aggregate IRS data is most telling.
I've wondered also about a parliamentary system. Our Congress is so corrupt nothing can happen. Take chained CPI. Social security isn't part of the deficit, the original fix which is to increase the income ceiling for payroll taxes isn't even being mentioned, nor is a host of cost cutting measures, such as forcing the for profit pharmaceutical companies to give the same prices all other nations get.
I can see why everyone is all up in arms, but considering what has gone on for the last 30 years and esp. the last decade, maybe he has a point.
Found this on zerohedge and checked out the editorial on The NYT. So this happens on both sides of the phony political spectrum when either side wants to get its way - they want to abandon the law of the land in pursuit of their own sick motives and goals. And of course when there's a massive backlash against this garbage, The NYT and the professor will predictably claim they were just seeking to start a debate. Of course if people agreed with the position entirely, they would say they were dead serious and want to implement real changes.
Absolutely sickening for several reasons. First, the NYT is a paper that enjoys its very existence to the very protection of the Constitution that it now allows to be derided and scorned as if it was so much toilet paper - I speak of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson was quite right (most of the time) in his view of newspapers on the other hand as evidenced by their presence in bathrooms across the land. Funny, people swear oaths to the Constitution, and their own state constitutions, when they take oaths immediately before spending their lives running into hostile fire, protecting the weak and disabled, carrying guns, jumping out of planes, flying helicopters rescuing people or preventing attacks, etc. But to The NYT and editors sitting high above the fray in their salons and offices, it's just a rag to be used or ignored as needed. And there's not an outcry in The NYT that they are imperiling their very existence? Once these morons go this way, why the Hell should we view the 1st Amendment as so sacrosanct? Based on the edification The NYT and US and People and US News and The NY Post provide? They really want to go down that path? Good thing I love all of the Constitution because some people might love to see The NYT disappear ASAP (which its declining readership might ensure anyway). No one's swearing oaths to The NYT, Huffington Post, Fox News, the GOP, the Democratic Party, or Congress or the President or local and state officials, and for good reason. But hey, it's only the Constitution, The NYT says treat it like paper you wrap fish in.
Second, this guy is a professor of Constitutional law. Again, he spends his limited law school teaching hours (which rarely exceed 10 hours/week while earning $200,000+) discussing the Constitution. And yet he apparently holds it in scorn. What exactly is he up to? Why is he not fired immediately for his obvious failure to understand the course material? We're all for academic freedom and discussion, but if he can't grasp the simple concept of constitutional importance, supremacy, and judicial review (meaning review and interpretation of laws and precedent, not holding the Constitution in contempt), we have a serious problem.
This is just another part of the spectrum of the destruction of the rule of law we are witnessing first hand. Protesters expressing their 1st Amendment rights against corruption and oligarchs and corporate control of our govt. and economy are viewed as terrorists. And on the other side, we have idiots posing as professors given national forums to attack certain parts of the Constitution and claim outright that we should not obey the highest law of the land that formed the very foundation of our Nation and protect the rights of individuals, groups, religions, the press, etc. against the State and tyranny. This is what passes for journalism? For government? For the rule of law? For academic discourse? And so again, who are the fools? The traitors? The hopeless puppets and overpaid charlatans? The lunatics are truly in charge of the asylum and any sane man or woman would demand it end because it is so far from being amusing and has now entered the realm of truly dangerous. Those who seek solace in the "left" or the "right" or the GOP or Democratic Party or this paper or that paper are only fooling themselves. People of questionable intelligence are in high offices and positions of power and passing off foolishness as genius and corruption as good governance. Under these circumstances, it's close to every man and woman for himself or herself.
Constitutional law professor writing nationally to disregard the Constitution because it doesn't suit him? This surely is a "South Park" episode I'm living through.
There are all sorts of types of depression, some is chemical, clinical and others is more a normal phase and is temporary, such as the depression that accompanies the state of grief.
We're an economics site, but please don't try to claim anyone who is depressed is magically static, permanent, this is simply not so, as various mental states are dynamic, in flux, change with externals and part of the human experience.
Depression is the medical condition that will not disappear in the course of time. Alas, depression tends to take you over and become a major depressive disorder that is very difficult to manage.
Folks, the upgrade is still ongoing and I can tell you the current workspace (right column), is going away but looking good to be replaced with your own personal dashboard.
I'm working on discussion, comments in the site new design, upgrade and I really, REALLY want to know what you would like to see to make discussion better, commenting easier for you.
Seriously, please tell me for it's looking bad at the moment on the upgrade to just use something "out of the box" and I'm probably going to be writing more code. If I'm writing more code, I might as well design something you all want and will use.
Because of that I REALLY want to know what kind of comments you find easiest to use, whose discussion you go to most often to have conversations to comment on articles and so on.
You can even point me to the place where you find yourself participating in discussion more than any other site and just give me a reason as to why you're there (beyond a lot of people also being there).
"We have non-stop 24/7 cable news ramblings on Benghazi, yet this gets no press?"
Great point, Robert. It's outrageous. Just another "pulling away the curtain" to help us see that mass media completely controlled by concentrated wealth has little to do with a free and open press.
I think it was Lenin who said "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."
Every time I see a program like the OCC Foreclosure Review, HAMP, etc, I think it's just about keeping hope alive. People, especially the Democratic Party rank and file, have to "believe" that their leader, and their party are going to help them. The GOP is pretty clear that it's going to give more money to the wealthy etc. But the Democrats have to preserve the illusion that maybe, one day, if the big bad GOPers will let them, things will get better. Otherwise, people might start to wake up to the fact that we are screwed, and act accordingly.
So in a sense, killing hope in the Democrats is one of the most important things that we can do to mobilize people.
So very glad I found you here..., looks like a great site as well. Will be checking in regularly. You are absolutely right..., the first step..., or maybe high hurdle is a better description..., is recognizing and acknowledging the fact that there is going to be a shortage of jobs for a good long while. We have reached the end of growth as an economic engine these days and we can't fix a problem until we admit that we have a problem. Right on partner..., write on.
Why doesn't the Fed or SEC or DOJ or anyone do anything other than settle with them and allow them to make returns on their crimes at 1,000X? Easy answer, because the Fed is actually controlled by the very same bankers. And for those that don't have a literal seat at the table (like Dimon does on the Fed Board of NY), then there's lobbying. Just check out how much money these people spend lobbying Treasury, SEC, and DOJ. And if lobbying doesn't work, there's always the promise of a sweet job that pays six or seven or eight figures upon leaving government service if you just toe the line and don't ask any uncomfortable questions of your future employers (whether they work in the banks, defense, pharmaceuticals, accounting, hedge funds, energy, etc.). Look how many counts of forgery banks could have been busted for regarding robo-signing Linda Green's name. Imagine a person forging one name one time on one document and submitting it to a court to be registered - that's one felony and at least one year for each signature. These banks did it tens of thousands of times and no one goes to prison, no forfeiture, no probation. Why doesn't anyone step in and send anyone, someone to jail for massive criminal conspiracies? Uhm, because the criminals run the show and own the government?
When (not if) there's another bubble, I predict it will be in retirement funds. They won't stop until they "privatize" Social Security, and all that extra money in the financial markets will make today's casino look like a bingo game. Then, of course, all the profits will disappear into their hedge funds and offshore accounts, leaving most of us with nothing. Financial fraud ought to be a capital crime, you'd see a lot less of it then.
And spitting in the face of the non-banksters, regular global populace continues. How many billions in payoffs in USD, Yen, Pounds, Euros, AUD, CAD, and every other currency have already taken place to water down the Basel III requirements and to get this delay until 2019? How many more bribes will be exchanged until 2019? How many more bank and government manufactured crises will occur until 2019 that will, of course, force the issue to be revisited and the watered-down requirements to actually be completely made useless and/or delayed until the next century? Complete farce (and an expensive one at that). Watch how many people that helped write the rules and delayed their implementation move back and forth from banks to regulators to political halls of power during all this time. That revolving door sure does pay well for people of low character.
So I guess with all these capital requirements being eliminated or reduced substantially and delayed endlessly, regular bank customers can keep $1 in their savings and checking accounts without penalties? They get free checking? They get fantastic mortgage rates? Credit cards have 0.1% interest rates? CDs pay out at 10%? No? I'm sorry, I forgot, customers and citizens count for nothing, it's the people with their hands in the till and stealing the customers' money that meet with global banking officials/administrators/regulators and politicians and write/call the shots.
Rule #1 - rules and laws and social mores that apply to the regular populace don't apply to the big banksters, big corporations, and their puppets in the media and government. Rule #2 - when in doubt, refer to Rule #1.
Well written sir, however the 14 largest banks again are part of this "so called" deal. I ask why haven't the massive non-bank servicers that lurk under the governments so called radar. The Crooks I speak of are the companies like Nationstar Mortgage Lewisville,TX part of the fortress group. This company is a known foreclosure mill. They Nationstar llc" have been buying massive amounts bad loans from gmac, wells fargo etc etc. Some of this servicers shady business dealings aren't hard to find heck just type in Nationstar on the SEC's website and look at there dealings since 2007-2013 just some info for people to review whom may be interested in corruption at its height. its a shame business like this even exist however they haven't been fined once by any of the settlements AG's Fed's nodda. Seems it will never end unless somebody whom hasn't been paid off by these crooks speaks up the middle class or whats left of it. just my two cents and Thanks again for the great reading here. Tell me guys why hasn't the fed stepped in? Even the new CFPB isn't touching this servicer for there theft and lies could it be even they have money from such a criminal Enterprise? Ryan MN
Kurtz wrote:
=========================================
People exercising their 1st Amendment rights are being targeted by snipers and intimidated and somehow government attorneys or public servants are going along with this? That's unacceptable in any democracy/republic. The Fed represents the 99%? Just more proof that it doesn't.
=========================================
Kurtz,
Thank you for posting the URL above. I thought that it was highly informative. And freaking unbelievable. It is unbelievable that someone such as Michelle Gluck is now Legal Counsel to the Richmond Federal Reserve. UNBELIEVABLE. Are shysters now advising the Federal Reserve Bank?
-- Paul D. Bain
PaulBain@PObox.com
Good point, this profit at the expense of society is destroying ethics, which built up nations.
It's pretty sick the way for-profit colleges are advertising their "partnerships" with Adobe, Microsoft, etc. as if these companies and colleges are going to take $50,000 - $100,000 in federally subsidized loans and somehow turn out people that are definitely going to be hired by Microsoft or Apple or Goldman, pay off the loans before they turn 500 years old, and get promoted over a long, healthy life to collect a sweet pension and gold watch? Bull. There is some tax incentive or kickback scheme involving schools, corporations, and the government that is creating these new lies. And when I speak of "for profit," I should also include Ivy League schools, public Ivies, large public schools of all ranks, mid and small schools, community colleges, etc. - basically every school under the Sun. Because when these people are pulling in six and seven figures in faculties and administration buildings across all schools and majors and grad fields, hiring TAs that work for free and often can't teach effectively because they simply cannot teach well and don't understand English, and kids are leaving schools with educational debt loads of $50,000 - $200,000 that they can never escape no matter what subject they majored in, what school they went to, and how bright they are, it's all for profit.
Healthcare? Classic high-priced education that leads to nothing, those jobs are passed out to visa applicants quicker than a bedpan can be changed. If someone can actually land one of those gigs, it will pay him/her a sweet $10-$15/hr. - good luck paying off a loan that outpaces loanshark rates while dripping in feces for the pleasure. The same thing happens in the food industry. Everyone watching Food Network and is into food/cooking thinks they need to drop $20,000 - $100,000 on a culinary education and they too will be opening restaurant after restaurant and become a celebrity chef. Reality hits them hard when they start at the same wages people were earning before culinary degrees somehow became important. Only now they have massive debt and can compete with people willing to work for $2/hr. Architecture? Law? Engineering? There's no field or sector that's getting better, no job that's safe, and no area that doesn't have people at the very top pulling some crime or scam to loot the desperate people below looking for any way possible to improve their lot despite getting financially raped or fleeced by the tiny criminal elite at the top. And all the words spoken and written by those with a clue aren't changing anything. Can't wait to see how it all ends - should be a doozy.
It is astounding the MSM coverage. They act like all is fine and now 100k, 150k monthly job gains is great when it is not. That's why I lay out these monthly figures, even though the resolution isn't good enough really to figure out the percentages of good jobs to crappy ones. They tell us only health care, or taking care of sick people is growing and that is not an industry to bet the economy on.
We don't need to see some growth - we need massive, unprecedented growth. Is that going to happen? No, because the reason we need such massive growth (I'd settle for 500,000+ good jobs/month because why should we settle for less when so many are unemployed) is the very same reason we won't see it - jobs are being destroyed/sent overseas/Americans are being replaced. So why should things change and why expect change after 2007, 2008, 2009 . . . Large corporations are making record profits and the status quo suits them and the govt. just fine. It's like asking a billionaire that doesn't break a sweat and enjoys three homes, two mistresses, and one fat wallet to do something different so someone else can share his wealth and control of the government. Why would he? Status quo suits him just fine. And as for the parents of college grads and the college grads and unemployed veterans that are unemployed for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+ years, and every other American among the 28+ million unemployed, change isn't going to come from those enjoying the status quo. And I think they are getting awfully tired of hearing "start a business, be an entrepreneur," "work for free,". Start a business and get crushed by large competitors (e.g., Walmart)?. Pay taxes while large companies get tax breaks? Take out a loan when most small businesses fail and lose any money they might have saved while struggling to survive? Work for free while idiot sons of corporate thieves never worked their entire lives and still earn billions from their families? Really? Race to the bottom is in full flush mode and cynicism and contempt should be rising with every passing day. Unless the next election in 2014 or 2016 or 2018 or 2020 or the Democrats or the Republicans or the Democrats, no the Republicans will fix it this time. And with every passing day, how many people are ignored and needlessly suffering?
From 1870 to 1932 they had federal troops breaking up strikes, private and public forces shooting and killing and beating on crowds of men, women children who wanted nothing more than an 8 hour day or fair compensation. Paid for by corporations.
Peaceful protesters were attacked by politically motivated police administrations. They were hung and imprisoned on false charges, sometimes charges trumped up as they were acquitted from another charge.
Police lined up on the dock in Everett and shot people out of boats and killed them in the water for daring to come speak in public.
And the nation's newspapers editor's, reports and interviews from citizens and business owners said many approved heartily of the hanging and executions and imprisonment. They even applauded hanging whether the charges were proven or not, because the "threat" from these anarchists, (who, in the end, wanted 8 hour work days, no child labor, respect for their brothers and sisters), made them dangerous.
I wouldn't count too much on the people "rising up" against anyone but the protesters (and that's what we are seeing - does no one read history any longer?) unless someone is willing to do the hard work and dying of organizing in much greater numbers. (They barely got as many to show up as there are bankers and the politicians who do their bidding. What kind of show is that?). They seem to expect people to log onto their web site to show "solidarity". rofl. That's not how one builds the kind of human spirit it will take to defeat the bastards.
For example:
__________________________
Chicago, April 1, 1932. Five hundred school children, most with haggard faces and in tattered clothes, paraded through Chicago's downtown section to the Board of education offices to demand that the school system provide them with food.
__________________________
Why do you think FDR was able to pass those relief programs? They were sending police out to stop protest esters from GETTING to D.C. The programs were passed to protect the capitalists from further violence.
(Maybe call a meeting in Washington D.C. of everyone, all 26 million, who want a job to demand that Congress quit sending subsidies to corporations and create a jobs program. Get all the students of all ages who got a degree and can't find a job to gather in D.C and demand a suspension of our $1 trillion in student debt and a free people's university system. (Or just start one. That's how colleges started here in the first place)).
There is a dearth of depth, spirit, and feeling outside their little encampments. Tha should not be allowed. Maybe go caroling with labor o protest songs through the neighborhoods, give stump speeches and organize the old way? Ring doorbells and talk, talk, talk. Occupy put the focus on themselves, and it needs to be on the struggle that is still going on.
They should read the experiences of the organizers of the 1870's through 1933 - all those decades it was legal for companies to break your union in nearly any way they wanted to, and all workers had was their solidarity. Even Gompers in the AFL, the traitorous little bastard, broke up the steel strike in 1919, got a lot of good people hurt, just so he could side with business. Just because someone says they are on your side...
Until whatever group grabs onto some of those old industrial union ideas and realizes the long haul they are in for, they will never be strong enough.
There are homeless people who have and are "occupying" parks longer than Occupy did, with goals that gained them just about as much.
If Occupy would ally with the old folks and everyone else they could fuse the revolutionary spirit of the young with the wealth, practicality, and experience of those that are older, (all of them have the same enemy, btw), and would be unstoppable. They need to set their sights not on defending a space to play clappy games of communication in the park but on a struggle for freedom, respect, food, shelter, etc for the 50,000 people who are being evicted every month, the 26 million who say they want or need a job, or sufficient food for the 47 million now on inadequate food stamps.
Instead they want to run around and wave an FBI paper and talk about how beleaguered THEY are. Any kid who doesn't get to eat every day is a lot more oppressed than most any protestor, and if they aren't working to stop that, or put bankers in jail, or do something bigger, they should just go home and quit getting people hurt for nothing.
Maybe they should start printing millions of $1 t-shirts that say "I'm Being Watched By the FBI", or "They are reading YOUR email too" - so we can ALL wear them and talk about this?
Excuses...I'm tired of hearing them.
Thank you for your excellent posts, btw. Great information, and obviously a labor of love and a lot of work on your part.
We have two major sites linking to our ISM manufacturing overview today. Thanks very much!
I want to tout my own horn and point to this overview on wages where the raw data is number crunched and graphed. Written over the holidays it has not been read and I personally think median wages from aggregate IRS data is most telling.
I've wondered also about a parliamentary system. Our Congress is so corrupt nothing can happen. Take chained CPI. Social security isn't part of the deficit, the original fix which is to increase the income ceiling for payroll taxes isn't even being mentioned, nor is a host of cost cutting measures, such as forcing the for profit pharmaceutical companies to give the same prices all other nations get.
I can see why everyone is all up in arms, but considering what has gone on for the last 30 years and esp. the last decade, maybe he has a point.
Found this on zerohedge and checked out the editorial on The NYT. So this happens on both sides of the phony political spectrum when either side wants to get its way - they want to abandon the law of the land in pursuit of their own sick motives and goals. And of course when there's a massive backlash against this garbage, The NYT and the professor will predictably claim they were just seeking to start a debate. Of course if people agreed with the position entirely, they would say they were dead serious and want to implement real changes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constituti...
Absolutely sickening for several reasons. First, the NYT is a paper that enjoys its very existence to the very protection of the Constitution that it now allows to be derided and scorned as if it was so much toilet paper - I speak of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson was quite right (most of the time) in his view of newspapers on the other hand as evidenced by their presence in bathrooms across the land. Funny, people swear oaths to the Constitution, and their own state constitutions, when they take oaths immediately before spending their lives running into hostile fire, protecting the weak and disabled, carrying guns, jumping out of planes, flying helicopters rescuing people or preventing attacks, etc. But to The NYT and editors sitting high above the fray in their salons and offices, it's just a rag to be used or ignored as needed. And there's not an outcry in The NYT that they are imperiling their very existence? Once these morons go this way, why the Hell should we view the 1st Amendment as so sacrosanct? Based on the edification The NYT and US and People and US News and The NY Post provide? They really want to go down that path? Good thing I love all of the Constitution because some people might love to see The NYT disappear ASAP (which its declining readership might ensure anyway). No one's swearing oaths to The NYT, Huffington Post, Fox News, the GOP, the Democratic Party, or Congress or the President or local and state officials, and for good reason. But hey, it's only the Constitution, The NYT says treat it like paper you wrap fish in.
Second, this guy is a professor of Constitutional law. Again, he spends his limited law school teaching hours (which rarely exceed 10 hours/week while earning $200,000+) discussing the Constitution. And yet he apparently holds it in scorn. What exactly is he up to? Why is he not fired immediately for his obvious failure to understand the course material? We're all for academic freedom and discussion, but if he can't grasp the simple concept of constitutional importance, supremacy, and judicial review (meaning review and interpretation of laws and precedent, not holding the Constitution in contempt), we have a serious problem.
This is just another part of the spectrum of the destruction of the rule of law we are witnessing first hand. Protesters expressing their 1st Amendment rights against corruption and oligarchs and corporate control of our govt. and economy are viewed as terrorists. And on the other side, we have idiots posing as professors given national forums to attack certain parts of the Constitution and claim outright that we should not obey the highest law of the land that formed the very foundation of our Nation and protect the rights of individuals, groups, religions, the press, etc. against the State and tyranny. This is what passes for journalism? For government? For the rule of law? For academic discourse? And so again, who are the fools? The traitors? The hopeless puppets and overpaid charlatans? The lunatics are truly in charge of the asylum and any sane man or woman would demand it end because it is so far from being amusing and has now entered the realm of truly dangerous. Those who seek solace in the "left" or the "right" or the GOP or Democratic Party or this paper or that paper are only fooling themselves. People of questionable intelligence are in high offices and positions of power and passing off foolishness as genius and corruption as good governance. Under these circumstances, it's close to every man and woman for himself or herself.
Constitutional law professor writing nationally to disregard the Constitution because it doesn't suit him? This surely is a "South Park" episode I'm living through.
There are all sorts of types of depression, some is chemical, clinical and others is more a normal phase and is temporary, such as the depression that accompanies the state of grief.
We're an economics site, but please don't try to claim anyone who is depressed is magically static, permanent, this is simply not so, as various mental states are dynamic, in flux, change with externals and part of the human experience.
This too shall pass.
Depression is the medical condition that will not disappear in the course of time. Alas, depression tends to take you over and become a major depressive disorder that is very difficult to manage.
Folks, the upgrade is still ongoing and I can tell you the current workspace (right column), is going away but looking good to be replaced with your own personal dashboard.
I'm working on discussion, comments in the site new design, upgrade and I really, REALLY want to know what you would like to see to make discussion better, commenting easier for you.
Seriously, please tell me for it's looking bad at the moment on the upgrade to just use something "out of the box" and I'm probably going to be writing more code. If I'm writing more code, I might as well design something you all want and will use.
Because of that I REALLY want to know what kind of comments you find easiest to use, whose discussion you go to most often to have conversations to comment on articles and so on.
You can even point me to the place where you find yourself participating in discussion more than any other site and just give me a reason as to why you're there (beyond a lot of people also being there).
"We have non-stop 24/7 cable news ramblings on Benghazi, yet this gets no press?"
Great point, Robert. It's outrageous. Just another "pulling away the curtain" to help us see that mass media completely controlled by concentrated wealth has little to do with a free and open press.
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