Thoughtful and sensible, but I'd argue with one point. Globalization is not an irresistible force of Nature. Governments can take several steps to counter its effects. Look at Turkey and Germany. Both are thoroughly involved in exporting and importing, and both have maintained large manufacturing sectors without "going cheap". It's a matter of shaping ALL gov't policies (trade, education, taxation) to FAVOR local manufacturing and DISFAVOR the parasitical financiers.
Nice job. It's good to see so many sites out there dedicated solely to economics, policy, etc. More information and more discourse = at least a fighting chance for us out here going through Hell with little to no voice in the standard forms of writing to politicians, writing to media, etc. Without blogs, would there even be an outlet to express dissent nowadays? That's one of the key benefits of this and other sites.
Angry Bear got a shout out for being an influential blog so I checked out this list to discover we're in the top 100.
Not bad considering the lack of authors, i.e. namely me and my lonely most of the time. I wish I could output more than I can for lord knows there is a lot of influence going on right now!
Anyway, that's cool, clearly many people are checking us out.
Buffett endorsed Dimon for Treasury Secretary on TV following the inevitable departure of Geithner that will come soon. Buffett as everyone knows is a huge fan of current administration, and the administration loves him. So this endorsement on GE/CNBC carries weight and might be a trial balloon. Buffett loves Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, etc. because he gets those sweet insider/preferential deals that regular folks don't have access to. And then CNBC and others praise him as if any of his accomplishments could be made without cutting sweet deals or he possesses some mad intellect - no, he doesn't have mad skills or a superior intellect or crazy work ethic. He had a dad that had those connections that set him up. And didn't his lieutenant Munger blast unemployed college grads and others and tell them they just had to "suck it up." Yeah, thanks for the advice - d*ck. Munger, go bust ass in a job that might put you in the grave and "suck it up."
Ah yes, Carlin's small club rears its ugly head again. This administration still looking to Dimon? Dimon, of creating derivatives he didn't understand fame and then betting billions and trillions on them? Dimon, of JP Morgan bribing Alabama public officials to burden entire counties with deals that forced them into bankruptcy? JP Morgan that has been called out for allowing money laundering? Foreclosure fraud? Receiving money from Corzine as Corzine looted MF Global right before that company went bankrupt and destroyed the lives of thousands of farmers? Possible LIBOR rigging? Private donations to NYPD? Receiving tens of millions in salaries and bonuses for betting huge, and losing huge, while taxpayers had to bail him out and the FDIC/taxpayers are always on the hook for all of his losses?
This coming on the heels of the Bank of England appointing a Canadian, and former Goldman Sachs employee that worked there for a long time, to run the BOE. I guess no one in the UK was fit enough? And no one outside bankster Goldman Sachs was qualified? Really?
It's readily apparent how the banksters run the show and those George Carlin saw in the special "club" do whatever they want and stick it in our eye every single time. It's so obvious and they know they can get away with it, they don't even hide it. Dimon, Treasury Secretary, sure, why not. It's so freaking stupid and pointless and against the public's interest it actually is par for the course in 2012.
How to destroy the strongest middle class in history in just a few short years for dummies.
1. make the tax code regressive
2. create trade treaties designed by and for multinational corporations
3. chip away at social safety nets
4. create financial bubbles and sucker the people into putting their money into them
5. outsource the jobs
6. import cheap labor
7. eradicate pensions and replace them with stock market accounts called 401ks
8. fire people at random according to quarterly profit statements
9. move production overseas, esp. advanced R&D
10. make political bribery legal through a series of campaign finance laws
11. deregulate finance and enable capital to move freely around the globe
The greatest generation has been dying off and I imagine they are rolling in their graves. So many gave their lives for this nation to have it come down to this. Not what they fought for, I am sure of that.
Obama's January inauguration will precede a measured economic recovery in 2013.
That’s the good news.
The bad news: this scenario might be as good as it gets. The upcoming recovery won’t boost middle- and working-class households in a meaningful way. It won't be a sustained, permanent fiscal recovery.
But this isn't necessarily the Obama administration’s fault. Since the 2008 fiscal meltdown, government officials, policy experts, and financial gurus of all stripes and credibility levels have rolled out any number of ideas aimed at solving our continuing financial crisis and revitalizing the economy.
Little has worked so far. The lack of significant job creation and its twin symptom of high unemployment, stagnant or dropping wages, stagnant or dropping worker productivity, decreased consumer spending and its twin symptom of increased household debt, and volatility in the housing market are all side effects of something much larger.
Policy makers are focused on the symptoms, not the problem. The real problem is far more fundamental and systemic than a few leading economic indicators.
And this fundamental problem is invisible to nearly everyone.
This unseen, and therefore unaddressed, problem means that an even bigger and longer-lasting crisis -- a true economic tsunami -- lies ahead for the world as a whole, not just the U. S. Industries around the globe will continue to shed valued (and valuable) jobs, in turn harming consumer-driven economies and creating a self-sustaining downturn.
This downturn will continue until the world economy either "breaks" permanently -- or the fundamental problem is recognized and addressed.
At its heart, the flaw is our mistaking efficient markets as being effective markets and failing to recognize the significant and profound difference.
The solution starts with acknowledging that domestic manufacturing needs to be the backbone of any significant economic recovery.
There's more to say, but I likely need a longer-form venue...
New York Times sums it up as best as I could. Expect status quo, no financial reform implemented.
Shapiro stepped down and this is another classic lobbyist maneuver, if perchance something at all gets passed into law, they bury any effectiveness via implementation.
The SEC is gridlocked and they haven't implemented most of the swiss cheese, watered down Dodd-Frank as it is.
Just like someone that packed a faulty chute knows it's faulty, justice demands that he go ahead and jump with it just to show he really should care more about his work and/or the risks he places others in. They can know all they want and earn all the $ in the world for pretending they don't, but for justice + entertainment purposes, let the CEOs and their cronies work in their own factories, mines, fields, etc. and experience the reality they pretend doesn't exist but did everything within their power to create.
CEOs already know and have known for years. They know full well there are horrific working conditions, wages which one cannot buy rice on and barely buy enough lentils for sustenance, people packed like sardines in dorms, working 100 hrs a week and on and on. This has been going on since the 1980's and all they care about is selling a pair of pants for $5 bucks at 99% profit margins or iPhones for $600 with 80% profit margins (or whatever it is for an iPhone).
Let's start treating these CEOs like we should expect them to behave. Parachute riggers have to make jumps with random chutes that they themselves pack. Talk about an incentive to stay sharp 24/7 and trusting your own work because others must trust it all the time. So, CEOs, if you outsource work or directly supervise a factory, don't trust some bogus inspectors that only get paid if they say you are the greatest CEO ever and Foxconn is a paradise. Don't try to pawn off responsibility because you hired a contractor that hired a sub that hired a sub that hired a sub that's incorporated on a ship that stays in international waters. No, be proud of your title, earn your big bucks, show Truman that the "buck stops here." Work in one of your factories (again, you benefit from the products made in the factory, it's YOURS, no matter how you try to cloud the issue). Hey, fire breaks out the week you work there, oh well, try to escape the flames. Local bosses beat the crap out of you with a baton because you're not producing during your 18 hour shift, well, STFU, lest you catch another hit to your head (it hurts, doesn't it)? Are you talking to someone on the floor? You must be a union organizer, prepare to get fired and have your family become homeless. Best hope the happy, happy people that love their $1/day wages don't identify you as the CEO, because if they aren't happy with the abuses and crimes they suffer, they might voice their opinion. Oh no, you don't understand Bengali or Urdu or Hindi or Mandarin or Spanish or Tagalog? Oh well, they'll get the message across somehow. Come on, work in factories at random, nothing to fear and it's paradise, right. Put your billions where your mouths are. No cameras, no security, nothing different. Just do it.
On the other hand, perhaps these CEOs want to subject themselves to criminal liability. Get sued and/or indicted overseas. Again, don't play the "sub of my sub of my sub of my contractor is guilty, not me" game. Don't run to the Department of Justice or Chamber of Commerce or White House or Department of State for help and lobbying and protection. No, that's not what big boys and girls do. You collect a big boy's paycheck, you take big boy responsibility. 100 people die in a fire because of hundreds of violations of work regulations and criminal laws, you are criminally responsible for manslaughter. If the violations are bad enough, depraved indifference murder. And don't fight the case in the US. The crime happened overseas and the victims' families are overseas. Go fight the case in an overseas court surrounded by angry family members and community members numbering in the tens of thousands. Your newest Lear Jet, or Neil Cavuto kissing your ass (aka "interviewing you"), or another Forbes article praising your greatness, or paying taxes on your vacation estate won't cross your mind. And if you get convicted and sentenced, don't expect to find a foreign prison equivalent to where Madoff is serving his time. You enjoy the fruits of outsourcing, enjoy the good, as well as the bad. Mingle, learn about the world you help create and make billions from.
Well, I guess I am not going to make any headway here. But there's nothing that cheaters do that jeopardizes the various social assistance programs. The people who want to cut out or cut back these programs feel that way period. If there was no fraud they'd still want to eliminate them.
If you have suggestions for making our social benefit programs better, then make them. But the money it takes to locate that last bits of lying and fraud often cost more than is recouped.
But consider this: Taxpayer fraud is rampant but we have reduced audits drastically. Why?
Why do so many law firms advertise ways to "protect your assets from the nursing home?" all over America?
We allow people with money to dodge their taxes and get Medicaid to pay for their parents' and grandparents' end of life care.
Why are taxpayers allowed to cheat the government of hundreds of billions a year?
Why the focus on the peanuts while the big, meaningful money goes ignored?
Could it be that people are looking for any excuse to limit and reduce benefits, while they want to dodge the taxman themselves?
I also place a big premium on honesty and integrity too, by the way. Don't think I don't. But how are we being honest when we give the disabled and unemployed next to nothing to live on and demand that they live on it without breaking rules?
How are we being honest when our minimum wage is so low, yet again, we demand that people live on it when we ourselves could not?
We discourage our honest needy all the time. It is sickening to think about. I think much of the rage surrounding benefits comes from those who are low wage earners and need them too, but they make too much to get them. They are quite right to feel frustrated that they need help but can't get it.
This one I do not dispute.
GOPers refuse to admit that liberal financial markets shift returns away from the middle class. When high-rollers get free money (negative real interest rates) the purchasing power of the everyday person declines because of the weaker dollar.
Oh, and another thing Dems were right on: W cut taxes and went to war on the credit card because President Cheney said deficits do not matter.
Here's what I want answered: In 2009, money was sitting on the sidelines because "We don't know which way the economy was going."
In 2013, you will hear the same thing.
Why is this?
Can it be actually that wealth holders distrust a liberal (black) man to be aligned with their private interests?
They did the same thing to Roosevelt in 1937.
We know the wet dream of many is to return to 1896 USA, where there was no personal income tax, worker exploitation went unchallenged and business had a steady flood of cheap exploitable labor from unfettered immigration. The streets were paved with gold for the ruthless.
The problem today is corporations can play nation-states off of each other. I believe it was Tonelson who coined the phrase "race to the bottom" and he has been oh so right.
Ultimately the bosses in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire escaped real responsibility. However, the photos, eyewitness accounts, public outrage, labor organizations, etc. forced the hand of businesses and politicians to protect the workers and helped improve fire safety for other people as well. We all enjoy the benefits today. End result, more regulations, better protections, better conditions for workers, and still items of value being produced. The same thing can be said for any industry in the US, it wasn't just garments. Coal, steel, drivers/truckers, airlines, the rails, road and bridge construction, timber, shipping and passenger ferries, etc. Think of all the accidents that have happened in many industries that might have been prevented or lessons were learned from, and how businesses and govt. worked together (or were forced to change) to help protect lives. Industries didn't shut down, people weren't fired because there was no work. Rather, work continued with safer conditions. Management still made its money back, workers could save a little or a lot while working in good jobs across every industry, and everyone was happy (or at least happier and safer).
Now, we hear the cry of no regulations. All regulations are bad. And if the paid-for-politicians don't cut all regulations and safety laws so that immigrant women from Europe can jump to their deaths or face burning alive and possibly work for free as interns for the honor, then we'll just move operations to some other country. Isn't that Norquist's dream? Does he attend memorial services and anniversaries at the Triangle Shirtwaist to spout that noise or would that be too unseemly even for him? We see it now in coal mines overseas, sweatshop conditions making crap and suicide nets needed to prevent workers suicides, garment fires happening repeatedly, building collapses overseas, oil spills and massive oil-related corruption in parts of Africa (which spur locals to form groups that aren't considered polite, but want justice and oil $ themselves). And on and on. In fact, we even see some industrial accidents still happening here where people go on Fox, spout their dogma, say they need less regulation, and then following an accident, it turns out those same people were cooking the books.
Now many of these countries are completely corrupt (or just more corrupt than the US), and in some cases, lack a viable govt. However, outrages and exploitation cannot continue indefinitely. Local politicians must face either angry mobs in the hundreds of thousands of their own citizens (which often means facing death) or blame foreign interests. And when the foreign interests based here or elsewhere can't take anymore, they will pack up and move operations. Eventually, they will wind up in some country where they can completely control the govt. and armed force. Perhaps they can compel anyone that speaks up to go to prison and then work for them for free as inmates. Even Sweden's IKEA was busted for using political prisoners in the 1980s in East Germany to make products for them -so it's not out of the question. Utopia? Not really, but some CEOs are salivating right now over the thought.
And some "thinktanks," "academics," lobbyists, and politicians are going to put this plan down in writing, pass it off as good for everyone, and then enjoy champagne lunches while dreaming of their own Utopian future. Of course for these people, reading "The Jungle," anything by Steinbeck, or Twain, or Dickens, or Founding Fathers that were nervous about large corporations is forbidden because that sounds alot like "liberal arts material" and that's bad. Don't read about The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire or the General Slocum or other horrors that forced laws and regulations to change in the US for everyone's benefit. Don't read thorough histories of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Edison, and others that cover the good and bad. Just because someone built libraries and donated millions doesn't mean they are idols. Just don't let the residents of said-Utopia find out first about the new Utopia. They might have something to say.
I think the problem here is in how the framework of assumptions is working...
Just a guess, but my bet is that people are somewhat more sophisticated then simply checking off who relates to their immediate problems or not (jobs, etc.)
there is also a projective component.
in other words, people in regular everyday time are involved in an effort to assess what offers a better likelihood of results. choice is not simply a pure-consumerist option in an idealist way, but rather has more realism in it. In other words, many adult choices have to do with what, in the given field of options, as presented in the here and now, holds a somewhat better chance of working in regards to needs/values/hopes. Projective assessments., projective thinking, projective evaluation. No easy feat. Sometimes simply a wager. Sometimes very hard to decide. But point is 'choice' as an adult in the real world, is NOT just 1-to-1 relations like machines, but involves thinking HOW this or that MAY fare in relation to the other option.
IN this way, I think the vote here represents that many thought that basically Romney would lead to more difficult times, and/or if you prefer, that the Obama admin option offered a somewhat better chance (RELATIVE to the ACTUAL options in the here and now, offered) of leading to 'things' in their interest.
So, again, NOT so much about simply just here and now 1-to-1 evaluation but rather about thinking ahead, but NOT idealistically, but rather with REALISM... dealing with what was offered now, as possible new directions...
For Q2, real was 2.5 trillion in government spending, annualized
Q2 nominal G was 3.8 trillion, annualized.
To find out raw totals, first, these are seasonally adjusted and there is one main program, X-12 ARIMA used for seasonal adjustments, although each series has it's own seasonal pattern.
Annualization means what that looks like as if the quarter had happened the entire year.
So, annualized for quarters means raw total x 4 and then seasonally adjusted.
I suggest you familiarize yourself with these terms as well as read the BEA reports for it seems to read NIPAs this is their lingo.
At the top of our overviews always there is the link to the gov. agency and the actual statistical release, always in the 1st paragraph. There you can find the various raw totals. Reprinting what the BEA already puts out in their reports via tables seems redundant. Our overviews are to amplify certain data as well as create visuals on that data and then we hand number crunch additional statistics not mentioned or provided but from the raw data of the statistical release.
I'm an Economics student and I'm having a hard time to deal with graphs and percentages. I just want to know the figures represented by those. Like how much did our government spend for our government purchases which is the "G" in the formula for GDP. Thanks!
In terms of wealth, there is nothing good about the natural and human destruction of a tornadic hurricane. Where I live, i have witnessed 72000 homes compromised or destroyed. There is a bright side in economic terms to the rebuild. The rebuild is an enormous struggle, but one with real benefits to the landscaping and construction industries.
Parts of ground zero involved the 72000 homes destroyed on the shoreline. The second part of ground zero were the isolated, inland parts of western New Jersey and Long Island, cut off from power, food, medicine, internet.
The shore was devastated in proportion to the height and width of dunes. It is said, they will rebuild. That statement is huge and loaded and all about who recovers and where they live. Neighbors owning property on private beaches complain of uninsured flood losses. After I use my chainsaws to cut them out of the devastation, how much can I or anyone sympathize with property owners in towns where the beachfront is private, owners only access? No one with beach front propery, thanked me for cutting them out. They had no transportation otherwise. I would still help them, the work had to be done. From the corporate-state, you get almost no help. The executive of the utility companies get rich by not modernizing the grid.
I watch neighbors buy natgas generators after buying gasoline generators after Irene, following murders in the lines to buy gasoline, hundreds of cars, and pathetic five gallon holders, doing the MadMax RoadWarrior thing.
In the intervening weeks, as a matter of survival, we banded together. We cut through roads downed by hundred foot trees.
Knowing help would be late to come, we patched chords into transformes on boilers, then to inverters attached to car batteries to get juice to fire boilers. We use hotspots when utility poles were destroyed. Cell towers were down. Of 500 hundred utility poles destroyed by Sandy 50 were in my town and 10 were within 250 feet of where I live.
There are some lessons. I will try to summarize. There is a side of economics of unemployment, that are so subjective. In the midst of catastrophe, I found a client.
Thoughtful and sensible, but I'd argue with one point. Globalization is not an irresistible force of Nature. Governments can take several steps to counter its effects. Look at Turkey and Germany. Both are thoroughly involved in exporting and importing, and both have maintained large manufacturing sectors without "going cheap". It's a matter of shaping ALL gov't policies (trade, education, taxation) to FAVOR local manufacturing and DISFAVOR the parasitical financiers.
Nice job. It's good to see so many sites out there dedicated solely to economics, policy, etc. More information and more discourse = at least a fighting chance for us out here going through Hell with little to no voice in the standard forms of writing to politicians, writing to media, etc. Without blogs, would there even be an outlet to express dissent nowadays? That's one of the key benefits of this and other sites.
Angry Bear got a shout out for being an influential blog so I checked out this list to discover we're in the top 100.
Not bad considering the lack of authors, i.e. namely me and my lonely most of the time. I wish I could output more than I can for lord knows there is a lot of influence going on right now!
Anyway, that's cool, clearly many people are checking us out.
They simply have to be kidding for that is truly the Fox in the Hen House.
Buffett endorsed Dimon for Treasury Secretary on TV following the inevitable departure of Geithner that will come soon. Buffett as everyone knows is a huge fan of current administration, and the administration loves him. So this endorsement on GE/CNBC carries weight and might be a trial balloon. Buffett loves Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, etc. because he gets those sweet insider/preferential deals that regular folks don't have access to. And then CNBC and others praise him as if any of his accomplishments could be made without cutting sweet deals or he possesses some mad intellect - no, he doesn't have mad skills or a superior intellect or crazy work ethic. He had a dad that had those connections that set him up. And didn't his lieutenant Munger blast unemployed college grads and others and tell them they just had to "suck it up." Yeah, thanks for the advice - d*ck. Munger, go bust ass in a job that might put you in the grave and "suck it up."
Ah yes, Carlin's small club rears its ugly head again. This administration still looking to Dimon? Dimon, of creating derivatives he didn't understand fame and then betting billions and trillions on them? Dimon, of JP Morgan bribing Alabama public officials to burden entire counties with deals that forced them into bankruptcy? JP Morgan that has been called out for allowing money laundering? Foreclosure fraud? Receiving money from Corzine as Corzine looted MF Global right before that company went bankrupt and destroyed the lives of thousands of farmers? Possible LIBOR rigging? Private donations to NYPD? Receiving tens of millions in salaries and bonuses for betting huge, and losing huge, while taxpayers had to bail him out and the FDIC/taxpayers are always on the hook for all of his losses?
This coming on the heels of the Bank of England appointing a Canadian, and former Goldman Sachs employee that worked there for a long time, to run the BOE. I guess no one in the UK was fit enough? And no one outside bankster Goldman Sachs was qualified? Really?
It's readily apparent how the banksters run the show and those George Carlin saw in the special "club" do whatever they want and stick it in our eye every single time. It's so obvious and they know they can get away with it, they don't even hide it. Dimon, Treasury Secretary, sure, why not. It's so freaking stupid and pointless and against the public's interest it actually is par for the course in 2012.
How to destroy the strongest middle class in history in just a few short years for dummies.
1. make the tax code regressive
2. create trade treaties designed by and for multinational corporations
3. chip away at social safety nets
4. create financial bubbles and sucker the people into putting their money into them
5. outsource the jobs
6. import cheap labor
7. eradicate pensions and replace them with stock market accounts called 401ks
8. fire people at random according to quarterly profit statements
9. move production overseas, esp. advanced R&D
10. make political bribery legal through a series of campaign finance laws
11. deregulate finance and enable capital to move freely around the globe
The greatest generation has been dying off and I imagine they are rolling in their graves. So many gave their lives for this nation to have it come down to this. Not what they fought for, I am sure of that.
Obama's January inauguration will precede a measured economic recovery in 2013.
That’s the good news.
The bad news: this scenario might be as good as it gets. The upcoming recovery won’t boost middle- and working-class households in a meaningful way. It won't be a sustained, permanent fiscal recovery.
But this isn't necessarily the Obama administration’s fault. Since the 2008 fiscal meltdown, government officials, policy experts, and financial gurus of all stripes and credibility levels have rolled out any number of ideas aimed at solving our continuing financial crisis and revitalizing the economy.
Little has worked so far. The lack of significant job creation and its twin symptom of high unemployment, stagnant or dropping wages, stagnant or dropping worker productivity, decreased consumer spending and its twin symptom of increased household debt, and volatility in the housing market are all side effects of something much larger.
Policy makers are focused on the symptoms, not the problem. The real problem is far more fundamental and systemic than a few leading economic indicators.
And this fundamental problem is invisible to nearly everyone.
This unseen, and therefore unaddressed, problem means that an even bigger and longer-lasting crisis -- a true economic tsunami -- lies ahead for the world as a whole, not just the U. S. Industries around the globe will continue to shed valued (and valuable) jobs, in turn harming consumer-driven economies and creating a self-sustaining downturn.
This downturn will continue until the world economy either "breaks" permanently -- or the fundamental problem is recognized and addressed.
At its heart, the flaw is our mistaking efficient markets as being effective markets and failing to recognize the significant and profound difference.
The solution starts with acknowledging that domestic manufacturing needs to be the backbone of any significant economic recovery.
There's more to say, but I likely need a longer-form venue...
New York Times sums it up as best as I could. Expect status quo, no financial reform implemented.
Shapiro stepped down and this is another classic lobbyist maneuver, if perchance something at all gets passed into law, they bury any effectiveness via implementation.
The SEC is gridlocked and they haven't implemented most of the swiss cheese, watered down Dodd-Frank as it is.
Just like someone that packed a faulty chute knows it's faulty, justice demands that he go ahead and jump with it just to show he really should care more about his work and/or the risks he places others in. They can know all they want and earn all the $ in the world for pretending they don't, but for justice + entertainment purposes, let the CEOs and their cronies work in their own factories, mines, fields, etc. and experience the reality they pretend doesn't exist but did everything within their power to create.
CEOs already know and have known for years. They know full well there are horrific working conditions, wages which one cannot buy rice on and barely buy enough lentils for sustenance, people packed like sardines in dorms, working 100 hrs a week and on and on. This has been going on since the 1980's and all they care about is selling a pair of pants for $5 bucks at 99% profit margins or iPhones for $600 with 80% profit margins (or whatever it is for an iPhone).
Let's start treating these CEOs like we should expect them to behave. Parachute riggers have to make jumps with random chutes that they themselves pack. Talk about an incentive to stay sharp 24/7 and trusting your own work because others must trust it all the time. So, CEOs, if you outsource work or directly supervise a factory, don't trust some bogus inspectors that only get paid if they say you are the greatest CEO ever and Foxconn is a paradise. Don't try to pawn off responsibility because you hired a contractor that hired a sub that hired a sub that hired a sub that's incorporated on a ship that stays in international waters. No, be proud of your title, earn your big bucks, show Truman that the "buck stops here." Work in one of your factories (again, you benefit from the products made in the factory, it's YOURS, no matter how you try to cloud the issue). Hey, fire breaks out the week you work there, oh well, try to escape the flames. Local bosses beat the crap out of you with a baton because you're not producing during your 18 hour shift, well, STFU, lest you catch another hit to your head (it hurts, doesn't it)? Are you talking to someone on the floor? You must be a union organizer, prepare to get fired and have your family become homeless. Best hope the happy, happy people that love their $1/day wages don't identify you as the CEO, because if they aren't happy with the abuses and crimes they suffer, they might voice their opinion. Oh no, you don't understand Bengali or Urdu or Hindi or Mandarin or Spanish or Tagalog? Oh well, they'll get the message across somehow. Come on, work in factories at random, nothing to fear and it's paradise, right. Put your billions where your mouths are. No cameras, no security, nothing different. Just do it.
On the other hand, perhaps these CEOs want to subject themselves to criminal liability. Get sued and/or indicted overseas. Again, don't play the "sub of my sub of my sub of my contractor is guilty, not me" game. Don't run to the Department of Justice or Chamber of Commerce or White House or Department of State for help and lobbying and protection. No, that's not what big boys and girls do. You collect a big boy's paycheck, you take big boy responsibility. 100 people die in a fire because of hundreds of violations of work regulations and criminal laws, you are criminally responsible for manslaughter. If the violations are bad enough, depraved indifference murder. And don't fight the case in the US. The crime happened overseas and the victims' families are overseas. Go fight the case in an overseas court surrounded by angry family members and community members numbering in the tens of thousands. Your newest Lear Jet, or Neil Cavuto kissing your ass (aka "interviewing you"), or another Forbes article praising your greatness, or paying taxes on your vacation estate won't cross your mind. And if you get convicted and sentenced, don't expect to find a foreign prison equivalent to where Madoff is serving his time. You enjoy the fruits of outsourcing, enjoy the good, as well as the bad. Mingle, learn about the world you help create and make billions from.
Unbelievable, the compensation per death in the fire is $1200.
Well, I guess I am not going to make any headway here. But there's nothing that cheaters do that jeopardizes the various social assistance programs. The people who want to cut out or cut back these programs feel that way period. If there was no fraud they'd still want to eliminate them.
If you have suggestions for making our social benefit programs better, then make them. But the money it takes to locate that last bits of lying and fraud often cost more than is recouped.
But consider this: Taxpayer fraud is rampant but we have reduced audits drastically. Why?
Why do so many law firms advertise ways to "protect your assets from the nursing home?" all over America?
We allow people with money to dodge their taxes and get Medicaid to pay for their parents' and grandparents' end of life care.
Why are taxpayers allowed to cheat the government of hundreds of billions a year?
Why the focus on the peanuts while the big, meaningful money goes ignored?
Could it be that people are looking for any excuse to limit and reduce benefits, while they want to dodge the taxman themselves?
I also place a big premium on honesty and integrity too, by the way. Don't think I don't. But how are we being honest when we give the disabled and unemployed next to nothing to live on and demand that they live on it without breaking rules?
How are we being honest when our minimum wage is so low, yet again, we demand that people live on it when we ourselves could not?
We discourage our honest needy all the time. It is sickening to think about. I think much of the rage surrounding benefits comes from those who are low wage earners and need them too, but they make too much to get them. They are quite right to feel frustrated that they need help but can't get it.
This one I do not dispute.
GOPers refuse to admit that liberal financial markets shift returns away from the middle class. When high-rollers get free money (negative real interest rates) the purchasing power of the everyday person declines because of the weaker dollar.
Oh, and another thing Dems were right on: W cut taxes and went to war on the credit card because President Cheney said deficits do not matter.
Here's what I want answered: In 2009, money was sitting on the sidelines because "We don't know which way the economy was going."
In 2013, you will hear the same thing.
Why is this?
Can it be actually that wealth holders distrust a liberal (black) man to be aligned with their private interests?
They did the same thing to Roosevelt in 1937.
We know the wet dream of many is to return to 1896 USA, where there was no personal income tax, worker exploitation went unchallenged and business had a steady flood of cheap exploitable labor from unfettered immigration. The streets were paved with gold for the ruthless.
The problem today is corporations can play nation-states off of each other. I believe it was Tonelson who coined the phrase "race to the bottom" and he has been oh so right.
Ultimately the bosses in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire escaped real responsibility. However, the photos, eyewitness accounts, public outrage, labor organizations, etc. forced the hand of businesses and politicians to protect the workers and helped improve fire safety for other people as well. We all enjoy the benefits today. End result, more regulations, better protections, better conditions for workers, and still items of value being produced. The same thing can be said for any industry in the US, it wasn't just garments. Coal, steel, drivers/truckers, airlines, the rails, road and bridge construction, timber, shipping and passenger ferries, etc. Think of all the accidents that have happened in many industries that might have been prevented or lessons were learned from, and how businesses and govt. worked together (or were forced to change) to help protect lives. Industries didn't shut down, people weren't fired because there was no work. Rather, work continued with safer conditions. Management still made its money back, workers could save a little or a lot while working in good jobs across every industry, and everyone was happy (or at least happier and safer).
Now, we hear the cry of no regulations. All regulations are bad. And if the paid-for-politicians don't cut all regulations and safety laws so that immigrant women from Europe can jump to their deaths or face burning alive and possibly work for free as interns for the honor, then we'll just move operations to some other country. Isn't that Norquist's dream? Does he attend memorial services and anniversaries at the Triangle Shirtwaist to spout that noise or would that be too unseemly even for him? We see it now in coal mines overseas, sweatshop conditions making crap and suicide nets needed to prevent workers suicides, garment fires happening repeatedly, building collapses overseas, oil spills and massive oil-related corruption in parts of Africa (which spur locals to form groups that aren't considered polite, but want justice and oil $ themselves). And on and on. In fact, we even see some industrial accidents still happening here where people go on Fox, spout their dogma, say they need less regulation, and then following an accident, it turns out those same people were cooking the books.
Now many of these countries are completely corrupt (or just more corrupt than the US), and in some cases, lack a viable govt. However, outrages and exploitation cannot continue indefinitely. Local politicians must face either angry mobs in the hundreds of thousands of their own citizens (which often means facing death) or blame foreign interests. And when the foreign interests based here or elsewhere can't take anymore, they will pack up and move operations. Eventually, they will wind up in some country where they can completely control the govt. and armed force. Perhaps they can compel anyone that speaks up to go to prison and then work for them for free as inmates. Even Sweden's IKEA was busted for using political prisoners in the 1980s in East Germany to make products for them -so it's not out of the question. Utopia? Not really, but some CEOs are salivating right now over the thought.
And some "thinktanks," "academics," lobbyists, and politicians are going to put this plan down in writing, pass it off as good for everyone, and then enjoy champagne lunches while dreaming of their own Utopian future. Of course for these people, reading "The Jungle," anything by Steinbeck, or Twain, or Dickens, or Founding Fathers that were nervous about large corporations is forbidden because that sounds alot like "liberal arts material" and that's bad. Don't read about The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire or the General Slocum or other horrors that forced laws and regulations to change in the US for everyone's benefit. Don't read thorough histories of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Edison, and others that cover the good and bad. Just because someone built libraries and donated millions doesn't mean they are idols. Just don't let the residents of said-Utopia find out first about the new Utopia. They might have something to say.
I think the problem here is in how the framework of assumptions is working...
Just a guess, but my bet is that people are somewhat more sophisticated then simply checking off who relates to their immediate problems or not (jobs, etc.)
there is also a projective component.
in other words, people in regular everyday time are involved in an effort to assess what offers a better likelihood of results. choice is not simply a pure-consumerist option in an idealist way, but rather has more realism in it. In other words, many adult choices have to do with what, in the given field of options, as presented in the here and now, holds a somewhat better chance of working in regards to needs/values/hopes. Projective assessments., projective thinking, projective evaluation. No easy feat. Sometimes simply a wager. Sometimes very hard to decide. But point is 'choice' as an adult in the real world, is NOT just 1-to-1 relations like machines, but involves thinking HOW this or that MAY fare in relation to the other option.
IN this way, I think the vote here represents that many thought that basically Romney would lead to more difficult times, and/or if you prefer, that the Obama admin option offered a somewhat better chance (RELATIVE to the ACTUAL options in the here and now, offered) of leading to 'things' in their interest.
So, again, NOT so much about simply just here and now 1-to-1 evaluation but rather about thinking ahead, but NOT idealistically, but rather with REALISM... dealing with what was offered now, as possible new directions...
For Q2, real was 2.5 trillion in government spending, annualized
Q2 nominal G was 3.8 trillion, annualized.
To find out raw totals, first, these are seasonally adjusted and there is one main program, X-12 ARIMA used for seasonal adjustments, although each series has it's own seasonal pattern.
Annualization means what that looks like as if the quarter had happened the entire year.
So, annualized for quarters means raw total x 4 and then seasonally adjusted.
I suggest you familiarize yourself with these terms as well as read the BEA reports for it seems to read NIPAs this is their lingo.
At the top of our overviews always there is the link to the gov. agency and the actual statistical release, always in the 1st paragraph. There you can find the various raw totals. Reprinting what the BEA already puts out in their reports via tables seems redundant. Our overviews are to amplify certain data as well as create visuals on that data and then we hand number crunch additional statistics not mentioned or provided but from the raw data of the statistical release.
I'm an Economics student and I'm having a hard time to deal with graphs and percentages. I just want to know the figures represented by those. Like how much did our government spend for our government purchases which is the "G" in the formula for GDP. Thanks!
In terms of wealth, there is nothing good about the natural and human destruction of a tornadic hurricane. Where I live, i have witnessed 72000 homes compromised or destroyed. There is a bright side in economic terms to the rebuild. The rebuild is an enormous struggle, but one with real benefits to the landscaping and construction industries.
Parts of ground zero involved the 72000 homes destroyed on the shoreline. The second part of ground zero were the isolated, inland parts of western New Jersey and Long Island, cut off from power, food, medicine, internet.
The shore was devastated in proportion to the height and width of dunes. It is said, they will rebuild. That statement is huge and loaded and all about who recovers and where they live. Neighbors owning property on private beaches complain of uninsured flood losses. After I use my chainsaws to cut them out of the devastation, how much can I or anyone sympathize with property owners in towns where the beachfront is private, owners only access? No one with beach front propery, thanked me for cutting them out. They had no transportation otherwise. I would still help them, the work had to be done. From the corporate-state, you get almost no help. The executive of the utility companies get rich by not modernizing the grid.
I watch neighbors buy natgas generators after buying gasoline generators after Irene, following murders in the lines to buy gasoline, hundreds of cars, and pathetic five gallon holders, doing the MadMax RoadWarrior thing.
In the intervening weeks, as a matter of survival, we banded together. We cut through roads downed by hundred foot trees.
Knowing help would be late to come, we patched chords into transformes on boilers, then to inverters attached to car batteries to get juice to fire boilers. We use hotspots when utility poles were destroyed. Cell towers were down. Of 500 hundred utility poles destroyed by Sandy 50 were in my town and 10 were within 250 feet of where I live.
There are some lessons. I will try to summarize. There is a side of economics of unemployment, that are so subjective. In the midst of catastrophe, I found a client.
Pages