They denied acceptance for U.S. citizens to college, foreigners only need apply, I kid you not and they are state funded. See Saturday reads for details.
It's positively disgusting they are buying off politics, with taxpayer money no less, to make sure less Americans get opportunity to a college degree, including graduate school.
As far as Romney goes, we see why the GOP has decided financial reform and regulations need to be repealed from their donor class. There are all our TBTF Banksters.
The University of California education system is clearly so out of line, so out of control and one would think the citizens of California would plain demand all of their funding be cut, or demand that system be reined in.
I'm not sure of all of Google's motivations to be pimping for Obama, beyond foreign guest worker Visas. Yes folks, Google labor arbitrages too and so does Apple, although nothing like the India body shops or Microsoft, Intel and Cisco do. I don't think that can be their motivation, probably has to due to monopoly, initiatives, taxes, FCC and so on. Anyway, Google is the least of my own political corporate worries.
Tech generally is probably demanding R&D tax credits, exemptions, which are good juju, ok, should be given. Anyone believing that tax loophole to repatriate offshore corporate profits, often made by offshore outsourcing our jobs is going to close are dreaming. Tech companies are high on the list with offshore profits and they assuredly want the "Republican plan". No way will Democrat puppet master corporations allow that to happen.
But we saw this in financial reform. Key Democrats came into kill anything meaningful, including derivatives reform.
Our choice, worse and worser, we clearly have no choice in a government by and for the people.
Let's just assume those who pay get what they want from their selected politicians before giving us the "choice" on election day, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. Examine the lists below taken from opensecrets.org; there are many people in banking, law, education, technology, and other fields that would have their eyes on more visas + easier immigration policies, less regulation of banking because what could go wrong with less regulation, technology issues, and making more piles of money in "non-profit" (yeah, right) education. Casinos also present, but then shouldn't they be casinos/FDIC-backed banks. And for those who think Obama or any politician would actually go after the banks, in 2008, the top contributor to the DNC was Goldman Sachs and the third was JP Morgan. Bain Capital also made the list (now that's politics for you), along with Deutsche Bank and all the rest of the people we've come to know and not love. I guess Barclays can fix LIBOR rates and also contribute to our Presidential elections, no problem. Let's consider these donors our true dictators of policy, and the elected merely their puppets.
According to opensecrets.org for 2012 election:
Obama (D)
University of California $491,868
Microsoft Corp $443,748
Google Inc $357,382
DLA Piper $331,715
Harvard University $317,516
US Government $299,923
Deloitte LLP $283,606
Sidley Austin LLP $283,269
Stanford University $238,803
Comcast Corp $234,037
Time Warner $230,088
Kaiser Permanente $197,087
Columbia University $195,574
Skadden, Arps et al $191,828
US Dept of State $175,672
Wells Fargo $170,448
University of Chicago $168,238
National Amusements Inc $167,342
JPMorgan Chase & Co $152,990
US Dept of Defense $149,116
Mitt Romney (R)
Goldman Sachs $676,080
JPMorgan Chase & Co $520,299
Morgan Stanley $513,647
Bank of America $510,728
Credit Suisse Group $427,560
Citigroup Inc $363,015
Barclays $349,400
Wells Fargo $320,025
Kirkland & Ellis $309,042
Deloitte LLP $286,110
PricewaterhouseCoopers $266,650
UBS AG $259,200
HIG Capital $220,495
Blackstone Group $219,525
Bain Capital $172,500
Elliott Management $172,475
General Electric $158,800
Ernst & Young $156,425
Marriott International $154,837
Bain & Co $145,800
Top contributors to DNC 2012
Blackstone Group
$467,950
Microsoft Corp
$465,466
Time Warner
$429,073
Comcast Corp
$424,704
Google Inc
$418,851
Skadden, Arps et al
$416,187
Goldman Sachs
$366,024
Nix, Patterson & Roach
$338,800
Harvard University
$333,384
Milbank, Tweed et al
$291,650
Henry Crown & Co
$282,200
National Amusements Inc
$266,145
Susman Godfrey LLP
$264,600
DreamWorks SKG
$253,800
DreamWorks Animation SKG
$252,300
Live Nation
$246,400
US Dept of State
$237,713
Stanford University
$232,573
UBS AG
$211,051
Capital Group Companies
$211,000
Top contributors to RNC 2012
Goldman Sachs
$890,540
Elliott Management
$624,350
Las Vegas Sands
$582,000
Bain Capital
$578,600
Blackstone Group
$428,250
Crow Holdings
$320,600
Apollo Advisors
$308,100
Affiliated Managers Group
$288,300
Hess Corp
$263,850
Federated Investors Inc
$247,400
Uline Inc
$246,400
American Proteins
$246,400
Liggett Management
$239,800
Morgan Stanley
$231,567
JPMorgan Chase & Co
$214,602
Madison Dearborn Partners
$210,700
InPro Corp
$208,420
Capital Technologies
$185,500
Arclight Capital Partners
$184,800
Perrigo Co
$184,800
Bacardi Ltd
$184,800
Centra Inc
$184,800
Demmer Corp
$184,800
Dear automaton, we hope the GOP is paying you to write comments like this, because if you're on our own, your brain is shut off.
Sorry, but the statistics show if you really want to help small business, you would enact that outrageously socialist agenda called single payer universal health care like most other modern societies have. That is the one which takes the burden of health insurance out of the hands of business and reduces their costs substantially.
I doubt any poll claims most women are wanting to have men control their bodies and their health, but our site doesn't do wedge issues.
Remittances are actually huge, this is when someone sends funds back to the home country. MNCs like foreigners because they offshore outsource, often the business model is to offshore outsource itself, or do something to improve the economy of the home country. Honestly I cannot say for sure but I imagine if we had some hiring and rejection statistics, based on resume submission, we'd find massive hiring discrimination against U.S. citizens as well.
That said, international talent and capturing that talent to help the U.S. is a good thing and a long U.S. tradition. The problem is, with 53% of new college grads not being able to get a job and a good 2 million U.S. citizens with technical college degrees unable to find work in their field....
We have plenty of home grown talent being discarded, laid to waste and it's becoming increasingly evident we have discrimination, against U.S. citizens, based on being born in America happening in employment as well as start-up land.
The destruction of talent who happen to have been born in the United States is one of the biggest unsung economic tragedies of our age and no one is talking about it. Imagine the loss of innovation, of patents, of ground breaking technologies in STEM being lost every day due to the unbelievable anti-American attitudes of those in power and yes that means our government.
Who started the path to more income inequality. That graph doesn't state if this is the United States and I don't think the top 0.01% is to scale either.
Workers were fighting for rights and got some in 1905, in 1934 is when unions really managed to get legislation through which made a difference.
1938 social security was enacted a huge leveler, probably the biggest anti poverty measure in the U.S. history, most effective.
Starting in 1980 Reagan worked to tear much of this down and sorry to say Bill Clinton also helped tear apart worker rights. He also signed NAFTA and the China PNTR, repealed glass-steagall.
I know we all love Bill, but what he actually did, the effects didn't show up until he was out of office.
The Bush tax cuts (Bush II) has seriously harmed this country and is a primary reason for the massive debt, along with the war debt.
The Third Way and other corporate think tanks are a threat to US workers because they are happy to have the imported workers trained overseas to US corporate specifications. If we ever have a functional Congress, our relationships in terms of trade agreements and tax code need to support a viable economy with job development within the US.
The inflection points on this graph are interesting. Inequality was high from 1910 to 1941. WW2 brought things into better balance, and we stayed about the same until 1988. It was Bush The Father who brought back the Gilded Age, then Bush The Son gilded it up into the stratosphere.
This article is another piece of fluff which really has no substance. Reforming pensions is not anti-worker, nor is reigning in unions which have ridiculous demands. It is a lying article just liek the Democrat platform. Ever notice that about half of women voters are against abortion being legal, yet the RNC platform is called "anti-women's health"? Workers are better off by getting insurance and government out of the hospitals completely, repealing Obamacare,and not squashing small business under a new wave of taxes.
There are certain countries, where the U.S. routinely trades away our jobs for some nebulous foreign policy agenda.
I didn't cover retirement, Medicare/Medicaid and social security, but have in other posts.
That was my reaction, OMG they put into a platform document the claim Obama is trying to make Africa gay and kill their babies, are you shittin' me???
Then again, we can hear similar crap on Faux news or radio any day of the week. Unbelievable.
Right, I think the GOP would be a shoe in if they were sane, offering sound policies based on real economics, even business slanted, but they are not. I call this worse and worser.
I wanted to amplify that green card agenda, it is just obscene, the U.S. university system has been the best in the world and magically they educated their own state residents and U.S. citizens first, as their top priority. Things are going downhill fast here and there was one university in CA who literally refused to admit anyone who was a state resident or even a U.S. citizen, "foreigners only" needed to apply and yes, a public, state tax funded university.
Think of the bias going on against Americans in our own taxpayer funded higher educational system, not just even getting in, being denied entrance, but grades, research opportunities, and so on.
Too funny, "legalized abortion and the homosexual rights agenda." Seriously? WTF? They get paid to sit there in DC or Koch HQ or Murdoch HQ and dream this crap up?
I don't know, but foreign aid is ineffective for many other reasons. Just look at Afghanistan as an example - is that due to corruption as a way of life and completely unfixable + heroin as the chief export? The fact that Karzai will do and say anything to make sure he survives and keeps as much of his $ as possible when the Taliban takes over? Or is there also a "legalized abortion and homosexual rights" agenda there in Afghanistan of all places too we don't know about? I'll go with the former reasons.
Africa and other continents, well, it could be because the USG, GOP and Dems, love USAID and endless bureaucracies that have endless meetings, tens of thousands of employees, create report after report for decades that observe and report the same exact thing year after year along with the UN, and have hundreds of NGOs that duplicate efforts. Oh, almost forgot, the fact that we support rulers no matter how corrupt they are and then act completely shocked when a civil war occurs, they are thrown out, and shockingly, they have billions of US taxpayer aid in secret Swiss bank accounts that the US Govt. somehow never knew about despite Treasury, FinCEN, OFAC laws and regs, DOJ Money Laundering units, etc. Once again, getting paid for nothing. The locals knew the leaders were completely corrupt and that's why they overthrow them, but our govt., well, they just can't seem to see the corruption when leaders are flying all over the world for conferences, vacations, shopping sprees, and health care while their own people starve to death.
Foreign aid and policy are wrong for so many other reasons. While we spend the billions overseas, the Chinese reap the benefits by signing deals with local authorities basically locking in minerals and oil for China while we get locked out (that kind of sucks).
Also, as a side note, did you know the African leader (now dead former leader) Muammar Gaddafi's son, Khamis, toured the US as a guest of the US State Dept. weeks before he joined the fight against the rebels (the same rebels we helped)? It was covered in the media. Yeah, most Americans should be confused by that one. And yet that's just one example. So there are many, many reasons our aid is a mess, but the "homosexual agenda" and "abortion," well, that's just idiotic. But then again that's why we don't have a say because we just don't follow that awesome groupthink at the top that's working out so well for the US and other countries these days.
There is much to be disgusted by and we hope you put additional red alerts in the comments.
This one, which doesn't have much to do with the U.S. worker is just astounding it's in print in 2012. From the GOP platform:
The effectiveness of our foreign aid has been limited by the cultural agenda of the current Administration, attempting to impose on foreign countries, especially the peoples of Africa, legalized abortion and the homosexual rights agenda.
I saw Kumar from "Harold and Kumar" talking about something involving allowing gays in the military and how the bankster-selected candidate with the blue colors was important because of that and he simply needs to be selected over the other bankster candidate.
Kumar, when people can't feed themselves and are headed towards living like serfs in Russia circa 1850 (only without the farming privileges) or peasants in 1300s England or a child laborer in a Dickens tale while the top 1% of the West keeps getting richer, things ain't right, haven't been right, and ain't getting right. Kumar, Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein also supports some of the same social issues as Obama (so what does it matter) but guess what, push comes to shove, banksters win, 99% of us lose no matter what because it's the economy, outsourcing, visas, and destruction of the middle class that counts to people who enjoy eating and breathing. Must be nice to be an actor at a political convention. I guess they couldn't find a STEM grad who's long-term unemployed who's been rejected 2,000 times because he's "overqualified"? Or the engineer's wife who confronted Obama? How about a former IBM or Microsoft employee in his 50s who can train his replacement overseas for overseas wages? A veteran who can't find work because his skills aren't "relevant" to HR screeners? I wish Kumar was funny, but it's too late in the game for this. Bread and circuses and we don't even get bread.
Looking around the globe, anyone with a clue and an IQ over 80 (again, as I always say, this eliminates a good chunk of the politicians and puppetmasters) knows the current situation is unsustainable. As there are no atheists in trenches, there are fewer and fewer "free marketers" and "laissez-faire" crony capitalists as the number of poor and unemployed increase. It simply can't last. When hundreds of millions more Chinese laborers find a robot can do their job and the Communist Party is really just another front for kleptocrats and global corporate masters, let the fireworks begin.
In WWI, when there were no atheists in the trenches, many of the officers were dying right along with their troops and shared their pain and horror from gas attacks, fruitless charges against machineguns, etc. Those officers sacrificed in ways the puppets and puppetmasters today never will. After all, those who sacrifice today are viewed as "useless eaters" and "99%ers" that are only good for unskilled manual labor and buying crap sold by the 1%er's corporations.
People have to eat, feed their families, and survive.
We are regressing down Maslow's heirarchy in 2012 and the numbers regressing are growing exponentially. But Billy Boy Clinton told us NAFTA and financial deregulation would make us better? Guess not Billy Boy, now go speak at Goldman and get richer through your former "public service." Those at the top may be getting richer, but their numbers are miniscule. Teacher and police officer and prosecutor pensions are raided by greedy banksters and hedge fund managers just as often as 401(k)s of unemployed engineers and managers. Veterans are unemployed despite their skills and contributions. Brilliant minds and hands are purposely ignored and destroyed so idiot relatives of the well-connected don't have to study much of anything in private schools (but are assured high-paying jobs), miss a Grand Tour of Europe's and America's nightclubs, or mingle with the middle class in middle class stores that don't kiss their asses. The ECB seems intent on sending the Eurozone into a death spiral of massive unemployment and hyperinflation. Do the Weimar Republic photos of wheelbarrow cash come more and more to mind? The corporate-media (left and right whatever, they serve their corporate masters) can keep lying and lying, but when you have a BA, BS, or MBA, or PhD, and volunteered for your community or served your Nation overseas and now face homelessness or missing leukemia treatments for your kids, a good American can only stand so much before he yells - "THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN AND WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR THOSE THAT SUFFERED AND THOSE THAT BROKE IT." I look forward to it.
Oh, banksters, your ilk is globally known so don't think the unemployed or exploited in other parts of North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, or Australia will appreciate you in ways Americans simply can't. Go set up that Ayn Rand camp in Antarctica if the penguins will let you. Hey, it's self-reliance after all, if the penguins can survive, surely job destroyers and the worst and dimmest can too, right?
Right, I believe the GOP is busy blaming unions at the moment for our woes. The right to work states have more poverty and much lower wages. This is just one fact out of many, including the fact that unions really strengthened the U.S. middle class and it's no surprise with less unionization worker rights, wages have declined.
The 2011 wage statistics will be out in October but I wanted to amplify wages, update the post with the 2009 data and put reality on the front page.
I was watching the political conventions coverage and it's just ridiculous, as expected, we have brazen lies, pomp circumstance, both parties. The press just isn't challenging any of this at all, focusing in on the trivial. They won't challenge the dog and pony show and America has had way too many dog and pony shows.
That's not to imply saving GM, Chrysler, wasn't a good idea, it was. Health care reform is a great idea but we did not get universal single payer and so costs are not addressed and that's the real problem, the for profit system. GM deal was allowed to offshore outsource jobs, almost a requirement, that's a big problem.
Blocking any legislation even though it's based on sound economics is a real problem.
The people who literally wrote the rules (i.e., the insiders) are living very well, thank you, and because they are the only ones that matter to the other people on the inside like politicians and TBTF and regulators, it's all good - the honest citizens among the middle class, the working poor, disabled, and elderly matter not.
Check out the coverage of Mary Schapiro and her ownership by former SEC folks at law firms. This will show everyone how pointless hard work + being honest + the Golden Rule are. Mary Schapiro, former friend of Madoff, the woman who didn't do anything about Madoff looting thousands of clients over years because she's corrupt and like all corrupt individuals, knew it was better to go along and further her own career over pretending to have any integrity. If anyone witnessed her ever speak in front of a Congressional hearing, you would quickly realize she is a dope (which serves corrupt people quite fine - puppets shouldn't be too smart). She got her first job through replacing her boss, headed FINRA, now heads the useless SEC. Former SEC employees now write to her and lobby her as a friend and apparently a partner in boning the rest of America. There is no hint in correspondence that they care that the 99% of America doesn't have the access and personal relationships they are exploiting completely improperly to write and enforce laws and regulations. And when they get questioned, of course they get all in a huff, how dare you question them! Rulers answer to no one except fellow rulers!
But hey, as long as TBTF and MNC can write the rules and still get rich and assure their partners in crime/regulators of future employment, who cares?
Same with everyone in power. US Attorneys' Offices (staffed by future bankster-defending attorneys), etc., etc.
The fact is no one in power cares if the rest of America works for free as slaves and gets blamed for everything (e.g., too damn lazy; too uneducated; the 99% need to work for free for 30 years and prove they deserve a minimum wage; older Americans need to prove they aren't useless eaters by moving the lawns of the elite at their Hamptons estates).
These true parasites at the top don't work harder, they aren't smarter, and they have little to no integrity. And that's why they are doing well at our expense - because they do whatever it takes to get rich (conflicts of interest, apparent and real, and crimes don't matter).
As someone with a PhD or BS or STEM worker or a 50 year old mother of two begs for a job that they might be able to barely survive on after one or two or four years of unemployment, they should look up. Look up at who is living the good life at your expense. Are they smarter? No. Is their education any better? No. Are they more honest? Definitely not. Do they practice the Golden Rule? No. When they lecture us from government offices, convention halls, corporate boardrooms, or their TV studios, remember the qualities they truly have. They will do everything they can to screw over the rest of us and reward themselves and their friends and family at every turn. As long as they are free to do so without professional or real legal repercussions (e.g., long prison sentences in real prisons with forfeiture of all-their ill-gotten wealth) that would stop them and scare everyone else that thought of screwing us at every turn, nothing will change. We will get poorer, they will get richer and lie/lecture us. So, what's going to change?
I suggest you look at the report at the end as well as the interactive graphic.
You might there is no engine for growth in New Jersey because there are no apartments. Almost all the apartment complexes in NJ (pick a county any county) are filled with illegal aliens (mostly Indian).
It came as quite a shock when I realized that it would be near impossible for any company to start up in NJ! I am not exaggerating when I say that there are likely no more than a few hundred empty apartments in the entire state. Many complexes are almost 80% Indian (not Chinese, not European, not anything else but Indian). You might note that this justifies the higher NFP employment numbers vs the household survey. Indian computer programmers working illegally in company owned apartments.
It's not going to take much longer before what is happening becomes so obvious that real people take to the streets for action.
Your summation here is so well written it needs to be showcased.
"This is the fundamental problem, the blind spot. U.S. labor is the economy. The economy is not Wall Street, hedge funds, the financial sector and even politicians. The economy is for the people and when you don't share the wealth, put U.S. labor first and foremost, not only in consideration, but also labor's effect in macroeconomic models, this is the kind of crap we get. Round about astronomical spending which might help hire some people as an afterthought. Come on Economists, here's the variable you are missing, it's called L for labor. We're not an expense, we are the economic creation engine."
As has been discussed here repeatedly, the average American is being sacrificed in the name of corporate profits, and, serving their masters, HR policies. So, with just under 30 million people unemployed and people dying or going homeless as a result, we still have HR blaming the unemployed in 2012! While fellow Americans die or dip into their savings to literally survive, let's not forget the attitudes that still pervade so many offices that help kill our society. Couldn't be rampant age discrimination, mediocre managers intimidated by smarter minds, visa abuse and visa fraud by corporations, hiring people that won't make waves, nepotism, cronyism, etc. Couldn't be replacing paid talent with 30 years of experience with interns who work for free, could it? HR still believes if you are long-term unemployed, you are simply unskilled and enjoying your free 99 weeks of benefits sipping champagne and partying with the other elite 99ers. At least they say that out loud to keep their own jobs and/or HR contracts. Gosh, HR, I'm sure vets who helped defend the US would love to hear how the long-term unemployed are unskilled and lazy, considering they compose one of the largest subsets of long-term unemployed, along with those who have the most experience (i.e., those subject to age discrimination). So many in HR (with some exceptions) - laughably clueless while serving the paymasters in the boardrooms.
Here's a taste - because when those who are suffering and ignored now get back on their feet, we should never forget those who helped us and those who harmed us so that we may return the favor. Otherwise, where's the reward for all those who did look out for us?
Here you go - read some comments - it's at http://www.staffingtalk.com/unemployed-need-not-apply/
If that is the case and the NYT is telling the truth (these days, as a rule of thumb, I tend to take everything the corporate media says with a grain of salt), then the joke is on those US companies who fled to China in order to cheat on taxes, wages, etc. and are part of the problem we're facing today. Of course, it would be entirely too much to ask those greed mongers to return to the US and produce their goods here.
They denied acceptance for U.S. citizens to college, foreigners only need apply, I kid you not and they are state funded. See Saturday reads for details.
It's positively disgusting they are buying off politics, with taxpayer money no less, to make sure less Americans get opportunity to a college degree, including graduate school.
As far as Romney goes, we see why the GOP has decided financial reform and regulations need to be repealed from their donor class. There are all our TBTF Banksters.
The University of California education system is clearly so out of line, so out of control and one would think the citizens of California would plain demand all of their funding be cut, or demand that system be reined in.
I'm not sure of all of Google's motivations to be pimping for Obama, beyond foreign guest worker Visas. Yes folks, Google labor arbitrages too and so does Apple, although nothing like the India body shops or Microsoft, Intel and Cisco do. I don't think that can be their motivation, probably has to due to monopoly, initiatives, taxes, FCC and so on. Anyway, Google is the least of my own political corporate worries.
Tech generally is probably demanding R&D tax credits, exemptions, which are good juju, ok, should be given. Anyone believing that tax loophole to repatriate offshore corporate profits, often made by offshore outsourcing our jobs is going to close are dreaming. Tech companies are high on the list with offshore profits and they assuredly want the "Republican plan". No way will Democrat puppet master corporations allow that to happen.
But we saw this in financial reform. Key Democrats came into kill anything meaningful, including derivatives reform.
Our choice, worse and worser, we clearly have no choice in a government by and for the people.
Let's just assume those who pay get what they want from their selected politicians before giving us the "choice" on election day, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. Examine the lists below taken from opensecrets.org; there are many people in banking, law, education, technology, and other fields that would have their eyes on more visas + easier immigration policies, less regulation of banking because what could go wrong with less regulation, technology issues, and making more piles of money in "non-profit" (yeah, right) education. Casinos also present, but then shouldn't they be casinos/FDIC-backed banks. And for those who think Obama or any politician would actually go after the banks, in 2008, the top contributor to the DNC was Goldman Sachs and the third was JP Morgan. Bain Capital also made the list (now that's politics for you), along with Deutsche Bank and all the rest of the people we've come to know and not love. I guess Barclays can fix LIBOR rates and also contribute to our Presidential elections, no problem. Let's consider these donors our true dictators of policy, and the elected merely their puppets.
According to opensecrets.org for 2012 election:
Obama (D)
University of California $491,868
Microsoft Corp $443,748
Google Inc $357,382
DLA Piper $331,715
Harvard University $317,516
US Government $299,923
Deloitte LLP $283,606
Sidley Austin LLP $283,269
Stanford University $238,803
Comcast Corp $234,037
Time Warner $230,088
Kaiser Permanente $197,087
Columbia University $195,574
Skadden, Arps et al $191,828
US Dept of State $175,672
Wells Fargo $170,448
University of Chicago $168,238
National Amusements Inc $167,342
JPMorgan Chase & Co $152,990
US Dept of Defense $149,116
Mitt Romney (R)
Goldman Sachs $676,080
JPMorgan Chase & Co $520,299
Morgan Stanley $513,647
Bank of America $510,728
Credit Suisse Group $427,560
Citigroup Inc $363,015
Barclays $349,400
Wells Fargo $320,025
Kirkland & Ellis $309,042
Deloitte LLP $286,110
PricewaterhouseCoopers $266,650
UBS AG $259,200
HIG Capital $220,495
Blackstone Group $219,525
Bain Capital $172,500
Elliott Management $172,475
General Electric $158,800
Ernst & Young $156,425
Marriott International $154,837
Bain & Co $145,800
Top contributors to DNC 2012
Blackstone Group
$467,950
Microsoft Corp
$465,466
Time Warner
$429,073
Comcast Corp
$424,704
Google Inc
$418,851
Skadden, Arps et al
$416,187
Goldman Sachs
$366,024
Nix, Patterson & Roach
$338,800
Harvard University
$333,384
Milbank, Tweed et al
$291,650
Henry Crown & Co
$282,200
National Amusements Inc
$266,145
Susman Godfrey LLP
$264,600
DreamWorks SKG
$253,800
DreamWorks Animation SKG
$252,300
Live Nation
$246,400
US Dept of State
$237,713
Stanford University
$232,573
UBS AG
$211,051
Capital Group Companies
$211,000
Top contributors to RNC 2012
Goldman Sachs
$890,540
Elliott Management
$624,350
Las Vegas Sands
$582,000
Bain Capital
$578,600
Blackstone Group
$428,250
Crow Holdings
$320,600
Apollo Advisors
$308,100
Affiliated Managers Group
$288,300
Hess Corp
$263,850
Federated Investors Inc
$247,400
Uline Inc
$246,400
American Proteins
$246,400
Liggett Management
$239,800
Morgan Stanley
$231,567
JPMorgan Chase & Co
$214,602
Madison Dearborn Partners
$210,700
InPro Corp
$208,420
Capital Technologies
$185,500
Arclight Capital Partners
$184,800
Perrigo Co
$184,800
Bacardi Ltd
$184,800
Centra Inc
$184,800
Demmer Corp
$184,800
Dear automaton, we hope the GOP is paying you to write comments like this, because if you're on our own, your brain is shut off.
Sorry, but the statistics show if you really want to help small business, you would enact that outrageously socialist agenda called single payer universal health care like most other modern societies have. That is the one which takes the burden of health insurance out of the hands of business and reduces their costs substantially.
I doubt any poll claims most women are wanting to have men control their bodies and their health, but our site doesn't do wedge issues.
Remittances are actually huge, this is when someone sends funds back to the home country. MNCs like foreigners because they offshore outsource, often the business model is to offshore outsource itself, or do something to improve the economy of the home country. Honestly I cannot say for sure but I imagine if we had some hiring and rejection statistics, based on resume submission, we'd find massive hiring discrimination against U.S. citizens as well.
That said, international talent and capturing that talent to help the U.S. is a good thing and a long U.S. tradition. The problem is, with 53% of new college grads not being able to get a job and a good 2 million U.S. citizens with technical college degrees unable to find work in their field....
We have plenty of home grown talent being discarded, laid to waste and it's becoming increasingly evident we have discrimination, against U.S. citizens, based on being born in America happening in employment as well as start-up land.
The destruction of talent who happen to have been born in the United States is one of the biggest unsung economic tragedies of our age and no one is talking about it. Imagine the loss of innovation, of patents, of ground breaking technologies in STEM being lost every day due to the unbelievable anti-American attitudes of those in power and yes that means our government.
Who started the path to more income inequality. That graph doesn't state if this is the United States and I don't think the top 0.01% is to scale either.
Workers were fighting for rights and got some in 1905, in 1934 is when unions really managed to get legislation through which made a difference.
1938 social security was enacted a huge leveler, probably the biggest anti poverty measure in the U.S. history, most effective.
Starting in 1980 Reagan worked to tear much of this down and sorry to say Bill Clinton also helped tear apart worker rights. He also signed NAFTA and the China PNTR, repealed glass-steagall.
I know we all love Bill, but what he actually did, the effects didn't show up until he was out of office.
The Bush tax cuts (Bush II) has seriously harmed this country and is a primary reason for the massive debt, along with the war debt.
The Third Way and other corporate think tanks are a threat to US workers because they are happy to have the imported workers trained overseas to US corporate specifications. If we ever have a functional Congress, our relationships in terms of trade agreements and tax code need to support a viable economy with job development within the US.
A longer-term picture of inequality is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Share_top_1_percent.jpg
The inflection points on this graph are interesting. Inequality was high from 1910 to 1941. WW2 brought things into better balance, and we stayed about the same until 1988. It was Bush The Father who brought back the Gilded Age, then Bush The Son gilded it up into the stratosphere.
This article is another piece of fluff which really has no substance. Reforming pensions is not anti-worker, nor is reigning in unions which have ridiculous demands. It is a lying article just liek the Democrat platform. Ever notice that about half of women voters are against abortion being legal, yet the RNC platform is called "anti-women's health"? Workers are better off by getting insurance and government out of the hospitals completely, repealing Obamacare,and not squashing small business under a new wave of taxes.
There are certain countries, where the U.S. routinely trades away our jobs for some nebulous foreign policy agenda.
I didn't cover retirement, Medicare/Medicaid and social security, but have in other posts.
That was my reaction, OMG they put into a platform document the claim Obama is trying to make Africa gay and kill their babies, are you shittin' me???
Then again, we can hear similar crap on Faux news or radio any day of the week. Unbelievable.
Right, I think the GOP would be a shoe in if they were sane, offering sound policies based on real economics, even business slanted, but they are not. I call this worse and worser.
I wanted to amplify that green card agenda, it is just obscene, the U.S. university system has been the best in the world and magically they educated their own state residents and U.S. citizens first, as their top priority. Things are going downhill fast here and there was one university in CA who literally refused to admit anyone who was a state resident or even a U.S. citizen, "foreigners only" needed to apply and yes, a public, state tax funded university.
Think of the bias going on against Americans in our own taxpayer funded higher educational system, not just even getting in, being denied entrance, but grades, research opportunities, and so on.
Too funny, "legalized abortion and the homosexual rights agenda." Seriously? WTF? They get paid to sit there in DC or Koch HQ or Murdoch HQ and dream this crap up?
I don't know, but foreign aid is ineffective for many other reasons. Just look at Afghanistan as an example - is that due to corruption as a way of life and completely unfixable + heroin as the chief export? The fact that Karzai will do and say anything to make sure he survives and keeps as much of his $ as possible when the Taliban takes over? Or is there also a "legalized abortion and homosexual rights" agenda there in Afghanistan of all places too we don't know about? I'll go with the former reasons.
Africa and other continents, well, it could be because the USG, GOP and Dems, love USAID and endless bureaucracies that have endless meetings, tens of thousands of employees, create report after report for decades that observe and report the same exact thing year after year along with the UN, and have hundreds of NGOs that duplicate efforts. Oh, almost forgot, the fact that we support rulers no matter how corrupt they are and then act completely shocked when a civil war occurs, they are thrown out, and shockingly, they have billions of US taxpayer aid in secret Swiss bank accounts that the US Govt. somehow never knew about despite Treasury, FinCEN, OFAC laws and regs, DOJ Money Laundering units, etc. Once again, getting paid for nothing. The locals knew the leaders were completely corrupt and that's why they overthrow them, but our govt., well, they just can't seem to see the corruption when leaders are flying all over the world for conferences, vacations, shopping sprees, and health care while their own people starve to death.
Foreign aid and policy are wrong for so many other reasons. While we spend the billions overseas, the Chinese reap the benefits by signing deals with local authorities basically locking in minerals and oil for China while we get locked out (that kind of sucks).
Also, as a side note, did you know the African leader (now dead former leader) Muammar Gaddafi's son, Khamis, toured the US as a guest of the US State Dept. weeks before he joined the fight against the rebels (the same rebels we helped)? It was covered in the media. Yeah, most Americans should be confused by that one. And yet that's just one example. So there are many, many reasons our aid is a mess, but the "homosexual agenda" and "abortion," well, that's just idiotic. But then again that's why we don't have a say because we just don't follow that awesome groupthink at the top that's working out so well for the US and other countries these days.
There is much to be disgusted by and we hope you put additional red alerts in the comments.
This one, which doesn't have much to do with the U.S. worker is just astounding it's in print in 2012. From the GOP platform:
generally has been a real bad experience. I don't know this guy's politics beyond being gaga for Obama.
I saw Kumar from "Harold and Kumar" talking about something involving allowing gays in the military and how the bankster-selected candidate with the blue colors was important because of that and he simply needs to be selected over the other bankster candidate.
Kumar, when people can't feed themselves and are headed towards living like serfs in Russia circa 1850 (only without the farming privileges) or peasants in 1300s England or a child laborer in a Dickens tale while the top 1% of the West keeps getting richer, things ain't right, haven't been right, and ain't getting right. Kumar, Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein also supports some of the same social issues as Obama (so what does it matter) but guess what, push comes to shove, banksters win, 99% of us lose no matter what because it's the economy, outsourcing, visas, and destruction of the middle class that counts to people who enjoy eating and breathing. Must be nice to be an actor at a political convention. I guess they couldn't find a STEM grad who's long-term unemployed who's been rejected 2,000 times because he's "overqualified"? Or the engineer's wife who confronted Obama? How about a former IBM or Microsoft employee in his 50s who can train his replacement overseas for overseas wages? A veteran who can't find work because his skills aren't "relevant" to HR screeners? I wish Kumar was funny, but it's too late in the game for this. Bread and circuses and we don't even get bread.
Looking around the globe, anyone with a clue and an IQ over 80 (again, as I always say, this eliminates a good chunk of the politicians and puppetmasters) knows the current situation is unsustainable. As there are no atheists in trenches, there are fewer and fewer "free marketers" and "laissez-faire" crony capitalists as the number of poor and unemployed increase. It simply can't last. When hundreds of millions more Chinese laborers find a robot can do their job and the Communist Party is really just another front for kleptocrats and global corporate masters, let the fireworks begin.
In WWI, when there were no atheists in the trenches, many of the officers were dying right along with their troops and shared their pain and horror from gas attacks, fruitless charges against machineguns, etc. Those officers sacrificed in ways the puppets and puppetmasters today never will. After all, those who sacrifice today are viewed as "useless eaters" and "99%ers" that are only good for unskilled manual labor and buying crap sold by the 1%er's corporations.
People have to eat, feed their families, and survive.
We are regressing down Maslow's heirarchy in 2012 and the numbers regressing are growing exponentially. But Billy Boy Clinton told us NAFTA and financial deregulation would make us better? Guess not Billy Boy, now go speak at Goldman and get richer through your former "public service." Those at the top may be getting richer, but their numbers are miniscule. Teacher and police officer and prosecutor pensions are raided by greedy banksters and hedge fund managers just as often as 401(k)s of unemployed engineers and managers. Veterans are unemployed despite their skills and contributions. Brilliant minds and hands are purposely ignored and destroyed so idiot relatives of the well-connected don't have to study much of anything in private schools (but are assured high-paying jobs), miss a Grand Tour of Europe's and America's nightclubs, or mingle with the middle class in middle class stores that don't kiss their asses. The ECB seems intent on sending the Eurozone into a death spiral of massive unemployment and hyperinflation. Do the Weimar Republic photos of wheelbarrow cash come more and more to mind? The corporate-media (left and right whatever, they serve their corporate masters) can keep lying and lying, but when you have a BA, BS, or MBA, or PhD, and volunteered for your community or served your Nation overseas and now face homelessness or missing leukemia treatments for your kids, a good American can only stand so much before he yells - "THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN AND WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR THOSE THAT SUFFERED AND THOSE THAT BROKE IT." I look forward to it.
Oh, banksters, your ilk is globally known so don't think the unemployed or exploited in other parts of North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, or Australia will appreciate you in ways Americans simply can't. Go set up that Ayn Rand camp in Antarctica if the penguins will let you. Hey, it's self-reliance after all, if the penguins can survive, surely job destroyers and the worst and dimmest can too, right?
Right, I believe the GOP is busy blaming unions at the moment for our woes. The right to work states have more poverty and much lower wages. This is just one fact out of many, including the fact that unions really strengthened the U.S. middle class and it's no surprise with less unionization worker rights, wages have declined.
The 2011 wage statistics will be out in October but I wanted to amplify wages, update the post with the 2009 data and put reality on the front page.
I was watching the political conventions coverage and it's just ridiculous, as expected, we have brazen lies, pomp circumstance, both parties. The press just isn't challenging any of this at all, focusing in on the trivial. They won't challenge the dog and pony show and America has had way too many dog and pony shows.
That's not to imply saving GM, Chrysler, wasn't a good idea, it was. Health care reform is a great idea but we did not get universal single payer and so costs are not addressed and that's the real problem, the for profit system. GM deal was allowed to offshore outsource jobs, almost a requirement, that's a big problem.
Blocking any legislation even though it's based on sound economics is a real problem.
The people who literally wrote the rules (i.e., the insiders) are living very well, thank you, and because they are the only ones that matter to the other people on the inside like politicians and TBTF and regulators, it's all good - the honest citizens among the middle class, the working poor, disabled, and elderly matter not.
Check out the coverage of Mary Schapiro and her ownership by former SEC folks at law firms. This will show everyone how pointless hard work + being honest + the Golden Rule are. Mary Schapiro, former friend of Madoff, the woman who didn't do anything about Madoff looting thousands of clients over years because she's corrupt and like all corrupt individuals, knew it was better to go along and further her own career over pretending to have any integrity. If anyone witnessed her ever speak in front of a Congressional hearing, you would quickly realize she is a dope (which serves corrupt people quite fine - puppets shouldn't be too smart). She got her first job through replacing her boss, headed FINRA, now heads the useless SEC. Former SEC employees now write to her and lobby her as a friend and apparently a partner in boning the rest of America. There is no hint in correspondence that they care that the 99% of America doesn't have the access and personal relationships they are exploiting completely improperly to write and enforce laws and regulations. And when they get questioned, of course they get all in a huff, how dare you question them! Rulers answer to no one except fellow rulers!
But hey, as long as TBTF and MNC can write the rules and still get rich and assure their partners in crime/regulators of future employment, who cares?
Same with everyone in power. US Attorneys' Offices (staffed by future bankster-defending attorneys), etc., etc.
The fact is no one in power cares if the rest of America works for free as slaves and gets blamed for everything (e.g., too damn lazy; too uneducated; the 99% need to work for free for 30 years and prove they deserve a minimum wage; older Americans need to prove they aren't useless eaters by moving the lawns of the elite at their Hamptons estates).
These true parasites at the top don't work harder, they aren't smarter, and they have little to no integrity. And that's why they are doing well at our expense - because they do whatever it takes to get rich (conflicts of interest, apparent and real, and crimes don't matter).
As someone with a PhD or BS or STEM worker or a 50 year old mother of two begs for a job that they might be able to barely survive on after one or two or four years of unemployment, they should look up. Look up at who is living the good life at your expense. Are they smarter? No. Is their education any better? No. Are they more honest? Definitely not. Do they practice the Golden Rule? No. When they lecture us from government offices, convention halls, corporate boardrooms, or their TV studios, remember the qualities they truly have. They will do everything they can to screw over the rest of us and reward themselves and their friends and family at every turn. As long as they are free to do so without professional or real legal repercussions (e.g., long prison sentences in real prisons with forfeiture of all-their ill-gotten wealth) that would stop them and scare everyone else that thought of screwing us at every turn, nothing will change. We will get poorer, they will get richer and lie/lecture us. So, what's going to change?
A new report called ALICE (116 pages;Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) details the plight of New Jersey's working poor.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/09/new_report_puts_a_harrowing_fa....
I suggest you look at the report at the end as well as the interactive graphic.
You might there is no engine for growth in New Jersey because there are no apartments. Almost all the apartment complexes in NJ (pick a county any county) are filled with illegal aliens (mostly Indian).
It came as quite a shock when I realized that it would be near impossible for any company to start up in NJ! I am not exaggerating when I say that there are likely no more than a few hundred empty apartments in the entire state. Many complexes are almost 80% Indian (not Chinese, not European, not anything else but Indian). You might note that this justifies the higher NFP employment numbers vs the household survey. Indian computer programmers working illegally in company owned apartments.
This is real, this is now.
It's not going to take much longer before what is happening becomes so obvious that real people take to the streets for action.
Your summation here is so well written it needs to be showcased.
"This is the fundamental problem, the blind spot. U.S. labor is the economy. The economy is not Wall Street, hedge funds, the financial sector and even politicians. The economy is for the people and when you don't share the wealth, put U.S. labor first and foremost, not only in consideration, but also labor's effect in macroeconomic models, this is the kind of crap we get. Round about astronomical spending which might help hire some people as an afterthought. Come on Economists, here's the variable you are missing, it's called L for labor. We're not an expense, we are the economic creation engine."
As has been discussed here repeatedly, the average American is being sacrificed in the name of corporate profits, and, serving their masters, HR policies. So, with just under 30 million people unemployed and people dying or going homeless as a result, we still have HR blaming the unemployed in 2012! While fellow Americans die or dip into their savings to literally survive, let's not forget the attitudes that still pervade so many offices that help kill our society. Couldn't be rampant age discrimination, mediocre managers intimidated by smarter minds, visa abuse and visa fraud by corporations, hiring people that won't make waves, nepotism, cronyism, etc. Couldn't be replacing paid talent with 30 years of experience with interns who work for free, could it? HR still believes if you are long-term unemployed, you are simply unskilled and enjoying your free 99 weeks of benefits sipping champagne and partying with the other elite 99ers. At least they say that out loud to keep their own jobs and/or HR contracts. Gosh, HR, I'm sure vets who helped defend the US would love to hear how the long-term unemployed are unskilled and lazy, considering they compose one of the largest subsets of long-term unemployed, along with those who have the most experience (i.e., those subject to age discrimination). So many in HR (with some exceptions) - laughably clueless while serving the paymasters in the boardrooms.
Here's a taste - because when those who are suffering and ignored now get back on their feet, we should never forget those who helped us and those who harmed us so that we may return the favor. Otherwise, where's the reward for all those who did look out for us?
Here you go - read some comments - it's at http://www.staffingtalk.com/unemployed-need-not-apply/
If that is the case and the NYT is telling the truth (these days, as a rule of thumb, I tend to take everything the corporate media says with a grain of salt), then the joke is on those US companies who fled to China in order to cheat on taxes, wages, etc. and are part of the problem we're facing today. Of course, it would be entirely too much to ask those greed mongers to return to the US and produce their goods here.
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