See there is no worker shortage. Those unemployment rates do not even count those squeezed out of the field, their professions and those unemployment rates count foreign guest workers. Additionally H-1B are used to labor arbitrage so we do not need more H-1B Visas, we need the program seriously reformed to stop loopholes while enable U.S. worker displacement.
your insights are most detailed as usual. Please create an account and logon. Due to the never ending spam battle, even links are now disabled for anonymous comments and are moderated.
What I think would make an excellent detailed research article is where all of this debt originated from. Spilled milk, yet it makes a huge difference in terms of solutions in my view. i.e. is this debt from financialization, derivatives, doing a loan-lease of public assets and other techniques? I believe much of it is, yet the message is being spun that somehow it's just folly, too much "welfare" and so on. uh huh.
There are two aspects of all this - fundamental financial decline while simultaneously running up against the limits of growth. Firstly, financially we seem to be approaching a Von Mises moment and from the words of the man himself:
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
I think the latter will be the outcome as no one is willing to take their medicine - greedy, stupid, etc. So lets pointlessly kick the can down the road a few more times shall we. There is no solution from the right (Austrian school) or the left (Keynesian) as neither has an answer to 'bubbles'. They only treat the symptoms and any politician anywhere in the world that says there is should be placed in a padded cell.
Secondly, the other observation is that there is no solution to our real 'problem' in terms of the impending failure of our civilisation. Infinite debt finance is dooming us as we continue to operate within a finite system (the earth) as if it were infinite. To understand the ramifications of this it is interesting to look at the works of M.K.Hubbert and his explanation of the impact of rising resource use. His model (see his paper Exponential Growth as a Transient Phenomenon in Human History - 1976 - can be downloaded - http://www.uvm.edu/~gflomenh/CDAE170/2003/Hubbert-growth.PDF) really brings home the fact that if we do not change the current paradigm human civilization as of today is doomed. Hubbert flagged this but no one was willing to listen.
This is, as Hubbert points out, a unique and transient episode of human 'development' (the diagrams are interesting). Consequently, the implication is that global population WILL collapse at some point due to, one, resources being depleted and two, infinitely expanding debt finance. The outcome is not a good one as it is resulting in over exploitation of said resources and a massive overshot of population relative to the actual resources that are truly exploitable.
Hubbert was using his model to articulate the limitations and constraints of the current system (not sustainable) and point the world to an alternative based around stabilising population, resource preservation, recycling and the elimination of the debt finance system.
Amusingly and sadly, many have tried to refute Hubbert's model but it is pretty robust and has been used to successful predict the growth, peak and decline of a range of resources - oil being one but also things like fish stocks, etc.
I find these things disgusting, some lobbyist buries facts by manipulating statistics, then the news reports this fiction as fact. One of this sites main functions is to set the record straight and present objective, valid, objective data. I think you succeeded here.
Makes me wonder how much bias their is in obtaining VC funds. Are they truly funding statups based on proof of concept, business plans, prototypes and market growth potential or is it some sort of bastardization of "dot con", where one must be "young" and have a "china strategy" and make sure they offshore outsource part of R&D in order to get funded.
We should research this out because we know there are literally hundreds of thousands of Americans, over the age of 35, who probably don't "fit into Venture Capitalists paradigm", yet actually have the ability to run and build up a U.S. company and I'm sure have that "killer app" as an idea they could flesh out with some seed funds, egg incubator, to proof of concept/prototype.
Are they being denied those opportunities, people over the age of 35, 40, 50? Women, blacks, disabled, U.S. citizen domestic diversity? Do they get a shot?
Regardless of your politics, stop bitching and get involved with your local Occupy Wall Street movement. It is the one movement that can put pressure on corporations and government to stop the high-tech slave trade.
If you're wondering why Russia is a FMN on EP, it's due to the eruption of protests in Russia, against Putin, who has basically been in power over 18 years. With the focus on Europe and then China, we don't much information on Russia, when it's a fairly large economy and a global energy/oil superpower.
I highly recommend renting Margin Call. I fear the story will be lost on people outside of finance, economics and Wall street but for EP readers, I know you all are deeply aware and will love this film.
The plot surrounds what to do when a investment house, clearly modeled on Goldman Sachs by the plot outline, with Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, is up against holding the bag on trillions in worthless toxic MBSes which happened Sept. 2008.
The script and acting will knock your socks off. It's captures that unspoken sociopathic mentality of disposable people that is not only Wall Street but all of corporate America and it captures it perfectly, on an emotional level.
There is also a solid ode to why is it making up fictional mathematics in the form of structured finance, financial derivatives, pays way way more than architecting a bridge or designing a product, i.e. why is financialization sucking the life blood out of the real, or production economy (actual and metaphor).
It's a tense film so if you're looking for a good laugh, rent Horrible Bosses. Not only it is roaringly funny, being treated like shit at work as the new American norm is yet another one of those secrets not mentioned in public. This film does.
But if anyone is paying attention, we see major revisions to employment statistics, GDP, income that are absolutely huge. Some are also saying the NAR is counting new home sales. I don't buy that one, but the NAR was behind the warm fuzzy, all is good, juju while people who knew what they were talking about were screaming through the rooftops there was a housing bubble going on which would lead to big trouble. Of course short term commissions and profits overrode any statistics, mathematics and logic.
Sorry but your last comment says it all, use facts instead of think of feel. One person with retirement funds refusing to access them to the point of living below the poverty threshold is not a statistic. The data from this overview is direct from the Census.
There are a host of income sources taken into consideration by the poverty measures. Both the official and alternative take into account pension payments, social security, retirement fund outtakes, interest on savings, dividends.
In order to live, even in retirement, someone is taking money out somewhere from savings to do that and it is captured, measured.
More I think denial acts in strange ways, and the statistics are what they are, the Census are not manipulating anything, whatever measure you look at America has become poor.
Your conclusions and analysis are flawed. Indeed, you need much more before you can convince anyone who takes the time to consider what you've concluded. Since I know how my life has gone, then "I" will be me.
As a teenager, I entered the world of "wage earner". I worked summer construction jobs for a good hourly wage, but only for a few months. This work pattern continued through college years, too. Thus, I was a "low income" or "poor" person for almost 10 years.
Now, some 35+ years later, I have no debt, have a net worth of about $600,000; will declare wages of about $20 k for 2011, so I am considered "poor" to "low income" today. I know many people in similar circumstances. We are not destitute nor poor, well, maybe a little "cash poor", but that's a different issue.
This is not to say there aren't many people hurting, but you're conclusions are incorrect and misleading. I have seen a lot of misery in my lifetime, and I don't hesitate AS A PRIVATE CITIZEN to help those in need. There are many people who earn wages who are not poor, indeed, they might be considered wealthy. There, too, are those "gaming the system" to get "gummint" assistance, and they are "poor in spirit". And, people, just as I did, move in and out of these statistical hodge-podge's constantly.
Hopefully, your remarks are made from not fully understanding real life issues combined with this data versus an attempt to misinform. I do commend you for at least using some facts vs. just spewing forth what you "feel" or "think".
Fortunately, kids are still elated at Christmas. But all the adults continue less than enthusiastic about the news. (Oh, goodie goodie! Congress has agreed to continue defunding the Social Security trust fund.)
Meanwhile, the ECB waxes almost Greenspanesque --
"The non-financial private sector also faces some challenges, notably from an ongoing macroeconomic slowdown, but with aggregate euro area balance sheet positions that make it relatively more robust to weather such forces."
I think that means that everything will be managed so as to avoid adversely impacting the interests of TNCs?
Also from the ECB press release (19 December 2011) --
"Stability Mechanism (ESM) and a solution for the unique challenges faced in Greece – is pivotal in making a decisive contribution to curtailing the cycle of risk intensification in the euro area that characterised the latter half of 2011."
I think that means the ECB is begging Greece, "Go ahead, make my day"?
"Things are worse than right after Lehman Brother's, the OMG Economic Armageddon global meltdown almost, collapse" -- Robert Oak
This post at Naked Capitalism implied the New York Attorney General is doing end runs around the Dept. of Justice to prosecute financial crimes surrounding the financial crisis.
he inspector general for the FHFA, the supervisor of Fannie and Freddie, and the Federal Home Loan bank, has decided to share information with New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman, is far more significant than it appears on the surface.
It’s a well deserved slap in the face of the Department of Justice.
I’m not certain of the precise scope of powers of the FHFA inspector general. But typically, federal inspector generals have limited scope of action. They can only subpoena documents and cannot subpoena witnesses. And, of course, they are not prosecutors and cannot launch cases. The theory of IGs is that if they uncover something unsavory, they’ll hand it off to the Department of Justice. But as a former IG has pointed out, the DoJ does not take case leads from the IGs unless they are fully fleshed out, and that is well nigh impossible to do in the absence of speaking to witnesses.
Bottom line, we are by far not the only financial/economics site noticing the DOJ is AWOL on prosecutions surrounding the Banks and the subprime/derivatives/mortgage mess.
"Of course, an awful lot of people lack even a single ounce of integrity, so the lies continue. But at least no one can 'honestly' believe it." -- Anon.
I know more than a few, especially seniors, who did "honestly believe the lies," until the truth was presented to them.
EconomicPopulist is very helpful in disabusing folks of their naive or well-intentioned delusions.
Is there a spell checker out there that will tell you when you mean 'though' and when you mean 'through'? What if you use 'thru' and really mean it? I just posted lyrics that use small 'i' for first person singular 'I' -- but that seems to be how the authors penned it!
Probably, there are some that will question you as to what you mean, but then the spell-checker will highlight or underline so much of the text that it's distracting.
And if the Anon post was loose, what about the nu inglsh uzd 4 txtng? c wut i meen?
It would be great if we could count on Homo economicus to decide elections.
More wonderful yet, considering the fundamentals of democracy within a republic, would be a rational Homo reciprocans determining elections.
(Links to that ever-great demonstration of the feasibilty of such ideals -- Wikipedia!)
The colors of a rainbow ... . so pretty .. in the sky
Are also on the faces .... of people .. going by
I see friends shaking hands .... sayin' .. how do you do
They're really sayin' .... i love you
I hear babies cry .... I watch them grow
They'll learn much more .... than I'll ever know
And I think to myself .... what a wonderful world
-- excerpted from 'What A Wonderful World' by George David Weiss, George Douglas, Bob Thiele (sung and popularized by Louis Armstrong), via LyricsFreak.com web page
See there is no worker shortage. Those unemployment rates do not even count those squeezed out of the field, their professions and those unemployment rates count foreign guest workers. Additionally H-1B are used to labor arbitrage so we do not need more H-1B Visas, we need the program seriously reformed to stop loopholes while enable U.S. worker displacement.
Will there be an accompanying study or deep thought piece linking these facts to the need for more H1-B visas?
your insights are most detailed as usual. Please create an account and logon. Due to the never ending spam battle, even links are now disabled for anonymous comments and are moderated.
What I think would make an excellent detailed research article is where all of this debt originated from. Spilled milk, yet it makes a huge difference in terms of solutions in my view. i.e. is this debt from financialization, derivatives, doing a loan-lease of public assets and other techniques? I believe much of it is, yet the message is being spun that somehow it's just folly, too much "welfare" and so on. uh huh.
There are two aspects of all this - fundamental financial decline while simultaneously running up against the limits of growth. Firstly, financially we seem to be approaching a Von Mises moment and from the words of the man himself:
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
I think the latter will be the outcome as no one is willing to take their medicine - greedy, stupid, etc. So lets pointlessly kick the can down the road a few more times shall we. There is no solution from the right (Austrian school) or the left (Keynesian) as neither has an answer to 'bubbles'. They only treat the symptoms and any politician anywhere in the world that says there is should be placed in a padded cell.
Secondly, the other observation is that there is no solution to our real 'problem' in terms of the impending failure of our civilisation. Infinite debt finance is dooming us as we continue to operate within a finite system (the earth) as if it were infinite. To understand the ramifications of this it is interesting to look at the works of M.K.Hubbert and his explanation of the impact of rising resource use. His model (see his paper Exponential Growth as a Transient Phenomenon in Human History - 1976 - can be downloaded - http://www.uvm.edu/~gflomenh/CDAE170/2003/Hubbert-growth.PDF) really brings home the fact that if we do not change the current paradigm human civilization as of today is doomed. Hubbert flagged this but no one was willing to listen.
This is, as Hubbert points out, a unique and transient episode of human 'development' (the diagrams are interesting). Consequently, the implication is that global population WILL collapse at some point due to, one, resources being depleted and two, infinitely expanding debt finance. The outcome is not a good one as it is resulting in over exploitation of said resources and a massive overshot of population relative to the actual resources that are truly exploitable.
Hubbert was using his model to articulate the limitations and constraints of the current system (not sustainable) and point the world to an alternative based around stabilising population, resource preservation, recycling and the elimination of the debt finance system.
Amusingly and sadly, many have tried to refute Hubbert's model but it is pretty robust and has been used to successful predict the growth, peak and decline of a range of resources - oil being one but also things like fish stocks, etc.
I find these things disgusting, some lobbyist buries facts by manipulating statistics, then the news reports this fiction as fact. One of this sites main functions is to set the record straight and present objective, valid, objective data. I think you succeeded here.
Makes me wonder how much bias their is in obtaining VC funds. Are they truly funding statups based on proof of concept, business plans, prototypes and market growth potential or is it some sort of bastardization of "dot con", where one must be "young" and have a "china strategy" and make sure they offshore outsource part of R&D in order to get funded.
We should research this out because we know there are literally hundreds of thousands of Americans, over the age of 35, who probably don't "fit into Venture Capitalists paradigm", yet actually have the ability to run and build up a U.S. company and I'm sure have that "killer app" as an idea they could flesh out with some seed funds, egg incubator, to proof of concept/prototype.
Are they being denied those opportunities, people over the age of 35, 40, 50? Women, blacks, disabled, U.S. citizen domestic diversity? Do they get a shot?
Regardless of your politics, stop bitching and get involved with your local Occupy Wall Street movement. It is the one movement that can put pressure on corporations and government to stop the high-tech slave trade.
If you're wondering why Russia is a FMN on EP, it's due to the eruption of protests in Russia, against Putin, who has basically been in power over 18 years. With the focus on Europe and then China, we don't much information on Russia, when it's a fairly large economy and a global energy/oil superpower.
Glad you are all here to read it, participate!
Thanks for your work in 2011 and especially your sense of humor.
I highly recommend renting Margin Call. I fear the story will be lost on people outside of finance, economics and Wall street but for EP readers, I know you all are deeply aware and will love this film.
The plot surrounds what to do when a investment house, clearly modeled on Goldman Sachs by the plot outline, with Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, is up against holding the bag on trillions in worthless toxic MBSes which happened Sept. 2008.
The script and acting will knock your socks off. It's captures that unspoken sociopathic mentality of disposable people that is not only Wall Street but all of corporate America and it captures it perfectly, on an emotional level.
There is also a solid ode to why is it making up fictional mathematics in the form of structured finance, financial derivatives, pays way way more than architecting a bridge or designing a product, i.e. why is financialization sucking the life blood out of the real, or production economy (actual and metaphor).
It's a tense film so if you're looking for a good laugh, rent Horrible Bosses. Not only it is roaringly funny, being treated like shit at work as the new American norm is yet another one of those secrets not mentioned in public. This film does.
But if anyone is paying attention, we see major revisions to employment statistics, GDP, income that are absolutely huge. Some are also saying the NAR is counting new home sales. I don't buy that one, but the NAR was behind the warm fuzzy, all is good, juju while people who knew what they were talking about were screaming through the rooftops there was a housing bubble going on which would lead to big trouble. Of course short term commissions and profits overrode any statistics, mathematics and logic.
Sorry but your last comment says it all, use facts instead of think of feel. One person with retirement funds refusing to access them to the point of living below the poverty threshold is not a statistic. The data from this overview is direct from the Census.
There are a host of income sources taken into consideration by the poverty measures. Both the official and alternative take into account pension payments, social security, retirement fund outtakes, interest on savings, dividends.
In order to live, even in retirement, someone is taking money out somewhere from savings to do that and it is captured, measured.
See here.
More I think denial acts in strange ways, and the statistics are what they are, the Census are not manipulating anything, whatever measure you look at America has become poor.
Your conclusions and analysis are flawed. Indeed, you need much more before you can convince anyone who takes the time to consider what you've concluded. Since I know how my life has gone, then "I" will be me.
As a teenager, I entered the world of "wage earner". I worked summer construction jobs for a good hourly wage, but only for a few months. This work pattern continued through college years, too. Thus, I was a "low income" or "poor" person for almost 10 years.
Now, some 35+ years later, I have no debt, have a net worth of about $600,000; will declare wages of about $20 k for 2011, so I am considered "poor" to "low income" today. I know many people in similar circumstances. We are not destitute nor poor, well, maybe a little "cash poor", but that's a different issue.
This is not to say there aren't many people hurting, but you're conclusions are incorrect and misleading. I have seen a lot of misery in my lifetime, and I don't hesitate AS A PRIVATE CITIZEN to help those in need. There are many people who earn wages who are not poor, indeed, they might be considered wealthy. There, too, are those "gaming the system" to get "gummint" assistance, and they are "poor in spirit". And, people, just as I did, move in and out of these statistical hodge-podge's constantly.
Hopefully, your remarks are made from not fully understanding real life issues combined with this data versus an attempt to misinform. I do commend you for at least using some facts vs. just spewing forth what you "feel" or "think".
Merry Xmas to all!
It's time for holidays!
Fortunately, kids are still elated at Christmas. But all the adults continue less than enthusiastic about the news. (Oh, goodie goodie! Congress has agreed to continue defunding the Social Security trust fund.)
Meanwhile, the ECB waxes almost Greenspanesque --
"The non-financial private sector also faces some challenges, notably from an ongoing macroeconomic slowdown, but with aggregate euro area balance sheet positions that make it relatively more robust to weather such forces."
I think that means that everything will be managed so as to avoid adversely impacting the interests of TNCs?
Also from the ECB press release (19 December 2011) --
"Stability Mechanism (ESM) and a solution for the unique challenges faced in Greece – is pivotal in making a decisive contribution to curtailing the cycle of risk intensification in the euro area that characterised the latter half of 2011."
I think that means the ECB is begging Greece, "Go ahead, make my day"?
"Things are worse than right after Lehman Brother's, the OMG Economic Armageddon global meltdown almost, collapse" -- Robert Oak
MF Global is the new Lehman Bros?
This post at Naked Capitalism implied the New York Attorney General is doing end runs around the Dept. of Justice to prosecute financial crimes surrounding the financial crisis.
Bottom line, we are by far not the only financial/economics site noticing the DOJ is AWOL on prosecutions surrounding the Banks and the subprime/derivatives/mortgage mess.
This site can be accessed via mobile phones, at least the ones I've checked and it might be someone was on Android or whatever. tis tru, u say....
Merry Xmas 2okd4okeydoke!
"Of course, an awful lot of people lack even a single ounce of integrity, so the lies continue. But at least no one can 'honestly' believe it." -- Anon.
I know more than a few, especially seniors, who did "honestly believe the lies," until the truth was presented to them.
EconomicPopulist is very helpful in disabusing folks of their naive or well-intentioned delusions.
Also, NoSlave.com
Is there a spell checker out there that will tell you when you mean 'though' and when you mean 'through'? What if you use 'thru' and really mean it? I just posted lyrics that use small 'i' for first person singular 'I' -- but that seems to be how the authors penned it!
Probably, there are some that will question you as to what you mean, but then the spell-checker will highlight or underline so much of the text that it's distracting.
And if the Anon post was loose, what about the nu inglsh uzd 4 txtng? c wut i meen?
It would be great if we could count on Homo economicus to decide elections.
More wonderful yet, considering the fundamentals of democracy within a republic, would be a rational Homo reciprocans determining elections.
(Links to that ever-great demonstration of the feasibilty of such ideals -- Wikipedia!)
-- excerpted from 'What A Wonderful World' by George David Weiss, George Douglas, Bob Thiele (sung and popularized by Louis Armstrong), via LyricsFreak.com web page
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