It's all well and good to sit around and talk about it, or post stories on websites, but why not actually do something about it? A new bill, HR3012, is sailing through congress and barely anyone is making a peep about it. It will lift the country cap on India. Whereas now India, with 17% of the worlds population, gets 21% of the employment based green cards, if the bill passes, they will get 50 or 60% of all EB green cards. This will flood the job market with tech workers from India, while blocking out all other immigrants from around the world, including exceptional immigrants that didn't happen to be born in India.
As long as nobody says anything, congress just assumes it is OK. Get on the phone, type up an email, send a fax, and tell your senator that enough is enough. Shit-can HR3012 and demand reforms to the system that will keep out the fraudsters and protect American workers. If you don't do that, don't complain about the legislation once it is already passed and the bleeding continues.
"I think they ... believe who ever goes hardest on this locks up the Hispanic vote." -- Robert Oak
I hate the idea that I am some kind of demographic artifact. It's insulting to my dignity as a human being. Even if I were an 'illegal', I still would not appreciate anyone thinking that they know everything (or anything) about me based on that one fact. The same is true for categories such as 'unemployed' or 'senior' or 'college graduate'. All that is known is just the one characteristic, nothing more. Something may be known about the composition of a population, but not about the composition of any individual, unless an individual can be divided into parts such as 'conservative' or 'liberal', etc..
I doubt that identity politics really works all that well; it's just a convenient backdoor for thought manipulators to sneak into people's thinking, basically threatening them with loss of membership in the safety of a herd. At best, it is intentionally divisive, and so it's all about "divide and conquer" a dumbed-down public. Hitler knew all about it and showed that it can work ... in a way ... for a while.
Enlightened individuals (heroic figures really) understand humanity, understand their human nature and understand the herd. But they do not define themselves by the herd mentality and, while never underestimating the danger of the herd, manage to rise above the herd. Sometimes history provides leaders of such caliber, but often supposed leaders of the pack are self-deluded and stand to be trampled or torn apart eventually ... as Mussolini was hanged after the Germans left Rome.
A strange form of identity politics has now evolved in America, complete with its own metaphysics or ideology -- 'multi-culturalism'. There's a fine line dividing multi-culturalism from humanism -- humanism meaning, in this case, simply what the Founders had in mind with "All men are created equal."
The meaning of 'multi-culturalism' is as slippery as the meaning of 'globalism'. Both these ideologies are based on setting up a straw-man enemy -- some hypothetical person who believes that the world is flat or that there is no culture but his or her own. It's nonsense, but widely propagated nonsense.
Propaganda based on identity politics is easy to spot, including multi-culturalist propaganda. I doubt that there really is anything in America, if non-voters are considered, like a party-line Hispanic vote or Black vote or White vote, except that choices are controlled and severely limited. To be consistent, multi-culturalists must premise such a thing as a multi-cultural vote, and that perhaps does exist among the educator class. But I doubt that there really is any party-line multi-cultural vote -- only a multi-culturalist vote.
The thing is that some people cannot manage without an ideology to take the place of thinking. One silly ism or ideology after another rises to prominence, only to deteriorate and fall into the dust of history ... because every ideology contains the seeds of its destruction within itself.
I can't locate it right now, but there has been research showing that the older you are, the less susceptible you are to advertising. After about the age of 25, you've pretty much settled on your preferences and loyalties. There's even been research that advertising is mostly a waste of money. On the other hand, advertising and other propaganda can never be entirely discounted, because professional manipulators have studied how to appeal to powerful forces of egotism, narcissism and primal fear in human beings.
It's a relief to recall that a few years ago when Michael Jackson's publicity machine spent $Millions on promoting his latest album, it was far outsold by an unknown from Seattle (Nirvana) that spent nothing on publicity. #Occupy had no budget -- probably still has no budget. Such phenomena cannot be completely censured by the media apparatus, but they sure do their best to cover it up or co-opt it as quickly as possible. Such phenomena must scare the crap out of them.
Marketing to demographic segments, thus, is always somewhat effective ... but not as much as might be thought. The trick is to control the range of choices -- then all people have left to them is the choice of vanilla and chocolate, or, conservative or liberal. Nowadays, resolution has increased so that there are many more flavors, such that meaningless choices are all around us ... like a few years back when I lived in a city and subscribed for a while to a cable service with hundreds of channels and we ended up watching reruns of Lucy. The system has created background static that tends to create general confusion and undermines communication across the public.
Having bought up the media, success of the manipulators is guaranteed since few are left meaningful choices in the noise of irrelevant messages. Or many -- having learned to make real choices -- drop off the radar like the non-voting or "silent" majority. Or they show up in #Occupy events.
Mostly, the identity (demographic segmentation) marketing thing is just a Mad Ave market analysis technique because that's all they know, and they own the media. It's self-fulfilling pseudo-science, a semi-religion. The corporate media have to believe that identity marketing works, because otherwise they would have to subject themselves to the same rigorous culling out that applies to artists or communicators generally. Commercials would have to be compelling works of art or straight-forward announcements.
Without identity marketing, the manipulators would actually have to address issues rationally ... and there's no money for them in that. But there is money in that for us! There is money for us in thinking rationally about our own enlightened self-interest!
How about this identity? -- "human being with functioning brain" and "born in USA, staying here."
Right now, we have some incredible propaganda claiming "immigrants create jobs". Well, if that were true, obviously the U.S. really would have a labor shortage. ;) We have less jobs, not more jobs and the area they love to focus, STEM, there are significantly less jobs, even going back to 2000. How they come up with this is by claiming foreign workers are not being used to replace U.S. ones, which is clearly false. Then, the claim is multiplicative, i.e. 5 $100k jobs will help support 5 additional crappy jobs at the grocery, McDonalds and so on. But that's also questionable when labor arbitrage is going on due to the flood of unskilled labor. To truly create jobs, they need to hire U.S. citizens, Americans, for those jobs and if they really want to create jobs, they will manufacture, do all services connected with the original job...in the United States. Manufacturing really scales and typically creates higher paying wages.
I'm sure you are right about population. That's another topic that fails to be mentioned these days, in part due to the infamous "anti-choice" groups. We just hit 7 billion people on the planet, and global warming just went past the point of no return.
Just like we don't have enough jobs, we don't have enough housing right now.
Yet the drumbeat for more immigration, more cheap labor, continue to roar.
And many of the people who will do their best to add the extra millions will tell you we owe it to others to allow them to come to America "to find a better life" while the quality of life for Americans continues to nosedive.
Has anybody ever read anything about plans we are making to accommodate a population that will rise by 1/4 in less than 50 years? A lot of the surge in population over the past 30 years was accommodated in cities that had experienced population reductions due to people leaving for suburbs.
With higher energy costs and so many more people, I agree with studies that indicate people will shift from outer suburbs back to near suburbs and cities.
Of course the price of real estate and apartments will be affected by this. Where are the many, many millions of Americans that make up "$10 Nation" going to live? Are we going to build million of units of subsidized housing units? Will native born American start living 4 families to a house?
decided no illegal is not a human, unlimited migration philosophy. This is some ill conceived belief that unlimited global migration is "good" and "free". It's actually a massive labor economics disaster. Intuitively I don't know why they cannot contemplate job markets, resources with 3 billion people on the move to one location. ;)
Or even bother to learn just a tad about global slave economics, only about 3000 years of economic history on that topic.
Anyway, Bernie Sanders gets this as did Byron Dorgan, even the AFL-CIO gets some of this. That's why I wrote the piece, I heard these lobbyist corporate talking point nonsense mentioned by John Huntsman, others in the GOP "debate" (which of course locks out anyone speaking truth, such as Buddy Roemer), a good 5 bills introduced and it's not even being challenged at all, mainly because there are just a few not on the take, and those few are in all flavors of the overall political spectrum.
I think they are fighting for U.S. Chamber of Commerce campaign funds and believe who ever goes hardest on this locks up the Hispanic vote. Facts, accurate statistics, labor econ 101 be damned (or manipulated to spin upon demand more like).
Congressional GOP organization (with substantial opposition within their party, such as Chuck Grassley) is bragging about this bill! They are saying that the reason that our economy is stalled is because the Senate won't pass "28 bipartisan jobs bills awaiting Senate action"! See, Our Plan For Jobs at official gop.gov website (taxpayer supported).
Of the 15 Nays, only two were by Democrats. (There were 29 not-voting -- 18 R and 11 D).
It appears that the battle for politicians is about who gets to take credit for sinking the economy.
Even Dennis Kicinich voted Yea. In fact the entire state of Ohio (Rs and Ds) voted Yea, except for one D who did not vote.
It's being sold as an issue of fairness. We shouldn't discriminate based on national origin ... except that it seems to be okay to discriminate against workers whose origin is the USA!
It's astounding. And discouraging. But I think that people should note how their reps voted. Even contact their reps, although that usually goes straight down the memory hole via some aide or other phone-answerer -- are those jobs outsourced yet? Or you can write and wait a few weeks to get a boilerplate response.
How about equal caps of zero on each country of origin? Wouldn't that be fair enough?
Right, that's the corporate farmer's lobbyists. They don't want to pay....a real wage to work in the fields, or give the required breaks or pay for people to even drive to the job so it actually isn't a negative $$.
What silly valley is doing is frankly a lot of discrimination against older techies, women techies, black techies, Hispanic techies.
If they want more Visas they should insist on setting prevailing wage laws w/o loopholes, disable the worker "train your replacement then be fired H-1B replacement of U.S. workers trick and put tough "U.S. workers first" requirements to obtain a H-1B. If they removed the wage arbitrage of these Visas, the Indian body shops, who are 7 of the top 10 H-1B users, wouldn't be able to undercut U.S. wages through them. Because it would no longer be profitable, it would free up at least 50% of the available Visas.
Additionally the entire thing is silly because L-1s are unlimited and way cheaper to loophole a headquarters in the caymans then put a "foreign subsidiary" stateside, use L-1 Visas. So, all of this is just the lobbyists out in full force.
Many Americans used to work seasonally in Alaska canneries or factory ships, then spend the rest of the year in Mexico. That worked out pretty well. But then the U.S. citizens found themselves replaced by legal or illegal immigrant labor.
That's what I mean about employers systematically destabilize or destroy their workforce, and then shed crocodile tears at the prospect of their illegal workforce being cut off because (imagine this!) U.S. citizens demand enforcement of immigration law.
What was it that George W. Bush said ... something about "There are consequences." (At least for some.)
Salaries are not skyrocketing, I just showed one point on salaries but on aggregate they are down and if one adjusted for inflation, below 2000. Secondly, as sad as it is, the Huffington Post is one of the media places where they publish corporate lobbyist written garbage.
Job openings in tech are way below 2007 levels, still. I just looked into it (left hand column).
This is assuredly one and just hype to get their Visas. You won't see on HuffPo the Americans being denied start up funds, even CNN showed you have to be a certain "type", not the idea, skills, ability, to get VC funds quite often. How many women have been funded? How many are hiring over the age of 35?
Last hype story plant spread across the MSM I saw was some guy building a travel auction website as his "great idea". Oh boy, right up there with pets.com, real ground shaker, sure to generate huge revenue streams (not), as if the market is not already saturated with long time established travel package bidding sites.
The point of this post is the lobbyists, this includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the labor arbitraging corporations such as Microsoft, Intel and so on, are out in full force with recent legislation introduced, which they wrote I might add and the actual statistics show something very different.
Check out the business models of these so called "immigrant entrepreneurs", you'll see a host of labor arbitrage as a model, i.e. moving R&D, services, projects offshore.
Believe me, a VC can get an immigrant any Visa they want, if they are going to fund a start-up and that person is going to be the CTO, chief architect.
Finally, expanding the EB-5 Visa is NOT unlimited H-1B, L-1, LPR, etc. that is going on. They can in essence already use the EB-5.
One thing you've got right, an isolated 24/7 workers prison with no where to go. Ask the guys on the oil rigs how much fun that is.
I was very disappointed the other day to hear BBC echoing the corporate media line about worker shortages. In this case, BBC was talking about shortage of labor in the fruit sector of agriculture in Georgia.
This particular issue is a little more complex than some of the others, because the history is that agriculture systematically destabilized and destroyed its erstwhile workforce resources over the last half-century. Also, farm ownership of all kinds has become much more concentrated than it was back in the 1950s, so what was presented on BBC (and elsewhere) as long-suffering independent small farmers would perhaps be better presented as medium-sized or even gigantic agri-industrial corporations. Another complication that BBC had no interest in, was the effects on small farms everywhere of the globalization of agriculture. BBC overlooked the entire trade issue.
According to an Australian study, production and consumption of citrus in Asia has been expanding and, in many Asian countries, is supported primarily through high tariffs on imported citrus. (Imagine that! We'll just have to ram through another FTA, won't we?) See, Gunner, Longberg & Wodecki, South Australia Citrus Industry Situational Analysis (PDF available online from .gov.au website, Rural Solutions SA and Primary Industries and Resources SA, Adelaide, 2005). The PDF was produced as a CEI in a project to study necessary restructuring of the small-farm-based citrus industry in New South Wales, due to deregulation resulting from globalization.
There are serious challenges in some sectors of USA agriculture regarding workforce these days. For many reasons, it's difficult to develop a workforce in some rural areas. But what about the idea that 'difficult' doesn't mean you give up? What about the idea that when the going gets tough, the tough get going? Maybe nine out of ten don't work out. Well, you find that out pretty fast, and that leaves you that one in ten worth all the others put together, doesn't it?
What about the idea that a seasonal workforce resource is worth developing? For example, Oregon's entire post-secondary system went on the quarter system half a century ago, in large part to develop a seasonal agricultural workforce of college students who could work through September (or even into October, although possibly starting a bit late).
What about the idea that, no, you don't have some kind of natural right to have workers delivered to your gate on a daily basis and then picked up in the evening, to be paid minimally at the end of the week. Is there really a huge threat of unionization down on the farm in Georgia? Even if we repealed the 13th Amendment, you'd still have to provide for your slaves through the winter.
While interviewing farmers who complain about "unfair" immigration laws, there was no representation by BBC of farmers who for years now have been conscientiously following immigration laws, painstakingly developing an effective workforce. There are farmers who, for years, have been facing unfair competition from competing corporations that have feasted on exploitation of illegals -- with unfortunate results dumped on the taxpayers, including the law-abiding farmers.
BBC presented only the "oh us poor farmers and our fruit is rotting" side of the story, except for one local citizen who opined something like, "If they can't get the pickers they want for the money they want to pay, let them pick the fruit themselves." Well, there was a time in our history when family farmers would do exactly that, even if it meant the whole family (and some cousins) going without sleep for a week. Or ... there was a time in our history when farmers would look to the local community for a seasonal workforce. Or ... there was a time in our history when the wheat harvest was labor-intensive and work crews formed up and traveled from farm to farm south to north, working the fields 12 hours a day, with the family working through the day to feed them all -- with food grown on the farm! That's the origin of the Nor' Dakota phrase, "It's enough to feed a thrashing crew!" Same story for apples in the Pacific Northwest. But this is a different world today.
There are attitudinal problems with American workers that hinder agricultural workforce development, but there may just be attitudinal problems with employers too.
Everyone knows about the shortage of skilled professionals. Salaries are skyrocketing and companies are cutting back due to the severe shortages.
A Blueseed startup wants to stop the madness by floating huge platforms off the coast of California where US laws do not apply (No this is not science fiction.) Workers can vacation (live) in the USA while working duty free in one of their floating workplaces(prisons?).
is here. I didn't use it because I didn't have the time to verify the data. I also don't believe some of the reasons 65% of STEM graduates do not work in the field reasons. It seems when it comes to mentioning sexism, racism, ageism, for some reason when it comes to STEM, that too is denial land.
"Strange isn't it, that Medical care is never mentioned when referring to costs and inflation. It's only as important as food, yet health care is treated almost like it's an extra for daily living." -- Robert Oak
Not much about price of gas lately, although that's a worry in the background always these days. But what I do hear working people concerned about lately is increasing insurance premiums (auto, home as well as medical).
I'm glad you're reviewing these for sometimes I wonder if the only ones reading them are search engine bots! ;) Seriously, our traffic is down and I'm not sure why. I think it's something with Google news changing their configuration. Still I see Google page ranks on our posts, many #1, most on the 1st page and it makes me know I have a great responsibility to give accurate information as a result.
To anyone else reading these overviews, if per chance there is a mistake, please let us know.
The transaction tax rate should be tied to interest rates (say, one-tenth of 3-month T-bill rate), it would start out essentially at zero and would only go up when the Fed raised rates. Just by discouraging the Fed from raising rates, it'd be a (net) revenue generator by reducing future debt service outlays.
There are all sorts of problems with the Chinese banking system. Additionally, the Chinese currency is fixed, it's manipulated, it does not even float.
A host of Europe downgrades came today and the Euro/USD exchange is expected to drop, i.e. the Euro is less valued.
I don't know about the Euro demise, I look at weird signs like pulling out national currency trading equipment from basements.
Seems we have a lull in the never ending European crisis at the moment.
In earlier post at this blog, I reviewed my unimpressive prediction from last November 27.
Compounding my folly, I made some other predictions at that time, along with the one about gold.
In particular --
The Euro will survive and there will be no great "printing" by the ECB -- neither in 2011 nor in 2012.
I just did not think that there would be renewed confidence in the Euro within the next two or three days! That seemed, at the time, to be "unthinkable"!
However, despite the bumpy road, this is the way I see things trending in the long run: the EU, the Euro zone and the ECB will pursue and have already initiated path toward a classical monetarist policy -- to the fullest extent that such is possible. That is to say, there will be no great "printing" by the ECB, although there will eventually be Euro bonds to amortize Italian and other debt.
What goldbugs regularly ignore is that the most successful currency in the world today is the renminbi, which is backed only by the industrial, technological, commercial and military strength of China (without an ounce of gold) -- despite substantial and probably excessive 'printing' during the last three years or so.
To be perfectly clear about this, success of the renminbi can be linked to the phrase "full faith and credit" ... of the People's Republic of China. (However, this doesn't necessarily mean that the People's Bank of China either is or isn't planning on tying the renminbi into some kind of gold standard in the future.)
IMO, what we will probably be seeing in Europe is increasing control of capital flows and of the finance sector, along with increasingly effective systems of taxation. It's a complicated situation, what with Swiss involvement and all ... but that's the way I see it. The Euro will survive, like the renminbi, as living proof of classical monetarist theory.
But what do I know? My predictions could be wrong ... again. Who knows?
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Should any reader be interested, here infra for the record is my 'prediction' (with numbers) back in August in a comment titled Ya sure agreeing with Robert Oak that "gold stops its ugly fall for now".
This was at the truly great Paul Craig Roberts blog or article (republished at EP on 21 August 2011), Can Financial Globalism Reverse?
Here's the range for gold prices that I predicted in my comment back on 24 August 2011 --
So, maybe I wasn't so far off after all. It has run down close to $1500 this week.
___
By The Way --
At that great blog by Paul Craig Roberts -- for a wonderful insight into how monetarist policies at the national level play out in our crazy world of US unilateral surrender in the neo-mercantilist war-for-world-domination -- check out Mo's comment, Outsourcing is a monetary phenomenon. Also, under Mo's comment, see two replies (by Robert Oak and by Windchaser).
Personally, I prefer silver. Gold can be so crazy-making that owning it makes it difficult to fully enjoy the political circus and cultural spectacle that constantly whirls around it.
I forget what year it was, but in the mid-1990s sometime, Warren Buffet announced that he was backing Berkshire Hathaway out of the dotcoms, because he just couldn't make sense of it. I think he said what bothered him was that all the airlines with all their airplanes and other equipment plus intangibles were worth less than one dotcom that had pioneered the internet sales of tickets, with just a small leased physical office and a few servers.
Anyway, I think that Robert Oak calls things pretty close to accurate, on those rare occasions when venturing to introduce a little sanity into the current world of finance from an individual investor's point of view. (And those rare occasions are only when responding to readers' questions.)
Of course, I surely hope and believe that all readers of EP understand that there's nothing here intended or that should ever be taken as investment advice.
What's especially scary is the view expressed by Martenson that this is a lousy time for any investment, but a very good time for speculation.
That reminds me of the way that in London, they call stocks a 'gamble' but a wager on the ponies is an 'investment'!
From the point of view of economics, I think that savings and investment are absolutely necessary or civilization is doomed, but people today are driven by fear to believe (rightly or wrongly) that the only way to conserve their savings is by gambling with them.
When I know a bubble is happening, the hardest thing is calling a ceiling and timing. I made a HUGE mistake on dot con, I knew it was hyped, empty, bubble, fraud but thought it would crash, Jan 2000 and so March 2001 went in again and did get caught. My own fault, I didn't have the ability to ride the wave to the top, so best to catch a few small side waves and make much less money than get caught in the downturn.
Stocks are rigged, something like 75% trades are flash trades, institutions know way before the little guy what's going to happen....
It's all well and good to sit around and talk about it, or post stories on websites, but why not actually do something about it? A new bill, HR3012, is sailing through congress and barely anyone is making a peep about it. It will lift the country cap on India. Whereas now India, with 17% of the worlds population, gets 21% of the employment based green cards, if the bill passes, they will get 50 or 60% of all EB green cards. This will flood the job market with tech workers from India, while blocking out all other immigrants from around the world, including exceptional immigrants that didn't happen to be born in India.
As long as nobody says anything, congress just assumes it is OK. Get on the phone, type up an email, send a fax, and tell your senator that enough is enough. Shit-can HR3012 and demand reforms to the system that will keep out the fraudsters and protect American workers. If you don't do that, don't complain about the legislation once it is already passed and the bleeding continues.
"I think they ... believe who ever goes hardest on this locks up the Hispanic vote." -- Robert Oak
I hate the idea that I am some kind of demographic artifact. It's insulting to my dignity as a human being. Even if I were an 'illegal', I still would not appreciate anyone thinking that they know everything (or anything) about me based on that one fact. The same is true for categories such as 'unemployed' or 'senior' or 'college graduate'. All that is known is just the one characteristic, nothing more. Something may be known about the composition of a population, but not about the composition of any individual, unless an individual can be divided into parts such as 'conservative' or 'liberal', etc..
I doubt that identity politics really works all that well; it's just a convenient backdoor for thought manipulators to sneak into people's thinking, basically threatening them with loss of membership in the safety of a herd. At best, it is intentionally divisive, and so it's all about "divide and conquer" a dumbed-down public. Hitler knew all about it and showed that it can work ... in a way ... for a while.
Enlightened individuals (heroic figures really) understand humanity, understand their human nature and understand the herd. But they do not define themselves by the herd mentality and, while never underestimating the danger of the herd, manage to rise above the herd. Sometimes history provides leaders of such caliber, but often supposed leaders of the pack are self-deluded and stand to be trampled or torn apart eventually ... as Mussolini was hanged after the Germans left Rome.
A strange form of identity politics has now evolved in America, complete with its own metaphysics or ideology -- 'multi-culturalism'. There's a fine line dividing multi-culturalism from humanism -- humanism meaning, in this case, simply what the Founders had in mind with "All men are created equal."
The meaning of 'multi-culturalism' is as slippery as the meaning of 'globalism'. Both these ideologies are based on setting up a straw-man enemy -- some hypothetical person who believes that the world is flat or that there is no culture but his or her own. It's nonsense, but widely propagated nonsense.
Propaganda based on identity politics is easy to spot, including multi-culturalist propaganda. I doubt that there really is anything in America, if non-voters are considered, like a party-line Hispanic vote or Black vote or White vote, except that choices are controlled and severely limited. To be consistent, multi-culturalists must premise such a thing as a multi-cultural vote, and that perhaps does exist among the educator class. But I doubt that there really is any party-line multi-cultural vote -- only a multi-culturalist vote.
The thing is that some people cannot manage without an ideology to take the place of thinking. One silly ism or ideology after another rises to prominence, only to deteriorate and fall into the dust of history ... because every ideology contains the seeds of its destruction within itself.
I can't locate it right now, but there has been research showing that the older you are, the less susceptible you are to advertising. After about the age of 25, you've pretty much settled on your preferences and loyalties. There's even been research that advertising is mostly a waste of money. On the other hand, advertising and other propaganda can never be entirely discounted, because professional manipulators have studied how to appeal to powerful forces of egotism, narcissism and primal fear in human beings.
It's a relief to recall that a few years ago when Michael Jackson's publicity machine spent $Millions on promoting his latest album, it was far outsold by an unknown from Seattle (Nirvana) that spent nothing on publicity. #Occupy had no budget -- probably still has no budget. Such phenomena cannot be completely censured by the media apparatus, but they sure do their best to cover it up or co-opt it as quickly as possible. Such phenomena must scare the crap out of them.
Marketing to demographic segments, thus, is always somewhat effective ... but not as much as might be thought. The trick is to control the range of choices -- then all people have left to them is the choice of vanilla and chocolate, or, conservative or liberal. Nowadays, resolution has increased so that there are many more flavors, such that meaningless choices are all around us ... like a few years back when I lived in a city and subscribed for a while to a cable service with hundreds of channels and we ended up watching reruns of Lucy. The system has created background static that tends to create general confusion and undermines communication across the public.
Having bought up the media, success of the manipulators is guaranteed since few are left meaningful choices in the noise of irrelevant messages. Or many -- having learned to make real choices -- drop off the radar like the non-voting or "silent" majority. Or they show up in #Occupy events.
Mostly, the identity (demographic segmentation) marketing thing is just a Mad Ave market analysis technique because that's all they know, and they own the media. It's self-fulfilling pseudo-science, a semi-religion. The corporate media have to believe that identity marketing works, because otherwise they would have to subject themselves to the same rigorous culling out that applies to artists or communicators generally. Commercials would have to be compelling works of art or straight-forward announcements.
Without identity marketing, the manipulators would actually have to address issues rationally ... and there's no money for them in that. But there is money in that for us! There is money for us in thinking rationally about our own enlightened self-interest!
How about this identity? -- "human being with functioning brain" and "born in USA, staying here."
Right now, we have some incredible propaganda claiming "immigrants create jobs". Well, if that were true, obviously the U.S. really would have a labor shortage. ;) We have less jobs, not more jobs and the area they love to focus, STEM, there are significantly less jobs, even going back to 2000. How they come up with this is by claiming foreign workers are not being used to replace U.S. ones, which is clearly false. Then, the claim is multiplicative, i.e. 5 $100k jobs will help support 5 additional crappy jobs at the grocery, McDonalds and so on. But that's also questionable when labor arbitrage is going on due to the flood of unskilled labor. To truly create jobs, they need to hire U.S. citizens, Americans, for those jobs and if they really want to create jobs, they will manufacture, do all services connected with the original job...in the United States. Manufacturing really scales and typically creates higher paying wages.
I'm sure you are right about population. That's another topic that fails to be mentioned these days, in part due to the infamous "anti-choice" groups. We just hit 7 billion people on the planet, and global warming just went past the point of no return.
Just like we don't have enough jobs, we don't have enough housing right now.
Yet the drumbeat for more immigration, more cheap labor, continue to roar.
And many of the people who will do their best to add the extra millions will tell you we owe it to others to allow them to come to America "to find a better life" while the quality of life for Americans continues to nosedive.
Has anybody ever read anything about plans we are making to accommodate a population that will rise by 1/4 in less than 50 years? A lot of the surge in population over the past 30 years was accommodated in cities that had experienced population reductions due to people leaving for suburbs.
With higher energy costs and so many more people, I agree with studies that indicate people will shift from outer suburbs back to near suburbs and cities.
Of course the price of real estate and apartments will be affected by this. Where are the many, many millions of Americans that make up "$10 Nation" going to live? Are we going to build million of units of subsidized housing units? Will native born American start living 4 families to a house?
God only knows.
decided no illegal is not a human, unlimited migration philosophy. This is some ill conceived belief that unlimited global migration is "good" and "free". It's actually a massive labor economics disaster. Intuitively I don't know why they cannot contemplate job markets, resources with 3 billion people on the move to one location. ;)
Or even bother to learn just a tad about global slave economics, only about 3000 years of economic history on that topic.
Anyway, Bernie Sanders gets this as did Byron Dorgan, even the AFL-CIO gets some of this. That's why I wrote the piece, I heard these lobbyist corporate talking point nonsense mentioned by John Huntsman, others in the GOP "debate" (which of course locks out anyone speaking truth, such as Buddy Roemer), a good 5 bills introduced and it's not even being challenged at all, mainly because there are just a few not on the take, and those few are in all flavors of the overall political spectrum.
I think they are fighting for U.S. Chamber of Commerce campaign funds and believe who ever goes hardest on this locks up the Hispanic vote. Facts, accurate statistics, labor econ 101 be damned (or manipulated to spin upon demand more like).
Congressional GOP organization (with substantial opposition within their party, such as Chuck Grassley) is bragging about this bill! They are saying that the reason that our economy is stalled is because the Senate won't pass "28 bipartisan jobs bills awaiting Senate action"! See, Our Plan For Jobs at official gop.gov website (taxpayer supported).
Of the 15 Nays, only two were by Democrats. (There were 29 not-voting -- 18 R and 11 D).
It appears that the battle for politicians is about who gets to take credit for sinking the economy.
Even Dennis Kicinich voted Yea. In fact the entire state of Ohio (Rs and Ds) voted Yea, except for one D who did not vote.
It's being sold as an issue of fairness. We shouldn't discriminate based on national origin ... except that it seems to be okay to discriminate against workers whose origin is the USA!
It's astounding. And discouraging. But I think that people should note how their reps voted. Even contact their reps, although that usually goes straight down the memory hole via some aide or other phone-answerer -- are those jobs outsourced yet? Or you can write and wait a few weeks to get a boilerplate response.
How about equal caps of zero on each country of origin? Wouldn't that be fair enough?
Right, that's the corporate farmer's lobbyists. They don't want to pay....a real wage to work in the fields, or give the required breaks or pay for people to even drive to the job so it actually isn't a negative $$.
What silly valley is doing is frankly a lot of discrimination against older techies, women techies, black techies, Hispanic techies.
If they want more Visas they should insist on setting prevailing wage laws w/o loopholes, disable the worker "train your replacement then be fired H-1B replacement of U.S. workers trick and put tough "U.S. workers first" requirements to obtain a H-1B. If they removed the wage arbitrage of these Visas, the Indian body shops, who are 7 of the top 10 H-1B users, wouldn't be able to undercut U.S. wages through them. Because it would no longer be profitable, it would free up at least 50% of the available Visas.
Additionally the entire thing is silly because L-1s are unlimited and way cheaper to loophole a headquarters in the caymans then put a "foreign subsidiary" stateside, use L-1 Visas. So, all of this is just the lobbyists out in full force.
Many Americans used to work seasonally in Alaska canneries or factory ships, then spend the rest of the year in Mexico. That worked out pretty well. But then the U.S. citizens found themselves replaced by legal or illegal immigrant labor.
That's what I mean about employers systematically destabilize or destroy their workforce, and then shed crocodile tears at the prospect of their illegal workforce being cut off because (imagine this!) U.S. citizens demand enforcement of immigration law.
What was it that George W. Bush said ... something about "There are consequences." (At least for some.)
Salaries are not skyrocketing, I just showed one point on salaries but on aggregate they are down and if one adjusted for inflation, below 2000. Secondly, as sad as it is, the Huffington Post is one of the media places where they publish corporate lobbyist written garbage.
Job openings in tech are way below 2007 levels, still. I just looked into it (left hand column).
This is assuredly one and just hype to get their Visas. You won't see on HuffPo the Americans being denied start up funds, even CNN showed you have to be a certain "type", not the idea, skills, ability, to get VC funds quite often. How many women have been funded? How many are hiring over the age of 35?
Last hype story plant spread across the MSM I saw was some guy building a travel auction website as his "great idea". Oh boy, right up there with pets.com, real ground shaker, sure to generate huge revenue streams (not), as if the market is not already saturated with long time established travel package bidding sites.
The point of this post is the lobbyists, this includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the labor arbitraging corporations such as Microsoft, Intel and so on, are out in full force with recent legislation introduced, which they wrote I might add and the actual statistics show something very different.
Check out the business models of these so called "immigrant entrepreneurs", you'll see a host of labor arbitrage as a model, i.e. moving R&D, services, projects offshore.
Believe me, a VC can get an immigrant any Visa they want, if they are going to fund a start-up and that person is going to be the CTO, chief architect.
Finally, expanding the EB-5 Visa is NOT unlimited H-1B, L-1, LPR, etc. that is going on. They can in essence already use the EB-5.
One thing you've got right, an isolated 24/7 workers prison with no where to go. Ask the guys on the oil rigs how much fun that is.
I was very disappointed the other day to hear BBC echoing the corporate media line about worker shortages. In this case, BBC was talking about shortage of labor in the fruit sector of agriculture in Georgia.
This particular issue is a little more complex than some of the others, because the history is that agriculture systematically destabilized and destroyed its erstwhile workforce resources over the last half-century. Also, farm ownership of all kinds has become much more concentrated than it was back in the 1950s, so what was presented on BBC (and elsewhere) as long-suffering independent small farmers would perhaps be better presented as medium-sized or even gigantic agri-industrial corporations. Another complication that BBC had no interest in, was the effects on small farms everywhere of the globalization of agriculture. BBC overlooked the entire trade issue.
According to an Australian study, production and consumption of citrus in Asia has been expanding and, in many Asian countries, is supported primarily through high tariffs on imported citrus. (Imagine that! We'll just have to ram through another FTA, won't we?) See, Gunner, Longberg & Wodecki, South Australia Citrus Industry Situational Analysis (PDF available online from .gov.au website, Rural Solutions SA and Primary Industries and Resources SA, Adelaide, 2005). The PDF was produced as a CEI in a project to study necessary restructuring of the small-farm-based citrus industry in New South Wales, due to deregulation resulting from globalization.
There are serious challenges in some sectors of USA agriculture regarding workforce these days. For many reasons, it's difficult to develop a workforce in some rural areas. But what about the idea that 'difficult' doesn't mean you give up? What about the idea that when the going gets tough, the tough get going? Maybe nine out of ten don't work out. Well, you find that out pretty fast, and that leaves you that one in ten worth all the others put together, doesn't it?
What about the idea that a seasonal workforce resource is worth developing? For example, Oregon's entire post-secondary system went on the quarter system half a century ago, in large part to develop a seasonal agricultural workforce of college students who could work through September (or even into October, although possibly starting a bit late).
What about the idea that, no, you don't have some kind of natural right to have workers delivered to your gate on a daily basis and then picked up in the evening, to be paid minimally at the end of the week. Is there really a huge threat of unionization down on the farm in Georgia? Even if we repealed the 13th Amendment, you'd still have to provide for your slaves through the winter.
While interviewing farmers who complain about "unfair" immigration laws, there was no representation by BBC of farmers who for years now have been conscientiously following immigration laws, painstakingly developing an effective workforce. There are farmers who, for years, have been facing unfair competition from competing corporations that have feasted on exploitation of illegals -- with unfortunate results dumped on the taxpayers, including the law-abiding farmers.
BBC presented only the "oh us poor farmers and our fruit is rotting" side of the story, except for one local citizen who opined something like, "If they can't get the pickers they want for the money they want to pay, let them pick the fruit themselves." Well, there was a time in our history when family farmers would do exactly that, even if it meant the whole family (and some cousins) going without sleep for a week. Or ... there was a time in our history when farmers would look to the local community for a seasonal workforce. Or ... there was a time in our history when the wheat harvest was labor-intensive and work crews formed up and traveled from farm to farm south to north, working the fields 12 hours a day, with the family working through the day to feed them all -- with food grown on the farm! That's the origin of the Nor' Dakota phrase, "It's enough to feed a thrashing crew!" Same story for apples in the Pacific Northwest. But this is a different world today.
There are attitudinal problems with American workers that hinder agricultural workforce development, but there may just be attitudinal problems with employers too.
Everyone knows about the shortage of skilled professionals. Salaries are skyrocketing and companies are cutting back due to the severe shortages.
A Blueseed startup wants to stop the madness by floating huge platforms off the coast of California where US laws do not apply (No this is not science fiction.) Workers can vacation (live) in the USA while working duty free in one of their floating workplaces(prisons?).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/16/blueseed-startup-sees-ent_n_115...
is here. I didn't use it because I didn't have the time to verify the data. I also don't believe some of the reasons 65% of STEM graduates do not work in the field reasons. It seems when it comes to mentioning sexism, racism, ageism, for some reason when it comes to STEM, that too is denial land.
"Strange isn't it, that Medical care is never mentioned when referring to costs and inflation. It's only as important as food, yet health care is treated almost like it's an extra for daily living." -- Robert Oak
Not much about price of gas lately, although that's a worry in the background always these days. But what I do hear working people concerned about lately is increasing insurance premiums (auto, home as well as medical).
I'm glad you're reviewing these for sometimes I wonder if the only ones reading them are search engine bots! ;) Seriously, our traffic is down and I'm not sure why. I think it's something with Google news changing their configuration. Still I see Google page ranks on our posts, many #1, most on the 1st page and it makes me know I have a great responsibility to give accurate information as a result.
To anyone else reading these overviews, if per chance there is a mistake, please let us know.
My personal pet peeve is inaccurate information.
The transaction tax rate should be tied to interest rates (say, one-tenth of 3-month T-bill rate), it would start out essentially at zero and would only go up when the Fed raised rates. Just by discouraging the Fed from raising rates, it'd be a (net) revenue generator by reducing future debt service outlays.
There are all sorts of problems with the Chinese banking system. Additionally, the Chinese currency is fixed, it's manipulated, it does not even float.
A host of Europe downgrades came today and the Euro/USD exchange is expected to drop, i.e. the Euro is less valued.
I don't know about the Euro demise, I look at weird signs like pulling out national currency trading equipment from basements.
Seems we have a lull in the never ending European crisis at the moment.
In earlier post at this blog, I reviewed my unimpressive prediction from last November 27.
Compounding my folly, I made some other predictions at that time, along with the one about gold.
In particular --
The Euro will survive and there will be no great "printing" by the ECB -- neither in 2011 nor in 2012.
I just did not think that there would be renewed confidence in the Euro within the next two or three days! That seemed, at the time, to be "unthinkable"!
However, despite the bumpy road, this is the way I see things trending in the long run: the EU, the Euro zone and the ECB will pursue and have already initiated path toward a classical monetarist policy -- to the fullest extent that such is possible. That is to say, there will be no great "printing" by the ECB, although there will eventually be Euro bonds to amortize Italian and other debt.
What goldbugs regularly ignore is that the most successful currency in the world today is the renminbi, which is backed only by the industrial, technological, commercial and military strength of China (without an ounce of gold) -- despite substantial and probably excessive 'printing' during the last three years or so.
To be perfectly clear about this, success of the renminbi can be linked to the phrase "full faith and credit" ... of the People's Republic of China. (However, this doesn't necessarily mean that the People's Bank of China either is or isn't planning on tying the renminbi into some kind of gold standard in the future.)
IMO, what we will probably be seeing in Europe is increasing control of capital flows and of the finance sector, along with increasingly effective systems of taxation. It's a complicated situation, what with Swiss involvement and all ... but that's the way I see it. The Euro will survive, like the renminbi, as living proof of classical monetarist theory.
But what do I know? My predictions could be wrong ... again. Who knows?
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BTW: About UK in all this, see US-UK special relationship
at Saturday Reads (10 December 2011) 'Financial Sector Grows'.
Should any reader be interested, here infra for the record is my 'prediction' (with numbers) back in August in a comment titled Ya sure agreeing with Robert Oak that "gold stops its ugly fall for now".
This was at the truly great Paul Craig Roberts blog or article (republished at EP on 21 August 2011), Can Financial Globalism Reverse?
Here's the range for gold prices that I predicted in my comment back on 24 August 2011 --
So, maybe I wasn't so far off after all. It has run down close to $1500 this week.
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By The Way --
At that great blog by Paul Craig Roberts -- for a wonderful insight into how monetarist policies at the national level play out in our crazy world of US unilateral surrender in the neo-mercantilist war-for-world-domination -- check out Mo's comment, Outsourcing is a monetary phenomenon. Also, under Mo's comment, see two replies (by Robert Oak and by Windchaser).
Getting back to the specific topic of gold, there are my comments at the Roberts article (24 August 2011), Even King Gold is subject to fundamentals and Gold becoming rational?
See also, my comment back on 11/12 August 2011, CME raised Gold margins by 22%, projecting drop in gold after Merc cutting margin requirements. Also, from 18/19 August 2011, comments Rule 48 'regulation'? and Bounded rationality.
Personally, I prefer silver. Gold can be so crazy-making that owning it makes it difficult to fully enjoy the political circus and cultural spectacle that constantly whirls around it.
I forget what year it was, but in the mid-1990s sometime, Warren Buffet announced that he was backing Berkshire Hathaway out of the dotcoms, because he just couldn't make sense of it. I think he said what bothered him was that all the airlines with all their airplanes and other equipment plus intangibles were worth less than one dotcom that had pioneered the internet sales of tickets, with just a small leased physical office and a few servers.
Anyway, I think that Robert Oak calls things pretty close to accurate, on those rare occasions when venturing to introduce a little sanity into the current world of finance from an individual investor's point of view. (And those rare occasions are only when responding to readers' questions.)
Of course, I surely hope and believe that all readers of EP understand that there's nothing here intended or that should ever be taken as investment advice.
What's especially scary is the view expressed by Martenson that this is a lousy time for any investment, but a very good time for speculation.
That reminds me of the way that in London, they call stocks a 'gamble' but a wager on the ponies is an 'investment'!
From the point of view of economics, I think that savings and investment are absolutely necessary or civilization is doomed, but people today are driven by fear to believe (rightly or wrongly) that the only way to conserve their savings is by gambling with them.
That's one heckuva note!
When I know a bubble is happening, the hardest thing is calling a ceiling and timing. I made a HUGE mistake on dot con, I knew it was hyped, empty, bubble, fraud but thought it would crash, Jan 2000 and so March 2001 went in again and did get caught. My own fault, I didn't have the ability to ride the wave to the top, so best to catch a few small side waves and make much less money than get caught in the downturn.
Stocks are rigged, something like 75% trades are flash trades, institutions know way before the little guy what's going to happen....
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