The Economic Populist
Speak Your Mind 2 Cents at a Time
Most Popular
Ignoring the Big Picture/Disturbing Trend in Graphs
- 30511 reads
BREAKING: Wall Street Mega-Merger!!!
- 22992 reads
A Brief History of Securitization
- 67652 reads
US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 183264 reads
The war on the middle class
- 314898 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 949323 reads
Text of Bail Out Act Before Congress - TAKE ACTION NOW!
- 70212 reads
User login
Recent comments
Poll
Ignoring the Big Picture/Disturbing Trend in Graphs
- 30511 reads
BREAKING: Wall Street Mega-Merger!!!
- 22992 reads
A Brief History of Securitization
- 67652 reads
US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 183264 reads
The war on the middle class
- 314898 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 949323 reads
Text of Bail Out Act Before Congress - TAKE ACTION NOW!
- 70212 reads
The Golden Rule
- 1826115 reads
Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
- 1215983 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 949043 reads
How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
- 361595 reads
VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
- 345153 reads
U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
- 320762 reads
The war on the middle class
- 314771 reads
House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
- 313902 reads
Tax Cuts for the Rich Do Not Generate Jobs
- 279563 reads
.
There is no worker shortage but a host of farmers claimed their crops are "rotting on the vines/trees" because there is a "worker shortage". Well, these farmers are so used to getting their illegal labor, they don't even advertise in the cities or offer what they used to, temporary housing to get people to come pick the crops and so on.
Just ridiculous and a big fat excuse to claim "e-verify" the social security number check to see if you're an illegal workers as well as deter identity theft, is "bad for business".
Sure it is if you have to actually hire some Americans, advertise your job and offer something a little above slavery to get your crops picked.
I know what you are saying is true, in Oregon, California, it's clearly "no legal worker need apply" with a host of subsidies for illegal workers. Oregon will claim they do not give social services benefits to illegals but anyone living in the state of Oregon or California, Nevada, Illinois, knows this is bunk, because they see the illegals cashing their checks, living in subsidized housing and using food stamps all of the time.
Biggest lie and secret not kept by anyone living in the same areas. I saw a statistic somewhere that LA had 61% of it's population receiving social services and at the same breath, over 60% of it's population was illegal.
Frankly, if that state goes financially under, because of their never ending catering to illegals, they shouldn't get a dime of federal money. Let them sink into the economic sea and bear the consequences of the mess they made.
There is a situation where "no American need apply" in working the docks, processing the catch, canning going on as well.
There are a host of these pockets where literally we're getting discrimination against U.S. workers, based on their citizenship status in so many words.
Tech is notorious, entire divisions, floors, buildings of nothing but Hindu Indian males, ages 24-32 exclusively.
When will America wake up and realize the demographics, discrimination of the 1960's, i.e. Blacks, Women has changed and morphed into discrimination by occupation not only based on single women, blacks, older workers but very much on immigration status, current country of origin and a common theme is strong discrimination against anyone with U.S. citizenship, be they black, white, purple, brown or whatever. This is for jobs in one's own country too.
As far back as the 1970s, accelerating in the 1980s, I saw migrant fruit pickers (American citizens) turned away in the Mount Hood/The Dalles area. I personally reported this to the INS and was told that there was no officer available to investigate and would not be until after the fruit harvest. Corporate farms clearly discriminated against U.S. citizens, hiring Mexican illegals only, even though experienced locals were available and applied, plus there was an established migratory work force from California (mostly of hispanic background) who had been making the trip north for many years, were experienced, reliable and equipped (with picking buckets and campers).
Of course, I am working off the famous quote attributed to Rev. Martin Niemoller concerning the Nazi campaign to destroy their political opponents in 1930s Germany, one group at a time.
But I am modifying the famous quote, because what we have seen here in the Western USA for 35 years is something different although it is similar in that it's the same one-group-at-a-time method. What we have seen, and continue to see, in the Western USA is an anti-American internationalist corporatist campaign to destroy the domestic work force.
On the ground, I actually witnessed all of these trends as they have developed over the past 35 years. The method is to destroy the domestic work force and then to claim, "Oh, we have to bring workers in -- there is no domestic work force!" Government is complicit, right on up to Washington and then on above Washington to the WTO.
The populist reaction to corporate globalism has been slowly growing the whole time, or at least since the 1990s. This essentially protectionist movement has been co-opted time and again, but it is still alive and growing stronger every day. Unfortunately, the movement is still too weak in Washington (DC) to defeat even such indefensible legislation as the Panama FTA or the Columbia FTA or to push the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011 through the opposition of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), despite declarations of support of the bill by a majority of the House.
We've already reported on Stimulus money pouring out to China, esp. Green job contracts and we have a new one where over $500 million went to Finland (although that said, Finland's PPP is more in line with the U.S. so this might be something unique vs. arbitrage).
Still the point of Keynesian economics, stimulus is to use taxpayer funds, temporarily to jump start a domestic economy, not a global one, not a foreign one. You must keep the funds in the economy and most importantly hire citizens of that domestic economy you're trying to stimulate.
In other words, even infrastructure jobs, as much as that is sorely needed, is an investment, long term economic imperative for the U.S......
if they don't require only U.S. citizens are allowed to be hired for those jobs, the point is mute. It will be another financial money seize, flowing offshore.
We know the infamous "fence" has cost billions and done nothing, all bogus technology that doesn't even hit 5% error rates in lab conditions and I believe there were 101 "startups" getting DHS "contracts" who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag, much less make security technology.
The money spent on nothing since 9/11 boggles the mind.
Anonymous,
Maybe we should start a club. I found out one day before my auction sale that I was not approved for a loan modification. Therefore, I had no time to do a short sale. The response from B/A was that I should liquidate but there was not time for me to do that since the sale was the next day. The house did not sell, B/A took the house back and I have until next month to find another place to live.
Join the Club
I've got an injury preventing me from writing, so maybe, since the increase has been announced, I"ll let the calculation methods slide.
Bottom line, that's good for the economy and seniors although the deficit crazies are probably going nuts.
"CPI-W for the month, unadjusted was 223.688 , a +0.4% increase from last month and a 4.3% increase for the year. CPI-W is used to calculate government transfer payments, such as social security increases. We will estimate the social security increase in another post." -- Robert Oak
From AP story (19 October 2011) via Yahoo
That the Fed would support this move is not a surprise to me. The Government Accountability Office is out with a new report today on Fed governance--or the shocking lack thereof: http://bit.ly/qi8dNW
I wasn't shocked by his death, but was at the same time. I figured he'd resign as CEO well before his death and was shocked to see how long he worked. It really shows how much he cared about Apple and how dedicated he was to his company.
I have never known so many people on unemployment right now. On one hand, where will our government get the money to extend unemployment. On the other, we will have to pay for it anyway with people going on welfare and other kinds of aid. It is what it is, they need to extend it.
I completely agree. I think it's partially out of fear. A lot of people are talking about bank collapses in general and I feel that many people believe that if large national chain banks can't survive what's going on with the economy then how is their money safe with the credit union?
Little do they know that credit unions are a better deal. The Wall Street Journal did a report on this last month:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190392720457657718304922442...
When you think about the amount of money these institutions would make by only charging their millions of customers an extra cent a month, you can see how desperate companies like Bank of America would have to be to charge $5 a month for debit card usage.
That's a lot of money! They know it will anger their customer base, so I think it would have to be pretty bad for them to do it - I am not surprised to read any of this. Thanks for posting.
"In the media, MSM and esp. the GOP, it's like he [Roemer] doesn't exist." -- Robert Oak
Buddy Roemer exists in New Hampshire!
The Roemer campaign is asking for volunteers and, generally, for help in all aspects of the New Hampshire primary campaign. New Hampshire is the focus.
Anyone interested, go to Buddy's Free to Lead webpage
It's troubling that New Hampshire is a state where the presidential primary vote count, with Diebold machines involved in some areas, has been challenged. From StandingForVoters.org webpage --
When there's big money in politics, there's always the possibility of big corruption of all aspects of the democracy process. It never can be easy.
Boy, you want to see an obvious rigged game, look at who is locked out from the GOP debates. I don't think Rick Santorum has even 1% of the polling, yet he's in every debate.
Roemer, on the other hand, is getting a lot of "blog press", people like a lot of his positions. Surely he is polling above Santorum, but in the media, MSM and esp. the GOP, it's like he doesn't exist.
and they have posted details of OCC derivatives and Quarterly derivatives reports with more on actual deposits, ZeroHedge post.
Something I did not realize, BoA only has about $1 trillion in deposits. hmmm. Derivatives valuations do not mean actual losses or total risk, depending on the instrument.
I'm positive you're right on corporations paying or writing articles and getting them published as "news". Be nice to have more documentation on how exactly this works.
I suspect publications are contacted and offered payment to publish an "article" from "so and so" or an author themselves are paid.
On this site we get similar requests, always turned down, trying to put an "ad" out there as news.
Operatives from Morgan Stanley and others have planted articles in the NYTimes tax holiday and Atlantic on the tax holiday. The preposterous claim is that there can be no pre-conditions on tying the tax holiday to corporate behavior (does this behavior sound like the wine sippers watching OWS?). This proves that the Tax Holday scheme will never create a single U.S. Job. Why would the MNCs and banks want it?
- Get money out of Euros to Dollars
- 5% rate.
- Create a shell game to move the money back off-shore and even get new Foreign Tax credits!
If the FTAs for Columbia and Korea actually do what they propose to do with labor rights, environmental regulation and contracts (yes, Article I of U.S. Constitution is now modified for KFTA), then the effect on both parties is neo-colonial. The colonizer is the MNC, the Bilderbergs, and the Super-National court enforcing the agreement.
With NAFTA, our rights on environment and labor were superseded by NAFTA and its kangaroo courts. For Mexico, it has been deluged with U.S. grain to such an extent that it has forced the emigration of Mexican campesinos northward, and the destruction of the Ejido system created by Mexico's 1917 Constitution.
Neo-colonialism.
Pages