The Economic Populist
Speak Your Mind 2 Cents at a Time
Most Popular
US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 183493 reads
Wow! 243,000 New Jobs Created in January
- 49874 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 949513 reads
CPI for November 2009
- 14586 reads
Related Content
User login
Recent comments
Poll
US oil supplies at a 36½ year low, SPR at a 39 year low; oil+products supplies at an 18½ year low
- 183493 reads
Wow! 243,000 New Jobs Created in January
- 49874 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 949513 reads
CPI for November 2009
- 14586 reads
The Golden Rule
- 1826119 reads
Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
- 1215985 reads
New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
- 949078 reads
How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
- 361599 reads
VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
- 345165 reads
U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
- 320765 reads
The war on the middle class
- 314778 reads
House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
- 313912 reads
Tax Cuts for the Rich Do Not Generate Jobs
- 279572 reads
.
Will the focus turn to jobs at last?
Will less than 50,000 new jobs in two months maybe scare any of the Money Party leadership into action?
So far the fear has all been felt by the American people. I hope the people in Washington start feeling it too.
Right, they are trying to zero in on those currently aged 50-55 to screw, thinking they are not old enough to join AARP and not large enough to sway an election. This is obscene! Over and over it has been shown the U.S. is getting the shaft on medical costs. These people will not even identify the real problem and causes. They are insane, pushing more agenda items that truly will wipe out the United States.
Republicans trying to dismantle Medicare are constantly harping on the "fact" that current beneficiaries will not see a cut in benfits. The chained cpi puts the lie to this talking point, at least regarding social security
There are a host of taxes they could do to reduce contagion, stop these automated trades by large financial institutions, stop the router/hop/technology game on getting there a few microseconds before the other guy on a trade or information and esp. tax derivatives.
Frankly we've written so many times that CDSes are mathematical fiction and are walking contagion timebombs yet nothing happens. It's obvious, not only is it in the mathematics but it's pretty damn obvious that one cannot allow everyone to place insurance and bets on assets they have no involvement with.
So, this post is not a complete list of what could be done to improve the economy and help balance the budget at the same time, but good idea, maybe I should write up a post with projected revenues and more importantly, projected job growth of each one.
Right now, it's so clearly insane, both sides, out to destroy the nation politically, it's hard to invest the time and energy to write about policies that would actually work.
To me, the Congressional leadership is almost treasonous at this point. The GOP is absolutely out to destroy the nation and Democrats are clearly only 1 degree less of severity with "change and hope Obama" caving or I believe more, doing whatever corporate lobbyists want him to do at every time.
Corporate lobbyists are who got us into this mess in the first place. They are not loyal and even worse, they only seem to see a couple of quarters out. This is affecting multinational's bottom line or eventually will and they don't seem to every realize that.
Their agenda is toasting the national economy as well as the global one and they could care less as long as their quarterly profit statements increase over the next two quarters.
Not just future. Although on Medicare it seems the GOP is determined to screw people who had planned on Medicare and are too old to financially adjust for anything different.
Seems the last of the baby boomers, about 1964-1959 are under assault.
You wrote:
One trick is to use a different cost of living adjustment, called chained CPI to actually reduce the meager social security benefits to future retirees.
This also affects current retirees.
The entire debt controversy, and the lack of sufficient stimulus, is based on ignorance of Monetary Sovereignty (http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/monetarily-sovereign-the...). In a Monetarily Sovereign nation, neither federal debt nor deficits are unsustainable or even a threat.
Recession and inflation are the only two economic threats. Which one is the greater danger, today?
The federal “debt” could be ended tomorrow, if the government merely stopped creating purposeless T-securities.
Those who do not understand Monetary Sovereignty do not understand economics.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Transaction tax is good. But what about treating all profits from trading in derivatives (paper based on paper) as earnings from gambling?
George Orwell's Memory Hole seems to be functioning well.
HIstory: the original NAFTA included this "new" arrangement for Mexican trucking companies (actually MNCs) to roll over the border and range far and wide all the way to Alaska! For example, in Oregon, Rep. Peter DeFazio worked hard to campaign against NAFTA and specifically pointed out this trucking provision.
NAFTA as a negotiated agreement was first signed by President George H. W. Bush, on 17 December 1992. Yes, that would be after Bush's defeat on 3 November 1992. That was the election when Ross Perot challenged the entire system by running as an independent on a specifically anti-NAFTA platform.
NAFTA was subsequently approved in the House of Representatives 17 November 1993, by a vote of 234 to 200, with more opposition from Democrats than from Republicans. (YEAS 132 Republicans and 102 Democrats.) NAFTA passed the Senate 61-38 (YEAS 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats). Clinton signed it into law on December 8, 1993; it went into effect on January 1, 1994.
Many members of Congress who voted for NAFTA never bothered to run again. Generally, however, those who voted for NAFTA did well for themselves in whatever future situation they resorted to. Notably, Senator Robert Dole of Kansas was awarded the plum of the Republican nomination in 1996. Some have complained bitterly that Ross Perot played the part of a spoiler in that election, allowing Clinton a second term.
The original NAFTA included the provision for opening U.S. highways to Mexican truckers. When Obama met with President Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Harper of Canada at Guadalajara in August 2009 (the 'Three Amigos' summit), Obama was heavily criticized in Mexico because he studiously ignored Mexico's complaints about what the U.S. Congress had done in March (2009), namely, canceled a program allowing a limited number of Mexican trucks onto U.S. highways.
THINK! Why oppose this provision of NAFTA when we could and should oppose NAFTA and GATT and CHINA TRADE in their entirety? Why not NOW impose a 15% across-the-board tariff (or VAT, call it what you want)? Why not at least discuss this as a possibility? Are we not in a budget crisis, that is, a revenue crisis? Are we not in an unemployment crisis? Are we not in a balance-of-trade crisis?
A tariff wouldn't stop international trade, it would just alter the terms of it.
Why not?
That's exactly what I mean when posting to the effect that Obama is risking his natural political base lately. A protectionist party could well across all demographics ... except there is no protectionist party.
Reuters story (Robert Oak's link) actually says something significant about the deal signed Wednesday to allow Mexican truckers onto U.S. roads:
"The action signals the end of a 16-year-old cross-border dispute in coming months, unless the U.S. Congress intervenes again (as it did in 2009 under Democratic control) to keep Mexican trucks off U.S. roads." (Reuters story linked by Oak)
Okay, people?
"UNLESS CONGRESS INTERVENES AGAIN"
Get it? "Unless Congress intervenes," as in, actually enacts something on behalf of all of the American working people!
But if you are going to contact your congress critter ...
Why demand opposition to just this one little ol' provision in NAFTA when we could and should oppose NAFTA and GATT and CHINA TRADE in their entirety? Why not NOW impose a 15% across-the-board tariff (or VAT, call it what you want)? Why not at least discuss this as a possibility? Are we not in a budget crisis, that is, a revenue crisis? Are we not in an unemployment crisis? Are we not in a balance-of-trade crisis? Are we not in a crisis regarding the maintenance expense related to our frontiers?
Such a tariff wouldn't stop international trade, it would just alter the terms of it.
Why not?
Hello, Tea Partiers? Are you awake? Are you wanting to challenge Obama? ... or is that just for show?
(Pardon me for getting political!)
What kool-aid are you people drinking? Unions are not the problem, it's Obama just did whatever the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, multinationals want and all people, including unions be damned.
Look, I can get the hatred on unions pushing "amnesty", esp. the SEIU, but you must realize the only defense against worker disaster HAS been unions.
If the teamsters were not there, this would have happened 15 years ago, at least.
Good god, would people get their heads out of their asses.
But especially Germany. Leave the Euro, leave NATO. But first a change of government -- General James Van Fleet is turning over in his grave!
Unions supported Obama. Truckers are one of the large unions. Obummer betrayed truckers, while giving all your money to the corporations. So now all of you union members will get what you deserved. You voted for him(with your union dues), now you will get fired.
So until you get some brains and destroy your unions which are funding Obama, you will suffer.
As always, you get what you deserve. You did not use your brains and allowed criminals into the government. Payback is a ##$#$.
Hopefully this will wake up a few people.
The good thing, is that in the end the unions will get eliminated as members will get fired. This will cut the money/vote supply to the government criminals.
The bad thing is that proper union is an essestial part of protecting members. However we don't have those unions any more.
Anonymous 16:59 - Yeah, blame the unions. . . it's ENTIRELY the fault of Unions, because they supported Obama. You STUPID union fools who supported Obama are entirely to blame for all the problems of the world, this one being only the latest. Unions caused the financial melt-down, greedy unions are the cause of global wage arbitrage, in fact, we should outlaw unions because they destroy America. Sheesh. Couldn't have anything to do with the Corporate Barons who manage congress and anyone in the Whitehouse.
where are you union members, to allow the fraud in in the white house to undercut your jobs, is this what you fellows in the union agreed to, you give up your jobs while they are transferred to Mexican truckers . how stupid can you people be, i guess you will be on the bread shortly, You people better throw out your union leaders and break away from other corrupt obama unions, if not, your family will starve, get my point your families will starve.
When it comes to economics, it's not just fictional crap on their show. Even if the report shows 180k jobs added that's probably not enough to keep up with population growth. Rest assured I'll put up a graph-o-rama on the report and calculate all of those numbers out tomorrow. At least two articles overviewing it and crunching the numbers.
Having driven through Mexico many times, all I can say is "Be afraid, be very very afraid". Mexican truckers are a real danger to US drivers. And that's that.
I think it was CNN who said on crawler that this was a jobs "surge." Well maybe it is vs. last month's figure of 54,000 new jobs.
But it's only a surge in the same way that we are in an economic recovery.
How much longer can we stay stuck?
Will we get unstuck by things getting better, or things getting worse? I used to assume things would get better now I am not so sure.
This is priceless. Someone hacked Moody's site and put up a statement on how Portugal has a A+ credit rating and also gave Moody's the finger. Naked Capitalism has a screen shot.
Ha ha ha!
Pages