About the history of Europe, I seem to recall that reparations (opposed by U.S. President Wilson) proved to be a big plus for the political ambitions of a politician named Adolf Hitler.
I gather that is your point here, Stephan!
BTW: Keynes was okay as a pragmatist, but to really understand what is needed for democracy, check out the work of Henry C. Simons (although Simons worked entirely within a specifically American context and, IMO, would today favor an across-the-board tariff or VAT for the U.S.A.).
The sarcasm is light, it seems to me, especially considering that most people are not ready for straight facts.
The FOX story is mostly pretty much straight facts from Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), although presented with apparent prejudicial intent.
My preferred source for facts on immigration issues is NumbersUSA. I am somewhat favorably disposed toward the DREAM Act on humanitarian grounds, but facts are facts, and NumbersUSA (opposed to DREAM) is very good at facts -- statistical, political and legislative -- forthrightly stating a strong policy to contain immigration.
It seems to me we Europeans are determined to repeat the folly of the aftermath of World War I. This time the battle was waged by our financial overlords with their zombie-banks. They won and now their supra-national enforcers (IMF, ECB, EU) extort reparations on their behalf. There will be economic consequences of the peace:
»It is an extraordinary fact that the fundamental economic problems of a Europe starving and disintegrating before their eyes, was the one question in which it was impossible to arouse the interest of the IMF, the ECB and the EU. Reparation was their main excursion into the economic field, and they settled it as a problem of theology, of polities, of electoral chicane, from every point of view except that of the economic future of the States whose destiny they were handling.«
SMS to John Maynard Keynes: Urgent! We need you here. ASAP!
With such huge funds to invest, the People's Bank of China, agents and related banks are most probably practicing some form of arbitrage with U.S. Treasury paper. They have enough funds to influence markets around the world. Probably they are using a computer program that ties the U.S. Treasury paper into currency exchange. You know, just one one-hundredth of one percent, if you turn that three times a week ... with little or no risk ... pretty soon it adds up to real money. Specifically, over the course of a year, you make 2¢ on each $1. Sounds like not much, but let's say that your 2¢ per dollar is on a billion dollars. That comes to a tidy $20 Million per year. (That's exclusive of the effective interest earned for your bank by the paper that your bank holds.)
Now suppose you are an insider with the People's Bank of China and you want something more than just your ordinary pension as someone who has climbed to the top of the bureaucratic ladder over a period of years. Maybe you have to split the take with a few other insiders ... but even a mere $Million is a handy nest egg to have in a place as affordable as China, or, if you don't care for China, let's say, the Philippines.
Don't mean to moralize on someone who is trying to make a living and provide for a family, just noting a possibility. I tend to suspect anywhere that there is a lack of transparency. Or am I too cynical?
Somehow it's no surprise that Wal-Mart is one of Infosys' major clients. Their relentless pursuit of lowest bid contractors results in a relentless decline in wages and working conditions:
"At least one of Infosys’ major clients, Wal-Mart, has been contacted by investigators about its contracts with Infosys."
Krugman just wrote a blog post calling Obama Herbert Hoover. While we've been saying this for some time, I think that's about the most blunt I've seen Krugman in a while.
We're so damned, a non-choice between insane agendas by the GOP and Obama's never ending corporate lobbyist written agendas.
I'm going to check Simmons out. He's right on the inconsistency between our concentrated kleptocracy and the intent of the founders on the basis for our civil society. It's as inconsistent as was the disparity between the lofty and true words of the Declaration and the institution of slavery.
Having said that, Cookson's first explanation is probably right. The crooks will do anything to make a buck and not lose an inch.
I cannot help but compare Mrs. Raskin's speaking with erstwhile grand-guru Greenspan's deliberate (or fumbling?) obscurantism. She actually makes sense! She even has ideas!
When did corporate media get sold on the idea that the less sense the Fed Chair makes testifying before Congress, the wiser he is and the greater significance should be attached to each vacuity or ambiguity that he has expressed?
Members of Congress, while many probably do not understand the details, certainly understand what happens on the bottom line. GAO accountants and analysts tell them ... as do their campaign contributors (who are also, in many cases, their prospective employers should they be voted out.)
In my poorly titled comment at Michael Collins' blog on the prosecution of John Edwards, I cited the analysis by Forest Cookson on the potential conspiracy and market manipulation aspects of anything like the Strauss-Kahn matter:
Cookson writes, including considerable detail, in these terms:
"... making hundreds of millions of dollars or losing a similar amount. I can afford a bribe of one million dollars for the maid to make up this story."
Of course, it's all speculation; however, to my mind, the potential for using criminal prosecutions and scandal to accomplish market manipulation objectives is the significance of the Strauss-Kahn case, which I would rather not see tried on the internet although I understand the point that Robert Oak is making and his indignation at the apparent classism involved.
Fundamentally, the problem is over-concentrations of power. It's like when corruption in the government of the People's Republic of China is noted on the internet or in even in corporate media. How could the highly centralized government of the PRC not be corrupt?
The basic point underlying the work of Henry C. Simons is that an economic system, to be compatible with the goals set forth by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence, must be designed to break up concentrations of power, including concentrations of wealth. Absent that, we may as well consign ourselves to living in a world that regularly produces 'news' stories of this type (regardless of what she said or what he did).
I am not sure what Robert Oak had in mind, but to me the distinction is that wars since George W. Bush have been "off-budget" -- thus essentially and to the core "done on borrowed money". It's debt that we don't even count somehow, according to the rules of our militarized political institutions.
To me, the point needs to made that tax cuts for upper incomes and corporations are absolutely incompatible with being a nation at war, because that's what we are -- a nation at war. But did the Democrats when they had the Congress enact Rep. Abernathy's War Profiteering Prevention Act? No, they did not. And, with the current Republican House, I believe that Rep. Abernathy has been unable even to introduce the bill. Like "off-budget" wars, war profiteering has been declared non-existent.
That's the economic aspect of all of it. That's the bulshi!
Pointing out this issue, too, now that we're in a tax debate:
Subpart F income are profits earned by the foreign subsidiaries of US corporations that are earned, primarily, from passive-type activities. Royalties and interest are good examples of Subpart F income. Subpart F income MUST be included in the income of the US parent corporation currently, as though it is a dividend, so it increases the parent company's US tax bill. However, if the foreign corporation has paid a foreign tax equal to 90% of the US tax rate, the income can be permanently excluded from Subpart F income and thus not recognized and taxed. Most of the EU has a tax rate much lower than the US rate; so, rarely does Subpart F income get excluded from most companies under what is known as "the high tax exception".
However, if the US tax rate is reduced, as is being proposed, the rate reduction would actually incentivize the companies to recognize MORE income in their foreign subsidiaries and LESS in the USA!!! Why? Because the lower US tax rate would make MORE of the foreign Subpart F income qualify under the high tax exception!
You cannot say "it's all been done on borrowed money". The federal government took in trillions of dollars of tax revenue during the period. It makes just as much sense to say of Head Start or any other social program "it's all been done on borrowed money".
Since "providing for the common defense" is an explicit mandate in the constitution and can only be accomplished by the Federal government and the cost of the wars do not exceed the revenues received by the Federal government, the case can be made that the spending not mandated by the constitution (social programs) have "all been done on borrowed money".
Corporate globalism-multiculturalism is the last great ism that pretends to be an anti-systemic social movement -- a movement to transform a world-system according to a political agenda.
The only opposition to globalism-multiculturalism in U.S. political economics today is an anti-ism ... anti-tax, anti-tariff, anti-regulation, anti-government, anti-liberalism, anti-socialism, anti-Obamaism ... anti everything except more fast-track 'free' trade agreements.
I think I have a name for this great all-encompassing anti-ism:
SLASHISM
It's all about jobs.
1. Globalism-multiculturalism says that jobs will be created for Americans by outsourcing and by H1B visa 'insourcing'.
2. Slashism says that jobs will be created by slashing jobs!
In more detail, Slashists advocate slashing government, slashing financial regulation, slashing transparency in campaign financing, slashing Social Security, slashing access of small businesses to capital ... slashing everything except the profits of MNCs.
After all, slashing has been known to work in the corporate world. So, by extension ...
SLASHISM
(no relation to Slashism as a school of Rock 'n' Roll guitar)
this was a wonderful read!!!!.....I would love to be part of a class action suit against the crooked bankers!.....Also is their any case law in New Jersey...for cases that have won their homes back
About the history of Europe, I seem to recall that reparations (opposed by U.S. President Wilson) proved to be a big plus for the political ambitions of a politician named Adolf Hitler.
I gather that is your point here, Stephan!
BTW: Keynes was okay as a pragmatist, but to really understand what is needed for democracy, check out the work of Henry C. Simons (although Simons worked entirely within a specifically American context and, IMO, would today favor an across-the-board tariff or VAT for the U.S.A.).
The sarcasm is light, it seems to me, especially considering that most people are not ready for straight facts.
The FOX story is mostly pretty much straight facts from Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), although presented with apparent prejudicial intent.
FAIR
My preferred source for facts on immigration issues is NumbersUSA. I am somewhat favorably disposed toward the DREAM Act on humanitarian grounds, but facts are facts, and NumbersUSA (opposed to DREAM) is very good at facts -- statistical, political and legislative -- forthrightly stating a strong policy to contain immigration.
NumbersUSA
NumbersUSA: 'No to immigrant bashing'
Normally I chuckle when hunting for economic related funnies but Bait and Switch TV is laugh out loud funny. (the first clip).
It seems to me we Europeans are determined to repeat the folly of the aftermath of World War I. This time the battle was waged by our financial overlords with their zombie-banks. They won and now their supra-national enforcers (IMF, ECB, EU) extort reparations on their behalf. There will be economic consequences of the peace:
»It is an extraordinary fact that the fundamental economic problems of a Europe starving and disintegrating before their eyes, was the one question in which it was impossible to arouse the interest of the IMF, the ECB and the EU. Reparation was their main excursion into the economic field, and they settled it as a problem of theology, of polities, of electoral chicane, from every point of view except that of the economic future of the States whose destiny they were handling.«
SMS to John Maynard Keynes: Urgent! We need you here. ASAP!
Ya all gotta read this over on Fox News. I know some of the facts are accurate but the sarcasm is deadly.
With such huge funds to invest, the People's Bank of China, agents and related banks are most probably practicing some form of arbitrage with U.S. Treasury paper. They have enough funds to influence markets around the world. Probably they are using a computer program that ties the U.S. Treasury paper into currency exchange. You know, just one one-hundredth of one percent, if you turn that three times a week ... with little or no risk ... pretty soon it adds up to real money. Specifically, over the course of a year, you make 2¢ on each $1. Sounds like not much, but let's say that your 2¢ per dollar is on a billion dollars. That comes to a tidy $20 Million per year. (That's exclusive of the effective interest earned for your bank by the paper that your bank holds.)
Now suppose you are an insider with the People's Bank of China and you want something more than just your ordinary pension as someone who has climbed to the top of the bureaucratic ladder over a period of years. Maybe you have to split the take with a few other insiders ... but even a mere $Million is a handy nest egg to have in a place as affordable as China, or, if you don't care for China, let's say, the Philippines.
Don't mean to moralize on someone who is trying to make a living and provide for a family, just noting a possibility. I tend to suspect anywhere that there is a lack of transparency. Or am I too cynical?
Somehow it's no surprise that Wal-Mart is one of Infosys' major clients. Their relentless pursuit of lowest bid contractors results in a relentless decline in wages and working conditions:
"At least one of Infosys’ major clients, Wal-Mart, has been contacted by investigators about its contracts with Infosys."
From:
Infosys Abuses U.S. Immigration System
Krugman just wrote a blog post calling Obama Herbert Hoover. While we've been saying this for some time, I think that's about the most blunt I've seen Krugman in a while.
We're so damned, a non-choice between insane agendas by the GOP and Obama's never ending corporate lobbyist written agendas.
I'm going to check Simmons out. He's right on the inconsistency between our concentrated kleptocracy and the intent of the founders on the basis for our civil society. It's as inconsistent as was the disparity between the lofty and true words of the Declaration and the institution of slavery.
Having said that, Cookson's first explanation is probably right. The crooks will do anything to make a buck and not lose an inch.
Happy 4th of July!
Sarah Bloom Raskin for Secretary of Treasury!
I cannot help but compare Mrs. Raskin's speaking with erstwhile grand-guru Greenspan's deliberate (or fumbling?) obscurantism. She actually makes sense! She even has ideas!
When did corporate media get sold on the idea that the less sense the Fed Chair makes testifying before Congress, the wiser he is and the greater significance should be attached to each vacuity or ambiguity that he has expressed?
Thank you.
Members of Congress, while many probably do not understand the details, certainly understand what happens on the bottom line. GAO accountants and analysts tell them ... as do their campaign contributors (who are also, in many cases, their prospective employers should they be voted out.)
In my poorly titled comment at Michael Collins' blog on the prosecution of John Edwards, I cited the analysis by Forest Cookson on the potential conspiracy and market manipulation aspects of anything like the Strauss-Kahn matter:
DebateRX.com (May 2011): Deep doings at the IMF
Cookson writes, including considerable detail, in these terms:
"... making hundreds of millions of dollars or losing a similar amount. I can afford a bribe of one million dollars for the maid to make up this story."
Of course, it's all speculation; however, to my mind, the potential for using criminal prosecutions and scandal to accomplish market manipulation objectives is the significance of the Strauss-Kahn case, which I would rather not see tried on the internet although I understand the point that Robert Oak is making and his indignation at the apparent classism involved.
Fundamentally, the problem is over-concentrations of power. It's like when corruption in the government of the People's Republic of China is noted on the internet or in even in corporate media. How could the highly centralized government of the PRC not be corrupt?
The basic point underlying the work of Henry C. Simons is that an economic system, to be compatible with the goals set forth by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence, must be designed to break up concentrations of power, including concentrations of wealth. Absent that, we may as well consign ourselves to living in a world that regularly produces 'news' stories of this type (regardless of what she said or what he did).
I am not sure what Robert Oak had in mind, but to me the distinction is that wars since George W. Bush have been "off-budget" -- thus essentially and to the core "done on borrowed money". It's debt that we don't even count somehow, according to the rules of our militarized political institutions.
To me, the point needs to made that tax cuts for upper incomes and corporations are absolutely incompatible with being a nation at war, because that's what we are -- a nation at war. But did the Democrats when they had the Congress enact Rep. Abernathy's War Profiteering Prevention Act? No, they did not. And, with the current Republican House, I believe that Rep. Abernathy has been unable even to introduce the bill. Like "off-budget" wars, war profiteering has been declared non-existent.
That's the economic aspect of all of it. That's the bulshi!
It makes one want to weep as we see our politicians setting policies that allows for trade imbalances and wealth transfers.
Westerners are building the Chinese Empire at the expense of their own countries - U.S. the worse offender.
Pointing out this issue, too, now that we're in a tax debate:
Subpart F income are profits earned by the foreign subsidiaries of US corporations that are earned, primarily, from passive-type activities. Royalties and interest are good examples of Subpart F income. Subpart F income MUST be included in the income of the US parent corporation currently, as though it is a dividend, so it increases the parent company's US tax bill. However, if the foreign corporation has paid a foreign tax equal to 90% of the US tax rate, the income can be permanently excluded from Subpart F income and thus not recognized and taxed. Most of the EU has a tax rate much lower than the US rate; so, rarely does Subpart F income get excluded from most companies under what is known as "the high tax exception".
However, if the US tax rate is reduced, as is being proposed, the rate reduction would actually incentivize the companies to recognize MORE income in their foreign subsidiaries and LESS in the USA!!! Why? Because the lower US tax rate would make MORE of the foreign Subpart F income qualify under the high tax exception!
Greece is in some serious need of something. I think the global market is gonna get hit pretty hard in the next year.
We could call it "the people's class action"
This would be one time when a lawyer would be most welcome soliciting work;)
You cannot say "it's all been done on borrowed money". The federal government took in trillions of dollars of tax revenue during the period. It makes just as much sense to say of Head Start or any other social program "it's all been done on borrowed money".
Since "providing for the common defense" is an explicit mandate in the constitution and can only be accomplished by the Federal government and the cost of the wars do not exceed the revenues received by the Federal government, the case can be made that the spending not mandated by the constitution (social programs) have "all been done on borrowed money".
Corporate globalism-multiculturalism is the last great ism that pretends to be an anti-systemic social movement -- a movement to transform a world-system according to a political agenda.
The only opposition to globalism-multiculturalism in U.S. political economics today is an anti-ism ... anti-tax, anti-tariff, anti-regulation, anti-government, anti-liberalism, anti-socialism, anti-Obamaism ... anti everything except more fast-track 'free' trade agreements.
I think I have a name for this great all-encompassing anti-ism:
SLASHISM
It's all about jobs.
1. Globalism-multiculturalism says that jobs will be created for Americans by outsourcing and by H1B visa 'insourcing'.
2. Slashism says that jobs will be created by slashing jobs!
In more detail, Slashists advocate slashing government, slashing financial regulation, slashing transparency in campaign financing, slashing Social Security, slashing access of small businesses to capital ... slashing everything except the profits of MNCs.
After all, slashing has been known to work in the corporate world. So, by extension ...
SLASHISM
(no relation to Slashism as a school of Rock 'n' Roll guitar)
this was a wonderful read!!!!.....I would love to be part of a class action suit against the crooked bankers!.....Also is their any case law in New Jersey...for cases that have won their homes back
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