It's quite important that Krugman and his ilk are becoming more friendly to direct job creation where before they were for vanilla demand management. It should help in the long-run if the center-left can get on the same page.
There were hearings, but I agree, someone picked up on this little blurb and we have full bore conspiracy theory thinking a minor hearing is law, legislation or policy. It is not!
Believe me people if this was really happening, not only would we be writing about it, but a host of others would too.
I've put I don't know how many comments on this thread to this effect.
You people are replying to a rumor thats been on the Internet for three years now. Get all excited! Someone started spreading a lie to get u all worked up. Its funny that there isn't any newspaper reports of this. It would be all over the nation on TV the radio. But no, only on the Internet. No official records coming out of Washington. Nothing!!!!! Google "401k money grab" or "401k confiscation" Hundreds of posts and blogs come up. But there are no facts to back it up. What a joke on you. Sounds like a political scare tactic to fool the uniformed and gullible. Hows it feel to be suckered in? What information do you people use to decide who to vote for in elections? Lies on the Internet?
Almost a year ago, on 14/02/10 NY Times published the article titled “Wall St. Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis” and since then lots have been written and said about Greece and it's debt crisis.
But in many cases we were reading only parts of this story.
Today, i would like to inform you about an open discussion link, sent to Bloomberg, as a response to the lawsuit against ECB.
Both were written with the hope to initiate an informational campaign, a global conversation about what is really going on in this country and in Europe today.
Anyone who's seen my YouTube videos* knows I'm sympathetic, but--good grief--what do these unemployed Americans expect when they support foreign economies, rather than our own, by spending their money on foreign-made products?
Most of our economy is decided by the American consumer--arguably the single most powerful economic force in the world. This is why "free trade" is really code language for "unfettered access to the American consumer."
Foreigners have our jobs and money largely because we handed them over. The Chinese (the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party, and the People's Liberation Army) got their $ trillions from American consumers. There are no real
bargains at Wal-Mart. Every "Made in China" price tag includes a piece of our children's future--and our current unemployment tragedy.
Perhaps ironically, Confucius provided the answer when he said, "The way out is through the door."
Do the math:
Suppose every American simply reallocated 1 dollar per day, spending 1 dollar less on foreign-made goods, and 1 dollar more on American-made goods. After a year, we’d have 110 billion dollars, which could mean more than 2 million new jobs paying $50,000 per year.
Other factors are involved—-costs, profits, US vs. foreign ownership—-but the principle stays true, so let’s keep this simple and make our point. Even one dollar per day can make a big difference.
Reallocate 10 dollars per person per day—-from foreign to American-made goods—-and in a year we’d have 1.1 trillion dollars, or potentially more than 20 million new jobs paying $50,000 per year.
It's not so danged complicated. But we can't wait for our government to lead the way. When American business went multinational, our government followed. American consumers will just have to start using their heads.
*"College Girl, Economy, Jobs" and "Dollar to the Giant"
Krugman wrote another editorial, pointing to the GDP multipliers for jobs growth leaving us with this crisis extrodinaire for some time. No kidding!
So, he's put forth again the idea of a WPA, or direct jobs program. I think we've been talking about some sort of direct jobs program since the start of this site.
Even worse, it's looking really worser on the political front, we need to cut through that FAUX/political noise which spins the crisis to be these corporate, super rich lobbyist agenda items as solutions.
People, I honestly don't think understand cause and effect on policies vs. jobs.
It should be clear to even the most casual rich observer that we need to bring back some regulation on wages. Minimum wage should be the living wage (http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/). There should also be a maximum wage that depends on a fairly assessed value of contribution to the firm and to the economy as a whole. (I have not seen a good calculator for that.) A 2009 analysis (America on the Brink by B. Judson) reveals that hedge fund managers bring home some of the highest income, but their value to the economy is clearly not equivalent.
Similarly, housing speculators should be outlawed - along with any other speculator producing bubbles for assets that are necessary to life - e.g. food. These types of assets do not and cannot belong to the free market, because "Necessitous men are not free". We should also ensure that we do not hire a Fed chairman in future who cannot distinguish an asset bubble until it has burst - like the illustrious Alan Greenspan.
You do not have socialism in the US - the 'commons' are increasingly being owned by corporate interests in the US rather than being owned by the public or common ownership. The US is a corporatist state - a system dominated by corporate entities and interests that secures resources and policy favors for their needs at the expense of wider society. This is reflected by the various 'power' groups that influence the polity in the US. Aspects that were highlighted by C.W.Mills (The Power Elites) and President Eisenhower in terms of his reference to the Industrial Military Complex.
Interestingly the US has always had the largest centrally planned economy in the world. The Industrial Military Complex dwarfed the USSR in all the years of the cold war.
Another point to note regarding banks and credit (debt) creation is that the US States that have the healthiest finances/economies are those with their own banks rather than those that have participated in the Wall Street debt engine (Municipal Bond Market). There is something to be said for closing down the banking sector and stripping it back to basic banking services based on a simple interest model or a service for a fee.
Your focus on minimum wages, unemployment insurance, and so forth is understandable.
I do wonder just how effective these measures are in terms of rejuvenating the American economy.
Increasing the labor cost component of a workforce which is increasingly service based - and thus far less able to increase productivity - seems to be a much less effective tactic than reducing the cost component of standard of living.
And what is the largest component of standard of living? Housing, both rent and purchase/financing cost.
Having housing costs - which are over 1/3 of overall cost of living - drop 10% or more via removal of both bankster lobbied subsidies and massive negative equity loans will not only free up existing income, but also reduce cost of everything else.
We have Socialism for the special interests. Remember that the money printing stimulus packages have allowed the US multinationals to receive record profits. So money was created out of thin air to fund their R&D, to pay for the outsourcing of US jobs and to bail them out when things went south. The Soviet style central economic planning from WTO, NAFTA and Central Banks have bankrupted the US. Maybe communities should issue their own currencies like Hayek spoke about in his works, Choice in Currency and the Denationalization of Money. At least if communities issued their own currency, they would have sovereignty over their own trade policies. For example, communities that issued their own currencies could undervalue their currency against the dollar so that based on paper exchange rates labor costs could be just as cheap as China and other developing countries.
It sure is and has been for some time. I think of all action items, jobs, work, labor is #1 and we have a GOP Congress that doesn't have their head screwed on right in terms of what creates jobs from what I can see in the political rhetoric. They are binary, tax cuts and deficits. Oops, with an overriding theme of doing whatever corporate lobbyists want them to do.
It's loaded with graphs on wages, median wages, from the 2009 wage statistics data. It's much worse than one realizes because the average wage is pushed up by the super rich, they tip the scale. When one looks at the median wages and the wage bracket percentages, we're all poor, there really is not a U.S. middle class. Feel free to use any of these graphs and I also have the raw data for them for more graphs.
On the policy end, there is much more than just a minimum wage. I suggest a global minimum wage, and make it illegal for U.S. companies to not pay at least the U.S. minimum wage globally. If you want to do business with us, you cannot use slave labor.
Then, they need to curtail offshore outsourcing, use of guest workers. India, more than China, it's labor costs, pure arbitrage, that is their business model. This is because it's services, a heavy focus on technical labor, which is the most of the costs.
China, on the other hand, needs to be confronted on currency manipulation. That would help with overall costs, which is part of the reason U.S. corporations manufacture in China instead of the United States.
They need to reduce health care costs in the U.S., which as we know, they just gave the lobbyists what they wanted in the latest "health care bill" and it doesn't do anything to reform the system, which would reduce U.S. labor costs overall to provide them health insurance.
They also need to enforce labor laws. That's everything from sue for age discrimination, discrimination generally to stopping the hiring of illegal labor, to also looking at some of these new "bid on projects" websites, where companies are getting work for pennies per hour in reality. They are way below U.S. minimum wage, often for skilled labor and corporations, companies are manipulating 1099-misc. or independent contractors, i.e. small business, sole proprietorship, to avoid paying even minimum wage, never mind health benefits and so on.
They also need incentives for U.S. manufacturing and a strategy to rebuild the U.S. manufacturing base.
The laws against 1009-misc. workers are also horrific, causing 3rd party contract houses to be used, which simply take a huge cut out of that 1099-misc. worker's "pay".
If that's the highest value, knowing, then the information that emerges supports that instead of dragging us down. I know what you mean, though. If the material is clear and well written, honestly presented, as it was here, then there's a chance that more people will wake up a bit sooner. If a positive movement that emerges, there are all sorts of things that can happen that could change things for the better. Progress isn't a straight line. There are spikes from unexpected discoveries that can really move things along. You see this in the history of science or in national histories like Brazil. Someone had the bright idea - hey, lets use all this sugar cane for fuel. Guess what, it worked. We're due for something like that but the strangle hold needs to be lifted by the failures in charge. If they're worried that giving up power will result in retribution then they can just go to Dubai, Belize, or one of those non extradition nations;)
That's from the link provided. It's a loaded sentence, in the best sense. It crystallizes obvious and profound practical and moral injunctions. Why will people work if they're not paid an adequate wage? How will they work well, do well, have a positive attitude toward their community, raise their families (since they'll need 2 or 3 jobs)? How can we expect people to work for bare subsistence when those benefiting from the work live comfortably? How can we sit by and see this go on, the exploitation of workers for work done and done well enough for owners to profit?
Shameless greed and self interest is at the bottom of the troubles that we face. Those in charge know everything in that report. In fact, if there's a criticism of the report it's this: it fails to lay accusations at the feet of the system and those who run it that produces the inequities.
On the issue of worker education, how many times have you heard a politician talk about how important education is and how it's their main agenda item if elected. That's when you turn around and run as fast as you can. They could care less. They defund programs and promote screwball ideas like private school vouchers and "magnet" schools, neither of which do a single thing for a broadly educated and efficient work force.
The strangle hold by the to 1% who now take 70% of the net new income is the problem. That's why we hear nothing about income inequality. The people who take the lions share can't imagine an economy with anything more than we have now. As a result, they're stuck on stealing everything that isn't nailed down and letting the remainder struggle. They call it "letting the markets take care of it." And they have, and here we are.
Might be in interesting take for a post. I believe somewhere I read one can find the most sociopaths inside corporations and the more absurd their "employee evaluations" systems are, the more sociopathic personalities, with the title executive having the most. Some nice graphs with percentages would be nice.
I've been telling neocons and teagaggers this for sometime, "These Americans are not unacceptable, more United States businesses and especially multinational corporations, are unacceptable." They believe that corporations can, and should be allowed to do pretty much anything they want, even when I point out that the constitution states this "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;" No where does the constitution give any powers to corporations, businesses, or even mom and pop shops. Maybe the ones yelling the loudest should read this very important document!
Sociopaths take what they want without regard to the rules or the impact of other people. The term is usually associated with career criminals but, as we know, some in public life make a career out of serving themselves and taking whatever they want. It helps to have a high IQ if our a sociopath, bhat that's not always the case. That's when they fall for all sorts of lame theories, e.g. crackpot economics. The Laffer Curve illustrates the process. Conceived in a bar, written on the back of a napkin, it provided the excuse to cut taxes and claim revenues would increase. It was the easiest way to take what they wanted, so they did.
Good god, no kidding and the insanity is so often spewing from cable noise and the press. Notice how they drown out things like stopping offshore outsourcing, reforming bad trade deals. Right now the dialog goes we must give tax cuts to the rich, bail out wall street and btw, we're going to slash social security and health benefits. In other words they push out real solutions from the public consciousness...
so the question is, are sociopaths crackpots? Controlling public messaging to me is more sociopathic by just a few PR experts to ensure their agenda goes through...and their agenda is assuredly not in the national interest or working America's interests.
It's quite important that Krugman and his ilk are becoming more friendly to direct job creation where before they were for vanilla demand management. It should help in the long-run if the center-left can get on the same page.
As our economy becomes less exportable, wages should rise.
Lowering costs is a limited strategy - since it'll have a backfire effect on employment in construction, materials production, etc.
That'll help in future installments.
There were hearings, but I agree, someone picked up on this little blurb and we have full bore conspiracy theory thinking a minor hearing is law, legislation or policy. It is not!
Believe me people if this was really happening, not only would we be writing about it, but a host of others would too.
I've put I don't know how many comments on this thread to this effect.
You people are replying to a rumor thats been on the Internet for three years now. Get all excited! Someone started spreading a lie to get u all worked up. Its funny that there isn't any newspaper reports of this. It would be all over the nation on TV the radio. But no, only on the Internet. No official records coming out of Washington. Nothing!!!!! Google "401k money grab" or "401k confiscation" Hundreds of posts and blogs come up. But there are no facts to back it up. What a joke on you. Sounds like a political scare tactic to fool the uniformed and gullible. Hows it feel to be suckered in? What information do you people use to decide who to vote for in elections? Lies on the Internet?
Almost a year ago, on 14/02/10 NY Times published the article titled “Wall St. Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis” and since then lots have been written and said about Greece and it's debt crisis.
But in many cases we were reading only parts of this story.
Today, i would like to inform you about an open discussion link, sent to Bloomberg, as a response to the lawsuit against ECB.
(http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/topic.php?uid=174452975917433&topic=356)
This letter was followed by a similar open discussion link, adressed to Greece's Prime Minister, Mr George Papandreou.
(http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/topic.php?uid=174452975917433&topic=360)
Both were written with the hope to initiate an informational campaign, a global conversation about what is really going on in this country and in Europe today.
Anyone who's seen my YouTube videos* knows I'm sympathetic, but--good grief--what do these unemployed Americans expect when they support foreign economies, rather than our own, by spending their money on foreign-made products?
Most of our economy is decided by the American consumer--arguably the single most powerful economic force in the world. This is why "free trade" is really code language for "unfettered access to the American consumer."
Foreigners have our jobs and money largely because we handed them over. The Chinese (the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party, and the People's Liberation Army) got their $ trillions from American consumers. There are no real
bargains at Wal-Mart. Every "Made in China" price tag includes a piece of our children's future--and our current unemployment tragedy.
Perhaps ironically, Confucius provided the answer when he said, "The way out is through the door."
Do the math:
Suppose every American simply reallocated 1 dollar per day, spending 1 dollar less on foreign-made goods, and 1 dollar more on American-made goods. After a year, we’d have 110 billion dollars, which could mean more than 2 million new jobs paying $50,000 per year.
Other factors are involved—-costs, profits, US vs. foreign ownership—-but the principle stays true, so let’s keep this simple and make our point. Even one dollar per day can make a big difference.
Reallocate 10 dollars per person per day—-from foreign to American-made goods—-and in a year we’d have 1.1 trillion dollars, or potentially more than 20 million new jobs paying $50,000 per year.
It's not so danged complicated. But we can't wait for our government to lead the way. When American business went multinational, our government followed. American consumers will just have to start using their heads.
*"College Girl, Economy, Jobs" and "Dollar to the Giant"
Krugman wrote another editorial, pointing to the GDP multipliers for jobs growth leaving us with this crisis extrodinaire for some time. No kidding!
So, he's put forth again the idea of a WPA, or direct jobs program. I think we've been talking about some sort of direct jobs program since the start of this site.
Even worse, it's looking really worser on the political front, we need to cut through that FAUX/political noise which spins the crisis to be these corporate, super rich lobbyist agenda items as solutions.
People, I honestly don't think understand cause and effect on policies vs. jobs.
It should be clear to even the most casual rich observer that we need to bring back some regulation on wages. Minimum wage should be the living wage (http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/). There should also be a maximum wage that depends on a fairly assessed value of contribution to the firm and to the economy as a whole. (I have not seen a good calculator for that.) A 2009 analysis (America on the Brink by B. Judson) reveals that hedge fund managers bring home some of the highest income, but their value to the economy is clearly not equivalent.
Similarly, housing speculators should be outlawed - along with any other speculator producing bubbles for assets that are necessary to life - e.g. food. These types of assets do not and cannot belong to the free market, because "Necessitous men are not free". We should also ensure that we do not hire a Fed chairman in future who cannot distinguish an asset bubble until it has burst - like the illustrious Alan Greenspan.
You do not have socialism in the US - the 'commons' are increasingly being owned by corporate interests in the US rather than being owned by the public or common ownership. The US is a corporatist state - a system dominated by corporate entities and interests that secures resources and policy favors for their needs at the expense of wider society. This is reflected by the various 'power' groups that influence the polity in the US. Aspects that were highlighted by C.W.Mills (The Power Elites) and President Eisenhower in terms of his reference to the Industrial Military Complex.
Interestingly the US has always had the largest centrally planned economy in the world. The Industrial Military Complex dwarfed the USSR in all the years of the cold war.
Another point to note regarding banks and credit (debt) creation is that the US States that have the healthiest finances/economies are those with their own banks rather than those that have participated in the Wall Street debt engine (Municipal Bond Market). There is something to be said for closing down the banking sector and stripping it back to basic banking services based on a simple interest model or a service for a fee.
Your focus on minimum wages, unemployment insurance, and so forth is understandable.
I do wonder just how effective these measures are in terms of rejuvenating the American economy.
Increasing the labor cost component of a workforce which is increasingly service based - and thus far less able to increase productivity - seems to be a much less effective tactic than reducing the cost component of standard of living.
And what is the largest component of standard of living? Housing, both rent and purchase/financing cost.
Having housing costs - which are over 1/3 of overall cost of living - drop 10% or more via removal of both bankster lobbied subsidies and massive negative equity loans will not only free up existing income, but also reduce cost of everything else.
We have Socialism for the special interests. Remember that the money printing stimulus packages have allowed the US multinationals to receive record profits. So money was created out of thin air to fund their R&D, to pay for the outsourcing of US jobs and to bail them out when things went south. The Soviet style central economic planning from WTO, NAFTA and Central Banks have bankrupted the US. Maybe communities should issue their own currencies like Hayek spoke about in his works, Choice in Currency and the Denationalization of Money. At least if communities issued their own currency, they would have sovereignty over their own trade policies. For example, communities that issued their own currencies could undervalue their currency against the dollar so that based on paper exchange rates labor costs could be just as cheap as China and other developing countries.
It sure is and has been for some time. I think of all action items, jobs, work, labor is #1 and we have a GOP Congress that doesn't have their head screwed on right in terms of what creates jobs from what I can see in the political rhetoric. They are binary, tax cuts and deficits. Oops, with an overriding theme of doing whatever corporate lobbyists want them to do.
Did you see this post, Most of Us Are Have Nots?
It's loaded with graphs on wages, median wages, from the 2009 wage statistics data. It's much worse than one realizes because the average wage is pushed up by the super rich, they tip the scale. When one looks at the median wages and the wage bracket percentages, we're all poor, there really is not a U.S. middle class. Feel free to use any of these graphs and I also have the raw data for them for more graphs.
On the policy end, there is much more than just a minimum wage. I suggest a global minimum wage, and make it illegal for U.S. companies to not pay at least the U.S. minimum wage globally. If you want to do business with us, you cannot use slave labor.
Then, they need to curtail offshore outsourcing, use of guest workers. India, more than China, it's labor costs, pure arbitrage, that is their business model. This is because it's services, a heavy focus on technical labor, which is the most of the costs.
China, on the other hand, needs to be confronted on currency manipulation. That would help with overall costs, which is part of the reason U.S. corporations manufacture in China instead of the United States.
They need to reduce health care costs in the U.S., which as we know, they just gave the lobbyists what they wanted in the latest "health care bill" and it doesn't do anything to reform the system, which would reduce U.S. labor costs overall to provide them health insurance.
They also need to enforce labor laws. That's everything from sue for age discrimination, discrimination generally to stopping the hiring of illegal labor, to also looking at some of these new "bid on projects" websites, where companies are getting work for pennies per hour in reality. They are way below U.S. minimum wage, often for skilled labor and corporations, companies are manipulating 1099-misc. or independent contractors, i.e. small business, sole proprietorship, to avoid paying even minimum wage, never mind health benefits and so on.
They also need incentives for U.S. manufacturing and a strategy to rebuild the U.S. manufacturing base.
The laws against 1009-misc. workers are also horrific, causing 3rd party contract houses to be used, which simply take a huge cut out of that 1099-misc. worker's "pay".
and a Happy New Year to everyone.
If that's the highest value, knowing, then the information that emerges supports that instead of dragging us down. I know what you mean, though. If the material is clear and well written, honestly presented, as it was here, then there's a chance that more people will wake up a bit sooner. If a positive movement that emerges, there are all sorts of things that can happen that could change things for the better. Progress isn't a straight line. There are spikes from unexpected discoveries that can really move things along. You see this in the history of science or in national histories like Brazil. Someone had the bright idea - hey, lets use all this sugar cane for fuel. Guess what, it worked. We're due for something like that but the strangle hold needs to be lifted by the failures in charge. If they're worried that giving up power will result in retribution then they can just go to Dubai, Belize, or one of those non extradition nations;)
That's from the link provided. It's a loaded sentence, in the best sense. It crystallizes obvious and profound practical and moral injunctions. Why will people work if they're not paid an adequate wage? How will they work well, do well, have a positive attitude toward their community, raise their families (since they'll need 2 or 3 jobs)? How can we expect people to work for bare subsistence when those benefiting from the work live comfortably? How can we sit by and see this go on, the exploitation of workers for work done and done well enough for owners to profit?
Shameless greed and self interest is at the bottom of the troubles that we face. Those in charge know everything in that report. In fact, if there's a criticism of the report it's this: it fails to lay accusations at the feet of the system and those who run it that produces the inequities.
On the issue of worker education, how many times have you heard a politician talk about how important education is and how it's their main agenda item if elected. That's when you turn around and run as fast as you can. They could care less. They defund programs and promote screwball ideas like private school vouchers and "magnet" schools, neither of which do a single thing for a broadly educated and efficient work force.
The strangle hold by the to 1% who now take 70% of the net new income is the problem. That's why we hear nothing about income inequality. The people who take the lions share can't imagine an economy with anything more than we have now. As a result, they're stuck on stealing everything that isn't nailed down and letting the remainder struggle. They call it "letting the markets take care of it." And they have, and here we are.
Might be in interesting take for a post. I believe somewhere I read one can find the most sociopaths inside corporations and the more absurd their "employee evaluations" systems are, the more sociopathic personalities, with the title executive having the most. Some nice graphs with percentages would be nice.
I've been telling neocons and teagaggers this for sometime, "These Americans are not unacceptable, more United States businesses and especially multinational corporations, are unacceptable." They believe that corporations can, and should be allowed to do pretty much anything they want, even when I point out that the constitution states this "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;" No where does the constitution give any powers to corporations, businesses, or even mom and pop shops. Maybe the ones yelling the loudest should read this very important document!
Mydiscontent
Sociopaths take what they want without regard to the rules or the impact of other people. The term is usually associated with career criminals but, as we know, some in public life make a career out of serving themselves and taking whatever they want. It helps to have a high IQ if our a sociopath, bhat that's not always the case. That's when they fall for all sorts of lame theories, e.g. crackpot economics. The Laffer Curve illustrates the process. Conceived in a bar, written on the back of a napkin, it provided the excuse to cut taxes and claim revenues would increase. It was the easiest way to take what they wanted, so they did.
Good god, no kidding and the insanity is so often spewing from cable noise and the press. Notice how they drown out things like stopping offshore outsourcing, reforming bad trade deals. Right now the dialog goes we must give tax cuts to the rich, bail out wall street and btw, we're going to slash social security and health benefits. In other words they push out real solutions from the public consciousness...
so the question is, are sociopaths crackpots? Controlling public messaging to me is more sociopathic by just a few PR experts to ensure their agenda goes through...and their agenda is assuredly not in the national interest or working America's interests.
Great term, an all time EP classic!
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