The Economic Populist
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On NAFTA - I told ya so gives me no joy
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On NAFTA - I told ya so gives me no joy
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Audit the Fed Under Attack
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The Golden Rule
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Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
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New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
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How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
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VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
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U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
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The war on the middle class
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House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
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Tax Cuts for the Rich Do Not Generate Jobs
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Here is the roll call vote.
That's the bottom line, finally, finally, there is something all sides of the isle agree on. The corporate lobbyists are already at work, demanding this die in the Senate (where they have even more influence). But, that said, we have an actual shot and the reason is on this issue, currency manipulation, a slew of conservatives are in agreement with Progressives so we might have a shot at overriding the corporate and special interests.
You might note, if the House goes GOP, Boehner voted against this very obvious bill. The GOP members generally were split. Only 5 Democrats voted against this bill.
you mention a very good point, there are things an executive branch can do, which do not require Congress.
The entire "tax cuts" and "spending" and all of this to me is noise, serious noise, when it's what kind of spending, what kind of taxes that matters.
I think it's a well crafted corporate lobbyists media smoke screen campaign.
While we are in this partisan game of chicken, why does the administration not just do the easier thing -- double the standard deduction, subject to a reasonable limiit. Don't have to extend the Bush cuts, just let them expire and pass a clean increase in the standard deduction.
Does not solve all problems but it levels the playing field to negotiate tax laws with the new congress.
Please read the updated user guide.
Now that we have this screaming server, I'm working on other issues which cause the site to slow down, page load, including images.
One issue is cross posting and due to Google classifying us as "copy spam", which is hardly the case, the site has a new requirement for duplicate posts (cross posts) to get us recatagorized as original material (which this site is).
The House took up a China currency manipulation bill and it's being reported to pass. When it does, I'll look over the bill text and see what it actually does.
We need our Congress to take some damn action on these global labor arbitrage issues! It's amazing how ignored they are and beyond the financial crisis, the implosion of construction, housing sector, bad trade, offshore outsourcing, insourcing, weakening of U.S. labor laws and so on have been decimating the middle class, on steroids, since 2000. It's been going on for over 30 years, but it's when two things happened, communications (Internet) costs dropped like a stone in 2000 and the China PNTR trade agreement was signed (again, 2000).
Multinational corporations aren't the only ones who breathed a sigh of relief.
This for the Times of India. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/itslideshow/5722933.cms
"What is surely a relief for entire Indian IT Inc, US Senate successfully blocked the passage of an anti-offshoring bill that would have denied tax breaks to US companies which move jobs overseas." - The Times of India
They vote against them after they win. We had a host of candidates who won in 2008, who immediately voted for more bail outs, when they swore up and down, no bail outs.
Surprise, surprise, of course we could not get real financial reform.
I agree, it's a complete boys club, even who gets selected to run. Add to that massive corporate money it's just a no win game. I mean McCain, so many Republicans, seriously, in his own party, are disgusted with him, yet when it comes to getting him out...they vote for him again. Just one of many examples.
...we need to find other candidates to run. It's that simple. If you visit your local Dem clubs you will see how easy it was for Obama to take over. Only a very few are taking part in determining who runs.
That means we can change from the bottom.
The only way it's gonna happen.
but please write your reps regardless. This is being reported by Reuters (via Manufacture this).
gives authority to impose tariffs, but does not directly impose tariffs.
I agree, these Democrats are all posturing. To make matters worse, the "tax cuts" actually had the repeal of the foreign tax credit, another factor to lessen the incentives to offshore outsource jobs.
If they had any guts they would pass that as a stand alone bill. They won't act, then Republicans spin this crap to beyond the pale insanity and because Democrats do not act, they are sitting ducks...
and the American people, royally pissed Democrats didn't act....are going to vote in "worser" to office.
Cogent points in the post and comments but I've reached the conclusion that the Democrat's aren't just spineless, they're simply playing the game of the folks that bought them (and the Republicans) - the same big playerz that continue to profit from the current trade regime. So while we can say there is "bipartisan support to confront China with their currency manipulation" and applaud HR 2378 passing out of committee, I have absolutely no confidence that we'll see anything but posturing or hear anything but blather - even if Obama signs it into law. Maybe when more sh!t hits the fan, we add another 20% to the ranks of the unemployed, pitchforks are selling briskly, and effigies of the president, prominent congressmen, and CEOs are burning in town squares . . . but I'm not holding my breath.
I think a lot of people are forgetting the arrows, which move content to the front page, alternatively, if you've got a really outrageous post, or spam, you can down vote it off of the site (use sparingly, only for real economic fiction, spam!)
Me thinks this might happen in the Lame Duck session (I would hope, instead they seem hell bent on "comprehensive immigration", which does jack for the unemployment situation, which should be their top priority!). But yes, this is simply the opening salvo.
So many Democrats promised trade reform and a host of other reforms which have been offshore outsourcing jobs in droves, esp. starting in 2000. Where is it? Where is any reforms? Instead we have the Obama administration toying with more FTAs! (more bad trade agreements modeled on NAFTA).
But this might be possible on the infamous "tax vote", ya know where the GOP is arguing to keep the Bush tax cuts (sigh) and on the other side, Democrats are busy with a lot of wasteful spending (not that the Republicans ever want to cut spending, except on the meager social safety nets still in place).
But getting this government to directly confront China on currency manipulation, when even the IMF has said as much (the OECD too), is like pulling teeth. I hope all contact their Congress representatives and the White House and demand they pass and sign this bill into law.
That said, this is just a 1st step.
When Big Tech does business in China, their profits are taxed by the Chinese. Not to worry, because the U.S. Corporate Tax system allows a credit or deduction for the tax paid China against the total tax liability. The size of this credit in macro terms is about the size of the $70Bn annual cost ending the Alternative Minimum Tax for the top 2 Per Cent.
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/bustaxstats/article/0,,id=210069,00.html
There is an unfolding debate here on the death of the AMT and other Bushie perks. My take is that it's time for let's make a deal. Informed folks know that by taking away a perk like the FTC, Big Business will find other tax strategies. So if Exxon loses the FTC, Exxon can find Intangible Drilling, Depreciation and other offsets. The U.S. corporate liability is like modern art: whatever Exxon and the rest want it to be.In 2009, Exxon paid $178Million on $50Bn of taxable profits.
The Business Round Table, Chamber of Communists and the Economic Suicide Lobby will scream that the End of the FTC is a tax increase. So, move the end of the Bush era Alternative Minimum Tax end ahead for a few years. Now for the Economic Suicide Lobby Bush Era Alternative Minimum tax is the Dutch Communist to blame for the Burning of the Reich Stag. The cause of the double-dip will then not be Credit, Trade and other macro forces but the tax increase on the rich.
The other side of the ideology war is how some Progressives will act on a discussion extending the Bushie AMT cuts. Some like to run the key along the bodies of the luxury cars, and I can't blame them but this does not give us something to use and win with.
This Administration owns a favorable end-game on this chess board, but they are not brave enough to play to win. With the AMT hostage, Obama could get much of what the Administration stood for before it abandoned 'Tit for Tat'.
and especially those who do "home made" youtubes. Right now it seems the only thing we can do is either get enraged or laugh, gallows humor style.
I've been debating about site organization. Do you think it would be better to put the series, that's the SMC and the FMN into some other space, maybe creation of a forum, so they are all in one spot and also don't fill up the top level blog post list?
Great as always.
It is clear that the rise in poverty seems systemic based on the laws and infrastructure that are still in place from 2001.
We need a system that creates opportunities for the producers of America, those that make and provide goods or services and decreases the incentives for the hedge fund managers of for people to trade.
In my estimation, it all comes down to a simple math problem.
Capital Gains are only taxed at 15% whereas worker's income is usually taxed at 28%
If we inverted the two perhaps we would make trading currency and timing the market less profitable and production of goods and services more profitable.
Until America is aligned with growing the GDP, poverty will continue because there is no economic infrastructure which benefits the lower and middle classes.
Earlier the state unemployment data was released, the report is here. I couldn't get to it due to server migration.
The bottom line is unemployment is through the roof in Nevada, Detroit, CA, and not really dropping.
21 states reported increases in the unemployment rate and here is the scary bottom line news in this report:
Catch that? 36 states are still overall losing the actual number of jobs. Where the hell are these jobs going? Sure construction is dead and of course anything to do with residential real estate is in trouble...
these are structural issues dealing with the housing market implosion.
That said, what about the rest and after all of this time...we are STILL losing the actual number of jobs.
I hope to do some research on offshore outsourcing, guest workers soon, for frankly that's what I suspect is happening here...
once again. Using the recession as an excuse to offshore outsource more jobs.
No sure how you can do such an analysis and leave out (apologies if I missed it) the word "Federal" next to the word "Reserve." It has been the Federal Reserve that is juicing up the rich. The two huge jumps in the top 1% are the dot com bubbles and the housing bubbles.
Pumping cheap money always has 2 effects - huge debt in the bottom, funneling of wealth to the top.
The second villain is the global elites who offshored our industry. Again the Federal Reserve is the enabler - flood the masses with credit to replace wages.
We don't need higher taxes on the wealthy. We need the Fed torn down, brick by brick.
And the graph, "Recession at Work," is telling. This is exactly what propels the rise in corporate profits. It's not just a jobless recovery, it's a continuation of the great wealth transfer.
The Republicans are absolutely overjoyed by this and they've hoodwinked enough of their supporters to show some degree of structural integrity as a party, although it is an illusion. The Democrats use the Republican craziness to move the "moderate" position evermore to the right. There is no hope with the current cast of characters.
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