D. H. Fischer in his book “The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History” writes:
"Exchange rate became highly unstable in the fourteenth century. Governments tried to stabilize their fragile economies by imposing export controls. The effect was often the opposite of what was intended. England’s Edward I, for example tried to make things better by forbidding the export of English coins in 1299. By 1307, he had prohibited the removal of foreign money as well. He also pegged gold at an artificially high level relative to silver. These policies caused increasing distortions in exchange rates, which in turn created dislocation in English trade.”
As you probably all know, we run ads on this site to help pay for servers and administration costs. Believe me, we're not getting rich or is it even covering those costs
We use Google Adsense, which is not the best to keep "bad ads" off of the site.
Much to my horror this morning, I look over to see a highly ridiculous, conservative agenda group's ads smothered all over the site.
Now, when I see these types of ads, I can block them, but as admin, normally the ads are blocked from my view so I, as site administrator, do not view them or click on them.
So....if you see a really "bad ad" on this site, please alert me via the email contact so I can get it out of here.
We should be getting investment ads, even physical gold buy ads, economics ads, even some political ads, but this one was just.....well, there sure are a lot of corporate funded agenda groups out there, trying to cast themselves as grassroots, that's all I can say! It's bad enough getting folks to focus in on economics by the numbers, I think the last thing we need is to promote corporate agenda politics which are being masked as grassroots!
I never thought of that influencing how I perceive K12 until now. My attitude is to just get through it and out as fast as possible and all real learning goes on in college.
That said, from what I can tell, the opportunities for Americans in higher education are "squeeze city". It should be anyone can get in, while very few can get out, i.e. the mastery bar is on high.
But it seems the game now is more just to even get into higher education generally, never mind the official elite universities.
Rejection rates of 80% routinely and seems like none are below 50%, it is denying opportunity to Americans straight out of the gate and what is that about?
If someone can ace Physics or whatever, why are they not even allowed to try?
Folks, all of a sudden we're seeing headlines on the unemployment report which isn't due out until next Friday.
Just a heads up, I know I will be going over it with a fine tooth comb and I'll bet midtowng will as well, to ascertain if we have real job growth or a Census temp hiring/snow removing bubble of good news, or what the real data is...
I don't know what news organizations are thinking, writing articles on data that isn't out, although it's clear analysts are expecting growth, so if it does not appear, bet the markets will actually react this time (markets pay attention to the unemployed? That alone is news!).
By 2014, International Monetary Fund official John Lipsky remarked March 21, the debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio of the Group of Seven countries will reach 100%, and the governments of the industrial world will carry the highest debt burden since shortly after the end of World War II.
As long as Corporate America, or Multinational America, doesn't experience a "debt shortage" -- we are truly good to go....
No surprise there. Now I believe the reason we have this war is....no one knows (and I've tried to find this out), how much U.S. multinational corporations as well as various banks (read JP Morgan Chase, Citigoup, Goldman Sachs) are dependent upon a devalued Chinese currency. These are the various businesses that offshore outsource production to China for cheap labor as well as deals (and this is U.S. job loss) as well as various financial "investments" and so on that require a undervalued Chinese currency.
Thanks, I will scan them, I've got some data and digging around on China to write up some posts.
I've also got a book review on someone who is a self proclaimed Protectionist. (ah, such a dirty word, not!)
I can say for sure I don't think a "sudden lurch" on a RMB revaluation is good, it has to be incremental and time for all of the above to react.
More later, but thanks for the heads up on who to go scan in the Chinese economics blog/press war.
John Frisbe writing for “the US-China Business Council” criticizes the above “Flawed [EPI] Study China Jobs…” Michael Pettis in his “China Financial Markets” blog criticizes the Frisbe report.
We had 3 teachers engaging in male to male sex abuses (sleeping with the teenage boys in some seriously weird abusive, power play stuff) and a few more sleeping with the girls.
I'm not going to pretend I know what I'm talking about with teaching/education in K-12.
Don't forget that a public sector worker's wages also flow out to the private sector worker in the form of consumption - and that the private sector worker's wages come entirely through consumption.
There are ways to do competition within a union context, more on that later.
I will say, however, that part-time legislatures are an anti-populist idea. They mean that only affluent people can afford to become politicians, and discourage political aspirations among the poor and working class.
It's what happens within the hierarchical structure that matters.
And as for public schools, it depends a lot on the socioeconomic makeup of the area; I went for a year to an inner-city public school for kindergarten (and yanked out the next year) - the principal was a violent drunk who sold drugs to the kids (prescription pills). I went to a suburban public school for junior and high school in an affluent neighborhood, and we had PhDs for teachers and elective courses in Neurobiology.
Please address some of the other things like defined benefit plans that do not exist and early retirements, double dipping etc etc etc.
I believe there is more than a statistical mirage here and some of the biggest differences are not in stats but in the give away contracts that are no longer affordable.
As my job earning and stability is affected by the economy theirs is instead buttressed by tax dollars to maintain public sector employment.
Every penny of a private sector workers tax dollars goes towards government services and not all of that comes back to them. Every penny of a public sector workers tax dollars comes directly from tax dollars so all of that comes back to them and much more.
At some point there has to be a discussion of value.
Private sector workers are buying a product and they have no control over its cost, value or need. Its all mandated by contracts and laws and some of those are enacted by people with clear conflicts of interest. Here we have a part time legislature so we have union workers and reps who are also pushing and voting for not pro union laws but anti taxpayer laws.
Thankfully the economy is waking people up to the nature of some of these backroom deals and things will change in the near future somewhat.
I am not anti union but public unions face no competition and that is the biggest issue. Deal with that effectively and I'll be a public union advocate. When teaching jobs start to be sent to India I will find much compassion in my heart for that profession. Till then their 180 4 hour days, high wages, platinum benefit contracts, 20 sick days and early retirements will make me laugh when I hear how 'hard' they work and how its 'all for the children'.
On March 23, 2010, GATA Director Adrian Douglas was contacted by a whistleblower by the name of Andrew Maguire. Maguire is a metals trader in London. He has been told first-hand by traders working for JPMorganChase that JPMorganChase manipulates the precious metals markets, and they have bragged to how they make money doing so.
In November 2009 Maguire contacted the CFTC enforcement division to report this criminal activity. He described in detail the way JPMorgan Chase signals to the market its intention to take down the precious metals. Traders recognize these signals and make money shorting the metals alongside JPM. Maguire explained how there are routine market manipulations at the time of option expiry, non-farm payroll data releases, and COMEX contract rollover, as well as ad-hoc events.
On February 3 Maguire gave two days' warning by e-mail to Eliud Ramirez, a senior investigator for the CFTC's Enforcement Division, that the precious metals would be attacked upon the release of the non-farm payroll data on February 5. On February 5, as market events played out exactly as predicted, further e-mails were sent to Ramirez while the manipulation was in progress.
It would not be possible to predict such a market move unless the market was manipulated.
Does anyone know of any market JPM Chase ISN'T manipulating?
I've read that K12 administrators are busy padding with more administration (same with higher education and it's worse)m pulling 6 figures and bonuses, all the while laying off teachers and so on.
On the other hand, if I had a kid these days I wouldn't be caught dead putting them into public school. God, what a bureaucratic, rule insane, nightmare. Just the fact they teach math on some absurd horizontal equation because "that's how people read" or some crap is insane to me. Math is in columns because it's easier to understand that way when calculating. Horizontal math, this is what happens when one has too many PhDs claiming how the "brain processes information", instead of what is tried and true.
The only problem I have with public sector unions is (and these arguments are relative to the power of local unions so my problem is with unions I am familiar with in RI)that when they negotiate there is no competition at the table to hold them in check.
In my state they are working on bills to make teacher contracts perpetual so that in a down economy all they have to do is not agree to a contract and the original one would stay in force. In a good economy they point to how well everyone is doing and get great contracts the same reasoning should apply in bad times but in bad times its all about the children. They do not mention that 90% of the cost of public education in unionized states goes directly to labor costs.
When Verizon sits down at the table with their unions the unions must take into account the competition and the economic environment and they do. I use them as an example because as a service provider they are not subject to over seas competition. If those unions do not take those factors into consideration and draw a hard line they risk the real chance that the company will go under. That's a proven historically. When a public union draws a hard line taxes go up. People that are tight on money right now and out of work are getting tax increases they can't afford in large part so that the public sector does not have to feel the weight of this economy - any of it. And some people are losing their homes so that 100% or close to 100% employment can be maintained in the public sector.
Just to note though that companies like Verizon used to buy all their equipment from US manufacturers and then from US and Canada and now none of it is made here or there.
No one in the private sector can retire at near full pay with a cola on their private pension (who gets a defined benefit plan these days anymore anyway?) after just 20 or so years on the job. That's the case here.
I know of no one in the private sector that can get layoffs over turned either but judges regularly over turn public sector layoffs so there is a job security there that does not exist in the private sector. That used to have a cost associated with it in the form of lower pay and benefits now they have both advantages.
There are literally dozens of examples where the private sector employee is held to higher standards works more for the same money and benefits and has less job security. I am not talking about the finance industry here either when I speak of the private sector I mean working America.
The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.
And many others. These flaws can be corrected but we have to change our economic policies. We need to target full employment with our economic policies.
Bickering over unemployment compensation extension is not change. It will simply be a recurring theme through out the next few years.
I can rest on a shovel with the best of them. But personally I'd rather have some good old capital producing jobs.
I expect that if this goes on for another year and there is no reason to think not, that we will see the same things Greece is facing.
I find it really, really, funny that our local school district is about to go on strike. They want a 5% wage increase each year for the next several years. Ha! Where exactly are the taxpayers to come up with the cash.
Some people have not accepted the economic reality that times have changed.
So all that guaranteed job stuff, paid for by taxpayers, the same ones that still have work.....is not going to go well.
D. H. Fischer in his book “The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History” writes:
"Exchange rate became highly unstable in the fourteenth century. Governments tried to stabilize their fragile economies by imposing export controls. The effect was often the opposite of what was intended. England’s Edward I, for example tried to make things better by forbidding the export of English coins in 1299. By 1307, he had prohibited the removal of foreign money as well. He also pegged gold at an artificially high level relative to silver. These policies caused increasing distortions in exchange rates, which in turn created dislocation in English trade.”
And the beat goes on…
As you probably all know, we run ads on this site to help pay for servers and administration costs. Believe me, we're not getting rich or is it even covering those costs
We use Google Adsense, which is not the best to keep "bad ads" off of the site.
Much to my horror this morning, I look over to see a highly ridiculous, conservative agenda group's ads smothered all over the site.
Now, when I see these types of ads, I can block them, but as admin, normally the ads are blocked from my view so I, as site administrator, do not view them or click on them.
So....if you see a really "bad ad" on this site, please alert me via the email contact so I can get it out of here.
We should be getting investment ads, even physical gold buy ads, economics ads, even some political ads, but this one was just.....well, there sure are a lot of corporate funded agenda groups out there, trying to cast themselves as grassroots, that's all I can say! It's bad enough getting folks to focus in on economics by the numbers, I think the last thing we need is to promote corporate agenda politics which are being masked as grassroots!
said corporations want China currency changed. I don't believe it.
I never thought of that influencing how I perceive K12 until now. My attitude is to just get through it and out as fast as possible and all real learning goes on in college.
That said, from what I can tell, the opportunities for Americans in higher education are "squeeze city". It should be anyone can get in, while very few can get out, i.e. the mastery bar is on high.
But it seems the game now is more just to even get into higher education generally, never mind the official elite universities.
Rejection rates of 80% routinely and seems like none are below 50%, it is denying opportunity to Americans straight out of the gate and what is that about?
If someone can ace Physics or whatever, why are they not even allowed to try?
Folks, all of a sudden we're seeing headlines on the unemployment report which isn't due out until next Friday.
Just a heads up, I know I will be going over it with a fine tooth comb and I'll bet midtowng will as well, to ascertain if we have real job growth or a Census temp hiring/snow removing bubble of good news, or what the real data is...
I don't know what news organizations are thinking, writing articles on data that isn't out, although it's clear analysts are expecting growth, so if it does not appear, bet the markets will actually react this time (markets pay attention to the unemployed? That alone is news!).
Once again, midtowng, you've completely figured it out! And major props to you, guy.
According to this article,
As long as Corporate America, or Multinational America, doesn't experience a "debt shortage" -- we are truly good to go....
Geez.....
No surprise there. Now I believe the reason we have this war is....no one knows (and I've tried to find this out), how much U.S. multinational corporations as well as various banks (read JP Morgan Chase, Citigoup, Goldman Sachs) are dependent upon a devalued Chinese currency. These are the various businesses that offshore outsource production to China for cheap labor as well as deals (and this is U.S. job loss) as well as various financial "investments" and so on that require a undervalued Chinese currency.
Thanks, I will scan them, I've got some data and digging around on China to write up some posts.
I've also got a book review on someone who is a self proclaimed Protectionist. (ah, such a dirty word, not!)
I can say for sure I don't think a "sudden lurch" on a RMB revaluation is good, it has to be incremental and time for all of the above to react.
More later, but thanks for the heads up on who to go scan in the Chinese economics blog/press war.
“Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” – China trade
John Frisbe writing for “the US-China Business Council” criticizes the above “Flawed [EPI] Study China Jobs…” Michael Pettis in his “China Financial Markets” blog criticizes the Frisbe report.
And, the beat goes on…
That's fucked up.
We had 3 teachers engaging in male to male sex abuses (sleeping with the teenage boys in some seriously weird abusive, power play stuff) and a few more sleeping with the girls.
I'm not going to pretend I know what I'm talking about with teaching/education in K-12.
Don't forget that a public sector worker's wages also flow out to the private sector worker in the form of consumption - and that the private sector worker's wages come entirely through consumption.
There are ways to do competition within a union context, more on that later.
I will say, however, that part-time legislatures are an anti-populist idea. They mean that only affluent people can afford to become politicians, and discourage political aspirations among the poor and working class.
It's what happens within the hierarchical structure that matters.
And as for public schools, it depends a lot on the socioeconomic makeup of the area; I went for a year to an inner-city public school for kindergarten (and yanked out the next year) - the principal was a violent drunk who sold drugs to the kids (prescription pills). I went to a suburban public school for junior and high school in an affluent neighborhood, and we had PhDs for teachers and elective courses in Neurobiology.
Please address some of the other things like defined benefit plans that do not exist and early retirements, double dipping etc etc etc.
I believe there is more than a statistical mirage here and some of the biggest differences are not in stats but in the give away contracts that are no longer affordable.
As my job earning and stability is affected by the economy theirs is instead buttressed by tax dollars to maintain public sector employment.
Every penny of a private sector workers tax dollars goes towards government services and not all of that comes back to them. Every penny of a public sector workers tax dollars comes directly from tax dollars so all of that comes back to them and much more.
At some point there has to be a discussion of value.
Private sector workers are buying a product and they have no control over its cost, value or need. Its all mandated by contracts and laws and some of those are enacted by people with clear conflicts of interest. Here we have a part time legislature so we have union workers and reps who are also pushing and voting for not pro union laws but anti taxpayer laws.
Thankfully the economy is waking people up to the nature of some of these backroom deals and things will change in the near future somewhat.
I am not anti union but public unions face no competition and that is the biggest issue. Deal with that effectively and I'll be a public union advocate. When teaching jobs start to be sent to India I will find much compassion in my heart for that profession. Till then their 180 4 hour days, high wages, platinum benefit contracts, 20 sick days and early retirements will make me laugh when I hear how 'hard' they work and how its 'all for the children'.
That said again I am open to your part 2.
Just to keep the JPM Chase corruption file updated:
From this gold site we read:
Does anyone know of any market JPM Chase ISN'T manipulating?
I've read that K12 administrators are busy padding with more administration (same with higher education and it's worse)m pulling 6 figures and bonuses, all the while laying off teachers and so on.
On the other hand, if I had a kid these days I wouldn't be caught dead putting them into public school. God, what a bureaucratic, rule insane, nightmare. Just the fact they teach math on some absurd horizontal equation because "that's how people read" or some crap is insane to me. Math is in columns because it's easier to understand that way when calculating. Horizontal math, this is what happens when one has too many PhDs claiming how the "brain processes information", instead of what is tried and true.
That difference is actually a statistical mirage, caused by WAIT UNTIL PART 2.
The only problem I have with public sector unions is (and these arguments are relative to the power of local unions so my problem is with unions I am familiar with in RI)that when they negotiate there is no competition at the table to hold them in check.
In my state they are working on bills to make teacher contracts perpetual so that in a down economy all they have to do is not agree to a contract and the original one would stay in force. In a good economy they point to how well everyone is doing and get great contracts the same reasoning should apply in bad times but in bad times its all about the children. They do not mention that 90% of the cost of public education in unionized states goes directly to labor costs.
When Verizon sits down at the table with their unions the unions must take into account the competition and the economic environment and they do. I use them as an example because as a service provider they are not subject to over seas competition. If those unions do not take those factors into consideration and draw a hard line they risk the real chance that the company will go under. That's a proven historically. When a public union draws a hard line taxes go up. People that are tight on money right now and out of work are getting tax increases they can't afford in large part so that the public sector does not have to feel the weight of this economy - any of it. And some people are losing their homes so that 100% or close to 100% employment can be maintained in the public sector.
Just to note though that companies like Verizon used to buy all their equipment from US manufacturers and then from US and Canada and now none of it is made here or there.
No one in the private sector can retire at near full pay with a cola on their private pension (who gets a defined benefit plan these days anymore anyway?) after just 20 or so years on the job. That's the case here.
I know of no one in the private sector that can get layoffs over turned either but judges regularly over turn public sector layoffs so there is a job security there that does not exist in the private sector. That used to have a cost associated with it in the form of lower pay and benefits now they have both advantages.
There are literally dozens of examples where the private sector employee is held to higher standards works more for the same money and benefits and has less job security. I am not talking about the finance industry here either when I speak of the private sector I mean working America.
Federal Pay Ahead of Private Industry
Keynes recognized this:
And many others. These flaws can be corrected but we have to change our economic policies. We need to target full employment with our economic policies.
Bickering over unemployment compensation extension is not change. It will simply be a recurring theme through out the next few years.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
I can rest on a shovel with the best of them. But personally I'd rather have some good old capital producing jobs.
I expect that if this goes on for another year and there is no reason to think not, that we will see the same things Greece is facing.
I find it really, really, funny that our local school district is about to go on strike. They want a 5% wage increase each year for the next several years. Ha! Where exactly are the taxpayers to come up with the cash.
Some people have not accepted the economic reality that times have changed.
So all that guaranteed job stuff, paid for by taxpayers, the same ones that still have work.....is not going to go well.
Here's the thing: when you look at the numbers, the guy you know is a statistical blip.
Most public sector workers get a modest pension.
And the question is - shouldn't everyone have a decent pension?
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