that's why I did this as a blog instead of an InstaPopulist, because I thought it was important to include the historical overview to get a sense how miserably paltry the numbers are, because a 23% rise is certainly impressive all on its own. If we were truly on a path toward re-industrialization, such as trying to build high-speed rail systems, or wind turbine farms and solar farms, with as much domestic content as possible, I will venture to guess that we would be seeing about $500 million to $1 billion in new manufacturing technology orders each month. It's very frustrating - and very troubling - that there is no one that considers this even a remote possibility, and no one is looking at what would be required in terms of new production equipment, to get these jobs done.
How could $5 bil mean so much to the Brown government. Apparently, that's not enough to refrain from crashing a tiny nation. Sweden and Norway let in Iceland's other big bank with similar results. But these two countries admitted their error and paid back depositors in full, leaving the citizens of Iceland alone. Apparently, the Dutch and British lack the decency to make the same decision.
This vote has frightened many at the top. It should. It's a devastating indictment of the indifference of all of the governments involved.
I think is charitable of you to include a trial in the fate of those who've stolen so much from so many. Maybe they could be tried during half time at the next Super Bowl.
I'd be just as happy ignoring them after taking back their fraud profits.
I've seen this been taken many times out of context to say all sorts of absurd things, from "oh obviously bad trade deals work" to "offshore outsourcing isn't a problem" to "this is leading the recovery" (has slightly more credibility)...
but when you're at the bottom of the cliff and manage to pull out some.....it looks great if one is just looking at short term slope or trend lines...
uh, no so much if one looks at the natural log, compounded to reflect the overall economic growth and really bad when you look at the decline of overall manufacturing in overall GDP...
But there is a huge investment tax credit and additional write offs....and all of this is good to me!
That was part of Stimulus and good to read it's having an effect.
which reminds me to get the site "find it" situation better. It uses meta tags but unfortunately people don't use the same ones for the same topic, so I need to improve being able to find older posts!
This is something everyone should get behind - A transaction tax for Wall Street. It would seem that the public in general is starting to wake up and smell the coffee.
Unless this is stopped by law it won't stop till the costs here are deflated or slowed and overseas costs match ours. Housing, education and medical costs will have to be dealt with for that to happen.
We had a golden opportunity to deflate the economy and allow the housing collapse but instead we have done everything possible to perpetuate the former model while making things worse on working people.
I wish he could shame them into something, but it's not going to happen. What worries me more is that there are a lot of homeowners that aren't feeling any shame about walking away from their home and defaulting on purpose.
I read the article at Mr Mortgage and several other places about people walking away from their mortgage and home after not getting any help from their lender. Many of them would rather take the hit to their credit than lose money on homes that might not come back in value for years or even decades. No more mortgage they can't afford.
They just passed a massive $148 billion "Stimulus redux" but a huge portion is extending unemployment, COBRA..
well, while I agree with that for the unemployed, the reality is that only 48% even qualify for unemployment, which leaves every body else high and dry.
I mean if they would have done a direct jobs program that would have helped the high and dry but this just covers only those covered in the first place, meanwhile 52% of workers are what? Now in cardboard boxes (or maybe wooden ones)?
I saw the EU out to plain ban currency swap derivatives, but we've had so many "announcements" which nothing actually ever happens I ignored it.
So, this is great news and if they really take action on these derivatives, love it they are going after credit default swaps (little insurance bets against other derivatives that those various structured financial vehicles will go bust) and I hope they go after a host of these things and plain ban them. From bad mathematics, to bad models, to lack of full information, to the inability to properly price them....
all of it I think needs to go into the trash can. I have no real problems with some derivatives but that's only when they cannot create systemic risk, contagion and probably most importantly, each type of "financial product" is heavily regulated, from the math to the computer science of it all the way to the trading of it and "bet" placement.
While I'm all for an ind. CFPA, one of the things that bothers me is various large money forces are trying so hard to save it.....the real problem, derivatives, dark pools, flash trading and so on is going almost untouched.
America is spending 53% of its budget on the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and to build and maintain a global presence. Why?
End the Wars, bring our troops home, close the damned global imperialism and focus on restoration of the United States to a democracy.
Truth is we don't have an accurate tally, but there is a lot of evidence to back it up. Manufacturing has lost millions of jobs this recession. 3 million are attributed to NAFTA alone. It has shrank from about 15% of the overall GDP to about 11% currently. Service sector jobs have shrank and part of trade is the "free flow of capital"
You also are unaware, the group most hit by offshore outsourcing is engineers and scientists. Advanced R&D has been offshore outsourced again in the billions of dollars and in the jobs it is in the hundreds of thousands.
"pre-ordained cheap labor imports via guest worker Visas."
I wouldnt be surprised if they imported factories and workers from other countries to fudge the numbers. Do these numbers represent activity in the US or the activites of US citizens and permanent residents. Thats all that matters to me as that is the we in "WE THE PEOPLE." Its not WE THE PEOPLE of Mexico, India, China, etc. The Democratic party better learn that fact (but they never will) or they should be thrown out of office--they have their hands all over "insourcing" and outsourcing. All the economists tell us is that in the long run it is good for us. Funny thing is I they dont ever say who the "us" is.
The claim is not true and the title is blatantly misleading. Most of the 'lost jobs' have simply been eliminated not outsourced. Does anybody seriously think that millions of jobs have been outsourced from the US in the since 2008? Even a cursory glance at the Indian and the Chinese economy will show that the number of outsourced jobs in the last 2 years is only a small fraction of the jobs eliminated in the US.
Outsourcing is definitely a problem for the US economy, but it is not the most pressing one. The real problem is the overall structure of the economy. This problem cannot be understood by simplistic numbers and economic indicators. The real culprit is society's greed, worship of wealth and the wealthy. Broadly speaking this has allowed the growth of jobs in three areas. 1.Banking and finance which have systematically perpetrated fraud on the entire global economy. 2.Legal and managerial jobs in auxiliary roles that support banking and finance. 3. IT and communications that offer 'software solutions' to the finance and banking sector.
Even in these areas jobs lower down the food chain are essentially on a subsistence wage.
Low end low paid jobs in IT and manufacturing have been outsourced to India and China where the wages are a fraction of the already low American wages.
The temporary real estate boom created low paid jobs in construction and engineering for a few years. Plenty of low paid jobs were created in the entertainment sector too. Basically the economy has been restructured into a feudal one with aristocrats and a large population of serfs supporting their greed.
When I refer to jobs as 'low end' or 'low paid', I refer to them in real buying power terms. All the low paid jobs created during the real estate boom never paid enough, when the cost of housing was rising, reducing the buying power the wage and driving the people into debt. The debt burden of even the so called 'middle class' soared during the early years of this century. Even highly educated scientists and engineers in sectors that have not seen outsourcing, have not been getting decent jobs for a while now.
All these indicators point to the fact that the culture of greed has allowed a massive restructuring of the economy in favor of financial manipulation and legal ponzi schemes. But accusing the society of collective blind greed is perhaps not popular for the economic populist. Any sane society would dismantle the entire fancy financial sector and not try to chase imaginary profits.
I call the current economic situation the Wile E. Coyote Syndrome because it reminds me of the old cartoon where the Coyote runs off a cliff and then hangs in mid-air for a while.
From what I'm reading now on the MSM econ sites, more and more commentators and analysts are beginning to glance downward and discover the ground is far below their feet. I figure the plunge and the tiny puff of smoke far, far down will come soon enough.
Then things will really become "interesting." The Coyote always survives, but even though the USA has become quite cartoon-like in many respects, I don't have such high hopes for us.
You have written an excellent piece explaining who the players are in the financial chicanery. The American economics profession has been avoiding the cause of this problem. In the article you allude to the fact that "there are no creditworthy borrowers". Why? Answer is the wage productivity gap according to Dr Ravi Batra. There are other contributing factors as well. Regressive taxation and fees on the poor and middle class. All while giving tax cuts to the upper brackets. We have to reset the economy of the U.S.; the idea that reforms will fix our deep foundational problems is wishful thinking. In 1973, manufacturing was over 30 percent of economy. Last year it was hovering at an anemic 11 percent. To quote Dr. Batra "without production you have nothing". The nation desperately needs an industrial policy and review of all trade treaties and foreign currency manipulations. You spoke of our trade gap the current deficit probably can't be funded with paper assets any longer. We have to have the courage move in a different direction away from the corruption of neoliberal economics professed by friedman, rand, greenspan, summers, geitner, and bernanke. The laws of economic physics can't be suspended forever.
Another piece of ‘soft’ evidence that the economy is slipping back, is in today’s fascinating blog article at Naked Capitalism: “The Empire Continues to Strike Back”
One quote: “The campaign to defend Geithner and Emanuel, both architects of the administration’s finance friendly policies has gone beyond what most people would see as spin into such an aggressive effort to manipulate popular perceptions that it is not a stretch to call it propaganda.”
If things are going well, then there would be no need defend Geithner and Emanuel et al with “propaganda”. The facts would speak for themselves and they could just brag about them.
In election years: if the facts are on your side, argue the facts; else propagandize.
If the outcome of the up and coming elections increases Republican power and influence in Washington we will see them aggressively attack Obama as they did Clinton. The birthers will have more leverage to demand an investigation as to his qualification to be President etc... The attacks will not be based in fact. Remember Whitewater,filegate and travelgate were all ultimately found to be nothing. The damage was done. Obama will have a much different view on bi-partisanship if the Republicans increase their power. This is why he needs to prosecute the actual criminals that have destroyed our society and have killed our children. The real criminals will make Obama into a faux criminal. Bush/Cheney/Rove should all be prosecuted for deceiving us into Iraq and killing and maiming our children and not theirs. The Ratings Agencies need to be held accountable for "opining" the crap securities they rated their highest ratings were not crap. Being able to hide behind the legalism that they were only expressing their opinion and cannot be held accountable is ...(insert your worst cursing here) And all of those who tanked our economy need to be held accountable.
I am concerned that when all of the discontent finally pops, Obama is going to be so weakened by the right I am concerned about a rise of the fascist right. Americans have proven to be idiots. It won't take much in my estimation to get the God and Guns right wing motivated.
The breadth of the discontent is startling. People a fed up but do not know how or where to vent it. Voting for Obama gave a degree of hope and belief that things will change. The masses vented by voting for this hope and change. Yes we can ...
It is apparent that Obama has punked us so far in his first year. The vote for hope has changed to complete disgust. Our society was so fed up with the Bush/Cheney fiasco and Obama created a trance of ideals that we all hoped would come true. The level of anti-incumbency is vast. If the right gains any power in November, Obama is doomed to be destroyed.
If you want him to come back and frankly I wish you all would realize the amount of time and effort I have to put into this site to moderate content and make sure the site is not spammed or seriously skewed, anyway you can click on his ID and send him an email through the contact tab.
I think he's overreacting, esp. with so much stuff out there that does believe it's all genes and I might note, that some of our lovely foreign guest workers promote that idea with a good 25k reads a day, so my reaction is not from outer space.
that's why I did this as a blog instead of an InstaPopulist, because I thought it was important to include the historical overview to get a sense how miserably paltry the numbers are, because a 23% rise is certainly impressive all on its own. If we were truly on a path toward re-industrialization, such as trying to build high-speed rail systems, or wind turbine farms and solar farms, with as much domestic content as possible, I will venture to guess that we would be seeing about $500 million to $1 billion in new manufacturing technology orders each month. It's very frustrating - and very troubling - that there is no one that considers this even a remote possibility, and no one is looking at what would be required in terms of new production equipment, to get these jobs done.
How could $5 bil mean so much to the Brown government. Apparently, that's not enough to refrain from crashing a tiny nation. Sweden and Norway let in Iceland's other big bank with similar results. But these two countries admitted their error and paid back depositors in full, leaving the citizens of Iceland alone. Apparently, the Dutch and British lack the decency to make the same decision.
This vote has frightened many at the top. It should. It's a devastating indictment of the indifference of all of the governments involved.
I think is charitable of you to include a trial in the fate of those who've stolen so much from so many. Maybe they could be tried during half time at the next Super Bowl.
I'd be just as happy ignoring them after taking back their fraud profits.
I've seen this been taken many times out of context to say all sorts of absurd things, from "oh obviously bad trade deals work" to "offshore outsourcing isn't a problem" to "this is leading the recovery" (has slightly more credibility)...
but when you're at the bottom of the cliff and manage to pull out some.....it looks great if one is just looking at short term slope or trend lines...
uh, no so much if one looks at the natural log, compounded to reflect the overall economic growth and really bad when you look at the decline of overall manufacturing in overall GDP...
But there is a huge investment tax credit and additional write offs....and all of this is good to me!
That was part of Stimulus and good to read it's having an effect.
On here with Johnny Venom up in arms over it and then we compromised and he presented a modification to it.
(I'm the all for it one).
BTW: can you please format your links? Over in the user guide are some details on how to do that.
Here is JV's and Tony's arguments.
More posts here and here..
which reminds me to get the site "find it" situation better. It uses meta tags but unfortunately people don't use the same ones for the same topic, so I need to improve being able to find older posts!
This is something everyone should get behind - A transaction tax for Wall Street. It would seem that the public in general is starting to wake up and smell the coffee.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-11/unions-map-make-wall-street-...
Actually no cost to the taxpayers and low cost to companies who bring the jobs back here. But they have to maximize profits and thats that.
Towards the end of 2008 HP announced almost 25,000 layoffs here because of the EDS merger.
http://www.infoworld.com/t/business/hp-announces-24600-layoffs-in-wake-e...
What these layoff announcements never mention is that they are simply outsourcing many of these jobs.
http://milkyminx.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/are-layoffs-tied-to-offshoring...
Unless this is stopped by law it won't stop till the costs here are deflated or slowed and overseas costs match ours. Housing, education and medical costs will have to be dealt with for that to happen.
We had a golden opportunity to deflate the economy and allow the housing collapse but instead we have done everything possible to perpetuate the former model while making things worse on working people.
I wish he could shame them into something, but it's not going to happen. What worries me more is that there are a lot of homeowners that aren't feeling any shame about walking away from their home and defaulting on purpose.
I read the article at Mr Mortgage and several other places about people walking away from their mortgage and home after not getting any help from their lender. Many of them would rather take the hit to their credit than lose money on homes that might not come back in value for years or even decades. No more mortgage they can't afford.
They just passed a massive $148 billion "Stimulus redux" but a huge portion is extending unemployment, COBRA..
well, while I agree with that for the unemployed, the reality is that only 48% even qualify for unemployment, which leaves every body else high and dry.
I mean if they would have done a direct jobs program that would have helped the high and dry but this just covers only those covered in the first place, meanwhile 52% of workers are what? Now in cardboard boxes (or maybe wooden ones)?
I saw the EU out to plain ban currency swap derivatives, but we've had so many "announcements" which nothing actually ever happens I ignored it.
So, this is great news and if they really take action on these derivatives, love it they are going after credit default swaps (little insurance bets against other derivatives that those various structured financial vehicles will go bust) and I hope they go after a host of these things and plain ban them. From bad mathematics, to bad models, to lack of full information, to the inability to properly price them....
all of it I think needs to go into the trash can. I have no real problems with some derivatives but that's only when they cannot create systemic risk, contagion and probably most importantly, each type of "financial product" is heavily regulated, from the math to the computer science of it all the way to the trading of it and "bet" placement.
While I'm all for an ind. CFPA, one of the things that bothers me is various large money forces are trying so hard to save it.....the real problem, derivatives, dark pools, flash trading and so on is going almost untouched.
America is spending 53% of its budget on the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and to build and maintain a global presence. Why?
End the Wars, bring our troops home, close the damned global imperialism and focus on restoration of the United States to a democracy.
Truth is we don't have an accurate tally, but there is a lot of evidence to back it up. Manufacturing has lost millions of jobs this recession. 3 million are attributed to NAFTA alone. It has shrank from about 15% of the overall GDP to about 11% currently. Service sector jobs have shrank and part of trade is the "free flow of capital"
You also are unaware, the group most hit by offshore outsourcing is engineers and scientists. Advanced R&D has been offshore outsourced again in the billions of dollars and in the jobs it is in the hundreds of thousands.
"pre-ordained cheap labor imports via guest worker Visas."
I wouldnt be surprised if they imported factories and workers from other countries to fudge the numbers. Do these numbers represent activity in the US or the activites of US citizens and permanent residents. Thats all that matters to me as that is the we in "WE THE PEOPLE." Its not WE THE PEOPLE of Mexico, India, China, etc. The Democratic party better learn that fact (but they never will) or they should be thrown out of office--they have their hands all over "insourcing" and outsourcing. All the economists tell us is that in the long run it is good for us. Funny thing is I they dont ever say who the "us" is.
The claim is not true and the title is blatantly misleading. Most of the 'lost jobs' have simply been eliminated not outsourced. Does anybody seriously think that millions of jobs have been outsourced from the US in the since 2008? Even a cursory glance at the Indian and the Chinese economy will show that the number of outsourced jobs in the last 2 years is only a small fraction of the jobs eliminated in the US.
Outsourcing is definitely a problem for the US economy, but it is not the most pressing one. The real problem is the overall structure of the economy. This problem cannot be understood by simplistic numbers and economic indicators. The real culprit is society's greed, worship of wealth and the wealthy. Broadly speaking this has allowed the growth of jobs in three areas. 1.Banking and finance which have systematically perpetrated fraud on the entire global economy. 2.Legal and managerial jobs in auxiliary roles that support banking and finance. 3. IT and communications that offer 'software solutions' to the finance and banking sector.
Even in these areas jobs lower down the food chain are essentially on a subsistence wage.
Low end low paid jobs in IT and manufacturing have been outsourced to India and China where the wages are a fraction of the already low American wages.
The temporary real estate boom created low paid jobs in construction and engineering for a few years. Plenty of low paid jobs were created in the entertainment sector too. Basically the economy has been restructured into a feudal one with aristocrats and a large population of serfs supporting their greed.
When I refer to jobs as 'low end' or 'low paid', I refer to them in real buying power terms. All the low paid jobs created during the real estate boom never paid enough, when the cost of housing was rising, reducing the buying power the wage and driving the people into debt. The debt burden of even the so called 'middle class' soared during the early years of this century. Even highly educated scientists and engineers in sectors that have not seen outsourcing, have not been getting decent jobs for a while now.
All these indicators point to the fact that the culture of greed has allowed a massive restructuring of the economy in favor of financial manipulation and legal ponzi schemes. But accusing the society of collective blind greed is perhaps not popular for the economic populist. Any sane society would dismantle the entire fancy financial sector and not try to chase imaginary profits.
Good article.
I call the current economic situation the Wile E. Coyote Syndrome because it reminds me of the old cartoon where the Coyote runs off a cliff and then hangs in mid-air for a while.
From what I'm reading now on the MSM econ sites, more and more commentators and analysts are beginning to glance downward and discover the ground is far below their feet. I figure the plunge and the tiny puff of smoke far, far down will come soon enough.
Then things will really become "interesting." The Coyote always survives, but even though the USA has become quite cartoon-like in many respects, I don't have such high hopes for us.
You have written an excellent piece explaining who the players are in the financial chicanery. The American economics profession has been avoiding the cause of this problem. In the article you allude to the fact that "there are no creditworthy borrowers". Why? Answer is the wage productivity gap according to Dr Ravi Batra. There are other contributing factors as well. Regressive taxation and fees on the poor and middle class. All while giving tax cuts to the upper brackets. We have to reset the economy of the U.S.; the idea that reforms will fix our deep foundational problems is wishful thinking. In 1973, manufacturing was over 30 percent of economy. Last year it was hovering at an anemic 11 percent. To quote Dr. Batra "without production you have nothing". The nation desperately needs an industrial policy and review of all trade treaties and foreign currency manipulations. You spoke of our trade gap the current deficit probably can't be funded with paper assets any longer. We have to have the courage move in a different direction away from the corruption of neoliberal economics professed by friedman, rand, greenspan, summers, geitner, and bernanke. The laws of economic physics can't be suspended forever.
Another piece of ‘soft’ evidence that the economy is slipping back, is in today’s fascinating blog article at Naked Capitalism: “The Empire Continues to Strike Back”
One quote: “The campaign to defend Geithner and Emanuel, both architects of the administration’s finance friendly policies has gone beyond what most people would see as spin into such an aggressive effort to manipulate popular perceptions that it is not a stretch to call it propaganda.”
If things are going well, then there would be no need defend Geithner and Emanuel et al with “propaganda”. The facts would speak for themselves and they could just brag about them.
In election years: if the facts are on your side, argue the facts; else propagandize.
If the outcome of the up and coming elections increases Republican power and influence in Washington we will see them aggressively attack Obama as they did Clinton. The birthers will have more leverage to demand an investigation as to his qualification to be President etc... The attacks will not be based in fact. Remember Whitewater,filegate and travelgate were all ultimately found to be nothing. The damage was done. Obama will have a much different view on bi-partisanship if the Republicans increase their power. This is why he needs to prosecute the actual criminals that have destroyed our society and have killed our children. The real criminals will make Obama into a faux criminal. Bush/Cheney/Rove should all be prosecuted for deceiving us into Iraq and killing and maiming our children and not theirs. The Ratings Agencies need to be held accountable for "opining" the crap securities they rated their highest ratings were not crap. Being able to hide behind the legalism that they were only expressing their opinion and cannot be held accountable is ...(insert your worst cursing here) And all of those who tanked our economy need to be held accountable.
I am concerned that when all of the discontent finally pops, Obama is going to be so weakened by the right I am concerned about a rise of the fascist right. Americans have proven to be idiots. It won't take much in my estimation to get the God and Guns right wing motivated.
The breadth of the discontent is startling. People a fed up but do not know how or where to vent it. Voting for Obama gave a degree of hope and belief that things will change. The masses vented by voting for this hope and change. Yes we can ...
It is apparent that Obama has punked us so far in his first year. The vote for hope has changed to complete disgust. Our society was so fed up with the Bush/Cheney fiasco and Obama created a trance of ideals that we all hoped would come true. The level of anti-incumbency is vast. If the right gains any power in November, Obama is doomed to be destroyed.
I don't know what else to call this, it's a wipe out for working America.
If you want him to come back and frankly I wish you all would realize the amount of time and effort I have to put into this site to moderate content and make sure the site is not spammed or seriously skewed, anyway you can click on his ID and send him an email through the contact tab.
I think he's overreacting, esp. with so much stuff out there that does believe it's all genes and I might note, that some of our lovely foreign guest workers promote that idea with a good 25k reads a day, so my reaction is not from outer space.
Of course I would like him to.
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