1. Blinder's estimate is $30-40k.
2. I don't think our only choices are construction on the AAM model or busy work. There's a lot we can do with providing social services that's very cheap to run.
3. As far as investment vs. busy work goes, I'll point out that the WPA was using primarily unskilled workers, basic handtools, and the simplest possible methods of construction, and still made quality infrastructure with very low non-labor costs. Finally, I'd say that while investment is important, so's the value of labor power that gets wasted when workers are unemployed.
4. Skill matching, performance criteria, and efficient management I'm down with. Ditto education and job training.
5. The kind of underground shenanigans you describe are easily avoided through the fact that the government is directly hiring and managing - not contracting out.
6. You're more into the illegal immigration thing than I am, but my vision was that in an ideal system eligibility is based on paying premiums through a payroll tax, similar to current UI system.
Offshore outsourcing is currently a $150 billion a year market with a 5% projected growth rate.
I'm trying to find out what exactly is the percentage of Federal and State contracts (U.S. taxpayer dollars!) going offshore but look at this link! Just one offshore outsourcer has 1700 Federal, State and local contracts.
There are 1.5 million foreign guest workers currently working in the U.S. That's 1.5 million U.S. jobs, which should be going to Americans.
If you want an immediate direct jobs program, demand those offshore outsourced contracts are immediately canceled and put a freeze on guest worker Visas.
This is already U.S. taxpayer dollars and I think all should be horrified at some of the jobs States offshore outsource..and what is that?
Telephone support for those on food stamps, processing unemployment checks....think all of this requires incredible skills? No and in fact the U.S. workers who were fired have those very skills already.
Talk about violation of Keynes, this is it. That's public expenditures paying for jobs....in foreign country, and add insult to injury....jobs which support the U.S. unemployed!
Then, we just had $1.7 billion dollars of Stimulus money given directly to.....ya got it, foreign countries with $450 million on just one project to China...this is ridiculous, all that does is give China a leg up on alternative energy manufacturing....guaranteeing even further the U.S. will lose in developing it's own technology and manufacturing base.
Ugh. I'm looking for the total tally on Stimulus funds being used for offshore outsource jobs, use foreign guest workers, etc. but with just the focus on green jobs and this discovery, you know these funds, supposedly to Stimulate the U.S. economy and hire Americans...provide jobs...are just flowing offshore.
I.T. is not some magic skill or rare. Well, it does take a lot of training but the reality is we have hundreds of thousands of unemployed American workers with those very skills.
He is pointing to how these countries have strong national manufacturing, trade, development policies which is how they capture these industries.
But I think the weight proportion maybe a little off from what we know.
I mean he has some real world good points here.
Intel lost $1B? That's so amusing, which leads to another point...I honestly think we have some insider "political" agendas moving up in these companies which is really all about helping their home country and has little to even do with spreadsheet costs or skills.
How many of these "design centers" actually created much? Sure seems they still are busy displacing Americans and having those Americans train them before being fired...
i.e. knowledge and skills transfer, direct from U.S. workers to another nation's workers.
.. I can’t remember exactly how he put it but, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and S. Korea are a major source of our manufacturing jobs because of their technology – not their cheap labor..
That is what is known as a "circular arugment" -- the technology was transferred to them in order to manufacture those products, therefore the jobs must be transferred to them also!
Simply look into Volvo's experience in China and how much money they lost (over $1 billion). I don't mean to diss Japan (have always been a fan of some of their tech and business, although I wouldn't necessarily wish to ever work for them), but a close examination of their rocket tech program's history demonstrates my point.
If you want a superior BMW, Germany's the one, but the Jenson Interceptor was a conglomeration of the best of all automative worlds, not solely German (or French, or British, or American), and it was made in the UK.
The argument for transferring all the technology over to a foreign country, so that they can manufacture a product, then proclaiming the reason for offshoring those jobs is because you transferred the technology, buggers belief!!!!!
And that is the comical state of things in America today!
The reason for shipping programming and tech jobs to Ghana and Nigeria is therefore because of their superior technology?
The same pathetic premise should hold true for Bangladesh?
How can any functional adult regurgitate such nonsense?
If such were really the case, Intel would not have lost over $1 billion in their India Chip Design project. (Which they wisely closed and transferred out of there.)
Although, many Indians would claim that they created the IT industry there. (A number of us oldtimers would strongly dispute that.)
When a workforce develops products and technologies, then are continuously laid off while their achievements are offshored over decades, and repeatedly told they are incompentent and useless, they wisely ignore the souce of such drivel.
What has taken place is that the United States, a culture devised for innovation and progress, has been thorough disassembled and destroyed from doing that by all of those plunder and pillaging debt-financed billionaires.
The AAM has each job costing $55k. AAM infrastructure/direct jobs study, but a key element in their study is they have the production chain 100% domestically sourced and they also have the workers required to be U.S. citizens, Americans. (Hire America). They also went and looked at the actual projects selected as the ones which will add most to the economy over the long term (public works) and those jobs are more advanced and would provide on the job training in skills.
Mishel, on the other hand, is suggesting "busy work" jobs...
(and note Blinder, with the lowest estimate is still using a $40k estimate).....
Sure, busy work jobs are cheaper, but as an investment...
so?
ok, great, some trash is picked up, some houses are clean but that doesn't add, long term to critical infrastructure upon which the modern economy relies. The I for investment is really missing from some of these proposals.
Blinder's post, now I think everybody on this site at least and myself included were/are all for a direct jobs program but there must be two elements for it to work and that is a requirement the worker be an American and the means of production, all of it, domestically sourced.
Then on "job insurance", well, firstly one needs to match workers based on skills, including giving them skills as did the CCC as well as the WPA. Secondly, one MUST have a lock on labor supply and that means no illegal immigrants, no guest workers, no offshored and assuredly do not make this a magnet to have sudden labor supply influxes through immigration. A guaranteed job is one hell of a magnet, so that's just not practical because we have so many literally trying to twist even labor economic theory upside down due to their political agendas. You're going to also create an even more massive underground economy with that. Work will be by contract 1099-misc as well as good ole fashioned cash under the table and even more temp....to avoid paying yet another tax when hiring a worker (insurance premiums).
You must have performance criteria, efficient management...
I mean this is just not a good idea, I'm sorry, the models of the WPA, CCC, even things like Voc. Rehab. all of them had performance metrics AND provided education, on the job training AND seriously limited what kind of workers could even apply. The military gets away with this in terms of age and criteria.
If you're going to do this by states, well, each state should probably be at least worker domestically sourced. I do not think it's possible to have the means of production, goods of production state sourced, but it should be a "preferred" type thing.
So, why keep promoting things that actually will be a drain on the national economy when there are so many good things, already proved things out there which truly will give the most bang for the buck?
I continue to be puzzled by the tendency to brand anything that is paid for directly in government payrolls (as opposed to "by contract") as "welfare," "make work," or "anti-free market." Back in the days of the Works Progress Administration, some sneered at the image of people leaning on shovels as opposed to building great hydroelectric power plants (Hoover Dam) or other response to demand. But if it is done through a contract with KBR, it becomes initiative and valued. Any contract has layers of overhead, general and administrative cost, and profit on top of direct cost. And, of course, the rax code shelters a good chunk of the profit. Whenever I hear of those who consider the WPA a boondoggle, I consider our still unfinished private sector reconstruction projects in Iraq, and the vanished billions.
Frank T.
Please consider registering for an account. You can even use the contact email on the front page and I will set one up for you. The reason is you are commenting every day now and if you get an account, you bypass the CAPTCHA and have a comment tracker, where you can see who replied to you, see other users, it's way easier to have a conversation that way. Trust me, it's better. The register button is on the upper right hand column.
and I think a point where many converge is a national manufacturing, trade, economic strategy and policy. In other words, the U.S. should be subsidizing certain industries as well as protecting them, is common.
On cheap labor, I think he's missing the capital costs, it costs huge bucks to build a manufacturing plant and it is cheaper to build them in many other countries, but in terms of services, labor costs are much more of the expense, so cheap labor comes more into play.
You don't hear me just talk about the exchange rate, it's one factor, although recently analyzed to be huge!
I was surprised to see analysis saying if the RMB was floated, it would literally wipe out the trade deficit with China but you have to have something to trade, so focusing in on a national manufacturing policy, subsidies, support, tax breaks and so on, is critical.
He's an interesting guy, he lives in Japan so he sees first hand how they all build up their manufacturing bases and wala, prosper and then dominate exports.
And we know, of course, who it is that makes tax gaming such as this possible, don't we: The same whore politicians that kill kids with drones in Afghanistan, who arm those who carry out ethnic cleansing on the West Bank, and who countenance the torture and assassination of adversaries worldwide. These problems are moral and political long before they are ever economic. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever be achieved in the way of the remediation of these crimes until every last one of these bacteria is purged from "public service". That, in turn, will require an authentic "peoples moment" from which cleaner lines of governance will emerge, democracy will be restored, and the incarceration, interrogation and public trial of these filth will be made possible. Let there be no mistake about it, there will be no addressing these questions through existing parliamentary means. Reform and talk of recourse to the franchise are the provenance of fools.
According to the fellow on the Friday Night Movie”, if I understood him correctly, a significant part of the off shoring is not the result of ‘cheap labor’ but superior technology. For example, in 1970 the Boeing 747 was completely made in the US – “every nut and bolt”. But, today for 787 the majority of the ‘value added’ is from imports (something like that proportion). For example, the wings are made in Japan not because of cheap labor but because Japan has the ‘carbon fiber’ technology that does not exist in the US.
More generally, I can’t remember exactly how he put it but, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and S. Korea are a major source of our manufacturing jobs because of their technology – not their cheap labor. Further, this imbalance is not the result of a ‘dues ex machina’ ‘laws of the free markets.’ Rather, their successful national policy to develop manufacturing export.
Also, I would note that in his talk about China I don’t recall him mentioning the exchange rate at all, at least it did not (as I recall) play a significant part in his presentation. This is quite the opposite of much that is being written on in mass media and blog economics. If what he says about Japan, Germany, etc., one wonders why the exchange rate is not affecting their manufacturing export industries. This is not to say that exchange rate is not a factor; but I think our preoccupation with it at the expense of other more significant international trade issues and national policies is akin to “stepping on dollars to pick up pennies,” – just a thought.
It has things like the intent to hire (negative!), the increase in the infamous "we're all temps now" motif, and assuredly the one you've seen Calculated Risk do, which is compare this to past recessions (way worse!).
Very nice eye candy to check out. (EconomPic Data is the ultimate graph eye candy).
I'm much more on which specific policy under which specific conditions.....works. When I say "works" I do mean not only the national economy is strong, but also the quality of life, standard of living is also strong for the citizens of that nation. If something works and let's just pick the socialist program of public libraries, it clearly works...so ya know, keep it. Something that does not work, say complete ownership of the means of production by the State....it becomes political, corrupt, inefficient...
well, then not such a great idea.
I could care less about labels, I care much more about economic theory, statistics, results. If one looks at history the strongest economies are also the ones with strong middle classes, this is true all the way to Rome, believe it or not.
That's why EP is an economics site and not a political site per say....what do these labels mean? Should one not implement or try something that looks good to work because it's under some political or philosophical label?
Take Finland. They have mega public funds to support their citizens who want an education, all the way to PhD, the funds are almost a full time paying job...result...largest number of PhDs per capita AND look at that nation, it's 3 million on an ice cube and they are highly economically competitive. Obviously, that, which is very much a socialist program (they are extremely socialist, Finland), plain works. It also proves it's about the society not some innate "born with it" gene pool mentality on what creates brainy folk. I sincerely doubt the Finnish genetic pool just magically has the "high IQ gene pool" and this is why, it's all about their social support, backed up with the money to pull it off....that works.
Stuff like useless job retraining in the U.S., clearly that does not work and no surprise since our main problem is labor arbitrage and also corporations should be on the ones providing on the job training, after all, it's they which know exactly what skills they need. So, why dump more federal funds into useless training that does not work?
Why not instead tell all corporations if they hire U.S. citizens, train them and keep them on the job 3 years....
then get some sort of big huge tax break or say even some funds straight up. That was proven to work in the Professional services area. Corporations used to offer co-ops, internships, full scholarships, hire people and then send them off to graduate school....you name it..
now they have dumped off all education and training onto the individual and we have very ineffective, useless gov. programs.
See, now there is something that probably is officially "socialist" and I'm saying it sucks because it does not work.
If I have any religion (philosophy) it would be data, statistics, theory, "in the details" and "on a case by case basis", if one has a pigeon hole obsession.
You feel that people are calling it Socialism but in reality textbook Socialism is not here. Ok, now I understand you.
In your opinion Socialism doesn't exist until the major means of production and distribution are owned, managed, or controlled by the Government (State Socialism), by associations of workers (guild socialism) or by the community as a whole.
You named Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, Canada as heavily Socialist but they don't fit the textbook Socialism. So it must be their government welfare/benefit systems that make them heavily Socialist.
So in your opinion in the past 100 years have we moved away or toward the benefits of the heavily socialist: Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, Canada?
snow job, snowed, snowed under, John Snow, avalanche, lobbyist white paper, "Comprehensive" anything, amendment, loophole, SEC, the Federal Reserve, Committee Chair, 60 votes, capital gains tax rate, Cayman Islands, Treasury, tax break, tax incentive, free flow of capital, snowed in.
That classification of 15% for hedge funds claiming it's just "capital gains", is an outrage. They are living like little feudal lords, running their own little sovereign countries because of this.
Glad to see you here James! I thought we lost you which would have been a crime!
I love your opening analogy, from a writing aspect, very nice.
That's just wonderful. God, this guy has to be the biggest disappointment yet in terms of campaign rhetoric vs. what they are doing. I'm so glad I didn't buy into the spin during the election but some of this is worse than Bush! I didn't think that was possible!
Starting from the top:
1. Blinder's estimate is $30-40k.
2. I don't think our only choices are construction on the AAM model or busy work. There's a lot we can do with providing social services that's very cheap to run.
3. As far as investment vs. busy work goes, I'll point out that the WPA was using primarily unskilled workers, basic handtools, and the simplest possible methods of construction, and still made quality infrastructure with very low non-labor costs. Finally, I'd say that while investment is important, so's the value of labor power that gets wasted when workers are unemployed.
4. Skill matching, performance criteria, and efficient management I'm down with. Ditto education and job training.
5. The kind of underground shenanigans you describe are easily avoided through the fact that the government is directly hiring and managing - not contracting out.
6. You're more into the illegal immigration thing than I am, but my vision was that in an ideal system eligibility is based on paying premiums through a payroll tax, similar to current UI system.
Offshore outsourcing is currently a $150 billion a year market with a 5% projected growth rate.
I'm trying to find out what exactly is the percentage of Federal and State contracts (U.S. taxpayer dollars!) going offshore but look at this link! Just one offshore outsourcer has 1700 Federal, State and local contracts.
There are 1.5 million foreign guest workers currently working in the U.S. That's 1.5 million U.S. jobs, which should be going to Americans.
If you want an immediate direct jobs program, demand those offshore outsourced contracts are immediately canceled and put a freeze on guest worker Visas.
This is already U.S. taxpayer dollars and I think all should be horrified at some of the jobs States offshore outsource..and what is that?
Telephone support for those on food stamps, processing unemployment checks....think all of this requires incredible skills? No and in fact the U.S. workers who were fired have those very skills already.
Talk about violation of Keynes, this is it. That's public expenditures paying for jobs....in foreign country, and add insult to injury....jobs which support the U.S. unemployed!
Then, we just had $1.7 billion dollars of Stimulus money given directly to.....ya got it, foreign countries with $450 million on just one project to China...this is ridiculous, all that does is give China a leg up on alternative energy manufacturing....guaranteeing even further the U.S. will lose in developing it's own technology and manufacturing base.
Ugh. I'm looking for the total tally on Stimulus funds being used for offshore outsource jobs, use foreign guest workers, etc. but with just the focus on green jobs and this discovery, you know these funds, supposedly to Stimulate the U.S. economy and hire Americans...provide jobs...are just flowing offshore.
I.T. is not some magic skill or rare. Well, it does take a lot of training but the reality is we have hundreds of thousands of unemployed American workers with those very skills.
He is pointing to how these countries have strong national manufacturing, trade, development policies which is how they capture these industries.
But I think the weight proportion maybe a little off from what we know.
I mean he has some real world good points here.
Intel lost $1B? That's so amusing, which leads to another point...I honestly think we have some insider "political" agendas moving up in these companies which is really all about helping their home country and has little to even do with spreadsheet costs or skills.
How many of these "design centers" actually created much? Sure seems they still are busy displacing Americans and having those Americans train them before being fired...
i.e. knowledge and skills transfer, direct from U.S. workers to another nation's workers.
That is what is known as a "circular arugment" -- the technology was transferred to them in order to manufacture those products, therefore the jobs must be transferred to them also!
Simply look into Volvo's experience in China and how much money they lost (over $1 billion). I don't mean to diss Japan (have always been a fan of some of their tech and business, although I wouldn't necessarily wish to ever work for them), but a close examination of their rocket tech program's history demonstrates my point.
If you want a superior BMW, Germany's the one, but the Jenson Interceptor was a conglomeration of the best of all automative worlds, not solely German (or French, or British, or American), and it was made in the UK.
The argument for transferring all the technology over to a foreign country, so that they can manufacture a product, then proclaiming the reason for offshoring those jobs is because you transferred the technology, buggers belief!!!!!
And that is the comical state of things in America today!
The reason for shipping programming and tech jobs to Ghana and Nigeria is therefore because of their superior technology?
The same pathetic premise should hold true for Bangladesh?
How can any functional adult regurgitate such nonsense?
If such were really the case, Intel would not have lost over $1 billion in their India Chip Design project. (Which they wisely closed and transferred out of there.)
Although, many Indians would claim that they created the IT industry there. (A number of us oldtimers would strongly dispute that.)
When a workforce develops products and technologies, then are continuously laid off while their achievements are offshored over decades, and repeatedly told they are incompentent and useless, they wisely ignore the souce of such drivel.
What has taken place is that the United States, a culture devised for innovation and progress, has been thorough disassembled and destroyed from doing that by all of those plunder and pillaging debt-financed billionaires.
End of story.
The AAM has each job costing $55k. AAM infrastructure/direct jobs study, but a key element in their study is they have the production chain 100% domestically sourced and they also have the workers required to be U.S. citizens, Americans. (Hire America). They also went and looked at the actual projects selected as the ones which will add most to the economy over the long term (public works) and those jobs are more advanced and would provide on the job training in skills.
Mishel, on the other hand, is suggesting "busy work" jobs...
(and note Blinder, with the lowest estimate is still using a $40k estimate).....
Sure, busy work jobs are cheaper, but as an investment...
so?
ok, great, some trash is picked up, some houses are clean but that doesn't add, long term to critical infrastructure upon which the modern economy relies. The I for investment is really missing from some of these proposals.
Blinder's post, now I think everybody on this site at least and myself included were/are all for a direct jobs program but there must be two elements for it to work and that is a requirement the worker be an American and the means of production, all of it, domestically sourced.
Then on "job insurance", well, firstly one needs to match workers based on skills, including giving them skills as did the CCC as well as the WPA. Secondly, one MUST have a lock on labor supply and that means no illegal immigrants, no guest workers, no offshored and assuredly do not make this a magnet to have sudden labor supply influxes through immigration. A guaranteed job is one hell of a magnet, so that's just not practical because we have so many literally trying to twist even labor economic theory upside down due to their political agendas. You're going to also create an even more massive underground economy with that. Work will be by contract 1099-misc as well as good ole fashioned cash under the table and even more temp....to avoid paying yet another tax when hiring a worker (insurance premiums).
You must have performance criteria, efficient management...
I mean this is just not a good idea, I'm sorry, the models of the WPA, CCC, even things like Voc. Rehab. all of them had performance metrics AND provided education, on the job training AND seriously limited what kind of workers could even apply. The military gets away with this in terms of age and criteria.
If you're going to do this by states, well, each state should probably be at least worker domestically sourced. I do not think it's possible to have the means of production, goods of production state sourced, but it should be a "preferred" type thing.
So, why keep promoting things that actually will be a drain on the national economy when there are so many good things, already proved things out there which truly will give the most bang for the buck?
I continue to be puzzled by the tendency to brand anything that is paid for directly in government payrolls (as opposed to "by contract") as "welfare," "make work," or "anti-free market." Back in the days of the Works Progress Administration, some sneered at the image of people leaning on shovels as opposed to building great hydroelectric power plants (Hoover Dam) or other response to demand. But if it is done through a contract with KBR, it becomes initiative and valued. Any contract has layers of overhead, general and administrative cost, and profit on top of direct cost. And, of course, the rax code shelters a good chunk of the profit. Whenever I hear of those who consider the WPA a boondoggle, I consider our still unfinished private sector reconstruction projects in Iraq, and the vanished billions.
Frank T.
and to repeat that comment, agreed!
Please consider registering for an account. You can even use the contact email on the front page and I will set one up for you. The reason is you are commenting every day now and if you get an account, you bypass the CAPTCHA and have a comment tracker, where you can see who replied to you, see other users, it's way easier to have a conversation that way. Trust me, it's better. The register button is on the upper right hand column.
You're adding great insight and comments.
Hello?
and I think a point where many converge is a national manufacturing, trade, economic strategy and policy. In other words, the U.S. should be subsidizing certain industries as well as protecting them, is common.
On cheap labor, I think he's missing the capital costs, it costs huge bucks to build a manufacturing plant and it is cheaper to build them in many other countries, but in terms of services, labor costs are much more of the expense, so cheap labor comes more into play.
You don't hear me just talk about the exchange rate, it's one factor, although recently analyzed to be huge!
I was surprised to see analysis saying if the RMB was floated, it would literally wipe out the trade deficit with China but you have to have something to trade, so focusing in on a national manufacturing policy, subsidies, support, tax breaks and so on, is critical.
He's an interesting guy, he lives in Japan so he sees first hand how they all build up their manufacturing bases and wala, prosper and then dominate exports.
And we know, of course, who it is that makes tax gaming such as this possible, don't we: The same whore politicians that kill kids with drones in Afghanistan, who arm those who carry out ethnic cleansing on the West Bank, and who countenance the torture and assassination of adversaries worldwide. These problems are moral and political long before they are ever economic. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever be achieved in the way of the remediation of these crimes until every last one of these bacteria is purged from "public service". That, in turn, will require an authentic "peoples moment" from which cleaner lines of governance will emerge, democracy will be restored, and the incarceration, interrogation and public trial of these filth will be made possible. Let there be no mistake about it, there will be no addressing these questions through existing parliamentary means. Reform and talk of recourse to the franchise are the provenance of fools.
According to the fellow on the Friday Night Movie”, if I understood him correctly, a significant part of the off shoring is not the result of ‘cheap labor’ but superior technology. For example, in 1970 the Boeing 747 was completely made in the US – “every nut and bolt”. But, today for 787 the majority of the ‘value added’ is from imports (something like that proportion). For example, the wings are made in Japan not because of cheap labor but because Japan has the ‘carbon fiber’ technology that does not exist in the US.
More generally, I can’t remember exactly how he put it but, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and S. Korea are a major source of our manufacturing jobs because of their technology – not their cheap labor. Further, this imbalance is not the result of a ‘dues ex machina’ ‘laws of the free markets.’ Rather, their successful national policy to develop manufacturing export.
Also, I would note that in his talk about China I don’t recall him mentioning the exchange rate at all, at least it did not (as I recall) play a significant part in his presentation. This is quite the opposite of much that is being written on in mass media and blog economics. If what he says about Japan, Germany, etc., one wonders why the exchange rate is not affecting their manufacturing export industries. This is not to say that exchange rate is not a factor; but I think our preoccupation with it at the expense of other more significant international trade issues and national policies is akin to “stepping on dollars to pick up pennies,” – just a thought.
Which you all should, look towards the bottom of the videos. I know EPers are gonna love this! Also, Midtowng found this one.
Don't miss out on midtowng's long term unemployed, falling off of the count graphs too.
Man, how can anyone in their right mind say this is good?
employment chart roundup.
It has things like the intent to hire (negative!), the increase in the infamous "we're all temps now" motif, and assuredly the one you've seen Calculated Risk do, which is compare this to past recessions (way worse!).
Very nice eye candy to check out. (EconomPic Data is the ultimate graph eye candy).
I'm much more on which specific policy under which specific conditions.....works. When I say "works" I do mean not only the national economy is strong, but also the quality of life, standard of living is also strong for the citizens of that nation. If something works and let's just pick the socialist program of public libraries, it clearly works...so ya know, keep it. Something that does not work, say complete ownership of the means of production by the State....it becomes political, corrupt, inefficient...
well, then not such a great idea.
I could care less about labels, I care much more about economic theory, statistics, results. If one looks at history the strongest economies are also the ones with strong middle classes, this is true all the way to Rome, believe it or not.
That's why EP is an economics site and not a political site per say....what do these labels mean? Should one not implement or try something that looks good to work because it's under some political or philosophical label?
Take Finland. They have mega public funds to support their citizens who want an education, all the way to PhD, the funds are almost a full time paying job...result...largest number of PhDs per capita AND look at that nation, it's 3 million on an ice cube and they are highly economically competitive. Obviously, that, which is very much a socialist program (they are extremely socialist, Finland), plain works. It also proves it's about the society not some innate "born with it" gene pool mentality on what creates brainy folk. I sincerely doubt the Finnish genetic pool just magically has the "high IQ gene pool" and this is why, it's all about their social support, backed up with the money to pull it off....that works.
Stuff like useless job retraining in the U.S., clearly that does not work and no surprise since our main problem is labor arbitrage and also corporations should be on the ones providing on the job training, after all, it's they which know exactly what skills they need. So, why dump more federal funds into useless training that does not work?
Why not instead tell all corporations if they hire U.S. citizens, train them and keep them on the job 3 years....
then get some sort of big huge tax break or say even some funds straight up. That was proven to work in the Professional services area. Corporations used to offer co-ops, internships, full scholarships, hire people and then send them off to graduate school....you name it..
now they have dumped off all education and training onto the individual and we have very ineffective, useless gov. programs.
See, now there is something that probably is officially "socialist" and I'm saying it sucks because it does not work.
If I have any religion (philosophy) it would be data, statistics, theory, "in the details" and "on a case by case basis", if one has a pigeon hole obsession.
You feel that people are calling it Socialism but in reality textbook Socialism is not here. Ok, now I understand you.
In your opinion Socialism doesn't exist until the major means of production and distribution are owned, managed, or controlled by the Government (State Socialism), by associations of workers (guild socialism) or by the community as a whole.
You named Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, Canada as heavily Socialist but they don't fit the textbook Socialism. So it must be their government welfare/benefit systems that make them heavily Socialist.
So in your opinion in the past 100 years have we moved away or toward the benefits of the heavily socialist: Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, Canada?
So which....away or toward?
snow job, snowed, snowed under, John Snow, avalanche, lobbyist white paper, "Comprehensive" anything, amendment, loophole, SEC, the Federal Reserve, Committee Chair, 60 votes, capital gains tax rate, Cayman Islands, Treasury, tax break, tax incentive, free flow of capital, snowed in.
That classification of 15% for hedge funds claiming it's just "capital gains", is an outrage. They are living like little feudal lords, running their own little sovereign countries because of this.
Glad to see you here James! I thought we lost you which would have been a crime!
I love your opening analogy, from a writing aspect, very nice.
That's just wonderful. God, this guy has to be the biggest disappointment yet in terms of campaign rhetoric vs. what they are doing. I'm so glad I didn't buy into the spin during the election but some of this is worse than Bush! I didn't think that was possible!
This post is getting picked up on out there on de Internets.
Seems we're not the only ones scratching our heads about the ignoring of a bail out potentially larger than TARP.
Good job!
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