particularly in terms of social costs of long-term unemployment.
Just bite the bullet already, and get a direct jobs program for unemployed then for those currently working - suspend payroll tax - both employer and employee portions.
I'm sorry, no you cannot just claim economic Armageddon without some serious statistics and reasons for such a projection. This site is not for fictional econ.
Why is that? Because that's a huge problem, fictional economics, from Academia to pundits and more importantly...
this site has one thing, it's credibility. The reason we have so many readers is because every writer makes a point to cite their sources, graphs their stats and argue their points in sound economic theory.
You are HURTING THIS SITE'S CREDIBILITY writing up some "end of the world" Mayan calender crap with zero facts!
What would happen if I let anyone just write up any sort of fiction with them proclaiming the end of the world with no real data, no factors, no elements?
You cannot say hey, my bud here thinks we'll have economic Armageddon at the end of the Mayan calender.
That is 100% conspiracy theory thinking!
Well, one thing for certain is this site would fail. We have plenty of facts, data, theory, statistics which show the U.S. is structurally in terrible trouble, the middle class is being wiped out and the financial sector is not only running their global gambling casino, they are bringing down the real economy right along with their short term and bad bets.
There are plenty of other places to write doomsday "predictions" with no facts cited. EP ain't it.
Now your other posts are loaded with citations and well documented, but if this was a first post, you can bet it would be deleted. As it is, I am cringing when I see the title and implications.
I have no idea what you are talking about with Yves Smith either.
At this point though, either FIX THIS POST with some facts on why you believe 2012 is Economic Armageddon and state clearly this is your opinion or unpublish it.
and no "my bud Maya" which I will assume is a reference to Mayan is CT, which is a site bannable offense. No CT period. (CT = conspiracy theory). You will see similar rules at places like Dailykos, open left and so forth almost for the same reasons and yes believing 9/11 didn't happen or the U.S. imploded the buildings themselves is CT.
All of your other posts again are fine, well cited, facts there, everything is backed up, insightful but this one...
While social security is ok, Medicare/Medicaid is not. That's not to say these programs should be reduced, it is to say that the entire for profit system needs to be revamped. It's the costs, the U.S. pays the most for medical services of all types than any other industrialized nation. In fact going over costs and how other nations run their system and why their costs are so much lower would be a bad ass dynamite post.
I've written a few in the past and maybe I'll do it again with very specific answers to drive home the point.
I mean how much intel does one need yet we still have people claiming it's the benefits and service instead of the costs and methods?
That's the problem here. The facts cannot be denied, so please do not deny them, but the solutions, which are usually presented by lead screw America Patterson group, are to deny Americans health care. That's not the answer, the answer is reducing those costs, not the actual real benefits.
And your buddy, Yves Smith is certainly one of them!
But, if you wish to remove this post go ahead.
From time to time, the way you conveniently contradict yourself leads me to believe you suffer from Asbergers (also, a complete lack of even the most unsophisticated sense of humor is a strong indicator in that direction).
But, if you wish to drive everyone away from your site save for those N.A.M. and US Chamber of Commerce trolls, that's your choice.
While I'm saying OK to Robert should he wish to remove this post, I stand behind what my bud Maya said, as one of her volunteer duties is to forecast the year-ahead prediction for the state's total food banks.
Unerringly, she has been spot on over the previous seven years.
But, Robert prefers the fiction of the recent Yves Smith interview at her site with Risk Analytics, which while accurate in certain places, moreso acts to obfuscate the abject crimes and absolute corruption taking place.
The suits all like to stick together, whether their wearing women's apparel or Armani.
And what benefit programs are you talking about? Social security and medicare?
Look, the middle class is being squeezed because the one true "trickle down effect" is in cut in federal government spending for needed programs. Cuts in college grants and student loans, cuts in school lunch subsidies, cuts in other education spending, cuts in law enforcement spending. See, cuts at top trickle down to state and municipal levels - they either have a choice cut or raise taxes and most taxes at that level or very regressive. That is where the squeeze is coming from - not 'benefit programs' such as social security and medicare.
Not to belabor the point since yes all this is true but the bulk of federal spending now comes from benefit programs that never existed prior to the 1960's.
So most of our tax drain comes from providing for those that do not provide for themselves.
These programs were enacted at the same time top tax rates started to drop from 91% to what they are now 35%(?).
The private sector middle class is also being sucked dry by the political class which includes public employee unions.
$780 billion for stimulus to save existing public union jobs while a new $15 billion dollar bill to aid private sector hiring shows the real focus of this administration.
$780 million for the public sector unions which everyone will be expected to pay back and just $15 billion for the rest of us.
The private sector middle class seems to be expected to shoulder the burden for all these groups and no one represents the middle class in the admin certainly not Obama despite running on that as a platform.
The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low, newly disclosed tax data show.
In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16....
The long-term data show that under current tax and economic rules, the incomes of the top earners rise when the economy expands and contract during recessions, only to rise again. Their effective income tax rate fell to 16.62 percent, down more than half a percentage point from 17.17 percent in 2006, the new data show. That rate is lower than the typical effective income tax rate paid by Americans with incomes in the low six figures, which is what each taxpayer in the top group earned in the first three hours of 2007.
...
Payroll taxes did not add a significant burden to the top 400, not changing the rounding of rates by even one decimal. With payroll taxes taken into account, the effective tax rate of the top 400 would be 17.2 percent in 2006 and 16.6 percent in 2007, my analysis shows -- the same as not counting payroll taxes. As a point of comparison, about two-thirds of Americans pay more in Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment taxes than in federal income taxes.
The top 400's share of all income grew from 1.31 cents out of every dollar earned by all Americans to 1.59 cents.
Adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars, the top 400 enjoyed a 27 percent increase in their income, or nine times the rate of increase for the bottom 90 percent, based on an earlier analysis of tax data published by Profs. Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, economists at the University of California at Berkeley who have been studying global income trends.
Never a truer word was said on this site. This is the reason I want us and others to dig deep into economic policy, write about it, explain it in better layman's terms and see the brazen theft and screw jobs going on here against the American people. But to see it, you've got to understand it.
It's very clear the American people know something is horribly wrong and it is against them. The problem is they do not understand how it all works, hence we get various pundits spinning the outrage to promote more "theft of the middle class" solutions. (FAUX news just as an example).
Japan did go about addressing its banking crisis the wrong way but how long has its fiscal policy been "out of control" and where is inflation? Japan is mired in deflation and inflation hasn't been an issue in over 20 yrs.
And how long have we been hearing about imminent "default"?
Japan is a sovereign government that has control over its monetary and fiscal policy and issues debt in its own currency very very different than Greece. If Japan defaults, it is because of its own choosing, not because they were forced to do so.
Again, more neoliberal scare tactics to prevent change in fiscal policy. The true 'class war' is over economic policy. Change the policy to redirect income back down.
I've lived / worked during the times that we didn't need what you say, "The fact is the private sector has NEVER been able to achieve Full Employment on its own - especially now."
I've never worked during a time of zero unemployment, is that even possible?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, manufacturing. Capital producing and jobs producing. It wasn't until people bought into the global economy fantasy that things starting to down hill. When people have jobs they look to the government for minimal services.
Sometimes I want to buy into the conspiracy theories. Where companies outsourcing jobs and government work in collusion. The more jobs outsources, the poorer the people become and look more to government for help. The more help, the greater their power.
More to day but my respiratory infection is now pushing its power, its power says go lay down. COugh cough.
was the development of mega corporations, international corporations or any other corporation that is "Too big to fail."
Profit is not a four letter word but rape is. The above corps so often go beyond profit and enter the area of monetary rape. They have no moral compass and no loyalty to any country. There are like a pirate ship wondering the waters of the world looking for a victim. They aren't here to provide a service but look at us to service them.
Beck is right about things but I can't agree with all his things. Not sure if there is anyone that I can agree with all their thoughts.
For 17 years I was in the investment business. I was an independent and never, ever worked for one of the houses. But I can tell you they hated independent broker dealers and made life hard for us. The wirehouse's were big and powerful.
I remember one time I found out that people working in certain bank departments could do the same stock trading as me but didn't need a Series 7 license. I investigated this matter to find why. Ok are you ready, holding onto your hat? The answer was that their honesty was beyond reproach.
Banks and Wall Street serve a purpose but they are now big, big political powers. They are far too big of a political power.
There is no corporate moral anchor anymore. I don't think you can legislate morality. I look at the law of the land to allow me to make money, to care for myself and be more independent. It seems the government works against my want and would like me to be more dependent, on them.
The consumer driven economy is DOA. It should not even be revived because it is a false economy. But the President and others are trying their best to breath air into the corpse. Which in the end is cutting the jugular of the middle class, cut by cut.
I never thought of that and they did do the "red scare purge".
Be interesting to see the overall union membership rates in conjunction with the "communist threat", which I believe hit max in the 1950's, although it seems in the 1960's it was similar (?) (dunno the "cultural" history of union membership in the 60's).
You post is a huge hit, people are linking to it (and here which is good! ;) I just looked at the site stats...
I have been saying this for some time, so I certainly don't disagree with Lessig. However, the "solution" to fix Congress is overly simplistic, IMO. It just doesn't seem pragmatic to me that this can or will happen quickly enough to reverse our present predicament. And I am a firm believer that if you assert that Obama and his team are smart (and very many do), then you must conclude that they understand this very well and have no other option than to continue to sell their ability to "control" the situation.
I am not invested in any kind of financial markets, yet I have followed Celente on and off for over a year now. I find his observations and projections to ring "true" to my "gut instincts". Moreover, I'm not sure anyone today can do more that take a broad assessment of trends and conditions to corroborate what "seems right" in their own experience. Official government statistics and the "message" they send seems so manipulated to me that they are not to be considered reliable, or truthful, in any way, shape or form. For instance Charles Biderman's Trim Tabs has been following real unemployment by tracking on Federal and State collections of income tax withholdings. Using this method, Biderman has concluded that unemployment is much higher than the "official" numbers of the BLS. Likewise, John Williams has backed out various changes to reporting methods and definitions enacted over time, so that current levels of various government reported indices can be compared to historical levels on a fair and equivalent basis.
In short James, and I am speaking for myself here, I have little argument with the projections of your friend Maya. We are, IMO, early in a very serious deflationary cycle. There is an enormous amount of deleveraging that must take place globally, no less in the USA. No amount of QE by the FED nor guarantees by the US Treasury and FDIC can avoid this inevitability. Ultimately, the bond vigilantes will create the balance.
In the meantime, it remains to be seen how much honesty is left in DC, and how much gullibility remains in the population at large. I have been firmly in the skeptical camp about our future for quite some time now. Many would refer to me as a "doomer", if they could converse with me at length. But the truth is that I am acutely pessimistic about the future of the US because, as I see it, the credibility of the US government, and it's agencies, have been seriously corrupted by the revelation of past lies and distortions. I really have to wonder if we will ever get to the point where we, as a country, can reach a consensus opinion of the "facts".
I don't like this new money. Maybe that's why they're doing it - get us ready for the big announcement;) It's worthless! The nuclear policy is continued just like the others. The Bush spying on citizens, the "President's surveillance program," was the subject of a July 2009 report from bureaucrats in the administration that gave a green light to more of the same.
Obama is there as a charming diversion of just enough people to allow the giant ripoff to continue, I'm afraid. He's running into problems as his act gets stale and the flames of populism arise. They've got no solution for an angry public. Broke is broke, sick without health care is undeniable, and everybody sees where the money is going. Time for a really big distraction maybe. Who knows?
We need a new start without the excessive capital vehicles which become the main driver in the economy. The firms involved so written into states and the federal government, it's going to take a terribly clever approach to make changes. When Obama talked about not fiddling with 16% of the economy, health care, I presumed that he was just wrong since the fees represented in that figure are actually a drag for most of the economy. Maybe he was talking about this nonsense. Thanks for the informaiton.
particularly in terms of social costs of long-term unemployment.
Just bite the bullet already, and get a direct jobs program for unemployed then for those currently working - suspend payroll tax - both employer and employee portions.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
to yours. I just was about to hit "submit" when you posted.
Maybe we should do homework assignments on some of these EIs so we don't dupe each other...but at least we're covering them!
I'm sorry, no you cannot just claim economic Armageddon without some serious statistics and reasons for such a projection. This site is not for fictional econ.
Why is that? Because that's a huge problem, fictional economics, from Academia to pundits and more importantly...
this site has one thing, it's credibility. The reason we have so many readers is because every writer makes a point to cite their sources, graphs their stats and argue their points in sound economic theory.
You are HURTING THIS SITE'S CREDIBILITY writing up some "end of the world" Mayan calender crap with zero facts!
What would happen if I let anyone just write up any sort of fiction with them proclaiming the end of the world with no real data, no factors, no elements?
You cannot say hey, my bud here thinks we'll have economic Armageddon at the end of the Mayan calender.
That is 100% conspiracy theory thinking!
Well, one thing for certain is this site would fail. We have plenty of facts, data, theory, statistics which show the U.S. is structurally in terrible trouble, the middle class is being wiped out and the financial sector is not only running their global gambling casino, they are bringing down the real economy right along with their short term and bad bets.
There are plenty of other places to write doomsday "predictions" with no facts cited. EP ain't it.
Now your other posts are loaded with citations and well documented, but if this was a first post, you can bet it would be deleted. As it is, I am cringing when I see the title and implications.
I have no idea what you are talking about with Yves Smith either.
At this point though, either FIX THIS POST with some facts on why you believe 2012 is Economic Armageddon and state clearly this is your opinion or unpublish it.
and no "my bud Maya" which I will assume is a reference to Mayan is CT, which is a site bannable offense. No CT period. (CT = conspiracy theory). You will see similar rules at places like Dailykos, open left and so forth almost for the same reasons and yes believing 9/11 didn't happen or the U.S. imploded the buildings themselves is CT.
All of your other posts again are fine, well cited, facts there, everything is backed up, insightful but this one...
While social security is ok, Medicare/Medicaid is not. That's not to say these programs should be reduced, it is to say that the entire for profit system needs to be revamped. It's the costs, the U.S. pays the most for medical services of all types than any other industrialized nation. In fact going over costs and how other nations run their system and why their costs are so much lower would be a bad ass dynamite post.
I've written a few in the past and maybe I'll do it again with very specific answers to drive home the point.
I mean how much intel does one need yet we still have people claiming it's the benefits and service instead of the costs and methods?
That's the problem here. The facts cannot be denied, so please do not deny them, but the solutions, which are usually presented by lead screw America Patterson group, are to deny Americans health care. That's not the answer, the answer is reducing those costs, not the actual real benefits.
...and I can't argue with it, but that unholy alliance with the criminal element was a big motivator for companies to "allow" unionization.
And today, we shall never see any action on card choice in congress without something similar.
Wanna place any bets?
And your buddy, Yves Smith is certainly one of them!
But, if you wish to remove this post go ahead.
From time to time, the way you conveniently contradict yourself leads me to believe you suffer from Asbergers (also, a complete lack of even the most unsophisticated sense of humor is a strong indicator in that direction).
But, if you wish to drive everyone away from your site save for those N.A.M. and US Chamber of Commerce trolls, that's your choice.
Also, I agree. Politics is what they use to screw us all economically, and to ignore that is to profess neverending ignorance.
While I'm saying OK to Robert should he wish to remove this post, I stand behind what my bud Maya said, as one of her volunteer duties is to forecast the year-ahead prediction for the state's total food banks.
Unerringly, she has been spot on over the previous seven years.
But, Robert prefers the fiction of the recent Yves Smith interview at her site with Risk Analytics, which while accurate in certain places, moreso acts to obfuscate the abject crimes and absolute corruption taking place.
The suits all like to stick together, whether their wearing women's apparel or Armani.
30% of $780 stimulus went to individual tax cuts - the biggest use of stimulus - and least 'bang for the buck'.
Source: The Recovery Package in Action
And what benefit programs are you talking about? Social security and medicare?
Look, the middle class is being squeezed because the one true "trickle down effect" is in cut in federal government spending for needed programs. Cuts in college grants and student loans, cuts in school lunch subsidies, cuts in other education spending, cuts in law enforcement spending. See, cuts at top trickle down to state and municipal levels - they either have a choice cut or raise taxes and most taxes at that level or very regressive. That is where the squeeze is coming from - not 'benefit programs' such as social security and medicare.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Not to belabor the point since yes all this is true but the bulk of federal spending now comes from benefit programs that never existed prior to the 1960's.
So most of our tax drain comes from providing for those that do not provide for themselves.
These programs were enacted at the same time top tax rates started to drop from 91% to what they are now 35%(?).
The private sector middle class is also being sucked dry by the political class which includes public employee unions.
$780 billion for stimulus to save existing public union jobs while a new $15 billion dollar bill to aid private sector hiring shows the real focus of this administration.
$780 million for the public sector unions which everyone will be expected to pay back and just $15 billion for the rest of us.
The private sector middle class seems to be expected to shoulder the burden for all these groups and no one represents the middle class in the admin certainly not Obama despite running on that as a platform.
This is a little update to the essay.
Never a truer word was said on this site. This is the reason I want us and others to dig deep into economic policy, write about it, explain it in better layman's terms and see the brazen theft and screw jobs going on here against the American people. But to see it, you've got to understand it.
It's very clear the American people know something is horribly wrong and it is against them. The problem is they do not understand how it all works, hence we get various pundits spinning the outrage to promote more "theft of the middle class" solutions. (FAUX news just as an example).
Japan did go about addressing its banking crisis the wrong way but how long has its fiscal policy been "out of control" and where is inflation? Japan is mired in deflation and inflation hasn't been an issue in over 20 yrs.
And how long have we been hearing about imminent "default"?
Japan is a sovereign government that has control over its monetary and fiscal policy and issues debt in its own currency very very different than Greece. If Japan defaults, it is because of its own choosing, not because they were forced to do so.
Again, more neoliberal scare tactics to prevent change in fiscal policy. The true 'class war' is over economic policy. Change the policy to redirect income back down.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
I've lived / worked during the times that we didn't need what you say, "The fact is the private sector has NEVER been able to achieve Full Employment on its own - especially now."
I've never worked during a time of zero unemployment, is that even possible?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, manufacturing. Capital producing and jobs producing. It wasn't until people bought into the global economy fantasy that things starting to down hill. When people have jobs they look to the government for minimal services.
Sometimes I want to buy into the conspiracy theories. Where companies outsourcing jobs and government work in collusion. The more jobs outsources, the poorer the people become and look more to government for help. The more help, the greater their power.
More to day but my respiratory infection is now pushing its power, its power says go lay down. COugh cough.
was the development of mega corporations, international corporations or any other corporation that is "Too big to fail."
Profit is not a four letter word but rape is. The above corps so often go beyond profit and enter the area of monetary rape. They have no moral compass and no loyalty to any country. There are like a pirate ship wondering the waters of the world looking for a victim. They aren't here to provide a service but look at us to service them.
Beck is right about things but I can't agree with all his things. Not sure if there is anyone that I can agree with all their thoughts.
For 17 years I was in the investment business. I was an independent and never, ever worked for one of the houses. But I can tell you they hated independent broker dealers and made life hard for us. The wirehouse's were big and powerful.
I remember one time I found out that people working in certain bank departments could do the same stock trading as me but didn't need a Series 7 license. I investigated this matter to find why. Ok are you ready, holding onto your hat? The answer was that their honesty was beyond reproach.
Banks and Wall Street serve a purpose but they are now big, big political powers. They are far too big of a political power.
There is no corporate moral anchor anymore. I don't think you can legislate morality. I look at the law of the land to allow me to make money, to care for myself and be more independent. It seems the government works against my want and would like me to be more dependent, on them.
The consumer driven economy is DOA. It should not even be revived because it is a false economy. But the President and others are trying their best to breath air into the corpse. Which in the end is cutting the jugular of the middle class, cut by cut.
I never thought of that and they did do the "red scare purge".
Be interesting to see the overall union membership rates in conjunction with the "communist threat", which I believe hit max in the 1950's, although it seems in the 1960's it was similar (?) (dunno the "cultural" history of union membership in the 60's).
You post is a huge hit, people are linking to it (and here which is good! ;) I just looked at the site stats...
Great piece.
I have been saying this for some time, so I certainly don't disagree with Lessig. However, the "solution" to fix Congress is overly simplistic, IMO. It just doesn't seem pragmatic to me that this can or will happen quickly enough to reverse our present predicament. And I am a firm believer that if you assert that Obama and his team are smart (and very many do), then you must conclude that they understand this very well and have no other option than to continue to sell their ability to "control" the situation.
I am not invested in any kind of financial markets, yet I have followed Celente on and off for over a year now. I find his observations and projections to ring "true" to my "gut instincts". Moreover, I'm not sure anyone today can do more that take a broad assessment of trends and conditions to corroborate what "seems right" in their own experience. Official government statistics and the "message" they send seems so manipulated to me that they are not to be considered reliable, or truthful, in any way, shape or form. For instance Charles Biderman's Trim Tabs has been following real unemployment by tracking on Federal and State collections of income tax withholdings. Using this method, Biderman has concluded that unemployment is much higher than the "official" numbers of the BLS. Likewise, John Williams has backed out various changes to reporting methods and definitions enacted over time, so that current levels of various government reported indices can be compared to historical levels on a fair and equivalent basis.
In short James, and I am speaking for myself here, I have little argument with the projections of your friend Maya. We are, IMO, early in a very serious deflationary cycle. There is an enormous amount of deleveraging that must take place globally, no less in the USA. No amount of QE by the FED nor guarantees by the US Treasury and FDIC can avoid this inevitability. Ultimately, the bond vigilantes will create the balance.
In the meantime, it remains to be seen how much honesty is left in DC, and how much gullibility remains in the population at large. I have been firmly in the skeptical camp about our future for quite some time now. Many would refer to me as a "doomer", if they could converse with me at length. But the truth is that I am acutely pessimistic about the future of the US because, as I see it, the credibility of the US government, and it's agencies, have been seriously corrupted by the revelation of past lies and distortions. I really have to wonder if we will ever get to the point where we, as a country, can reach a consensus opinion of the "facts".
I don't like this new money. Maybe that's why they're doing it - get us ready for the big announcement;) It's worthless! The nuclear policy is continued just like the others. The Bush spying on citizens, the "President's surveillance program," was the subject of a July 2009 report from bureaucrats in the administration that gave a green light to more of the same.
Obama is there as a charming diversion of just enough people to allow the giant ripoff to continue, I'm afraid. He's running into problems as his act gets stale and the flames of populism arise. They've got no solution for an angry public. Broke is broke, sick without health care is undeniable, and everybody sees where the money is going. Time for a really big distraction maybe. Who knows?
.
Thanks for the two pdf's at the end.
We need a new start without the excessive capital vehicles which become the main driver in the economy. The firms involved so written into states and the federal government, it's going to take a terribly clever approach to make changes. When Obama talked about not fiddling with 16% of the economy, health care, I presumed that he was just wrong since the fees represented in that figure are actually a drag for most of the economy. Maybe he was talking about this nonsense. Thanks for the informaiton.
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