All predictable, sadly, as we've observed from Obama's earliest appointments of chief offshorers, Diana Farrell, Laura Tyson, and so many of the others.
We know our foreign policy will continued to be screwed, just as it was under Bush with the appointments of Richard Holbrooke (sure hope you do as good a job in Afghanistan as you did on the BoD of AIG) and Robert Hormats!
That brilliant scholar, Joseph A. Tainter, explains in his book on ecological economics how science is humanity's top form of problem-solving.
Unfortunately, with the offshoring of technical jobs (really beginning with machinist and factory mechanic jobs), and technology and R&D jobs, this corporate-owned government is offshoring those problem-solving abilities as well.
I've been reading John A. Hobson and Hyman Minsky in order to get alternative economic theories. There seems to be a consensus from all the great economists that the so-called solutions currently being tried to alleviate the recession are the most inefficient options available.
For instance, I was reading Minsky last night and he pointed out if the idea was to get the GDP growing, then a WPA program would create nearly twice the bang for the buck than unemployment insurance would. Yet that isn't even on the political agenda today.
...it doesn't configure well with junk economics (Michael Hudson's excellent term) or crackonomics (Matt Taibbi's excellent term).
Youse guys have got to get with the program, whatever you propose must have major kickbacks and mass corruption built in it. There's no other way.
I'm at an eatery the other day, and they have some talk show host on, the guy who claims to be a democrat (highly debatable) and a "progressive" (no way in Hell!), who has a caller from Chi town who intelligently states that until congress people begin adopting the attitude of working on behalf of the public good, nothing will get accomplished. The caller explained that they have got to stop spending all their time on getting reelected.
This clownish radio show host, in a completely nonsensical and non sequitur response, says they can't because they have to spend all their time raising re-election funds!
Huh???? Everytime the solution is presented, the misdirection begins....
in fact a host of groups who like to turn middle class issues upside down to really be their globalization agendas.
I really despize those groups trying to put up a special interest as a U.S. middle class issue...but I digress...
Then....one has no performance metrics, quality metrics in this. Hence, there is no incentive to actually do a good job, or what kind of work is being proposed.
Let's take the CCC as an example from the 1930's. That program was run like the military. If you didn't "shape up" you "shipped out". They had strict requirements on where the income went, most of it went to the boy's families to support them. Then, they were way below a normal wage for the time, providing room, board and all of the meat you could eat (they were famous for mass quantities of food).
Then...the projects were fairly selective that added to the economic development, in this case state parks (which charge entrance fees) but they also did a hell of a lot of forest fire fighting, so they were also acting as emergency service providers. They built a hell of a lot of roads, housing in state parks....
all projects that would give a lot of bang for the buck. What the above proposal is....isn't that.
I don't have the multipliers but I believe the AAM proposals have been ranked somewhere as being high, maybe by the CBO but the AAM went through their own "Stimulative" analysis in their paper with the same assumptions, multipliers...
but the difference is they are not making faux paus Keynes by claiming spending that is supposedly Stimulative...can leave that domestic economy..(which is the faux paus Keynes), they have all of those requirements and it's from the actual theory, in their analysis.
It's damn good, probably the best proposal I've seen out there.
Beyond just extending more unemployment benefits, this latest jobs bill isn't that at all, it's not going to create any jobs.
This from the 1st paragraph of article linked to above:
A job guarantee program is one in which government promises to make a job available to any qualifying individual who is ready and willing to work. Qualifications required of participants could include age range (i.e. teens), gender, family status (i.e. heads of households), family income (i.e. below poverty line), educational attainment (i.e. high school dropouts), residency (i.e. rural), and so on. The most general program would provide a universal job guarantee, sometimes also called an employer of last resort (ELR) program in which government promises to provide a job to anyone legally entitled to work.
But that is must have requirement. Unfortunately some of the various forces pushing this idea have their heads in their ass on labor econ.
Common sense will tell you one country and it's citizens simply cannot be the globe's job market....esp. when that country cannot support it's own people for jobs, careers, income.
I think the model should be on what worked in Voc. Rehab. Voc. Rehab used to have a lot more funding back in the 70's, 80's. and I think one can look at those stats, the successes, failures and why, to give "job guarantees". One thing i know this program had/has is strict performance requirements. If someone fails in their education/training, hey they do not continue to get the money. But this is almost secondary to what we need right now...
we need right now infrastructure projects that really target public works that future economic growth is dependent on and to put those people who are highly skilled already back on the job....
I mean I think there should be a ladder out of poverty and we could look at the various programs from 1934 to 1980 that had results, modify those, but it's almost secondary to what's going on right now.
which shows some very strategic projects, these are direct infrastructure jobs spending...but...unlike Stimulus I, they have these selected for the most bang for the buck in terms of investments needed, public works needed for future economic growth (there is some brain disconnect in this country that in order to have commerce one must have modern sewers, power grids, transportation (it's only a major EI!))
and AAM rightly put in their analysis all workers are U.S. citizens, LPR and all raw materials are domestically sourced (Buy American). That is true Keynes.
I actually am not for this agenda and beyond the fact it has turned into a bureaucracy nightmare in India is this. The people proposing this do not want to limit the jobs to U.S. citizens, LPR. Right there, it won't work. Instead they are setting up a welfare benefit (yes I said the "W" word), as an incentive to enter the U.S. from other countries. In other words, the U.S. taxpayer is supposed to fund a job guarantee to anyone in the world who wants to show up in the U.S. Or put in terms of labor econ, they want to use U.S. government expenditures to guarantee a job to a global labor supply in one domestic market.
The global labor supply is about 2 billion people, give or take, the U.S. labor supply is about 150 million give or take.
I think the basic math there should show why that would be an economic disaster as well as an immigration/migration one as well.
to just get 'something' done. It doesn't matter if that 'something' doesn't work because at least a politician can say they did something. The Obama Administration is a great example of that.
I am not a deficit hawk but I absolutely hate wasting tax money. IMO, if the overall policy or program doesn't target FULL EMPLOYMENT then its a waste of government money. These various tax cuts/credits don't do that.
In Hire America and Buy American, I went over some good proposals but the bottom line is they need to put income into U.S. citizens pockets (LPR). That's true Keynes, not just spending, handing grants to foreign companies for foreign hires....that is just spending, not the same thing.
I also wrote up some details that are implying small business doesn't have a credit problem per say, it's a demand problem, which again implies they need grants, projects work, sales, profits to stay afloat, expand, not just more debt.
It's like D.C. has a live on credit card mentality instead of an investment or work/production mentality.
might be to do a huge overview on what real derivatives reform would entail. It's gotten muddled, but you're right, they are out, at all costs, to save "securitization" or packaged up loan securities.
But Sallie Mae gets gov funds in the first place so the Obama administration doing call outs on those organizations who literally are using taxpayer funds to lobby against the national interest is truly "outrage du jour".
And of course, this outrage is due to all those securitized student loans and the securitized financial instruments generated against them. This was cited, quite correctly and interestingly enough, by student protesters at the University of California a short time ago when they raised their student fees there.
In 1996, Congress passed the Student Loan Marketing Association Reorganization Act, which called
for the complete dissolution and privatization of Sallie Mae by September 30, 2008. The Privatization
Act authorized the creation of a state-chartered holding company that could engage in activities
outside of Sallie Mae's restrictive federal charter. "Sallie Mae's shareholders approved a
reorganization that created SLM Corporation, a Delaware-chartered holding company, and Sallie
Mae's GSE became its wholly-owned subsidiary."13
Privatization has allowed Sallie Mae to enter other areas of consumer finance (such as auto loans),
debt collection, and guarantor servicing.
And everything indicates, as evidenced by the problems which ensue, and the lack of any real amortization anymore in American business, generally speaking, and as evidenced by those Sallie Mae execs super-salaries (once upon a time they earned normal government salaries), the securitization is the prime artificial driver in the creation of ever rising artificial market prices.
A bit abstract, but that's what all the data indicates.
at least in the breaks it is. Well, this is an econ site and this PR, regardless of reality is going to hurt Toyota/Honda.
I'm with you on why people don't put the car in neutral but if one cannot turn off the engine manually, that's bad, bad, bad! Kind of like electronic windows...if you cannot do a manual override that's bad!
I mean calling 911 on your phone while your car is hitting 80 instead of turning off the engine and putting it in neutral is brain dead to me.
You make an excellent point, one I didn't really explain too well, and your point amplifies the fact that this situation is global in scope, whether it is happening in Slovakia, Australia, Peru, United Kingdom, or North America.
Your point about debt servicing, the payment for and to extremely long-term debt, along with all those processing fees, both of which are leveraged against.
They then generate securitized financial instruments (credit derivatives) against that debt (and debt servicing), adding more and more layers of securitization, then generate an almost infinite amount of credit default swaps, ostensibly to hedge against all those derivatives and deals; hence that ultra-leveraging.
And then the government (least ways in the USA), by way of the Treasury, generates tons of Treasuries (various bonds) to be exchanged by our Federal Reserve Banks for those credit derivatives and CDSes which have earned billions and billions of dollars for all those investment houses, big banks and financial services firms. Thus transferring private debt, yielding their fortunes, to public debt and the pillage and destruction of the public commons.
Prof. Goldberg (University of Sydney) makes a number of outstanding points in that cited report, one of which is:
Paying equity dividends with virtually no cash flow available (CCT)
(CCT refers to the Australian infrastructure project, the Cross City Tunnel)
That has bothered me for years, trying to ascertain where the revenue streams come from in so many of these cases, but as he ably demonstrates, they (banks, investment houses, etc.) are simply paying dividends to give the impression of revenue streams to acquire more investors, and more leveraging; using creative accounting techniques and double entries to hide non-amortization of debt, etc.
Public-private partnerships translate to private gain, public debt, and we observe that on all levels and now in across far too many countries.
A very sad and troubling thing indeed. My hopes with those Greek protesters today.
There wasn't any software bug - just a lack of a safety feature. The Germans had a slight issue with the Audi 5000 and it's un-intended acceleration and you'll find that on their cars the brakes trump the throttle control so hitting the brakes always cuts fuel.
The idiots that got into accidents with their Toyota's ought to have their licenses shredded. They could have put it into neutral, they could have turned the ignition off - either would have shut down the engine.
Yes it's a shame that not all cars have a kill switch (ignition key) which will kill a run away engine (due to sticking throttle, bad sensor reading, computer gone funky, throttle motor sticking at extream...). Hopefully all mfgs will now implement this.
Unintended acceleration hasn't just bitten Toyota or Audi.
After more than a handful of Fords and having driven others as rentals I own my first Toyota. I slag the thing because my Chevy Sprint had better milage. The Toyota has 2x the power so it can't touch the milage of a Metro/Sprint/Swift.
Going from my Ford to the Toyota Echo was night and day. The Echo has brakes that work - while every Ford I've ever driven has brakes that could never lock the wheels except in winter or on gravel.
I'd buy another Suzuki Swift / Toyota Echo / Honda Fit over anything that the "big" 3 produce. This Toyota problem is MINOR compared to other flaws over the years. When they implement the software upgrade there will be three, not two, ways to deal with a run-away engine/computer. That's if the driver has a clue how to operate their vehicle.
Sadly what I want isn't available for sale - sub 40 hp 4 door that seats, ideally 5 or a hybrid with a max 10 hp IC engine. You have to spend $30k to best the milage of a late 80's or 90's Swift/Sprint/Metro and that's only the case if that precious hybrid is driven in non-winter conditions (the IC engine runs all of the time in the winter)!!
This whole thing is minor and the big three have NOTHING in the way of fuel efficient vehicles and their quality/reliablity sucks (speaking of someone who had a fun time finding shorts due to insulation falling off of wires INSIDE THE CABIN of a 7 year old Ford or the freekin' automatic transmission failures the inability of various Fords to deal well with failure of the speed pickup on the transmission...!
All predictable, sadly, as we've observed from Obama's earliest appointments of chief offshorers, Diana Farrell, Laura Tyson, and so many of the others.
We know our foreign policy will continued to be screwed, just as it was under Bush with the appointments of Richard Holbrooke (sure hope you do as good a job in Afghanistan as you did on the BoD of AIG) and Robert Hormats!
That brilliant scholar, Joseph A. Tainter, explains in his book on ecological economics how science is humanity's top form of problem-solving.
Unfortunately, with the offshoring of technical jobs (really beginning with machinist and factory mechanic jobs), and technology and R&D jobs, this corporate-owned government is offshoring those problem-solving abilities as well.
Is all lost?
Prof. Wray, who proposes the Jobs Guarantee, is a student of Hyman Minsky.
There are all kinds of social costs involved with unemployment that are often over-looked.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
I've been reading John A. Hobson and Hyman Minsky in order to get alternative economic theories. There seems to be a consensus from all the great economists that the so-called solutions currently being tried to alleviate the recession are the most inefficient options available.
For instance, I was reading Minsky last night and he pointed out if the idea was to get the GDP growing, then a WPA program would create nearly twice the bang for the buck than unemployment insurance would. Yet that isn't even on the political agenda today.
...it doesn't configure well with junk economics (Michael Hudson's excellent term) or crackonomics (Matt Taibbi's excellent term).
Youse guys have got to get with the program, whatever you propose must have major kickbacks and mass corruption built in it. There's no other way.
I'm at an eatery the other day, and they have some talk show host on, the guy who claims to be a democrat (highly debatable) and a "progressive" (no way in Hell!), who has a caller from Chi town who intelligently states that until congress people begin adopting the attitude of working on behalf of the public good, nothing will get accomplished. The caller explained that they have got to stop spending all their time on getting reelected.
This clownish radio show host, in a completely nonsensical and non sequitur response, says they can't because they have to spend all their time raising re-election funds!
Huh???? Everytime the solution is presented, the misdirection begins....
in fact a host of groups who like to turn middle class issues upside down to really be their globalization agendas.
I really despize those groups trying to put up a special interest as a U.S. middle class issue...but I digress...
Then....one has no performance metrics, quality metrics in this. Hence, there is no incentive to actually do a good job, or what kind of work is being proposed.
Let's take the CCC as an example from the 1930's. That program was run like the military. If you didn't "shape up" you "shipped out". They had strict requirements on where the income went, most of it went to the boy's families to support them. Then, they were way below a normal wage for the time, providing room, board and all of the meat you could eat (they were famous for mass quantities of food).
Then...the projects were fairly selective that added to the economic development, in this case state parks (which charge entrance fees) but they also did a hell of a lot of forest fire fighting, so they were also acting as emergency service providers. They built a hell of a lot of roads, housing in state parks....
all projects that would give a lot of bang for the buck. What the above proposal is....isn't that.
I don't have the multipliers but I believe the AAM proposals have been ranked somewhere as being high, maybe by the CBO but the AAM went through their own "Stimulative" analysis in their paper with the same assumptions, multipliers...
but the difference is they are not making faux paus Keynes by claiming spending that is supposedly Stimulative...can leave that domestic economy..(which is the faux paus Keynes), they have all of those requirements and it's from the actual theory, in their analysis.
It's damn good, probably the best proposal I've seen out there.
Beyond just extending more unemployment benefits, this latest jobs bill isn't that at all, it's not going to create any jobs.
This from the 1st paragraph of article linked to above:
I think that eliminates illegal immigrants.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
But that is must have requirement. Unfortunately some of the various forces pushing this idea have their heads in their ass on labor econ.
Common sense will tell you one country and it's citizens simply cannot be the globe's job market....esp. when that country cannot support it's own people for jobs, careers, income.
I think the model should be on what worked in Voc. Rehab. Voc. Rehab used to have a lot more funding back in the 70's, 80's. and I think one can look at those stats, the successes, failures and why, to give "job guarantees". One thing i know this program had/has is strict performance requirements. If someone fails in their education/training, hey they do not continue to get the money. But this is almost secondary to what we need right now...
we need right now infrastructure projects that really target public works that future economic growth is dependent on and to put those people who are highly skilled already back on the job....
I mean I think there should be a ladder out of poverty and we could look at the various programs from 1934 to 1980 that had results, modify those, but it's almost secondary to what's going on right now.
But again, that is a bold policy proposal which Washington can't handle right now.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
which shows some very strategic projects, these are direct infrastructure jobs spending...but...unlike Stimulus I, they have these selected for the most bang for the buck in terms of investments needed, public works needed for future economic growth (there is some brain disconnect in this country that in order to have commerce one must have modern sewers, power grids, transportation (it's only a major EI!))
and AAM rightly put in their analysis all workers are U.S. citizens, LPR and all raw materials are domestically sourced (Buy American). That is true Keynes.
AAM white paper linked up.
most 'bang for the buck'. If that means limiting it to U.S. citizens that is not beyond realm of possibility.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
I actually am not for this agenda and beyond the fact it has turned into a bureaucracy nightmare in India is this. The people proposing this do not want to limit the jobs to U.S. citizens, LPR. Right there, it won't work. Instead they are setting up a welfare benefit (yes I said the "W" word), as an incentive to enter the U.S. from other countries. In other words, the U.S. taxpayer is supposed to fund a job guarantee to anyone in the world who wants to show up in the U.S. Or put in terms of labor econ, they want to use U.S. government expenditures to guarantee a job to a global labor supply in one domestic market.
The global labor supply is about 2 billion people, give or take, the U.S. labor supply is about 150 million give or take.
I think the basic math there should show why that would be an economic disaster as well as an immigration/migration one as well.
to just get 'something' done. It doesn't matter if that 'something' doesn't work because at least a politician can say they did something. The Obama Administration is a great example of that.
I am not a deficit hawk but I absolutely hate wasting tax money. IMO, if the overall policy or program doesn't target FULL EMPLOYMENT then its a waste of government money. These various tax cuts/credits don't do that.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
In Hire America and Buy American, I went over some good proposals but the bottom line is they need to put income into U.S. citizens pockets (LPR). That's true Keynes, not just spending, handing grants to foreign companies for foreign hires....that is just spending, not the same thing.
I also wrote up some details that are implying small business doesn't have a credit problem per say, it's a demand problem, which again implies they need grants, projects work, sales, profits to stay afloat, expand, not just more debt.
It's like D.C. has a live on credit card mentality instead of an investment or work/production mentality.
might be to do a huge overview on what real derivatives reform would entail. It's gotten muddled, but you're right, they are out, at all costs, to save "securitization" or packaged up loan securities.
But Sallie Mae gets gov funds in the first place so the Obama administration doing call outs on those organizations who literally are using taxpayer funds to lobby against the national interest is truly "outrage du jour".
From that same Nomura report:
Click for readability
And of course, this outrage is due to all those securitized student loans and the securitized financial instruments generated against them. This was cited, quite correctly and interestingly enough, by student protesters at the University of California a short time ago when they raised their student fees there.
And from a Nomura firm's report on student loans:
And everything indicates, as evidenced by the problems which ensue, and the lack of any real amortization anymore in American business, generally speaking, and as evidenced by those Sallie Mae execs super-salaries (once upon a time they earned normal government salaries), the securitization is the prime artificial driver in the creation of ever rising artificial market prices.
A bit abstract, but that's what all the data indicates.
at least in the breaks it is. Well, this is an econ site and this PR, regardless of reality is going to hurt Toyota/Honda.
I'm with you on why people don't put the car in neutral but if one cannot turn off the engine manually, that's bad, bad, bad! Kind of like electronic windows...if you cannot do a manual override that's bad!
I mean calling 911 on your phone while your car is hitting 80 instead of turning off the engine and putting it in neutral is brain dead to me.
You make an excellent point, one I didn't really explain too well, and your point amplifies the fact that this situation is global in scope, whether it is happening in Slovakia, Australia, Peru, United Kingdom, or North America.
Your point about debt servicing, the payment for and to extremely long-term debt, along with all those processing fees, both of which are leveraged against.
They then generate securitized financial instruments (credit derivatives) against that debt (and debt servicing), adding more and more layers of securitization, then generate an almost infinite amount of credit default swaps, ostensibly to hedge against all those derivatives and deals; hence that ultra-leveraging.
And then the government (least ways in the USA), by way of the Treasury, generates tons of Treasuries (various bonds) to be exchanged by our Federal Reserve Banks for those credit derivatives and CDSes which have earned billions and billions of dollars for all those investment houses, big banks and financial services firms. Thus transferring private debt, yielding their fortunes, to public debt and the pillage and destruction of the public commons.
Prof. Goldberg (University of Sydney) makes a number of outstanding points in that cited report, one of which is:
(CCT refers to the Australian infrastructure project, the Cross City Tunnel)
That has bothered me for years, trying to ascertain where the revenue streams come from in so many of these cases, but as he ably demonstrates, they (banks, investment houses, etc.) are simply paying dividends to give the impression of revenue streams to acquire more investors, and more leveraging; using creative accounting techniques and double entries to hide non-amortization of debt, etc.
Public-private partnerships translate to private gain, public debt, and we observe that on all levels and now in across far too many countries.
A very sad and troubling thing indeed. My hopes with those Greek protesters today.
There wasn't any software bug - just a lack of a safety feature. The Germans had a slight issue with the Audi 5000 and it's un-intended acceleration and you'll find that on their cars the brakes trump the throttle control so hitting the brakes always cuts fuel.
The idiots that got into accidents with their Toyota's ought to have their licenses shredded. They could have put it into neutral, they could have turned the ignition off - either would have shut down the engine.
Yes it's a shame that not all cars have a kill switch (ignition key) which will kill a run away engine (due to sticking throttle, bad sensor reading, computer gone funky, throttle motor sticking at extream...). Hopefully all mfgs will now implement this.
Unintended acceleration hasn't just bitten Toyota or Audi.
After more than a handful of Fords and having driven others as rentals I own my first Toyota. I slag the thing because my Chevy Sprint had better milage. The Toyota has 2x the power so it can't touch the milage of a Metro/Sprint/Swift.
Going from my Ford to the Toyota Echo was night and day. The Echo has brakes that work - while every Ford I've ever driven has brakes that could never lock the wheels except in winter or on gravel.
I'd buy another Suzuki Swift / Toyota Echo / Honda Fit over anything that the "big" 3 produce. This Toyota problem is MINOR compared to other flaws over the years. When they implement the software upgrade there will be three, not two, ways to deal with a run-away engine/computer. That's if the driver has a clue how to operate their vehicle.
Sadly what I want isn't available for sale - sub 40 hp 4 door that seats, ideally 5 or a hybrid with a max 10 hp IC engine. You have to spend $30k to best the milage of a late 80's or 90's Swift/Sprint/Metro and that's only the case if that precious hybrid is driven in non-winter conditions (the IC engine runs all of the time in the winter)!!
This whole thing is minor and the big three have NOTHING in the way of fuel efficient vehicles and their quality/reliablity sucks (speaking of someone who had a fun time finding shorts due to insulation falling off of wires INSIDE THE CABIN of a 7 year old Ford or the freekin' automatic transmission failures the inability of various Fords to deal well with failure of the speed pickup on the transmission...!
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