Recent comments

  • Offshoring aside. This means that a corporation with vast amounts of money can run negative ads every day during an election cycle to thwart a "populist" candidate. It means that if an incumbent politician want to stay in office they will do NOTHING to change policies that threaten corporations in any shape or form.

    This includes financial regulatory reform. This decision effectively allows Chase or Goldman Sachs to go out and buy certain elected officials. Supreme Court thought they were doing us a favor by keeping disclosure requirement in place (althought wingnut Justice Thomas even opposed disclosure requirements). But give me a break the damage will be done by a swift boat type ad campaign before disclosure does anything - the damage will be done.

    RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

    Reply to: Supreme Court Gives Corporations Carte Blanche to Buy Political Campaigns   14 years 9 months ago
  • Because regardless of the media, even social networking, blogs, it's very easy for these corporations to hire offshore outsourced "commentators" to write bs crap and fictional blog sites with lots of money.....very difficult to discern who are the real folks and who are the paid glorified advertisers.

    (which is another point in that I am aware of this....using offshore outsourced labor somewhere to write bogus articles, blogs, comments pushing some crappy agenda, we literally had the U.S. Chamber of Commerce stooge trying to get onto EP to post their propaganda).

    Reply to: Supreme Court Gives Corporations Carte Blanche to Buy Political Campaigns   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • You didn't actually expect it to pass the Senate, did you?
    And what a coincidence that it is blocked by Dodd. Another coincidence will be when he goes to work for the financial industry after he retires.

    Reply to: What a surprise, Chris Dodd, Judd Gregg block "Audit the Fed" in the Senate   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • It's curious why the gap between the seasonally adjusted numbers and the non-seasonally adjusted numbers is so large.
    If the non-seasonally adjusted numbers collapse in the coming few weeks then it doesn't mean much. But if it doesn't...

    Reply to: Weekly Initial Claims for January 21, 2010, Jump 36,000   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • So glad someone else is reading those Academic papers directly here and seeing what I'm seeing, it's so rare to find someone who actually read that Mann paper and that outrageous thing is so cited, over and over again, and few have any clue the entire paper is bogus simply because most never read these with the ability to understand the assumption and statistical/mathematical snow job.

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • My, my is that damning and very enlightening.

    Ah, well, if you need any assistance with formatting and such, just email. I'm working on site upgrades (and stuff keeps happening so I am writing too) slowly but surely to make the entire site better/more user friendly, but in the interim, there is always email.

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • This decision truly means that income inequality now means political inequality.

    RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

    Reply to: Supreme Court Gives Corporations Carte Blanche to Buy Political Campaigns   14 years 9 months ago
  • Sorry about that, chief! Won't happen again. Another reason I can't stomach Stiglitz is he has given interviews lately, while on his book tour, describing what the states are doing wrong, economically speaking (i.e., layoffs and budget tightening, etc.), but he fails to mention the reasons behind these --- massive jobs offshoring and relocation of production and factory facilities which have dramatically reduced their tax base (soon to be covered more fully in a blog by my humble self).

    And those were the platforms he once supported. Gee whiz!!!!

    On Catherine Mann, while she was at the Peterson Institute, spewing out those "studies" purporting how profitable to the American economy offshoring all the jobs would be, I questioned her data.

    In response, she sent me some of her graphs, minus the sources for her supposed supporting data. I consistently requested the source data from her, but to no avail.

    Just another play-for-pay, pseudo-economist. Check out the academics with membership in that Bretton Woods Committee membership list (brettonwoods.org): they were seeded into their academic chairs (financially-backed by guess who??) starting around the early '80s. And clearly, they all appear to embrace the same agenda, and several, when I've contacted them, claim they aren't members.

    Curiouser and curiouser....no conspiracy theory here, just the historical data.

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
  • Sorry, but I've been working on that tax blog you suggested awhile back (reading dozens of taxation books and studies is truly mind-numbing, at least to this piddling soul), and am almost finished abstracting the salient points. Another few days, or so, and I'll be blogging that one.

    And FYI, I suspect this reason from the single payer blog site might be an excellent reason for Coakley's loss in Massachusetts.

    And to reiterate the obvious, I admire and respect those highly intelligent econ types who have been consistently correct, not vary according to the popular political winds and currents (of course, they are the ones who usually are given the Nobels).

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
  • As much as I'm chuckling, oh yes she should be immediately fired, and her entire job offshore outsourced to where it belongs (and is being done), NASSCOM.

    Such fiction! I've read some of those "papers" and it is amazingly, astoundingly bad mathematics and they have serious assumption flaws and logic flaws. Lest I not forget, statistical flaws.

    I have another one of these, Catherine Mann. She keeps moving up the economic "food chain" and I have no idea why. She wrote such a bad paper, I mean seriously, it was wrong, flawed, statistically flawed, assumptions flawed...

    I mean so flawed I don't see why she wouldn't have been given an "F" grade in undergrad and flunked out? What's going on in these schools to let, not just undergrad, but really those who have PhDs no less, write such utter bullshit and claim it's a "paper"? Does anyone read this crap, review it? I mean it's unreal, it's like those 1990's bogus business books showing the laws of P/E ratios and stock price diverging, all claiming realistic business models which would actually generate profits didn't matter anymore!

    Anywho, please refrain from recommending physical violence on EP, and yes I understand why you wrote it.

    Why I called her a Princess, a lot of implications in that title.

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • To write some blog posts, with references, citations, graphs, even lifted equations from his research and papers to help us familiarize ourselves with some of these other's work?

    You're also hitting on something I wanted to do, which is to try to write up more Academic research results which were critical and of course almost no one reads those papers (in the media sphere).

    I know for myself, I've never heard of much of this and as it is, I'm cherry pickin' on some of the people you list....I try to check if on that subject, on that event...the conclusion is correct and really have "horse blinders" on vs. their entire track record.

    I also missed Stiglitz on the Buy American clause. Ok, to me that is just stupid because it's money (istraight from taxpayers pockets. I can understand such an argument but to me that's outrageously invalid when the funds are coming directly from those who are to benefit from Stimulus and also completely violates the entire Keynes equations for temporary gov. expenditures to Stimulate a domestic economy. So, how can one claim something that clearly violates the mathematics of the theory (which is why the crap would work in the first place!)

    Sometimes I feel like I'm missing the real mathematical models but I dig and dig and from every version I see these sorts of arguments don't "add up" from the math. (i.e. of course it should be "Buy American and Hire America)

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Again, please check out Diana Farrell's talk on labor arbitrage, it says it all...

    Just shut down all employment in America......And this is Obama's economic advisor???????

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
  • Definitely, need to throw Diana Farrell off the bus...and under the train...then drop 1,000 tons of concrete on her....then slice up her remains and spread them over a toxic waste dump. Then sprinkle holy water on it....(Open to any and all further offers and options?)

    Check out the link I posted above to see her expressed beliefs --- I can't think of ANY Obama appointments (and I used to like Gov. Sebelius - now at HSS) --- that should remain -- they are soooo neoliber/neocon and sooo antithetical to America.

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
  • Prof. Batra, out of Southern Methodist U. in Texas, has an excellent comprehension of the market fundamentals of economics, especially such notables as Jean-Baptiste Say, Riccardo, Keynes, etc., and grasps the connection between supply and demand.

    He's gone out on the limb with some of his predictions, and while not always on target due to extenuating circumstances, they've been backed by sound thinking. He predicted the end of communism and capitalism around 2000 (back in 1978).

    Now I think that was fundamentally sound, as a brilliant fellow I once knew, during a dinner conversation - also back in 1978 - between this unnamed fellow and Zbig Brzezinski (I was on Carter's presidential campaign, which was how I knew them) correctly predicted the exact year of the fall of the Soviet Union, and predicted the end of capitalism, as we know it (the highly predatory kind) by 2012.

    I'm kinda thinking his prediction is still on track....(all of Brzezinski's predictions that night were, as usual, completely wrong!!!!!!).

    Prof. Batra also wrote Greenspan's Fraud, highly recommended.

    I'm not being critical of Mr. Choate, I just think the others I've mentioned are more suitable (OK, I think they are of a much higher mental caliber, but I'm not saying Mr. Choate is unintelligent, just not in their category).

    Stiglitz still belongs to the Bretton Woods Committee (brettonwoods.org) and his name was included with everyone else's to their letter to Reid and Pelosi to kill the "buy American" clause in the federal stimulus package. He's still all politician; still a strong supporter of globalization.

    He has repositioned himself, but he's just repeating the obvious memes which so many have already stated, at least one to two years before he would dare mutter them: such as Prof. Taleb, Peter Morici (also on Bretton Woods Committee), Nomi Prins, and others.

    Krugman is also repositioning himself. But after diving off a cliff, even the dumbest person finally realizes he's falling --- therefore no excuses and no slack for the uber mediocrities of Krugman & Stiglitz.

    [The Bretton Woods Committe is composed of the ultra-elite of the multinational and bankster crowd, including former pols of international stature, such as Billy Clinton, George and Poppy Bush, etc.)

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
  • and probably discuss global conditions. I want to stay far away from the other issues and stick only to the labor economics, very exact, using only highly credible labor economists as well as theory (and believe me, even here is plenty of fudged stats!, so weeding through even the Academic and statistical facts is an exercise in discerning spin from truth)....

    The reason is this is such a controversial topic and frankly there is little objective analysis fact and focus out there and what it means for global labor and most importantly (because this site is focused in the U.S.) what it means for U.S. labor and it's economy.

    So, all, if we take this on, please be cautious and also buy at least one undergrad labor econ text and cite it and not only stick to Academic research/papers but also make sure those are well received from colleagues.

    The political spin is on max high and so fictional data, fictional stats are everywhere (both sides). I'm not going to give a link but I saw a "talk" at at supposedly economics based think tank that was so full of absolute, utter fiction, well, they should be embarrassed...

    so watch your theory and use your calculator, before writing an opinion. I'm not kidding on this....
    and the last thing I want EP to become is a war zone not based on objective stats, history, fact over this topic.

    I think all know I've really abreast on my global labor arbitrage facts on Professional labor (outsourcing, H-1B, L-1, etc.) but because this topic is always missed with other immigration topics, I really had to go digging into the entire area, have 3 labor econ texts on my shelf alone.

    (Paul Samuelson's Economics bible covers labor econ a tad as well).

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • I know you have several bill addressing this ruling but I have one more:

    Since corporations are being treated as people, then corporation should be held to same criminal standards including death penalty - in case of corporations - forced bankruptcy.

    RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

    Reply to: Supreme Court Gives Corporations Carte Blanche to Buy Political Campaigns   14 years 9 months ago
  • I hate to admit this but who is Ravi Batra?

    Yes, I know Simon Johnson was involved with the IMF, but to date, I've been looking over quite often his comments, his policy recommendations and haven't seen anything off base.

    That said, we have been so focused on the financial crisis, a lurking labor arbitrager, waiting in the wings or whatever other insanity is out there I might have missed.

    On this issue he's been pretty good.

    How about Ralph Gomory or much more mainstream but very good mathematics, theory is William Baumol.

    Krugman, I know but lately he has been (almost talking out of the side of his mouth), admitting that maybe this globalization stuff isn't it's all cracked up to be.

    Now Stiglitz has written quite a bit on how NAFTA is a major failure for workers, so he might be a little more safe than you think. So, in other words, the 90's insanity, now that some statistics are in, are getting a few to begrudgingly admit they were wrong.

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Quite a number of Americans (or perhaps I should say Ameritards) have no knowledge nor understanding of labor history in the USA and forget the great Cesar Chavez and his anti-undocumented worker marches.

    ..Chávez and the UFW went so far as to report undocumented immigrants who served as strikebreaking replacement workers, as well as those who refused to unionize, to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

    While I fully understand the reasons for the increase in workers coming here from Mexico (NAFTA and the privatization of the Mexican banking and food industry, and thousands of private farmers losing their farms due to subsequent trade policies on imports/exports, etc.), the illegal immigration is obviously been used by corrupt pols as yet another labor arbitrage strategy. (Although the Central American newspapers I've read state that the Mexican army shoots undocumented immigrants who attempt to enter through their southern border. Don't know if that's true or not, but it has appeared several times in the newspapers.)

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago
  • Its about time Volcker got some love from Obama.

    Reply to: Obama Proposes "Volcker Rule"!   14 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Being slightly familiar with both recent and 20th century economic history, I have to first applaud you for your constrained and reticent blog here, Mr. Oak, but I have to take exception with Simon Johnson.

    The other day I happened to hear Dean Baker, during an interview, suggest Krugman, Stiglitz, and Simon as future Obama appointments. ABSOLUTELY NOT!

    No more politicians masquerading as economists, please! Paul "let's offshore America" Krugman, Joseph "NAFTA will be great for America and the American worker" Stiglitz, and Simon "I love credit default swaps" Johnson simply don't fill the bill.

    (Although I acknowledge that Simon can read, and appears to have been paying attention to Elizabeth Warren, Nomi Prins, Zerohedge and the Economic Populist sites for his predictions.)

    Now Prof. James Galbraith, Prof. Elizabeth Warren, Prof. Ravi Batra, (especially Prof. Michael Hudson, but they might find him too honest, too intelligent, and too radical) and Paul Craig Roberts would qualify.

    But the three stooges Dean Baker mentioned.....color me stupified at such a random suggestion!

    And it comes as no surprise that China's economy, with their buy-only China internal legislation, and the funneling of the American stimulus bill to China, should be doing so well in economic growth.

    Reply to: Massachusetts turned Red, but that color isn't what you think it is   14 years 9 months ago

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