It would take 14 years of population decline to equal the job loss since December 2007.
And that's if we stop all immigration now, mine the borders, and destroy every ship or plane crossing into our waters or airspace.
We're only losing 500,000 workers a year due to population decline. Before the downturn we were taking in 2,000,000 legal working age immigrants a year.
And that's not counting the illegals.
There's another half to this argument, but that topic has been censored here, so to see it click here.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Funny, I expect the Pope to be a bit of a culturalist- it's in his job description after all. But to claim that his take on outsourcing causing wage depression in India is *racist* against Hindus, is downright insane!
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Destruction of the Middle Class. I started reading Dr. Thomas Palley's (h/t Robert) "America's Exhausted Paradigm".
I strongly agree with Dr. Palley, we need a new economic growth model that relies on the rising middle class incomes. What we are seeing is a "new normal" in economic growth - one that will lead to higher structural unemployment but this could change as Robert says "it doesn't have to be this way". It doesn't. I wish people would wake up and realize this and tell their elected officials that is time for a new economic model.
Were when God's Servant controlled the organized bullies, instead of letting them run wild.
Organized bullies victimizing the weak is just Evolution. It happens in all societies, in all species, in all cultures. There is NO way to escape tyranny, only ways to replace it with more tyranny.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
When you realize that our population loss, right now, is only a half-million working age people a year and we're taking in 2 million LEGAL immigrants every year. Or at least, that's the number of immigration-track and guest worker visas we issue.
Like in international trade, we need some balance. And balance right now would be to close the borders for the 14 years it will take for population demographics to catch up with job loss over the past year.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Between a Homeless US Citizen and the poor of Guadalupe, Mexico living in the garbage dump?
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Winking at rule breaking starts somewhere deep among policy makers, no? I think I'm becoming a fatalist, darn it. You bet this era of laissez-faire which purports to rely upon self-interest and game theory has left the door wide open for brigands. At least Greenspan apologized. We are now truly unsteady about where and how to put rules that reduce exploitation and mediate distortions. We haven't discussed where to place boundaries in several decades. Argued maybe, waved flags, but not clearly used our government nor chastised the tricksters. Wisdom ahead, but I think tough challenges for a generation too. Sorry to generalize.
Virtually every country has a strict immigration policy, well minus certain European ones. Even Mexico has a more stringent immigration policy than we do! America has laws and the tools to enforce it's immigration policy. The problem, the real problem in my opinion, is that we lack the political will to do enact and enforce these measures. Secondly, the situation regarding the illegal population has grown so large, and I dare say intricate with regards to children being born here, that the solutions themselves grow more "interesting." This is problem is enhanced by the fact that we have economic traitors attempting to prolong the situation if not make it worse to their economic gain.
I've never understood this stuff but have always found it fascinating. This analysis would certainly support the "salted and barren" outlook. The emergence of a single pattern in all of the major market indices worldwide must mean something. It's also interesting that the policy recommendation for central planners has a similar effect to Michael Hudson's call for a Debt Jubilee.
March 13th, 2007 – Henry Paulson: “the fallout in subprime mortgages is "going to be painful to some lenders, but it is largely contained."
March 28th, 2007 – Ben Bernanke: "At this juncture . . . the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained,"
Either they were lying or incompetent. Take your pick. In other case we were screwed.
With all of the bailouts and Fed efforts I would think that massive inflation is coming to the US and the rest of the world, but the recent action in the gold price does not seem to indicate that, as described here: http://www.kitco.com/ind/Trendsman/jul292009.html
but if we could get some common sense instead of "current" as well as look at statistics, esp. labor economics, then maybe a sane dialog could occur.
I was fairly surprised the author was willing to take this on because it's just ridiculous. The minute anyone talks about this they get attacked, when population and immigration did really affect labor markets. (see China, India as good examples!)
I decided to change the share buttons to the addthis.com service. So far so good with privacy from them (I tried it on another site) and it makes it all of the sharing options very compact and includes a lot of newer services.
Maybe people will links posts they like to the major social networking sites and so on with the new button!
We'll see.
I left the email forwarding system because it's much more complex and you can forward a post to over 10 email addresses at a time (yes, there is flood control you spammers who are lurking!).
I haven't posted a single thing on the ban on naked shorts or anything on ETFs.
But the issue with Proshare, DUG, GLD, etc. are they truly tracking 2x inverse the index? I haven't investigated in total but many times it just looked "funky" but I didn't calculate out the entire percentages, etc.
I believe I saw regulators considering shutting down some of these indexed ETFs due to the ability to short through an ETF and market distortions.
You're "the dude" maybe you can write something up on the latest with some of these SEC moves/issues?
It's a tough topic, but I look at it this way, the U.S. is the top destination plus has the most liberal immigration in the world.
So, ya know, it's very obvious right now we have way too much of a good thing.
You'll hear just insane crap on how displacing Americans creates jobs...uh, no it doesn't...it displaces Americans.
Those immigrants who actually create jobs....they will always get in, we have special categories of Visas for them (like the O-1).
So, having a controlled immigration policy that is actually paying attention to supply/demand and the labor market I just don't think is such an issue. There will always been refugee status immigration and families and all sorts of stuff.
You have to see it by the numbers and the numbers, which this author points out are clearly a flood.
Then, it's so well documented that Indian outsourcers are using guest worker Visas to displace U.S. workers...
Many countries, including India btw, severely limited their immigration during this time period and for precisely the reason said by this author....
so my attitude is "let's get real". It really does affect jobs, labor markets and when you're talking 20 million illegals alone or 2 million green cards....well, one can see this is a major factor to affect labor markets.
A curtail isn't "shut the door" and frankly no nation can take on the entire world's population. Another thing this points to is that philosophy can be very detrimental economically.
Leveraged ETFs, well actually in many regards you could make the claim for certain sector ones as well, are not what they are peddled to be. You see, in order to get that fire power of 2X or even 3X, you have to take into account borrowing costs. Secondly, with regards to those leveraged funds that focus on the short side, they have to be able to borrow the stock to go short, naked sales are a big no no. Third, when you get a sector fund, sometimes the other stocks or a derivative would actually make a bigger influence than their largest holdings.
For example, lets look at DUG. DUG's info shows that oil service stocks make up 21% of the fund. DUG goes up when these oil stocks, be it drillers or servicer goes down. The thing is traders have known for a while now that XOM and CVX would show bad earnings, they priced oil from the high to the low on these stocks. They are now looking forward. Some moves from the other non-top two holdings could push the whole fund, but actually it's the main product, oil. Oil is guiding them, from the front month on up. What has oil done in the past several months, gone from the 30s to the 60s. A lot of trader talk is that the dollar is weakening (I know, on this site you had a piece with a chart making the claim there was no correlation, but tell that to the guys messing with XOM or DUG)and to them means higher oil prices.
You bring up a good point about demographics. I forgot which labor activist said it, when talks about amnesty came up (they were for it, you know if you can find the person, its an old guy who's from one of the major unions always on telly) who brought up demographics. The far right/nativists/nationalists (or whatever they're called these days, honestly, labels can be confusing sometimes) claim that we can't let them in because they are taking our jobs. That is true to a certain point, I mean I remember when you saw local kids cutting lawns for cash and other less well off working in jobs that you see illegal immigrants in. At the same time, we're not producing babies at rates to sustain what will be needed in future payouts in things like Social Security.
Like you said, look at Europe, particularly Italy! Or better yet, go to the Pacific and see Japan. China is also, with their anti-female attitudes and one-child policy, in for a rude wake up call in several years.
It's a bitter pill for me to swallow. We need to control the border, and help those who legally should be here to land some jobs even if it's cutting grass (manufacturing jobs would be better though ;) ) . But they're here, and the political cost to reinitiate something like Operation Wetback would be too great. Legally, the children, commonly known as "anchor babies" due have a right to be here. And this will be the case until there is a change in the constitution.
Here in Chicago, the immigrants here come from all over, legal or not, and for the most part are very productive. We used to have neighborhoods that were rotting away from either "White Flight" or just economic neglect. These folks came in and started up new stores, new businesses...commerce! The have purchased cars, consumer goods, food and have paid rent. Yes, they cost us as well, one need only look at California. But longer term, these kids adapt. I went to college in Chicago, and sat next to second and third generation hispanic kids who knew more English than they did Spanish, that is they could understand their parents speaking it, but they could hardly reply in kind.
Like I said, it's a very bitter pill. I can see, from a labor point of view, that an influx of immigrants plays havoc with the supply/demand issue. The fact is, for a certain set of work skills, the demand at union-scale wages is not where it used to be. A lot of homebuilding jobs have illegals working as carpenters, the company behind them could hire union carpenters, but to them the market says he can get "cheaper." We can say how they should clamp down on this, but Robert, you know the system is broken. I live in one of the biggest union towns, and there is more illegal non-union construction work going on here than ever before. My only consolation is that we will be able to take some taxes out of them to fund our liabilities, though that really isn't saying much.
It's a tough issue. On one hand, this post screams for common sense and firm policy that respects our residents. On the other hand, birth rates are low and our population is declining or at risk of declining. Europe is similarly challenged, and Japan. I think the matter requires a broad view, one of too many buried policies that too often are kept dark merely to preserve ongoing favors.
I was enthralled by Ayn Rand when I was 13. I saw "The Fountainhead" movie with Gary Cooper. Shook me to my foundation. I read all her novels and joined The Objectivist cult.
I lost my school library privileges for reading her books and arguing with the librarian. I was also "The Man Without A Home Room" for refusing to salute the flag and recite the Lord's Prayer on command during group seance.
A few years later I began to notice differences between the heroic, cut and dried characters and politico-economic reality. I learned more about history. My right-wing leanings turned into a major bent. I continued my philosophical studies with an emphasis on science.
I have now concluded that Enlightened Self-Interest cannot exclude the environment, society, institutions, and the rest of the known universe. A Gestalt perspective is necessary for survival. Base instinct is not enough. The Honor System does not work very effectively. Laws and courts are necessary until such time as they are replaced by a better system or honest, generous and responsible people and institutions. Religion has not affected this debauchery to any meaningful extent and is more often used as a false justification for tyranny.
We are still in the Dark Ages where organized bullies victimize the weak.
It would take 14 years of population decline to equal the job loss since December 2007.
And that's if we stop all immigration now, mine the borders, and destroy every ship or plane crossing into our waters or airspace.
We're only losing 500,000 workers a year due to population decline. Before the downturn we were taking in 2,000,000 legal working age immigrants a year.
And that's not counting the illegals.
There's another half to this argument, but that topic has been censored here, so to see it click here.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
But thanks for the link!
Funny, I expect the Pope to be a bit of a culturalist- it's in his job description after all. But to claim that his take on outsourcing causing wage depression in India is *racist* against Hindus, is downright insane!
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Destruction of the Middle Class. I started reading Dr. Thomas Palley's (h/t Robert) "America's Exhausted Paradigm".
I strongly agree with Dr. Palley, we need a new economic growth model that relies on the rising middle class incomes. What we are seeing is a "new normal" in economic growth - one that will lead to higher structural unemployment but this could change as Robert says "it doesn't have to be this way". It doesn't. I wish people would wake up and realize this and tell their elected officials that is time for a new economic model.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Were when God's Servant controlled the organized bullies, instead of letting them run wild.
Organized bullies victimizing the weak is just Evolution. It happens in all societies, in all species, in all cultures. There is NO way to escape tyranny, only ways to replace it with more tyranny.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
When you realize that our population loss, right now, is only a half-million working age people a year and we're taking in 2 million LEGAL immigrants every year. Or at least, that's the number of immigration-track and guest worker visas we issue.
Like in international trade, we need some balance. And balance right now would be to close the borders for the 14 years it will take for population demographics to catch up with job loss over the past year.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Between a Homeless US Citizen and the poor of Guadalupe, Mexico living in the garbage dump?
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Winking at rule breaking starts somewhere deep among policy makers, no? I think I'm becoming a fatalist, darn it. You bet this era of laissez-faire which purports to rely upon self-interest and game theory has left the door wide open for brigands. At least Greenspan apologized. We are now truly unsteady about where and how to put rules that reduce exploitation and mediate distortions. We haven't discussed where to place boundaries in several decades. Argued maybe, waved flags, but not clearly used our government nor chastised the tricksters. Wisdom ahead, but I think tough challenges for a generation too. Sorry to generalize.
Virtually every country has a strict immigration policy, well minus certain European ones. Even Mexico has a more stringent immigration policy than we do! America has laws and the tools to enforce it's immigration policy. The problem, the real problem in my opinion, is that we lack the political will to do enact and enforce these measures. Secondly, the situation regarding the illegal population has grown so large, and I dare say intricate with regards to children being born here, that the solutions themselves grow more "interesting." This is problem is enhanced by the fact that we have economic traitors attempting to prolong the situation if not make it worse to their economic gain.
--------------------------------------------
www.venomopolis.com
I've never understood this stuff but have always found it fascinating. This analysis would certainly support the "salted and barren" outlook. The emergence of a single pattern in all of the major market indices worldwide must mean something. It's also interesting that the policy recommendation for central planners has a similar effect to Michael Hudson's call for a Debt Jubilee.
The personal consumption expenditure price index for 2nd quarter 2009 increased 1.3%.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
From 2007, regarding subprime mortgage crisis:
March 13th, 2007 – Henry Paulson: “the fallout in subprime mortgages is "going to be painful to some lenders, but it is largely contained."
March 28th, 2007 – Ben Bernanke: "At this juncture . . . the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained,"
Either they were lying or incompetent. Take your pick. In other case we were screwed.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
With all of the bailouts and Fed efforts I would think that massive inflation is coming to the US and the rest of the world, but the recent action in the gold price does not seem to indicate that, as described here: http://www.kitco.com/ind/Trendsman/jul292009.html
but if we could get some common sense instead of "current" as well as look at statistics, esp. labor economics, then maybe a sane dialog could occur.
I was fairly surprised the author was willing to take this on because it's just ridiculous. The minute anyone talks about this they get attacked, when population and immigration did really affect labor markets. (see China, India as good examples!)
I decided to change the share buttons to the addthis.com service. So far so good with privacy from them (I tried it on another site) and it makes it all of the sharing options very compact and includes a lot of newer services.
Maybe people will links posts they like to the major social networking sites and so on with the new button!
We'll see.
I left the email forwarding system because it's much more complex and you can forward a post to over 10 email addresses at a time (yes, there is flood control you spammers who are lurking!).
I haven't posted a single thing on the ban on naked shorts or anything on ETFs.
But the issue with Proshare, DUG, GLD, etc. are they truly tracking 2x inverse the index? I haven't investigated in total but many times it just looked "funky" but I didn't calculate out the entire percentages, etc.
I believe I saw regulators considering shutting down some of these indexed ETFs due to the ability to short through an ETF and market distortions.
You're "the dude" maybe you can write something up on the latest with some of these SEC moves/issues?
It's a tough topic, but I look at it this way, the U.S. is the top destination plus has the most liberal immigration in the world.
So, ya know, it's very obvious right now we have way too much of a good thing.
You'll hear just insane crap on how displacing Americans creates jobs...uh, no it doesn't...it displaces Americans.
Those immigrants who actually create jobs....they will always get in, we have special categories of Visas for them (like the O-1).
So, having a controlled immigration policy that is actually paying attention to supply/demand and the labor market I just don't think is such an issue. There will always been refugee status immigration and families and all sorts of stuff.
You have to see it by the numbers and the numbers, which this author points out are clearly a flood.
Then, it's so well documented that Indian outsourcers are using guest worker Visas to displace U.S. workers...
Many countries, including India btw, severely limited their immigration during this time period and for precisely the reason said by this author....
so my attitude is "let's get real". It really does affect jobs, labor markets and when you're talking 20 million illegals alone or 2 million green cards....well, one can see this is a major factor to affect labor markets.
A curtail isn't "shut the door" and frankly no nation can take on the entire world's population. Another thing this points to is that philosophy can be very detrimental economically.
Leveraged ETFs, well actually in many regards you could make the claim for certain sector ones as well, are not what they are peddled to be. You see, in order to get that fire power of 2X or even 3X, you have to take into account borrowing costs. Secondly, with regards to those leveraged funds that focus on the short side, they have to be able to borrow the stock to go short, naked sales are a big no no. Third, when you get a sector fund, sometimes the other stocks or a derivative would actually make a bigger influence than their largest holdings.
For example, lets look at DUG. DUG's info shows that oil service stocks make up 21% of the fund. DUG goes up when these oil stocks, be it drillers or servicer goes down. The thing is traders have known for a while now that XOM and CVX would show bad earnings, they priced oil from the high to the low on these stocks. They are now looking forward. Some moves from the other non-top two holdings could push the whole fund, but actually it's the main product, oil. Oil is guiding them, from the front month on up. What has oil done in the past several months, gone from the 30s to the 60s. A lot of trader talk is that the dollar is weakening (I know, on this site you had a piece with a chart making the claim there was no correlation, but tell that to the guys messing with XOM or DUG)and to them means higher oil prices.
--------------------------------------------
www.venomopolis.com
You bring up a good point about demographics. I forgot which labor activist said it, when talks about amnesty came up (they were for it, you know if you can find the person, its an old guy who's from one of the major unions always on telly) who brought up demographics. The far right/nativists/nationalists (or whatever they're called these days, honestly, labels can be confusing sometimes) claim that we can't let them in because they are taking our jobs. That is true to a certain point, I mean I remember when you saw local kids cutting lawns for cash and other less well off working in jobs that you see illegal immigrants in. At the same time, we're not producing babies at rates to sustain what will be needed in future payouts in things like Social Security.
Like you said, look at Europe, particularly Italy! Or better yet, go to the Pacific and see Japan. China is also, with their anti-female attitudes and one-child policy, in for a rude wake up call in several years.
It's a bitter pill for me to swallow. We need to control the border, and help those who legally should be here to land some jobs even if it's cutting grass (manufacturing jobs would be better though ;) ) . But they're here, and the political cost to reinitiate something like Operation Wetback would be too great. Legally, the children, commonly known as "anchor babies" due have a right to be here. And this will be the case until there is a change in the constitution.
Here in Chicago, the immigrants here come from all over, legal or not, and for the most part are very productive. We used to have neighborhoods that were rotting away from either "White Flight" or just economic neglect. These folks came in and started up new stores, new businesses...commerce! The have purchased cars, consumer goods, food and have paid rent. Yes, they cost us as well, one need only look at California. But longer term, these kids adapt. I went to college in Chicago, and sat next to second and third generation hispanic kids who knew more English than they did Spanish, that is they could understand their parents speaking it, but they could hardly reply in kind.
Like I said, it's a very bitter pill. I can see, from a labor point of view, that an influx of immigrants plays havoc with the supply/demand issue. The fact is, for a certain set of work skills, the demand at union-scale wages is not where it used to be. A lot of homebuilding jobs have illegals working as carpenters, the company behind them could hire union carpenters, but to them the market says he can get "cheaper." We can say how they should clamp down on this, but Robert, you know the system is broken. I live in one of the biggest union towns, and there is more illegal non-union construction work going on here than ever before. My only consolation is that we will be able to take some taxes out of them to fund our liabilities, though that really isn't saying much.
Wow...I actually feel worse writing this. Sorry.
--------------------------------------------
www.venomopolis.com
It's a tough issue. On one hand, this post screams for common sense and firm policy that respects our residents. On the other hand, birth rates are low and our population is declining or at risk of declining. Europe is similarly challenged, and Japan. I think the matter requires a broad view, one of too many buried policies that too often are kept dark merely to preserve ongoing favors.
I was enthralled by Ayn Rand when I was 13. I saw "The Fountainhead" movie with Gary Cooper. Shook me to my foundation. I read all her novels and joined The Objectivist cult.
I lost my school library privileges for reading her books and arguing with the librarian. I was also "The Man Without A Home Room" for refusing to salute the flag and recite the Lord's Prayer on command during group seance.
A few years later I began to notice differences between the heroic, cut and dried characters and politico-economic reality. I learned more about history. My right-wing leanings turned into a major bent. I continued my philosophical studies with an emphasis on science.
I have now concluded that Enlightened Self-Interest cannot exclude the environment, society, institutions, and the rest of the known universe. A Gestalt perspective is necessary for survival. Base instinct is not enough. The Honor System does not work very effectively. Laws and courts are necessary until such time as they are replaced by a better system or honest, generous and responsible people and institutions. Religion has not affected this debauchery to any meaningful extent and is more often used as a false justification for tyranny.
We are still in the Dark Ages where organized bullies victimize the weak.
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