Good news, for once, for those of us against monopolies:

Justice Department Files Antitrust Lawsuit to Block AT&T’s Acquisition of T-Mobile

Oops:

Leaked AT&T Letter Demolishes Case For T-Mobile Merger - Lawyer Accidentally Decimates AT&T's #1 Talking Point | DSLReports.com, ISP Information

Yeah, it turns out when you circulate memos saying it'll cost only 1/10th as much to build a network just like T-Mobile's which makes it looks like you're just buying them to kill competition and you'll drastically reduce investment... oops.

SI

Good!

Yeah, $39B can get you a lot of wireless network coverage no matter where you are trying to cover.

I don't know what the real story is but it makes Obama look stupid.

Handling of jobs speech timing blurs White House message - CNN.com

Seriously. What a fucking wimpy wanker.

Great news on no hostile deaths. Lets not extend a training mission. I think we can pull out now.

BBC News - Iraq: US troops' first fatality-free month since 2003

Yeah- this sort of stuff really does make him look like
A) Nothing is ever fully thought out ("What? That date is bad for you guys?")
B) He'll never stick to his guns on anything ("Whatever you want, John"
C) He wanted to challenge them ("Yeah, we'll stick it to them and steal the thunder of their debate") and they just gave up ("We can't win. They're too powerful")

SI

I thought the Republican debate was scheduled that night a long time ago? At our middle school the teachers learn not to schedule events in conflict with other events (ie Band concert on the same night as Choir trip) I would think the White House and their trillion dollar budget would be capible of something similar. I personally could care less if Obama spoke the same night but I think it's probably choice A but I definitely wouldn't rule out choice C. The resident libs think Obama is always getting picked on, IMO I think it is part of their strategy. (He really can't do much about jobs and nobody really cares what he has to say so why not make this yet another partisan issue that overshadows the event)

I wish he would forgo running for reelection.

I saw last night that no sitting president has ever won reelection with an unemployment of 9% or higher.

Yesterday, the White House predicted that unemployment would stay above 9% through the end of next year.

I think your argument has some merit actually. I think the Dems would stand a better chance with a new candidate who doesn't have the economic baggage that Obama has, especially given the Republican field they're up against.

In the real world there's no Dem that stands a better shot at winning than Obama. A challenger would piss of the African-American community and would have to explain why they either didn't support or didn't challenge every decision Obama made.

I think Obama's in a lot of trouble, but there's no knight in shining armor out there to save Dems. They'll sink or swim with Obama.

The only think Obama has going for him right now is that the Republican field is horrible. I guess "Hope" and "Change" can be "Do you really want to vote for Michelle Bachmann?"

Hilary would be interesting. Obama I guess was smart to put her as SoS to avoid her running against him.

If Hillary challenged, and she won't, she'd have even more problems than someone outside of the admin.

This. "Oh woe is me, I'd save the world but the big bad Republicans are being mean to me"

I stay out of political discussions like the plague, but I just absolutely hate this guy. There are no leadership qualities with him, just politics 24/7. I wish both sides would have different people run in 2012, but unfortunately that isn't going to happen.

The Republican field is a disaster. It will be interesting to see who comes out of that mess. There are only a couple of people there who could make it interesting and the rest will send the majority back to the Dem side. Because they are too far gone to be electable by the masses. Obama won with strong independent support. I think that electorate is still within his grasp. It's how GWB won reelection.


Hilary saw first hand how things are running in the US politically. I don't think she has any intention of ever doing that again. I think it's part of the reason that she is stepping down as SoS. A job that was perfect for her personality.

I see it more of the Republicans playing every card they have in the deck to weaken him as much as possible before 2012. Simply politics, and you are right. He should have dictated what was going to happen instead of caving. This doesn't send a very good message at all. In fact, what a terrible waste of time. As far as the Republicans go, does he need an appointment for the end urinal too? How small of an issue does it really need to be to fuck with it and take time away from representing the needs of the people?

Well actually I am thinking the problem was that Bachman, Paul, and Santorum kind of have to be at his address don't they? Not sure what the official rule is for this sort of thing.

Not really, those jokers could care less what he has to say, other than a race to see who can run to the cameras to criticize it first. The reason is that it would be televised and take away from the debate to see who can find a different way to say the same thing to the tea party.

How does it end up being anyone but Mitt Romney or Rick Perry, tho? Vanilla GOP candidates, for the most part.

SI

I think Romney is really the only threat to him. He has the business chops and is an outsider. Perry will get destroyed once people learn more about him. He's anything but vanilla.

If I was a betting man I'd take Romney in the primary. But I still see a chance that the tea party faithful just batter him over the next year and either make him vulnerable in the general election or leave behind a lethargic base that didn't get what they wanted. The Tea Party's energy was what won them seats in 2010, do we really think they'll come out in force for Mitt Romney?

I think Romney is out. I think that he has already maximized his popularity and that he is known out there enough that people have already made up their minds about him. He has no upside left. And what upside he has isn't enough to win the whole thing, but his base is large enough that whoever he backs could win easily.

As for Perry, I don't know enough about him. So it seems that he has a lot to gain at this point in the race.

Personally, I'd like to see Huntsman do more, but I think that his message is far enough away from the base that they will just exclude him as much as possible.

If it is someone like Bachman or Palin, I don't see how Obama could lose. Paul is interesting, but I don't think that he is really a viable candidate. Kind of like Perot was in 92 and 96.

Palin seems like the wild-card here, too. For all of their "insurgency," Bachmann and Perry are ultimately career politicians who understand that they will fight like hell to get the nomination but, if they do not, then they will fall in behind Romney, and encourage their supporters to do likewise. That's how you live to fight another day in the party.

Palin? Who knows. If she enters the race (and, FWIW, I don't think that she will), I don't see her losing gracefully. She takes things very, very personally. And seems both desperate to be accepted by the GOP establishment, but also wants to remain an outsider for life. That's a dangerous and unstable combination. I think that the general "don't destroy members of your own party" rule for primary campaigns goes out of the window with her. I could really see her doing significant damage to Romney among the base in a sort of scorched-earth-take-my-ball-and-go-home tantrum once she starts to feel the pressure of the primary season.

Obama-hate will certainly get a lot of the base to the polls, no matter who the GOP candidate is. But in an election that, at this point, seems like it will be razors-edge close, a take-no-prisoners primary could cost the GOP the 1 or 2 percentage points that mean the difference between victory and defeat.

All of which is, I think, just an academic exercise (and a bit of wishful thinking) on my part b/c I think that she's not going to run and instead enjoy a role as King-maker-in-Chief for this primary.

Santorum lost his re-election bid in 2008. He has not been a member of congress in quite some time.

A crap sandwich of a day for Obama

Job growth grinds to halt, fuels recession fear - Yahoo! News
Horrible jobs report (again)

Obama halts controversial EPA regulation - Yahoo! News
He steps in and squashes a strong EPA regulation

Regulator to sue major banks over mortgages - Yahoo! News
This one I only note for the "media is all liberal and lefty" squad. While the statement: "These payouts would reduce earnings and weaken capital levels, perhaps harming the ability of banks to lend money and provide much-needed life to a stalled housing market and weakened economy" is true, it doesn't really follow with the rest of the article and just seems to be part of the general "piling on" about the economy. So, even in an article about the government suing fraudulent banks, it comes back to "Oh noes! We shouldn't do that because it might hurt the economy".

SI

I think this one is a chess move. He's trying to take away the Republicans "anti-business" tag they give him.

I just don't think it makes a difference. Are GOP voters going to suddenly think Obama is pro-business?

SI

They never will. Obama isn't going to ever lose any or gain any GOP voters. However, the undecided/independent voters...

I doubt there's a single business in America that isn't hiring that now will because this "uncertainty" has been removed. The whole uncertainty argument is largely bullshit IMO.

Hmmm, we may as well pass on the cost of this regulation onto the customers anyways, just in case it ever happens.

Time to figure out 5,000 more jobs we can eliminate.

I think Romney's in a lot of trouble. Perry has pulled out with a big lead and the early primary schedule favors a strong conservative. I still don't think a Mormon can win in the South and the GOP nominee is going to have to be strong in the South or the party will split.

Somewhere, a lobbyist is receiving a bonus check from his CEO.

It's kind of sad how much the "companies won't hire because of such and such" gets used these days in political discourse. This was the main article on CNBC right now.

Why Won't Companies Hire? Washington Is In the Way - CNBC

Can you imagine a business booming with demand and saying "well we'd like to hire people fulfill these orders, but we just don't know what's happening in Washington".

Businesses hire when there is demand. There is no demand so there is no hiring. You can argue that maybe the government is behind the lack of demand, but to say businesses base their hiring practices on some bullshit political discourse in Washington is laughable.

For me, Romney and Huntsman are the GOP candidates that I can support. Romney because he has been a successful business man and Huntsman primarily because he seems more moderate than any other GOP candidate.

Anyone remember the West Wing TV series ... does Perry remind you of the GOP candidate they had in the last couple years?

All looking bad. Anyone have any good economic news?

Job market stalls in August: Hello Recession? - The Curious Capitalist - TIME.com

Huntsman's tax plan is bat shit crazy. I liked a lot of what he had to say until that came out.

I couldn't find alot of details to his tax plan? Devil is in the details but below sounds good to me.

Wall Street Journal loves Huntsman jobs plan – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

Huntsman offers tax, trade plan to create jobs - politics - Decision 2012 - msnbc.com

Here's a description form the National Review.

I'm all for reducing the gap between marginal and effective tax rates, but taking all the generated revenue and using it to lower rates instead of lower the deficit is crazy. His rates and the elimination of capital gains and dividends taxes would shift the taxation burden toward the middle class.

His plan is basically, rich pay a lot less, middle class pays more, and the debt is still on target to explode.

Yeah, I like how they keep trying to get rid of capital gains and dividend tax. Because making income with those methods is better than making income actually doing something. Income is income, it should all be taxed the same.

Part of the problem is companies have cost cut to the bone in many cases - which lowered demand across the entire economy, now the cost cutting maximised profit ... but the limitations built in are that less people are working and until more people are hired demand isn't there.

IF companies hired demand would go up as more people had money - but its a chicken and egg situation, no company will hire without demand because if they do so alone they could be less losing profitability .. it needs a surge across the board in hiring.

I fully expect what will happen is a tax break being given (to these hugely profitable corporations who already pay very little tax ;) ) which is centered around hiring workers .... this will encourage some hiring but be very cost inefficient for the government.

What I 'think' should be done is investment in infrastructure by the US government, if they improved the roads, rail network, bridges etc. - then it'd put a lot of people in the construction industry back to work and that would stimulate the economy and thus corporations into hiring. It'd also be more cost effective as something like 75% of money invested into infrastructure ('general average' - your milage can vary) tends to end up coming back to a government via. taxes, increased revenue etc. .... just my tuppence worth.

Infrastructure is good but it seems limited to a segment of the population. If something could be done to give relief to the homeowners/mortgage situation (I don't claim to know the right solution), it would be better imo.

The best help for house prices would be a stimulated economy which is truly thriving, that comes from infrastructure imho - artificially stimulating the economy (ie. tax breaks on housing, cars or whatever) only works until that artificial stimulus is removed ... improving infrastructure improves the competitiveness, efficiency and profitability of the country as a whole.

I don't see it as specifically home prices, its more the large segment of the population that is underwater/foreclosures and banks holding those mortgages/pending foreclosures ... so its more debt relief. Even if home prices were to rise modestly it won't rise fast enough, a large portion will still be weighed down.

A solution I've read (but don't know how good of an idea or the mechanics/logistics) is to grant some sort of debt forgiveness but the "delta" will be recaptured in any future home sales/profit.

In my case, I'd just love to see the ability to refinance my underwater loan. I'm running around 6.5% on my loan right now. Giving me a more current rate would free up about 15K a year by doing nothing but adjusting the rate. I still owe the same amount. You can be dang sure I'm going to be putting that 15K back into the economy much quicker than Bank of America will.

I heard a lot of nonsense like "you know if (pick a profitable company) wouldn't lay off so many people, there would be more people to buy. I heard examples like "if IBM wouldn't lay off people, then they would have more people to buy computers". Yeah, but so long as, say, JP Morgan Chase doesn't lay off all of their people, they are paying the cost to have customers to IBM.

The problem is that every company is saying the same thing "As long as there are some customers out there, I have to do what I can to maximize profit" so everyone is cutting off everyone else's base just to maximize their own short term cash and profit.

It will be sad and funny (in a gallows humor sort of way) when everyone looks back at the time period from 2000-2030 and wonders how everyone could be so short sighted. But if you set up a system which encourages purely maximizing profits, you have everyone right now running around saying "Well, what else should a company do?"


No kidding. Do you think a $5000 tax credit is going to make some company hire someone at more than $40K a year (arguably a "real job")?


I've always been a fan of this. The two big projects that really need to be done are modern electric grid and, yes, high speed rail. Those cost a lot of money but if you designate "buy American" provisions like a lot of the stimulus, they generate some of those "real jobs" in other sectors like engineering and railroad and electronic manufacturing and not just construction.

SI

There's an endless number of projects, but that doesn't matter if there's no will to put people to work. The government could repair roads/bridges, upgrade the power network, repair schools, paint tar roofs, clean parks, clean storm damage, research/build clean energy, tear down abandoned housing, etc.

Money can be borrowed at negative real rates. Projects need doing. People need work. This shouldn't be hard.

You willing to terminate unemployment benefits to recipients if they turn down jobs offered on these (hypothetical) projects? And that these jobs be proactively offered to them, not just made available in case they happen to decide to seek them?

(Sidebar, simply asking the question)

For as bad as unemployment is, when I turned half of my staff over this year I had ZERO citizens of the United States apply for the jobs.

Then again, I don't think unemployment is terrible in my area. Construction (not housing) has picked up some.

Assuming there were jobs available for everyone on unemployment and that tracking all of that would actually save money, sure. I'd prefer people being productive rather than non-productive.

The concern with massive infrastructure spending is that spending is kept in checked. No inflated costs.

Its coming ... its not as if the same old/status quo is moving the chains, lets give this a chance.

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I have to say I don't really 'get' the checking of spending to some extent in this regard - cutting persistent costs makes sense for long term budget balancing and is required .... BUT on the other hand the government can borrow money at negative real interest rates presently (ie. less than inflation) so spending to invest in the future makes sense imho.

Or to put it another way, investing in infrastructure will create jobs and wealth - some of which will come back to the government via. taxes .... if jobs/wealth aren't generated then no amount of slashing and burning of the government will be able to balance the budget.

I think it is a little messed up that no one applies for lungs farm jobs... there are a number of factors that probably lead to that situation (seasonal rural jobs with many years of low wage expectations doesn't map well into an urban unemployed population). It is a shame though because agriculture is one of the few sectors that I would argue is doing well (what with all the inflation pushing up commodities, input costs rise to no doubt but a well run farm should overall net good gains).

Maybe people, particularly unskilled uneducated, need to adjust their expectations and go to the jobs that are needed and not the ones that they got away with for a few years doing boom times and the slow decline (and then fast decline of last few years).

----

Corruption is the biggest concern with infrastructure spending... but well it is the same with everything the government does. The tax cuts are corruption, the bank bailouts are corruption, just about every angle is exploited with a little grease in the government, so saying the government should avoid a particular area of policy because it is corrupt... well you ask me it should be out of the business of just about everything it has been doing already if we want to get serious about that. Infrastructure plus targeted tax incentives at least is a lot easier to control than many other forms of graft they have pulled the last few years (not free car or house money, subsidies get swallowed and gamed and don't move long term demand).

-----

I don't see the point in making unemployment linked to any particular job offer. One, unemployment has done more to keep this crappy economy running than a number of other things, particularly when measured against tax cuts, the phony stimulus, corp pork, or even military spending. Demand has a multiplier effect right now, and besides if they are getting unemployment it means they were hired in some fashion in the past (no matter how distant that may be now). Finally, I don't think there are many people content to live on unemployment... lack of money, piled up bills, and the eventual caps they keep extending will eventually whammy them.

I do think if the government were to make such an infrastructure program and be very active in getting people into those jobs, that would be a good thing. I don't think a stick would even be required... just make the local unemployment agencies actually care about people and help them instead of giving them bullshit, an attitude, incompetent with the paperwork, and treating the unemployed like a disease that walked in the door and that they have no responsibility to even point them in the right direction. The number of horror stories I have heard from people who are trying to use the pathetic systems we have in place are astounding (ranging from people hitting underemployed for years, to highly qualified people who found a job in three weeks... everyone is treated like garbage by the state and non profit workers who are getting paid to supposedly direct them towards work).

A strong government matchmaker would be welcome, hell I'm sure some segments of the private sector could piggy back on it as well.

But never mind that, besides we all know that companies don't bother hiring unemployed in the first place. All the 'good' people already have jobs the rest are hopeless losers!

-----


My hope is someone, maybe even me, will realize they can make money in this environment and they will be the giant companies of 2030 who show massive growth in this next recovery. At a macro level it is buy low and sell high... those sitting on the fence waiting for the official sign that the recovery has come will be the ones who get the least value out of the market climb because they are buying in everything at higher prices (higher starting wages for workers they acquire, weaker inventory at the demand surge, all their money in useless treasury bills when stocks surge 50% [hint gold kicks treasury bills in the ass for about 30+ years now]).

With the race towards mediocrity that seems to be the basis of our society we may be waiting a while, but those that break the trend will be the big winners overall. Unfortunately it is far too easy to win a nice jackpot by being a complete douchebag and destroying shareholder or national wealth to get pennies on the dollar. And it is riskier than most of the pansy executives can handle to move first because they care more about covering their ass than making money (hard to get work done with your hands covering your cheeks and your nose firmly entrenched in a CEO's butt).

Right on the money SI. These companies are just doing what big companies do...maximize profit, reduce risk exposure, and sit on your bread & butter money-making business units. When IBM, for example, lays off 2000 workers somewhere, they are doing it because "they" (i.e. IBM) could not make that business unit work profitably in their company. That does NOT mean there is no business need there, it is absolutely an opportunity for some other company that does (or can do) it better.

I'll give you a real example. Cisco. Big mega-company that has been cutting business units left & right. Their problem is being too large, with too little accountability, and having too many market segments/factors at play to manage. Whether its poor exec leadership, poor middle management, or just bad workers...it is irrelevant...they are abandoning market segments they lose money on(i.e. Flip phones/consumer market) in favor of staying afloat in the business units they do well in (enterprise routing/commercial segments). There is certainly going to be opportunity for smaller, leaner, more focused companies to come in and pick up the markets they have left.

Same with HP and their tablets/consumer laptops....HP thinks they are an enterprise supplier (or perhaps that is where they profit highest) and will leave market share out there. Maybe Apple picks it up if everybody sits on their hands, but it doesn't have to be that way.



Yes. I know we also need roads & bridges worked on as well...but I cannot say it enough...the electricity grid & energy sourcing side will drive the cost of EVERYTHING else in the best possible direction for the US. So, if you want sustainable operating/purchase costs for internet access, more devices in your home, food costs, automobiles, advanced health care services, cellular/GPS networks, HSR across the country, lower airline tickets, banking security/fees, renewed R&D investments to outer space, high(er) tech manufacturing, military mobilization costs (if needed)....literally, everything...you have to focus on the energy needed to do it & spare no reasonable expense to make it (financially) sustainable.

But, ultimately, if you want to be a profitable company in 2030, the rules will be the same as they are now. You will be more profitable if you outsource your work to another country.

If you're the next McDonalds, say, then you will employ a lot of people in this country... most at minimum wage. If you're the next, I dunno, Google or replacement for GM, you'll have some pretty good waged workers here but you will also have more elsewhere otherwise, you'll get killed by, say, the Chinese or Indian company that does the same thing you do.

How do you change that without some significant protectionism and we're definitely not going back that direction. People who run companies love globalism- you can live here, make a ton of profits, and just keep sending jobs overseas for bigger and bigger profits. You have companies that are more and more marginally "American" with huge international work forces.

SI

I don't think that has to be true. Germany has a strong manufacturing base with compensation higher than in the US. It's only a race to the bottom if you agree to run in it.

Well, globalism is a 2 way street though. The more you outsource to another country because of low wages, that same country then begins to increase its domestic quality of life. This helps to spur local demand for those same employees working for the foreign (US-owned for instance) company, which in turn drives up the US-owner's cost to employ workers. This is of course a very gradual process but it tends to balance itself out eventually when you hit the apex between the cost for outsourced labor including logistics to get to the target market (which may be the US, or may be elsewhere) vs the cost to run your business with US employees and no international logistics to worry about. Clearly, the Japanese auto companies don't agree that US labor is cost preventative for supplying to US consumers.

I think in the end it lifts the base quality of life for the outsourced workers in those countries while making the quality of life for impacted US workers stagnant, albeit very damaging/disruptive in the short term when the position(s) is outsourced.

As a bit of a side note...thats also why I'm not overly concerned with how far the US is falling behind in math skills compared to other countries. If you flood the market with 3B + of ANYTHING, it will just make it cheap & disposable. If you do that with advanced mathematics, you just make mathematicians cheaper. Plus, as long as western societies don't degrade into something the rest of the world no longer wants to be a part of, we will just have immigrants who are more educated than previous generations that came here who took the menial labor jobs upon first entering.

This is why I keep going back to the fundamentals of cost in the world. There are fundamental things needed for a society which, if outsourced, will enrich other societies and lower quality of life for our own society. Food, energy, & technology. You cannot outsource all of these things to a large imbalance or else you will ultimately fall behind your competitors (in the financial sense, but certainly there is spillover to other things such as the impact oil has on our interests abroad).

It is certainly hard to compete with cheap labor in many sectors which is why I argue the attempts to compete on those grounds are not a good idea. The thought in America for a few decades now is to attempt to resemble a third world country, low wages because workers are replaceable, weak emphasis on technology and efficiency because it will scare the big companies that are too lazy to implement it (and can cast it as a 'risk' thing), and thinking of the economy as a giant zero sum game where the only way you can get a dollar is if you physically yank it from somewhere else.

For America to turn around it does need to act like its own version of a Germany, a Sweden, or even a China (bad model in a lot of ways but some of their quirks are brilliant in a morbid survivalist sort of way). You need to focus on your strengths and build new ones, and build up your middle class.

Look at history and all pundits aside when you see any country making massive strides at becoming an economic power it is because some factors within that country's model have allowed upward mobility for a large number of people and all the right conditions for growth are hit. Not just a lack of war, or a collection of good technological developments, or easy availability of capital, but an attitude that all you need to do is reach for it and work hard and you can get somewhere. This is true of everything from the rise of merchant classes, ancient agricultural innovation, the American rushes in wealth (arguably to me the automobile revolution and the stages of great Western expansion, one exploiting technology and a culture change that creates massive demand, the other just a super abundance of resources and all the conditions to put people to exploit it).

Where the U.S. can compete is technology and its massive work force and high consumer spending base (and large amount of cash even though all you hear about is the deficits). You do this best not with a race to the bottom but a race to quality, you push the standards on products in ways that decrease inefficiency costs (like pollution) and improve standard of living and you push various product lines out of the competitive abilities of low wage countries. You still will have companies locate their work force outside and try and develop the products here though, and I can't see any way around that based on pure math. Unfortunately you can weld on a car door just about the same in Chicago or China, short of protectionism it is hard to get around the cheap labor edge.

We could improve a few areas though to make manufacturing slightly more viable, including eliminating the tax loopholes that make foreign dollars more attractive, getting reasonable tariffs in place (to generate income for that massive deficit we have, not to block products), and fighting back when other countries put unreasonable trade limitations on us (block our products then we will fuck you up mentality, Americans CAN live without cheap imports, the market is so damn huge and with so many players it will adapt, everyone thinks the world will end due to a price change based on this when we have inflation all the time just from our bad monetary policy).

Also some sort of quality controls, as in if your country ships us lead painted toys we can sue the hell out of that company and if the country does not cooperate you get a trade ban in place. Protect our consumer aggressively because we end up paying the costs anyway with our health programs.

But altogether I don't know how much it will budge the market. I know I would locate my manufacturing here, but that has more to do with my paranoid control freak and quality control tendencies than bottom line cost. And the type of manufacturing/work I hope to be involved in which would lend more towards tech, infrastructure, and services, all of which are easiest if they happen where the sales are going to be made.

I am concerned about America falling behind in math skills. Engineers make good money, and set up a lot of the processes and machinery that employs other people, not to mention generate a lot of revenue for companies.

If we applied mathematical thinking to a lot more facets of daily life we would probably be better off across the board. For instance people who can calculate a mortgage and understand all the implications. People who can calculate a budget. The damn McDonalds employee giving me the right number of quarters dammit!

A lot of political fluff would fall apart if people thought with numbers instead of with 'my gut feel and opinion on the appearance of the candidate'.

Math is one of those areas where you have to apply it to get any mojo from it, but those who do have a lot more job security, growth prospects, and ability to solve problems rather than wait for a brain to come along and do it for them.

If you don't teach math what exactly are kids learning in school all those years? You already have vocal groups saying English and literature (beyond basic reading comprehension) are useless, history is useless, there is a movement for phys ed because all the kids are little porkers but that won't translate into jobs, science depends on math for all of the interesting stuff... if there is no value in all that hard work we should probably cut all that money from the budget, lets start with your kids though okay.

Personally I want my kids (I got a soon to be stepson) to be able to think for themselves and never feel they can't do the things they need to do to get what they want. That means math and reading comprehension and curiousity to do more than you are told so you can find advantages. The boy wasn't encouraged to be smart before and doesn't have great grades, but guess what he does pretty damn good with some complicated math and other concepts if you take the time to talk with him about it. You gotta connect kids to thinking before they get too old and just believe they can't do it (the biggest problem I've had is the attitude of impossibility he shows which he always overcomes when he makes the effort but seems ingrained from years of education = meh).

SD...The key here in my mind is the concept of "America, the land of freedom & opportunity" vs the concept of "my America that only I am entitled to".

What you are saying about math and your own kids is no different than what I do as well with my own kids. But there is a vary large entitlement mentality in this country that does not embrace immigration as an "American" concept, and in fact, believes foreigners are not deserving of being an equal.

It is the founding of this country & why this country is so desirable for the oppressed (and non-oppressed) people everywhere to come to. Without immigration, we lose out on the edge in multiculturalism which attracts new cultures every generation. They come here with their desire to work hard, their knowledge that nothing is handed to you, and their sense of fairness that tends to erode in the native-born population over time. That doesn't mean all native-born Americans are lazy, entitled, or stupid...nor does it mean they should ever accept mediocrity as a matter of principle for their kids. But it does mean that without influx of new generations of foreigners, I think the idea or concept of America becomes less about hard work and individual rights and more about entitlement & protectionism...which, I think is the foundation of bad policy & ultimately facilitates the need to wage war for resources as there will come a tripping point where we bloat ourselves to the point of being incapable of buttoning our own pants, so to speak.

A complex issue to say the least...but that is why I don't fear falling behind in math as we'll have 100M Asian-born mathematicians (or some variant thereof) over the next 30-50 years who will simply not wash the bed sheets, but in fact, help us develop technology to go to another planet (for instance). This is completely consistent in my mind, with the concept of America.

However, you seem to be portraying this as a short term problem. This will literally be a 50-100 year period of US stagnation while we distribute our wealth to the rest of the world. Yes, it's inevitable, and, ultimately it's for the greater good. But, in a globalized world, you can't have 300M people controlling a quarter of the wealth with 1/20th of the population in a developed world.

We, and a lot of the western world, have per capita incomes of $35K to $50K. The BRIC countries, for all of their "advances", still only average $10K per year so there's a lot of ground to gain and it comes from somewhere. This is going to take a while and if you allow for the unplanned, uncontrolled capitalism we like here, there's no incentive to do anything but outsource the jobs and keep the money in the hands of a few "entrepreneurs" and some of the managing class.

SI

We choose not to.

A rising income in China doesn't have to mean a lowering income in the US. When our incomes rose to the current level it didn't make the Chinese poorer.

This is really a great read from a former GOP political staffer.

Goodbye all: reflections of a GOP operative who left the cult

For the record, I'm talking about buying power- not pure income (as inflation makes that continue to go up even as real income has stagnated over the last 10 years).

No, we had 2 major events that caused our incomes rose to the current level. The first mostly happened from the 40s to 60s when the rest of the world had their income levels go from "Pre-WW2" to "Oh crap, our infrastructure has been destroyed".

The other was a once-in-a-lifetime scientific boom with the internet. I'd argue that's more of an outlier than standard.

SI

Maybe the best thing I've read all year. He summed up every single one of my problems with the way the Republican party is running itself right now. They are starting to look more and more like fascists.

And the whole industrial revolution.

(For SI, not rowech)

I didn't think there were reliable numbers for wages during the Industrial Revolution. I would have categorized things as having a drastically different model back then but I could see the argument being made.

SI

I think a lot of wage growth came in the transition from an agrarian to industrial economy. The same thing is happening for millions of peasants in Asia and Africa.

Well, you can only realistically look so far ahead. I think its more likely that the US will be Greece or Italy in 100 years than being the world's largest/richest empire regardless of globalization.

Globalization (or outsourcing from a US standpoint) is really a rich man's tool to use. There are certainly laws/tariffs that need to be modified or looked at, but trying to fight it with protectionism is just not going to work. As they say...we have to earn our keep as the world's super power.

Rising wages here do not come out of somewhere else, that is zero sum thinking that is common but incorrect. Its hard to keep track of but dollars are currency used to simplify exchange, not the total sum of all world wealth. Value and quantities can grow without currency inflation and examples like the industrial revolution are a good example of this. Basic standard of living rose dramatically across the board in the entire world during that time.

If the economy was zero sum we would all still be cavemen.

I think you might be confusing what people (including myself) commonly infer, which is buying power, not actual number of dollars. Buying power in relation to the rate of inflation.

The reverse is true as well. A lot of people insist there is no inflation, whereas what most people are really referring to (including myself) is the loss in buying power.

Its definitely worth clarifying from time to time, but I think it would get tedious to caveat everything with the definition being used every time.

I think this is true as well. As a matter of fact, the "problem" as it were today, is that China is keeping the Yuan artificially low by hoarding it in order to keep their workers' salaries low enough to continue being attractive to Western businesses. If/when the actual reserves are put into circulation over there, there is going to be a good deal of inflation which will cause worker salary demands/needs to rise as well, unless businesses leave China and go loot some other cheap labor. But even that isn't a practical strategy as it takes a lot of stars to align (education of citizens, stability of law/order, availability of services, etc.) to make a country truly attractive enough to use labor in. Of course, this depends on what you need the labor to do...certainly trinket assembly has a lower set of requirements...but you aren't building iPads in Zimbabwe tomorrow no matter how cheap the labor is.

So, I think this sort of goes to what SI had questioned as far as the longer term picture. I think there are a confluence of things that may (or may not) happen which are highly unpredictable...but what I think IS predictable, is that there will be a breaking point of "something". That may be worker demands, currency inflation, availability of services, no new educated labor supply, wars, or a good ole migration of talent to Western societies and/or ways of thinking (back to my earlier point about ensuring we don't allow our society to degrade into unattractiveness).

Maybe another #3?

Pakistan Detains 3 Suspected Al Qaeda Members, Including Top Operative | FoxNews.com

Well, I think there is a HUGE delta between those who embrace controlled immigration and those who embrace open-borders. Both embrace multi-culturalism and both embrace equality. But one embraces organized constraints within the grasp of what our budget can handle and the other couldn't care less about our budget. What you are implying is that concern for controlled immigration is simply racism and I would disagree completely.

As for 100M asian-born mathematicians in the next 50-100 years, great. But that's 200-300 million dumbass kids 70-120 years after that who will insist on somebody else taking care of them and ultimately getting something for nothing, that's the real "entitlement" problem America has and the founding fathers never envisioned that as an "American" ideal.

OT Sidebar: If SE Asia can produce 100 million mathematicians (SIC) that can't find work in SE Asia...then perhaps just knowing math isn't exactly the solution either. We have to correct our educational issues internally at some point. The big white elephant in the room continues to be our lack of vision, structure, and success at our nation's public school systems. Why aren't we producing mathameticians that can compete with SE Asia?

I don't know what you think you read Dutch, but I don't see how you could walk away thinking of an implication about being a racist if you don't embrace open borders. I didn't even imply open borders as a matter of immigration. The word "immigration" should be understood to imply "legal immigration", which has a set of requirements to it and a whole other topic for discussion. The 2 are not the same and one should not be so overly sensitive to the issue to draw that conclusion from what I wrote.

Also...the point of the Asian migration of mathematicians was only to highlight that if countries (namely India & China) in the Billions that produce massive amounts of highly skilled people of a particular education, it will simply lower the cost to employ such skillsets (on a global basis, each market/country will always have variability). But in addition, those 100M (my swag of an estimate) mathematicians would be coming on the premise that the US has a shortfall AND those people prefer/want to be a part of American/Western society (not because they can't find a job in Asia).

This is not a bad thing (and is already happening), no different than when Polish, Irish, Italian, and many other immigrants migrated here over time. The key difference is that the new immigrants from Asia/India are better educated than previous generations were and thus won't be the people doing the menial labor jobs in the 1st generation.

That doesn't mean native-born citizens are being forced to step aside, but they just can't be a scientist without actually learning science. And you are right about needing to correct our educational shortcomings. My only point was that math, specifically, won't doom us into 3rd world status...it will be our culture & attractiveness of the ideals we represent that might (or perhaps will).

I read this as "a very large group of Americans that have this entitlement mentality belief that foreigners are not equal". That's racism.


I read this as a choice between open borders and closed borders. I believe we have controlled borders, which is the ideal middle ground that most nations embrace.

Anyway, my point was that America does embrace multi-culturism and that we shouldn't worry too much about that. Our real problems is our ability to train hundreds of millions of future Americans to be productive members of this society.

That quote is setup by the previous line which you did not quote. And foreigners are not equal in rights, but foreigners who become citizens are. There are plenty who don't think they deserve that equality, which was the point. Race has nothing to do with it...as they could very well be Caucasian & from England, for example.

Lets be honest, no one is screaming about illegals from Europe.

And nobody here is claiming somebody is a racist because they don't see foreign-born citizens as deserving equal rights. But its a common theme that nobody considers that where the US has a shortfall, that future foreigners who become citizens will be capable (or should be seen as resources) to help fill that shortfall.

You guys are conflating 2 arguments into 1 which is something that our society's PC police (which has members on both sides of the aisle) has branded into every day thinking. Sorry...I dont have any guilt about using terms such as "not equal" and NOT thinking that it necessitates racism. Xenophobic? Perhaps that describes it better, but racist? I dont think that is the reason most would think see it that way.

As a bit of a DOLA (quote since its a new page) to add to the previous post.

While I agree that nobody is really up in arms because of immigration from Europeans, I think I disagree to a certain extent that these same people wouldn't. I think history would suggest they have in the past as well. Irish, Italian, Polish immigrants all were relegated to the menial labor roles due to not being well educated and were also discriminated against. That had nothing to do with their race, it was purely (IMO) because of a perception that the native-born Americans (mostly of English/French decent) were entitled to the opportunities in the US more than them.

I'd venture to say that if a large influx of French happened, as an example, today that it would also become a bother to some natives who feel that they are entitled to this country and that these French immigrants are somehow less than equal in deserving the same opportunities. Sort of the low-man on the totem pole rejection we see in a lot of other circles. They would reject the accents, the culture, and many other characteristics that would accompany them & we wouldn't perceive that as racism...we'd call it xenophobia, or some other term. So, that's why I don't see the rejection of (legal) Mexican immigrants, Asian immigrants, or even Middle Eastern immigrants as anything but just another in a long line of native-born entitlement that new people are coming here to take our jobs that we are entitled to (whether we work hard for them or not).

That Marc Vaughn character has caused this country nothing but trouble since he moved over here.

How many people are running into them on a regular basis?

More fun on Tue. I don't think they can blame this on the US can they?

BBC News - Market slide continues as euro debt fears resurface

I think you're absolutely right. It's just another in a long line of immigrant panics in the US, the same as with the Irish, Italians, Germans, Chinese and Japanese.

AUSTERITY FOREVER!

Yikes. Blood in the water.

Premarket Stock Trading - CNNMoney

From Bruce Bartlett:


Yep.

Romney's plan.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney unveils jobs plan - CNN.com

Unfortunately, health care reform continuation/progression is pretty high up for me.

Hmm, since we already have used "voodoo economics", I think Romney's tax plan is crackhead economics or some other clever name. Tax rates are already at low levels in the practical sense, I don't think that continuing to lower rates once you get past zero is possible unless you're Chuck Norris. Especially when I'd wager a huge amount of money that there is no tied in mandate for "we lower your rate, you create X jobs."

It's trickle down crap that has proven not to work. Demand is what will create jobs. Padding a company's balance sheet just means bigger bonuses.

I'd really like Romney or Huntsman to answer why they think a corporate tax cut will help employment when companies currently sit on record cash reserves.

Every recession isn't the same. Sometimes a supply side solution is needed, but our current crisis needs a demand solution.

The "Reagan Economic Zone"?!?!?!?! Do people really buy that garbage? Aside from the absurd sloganism, does it even mean anything, given the WTO exists, as the article points out?

I'd say at this point that it's government stimulus that has proven not to work.

Sad thing is, i think Jon is asking a literal question.

;)

This chart is going to be the 'Mission Accomplished' of the Obama Administration. Actual is nearly spot-on with the non-stimulus projections.

How does that "prove" anything? Even if it didn't meet expectations--economy is quite difficult to model after all--it might have exceeded what would have happened in the absence of a stimulus package. For all we know our current situation--obviously less than ideal--is much better than the counterfactual where we did nothing at all (as opposed to what we did, which was not go far enough).

It just proves at that scale it does not work.

I guess in comparison, in 1938 it would be very easy (and maybe correct) that the New Deal did not work. However, in 1946 I bet you would have said the massive stimulus of the previous 5 years did work. Just thank god it was a war, with an ending...

It may have worked 70 years ago, but the experience here and in Japan and Europe suggests that massive government stimulus just doesn't have the same effect on a modern economy.