geez, it is good ol’ max baucus again? just what is it that makes this guy a democrat in name only? health care reform would be over and done with, signed, and finished if not for baucus’s gang of six delay into the august recess. now he wants to stop the jobs bill and i’m sure banking regulation as well. poor barack, if he thinks he can get more support from the “we want him to fail” gop than those in his own party.

Sometimes excess inventory is simply thrown away.

(or put to sleep)

Lloyd Blankfein is in line to get a $100,000,000 bonus.

And that’s

ALL. THAT. COUNTS.

The problem the economy is facing with regard to jobs is not economic growth, it is aggregate demand. Until aggregate demand increases to the point at which businesses have to rehire people any production growth will just be utilization of existing plants, equipment, and employees.

Businesses cannot keep waiting for aggregate demand to increase and laying off or not rehiring workers and expect the situation to change and expect the private sector alone to reverse this situation. But that is what they, the bankers, and the entire of the Republican Party are expecting to do. And if the Republican Party regains power, it will be more of the same.

And the Obama administration keeps trying to goose private employers into hiring when aggregate demand does not encourage them.

And this to a great extent is the result of the public buying what the media is selling about this recession. There is massive public education about this situation that needs to be done all over this country, and it is not yet happening because the unions are not doing it (why for God’s sake are there still Republican voters in union locals; oh right, it’s that the Democrats have bought into it too); progressives aren’t doing it beyond talking among themselves (why isn’t there a progressive primarying every Republican and every Democrat in the country?).

And no one steps up to explain why articles like this one create the expectations of depressed demand that become self-fulfilling when employers believe them.

The bit about reducing their key skills is HR hokum. It’s punishing people who have been laid off for having been laid off. Part of the fierce government response needs to include dealing with this sort of job discrimination against the unemployed in which the mere fact of being unemployed is a negative that prevents employment. Especially when the process of laying people off, as it has been in this recession, is essentially random.

A fierce government response requires more than just a large budget for direct and indirect employment doing work that has been ignored for 50 years.

There are tons of wonderful jobs out here. However , u need a PHD in Molecular & Genetic Biology and a Law degree as a side. Oh and it needs to be from certain Good old boy schools like Harvard, Yale or Princeton and some “insider” friends would also help as well. Did I mention a rich family , with connections is also pretty important. Over 40 forget all of the above grandpa your toast unless u have friends good ones with $$ that need somebody.

“A meager bill that doesn’t include direct job creation or something that can vault past Okun’s Law will crush Democrats in November”

seems like that’s the point

YES, & Counts is the keyword isn’t it?

Check out the Lloyd and Laura Blankfein Foundation’s charitable giving from last year (p. 21):

http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/133/133557478/133557478_200801_990PF.pdf

There’s a strong theme of Judeocentrism to his donations.

Why do I get the feeling he doesn’t care passionately about bringing back millions of manufacturing jobs to America?

How many of his favored race even work in manufacturing?

http://blogs.reuters.com/commentaries/2009/07/20/jamie-vs-lloyd/

Okun’s rule of thumb from wiki:

for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, a country’s GDP will be an additional roughly 2% lower than its potential GDP.

It is real tricky to even know if this holds for the kind of deflationary recession we are in. The question is is it worth more to a company to hire a new worker or put more work on existing workers, including overtime. Unless the incentives are changed and given that the weekly number of hours is down, there is a reservoir of untapped output in existing workers that needs to be worked through.

Also while that 5.7% number sounds good, it is off a low and is only about a third of what might be expected coming out of a major recession. And because it is related to rebuilding inventories it is pretty much of a one off.

Kind of seems as though a ‘mental recession’ and a ‘human recession’ might be kissing cousins.

Gramm meet Summers. Oh wait, Summers helped pass Gramm-Leach-Bliley so it appears they’ve already been introduced.

All of this suggests that a $100 billion dollar jobs bill is woefully insufficient to actually impact the employment rate, and that the multiplier effect for such spending must be as high as humanly possible to reverse the jobs crisis.

how many times did we tell obama he is not going to recover the economy by bailing out banks, he needs real living wage job programs more then anything?

now notice my bold here

I don’t think it would be woefully inseficient if the money was used directly for jobs, no “funds to be used in jobs programs” for the state to decide how they want to spend it but real jobs, infrastructure programs, research programs, cleaning and building programs, alternative energy programs

real jobs is what needs to be done, has always needed to be done

“A tax cut is really one of the anecdotes to coming out of an economic illness.”

- Decider Bush

Aggregate demand cannot recover until employment does. (There is no other support for consumer spending once the stim and the weekly hours/Eworker recovery wears off.) The magic circle. Which is why the “recovery” will remain anemic at best, with a strong possibility of a double dip.

Detailed discussion of the U.S forecast here.

As for econ policy, there ain’t signs of two brain cells to rub together in DeeCee.

I want to make a point that is missed by progressives;

obama’s “economic strategy” has been “trickle down economics”

that’s right, his philosophy is giving money to the top and somehow more of the money he gives to them will make it down to the middle class

a rediculous strategy, obsurd for the very concept and with no doubt, this is the method he has been using to “stimulate the ecnomy”

Aggregate demand cannot recover until employment does

yup

when obama first took office and proposed his rediculous “stimulous strategy” I wrote a diary “all we need is a help wanted sign”

I pointed out that even people with jobs are afraid to spend becuase they don’t know if they will have a job tomorrow

when we see gainful employment elsewhere we are not so concerned with the job we have, we spend and stimulates the economy

help wanted signs, that’s all we need

Foreclosures are still up. Job losses are still up. Unemployment is still up. Wall Street is healthy but the entire economic foundation upon which Wall Street rests is steadily crumbling and since Main Street isn’t propped up by Saudi or Israeli or Chinese cash, we can expect more of the same.

The economy isn’t coming back anytime soon, if at all. Not when everyone is focused on the ‘healthcare takeover’ and the ‘underwear bomber’. The government still is feigning interest in the troubles of Main Street at best. Democrats are STILL driving the car off the cliff and Republicans are gleeful to let them do it so they can seize the steering wheel on the way down and find new and exciting (see old and ineffective) ways to steer the nation further to the bottom of the ditch.

Relief is not in sight by any sense of the word.

Yes, it is a basic mistake typical of Obama’s economics team. What incentives they do try are about increasing production, not demand. The decrease in demand is tied to debt loads and fear about losing one’s job. No one in Washington is addressing this. Instead we see small weak, poorly constructed stimuli, huge shortfalls in state government, tax cuts, budget “freezes”, and attempts to slash entitlement programs.

Too bad the fat cat Larry Summers did not ask the other fat cats on Wall street to hand over their executive compensations to a program that would be used to create government jobs. If you added up the compensation packages after these thugs used American taxpayers money to bail their fat asses out of a crash. They should be required to take those compensation packages and create jobs.

Larry Summers is a smug rich asshole. He could give a rats ass about the middle class.

George Carlin tells the truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXWzSwZ_wPs

“they own you and they don’t give a fuck about you, at all, at all, at all”

Obama and his economic team talk big but act small. They are prisoners of Republican memes and world view.

Aggregate demand cannot recover until employment does

This is basic, basic Keynes. I think we need more than Keynesianism to get out of this, but it is still a very big part of any solution.

Obama and his economic team talk big but act small. They are prisoners of believers in Republican memes and world view.

Fixed it for you.

they GAVE 14 TRILLION TO THE BANKS
if they gave that to the people…END OF RECESSION

“they own you and they don’t give a fuck about you, at all, at all, at all”

We should all print this out and tape it to the back of our bedroom doors so we’re reminded every morning as we start our day.

This is the reality we live in, to argue otherwise requires a large measure of magical thinking.

http://www.fundmymutualfund.com/2008/11/bloomberg-us-government-now-on-hook-for.html

Why can’t “THE MOST POWERFUL PERSON IN THE WORLD” (President Obama) do these 6 simple things?

1) End the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Invest the $200 billion HERE – see new budget.
2) Create a monumental Infrastructure Bank to provide millions of jobs building a national high-speed rail system. The rail system would increase productivity dramatically in this country.
3) Expand health care coverage to 40 MILLION people using reconciliation.
Expanding Medicaid, Medicare, and SCHIP are all doable under reconciliation.
4) Tax the rich to pay for Health Care Reform. $1.2 trillion over 10 years.
(The top 1% in this country take in 29% of ALL income)!
5) Instruct the secretary of the Treasury and other financial regulators to draw up a plan to implement as many of the financial reforms that the president has proposed as possible, using the broad regulatory authority they have under existing law. The plan will take effect April 1 unless Congress acts on a broader regulatory reform bill.
6) Ask Congress, as an interim step, to impose a modest carbon tax beginning in 2011 equal to 25 cents on a gallon of gasoline, rising to 50 cents in five years, with the revenue to be used to reduce payroll taxes. That will result in no net increases in federal taxes.

You must have some serious magic powers because looking at the recipients of the donations from the link you provided, I sure as hell can’t discern “a strong theme of Judeocentrism to his donations”

And even if there is, so what? It’s his and his wife’s foundation and they can donate to whomever and whatever other causes they want. So what is your point?

I was thinking the same hugh

I am not totally familiar with the jobs program of FDR, but TarheelDem above, raises what seems a key point to me, and it illustrates some of the structural (I think) difference between then and now.

That is, everyone needs serious qualifications or experience for most jobs in the US now. Even for building trails in the national parks. Then, people took shovels and saws and moved rocks to make a trail, “shortest logical path from here to there.”

Now, there is no tree cutting or earth moving or trail building without some kind of engineering, drainage, eco-awareness, etc.

One simply does not move large numbers of people from one job into another. At this point in time, one simply does not go to Home Depot and wait for day labor unless one is able to do backbreaking work. We are just not that adaptable nor do our qualifications shift so easily.

The is some good evidence that increased income disparity leads to reduced employment. As a smaller number of people become more wealthy they have less reason to spend their money on goods within the general economy. This, in turn, leads to a spiral of job losses for people that might have been in employed producing things for other people who are now no longer employed.

Current plans coming out of DC appear to do nothing significant to change America’s current wealth disparity except in-so-far as it might actually increase it. The spending on corporate bailouts and the military spending, probably a redundant conjunction, will make things worse while the debts will be paid for by the people that pay taxes the old fashioned way. By being middle-class.

The cuts meager as they are, just as in previous administrations for the last 30 years, will be focused, as you rightly said, on the social safety net. States will be hammered this year and the proposed $25 billion, if it survives, will not change that course by much. They gave more than that to AIG in a single misguided derivatives protection gamble that had gone bad.

many jobs can be created…..painters,senior citizen companions,free day care centers,street repavers,tree planters…….thats an excuse imo

Before anyone says he can’t do this because… he’s the fucking President Of The United States with HUGE majorities in the Senate and the House! He even talks a good game, which means he could effectively use the bully pulpit. If Obama really wanted it – think Bush on Iraq, the lemmings would follow.

“So what is your point?”

My point is that if indeed Blankfein is as ethnocentric as his charitable donations suggest, he may not view 20,000,000 underemployed Americans any differently than 20,000,000 unemployed Chinese or Indians.

If some of the systematic destruction of the middle and working classes in America is enabled/encouraged by ethnic/religious exceptionalism of some of our most powerful rulers, it seems like a valid topic of conversation.

Jane has a fresh cross-post already in progress: Big Banks: Unions Stopped Fighting, and the Entire Left Got Punched

I therefore propose a new unit for federal budget evaluation: the Blankfein, where 1 Blankfein = $100,000,000 (that’s 100 million dollars, or $10^8). Thus, Obama’s job proposal is a mere 1000 Blankfeins —not even enough to fill a typical symphony concert hall— while the entire budget request for fiscal 2011 of 38,000 Blankfeins would be just a moderately nice crowd for a major league baseball game and rather poor attendance for the NFL. That should help bring the numbers into sharper focus.

Pres. Obama says he is against hidden earmarks, yet he allowed the Congress to give one to his favorite charity the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for almost $20 million from the FY10 defense spending bill he signed into law this past December. This BTW is the second earmark for the Institute this year — he signed into law another earlier this year for $5.8 million. It is really bad when our Hope & Change president is doing the same old thing he accuses others in Congress of doing.

This money could have gone to create long-term jobs! See for yourself from the articles linked below.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-12/teddys-100-million-legacy/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/president-obama-edward-m-kennedy-institute-us-senate

I stand behind Obama’s proposal 1 Blankfein and 10 percent.

There is a way out of the ‘human recession’ and a way forward to create jobs but the solutions would fly directly into the face of the democratic party establishment and the progressive collectivist agenda.

Obama wants to be cheered and lauded for his suspension of the capital gains tax and tax credits for small business, and he should be. But if why is not what is good for small businesses, good for ALL Americans and the business that employ them and create jobs…small and big?

Oh, I know, I know…the wealthy and big business is the ENEMY of the middle class. So we want to encourage small business to grow and become big and successful so that we can punish and demonize them. (ALL OF THOSE EXCEPT THE ONES THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CHOOSES TO PROTECT FROM FAILURE, LIKE GM).

Obama wants to be lauded and cheered for touting the creation of ‘green jobs’ while ignoring the tremendous opportunities for job creation available by promoting the development of nuclear energy, domestic oil & natural gas production as well as other cleaner, alternatives energy sources. Sure, he has changed his tune is and is now talking up drilling and nuclear, much to the chagrin of the environmentalist lobby, but I am sure that is just talk.

What about a suspension of the payroll tax? What is the problem with allowing Americans to choose how, where and when to spend more of their own money?

Oh I know, I know…The government, and the political establishment know what’s best for us collectively.

I love the meme circulating among frustrated progressives and the political establishment lamenting “Has America become ungovernable?” What they are really whining is “Why can’t they LET US CONTROL THEM…the way we used to?

More, now than ever, Americans are turning away from the corrupt, bloated federal government and their cronies on Wall Street. Corporations, no mater how big, should NOT be protected from failure, but forced to reform, retool and compete!

Our federal, state and local governments are no longer seen as responsible stewards of our financial largess and can no longer take our votes for granted.

They are still operating on the supply side (production) instead of the demand side (income). Which is why anyone who can describe this simply to the people can probably win election to Congress regardless of the district.

So, Larry Summers, woke up, looked around, made his pronouncement, and sat back down. Not a clue about what to do–or certainly no clue he’s going to share with us whose job it is to support him and his crowd.

Increasing investments and reliance on automation technology in addition to cheap labor markets abroad, as good as guarantees that double digit unemployment is here to stay, no matter what we’re being told. The only cure is a major class clash.

Who pays for the increase in government jobs? Taxpayers. Where will taxpayers get the $$ to pay for these jobs? Government jobs are not productive, wealth producing jobs. Government jobs do not create anything. They do NOT contribute to our GDP.

The clash IS coming between the people and their government. Anti-establishment, anti-incumbent, anti-machine, anti-corruption sentiment is on the rise and voters will make their voices heard by nominating government outsiders who have successful private sector experience and few ties to DC/Wall Street.

“The central fact of the [State of the Union] speech was the contradiction at its heart. It repeatedly asserted that Washington is the answer to everything. At the same time it painted a picture of Washington as a sick and broken place. It was a speech that argued against itself: You need us to heal you. Don’t trust us, we think of no one but ourselves. The people are good but need guidance — from Washington. The middle class is anxious, and its fears can be soothed — by Washington. Washington can ‘make sure consumers … have the information they need to make financial decisions.’ Washington must ‘make investments,’ ‘create’ jobs, increase ‘production’ and ‘efficiency.’ At the same time Washington is a place ‘where every day is Election Day,’ where all is a ‘perpetual campaign’ and the great sport is to ‘embarrass your opponents’ and lob ‘schoolyard taunts.’ Why would anyone have faith in that thing to help anyone do anything?” –columnist Peggy Noonan

Exactly zero brain cells in DC when it comes to the economy. Zero in New York City as well. Zero in Chicago.

And it’s all because Milton Friedman did a job on economists forty years ago and very few of them can think outside his narrow view.

Obama is looking more and more like Woodrow Wilson.

wrong

where does the money come from when a private company hires someone?

it comes from the government who lend it to them

there is nothing productive that comes from that money, there is too much profit taken out at the top

take that same money and invest into productive jobs and we wind up with assets for the money

assets that are usually used for generations instead of some golden parachute retirement fund

and the government jobs are real living wage jobs that don’t tax the middle class in other aspects of the economy the way sub living wages do

win win win

“Exactly zero brain cells in DC when it comes to the economy. Zero in New York City as well. Zero in Chicago.”

That’s exactly what they want us to think.

Again, you must have some serious magic powers because I looked at the same list of contributions and did not see anything that made me think the donations were appreciably ethnocentric. But again, so what? Do Catholics donating to Catholic organizations make them less inclined to appreciate the problems of other religious groups?

Quit talking in code and just say flat out what you are implying here. Because it appears you are using “ethnicity” as a code to smear someone, in an old and not so honored tradition.

Have you ever heard of the Hoover Dam? Or the the Civilian Conservation Corps? The TVA? The Interstate Highway System?

Are you familiar with the FDA? Center for Disease Control. The Salk and Sabin vaccinations?

Yeah, those government jobs create nothing of wealth and lasting value do they?

roads, bridges, tunnels, the space program, our armed forces and the weaponwry, clean air, safe water, alternative fuel, efficient food

far more productivity then through the private sector with real value back to the taxpayer instead of funding one mans retirment through to his nth generation

nice post dakine

Should any ethnic or religious group (or ethno-religious group) be eternally exempt from criticism or investigation of motivation?

Wouldn’t that create an environment of immunity that could easily be taken advantage of? Aren’t all humans vulnerable to temptation, or are Jews somehow above such human nature?

If Mormon individuals made up a strikingly large percentage of the top players in finance, media, and politics, would it be ghastly to wonder if some of them might share the same worldview? Or that some of them might be influenced by “what’s good for the Mormons”?

Some Mormons have similar worldviews, and are motivated by similar things. A historic persecution or mass murder of Mormons wouldn’t change that basic fact. It might even make Mormons more prone to feelings of solidarity and collective interest.

Abe Foxman might feel differently, but Abe Foxman is also glad to deny genocide when it happens to non-Jews like Armenians. Why?

Guess.

Should any ethnic or religious group (or ethno-religious group) be eternally exempt from criticism or investigation of motivation?

Yes, on racial, ethnic, or religious grounds they should absolutely be exempt for the end result of the path you are choosing is scape-goating precisely because of the racial, ethnic, or religious grounds.

So Abe Foxman and Avigdor Lieberman should also be exempt from suspicion that they act on ethnocentric leanings, because ethnocentrism is a myth that never actually occurs in reality.

As such, any suggestion of ethnocentrism is to be dismissed as the rantings of a racist, in every case, forever and ever.

Amen.

Most Americans have more faith in themselves and ordinary Americans than they do in the government.

Bush’s so-called “Compassionate Conservatism” and the Republican establishment’s desire to compromise with the current crop of Democrats represent little more than half-steps down the path toward full-blown socialism, as opposed to the full step Democrats would seem to prefer, or the step back from it many of us would like to see.

Despite any talk of reform, or improving upon that which already exists, it’s difficult to find instances where government has actually gone back to rectify its many past mis-steps that now trample all over any notion of a free market, as well as our individual freedom.

It’s gotten so bad, there’s now a significant amount of reforming required down through American culture if one wants to ever truly turn around America’s course. Serious minded individuals want to see real change in America in restoring what’s always been viewed as our traditional freedoms – those things that best serve individual social and economic freedom.

The problem with reconstruction projects is that they do not address the current composition of our current work force. Can the unemployed ranks of middle managers build a dam?

Be real. We need to spur private sector growth in energy, technology, space exploration & travel.

[Edited by moderator: Please stick to the points of your argument without the personal commentary about other commentors.]

Since Avigdor Lieberman is not in the US, I have no idea how he enters this conversation. Nor does Abe Foxman and the ADL have any bearing.

You are implying that Blankfein and his wife, as private citizens who have funded a foundation, shown their charitable donations as required, are engaging in some type of nefarious conspiracy because of their “ethnicity” and that is just wrong.

So tell us what your real point is. No more dog whistle.

You are economically illiterate.

Ah such a cutting thrust! I’m wounded to my soul.

And as one of those middle managers, I think I could find some ways to help on construction projects. I might even find a way to work and do the physical labor, although not always happily so

But is it the best way to use your time and talent? Why settle for a temporary government job that last only as long as the project or the funds remain available?

Wouldn’t you much rather have a private sector job with a start up company in a growth sector of the economy like energy or healthcare?

would much rather have a productive living wage job with a productive living wage, in a productive job period

why would you think government jobs are temperary?

private jobs are discresionary, they come and go whenever the ceo wants to send his jobs overseas

you are arguing for job programs not against them

The problem with reconstruction projects is that they do not address the current composition of our current work force. Can the unemployed ranks of middle managers build a dam?

you have somehow made believe to yourself that “reconstruction jobs” are the only types of jobs, the diversity in real productive jobs in government are as diverse as the private sector and them some

your not getting any traction with these talking points, funded and driven by corporate propagandists

Well, since most of my working years have been spent working as a contractor working on federal or state or local government software development projects, for one, it’s a universe I’ve dealt with before. And in those worlds, if you’re not billable, you’re not employed for long.

So I have in fact had many “temporary government jobs.”

Would I prefer to be working in a more stable field? Of course. But I wouldn’t go and proclaim energy and healthcare as all that stable at the moment. After all, who is really funding those energy jobs? Exxon? Not really. Nor is T Boone Pickens doing so.

It’s that nasty ol’ government funding those jobs as well.

“Be real. We need to spur private sector growth in energy, technology, space exploration & travel.”

Like we did during the latter 20th century, through massive government investment in these areas, right? TVA, NASA, DARPA, nuclear technology, most of the outright investment in alternative fuels, fuel cells, and other energy tech. Right?

Tell one government job that is not dependent on the private wealth of the taxpayer? Name for me one government job that creates a product for sale and profit and contributes to our gross domestic product?

Private jobs are NOT discretionary but subject to the LAW of supply and demand. If you make a good product that people want, they buy it, so you make more, hire more people, and the price goes up…until…competitors come in and try to make the same product for less. More jobs are created by these competitors and the company with the best product, best service wins!

Government jobs are temporary because at some point the money runs out. We cannot go on spending money we do not have to pay for programs and the support staff necessary to keep them going. Governemnt workers are living in the largest bubble of all. High wages, better benefits and job security…but it is a mirage that will not last. China now pays for many of the government jobs ‘created’ by the government. We borrow money from China to finance our irresponsible, out-of-contro, spendthrift government.

Again, the government IS the taxpayer. The government is not some self-promulgating entity…it would die without taxpayer revenue…or be consumed by it’s lenders…yes, China owns much our debt and if we can’t pay it back…what happens?

Good luck selling your product, or creating an efficient manufacturing base, without massive government investment in infrastructure, and all those “useless” jobs that go with it. Of course you can always sell on the internet, that government-created socialist nightmare…

Government jobs are temporary because at some point the money runs out.

what money runs out? we’re not operating under a gold standard nowadays.

Larry Summers called the current economic outlook “a statistical recovery and a human recession”. And leading economists not only agree with him, but see no way out of the deep hole of joblessness.

Larry and “leading economists” pretty much amount to collective failures. James Galbraith’s recent article “Who Are These Economists, Anyway?” covers the topic pretty well.
http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/TA09EconomistGalbraith.pdf

If we want out of the hole, lots of spending focused on increasing the productivity of our workforce is what is required(rail, light rail, power systems, training…).

Unfortunately for us, Timmy and Larry have decided to use our entire budget as a form of Drano to unclog our Zombie Banks. What will “unclogged” Zombie Banks do? Ramp up highly leveraged speculation and create more economic crisis before this one even ends.

More jobs are created by these competitors and the company with the best product, best service wins!

Yeah, sending the good jobs to Bangalore or China, even when the company has already been profitable is the type of thing that would NEVER happen in your world, right?

So again, what government services are you willing to do without?

RIGHT-ON

All of the Social Programs..and I mean all of them
These programs should be handed over to the states and federal mandates should be repealed.

interesting, but no

federal programs and mandates are absolutely necessary since you have corporte bought politicians and politicians who don’t believe on our country and what she stands for

Plenty. Here are 2 for starters:

I would like to see an end to many federal programs and see the funds and control returned to state and local governments, particularly in the area of education.

I do not expect Social Security to be soluable by the time I retire and I have planned and saved accordingly. I would like to see this entitlement SERIOUSLY reformed. I do not want my children to have to pay the governemnt to support my retirement. If they want to help me or others, let them do it out of their own pockets.

I personally DO NOT want to depend primarily (nor do I currently) on the government for my economic well-being and personal happiness.

These jobs go overseas because of liberal mandates..prohibitive wages and benifits, environmental restrictions which in most cases are financial nightmares with little to no positive results, and corporate taxes which are among the highest in the world.

DITTO

baloney

Hey why is it so difficult to make inexpensive goods in the US? High wages for workers, high corporate taxes, mountainous regulations all contribute to a more hostile business climate for some companies. Now, I do not advocate worker exploitation but what can the government do to make doing business in the US a win win situation. All I see are punitive “Soak the Rich!” populism policies. I do not buy into the meme that all corporations and wealthy individuals are greedy and evil.

I agree to a large extent. But from where I sit, Wall Street & Washington are two sides of the corrupt coin. We have ‘too big too fail’ favored corporations propped but by a ‘too big to fail’ government. This ‘cronie capitalism’ is a distortion of our free market system and it is untenable.

i thought that was a great paper (and loved the take on krugman’s saltwater/freshwater divide *g*).

galbraith also gave it as talk at the royal society, london in october:

http://utip.gov.utexas.edu/Event/Archive2009Fall.html

and gave an interview on it the next day:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/audio/interview-with-james-galbraith

audio files available at the links.

I assume you’re aware that the states and local governments are already receiving large amounts of money provided through things like the Education Department and Revenue Sharing deals (many of which were instituted under R presidents like Nixon, Ford, and Reagan)?

That the federal government has provided funding (as much as 75%) for programs in child welfare and WIC IT infrastructure? That the idea of funding these IT projects came out of the Tom Delay/Newt Gingrich controlled House in the mid 90s?

And what controls over the education funding does the Department of Education enforce that so hamstring local school boards?

And nice of you to be an advocate for Elderly living on catfood commissions. Brava to you for your ability to take care of your own retirement. What about those who have spent their lives working in minimum wage jobs at WalMart because all the local manufacturing decided it was easier to go to China? Sux to be them?

What industry do you work in? I’ve spent my adult life in manufacturing and you haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about. Lets see some numbers…
How much for a particular product goes to wages, environmental restrictions, and other “liberal mandates”? Come one, through some numbers out, educate us.

Our corporate taxes are no where near the highest in the world. The *effective* corporate tax rate, the tax rate corporations actually pay, is only about 22nd.

Yeah, too bad so many of those corporations aren’t paying any taxes to the US, even though they gain the benefits. After all, it’s better to incorporate in the Caymans and pay nothing than it is to actually support the country giving you business (firms like Accenture and large others of beltway consulting firms that like the Federal contracts, just don’t want to pay any money back via taxes).

The is some good evidence that increased income disparity leads to reduced employment.

would love links to whatever you think is the best evidence. thanks!

As we speak Dems are gathering for a retreat in South Beach with 108 lobbyists.

According to Politico:
“Represented were the American Bankers Association, the tobacco company Altria, the oil company Marathon, the Edison Electric Institute, which has battled climate regulation, several drug manufacturers, the defense contractor Lockheed, and most of the large independent lobbying firms: Ogilvy, BGR, Quinn Gillespie, Heather Podesta, and Tony Podesta.

The retreat’s guest list is a marked contrast to Menendez’s recent rhetoric, which has echoed the White House denunciation of “special interests” and “fat cats.”

mountainous regulations all contribute to a more hostile business climate for some companies

Sounds like you’re all in favor of letting corporations poison the air, ground, and water for many more generations. After all, it’s those onerous EPA regulations that you’re most likely speaking of here. So you’d prefer to let firms like WR GRace pollute the ground water and cause cancer in children then cover it up all because “it’s too expensive to deal with the regulations?”

Oh please, don’t throw those tired Dem scare tactics my way. This type of ideological demonizing does little to actually solve problems. I do not advocate having no social safety net available to those who need it.

We have wasted over $166 billion dollars on head start programs. Teacher’s unions block reforms and deny parents the freedom to choose how to spend their education tax dollars by opposing school choice.

Post-Katrina New Orleans is seeing a surge in charter schools, reforming and improving the previously violent, corrupt, dysfunctional system.

I would like to see each school compete on its own. No school districts and no monopoly. Monopoly power always seems to lead to corruption that trickles right down to the politicians and back again in a vicious cycle.

No this is where absolutes destroy your argument. The PROPER role of government is to strike a balance and promote free market capitalism while at the same time protecting it’s citizens.

So, what are your specifics, not your generalities? Using post Katrina charter schools as an example is not particularly good since both pre and post Katrina school problems would be more along the lines of local problems with the power structure, not the Dept. of Ed.

And why do you hate public schools? That is the only conclusion I can draw from hearing your support for all the actions that have been proposed with the end result of doing exactly that? If there is something wrong with the local school system where you are, why aren’t you running for election to the local school board?

Do you see a way for equitable funding? Or are you wanting to have all the children compete to gain positions in the favored schools and the rest can just prepare for their careers at WalMart or MacDonalds?

You’re real good with the generalities. Try some specifics of how your proposals would play out across all the country, urban and rural, big state and small, rich or poor.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Our definition of work, labor, and wealth needs to be updated.

We outsource jobs to the lowest bidder, yet we are depended upon to purchase those imported (or partially imported) products.

We replace the need for traditional labor with high technology, yet do not replace the methods for distributing the resulting wealth without a trade of labor for money.

The whole thing is highly illogical and crippling.

Our nation must broaden the definition of work and pay. Money is like a river. If you dam it up, negative habitat impacts due to drought result downstream.

Isn’t creation and implementation of a social democracy the natural evolutionary step for a nation with great wealth and a large populace? The numbers are too large to manage under dictatorship, and even with a figurehead such as a monarch, the policies would need to be socially democratic to prevent overthrow.

Way to teach your children about responsibility.. So I’m paying for your parents retirement right now, but your children shouldn’t pay for mine because .. its too responsible..?

Unless you are retiring 50 years or more out, there won’t be any problems with social security so I don’t know that your expectations are in line with reality, but I would at least hope you teach your children to pay their fair share and be good citizens. Even if you are atheist (I don’t have a problem with that) there are pretty simple guideline’s for decent behavior. Assuming you don’t ascribe to those there are also simple economic reasons for doing much of the same things. You might point out to your children that you are not alone responsible for their education, other members of their society will help them whether they realize it or not. It may be in the form of school vouchers or tax breaks for you, but its still there.

You don’t think you are dependent on your government for your well being economic or otherwise? Maybe you should head down to the VA and let those lazy good-for-nothings know that you don’t appreciate them taking your hard earned cash so they could go get themselves blown up in some foreign hell hole. I’ll bet your a fit man, taking care of yourself is no doubt the highest priority, you could probably wrestle a wheelchair from a disabled vet and sell it for scrap metal. Get some of your money back. Be sure and take the kids, you’ll want to take the opportunity to teach them about duty, honor, and sacrifice. Then they’ll know their dad is a true American hero. Be sure and run over a cop, or a fireman. On the way stop by a super fund site (there’s no doubt one near you) and drink the water straight out of the ground. For a snack have some road kill, no pesky FDA monitoring for you. What ever doesn’t kill them will only make them stronger.
Better yet, you want to tech your kids something. Take them out of school, drive them south of the border and put them to work in a sweatshop or mines. Tell them thats what the world was like a hundred years ago when selfish, unprincipled people like you ran the country. Assuming they survive to voting age they can always come back here and help you elect Palin. Best of luck.

Scan through any of the founding documents and let us know any references you see to the proper role of government and free market capitalism. You can include it in your references to the cost of business (for any company) dived up into various “liberal” expenses like labor.

Yes, they do. They continue the flow of wealth. It doesn’t really matter where the money comes from as long as it circulates.

How about setting up a nice plate lunch place for workers?

Oh plueeze. Quit spewing your ideological talking points seek only to demonize those with whom you do not agree.

Reform! Limited, not expanded government!

Those who genuinely need our help should have it. That goes for the poor, the elderly, our Vets and our children. But I hate to tell you this but progressives and Dems have been driving the agenda looking out for these Americans throughout my lifetime. Medicare, Education, and the ‘war on poverty’ have been the provenance of the Democrat party for decades. Funding for these programs and constituencies increases budget after budget and yet the problems still exists, despite the good intentions of those on the left.

I simply to do not see the government as the answer to our problems. Our current system of entrenched politicians and entrenched special interests in Washington looking our for only for themselves, seeking to enrich and empower the establishment…which I see as the Democrats who control and have controlled Congress for the past few years, the WH and their big business/union donors/activist lobbyists…need to be tossed out on their A**es.

All jobs are temporary in the end. If you’re talking about developing expertise over a period of time, that is desirable for some folks. After a while, though, there’s a natural desire for change and an independently determined outlet for that developed expertise, or trying something new- Good for the brain cells, don’t you know.

How many people are yoked to detestable jobs because their health care is provided only through work?

With the focus on jobs I feel it is important to emphasize that we need PRODUCTIVE jobs. Jobs that RESTORE the country’s PRODUCTIVITY. If we focus on government jobs we might as well just print money and give people gifts. The road to a strong, sustained recovery must be a serious effort to restore productivity to the economy, not to redistribute what wealth we have left.

I agree. But where you may advocate government run, single payer health care, I would prefer that we break the link between employment and health care. If individuals were to be more intimately connected to the cost and allocation of health care resources, they would be more savvy consumers who would create pressure to provide more, or the best…for less.

baloney

brilliant rebuttal!

you sure showed me

“Cooperation only lasts as long as the status quo is unchanged.”

If we want to end the corruption in Washington and on Wall Street we the people need to make sure the status quo changes in our favor.

We do that by giving government less of our money, less power over our economic and personal freedoms.

But I hate to tell you this but progressives and Dems have been driving the agenda looking out for these Americans throughout my lifetime. Medicare, Education, and the ‘war on poverty’ have been the provenance of the Democrat party for decades.

I’ve no idea how old you are but since 1980, the Republicans held the presidency 24 of the 30 years. Republicans held the House of Representatives for the period of ’94 – ’06. They held the Senate for a significant poriton of that period.

And even the Dems, when they have been in power, have not been significantly liberal or porgressive in theri actions.

So yeah, we on the left might have been concentrating on Medicare and Education issues, even through the noise of the right wing. But what is wrong with a political party and folks thinking those issues that do help folks are important? Especially with all the give-aways to the Military complex and banksters? Why is this a bad thing? Especially when the money involved is a pittance in comparison to that thrown at big ticket weapons systems, 2 failed wars/occupations, and a banking bailout?

Methinks your anger and anguish over who is responsible for this shit is just a bit misplaced.

That is just nonsense. Borrowing money to grow government to create jobs produces nothing BUT inflation.

Having lived through the inflation of the 70s when OPEC tripled the cost of oil overnight, it CAN be a problem.

Right now, inflation is pretty much the lowest problem of the list of economic problems we have. There isn’t inflation when people need jobs to survive and pay for things like food, shelter, etc.

Maslow’s hierarchy is in play here

Republicans in Congress who spent as wildly and recklessly as their Dem predecessors were rightly tossed our of power. I have no love for the GOP’s desire to act like Dems where government spending and expansion are concerned.

“Compassionate conservatisim” grew government just as quickly as any progressive agenda and that fact is not lost on me.

Washington has an interest in keeping itself big, bloated and inefficient. But how can the current establishment politicians, business leaders and activists think that the way out of this mess is to entrust them with even more money and greater influence and access?!

Those who wish to maintain the current status quo are to blame for this mess. People do not want to be governed, they want to govern themselves. The more we surrender to Washington and the more liberty we lose.

fritter, my husband is a machinist, self employed, and I work at Walmart.
Yes I do know what I am talking about. My husband paid himself 38,000 last year. He pays for his own health insurance and puts money away into an IRA for his retirement..although we really dont believe in retirement..so he will probably work forever..That said, when we see machinist raking in 80,000 or more at GM, we know it is prohibitive and unsustainable..What my husband makes is much more appropriate. It costs him a fortune to dispose of his coolants and oils, OSHA rules are rediculous..unemployment taxes, business taxes, sales taxes…it goes on and on..it has become overburdensome to do business in the USA.

So Dems and Progressives have been on the forefront of helping poor people.. and these budgets have been increased for decades now… Have you ever actually looked at the budget? Even once much less the two or more times it would require you to accurately state that. Ever heard of cadillac welfare queens? or the 80s? The least the RNC could do is set you up with a native English speaker so you could respond to pertinent arguments instead of copy/pasting the same old drivel.

“The road to a strong, sustained recovery must be a serious effort to restore productivity to the economy, not to redistribute what wealth we have left.”

So what your saying is no more taxes. Why not just say “I don’t have a plan, but no more taxes.” or “Taxes bad, me no like”. Honestly, productivity keeps going up, its just not reflected in new jobs (or wages), its all profit taking and its been that way for 10 years or more. Didn’t stop us from entering the “Great Recession” or having Depression era inequality rates.

Do you know what “wealth redistribution” is? It’s the little people giving trillions on trillions to wall street for record setting bonuses so the elite can argue over 50 Billion in the Health Care bill. You don’t think we need that money back? Can you be more specific about.. anything at all.

You realize the government pays for like half of all the medical research in this country. Most of the things we can to today, like copy Rush Limburger’s website and paste it here, are because of government funding.

When my daughter recently consumed an entire tray of brownies that I was hoping to share with the entire family, I was provided with the perfect opportunity to teach her a lesson about greed, selfishness, gluttony, moderation, self-control and restraint.

I also refused to make brownies until she showed me that she could demonstrate the ability to control her urges to excess.

Now I feel the need to give my government an earful…at the ballot box in Nov.

No individual should be so tied to a political party that they continue to support that party and politician at the expense of their own self interest.

Progressives who support the current brand of ‘cronie capitalism’ embodied by the current Dem-controlled Congress, Obama and his administration should make them all work a bit harder for their votes. Progressives sticking with the Dem party/Obama administration makes no more sense to me than my campaigning for McCain/Palin (which I did not).

Well said!

$80K machinists? And how much OT was required to reach that figure? Or was this based on the $73 per hour figure that got tossed around so much earlier? Since a large portion of that figure was based on the underfunded pension plans that the past auto workers had negotiated.

So you’d and your husband would prefer to let the poisons in the coolants and oils soak into the ground and poison the ground water? Maybe cause a few cases of cancer in the neighborhood? Because that’s what has happened in the past where the OSHA and EPA rules were NOT in place.

Yes, unemployment is a tax. And if your husband and his business make it common practice to have a lot of lay-offs, then he pays that much more the next time. That’s the way the unemployment tax is structured.

Or do you just believe that you and your husband are all alone and not part of the overall society?

First of all, there should be NO pension plans..employees should be self sufficient..and save for their retirement (if they want to retire, that is) themselves..out of their own pay. And NO we dont want to poison the ground..but we would like to see REASONABLE laws….And my husband has never laid anyone off.
And yes, I do believe that I am an INDIVIDUAL first, long before I am a member of any “overall society”…And that my INDIVIDUAL rights are much more important than any societal or group rights..Nuff said

I find it interesting that you continually try to reduce me to a conservative cliche. The government is faced with 4 choices: cut taxes, raise taxes, cut spending, increase spending. The question then becomes which choice, or combination of choices will produce the best result.

The government will do what it has to to stay in ‘business’ while enacting the least amount of reform. To decrease in size, the government would lose power, influence, and control. In absence of the federal government, what would take it’s place? State governments. And state governments that prove to be corrupt, ineffective and unresponsive in meeting the needs of their people will meet the same fate. Same for ‘machine’ politics.

I am not beholden to a party or an ideology. There is much merit in the notion that individuals know better how to spend their own money that some politician in Washington or some self-righteous neighbor who thinks they know what is best for everyone.

Enjoyed the debate today. GTG

So the fact that the workers negotiated pension plans in lieu of salary means nothing to you? Just ban all pensions because the folks didn’t do things as you would have them do?

Gotcha.

What other services in our society do you want to go without? Fire protection? Food inspections?

And the laws on handling hazardous and poisonous materials (which is what oil and coolants are) should be revoked because you know better on how things should be for everyone? What about the people who would just dump it into the ground? What would you do to stop them if there aren’t laws and regulations?

How would you offer protection for those unable to protect themselves? Just let them go ahead and die?

The government is faced with 4 choices: cut taxes, raise taxes, cut spending, increase spending

you missed the most important choice, a sub division of your choices but the most important part;

use tax revenue for investment with postitive return

such as roads, research, space, space, science, medicine, all boiling living wage JOBS that drive our economy and give us positive return

you seem to have left it out

So you don’t employ anyone else then and you don’t deal with the manufacturing sector really at all. I didn’t think you had really looked at the amounts of the items you were talking about. A friend of mine was president of a company that made shopping carts, his labor costs ran about 10% for instance. Most of his costs were tied up in energy and raw materials.

80k for a machinist really isn’t that bad. Depends on the hours and benefits.

OSHA rules are only ridiculous until you see someone boiled alive in a molten salt vat. Actually, until you see someone explode as all the water in their body turns into steam in a molten salt vat.. Or get electrocuted, because someone thought bypassing safety systems let them do their job easier etc. etc. Electrocution can actually be a very slow death..

If your husband doesn’t like it. Tell him to quit. Go work at GM or someplace else. It can’t be that bad if he continues to do it right? The day my job isn’t worth it, I’ll quit and go do something else. I assume he makes more than he would if he wasn’t self employed. My dad owned a tire store and I don’t recall him spending a “fortune” to take care of his waste. It cost $2 per tire to dispose of them. That’s about 5% worse case scenario, but I’ll allow that it could be higher in your case. He also had to deal with OSHA rules, never hindered us. All the small business owners i know complain, even when they can write their vehicles and/or personal items off as an expense. And set their own hours, etc. Health care, if we had it, would have probably been our greatest expense. What are your taxes in relation to your health care? how much are you really spending on oil disposal (would you rather it was in your water supply)? If you want to make a case you have to quantify your expenses, that’s the only way we can really make a judgment as to the validity of your claims. The we can weigh those against the costs to society, say if your husband dumped oil in the local lakes.

It doesn’t help that he’s currently self employed so has made the decision that its more beneficial.

It would be nice if the world worked as simply and as sensibly as you’d like it to. It would be nice if business worked in the best interests of everyone, and government did likewise.

The problem is that it does not. Your reliance on the individual is admirable, but ultimately just as corruptable in potential as society or government or anything. Just as much as a hierarchy can be corrupt, an individual can be as well. An individual has just as much potential to make bad decisions, do evil, and harm others as the government does or big business or small business or anyone does. There’s no such thing as a perfect entity.

Try to see the truth in every situation and don’t blind yourself with preconceived notions. Even you yourself as an individual are corruptable and fallable.

… It’s overburdensome to do business in the USA? I’m confused, then… how is it that other first world nations that have higher taxes and more regulation have more stable economies, lower unemployment, and massive business investment? I mean, places like Canada, Japan, the EU…

How is it that they’re able to do all that with all those taxes and regulations?

I think that Roubini’s “1.5 percent” growth is closer to the truth, and that “unemployment will rise from the current 10 percent…”

Govt “Job Creation” is a joke.

Does your vision include no health care if the individual can’t afford it? Would you limit how much a private insurer could charge for insurance? How would one tell what the true cost is if an insurer is simultaneously maximizing profit over health care?

We do that by giving government less of our money, less power over our economic and personal freedoms.

This might become a self-fulfilling prophecy if revenues collected are down 30%-50% and collected on unemployment benefit taxation…

You’re still presenting gov’t as something other than the people. We’re all members of the same club. It’s just that only the “in crowd” is getting the benefit of membership and at reduced dues rates, too.

I find it interesting that you continuously reduce yourself to a Republican cliche. I actually think you are much smarter than that, but that you’re not taking your arguments to their logical conclusions. Or really thinking about them at all. You don’t hear me saying “Big government good” for example. In over one hundred comments no one has said that. Its such small minded simplistic thinking, it would be ridiculous to propose (forget the propaganda we’ve been exposed to for well over 30 years). It’s really not any different from “Big government bad”, or “taxes bad”.

Now, here I’ll make a make a declaration you can argue with. “Representative government, no matter its ‘size’ is a good thing”. You can’t quantify “big” or “small” especially with regard to government, but you can quantify representative (how well it represents its people). You could spur some lively discussion without relying on anyone else’s talking points.

Inflation is not the critical drive of our problems right now.

The point is not to grow gov’t but to have gov’t manage funds invested in Phoenix type programs aimed at creating jobs to redirect the nation’s spending priorities by establishing and implementing a sustainable way of living through environmentally sound business and social practices and a new lifestyle and foreign policy paradigm for our nation. Spin-off applications will be up to individuals, regions, states, counties, cities, and individuals.

The second half of this thread demonstrates the difficulty with dealing with libertarians. They want government to spend money only on what they want. At the same time, they expect a whole array of publicly funded services to magically continue for them. Oh yes, and everyone else can go hang or starve or something because they are obviously shiftless and worse, in fact unpardonaable, don’t fit into this libertarian framework.

Libertarians have the luxury of being libertarians because they have no real world models or historical examples to demonstrate the upsides or downsides of libertarianism.

Conservative thinking, however, does have real world and historical parallels, and while they’re usually misapplied, you CAN examine the effects of conservative ideas in action in government, nation, and history.

A lot of them aren’t pretty, however.

You might be able to apply the terms greed and evil to some law breaking corporate CEO’s (Ken Lay) but on the whole they are unsuitable terms for corporations themselves.

There is good reason to have regulations. Without them lake Erie would still catch of fire from time to time and much of the water in the US would be too poluted to drink.

If you want cheaper US workers, fine, remove all the taxes from worker wages(including FICA), move to single payer healthcare and massively increase the mass transit systems (they won’t have to buy cars). How do you make up for the tax loss? Partially via a VAT(can be removed on exports) and partially by increasing taxes on investment gains and speculation.

Also, import tariffs on countries with lax or non-existant environmental and worker safety laws do make sense. Without them it’s just a race to the bottom.