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Reactions to the S&P Downgrade of USA Sovereign Debt
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U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
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that much of the efficiency gains of the past 30 years have been dedicated to improving the horsepower of the engine rather than improvements in miles per gallon.
Totally agree about hybrids. The simple fact that Ford and GM are able to put small vehicles that get better gas mileage than hybrids on the road in Europe should be a dead giveaway.
I have another site also talking about this, mpgomatic.com
where they also are wondering what is going on and why is it technology that was around 40 years ago is taken off the market.
Whatever is going on here is pure BS and basically they are going to squeeze the middle class period, either in buying an overpriced hybrid and/or gas prices.
I reread the mood of this post and frankly I am poed at the so called "Progressives" who focused on personality in the Presidential campaign and didn't stick to a very specific economic agenda demand. I realized it after I wrote it. I think there are so many consensus points between conservatives and Progressives that some real policy for the US middle class, national interest, working America could assuredly be endorsed, all political flavor spectrum, simply because it's based on the data and what makes sense.
Trade is one of those consensus points. I see some very officially "conservatives" writing on trade and they pretty much are saying the same talking points as EPI or Public citizen and I think that is needed to overcome these corporate/special interests running this nation.
I truly am disappointed in this election cycle for those who just did not pay attention to real policy positions and promote/vote accordingly.
Local security to me is a just reason for breaking the trade treaties. We've now proven that breaking the fragile link of patriotism between the factory and the marketplace yields dangerous and poisonous products that affect people's lives.
I'm not at the point where Carlos Mencia was a few weeks ago- claiming that China has waged a physical war against us on purpose AND HAS WON in that we haven't counter attacked for the lives damaged and lost.
But I am at the point where I think that a low-wage worker in a low-wage country cares far more about where his next meal is coming from than he does about the safety of the relatively rich American who will buy the product he's making. Simple negligence accounts for the rest of the equation to fit the facts we know.
Even after revising the 1985-2007 mpg estimates to make them comparable to the new 2008 mpg estimates, the 1989 Honda CRX-HF is rated at 41 city and 50 highway mpg.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/5263.shtml
After 20 years of technological innovation, and four years of sky-rocketing fuel costs, shouldn't a new car model get at least 41/50 mpg before that car is considered to be ecologically friendly? Yet greencar.com features the 2008 Nissan Rouge (22 city/27 highway mpg) as a "Top 2008 Fuel Economy Faves." The 2008 Nissan Rouge also has a sticker price of $19,250.
http://www.greencar.com/features/fuel-economy/
Seems to me that true economy cars been pulled from the market, and replaces with the new hybrids. Major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires an expensive, heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.
In my opinion there is more to ecological friendliness than just mpg (although the present line-up fails at even that). Hybrids have huge batteries, and disposing of those batteries is never ecologically friendly. Then there is the ecological impact of manufacturing and shipping these huge, heavy, vehicles. Furthermore, recent road tests carried out by Auto Express show that hybrids often have worse CO2 emissions than standard autos.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3958376.ece
To have a real impact on fuel consumption, and emissions, new vehicles need to be affordable. Hybrids are about the most expensive vehicles on the market. How can hybrids have a positive effect of the environment, if practically nobody can afford the beasts? Even if you can afford the steep sticker price, what about the cost of maintenance? Hybrids have two engines, and use a complicated system to charge their huge batteries. I hate to even think about the cost of maintenance and repair.
It used to be common that most fuel efficient cars also had the lowest sticker price, and lowest maintenance costs. The cars where simply smaller, lighter, and required more manual operations. With smaller, cheaper, parts, and a less complicated design, the cars were cheaper to maintain. When I bought my 1992 Ford Festiva, the 30/37 mpg rating was the least of my criteria, I was also concerned with sticker price, and maintenance costs.
Why can't we do as well now, as we did 16 to 35 years ago?
1973 Honda Civic rated 35/40 mpg
1986 VW Golf Diesel rated 31/40 mpg *
1989 Geo Metro was rated 43/51 mpg
1989 Honda CRX-HF was rated 41/50 mpg
1992 Ford Festiva rated 30/37 mpg
* I got over 50mpg driving from Florida to New Jersey, while running the air conditioner.
Related:
57 mpg? That's so 20 years ago
Want to drive a cheap car that gets eye-popping mileage? In 1987 you could - and it wasn't even a hybrid.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/17/autos/honda_civic_hf/index.htm
Efficiency? Think Racing Cars, Not Hybridso
A renowned racing car designer has said that car manufacturers should be looking at making cars lighter to improve efficiency, rather than adding complex drive trains.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7387432.stm
Hot Cars Best Gas Milage
Welcome to hi-mpg.org. We are automotive enthusiasts and travel aficionados who also love the environment. We appreciate both form and function, all while striving to leave future generations a legacy of clean air, scenic grandeur and a continuum of natural resources. In addition: the freedom to drive.
http://hi-mpg.org/best-cars-with-high-gas-mileage.phtml
yet I think to legitimately break it they have to be "justified". Now certainly losing every case is pretty justified, how bias it is, how non-representative of a nation-state it is is justified. I'm not against plain bailing on it, just thinking in terms of getting Americans to understand it, plus to also not start a trade war, which would be disastrous.
Actually, by every trade treaty we've signed so far, any signing country can break the treaty *unilaterally*- with the resultant problems of course that country no longer belongs to the World Trade Organization, and gets cut off from the "protections" of the treaty.
I'm to the point that I find the WTO to be a worthless attempt at one world government at best- and a dangerous precedent for one world government and slavery at worst. In other words, I don't see any reason for the United States, a country with vast natural resources in every element and compound known to man, to be in the club.
The student is the product? What is happening to our learning system?
I think it's going to be very tough to just plain withdraw from the WTO at this point, although challenging it at every turn at least to start would be useful. Note no one said that beyond Kucinich as a Pres. candidate. Hillary implied it though starting about the middle, but alas, the Obama campaign just slapped her in the face by appointing a "Chief of Staff" of VP who she fired for screwing up her campaign. Who the hell appoints a VP chief of staff before VP selection and on top of it, who would want to be VP when a campaign dictates who their chief of staff is?
Over on tradereform.org, middle column, is the blog of a group pushing for a VAT, which with modifications is somewhat what you're talking about. I've looked it over and since that is legal under the WTO rules plus the rest of the 1st world nations already have them, I think it's a good proposal.
The US should abandon the WTO, and should adopt a *customs* tax of $1/shipping container/mile between addresses on the shipping label for any finished goods.
If we do that, enough manufacturing will return to the US that the service industry jobs that go with strong manufacturing will *also* return.
But we shouldn't block any shipments of raw materials at all. Only finished goods- and only for those containers that need to cross a US Customs yard and have an obvious claim of containing finished goods. And they should be taxed by how far they travel and volume of goods shipped, not by specifically what they are.
In addition, we could use that tax money to suck up some of America's unemployed into the great video game of running cranes and various sensor devices at the customs yards themselves.
It's so obvious to provide subsidies and tax credits, rebates on box cars I was thinking someone actually got a brian in DC....ha, ha, ha.
This amazes me how one can really just crank the numbers and come up with win-win policy for corporations and the US and when that is the case, one is sure it will never happen.
This is just poor management. They are only reacting once the crisis is already in full swing.
And now they have to use european manufacturing because all our auto plants are geared towards gas guzzlers.
It looks like another milestone down the road towards the end of auto manufacturing in America.
Carl Anderson was a Regan era administration official. He's now Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus- a religious conservative group that has been fighting for the rights of immigrant labor (and providing their families security) for over 125 years now.
He recently wrote a book, A Civilization of Love, http://www.acivilizationoflove.com/cl/index.html , that makes EXACTLY this point. While he doesn't foresee any possibility of ending Corporatism and Globalism, he does say that Charity for the poorer countries and valuing human relationships over material goods is what will turn things around.
It's a very well researched book, and I recommend reading it to any who have a problem with religious conservatives and American Business right now (which, damn it, should be EVERYBODY, one way or another!).
no...
I only think that the subisidies I mention should exist. They don't currently. But I think that the price is right.
The real key to cutting demand is going to have to be in terms of miles traveled though. And honestly that didn't really go to hell until offices started moving out of downtowns into the far suburbs in the 70s and 80s.
We need to have strict zoning laws that keep offices and retail within a 1/2 mile area of bus stops. With sidewalks people can walk that. And then you can run electric streetcar connectors between nodes in the system.
Require the big box stores build in existing areas within a half mile of a bus stop, and push limit them to a few nodes, and then you can concentrate trips so the mass transit becomes viable.
Even better, require a 2-1 match for commerical space with affordable housing above the stores, and you can drive a movement back to an urban plan where walking is an option for most needs.
That isn't to say that it doesn't make sense to start getting serious about fuel efficiency.
You look like our auto expert from this post.
I posted earlier about GM closing 4 SUV factories instead of retooling and I asked why the hell they are not retooling, bringing back the box cars from the 1970's, 80's and keeping those jobs in the US.
What I did not know about are all of these subsidies you list, which is good. The Geo Metro gets about 50 mpg.
I also watched a show about the death of Suburbia. I don't think it should be death of Suburbia, I think it should be death to the corporate demand that people must go to their cubes on a daily basis for many jobs. Change the work week and the hourly structures. Stagger the working hours as well.
Between the Chinese spies and the outright giving away of critical technology that are major national security assets, they are conquering the US through economic means.
BTW: Good ole Carly Fiorina was advising the CIA and the DoD, so no doubt plans to offshore outsource critical technology so industry can make a fast buck. Just unreal, taxpayer dollars so some private industry can get the contract plus sell it to a potential foe.
Hi.
Just found your blog off a kind person's link to DKos.
I also write a mainly political blog, but I was fascinated (still am) how the futures trading impacts oil and food prices around the world.
The short of it is this: the rich fu**s, who got burned off the housing bubble, looked to create another bubble to make easy money off of.
And here it is - the oil and food bubble.
Yes, there is real scarcity in both oil (it's not a renewable resource for starters) and food (draught in Australia for a few years, other natural disasters etc etc).
But the MAIN reason for these horrible prices, for the poor priced out from food around the world, for world economy sputtering and choking on the high price of oil, is of course speculation.
Not that you will hear this truth from CNBC and other financial "experts" on TV who keep shouting about China's and India's demand... riiiiiight, it's China's and India's fault that the price of oil increases $11 per day;
remember, price increases like that took YEARS before.
The key quote from Der Spiegel is this:
"Signs of unusual behavior abound across the commodities markets. Take cotton, for example. In late February, the price of cotton futures jumped by 50 percent within two weeks. But cotton farmers haven't even been able to sell half of their harvest from the previous year yet. Warehouses in the United States are fuller than they have been since 1966. Indeed, all signs point to a price decline."
I rest my case.
... But if you want some background, I want to welcome you all to my blog.
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/05/so-why-are-gas-prices-rising.html
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/05/oil-prices-to-be-probed-by-us-re...
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/06/speculation-that-is-killing-us-a...
war capacity of the nation.
In the 20th century the economic might of a nation has in large part been determined as a function of population X economic output.
The idea being that advantages in the ability to make tanks allows less populous states to overcome more populous states because technology allows one soldier to do more killing than with a rifle alone.
Now if we've seriously overestimated the productive capacity of the nation by including financial value that can't be converted into the ability to make the weapons of war, then our basic understanding of the war-making capacity of the US vis-a-vis China and other states, may significantly underestimate the threat that they pose to us if they convert civilian production to military use during economic downturns.
We've handed the Chinese government a large amount of the industrial base it needs to make a big to unseat America's position as the global hegemon through offshoring.
They may call themselves free traders but they just look like traitors to me.
There was a Senate hearing on this, which I wrote about here.
Midtowng is pushing for the weak dollar, which I certainly agree, the weakening of the US dollar also has a lot to do about it but this hearing testimony was shocking on how bad the speculation really is. Most interesting is the "amendment" Feinstein introduced does nothing.
Here we go again with the corporate purchase of both parties frankly. (not Dorgan).
is that these bubbles can hide the decline of wealth producing capital by overvaluing capital invested in these speculative arrangements.
The economy has experience significant financialization in the past 50 years, so that now something like 50% of the economy is not based on production values, but on transaction costs. Credit cards create nothing of value, yet the earnings that they bring in are calculated as part of GDP.
So the bottom line is when the smoke and mirrors are revealed, what's the underlying productive value of the US economy in terms of the capacity to produce items of value? And what is the impact of that revelation on the American standard of living.
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