Recent comments

  • Beautiful point! We can see it directly in the design of appliances that have been outsourced to China. 1970's appliances showed great attention to usability and repairability, because the designers had a close feedback loop with the assembly line, and another feedback loop with franchised dealers. The dealers acted as delegates for the customers and repairmen.

    Now the designers are stuck inside their CAD/CAM screens, the final product goes straight to WalMart, and there are no franchised dealers. All open-loop.

    Reply to: We're Losing Our High Technology Advantage America   12 years 10 months ago
  • This is straight out of Hollywood, ahem, in New Zealand.

    Cops taking saws to doors, safe rooms, guns...clearly the guy watched way too many films he was stealing there.

    They are accused of ripping of $500 million. I'm surprised it's that low. I thought the royalties for viewing all of those films would be much much higher.

    Reply to: Death to SOPA   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • The Asian financial press for the past twenty years has been pubicizing the tens of billions of dollars that left the US and went into Asian industrial and infrastructure build-up.

    This has been going on for thirty years.

    The time to worry about going over the cliff is when you see the cliff coming toward you, not when you see the ground coming toward you.

    I remember lobbying my Senators - Cantwell and Murray - back in the late 90s, when both Bills - Clinton and Gates - went to India to announce tens of millions of dollars of US taxpayer money and US investment monies to move software development to India. Also talked to Representatives McDermott and Inslee. McDermott was one of the founding members of the Indian Caucus - dedicated to moving the high tech sector to India. THe US Embassey used to post web articles talking about public-private partnerships (using US taxpayer monies) to move the pharmaceutical industries to India.

    The same week that Carly Fiorini, CEO of HP, said "There is no such thing as an American job" in response to criticisms that HP was shipping tens of thousands of US jobs to India, she joined a growing chorus of high-tech companies asking for us taxpayer subsidies - and got it.

    I remember talkign to the Speaker of the House in Olympia, WA, in the early 2000s protesting giving Microsoft tax breaks when they were outsourcing thousands of jobs to their R & D Centers in India. He didn't care, he was fine with his constituents loosing all those jobs. Microsoft announced a $2 billion investment in setting up R & D and training in India and China.

    This has been going on for thirty years. I could continue for a long time on example of after example of the US government actively destroying our economy. In the late 90s, Clinton expanded a limited-purpose visa program so that 200,000 + newly graduated students from the Indian Institute of Technology could come to the US for 3 to 6 years, get On-The-Job-Training from experienced US programmers, and then take their skills, and the jobs, back to India when they were done. This involved millions of programmers and jobs. To this day, high-tech groups are trying to fight this H1-b visa, but it has turned into a myriad of other visas as well, like the L-1 and H2, and other visas.

    The time to be concerned about this was twenty years ago, when we could have done something.

    It's a Done Deal now. No way are they going to do a knowledge transfer back to the US.

    Reply to: We're Losing Our High Technology Advantage America   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • The bills are both effectively dead. When a Congressional committee chair suspends a bill in committee, that means it will not be brought up for a vote to pass out of committee. It's near impossible to get a vote on legislation directly to the House or Senate floor without it first being passed out of committee. Yes, that is how much power House and Senate committee chairs have.

    The Senate SOPA bill death is less certain. But to pass a bill, it must pass both Houses of Congress, then the differences rectified after the fact, often through appointed Conferees, selected by the House and Senate leadership and finally, after all of that (you wonder how nothing gets done beyond corporate lobbyists' wish lists?) it must be signed into law by the President of the United States.

    Here is what is on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's website.

    Washington, D.C. - Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement today on the Senate's PROTECT I.P. Act:

    "In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday's vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act.

    "There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day's work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.

    "I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans' intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we've held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks."

    The Majority leaders of the Senate and House set the floor schedule and determine which bills will be brought up for a vote on the floor. So, once again, you can see how much power Congressional leadership has.

    Now, compromise in coming weeks does mean that SOPA could come back from the dead. That said, terms like optimistic imply it's probably dead.

    One has to be aware, lobbyists stop at nothing to get whatever agenda they want through. I believe Comprehensive Immigration Reform has been brought up, introduced every session of Congress and sometimes makes it all the way to a floor vote. Every single time protests have caused the bills to fail by the final votes.

    Yet, because corporate lobbyists want this, plus Democrats believe they can swing elections due to the Hispanic vote, every single Congressional session they bring back pretty much the same bills (originally written by lobbyists btw) and try to pass them.

    Bottom line, D.O.A. in Congress doesn't mean Zombies don't exist. They sure do in D.C. and one must remain viligant.

    Regardless this is a massive success and I think the shut down of Megaupload/Megavideo by existing law proves the issue is one of enforcement, not further erosion of free speech and trying to make Joe Blow hosting responsible for what Betty Sue commenter said on some site.

    Reply to: Hey Geeks - Way To Go! You Just Stopped SOPA & PIPA   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Very good point. A nation loses their manufacturing base, loss of advanced R&D and innovation is soon to follow. You can see this in places like the U.K. who lost their manufacturing base during "Thatcherism".

    Innovation is not something that pops up in thin air by magical geniuses. It requires investment, support and your point, where ideas come from immersion into a subject area is 100% true. You're not going to come up with a new manufacturing process innovation if you're not knees deep into the current process and see it's shortcomings.

    The fiction spun by those multinationals pushing offshore outsourcing, labor arbitrage and bad trade deals is magically somehow Americans are superior and they would just magically generate all of the ideas and these other nations would be more than happy to be the worker bees of the world.

    Nope, America and Americans dominated because they were supported, invested in and their careers were extremely secure. Literally, corporations would foot the bill, plus salary, to send some select people to graduate school. We need that again.

    Reply to: We're Losing Our High Technology Advantage America   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • When a population is not actively building, assembling, and manufacturing products, the opportunity to "know" the product in depth decreases. Thus too, the opportunity to see a "better way" to accomplish the task diminishes.

    Reply to: We're Losing Our High Technology Advantage America   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ACS

    you're right, the ACS is way more in depth and I think you're right on the citizenship question. But for unemployment statistics they don't ask. I think it's vitally important to find out citizenship/immigration status for employment statistics. They literally do not know (or will not publish) how many foreign guest workers are in the United States. Just by 9/11 alone that's shocking but it makes it very difficult to show labor arbitrage through guest workers. We have plenty of evidence this is going on but that would prove it.

    Another thing the unemployment statistics don't find out is how many have been forced out of an occupation. You're not an out of work PhD Chemist working at home deport by their count, you're a retail trade sales worker.

    They also don't ask for Congressional seat appropriations which, well, last I heard if one doesn't have U.S. citizenship you're not supposed to vote.

    This is a really interesting case at minimum and in terms of politics, gives even more illumination on "positions" w.r.t. enforcement.

    Reply to: An Interesting Action Challenging the Census   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • True, the census doesn't ask for citizenship, and that's because Congress has never asked for it. However, you are incorrect is saying that the Census Bureau does ask a citizenship question. It does in its annual American Community Survey. According to 2010 American Community Survey results, there were an estimated 22.5 million people in the country who were not citizens in 2010.

    Reply to: An Interesting Action Challenging the Census   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • This report overview maybe late but that's frankly significant. I think "analysts expect" housing to recover has been issued for the last 5 years, yet here is 2011 with a record low for single family housing. I believe there is still huge shadow inventory and last I saw foreclosures were being delayed. So, 2011 could be a bottom but I sure don't expect much of a pop-up soon.

    Reply to: Residential New Construction Housing Starts Decrease -4.1% for December 2011   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • How many studies are there now which show the Bush tax cuts were B.S.? The GOP must have cotton in their ears for they are saying we need even more tax cuts for the rich.

    Reply to: Bush Tax Cuts Increased Income Inequality   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I normally create capacity graphs but due to the SOPA/PIPA did not this month due to playing catch up. But the AAM did and you should check out their manufacturing capacity graph.

    Reply to: Industrial Production Up 0.4% for December 2011   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I was referring to mega upload, where on megavideo you could watch any damn thing on the planet, being a brazen IP theft site out of HK. The Feds just shut it down. Frankly, this is good, they were charging a subscription fee, plus running ads and not paying content providers a dime. Create a friggin' netflix China and pay up. ;)

    Anyway, here's a great example where without SOPA/PIPA the Feds indeed can take action through existing law.

    Reply to: Death to SOPA   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • hopefully it stopped more than a few people from clicking around and scanning to actually write their congressional representatives.

    Thanks everyone for understanding. This site takes a lot of "free" information, most commonly government information, statistics, research, but sometimes others and overviews it or comments on it.

    If we linked to something deemed "copyright infringement" and lord knows we link a lot, we too could get into trouble with SOPA/PIPA. Why it's important, beyond raising awareness.

    Reply to: Death to SOPA   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Online ads are getting away with murder and rates should greatly increase. That's the problem here and media like the New York Times should be pulling in way more revenues from ads because there is no more "pay $1 for the paper" and it clearly doesn't work very well to do subscriptions, unless you do a mixed model but I think ad prices are just beyond belief way too cheap.

    A real crime though are sites in Hong Kong and elsewhere when they run ads, they charge subscriptions yet without paying content owners a dime, stream full length, still in theaters, or latest releases and so on sites.

    I won't name them but it's some brazen rip off of content providers and it's massive. Then of course there are plenty of other rip offs.

    That said, these bills aren't going to stop that at all, it's just w/in U.S. borders when there are 7 billion in the world.

    I could go on about additional business models and technologies for content providers but someone has to pay me to talk about them. ;0

    Reply to: Death to SOPA   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I can understand that the content creators get frustrated -- that for example, The New York Times has more readers and less money than ever.

    Still, this isn't the way to go. It is completely unworkable, as far as I can tell.

    Reply to: Death to SOPA   12 years 10 months ago
  • We're going to shut down on the 18th and join the black out protest against SOPA and PIPA.

    Reply to: Death to SOPA   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • with the breaking news S&P just downgraded the EFSF. It's significant, like kicking the horse down after it's leg is broken and trying to heal.

    S&P claims "credit enhancements" may restore the rating to AAA, but what defines those "enhancements" is not mentioned.

    Reply to: Enervating European Economic Eruptions   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • was to show a prime example of someone hypnotized to the point of bat shit crazy by quite an illogical story to get them believe bad policies, which corporate lobbyists want, are somehow good.

    One has to wonder how a person like the above gets brain washed into set an obviously fictitious set of beliefs.

    Beyond clear hatred for some mythological creature "the leftie", the post is devoid of fact.

    Supposedly a person cannot be hypnotized to do something they would not want to do, like put a gun to their heads and pull the trigger. But with insanity like the above, I'm not so sure.

    Anyway, somewhere, somehow people are being brainwashed 24/7 to write stuff like the above.

    Very sad and frightening.

    Ok, folks let's get back to statistics and data. I'd bother to put up an increased since 1980 U.S. poverty graph but I think it would be lost on this person because it requires a rational mind to read statistics, facts and history.

    Reply to: The Invisible Handshake   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • National economies are not per capita and even if they were, I doubt $300 billion divided by 1.4 billion people is not the largest trade deficit.

    I notice you aren't making oil per capita here.

    Macro economics doesn't do per capita because despite some philosophies, this is not a global village, it's a collection of nation-states. Each nation-state has it's own currency, laws, borders and domestic economies.

    It's not America's fault some countries are way over populated, but regardless, international trade doesn't scale per capita like say consumer spending or personal income will.

    China is a problem and that does imply the U.S. should change the current China PNTR and a host of other actions.

    We already have a problem with India and services but we're not here to take care of the world's overpopulation. We're here to increase and improve economic well being for Americans, America's middle class. We have more than enough problems in the U.S., incredible poverty, hunger, over a quarter of kids are growing up in poverty to list just a few, to even contemplate taking care of the globe's overpopulation. Beyond that, one cannot fix those problems we cannot impose our will on these other peoples. It's up to those cultures, nation-states parts of the world to address their own problems, especially one as sensitive as over population.

    Reply to: Trade Deficit for November 2011 - $47.8 Billion   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • The strawman here is that there is such a thing as "vulture capitalism". There is not. The only vulture is the government that interferes in the economy and uses strawmen like "vulture capitalism" in order to justify regulation and theft. The idea of "raiding" a company is also a strawman. Another strawman is the idea of a corporate raider. All of these strawmen are created by leftists in order to vilify the actual good that is taking place in the activity of trying to preserve capital which is what the Bain's of the world do. They are not there to raid or kill jobs or put communities out of business. On behalf of their clients, their goal is to preserve capital so that a failing firm can be replaced by another productive firm. "Making a profit" by "raiding" a company assumess that once the "profit" is made, that's the end of it. That is not true. The "profits" are invested again. The strawman argument that capitalism is about "profits" misses the full picture. Capitalism is about capital creation, wealth creation and when it is allowed to happen, the entire society is lifted up and life is improved. To see only part of the picture, as most leftists do, is truly hating the good. The problem on this thread is that the leftists here think all they have to do is create strawmen and they will, therefore, have an argument against capitalism. All they are doing is talking to themselves. Their moral ferver is totally misplaced and makes them immoral because the end result of leftist policies is poverty and loss of innovation and destruction of wealth. Once they realize that you can't morally take from the rich and give to the poor, they will realize that their desire to destroy the rich is immoral. They can vilify and create all the strawmen they want. They can't change the fact that wealth has to be created and once created it belongs to the creators. If you have a problem with that, solve it with your own money, not someone elses.

    Reply to: The Invisible Handshake   12 years 10 months ago
    EPer:

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