"The United States basically has two major ongoing problems with the trade deficit, Chinese goods and Oil imports."
One would get this impression if you simply look at the dollars involved in the trade deficit. However, it's wrong to single out China. When expressed in per capita terms, our trade deficit in manufactured goods with China barely makes the list of our top 20 deficits. Our per capita deficit in manufactured goods with Japan, Germany, South Korea, Mexico and a host of others is much worse. Our trade deficit with China is exactly what we should have expected when we applied to them, a nation with one fifth of the world's population, the same trade policy that was already a proven failure all around the world.
The problem isn't China. It's our own trade policy. Our free trade policy is based upon an early 19th century theory that fails to account for the role of disparities in population density in driving global trade imbalances. The field of economics has failed to recognize the inverse relationship between population density and per capita consumption and its ramifications for trade between nations grossly disparate in population density.
Until we revise our trade policy to one rooted in economic realities, nothing will improve. Singling out China for sanctions will only open the door to some other badly overpopulation nation deperate to put its bloated labor force to work - India, perhaps - to rush in and fill the void. We need a tariff structure on manufactured goods that is indexed to population density.
Economist James Hamilton has a detailed post on what happens if there is an Iran oil embargo. We've pointed out oil shortages are highly correlated to recessions here too and Hamilton goes into some deep analysis.
This site is on U.S. economics so parsing through articles in French ain't easy for most Americans. ;)
Also, anonymous links are disabled due to referrer spammers being a never ending problem (sorry).
Right, it's the copyright owner, who the rights were transferred too and there are different layers, levels and my favorite, different ones for different media types and when you get into copyright ownership, rights, royalty rights and the different levels going into different countries, ya wanna see an absurd hyrda bureaucracy of absurdity, that's it.
A film, as an example, is owned by the studios. Often screenwriters, directors get a percentage of royalties, gross receipts and such.
On music, yes, the ownership varies, but often it's the recording company who makes the profits and the artist gets too small of a percentage.
It's a business to be sure and similarly to engineers who have the vision, then design the products and write the code.....the ones who reap the profits are not them.
The real copyright, trademark and intellectual property theft is coming from foreign countries, in particular China. There are more than a few problems here and probably need a multi-pronged approach to stopping it all. First, they need China to crack down and frankly they should impose tariffs or something like this. You can pretty much get any movie, film on pirated DVDs and also online in many of these places but in particular Asia. They should make it a trade issue and get serious.
Literally entire designs are ripped off and I in part blame U.S. corporations. They go for their cheap labor and offshore outsource, then whine when their designs are reverse engineered, cloned and knock offs are made. Well, hell, what were ya thinkin' moving manufacturing to a cheap labor destination who doesn't honor intellectual property rights then?
Beyond stupid in my view and seems somehow the fact their IP is gonna get ripped never pops up in meetings when they decide to manufacture abroad. Doh corporate executive, right, somehow all of that lost via IP theft never pops up in their bean counter spreadsheets. Their focus is on squeezing labor to death even to the point of giving away their IP farm to China. Yoozer, I can go to business school and become an executive and put together that plan. ;)
Secondly, it's pretty clear the media industry needs new technological strategies to help them make money from their works. People want to share, there are technological solutions which could generate revenues and allow it, which I won't go into details here for frankly someone needs to pay me for that advice. ;)
We've already had websites, many shut down with almost no recourse by companies when really the sites were saying something about their hiring practices, corporate culture and so on which that company didn't want known.
These two bills will enable corporations to shut down critics, whistleblowers, anyone exposing anything in 2 seconds.
So what if the bill blocks foreign piracy sites from the U.S. Last I saw the U.S. are not the biggest users as it is. This does nothing for the millions visiting those sites from other countries.
I don' know SOPA in details, but for me regarding piracy, if the basic principles are :
1) against piracy centers and not end users (always centers in piracy due to the need for catalogs and search amongst other things, "peer to peer" also a lot of hypocrisy in the terms and everybody knows it)
2) No monitoring at all of end users flow, collect of their IPs a formal complaint from somebody about a user acting as a center
3) All procedures are legal and public
Then it clearly is the right way to do it, not to forget that if piracy doesn't create any revenues for authors and creators, it does create some (and not a little) for some people :
http://owni.fr/2011/12/14/secret-megaupload-streaming-kim-schmitz-david-...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10626044
Note : above more developed below (but in French) :
http://iiscn.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/piratage-hadopi-etc/
And "zero piracy" doesn't matter in anyway (not more than school kids exchanging files), problem is when it becomes the default and easiest access method for works and publications.
But on this, in order to have a real "user experience" added value in buying instead of pirating, and this in a non quasi monopolistic environment (or with just 2 or three "monsters"), clearly something like below would be required :
http://iiscn.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/concepts-economie-numerique-draft/
The Hills is reporting a provision requiring US ISPs to block websites deemed to be infringing has been stripped from the House version. That said, the Hill is reporting Harry Reid is bringing the Senate version of the bill to a floor vote and what's in it, anyone's guess. Watch out for manager amendments at the last minute too. This is where so often corporate lobbyist wish lists are added, it gets a voice vote and the manager's amendment can change the entire bill.
Washington Monthly is reporting the bill has been shelved, and Obama will veto, but we don't think this is accurate. Politics can change hourly, so unless there is a press conference confirming from the White House, don't bank on it.
Reddit FAQ on SOPA. Reddit has been at the forefront of stopping these bills. Good job Reddit (and we like it when you like us too)!
Craigslist also has put a stop SOPA, PIPA notice on their front page.
Just like us, we're a 24/7 economics site, with a splattering of politics when it relates to all things $$, but many big names are now putting stop SOPA statements and such on their front pages.
Also, I did not go into the technical details on some of this, but the Reddit FAQ explains a few, such as alternative DNS.
STOP THIS BILL.
I AM CANADIAN AND I DO NOT LIKE SOPA.
THEY THINK THEY CAN MEDDLE WITH US?
THE USA NEEDS TO LEARN WHERE IT STANDS.
IT CANNOT KEEP CONTROLLING OTHER COUNTRIES LIKE THIS.
DEATH TO THE SOPA
The author explained in a factual way the reality of how firms like Romney's make their fortunes by essentially stealing the wealth produced by others. You arbitrarily and rather bizarrely equate this destructive behavior with "the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive." Then you jump to the strawman nonsense that the author "hates the good, the better, the more, for no reason other than it is the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive." No, he hates people who destroy lives and communities by stealing wealth produced by others. Hating "the good, the better, the more, for no reason other than it is the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive" is simply made up bullshit that exists only in your feeble mind and the minds of your fellow Ayn Rand fanboys. Grow up.
Right on. I was a pretty successful legacy systems programmer back in the 90's(RPG, COBOL etc). About the time 2001 rolled around, my career tanked due to being downsized. Took the time to learn java on my own and visual Basic but noone would hire me. Went to a cc to study DB administration(even though I ALREADY have a Bachelor's in Math) and still only a few hits and no hires. So now at 40 my skills are rusty, I've developed severe untreatable depression, and am struggling at minimum wage jobs and ebay while desparately trying to get disability. Meanwhile, talent is brought in from overseas to undercut any entry level jobs in IT I could get. Yes I also tried relocation...NYC Florida Pittsburgh..often going for interviews(and spending a fortune) only to get turned down.
We are in the same boat brother and its sinking
as for that video I can say when revolution comes and its a coming baring some major sea change in policy..they will not be spared
You see the critics of Romney and the leveraged buyout business engaging in class warfare, because we are unable to create value, and therefore we try to destroy other people's value so that we can line our own pockets.
We see Romney engaged in exactly the same thing, only the class he is warring on is the business class. And the activity he is engaging in is tantamount to theft. One of the consequences of his activity is that income distribution is skewed heavily to his group of "entrepreneurs" and away from everybody else. He's not out to war on the middle class - he's out to get wealthy. It just so happens what he does hurts the middle class.
Of those adjectives you use to describe Romney - "the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive" - I'll grant you that he is rich. The other descriptors seem straight out of a farce, or an Ayn Rand novel, whichever you prefer.
Luckily for Romney what he did was not technically illegal. Someday it will be. Even now Mitt Romney says he regrets taking the dividends out of these companies when there hadn't been the performance by the company to justify such a drain on equity. What we're left with, therefore, is equity extraction plain and simple, which lined the pockets of people not worthy of calling themselves capitalists or entrepreneurs. People who really care about capitalism and the free markets are disgusted by this sort of destructive behavior.
Here's a thought experiment. Let's have all the leveraged buyout "entrepreneurs" go John Galt on us, and disappear. Let them withhold their goodness, their vibrancy, and all their other superior qualities from the economy. I guarantee you they would not be missed.
and if you want to believe there are not classes and massive income inequality, keep drinkin' that kool-aid, put your head in the sand and keep spinning your tales to deny it. The statistics show there are.
Certainly that's the case with student loans. There are essentially no restrictions on borrowing, and with Income Based Repayment almost nobody will every pay it back. Certainly I will likely not be able to since, I found out that the job market wasn't what I expected it to be.
This author clearly takes the class-warfare view of the world. What is that view? That the strong victimize the weak, the talented keep the un-talented down, ambition is bad and wealth is really a rapacious greed and somehow a threat. Why if it weren't for the beautiful people, the ugly ones would have a chance. In the class-warfare world view, there is only a pie that can get divided and unless that is somehow divided "fairly", well, it just isn't fair. If this view were true, the pie would be the same pie that was here when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. We would be dividing that same pie into smaller and smaller pieces. In other words, the class-warfare worldview hates the good, the better, the more, for no reason other than it is the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive. The class-warfare person, rather than placing himself on a path of creating value, instead finds himself on a path of the victim and seeks to destroy other's value and somehow get it mandated into his pocket. Or, at least try because he must somehow make right this terrible metaphysical inequality.
This is a very ancient and tribal belief - one before political freedom was on the scene. It bonded tribes together in an attitude of fear and hatred of their neighbors so they could fight them (and so the rulers could keep the run-of-the-mill tribesmen subservient to them). A free society holds each individual as having powers available to him for his living and that it is up to him to move out into the world and make the best of it. There is no God, no benevolent hand that is going to save him from the requirements of living, and he is not a victim of anything except his own mindset.
And, no, John Galt did not rape Dagny Taggart. You may want to read Atlas Shrugged to get yourself on solid ground.
I'm pretty sure Goldman Sachs has bought both Romney and Obama. JPMorgan Chase has both too. So, they can't lose and we're guaranteed to lose. How can Obama run any ad on anything since they utterly failed to even implement Dodd-Frank, never mind regulate the actual problem, such as TBTF and my favorite, derivatives?
One thing I think few are paying attention to is primary rhetoric is almost always dropped the minute the "candidate" wins. Right now Romney is railing on China, rightly so, but probably just like Obama dropped anything on offshore outsourcing, trade and John Kerry also dropped anything about "Benedict Arnold CEOs" as soon as primary season is over, I imagine this will be the same.
To me, we don't have a choice. If I were voting in a GOP primary, I'd vote for Buddy Roemer. Ron Paul has some points, but he's too plain crazy to me. If he really reads economics texts then I have to wonder about his comprehension level. ;)
So, no choice and perhaps the focus should be if there are any good, not corrupt, bought and paid fors running for Senate and Congress. I'm sure Elizabeth Warren is someone we all can approve of as an example.
Except those mesmerized by media snake oil economic fictional spin.
It's been four years now since the credit collapse started and not one Democrat has made as forceful a case against the Republicans and their love affair with Wall Street as Newt Gingrinch has made in the past week. Of course Newt's motives are hypocritical and suspect, but his critique is devastating. As Digby pointed out on Hullaballoo, the Republicans excel at making emotional arguments and reaching for the lizard brain of the voters. That's how they win campaigns. The Democrats would rather ignore the issue if there is any hope the people responsible for the problem will give them money.
All of the GOP would do this and already have, that's the problem. Every single one of them. The real problem is so is Obama. We're truly stuck with least worst.
Don't help that Romney is the only sane guy onstage. (yes, sociopaths are sane). Gingrich is truly calling the Kettle black, he'd sell his own grandmother for food scrap if he could make a profit, IMHO, just as bad.
Normally I don't focus on gotchas. Usually focusing in on policy statistics, agendas, legislation and especially the money behind candidates.
But Mitt Romney, I cannot get that image of that family putting their dog in a travel crate and strapping it the top of their car, going 70 mph down the highway. But I can't stand people who leave their dogs in their truck beds either (to potentially fall out), much less kids. But that one just somehow illustrates everything to me, strapping the family pet, crated, on top of the car for a long trip.
They are all sociopaths, immoral, vampires, out to dismantle what's left of America and sell it off to the highest bidder for profit though, including team Obama though, so for equal time we'll have to expose all of them.
I agree it is confusing and it was one of their best charts. Ok. The columns represent the parent's economic class, then the colors represent the percentage of their offspring who are in that class.
So, taking column one, you see the children of people in the bottom 3rd income brackets, the black, stayed in that income bracket as adults or 53%.
Of rich kids who moved into the bottom third income bracket as adults, is 14%. 33% or a third of kids born into the middle class moved into the bottom income bracket as adults.
That's column one and you apply the same thing to column two and three.
The column position represents the adults and the colored sections represent the kids. If they are black, the kids came from the bottom third income bracket, if they are light brown, they came from the top income bracket, red is the middle class.
Hope that helps. You might also click on any of the links and read the Pew actual report, they have many graphs and more information. This site has a tendency not to focus on demographics, but some of the information is truly depressing. i.e. what the hell is going on with black men and having babies out of wedlock. Poverty I suspect but the stats are not good.
"The United States basically has two major ongoing problems with the trade deficit, Chinese goods and Oil imports."
One would get this impression if you simply look at the dollars involved in the trade deficit. However, it's wrong to single out China. When expressed in per capita terms, our trade deficit in manufactured goods with China barely makes the list of our top 20 deficits. Our per capita deficit in manufactured goods with Japan, Germany, South Korea, Mexico and a host of others is much worse. Our trade deficit with China is exactly what we should have expected when we applied to them, a nation with one fifth of the world's population, the same trade policy that was already a proven failure all around the world.
The problem isn't China. It's our own trade policy. Our free trade policy is based upon an early 19th century theory that fails to account for the role of disparities in population density in driving global trade imbalances. The field of economics has failed to recognize the inverse relationship between population density and per capita consumption and its ramifications for trade between nations grossly disparate in population density.
Until we revise our trade policy to one rooted in economic realities, nothing will improve. Singling out China for sanctions will only open the door to some other badly overpopulation nation deperate to put its bloated labor force to work - India, perhaps - to rush in and fill the void. We need a tariff structure on manufactured goods that is indexed to population density.
Pete Murphy
Author, "Five Short Blasts"
Economist James Hamilton has a detailed post on what happens if there is an Iran oil embargo. We've pointed out oil shortages are highly correlated to recessions here too and Hamilton goes into some deep analysis.
This site is on U.S. economics so parsing through articles in French ain't easy for most Americans. ;)
Also, anonymous links are disabled due to referrer spammers being a never ending problem (sorry).
Right, it's the copyright owner, who the rights were transferred too and there are different layers, levels and my favorite, different ones for different media types and when you get into copyright ownership, rights, royalty rights and the different levels going into different countries, ya wanna see an absurd hyrda bureaucracy of absurdity, that's it.
A film, as an example, is owned by the studios. Often screenwriters, directors get a percentage of royalties, gross receipts and such.
On music, yes, the ownership varies, but often it's the recording company who makes the profits and the artist gets too small of a percentage.
It's a business to be sure and similarly to engineers who have the vision, then design the products and write the code.....the ones who reap the profits are not them.
The real copyright, trademark and intellectual property theft is coming from foreign countries, in particular China. There are more than a few problems here and probably need a multi-pronged approach to stopping it all. First, they need China to crack down and frankly they should impose tariffs or something like this. You can pretty much get any movie, film on pirated DVDs and also online in many of these places but in particular Asia. They should make it a trade issue and get serious.
Literally entire designs are ripped off and I in part blame U.S. corporations. They go for their cheap labor and offshore outsource, then whine when their designs are reverse engineered, cloned and knock offs are made. Well, hell, what were ya thinkin' moving manufacturing to a cheap labor destination who doesn't honor intellectual property rights then?
Beyond stupid in my view and seems somehow the fact their IP is gonna get ripped never pops up in meetings when they decide to manufacture abroad. Doh corporate executive, right, somehow all of that lost via IP theft never pops up in their bean counter spreadsheets. Their focus is on squeezing labor to death even to the point of giving away their IP farm to China. Yoozer, I can go to business school and become an executive and put together that plan. ;)
Secondly, it's pretty clear the media industry needs new technological strategies to help them make money from their works. People want to share, there are technological solutions which could generate revenues and allow it, which I won't go into details here for frankly someone needs to pay me for that advice. ;)
We've already had websites, many shut down with almost no recourse by companies when really the sites were saying something about their hiring practices, corporate culture and so on which that company didn't want known.
These two bills will enable corporations to shut down critics, whistleblowers, anyone exposing anything in 2 seconds.
So what if the bill blocks foreign piracy sites from the U.S. Last I saw the U.S. are not the biggest users as it is. This does nothing for the millions visiting those sites from other countries.
I don' know SOPA in details, but for me regarding piracy, if the basic principles are :
1) against piracy centers and not end users (always centers in piracy due to the need for catalogs and search amongst other things, "peer to peer" also a lot of hypocrisy in the terms and everybody knows it)
2) No monitoring at all of end users flow, collect of their IPs a formal complaint from somebody about a user acting as a center
3) All procedures are legal and public
Then it clearly is the right way to do it, not to forget that if piracy doesn't create any revenues for authors and creators, it does create some (and not a little) for some people :
http://owni.fr/2011/12/14/secret-megaupload-streaming-kim-schmitz-david-...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10626044
Note : above more developed below (but in French) :
http://iiscn.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/piratage-hadopi-etc/
And "zero piracy" doesn't matter in anyway (not more than school kids exchanging files), problem is when it becomes the default and easiest access method for works and publications.
But on this, in order to have a real "user experience" added value in buying instead of pirating, and this in a non quasi monopolistic environment (or with just 2 or three "monsters"), clearly something like below would be required :
http://iiscn.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/concepts-economie-numerique-draft/
The Hills is reporting a provision requiring US ISPs to block websites deemed to be infringing has been stripped from the House version. That said, the Hill is reporting Harry Reid is bringing the Senate version of the bill to a floor vote and what's in it, anyone's guess. Watch out for manager amendments at the last minute too. This is where so often corporate lobbyist wish lists are added, it gets a voice vote and the manager's amendment can change the entire bill.
Washington Monthly is reporting the bill has been shelved, and Obama will veto, but we don't think this is accurate. Politics can change hourly, so unless there is a press conference confirming from the White House, don't bank on it.
Reddit FAQ on SOPA. Reddit has been at the forefront of stopping these bills. Good job Reddit (and we like it when you like us too)!
Craigslist also has put a stop SOPA, PIPA notice on their front page.
Just like us, we're a 24/7 economics site, with a splattering of politics when it relates to all things $$, but many big names are now putting stop SOPA statements and such on their front pages.
Also, I did not go into the technical details on some of this, but the Reddit FAQ explains a few, such as alternative DNS.
while the boys are rallying the anit-SOPA support, the men will take down their sites on j18th.
http://littlebiggy.org/4709048
Mr/Ms Canadian person, can you please stop YOUR government from passing C-11!
Unless you have no clue what's going on in your own country?
Thanks!
STOP THIS BILL.
I AM CANADIAN AND I DO NOT LIKE SOPA.
THEY THINK THEY CAN MEDDLE WITH US?
THE USA NEEDS TO LEARN WHERE IT STANDS.
IT CANNOT KEEP CONTROLLING OTHER COUNTRIES LIKE THIS.
DEATH TO THE SOPA
The author explained in a factual way the reality of how firms like Romney's make their fortunes by essentially stealing the wealth produced by others. You arbitrarily and rather bizarrely equate this destructive behavior with "the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive." Then you jump to the strawman nonsense that the author "hates the good, the better, the more, for no reason other than it is the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive." No, he hates people who destroy lives and communities by stealing wealth produced by others. Hating "the good, the better, the more, for no reason other than it is the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive" is simply made up bullshit that exists only in your feeble mind and the minds of your fellow Ayn Rand fanboys. Grow up.
Right on. I was a pretty successful legacy systems programmer back in the 90's(RPG, COBOL etc). About the time 2001 rolled around, my career tanked due to being downsized. Took the time to learn java on my own and visual Basic but noone would hire me. Went to a cc to study DB administration(even though I ALREADY have a Bachelor's in Math) and still only a few hits and no hires. So now at 40 my skills are rusty, I've developed severe untreatable depression, and am struggling at minimum wage jobs and ebay while desparately trying to get disability. Meanwhile, talent is brought in from overseas to undercut any entry level jobs in IT I could get. Yes I also tried relocation...NYC Florida Pittsburgh..often going for interviews(and spending a fortune) only to get turned down.
We are in the same boat brother and its sinking
as for that video I can say when revolution comes and its a coming baring some major sea change in policy..they will not be spared
You see the critics of Romney and the leveraged buyout business engaging in class warfare, because we are unable to create value, and therefore we try to destroy other people's value so that we can line our own pockets.
We see Romney engaged in exactly the same thing, only the class he is warring on is the business class. And the activity he is engaging in is tantamount to theft. One of the consequences of his activity is that income distribution is skewed heavily to his group of "entrepreneurs" and away from everybody else. He's not out to war on the middle class - he's out to get wealthy. It just so happens what he does hurts the middle class.
Of those adjectives you use to describe Romney - "the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive" - I'll grant you that he is rich. The other descriptors seem straight out of a farce, or an Ayn Rand novel, whichever you prefer.
Luckily for Romney what he did was not technically illegal. Someday it will be. Even now Mitt Romney says he regrets taking the dividends out of these companies when there hadn't been the performance by the company to justify such a drain on equity. What we're left with, therefore, is equity extraction plain and simple, which lined the pockets of people not worthy of calling themselves capitalists or entrepreneurs. People who really care about capitalism and the free markets are disgusted by this sort of destructive behavior.
Here's a thought experiment. Let's have all the leveraged buyout "entrepreneurs" go John Galt on us, and disappear. Let them withhold their goodness, their vibrancy, and all their other superior qualities from the economy. I guarantee you they would not be missed.
are now government debt, you have to pay it back. You cannot get out of it, I believe even through bankruptcy you cannot get the loan forgiven.
and if you want to believe there are not classes and massive income inequality, keep drinkin' that kool-aid, put your head in the sand and keep spinning your tales to deny it. The statistics show there are.
Certainly that's the case with student loans. There are essentially no restrictions on borrowing, and with Income Based Repayment almost nobody will every pay it back. Certainly I will likely not be able to since, I found out that the job market wasn't what I expected it to be.
This author clearly takes the class-warfare view of the world. What is that view? That the strong victimize the weak, the talented keep the un-talented down, ambition is bad and wealth is really a rapacious greed and somehow a threat. Why if it weren't for the beautiful people, the ugly ones would have a chance. In the class-warfare world view, there is only a pie that can get divided and unless that is somehow divided "fairly", well, it just isn't fair. If this view were true, the pie would be the same pie that was here when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. We would be dividing that same pie into smaller and smaller pieces. In other words, the class-warfare worldview hates the good, the better, the more, for no reason other than it is the good, the strong, the rich, the vibrant, the fully alive. The class-warfare person, rather than placing himself on a path of creating value, instead finds himself on a path of the victim and seeks to destroy other's value and somehow get it mandated into his pocket. Or, at least try because he must somehow make right this terrible metaphysical inequality.
This is a very ancient and tribal belief - one before political freedom was on the scene. It bonded tribes together in an attitude of fear and hatred of their neighbors so they could fight them (and so the rulers could keep the run-of-the-mill tribesmen subservient to them). A free society holds each individual as having powers available to him for his living and that it is up to him to move out into the world and make the best of it. There is no God, no benevolent hand that is going to save him from the requirements of living, and he is not a victim of anything except his own mindset.
And, no, John Galt did not rape Dagny Taggart. You may want to read Atlas Shrugged to get yourself on solid ground.
I'm pretty sure Goldman Sachs has bought both Romney and Obama. JPMorgan Chase has both too. So, they can't lose and we're guaranteed to lose. How can Obama run any ad on anything since they utterly failed to even implement Dodd-Frank, never mind regulate the actual problem, such as TBTF and my favorite, derivatives?
One thing I think few are paying attention to is primary rhetoric is almost always dropped the minute the "candidate" wins. Right now Romney is railing on China, rightly so, but probably just like Obama dropped anything on offshore outsourcing, trade and John Kerry also dropped anything about "Benedict Arnold CEOs" as soon as primary season is over, I imagine this will be the same.
To me, we don't have a choice. If I were voting in a GOP primary, I'd vote for Buddy Roemer. Ron Paul has some points, but he's too plain crazy to me. If he really reads economics texts then I have to wonder about his comprehension level. ;)
So, no choice and perhaps the focus should be if there are any good, not corrupt, bought and paid fors running for Senate and Congress. I'm sure Elizabeth Warren is someone we all can approve of as an example.
Except those mesmerized by media snake oil economic fictional spin.
It's been four years now since the credit collapse started and not one Democrat has made as forceful a case against the Republicans and their love affair with Wall Street as Newt Gingrinch has made in the past week. Of course Newt's motives are hypocritical and suspect, but his critique is devastating. As Digby pointed out on Hullaballoo, the Republicans excel at making emotional arguments and reaching for the lizard brain of the voters. That's how they win campaigns. The Democrats would rather ignore the issue if there is any hope the people responsible for the problem will give them money.
All of the GOP would do this and already have, that's the problem. Every single one of them. The real problem is so is Obama. We're truly stuck with least worst.
Don't help that Romney is the only sane guy onstage. (yes, sociopaths are sane). Gingrich is truly calling the Kettle black, he'd sell his own grandmother for food scrap if he could make a profit, IMHO, just as bad.
Normally I don't focus on gotchas. Usually focusing in on policy statistics, agendas, legislation and especially the money behind candidates.
But Mitt Romney, I cannot get that image of that family putting their dog in a travel crate and strapping it the top of their car, going 70 mph down the highway. But I can't stand people who leave their dogs in their truck beds either (to potentially fall out), much less kids. But that one just somehow illustrates everything to me, strapping the family pet, crated, on top of the car for a long trip.
They are all sociopaths, immoral, vampires, out to dismantle what's left of America and sell it off to the highest bidder for profit though, including team Obama though, so for equal time we'll have to expose all of them.
I agree it is confusing and it was one of their best charts. Ok. The columns represent the parent's economic class, then the colors represent the percentage of their offspring who are in that class.
So, taking column one, you see the children of people in the bottom 3rd income brackets, the black, stayed in that income bracket as adults or 53%.
Of rich kids who moved into the bottom third income bracket as adults, is 14%. 33% or a third of kids born into the middle class moved into the bottom income bracket as adults.
That's column one and you apply the same thing to column two and three.
The column position represents the adults and the colored sections represent the kids. If they are black, the kids came from the bottom third income bracket, if they are light brown, they came from the top income bracket, red is the middle class.
Hope that helps. You might also click on any of the links and read the Pew actual report, they have many graphs and more information. This site has a tendency not to focus on demographics, but some of the information is truly depressing. i.e. what the hell is going on with black men and having babies out of wedlock. Poverty I suspect but the stats are not good.
I've seen this part before ... in just about any Western movie ... it's where the town folk turn out to be gutless wonders.
Buddy Roemer for Marshall!
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