I don't see who benefits, but the banks, when the Fed buys up more mortgage backed securities.
I think a few people will be helped those who want to stay in their homes regardless but I just at best light, do not believe this is anything but a minor addition. We'll see, HAMP was released with much fanfare and that turned out to be a bureaucratic scam rat maze.
I think Obama is up for re-election and he's out for window dressing. I think all of America has been his true corporate lobbyist designed colors at this point. Not that the GOP field is any better (except Roemer looks better and better to me at least).
Arguing against the Bloombergian-replace-an-American-with-a-foreign-national pod-person crowd is like arguing auto-theft ...
... where you are forced to debate the thieves, and their cohorts all the way down the feeding-chain, and the preceding, thief, benefactors, and useful-idiots alike, are heavily funded by the crime-lords and their lobbies, via the ‘take’.
Death-By-Foreign-National is not laissez-faire.
Death-By-Foreign-National is not free-market.
MNCs' [/media/and academia] are not [supposed to be] in charge of U.S. immigration.
Visas such as H-1b, should be immediately suspended. MILLIONS of our better paying jobs would be instantly RETURNED, to Americans, in America.
HOW can anyone speak of returning jobs to Americans, while they ignore, or worse, lobby for, the CONTINUED replacement of MILLIONS of Americans, in American offices and worksites, with foreign nationals?
Start Article:
MUMBAI: US diplomat Peter Haas, recently appointed consul-general in Mumbai, stressed the importance of people-to-people contact in Indo-US ties.
US-India people-to-people connections are more powerful than any government initiative, said Haas. "While 8 lakh Americans travel to India each year, the US issues half a million non-immigration visas to Indians yearly," he said adding that Indian citizens formed the largest group of people to be issued H1B and L visas by the US over the last year.
End Article.
H-1b, L-1s, OPT, J-1, B-1, lotteries, green-cards, and on and on, and on, and on, it is no longer enough to stand as a nation and compete with the world-at-large, but no, the world at large will be brought to you, so that you may compete with them in your own offices and worksites...
Start Article:
The J-1 student work-travel program was created in 1961 to offer work opportunities and cultural enrichment for foreign students, and in the process, create goodwill ambassadors for the United States.
But the kids aren’t working in professional settings that complement their studies.
They’re toiling in warehouses for huge companies such as Hershey’s, which have laid off hundreds of workers, and resorts, from Disney World to Morey’s Pier in Wildwood, and for much lower wages than Americans earned doing the same tasks.
It’s a great deal for U.S. companies, because they don’t have to pay payroll taxes, Social Security or health insurance for J-1s.
One Spring Lake staffing company even has a nifty calculator to help businesses compare the costs of hiring J-1 vs. American workers.
End Article.
We should also revoke some or all green-cards, RETURNING a MASSIVE number of jobs, for Americans, in America.
And then there is the issue of sending our jobs offshore, often implemented by those brought to our country on visa, or those having become a green-card holder, who then coordinate the shipping of entire departments, knowledge-bases, and ultimately, entire industries, out of our country.
And what of, low to medium wage jobs? We can look towards our wide-open borders, and consider the traitors that advocate a nation without enforcement of its own borders, its laws, and disinterest in its own sovereign best-interest, survival.
And yes, it is Americans who have facilitated this betrayal of Americans, by corporations, supported by a sold-out government and press.
I am studying this, and I'm not sure whether it deserves some credit or not. Some such program as this -- maybe several programs like this! -- could certainly be part of some kind of solution!
Meanwhile, a possible danger here is that there will be pressure on to extend the Fed buyout beyond Fannie and Freddie. In other words, just another bail out, this time to buy up left-over toxic losers from big-time banksters, to do them yet another favor.
I think we really need to watch this Fed aspect of the plan, because USD is so precarious, we can't afford to waste any more options ... options are running out, and we (as a nation) may really need some freedom to move in the next couple of years to keep the dollar somewhat stable and avoid the kind of price-of-oil crunch that could really send us beyond even a Great Depression right down into chaos and demise as a nation.
I had NPR News in the background today. They have generally been just horrible on issues about U.S. citizen labor displacement, but today they interviewed a man who told about how he has been working in construction since the 1960s and whenever illegal workers have come into the picture, his wages have been cut and all the rest (periods of unemployment, etc.). Seems to me that this was a first for NPR News, which did recently cover a town in the Carolinas severely impacted when textile mills (not textiles) were exported. In that story, they decidedly backtracked to present the fiction that there are plenty of other jobs out there, and "it's just a matter of retraining."
As to like STEM jobs, no, NPR hasn't even approached that yet.
Krugman pointed to this, but I don't buy it, namely beyond this is covering about 5-6 million tops, not the numbers quoted, of homeowners, another question is how many with that level of underwater mortgages are not just going to walk away. Total underwater mortgages are 10.8M, but the amount of > 25% negative equity is about 11%, so half that.
Glad to see the Teamsters picked up on this for I know, from years of research on guest worker Visas used to decimate the STEM occupations for U.S. citizens, this issue needs audits on every single Stimulus project and auditing generally.
Right now, lobbyists are putting article plant after propaganda claim on foreign guest worker Visas in order to further displace U.S. citizen workers.
We cannot even get the real numbers on foreign guest workers working in the U.S. It's notorious to use loopholes to not hire Americans at every turn.
The H-1B Visa is called the offshore outsourcing Visa because they use these to technology transfer projects out of the country, as well as train foreigners to U.S. citizen level of skills. Literally thousands of Americans have had to train their foreign replacements before being fired.
You can also bet this issue will not been seen on MSNBC, or CNN. It's a media black out on any sort of U.S. citizen labor displacement.
Felix Salmon, over a Reuters, cranks more numbers and shows HARP refinancing will not increase from it's current pathetic rates! Pay attention to people who know how to use a calculator, his article is pretty damning, amplifying this article's conclusion of more smoke and mirrors.
CPI-U was up 3.87% from Sept. to Sept. (Federal Gov. Fiscal year). This is important when you look at the 2012 budget. The original budget was based on inflation being 1.3% for 2011. They increased the estimate to 2.8% in August when they released the Mid-Session Review. Despite the increase for 2011, they left the 2012 - 2021 values unchanged. They include values that average 2.0% and don't exceed 2.1%. Those values are extremely low considering historical trending, current FRB policy, basic economics and the size of our deficits.
Why is this important? Low values compound slower so they have understated the size of the deficits for the "out years" in the budget. Also using lower inflation assumption values allows them to use lower interest rate assumption values. (1% understatement of the rate we pay on our National Debt is equal to $200 billion understatement in Interest Outlays per year! There were 7 years with the National Debt over $20 trillion in the original budget.)
Playing with the numbers to make sure we don't understand how bad things really are?
This is just scary as hell. The FBI has issued a report on gangs, organized criminal activity in the U.S.
It's incredibly detailed, complete with photos, maps, data and yes, we have gangs in the military.
There are a few things to note. Firstly, magically somehow ethnically based gangs are not "PC" for the FBI, they are calling it as it is, we have organized criminal gangs based on ethnicity and national origin.
Secondly, beyond the billions in drug trade, there is another major billion dollar "enterprise" and that is human slavery, trading women, little girls and forcing them into prostitution and other horrifying situations.
This is what happens with the median wage/salary for all of America is $26k a year. Poverty breeds criminal enterprise.
Myself, I am for legalizing marijuana, I just don't find pot a big deal, to me alcohol is way worse and it's clear this is Prohibition all over. Demand is not going to drop. They should legalize it, tax the hell out of it and create new billion dollar cash crops for the U.S. and hit cartels where they live, their pocket books.
Second, I think the U.S. should legalize prostitution. Heavily regulated, health inspectors, and so on. This is the worlds "oldest profession", with so many girls forced into prostitution, clearly there is a high "customer base" out there.
Frankly, make it safe, get kids out of this situation and make it highly lucrative for the people "providing services" directly.
It's just ridiculous to have things be illegal when nothing ever changes. I think we can still talk about morality and healthy behavior and so on, but it's clear on some things, making them illegal is simply making the situation worse and creating huge underground "businesses" that are much, much worse than the original "sin".
Check out the report, the FBI just isn't messing around and you'll get the feeling "you're surrounded" after reading it.
This is good, they went to Jeffrey Immelt's house. article link.
In Fairfield, no doubt he had at least a half dozen houses but singling out Immelt should also send a message to President Obama about his "Jobs Czar".
IMHO, this 'The Big Picture' article is a great review of a major blindspot in media coverage and, of course, in all the political jawing as usual around the 2012 election circus.
This is what people should be discussing, not the stupid stuff about the budget, cutting Social Security, etc.. Even more to the point, this is the agenda that should be flowing from Occupy Wall Street, picked up on by members of Congress who want to survive 2012.
Iceland -- a real functioning democracy -- would have already talked this over and probably would have it all done before the end of the year.
What does it take for Americans to understand that we need real reform?
on nations with export surpluses, first world, with high wages who are doing well. Japan has had so many problems, a similar "housing bubble" like the U.S. plus the Earthquake have really rattled their economy but they are still #3. Germany comes to mind and I'll have to check up on Canada, Singapore, Australia and some others.
I want to say that only the U.S. signs such absurd terms and gives away the U.S., one trade "treaty" at a time, but need to verify.
Japan has reservations about food security. The Japanese government wants to support farmers, especially regarding rice. Rice costs 3 to 5 times more in Japan than in USA.
The United States said Thursday [29 September 2011] it would welcome Japan's participation in a future trans-Pacific trade agreement as it voiced frustration at a lack of new initiatives tying together the two allies.
Japan is debating whether to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact being negotiated by [USA and] nine [other] nations [Japan, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam], but the [Japanese] government faces strong opposition from farmers.
Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said that Japan and the United States needed to find new areas for cooperation ... "
The United States has been alarmed by a lack of momentum in its alliance with Japan, which has had a new prime minister each year since 2006, although many Japanese welcomed the rapid US response to its tsunami and nuclear crisis.
"I'm struck that sometimes when we meet we have huge challenges that we deal with, like how to respond to the nuclear challenge," said Campbell ...
President Barack Obama's administration has promoted the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a new type of trade deal that creates jobs while ensuring stringent labor rights and environmental standards. ...
Japan's Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives has campaigned vigorously against participation, saying the deal would reduce food security in a country where farmers -- especially of rice -- enjoy generous government support.
Campbell said that President Barack Obama spoke about trade issues during September 21 talks with new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in New York.
Same old story = non-solutions to anything
Do you believe this crap -- the implicit premises in all this scheming? Do you believe this "new type of trade deal that creates jobs while ensuring stringent labor rights and environmental standards"? I don't. Specifically ...
* It's pure bull pucky about the Obama administration (Obama's USTR) might conceivably negotiate a "new type of trade deal that creates jobs while ensuring stringent labor rights and environmental standards." That is just NOT in the cards, given the Obama administration's record in "renegotiating" the Columbia FTA for improved labor standards and the reality that USA has yet to get our own house in order with such necessary trade policies as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act.
* I don't see that there is any necessity whatsoever for Japan to stop underwriting its rice farmers in order to advance solutions to what are essentially global nuclear and strategic issues. (Campbell uses the term "new areas of cooperation" as NewSpeak for "destroying Japanese rice production".)
* I don't believe that either President Obama or Prime Minister Noda had any business conducting a conversation that was anything but completely open and recorded in an easily accessible public record concerning trade negotiations. (Neither Obama nor Noda can legitimately claim to be long-term representatives of the working peoples of either nation, especially respecting trade relations!)
* I don't believe that USA "has been alarmed by a lack of momentum in its alliance with Japan," and I don't think it is any of our business that Japan "has had a new prime minister each year since 2006." (Good for them!)
* I don't believe that USA played a particularly key role in responding to the tsunami and related nuclear disaster. Government of the USA probably did what it could, but all that is irrelevant to the apparent push by the Obama administration for the next great US-economy-destroying trade initiative. I don't believe that there is any real problem due to a supposed "lack of new initiatives tying together the two allies."
This TPTP scheme is off to the same old start that has been typical of all the FTAs -- lies, bushwah and idiotic hype. Been there. Done that. Tried that. Doesn't work. End of story.
The economic miracle of postwar Japan was built on a solid policy of protectionism since the formation of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1949. Is it any wonder that Japan is slow to abandon its right to determine its import policies based on its own political priorities?
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was instrumental in Japan's post-war economic recovery. According to some scholars, no other governmental regulation or organization had more economic impact than MITI. “The particular speed, form, and consequences of Japanese economic growth,” Chalmers Johnson writes, “are not intelligible without reference to the contributions of MITI” .... Established in 1949, MITI’s role began with the "Policy Concerning Industrial Rationalization" (1950) .... The extent of the policy was such that if MITI wished to “double steel production, the neo-zaibatsu already has the capital, the construction assets, the makers of production machinery, and most of the other necessary factors already available in-house” ....
MITI also boosted the industrial security by untying the imports of technology from the imports of other goods. MITI's Foreign Capital Law (1950) granted the ministry power to negotiate the price and conditions of technology imports. This element of technological control allowed it to promote industries it deemed promising. The low cost of imported technology allowed for rapid industrial growth. Productivity was greatly improved through new equipment, management, and standardization.
MITI gained the ability to regulate all imports with the abolition of the Economic Stabilization Board and the Foreign Exchange Control Board in August 1952 .... in effect giving MITI full control over all Japanese imports. Power over the foreign exchange budget was also given directly to MITI.
MITI's establishment of the Japan Development Bank (1951) also provided the private sector with low-cost capital for long-term growth. The Japan Development Bank introduced access to the Fiscal Investment and Loan Plan (FILP), a massive pooling of individual and national savings. At the time FILP controlled four times the savings of the world's largest commercial bank. With this financial power, FILP was able to maintain an abnormally high number of Japanese construction firms (more than twice the number of construction firms of any other nation with a similar GDP).
Does that sound like a plan ... or what? (But first we would need a government committed to the well-being of America and of American working families!)
The talk from Washington and the office of the USTR is that this next FTA will somehow be better than all of the others. But the truth is that we are putting the cart before the horse, because we first need to establish a protectionist system for all our trade relations.
My view on trade is like the OWS -- I don't have a simplistic political demand for fixing it, but I do know that there are systemic problems that require systemic reform. And as Buddy Roemer points out about USA politics, it's the money running things that messes up the system.
First, before entering into any more FTAs, we need to establish our own pro-America trade regulation system -- including such legislation as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act (that Boehner's has sunk in the House despite that a bipartisan majority of House members declared their support for the bill).
We need a system that is established under US law that essentially treats all trading partners alike -- that is, a system that establishes standards for the protection of US workers and industry, making distinctions according to objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners. That description (establishing objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners) applies to the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act that came out of the Senate recently only to be torpedoed by Boehner in the House, despite that a bipartisan majority of House members declared their support for the bill.
We need to put a complete halt to the idea that domestic policy can be changed for the better by legislating through the backdoor of 'fast track' FTAs. If a trade agreement requires some change in domestic policy -- for product standards, national defense, patents, environmental law, food and drug safety, employment-labor law and the preservation of USA work force -- then, those areas need to be legislated separately before any trade agreement can be implemented.
In short, opposition to fast-track FTAs by the working people of America must be, and is becoming, total.
The preference system that has been enshrined as a Holy Cow in the WTO bureaucratic mess has been proven dysfunctional and in need of thorough-going reform. We should know by now that we cannot reform the entire world through fast-track 'free' trade agreements, and we should also know by now that the basis of successful trade for USA must be a rational protectionist system.
We need to go all the way back to the philosophical or idealistic foundations of the Uruguay Round and consider how those foundations have been shown to be faulty. To continue building on a poorly laid foundation, when we see structural problems developing everywhere around the world, is insanity.
Registered users: The comments on EP actually have their own RSS feed and literally you can turn comments into a typical comment, start a conversation or you can write "mini-articles". So please add whatever facts, details you saw this week which just are scary for U.S. workers, the economy, middle class and so on.
Our links are a little different, they are more like mini-posts where it is assumed you will click on the embedded link to read the actual article referenced.
This week there is so much going on, this site sure cannot cover it all.
I'll field the Finland thing. I think that probably enough money was given to build the cars, but not enough to resurrect America's entire industrial base which has been totally devastated by decades of shipping jobs overseas. So, Tesla Motors had to go to some country that hadn't entirely destroyed its industry to build them.
I read a quote from Bruce Springsteen the other day, which I'll paraphrase, "Hitler and Hirohito could only dream of doing what our big money men have done."
The kind of heavy protectionism its going to take just to get our country back to where it was pre-Reagan is going to take a revolution in one or both parties, or a revolutionary overthrow of the two party system itself. Because we need heavy protectionism, confiscatory tariff rates for years into the future.
I don't see who benefits, but the banks, when the Fed buys up more mortgage backed securities.
I think a few people will be helped those who want to stay in their homes regardless but I just at best light, do not believe this is anything but a minor addition. We'll see, HAMP was released with much fanfare and that turned out to be a bureaucratic scam rat maze.
I think Obama is up for re-election and he's out for window dressing. I think all of America has been his true corporate lobbyist designed colors at this point. Not that the GOP field is any better (except Roemer looks better and better to me at least).
Arguing against the Bloombergian-replace-an-American-with-a-foreign-national pod-person crowd is like arguing auto-theft ...
... where you are forced to debate the thieves, and their cohorts all the way down the feeding-chain, and the preceding, thief, benefactors, and useful-idiots alike, are heavily funded by the crime-lords and their lobbies, via the ‘take’.
Death-By-Foreign-National is not laissez-faire.
Death-By-Foreign-National is not free-market.
MNCs' [/media/and academia] are not [supposed to be] in charge of U.S. immigration.
Visas such as H-1b, should be immediately suspended. MILLIONS of our better paying jobs would be instantly RETURNED, to Americans, in America.
HOW can anyone speak of returning jobs to Americans, while they ignore, or worse, lobby for, the CONTINUED replacement of MILLIONS of Americans, in American offices and worksites, with foreign nationals?
Start Article:
MUMBAI: US diplomat Peter Haas, recently appointed consul-general in Mumbai, stressed the importance of people-to-people contact in Indo-US ties.
US-India people-to-people connections are more powerful than any government initiative, said Haas. "While 8 lakh Americans travel to India each year, the US issues half a million non-immigration visas to Indians yearly," he said adding that Indian citizens formed the largest group of people to be issued H1B and L visas by the US over the last year.
End Article.
H-1b, L-1s, OPT, J-1, B-1, lotteries, green-cards, and on and on, and on, and on, it is no longer enough to stand as a nation and compete with the world-at-large, but no, the world at large will be brought to you, so that you may compete with them in your own offices and worksites...
Start Article:
The J-1 student work-travel program was created in 1961 to offer work opportunities and cultural enrichment for foreign students, and in the process, create goodwill ambassadors for the United States.
But the kids aren’t working in professional settings that complement their studies.
They’re toiling in warehouses for huge companies such as Hershey’s, which have laid off hundreds of workers, and resorts, from Disney World to Morey’s Pier in Wildwood, and for much lower wages than Americans earned doing the same tasks.
It’s a great deal for U.S. companies, because they don’t have to pay payroll taxes, Social Security or health insurance for J-1s.
One Spring Lake staffing company even has a nifty calculator to help businesses compare the costs of hiring J-1 vs. American workers.
End Article.
We should also revoke some or all green-cards, RETURNING a MASSIVE number of jobs, for Americans, in America.
And then there is the issue of sending our jobs offshore, often implemented by those brought to our country on visa, or those having become a green-card holder, who then coordinate the shipping of entire departments, knowledge-bases, and ultimately, entire industries, out of our country.
And what of, low to medium wage jobs? We can look towards our wide-open borders, and consider the traitors that advocate a nation without enforcement of its own borders, its laws, and disinterest in its own sovereign best-interest, survival.
And yes, it is Americans who have facilitated this betrayal of Americans, by corporations, supported by a sold-out government and press.
I am studying this, and I'm not sure whether it deserves some credit or not. Some such program as this -- maybe several programs like this! -- could certainly be part of some kind of solution!
Meanwhile, a possible danger here is that there will be pressure on to extend the Fed buyout beyond Fannie and Freddie. In other words, just another bail out, this time to buy up left-over toxic losers from big-time banksters, to do them yet another favor.
I think we really need to watch this Fed aspect of the plan, because USD is so precarious, we can't afford to waste any more options ... options are running out, and we (as a nation) may really need some freedom to move in the next couple of years to keep the dollar somewhat stable and avoid the kind of price-of-oil crunch that could really send us beyond even a Great Depression right down into chaos and demise as a nation.
I had NPR News in the background today. They have generally been just horrible on issues about U.S. citizen labor displacement, but today they interviewed a man who told about how he has been working in construction since the 1960s and whenever illegal workers have come into the picture, his wages have been cut and all the rest (periods of unemployment, etc.). Seems to me that this was a first for NPR News, which did recently cover a town in the Carolinas severely impacted when textile mills (not textiles) were exported. In that story, they decidedly backtracked to present the fiction that there are plenty of other jobs out there, and "it's just a matter of retraining."
As to like STEM jobs, no, NPR hasn't even approached that yet.
Krugman pointed to this, but I don't buy it, namely beyond this is covering about 5-6 million tops, not the numbers quoted, of homeowners, another question is how many with that level of underwater mortgages are not just going to walk away. Total underwater mortgages are 10.8M, but the amount of > 25% negative equity is about 11%, so half that.
This story was on FOX news today. The guest worker scams are being exposed, finally.
Glad to see the Teamsters picked up on this for I know, from years of research on guest worker Visas used to decimate the STEM occupations for U.S. citizens, this issue needs audits on every single Stimulus project and auditing generally.
Right now, lobbyists are putting article plant after propaganda claim on foreign guest worker Visas in order to further displace U.S. citizen workers.
We cannot even get the real numbers on foreign guest workers working in the U.S. It's notorious to use loopholes to not hire Americans at every turn.
The H-1B Visa is called the offshore outsourcing Visa because they use these to technology transfer projects out of the country, as well as train foreigners to U.S. citizen level of skills. Literally thousands of Americans have had to train their foreign replacements before being fired.
You can also bet this issue will not been seen on MSNBC, or CNN. It's a media black out on any sort of U.S. citizen labor displacement.
Felix Salmon, over a Reuters, cranks more numbers and shows HARP refinancing will not increase from it's current pathetic rates! Pay attention to people who know how to use a calculator, his article is pretty damning, amplifying this article's conclusion of more smoke and mirrors.
CPI-U was up 3.87% from Sept. to Sept. (Federal Gov. Fiscal year). This is important when you look at the 2012 budget. The original budget was based on inflation being 1.3% for 2011. They increased the estimate to 2.8% in August when they released the Mid-Session Review. Despite the increase for 2011, they left the 2012 - 2021 values unchanged. They include values that average 2.0% and don't exceed 2.1%. Those values are extremely low considering historical trending, current FRB policy, basic economics and the size of our deficits.
Why is this important? Low values compound slower so they have understated the size of the deficits for the "out years" in the budget. Also using lower inflation assumption values allows them to use lower interest rate assumption values. (1% understatement of the rate we pay on our National Debt is equal to $200 billion understatement in Interest Outlays per year! There were 7 years with the National Debt over $20 trillion in the original budget.)
Playing with the numbers to make sure we don't understand how bad things really are?
This is just scary as hell. The FBI has issued a report on gangs, organized criminal activity in the U.S.
It's incredibly detailed, complete with photos, maps, data and yes, we have gangs in the military.
There are a few things to note. Firstly, magically somehow ethnically based gangs are not "PC" for the FBI, they are calling it as it is, we have organized criminal gangs based on ethnicity and national origin.
Secondly, beyond the billions in drug trade, there is another major billion dollar "enterprise" and that is human slavery, trading women, little girls and forcing them into prostitution and other horrifying situations.
This is what happens with the median wage/salary for all of America is $26k a year. Poverty breeds criminal enterprise.
Myself, I am for legalizing marijuana, I just don't find pot a big deal, to me alcohol is way worse and it's clear this is Prohibition all over. Demand is not going to drop. They should legalize it, tax the hell out of it and create new billion dollar cash crops for the U.S. and hit cartels where they live, their pocket books.
Second, I think the U.S. should legalize prostitution. Heavily regulated, health inspectors, and so on. This is the worlds "oldest profession", with so many girls forced into prostitution, clearly there is a high "customer base" out there.
Frankly, make it safe, get kids out of this situation and make it highly lucrative for the people "providing services" directly.
It's just ridiculous to have things be illegal when nothing ever changes. I think we can still talk about morality and healthy behavior and so on, but it's clear on some things, making them illegal is simply making the situation worse and creating huge underground "businesses" that are much, much worse than the original "sin".
Check out the report, the FBI just isn't messing around and you'll get the feeling "you're surrounded" after reading it.
This is good, they went to Jeffrey Immelt's house. article link.
In Fairfield, no doubt he had at least a half dozen houses but singling out Immelt should also send a message to President Obama about his "Jobs Czar".
and vote down bailing out the banks with their money. They seem to be fine too.
Great Saturday round-up as usual, but there's one more great read that is currently EP-linked at The Big Picture (www.ritholtz.com) --
The Only Way to Save the Economy: Break Up the Giant, Insolvent Banks
IMHO, this 'The Big Picture' article is a great review of a major blindspot in media coverage and, of course, in all the political jawing as usual around the 2012 election circus.
This is what people should be discussing, not the stupid stuff about the budget, cutting Social Security, etc.. Even more to the point, this is the agenda that should be flowing from Occupy Wall Street, picked up on by members of Congress who want to survive 2012.
Iceland -- a real functioning democracy -- would have already talked this over and probably would have it all done before the end of the year.
What does it take for Americans to understand that we need real reform?
on nations with export surpluses, first world, with high wages who are doing well. Japan has had so many problems, a similar "housing bubble" like the U.S. plus the Earthquake have really rattled their economy but they are still #3. Germany comes to mind and I'll have to check up on Canada, Singapore, Australia and some others.
I want to say that only the U.S. signs such absurd terms and gives away the U.S., one trade "treaty" at a time, but need to verify.
Japan has reservations about food security. The Japanese government wants to support farmers, especially regarding rice. Rice costs 3 to 5 times more in Japan than in USA.
The following is excerpted from an Agence France Presse (AFP) story (29 September 2011) via TerraDaily.com --
Same old story = non-solutions to anything
Do you believe this crap -- the implicit premises in all this scheming? Do you believe this "new type of trade deal that creates jobs while ensuring stringent labor rights and environmental standards"? I don't. Specifically ...
* It's pure bull pucky about the Obama administration (Obama's USTR) might conceivably negotiate a "new type of trade deal that creates jobs while ensuring stringent labor rights and environmental standards." That is just NOT in the cards, given the Obama administration's record in "renegotiating" the Columbia FTA for improved labor standards and the reality that USA has yet to get our own house in order with such necessary trade policies as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act.
* I don't see that there is any necessity whatsoever for Japan to stop underwriting its rice farmers in order to advance solutions to what are essentially global nuclear and strategic issues. (Campbell uses the term "new areas of cooperation" as NewSpeak for "destroying Japanese rice production".)
* I don't believe that either President Obama or Prime Minister Noda had any business conducting a conversation that was anything but completely open and recorded in an easily accessible public record concerning trade negotiations. (Neither Obama nor Noda can legitimately claim to be long-term representatives of the working peoples of either nation, especially respecting trade relations!)
* I don't believe that USA "has been alarmed by a lack of momentum in its alliance with Japan," and I don't think it is any of our business that Japan "has had a new prime minister each year since 2006." (Good for them!)
* I don't believe that USA played a particularly key role in responding to the tsunami and related nuclear disaster. Government of the USA probably did what it could, but all that is irrelevant to the apparent push by the Obama administration for the next great US-economy-destroying trade initiative. I don't believe that there is any real problem due to a supposed "lack of new initiatives tying together the two allies."
This TPTP scheme is off to the same old start that has been typical of all the FTAs -- lies, bushwah and idiotic hype. Been there. Done that. Tried that. Doesn't work. End of story.
The economic miracle of postwar Japan was built on a solid policy of protectionism since the formation of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1949. Is it any wonder that Japan is slow to abandon its right to determine its import policies based on its own political priorities?
The following is excerpted from Wiki article, "Japanese post-war economic miracle" --
Does that sound like a plan ... or what? (But first we would need a government committed to the well-being of America and of American working families!)
This new FTA is being sold as the "Trans-Pacific Partnership" rather than "Trans-Pacific Free Trade Zone" or "Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement."
Now why would the USTR abandon the term "Free Trade Agreement" when all of the FTAs to date have been so clearly successful?
Yes, "partnership" .... it sounds so .... so .... kum ba ya.
Of course, we have to be all for that, right?
The talk from Washington and the office of the USTR is that this next FTA will somehow be better than all of the others. But the truth is that we are putting the cart before the horse, because we first need to establish a protectionist system for all our trade relations.
My view on trade is like the OWS -- I don't have a simplistic political demand for fixing it, but I do know that there are systemic problems that require systemic reform. And as Buddy Roemer points out about USA politics, it's the money running things that messes up the system.
First, before entering into any more FTAs, we need to establish our own pro-America trade regulation system -- including such legislation as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act (that Boehner's has sunk in the House despite that a bipartisan majority of House members declared their support for the bill).
We need a system that is established under US law that essentially treats all trading partners alike -- that is, a system that establishes standards for the protection of US workers and industry, making distinctions according to objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners. That description (establishing objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners) applies to the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act that came out of the Senate recently only to be torpedoed by Boehner in the House, despite that a bipartisan majority of House members declared their support for the bill.
We need to put a complete halt to the idea that domestic policy can be changed for the better by legislating through the backdoor of 'fast track' FTAs. If a trade agreement requires some change in domestic policy -- for product standards, national defense, patents, environmental law, food and drug safety, employment-labor law and the preservation of USA work force -- then, those areas need to be legislated separately before any trade agreement can be implemented.
In short, opposition to fast-track FTAs by the working people of America must be, and is becoming, total.
The preference system that has been enshrined as a Holy Cow in the WTO bureaucratic mess has been proven dysfunctional and in need of thorough-going reform. We should know by now that we cannot reform the entire world through fast-track 'free' trade agreements, and we should also know by now that the basis of successful trade for USA must be a rational protectionist system.
We need to go all the way back to the philosophical or idealistic foundations of the Uruguay Round and consider how those foundations have been shown to be faulty. To continue building on a poorly laid foundation, when we see structural problems developing everywhere around the world, is insanity.
Registered users: The comments on EP actually have their own RSS feed and literally you can turn comments into a typical comment, start a conversation or you can write "mini-articles". So please add whatever facts, details you saw this week which just are scary for U.S. workers, the economy, middle class and so on.
Our links are a little different, they are more like mini-posts where it is assumed you will click on the embedded link to read the actual article referenced.
This week there is so much going on, this site sure cannot cover it all.
I'll field the Finland thing. I think that probably enough money was given to build the cars, but not enough to resurrect America's entire industrial base which has been totally devastated by decades of shipping jobs overseas. So, Tesla Motors had to go to some country that hadn't entirely destroyed its industry to build them.
I read a quote from Bruce Springsteen the other day, which I'll paraphrase, "Hitler and Hirohito could only dream of doing what our big money men have done."
The kind of heavy protectionism its going to take just to get our country back to where it was pre-Reagan is going to take a revolution in one or both parties, or a revolutionary overthrow of the two party system itself. Because we need heavy protectionism, confiscatory tariff rates for years into the future.
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