Recent comments

  • Really, Nobelist Lucas is just re-hashing the samo Milton Friedman analysis of the Great Depression -- apparently attempting to provide cover for the bankrupt Republican critique of the bankrupt Democratic attempt to revitalize a zombie-like Keynesian policy in a corporate globalized world system. (As elsewhere here in EP, "creating jobs WHERE?")

    This is all available through Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress --

    Yglesias at ThinkProgress

    or at --

    University of Washington
     

    I cannot see how Lucas can say that the U.S. is "imitating European policies on labor markets, welfare, and taxes." Nor can Yglesias, who effectively ridicules Lucas' recent 'work' as "an essay about Barack Obama and how, contrary to conventional wisdom, he’s far and away the most significant policymaker in the history of the republic."
    __________
     

    (I reference here page numbers of Lucas PDF, appears to be something like a PPT file that he used for his lecture.)

    Can we meaningfully talk about "European policies" unless we are talking about the Euro? Labor union membership in France, for example, is a much smaller percentage than in Germany, where unions for about a century have been strong and elaborately structured -- like industry itself. In Germany, even the enlisted members of the armed forces are unionized!

    Similarly, the medical systems and related payment (or insurance) systems are hardly uniform across Europe. This also applies to other institutions of the 'welfare state', or, in European terms, to 'social democracy'. Moreover, it is impossible to compare those institutions in a small nation like Estonia with a nation like Germany or Italy. And, IMO, comparisons of larger nations like Germany and Italy are also meaningless. Germany is like the apple while Italy is like the orange.

    I think the only meaningful comparison between U.S. and Europe is between the Fed and the relatively new European Central Bank.

    So, my 2¢ is this: the causes of the Great Recession are systemic. I refer to the necessary reforms put forward by the American Monetary Institute.

    www.monetary.org/

    I note that the People's Bank of China has been pursuing a comparatively strict monetarist policy, even as China appears to be moving toward "European" ways such as minimum wage legislation.

    I think that Lucas' analysis of Fed policy in early years of the Great Depression and in first decade of 21st Century is okay, although not contributing anything new. Also, his understanding about the importance of government providing a stable background ("centrally important") is sound, along with free-market competition (p. 5). Likewise, Lucas' understanding of the positive contribution of "a common [national] civilization" (social cohesion) in countries like Japan and and in continental Europe (p. 8).

    However, Lucas' opinion that there is a substantial persistent gap, dating specifically to the 1970s, between per capita income in the U.S. compared with many other countries (p. 7) is a specious example of the problematic and challenging science of econometrics (pseudo-science when used with bias). I believe that the numbers used in the graph are dependent on "purchasing power parity" (PPP) calculations that are estimates at best and subject to bias.

    My suspicion is that Lucas is cherry-picking his data. Would a Nobelist do such a thing?

    Reply to: They Got Away with It   13 years 5 months ago
  • Even Nobelist Robert Lucas, an apologist for Fed actions in 2008, (and blaming the larger problems on policies of the Obama administration), points to centrality of Lehman Brothers collapse.

    From Lucas' PPT, widely available as PDF from www.econ.washington.edu/news/millimansl.pdf

    Economically, the routine use of short term borrowing is identical to the issue of demand deposits: “you give me cash today, take it back (withdraw it, decline to roll it over) whenever you like”

    People extending short term credit to Lehmann and other investment banks to get a slightly higher return than the T-bill rate did not think (or did not admit) that they were taking on risk, and neither did those who extended credit to them, accepting their Lehmann paper as collateral

    In effect, “shadow banking system” was created, uninsured and unregulated

    The economics of the 2008 “credit freeze” following the Lehman Brothers failure were identical to the economics of the 1930s bank runs

    The effects of the credit freeze were also similar to the effects of the bank runs of the 1930s

    A part of the effective supply of liquidity supply had vanished, other money-substitutes now became suspect, everyone wanted to get into government-issued or government-insured assets: reserves, currency, and insured deposits

    Could see this in the widening spreads between treasury bills and commercial paper, between government and corporate bonds, etc.

    A flight to currency? Not exactly. But a flight to government promises of currency, current or future

    All of this similar to earliest stages of the Great Depression

    Lucas opines, by way of a his questionable interpretation of some cherry-picked evidence, that the great culprit in the lasting phenomena of a Great Depression or Great Recession was (is) anti-business sentiment of the American people. (???) Based on 1930s popular magazine coverage that I have seen (old, fading and yellowed), what Lucas claims now is exactly what was claimed by many economic popularizers (NOT populists) in the 1930s.

     

    Reply to: They Got Away with It   13 years 5 months ago
  • Pretty astounding isn't it? Women need to stand up, call out this bullshit as pure discrimination, just like other women did in the Medical fields, the legal fields and Wall Street, finance.

    That is one unreal statistic and it gets no press. See that statistic in something like teaching or health care and the entire country would be up in arms.

    Reply to: New CBO Immigration Study - 12% of Population Foreign Born, 4% Here Illegally   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • All you self-righteous idiots out there: You live with a chronic disease that takes your whole life away - then whine to me about how the prospect of affordable health care is socialism!

    I have a chronic disease, lost my job, my health insurance, and now live on a pittance, where I have to make daily choices about whether to afford housing, food, or medicine. I am not fat, lazy, or ignorant. I don't live in any kind of luxury by anyone's standards and I never did. I wasn't raised to think it's ok to take public aid of any kind. I have exhausted all avenues of Federal, State, and local aid and am now out of options. I'm not eligible for Medicare until next year and considered 'uninsurable' by insurance companies due to 'prexisting' conditions. I don't know what I will do in between now and then - how I will get my prescriptions or get the blood draws that are necessary to monitor my conditions.

    So, that's a long way of saying your rhetoric is meaningless compared to the hard reality of what I deal with every day. And I'm not the only one by far. ANY kind of health care that I didn't have to fight tooth and nail for and pay untold sums for - would be a real blessing. It would mean one less taxing fight every day. How can you say to me that I don't deserve it? That, through my struggles, I haven't earned the right to have good, affordable health care? Because that's exactly the message you just sent by what you wrote.

    You know, the problem with people like you - and reflected by the whole of American society - is that you're selfish. You don't care about anyone else's suffering so long as your precious way of life isn't impacted. Shame on you! Shame on us all! This isn't the America I grew up knowing :-(

    Reply to: 26% of Americans Do not have Health Insurance   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • Thank you, Bob Oak, you're about the only one who gets it about women, tech fields, and current policies.

    Reply to: New CBO Immigration Study - 12% of Population Foreign Born, 4% Here Illegally   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • First, what the hell with so many people not having a high school education? I guess that's what happens with education isn't a government mandate.

    But the drug cartels in Mexico make Iraq and Afghanistan look like a resort town in the Mediterranean. Who can live with that going on?

    Seriously, it's something like 30,000 gruesome murders and so on, which I believe is way rivals the death toll of two war zones.

    But bottom line, there is incredible spin out there, by the special interest groups that unlimited migration or excessive immigration "helps the economy". It's crap.

    there is another that claims "only immigrants" innovate and so on, also crap. We have about 13 different visas for the world's geniuses, but people fail to remember the U.S. had incredibly strict immigration policies and a host of innovations happened at that time. Innovation has much more to do with social and government supports, such as cheap, quality education, corporations who fully support R&D, universities which support research and cultures which enable it's citizens.

    That's the difference, not flooding a nation with "immigrants". I mean why do they think Tesla came to the U.S. in the first place? It as the culture, the environment is why he did.

    Reply to: New CBO Immigration Study - 12% of Population Foreign Born, 4% Here Illegally   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • Wonderful writeup.

    I wish to God the people in charge were listening.

    I expect though that the ethnic lobbies and the Democrats who love them will ignore this, since it's reliable information that's detrimental to their cause.

    It will only confirm to the cheap labor lobby that they are succeeding without any effective counterforce against them.

    In the meantime, average Americans will suffer.

    People in Mexico will suffer too as all the PR efforts go to make life easier for those who managed to make it here. The ones left behind in Mexico get no attention at all from their own people here. Why doesn't anybody picket all those Mexican consultates for Mexico's rich to pay their fair share of taxes as well as better schools and more jobs at home?

    Funny how that works out, isn't it?

    Reply to: New CBO Immigration Study - 12% of Population Foreign Born, 4% Here Illegally   13 years 5 months ago
  • Last comment from you, misinformation troll.

    The trade deficit with China is $300 billion, by fast the largest.

    trade deficit report overview has the graph.

    There are 3 million documented jobs lost to China from 2001 to 2009.

     

     

    Hello, I love it when evidence is overwhelming various agenda interest trolls come around and claim it's scapegoating.

    Our government maybe suckers but this site is not and it appears neither is the USITC commission.

    and this report is just on IPR, we haven't even linked to the many others on currency manipulation, dumping, manipulation of one's VAT, tariff schedule and other unfair trade tactics coming out of China.

    Your last comment China troll, for you appear to be trying to post so much misinformation, including trying to throw out false statistics in this post.

    I'm sure you have some sort of monetary agenda, maybe a China importer, or EE trader or whatever, but go find a fictional refuge, something perhaps from CNBC, for this site ain't it.

    Be sure to claim that by outsourcing American jobs we benefit through cheap plastic goods and such. Yeah, right, a $1000 yearly savings really equals a $50k a year job.

    No more misinformation allowed, this site is reality based.

    Reply to: China Ripoffs Cost U.S. $48 billion and 923,000 Jobs in 2009   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • There is no question that America has a problem. But scapegoating China or anyone else externally is not going to do anything for Americans.

    China's entire trade with America is only about $300 Billion. To put that in perspective, after the 2008 debacle, instead of throwing the banking frauds in jail and confiscating their trillions in ill-gotten wealth, instead Washington forked over another $2.5 Trillion in illegal subsidies to the financial "industry" (one which manufactures only fraud). Now if instead giving that money (that Americans don't have, ironically) to the banksters, if just half of that was spent on American infrastructure, today America would be running full employment.

    WHOSE fault is that? You can't blame the Chinese on that one. The Chinese have no vote on how American pols spend trillions that Americans don't know that they have, to be paid back by many future generations yet unborn.

    It IS the system. The talk about the superiority of democracy, of being able to get rid of nonperforming leaders, is illusory, when all the leading elites BELONG with and are part of the same kleptocracy.

    Reply to: China Ripoffs Cost U.S. $48 billion and 923,000 Jobs in 2009   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • Just because Oregon has the worst press corp. of almost any state, doesn't mean Regence is getting away with this one.

    You're full of shit. Insurance companies can and do deny care by denying coverage and they do it every day.

    You're lucky the press in Oregon sucks so badly, else, instead of 150 people protesting, you would have gotten all 59,000 policy holders there, blasting this B.S.

    Bottom line, you're screwing individual health care policy holders because you can. There is no lobbyist out there, representing individuals to fight back. You can see by your own numbers and anyone reading this, I want nationwide statistics, on the number of individual health policy holders dropping like a stone. You're busy, through expense, dropping people from their health insurance defacto, by raising rates to the point no one can afford the premiums.

    100k to 59k and I'm positive the number was 89k just a year and a half ago. Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon is busy purging their individual health policy holder rolls by reducing coverage, dramatically and raising the premiums.

    If someone actually gets sick on your individual health plans, they are bankrupt, period, thus will not be able to pay the premium and will be dropped, de facto.

    Nice plant Regence BlueCross BlueShield troll. We know all about paid staffers out hitting social media to spin information.

    Reply to: Screwing the Self-Employed   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • It's terrible that individuals get no tax break for taking the responsibility - and making the sacrifice - of having health insurance. This is something that public officials could change. The rich get tax breaks. Why not people buying their own coverage.

    By the way, states already have anti-trust laws against insurers. The federal stuff is just grandstanding. Do something real for people. Give them the same tax break that employer groups have.

    At the Regence hearing, it seemed like people weren't listening to themselves. They talked about the high cost of health care and don't seem to connect that with the reason health insurance costs a lot. You can't sell cheap health insurance to cover high costs. Just doesn't work that way. What's really ironic is to hear doctors talk about health insurers denying care. They can't deny care. Only doctors can deny care.

    Reply to: Screwing the Self-Employed   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • FOXCONN, which has become the poster boy for exploitative, cheap labor in China, has just delisted and is reporting a loss. Yes, a loss, while having the contract to make the most popular cell phone and tablets, Apple products.

    Previously our Chinese friend claimed these exporting Chinese manufacturers were making only a 2.5% profit margin.

    Now overall, no way, but in terms of slave labor conditions in China, I can believe it. It's not just Foxconn with horrific working conditions, there have been many stories of slave labor, barracks, working 120 hours a week and getting shafted on meager pay in China.

    That said, if you go to Silicon valley, almost any engineer, they too are working greater than 80 hours, sometimes 120 hours a week with a salary that is supposed to be 40 hours and vacation that one dare not take.

    That said, IP theft is a different story. Foxconn is a manufacturer, which has the Apple contracts. The actual IP, design is coming from Apple. Now argue what you will on that score and watch the patent wars in Cell phone land all you will, but Foxconn has no rights to Apple's intellectual property.

    Apple, on the other hand, do you think it's just so cool that your iPhone has blood on it's hands?

    If anyone has calculated how much more the iPhone would be with the same profit margins, but manufactured in the U.S. with solid wages, I'd like to see it.

    Anyway, that 2.5% profit margin on average, he has to be referring to production, manufacturing, outsourcing in so many words, where multinationals do exploit workers...they exploit any worker, whereever they can find their mega cheap labor, be it in China, Vietnam, Brazil or Romania.

    Reply to: China Ripoffs Cost U.S. $48 billion and 923,000 Jobs in 2009   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • It has to be online, free, known it's online by the copyright holders, embeddable. I've seen Bound for Glory and Woody Guthrie gave voice to the people during the Great Depression, but I think the film is owned by FOX or Turner or something and it's not online for free. There are some streaming sites which fund themselves through commercials, I'll go hunt for it to see if I can get it, but legally. I wish more content would figure out a way to make revenues upon view, but we cannot violate copyright and ownership laws if it's not. It's a bummer, since we're a niche site, so we automatically are a guaranteed audience.

    Also, anyone making any documentary about economics, workers, trade and so on, not only is it a labor of love, to produce a quality documentary costs major money. Would be nice to give them revenues in the form of commercials or whatever, but unfortunately the Internet hasn't figured a lot of this out.

    Reply to: The Jobs Situation is Dismal - More on the May Unemployment Report   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • A truly inspiring biography of Woody Guthrie.
    It shows him to be an awesome, effective labor organizer. Ain't making Woodies anymore.
    AMC used to show the flick on Woody's birthday in
    February. But you know how it is now..

    Reply to: The Jobs Situation is Dismal - More on the May Unemployment Report   13 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • Anyone wants to nominate their favorite, which I've got yours, Why We Fight, let me know.

    Reply to: The Jobs Situation is Dismal - More on the May Unemployment Report   13 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • I wanted to see "Why we Fight" for years and ended up watching it here. That was pretty cool.

    Reply to: The Jobs Situation is Dismal - More on the May Unemployment Report   13 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • All these big corporations are so gung-ho to lay Americans off, squeeze more work out of courrent staff, outsource, get in cheap foreign workers.

    If Profit is King, then why deal with China?

    I presume in other low-cost countries these issues are present but not as bad. I know China is not cheapest anymore.

    So what's the real story here? Why are American companies volunteering to be robbed/

    Reply to: China Ripoffs Cost U.S. $48 billion and 923,000 Jobs in 2009   13 years 6 months ago
  • If the Chinese companies manufacture goods, then how are Amricans in any position to find out any secrets of Chinese manufacturers?

    On the other hand, it seems to me that Chinese manufacturers have daily access to all the details involved in American companies' products.

    The Chinese manufacturer could easily make copies of American products, slap a Chinese label on it and sell it as their own product.

    Reply to: China Ripoffs Cost U.S. $48 billion and 923,000 Jobs in 2009   13 years 6 months ago
  • If we create new products in the US and manufacture them here too, that should eliminate your complaints.

    It would also solve our high unemployment problem.

    Please advise the Chinese government that the best solution to this problem is for them to forbid all manufacturing in China by American companies.

    Don't delay. Kick all the Americans out by 2013. If you want, you can stop your students from getting their technical MS and PhD degrees here too.

    Then all the ideas you have can be developed by you. And all the ideas we have can be developed by us, right here in America, by Americans.

    Thank you for your assistance.

    Reply to: China Ripoffs Cost U.S. $48 billion and 923,000 Jobs in 2009   13 years 6 months ago
  • No, we have a good 3 million jobs, directly tabulated, as a loss due to China. (Scott, Robert EPI), then if one looks at productivity, that's also bunk because there is some new research which shows outsourcing, that's stealing American jobs, is impacting not only productivity equations, but also phantom GDP.

    In fact I was going to write up a post overviewing some of this research out of the BEA and other economists.

    Look this site doesn't write fiction, so read the report and weep. The USITC isn't reporting anything new, it's widely known and we haven't even gotten to China manipulating U.S. immigration system to get into research labs and universities....

    the domestic IP theft, while inside the U.S., is also well documented.

    Reply to: China Ripoffs Cost U.S. $48 billion and 923,000 Jobs in 2009   13 years 6 months ago
    EPer:

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