Recent comments

  • a long list of successful people in America faced a lot of hate and jelousy and
    ways to destroy them like Michel Jackson, every day a new fake charges till he
    died then they started say good thing about him and of course a long list of other
    people destroyed by the American themselves, now they started with dr. Oz and his name is Mohammed and not Mohammet as always written
    .dr.Oz what ever he says is useful and he make a wonderful show he is attractive and give the information in simple way. please leave him a lone

    Reply to: How Dr. Oz turned a little TV show into a multibillion-dollar bonanza for himself, the health-and-wellness complex, and his "trusted sponsors"   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Scientific American: How the digital economy could lead to secular stagnation --- "The digitization of the economy may have far-reaching implications for the future of growth and employment ... After 2000, when the first wave of IT investment peaked, the demand for new work in the U.S. declined ... There is much that governments can do to prevent stagnation. They can redistribute income to those with a higher propensity to spend. They can also support investment into industries that might foster more new jobs [other] than digital technologies ... Self-employment might become the new normal. The challenge for economic policy is to create an environment that rewards and encourages more entrepreneurial risk taking. A basic guaranteed income, for instance, would help by capping the downside to entrepreneurial failure while boosting spending and combating inequality."

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-prevent-the-end-of-econ...

    Reply to: The GOP’s “Jobs Bill Joke” (and other 2015 LOLs)   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • The largest private employer in all of China and one of the biggest supply chain manufacturers in the world, Foxconn announced it will soon start using robots to help assemble devices at its several sprawling factories across China.

    Apple, one of Foxconn’s biggest partners to help assemble its iPhones, iPads, will be the first company to use [their robots].

    Foxconn said its new “Foxbots” will cost roughly $20,000 to $25,000 to make, but individually be able to build an average of 30,000 devices. The company will deploy 10,000 robots to its factories before expanding the rollout any further.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/foxconn-will-replace-workers-with-robots-...

    Reply to: The GOP’s “Jobs Bill Joke” (and other 2015 LOLs)   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm not sure that increasing the contribution levels of the employers (so that the funds are properly funded) is the one and only solution. Pension funds are invested in private equity pools, hedge funds and stock markets -- and there is a massive amount of fraud in those markets. That's why these pension funds should be backstopped by the government, just like the big bank's risky and reckless gambling with derivatives is (again) backstopped by the government. So guaranteeing the viability of these pension funds WOULD probably be the one and only "real solution". But the spending bill did just the opposite. It allowed the banks a government bailout but not our pensions.

    Reply to: New Spending Bill Puts Pensions at Risk   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Blame it on automation and technology instead of Dems like Schumer doing their corporate sell out while claiming they are for the middle class. At least some GOP make no pretense on who they represent, the uber rich.

    The entire premise that automation is displacing workers belies the 1 million Foxconn employees.

    Reply to: The GOP’s “Jobs Bill Joke” (and other 2015 LOLs)   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • in November, energy commodities were 6.4% lower while food prices rose 0.2% mostly on a 0.4% increase in food away from home...meanwhile, the composite of all commodities less food and energy commodities fell by 0.4%, so the deflator for most of retail sales other than food will be a large negative...

    Reply to: November Retail Sales Solid on Autos, Up 0.7%   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Seeing as this is "The Economic Populist", why doesn't the author of the article discuss the real solution, which would be increasing the contribution levels of the employers so that the funds are properly funded?

    Reply to: New Spending Bill Puts Pensions at Risk   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • From the Washington Post: The Schumer prescription for 2016 (by E.J. Dionne Jr. on December 17, 2014) -- Here’s the heart of Schumernomics: “As technology continues to advance, automation supplants employment across a number of different industries; low-skilled and even high-skilled wage and salary workers lose their jobs to machines. Globalization, enabled by technology, allows businesses and employers to relocate to low-wage markets halfway around the globe — putting downward pressure on wages. While overall, technology has many good effects — making markets more efficient — it cannot be denied it puts a downward pressure on wages." The other part of Schumer’s argument is that only government can expand the bargaining power of the middle class and help it to “adapt to these new forces.”

    From the Center for Economic Research: Schumer Should Focus on Keeping Government from Redistributing Income Upward (by Dean Baker on December 18, 2014) -- "The basic story is that technology and trade have displaced large numbers of middle class workers, and thereby redistributed income upward, but government can redress this problem. Every part of this story is wrong ... It is government that increased inequality ... So Dionne and Schumer are right. We need government [but] we need government to stop pursuing policies to give the rich all the money. Unfortunately, Schumer is not talking seriously about the real problem. He is putting on a silly show."

    (My note) So it's not just "government" per se, but who runs the government and who decides what the government does for us. One government can allow for the offshoring of our jobs and paying us slave wages — while a different government can prevent this from happening. It's only in my humble opinion that "Third Way" Democrats and "moderate" Republicans (who are beholden to corporate interests) are equally guilty of destroying our middle-class.

    Reply to: The GOP’s “Jobs Bill Joke” (and other 2015 LOLs)   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Honored to be here. Wishing everyone the best of the season and the new year.

    Reply to: THE REINDEER SING, a holiday song econoparody   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • i have also posted several of these on Marketwatch 666...i first used "Oh CRE" in 2009, then really got into them when i posted six christmas parodies in December of 2011...they serve as a useful antidote to our normal dour fare...

    Reply to: THE REINDEER SING, a holiday song econoparody   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • I did many a Sunday morning comics featuring your songs so welcome! I hope to put together a holiday post similar this year.

    Reply to: THE REINDEER SING, a holiday song econoparody   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • In an article titled Hunger Games Economy by David Cay Johnston, he writes about the new spending bill: "Far too many mainstream journalists help obfuscate the awful truth."

    Regarding the pension provision, he writes: "That this provision got almost no news coverage shows just how much our leading news organizations cater to economic elites favored by advertisers, and how the current generation of reporters at the best news organizations comes heavily from the upper economic tiers of American society. Reporters and editors whose parents were coal miners, truck drivers and clerks have given way to those with degrees from elite schools, some with trust funds that insulate them from the realities of American life for the vast majority. With that shift comes a predicable change in perspective..."

    I touched on this subject in a post about The White House Correspondents Dinner: "Personally, I could care less about the Hollywood celebrities, but I do wonder about elected politicians and the media rubbing elbows together like that — especially since the Fourth Estate is supposed to be guarding the hen house."

    Reply to: New Spending Bill Puts Pensions at Risk   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Supplement quality varies dramatically but some of what he covers really works. I've fixed all sorts of things with supplements and alternative medicine, etc. Not all of course but many and they work better than any prescription drug.

    I know there must be some sort of something going on though because "green coffee" is obviously B.S. as are many things, i.e. take your supplements with a large "grain of salt".

    You need to shorten your titles! These are way, way too long and are cut off by RSS feeds and so on.

    Reply to: How Dr. Oz turned a little TV show into a multibillion-dollar bonanza for himself, the health-and-wellness complex, and his "trusted sponsors"   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • According to a new study, "Union members are more satisfied with their lives than those who are not members -- and that the substantive effect of union membership on life satisfaction rivals other common predictors of quality of life. Moreover, we find that union membership boosts life satisfaction across all demographic groups ... Organized labor in the United States can have significant implications for the quality of life that citizens experience [but] the ability for labor to effectively organize and bargain collectively has become an increasingly contentious question and source of political conflict." (i.e. Republican union busting. Union membership in the US peaked in 1979.)

     Also, this is interesting (from the Daily Kos): "Tennessee governor and senator get subpoenas over anti-union threats in Volkswagen vote".

    Reply to: The Devaluation of American Workers   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • The Washington Post: The Devalued American Worker (by Jim Tankersley on December 14, 2014) -- "The American economy has stopped delivering the broadly shared prosperity that the nation grew accustomed to after World War II. The explanation for why that is begins with the millions of middle-class jobs that vanished over the past 25 years, and with what happened to the men and women who once held those jobs. Millions of Americans are working harder than ever just to keep from falling behind ... [ Many] workers have been devalued in the eyes of the economy, pushed into jobs that pay them much less than the ones they once had. Today, a shrinking share of Americans are working middle-class jobs, and collectively, they earn less of the nation’s income than they used to. Millions of American jobs disappeared during the 1990, 2001 and 2008 recessions ... For decades after World War II, lost jobs came back when the economy picked up again. These times, they didn’t. And it was a particular sort of job that disappeared permanently in those downturns: jobs that companies could easily outsource overseas or replace with a machine."
    SOURCE:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/14/the-devalued-americ...

    Report: Inequality and Work in the Second Machine Age (by Henning Meyer, December 2014) -- "The rise of intelligent machines is a moment in history. It will change many things, including our economy. But their potential is clear: they will make it possible for human beings to live far better lives. Whether they end up doing so depends on how the gains are produced and distributed. It is possible that the ultimate result will be a tiny minority of huge winners and a vast number of losers. But such an outcome would be a choice, not a destiny. A form of techno-feudalism is unnecessary. Above all, technology itself does not dictate the outcomes. Economic and political institutions do. If the ones we have do not give the results we want, we must change them."
    SOURCE:
    http://www.social-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/RE4-Meyer.pdf

    Reply to: The Devaluation of American Workers   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Frances Coppola, and economist who writes for Forbes and elsewhere, writes about her mother's dementia on her own blog: - Broken windows, broken lives -- Our ability to prolong life far outstrips our ability to improve its quality, and an increasing proportion of our economic activity must therefore go towards caring for the frail elderly. But we have not addressed the ethics of keeping people alive for extended periods of time after their minds and personalities have disintegrated. In 2008, Baroness Warnock suggested that people with dementia had a "duty to die". Her remarks were greeted with horror: yet we do need to have this discussion. For in reacting with shock and horror to the very idea of ending someone's life, we are failing to see the human tragedy of dementia. The tragedy is not so much for the person concerned, although in the early stages many dementia sufferers are fully aware of what is happening to them and some are horrified - as my mother was in the months after her operation, though she now seems happy. But the real, enduring tragedy is for the families: husband and wife torn apart, family relationships destroyed, and yet no closure, no funeral, no ability to say good-bye to the person that they loved, because even though that person is gone the shell is still alive, and must be cared for at increasing expense. We are caught in a trap of endless grief. I do not want to see my mother die. But it might be better for everyone if she did. I fear for my father, if her life is prolonged: five years of this, and he loses his home. Is this what she would want for him? And what if he becomes ill or frail himself, and needs care? How would he - would WE - afford both her care and his? What of the children who are dependent on us? In diverting resources to such extended elderly care, are we crippling the development of the next generation? Do we have our priorities right?

    i dont know if i have an opinion about this...my own parents, 92 and 90 years of age, were moved into an extended care facility this summer by my brothers and sister, without consulting me...neither is incompetent, but my mother has had a small stroke and has some difficulty walking, and my father couldn't care for her on his own...they seem alright now, but i don't know what i'd think if they deteriorated past the point of being able to communicate..

    Reply to: Darkness at Sunrise: A multinational corporation warehouses dementia patients for $74,000 a year   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Politicians Preparing Financial System to teeter on oblivion AGAIN with new permissive banking regulations while delaying implementation of the recently SEC approved “Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act)”.

    It’s a question of integrity and accountability in paying us unemployed who bare the weight as the financial system comes back from teetering on the edge of oblivion due to some thoughtless decisions by those who are well insulated from poverty.

    Since I now work 4 part time jobs in my attempt to make my $600 monthly rent payment and put groceries on the table, I guess I am supposed to be convinced that prosperity is here. Too bad that one of my contract jobs sometimes doesn’t even pay for gas needed to deliver Edible Arrangements, another limits my auto dealership test drives to one location visit per year while payment for my bank secret shopper efforts are undependably invoiced and paid 60 days later unlike my fourth company where I get paid every 2 weeks for trimming hedges.

    It could still be worse; last year after scrapping up $500 to get my DirecTV satellite certification, I begged and borrowed for 3 months to pay gas and tolls to do installs before I finally started receiving installments of my wages due.

    And then there is the shortage of my unpaid truck driving wages due since workers desperate for income must accept risks of non-payment issues. Since Federal, State or Local authorities do not enforce the laws when trucking companies cheat the drivers, paychecks usually fall far short of compensation wages I actually earned.

    Complaints of extensive promised but unpaid diverted loads in the Texas oil country fall on deaf ears at the Department of Labor where they focus on “minimum wage issues” to companies who stretch the truth and mislead drivers about allowable axle spreads to leave the drivers personally liable for the thousands in overweight fines merely to be replaced with more of the trusting naive willing to take a chance to put food on their family’s table.

    And the local law enforcement who decline to prosecute the fully documented thousands in bad check’s paid to the drivers or those punished for refusing to drive CDL risking overweight, poorly maintained death traps and fatigue conditions potentially endangering the unsuspecting public.

    It’s a question of integrity and accountability in paying us unemployed who bare the weight as the financial system comes back from teetering on the edge of oblivion due to some thoughtless decisions by those who are well insulated from poverty.

    Reply to: Those Fabricated Jobs   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • bill mcbride's graph shows the recent history, and it looks like auto sales are peaking again, though it may have another year or so...
    http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/12/us-light-vehicle-sales-increas...

    from an auto town, i've watched this boom bust cycle all my life, never could figure out why everyone goes out & buys new cars at the same time every six / eight years

    Reply to: November Retail Sales Solid on Autos, Up 0.7%   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • I guess they have a long way to increase since auto sales imploded in 2008, but still how long can this go on?

    Reply to: November Retail Sales Solid on Autos, Up 0.7%   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • looking at the revisions to October sales in this month's report and comparing them to the table from the advance report for October sales as released last month, we find that a large factor in the revision of October's sales from an increase of 0.3% to an increase of 0.5% was the revision of sales of motor vehicles and parts, from the previously reported increase of 0.5% to an increase of 0.8%, with car dealers specifically seeing a 0.9% increase; but even so, October's sales without automotive sales are still now up 0.5% vs the previously reported 0.3% increase..other retail businesses seeing sizable upward revisions to last months sales included the miscellaneous store category, where October sales were revised from an increase of 0.5% to a 1.3% jump, sales at specialty stores, ie, sporting goods, book and music stores, which have been revised from an increase of 1.2% to an increase of 1.8%; sales at electronic and appliance stores, which were revised from a drop of 1.6% to a decrease of 1.0%, sales at restaurants and bars, who saw sales rise 1.4% rather than the 0.9% first reported, and sales at furniture stores, which were revised from the original 0.2% gain to an increase of 0.7%...meanwhile, sales at drug stores increased by just 0.2%, not the 0.7% first reported, while October sales at non-store retailers were revised down from a 1.9% jump to an increase of 1.6%...

    Reply to: November Retail Sales Solid on Autos, Up 0.7%   9 years 11 months ago
    EPer:

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