Recent comments

  • Immigration reform (sic) will only exacerbate the problem by enabling the wealthy to hoard even more dollars as they pay workers less and less for their effort.

    Reply to: Cash Hoarding becomes an Addiction   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Economics can be a more hard science in that there are laws, they correlate to large statistics and there are also mathematical models in economics. The problem is we have so many BS artists since the topic involves money and who gets it.

    In the press it becomes even worse. If you're a ME, that's great, it means you can read some of the Academic papers out there and understand the mathematics with a look up into that particular mathematical model. You're way ahead of the game.

    But generally speaking people have a very hard time with any number. The concept of $1 trillion and just how much larger that is than $1 billion in terms of "feel of scale" "feeling of proportion" flies right by the general public.

    I'm pretty sure many go into some sort of brain fog the minute they even see a number. I found this out when showing ratios as fractions on this site. Comments were thick and furious and I couldn't figure out what the issue was until it dawned on me I had presented a productivity relationship as a fraction in the article.

    We get snowstorms of bullshit with clearly biased data assumptions, behavior assumptions. My favorite spin is when I see economic mathematical models where they bias the math by setting, say 5 coefficients to zero to bias the result. Obviously those coefficients are not zero but who can dig that deep to see what was done? Another nice trick is to limit the subset space, i.e. the range of the data inputs into the "system" to be 1/4th of what they should be in reality.

    Like say you design a building and then you say "fire will never happen" in your model, or "wind above 10 MPH will never happen" and thus cut corners around those claims in the design. That's what some of these lobbyist economic whore cats do in these white papers.

    Case in point is labor participation rates. Right now we have a "war" going on in Economics land on the cause for record lows. We're getting all sorts of spin, where they take a biased time window of data, or take say one period only which shows what they want it to be, instead of say a 5 year or 10 year period and so on.

    Spinning a statistical web of lies. I find it offensive. It's one thing to just make a mistake, happens all of the time, another to purposefully use one's craft to tell tall tales and outright lies.

    Reply to: Inequality: From 1776 to the Present   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Economics is called a science, and in many ways I'm not sure why. I have a mechanical engineering degree, there was no debating Newton's Law of motion. But economists are constantly debating the correct policy. Politics is controlled by entities with the most money thus creating economic policies that benefit them. I see no "science" at all in the creation of these policies.

    Perhaps economics is not a "science", at least in the way I was taught the science.

    Reply to: Inequality: From 1776 to the Present   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • we know how people obtained homes during the housing bubble, by signing up for loans they could not possibly afford. Look at cash investors then insane places like SF, LA, D.C., etc. drive up national median price way up.

    Reply to: Existing Home Sales Soaring Highs Deceptive   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • if home prices are associated with median wages it is unimaginable to me that home prices can rise. The median wage has been flat or declining for the better part of 30 years, explain how home prices ca rise?

    i think the northeast, where i live, has a higher foreclosure rate than the rest of the country due to the laws in these "liberal" states.

    thx

    Reply to: Existing Home Sales Soaring Highs Deceptive   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Cato is a front group for spun "white papers", which resemble economic papers but are really not. There are a host of these types of groups out there, but they bias their publications, it is most often boilerplate for lobbyist agendas behind them.

    On the left, we can say Brookings Institute is similar, but this is why we never quote these groups, because they are not economists, they are a flurry of white paper for lobbyists.

    The list is very long, and in dealing with any of these "think tanks", one needs to read the paper from FIRST PRINCIPLES, and that means going down to the data assumptions and equations, to see the spin. Once in a while a legitimate paper is published, but it's the exception, not the norm.

    That's very tough for most people do not have an economics background or advanced statistics and differential equations, also often used, etc.

    There are not enough hours in the day for one person to debunk the flurry of white paper snow spin, even with these skills, so generally speaking be careful who you cite.

    Even within Academia itself, there is lobbyists/corporate grant funded white paper snow spin research that is not really research. This is a horror for corruption winding it's way through Academia will erode the Scientific, objective methods most necessary for any legitimate research.

    Reply to: Inequality: From 1776 to the Present   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • We did a piece of hedge funds as landlords, it's not pretty and because they are incorporated, almost no recourse for renters as they completely shirk rental law,renter's rights, which are beyond weak in most states.

    Reply to: Existing Home Sales Soaring Highs Deceptive   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • NBC: "Insatiable demand from hedge funds, private equity investors and foreign buyers, all armed with ready cash, are elbowing first-time buyers out of the housing market."

    http://www.nbcnews.com/business/all-cash-offers-crushing-first-time-home...

    Reply to: Existing Home Sales Soaring Highs Deceptive   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ...Why Do So Many People Feel Poor?

    Bill Gates: "By 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world. Almost all countries will be what we now call lower-middle income or richer."

    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/if-the-world-is-gett...

    Reply to: The World's Top 1% has 50% of the Wealth   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • You're thinking too much inside the box, and only considering what people need. The truth is people don't need anywhere close to even 28,000 a year to live happily, they just want more to live a more comfortable life. However Bill Gates does need 78 billion dollars to live the lifestyle he wants, and in fact he probably doesn't have enough. The issue is his wants are much bigger than ours, eradicating polio, malaria, HIV, etc. is extremely expensive. Also where does the majority get the right to take what's his? If he had less money because the government took it to rebuild our roads or bridges, you could make a very compelling argument that children died of treatable diseases because the majority in the US cared about smoother roads and shorter commutes. We should let the people who earn the money choose how to allocate as much of it as possible.

    Reply to: Cash Hoarding becomes an Addiction   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Nice laundry list of BPO/outsourcers and glad to see people waking up to what IBM is these days, a shadow on their former self, in the business of labor arbitrage. They just sold off another major division to China, no surprise.

    INS is now USCIS, and if they do anything, no matter how egregious you're right, it's a pay to play fine.

    We should not leave out U.S. companies like Microsoft, Intel, TI, Oracle, Facebook, etc. They also labor arbitrage engineers, thrash their workforce and use foreign guest worker imports to do it. They seem to be most interested in systemic age discrimination and wage arbitrage.

    The statistics are showing H-1B is also used as a tool to continue the incredibly bad, sex discrimination in S&T, in particular CS/EE/CE. Odds on hostile workplace for women techies as well. Really creepy that those companies who ignore keeping personal relationships out of the workplace have women techies, all noticeably young we might add while normal corporate cultures who do not allow such shenanigans do not. One needs to prove this statistically but it is a side comment on a real, very disgusting coincidence and obvious female career hidden sinkhole trap.

    Is should be no surprise that Microsoft has been firing U.S. citizen techies and replacement them with foreign imports for years and we can see the results in their terrible OS products as of late.

    One has to wonder if this is reverse discrimination for Microsoft does sponsor green cards, i.e. anyone who is not Hindu Indian need not apply?

    Regardless even the major R&D based tech companies do this, although the BPO industry it is mush more brazen and one would have to be statistically blind to not see that fact.

    Reply to: Obamacare Outsourced   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I read your article on ObamaCare in the NY Post and agree with 100%. This is how things get done in corporate world and now the government is in it too. CGI is just like Accenture, other side of the same coin and so is IBM and other companies. Companies like Wipro, Infosys, Tata(TCS), Cap gemini, Deloitte, IBM, Accenture have been in the business of Labor Arbitrage for over 15 years now and that is how they have grown in to Mega Billion dollar companies. The point is to accomplish this, they have defrauded the INS and the IRS. INS by bringing in Business Visas and L1 visas and the IRS by not paying taxes on this categories which technically should have been for H1B classifications. The INS woke up to it after 10 years and just fined them $30M, a drop in a bucket for a company of this size. They have gained unfair competitive advantage because of this and their business has been thriving because of this. I have been writing to different newspaper publications for the last 5 years but to no avail.

    Reply to: Obamacare Outsourced   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I immigrated to US from Asia but I completely agree that those companies are abusing American generosity - they (the executives) use every loopholes and bribe all the way to the top just like their country of origin. There is no honesty and they do not play by rule. They bring H1-B workers directly en mass from INDIA instead of hiring American workers or talented students from top US universities! American jobs are destroyed, middle class is disappearing very fast...What can be done to have our policymaker's attention to fix this MESS? What can be done to make our CEOs/so-called MBA-executives think long term? Currently their goal is so short sighted, they just want to minimize the cost outsourcing everything possible, increase quarterly share value and build a great resume for themselves! They are not thinking about this great country and its future!

    Reply to: Obamacare Outsourced   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • But the people that would then share it would be the ones who actually do the work, not the ones who, frankly, don't contribute a whole lot now except for being someone that "owns".

    I'm quite sure that joe or jane worker can shoulder the hardships of "owning", along with their having to do all the work anyway.

    ;)

    Reply to: The World's Top 1% has 50% of the Wealth   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Mr. Gates made his initial fortune in the United States ... it's great that he's trying to manufacture a third world toilet with all his excess billions (made in the US), but it would really be great if he gave a damn about the poor people in the country that allowed him to accumulate his extraordinary wealth.... i'm sure he doesn't have to look that far for people in the US of A that could use a decent paying living wage job...

    Thanks Bill

    Reply to: Corporations Hoard Cash While Americans Go Without A Job   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • But the people that would then share it would be the ones who actually do the work, not the ones who, frankly, don't contribute a whole lot now except for being someone that "owns".

    I'm quite sure that joe or jane worker can shoulder the hardships of "owning", along with their having to do all the work anyway.

    ;)

    Reply to: The World's Top 1% has 50% of the Wealth   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I work for one of the poster children for outsourcing. This company was first cornered on TV by 60 minutes for outsourcing to India. My org chart shows roughly 25 people in the U.S. and 43 in India. The budget for this is really large -- by the way, I haven't had a raise in over seven years.

    The issue I have is quality. For most of the remote work, it takes at least one U.S. based engineer to clean up after the outsourced person. In some cases it takes three or four, depending upon the complexity. This means that product quality also suffers from outsourcing, not just the U.S. employment levels.

    The latest is that all our hiring is restricted to "engineers in the beginning of their careers". It doesn't take a genius to figure out what is happening there. The pool of talent is aging (and their experience is also aging) and there is a desire to replace them with younger, cheaper bodies -- now where would those come from? Don't think "recent U.S. graduates", think H1B1 visas.

    Sad.

    Reply to: Corporations Hoard Cash While Americans Go Without A Job   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • The facts of the article are not in dispute. I've heard back from NYP and it seems the article was well received, quite popular.

    Only techies focus on typos ;), don't worry, the facts on STEM graduation rates and how Americans who are extremely skilled and highly educated in the best universities in the world are not obtaining employment in their chosen field of study were heard loud and clear.

    NYP has a huge circulation, national readership and clearly it is important to you to get these facts out there, that STEM U.S. citizens need jobs in their field, so to obtain more coverage in the MSM, you might write the major press editor's desks pointing out the lack of accurate coverage.

    I can see what I can do, although you see my focus is "all things economic" vs. just writing on guest worker Visas.

    We should also thank the New York Post for daring to publish on the topic!

    Reply to: Obamacare Outsourced   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Scary, Pope Francis blessed the wealth redistribution messages at the World Economic Forum.

    "I invoke divine blessings on you and the participants of the Forum, as well as on your families and all your work."

    This is great the Catholic church is raising some hell (pardon the irony), on income inequality but gez, I'm fairly certain this is a token acknowledgement, not actual action will be taken by the forum participants.

    Reply to: The World's Top 1% has 50% of the Wealth   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • The New York Post article spells it with an 'O' rather than an 'E', and I saw it that way in your posts too.

    I swear I'm not trying to bust your chops on this, I'm trying to help prevent them from doing it - you have a big story here, and you're dealing with people who will take the slightest inaccuracies to discredit you in your exposure of a real outrage

    Reply to: Obamacare Outsourced   10 years 10 months ago
    EPer:

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