the site is in BETA, so I hope you go over and join it, help me debug what's wrong and more importantly get it off the ground.
The Economic Populist is simply a major economics site now and hence, career issues for techies, while the big legislation and other issues assuredly needs to be posted (and believe me, I will), there is no online space devoted to all things "techie career" for "all techie things, 24/7".
A guy jumps off a 30-story building. As he plunges towards the ground he picks up speed until he's going 110 mph. Then he sticks his arms out. The wind resistance from his arms slows him to "just" 95 mph.
The financial media takes this as a sign that he won't hit the ground.
Securitization first came about in the 1920s, thus immediately preceding the Great Depression.
Securitization returned in the '70s and '80s, with exponential growth in the past eight years with the concentrated growth in the securitization of consumer debt, commodities, and virtually every form of credit derivative (numbering in the high hundreds).
Thusly, all your points: mega-leverage/speculation/resultant collapse - show the connection between those who choose to ignore history, create super-concentration of wealth, and destroy the economy.
Or, are they choosing to in actuality repeat history?
With all due respect, I understand all of this about lagging indicators. My point is that we're being hyped into believing that we've actually got a lagging indicator here. We have one month of data in which job losses are sub-600,000. At this point, there's absolutely no sound reason to believe that May's results won't be reversed and June's numbers revert back to the 600.000 + figure to which we've all gotten used. Before anyone starts flapping their gums about an easing recession, I'd submit that the humility of waiting for confirmation might be well advised. Unless, of course, there's some rather compelling self-serving reason that gets in the way.
I too am often amazed at what they can get mere scripting languages to do. And then I end up having to deal with their database design skills....I can't believe I have to create 3 records for each external resource into a project management database. That should be a top level data structure in third normal form, with 1:many relationships with all children.
Not to mention they globalized the physical primary key over several tables. GRRR.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Would be this lagging indicator switching from - to +, not from big- to lesser -.
So call me skeptical until the recession is *really* over, not just potentially over.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Inflation is dollar falling against "stuff."
The dollar does not have to fall as to other currencies for inflation to occur.
In fact, if the US works through its imbalances before other areas, viz., Europe, do, then the dollar could rise against other currencies while still falling against "stuff."
is into scripting. I don't know when it happened but he smokes me now with the computer stuff. I think it started two years ago with his classes in school. The one year was HTML1 and then he had HTML2. During the summer months the IT person at his high school has him come in to help with the department. His website makes mine look like childs play. He speaks about things that I know nothing about which makes me feel order than my true age.
He wants to get his school onto the open source stuff and of course he wants to have his hand in it.
Why the title at Bloomberg reads like it does is the unemployment rate is a major economic indicator in a recession. It is also a lagging indicator.
So, when they see a decline in the newly screwed and fired, i.e. the latest new unemployment claims...that is an indicator (normally) that the recession has hit the bottom and is starting to recover.
They are not coming from outer space, this is a major economic indicator that all economists as well as investors watch.
Then there are certain calculus techniques, often derided as hopelessly impractical before 1970, that make a lot of sense to do iteratively. If you can get a student to that point, math starts teaching programming, not the other way around.
Oh, and scripting, while commanding the big bucks right now because of the web, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to computer programming.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
that I'd never really focused on and wouldn't have without your important influence!... "debt" as it is effected by the 2 'flations. All debt is not equal.
Which brings me to another conundrum to consider. The Fed/Treasury combo would clearly like to see some inflation 'cause deflation is the most disastrous scenario and must be avoided and yet they speak of a strong dollar. Doesn't the dollar have to fall for inflation to kick in?
Not sure if I have ever had a link to someone that supplies the stats for the fallen off the unemployment rolls. Not ever sure how you would do it. The BLS is probably the only one that has the resources to do it. But I'll search around.
Also the people that never show up on the stats are the self-employed. That painter that would sub from the GC during boom times, never even received unemployment so he never even had the chance to fall off the cliff.
if the May unemployment numbers had come in at 735,000, would you have considered it a Big Deal? Probably yes. There would have been all kinds of sturm and drang in the econoblogosphere about proof that the sky really was falling.
And yet, the number comes in a whopping 200,000 better than expectations, and the econologosphere wants to pretend it doesn't exist, with all kinds of whiny excuses.
A lot of credit/debt in an inflationary environment might lead to a nasty correction, but debt is almost always manageable during inflationary times.
When there is a lot of debt in a time where deflation is a real danger, that is when you can get the lethal debt/deflation trap that Irving Fisher used to describe the Great Depression, and given declining household wealth, including houses and financial assets, that's where we are again today.
It's probably not coincidental that both occurred when the working/middle classes were beat to a tar by the financiers.
The article said "Beyond the need to bolster competencies in math, the hard sciences, and basic problem solving, U.S. schools at all levels must place a greater emphasis on global history, foreign languages,"
The last time I looked (I'm not a computer scientist) but computer languages are not all about math. It is about nesting, having your html tags in order, using your Java scripting, your C++ languages, etc.
I am sure at some point algebraic expressions come into play and you need to know about if-than statements but are do the people that write the code need extensive math?
I know a guy that runs the regional IT department for a large department store. I asked him the math question. He tells me it is a artificial argument.
Or has the CPM experiment, method of teaching math to students been such an abysmal failure that they can't even do simple math?
his dense thoughts to be somewhat over my head. This essay is terse by comparison and very accessible to my tiny mind!
Thanks for the nod, NDd.
I think Olson is right and am reminded, tangentially thinking, of JK Galbraith's argument in "The Great Crash, 1929" in the sense that the "small distributional coalitions" represent the concentrated wealth of the wacko speculative investors JKG writes of, and lobbies for the legislation (especially de-regulatory laws) that allows that concentrated wealth to do stupid, destructive things.
No one seems to be interested in Galbraith's take on the Great Crash these days and yet I think it's scary when one compares his thesis with today. Everyone says this is a "debt" crisis brought on by too much credit, but the same amount of credit had been available at other times in history, the difference is the destructive way (speculation/leverage) in which the abundant credit was used by an investor class of concentrated wealth (and power), coupled to that other "common denominator" of all speculative bubbles: that notion that one can become rich without work.
One might even argue that "becoming rich without work" became the basis of our entire economy. Manufacturting declined and was replaced with money managers making easy (and obscene) profits by moving paper that was never worth what anyone said in the first place...
Sorry, I started to go off there... did that makes sense?
FTA: "Many American grads looking to enter the tech field are preoccupied with getting rich, Vineet said. They're far less inclined than students from developing countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and Ireland to spend their time learning the "boring" details of tech process, methodology, and tools--ITIL, Six Sigma, and the like."
I think that covers what our government has pushed as well- if you don't make over $100,000/year, they don't want to even hear about you.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
I've been rebuilding the noslaves.com site as a place for techies, professionals to discuss and organize on their career issues.
I just put up a post on this here.
the site is in BETA, so I hope you go over and join it, help me debug what's wrong and more importantly get it off the ground.
The Economic Populist is simply a major economics site now and hence, career issues for techies, while the big legislation and other issues assuredly needs to be posted (and believe me, I will), there is no online space devoted to all things "techie career" for "all techie things, 24/7".
So...wala, new site.
Someone on another site put it this way:
A guy jumps off a 30-story building. As he plunges towards the ground he picks up speed until he's going 110 mph. Then he sticks his arms out. The wind resistance from his arms slows him to "just" 95 mph.
The financial media takes this as a sign that he won't hit the ground.
Excellent points, bigchin, excellent points.
Securitization first came about in the 1920s, thus immediately preceding the Great Depression.
Securitization returned in the '70s and '80s, with exponential growth in the past eight years with the concentrated growth in the securitization of consumer debt, commodities, and virtually every form of credit derivative (numbering in the high hundreds).
Thusly, all your points: mega-leverage/speculation/resultant collapse - show the connection between those who choose to ignore history, create super-concentration of wealth, and destroy the economy.
Or, are they choosing to in actuality repeat history?
And, regarding the purchase of congress.
Robert,
With all due respect, I understand all of this about lagging indicators. My point is that we're being hyped into believing that we've actually got a lagging indicator here. We have one month of data in which job losses are sub-600,000. At this point, there's absolutely no sound reason to believe that May's results won't be reversed and June's numbers revert back to the 600.000 + figure to which we've all gotten used. Before anyone starts flapping their gums about an easing recession, I'd submit that the humility of waiting for confirmation might be well advised. Unless, of course, there's some rather compelling self-serving reason that gets in the way.
I too am often amazed at what they can get mere scripting languages to do. And then I end up having to deal with their database design skills....I can't believe I have to create 3 records for each external resource into a project management database. That should be a top level data structure in third normal form, with 1:many relationships with all children.
Not to mention they globalized the physical primary key over several tables. GRRR.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Would be this lagging indicator switching from - to +, not from big- to lesser -.
So call me skeptical until the recession is *really* over, not just potentially over.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Inflation is dollar falling against "stuff."
The dollar does not have to fall as to other currencies for inflation to occur.
In fact, if the US works through its imbalances before other areas, viz., Europe, do, then the dollar could rise against other currencies while still falling against "stuff."
is into scripting. I don't know when it happened but he smokes me now with the computer stuff. I think it started two years ago with his classes in school. The one year was HTML1 and then he had HTML2. During the summer months the IT person at his high school has him come in to help with the department. His website makes mine look like childs play. He speaks about things that I know nothing about which makes me feel order than my true age.
He wants to get his school onto the open source stuff and of course he wants to have his hand in it.
Why the title at Bloomberg reads like it does is the unemployment rate is a major economic indicator in a recession. It is also a lagging indicator.
So, when they see a decline in the newly screwed and fired, i.e. the latest new unemployment claims...that is an indicator (normally) that the recession has hit the bottom and is starting to recover.
They are not coming from outer space, this is a major economic indicator that all economists as well as investors watch.
For me to start celebrating.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Then there are certain calculus techniques, often derided as hopelessly impractical before 1970, that make a lot of sense to do iteratively. If you can get a student to that point, math starts teaching programming, not the other way around.
Oh, and scripting, while commanding the big bucks right now because of the web, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to computer programming.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
that I'd never really focused on and wouldn't have without your important influence!... "debt" as it is effected by the 2 'flations. All debt is not equal.
Which brings me to another conundrum to consider. The Fed/Treasury combo would clearly like to see some inflation 'cause deflation is the most disastrous scenario and must be avoided and yet they speak of a strong dollar. Doesn't the dollar have to fall for inflation to kick in?
Not sure if I have ever had a link to someone that supplies the stats for the fallen off the unemployment rolls. Not ever sure how you would do it. The BLS is probably the only one that has the resources to do it. But I'll search around.
Also the people that never show up on the stats are the self-employed. That painter that would sub from the GC during boom times, never even received unemployment so he never even had the chance to fall off the cliff.
if the May unemployment numbers had come in at 735,000, would you have considered it a Big Deal? Probably yes. There would have been all kinds of sturm and drang in the econoblogosphere about proof that the sky really was falling.
And yet, the number comes in a whopping 200,000 better than expectations, and the econologosphere wants to pretend it doesn't exist, with all kinds of whiny excuses.
It's a Big Deal.
A lot of credit/debt in an inflationary environment might lead to a nasty correction, but debt is almost always manageable during inflationary times.
When there is a lot of debt in a time where deflation is a real danger, that is when you can get the lethal debt/deflation trap that Irving Fisher used to describe the Great Depression, and given declining household wealth, including houses and financial assets, that's where we are again today.
It's probably not coincidental that both occurred when the working/middle classes were beat to a tar by the financiers.
The article said "Beyond the need to bolster competencies in math, the hard sciences, and basic problem solving, U.S. schools at all levels must place a greater emphasis on global history, foreign languages,"
The last time I looked (I'm not a computer scientist) but computer languages are not all about math. It is about nesting, having your html tags in order, using your Java scripting, your C++ languages, etc.
I am sure at some point algebraic expressions come into play and you need to know about if-than statements but are do the people that write the code need extensive math?
I know a guy that runs the regional IT department for a large department store. I asked him the math question. He tells me it is a artificial argument.
Or has the CPM experiment, method of teaching math to students been such an abysmal failure that they can't even do simple math?
When the gov't stats come out it is time to check with John Williams at shadowstats.
Hmmm, U6 is above 20%! And what is it now, 7 million new unemployed since the recession began?
his dense thoughts to be somewhat over my head. This essay is terse by comparison and very accessible to my tiny mind!
Thanks for the nod, NDd.
I think Olson is right and am reminded, tangentially thinking, of JK Galbraith's argument in "The Great Crash, 1929" in the sense that the "small distributional coalitions" represent the concentrated wealth of the wacko speculative investors JKG writes of, and lobbies for the legislation (especially de-regulatory laws) that allows that concentrated wealth to do stupid, destructive things.
No one seems to be interested in Galbraith's take on the Great Crash these days and yet I think it's scary when one compares his thesis with today. Everyone says this is a "debt" crisis brought on by too much credit, but the same amount of credit had been available at other times in history, the difference is the destructive way (speculation/leverage) in which the abundant credit was used by an investor class of concentrated wealth (and power), coupled to that other "common denominator" of all speculative bubbles: that notion that one can become rich without work.
One might even argue that "becoming rich without work" became the basis of our entire economy. Manufacturting declined and was replaced with money managers making easy (and obscene) profits by moving paper that was never worth what anyone said in the first place...
Sorry, I started to go off there... did that makes sense?
:-)
FTA: "Many American grads looking to enter the tech field are preoccupied with getting rich, Vineet said. They're far less inclined than students from developing countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and Ireland to spend their time learning the "boring" details of tech process, methodology, and tools--ITIL, Six Sigma, and the like."
I think that covers what our government has pushed as well- if you don't make over $100,000/year, they don't want to even hear about you.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.
Pages