Recent comments

  • I've read that this particular recession/depression we are in is more similiar to the 1873 depression or maybe even the 1907 panic. Although we didn't have a federal reserve then so I really don't think any of these are exactly what we are experiencing now.

    Reply to: 1930   15 years 9 months ago
  • Microsoft is loaded with cash. They are just using this economic downturn to labor arbitrage more U.S. workers.

    Corporations did the same thing in the 2000-2004 time frame.

    Reply to: Laid off and your boss wants money from you   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • That is the title for the China trade agreement with the United States.

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • nt = non texte

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • People are sick to death of being name called on this issue and it's so obvious they are firing Americans and replacing them with guest workers. I think it's gaining Populist support, especially right now....with corporations and legislatures trying to increase the foreign guest worker cap on unskilled (H-2B) guest worker Visas...with these unemployment rates...it makes what is going on very very clear.

    Reply to: India Firing Foreigners, Hiring Local Citizens   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Didn't Bush sign a bankruptcy reform bill in 2005? I thought this was supposed to repair the entire system?

    Reply to: Bankruptcy Law is Key to Obama's Foreclosure Fight   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • I predict there will soon be a backlash here in the U.S., especially in the hi-tech area. Most of the HB-1's in Silicon Valley are here simply to drive down cost...we homegrow much of the science-engineering talent here, but it's cheaper to dilute. Folks are catching on...there will be a backlash against the reverse discrimination.

    Reply to: India Firing Foreigners, Hiring Local Citizens   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • China has been acting in the capacity of the "Company Store" in America's coal mining towns. Basically, a payday lender.

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • I also saw you posted on trade reform. (we like them, they are focused in on trade policy and I believe they are non-partisan as well).

    Volcker has been speaking some great pain truth. Shame his "economic adviser" panel is a bunch of corporate lobbyists and special interests.

    If we can find a video clip on that testimony, we can post it in an Instapopulist.

    Do you remember when any major economic figure in an administration acknowledged the trade deficit? I don't.

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Sorry, we need a U.S. manufacturing policy that grabs critical advanced manufacturing AND we need to modify extensively the China PNTR.

    Energy independent sounds all find and good but that's not the issue with China.

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • You're referring to our account deficit (gov't spending), but not our trade deficit. Per Pat Buchanan's blog, "A week ago, the Washington Times (”Volcker Blames Recession on Trade Imbalances”) reported that ex-Fed Chair Paul Volcker told Congress the 'massive trade-related imbalances in the United States economy were the source of the financial crisis.'" He further says, "Since 1982, the United States has run $5.7 trillion in trade deficits in manufactured goods, and $2.1 trillion in trade deficits in auto parts, trucks and automobiles. In the Bush years alone, the United States ran more than $1 trillion in trade deficits in auto parts, trucks and cars."

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • ... we will not need China to buy any more debt than they have to buy in order to keep their currency undervalued.

    That involves moving strongly toward energy independence, to close that gaping hole in our current accounts, and finding something OTHER THAN weapons and airplanes and raw materials that people overseas would want to buy ...

    ... and of course, if we move strongly toward energy independence, we will be developing a lot of capacity to produce renewable energy harvesting equipment, together with the expertise to put it to use ... so that one policy is a two-for-one on our runaway current account deficit.

    However, with people like Summers and Geithner in the economic policy team, we cannot expect the White House to be thinking in these terms, so if we want to increase the intensity of the drive to Energy Independence, we are going to have to push for that from the outside.

    Reply to: China! - Keep Buying Our Debt!   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • "So why not treat the principle amount of a loan as a percentage of the market value? Revalue a property every 3 months or so and adjust the loan balance up or down by a percentage of the house value movement. Forcing the banks to wear the risk and get the reward when the price changes."

    --Spike (posted on Steve Keen's Debtwatch)

    Reply to: Bankruptcy Law is Key to Obama's Foreclosure Fight   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • Our current Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Gethner,said this in early 2007:

    As head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Geithner gave an interview to Jenny Anderson of the New York Times in Feb. 2007. When asked about the high risk credit derivatives market, a risk he claimed that he'd addressed, Geithner said: "The fact that the banks are stronger and risk is spread more broadly should make the system more stable. We can’t know that with certainty though. We’ll have a test of that when things next threaten to fall apart." Will anybody mention that we've had Mr. Geithner's anticipated "test" and things did "fall apart" because the banks were weaker not "stronger." Link

    He sounds like he's conducting a project for the science fair.  At the very least, Geithner is stunningly wrong on the credit derivatives market.  Not the type of guy in charge who gives you a sense that somehow we'll survive this crisis.

    Excellent collection of very useful video.

    Reply to: Tales From the Financial Crisis Conference - Psychokillers, Bad Math & Burn Baby Burn   15 years 9 months ago
  • going through the history of how we got to this inane trade policy and who were the real "crafters".

    Reply to: On NAFTA - I told ya so gives me no joy   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • During the 70's the trilateral commission was issuing papers calling for the U.S. to transition to a "post-industrial service economy." We have seen the fruits of this think tank idea.:-)

    Reply to: On NAFTA - I told ya so gives me no joy   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • You will consider strangling Greenspan.

    Also, I'm sorry but this is something I just have no sympathy for. They stole my American dream! is the whine from one interviewee. Well, I am very sorry but buying a $500k house on a $9/hr wage with 4 kids ....I'm sorry but regular people have to know basic finance and in that case I have just a very hard time with sympathy for those who ignored that basic fact, they could not afford the home.

    I remember hearing people where I live who clearly could not afford a home...here's one of my favorites, buying a home because they could not afford rent! Then many flipper idiots running around just in complete economic fantasy land thinking they could rent out a hovel for $1500/month (these are three nasty rooms in a large house) to make their payments and it was all good as an investment.

    All of these people should have never been given loans in the first place but I also think some personal responsibility is in order here. Can some of these people even balance a checkbook, add and subtract to figure out they are over extended? Seriously.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • It's becoming obvious to me they need to just nationalize the global banking system, wipe out this toxic debt, sorry all shareholders and investors, you are taking a heavy loss, fire all of the executive management, pass massive regulation and start over.

    What a friggin' disaster.

    Reply to: Europe's banking system needs $25 Trillion bailout   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:
  • I think that this pretty much expresses my feelings on the issue.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - The Meltdown of the House of Cards Edition   15 years 9 months ago
  • For the most part I agree and generally economies which are reasonably equal in PPP and GDP it's not that much of a problem because it is harder to labor arbitrage.

    More I do not believe Obama and never have been given any indication that he will really take on trade policy beyond a few token clauses.

    Reply to: On NAFTA - I told ya so gives me no joy   15 years 9 months ago
    EPer:

Pages