Firstly Smoot-Hawley is not the cause of the Great Depression. There have been many studies showing how the United States was already a domestic economy and how trade was not a large component of GNP. The effective tariffs before and after show no correlation to the Great Depression. The monetary policies, the Federal Reserve are highly correlated.
That is pure corporate lobbyist spin to push more bad trade deals and it's economic fiction if one bothers to look at the economic indicators of that time!
Secondly, trading people is not part of free trade theory! If one reads the theory of free trade instead of believing some idiot on cable TV who cannot even do algebra, never mind has even taken undergraduate economics 101, the means of production are not mobile.
Thirdly if one bothered to read any undergraduate labor economics text, one would see clearly that the laws of supply and demand operate in domestic labor markets.
In other words, flooding a domestic labor market with an oversupply of labor will lower wages
Finally, there is nothing protectionist in putting U.S. workers preferred for jobs in their own country.
Protectionism is about tariffs. That is what the term refers to. I am not recommending tariffs, or even talking about them here at all.
So, people, turn off the idiot box, go to your local library, get some actual Academic texts and you can find watered down Academic texts for the non-econ majors and read up! It's absurd that you just believe some rhetoric without having the remotest clue on what the theory actually says.
Robert, no, no, NO! This protectionist thinking is precisely what made the Great Depression great. The economists don't agree on much but they are universal on this. Google Smoot-Hawley.
If you would like to write up a blog post on small business, 1099-misc, consulting and surrounding employment and support issues to gain more awareness via EP, we'd love to have you. Just create an account on the upper right hand corner.
Economic, housing crisis, taxes with respect to small business, sole prop, LLC, small C corp etc.
On the self-employment to the small businesses, I agree, they are being seriously ignored and usually are ignored by Congress.
Yes, if they are sole prop, I will assume if their residence goes down they also lose the business. But how many are running a business out of their home as well?
I think that we should nominate Bill Kerr's brilliant farce on patent innovation and bad H-1B statistics to the IgNoble committee. I think it would be bound to raise some very interesting humiliation for the authors.
After seeing that Mr. Kerr received his PhD from the Sloan School at MIT, and received funding for the study from the MIT George Schultz fund, I feel compelled to ask my alma mater to reconsider their qualifications for awarding doctorates for such fine work.
Many fail to realize that there are millions of self-employed small businesses, who employ from 1-10 employees, that are holding the mortgages that are going to reset in 2009 through 2012. Many experts believe that this will constitute the 2nd Wave of Foreclosures that will dwarf the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. The tragic aspect is that these borrowers are Prime and Near-Prime borrowers who hold ALT-A, Option ARMs, Interest-Only mortgages. There are $1 Trillion ALT-As, and $500-600 Billion Option ARMs.
So, here we have a major problem… Not only will these small business owners lose their homes, but there will be the resulting JOB LOSSES on their business failure. Note, although President Obama is stressing the need to create 3 million new jobs, we must understand that “JOB RETENTION IS AS IMPORTANT AS JOB CREATION”.
An NASE Survey sheds light on this critical issue. The NASE survey is at
http://advocacy.nase.org/research.asp. See the my Commentary.
According to this survey, it is estimated that 3,709,800 small business owners hold Alt-A and other toxic mortgages, and 1,279,800 are already delinquent as they have missed one to three or more monthly mortgage payments at mid-November, before the expected Resets that are scheduled to begin in 4th Quarter 2008 through 2012.
I am Prof. Samuel D. Bornstein, the author of the NASE Survey.
I welcome any questions that you may have.
Thank you,
Samuel D. Bornstein
Professor of Accounting & Taxation
Kean University, School of Business, Union, NJ
Tel: (732) 493 - 4799
Email: bornsteinsong@aol.com
During the first Reagan administration, the payroll tax rate for SS was increased in order to address projected shortfalls when the baby boom generation would retire. Hence, there was a planned surplus for the years leading up to that time. However, the government began, almost immediately, to use these surplus collections to cover deficits in the general budget. Do you remember all that talk in the 90s about the "social security lock box"? It was because of this constant borrowing from the SS surplus. The latest figure I have seen is that the US Gov't. is in hock for about $2.5 Trillion to SSA.
There is no plan to privatize SS. Instead, they are using the staggering budget deficits as cover to misrepresent SS as just another expense item in the annual government budget. This clever slight of hand is being used to include SS in the long term budgeting process. This will allow the gov't to delay, hopefully forever, the need to pay back the $2.5T.
You can read the original report here which forms the basis for the review panel. The really deceitful thing about this though, is that they intend to issue recommendations which will be presented to Congress, not for further debate, but rather for an "up or down" vote to accept the recommendations as law. This gives the members of Congress political cover as to how they individually vote.
We definitely have a budget deficit problem in this country. But we have a whole host of serious social problems as well. It is the dark art of Disaster Capitalism that has led us to accept unregulated finance as part of the real economy at the expense of manufacturing, given huge tax cuts to the wealthy and the corporations, and fought unfunded wars for hegemonic pursuits.
Obama made the promise to set up this commission in December as a quid pro quo to the Blue Dog deficit hawks. He first announced his intentions publicly in a WaPo interview in January, just prior to the inauguration. If this commission were only offering ideas for further consideration and debate I would have reservations about it's veracity simply due to the imbalanced makeup of the participants. However, to use the commission as a Trojan Horse is to purposefully intend to deceive the public. I have already written to the White House and asked for clarification on this commission. I hope the press, economists, and other citizens push back hard on this subject prior to the President making his official announcements.
I think you will find a lot of support for modifications on the principle amount of a home here, seemingly just getting out of subprime ARMS is still near impossible.
I have a hard time in some respects giving someone a house when they signed up to buy a half a million dollar home with a $9/hr job and 6 kids.
There are limits here but on the predatory loans, the subprime, the ARMs resetting, those assuredly should be renegotiated.
Home prices fundamentally need to come down to match wage levels.
CNBC has a documentary called house of cards and they interview Greenspan. It's a good documentary but when Greenspan is on you just want to throw something at the screen because he just denies all responsibility in the whole Ponzi scheme.
individuals get no justice. The way the entire system is set up it's an industry and a money game instead of righting a wrong. But often in things like discrimination it's only a class action that has a prayer's chance, else the corporate attorneys attack the individual, I think it's the "nuts and sluts" attack method to try to reduce the credibility of the plaintiff. then they just play the money game and wait/drag it out.
The lawyers that put them together get like 20%, while everyone else gets those shitty cheques you mentioned. I say limit class action lawsuits in a way where the lawyers don't get the lions share. Honestly, we should have a government consumer ombudsman or something that initiates these lawsuits on behalf of the consumer. Someone who's sole job is class action lawsuits against crooked companies.
If by privatizing they mean putting Social Security funds into some new IRA, nope can't see that happening. Bush & Co. tried it and failed. The political climate isn't there, especially with the S&P falling 40%+ this past 18 months.
Though, I wouldn't put it pass the government from looting Social Security to pay the bills.
But I was trying to point out when it comes to any white collar crime, especially under the guise of "executive of a corporation" or corporate crime, nothing happens. It's unreal.
$50 billion dollar rip off, poisoning people, some of the drugs released by companies and the best one can hope for is 15 years later a check for $29.95 from a class action that is later overturned on appeal?
I wasn't that big of a fan of the death penalty. Frankly, to me that's just a quick way, I'm too old school for that. Frankly, charge them all for murder, from the executives on down to the floor manager who knew. The only exceptions should be anyone who tried to warn or do something. But yeah, what we got is at the very least manslaughter. People able to hide or get away with this shit for years has money socked away secretly for family (just in case). I say take everything from these people, and I do mean everything.
Take over the company, clean it up, do what you have to remove the poisons and germs or what have you. Remove management that hasn't been arrested (same with the board), and put in place a new caretaker regime. Cancel the Chap 7, any assets already sold, the sales should be canceled. The business itself was profitable. Have the victim's families be the majority shareholders and creditors, at the very least, make the shareholders a trust that produces income for those families.
As for the execs and owners, like I say, strip them of all their assets, included protected ones like insurance policies. All the money goes into that trust I mentioned. Life imprisonment for these bastards at a max or high threat prison (no Club Fed for them!). Hard labor, construction work or even working on the factory floor of their former company. Whatever the job, let it be at least menial. Their only meals, should be peanut products, made from that factory.
Their days should consist of hard work.
Their meals a reminder of their former product
Their nights...well you know how things can go in those prisons.
Let the know what misery is. Let them know that they destroyed their own families when their recklessness destroyed others' families.
Yeah, you read that right, I hope the "Chicoms" get this disaster on wheels. The military is already on the way to replacing the Hummer with at least two vehicles, the Joint-Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and the Mine Resisted Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP...they seem to not include the "vehicle" part). Now yes, the points made above are good but here's why am for the sale:
1) The Hummer is a money loser for GM, nobody wants it on the consumer side.
The company tried looking for other buyers, so unless the tax payer wants to own the brand and company, let it go. The age of gas guzzlers is over, and unless they can come up with one that is fuel efficient and "cool to buy", it will only hamper it's owners.
2) Security
Now you may think, ok, now the Chinese military will know even more of what it may not of the hummer design. If they're already making knock-offs, then eventually they'll make the perfect copy right down to where a specific bolt would go. Buy purchasing the Hummer, they will replace their cheapo knock off with a genuine design. Sure they may make an alteration here or there, but guess what, we already know where the weak points on that thing is. There's only so many ways to arm and protect that thing, and we already know about it.
This reminds me of when our atomic secrets made it to the Russians. Everyone was worried, and rightly so. But, and forgive me I forgot his name, someone said basically that now we know where the Russian's starting point would be on atomic weapons. The same will be here for the Humvee.
3) Lighting the fire
If RO's article is any indication, then this will open the eyes to what our trading partner/military rival is up to, in the eyes of the public. There will be outcry, and maybe we'll finally get a real look at dual-use technology that we export. You know, as Naomi Klein's book kept reminding us, it takes shock/surprise to get our asses in gear. This will be no different. Either the sale is stopped, or we scream about coming up with some thing better like the JLTV or what have you.
When I lived abroad, I always bought local: screw the Multinationals. First. a technology solution for those suffering mightily under the heel of Bush Capitalism: build powerful open source servers. This is not theory. I will distribute this to all interested in my solution: Linux, Apache DB2 Eclipse. Each essential ingredient for server constucion is freely distributed and available. Unlike LAMP(Linux,Apache, MYSQL, PHP), LADE - Linux, Apache, DB2. Eclispe is robust and platform universal).
Ford constructed the 3 rivers plant late in 1930s. The inputs were iron, copper, rubber and sand. The outputs were
cars. This is the level of in-sourcing we need now. The tech equivalent of Three Rivers is a sever building plant like the Hudson Valley Works of IBM, but build on Open
Source.
The bigger scope will be constructed upon local based microprocessor and system board solutions such as Intel is proposing. Other nations manufacturing microprocessors and sytems board must start local server solutions. Let's applaud Intel for in-sourcing.
Same multinationals who wrecked our economy and the rest of the planet. So let every other nation and the U.S. do the same to get out out the crisis. From agriculture (so far uneffected due to price support socialism), to the andicapped' to the social security retirees to those living on unemployment, too many see the future and it is socialist.
I want a future not socialist or capitalist but economically democratic. When Michael Camdessus - IMF Chief in 1989 - went to the U.S.S.R. , he did not attack the Politburo, KGB or Soviet Military. He destroyed the local factory and farm 'soviets'. In other words, the same system running United Air and HP would be dismantled. The State owned, but even to a small extent after Stalin. Paulson is our Camdessus.
We need to construct a tech solution that is democratic and uses local resource to rebuild. I am almost alone olitically.
What of the great promise made in the 1980s by the out-sourcers: abandon all hope of the industrial economy and technology will sustain you. This enormous lie by the ruling class in times past, when people could read, remember and act, would be the stuff of revolt.
So it falls to us, the down-trodden to create any future at all. I applaud all my brothers and sisters who did so much and risked all to destroy this most despotic and oppressive system. I applaud those who died opposing the despotism under which we all suffer.
All I have written regarding Enterprise Funds are more relevant now then ever. After they waste enough time and money, they will understand that there is one substitute for management and control. The substitute is waste and fraud.
To those who say this cannot be done, just show me the location of the next Intel Plant.
The Stimulus agreed by our political representatives, that will be signed into action by our newly elected president, does not position our nation to trade with other nations. Each proposed elements of the bill puts money into non trade entities. Keeping America the 'consumers' rather than the 'producers' in the World Economy. Our Trade Deficit will expand beyond repair.
With China's stimulus working for them - Chinese spending some of their savings, we should be taking advantage of this through manufacturing of tradable goods and services to them. But no, our government has sold us out as the world's shopaholics. It's despicable and an embarrassment!
Dobbs they need to get the details of what's being sold.
Right now, AFAIK, GM holds the intellectual property rights for the platform, which is one of the parts that the Chinese have had difficulty making.
For a vehicle like the Hummer, the chassis is important, because you're asking a lot from not that much metal. So there's a lot of engineering involved in it.
I think that in some sense, this deal is GM's way of acting out, given the treatment that they got in DC. It certainly ups the ante for providing more loans, doesn't it?
And at $100 million?
Not to mention that the Chinese have trouble getting their hands on these parts because of the arms embargo.
This is the kind of story that goes right across party lines....it hits national security as well as labor issues and will assuredly generate outrage across the political spectrum.
Reading this, I'm starting to think you are right and ya know, how could the UAW do worse in terms of corporate executive management than these guys? I know they are labor only but I'm starting to believe they could manage the company so much better.
Maybe turn it into a DARPA/NASA type of organization but with a advanced manufacturing, DoD supplier focus. I have no idea but this story just takes the cake in terms of stupidity. We create the innovation, the technology then....just plain hand it over to the Chinese. This has happened over and over again and not only is it destroying the United States economy and making China the dominant economy, they are putting our national security at complete risk.
No wonder the top spy just said the biggest threat to the United States is economic.
There are Democrats and then there are Corpocrats running around with the Dem Logo.
Yeah, I wouldn't have posted this except I've seen these indicators over and over from the primaries on...
now we have two major Progressive journalists reporting it at the same time, so well, there ya have it.
I believe them.
It's ridiculous, they should be looking to expand these and then #1, reduce health care costs because the U.S. is getting ripped off by the health private sector (insurance companies, drug manufacturers, for profit hospitals and so on) badly, as in 8x worst than any other industrialized nation.
I keep having images of corporate vampires sucking on the neck of the middle class and they are convinced the dead bodies still have blood in them...if they can only find the next big vein!
...the riots myself ;-). That would be totally unacceptable and the death knell of the Democratic Party. One would think a party on the upswing would want to stay in power, but then we ARE talking about Democrats ;-P.
"....under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism it's just the opposite..." ---John Kenneth Galbraith
....although I do have some hope for the stimulus when it comes to infrastructure (much of it very necessary and needed), I agree wholeheartedly that overall this is NOT a reasonable long-term solution. The stimulus may help stop the bleeding, but as the posting says, this is the wrong solution to the problems we face today.
"....under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism it's just the opposite..." ---John Kenneth Galbraith
Firstly Smoot-Hawley is not the cause of the Great Depression. There have been many studies showing how the United States was already a domestic economy and how trade was not a large component of GNP. The effective tariffs before and after show no correlation to the Great Depression. The monetary policies, the Federal Reserve are highly correlated.
That is pure corporate lobbyist spin to push more bad trade deals and it's economic fiction if one bothers to look at the economic indicators of that time!
Secondly, trading people is not part of free trade theory! If one reads the theory of free trade instead of believing some idiot on cable TV who cannot even do algebra, never mind has even taken undergraduate economics 101, the means of production are not mobile.
Thirdly if one bothered to read any undergraduate labor economics text, one would see clearly that the laws of supply and demand operate in domestic labor markets.
In other words, flooding a domestic labor market with an oversupply of labor will lower wages
Finally, there is nothing protectionist in putting U.S. workers preferred for jobs in their own country.
Protectionism is about tariffs. That is what the term refers to. I am not recommending tariffs, or even talking about them here at all.
So, people, turn off the idiot box, go to your local library, get some actual Academic texts and you can find watered down Academic texts for the non-econ majors and read up! It's absurd that you just believe some rhetoric without having the remotest clue on what the theory actually says.
Robert, no, no, NO! This protectionist thinking is precisely what made the Great Depression great. The economists don't agree on much but they are universal on this. Google Smoot-Hawley.
If you would like to write up a blog post on small business, 1099-misc, consulting and surrounding employment and support issues to gain more awareness via EP, we'd love to have you. Just create an account on the upper right hand corner.
Economic, housing crisis, taxes with respect to small business, sole prop, LLC, small C corp etc.
On the self-employment to the small businesses, I agree, they are being seriously ignored and usually are ignored by Congress.
Yes, if they are sole prop, I will assume if their residence goes down they also lose the business. But how many are running a business out of their home as well?
I think that we should nominate Bill Kerr's brilliant farce on patent innovation and bad H-1B statistics to the IgNoble committee. I think it would be bound to raise some very interesting humiliation for the authors.
After seeing that Mr. Kerr received his PhD from the Sloan School at MIT, and received funding for the study from the MIT George Schultz fund, I feel compelled to ask my alma mater to reconsider their qualifications for awarding doctorates for such fine work.
Many fail to realize that there are millions of self-employed small businesses, who employ from 1-10 employees, that are holding the mortgages that are going to reset in 2009 through 2012. Many experts believe that this will constitute the 2nd Wave of Foreclosures that will dwarf the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. The tragic aspect is that these borrowers are Prime and Near-Prime borrowers who hold ALT-A, Option ARMs, Interest-Only mortgages. There are $1 Trillion ALT-As, and $500-600 Billion Option ARMs.
So, here we have a major problem… Not only will these small business owners lose their homes, but there will be the resulting JOB LOSSES on their business failure. Note, although President Obama is stressing the need to create 3 million new jobs, we must understand that “JOB RETENTION IS AS IMPORTANT AS JOB CREATION”.
An NASE Survey sheds light on this critical issue. The NASE survey is at
http://advocacy.nase.org/research.asp. See the my Commentary.
According to this survey, it is estimated that 3,709,800 small business owners hold Alt-A and other toxic mortgages, and 1,279,800 are already delinquent as they have missed one to three or more monthly mortgage payments at mid-November, before the expected Resets that are scheduled to begin in 4th Quarter 2008 through 2012.
I am Prof. Samuel D. Bornstein, the author of the NASE Survey.
I welcome any questions that you may have.
Thank you,
Samuel D. Bornstein
Professor of Accounting & Taxation
Kean University, School of Business, Union, NJ
Tel: (732) 493 - 4799
Email: bornsteinsong@aol.com
During the first Reagan administration, the payroll tax rate for SS was increased in order to address projected shortfalls when the baby boom generation would retire. Hence, there was a planned surplus for the years leading up to that time. However, the government began, almost immediately, to use these surplus collections to cover deficits in the general budget. Do you remember all that talk in the 90s about the "social security lock box"? It was because of this constant borrowing from the SS surplus. The latest figure I have seen is that the US Gov't. is in hock for about $2.5 Trillion to SSA.
There is no plan to privatize SS. Instead, they are using the staggering budget deficits as cover to misrepresent SS as just another expense item in the annual government budget. This clever slight of hand is being used to include SS in the long term budgeting process. This will allow the gov't to delay, hopefully forever, the need to pay back the $2.5T.
You can read the original report here which forms the basis for the review panel. The really deceitful thing about this though, is that they intend to issue recommendations which will be presented to Congress, not for further debate, but rather for an "up or down" vote to accept the recommendations as law. This gives the members of Congress political cover as to how they individually vote.
We definitely have a budget deficit problem in this country. But we have a whole host of serious social problems as well. It is the dark art of Disaster Capitalism that has led us to accept unregulated finance as part of the real economy at the expense of manufacturing, given huge tax cuts to the wealthy and the corporations, and fought unfunded wars for hegemonic pursuits.
Obama made the promise to set up this commission in December as a quid pro quo to the Blue Dog deficit hawks. He first announced his intentions publicly in a WaPo interview in January, just prior to the inauguration. If this commission were only offering ideas for further consideration and debate I would have reservations about it's veracity simply due to the imbalanced makeup of the participants. However, to use the commission as a Trojan Horse is to purposefully intend to deceive the public. I have already written to the White House and asked for clarification on this commission. I hope the press, economists, and other citizens push back hard on this subject prior to the President making his official announcements.
I think you will find a lot of support for modifications on the principle amount of a home here, seemingly just getting out of subprime ARMS is still near impossible.
I have a hard time in some respects giving someone a house when they signed up to buy a half a million dollar home with a $9/hr job and 6 kids.
There are limits here but on the predatory loans, the subprime, the ARMs resetting, those assuredly should be renegotiated.
Home prices fundamentally need to come down to match wage levels.
CNBC has a documentary called house of cards and they interview Greenspan. It's a good documentary but when Greenspan is on you just want to throw something at the screen because he just denies all responsibility in the whole Ponzi scheme.
Very nice post!
individuals get no justice. The way the entire system is set up it's an industry and a money game instead of righting a wrong. But often in things like discrimination it's only a class action that has a prayer's chance, else the corporate attorneys attack the individual, I think it's the "nuts and sluts" attack method to try to reduce the credibility of the plaintiff. then they just play the money game and wait/drag it out.
The lawyers that put them together get like 20%, while everyone else gets those shitty cheques you mentioned. I say limit class action lawsuits in a way where the lawyers don't get the lions share. Honestly, we should have a government consumer ombudsman or something that initiates these lawsuits on behalf of the consumer. Someone who's sole job is class action lawsuits against crooked companies.
If by privatizing they mean putting Social Security funds into some new IRA, nope can't see that happening. Bush & Co. tried it and failed. The political climate isn't there, especially with the S&P falling 40%+ this past 18 months.
Though, I wouldn't put it pass the government from looting Social Security to pay the bills.
But I was trying to point out when it comes to any white collar crime, especially under the guise of "executive of a corporation" or corporate crime, nothing happens. It's unreal.
$50 billion dollar rip off, poisoning people, some of the drugs released by companies and the best one can hope for is 15 years later a check for $29.95 from a class action that is later overturned on appeal?
I wasn't that big of a fan of the death penalty. Frankly, to me that's just a quick way, I'm too old school for that. Frankly, charge them all for murder, from the executives on down to the floor manager who knew. The only exceptions should be anyone who tried to warn or do something. But yeah, what we got is at the very least manslaughter. People able to hide or get away with this shit for years has money socked away secretly for family (just in case). I say take everything from these people, and I do mean everything.
Take over the company, clean it up, do what you have to remove the poisons and germs or what have you. Remove management that hasn't been arrested (same with the board), and put in place a new caretaker regime. Cancel the Chap 7, any assets already sold, the sales should be canceled. The business itself was profitable. Have the victim's families be the majority shareholders and creditors, at the very least, make the shareholders a trust that produces income for those families.
As for the execs and owners, like I say, strip them of all their assets, included protected ones like insurance policies. All the money goes into that trust I mentioned. Life imprisonment for these bastards at a max or high threat prison (no Club Fed for them!). Hard labor, construction work or even working on the factory floor of their former company. Whatever the job, let it be at least menial. Their only meals, should be peanut products, made from that factory.
Their days should consist of hard work.
Their meals a reminder of their former product
Their nights...well you know how things can go in those prisons.
Let the know what misery is. Let them know that they destroyed their own families when their recklessness destroyed others' families.
Yeah, you read that right, I hope the "Chicoms" get this disaster on wheels. The military is already on the way to replacing the Hummer with at least two vehicles, the Joint-Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and the Mine Resisted Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP...they seem to not include the "vehicle" part). Now yes, the points made above are good but here's why am for the sale:
1) The Hummer is a money loser for GM, nobody wants it on the consumer side.
The company tried looking for other buyers, so unless the tax payer wants to own the brand and company, let it go. The age of gas guzzlers is over, and unless they can come up with one that is fuel efficient and "cool to buy", it will only hamper it's owners.
2) Security
Now you may think, ok, now the Chinese military will know even more of what it may not of the hummer design. If they're already making knock-offs, then eventually they'll make the perfect copy right down to where a specific bolt would go. Buy purchasing the Hummer, they will replace their cheapo knock off with a genuine design. Sure they may make an alteration here or there, but guess what, we already know where the weak points on that thing is. There's only so many ways to arm and protect that thing, and we already know about it.
This reminds me of when our atomic secrets made it to the Russians. Everyone was worried, and rightly so. But, and forgive me I forgot his name, someone said basically that now we know where the Russian's starting point would be on atomic weapons. The same will be here for the Humvee.
3) Lighting the fire
If RO's article is any indication, then this will open the eyes to what our trading partner/military rival is up to, in the eyes of the public. There will be outcry, and maybe we'll finally get a real look at dual-use technology that we export. You know, as Naomi Klein's book kept reminding us, it takes shock/surprise to get our asses in gear. This will be no different. Either the sale is stopped, or we scream about coming up with some thing better like the JLTV or what have you.
When I lived abroad, I always bought local: screw the Multinationals. First. a technology solution for those suffering mightily under the heel of Bush Capitalism: build powerful open source servers. This is not theory. I will distribute this to all interested in my solution: Linux, Apache DB2 Eclipse. Each essential ingredient for server constucion is freely distributed and available. Unlike LAMP(Linux,Apache, MYSQL, PHP), LADE - Linux, Apache, DB2. Eclispe is robust and platform universal).
Ford constructed the 3 rivers plant late in 1930s. The inputs were iron, copper, rubber and sand. The outputs were
cars. This is the level of in-sourcing we need now. The tech equivalent of Three Rivers is a sever building plant like the Hudson Valley Works of IBM, but build on Open
Source.
The bigger scope will be constructed upon local based microprocessor and system board solutions such as Intel is proposing. Other nations manufacturing microprocessors and sytems board must start local server solutions. Let's applaud Intel for in-sourcing.
Same multinationals who wrecked our economy and the rest of the planet. So let every other nation and the U.S. do the same to get out out the crisis. From agriculture (so far uneffected due to price support socialism), to the andicapped' to the social security retirees to those living on unemployment, too many see the future and it is socialist.
I want a future not socialist or capitalist but economically democratic. When Michael Camdessus - IMF Chief in 1989 - went to the U.S.S.R. , he did not attack the Politburo, KGB or Soviet Military. He destroyed the local factory and farm 'soviets'. In other words, the same system running United Air and HP would be dismantled. The State owned, but even to a small extent after Stalin. Paulson is our Camdessus.
We need to construct a tech solution that is democratic and uses local resource to rebuild. I am almost alone olitically.
What of the great promise made in the 1980s by the out-sourcers: abandon all hope of the industrial economy and technology will sustain you. This enormous lie by the ruling class in times past, when people could read, remember and act, would be the stuff of revolt.
So it falls to us, the down-trodden to create any future at all. I applaud all my brothers and sisters who did so much and risked all to destroy this most despotic and oppressive system. I applaud those who died opposing the despotism under which we all suffer.
All I have written regarding Enterprise Funds are more relevant now then ever. After they waste enough time and money, they will understand that there is one substitute for management and control. The substitute is waste and fraud.
To those who say this cannot be done, just show me the location of the next Intel Plant.
The Stimulus agreed by our political representatives, that will be signed into action by our newly elected president, does not position our nation to trade with other nations. Each proposed elements of the bill puts money into non trade entities. Keeping America the 'consumers' rather than the 'producers' in the World Economy. Our Trade Deficit will expand beyond repair.
With China's stimulus working for them - Chinese spending some of their savings, we should be taking advantage of this through manufacturing of tradable goods and services to them. But no, our government has sold us out as the world's shopaholics. It's despicable and an embarrassment!
Dobbs they need to get the details of what's being sold.
Right now, AFAIK, GM holds the intellectual property rights for the platform, which is one of the parts that the Chinese have had difficulty making.
For a vehicle like the Hummer, the chassis is important, because you're asking a lot from not that much metal. So there's a lot of engineering involved in it.
I think that in some sense, this deal is GM's way of acting out, given the treatment that they got in DC. It certainly ups the ante for providing more loans, doesn't it?
And at $100 million?
Not to mention that the Chinese have trouble getting their hands on these parts because of the arms embargo.
This is the kind of story that goes right across party lines....it hits national security as well as labor issues and will assuredly generate outrage across the political spectrum.
Reading this, I'm starting to think you are right and ya know, how could the UAW do worse in terms of corporate executive management than these guys? I know they are labor only but I'm starting to believe they could manage the company so much better.
Maybe turn it into a DARPA/NASA type of organization but with a advanced manufacturing, DoD supplier focus. I have no idea but this story just takes the cake in terms of stupidity. We create the innovation, the technology then....just plain hand it over to the Chinese. This has happened over and over again and not only is it destroying the United States economy and making China the dominant economy, they are putting our national security at complete risk.
No wonder the top spy just said the biggest threat to the United States is economic.
There are Democrats and then there are Corpocrats running around with the Dem Logo.
Yeah, I wouldn't have posted this except I've seen these indicators over and over from the primaries on...
now we have two major Progressive journalists reporting it at the same time, so well, there ya have it.
I believe them.
It's ridiculous, they should be looking to expand these and then #1, reduce health care costs because the U.S. is getting ripped off by the health private sector (insurance companies, drug manufacturers, for profit hospitals and so on) badly, as in 8x worst than any other industrialized nation.
I keep having images of corporate vampires sucking on the neck of the middle class and they are convinced the dead bodies still have blood in them...if they can only find the next big vein!
...the riots myself ;-). That would be totally unacceptable and the death knell of the Democratic Party. One would think a party on the upswing would want to stay in power, but then we ARE talking about Democrats ;-P.
....although I do have some hope for the stimulus when it comes to infrastructure (much of it very necessary and needed), I agree wholeheartedly that overall this is NOT a reasonable long-term solution. The stimulus may help stop the bleeding, but as the posting says, this is the wrong solution to the problems we face today.
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