Recent comments

  • He said some of the most stupid stuff before a Congressional hearing recently.

    and the anti-affirmative action groups jumping all over this...

    So, beyond the obvious (and I think we all know what he was trying to say instead of what he did say), he also has the demographics completely wrong!

    Construction isn't dominated by white males, it's dominated by illegal labor. Engineering, R&D is not dominated by US citizens, increasingly it's dominated by guest workers. U.S. domestic diversity numbers in STEM is beyond disgust low. Women STEM are dropping out (and I think this implies forced out) of STEM to the tune of 52%.

    The rules of diversity, meritocracy from the 1960's, hey laudable goals but when someone doesn't have their demographics current or understand what is happening in the United States and it is a discrimination against U.S. citizens for jobs in their own country and that's due to global labor arbitrage, offshore outsourcing/insourcing/cheap labor....where this is a by-product...

    ....I mean really! It's like he has some image of a construction site in the 1960's where it was "white male"
    but it was also....heavily unionized....it's like he never even drove by a downtown street corner watching the illegal day labor round ups for construction!

    There is also something kind of sad in this video. Does he think Black males cannot do construction or women? Does he think women cannot do research, science or black males?

    How about older workers? Are they just exempt now from discrimination laws even though age discrimination is so rampant in the United States it's institutionalized (which is horrific!).

    I agree with what you are saying, a book which throws up ones hands as if all of the policy and legislation did not cause our current malaise and somehow it's just technology that is some sort of force beyond reason is also stuck in some antiquated model (Productivity model to be exact) where global labor arbitrage, different economies, differing PPP are just ignored.

    Reply to: Robert Reich's Supercapitalism (book review)   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I have been watching certain financial networks all day today and writing pieces on my website about the stimulus. One thing that comes to mind is that Washington is constantly talking about how things need to change. Education needs to change, tax law needs to change, lobbyists need to change. If we're all about change, why is Washington still running the same way. Partisan this and that. Kids do what their parents do and not what they say. If Washington wants change, then Washington needs to do it first. How about coming together on something and not voting down party lines on everything.

    Reply to: Bail Out Déjà Vu - Experts, Reps Say Stimulus Needs Work, So Why is Congress Ramrodding the Bill?   15 years 10 months ago
  • Just a constructive comment that you might remind readers more what the Kasriel Recession Warning Index is.

    and if you are finding a pattern implication during deflationary recessions, I request you spell it out for us lay folk.

    Great work but it's also dense. Don't want your findings lost of the lay folk.

    Reply to: Economic Indicators during the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression (III).   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • EP allows anonymous comments but they go into a moderation queue. If not spam, etc. approved.

    yesterday I changed the anonymous title because more than once we get some criticism with no link or reason and so I decided sometimes they are more like drive-bys. ;)

    Some drive-bys are ok, they are just sight seeing, others carry weapons!

    Reply to: Social unrest spreads in Europe   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • If this is true, that most banks are/were perfectly fine and it was just the large bad apples....then even more nationalization of those bad apples sounds like it is in order.

    Any sites/watchdogs having a percentage list of who really are the bad banks and how many are not?

    Multiple reports of the bad banks lobbying to get TARP money and now Geithner is supposedly going to limit that but the details are not clear.

    Reply to: If you havn't read Institutional Risk Analyst yet, you need to NOW   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • This is a blatant lie.

    Who am I to question an Anonymous Drive-by?

    Reply to: Social unrest spreads in Europe   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • There's our hint..we should start doing the same thing to all temporary working visa (h1b and l1) holders that are taking jobs from Americans.

    Reply to: India Firing Foreigners, Hiring Local Citizens   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • "The previous day a protest of 10,000 against the government in Latvia turned into a riot. 126 were arrested when the crowd tried to storm the parliament building."

    Actually, only about 1,000 of the 10k attending turned violent.

    "Protests have also erupted in Estonia"

    This is a blatant lie.

    Reply to: Social unrest spreads in Europe   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ... for a general audience, given that the number is bigger 2009-2015 than it is 2009-2019 ... it makes it sound like $200b of the spending is in the last half of the twenty teens.

    2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Total
    Estimated Outlays (A) 29.0 115.8 105.5 53.6 26.5 13.0 6.9 3.0 1.6 0.9 0.4 356.0
    Estimated Outlays (B) 64.1 108.8 54.0 7.1 6.9 14.8 4.8 -4.7 -3.9 -2.2 -1.8 248.0
    Reply to: What is in The Economic Stimulus Bill of 2009, Part II   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I see everyone is completely upset, and rightly so with the idea that one of the most notorious offshore outsourcers, labor arbitragers, H-1B users in Silicon valley might get such a position of government power as Commerce secretary.

    I hear ya! May I suggest writing blog posts on this outrage on sites like:

    www.democraticunderground.com
    www.dailykos.com
    www.openleft.com
    slashdot.com

    and any other blog you can find PLUS
    call the white house, leave a message of outrage and disgust on whitehouse.gov (be polite in your outrage of course), call the White House and call your Congressional representatives as well.

    Also, spread this fact around, few are aware of Symantec for while they are notorious, they are also more under the radar than say Intel, CISCO or Microsoft.

    There are so many better choices, one's that would truly build up U.S. business using U.S. workers, for the national interest, U.S. economy. The last thing we need is to literally offshore outsource the United States Commerce Department.

    Reply to: U.S. Corporations Demand the U.S. Taxpayer Should Not Buy American   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I agree with you, it's a positively horrific choice and gives a horrific message not only to US workers but to US businesses. Symantec is one of the biggest labor arbitrage agenda/offshore outsourcing/H-1B employers in Silicon valley.

    Here is the Instapopulist on this horrific choice.

    You are spelling the corporate name incorrectly.

    Obama, if he is going to the private sector should find a CEO who has not offshore outsourced to China/India/etc. and instead utilized the United States business friendly laws to build up a successful business and frankly one in advanced manufacturing would be ideal.

    Reply to: U.S. Corporations Demand the U.S. Taxpayer Should Not Buy American   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I was told to be aware of the Commerce Secretary pick... a pro-outsourcer (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/john-thompson-commerce-se_n_161...) and the CTO pick might come from staunch ReThuglican Cisco Systems, Padmina Wagoneer (wrong spelling), studied chemistry in India, spent years at Motorola, and is now at Cisco in Silicon Valley. For sure, if these two are appointed, I will be dismayed. Silicon Valley is filled with H1Bers who have taken all sorts of jobs from HR (they seem to infiltrate the companies) to project management. It's pretty bad. Everyone knows that the salaries are low-balled too 'cause they get to live like royalty here compared to their third-world country. Pretty sad times.

    Reply to: U.S. Corporations Demand the U.S. Taxpayer Should Not Buy American   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Very, very funny you should mention the Commerce Department. Obama is suggesting John Thompson from Silicon Valley's Semantec be our new Dept. of Commerce (DOC) secretary. Well, guess what? That company outsources and H1B-visas workers like crazy. It is not pro-U.S. labor at all.

    HuffPo Info on Thompson: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/john-thompson-commerce-se_n_161...

    "India is Semantec's Second Largest Engineering Site"
    (http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20070212/market05.shtml)

    and from their Semantec's site:
    (http://www.symantec.com/en/in/about/news/release/article.jsp?prid=200705...)

    Reply to: U.S. Corporations Demand the U.S. Taxpayer Should Not Buy American   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I link to it in this post and quote it in detail. It was released today, which now Republicans have jumped around to waving instead of the partial, which the CBO on it's blog admits did exist and was the rough/partial initial analysis.

    (see bottom right of EP, I have a bunch of government RSS feeds there).

    That's where I am getting this deployment problem and delays.

    Assuming enactment in mid-February, CBO estimates that the bill would increase outlays by $92 billion during the remaining several months of fiscal year 2009, by $225 billion in fiscal year 2010 (which begins on October 1), by $159 billion in 2011, and by a total of $604 billion over the 2009-2019 period. That spending includes outlays from discretionary appropriations in Division A of the bill and direct spending resulting from Division B.

    If it makes ya feel any better, the CBO also said the Stimulus checks of $300/$600 would be effective (ha ha) but they also in their previous report on the previous stimulus bill did also point to infrastructure projects and expanded unemployment/social safety net expenditures.

    Reply to: What is in The Economic Stimulus Bill of 2009, Part II   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • ... though of course permanent tax changes would have ongoing effects ... from the spending, its residual multiplier effects and things like longer term productivity gains from infrastructure investment, not the time it will take to actually spend what is in the stimulus as direct expenditure.

    And the decision of the Republicans and their mouthpieces to trumpet the "CBO report" that did not yet exist, and the loud insistence that "the CBO report will be swept under the carpet if it does not support the Stimulus" turned out to be a dam squib when the CBO report come out that said that this would be the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression, and the stimulus spending would actually act like a stimulus.

    Reply to: What is in The Economic Stimulus Bill of 2009, Part II   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • If you want to stay around and chat, contribute to the site, get all geeky on all things economic, on the upper right corner is a place to register. All sorts of features become available, like bypassing the CAPTCHA, being able to write your own posts (please read the rules, user guide first) or just track your conversations in the comments.

    In each account is a comment tracker so you can reply more easily and maintain individual conversations.

    If not, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. We're all thrilled people are reading our writings and mumblings, rants, graphs and stats!

    Reply to: On Posts   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I have been looking for this type of raw and real analysis for some time now. I've been watching the stripping of America's high-tech intellectual property going overseas and being raped by other countries all in the name of cheap labor (H1B and outsourcing) for over a decade in Silicon Valley. I don't think that the rest of America understands the implication of this for our future. It is very, very grim. Thank you for this information and analysis. I really appreciate it.

    Reply to: Corporate Citizen - An Oxymoron   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Blinder's assumptions are shockingly accurate. High-tech companies in Silicon Valley have been replacing very qualified Americans with other-than-software developer positions in the most glaringly outright manner for the last 5 years. It's as though the lack of Bush admin oversight allowed it to happen. Every position from Human Resources to Data Analyst and Project Management has been up for grabs. The companies just make excuses to get rid of the Americans (generally fabricating work issues or just laying off) and hire in low-wage Indians (generally speaking). It's rampant, It's crimminal. And it is killing America.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - Alan Blinder on Outsourcing & Robert Reich on Wealth Inequality   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I'm not in favor of the Commerce Secretary nominee. He works for Semantec, key outsourcer of American jobs. He had to have been influenced by the outsourcing mafia and that does not make me comfortable. Check it out:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/john-thompson-commerce-se_n_161...

    Reply to: DOL Labor Secretary Solis on H-1B Guest Worker Visas   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • The company's "H1B plans". This tells you they have a concerted STRATEGY. It is not due to lack of high-tech American workers.

    Reply to: Intel Microsoft Lay Off U.S. Workers While Demanding More Foreign Guest Workers   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:

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