Recent comments

  • January 6th Frontline has a new documentary about Post Katrina and the incredible waste, mismanagement, fraud, problems with Federal Funds to rebuild the area that are still ongoing.

    I think we might want to watch that if it's a good example of cronyism and chuckin' federal funds to one's pals.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - Is Walmart Good For America?   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • I was very surprised to find some of these cartoons this time. I should probably start citing authors or doing something to give credit. I collect them from other sites where it's clear the links are available, but I should cite the cartoonists. I absolutely love how they can sum up everything in one sarcastic drawing.

    Reply to: Sunday Morning Comics - It's a New Year Edition   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Couldn't you buy GLD on the NYSE?

    Oh, and what is TIPS?

    Reply to: The next bubble to burst   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • very nice article thank you very much.... evden eve

    Reply to: The Bond Market fears Deflation   15 years 10 months ago
  • At least, happy as it can get.

    They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20 ~~ Dennis Kucinich

    Reply to: Sunday Morning Comics - It's a New Year Edition   15 years 10 months ago
    EPer:
  • Stuffed a good portion of my 401(k) in TIPS because of inflation worries, which in hindsight limited my damage from the collapse of stocks....but where to put it now? Cash is no good if the currency collapses, which is now looking inevitable.....Perhaps it is just not going to be possible to protect savings from what's coming, my 401(k) does not offer gold as an investment choice.....

    Reply to: The next bubble to burst   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • I made a terrible mistake of not realizing the lag with the incredible impossible deficit, thinking it would have an immediately effort.

    Reply to: The next bubble to burst   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • I am generally sympathetic to immigration and immigrants, but Dr. Nelson's articles do suggest some serious problems with the H-1B program. To give the "unavailability of domestic workers" test some teeth, it might be wise to add an additional requirement that firms demonstrate that without foreign workers, they would be unable to compete with low-wage foreign industries. Otherwise, why can't they just train some domestic workers, or pay more?

    Additionally, whatever the benefits of trade and immigration may or may not be, they create some winners, and some big losers -- those who lose their jobs and never get another one as good. As Dr. Nelson points out, older workers fall into this latter category most often. A North Carolina study found that of laid-off manufacturing workers age 55 and older, fewer than half found jobs in a year, and these earned on average 61% of their former wages. They face not only unemployment but age discrimination and investment in additional training yields less payoff.

    It is very difficult to prove that any given employer has discriminated against job applicants based on age, and the victims either get jobs elsewhere or lack the money to pay for the legal effort required. Class action lawsuits are an obvious approach but the same business and libertarian groups that favor unrestricted imports have greatly diminished the effectiveness of class actions.

    Still, the link between trade, immigration, and age discrimination could have political significance, because older Americans tend to have more political influence than younger ones, and might form new coalitions. Might the American Association of Retired Persons think of trade and immigration as age-related issues? Is there an American Association of Involuntarily Retired Persons?

    Reply to: Offshoring and Outsourcing Commentary for the New Year   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Glad to see you and Bonddad collaborating.

    I would have never guessed you are a critic of neoclassical economics.

    Reply to: Welcome Huffington Post Readers   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • If you are a member of the economic elite, overpopulation is good news. Why? Because overpopulation (even via immigration) creates labor gluts when the labor supply of a region or nation exceeds its carrying capacity. Labor gluts drive down the market clearing price for labor.

    Furthermore, the population increase also causes the demand for the necessaries of life to be increased, which tends to increase the market price for those necessaries.

    The economic elite are enriched via both scenarios while the middle and lower classes suffer economic losses. This is a classic "zero sum game."

    The economic elite also tend to own the mass media - and promote policies via those media outlets that serve their economic interests. Examples that come to mind include The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

    In systems theory, this is a "positive feed forward" system, so it tends towards instability.

    Instability in this example means population crashes - and economic crashes.

    One of the big contributing factors in the U.S. Great Depression was the "great wave" of immigration circa 1910 to 1924. As the U.S. economy crashed, there were bloody riots and people were killed. The political elite finally noticed and reacted strongly. In the depth of the Great Depression, mass repatriation was used to create jobs for about 1/2 million Americans. See author's 09 October 2008 published Washington Times LTE regarding forced repatriation

    Rather than improving models, I advocate more citizen involvement in government. There are powerful, free tools for citizens to demand moderate reforms, such as the SAVE Act of 2009 via the website at NumbersUSA.com

    Reply to: Offshoring and Outsourcing Commentary for the New Year   15 years 11 months ago
  • Good points from everyone about the need to keep the workers and their skills here, if they come at all. Just as companies that get US subsidies to build factories should have to give them back if they move overseas, companies that import skilled workers should have to pay stiff penalties if the workers leave.

    I don't doubt that skilled (or unskilled) workers reduce wages for competing US workers. But given that we have gone and committed ourselves to the WTO and NAFTA, the choice seems to be unemployment by immigration competition or unemployment by import competition. Which is better, i.e., which offers the best chance of alternative employment, if either? I suspect immigration is better, though I don't see how any definitive answer could be possible. I will read through Dr. Nelson's articles.

    Reply to: Offshoring and Outsourcing Commentary for the New Year   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • One can flood a labor market with plain ole immigration too. All things static, or in the case of the U.S. hemorrhaging jobs that are going offshore or disappearing, you flood the labor market, even with green cards and wages with go down. Supply/Demand 101.

    It's not just "programmers" which can mean anything from a tech to an engineer, it's the entire Professional careers area. Even U.S. teachers are getting displaced by guest workers.

    Another thing to note is the use of U.S. citizenship/green card status as a "trading tool". As it is we have a lot of foreign lobbyist organizations using recent immigrants with U.S. citizenship status as front organizations to basically lobby for their foreign interest.

    Not exactly adopting one's new country in deeds is going on and citizenship is seen more as a business tool or to assist the mother country instead of taking seriously the responsibilities of citizenship to this country.

    i.e. is one truly an American now or is one still a citizen from the country where they originated from?

    First just pass S.1035 (intact, not gutted by lobbyists) which reforms the H-1B and L-1 Visas.

    Then on green cards that's better but watch out because corporate lobbyists are moving to green cards with your above argument, but in truth, they are planning the same agenda, just with a less controversial vehicle. i.e. global labor arbitrage but this time with a "green card" instead of a NIV (non-immigrant Visa).

    Reply to: Offshoring and Outsourcing Commentary for the New Year   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • By Ian's standards:
    "What Ian does not discuss is what it says about millions of Americans who also went along for the ride, content to watch their IRAs and 401-Ks "increase in value.""

    These people are "incompetent investors", as most investors in a double-blind market are.

    For this reason, I'm for decentralizing the stock markets- requiring stockholders to live within reasonable driving distance of the companies they own. Heck, I'm for the same thing with consumers- As much as possible, I try to buy products from companies where I can visit the farm or the factory. It gets harder every day to do so.

    But only with decentralization can we recover the human aspect of economics.

    Reply to: Madoff WAS the system, not an error or bad apple   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • Is that we are NOT against immigration for the purposes of escaping natural disasters or corrupt "fictional" economic and governmental systems.

    Our *ONLY* concerns with immigration are labor supply/demand curve and pressure on wages. These are truly economic concepts, and cover *all* immigrants regardless of where they come from (I'm always amazed at the racist angle when being against illegal immigration- the 2nd largest group of illegal immigrants in the United States right now are from Eastern Europe- to be racist against them would be like the racist tensions between Sweden, Norway, and Denmark- where NOBODY else in the world can tell the difference).

    For that purpose, I'd like to see more on this blog about reducing the economic cost of immigration- both to the immigrants themselves, and to the natives here. That to me can best be done with a technological solution- a jobs website where employers can sponsor green cards (NOT the indentured-servant visas) for people who wish to come here- with the guarantee of a job for the first two years to establish the new immigrant. Since it's a green card, not specifically tied to the guaranteed job, the immigrant is free to be a rational economic advocate for himself/herself- and start immediately seeking a job that pays better. This would protect wages and jobs for natives as well, by ending the cheap labor/indentured servitude of the H and L class visas. Add instant background checks into it- maybe with a foreign aid program to modernize police data files worldwide- and you could potentially reduce the time to get a green card from the current year or two for an H class visa and five years for a green card to 30 minutes or less.

    Such a system would also enable macro-economic rules to be established, such as limiting industry/country quotas.

    Reply to: Offshoring and Outsourcing Commentary for the New Year   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • With one huge change:

    I want all of those imported professionals to be put on the true immigration track. To come here, they need to renounce ties to the "old country", they need to be given true green cards (not these stupid indentured servant temporary visas), and they need to be encouraged to buy houses and settle down like the rest of us.

    That would mean they'd have the same costs as an American programmer- and demand the same wages.

    Reply to: Offshoring and Outsourcing Commentary for the New Year   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • As opposed to the economic fiction, here's my opinion of the problems with unlimited immigration and free trade.

    A global economic system is a system of abundant surplus, not a system of scarcity. ALL of our economic models, regardless of what school you belong to, are based on scarcity, on a limited supply, of everything from natural resources to labor. While there are still some global limitations (fossil fuels, for example) what we really are looking at is a global surplus being used faster than it is created, not a true scarcity.

    This is especially true of third world labor. 80 million new citizens of Earth are born each year, in a population of 6.7 billion. But only 2.97 billion jobs are available in even the best of times; chances are during a downturn like this we'll go down to 2.5 billion jobs or so, in a population of 6.7 billion. When you think about it, that's an average of 2.68 mouths to feed per job.

    But with the surplus of labor that this shows, and normal supply/demand curves, the price of labor gets driven forever cheaper- and there's no way to keep feeding people- thus creating our current deflationary crisis.

    I guess what I'm saying is- we need much better models!

    Reply to: Offshoring and Outsourcing Commentary for the New Year   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • H1-B visas result in increased outsourcing.

    Seven of the top 10 H1 users in the US are Indian offshore outsourcing companies. Even Indian commerce minister, Kamal Nath, called the H1-B visa "the outsourcing visa".

    Outsourcers corner market for U.S. skilled worker visas

    Note the above article falsely states Google co-founder Sergey Brin came to the US on a visa. He was born and educated in the USA.

    Reply to: The Hypocrisy of Democrats in Offshore Outsourcing Rhetoric   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • The article incorrectly states the H1-B visa limit as being 65,000 per year.

    The facts are over 85,000 per year:

    - 65,000 reserved for anybody
    - 20,000 reserved for Masters Degree and up holders
    - UNLIMITED number to non-profits (e.g. universities, hospitals, ...)

    This does not include the L1 visa, of which I believe there are an UNLIMITED number.

    Reply to: The Hypocrisy of Democrats in Offshore Outsourcing Rhetoric   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • you need to learn how to format your URLs (links).

    See the right hand corner, user guide on how to do that.

    Reply to: Offshoring and Outsourcing Commentary for the New Year   15 years 11 months ago
    EPer:
  • It is clear to me that the root cause of many of the economic ills of 2008 was the "government subsidy" of immigration levels about ten times greater than our nation's immigration tradition. See Roy Beck's short YouTube video here: Our Immigration Tradition

    When labor markets are glutted by an alphabet soup of work visa programs and the costs of the necessaries of life are bid upwards by the tidal wave of immigration, the "banker class" are the most significant beneficiaries. The U.S. middle class and lower class are the losers in this zero-sum game

    Here is a collection of some of my published writings on these topics. I'm anticipating that there will be a big push for increased immigration in 2009, since both McCain and Obama's campaigns called for increased H-1B visas, for example. I wonder out loud if the voice of the middle class will be heard over the "soft rustle of lobbying dollars."

    Here are links to nine articles and LTEs that I have written regarding highly-skilled labor markets and the controversial H1-B visa program.

    http://www.caller.com/news/2008/sep/14/letters/
    Corpus Christi TX Caller - Times Letters to the Editor: 09.14.08
    Right sentence (Jack Abramoff's role in H-1B Visa program expansion.)

    Foreign workers take jobs away from skilled Americans
    Washington, DC Examiner Op-Ed 21 August 2008, page 22
    http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/columns/guestcolumnists/NO_Foreign_wor...
    or http://tinyurl.com/GeneNelsonOpposesH-1BVisas

    Immigrants don’t "make it all work," they take work
    6 August 2008 Letter to the Editor, Schenectady, NY Daily Gazette
    http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/aug/06/0806_print/

    Whose University is it Anyway?
    8 February 2008 University of Buffalo Spectrum (I earned my Ph.D. there in 1984)
    http://spectrum.buffalo.edu/article.php?id=35243

    The Greedy Gates Immigration Gambit
    Fall 2007 (Published in January 2008)
    http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/eighteen-one/tsc_18_1_nelson.pdf

    Career Destruction Sites - What American colleges have become
    Spring 2005
    http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/fifteen-three/xv-3-207.pdf
    Missing table regarding H-1B visa usage by NIH Grantees:
    http://www.jobdestruction.com/ShameH1B/Library/BrainSavers/H-1BVisaUsage...

    How Not to "Solve" the Social Security Problem - Mass immigration is the wrong answer
    Summer 1999
    http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/nine-four/ix-4-260.pdf

    Gene A. Nelson, Ph.D.'s 13 April 1996 speech at the National Academy of Sciences Washington, DC headquarters.
    http://www.engology.com/ArtNelson.htm

    Note the draft of my 5 August 1999 Oral Testimony critical of the controversial H-1B visa program before the House Immigration
    and Claims Subcommittee, in particular the final two paragraphs
    http://judiciary.house.gov/Legacy/nels0805.htm

    I was able to get "on the record" in the case USA v Jack A. Abramoff. I attended Jack Abramoff's sentencing hearing on 4 September 2008 at the DC District Courthouse. My 110 page "Victim Impact Statement" is document #40 in the Court docket in PDF format. It was filed with the Court on 3 September 2008. A searchable PDF copy is available at: http://www.cwalocal4250.org/outsourcing/binarydata/Abramoff.pdf . It is also available including Judge Huvelle's handwritten approval comment via the DC District Court's PACER website.
    Please tell me what you think about these articles, particularly the newest Social Contract article, which is about the "Abramoff Visa." Thanks!

    Reply to: Offshoring and Outsourcing Commentary for the New Year   15 years 11 months ago

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