On Lehman’s Real Estate and Obamanomics
There are two excellent, long pieces in the Sunday Times:
• How Lehman Brothers Got Its Real Estate Fix: Many factors, of course, contributed to Lehman’s demise last fall. Near the end, it carried $25 billion in toxic residential mortgages. It was wildly overleveraged. And the federal government made the fateful decision not to rescue Lehman from its mistakes. But when real estate overheated in the years before Lehman’s implosion, Mr. Walsh made billions of dollars in loans and equity investments that also ultimately helped bring down the bank.
• After the Great Recession On April 14, President Obama gave a speech at Georgetown University, trying to explain why he was taking on so many economic issues so early in his administration. He argued that the country needed to break its bubble-and-bust cycle and cited the New Testament in calling for a new economic foundation for the nation. This foundation would be built on better schools, alternative energy, more affordable health care and a more regulated Wall Street, he said. Later that afternoon David Leonhardt sat down with the president to talk about how his agenda might change daily life in this country.
They are your weekend must read assignments . . .
>
Sources:
How Lehman Brothers Got Its Real Estate Fix
Devin Leonard
NYT, May 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/business/03real.html
After the Great Recession
David Leonhardt
NYT, April 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03Obama-t.html
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
FDR’s liberal legacy was The New Deal. LBJ’s was The Great Society.
I’m surprised the media hasn’t created a glamorous shorthand descrription for BHO’s agenda to ram government down our throats.
I guess they’re too busy trying to understand the important matter of what has enchanted him during his first 100 days to come up with a clever moniker.
~~~
BR: I have to ask a question: What was your response to George W. Bush agenda? His administration nationalized AIG, Fannie/Freddie, GM, BAC, CITI, gave us the outlandish & expensive TARP, the prescription drug entitlement, and enormous federal deficits. He rammed a ton of government down our throats, including a highly questionable and expensive overseas incursion in Iraq.
I was critical of what I saw as bad policy in W, and I am similarly critical of bad policy from Obama.
There is no link attached to your comment, so i dont know how critical you were of W doing what you are now accusing O. of doing. Why don’t I get that sense about you from your comment that you were just as critical ?
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:59 am
I’ll have to read these later, as I’m about to step out the door to go to the gym and then shopping with a lovely brunette (she’s from Europe, no less!).
I will say this, though: I haven’t talked to a single person who thinks we can have economic prosperity built on the foundation of sand we’ve built it on for the last 30 years. Republicans and Democrats would agree that a nation cannot be prosperous long term if it makes nothing, sells nothing, and only consumes.
The question is, how do we change that? For 30 years, the Republican answer was cut taxes, cut spending, cut education, cut health care. Theirs is an ideology that holds that there aren’t enough resources in the world for everyone to maintain a basic, minimum standard of living and prosperity. We must pick favorites who will prosper. The rest of the world exists to support these elites, who we can expect to toss a few crumbs our way now and again out of a sense of noblesse oblige. That is the kind of thinking that got us in this mess, and frankly, I can’t see how that offers us a way out of it.
The President is offering a different vision. One in which we rebuild America from the ground up, not the top down. One in which we reinvest in our human capital, which is the only real form of capital that ever produces wealth. One in which everyone has access to prosperity on the basis of their intellectual and moral capacities. One that grows the pie so we don’t have to decide which of our offspring grow fat and which of them starve. There is simply no-one else out there offering a realistic plan to re-center the American economy on production except the one the President is offering. None.
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
franklin,
if that was what was really going on, instead of being a ’sales pitch’, we’d have some large ‘banks’, already, under FDIC-receivership..for starters. To say nothing of the expanded land war in Asia, et al., ad infi..
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:25 pm
“Now, what is true is that a postgraduate education that isn’t giving you skills that are measurable in some way, that provide you with some differentiation, means that you’re going to have a little bit of a harder time. I would argue that anybody — that young people generally are going to benefit from a good, solid liberal-arts education. That’s what I got. ”
Er, no. If you want to go to law school, maybe. Or, maybe a stockbroker. Otherwise, college debt for a general liberal arts education may put you in the old joke.
What is the first question a liberal arts major asks on his first day on the job?
“Do you want ketchup on those fries?”
I would vote for more engineers, more teachers of mathmatics based courses, and so forth…less sociologists, less general science, more EE’s, ME’s, etc.
Of course, those curriculums are hard….
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:37 pm
franklin, I am happy to see you are taking your mom shopping for her Mothers’ Day gift.
As a progressive, I am all for “better schools, alternative energy, more affordable health care and a more regulated Wall Street”, but not at the price of $3 trillion or so to prop up privileged, monumentous failures in the banking industry. It seems that for every $1 we are paying for good schools or alternative energy, we are paying $100-plus for the Wall Street establishment. And I do not hate financiers, because I am a financier. Unlike Hoffer, I do not mind some government intervention, but all of this money printing and debt piling are primarily to save the Wall Street LOSERS and will have bad consequences.
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Some of the comments made by Obama really upset and frighten me. Claiming that nurses (not underpaid) and teachers (underpaid) are underpaid because they’re women dominated fields is ludicrous. If the pay was the same, teaching would be one of the most sought after careers. It’s a supply and demand issue-the markets at work. Unfortunately, you get some really terrible people in there because the hurdles for becoming a teacher are so low.
His comment about about rejecting Congress’s ability to process information is limited is scary. People voting on bills that they haven’t read and don’t understand is a sure fire way to create problems. AIG bonuses were in the bills voted on and months later when that was discovered there was outrage. If the reps had been reading the bills we wouldn’t have that problem. To argue they can process even more information means those with special interests will pack bills and by making them more complicated basically encourage reps to not read them. That is not appealing and it does not bode well for our future nation and economy if that is how decisions are being made.
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
CNBC S,
just to be clear: The Constitution allows for plenty of Government ‘intervention’.
the point is: We should know/remember: “How Much?”
~~
this: “… rejecting Congress’s ability to process information is limited is scary. People voting on bills that they haven’t read and don’t understand is a sure fire way to create problems…”–mkng1
is a good point. and, completely contra to his Campaign Promise of: “Allow five days of public comment before signing bills
To reduce bills rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them, Obama “will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/234/allow-five-days-of-public-comment-before-signing-b/
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Franklin:
Son, you are insulated in your university setting. Socialism has a major flaw, and that is basically that some people are jealous of others and how well they do in society. Yes, it has benefits for the really needy, but I would argue that the country as a whole would do better with capitalism, with a true safety net for the truly needy.
We talked earlier about Sweden. Their unemployment is 8.5% last time I checked. And if you look at some of the Swedish blog sites, people there are like people here. Some like what government does for them, some strongly disagree. And they do have the highest taxes in the western world.
Instead of insulating yourself in the ivory tower, take time off from your degree path (maybe your are full time faculty, I don’t know) and use your sabbatical to work for 24 months in private industry. I think you would find there is another world out there..
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar period. This decade, it reached 41 percent.
Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street was good for the country.
We crossed the Rubicon with Bush and so far team Obama has done nothing to readily address or materially change the Banking Oligarchs.
The U.S. Treasury Dept. estimated it will borrow $361 billion in marketable debt in the April-June quarter, $196 billion higher than it previously projected, according to a Treasury statement released Monday. With the current, 2009 fiscal year at midpoint, the federal government is running a budget deficit nearly $1 trillion.
http://bit.ly/EPoQh
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
@Mark: You are are correct. I was extreme in my characterization of your principles.
@Bruce: I hear your point on getting more engineers, and you are right. However, our broader problem is not too many lawyers and liberal arts majors, but too many kids being stupid, ignorant, lazy, disrespectful, fat, and PROUD of all of the above. The threat to us is not being superceded, but becoming more and more irrelevant economically. The price is not likely (hopefully) cataclysm, but a dull, lasting misery and the loss for most Americans of the dream of what is possible.
Right now, I can sum up Obamanomics as $1 for solar panels, $100 or maybe even $1000 for Wall Street fat cats. I guess that is better than the Republicanomics of $0 for solar panels, $5 for nuclear power, $10 for oil, $75 for defense cronies, and $100 or maybe even $1000 for Wall Street fat cats.
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:22 pm
franklin411 @ 11:59
“[Obama is offering a vision in] which we rebuild America from the ground up, not the top down. One in which we reinvest in our human capital, which is the only real form of capital that ever produces wealth. One in which everyone has access to prosperity on the basis of their intellectual and moral capacities”.
………………
WOW.
Why not try for a job as a speechwriter for “Mr. O”…?
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Bruce in Tn-
liberal arts and sciences are not mutually exclusive. In the classical education of the Greeks/Romans (i.e.- liberal arts) mathematics and astronomy were included. For instance- a B.A. in Mathematics is appropriate for teachers and scholars- but I am sure w/ appropriate electives could get into a Master’s program in Engineering/Computer Science. Same thing with Chemistry- B.A. is also available. Liberal arts are broadly based and I think do have merit- for instance ethics is an important subject for any field- as is history. I have a B.S. in Finance so I am not biased towards B.A.- just do not view a liberal arts education as being a negative.
“The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.”
—Albert Einstein
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:37 pm
DL,
this: “One in which everyone has access to prosperity on the basis of their intellectual and moral capacities”
what, franklin&friendz won’t tell you is: “Who makes the Test? Who’ll adminster it? Who’ll ‘judge’ it?”
it’s another way to spell Eugenics..
see: “Future Generations is about humanitarian eugenics.
Humanitarian eugenics strives to leave a genuine legacy
of love to future generations: good health, high intelligence,
and noble character. We advocate measures to improve the innate
quality of humankind which are entirely voluntary.”
http://www.eugenics.net/
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=eugenics
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
“The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.”
—Albert Einstein
BINGO call me ahab….and this counts way more in the Knowledge economy of today where most people do not read textbooks i.e. if you cannot perform critical thinking then act quickly your toast. Unfortunately most Global 2000 upper level business executives and most of our Congressiters fail in this regard.
No wonder why it’s the same ole same ole bullshit being spoon fed to Americans most of whom take it at face value or just lap it up….hmmm tastes great….and less filling !
May 3rd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Here is the passage in Obama’s interview that strikes me as the most distressing:
“I think everybody needs enough post-high-school training that they are competent in fields that require technical expertise, because it’s very hard to imagine getting a job that pays a living wage without that – or it’s very hard to envision a steady job without that.”
This comment will not bother the likely readers of the NYT magazine or this blog, because they all are educated persons.
But the quotation pretty directly writes off any worker who is doing something that doesn’t require technical technical expertise: it pretty much says in Obama’s world, people who work at things that don’t require technical expertise shouldn’t ever expect to make a living wage. Unfortunately, any economy requires considerable services from such people, unless you are prepared to make arguments that waitresses or Walmart workers and many other service and low-education jobs require “technical expertise.” So apparently large numbers of people in the American economy should simply never expect to make a living wage (much less have steady jobs), even under the leadership of the supposed more liberal wing of our country.
Given that Obama is the leading democratic party politician of our time, this remark seems to me to reveal how a large part of the democratic party has in fact lost interest in large numbers of ordinary working people. People who were worried that Obama is some sort of liberal radical in his heart can take comfort from this remark, I think; he certainly is no socialist (‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”). Conversely, people who are worried that very ordinary people’s lives are no longer a central concern for people in power in our society, can try to resign themselves to the likely truth of their concern.
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Interesting discussion about the European form of capitalism in this article:
Going Dutch
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03european-t.html
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
michael m.-
good point- what O may be missing however- is that even firemen and welders have extensive technical training respective to their professions- the ivy league crowd is always under the impression “if only everyone had a great education from Princeton” then “we all would have great jobs”- delusional
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I’m disheartened to see that he doesn’t think we need to split up and downsize these giant financial institutions (mega banks) through some version of a new Glass-Steagall act. Too big to fail is a large part of our problem. Regulation is required but I think that most of the problem should be dealt with through structural reform that helps to avoid conflicts of interest and oligopolies. Undoubtedly the predominant influence of Summers, et al.
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Our Universities will sell any degree to anyone who can afford it — education, intelligence, wisdom are not requisites when coming into their systems, and despite the sheepskins they hand out, they’re not guaranteed when leaving. Many, if not most, of our most historically noteworthy people did not hold University degrees. Many of those who did finished at or near the bottoms of their classes.
As for technical proficiency, the apprentice system — once the functions of Guilds and now found primarily in the widely and unfairly despised unions — provided a very good social system for providing it.
We also have to remember the arguments our society, with its focus on wealth and in its rank display of stinginess, had over simple minimum wages when we discuss the much more costly concept of a living wage.
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
@Call Me Ahab:
Frankly, I don’t have anything against a liberal arts education, either, my point is that Obama says as I copied from his remarks, that he thinks this is the best basic education for most kids in college. To that, I would say no. Again, if you are interested in law, real estate, perhaps working on Wall Street…but we have MORE than enough of these folks today, and are importing engineers and people who have majored in the “hard sciences”…which I think of as those with calculus and math as a foundation.
My second son made the same thing on his ACT his daddy did, and started out in EE, like his father (started out), his uncle, his great uncle, and so forth…but he thought the major was too involved and decided to major in communication with the idea he would go into advertising….
Well, today he manages a fast food restaurant. And he has a head full of brains. Oh, well….no job in communication, and in this economy little chance of gettting the advertising job he wanted (for a variety of reasons)…
No, I understand people do well with a liberal arts degree. That is not my point. My point is that this is the risky path, unless you have certain concrete ideas about how to use that degree..
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
You are right. I was not critical enough of Bush. But I can assure you I absolutely despised his refusual to veto the big government spending that happened under his watch, 75% of which occurred under budgets passed by a Republican led Congress.
What I did do, however, was express my frustration to the Congressman that represents my disctrict, who is a Republican and was re-elected in ‘08. I called his local office and told the staffer who answered that I was so frustrated with the Republican’s lack of fiscal discipline that I didn’t care who his opponent was, I was voting for the opposition. When the electoins came, I threw my vote away on the Libertarian candidate on the ballot.
I actually received a letter signed by him shortly thereafter thanking me for the input and essentially saying he had gotten alot of similar feedback from other constituents.
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
@km4:
Er, you and ahab are quoting Albert Einstein about the value of a liberal arts education???
Er, Albert Einstein?
Liberal arts and Big Al? Have I missed something? I think that comes closer to my point, don’t you?
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
i wonder. a lot of folks gripe about the incomes the UAW earns, but are now firing shots at the big O for his seemingly agreeing with them. how really strange. and i am not sure really sure we are doing that much better than the ’socialist’ countries. from this http://www.economist.com/markets/indicators/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13576449, it would appear we are on par with them. and i suspect their citizens are probably better off than we are. after all they have a net to work with as opposed to us. and i saw a story that with all of the whining about how socialist we are becoming that it has gotten folks attention that would never have considered it before. not that i would like it much either. and i think the split up of the TBTF banks sounds grand, but how do you do that without new laws? i saw some one suggest the ant-trust laws be amended so they keep systemic risk down. but without that even if you redid glass-stegal (if you could get it past the lobbyists of course), it probably wouldn’t help. the banks in question represent about 75% of all money in the country, and how do you over come that?
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Bruce-
I think the point of Einstein is that a liberal arts degree helps you grasp things you may not learn form books- the Eureka! moments so to speak
also- noted- your points regarding a more specific career path- nothing wrong with that- I was only saying that it isn’t an either/or
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Since you all seem to be discussing education and intelligence, I wanted to point out this excellent David Brooks article from last week: “Genius: The Modern View”
“The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=1
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
We probably agree…if Einstein had majored in liberal arts he’d never had put that damn cosmological constant in in the first place.
Besides….Newton was the greatest math mind ever born…not Einstein…he couldn’t carry Newton’s water..
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
karen, you are right again…Edison bears your point out….
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Out to eat Mexican with friends…back later…
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Karen-
time spent definitely counts- however I think there has to be some natural inclination towards what it is they are spending hours on that makes them head and shoulders above the rest- i.e- not everyone is going to make it as an NFL quarterback regardless of the hours put in
Bruce in Tn-
I agree- all i am saying is that you can be a Mathematician or Physicist and also be learned person of liberal arts- one does not preclude the other- for instance- Leonardo da Vinci was not focused on one discipline and was a great thinker in many fields
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:56 pm
I know I’m late to this party
@ michael m I think you’re taking it a little out of context there, Nothing wrong with working at Wal – Mart & such, but it’s not (or ever will be a living wage) ahab almost got to point when he brought up firefighters & welders (you don’t get to ride on the big rig till you get thru academy) I guess what I’m going at here is I don’t think it’s Obama’s personal view, so much as the way of the world.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
ahab,
you’re on the right track. differently, if one is forever examining the Stone through a single facet, they’ll never see all the flaws.
interdisciplinary exposure allows for the Individual to borrow, seemingly, unrelated information and cross-stitch it into a more cohesive fabric of understanding.
and, in effort to provide a working example, we should wonder about unicyclists, and how many of us are, actually, cut out to be one..
~~
past that, this: ““Black says that the government’s entire strategy in dealing with the economic crisis is a massive cover-up:
‘ [They] don’t want to change the bankers, because if we do, if we put honest people in, who didn’t cause the problem, their first job would be to find the scope of the problem. And that would destroy the cover up….
And, of course, the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts….
“You’ve got to keep the information away from the public or everything will collapse.’ ” (emphasis added)
“Senior S&L Regulator Says Government Engaging in Massive Cover-Up of Economic Crisis”
William K. Black senior S&L regulator during the S&L crisis, Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri.
April 4, 2009
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/04/senior-s-regulator-says-government.html
from: http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/deepcaster/2009/0501.html
We should, still, wonder why this Man, Black, hasn’t been on Nightline/Dateline/”20/20″, etc., on a continual loop/serial basis..
hey, did you say A-Rod played a minor league rehab game? and TO was a no-show at Bills mini-camp?
I’m really afraid that we’re too afraid to learn for ourselves..
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Nice to have a president that can formulate grammatically correct sentences into logical paragraphs. His closing comments were very interesting and reveal that not only is his heart in the right place but he is attempting to grasp The Big Picture. I believe that he is more concerned with righting the ship than creating a legacy.
Let’s hope that keeping Summers, Timmy, and Rubin around will not backfire.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:11 pm
“Now, I actually think that the tougher issue around medical care — it’s a related one — is what you do around things like end-of-life care —”
“Yes, where it’s $20,000 for an extra week of life.”
This is a huge problem and the reality is often far worse than $20k for an extra week of life. My father came down with a bad cold and went to the hospital where the cold evolved into pneumonia over the course of 2 weeks. He spent his final 3 days hooked to a breathing machine but no other extreme methods or tests were performed.
The hospital bill for the final 2 weeks of his life? $220,000. He was 90 years old. I’m guessing the total medical insurance premiums he paid throughout his entire life didn’t approach even half the amount spent in those 2 weeks.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Oh, and that $220,000 also equates to 11 years of his final salary before retiremnet.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
wow Clem- excellent question- thanks for sharing-
quite the conundrum to answer- tough issue to tackle
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:31 pm
A vast majority of jobs, including many in the professional fields, do not require, or even allow, very much thinking.
David Souter, retiring now from the Supreme Court, bemoaned the intellectual strait jacket required of even a Supreme Court Justice (or at least one that properly understands his constitutional role). It’s only a fun job when all the precedent is thrown aside and a new constitutional interpretation is fashioned out of whole cloth.
A heart surgeon is hardly paid to think. He is paid to know, by rote, every detail of the human heart, and to cut precisely its parts, and to do it over and over again, every day, such that he can buy his wife that he never sees a fancy house that he barely lives in.
The point is, in the age of specialization in which we live, an age that started about 10,000 years ago with the abandonment of hunting and gathering for a sedentary agricultural lifestyle, mind-tasking creativity is rarely needed or even desired. And even in occupations where it seems desirable, like we once thought of finance, what is really needed instead is wisdom, not intellect.
If Obama is going to re-build the entire American economy from the ground up, he should start by telling folks that there is really no way around the idea that a) more people will have to work than not, and b) work doesn’t usually require the best education or best mind; because c) it is either monotonous and uncreative, or it is unprofitable, and enough people have to be profitably employed at the drudge work of life that we can afford to have a few that get to chase rainbows.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:32 pm
So…I’ve laid out what I think President Obama’s agenda is for transforming the economy from a consumption to a production model. My questions are:
1. Do people think such a transformation is necessary?
2. If so, how should this transformation be effected?
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Clem,
we should learn from Oregon, see:
Beginning in 1987, a group of Oregonians, appointed by Gov. Neil Goldschmidt, including health care providers and consumers, business, labor, insurers and lawmakers, agreed on a common objective — keep Oregonians healthy. They developed a political strategy to attain their objective, answering three main questions about Oregon’s health plan: who is covered, what is covered, how is it financed and delivered. They agreed that:
• All citizens should have universal access to a basic level of care
• Society is responsible for financing care for poor people
• There must be a process to define a “basic” level of care
• The process must be based on criteria that are publicly debated, reflect a consensus of social values, and consider the good of society as a whole
…
http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/healthplan/priorlist/main.shtml
the question that Obama raises is a very difficult one, though, no doubt, one we should answer.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:40 pm
“He argued that the country needed to break its bubble-and-bust cycle and cited the New Testament in calling for a new economic foundation for the nation. This foundation would be built on better schools, alternative energy…..”
LOL.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:45 pm
@franklin411:
You first have to have a market–a demand–for which to produce. It isn’t just ginned up out of thin air.
But even with a demand to be met, producing domestically when the product can be made cheaper internationally is the fastest available road to pauperville that there is in economics. Doing so essentially defines a banana republicville.
In many industries, We won’t (and shouldn’t) be producers again until the wages of American workers have declined or the wages of our competitors have risen enough until the wages across the international spectrum are at par.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Reading the ongoing debate concerning the merits of capitalism and socialism is like listening to a couple of dentists argue over whether Coke or Pepsi causes more tooth decay.
People need to get beyond the idea that people exist so that their labor can be expropriated. Does it really matter whether it is the State or the so-called private sector that oversees the theft? As long as people believe that they should receive something for nothing, all of these silly games will persist. Remember, if history has taught us anything, it is that human beings will do absolutely EVERYTHING for(somebody else’ s money.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
@TC
There’s some question as to whether these products really are being made more cheaply abroad. Our obsession with free trade has blinded us to the fact that many of our “friends” are using unfair trade practices to drive our manufacturing sector out of business. They’ve largely succeeded at that, but the process is not entirely complete. When will we wise up?
And there’s plenty of demand for green energy. The only nations that are satisfied with the current global energy system are the Arabs.
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
franklin,
if we were in a ‘Democracy’, and you’re talking about the ‘Gov’t’ leading the charge, it’d start here:
Open-book management is a management technique pioneered by Michael Phillips in San Francisco in the late ’60’s and early ’70s. The concept’s most visible success was by Jack Stack and his team at SRC Holdings and popularized in 1995 by John Case. The technique is to give employees all relevant financial information about the company so they can make better decisions as workers. This information includes, but is not limited to, revenue, profit, cost of goods, cash flow and expenses.
The basic rules for Open-Book Management are as follows:
Give employees training to understand the financial information
Give employees all relevant financial information
Give employees responsibility for the numbers under their control.
Give employees a financial stake in how the company performs.
…. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Book_Management
be expanded to the Taxpayers, with continuous access to a BI “Dashboard”, via the WWW, and the staffing could take place along the American Idol-line.
progress would be followed on the ‘Survivor’-style basis (weekly updates-televised).
We could have a Real “Woodstock for Capitalists”
the NUCO.gov could be funded on the Liberty Stamp/Bond model v.2.0 see kiva.org, for instance..
many of those that are, currently, getting hosed in their ‘Sustainable/Green” MutFunds would be, most certainly, early adopters..for starters.
though, with all that, peep would see/have to come to grips with how Al Gore stands to Tremendously Profit from the Junk Science he so actively peddles, among other issues..
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:02 pm
The Curmudgeon Says:
” We won’t (and shouldn’t) be producers again until the wages of American workers have declined or the wages of our competitors have risen enough until the wages across the international spectrum are at par.”
that about sums it up- sadly
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:03 pm
“The only nations that are satisfied with the current global energy system are the Arabs.”
franklin,
remember it isn’t called the Petro$, for no Reason.
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:14 pm
As I said above the 21st century is the Knowledge economy and competiiton is on a global scale like this country has never seen before.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
- Benjamin Franklin
“Knowledge is power.”
- Sir Francis Bacon
Unfortunately only a small % ( ? ) of Americans are gainfully employed in Knowledge economy.
For most Americans The Curmudgeon is correct: for production businesses the wages of American workers will drop.
We already know most service based businesses ( excluding legal, medical, a few others ) don;t pay that well.
There will be no return to ‘normal’ for the US economy ( those days are over )
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Right on about the cost of end of life care. It can be a lot more than $20,000. Age 89, my mother has been in ICU three times in the last 14 months. She is now in a nursing home. Between illnesses, she is quite with it and alert, up in her chair and around in the wheelchair. She has a DNR, and the family has turned down a couple of offered “expensive” tests. But when someone is struggling to breath, you have to do something.
Horrible, difficult issues. That have to be addressed, somehow. Obama is intelligently discussing them. Good for him, that is where it has to start.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Obamanomics does not get us back to ‘normal’ for the US economy ( those days are simply over ! )
Why ?
1) The projected budget deficit for 2009 is $2 trillion
2) The debt-drowned United States debt is already 350 percent of G.D.P and rising fast !
3) The Fed is now holding $10 Trillion of ‘assets’ ( mostly toxic ) transferred from too big to fail banks.
4) Other countries are now buying less of our debt
So what can most Americans look forward to ?
a) for production businesses the wages of American workers will drop in order to compete
b) We already know most service based businesses ( excluding legal, medical, financial, a few others ) don’t pay that well.
Bottom line: being frugal is the new black and with 70% of US GDP historically driven by consumer spending this is simply not sustainable going forward !
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Melvin Konner’s companion book to the PBS series “Medicine at the Crossroads” is just as relevant today as it was back in 1994, seeing as how nothing has really changed:
http://www.amazon.com/Medicine-at-Crossroads-Melvin-Konner/dp/0679742166/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241395905&sr=8-1
The section about community-based support services for the elderly in Ireland is simple and powerful. In some cases the service is as basic as a minimum-wage local kid buying groceries and stopping by to chat a couple times a week. But the fundamental cultural distinction is that Americans don’t talk about death in a mature “circle of life” context, simple as that. And, of course, you have to be a part of a culture that gives a shit about the elderly.
These MSM dumb-ass talking point approaches to policy questions make me want to strangle some kittens. “End of life care” expenses — whatever. How about preventive medicine? N.B.: Pharmaceutical company execs are to “banksters” what Nosferatu is to Blacula.
Can you imagine “W” giving a one-on-one interview like this? LOL
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Transor,
w/this: ” How about preventive medicine? N.B.: Pharmaceutical company execs are to “banksters” what Nosferatu is to Blacula.”
you get to the heart of the matter.
and, then, this: http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_en.jsp
needs to be pulled into view, w/: http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Codex+Alimentarius
makes for some nice reading, LSS: most herbs and foods will fall under a ‘global governance’ regime.
see what the ’supplement’ folks think about this..
this is akin to what Whalen was saying about the Finance-sphere: “Tough tootsies, Little Banks”
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Vikrim Pandit-BS, MS in electrical engineering, MBA, PHD in finance
Angelo Mozilo- BSc, Honorary Doctor of Laws
John Thain-MBA Harvard, BS MIT
Stan Oneal-MBA Harvard
Hank Paulson-MBA Harvard
Steve Jobs- Some post secondary school courses
Bill Gates- Some secondary school courses
Yeah, we need more educated people running things!
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:39 pm
First off, Obama and college for all.
Keep in mind that under the ‘new and improved’ bankruptcy laws, student debts are FOREVER.
Lending standards don’t matter because your debt can never ‘go away’.
Ruminate on that sheeple
Secondly, this total bullshit that you have to have a college education to succeed, this is only true for true dumbasses like Bush and Gore. How bright are these fucking geniuses?
Thirdly, as has been noted, what good is a college education if there are no jobs in your field of study. You get stuck with a couple hundred grand of debt and get to pay if off on a McDonalds salary.
Good luck with all that.
We elected the bastards, we better unelect the bastards.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:48 pm
On Obama, the man
Had a GREAT chance to make a difference, chose to piss it off and stick with the status quo.
Torture, nah let it go.
Bank fraud, nah let it go.
Contractor procurement fraud, nah let it go.
But then again, he may be a sharp dude, the last chump to take on the MIC got his ass planted in Dallas TX.
May 4th, 2009 at 2:09 am
Mark Hoffer,
One thing missing from ‘open-book management’ is the element of control, i.e. with greater responsibility employees must also be more able to control processes and outcomes. You might take a look at Ricardo Semler’s book: ‘Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace’ as an example of one means to do this within the boundaries of capitalism though true worker management would slip those bounds.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:29 am
In regards to the Brooks NYT article here are some clear counter-examples:
1)Can a woman work out hard/long enough to become as strong as a man?
2)Can a down-sydrome individual stare at a Calculus textbook his/her whole life and finally understand?
3)Do you become creative by do the same F***ing thing over and over?
The answer is no. Simple biology folks.
We are all different. Some are “blessed” with certain capability above others. But the crucial step in creating something of lasting value (say the General Theory of Relativity or any Masterpiece) and not simply novelty is hard-work and persistence.
Cheers.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Juan,
thank you for the reference to http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maverick-Success-Behind-Unusual-Workplace/dp/0712678867
to be clear, I’m not sold on OBM, per se, as The answer. I was using it b/c it is more widely known/knowable, and acts as a meaningful place-holder for some good ideas that trend toward Open Source, increased Transparency, greater/broader Accountability/Power sharing..
But, franklin, who was asking the Q: has no response. For, I believe, it puts him in the position to see “Gov’t” intervention is there to help “Gov’t” First, not the Taxpayers/Serfs..
Again, thanks for the point out, I’d not been familiar with that work..