Well… I have to laugh at the surprise that has been coming out of some quarters in Europe that the economy there has slowed markedly over the past few months with the head of the IMF now saying the continent will go back into recession this year. What did they expect? When you slash spending and pay for workers, the result has always been slowing growth…just as Keynes postulated in his economic theories that have been so derided by the right here in the US. One of the things that everyone seems to be ignoring in the headlong rush to austerity across the globe is that you can never cut your way to growth….that cuts in spending and infrastructure investment will certainly mean years of slower growth instead of the robust growth that comes from deficit spending in a recession. I feel we have lost the ability to be objective in economics as the partisanship of politics and ideology have blinded us to what works in climbing out of recession…but, I think that is the aim of the repubs with their only stated goal over the last 3 years is to defeat Obama; no matter how much damage is done to the country…geez…
Category Archives: Misc
One last thing for today…
Well…it has been a prolific day for me and I wish I knew why so I could repeat it….this will be short one and probably should have been put in the musings one that I did previously…but I didn’t so here goes….the one reason that companies always give for sending jobs overseas is the huge difference in labor costs between the US and China, but a new study that has come out in the past couple of days is that the difference is only about 20% of the total product cost…so, for example, if you have a 200 dollar flat screen made in China….it could be made and sold here for 240 dollars and would put many of our neighbors back to work and start to restore the American dream. I, for one, would happily pay the extra 20% if that would mean one of the unemployed here in Michigan (maybe me) could get a good job. One of the things we all must remember is that, with the hollowing out of our manufacturing base, we have permanently lowered demand so much that we can’t grow our way out of the malaise the economy is in….geez…
Been thinking about this for a while…
Well…a nice article by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post this morning kind of crystallized something that has been rattling around in my head for quite a while and highlights something that I think has been downplayed in the whole Bain Capital/creative destruction argument that has been presented as justification for the destruction of companies and lives by the right. While the entire emphasis has been from the investor side and the rightful assertion that people should make money from their investments, what about the investments of the people that work at these companies? The investments of time, loyalty, and forgone opportunities that came from listening to the promises of management and choosing to contribute to the growth and success of those companies has largely been ignored in the calculus of how the rewards should be distributed. Why should the investor class walk away with 88 percent profits yearly on their investments (as happened in one 10 year span at Bain) while the workers whose companies were gutted and ransacked by Bain walked away with nothing to show for their decades of service? It is just the latest manifestation of the contempt that the right has for labor and anyone who is not in the 1 percent…geez…
Need to set a few things straight…
Well…this one is going to kind of fit with the title but not all of it….so here goes…first, the only reasonable person dropped out of the repub race today when John Huntsman decided to quit…but I can understand why…the repub party is so far to the right now the John Birchers would be to their left and I never thought I’d see that. I do miss the reasonable repubs like Jerry Ford that got things done for the country, not just their party. But that was then, and this is now and I don’t think we’ll see the “big” politicians again…those whose only thought was to try to do the best for the country and it’s people no matter if they were dems or repubs. Oh, one of the things that I want to get straight is that I’m not really against business or capitalism per se…it is unbridled and unregulated capitalism that I can’t stand and rail against almost constantly as you know. There is nothing wrong with companies making money, but why do they have to squeeze every penny out of their workers and give it to those who don’t really need more? I think one of the questions that people that already have so much should ask themselves is “how much is enough?” Once you have millions, why do they have to continue to take when an extra 100 bucks week would mean a lot to one of their employees? Where were these people raised? And, who taught them that to care about others and fairness is a bad thing? I wasn’t brought up that way but I see the trend in a lot of younger folks today…I wonder why…and how can we fix it? Just thinking….
More Keystone nonsense…
Well…just saw an ad that attacks Obama for the delay in approving the Keystone pipeline and I needed to comment on this boondoggle again….if you’ve been here before, you’ve read my previous comment that took to task the lies that are used by big oil and the right to get this environmental disaster in waiting approved….and this new ad just adds to these lies with a new one and one that has not gotten much press lately..at least not in the media that I read. That new lie contends that this pipeline will help the US with energy independence when it is just not true…all of the oil that goes to the refineries through this pipeline will be exported to other countries…none of it will be used to lower prices or to meet demand here in the US. So, who benefits from the risk from this pipeline? There is only one group that benefits…the oil companies…and that is the dirty little secret that supporters of this debacle don’t want you to know…geez….
378 million reasons to hate Apple…
Well…I’ve never been a fan of Apple products and the iron-fisted control that they exert over their use and, as such, have never owned one…with that disclaimer out of the way, I do need to comment on the news that came out yesterday that the new CEO there is going to be compensated 378 million dollars…yep, you heard it right…one person at Apple is going to make more money than entire countries do…doesn’t anyone else see anything wrong with that? Especially when Apple outsources all of it’s production to sweat shop factories in China? How many American’s could they employ if this idiot only took say 50 million dollars? Or, how many dividends could they pay to stockholders? Just another example of why people are showing up at “Occupy” rallies and the conversation has changed in this country to highlight this nonsense…especially when you can’t even say with a straight face that this idiot “earned” the money…so, I will shout into the wind again…Boycott Apple until this nonsense ends…geez…
Have to comment on ole Nolan…
Well…I was just reading the Detroit News (yeah, I know, it will rot my brain but I do need topics) and a little article from ole Nolan caught my eye for its nonsense that blames Democrats and liberals for the financial problems that beset Detroit. Nolan, Nolan, Nolan….how stupid are you? I will admit that Detroit has been looted by mismanagement over the years and has never been a model for good government, but, to blame the loss of population and the shipping of jobs overseas on the democrats is to blame the victim for having his life stolen from him. It is the republican party’s pro business policies that have led to outsourcing; to moving auto jobs to Mexico taking millions of other support jobs that used to pay a living wage but now, what jobs are left, don’t pay enough to pay taxes on let alone add to the tax base that has fled. So, Nolan, your anti labor and anti human screeds are getting tiring…how can you have so much hate inside and still call yourself a human being? Geez….
Okay, might be cheating here…
Well….had a nice morning and prime rib for lunch and I thought I’d come back for a couple of minutes and just noodle around a bit….it’s been kind of a trying week or so and I’m not sure why…have been really tired lately and it is showing up in dead legs on the bike…oh, well…there hasn’t been any trail weirdness to report or any dreams either, and I am getting kind of concerned with that…something is out of whack and I’m not sure how to fix it…so I won’t think about it for now…
Oh, there is one thing in politics that I find funny…what is the state of the republican party when even George Will is going after other republicans? In his column yesterday..or today, I’m not sure…ole George went after Newt for his crazy assed attacks on the judicial branch of the government….something that I commented on a few days ago and, even though it’s very seldom that I agree with or even read one of George’s columns, it was good to see some sanity from the right for a change. But, I would prefer that they stay as crazy as they are….because then the only constituency they will have left will be the tinfoil-hat crowd….
Okay, here’s the reason for no lyrics…
Well…I guess I’ve never told you why I’ve stopped quoting lyrics in my daily posts here and I really want to share that with you guys….I have gotten a few e-mails from record companies telling me that I am violating their copyrights by using the lyrics…even though I make no profit from this stuff….so, I guess I’ll challenge them to come after me…I don’t really have anything left for them to take so what the hell….
“Attention all shoppers, it’s cancellation day….the big adios is just a few hours away….it’s last call to do your shopping at the last mall…”
Bring it on….
Boycott “Top Gear”….
Well…I am outraged at what Jeremy Clarkson said yesterday about the workers striking in the UK to try to maintain their pay and pensions…this idiot came out and said that the strikers “should be shot in front of their families” and that they have gilt-edged pensions while he has to work for a living. Given the fact that the taxes of these strikers pay his salary through the parent company of his tv and radio shows; the BBC, and that he makes more than a million dollars a year just screwing around with cars, I think he should just shut the hell up and go back to his privileged life…I know I’ll never watch “Top Gear” again….and I think no one else should, either. Geez….
Okay…have thought about this for a few minutes and I do have to protect this idiots rights to say what he thinks whether or not it was a joke…it will still make me less likely to watch his show, though…..it’s what makes a free society and to be consistent to my beliefs on this subject I need to support his right to be an idiot…