When the Riots Begin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews
Retribution has already been meted out. Senator Bunning has been assassinated by the media for his patriotism and courage. The Washington Post is calling him a crazy, non-entity Senator. The false innuendos and defamatory outbursts against Senator Bunning are yet another sad sign of how broken the American system is. Why can Senator Bunning not object to further unfunded extensions of unemployment benefits? If it is so important to provide extended benefits, then surely there is a way to pay for them. And if his colleagues are unwilling to give up their cherished programs to pay for further unemployment benefits, then it tells you that the plight of the unemployed do not matter to these hypocrites. They just want to look good in the eyes of the electorate and do not care about the consequences of their irresponsible actions.
If you would like to know the truth about US federal fiscal responsibility instead of the BS from some guy in Singapore read
http://www.counterpunch.org/brown03022010.html
Retribution has already been meted out. Senator Bunning has been assassinated by the media for his patriotism and courage. The Washington Post is calling him a crazy, non-entity Senator. The false innuendos and defamatory outbursts against Senator Bunning are yet another sad sign of how broken the American system is. Why can Senator Bunning not object to further unfunded extensions of unemployment benefits? If it is so important to provide extended benefits, then surely there is a way to pay for them. And if his colleagues are unwilling to give up their cherished programs to pay for further unemployment benefits, then it tells you that the plight of the unemployed do not matter to these hypocrites. They just want to look good in the eyes of the electorate and do not care about the consequences of their irresponsible actions.
The media carry out assassinations now?!
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Bunning is not courageous or patriotic, he is a hypocrite about to retire. He voted in favour of:
-The unfunded wars in iraq and Afghanistan
-Bush's tax cuts, which were not matched with spending cuts
-The unfunded Bush-era expansion of Medicare
Apart from servicing the debt, it is health care (Medicare and Medicaid), Social Security and military spending which dominate federal spending, not unemployment benefits. Actually he is typical of US politicians, grandstanding about relatively minor expenses (Mc Cain on earmarks, Obama on Presidential helicopters and discretionary non-military spending, conservatives on foreign aid and NASA, etc) while not touching the items that would actually make a difference. To some extent this reflects US voters, which tell pollsters they're for smal government while supporting the bulk of federal spending; who claim to worry about deficits but want tax cuts.
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I am the steppenwolf that never learned to dance. (Sedaka)
El hombre es una bestia famélica, envidiosa e insaciable. (Francisco Tario)
I'm male by the way (yes, I know my avatar is misleading).
Okay you got me, Bunning is quite the douche bag. Even so, I support the stance that he took on unemployment benefits. Unfortunately he did not have the backbone to see things through. Needless to say, there is a high stakes game being played here and Bunning’s one man show is part of a wider plan for November’s mid-term elections. If the ploy was to simply attract a lot of attention to the continued payout of hundreds of billions of dollars in extended unemployment benefits, the gambit worked like a charm as the media took the bait along with the hook, line and sinker.
The basic premise of unemployment benefits is that any cyclical economic decline is temporary and smoothening out the rough edges of economic downturns benefits job seekers, employees and employers alike. Since I believe that this decline is anything but cyclical – and in fact marks the beginning of a deep structural adjustment in global patterns of consumption – paying out such generous benefits to the unemployed actually benefits almost no one. The country is run aground as debt piles up and a long term absence from the work force basically means that many people who have gotten used to collecting unemployment checks are no longer marketable. Businesses may gain marginally as aggregate demand is artificially propped up but they would gain even more if the much needed adjustment in wages occurs that would allow them to be internationally competitive and thus address an even bigger market opportunity. So long as unemployment benefits are being paid, wages in America will remain stubbornly high. This means that even though the country urgently needs to regain its competitive edge, the system of artificially high wages actually prevents American companies from winning in foreign markets.
It is really too bad that Bunning lost his nerve. For a moment I thought he might just last to the end of the week.
The basic premise of unemployment benefits is that any cyclical economic decline is temporary and smoothening out the rough edges of economic downturns benefits job seekers, employees and employers alike. Since I believe that this decline is anything but cyclical – and in fact marks the beginning of a deep structural adjustment in global patterns of consumption – paying out such generous benefits to the unemployed actually benefits almost no one. The country is run aground as debt piles up and a long term absence from the work force basically means that many people who have gotten used to collecting unemployment checks are no longer marketable. Businesses may gain marginally as aggregate demand is artificially propped up but they would gain even more if the much needed adjustment in wages occurs that would allow them to be internationally competitive and thus address an even bigger market opportunity. So long as unemployment benefits are being paid, wages in America will remain stubbornly high. This means that even though the country urgently needs to regain its competitive edge, the system of artificially high wages actually prevents American companies from winning in foreign markets.
It is really too bad that Bunning lost his nerve. For a moment I thought he might just last to the end of the week.
Read http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03032010.html
You have no idea of what you're talking about.
This is the central thrust of Mike Whitney’s convoluted arguments. I am reduced to answering him because most of you cannot come up with coherent arguments of your own. There are at least two assumptions that Whitney makes and the second follows from the first: a) on aggregate America cannot save; b) the rest of the world will lend to America. I am willing to grant Whitney the first point much as I would believe a fat man incapable of resisting a jelly donut. It is the second point that is dangerously false.
Throughout this thread I have pointed out that the America’s creditors are increasingly unwilling to lend to a country they believe to be bloated with excess. The Chinese have proposed a new global currency and the Japanese are talking about lending to America only in Yen denominated bonds. Thus far a Greek scenario has not been America’s fate because production in China and Japan is still tied to consumption in America. But the Chinese are working very hard to stoke domestic consumption and you can be certain that America’s attack on Toyota will only serve to turn a key trade and military ally sour on the unequal relationship. As we progress through this decade, consumption patterns will start to shift as Asia – principally China – starts to consume more. If you have ever been to China you would know that it would take very little to spark a consumer led boom as the Chinese now consume far too little of what they produce.
The reason to attack aggressively the foremost assumption made by people like Whitney that America cannot save is because if we look forward into the future, unless America learns now and learns quickly how to be more productive and frugal, it will be forced to save some time in the near future. Think of the heart wrenching scenes playing out in Greece today but multiply it by a factor of 50. The Greeks have allies like France and Germany to bail them out; America must rely on a country it defines as an enemy with whom two proxy wars (Korea and Vietnam) have been fought. Would it really be such a good idea to depend on Chinese kindness?
This is the central thrust of Mike Whitney’s convoluted arguments. I am reduced to answering him because most of you cannot come up with coherent arguments of your own. There are at least two assumptions that Whitney makes and the second follows from the first: a) on aggregate America cannot save; b) the rest of the world will lend to America. I am willing to grant Whitney the first point much as I would believe a fat man incapable of resisting a jelly donut. It is the second point that is dangerously false.
Throughout this thread I have pointed out that the America’s creditors are increasingly unwilling to lend to a country they believe to be bloated with excess. The Chinese have proposed a new global currency and the Japanese are talking about lending to America only in Yen denominated bonds. Thus far a Greek scenario has not been America’s fate because production in China and Japan is still tied to consumption in America. But the Chinese are working very hard to stoke domestic consumption and you can be certain that America’s attack on Toyota will only serve to turn a key trade and military ally sour on the unequal relationship. As we progress through this decade, consumption patterns will start to shift as Asia – principally China – starts to consume more. If you have ever been to China you would know that it would take very little to spark a consumer led boom as the Chinese now consume far too little of what they produce.
The reason to attack aggressively the foremost assumption made by people like Whitney that America cannot save is because if we look forward into the future, unless America learns now and learns quickly how to be more productive and frugal, it will be forced to save some time in the near future. Think of the heart wrenching scenes playing out in Greece today but multiply it by a factor of 50. The Greeks have allies like France and Germany to bail them out; America must rely on a country it defines as an enemy with whom two proxy wars (Korea and Vietnam) have been fought. Would it really be such a good idea to depend on Chinese kindness?
The Chinese would not be particularly happy about the demise of their best market.
The whole point of what I have been saying this past year is that the Chinese have decided to make themselves their own best customer. This is the most radical policy shift since the decision to open up in 1978 and is perhaps almost as important as the imposition of Communism in 1949. There is no reason why a country with 1.3 billion people should not be the largest and most vibrant market in the world.
Actually, I feel comfortably above the fray; though I have my own strongly held political views I try to refrain from getting too preachy about them, an endeavor in which I feel that I've been mostly successful.
Zeno's ideas might be a bit outlandish and wide of the mark, but as my remark noted, that hardly makes him unique here in PPR.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/educa ... ts.html?hp
The bottom line, he said, was that “they need much more money.”
Where the money could come from is unclear. California faces a new $20 billion state deficit, and schools at almost every level have already begun cutting back spending in the expectation of cuts in state financing.
Trust these UC kids to be first. There will be more cutbacks next academic year even as tuition gets raised. Too many kids and not enough money to go around. I suppose California could just opt out of the dollar and start printing its own currency eh? These demonstrations will just get bigger and bigger. If you are a twenty something in America today, you have good reasons to be angry. Those generous unemployment benefits probably do not apply to you because you have not worked long enough or at all even though you are the one will eventually have to pay for it. Tax revenues decline so the burden of education falls more and more on your shoulders even as you graduate into an economy where the opportunities shrink by the day. Did I hear someone say riots?
How exactly are the Chinese going to afford it? With China's wages, how is the domestic market going to replace exports to the West?
Technically true, but printing money becomes inflationary eventually. You cannot print wealth into existence.
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I am the steppenwolf that never learned to dance. (Sedaka)
El hombre es una bestia famélica, envidiosa e insaciable. (Francisco Tario)
I'm male by the way (yes, I know my avatar is misleading).