It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
Tonight's film is the PBS American Experience biography on President Lyndon B. Johnson. Mostly remembered for the Vietnam War, LBJ was also responsible for a host of economic related programs. LBJ is probably one of the last New Deal Democrats and this is the definitive biography on his Presidency and life.
Michael Collins Originally published in "Scoop” Independent News
on September 30, 2007 The Money Party is a small group of enterprises and individuals who have most of the money in this country. They use that money to make more money. Controlling who gets elected to public office is the key to more money for them and less for us. As 2008 approaches, The Money Party is working hard to maintain its perfect record.
It is not about Republicans versus Democrats. Right now, the Republicans do a better job taking money than the Democrats. But The Money Party is an equal opportunity employer. They have no permanent friends or enemies, just permanent interests. Democrats are as welcome as Republicans to this party. It’s all good when you’re on the take and the take is legal.
It's that time of the year again.
No, not Christmas. It's the time of the year when the state of California starts paying its bills in IOU's.
California lawmakers passed a bill to let recipients use state IOUs to pay fees and taxes owed to the government in Sacramento, if the warrants are issued.
The bill, from Assemblyman Joel Anderson, a San Diego Republican, passed the Senate unanimously. It requires all state agencies to accept registered warrants issued to pay for goods and services. The Assembly unanimously approved the measure in September.
The state could start handing out these IOU's as soon as two weeks from today.
One thing you can count on is that blame and suggestions on how to fix the budget mess will start flying fast and furious. Some ideas will be crazy. Some reasonable, but long on image and short on impact. Many good ideas will never be considered.
What is also sure to happen is you will see a blizzard of numbers. Some will be created out of thin air. Most will be half-truths. Almost none of them will give you an honest perspective on what the actual problems are.
That's why I am presenting this essay, so that you can make a rational judgment for yourself.
On The Economic Populist you might have noticed the right column. We try to list other sites and blogs who have exceptional insight and writing on what is happening in the U.S. economy.
Sometimes though, one cannot say it better but miss those who did.
Must Read Post #1
It appears there is a strong correlation to income inequality and national economic implosions. One of our themes on The Economic Populist is without a strong U.S. middle class and American labor force, there is no national economy.
Must Read Post #2
This is almost off the wall. The Wall Street Journal has an article, The End of Management. They discuss the bureaucratic nightmare called corporations and their never ending managerial organizational charts and roadmaps. The problem is the article solutions proposed often involve global labor arbitrage. Not everyone can sit around working on open source for free. Additionally, it is well documented that bidding per project is a method to pay below minimum wage for advanced software and engineering skills. No job security, benefits or even per hour pay. While I heartily agree that corporate management is arcane, one must figure out a way to provide stable income, retirement, benefits for people to produce.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
Tonight is quite a find. The entire 7-part 1993 PBS series on The Great Depression is online (for how long, one can never tell so watch it while you can!). I happen to love documentaries on this time period and by far this is the best of them.
A relatively obscure case in Norway shows just how different the United States is from the rest of the industrialized world.
The Oslo Stock Exchange was halted by unusual trade action. It seems two Norwegians were trying to manipulate stock prices.
We believe the two are behind a number of cases of price manipulation. They have set purchase and sales orders that have not been real, because they have had another motive, namely to move prices, "said Stenberg.
In other words, they did exactly what every single bank on Wall Street does every single day. In New York it is called High Frequency Trading. In Oslo it is called getting six years of jail time for breaking the law.
So who is right? Is Norway some Socialist Hell for not allowing the free market to work, allowing faster traders to skim profits from slower traders? Or are laws in the United States too lax, allowing people to take money from the system without adding any value, thus destabilizing the economy?
To answer that we need to look at a couple more examples.
On The Economic Populist you might have noticed the right column. We try to list other sites and blogs who have exceptional insight and writing on what is happening in the U.S. economy.
Sometimes though, one cannot say it better but miss those who did.
Must Read Post #1
Another scary chart, proving corporations are simply creating jobs....abroad, this time from The Economist. The last two recessions are worst than the Great Depression in terms of job growth.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
Tonight's film is the PBS American Experience biography on President Franklin Roosevelt. If only we had a FDR around today. If you haven't seen this yet, it's exceptional.
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
It's Friday Night! Party Time! Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
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