Tag: banks

Shorties’ Ladder

San Bruno: Admittedly, before this tragic explosion, San Bruno was mostly a BART stop to me. But one thing is very clear to me: we have got to stop waiting until bridges collapse and pipelines explode to make sure our infrastructure is in adequate condition! And here’s a little hint to politicians: You actually have to hire people to build and repair things like pipelines, roads, and bridges. Better yet, quality infrastructure makes it easier for the private sector to create jobs when these projects are completed! By the way, did anybody notice that PG&E are only committing to paying up if it is found to be their fault? Um yeah, I think Allstate and State Farm will see to it that they pay. Here’s video of the explosion taken at a nearby gas station.

Health Insurance Reform isn’t over yet: Premiums are still rising quite a lot faster than inflation, and insurers claim that this is because they are paying out more money (probably because certain shady practices had to be stopped). Meanwhile, there is one provision that must get changed. However, the Senate failed twice today to get it passed. Under an obscure provision — that has nothing whatsoever to do with health care — small businesses would be forced to issue 1099 forms to any vendor with whom they purchased more than $600 worth of goods. Somehow it is claimed that this would raise $17,000,000,000 in taxes. I just can’t see how that works. After all, I get receipts from my brokerage and local NAR chapter documenting how much I paid them; why is my sending them notice that I indeed paid what they admit I paid going to generate money for anybody but my accountant?

On the Federal Budget and the Deficit thereof: So those bad old Tax-And-Spend Liberals managed to reduce the deficit 13%, with control of Congress (although their “control” of the Senate is a strange thing). At least Tax-And-Spend Liberals know you ought to have money before spending it. But do you think any Democrats are going to point this out on the campaign trail? Probably not. By the way, I can’t understand why CNN thinks it’s newsworthy that the Federal Budget isn’t done yet. This has happened pretty much every year for as long as I can remember. Of course the budget deficit would shrink quite a bit if we just let the Tax Cuts For People Who Don’t Need More Money expire. Even Moody’s says that giving the rick a tax break doesn’t do jack for the economy, and they’re paid to figure this stuff out. Frankly, if the only way to make that happen is to accept higher taxes myself next year, so be it. Let me get my damn checkbook.

A Few Items on Education: School breakfasts are the coming trend (couldn’t they eat something more healthy than sugary cereal and whole wheat donuts? Sorry it’s still deep fried cake). David Sirota on the educational bait and switch that has left our students unfit to do much more than putter on computers and pour lattes. Why college grads can’t write despite employers begging for literate employees that can write a freaking memo. And more than you really wanted to know about student loans.

A Few Items on Banking and Financial Reform: It looks like the international community is telling us that we will tighten up regs whether banks and Congress and Bernanke likes it or not. However, the holes in the regs look remarkably like cheese from the region where the rules are even now being hammered out. Meanwhile, the SEC is trying to prevent financial firms from hiding their debt. Funny, we’re still having this issue how many years after Enron? Meanwhile, it looks like President Obama is actually going to do the right thing and put in a recess appointment for Elizabeth Warren as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That means there is a chance things will be done that favor Joe Average above the Banksters. Oh and one more thing: if banks are failing to pay the feds back, why exactly aren’t the feds foreclosing on their worthless hides?

Cops Hate Dogs: It amazes me that someone who is sworn to protect the people can have such a low regard for living beings. One must wonder if they even respect human life.

“But that’s a nose in the middle of your face!”: Even CNN is pointing out that simply assuming people are physically able to work until they are 70 is an unrealistic plan for “saving” Social Security.

Silver Lining on the Economy is just Aluminum Foil: The wage gap between men and women is shrinking. My take is that the bean-counters figure it’s more cost effective to lay off the high-wage man than the underpaid woman, with the long term effect being that wages in general are lower when it comes time to hire again.

It’s still Sugar: High Fructose Corn Syrup is being re-branded as “corn sugar.” That doesn’t change the fact that most research says it’s not good for you.

If you build it, they might come: It turns out that Fiats may be returning to the states. That is, if certain Chrysler dealers build special showrooms for them.

Dear Teacher: Get Real

Mr/Ms Teacher:

As you are no doubt aware, each of your students has 5 other classes. Each of these classes has their own supply requirements, although some things like “pencils” and “notebook paper” are universal. There is only a 5 minute or so passing period between your class and the previous or next class. While it seems like many schools are set up with an area dedicated to students at one particular grade, the fact remains that some of your students will have classes in another part of the building (such as gym, choir, art, or foreign language) and not have an opportunity to visit their respective lockers during some passing periods. Furthermore, it is highly likely that a student might have homework in multiple subjects, requiring that quite a few things be taken home.

These are things that I would have thought obvious to a professional in your position. However, it seems clear that some teachers have not considered the idea that students might have no choice but to carry supplies for multiple subjects at once. I can think of no other explanation for the extraordinary supply lists that have come home for the last several years, including fact that several of your colleagues each require a minimum 1″ binder, and a couple have required 2-3″ three ring binders.

Really? They need that much stuff for one class? Do you really think it’s important for them to carry around every scrap of paper issued in your class from now until June? Is every assignment, every graded quiz, every set of scribbled class notes of such critical importance? Can’t we use this opportunity to teach prioritization? Frankly, I didn’t need multiple 3″ binders per semester in graduate school!

Further, there is the issue of space and weight. These are still kids we are talking about. There is a finite amount of physical room in their book bags, and heaven forbid they should need to cram a book in there. Experts recommend that they put no more than 10-15% of their bodyweight in a backpack — including the weight of the bag itself. Let’s say for the sake of argument that these kids weigh the same 120 pounds I do. That means no more than 12-18 pounds. Have you considered putting your required supplies on a scale to see how much you are contributing to the load? The 500 sheets of paper that will fit in just one of those 3″ binders is 5 pounds alone.

Please understand that I don’t even want to address the expense of all these supplies despite the fact that 1 in 5 American workers is living paycheck to paycheck. I consider myself fortunate that I can just go out and get all this stuff without worrying about whether I can pay all my bills.

Just do parents a favor and think about the whole picture rather than your one class when preparing your list of required supplies.

In Closing: On illegal immigration: on the broken mess we euphemistically call an economy; the chicken sexers of Japan; why doesn’t Bernanke know??; insurance companies scramble to raise prices before somebody tries to institute price controls, results in people talking about price controls who weren’t before; I told you the mandate was a screw-job; shut up and do what you’re told, authority figures are the enemy, and other things we are inadvertently teaching children; energy; click for the first paragraph, stay for the rest; the first dinner party; the miracle farms of Brazil; and fast food.

Inflation

That’s one expensive yearbook!

In closing: “Maybe we can get Yaphet Kotto to play Captain Picard”; inside Trader Joe’s; a criminally misleading article about what doctors make; investors are nervous; Japanfilter double feature, Space Cruiser Yamato and the truth about Kobe beef; banks still only follow laws that they want to follow; 5 fastest growing occupations (the top two paying jobs reflect a premium for people willing to work the overnight shift); orders for durable goods — things that last longer than a latte — are up a whopping 0.3%; Turn Off Fox; when you start calling the citizenry “a cow with 310 tits [sic]”, you shouldn’t hold down a government position; Direct Instruction is a little more complicated than “nuns in a classroom,” but his point is taken that it in fact works; the smartest thing on unemployment that you’re likely to read this week; “cut government spending… someplace else!”; the next Dalai Lama could be an attractive woman?; you’ve got the time, get out and vote; Righthaven is perfectly willing to go after bloggers, but not a Senate candidate; on American Apparel; mysterious heiress (Clark County, Nevada is named for her father); and finally, The Doctor is In.

I Blame Paula Deen

I remember it was probably over a decade ago, I first saw somebody make a monte cristo sandwich on TV.  The chef might have been Emeril. It was the most decadent thing I had ever seen: a ham and cheese sandwhich, made with thick, egg-drenched slices of french toast. This made eggs benedict seem tame.

Time passed, and stuff like the KFC Famous Bowl came out, described by one blogger as “like throwing up in reverse.” But that wasn’t enough! Since then we’ve had KFC’s Double Down, Friendly’s Mac and Cheese Quesadilla, IHOP’s cheesecake filled pancakes, thousand calorie burgers (before the fries!) marketed as “healthy“, and a bunch of other things that look like somebody was trying imagine what they would submit to a Top Chef Most Calories with Stuff Already Here Quickfire Challenge.

Today’s entry:

That thing is a grilled cheese sandwich, made with melted American cheese and 4 deep fried mozzarella sticks, on sourdough bread. Served with marinara sauce and of course a heaping helping of fries. Available at Denny’s for a mere $4. Nutrition information is not yet available. It probably replaces the 650 calorie 3 Cheese Melt, which had been at least served with a choice of soup or salad.

I’ve got to agree with the Awesomer on this: Why didn’t they deep fry the whole thing? But remember, it’s only “culinary terrorism” if you actually eat it.

In Closing: it’s better than nothing; families spending less — or nothing — on back to school, bodes ill for Christmas; “Trade deficit inaction” means no new jobs in the Latte Economy, and that means a double dip recession is coming (assuming you think we ever got out of the recession); teenage wasteland; if we created 10 million jobs, Social Security wouldn’t have a shortfall this year; a less than cheery August thought, student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt; everybody heard about the guy who had a pea plant growing in his lung, right?; banks only follow the laws they want to follow; as the debate about tax increases/cuts continues, remember that you only pay taxes on money you make, and businesses only pay money on their profits; on the middle class; and finally, exactly how bad do you want it?

Don’t Make This Hard

Just about everybody thinks that Elizabeth Warren would be the absolute best qualified and most knowledgeable person to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Everybody except Timmy Geithner and the big financial institutions that got us into our current mess and stand to be regulated by the bureau, of course. After all, she might do things that are better for the hundreds of millions of us who do business with financial institutions, instead of the institutions themselves.

So it boils down to this — and by this we will know where President Obama stands. Does he nominate the best person for the job and ask the Senate to confirm Elizabeth Warren? Or does he nominate some crony who will do whatever the banksters want? And is he brave enough to commit one way or the other before November 2?

In closing: Sharron Angle is at it again; bank profits are worse than they look, which may explain why we’ve had over 100 bank failures so far this year; a real public option could save the Feds $68,000,000,000 in the next 10 years (how can they rationalize not doing it?); insurers push plans that even further limit our choices (and may put an end to all but the biggest medical practices); just a few words about Social Security; if the economy is getting better, where are the jobs and why is the White House predicting no appreciable change in unemployment until 2012?; on education reform; on cocoa (and why is this legal?); “VitaminWater” is not healthy; roughly 1 in 5 Americans suffered a significant economic loss last year, part of rising economic insecurity; but investors demand revenue growth or else!; we’re cutting back on little things; rape is just fine with 92 House Republicans, as long as it’s not white women; the middle class is vanishing, and an oligarchy is in charge; and a little science fiction.

The Latte Economy

Please bear with me as some issues are simplified for clarity and length.

The American Economy has evolved a lot in the 234 years since the Declaration of Independence. We’ve been an agrarian economy. At times our economy has been driven by various commodities such as gold or steel; in fact, it is still widely thought that Nevada became a state because the Union needed a source of silver (and electoral votes) during the Civil War.

By the end of the 19th century, the ground was laid for the United States to become a real economic superpower. Instead of relying foodstuffs and commodities that were in some ways an accident of being a physically huge nation, worked by a growing workforce with plenty of ambitious immigrants buying into rhetoric of a “land of opportunity”, manufacturing came to the forefront. At the same time, the Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Age; the standard of living rose for the working class not because the Tycoons were philanthropic, but because workers demanded things like living wages and the 40 hour work week that some of us still enjoy today.

Henry Ford, racist and antisemitic man that he was, did have a flash of genius when he decided to pay workers enough that they could buy his product, and enough time off to enjoy using it. Not only did it increase the number of potential buyers, he found that employee turnover plummeted. Other employers and competitors had to follow suit, and America now had quality finished goods to export.

At some point, “American” manufacturers realized that they could have their products made in countries with lower labor costs, put it on a boat to the United States, and still make more money selling it here, even if they had to discount the price a little bit! They could pull this off at least in part because even if they were paying a wage that was above the local average, it was still cheaper than American labor as they weren’t paying for retirement benefits or health insurance plans, they weren’t paying any payroll taxes or workers comp insurance on those employees, and things like environmental laws or worker protection laws were almost non-existent. To top it all off, desperate third world nations were sometimes willing to make financial incentives to build a factory and create what they saw as jobs of the future. International treaties such as NAFTA sped this process along. The best part of this was that the people at the top made more money, which in turn gave them more power.

But don’t worry about the factories closing, American students were told, you don’t really want to work in a dirty, smelly, dangerous factory all day, do you? No of course not! There is a future for you in information and service! See all these new computers? Somebody has to run them, and write programs in languages like COBOL or FORTRAN for them. Somebody has to figure out where all this information we are creating is, so there will be a need for people like research librarians and file clerks. And hey, worst case scenario, somebody still has to flip burgers and sack groceries.

Of course the problem with a lot of that “information economy” work is that it can even more easily be farmed out overseas. You don’t even have to get a finished product shipped back; just upload it to the server and it doesn’t matter whether it was compiled in San Francisco or Calcutta. Sure there are issues that come up with language and cultural gaps. Oops and I guess they don’t really have even similar data protection laws. But hey, it’s cheap.

And producing cheaper goods and services, we are told, is just the only way they can compete and give us the low low prices the American consumer demands. Of course there’s little talk about the reason the American consumer demands it: his wages just don’t go as far as they used to go.

So we don’t produce very much in the way of goods anymore, very little of the stuff you use every day is “Made in America, even if you wanted to buy American made products you can’t, the only thing we really export is money, at times we don’t even have a trade surplus in foodstuffs anymore, industrialized nations are busy plundering Africa for diamonds and rare minerals, construction is off sharply due to the real estate crash, and even those high-tech information jobs we were promised were the future are really some other country’s future.  That leaves us with what is cheerily called a “service economy,” because “service” is the only thing you can’t do just as well from a thousand miles away.

And some unknown portion of this “service economy” is actually an underground economy of work performed at below minimum wage, with little thought to workplace safety, often by undocumented immigrants who fear deportation if they speak up. Frustratingly, in addition to some “conservatives,” even some “liberals” and “progressives” say we “need” these laborers. After all, they tell us, who do you expect to mow our lawns, pick our produce, and clean our floors, duh.

What does that leave for Americans who want a “living” wage at a legal job? A short list of “opportunities” such as the small number of professions that can’t be done from overseas (e.g., doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher), selling goods imported from overseas, the grocery business, the hospitality industry, and food service. So I call the “service economy” more of a “latte economy”; at least Starbucks has employee benefits.

The thing is that we can’t really sustain a whole economy on that. We can’t run a country on selling one another lattes and Chinese made shoes forever. To have a vibrant and durable economy, we have to make something tangible that won’t all too soon be gone.

To get out of this economic mess, we must make things in this country that last, that people want, that people can afford, and that people in other nations might conceivably want. Somewhere out there are Americans with ideas about what those could be, but they are stymied by a lack of funding, and a system rigged against production and anyone who wants to play by the rules. But it’s going to take more than some tax breaks; that only helps when a business is profitable enough to owe taxes already. And it’s going to take more than lip service about government contracts; you have to be big enough to complete such a contract before you can get one. It’s going to take a leveling of the playing field so that start-ups can get working capital, develop products, and compete.

The Latte Economy must be replaced by something sustainable if the United States is to continue as a viable country. We can’t continue to export our money forever; at some point we will run out.

Oooh! A kitten *and* a ducky!

Heh, I promise, the Latte Economy later today or at worst tomorrow morning.

In Closing: Tony Horton says Soldiers need yoga; mystery trader buys all Europe’s cocoa(!); 10 ways to conserve water; Wall Street Journal whores itself to lets Sharron Angle lie; a follow up, is Dipak Desai competent to stand trial?; Virgin Galactic one step closer to passengers, takes a flight with a crew!; Wacky Arizona (thanks to Brian); FDL notices that banks only follow laws they want to follow; “Link to this“; ghost in the machine at Facebook; geta; and a few words on Social Security.

The *New* New Economy is Not Improved

Let me start by pointing out that today alone, the FDIC had takeover teams at 6 — yes, 6 — different banks in 3 different states. I think that Count Von Count would not be happy to keep track of this. Another number that would fail to please the Count but might make Dr. Evil happy, an anticipated one million foreclosures this year. That situation will get uglier before a healthy market can possibly emerge.

But as Expert Ezra points out, the reason people are so unhappy with the economy right now has a lot to do with the fact that corporate profits are up over 5%, the actual number of available jobs is down over 5% just since 2007. And frankly, I am of the opinion that without the economic shell game the government has been playing with the data, you would probably find that the 2001 recession never ended.

So then, with unemployment what it is, nobody should be particularly shocked that retail sales are down, again, and specifically sales of big ticket items are down. Nobody being able to afford goods leads quite understandably to the possibility of deflation — particularly if you can’t find a way to mask housing prices that are down by half in some parts of the country. Meanwhile, the rich get richer and the poor can, well, do whatever it is they do.

Add to this toxic stew two items: a political party that still thinks you can raise revenues by cutting taxes, but that making sure that “the least of these” can afford groceries is a bad thing; and a financial reform bill that the nicest thing anybody can say about it is that it’s better than nothing, probably. The safety net is being cut just as we need it most despite our protests, and our largest banks may still have the power to ruin us all.

Next time, assuming I am not distracted by something shiny or butterflies or kittens, The Latte Economy.

In Closing: Gee, greater blogosphere, thanks for noticing what I thought I was too late to say yesterday!; this could be bad; Senator Ensign should really give up now; I wonder how much; and two dinosaurs for the price of one.

Nice of him to notice, and Economic Bonus Round

I am glad to see someone with a high profile speaking out on this, and I sincerely hope other journalists start talking about it.

Now, about that economy.

The nicest thing I can say about the United States economy right now is that unemployment isn’t as bad as it is in much of Europe. Our economy lost jobs last month — and only partly because some of those temporary Census workers were let go — but the really awful part is that the number of workers went down. It isn’t that we had an abnormal number of people die or retire or anything like that, it’s just that over a half million people gave up on trying to find work. And that’s why the official unemployment rate went down.

Of course, if you just happen to have the right set of highly technical job skills, there are plenty of jobs. But — as Jill so ably points out — somehow or another businesses don’t think they should actually have to train employees to use very specialized equipment. I guess they are waiting for the “Qualified Employee Fairy” to stuff resumes under the door.

It’s also worth pointing out that the SBA is running out of money again, which means it will be even harder for small businesses to get money to ramp up operations and create jobs. I am no supporter of the SBA — everyone I’ve ever known that has ever talked to them has ended up with an application for a second mortgage — but this is crazy.

So when all is said and done, I think that more than being “still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession” and perhaps headed for a “double-dip recession,” it is more intellectually honest to say that from the standpoint of the typical American, there is no recovery: we still aren’t finding jobs, we still are having trouble paying the mortgage, we are still declaring bankruptcy at an alarming rate. Fine, maybe our largest corporations are still making plenty of money, but without the American consumer having money in pocket to buy goods and services, GDP growth can only be somewhere between shaky and an illusion.

In Closing: Uncle Shelby; turns out the kids are bored and not learning the things they should; on the newly revised dietary guidelines; fun with Google auto-complete; biggest banks in the world (and the ones that don’t exist anymore; and please, please drive safely this weekend.

Nevada Firestorm

And no, I’m not talking about the two multi-acre blazes within 4o miles of Las Vegas.

Well, the internet has been all abuzz over the latest from Sharron Angle. Everybody and their dog has already had something to say about her latest interview, including the guy who interviewed her. No wonder she does so few of them! Ezra Klein points out that the choice should be fairly simple, given that Nevada has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, Angle thinks all those unemployed people should get up off their lazy asses and find a [nonexistent] job, and Reid keeps trying [and failing] to get unemployment benefits extended to at least try and prevent all those unemployed people from becoming homeless too. At least her website has been updated with a little less crazy. She still does think it’s unreasonably hard to get a ballot initiative up in Nevada. I have long urged people to Just Say NO to all voter initiatives, so this is just fine with me.

But wait! Let’s not forget that The Other Reid (he’d prefer to just be known as “Rory“) is in an election too, and his opponent Brian Sandoval has also been campaigning. This week he announced a plan for Nevada schools. It includes giving a “grade” to each school and allowing kids in poorly graded schools to transfer to better schools. Now, there’s 2 problems I see with this. First is that No Child Left Behind already allows the same freaking thing; why reinvent the wheel? The second problem is geography. Nevada is a big state with a small population, and 73% of the population is in one county. While the idea almost makes sense in the Las Vegas Valley, the Reno area, and the Carson City area, it makes no sense in the rural areas where the next school might be an hour or two away.

His second plan is the popular idea of making teacher pay dependent upon student performance. Well, here’s the thing. Teachers can only control what happens in their classroom, and even then only most of the time. When you’ve got kids worried about living on the street, kids stealing ketchup packets so they can have dinner, gang violence, child abuse, parents who don’t give a damn, official curricula that still use sight words*, limited ability to discipline students who are out of line, a bureaucracy that would make any government proud, and a half dozen impediments to learning in the classroom, merit pay is a sick joke.

And idea three is to outsource non-educational services. That would include janitorial services, human resources, and food service. It makes me wonder what firms I would find if I were to look closely at Mr. Sandoval’s investments! There is just no way that it’s cheaper to have a cleaning crew come in at night than to have one or maybe two people on hand all day to clean messes as they occur. Hiring a for-profit catering service to put the cafeteria ladies out of work is just madness. This is aside from the concern some parents will have over whether the employees of these firms might maybe have some desire to harm a child. As much as I would like to dismiss this as tinfoil hat lunacy, the fact of the matter is that Clark County School District has had incidents where non-teachers are accused of harming students.

* I was just horrified to learn what constitutes homework for a first grader!

In closing: A tangible Good Thing from health insurance reform starts today; mortgage rates at record lows, why aren’t we borrowing? (because unemployment is around 10% and most homes are worth less than what is already owed, duh); a financial reform package passed the House and is headed for the Senate, let the hunt for loopholes and political favors begin (it’s ok, banks will ignore what they don’t like anyway); fiscal austerity still doesn’t work; Real Socialists beg the wingnuts to stop calling Obama one of them; a bit of follow-up, the list of countries Van Der Sloot can be extradited to for more charges grows; both of these statements are logical, but both cannot be true; 100 Yen shops, the Japanese Dollar Store; vaccinate your kids!; smart pet tricks; flying cars; and libertarians.