47 replies to this topic

[Farley]

http://www.readersup...rica-in-decline

[xg21]

The speculative trading is part of what's gone wrong but will the rules ever change? Appears not.

Today, Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter (pdf) to the Chairman of the Commmodities Futures Commission Gary Gensler criticizing the commission and the propsed new rule to limit speculative trading of crude oil, gasoline, heating oil, and other commodities the commission is expected to vote on tomorrow.

Unfortunately, if recent reports in the media are correct, the final rule on position limits, as currently drafted, will do little or nothing to lower prices and it will not eliminate, prevent or diminish excessive speculation as required by the Dodd-Frank Act. At a time when the American people are experiencing extremely high oil and gas prices, this would be simply unacceptable.

http://sanders.senat...CFTC Letter.pdf




Ken Silveerstein, writing for Harpers in March 2009 (and others elsewhere) reported on Senator Sanders' efforts to block President Obama's appointment of "derivatives cheerleader" Gary Gensler to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. According to Silverstein, Sen. Sanders placed a hold on Gensler's nomination along with the following statement:


Mr. Gensler worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of A.I.G. and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history. He supported Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which allowed banks like Citigroup to become “too big to fail.” He worked to deregulate electronic energy trading, which led to the downfall of Enron and the spike in energy prices. At this moment in our history, we need an independent leader who will help create a new culture in the financial marketplace and move us away from the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior which has caused so much harm to our economy.
http://harpers.org/a...03/hbc-90004606


For completely different reasons, Sen. Sanders is joined by Republicans in opposing the new rules Gensler's commission is expected to finalize. Of course, being Republicans, they want the new rules weakened rather than strengthened. For their tired and worn out reasons, check out this article by Alexandra Alper for Reuters, but remember, these are the same people who enabled a standard of lawlessness (aka deregulation) for the 1% different from the laws the 99% are required, for the good of our society, to follow.


http://www.reuters.c...E79B4ZP20111012

[xg22]

I really like the part where after these hush hush bailouts were secured they then fought any regulation changes. "they gotcha by the balls" carlin


Secret Fed Loans Revealed after Bloomberg Court Case For Details



The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day.

Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.

“When you see the dollars the banks got, it’s hard to make the case these were successful institutions,” says Sherrod Brown, a Democratic Senator from Ohio who in 2010 introduced an unsuccessful bill to limit bank size.


http://www.bloomberg... ... ncome.html

[scb]

-xg22-

Heck, if you can bring a self-proclaimed anarchist into the discussion, allow me to throw a bread 'n' butter reactionary into the ring. To wit, Karl Rove discussing Barney Frank and the part he played in the financial debacle (Fox News, no less....'heh, one dubious source deserves another!) It's at....

http://www.foxnews.c...nk-should-quit/

-scb-

P.S. - Hate to admit it, but I'm rather envious of your "due to brutal technical difficulties" tagline. Please tell me it's not original, OK? (jealousy factor)

[xg22]

Barney and Newt, Freddie and Fannie = Strange bedfellows


Nick Hanauer, a wildly successful billionaire tech entrepreneur, states what should be obvious

I’m a very rich person. As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, I’ve started or helped get off the ground dozens of companies in industries including manufacturing, retail, medical services, the Internet and software. I founded the Internet media company aQuantive Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. I was also the first non-family investor in Amazon.

Even so, I’ve never been a 'job creator.' I can start a business based on a great idea, and initially hire dozens or hundreds of people. But if no one can afford to buy what I have to sell, my business will soon fail and all those jobs will evaporate.

http://www.bloomberg...ck-hanauer.html



“There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.” Henry Ford

Ford’s observation turned out to be highly prophetic when by the end of the 1920’s the distribution of income in America had shifted so significantly in favor of profits for the rich and away from wages for the workers that economic demand completely collapsed, creating the great depression

http://www.dailykos....oney?via=search

[xg22]

US Fed is recognizing that another bailout is needed, but not for the peons.............


In a speech on Thursday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said radical changes are needed in order to save the euro. Sarkozy’s address came after central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, took coordinated action to prevent a credit crunch among European banks.

Emeritus Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and visiting professor at New School University. He is the author of several books, including Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It


Opens at 38 min mark and wolff starts at 40 min mark as Zarkozy finishes speech ................




http://www.democracy...oes_result_from

[xg22]

America is in decline for a lot of reasons and when combined, the future is dismal unless someone changes the course.


China gets this. It has been stealing our future right from under our noses. It has a choke hold, for instance, on rare-earth minerals, essential to wind turbines, hybrid engines, compact fluorescent lightbulbs and other green technologies. It has established a commanding lead in solar-energy production. It’s insisting that the resource-rich South China Sea is its exclusive economic zone, to the dismay of Japan and other nations bordering the body of water. China is also the first nation to secure from the International Seabed Authority the right to explore the floor of the Indian Ocean in search of copper and other minerals.


Read more: http://ideas.time.co.../#ixzz1fqoA6tOQ

[xg22]

The 10 Worst Economic Ideas of 2011.


Given that it's only 10, it's obviously an abbreviated list.



http://www.newdeal20...-of-2011-67621/

[Farley]

zg good list, but abbreviated for sure.....we all owe a debt to the OWS people since they actually changed the subject from "cuts" to what happened to America's vanishing middle class an "where did the money go?"

[egghead]

zg good list, but abbreviated for sure.....we all owe a debt to the OWS people since they actually changed the subject from "cuts" to what happened to America's vanishing middle class an "where did the money go?"

Is that what the left finally decided the OWS was all about? But Farley 'changed the subject"? hardly The progressives may have wished this is what happened as a result of all that middle class money they wasted supporting this motley crew--but the results have been well pretty dismal --in fact the polls for the past three weeks have consistently shown the American people favor cuts to revenue 2 to 1--the last poll in yesterday is again very bad news for progressives-77% want the government to cut deficits, 71% think the government should cut spending, and 59% want the government to cut taxes.

Oh my--thank goodness the OWS was successful in changing the subject

[unionbustersandtrollsout]

How's blockhead/scabbie's schizophrenia today? You make stuff up on the internety today? Got nothing to do? Lonely? Nobody to spend the holidays with because you are so full of self-loathing? Poor.....poor.......can't live in reality or make it in the real world..........

[unionbustersandtrollsout]

OWS also helps us take out the middle man when looking for the cause behind this economic crash. It's great when working people look at banks and wonder how much power they truly have. Did you all hear about how they foreclosed on businesses owners who were never behind in payments?

Never behind in a payment but still foreclosed on ?

[xg22]

German car manufacturers make more than twice as many cars as American manufacturers.

German auto workers earn an average of $67.14 in wages and benefits, while American auto workers earn an average of $33.77.

We're told that American auto workers need to accept pay cuts because they earn too much for the manufacturers to be profitable, yet German manufacturers are very profitable despite paying so much more.

So, how does that work?

here

http://www.remapping...ystems?page=0,0

[scb]

-xg22-

A note here;. Wikipedia shows that the U.S. produced 7,761,445 automobiles in 2010, while Germany produced 5,985,985. "Worldometers" (a statistics site, "http://www.worldomet...ers.info/cars/") says that in 2010, the U.S. produced 11,263,986 total vehicles (that's private and commercial), while Germany produced 5,819,614. And "The Auto Insurance" ("http://www.theautoin...manufacturers/") has a graphic which clearly shows the ranking fo the world's largest automobile manufacturing companies, placing Germany BELOW the U.S. You might also want to take a look at Brian Bloch's article titled "Globalisation and Downsizing in Germany", a PDF document at "www.management-aims.com/PapersMgmt/23Bloch.pdf".

Anyway, I don't know where the claim that...

"German car manufacturers make more than twice as many cars as American manufacturers."

....came from, but it appears inaccurate. Which, of course, would reflect on the entire premise.

As for wages and "how does that work", having lived and worked in Germany, including working with unions, and having as a very good friend a German who is the employee representative on his firm's works council, I think I could have something to say about the wage comparisons in the auto industry in Germany vs. here...and why very few Americans would be willing to "trade". But we'll leave that for another time.

-scb-

[egghead]

I see you are a Daily Kos reader XG --

What a poorly written article--The headlines look great--but you have to be an absolute dunderhead to draw any conclusions--if fact the article is so poorly written that you could have written a headline that stated German workers twice as productive so the get paid twice as much--both conclusions are ridiculous

The headlines would not have looked so good had the writer included the real facts--Comparing passenger vehicles only is intellectually dishonest to start--Germany has very little light truck manufacturing while in the US it is almost twice the production to passenger cars

The US car industry was unsustainable for the simple reason that they kicked the hard issues down the road for so many years it came crashing down--the legacy costs were never sustainable--the car companies knew it the union knew it and most investors knew it--

So who paid for all those stupid choices--the current workers--The legacy costs had driven the cost to manufacture a car in a UAW plant up to over $70.00 an hour per current worker--unsustainable--and the government bailed them out (I could also make the argument that the European Social promise is about the same as the unsustainable legacy contracts from the car companies--except in Europe's case whole countries will go bankrupt

Second comparing wages from a US company to a European country is difficult at best--You have government paid pension and health mandated vacations and breaks and a myriad of other government taxes in Europe that significantly reduce the take home pay of the average European-In the US those benefits are mostly company driven--and the currency fluctuations and costs make the European worker at a significant disadvantage in purchasing power

For example the article didn't point out if that German worker wanted to purchase a German car--it would cost them 47% more to purchase it two more years to pay for it based on take home pay and three times more to operate the car than their US counterpart!!!!

The US long ago decided they didn't want to operate an unsustainable European business model-and as I have said numerous times the unions in this country will not accept the "labour" cooperatives run in Europe--So XG any guess as to why the left continues to try to force this European concept down the US labor forces throats when even the Union leadership wont support it?

[unionbustersandtrollsout]

I lived and worked in Germany and my Grandpa is the CEO of the auto manufacturing company in Germany. I just talked to him about it this morning.

How's your schizophrenia today, Scabbies

[egghead]

Perhaps you can ask your gramps to redistribute some of his wealth to you so you can get some help for your acute paranoia

[unionbustersandtrollsout]

No doubt, take your disability check and your medicare benefits and get some serious help

[xg22]

-xg22-

A note here;. Wikipedia shows that the U.S. produced 7,761,445 automobiles in 2010, while Germany produced 5,985,985. "Worldometers" (a statistics site, "http://www.worldomet...ers.info/cars/") says that in 2010, the U.S. produced 11,263,986 total vehicles (that's private and commercial), while Germany produced 5,819,614. And "The Auto Insurance" ("http://www.theautoin...manufacturers/") has a graphic which clearly shows the ranking fo the world's largest automobile manufacturing companies, placing Germany BELOW the U.S. You might also want to take a look at Brian Bloch's article titled "Globalisation and Downsizing in Germany", a PDF document at "www.management-aims.com/PapersMgmt/23Bloch.pdf".

Anyway, I don't know where the claim that...

"German car manufacturers make more than twice as many cars as American manufacturers."

....came from, but it appears inaccurate. Which, of course, would reflect on the entire premise.

As for wages and "how does that work", having lived and worked in Germany, including working with unions, and having as a very good friend a German who is the employee representative on his firm's works council, I think I could have something to say about the wage comparisons in the auto industry in Germany vs. here...and why very few Americans would be willing to "trade". But we'll leave that for another time.

-scb-

I will give you that I am not too familiar with the German workforce other than they are more productive than even the low wage Chinese, Mexicans.

And yes the headline is misleading because as we read they are reffering to German car manufacturing and not comparing them to American man domestic mfgrs.

In 2010, over 5.5 million cars were produced in Germany, twice the 2.7 million built in the United States

Alexander participated in a ceremony celebrating the opening of a new Volkswagen assembly plant earlier this year near Chattanooga, and again he cited the state’s right-to-work law as among the reasons that Volkswagen chose to come there.

At that Chattanooga plant, according to a company spokesperson, new employees earn $14.50 an hour, with wages gradually rising to $19.50 after 3 years on the job.

A representative of BMW’s Spartanburg plant declined to divulge wages employees earn in its South Carolina (non-unionized) facility, but the Washington Post reported last year that employees at the plant earned $15 per hour.

[scb]

-xg22-

It might be worth noting that the German auto industry has undergone the same stresses as that of the U.S. I.e. - the trouble with discussing German auto wages is that you're discussing wages for the employees that are left...which, like those of the UAW in the U.S., are fewer and fewer each year. Supposedly, 50% or so of the components of a "German manufactured" car are actually produced out of the country. Beyond that, much of the domestic production has moved to the former East German states where the wages are still significantly lower than in the old "West". (There's "two tier" wages in Germany in that respect as well. Opel, while skidaddling out of the Rhein area, opened a plant in Eisenach, for example, which replaced the closed-down "Wartburg" facility, while the old "Trabant" plant was taken over by a major parts manufacturer)

Personally, I was in Germany a few years back when Opel (one of the largest German auto manufacturers, albeit a G.M. subsidiary) announced pending lay-offs of thousands upon thousands of employees in the Rhein-Main area (I was visiting my ex-exchange student in Darmstadt at the time, and the largest Opel plant was in nearby Rüsselsheim), and there was as much weeping and gnashing of teeth there as was typical of rifs in the U.S. Midwest. (reference ("http://www.nytimes.c...8iht-opel.html")

In any case, the remaining wages may be high...but actual "productivity" there anymore is rather limited. If anything, I would suspect German auto manufacturers have been seeking to place production overseas in order to achieve lower labor costs even quicker than their American counterparts. Meanwhile, there are less and less "organized" German auto workers earning those high wages (wages matched, unfortunately, by even higher tax rates).

-scb-