They slash prices every other year.....

First they took away our benefits or raised fees on our health insurance last year and now they cut our work hours by 10 to 20 per cent and cut the hiring .

Just a year before they fired a bunch of corporate big shots that tried to make the store  become more like Target....(Jaclyn Smith, Brittany Spears, Paula Odean, Justine Bieber, and let's not Miley Cyrus not selling much.)

Makes you wonder? Where is Sam when you need him. And who owns this company and what the Hell are they thinking?

At least our  stock is back up but who knows how long that will last with the screw ups we've been experiencing.

Slashing prices at Wal-Mart hurts retailer’s bottom line | The Columbus Dispatch

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s price cuts hurt its fourth-quarter profit, reminding investors that steps the world’s largest retailer is taking to bring back shoppers come at a cost.

Wal-Mart yesterday reported quarterly profit and sales short of Wall Street expectations. Forecasts suggest that results in this quarter and fiscal year might again disappoint analysts.

“Everything had the hint of conservatism in the guidance,” said John Tomlinson, a senior hardline retail analyst at ITG Investment Research.

Shares of Wal-Mart fell 4 percent, erasing most of the gains so far from 2012. The stock had been up about 29 percent since August as its U.S. sales turnaround plan was starting to show progress.
Home Depot

As far as I can tell the punk got what he deserved...

But I'm not trying to  make a buck off the incident. However, anybody that attacks me would get the same no matter how many race pimps there are.

Hey maybe the Zimmerman shot the wrong black?

Protesters march in Fla. town where teen was shot - Washington Times

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — Thousands joined a march Saturday through the Florida town where 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, vowing to continue protesting until an arrest is made.

Protesters carried signs, chanted “Justice for Trayvon,” and clutched the hands of their children while they walked to the Sanford Police Department from a local high school that served black students during the segregation era. The march was organized by the NAACP was one of several taking place over the weekend.

“We live in the middle of an American paradox,” Rev. Al Sharpton told the crowd.

Get a load of this......

John Stossel's Illegal Everything

Now when are they going to get serious?.......

Aren't gas prices sky rocketing fast enough for these multimillionaires?  Oh wait, these guys don't buy gas we do for their Limos.....

Senate rejects Obama demand for end to oil tax breaks - Washington Times

President Obama on Thursday called for Congress to jettison $4 billion in annual subsidies to oil and gas companies, but minutes later the Senate blocked just such a proposal.

The 51-47 vote, which fell nine shy of the 60 needed to advance in the Senate, likely shelves the plan for this year, but gives both parties a political issue heading into November’s elections.

Mr. Obama, in a Rose Garden speech, said the oil subsidies should be cut so the money can be put into his priorities.

“We should be using that money to double down on clean-energy technologies that have never been more promising,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s the future. That’s the only way we’re going to break this cycle of high gas prices year after year after year.”

Republicans, though, said eliminating the subsidies amounts to a tax increase on oil and gas companies, which they will pass on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

“President Obama will say and do anything it takes to get reelected

Well, back to work....

Didn't win the Mega Millions. But of course I wouldn't tell anyone anyways. Get another shot Friday so if I end up in Tahiti you'll know why, LOL.

Go gridlock....

Remember that everything is against the law. If these guys keep at it we'll make the Soviet Union look like a workers paradise. (ask a smoker or parent with unruly children.)

Budget gridlock imperils national defense - Washington Times

Defense analysts and Capitol Hill insiders are anticipating that automatic federal budget cuts will occur Jan. 1 and force the armed forces to scrap plans for new weapons systems.

Washington’s polarized political landscape shows no signs of a compromise on taxes and spending that would head off the 2011 Budget Control Act’s requirement for across-the-board cuts to begin in nine months.

For the Pentagon, this would mean another 10-year, $500 billion spending cut in addition to the already budgeted $487 billion reduction. In the first year of the automatic spending reductions, the military would need to slash an additional $50 billion from its budget, likely ending a new long-range bomber and a new Army tactical vehicle, and shrinking the Navy’s fleet of 11 aircraft carriers.

Starting to get rough......

Gary and Muffin

Good thing for Oba mama that Romney is winning.....

The states that will go Democrat. Romney's in trouble in the South as I predicted and Mormons  need a lot of help to win. Just think a couple of Catholics kicked his ass in the South and no Republican, ask Dole and McCain, can beat a liberal without sweeping the South.

Not that there is a nickel's difference between these guys!

Evangelical states sketchy for Romney - Washington Times

Mitt Romney’s lopsided victory in Illinois this week showed again that he’s hard to beat in states with more moderate, less evangelical-minded voters — a good sign for the former Massachusetts governor when that describes most of the big prizes left on the Republican primary schedule.

In the weeks ahead, most of the delegate-rich states left on the map more closely resemble the electorates in Ohio and Florida, where Mr. Romney won, than the voters in Georgia and Mississippi, where evangelicals shied away from the former governor.

Temperatures in the fifties this coming week....

Time to get out the fly rod and attack the Moyie river. My lake is still got ice on it so it will be awhile till the water warms a little and we get a few bugs hatching.

Generally Mid April thru June is the best fishing until October. But that's why we live in Idaho. No one in their right minds like the winters!

Our gas prices are high enough......

The nuts and their lawyers are loose.  Even God would go broke paying for all natural disasters caused by weather......

EDITORIAL: Next time, sue the weatherman - Washington Times

On Tuesday, Federal Judge Louis Guirola Jr., in the Southern District of Mississippi, dismissed the case of Comer vs. Murphy Oil for lack of standing. Gulf Coast property owners had sought to hold a grab bag of energy companies responsible for damage they suffered from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The plaintiffs claimed the power companies knowingly had endangered them by emitting unsafe levels of carbon dioxide. The case was dismissed in 2007, then resurrected by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2009. The latest ruling should put an end to it.

This is what telling the truth will get you......

Old Rush simply objected to the taxpayers paying for this spoiled little rich girl screwing on our dime.

Remember if she can afford $45000 a year she can pay or have her sex partners (takes two to tango) pay for whoring around.

If I'm going to pay for a couple of dollars a month for birth control then I want my turn with the bitch. LOL

Radio campaign next step against Rush Limbaugh - Washington Times

NEW YORK — Rush Limbaugh’s opponents are starting a radio campaign against him Thursday, seizing upon the radio star’s attack of a Georgetown law student as a “slut” to make a long-term effort aimed at weakening his business.

The liberal Media Matters for America is using a past campaign against Glenn Beck as a template. In Limbaugh, however, they’re going after bigger game. He’s already fighting back and the group’s stance has provoked concerns that an effort to silence someone for objectionable talk is in itself objectionable.

Media Matters is spending at least $100,000 for two advertisements that will run in eight cities.

The ads use Limbaugh’s own words about student Sandra Fluke, who told congressional Democrats that contraception should be paid for in health plans. Limbaugh, on his radio programs, suggested Fluke wanted to be paid to have sex, which made her a “slut” and a “prostitute.” In return for the money, he said Fluke should post videos of herself having sex.

Onlt four inches of snow this morning....

At this rate I'll be here forever waiting for t-shirt weather, LOL. I plan on one more winter then I get my SS check and move south for the shit weather and come back here for the fishing. Patti qualifies for her check as soon as she goes on disability.

Only 750$ a month but it still beats working!

Thank you ALS Evergreen chapter....

Patti was donated a power chair and 1999 Chrysler mini van. Will show pictures later.

First day of Spring....

1 inch of snow! LOl

What reform?.......

The Dems had complete control of the government and gave us this mess. Simply reforming Medicare and fazing all adults into the system would have worked.

As long as we had the option to keep the insurance we had this (political) problem would have been over.

Hurray for Health Reform - NYTimes.com

The solution — originally proposed, believe it or not, by analysts at the ultra-right-wing Heritage Foundation — is a three-legged stool of regulation and subsidies. As in New York, insurers are required to cover everyone; in return, everyone is required to buy insurance, so that healthy as well as sick people are in the risk pool. Finally, subsidies make those mandated insurance purchases affordable for lower-income families.

Can such a system work? It’s already working! Massachusetts enacted a very similar reform six years ago — yes, while Mitt Romney was governor. Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who played a key role in developing both the local and the national reforms (and has published an illustrated guide to reform) has surveyed the results — and finds that Romneycare is working pretty much as advertised. The number of people without insurance has dropped sharply, the quality of care hasn’t suffered, and the program’s cost has been very close to initial projections.

And what is Oba mama going to do about it?.....

Nothing. he's in on the scam.......

Robert Reich (Why Republicans Aren't Mentioning the Real Cause of Rising Prices at the Gas Pump)

Gas prices continue to rise, which is finally giving Republicans an issue. Mitt Romney is demanding the President open up more domestic drilling; the super PAC behind Rick Santorum just released a new ad in Louisiana blasting the President on gas prices; and the GOP is attacking the White House on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

But the rise in gas prices has almost nothing to do with energy policy. It has everything to do with America’s continuing failure to adequately regulate Wall Street. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Republicans to tell the truth.

As I’ve noted before, oil supplies aren’t being squeezed. Over 80 percent of America’s energy needs are now being satisfied by domestic supplies. In fact, we’re starting to become an energy exporter. Demand for oil isn’t rising in any event. Demand is down in the U.S. compared to last year at this time, and global demand is still moderate given the economic slowdowns in Europe and China.

But Wall Street is betting on higher oil prices in the future — and that betting is causing prices to rise. The Street is laying odds that unrest in Syria will spill over into other countries or that tensions with Iran will affect the Persian Gulf, and that global demand will pick up as American consumers bounce back to life.

These bets are pushing up oil prices because Wall Street firms and other big financial players now dominate oil trading.

Financial speculators historically accounted for about 30 percent of oil contracts, producers and end users for about 70 percent. But today speculators account for 64 percent of all contracts.

Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the federal agency that regulates trading in oil futures, among other commodities — warns that too few financial players control too much of the oil market. This allows them to push oil prices higher and higher — not only on the basis of their expectations about the future but also expectations about how high other speculators will drive the price.

In other words, a relatively few players with very deep pockets are placing huge bets on oil — and you’re paying.

Chilton estimates that drivers of small cars like Honda Civics are paying an extra $7.30 every time they fill up — and that money is going into the pockets of Wall Street speculators. Drivers of larger vehicles like the Ford Explorer are paying speculators $10.41 when they fill up.

Funny, but I don’t hear Republicans rail against Wall Street speculators. Could this have anything to do with the fact that hedge funds and money managers are bankrolling the GOP as never before?

Wall Street isn’t bankrolling Democrats nearly as much this time around because the Street is still smarting from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law pushed by the Democrats, and from the president’s offhand remark in 2010 calling the denizens of the Street “fat cats.”

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is trying to limit how much speculators can bet in oil futures — a power it was given by Dodd-Frank. It issued a rule in October, but it won’t take effect for another year.

Meanwhile, Wall Street has gone to court to stop the rule. It’s already won a stay.

As rising gas prices start wagging the election-year dog, the President should let America know what’s really causing prices to rise.
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Amend2012

The First Amendment Upside Down. Why We Must Occupy Democracy

You’ve been seeing this across the country … Americans assaulted, clubbed, dragged, pepper-sprayed … Why? For exercising their right to free speech and assembly — protesting the increasing concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top.

And what’s Washington’s response? Nothing. In fact, Congress’s so-called “supercommittee” just disbanded because Republicans refuse to raise a penny of taxes on the rich.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court says money is speech and corporations are people. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year ended all limits on political spending. Millions of dollars are being funneled to politicians without a trace.

And a revolving door has developed between official Washington and Wall Street – with bank executives becoming public officials who make rules that benefit the banks before heading back to the Street to make money off the rules they created.

Other top officials, including an increasing proportion of former members of congress, are cashing in by joining lobbying power houses and pressuring their former colleagues to do whatever their clients want.

Millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street and in executive suites aren’t contributing all this money out of sheer love of country. Their political spending is analogous to their other investments. Mostly they want low tax rates and friendly regulations.

Why else do you suppose tax rates on the super rich are now lower than they’ve been in three decades, and why – even though the long-term budget deficit is horrendous – those rates aren’t rising? Why else do the 400 richest Americans (whose wealth is larger than the combined wealth of the bottom 150 million Americans) now pay an average tax rate of only 17 percent?

Why do you think Wall Street got bailed without a single string attached – not even being required to help homeowners to whom they sold mortgages, who are now so far under water they’re drowning? And why does the financial reform legislation have loopholes big enough for bankers to drive their Ferrari’s through?

And why else are oil companies, big agribusinesses, military contractors, and the pharmaceutical industry reaping billions of dollars of government subsidies and special tax breaks?

Experts say the 2012 presidential race is likely to be the priciest ever, costing an estimated $6 billion. “It is far worse than it has ever been,” says Republican Senator John McCain.

If there’s a single core message to the Occupier movement it’s that the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top endangers our democracy. With money comes political power.

Yet when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with all this, they’re told the First Amendment doesn’t apply. Instead, they’re treated as public nuisances – clubbed, pepper-sprayed, thrown out of public parks and evicted from public spaces.

Across America, public officials are saying Occupiers have to go. Even in universities – where free speech is supposed to be sacrosanct – peaceful assembly is being met with clubs and pepper spray.

The First Amendment is being stood on its head. Money speaks, and an unlimited amount of it can now be spent bribing and cajoling politicians. Yet peaceful assembly is viewed as a public nuisance and removed by force.

This is especially worrisome now that so many Americans are in economic trouble. The jobs recession grinds on, seemingly without end. Homes are being foreclosed upon. Qualified students cannot afford college. Or they’re forced to take on huge debt loads they can’t repay in a jobless economy. Schools are firing teachers. Vital social services are being axed.

How are Americans to be heard about what should be done about any of this if they are not allowed to mobilize and organize? When the freedom of speech goes to the highest bidder, moneyed interests have a disproportionate say.

Now more than ever, the First Amendment needs to be put right side up. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.



Stop the Austerity Train Wreck!

The biggest question right now on Planet Washington is whether the congressional supercommittee will reach an agreement.

That’s the wrong question. Agreement or not, Washington is on the road to making budget cuts that will slow the economy, increase unemployment, and impose additional hardship on millions of Americans.

The real question is how to stop this austerity train wreck, and substitute the following:

FIRST: no cuts before jobs are back – until unemployment is down to 5 percent. Until then, the economy needs a boost, not a cut. Consumers – whose spending is 70 percent of the economy – don’t have the money to boost the economy on their own. Their pay is dropping and they’re losing jobs.

SECOND: Make the boost big enough. 14 million Americans are out of work, and 10 million are working part time who need full-time jobs. The President’s proposed jobs program is a start but it’s tiny relative to what needs to be done. It would create fewer than 2 million jobs. We need a big jobs program – rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, and including a WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps.

THIRD: To pay for this, raise taxes on the super-rich. It’s only fair. Never before has so much income and wealth been concentrated at the very top, and taxes on the top so low. Go back to the 70 percent marginal tax we had before 1980. And include more tax brackets at the top. It doesn’t make sense that any income over $375,000 is taxed at the same 35 percent, even if it’s a billion dollars. And tax all sources of income at the same rate, including capital gains.

FOURTH: Cut the budget where the real bloat is. Military spending and corporate welfare. End weapons systems that don’t work and stop wars we shouldn’t be fighting to begin with, and we save over $300 billion a year. Cut corporate welfare – subsidies and special tax breaks going to big agribusiness, big oil, big pharma, and big insurance – and we save another $100 billion.

Do you hear me, Washington? Do these four things and restore jobs and prosperity. Fail to do these, and you’ll make things much, much worse.

Mario Savio Memorial Lecture, November 15, 2011

THE SEVEN BIGGEST ECONOMIC LIES

The President’s Jobs Bill doesn’t have a chance in Congress — and the Occupiers on Wall Street and elsewhere can’t become a national movement for a more equitable society – unless more Americans know the truth about the economy.

Here’s a short (2 minute 30 second) effort to rebut the seven biggest whoppers now being told by those who want to take America backwards. The major points:



1. Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to everyone else. Baloney. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both sliced taxes on the rich and what happened? Most Americans’ wages (measured by the real median wage) began flattening under Reagan and have dropped since George W. Bush. Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke.

2. Higher taxes on the rich would hurt the economy and slow job growth. False. From the end of World War II until 1981, the richest Americans faced a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent or above. Under Dwight Eisenhower it was 91 percent. Even after all deductions and credits, the top taxes on the very rich were far higher than they’ve been since. Yet the economy grew faster during those years than it has since. (Don’t believe small businesses would be hurt by a higher marginal tax; fewer than 2 percent of small business owners are in the highest tax bracket.)

3. Shrinking government generates more jobs. Wrong again. It means fewer government workers – everyone from teachers, fire fighters, police officers, and social workers at the state and local levels to safety inspectors and military personnel at the federal. And fewer government contractors, who would employ fewer private-sector workers. According to Moody’s economist Mark Zandi (a campaign advisor to John McCain), the $61 billion in spending cuts proposed by the House GOP will cost the economy 700,000 jobs this year and next.

4. Cutting the budget deficit now is more important than boosting the economy. Untrue. With so many Americans out of work, budget cuts now will shrink the economy. They’ll increase unemployment and reduce tax revenues. That will worsen the ratio of the debt to the total economy. The first priority must be getting jobs and growth back by boosting the economy. Only then, when jobs and growth are returning vigorously, should we turn to cutting the deficit.

5. Medicare and Medicaid are the major drivers of budget deficits. Wrong. Medicare and Medicaid spending is rising quickly, to be sure. But that’s because the nation’s health-care costs are rising so fast. One of the best ways of slowing these costs is to use Medicare and Medicaid’s bargaining power over drug companies and hospitals to reduce costs, and to move from a fee-for-service system to a fee-for-healthy outcomes system. And since Medicare has far lower administrative costs than private health insurers, we should make Medicare available to everyone.

6. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Don’t believe it. Social Security is solvent for the next 26 years. It could be solvent for the next century if we raised the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax. That ceiling is now $106,800.

7. It’s unfair that lower-income Americans don’t pay income tax. Wrong. There’s nothing unfair about it. Lower-income Americans pay out a larger share of their paychecks in payroll taxes, sales taxes, user fees, and tolls than everyone else.

Demagogues through history have known that big lies, repeated often enough, start being believed — unless they’re rebutted. These seven economic whoppers are just plain wrong. Make sure you know the truth – and spread it on.



The Truth About the Economy

Ready for $6 a gallon.....

Bye bye Oba mama! The guys not too bright taking these guys on in an election year.

Even Romney could beat a Jimmy Carter!

Obama: End tax breaks for oil companies - Washington Times

The president didn’t mention one of the few direct actions he could take to try to lower gas prices in the short term — releasing oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Mr. Obama called for that solution as a candidate in 2008 when gasoline prices neared $4 per gallon, and he reportedly discussed the option earlier this week with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Instead, Mr. Obama said his administration is cracking down on oil profits — on traders who “distort the price of oil, and make big profits for themselves at your expense.” And he called on Congress again to eliminate $4 billion in annual tax breaks for oil companies.

“Your member of Congress should be fighting for you,” Mr. Obama said. “Not for big financial firms. Not for big oil companies.”

A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service last year found that eliminating the subsidies would likely result in higher gas prices in the short term.

The address was the president’s second speech on gas prices and energy in three days. Public opinion polls are showing that the president’s job-approval rating, on the rise earlier in this election year, has dipped again as gas prices have risen. Retail prices on Friday rose a penny to a national average of $3.83 per gallon.

The world is afloat in oil.....

Speculation and politics are the reason We are going broke paying for gas so Oba mama and his buddies make out like bandits. Remember Gore made millions off of the global warming fraud so why shouldn't Oba mama get in on the action.

Of course, if he isn't then he's stupider than a box of rocks!

The Oil Card - Global Economic Warfare in the 21st Century, by Jim Norman

Challenging the conventional wisdom behind oil pricing, this compact book sheds an entirely new light on the workings of "free" commodity markets and oil industry supply and demand "fundamentals." Its purpose is to look at the use of oil as an economic weapon.

The book assembles a now well-documented chronology of how the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, pushed down oil prices dramatically in the 1980s, and kept them low for a decade. It was a concerted and stunningly successful effort to break the former Soviet Union by depriving it of desperately needed hard-currency income.

It then raises the question whether those same price-control levers have lately been pushed in the opposite direction to rein in another target: the oil-short Peoples Republic of China. Contrary to popular perceptions, media commentary and official explanations, the book methodically lays out the geopolitical logic and the market mechanisms behind the stunning 12-fold run-up of oil prices from 1998 to mid-2008. It also offers an explanation for the sudden price drop from almost $150/barrel to under $100 as Russia again flexed its muscle by invading Georgia.

We'll never know....

WILL MITT ROMNEY BE A BIGGER SPENDER THAN PRESIDENT OBAMA? | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM

he Tax Policy Center has crunched the numbers on Mitt Romney’s tax plan and the findings are pretty interesting. They used the CBO’s baseline estimates and then included the various tax cuts that Governor Romney is calling for. Of course, this is only the revenue side so we don’t know what kind of spending cuts Romney might have in store for us, but just looking at the revenue side one might be inclined to argue that Romney will be a bigger spender than Obama is! Here’s the Tax Policy Center on the plan:

“Last week, Mitt Romney proposed a new tax plan that would, among other things, reduce individual tax rates by 20 percent across the board and repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax. To get a rough sense of what those two tax cuts would cost, the Tax Policy Center crunched the numbers. The result: They would be really, really expensive.

Romney can't win in the South.....

Told you so..... Going to be hard for him to become President because too many conservatives will stay home.

Ask McCain.

Santorum boosts conservative claims with sweep of Alabama, Mississippi - Washington Times

Bolstering his claim that he’s the strongest conservative in the Republican presidential field, Rick Santorum swept the Alabama and Mississippi primaries on Tuesday, sending a strong signal to Mitt Romney that the GOP front-runner still isn’t connecting with a big chunk of the party’s deeply conservative base.

The twin victories, though, were not enough for Mr. Santorum to make up ground on Mr. Romney in the chase toward the 1,144 delegates needed to wrap up the nomination, as the former Massachusetts governor would later emerge victorious in the smaller caucus contests in Hawaii and American Samoa — ending the day with bigger delegate gains compared to his rivals.

Ah.....DUH!!!!!!

He's not a Christian, either. By Moslem theology a man born to Islam is Islam for life. No Really!

Sheriff Arpaio: Obama birth certificate a 'forgery' - Washington Times

PHOENIX — Armed with a new 10-page report he commissioned, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday he suspects the birth certificate President Obama released last year is a “computer-generated forgery” — and also raised questions about the authenticity of the president’s selective service registration card.

In an extensive — and at times combative — press conference in Phoenix, Sheriff Arpaio repeatedly said he is not questioning the president’s legal status under the Constitution nor alleging fraud on Mr. Obama’s part, but did say there is evidence crimes have been committed by someone and his investigation continues.

“Based on all of the evidence presented and investigated, I cannot in good faith report to you that these documents are authentic,” Sheriff Arpaio said. “My investigators believe that the long-form birth certificate was manufactured electronically and that it did not originate in paper format as claimed by the White House.”

Maybe we are getting tired of welfare for the young.....

Nothing raises the price and cheapens the product like the governemnt paying for it.

Need a degree in trans-gender studies? How about another million grads in bi-racial relations....or maybe a few hundred thousand more lawyers?
 
Or just give every high school grad a degree is something and find them a job as an apprentice. Worked for me!!

Ignorance Is Strength - NYTimes.com

One way in which Americans have always been exceptional has been in our support for education. First we took the lead in universal primary education; then the “high school movement” made us the first nation to embrace widespread secondary education. And after World War II, public support, including the G.I. Bill and a huge expansion of public universities, helped large numbers of Americans to get college degrees.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman
Go to Columnist Page »
Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal
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Op-Ed Contributor: A Smug Education? (March 9, 2012)
Room for Debate: Should College Be for Everyone? (March 1, 2012)

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But now one of our two major political parties has taken a hard right turn against education, or at least against education that working Americans can afford. Remarkably, this new hostility to education is shared by the social conservative and economic conservative wings of the Republican coalition

I have a solution.....

let's pass a law that let's illegals  vote Republican and move them all here! LOL.

E-Verify group to pressure Boehner with ads - Washington Times

Immigration is one of the thorniest political issues as the general election in November approaches. Immigrant rights groups have blasted President Obama for failing to move a legalization bill, but NumbersUSA’s decision shows there is just as much frustration on the other side with Republicans, who won control of the House in 2010 while promising to get tough on illegal immigration, but who have not pushed through any major crackdown.

Mr. Beck wouldn’t say how much money would be spent on the ads, which will target various districts that may include Mr. Boehner’s in Ohio.

Bring back Reaganomics....

You have to read the whole article but Krugman whines that we did better under Reagan.

Where was he in 1984? Saying the exact opposite of course.

States of Depression - NYTimes.com

Why did government spending rise so much under Reagan, with his small-government rhetoric, while shrinking under the president so many Republicans insist is a secret socialist? In Reagan’s case, it’s partly about the arms race, but mainly about state and local governments doing what they are supposed to do: educate a growing population of children, invest in infrastructure for a growing economy.

Under President Obama, however, the dire fiscal condition of state and local governments — the result of a sustained slump, which in turn was caused largely by that private debt explosion before 2008 — has led to forced spending cuts. The fiscal straits of lower-level governments could and should have been alleviated by aid from Washington, which remains able to borrow at incredibly low interest rates. But this aid was never provided on a remotely adequate scale.

This policy malpra

Apologise for what?.....

Unmarried women who can't get their dates to pay for rubbers or a couple of dollars a month for the pill?

Why should you or I or any other taxpayer pay for it if we ain't getting any?

Limbaugh apologizes for making slurs about Georgetown student - Washington Times

Rush Limbaugh apologized Saturday for sexual slurs he made on the air about a Georgetown student who has become a public advocate for President Obama’s new contraception coverage mandate.

Earlier this week he called Sandra Fluke, a third-year law student, a “slut” and a “prostitute” for testifying before Congress that employers should cover contraception, accusing her of wanting to “be paid to have sex” and even suggesting she should post sex videos online in return.

The comments sparked outrage and fed political tensions between Republicans and Democrats over the issue, prompting President Obama to call Ms. Fluke on Friday to thank her for speaking out. While Mr. Limbaugh had initially doubled down on his comments, he posted an apology on his website on Saturday, saying he didn’t mean to personally attack Ms. Fluke

Snow....

making up for none since a week before Thanksgiving. Oh well.

It's a religeous thing.....

Romney Mormon Santorum Catholic. Latinos Catholic. What do you think? I think it will be interesting if being a Catholic gets you the Latino swing vote.

Does that mean Oba mama is toast?

Think the Mexicans will vote to deport their relatives? Yea, right!

Arizona set to test Romney's appeal to Hispanics - Washington Times

PHOENIX — With this weekend’s endorsement by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, Mitt Romney has amassed the backing of what could be considered the trifecta of hard-liners on illegal immigration — and he will put that to the test with Hispanic voters Tuesday in Arizona’s GOP primary.

Mr. Romney also has the support of former California Gov. Pete Wilson and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who together with Ms. Brewer have led state immigration crackdown efforts during the past two decades. Their backing solidifies the former Massachusetts governor’s credentials as the toughest candidate on the issue.

Another liar about global warming....

What's interesting that even if they were telling the truth and we were warming the planet no one would believe them anyhow.

Kind of like Iran, a country barely out of the stone age, is much of a threat to us.

One aircraft carrier could destroy them in a couple of weeks! One nuke in 15 minutes!

miltonwolf.com: Manbearpig update: More global warming fraud exposed

Remember when the science was "settled" and if you dared to doubt the apocalyptic warnings from the high priests of the church of global warming, er, climate change, you were called a "denier"?

The outright collapse of the Global Warmists continues unabated. First came ClimateGate. Then ClimateGate 2.0. Now Michelle Malkin exposes Eco-fraud: Global warming crusader admits lying, stealing, smearing:

It was all For The Planet, of course.

Global warming zealot Peter Gleick, in the name of defending “rational debate,” committed flabbergasting fraud to try and bring down the free-market Heartland Institute.

He’s finally ‘fessed up. But the Heartland Institute is going to fight for its reputation and for justice — in court.

In Gleick's confession, he claims he committed fraud because "a rational public debate is desperately needed." Really? I thought the global warming science was settled.

Just be glad your not trying to make excuses for Oba mama....

The guy is all over the map. I thought he was a Democrat. Of course, most people thought he was a Christian!

Today Oba mama says the only thing the Republicans want to do is drill! Since he refuses to drill gas prices have doubled and most people can't get a decent job. He gave us the criminal gang in the  Solyndra company, closed down the Gulf, and now wants to raise taxes on then oil companies.

I suppose living in Washington does make people a little stupid and we can forgive him because he's a black guy, you know, and it would be racists of us to treat him like any other politician who lies!

Oil speculators got us into this economic mess and until we do something constructive about our energy needs will continue to rule the roost.

Buy food. If you need another car go for the mileage. Move closer to work. Be ready for collapse II.

Robert Reich (The Gas Wars)

Nothing drives voter sentiment like the price of gas – now averaging $3.56 a gallon, up 30 cents from the start of the year. It’s already hit $4 in some places. The last time gas topped $4 was 2008.

And nothing energizes Republicans like rising energy prices. Last week House Speaker John Boehner told Republicans to take advantage of voters’ looming anger over prices at the pump. On Thursday House Republicans passed a bill to expand offshore drilling and force the White House to issue a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The tumult prompted the Interior Department to announce on Friday expanded oil exploration in the Arctic.

Obama makes a fool of himself.....

Sounded like Jimmy Carter to me. Without Republicans in Congress he's screwed on gas prices and they know it!

Even Romney can beat him if he whines about it, LOL.

Sessions: Obama 'defeatist' on rising gas prices - Washington Times

President Obama’s indignant defense this week of his administration’s energy policies has done nothing to deter GOP critics, as gas prices continue to rise amid worries that their continued climb could throw the economic recovery off course.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said in a letter to Mr. Obama Friday that the president was taking a “defeatist view” when it comes to trying to reduce gas prices.

“I reject the defeatist view that says the nation that won two world wars, pioneered space travel, and overcame the Soviet empire is now helpless in the face of high prices at the pump,” Mr. Sessions wrote. “We are not at the mercy of dictators, cartels and events beyond our control.”

Got about 10 inches or so of snow last night......

Come on summer.......

Just be glad your not trying to make excuses for Oba mama....

The guy is all over the map. I thought he was a Democrat. Of course, most people thought he was a Christian!

Today Oba mama says the only thing the Republicans want to do is drill! Since he refuses to drill gas prices have doubled and most people can't get a decent job. He gave us the criminal gang in the  Solyndra company, closed down the Gulf, and now wants to raise taxes on then oil companies.

I suppose living in Washington does make people a little stupid and we can forgive him because he's a black guy, you know, and it would be racists of us to treat him like any other politician who lies!

Oil speculators got us into this economic mess and until we do something constructive about our energy needs will continue to rule the roost.

Buy food. If you need another car go for the mileage. Move closer to work. Be ready for collapse II.

Robert Reich (The Gas Wars)

Nothing drives voter sentiment like the price of gas – now averaging $3.56 a gallon, up 30 cents from the start of the year. It’s already hit $4 in some places. The last time gas topped $4 was 2008.

And nothing energizes Republicans like rising energy prices. Last week House Speaker John Boehner told Republicans to take advantage of voters’ looming anger over prices at the pump. On Thursday House Republicans passed a bill to expand offshore drilling and force the White House to issue a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The tumult prompted the Interior Department to announce on Friday expanded oil exploration in the Arctic.

You ever notice.....

That the biggest war mongers among us have never fired a shot or have a shot fired at them from the evil enemies?

Be a different story if they or their children had to participate, right? Should be a law that these over zealous frothing at the mouth would be Rambos had to shoot it out in some God forsaking dump.

But there are plenty of patriotic suckers to do it for them so no danger of peace in the world so far!

Even some of the left-wing lackies agree with me.....

Firing government employees and cutting people's checks is idiotic during a bust.

Now Oba mama is terrorising Iran  into Armageddon. Even though high gas prices, refusing to drill for oil, and telling the Canadians to shove the pipeline up their asses is suicidal to his re-election campaign.

Oh but we did get to keep a couple of dollars a week after he robbed the Social Security tax, right?

Everyone in the media was giddy that he finally got something through Congress. Of course they're idiots but destroying the system has been the gangsters on Wall Street's plan for many years.

Imagine if all those billions were going to the crooks that fucked over and got us into this Depression.

Oh wait, that's only a matter of time, isn't it?

Pain Without Gain - NYTimes.com

Specifically, in early 2010 austerity economics — the insistence that governments should slash spending even in the face of high unemployment — became all the rage in European capitals. The doctrine asserted that the direct negative effects of spending cuts on employment would be offset by changes in “confidence,” that savage spending cuts would lead to a surge in consumer and business spending, while nations failing to make such cuts would see capital flight and soaring interest rates. If this sounds to you like something Herbert Hoover might have said, you’re right: It does and he did.

Now the results are in — and they’re exactly what three generations’ worth of economic analysis and all the lessons of history should have told you would happen. The confidence fairy has failed to show up: none of the countries slashing spending have seen the predicted private-sector surge. Instead, the depressing effects of fiscal austerity have been reinforced by falling private spending.

Furthermore, bond markets keep refusing to cooperate. Even austerity’s star pupils, countries that, like Portugal and Ireland, have done everything that was demanded of them, still face sky-high borrowing costs. Why? Because spending cuts have deeply depressed their economies, undermining their tax bases to such an extent that the ratio of debt to G.D.P., the standard indicator of fiscal progress, is getting worse rather than better.

Oba mama scaring the Iranians....

Time to raise gas prices. I guess the guy doesn't want to win. He'll have his hands full against Santorum if the Romney campaign finally dissolves. (Romney, a fellow liberal, can't beat him.)

Time will tell but he shouldn't be in this position but who said these people aren't arrogant.

Makes you wonder don't it.......

If Social Security was going broke why rob the funding? But I already posted many times that deficits are accounting gimmicks and we can print, borrow, or steal all the money we need to finance our government. We always have and always will.

The experts just like to lie about it!

Congress passes payroll tax cut - Washington Times

Acting with striking bipartisanship, Congress on Friday passed a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut and renewed enhanced unemployment benefits, sending the bill on to the White House and delivering a major victory to President Obama.

Mr. Obama had made both the tax cut and the jobless benefits chief pillars of his economic plan, and he and fellow Democrats outmaneuvered Republicans and ended up shaping most of the package.

One of our local gas stations raised their price....

6 cents a gallon. Oil up to 103$. Oba mama better move or he's toast this November.

They own us....

You ain't seen nothing yet. And our kids will think it's normal for the government to feed, clothe, babysit, employ us, cure our illnesses, clean up after us, etc. etc.

The Republicans will do it after giving you a tax cut and the Dem's will do it because they are busy bodies so don't blame anyone else just keep voting for these fascists and it will all get better. LOL

Did anyone notice we've declared war on Iran? No?

Watch the price of oil. Make sure you have some food stashed away and don't be surprised if gas bumps $5 for awhile. I'm not betting on it but Oba mama will have to move fast to stay in office so "talks" will be instituted fast or he's toast.

After the election it will be bombs away!

NC School Officials | Preschooler's Homemade Lunch | The Daily Caller

A North Carolina elementary school forced a preschool student to eat cafeteria chicken nuggets for lunch on Jan. 30 after officials reportedly determined that her homemade meal wasn’t up to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s standards for healthfulness, according to a report from the Carolina Journal.

The newspaper reported that the four-year-old girl brought a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, potato chips and apple juice in her packed lunch from home. That meal didn’t meet with approval from the government agent who was on site inspecting kids’ lunches that day.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child Development and Early Education requires that all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs must meet USDA guidelines. Meals, the guidelines say, must include one serving each of meat, milk and grain and two servings of fruit or vegetables. Those guidelines apply to home-packed lunches as well as cafeteria meals.

The Carolina Journal reported that the girl and her mother wish to remain anonymous to avoid public scrutiny, but she did write to her state representative to complain about it.

“I don’t feel that I should pay for a cafeteria lunch when I provide lunch for her from home,” the mother wrote in a complaint to her state representative, Republican G.L. Pridgen of Robeson County.

Big battle in Conservatism.....

Conservatives lost the argument about health care when they signed on to Medicare in '65. Once a benefit is given it can't be taken back.

And not putting everyone on Medicare a couple of years ago makes the issue worse. It becomes a pissing contest because of all the different ways health care is administered. But mostly it means that we have to pay for our own health care and for everyone else's health care.

And yes, it's Oba mama's fault. If he and the Dems had fazed all Americans into the Medicare system this argument would be ancient history and our government could have concentrated on paying for it and reforming the mess that they created.

Then the insurance industry could find something else to do for a living  like everybody else

Coulter Care - Peter Ferrara - Townhall Conservative

Why the Individual Mandate Equals Socialized Medicine

Here is why the individual mandate inevitably leads to full-blown socialized medicine, as it has with Obamacare: When the government mandates that you have to buy health insurance, then it has to specify what health insurance is required to satisfy the mandate. This means politics is involved in deciding what must be included and covered by that insurance.

And once politics is involved, that means you can't leave anything out, as that would be takenas an offense and a slight to both the consumers and the providers of the excluded service. Mental health benefits and counseling, drug rehab, maternity benefits (even for men and seniors), abortion -- everything must be covered. We will see that when the final regulations are issued for Obamacare by the Supreme Dictator, Kathleen Sebelius (who looks and acts the part of a villain from an Ayn Rand novel). We are already seeing that the mandated services must include sterilization and "morning after" pills, which even Catholic institutions will have to pay for in regard to their own employees.

That means the mandated health insurance will inevitably be extremely expensive, as we are just starting to see with Obamacare. To make such a mandated expense politically palatable, the government must provide extensive welfare subsidies well into the middle class and beyond, again as we see with Obamacare. The biggest expense there is not the explosion of Medicaid, as bad as that is. It is the entirely new entitlement program providing benefits (subsidies) for the purchase of the mandated insurance for families making up to $88,000 a year to start, indexed to grow to over $100,000 in the near future.

Another exercise in fantasy...

Oba mama comes up with a budget and the  Greeks get another bailout. Someday we'll here something real and then no one will report it.

Even the leftwing nuts are getting it...

Our system is rotten no matter who is in Washington.

Robert Reich (The Sad Spectacle of Obama's Super PAC)

How many billionaires does it take to buy a presidential election? “With so much at stake” wrote Obama campaign manager Jim Messina on the Obama campaign’s blog, Obama couldn’t “unilaterally disarm.”

But would refusing to be corrupted this way really amount to unilateral disarmament? To the contrary, I think it would have given the President a rallying cry that nearly all Americans would get behind: “More of the nation’s wealth and political power is now in the hands of fewer people and large corporations than since the era of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. I will not allow our democracy to be corrupted by this! I will fight to take back our government!”

Small donations would have flooded the Obama campaign, overwhelming Romney’s billionaire super PACs. The people would have been given a chance to be heard.

The sad truth is Obama has never really occupied the high ground on campaign finance. He refused public financing in 2008. Once president, he didn’t go to bat for a system of public financing that would have made it possible for candidates to raise enough money from small donors and matching public funds they wouldn’t need to rely on a few billionaires pumping unlimited sums into super PACS. He hasn’t even fought for public disclosure of super PAC donations.

And now he’s made a total mockery of the Court’s naïve belief that super PACs would remain separate from individual campaigns, by officially endorsing his own super PAC and allowing campaign manager Jim Messina and even cabinet officers to speak at his super PAC events. Obama will not appear at such events but he, Michelle Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden will encourage support of the Obama super PAC

Who says crime doesn't pay....

Just bribe Oba mama and you get away with billions and only have to pay back peanuts.

Just ask his buddies in the banking racket. They got away with it. Oh, and they knew what they were doing. They made loans to people who couldn't pay it back and now blame the government for making them do it!

Except they bribed the Feds into giving them permission to lend these broke dicks the money in the first place knowing damn well that you and I would have to pay for it for electing the gang in Washington in the first place.

They were right!

Speculators getting antsy....

May you live in interesting times. Who's going to buy all that 100$ oil in Europe?

More oil comes on line from Canada and then good old USA and prices collapse.

Plus a dozen assholes in California buy a hybrid and we have a glut! LOL.

Expect Oba mama to come up with a "new" drilling plan a little later to squash any oil price surge that makes him look helpless later this year as he enter reelection mode.

Crude Oil Trades Near Six-Week Low on Forecast of Rising U.S. Stockpiles - Bloomberg

Oil fell to near a six-week low in New York before a report forecast to show that U.S. stockpiles increased last week. U.S. crude’s discount to North Sea Brent oil surpassed $20 for the first time since October.

West Texas Intermediate futures extended yesterday’s decline, bringing this week’s loss to 1.8 percent. Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos will meet the country’s political leaders today to discuss measures for securing a second European Union-led bailout. U.S. crude inventories probably rose to the highest in more than four months and gasoline supplies climbed for a second week, according to a Bloomberg survey before an Energy Department report tomorrow.

“The market is oversupplied, which is putting pressure on WTI,” said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, who forecasts oil will slide this year. “But fears of supply disruption are keeping Brent supported. The widening of the spread is the constant factor in the market.”

Oil for March delivery dropped as much as $1.07, or 1.1 percent, to $95.84 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and was at $96.03 at 1:07 p.m. London time. It fell to $95.44 a barrel on Feb. 2, the weakest level since Dec. 20. Prices have declined 2.8 percent this year.

Romney shits himself....

Santorum sweep: Wins Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado - Washington Times

DENVER, Colo. — Rick Santorum clobbered Mitt Romney in a head-to-head match-up in Missouri’s non-binding primary, easily won Minnesota’s caucuses and snagged a close victory in Colorado’s caucuses in a clean sweep Tuesday that once again rewrote the story of the Republican presidential nomination battle.

None of the three contests leads immediately to any delegates being awarded toward the nominating convention in Tampa, Fla., this summer, but Tuesday’s results suggest a strong pool of support for Mr. Santorum

Walmart fazes out the people greeter job.....

Patti and I will be able to stay on but after we quit the job no longer exists.

It's open season for shop lifters!!!

Go Giants....

If the defense plays like they did against the Packers going to be a good game.

I like being right....

Expect billions to come home and fire up the boom. Then we slash the budget and bust all over again.

Oh wait President Romney will bring us hope and change and Wall Street will be told to take a hike.

Yeah right.

I think the Aztecs have a better chance, don't you?

EMPLOYMENT DATA CRUSHES EXPECTATIONS | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM

This morning’s employment data is likely to turn the “double dip” discussion into a “double rip” discussion. It’s now crystal clear that all of last year’s recession talk was well off the mark. The USA continues to be supported by a healthy budget deficit that is serving as a buffer to any downside in growth. This doesn’t mean problems don’t remain, but the bears have greatly exaggerated the weakness in the US economy.

Econoday has the details on this morning’s employment report which showed a healthy jump in private sector employment to 240K jobs in January as well as a decline in the unemployment rate to 8.3%:

Very few poor people vote....

The ones that do would never vote for a super rich snob like this guy.

Right now I'm still betting on the black guy because when the election is between two liberals the liberal always wins. Of course, it doesn't really matter which one wins for the average guy because he will pay for it.

Romney Isn’t Concerned - NYTimes.com

Faced with criticism, the candidate has claimed that he didn’t mean what he seemed to mean, and that his words were taken out of context. But he quite clearly did mean what he said. And the more context you give to his statement, the worse it gets.

First of all, just a few days ago, Mr. Romney was denying that the very programs he now says take care of the poor actually provide any significant help. On Jan. 22, he asserted that safety-net programs — yes, he specifically used that term — have “massive overhead,” and that because of the cost of a huge bureaucracy “very little of the money that’s actually needed by those that really need help, those that can’t care for themselves, actually reaches them.”

You would think they are doing it on purpose....

They get pissed when we call the gang that drove our jobs overseas socialist and Luddites.

But that's because we are polite!

America’s Dirty War Against Manufacturing (Part 1): Carl Pope - Bloomberg

Policy. But is U.S. government policy really hostile to manufacturing?

Sadly, yes. Take tax policy. Historically, manufacturing was the high-wage sector of the economy -- manufacturing jobs still pay about 30 percent more than service jobs in education and health care -- so tax policy milked it. Manufacturing companies, in the old days, actually paid the corporate income taxes that many others avoided. Commodity producers (oil, timber, agribusiness) lobbied for, and received, federal subsidies, with investors in oil and gas wells simply voiding corporate income taxes on the profits they earned. Banking, retail and services found their own ways around taxes, often by offshoring intellectual property or shifting profit to tax havens. Eventually, manufacturers figured out how to duck taxes as well -- by going overseas.
Varying Regulations

Yet it isn’t just taxes. Wind turbines, for example, are enormous, heavy and expensive to transport -- so there is a big advantage to fabricating them close to the installation point. But consider the predicament of the Spanish wind manufacturer Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica SA after it began operations in Pennsylvania. Because the George W. Bush administration’s Department of Transportation wouldn’t establish uniform standards for transporting the enormous turbine blades, each state followed its own rules. Whenever a blade crossed a state line it had to be unloaded by a construction crane and then reloaded to conform to the next state’s specifications.

Similar policy failures explain why Minnesota’s Port of Duluth exports iron ore to China and imports wind turbines from Europe. On the way to China, the ore freighters pass Chicago; Gary, Indiana; Cleveland; and Buffalo, New York -- cities where steel could be made and turned into turbine towers. But the U.S. wind market is too small, and the government too focused elsewhere, to make it profitable.

And that Long Island golf-course story? Not unique to New York. During the 1991 California drought, Silicon Valley’s electronics manufacturers were warned by Governor Pete Wilson that the state might have to shut off their water supply. Agriculture, Wilson said, came first. When I asked a Silicon Valley lobbyist in Sacramento if he had quietly received assurances that California would prioritize 21st-century computer chips over 19th-century alfalfa, he said he hadn’t. In fact, he said, some plant expansions initially planned for Silicon Valley were being diverted to Oregon to secure access to water.

In 1991, it was Oregon. Today, it’s Asia. Conventional wisdom blames globalization for the exodus of factories and jobs. Because other countries pay lower wages, the thinking goes, there is nothing we can, or even should, do about it. But the evidence of Germany and Japan -- and the experience of manufacturers in the U.S. -- tells a very different story.

We are not victims of an impersonal Leviathan called “globalization.” We’re the suckers who allowed our government to sacrifice the manufacturing sector while protecting the real winners: commodities, intellectual property, finance and agribusiness. The U.S. didn’t lose its manufacturing leadership; it threw it away.

In the next two parts of this series, I’ll discuss how that happened and what we can do about it.

(Carl Pope is a former chairman of the Sierra Club. The opinions expressed are his own. Read Part 2 and 3 of the series.)

To contact the writer on this story: Carl Pope at carl.pope@sierraclub.org

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Francis Wilkinson at fwilkinson1@bloomberg.net.

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Showing 1-40 of 84 comments on America’s Dirty War Against Manufacturing (Part 1): Carl Pope

unihans 1 week ago
I fully agree. It's time for US citizens to realise that they have been made suckers during the last couple of decades by senseless deregulations all based on the concept that greed is good and the markets are taking care of everything. The result: (i) a huge financial crises which made shareholders broke, tens of millions of empoloyees unemployed, financial executives stinking rich on the finance casino which many of them must have realised must collapse one day (ii) sinking quality of education (iii) lousy infrastructure, (iv) complete distortion of the use of talents where a much too high portion go to the finacial sector where remuneration has been rediculously high which has made any talent a sucker if he or she would choose to go to the industry where real value is created (v) lack of investments in alternative energy (vi) a senseless inequality where the middle class is the big looser and income and capital more and more is and more concentrated (vii) a dysfuntional democracy dominated by the big money which makes the democracy too much an illusion.

It reallly is wake up time.
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wjc9 in reply to unihans 1 week ago
I completely agree with you on this point. My friend works for a bank and he reviews resumes sometimes. He said he was stunned by the number of over qualified applicants.

"
(iv) complete distortion of the use of talents where a much too high portion go to the finacial sector where remuneration has been rediculously high which has made any talent a sucker if he or she would choose to go to the industry where real value is create
"
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shaneaves in reply to unihans 1 week ago
x 2.
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rocketman 5 days ago
Something that should have been obvious to everyone is that this country has far too much government and far too many regulations. If it was up to me the congress would not be permitted to pass anymore regulations on corporations until it eliminated at least 70% of the ones now on the books.
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Spartacusstoo 1 week ago
Moreover, we must come to understand that manufacturing represents something else not mentioned and that which is plant. By plant we are referring to the costly machinery used to manufacture just about anything as manufacturing has moved to computer controlled methodologies that result in enormously expensive plant equipment and technique. Replacement costs are prohibitive. And should a plant go bankrupt, the equipment is usually sold for scrap and so the plant is not replaceable as the start up costs are way too high.

Thus, we see that the government in it's ever reaching effort for more taxes to fund more government boondogles taxes corporations (actually a corporation is not a taxable entity, the shareholders are). And so we have the phenomenon of double taxation, the corporation first and if anything is left over, then the shareholder and this is why most corporations pay very little in the way of dividends.

To make it short and sweet, we've all been sold down the river by the liberals pandering for votes and we will not be able to put humpty dumpty back together again. Thus, Americas backbone, manufacturing, is a thing of the past and without it there isn't much to look forward to for a future.
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simonts in reply to Spartacusstoo 1 week ago
"We have been sold down the river by liberals", say you? Did you read the article at all? To you Pete Wilson was a liberal? It seems that to the right wing extremists all ills are caused by those pesky liberals. In fact most of the problems that underlie to the exodus of manufacturing industries from our country has been caused by the right wing of the conservative movement. First among those is the lack of universal health insurance and coverage and the excess cost this inflicts on manufacturing businesses. This is the main difference between Germany and the USA, as far as cost goes. Germany has stronger unions, higher wages, higher taxes and at least as strong environmental regulations as the US. The differences are twofold. One, in Germany there is universal health coverage provided by the state, lowering the fringe benefit cost for employers significantly. Second, there is MUCH less lobbying of representatives by industry and much less influence of corporate (or private) money on government policies in Germany. Hence, corporations, whether in financials, agriculture of manufacturing, all pay their fair share of taxes, unlike in our country. In general, the super rich (whether individuals or corporations) have not corrupted the government in Germany, as they have done it in our country starting with the Reagan era (with that pesky liberal president Ronald Reagan).
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map0557 in reply to simonts 1 week ago
Yes, I have a hard time pitying poor US corporations like General Electric who paid ZERO federal income taxes in 2010, despite making BILLIONS in profit.
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MikeSchoenberg in reply to map0557 1 week ago
Not to mention the extreme CEO compensation. Anyone remember Hoe Depots parting gift to a CEO of $277 million as his stock had dropped in half during his tenure.
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Matt Colbert in reply to Spartacusstoo 1 week ago
You must not have read the article.
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Ron in reply to Spartacusstoo 1 week ago
When corporations stop shielding their owners from liability we can stop taxing them. While the public allows corporations to shield their owners from liability, the public should get something in return, such as corporate taxes.
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Ransomexx 1 week ago
You people didn't look at the picture. We are a government of consolidated special interests. The consolidated politically powerful out maneuvered the less politically powerful. Let's face it, currently, consolidated financial capitalization, using "other people's money" is more profitable for the few than is manufacturing. In fact, the destruction of manufacturing is more profitable for the few over the short term.

Highly compensated executive management has joined forces with the short term thinkers that use other people's money to profit in the short term. There is a famous line in "Other People's Money" where a lawyer states that upon the signing of a document, America's entire steel manufacturing business is now controlled by those that know nothing about it (the precursor to today's financial capitalists).

Manufacturing has gone the way of the mom and pop meat and three when chain restaurants moved to town or the local businesses that disappeared when the Big Boxes moved in. It is "Get big, or get out". Apparently the financial capitalists are not so much a threat in China because China is trying to improve it's long term prospects, rather than destroy them.
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Robinson_Cruz 1 week ago
I am an executive in a small manufacturing company in New England. Our suppliers are nearby US manufacturers. We regularly discuss off-shoring our manufacturing and supply base. Why? Not once has anyone on our executive team raised the issue of taxes, regulation, water resources, or labor laws. There is only one reason: Money, driven primarily by the cost of labor. By off-shoring, we can reduce our own cost of labor. We can use off-shore suppliers, with their lower cost of labor, to reduce our cost of goods without incurring higher incoming freight costs. Why haven't we done it yet? Because moving would require capital we don't have. So once again, the argument is money. American capitalism is about the pursuit of money in the form of profit. When someone tells you that American executives make decisions for other reason, be skeptical.
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yahoo-R3VCGNCCINSERHJSJJWDSCOQZE 1 day ago
He took the long but it was there, Blame the tea Party!! I'm surprised Bush wasn't thrown in there. After two pages of reading how manufacturing was screwed by the tax code, manipulative politicians and idiot bureaucrats, it is somehow the fault of the one group that is actually shouting that government interference is the problem.
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samswede 4 days ago
As a manufacturer of 30+ years, I can tell you that every executive I met in my travels back and forth to Asia would have preferred making their product where the market is- in the U.S. It is a myth that mfg. moved offshore because of low wages. The biggest culprit was (and is) nonsensical governmental regulations. The U.S. is the most hostile environment in the world for manufacturers. When that changes- the jobs will return- period!
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Robert 2 days ago
There is an opinion that regulations strangle business and investment, which I don't agree with.
Business, safety and environmental regulations have been passed over the years for various reasons. Some political, some for the greater good.
Some laws and regulations are obsolete, no longer necessary. Some have had unintended consequences.
The view that ALL rules and regulations are bad and strangle business: let the "Free Markets" regulate themselves, is unrealistic

Worker rights, environmental safeguards, and safety regulations were put in place by the government because businesses (Corporations) in this country, being supposedly equal to humans, except with no conscience, have only the bottom line and increasing profits for motivation.
Given free reign, Corporations have little regard for safeguarding the enviroment or safety, and race to the bottom in labor overhead to maximise profits.
Labor is a necessary expense and should be controlled. Regulations were passed and Unions formed to make sure that Corporations would pay decent wages and have safe working conditions. The Corporations would not pay any more than the bare minimum while reaping big profits.
Worker's rights regulations were put in place to standardise and ensure that workers were not exploited as they would be without the regulation.
Safety regulations have been put in place to protect workers from unsafe, hazardous practices and materials.
Environmental regulations have been put in place to protect the enviroment. We know more now about things like: the ocean should not be considered an endless dumping ground, the air we breathe is affected by industrial processes, etc.
Do the manufacturing here, pay reasonable taxes, pay reasonable wages, share profits, obey environmental, safety and business regulations. Try to effect positive change for things that need to be changed.Change perspective to more constructive, empathetic, responsible view based on reality and science and not politics or religion.
On the other hand:At this stage of the game if we moved much manufacturing back to the USA some other countries might see their economies collapse with high unemployment. Some offshoring was done in the spirit of economic aid. Catch 22?
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wellsoup 1 week ago

"Highly compensated executive management has joined forces with the
short term thinkers that use other people's money to profit in the short
term. There is a famous line in "Other People's Money" where a lawyer
states that upon the signing of a document, America's entire steel
manufacturing business is now controlled by those that know nothing
about it (the precursor to today's financial capitalists)."

Exactly, just ask Mitt Romney...

Romney's Bain Made Millions as South Carolina Steelmaker Went Bankrupt




Monday 16 January 2012
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Will Stewart 2 days ago
Lots of anecdotes, low on real reporting. Nowhere does Pope run down the golf course story. In fact, he only uncovers agriculture as the priority. " infrastructure, workforce
training," Do people in Taiwan need no training? Which infrastructure, exactly?

I'm afraid this was an agenda looking for the slightest anecdotal support. Bloomberg is losing credibility.
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Richard Mertens 1 week ago
When a CA residential home owner pays $19/1000gl/H2O but an alfalfa farmer and factory pay $19 per acre foot (326,000 gallons) where's the motive to conserve? Business enjoys many subsidies like this that are out of whack. Germany and Japan also have lower productivity costs thanks to one single item, universal healthcare, an item oddly enough that many conservative business folk defend as incredibly important to capitalism even though millions go without and the rest are paying through the nose. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I swear if Obama said his favorite color was blue, the GOP would crap itself to rid the world of it.
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jeffpopovaclark 1 week ago
The examples of Japan and Germany are not informative. German boards include employee/union reps and Japanese governance is shared between execs, employees, financiers and even key suppliers. These companies aren't just chasing profit for owners and exec bonuses, they are trying to maximise benefits for all of those stakeholders. As a result, these companies pursue less profitable strategies that benefit their workers, suppliers, customers and partners. This does not happen in the US: if it doesn't maximise profits you don't do it. America's problem is primarily skewed corporate governance, not government policy (although that needs significant overhaul as well).
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yasutate 1 week ago
Any country which neglects manufacturing, which is the real creator of national wealth, will become a country which does not have any future. Many people of a neo-liberal idea claim that the financial industries are the future industry, but they never create any wealth of nation, but they bring casino capitalism, causing economic crises one after another. Look the US, the EU, and soon the UK, whose ratio of national debts to gdp is more than 1000%, if correctly calculated taking into account its bank debts which will be taken care of the government at the costs to its people.
As one BBC program recently has mentioned, Japanese lost decade is in a way paradise for other coutries, extremely low unemployment rates, manufacturing basis not affected at all by the money bubble speculation in late 1980s and early 1990s. This is mainly due to the manufacturing basis which still remains in Japan, creating national wealth, which in turn provides money to ordinary people, who in turn can support the economy. The Japanese depdendency on export is extremely low at 19%, as compared with 45% or more for Germany.
One big problem of the US is that its politicians do not know theory of economics, as the majority is lawyers, including Obama and Clinton and they are often more eager to enrich themselves supporting speculative capitals.
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JosephGordon2 1 week ago
We need a new comprehensive American "industrial production policy" that looks at the totality of our shrinking industrial base, our disappearing middle-class, our jobless recession recoveries. I submit they have come to represent what has become an US unbalanced economy that was camouflaged by a long running housing bubble.

The truth is we have had a drag on our economy for decades that has only gotten worse as a ballooning negative trade-balance has dogged us, replaced our jobs with outsourcing, and draws our technology innovation elsewhere. We have tried in vein to bolster our standard of living by importing, and our lifestyle is has now slipping materially. To dig ourselves out we have trashed the dollar, poor yield now encourages replacement of our US dollar as a reserve-currency with a basket of currency. This will result in higher interest rates on our borrowing.

All these problems have at their root we are no longer a net producing nation, but a debtor. This new " industrial production policy" should recognize "producing nations build wealth, and consuming nations become debtors. Our entire economy can be turned around in 5-years with improvement in one. Once again America will be the land of opportunity.

We don't need hope. We don't need change. We need opportunity! Graduates should be able to pay their loans, and again experience an upwardly mobile society. Boomers should never expect to be poor and jobless late in life. The middle-class needs living wage jobs to thrive and survive. Our policies should return America to the land of opportunity. If our politician are too vested in the status quo to act, they should all be thrown from office and replaced.
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Richard Laycock 1 week ago
I look forward to Mr. Pope's explanation of how it happened and how to fix it. For a preview of the challenges we face all you have to do is read the comments. It's almost incomprehensible that such a stream of inane stupidity and regurgitated PC nonsense could be the response to this excellent thoughtful piece by Carl Pope.

The problem with America is liberal Americans and the rotten academics that raise our children to be useless programmed cyphers. We are surrounded by the most spoiled, idle and arrogant idiots in human history.
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HECConsulting 1 week ago
Thank you for the story. I think the American Elite is too much focused on there own profit today and loose through that focus on sustainable profit and long term prospective with exception of the military
business. I do business with US and Japan since beginning 80th. I always heard reduce taxes, we will reduce taxes and so on and so on... It's like the adds of detergent... we wash whiter than white. In, compared with us, little Germany, there are 1500 companies, most of them not public owned and located in the manufacturing business, which are in there business field world-market leader. Germany has just 80 mil. inhabitants compared with. Same in Japan, which was badly hurt with it natural and technical disaster last year. It is the sustainability, the common sense of the society what let the japanese companies grow after the second world war.
By lowering taxes all the time USA underestimate, statewide and national, the importance of infrastructural investments, like water and energy supply and the networks who guaranties the undoubtable function of those basic necessities.
USA is trimmed to growth. Growth is not only definite by profit percentages. The future profit percentages have to be secured today, with functional networks who can stand future growth and will be always maintained. It has to be a no-brainer.
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Bloomberg View in reply to HECConsulting 1 week ago
Thanks for your comment! We’ve chosen it as our Comment
of the Moment on our homepage | http://www.bloomberg.com/view/
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Nick 1 week ago
While no one would argue that America's regulatory environment is obtuse, at the least, any argument that factories moved overseas for any reason other than the ability to pay people in China, Mexico, etc. far less, give them no benefits, and work them much harder is fundamentally flawed. The decision to outsource is a short term one that intentionally gives the finger to the ideals behind things like the minimum wage.


Outsourcing is the result of business schools teaching that it is better and easier to reduce costs via manipulation, rather than innovation; that it is better to lay off workers to drive up short term profits or balance a budget sheet rather than reallocating resources in the way that best drives R&D.
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ES71 in reply to Nick 1 week ago
I went to business school and they didn't teach me any of that. But they did teach me that the purpose of the corporation is to "maximize shareholder profits".However, you won't hear that anywhere but in the US. Other countries treat corporations just like any other citizen - expecting them to contribute to the social stability and prosperity of the country, not just reap profits regardless of consequences. US needs to reaccess how it treats its corporations. Why they allowed to influence the poltical process but have no responsibility for adverse results of their influence.
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Mike in reply to ES71 1 week ago
Perhaps we should also hold the environmental groups and the EPA equally responsible for many of the "obtuse" anti business regulations that require obscene amounts of expense and non productive labor to remain in compliance?.
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Nick in reply to Mike 5 days ago
Perhaps they should hold businesses responsible for destroying the environment?


I'd love to know what you think "obtuse anti business regulations" are.
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Nick in reply to ES71 5 days ago
Part of the problem is that American government does treat corporations like people, providing them with all of the benefits of citizenship and none of the responsibility. It needs to be all or none.
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Christopher 1 week ago
The author is inventing and confounding facts. Depending on the count, the US is the world's number one or number two manufacturer (China is the other). Employment has dropped but output has increased and would increase more if the skilled workers needed in high-end manufacturing could be found. As for South Carolina, there is still a textile industry but it is highly computerized and the skill sets needed in today's textile workers are different than 40 years ago. South Carolina has also greatly expanded its manufacturing sector by providing worker training in its regional community technical colleges.

If we want modern manufacturing jobs in the US, we have to train people to fill them. This means that our schools must produce literate, numerate graduates.
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Patrick Ebnit in reply to Christopher 1 week ago
inventing and confounding facts?For years I have heard the same reasons citedin this article along with an increase in technology/productivity for our loss of manufacturing jobs. Also South Carolina has done more than just provide worker training to expand their industry. Tax incentives and investments in infastructure have helped.
In the end your explanation is overly simplified. An educated work force is only a piece of the puzzle.
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scvblwxq in reply to Christopher 1 week ago
I sure have a hard time finding "Made in America" products at the big stores. Maybe food is our big "manufactured" product.
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MorganaW 3 days ago
Why wouldn't the fabrication business be in line for water rights after existing businesses? Golf courses and agriculture are businesses. They have seniority. They also create jobs, jobs that can't be outsourced. They are "resource friendly" to the community, providing additional tourism jobs or local food. Also, fabrication is not a "clean" business. It's not unreasonable to require them to monitor waste water, communities that haven't done so are facing extensive heavy metal poisoning in both surface and ground water.
Granted,the tax code is a mess and needs to be overhauled; good luck, in the environment of partisan politics. Still, there's no worry about a local government nationalizing an expensive plant if that plant is in the USA. No under the table handouts to local politicians. No kidnapping worries for senior executives.
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FrankRestly 1 week ago
Well said sir, well said
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Ron 1 week ago
Failure of government to govern prudently has always been a barrier to progress. Removing government altogether is not a solution, however, because government is a natural outgrowth of human activity. There will always be government of one sort or another. Government must be made to work for the benefit of those governed...all of them.
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samswede 4 days ago
The U.S. is the most hostile environment in the world for manufacturers. When that changes- the jobs will return- period!
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Paata Gurgenidze 1 week ago
The story is very convincing, but it lacks explanation. Why the US threw away the manufacturing? My answer in the simplest formulation is as follow - Governments have to serve people and their policies can favor manufacturing, while markets serve only richer players and favor higher profits. Unfortunately the US government favor markets instead of people. The manufacturing is being outsourced not because of lower wages in Asia ( this is also a fact), but because of higher profits in other than manufacturing sector in the US. It is comparative advantage that drives markets not competitive advantage. If your government supports unfettered markets you will end up with only banking sector instead of the diversified industries.
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Guyute Icculus 1 week ago
China and other Asian manufacturing bases have one thing the USA will never have:

CENTRAL PLANNING.
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Zeon in reply to Guyute Icculus 1 week ago
Central planning didn't do the Soviets much good.
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Da_mad_hatter in reply to Zeon 1 week ago
Well, they were even less able to do it than we are.

Let me put in a plug for Competency.
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If a guy didn't know better.....

He'd think that there is something crooked in Washington.

Oh wait! We do know there is something crooked in Washington!

Jive Talkin - Clusterfuck Nation

The topper for me, though, was the President's cheeky announcement that he'd ordered the Department of Justice to form a "special unit" to investigate mortgage fraud and other lethal irregularities in the banking sector. The fact that his congressional audience did not bust out laughing shows what a convocation of craven and perfidious cat's paws they are. Note to readers: the DOJ has a long-established criminal division fully empowered to prosecute all the familiar scams of our time from NINJA lending to the robo-signing of titles to MERS mortgage mischief, to the bundling and sales of booby-trapped CDOs - up to and including whatever Jon Corzine thought he was doing at MF Global.
Notice how lame the major newspapers and cable news networks were in responding to Mr. Obama's impudent japery. None of them, including The New York Times, bothered to ask Attorney General Eric Holder what he's been up to along these lines for the past three years. It is really hard to account for the stupendous incompetence of the news media in recent years. Of course, I'm allergic to conspiracy theories and the only explanation that adds up for me is the diminishing returns of technology. Among other untruths we've embraced collectively is the idea that computer-distributed information amounts to knowledge and understanding, tending toward judgment. Apparently, it's only made our society much dumber and more irresponsible. After all, none of the supposed media watchdogs even asked The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, or CNN and a hundred other outlets why they didn't interview the Attorney General of the United States and ask him why he has not been taking care of the business now assigned to this special unit.