Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Anything for a BFF, right?

2. BFF. Bunifa break us up? never!

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Here's the NIE. Care to quote what it says about Iraq and terrorism?

http://www.odni.gov/press_releases/D..._Judgments.pdf

This would be the three pages out of a 30 page document that were released by the bush administration ?

Definite proof, but only if you've drunk the Kool-Aid.

[Spanky]

Lynne Stewarts sentencing is coming up on October 16. Any guesses as to what sort of sentence she gets? I hope she gets the maximum, but since our breed tends to protect its own I don't think she will get much jail time.

If she has been convicted and is just awaiting sentencing why is she free to run around?

[Spanky]

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
You are absolutely right. I'm sure that the intent behind these emails was entirely innocent -- perhaps this was a Big Brother kind of deal? -- and Foley, knowing that, though it best to resign rather than claim his innocence of any wrongdoing.

Or are you suggesting that the all-powerful Democratic machine forced him out?

In related news, it sounds like Hastert knew for many months about Foley's work to violate internet stalkng laws that Foley helped sponsor, instead of learning just a week or two ago. Oopsie!

At times like these, I always think it's a damn shame that the Democrats don't have a Newt Gingrich. You know, someone perfectly willing to step up in front of the cameras and impute media stories about women killing their children or Woody Allen's sexual proclivities to the Democratic party at large.

And here -- here, we have an actual GOP member of Congress stalking an underage boy and apparently committing crimes that he helped pass! And the GOP Speaker of the House knowing about it, but apparently hoping it'll simply go away. Will we have Democratic party leaders explaining that the GOP is the party of Internet homosexual stalker pederasts?

Nah, probably not.

Gattigap

[Tables R Us]

The Economist agrees that free trade with low income countries has contributed to stagnant wages for ordinary workers in the developed world and fears this will lead to a protectionist backlash unless there are redistributive policies to transfer economic benefits from capitalists to workers.

RICH countries have democratic governments, so continued support for globalisation will depend on how prosperous the average worker feels. Yet workers' share of the cake in rich countries is now the smallest it has been for at least three decades. In many countries average real wages are flat or even falling. ...

Like so many other current economic puzzles, the redistribution of income from labour to capital can be largely explained by the entry of China, India and other emerging economies into world markets. Globalisation has lifted profits relative to wages in several ways. First, offshoring to low-wage countries has reduced firms' costs. Second, employers' ability to shift production, whether or not they take advantage of it, has curbed the bargaining power of workers in rich countries. In Germany, for example, several big firms have negotiated pay cuts with their workers to avoid moving production to central Europe. And third, increased immigration has depressed wages in sectors such as catering, farming and construction. ...

A study by the Institute for International Economics estimates that globalisation is benefiting America's economy by $1 trillion a year, equivalent to $9,000 a year for every family. But in practice the average family has not seen such a gain because much of it has gone to those at the top or into profits. This explains the lack of support for globalisation from ordinary people. Unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash.

Article

[Spanky]

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tables R Us
The Economist agrees that free trade with low income countries has contributed to stagnant wages for ordinary workers in the developed world and fears this will lead to a protectionist backlash unless there are redistributive policies to transfer economic benefits from capitalists to workers.

Article

You are like those Fundamentalist Christians when they hear that Evolutionary Theory has been refined (e.g. the idea of constant consistent evolution is replaced by a waxing and waning trend like the Cambrian explosion) they use it as evidence that the whole theory is wrong. Sorry it does not work like that. Just because the theory has changed does not mean that Evolution is wrong and the the Bible is 100% accurate. In the same vein, Just because Free markets are not perfect does not lead to the conclusion that protectionism is better. How many national economies have to be ruined by protectionism until these idiots realize it does not help anyone, least of all the poor.

The upshot of this article is that workers at this point have not benefited as much as others from globalization in the past twenty years because the world economy had to adjust to the introduction of three billion new workers into the free market economy but eventually this situation will right itself. The article points out that these statistics in no way support any sort of protectionism and in fact points out that protectionism will just make the situation worse.

The key passages in this article are:

1) Most of the fears about emerging economies focus on jobs being lost to low-cost foreign competitors. But the real threat is to wages, not jobs. In the long run, trade and offshoring should have little effect on total employment in rich countries; rather, they will change its composition. So long as labour markets are flexible, job losses in manufacturing should eventually be offset by new jobs elsewhere. But trade with emerging economies can have a big impact on both average and relative wages.


2) The entry of China, India and the former Soviet Union into market capitalism has, in effect, doubled the world supply of workers, from 1.5 billion to 3 billion. These new entrants brought little capital with them, so the global capital-labour ratio dropped sharply. According to economic theory, this should reduce the relative price of labour and raise the global return to capital—which is exactly what has happened.
Over time, competition should reduce profit margins and distribute benefits back to consumers and workers in the form of lower prices.

3) It used to be thought that only rich countries had educated workforces able to produce skill-intensive goods, but poor countries have invested heavily in education in recent years, allowing them to start competing in more sophisticated markets. Every year, 1.2m engineers and scientists graduate from Chinese and Indian universities, as many as in America, the European Union and Japan combined and three times the number ten years ago (see chart 7). In 1970 America accounted for 30% of all university enrolments worldwide; now its share is down to around 12%.

4) None of this makes a case for protectionism. Offshoring, like trade, is beneficial to developed economies as a whole. The increased mobility of capital and technology does not invalidate the theory of comparative advantage, as some commentators like to argue. China and India cannot have a comparative advantage in everything; they will export some things and import others. Emerging economies' comparative advantage will largely remain in labour-intensive industries. A country's trading pattern is determined by its relative capital intensity compared with other economies. Emerging economies still have relatively little capital, so they are unlikely to become significant capital-intensive exporters until their capital-to-labour ratio catches up. That will take time. Developed economies will retain their comparative advantage in knowledge-intensive activities because they have relatively more skilled labour, but that advantage will be eroded more quickly in future.
The developed economies as a whole will still benefit hugely from trade with emerging economies. Increased competition and greater economies of scale will boost the growth in productivity and output. Consumers will enjoy lower prices and a greater variety of products, and shareholders will enjoy higher returns on capital. Although workers will continue to see their pay squeezed, they can still gain as consumers or as shareholders, either directly or through their pensions. The snag is that richer people own more shares, so the increased return on capital tends to reinforce income inequality.


5. A study by the Institute for International Economics estimates that globalisation is benefiting America's economy by $1 trillion a year, equivalent to $9,000 a year for every family. But in practice the average family has not seen such a gain because much of it has gone to those at the top or into profits. This explains the lack of support for globalisation from ordinary people. Unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash. Rather than block change, governments need to ease the pain it inflicts in various ways: with a temporary social safety-net for those who lose their jobs; better education to equip workers for tomorrow's jobs; and more flexible labour markets to encourage the creation of new jobs .

[Tables R Us]

Originally posted by Spanky
The upshot of this article is that workers at this point have not benefited as much as others from globalization in the past twenty years because the world economy had to adjust to the introduction of three billion new workers into the free market economy but eventually this situation will right itself.

The article said real wages of the median worker were stagnant or declining since 2001, and based on other statistics, that's been the case since the early 1980s.

Long term benefits are irrelevant. If they accrue in 40+ years, after all current workers are retired or dead -- who cares?

Benefits to the world as a whole are irrelevant. Benefits to the majority of US voters are relevant, and they will not tolerate stagnant or declining real wages the rest of their working lives.

Suggestions for training are empty. Indian and Chinese workers are bidding down compensation for jobs that require advanced education, like engineering.

Increasing the world's pool of labor relative to its pool of capital brings down wages for most workers. How can workers in the developed work ask for a political response other than protectionism or progressive taxation to fund substantial transfer payments from the wealthy to the ordinary worker?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tables R Us
How can workers in the developed work ask for a political response other than protectionism

How can protectionism help workers? We live in a world economy. Every year the US economy becomes a smaller percentage of the world economy. Our companies need to sell their products world wide, not just in the US. How can protectionism help our companies become more competitive world wide?

Ever since Britian left India, India has depended on protectionism to help its domestic workers. How well did that work out. In the nineties, India decided to stop protecting its workers from the world economy. How did that work out?

Originally posted by Tables R Us
or progressive taxation to fund substantial transfer payments from the wealthy to the ordinary worker?

I support progessive taxation. I have said so many times on this board. What I can't undestand is why the Democrats (like Clinton when he ran for President in 1992) don't focus on a platform of cutting taxes for the poor and middle class and raising taxes on the wealthy. They should be a one song band. Their message should be CUT TAXES ON THE POOR AND MIDDLE CLASS (raise taxes for the rich). But instead they focus on more programs for the poor etc. The leadership is not to bright.

[Spanky]

[Spanky]

This one is for GGG:

:trout:

[Tables R Us]

Media descriptions of waterboarding have made it sound as if the torture was having water run across a cloth covering one's face. That's misleading. A more accurate description is that the interrogator fills the victim's nose and sinuses with water, as well as their throat up to the trachia. Filling the victim's head and neck with water makes them feel as if they are about to drown. Simply running water over their head does not.

The interrogator has the victim lying on an incline with their chest above their head so that the water doesn't go beyond the trachea. The cloth is used to make it difficult to breathe and to slow down the rate at which the head and neck fill with water.

Blog Description

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
This one is for GGG:

:trout:

Why thank you. I rather like that one.

I think there could be many variations on the theme, too. Imagine Penske as the central figure, with the various sins of the Rs labeled in the back and you'd have a nice board-specific version.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

http://www.beyonddelay.org/ (Spree: SFW)