A Tale of Two Countries 518
theodp writes "Over at TechCrunch, Jon Bischke is troubled by the growing divide between Silicon Valley and unemployed America. While people who spend most of their days within a few blocks of tech start-up epicenters are enjoying a boom/bubble, the number of unemployed now eclipses 14 million nationwide, labor under-utilization is 16.2%, and the mean duration of unemployment has spiked to 40 weeks. 'Which bring us to an important question,' writes Bischke. 'Should Silicon Valley (and other tech clusters throughout the country) care? After all, as long as people in Nebraska or the Central Valley of California have enough money to buy virtual tractors to tend their crops in Farmville, should the tech community be worried about whether those same people are getting paid to do work in the real world? Is what's best for Silicon Valley also good for America?'"
Leave Tech/IT alone! (Score:4, Insightful)
The software development, technology, and IT industries have been under attack for quite some time now. Automation, outsourcing, H1B visas, and now the cloud.
It is a testament to the technology-related fields that the workforce keeps adapting and evolving to keep pushing forward amidst adversity.
While I feel for all those unemployed, I have worked very hard to not only stay up-to-date and relevant, but to also keep pushing myself forward. I am not saying I am better than anybody else, but I have more than paid my dues and continue to do so. Perhaps the technology-related fields fare better because it has always been a moving target. Before you had worries about job security you had worries about your tools becoming obsolete or deprecated. The entire mindset is to keep learning new languages, concepts, and technology. Never rest on your laurels.
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Detroit (Score:2)
I imagine at the heyday of auto manufacturing in the US, people were saying the same things about Detroit.
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Perhaps the technology-related fields fare better because it has always been a moving target. Before you had worries about job security you had worries about your tools becoming obsolete or deprecated. The entire mindset is to keep learning new languages, concepts, and technology. Never rest on your laurels.
Who is resting? Most of those whose skills are obsolete got that way by serving their employers interest rather than their own. There is often a dilemma: what is most needed at your current job isn't necessarily useful for the next and for many fields there is no equivalent to working on an open source project on your spare time. If you can't get your training on the job you can't get it at all. Hedging means steering your experience to something less useful to your current employer but more marketable
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Any statement that starts with "Europe handles this through ..." is misleading. Thing is, Europe consists of a multitude of very different countries inside and outside the European Union.
Any analysis that dumps Sweden, Italy, Greece and Norway in the same basket, is going to be pointless since the countries have essentially nothing in common, except geographical region.
In short; "not even wrong"
Sorry, wrong scapegoat. (Score:2)
The scapegoat is hiding behind that MBA wall over there.
(Serious note: What a troll story. Of course, everyone should care about unemployment rate, but should software engineers (and you Flash idiots) care more than others about it? Probably not.)
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Well, in the eighties some politicians here in Norway suggested a ban on robotics. It probably seemed like a nice way to save jobs (and votes.) Now, all politicians like to have a piece of the high tech cake, and claim their policies made it possible. (Our biggest claims to fame is OO, the paper clip, a cheese grater and a supposedly very efficient sea missile.)
But yes, all people should fear redundancy. I am a software engineer above the mid thirties and I fear redundancy big time. But, I do read a lot of
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Apparently at LEAST one of your biggest claims to fame is a myth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_clip#Norwegian_claim [wikipedia.org]
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Well, as your reply really posed a few good questions, I would like to refer to the poster below mentioning the difference between US and most European countries.
We do have safety measures for all people, so in principle you are never in the risk of having no shelter (or a home, as we call it in Norway) and not having food on the table. Really. Most right wingers in the US would call it socialism, but here we just pay our taxes and enjoy a nice safety net. Heck, we will even pay for your reeducation to a di
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Yet there have been big riots in countries because they're trying to lower the "safety measures" because they're too expensive.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons [wikipedia.org]
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It's not just sci-fi, I know I've been saying this for years too.
I truly believe that eventually society will end up in some variation of the sci-fi utopia we see so frequently, where automation and technological progress allow people to no longer worry about financial burdens, and simply do whatever they enjoy, or work to better themselves and humanity. A world where everyone is "wealthy" and where money no longer rules our lives.
Unfortunately, I also strongly believe that things will get much much worse b
Computers - Taking Away Jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember back when granddad had a computer. He'd add up all the coins and do the math required for the accounting for the business. Then silly technology came along and now we have "calculators" and "computers". What happened to the real faces behind these jobs?! How many people are out of work that have the skills to do long division -JUST LIKE A COMPUTER-! It's a terrible thing and we should at once do away with progress. It's far too damaging to the economy.
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At least granddad didn't have a floating point precision bug! Progress eh?!
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Granddad just called floating point precision bugs thieves and had them flogged. Same bugs, more entertaining.
are they capable of caring? (Score:5, Informative)
look, no offense.
but a lot of people whose life is a never ending string of relatively well paying jobs, "interesting" work, conferences, tech seminars, etc, tend to lose their ability to empathize with the rest of us losers.
Re:are they capable of caring? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:are they capable of caring? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the Bay Area is also the most socially liberal and philanthropic regions of the country.
If you want rich conservatives look to Wall Street (which is in an even larger bubble than Silicon Valley right now). Even more impressively, they have been able to convince middle America (the ones hurting the most from the recession) that the government social programs that can and are helping them out right now are evil and should not be funded by those experiencing said economic bubbles.
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Except the Bay Area is also the most socially liberal and philanthropic regions of the country.
What?
Socially liberal, I get. I have met very, very few non-religious 'social liberals' who are philanthropic, unless we're talking about "I support taking money from the public coffers and giving it to others".
But that's largely besides the point. The Bay Area, like almost no other part of the US, is incredibly myopically focused. The Bay, one of the richest regions of the world, is the center of the world. All that sits outside its cultural realm are where the barbarians live. As someone who has lived thr
Wish we could move (Score:2)
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If you have no equity in your house, it makes sense to get up and leave and stop paying, because one thing is certain: it will not get better because people want politicians to solve their problems, rather than shoeing the politicians away with brooms and taking matters into their own hands in terms of the economy, security, etc.
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you can make a change if you really want to.
i lost over $80,000 in value in 2 years on a chunk of my "American Dream".
this is exactly what i did and i just closed my short sell a few weeks ago. some how i actually got a check from someone for getting it sold. rofl. suckers.
1) stop paying your mortgage and put the money in a bank account (this is the beginning of your new savings account).
2) wait for your bank to ask you if you need help
3) activate the bank assistance programs if you quality
4) start the sho
Re:Wish we could move (Score:4, Insightful)
...those of us that got suckered in with a mortgage...
How exactly were you 'suckered'?
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Because everyone at the time was saying that owning a home was a good investment?
Re:Wish we could move (Score:5, Insightful)
Pakistan is not a Middle-Eastern country (Score:3)
Confused (Score:2)
So, what is he saying here? Everyone who works in an industry that produces only luxury items should feel sorry for those that dont and devote a portion of their income? That we should immedially stop producing all luxury items until everyone that desires to be employed is? All sports franchises are immeditly disbanded. All Television and Media production is halted. All motor vehicles greater than 20k USD will be discontinued. Yeah, I am sure that will help unemployment.... Yeah, it sucks that the economy i
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He's not saying any such thing. He's saying, simply, "This is a problem and we should talk about possible solutions," and there's no implication that any of the proposed solutions should include any of the absurd measures you came up with out of thin air.
Misleading summary (Score:2)
If people want to care (Score:2)
There are plenty of private charities they can send their money to. Or they can outsource a startup to Iowa - the big state schools do produce plenty of quality engineering talent, and you can pay them less, but it's still less of a headache than going to India.
All in all, America has pushed into a high-expertise economy. No matter where you are geographically, you can do pretty well for yourself with a competent tech background. It's less about Silicon Valley versus Iowa than it is the guy with the BS vers
Shitty article (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. (Score:3, Insightful)
rich were flooding the market with cheap grain, causing the small farmers not to be able to make a living because the crop they produced ended up more expensive in cost than rich, big farm holders. in turn, they had to sell their farms to rich farmers and migrate into cities to make a living. increasingly roman agriculture had come under the control of very few, rich landowning aristocrats. these farms were called latifundia.
since the backbone of the country, the small free citizen landholders were gone, public services and military continually deteriorated. the 'barbarians' (non-romans) who were increasingly conscripted to the army had less incentive than a citizen soldier to defend anything. moreover, the disillusioned citizenry, who could get nothing out of the society at that point, cared much for any intruders - whomever invaded, they were just replacing existing elite with their own, little was changing in the case of ordinary citizens. (except for exceedingly vandal barbarians and similar - vandals were also a barbarian tribe, as a sidenote).
the rich, who held all the resources had little use for anything of the sort like republic or democracy. and when augustus and later emperors started to dismantle last vestiges of republic, noone cared. now, the citizenry had no say or share from society as a whole. and from that point on it all disintegrated.
the irony is, this process started around the peak of roman momentum - late republic era. the very era in which triumvirate (caesar pompei and crassus) were waging their civil war against each other. the empire didnt instantly disintegrate - it had momentum to take itself comfortably forward at least 100 years more. everything then started to directly crumble.
today is no different. back in roman times, the poor had at least the chance to engage in trade and arts/crafts. today, even those fields of life are 'latifundiated' by the rich just like how roman agriculture (then the backbone of economy) was consolidated in the hands of very few elite.
i would like to alert you to the fact that, this situation that destroyed roman empire, had later also become the causes that led to the birth of aristocracy in middle ages and on. in fact, the entire system of feudalism, is a system of property ownership - the difference with our current capitalist system is, now everyone is able to own property (land in this case), while back then, only aristocrats could. however this doesnt change one fundamental fact - this system eventually leads to a minority having and controlling everything (yes, including politics because resource is power - just like how senate had to accept subjugation in front of those who had the funds to muster legions), and ends up in an aristocratic hierarchical society.
in short - yes, they should care. for the sake of their own freedom too.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Income disparity was what made roman population lose interest, hope and eventually, participation in the roman republic
Well, that and the little detail that "the Roman population", the poor included, was itself a tiny minority at the top of a machine built on massacring, enslaving, and torturing the rest of the world for their own enrichment and amusement.
But I'm sure the foreign conquered provinces felt much more happy and free when they were invaded and enslaved and crucified by an equitable Roman Republic rather than by a Roman Empire ruled by a few rich guys.
From the article... (Score:2)
let me know how your self motivated learning gets you past the "HR wall" where if you don't have x years of industry experience in language/environment y your resume goes to the trash pile...
When pretty much every entry level job is outsourced and ageism not being unknown in the tech sector, it seems really difficult for anybody in their 30s/40s to "self motivate" thems
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I want the job as SI swim suit edition butt sand artist. It's what I think I'll be good at, love your work and all.
I just want to live comfortably licking super models butts (there is no such thing as a male super model you perverts), then applying sand. Is that too much to ask?
Lot's of kids are good at playing video games? Should they be able to make a comfortable living at it?
Eating pizza and drinking beer?
Fapping?
Plenty of supply, little demand.
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seems like you, like a lot of other people, assume that people can only love idle pursuits. What if you love and are good at building violins (say)? it's not an easy job, it takes dedication and a lifetime to master, but could you do it? could you make a comfortable living at it as things stand now?
Can society as a whole survive and improve where if you aren't sitting in a chair in front of a computer you can't pay your bills?
Like you say, supply/demand, why shouldn't there be focus on increasing demand for
Relative (Score:2)
Care? (Score:2)
The question "should someone care" is meaningless.
The question is, should they take action.
The effect of caring without doing is the same as that of not caring.
So, what is it that prospering hi-tech startups should actually do about unemployment such that it is in their interest, and not merely charity?
I can't think of it.
Why should SV care? (Score:2, Insightful)
SV's dream is to find and develop an idea for a product that's hugely useful to a community. Then they patent it, monetize it, and monopolize it/defend it in direct proportion to its usefulness. Their assembly line takes truly good ideas out of the public sphere and changes them into privately held things that are much less useful but much more profitable. The forces that benefit are mostly the forces that are wealthy to begin with.
If SV cared they would be trying to build systems that took ideas and kept t
High unemployment due to debt repayment (Score:2)
The main reason we're still seeing high unemployment since the "great recession", is that everyone is still paying back or defaulting on their debts. Before this financial crisis Americans were adding about 1 trillion dollars a year of private debt growth to the demand in the economy. Now the level of private debt is falling rapidly. So instead of having all that extra spending power fueling growth and jobs, we have lots of debts being repaid and a massive reduction in spending power.
It's the 1930's all ov
People *do* care (Score:2)
I think most people care, and maybe I'm being naive, but the subset that consists of tech clusters probably cares more in aggregate. The real interesting question is, what can be done about it? if you have no power (and the majority of tech people *don't* have much power), then it doesn't matter how much you care. I'd suggest asking the people who are outsourcing jobs and fucking over our economy how much they care, but I'm pretty s
Not tech, international business is the difference (Score:3)
Companies that do business internationally or those suppliers or vendors to said companies are doing great. Retailers with international sales are fine, those without are hurting. Apple for instance makes 50% or more of it's sales internationally.
China's economy is booming, as is Korea, Germany, Australia, Brazil.
If you want to find work, look at the companies with greater than 30% of revenue coming from outside the US. The company I work for has 200+ open positions in the US. The majority of those are not tech related, ~40 are (ecom, IT, logistics and data). We just hired a language specialist for QA we're doing so much translation work.
There are jobs, and yes you may have to relocate to find them. Sign on with a staffing company and check that travel box. Agreeing to travel is your best bet to get work.
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This is to say, things are generally worse than unemployment statistics indicate.
Re:hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
U-6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force
U-6 jumped a full point from 15.4 in May to 16.4 in June.
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It's way too easy to remain unemployed.
My friend's unemployment check is $347/wk. He's already filed for and received "Emergency Unemployment Compensation" which extends his benefits for up to a year. His only requirement to remain on unemployment is that he has to "make and active job search" meaning 3 job-searching activities (job fairs, interviews, etc.) or 3 job applications, or any combination per week. Job applications includes applying online to jobs via the state's unemployment office.
And $347wk cov
Re:hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, questions -
A) Where and how is 347/wk covering all of his bills? Because it wouldn't work in Sarasota Florida, I can say from experience.
B) Does the fact that it's temporary somehow not matter because it's extensible in (monitored) emergency circumstances?
C) Is this friend, in fact, not searching for employment? Because I can guarantee you that most people don't just say "Mmmm, delicious - I'm making $16k a year, until benefits end, I have no reason to try and find a job."
You're not supposed to make unemployment hard to get or maintain - because it's meant to alleviate a hardship, and allow people to keep effectively looking for a job, which gets a lot harder when you've lost your housing and communication services.
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"Mmmm, delicious - I'm making $16k a year, until benefits end, I have no reason to try and find a job."
I can't speak for other people, but that's basically what I did. I lived off my savings for a year because I didn't want to work. I refused to apply for unemployment (though I qualified) because I knew I would have no motivation whatsoever to get back to work. I'm sure there are tons of people like me who would do the same.
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Re:hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, yeah... How about that privilege you got there? Because some people might not be financially illiterate, so much as not making more than their needs. Or they got cancer, or their parent or spouse got cancer, and their means weren't sufficient to keep their loved one alive AND build up a huge savings pool. Or one of the other members of the infinite array of things that can go wrong without someone being stupid or bad for it.
Sorry, but your "if you're poor it's cause you're stupid" narrative has never had any value, and is deeply, deeply disgusting to anyone who's ever actually interacted with someone affected by poverty.
Oh, and you know what - even if you were right (which, let's never forget, you aren't) - your "lets make it harder to keep unemployment" crap is STILL deeply stupid. Because regardless of whether we provide unemployment or other job assistance or not, the unemployed people are still going to exist. And you know what sucks more than paying a small amount of tax dollars into unemployment benefits and job assistance programs? Adding to the homeless problem, the crime rate, and the other problems that poverty serves as a primary driver for. And hey - if they turn to crime, you get to pay, not partial income, but full room and board in one of our fine correctional institutes, which costs a whole lot more than unemployment.
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Or doesn't earn enough to actually be able to save.
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If you're not using financially illiterate as a high-end slur, you're still wrong. I know you countered with the mega-libertarian punch of "Life sucks," but all the things I mentioned fucking happen - people's savings get wiped out, or they never get a chance to accumulate them, based on things they have precious little damn control of. Especially when we have the nightmarish health system we have now. Every time you say "all poor people are financially illiterate," you're passing a judgement on the comp
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I'm sorry, but there are serious problems with this.
For one, unemployment is a temporary benefit. Paying for regular housing is far, far more economical, and makes far more sense than trying to create a new set of housing tracts and then force people to move (which is an additional expense). Additionally, what if they have a paid-up house? It's much simpler and more sensible to pay enough to afford general housing.
The "only enough for food, and none of it goes through the person receiving benefits" thing
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A) Where and how is 347/wk covering all of his bills? Because it wouldn't work in Sarasota Florida, I can say from experience.
$347/wk is $18k/yr. According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], between 30% and 35% of the U.S. population earn less than that (though some will obviously be financially dependent on others to some extent).
It's certainly possible to live on that; if I live like a student - drink in cheap bars, flat share with several people etc. then I average about $350/wk. Rent is the biggie at $350/month but once that's paid everything else is relatively cheap. When I was an actual student I had to live on the (inflation adjusted) equival
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Uhhh, what does his health insurance cover? Retirement? And converage is not forever.
Some people will elect to stay unemployed. This is not necessarilly bad. First, it gives them more time to get a better fitting job, which is both to their and their employer's benefit. Second, it forces employers to make more attractive offers than they would have, especially in a depressed economy. Finally, it is better to have people on benefits than on the streets. In general, even if the unemployments benefits are high
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My friend's unemployment check is $347/wk
Yup, one anecdote is more than enough for me to conclude the economy is just fine. Clearly we do spend too much on unemployment, and anyone who says otherwise with graphs and crap just needs to hear about your friend.
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A nasty situation like riots and a bailout from Germany?
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If you're talking about Greece, then yes - one of the EU countries who had a culture of "low or no taxes" for the wealthy and businesses at all costs. Sort of like another, slight larger, economy that is similarly struggling.
You know, it's funny but when you don't have income (in the form of taxes), you can't spend it on things that you're paying for anyway, like air conditioning Afghanistan.
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Actually it's Bill Clinton's economy. Many believe that Clinton presided over some incredible economic times, while in reality he was inflating a very large bubble, with one was in the dot.com stuff and the other was starting in public and consumer credit, as Greenspan took interest rates down to near 1 as a bail out/stimulus, while FHA had quotas for 'affordable' housing go from 30 to 50% over Clinton's administration, all while Rubin was re-mortgaging US debt at low variable rates (and many incorrectly b
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so, what you're basically saying is that all your leaders (and by extension the political system which produces them) have been clueless idiots living on the never-never for a couple of centuries?
If you'd only asked any other country ever (with the possible exceptions of Greece, Ireland and Iceland), we could have told you that *years* ago.
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Not for a couple of centuries. Between 1800 and 1913 USA became the world's strongest economy, largest creditor nation with probably the strongest currency as well, while seeing new technologies being created, innovation and inventions were everywhere and people were really looking for a better, FREER life in USA.
Freedom of 19 century is what allowed USA to become the super-wealthy country, and since the beginning of 20th century, USA has been living on that credit while burning it away with more and more r
Re:Welcome to the Obama economy (Score:5, Insightful)
Rose colored Republican glasses not needed.
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Therefore "both" parties and presidents deserve to be criticised.
Unfortunately this is what "both" sides have wrong. Both "sides" are only one side: the corporatists. The corporate economy is BOOMING, which why none of the middle class problems are going to change.
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Sure.
Obama comes in with three wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the mysterious War on Terror. The banks have just trashed the economy by selling derivates as actual notes, but NO ONE even to this day, understands their motive.
Obama gets stonewalled wherever he goes, first by the "nyets" covering their wealth, then by the juggernauts that warn that the economy will just keel over into the actual depression if we don't spend quantum dollars.
Yeah, Obama isn't a saint. But compared to the madness of Geo Bush et al,
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The banks have just trashed the economy by selling derivates as actual notes, but NO ONE even to this day, understands their motive.
You don't understand the motive, but it really isn't that hard. Where else did you think all the crap loans that the CRA forced the banks to make would wind up, paid off in fairy dust from Nevernever land?
And when the people who wrote and pushed the CRA were told "it's going to break, we need to fix it", and they kept saying "there's no problem, there's no problem" and did nothing, did you imagine that Hansel and Gretel would buy up all the gingerbread mortgages so they could have something yummy to eat?
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A politician not keeping campaign promises? Unheard of! Stop the presses!
Yeah, he over promised. Find me a pol that doesn't.
The CRA allowed banks to punk FannieMae and FreddieMac really well. Soaked them clean through. And we, the US taxpayers, get the bag. The banks knew the assets were toxic, and that they were "too big to fail". Some of them had forced mergers, but the orgs they were merged into were just as toxic as they were-- they just had more clever accounting to mask the damage.
Trying to tip this o
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The CRA forced banks to punk FannieMae and FreddieMac really well.
There, fixed that for you.
Trying to tip this out of Geo Bush's barrel is an argument that is difficult to win.
Winning any argument with someone who has their fingers in their ears shouting "Bad Bad Bush Hates Bush We Does" is difficult. Once the facts are on the table, though, reason can win.
But bringing up Acorn reveals your bias.
ACORN is a fact. If the facts appear biased, the problem is in your mirror, not with the facts.
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Where else did you think all the crap loans that the CRA forced the banks to make would wind up,
So I keep hearing, but where did you think all the crap loans that the CRA didn't force the unregulated non-banks to make would wind up? You know, the 50% of the subprime loans made by mortgage brokers and non-bank companies like GM (ditech.com)? What about all the CDOs that were bought up by investment firms like Lehman Brothers?
If companies that the CRA didn't apply to did it, why should I assume that the ba
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He also appears not to have noticed that Bush has been gone for 3 years, and things have gotten worse on his watch, despite the "summer of recovery"
Obama should become some Yiddish idiom for a massive cistern full of empty promises
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I remember that speech, in May of 2003, when unemployment was 6%.
Those were the days.
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Don't worry too much about Nebraska farmers. This is one of the states that the recession hasn't really hit hard, yet. We'll start to get worried when you stop buying food.
http://www.theindependent.com/articles/2011/07/07/news/ag/13597942.txt [theindependent.com]
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I don't think it's quite that rosy. While Nebraska may not be as affected, there's a large drought going on in the southern states right now which is greatly affecting agricultural yields. Things like this are always hardest on the smaller farmers. You can't stay in business long when you don't have any product to sell.
because we borrowed a shitload of money (Score:2)
to dole it out to welfare projects like the B-1 bomber, the space shuttle, and a host of other socialist, big government programs.
sounds like a damn good idea! bring back that reagan guy!
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If he is going to live in Silicon Valley, he will pay one of the highest state tax rates in the country. Although I don't know how much of that goes for his less fortunate peers, and how much to groups that have lobbying power.
Re:A Tale of Two Countries (Score:5, Insightful)
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When a scientist employed by the Naval Research Laboratories invents a better laser, is something of value produced -- yes.
- the same scientist could be working for a private company, doing the same thing. If government was not destroying the credit, the savings, the capital that makes private companies invest into their business. If government wasn't busy destroying the currency itself, many would be able to invest into their businesses, rather than having to simply search for ways to escape the destruction.
When an employee of the city picks up your garbage, is a service of value performed -- yes
- there should be no government involvement into this at all. This here was Toronto, not US, but the point is valid. [www.cbc.ca]
Be
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Public Sector workers don't pay income taxes?
On the back of what cereal box did you read that? Having worked in various players within the public sector (State, Local, and Federal) - I've been hit with the same unpleasant income tax that anyone else is required to pay. There are no free lunches where income tax is concerned.
I'm guessing you're conflating certain states (IIRC, Vermont, NH, and possibly D.C.) that don't have a state income tax. That doesn't get you out of paying federal income taxes, which
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No, I do mean that public sector workers do not pay federal income taxes.
If you get 100K and 30K are withheld, it's the same as just getting a salary of 70K. It's a scam. There are no income taxes for gov't employees.
Real businesses and people pay money to government that government did not have ALREADY.
It's an illusion created by the government to pretend that gov't employees are paying taxes like everybody else. That's an illusion, tricks they are playing with people. There is no sense in taking tax money
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If you get 100K and 30K are withheld, it's the same as just getting a salary of 70K. It's a scam. There are no income taxes for gov't employees.
Exactly the same thing can be said for private sector employees. Except it isn't the amount withheld that matters, it is the amount the government gets to keep of what is withheld. So, if you are a Microsoft employee and get $100k, $30k of which goes to pay federal taxes, it is the same as just getting a salary of $70k.
but also to allow gov't employees to make even more money if they can claim various deductions upon that money (like home mortgage, etc.), which I am sure they do.
Of course they do, just like the Microsoft employee would. It is, after all, a salary upon which income taxes are paid, subject to the same deductions and allowances as any other salary. An
Re:A Tale of Two Countries (Score:5, Insightful)
It cannot be said that a private worker does not pay taxes to government, because government did not have that money already.
It is irrelevant who has the money to start with. A government employee gets a salary, part of which is paid to the government in taxes, just as a private sector employee does. How much is withheld depends on the dependents and other status filed on the same W4 for both employees. It is an identical situation: if the money being withheld for taxes was not withheld, it could be paid to the employee.
Now, if you seriously want to argue that government employees do not pay taxes, then you must also deduct the amount that is called "income tax" from their salary when complaining about how large the government employee salaries are. You cannot honestly argue both ways -- "look at how large their salaries are" and "they don't pay taxes!".
The government workers do not pay income taxes, because it is clear that it's just one government department shuffling money to another...
Except for the fact that the money goes through a private citizen first, you would be correct. You do understand, I hope, that the money withheld from a government employee's salary is just like every other worker's withholding. I.e., an estimate of the amount of taxes that will be owed at the end of the year. And that by proper estate planning and other actions the amount withheld can be returned to the employee as a "tax refund" when he files his taxes. That's another example of why your lie that government employees don't pay taxes is a lie.
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Today working in the public sector is profitable, it comes with various perks - the workers are famous, they are swamped by armies of lobbyists, who are working on behalf of those, who are being regulated/taxed/subsidized based on the decisions made in the public sector.
The vast, vast majority of public sector workers are not elected officials. Conflating a Senator or Representative with the clerk who makes sure your grandmother gets her Social Security check is so absurd that it makes it difficult to take anything you have to say seriously.
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I'm a "public sector" employee. After finishing grad school I chose civil service to serve my country. I've got asthma so I couldn't join the military, but I wanted to use the skills I have to go into public [u]service[/u]
So I'm making somewhere around 50-75% less than my classmates who went to work for Google or Microsoft. I didn't even get a cost-of-living adjustment this year (a political decision which I supported fyi). The housing market in & around DC has continued to fall, although not as mu
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It's unreasonable for the country to keep this enormous public workers sector at all, their work should not be protected, in fact, the government workers need to be on the chopping block immediately with the worsening economy. I asked a question: why gov't is growing at this time and private sector is shrinking? But of-course I know that those things are linked. The economy is what it is because the public sector has tipped it over by too much of itself. By destroying the freedoms that people used to have
A "Crawling out of a hole" economy (Score:2)
This isn't a boom economy, and while there might be a bubble going on, it's a pretty small one. This is a "gradually crawling out of a hole" kind of recovery, not a "VCs throwing us billions of dollars again" recovery.
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I'm not even in Silicon Valley (I live in Phoenix and telecommute for a company in the midwest, but I do SV-type work), and while I got my job three months ago, these stupid recruiters haven't stopped calling me yet. It's really annoying, because I've NEVER gotten a job through one of them, and many of them seem to be unable to comprehend what I even do, and keep sending me emails about jobs that aren't even remotely like my experience.
Why recruiters are calling you (Score:2)
It's partly because there are _some_ jobs around, but partly because recruiting companies get paid for finding workers, so they'll call anybody plausible. Being a recruiter is a better job in a good economy than a bad one.
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Read this. Seems relevant.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/create-a-special-job-credit-for-the-long-term-unemployed/241989/ [theatlantic.com]
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I don't think a small number of rich people are running around buying up all these electronic gadgets. Go out in public and you'll see people of all types with them: smartphones, Xboxes, etc.
Despite a bad economy, people are addicted to electronics.
Plus, I imagine they're selling well in markets all around the world too.
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When there are jobs.
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