I know, it's big, but it NEEDS TO BE BIG. IT'S THE GODDAMN ELEPHANT (pun intended) IN THE GODDAMN ROOM.

I said something to the BF the other night about Emmett Till, and he didn't know about Till.

Does this shitty piece of legislation prove beyond a doubt, who's really on the 99% side? Now brethren, let us worship. And vote.
------------------------------------------------------------------


The JOBS Act: Dumbest 'Bipartisan' Move Since Repealing Glass-Steagall
The so-called "JOBS Act," introduced by the far-right Republicans and passed by members of both parties, opens the door to yet more corporate abuse.
March 23, 2012



Here we go again. Once again the 'bipartisan' consensus in Washington, fueled by an intoxicating brew of conventional wisdom laced with campaign cash, has repealed some of those 'cumbersome regulations' that do nothing of value - nothing, that is, except prevent catastrophes. There will be celebrating on both sides of the aisle when the President signs this bill.

And when disaster strikes a few years from now, as it inevitably will, they'll all say "Nobody could have seen it coming." Plus ça change, plus c'est la même crap. Creationism can't disprove the theory of evolution - but a little time in Washington will make you think twice.

Here we are, surrounded by still-smoldering financial wreckage, and almost everyone in Washington is falling over themselves to repeat exactly the same kinds of actions that got us into this mess. Last time around it was the repeal of Glass-Steagall, introduced by Republican Sen. Phil Gramm and enthusiastically signed by President Clinton in the presence of Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

This time it's the deceptively named "JOBS Act," introduced by the far-right Republicans in Congress and passed overwhelmingly by members of both parties. The President indicated his eagerness to sign the bill early on. Once again basic protections for investors, including individuals and families, are being recklessly overturned in a deregulating frenzy. Some of those protections were enacted in the wake of the Enron scandal, in which sociopathically unscrupulous business people conducted a hoax that ruined thousands of families and deprived many of their life's savings.

We haven't learned a damn thing.

(snip)

http://www.alternet.org/economy/154670/the_jobs_act%3A_dumbest_%27bipartisan%27_move_since_repealing_glass-steagall/

not for us

First Lady of Syria Asma al-Assad

Asma al-Assad born 11 August 1975; née Asma Fawaz al-Akhras is the First Lady of Syria. She was born in Acton, London after her family had immigrated to the United Kingdom from Homs, Syria. She married President Bashar al-Assad in December 2000, having previously pursued a career in investment banking.

Asma is the daughter of consultant cardiologist Fawaz Akhras and retired diplomat Sahar Otri al-Akhras. Asma grew up in Acton where she went to her local Church of England school. She finished her schooling at Queen's College in London. She then attended King's College London and graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a Diploma in French Literature. After university, Asma started work at Deutsche Bank Group in the Hedge Fund Management division with clients in Europe and the Far East. In 1998, she joined the Investment Banking division of J. P. Morgan, specializing in mergers and acquisitions for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. During her time at JP Morgan, she worked primarily from the New York office where she executed four large merger transactions for both European and American clients.

Asma returned to Syria in November 2000 and married the president in December. They have three children: Hafez, Zein and Karim.

http://babalfaqeer.blogspot.com/2011/04/asma-al-assad-first-lady-of-syria.html

At least the Mafia had more class...

http://truth-out.org/news/item/8016-wall-street-confidence-trick-the-interest-rate-swaps-that-are-bankrupting-local-governments

...Interest-rate swaps are less often in the news than credit-default swaps, but they are far more important in terms of revenue, composing fully 82 percent of the derivatives trade. In February, JP Morgan Chase revealed that it had cleared $1.4 billion in revenue on trading interest-rate swaps in 2011, making them one of the bank's biggest sources of profit. According to the Bank for International Settlements:



For more than a decade, banks and insurance companies convinced local governments, hospitals, universities and other nonprofits that interest-rate swaps would lower interest rates on bonds sold for public projects such as roads, bridges and schools. The swaps were entered into to insure against a rise in interest rates; but instead, interest rates fell to historically low levels. This was not a flood, earthquake or other insurable risk due to environmental unknowns or "acts of God." It was a deliberate, manipulated move by the Fed, acting to save the banks from their own folly in precipitating the credit crisis of 2008. The banks got in trouble, and the Federal Reserve and federal government rushed in to bail them out, rewarding them for their misdeeds at the expense of the taxpayers. How the swaps were supposed to work was explained by Michael McDonald in a November 2010 Bloomberg article titled "Wall Street Collects $4 Billion From Taxpayers as Swaps Backfire":



Banks and borrowers were supposed to be paying equal rates: the fat years would balance out the lean. But the Fed artificially manipulated the rates to the save the banks. After the credit crisis broke out, borrowers had to continue selling adjustable-rate securities at auction under the deals. Auction interest rates soared when bond insurers' ratings were downgraded because of subprime mortgage losses; but the periodic payments that banks made to borrowers as part of the swaps plunged, because they were linked to benchmarks such as Federal Reserve lending rates, which were slashed to almost zero.

In a February 2010 article titled "How Big Banks' Interest-Rate Schemes Bankrupt States," Mike Elk compared the swaps to payday loans. They were bad deals, but municipal council members had no other way of getting the money...

MORE CHICANERY AT LINK

ONE WOULD THINK THE FED AND THE BANKSTERS AND THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH WERE COLLUDING TO DEFRAUD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE....

NAH! THAT'S JUST CRAZY CONSPIRACY TALK!

http://www.nationofchange.org/banker-hubris-knows-no-bounds-1332335770


Have you heard about the earthquake that has shaken Wall Street to its very core? Well, brace yourself, for this really is a shocker: Bonus payments are down. Yes, the exorbitant bonus checks pocketed each year by the Goldman Sachers, Citigropers and other financial tinkerers have been cut by about 25 percent this year, and — oh! — you should hear the Wall Streeters moaning the hard-times, down-and-out banker blues.

"It's a disaster," sobbed one. "The entire construct of compensation has changed."

Many Americans, of course, will say ... "Good! About time!" And it is difficult in these times of middle-class collapse and rising poverty to get teary-eyed over a few financial swells getting a trim. But, come on, Wall Street bankers are human, too (aren't they?) — so open your hearts to their pain. A hedge-fund manager, for example, says he'll now have to strain to pay his $7,500 annual dues to remain a member of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester. Plus, he worries about food, health care and boarding. Not for him and his family, but for his two dogs — he's been laying out $17,000 a year for upkeep of his labradoodle and bichon frise, including around $5,000 to hire a dog-walker to take them out each day. He might resort to walking them himself a couple times a week. The crunch is so bad that one financier confesses that he now shops for discounted salmon for dinner and has had to give up his annual ski trip to Aspen, Colo. And a high-dollar accountant who does financial planning for the wealthy practically weeps for clients who are having to cut back. Empathizing with the stress of it all, he asks: "Could you imagine what it's like to say, 'I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out?' How do you do that?" Dabbing his eyes with tissues, he adds that these people have been raking in around $500,000 a year, and they never dreamed "that they'd be broke."

Broke? We should all be as "broke" as they are.

Are these one-percenters actually worth their bonus checks, even at this year's discounted level? Well, one of the top one-tenth-of-one-percenters, Lloyd Blankfein, says: Hell yes! CEO of Goldman Sachs, Blankfein has sacked up a multimillion personal fortune in bonus cash, but he claims to be worth every penny because he's doing "God's work." Whoa — that would be one very mean god! Blankfein actually is an ungodly angel of avarice, who turned his once-proud investment house into a casino of greed that was a central player in Wall Street's crash of our economy.But don't take my word for it. He has now been burned by one of his own — a Goldman Sachs executive who got so fed up with the "toxic and destructive" culture fostered by Blankfein that he has resigned and gone public with the banking giant's internal ugliness...





Remember, these are the people you and I were forced to bail out, yet far from showing even a modicum of humility or gratitude, their narcissism is now so extreme that it's even causing bankers to gag!

Won't somebody think of the poor bankers?


Maybe we should get up a fund drive for these poor people.

http://www.nationofchange.org/real-impact-loan-guarantees-solar-now-bankable-and-becoming-part-much-broader-capital-market-1332341

The Real Impact of Loan Guarantees: ‘Solar is Now Bankable’ and ‘Becoming Part of a Much Broader Capital Market’

By Stephen Lacey

With panel prices hitting record lows and performance of projects steadily improving, solar photovoltaic have become increasingly attractive to large investors. Investment in solar has surged to unprecedented levels due to interest from large Wall Street banks, investors like Warren Buffett, and technology firms like Google. In 2011, the solar PV industry brought in $93 billion in revenues globally, raising $8 billion in corporate equity and debt. That’s a 12% increase over 2010, according to NPD Solar buzz. In the U.S., the value of solar PV installations grew from $5 billion in 2010 to $8.4 billion in 2011, according to analysis from GTM Research. Much of that increase came from the installation of large projects. Last year, there were 28 individual projects that amounted to more than 10 MW apiece, up from only two in 2009.

Two major factors drove this surge in U.S. investment. One was the 1603 grant program, which replaced tax credits, thus making it easier and cheaper to finance projects. Congress allowed that incentive to expire at the end of last year. The other was the loan guarantee program; a tool that became politicized after the high-profile bankruptcy of the solar manufacturer Solyndra and the failure of a few other clean energy companies. Although the loan guarantee program is expected to cost taxpayers $2 billion less than originally budgeted for, some political leaders have latched onto these bankruptcies and falsely claimed that they hurt clean energy investment.

Trying to match his party’s huffing and puffing over Solyndra on the campaign trail this winter, Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney bizarrely claimed the loan guarantee program stalled investments in solar: “instead of encouraging solar development, the Obama administration hurt it.” Actually, the U.S. solar industry grew 109% last year — with record 61,000 systems installed around the country.

And today, Congressman Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, released a report claiming that the loan guarantee program “robbed taxpayers of genuine investment toward renewable energy.” Again, experience in the field — particularly in solar, which has been a major focus of Congressional attacks — simply doesn’t back up that conclusion. Not only did the loan guarantee directly help developers attract private capital for first-of-a-kind solar projects during the economic downturn, it also had an indirect impact on others.

HOW BANKS ARE FUNDING (AND PROFITING) FROM LARGE SOLAR PROJECTS AT LINK

http://www.nationofchange.org/refinery-murder-mystery-1332337158

The chair of Sunoco’s board of directors is a refinery assassin.

Lynn Laverty Elsenhans, who will remain Sunoco chair until May, tried to kill off a Shell refinery in Bakersfield, Calif., when she was CEO at Shell Oil Products. At Sunoco, where she was CEO until March 1, she succeeded in snuffing out its Marcus Hook refinery in Eastern Pennsylvania in December. And Elsenhans orchestrated the demise of Sunoco's massive Philadelphia refinery, scheduling its lethal ejection for June. Joining her in refinery extermination is ConocoPhillips and Hovensa. ConocoPhillipa silenced its Trainer refinery near Philadelphia late last year. And in February, Hovensa offed a large St. Croix refinery that provided fuel to the Northeast. As fuel prices rise, these companies are closing the very facilities essential for producing fuels. It raises the question: why would corporations do that? It’s a mystery that U.S. Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., announced on Friday he will try to solve with a Congressional hearing scheduled for April. Maybe then the Northeast will know if the community suffering, the worker layoffs and the projected East Coast shortages and skyrocketing rates are really unavoidable.

The cost of the refinery closings to the region is appalling. The Pennsylvania Center for Workforce Information & Analysis has estimated job losses could reach 36,000, and cities, school districts and the state could lose $560 million in tax revenues. The U.S. Department of Energy has warned that if Sunoco closes its Philadelphia refinery as planned in June, the Northeast could be subjected to gasoline and fuel oil shortfalls and price spikes. ConocoPhillips said it had to close the Trainer refinery not because it was losing money but because of the “level of investment required to remain competitive.” Sunoco claimed it lost money at the Marcus Hook and Philadelphia refineries over the past three years. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. That’s what Shell said in 2004 about the Bakersfield, Calif., refinery when it announced it would close that facility supposedly because it “couldn’t reach financial targets.” Elsenhans, then chief executive of Shell Oil Products, contended there was no point in trying to sell the Bakersfield refinery because any potential buyer would reach the same conclusion she had – that it wasn’t viable. She refused to hire a broker to try to sell the asset. California officials didn’t swallow that corporate line of bull. Jobs and fuel price hikes were at stake. U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, then-state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and consumer groups challenged Elsenhans’ assertions. Already burned by extraordinarily high gasoline prices and the Enron energy price manipulation scheme, they weren’t going to take it anymore. Lockyer suggested Shell planned to close the refinery in the nation’s most lucrative fuel market so that it could jack up prices even further. He and other critics said closing Bakersfield would cause shortages that would increase prices, which in turn would boost profit for Shell refineries in Wilmington and Martinez. Boxer attacked Shell’s excuses for the closing, pointing out in a letter:

“An internal Shell memo from April 5, 2004, shows that Bakersfield had the biggest margins of any Shell refinery in the nation as of that date.”

And, she refuted the company’s contention that limited access to crude was a problem for the refinery that was surrounded by prolific oil fields, writing:

“Shell internal documents from February 2004 indicate the slowdown in crude was not due to a physical lack of it, but instead to mechanical problems with a hydro-conversion unit compressor.”

She demanded an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which conducts inquiries into attempts to fix prices. And she got one. In the end, Elsenhans was proved wrong. Lockyer hired a firm to market the refinery. Flying J, a large diesel retailer, bought it. The recession and other problems bankrupted Flying J, but then another company, Alon USA Energy Inc. bought the Bakersfield refinery in 2010 for $40 million and invested in retrofitting it to process vacuum gas oil. Alon operated it until December and plans to resume operations in the second quarter of this year. Maybe Elsenhans is wrong about the Philadelphia area refineries too.

In Bakersfield, the plant produced 2 percent of the state’s gasoline supply and 6 percent of its diesel when Shell tried to close it. On the East Coast, the numbers are much bigger. The Philadelphia, Marcus Hook and Trainer refineries, in recent years supplied the Northeast with 40 percent of its gasoline, 60 percent of its diesel and 45 percent of its home heating oil, according to a report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The report says if Sunoco closes the largest -- the Philadelphia refinery -- as announced, there could be serious problems. For the Northeast, it could mean a year or more of fuel shortages, including home heating oil, on which a large percentage of homeowners there rely. It could also mean much higher prices. Which, of course, could mean huge profits.

http://afl.salsalabs.com/o/5889/c/713/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=3430

they have no loyalties. Their CEO's have no county loyalty. Their only allegiance is to the company they work at until their contract or the profits run dry. They are like a roving plague of locusts.

Just like maintaining an automotive manufacturer, maintaining refining capability is essential to maintaining our national sovereignty and security. Which brings me to the thought that maybe they don't want us to have our sovereignty. Maybe their idea of the future of humanity is a world wide feudal working class, a corporate merchant class, and a less that 1% ruling class.

That is what it looks like to this curmudgeon.

happy birthday, mama...

Looks like you got some good genes there, x!

we've been all over california -- but she had never been there.

she gets along fine -- but they rented her a wheel chair -- so she didn't tuckered going in and out of shops and stuff like that.

me? i'm adopted so genes are unknown.

Science has argued the Nature vs. Nurture (genetic vs. environment) for years. What you did not get from Nature, perhaps the Nurture rubbed off on you. I like to think so anyway.

my folks were like 45 when they got me -- and back in the day -- adoptions were carefully state monitered affairs.
not the free wheeling and dealing thing it seems to have become today.

any way -- i ended up with 2 of the most lovely parents anyone could ever, ever hope for.

and i say that because i am far from lovely, indeed!

Our family always figured that God intended us to be family, he just went the non traditional route now and again. The bottom line is that every kids is wanted and loved, no matter who they end up with-like the early Hawaiians.

The board of the exchange group, which recently pulled its offering, is set to discuss whether to try the flotation again or postpone the offering

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/TWK799/R37R1E/CWSVD/C4SJCM/NJ28EH/82/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=26

GO AHEAD, BATS! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

The naming of new independent directors has failed to head off threats by Daniel Loeb, the dissident investor, to launch a battle for control

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/TWK799/R37R1E/CWSVD/C4SJCM/U1WANO/82/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=26

Top brokers confirm they were preparing to price in increases to the cost of funding and pass them on to hedge fund clients in the coming months

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/TWK799/R37R1E/CWSVD/C4SJCM/5VRI6A/82/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=26

POOR, SWEET BABIES! LET'S GET THEM ON THE GOVERNMENT TEAT, PRONTO!

Financial groups to also cut 15 per cent of assets weighted by risk, according to report that foresees a shake-up of market share in the industry

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/TWK799/R37R1E/CWSVD/C4SJCM/5VRI6M/82/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=26

Billions of dollars of private sector investment shudders to a halt amid a legal hiatus over a ban on foreigners buying large tracts of farmland

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/S4XZQQ/R37JUD/06MUC/L9LNCI/XHDM18/9A/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=26

THAT'S NOT INVESTMENT, BRAZIL, THAT'S EXTRACTION, OR MORE COMMONLY KNOWN AS RAPE...

The US Supreme Court will begin listening to three days of arguments about whether the Obama administration’s healthcare law is constitutional

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/S4XZQQ/R37JUD/06MUC/L9LNCI/WTK7PN/9A/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=26

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside, it turns out that another storm is gathering on the eurozone horizon.

Spain was always on the ‘one to watch’ list. It now finds itself in that most awkward of positions: the financial equivalent of a vicious circle. The interest rate on its sovereign debt is rising, the economy is stalling and the government is fast losing the enthusiasm to deliver the austerity demanded by Brussels.

Read more >>
http://link.ft.com/r/YIQXNN/DWT5YE/1O51V/DWJIH9/ORACTW/AZ/t?a1=2012&a2=3&a3=26

HOW CAN ONE HAVE A FISCAL UNION, WITHOUT A POLITICAL UNION? THAT IS THE EUROZONE'S BLIND SPOT. YOU CAN'T "PUNISH" A SOVEREIGN NATION AND YOU CAN'T COLONIZE YOUR FELLOW STATE. THEY SHOULD BREAK IT UP AND START OVER.

http://www.nationofchange.org/do-we-need-stock-exchange-1332680909

Oc­cupy Wall Street is now back where the move­ment began, and there are even more so­ci­ety-shap­ing ques­tions in the wild then last Oc­to­ber. Since the hous­ing mar­ket crash dec­i­mated our coun­try we’ve been ex­am­in­ing our econ­omy from the grass­roots level up to far-reach­ing gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives. We’ve seen wide­spread protests against du­bi­ous banks and the fi­nan­cial in­stru­ments which have al­lowed them to plun­der the na­tional wealth. But one ele­phant is still sit­ting in the mid­dle of the room... no few have been ques­tion­ing if the very logic of a stock ex­change is un­healthy in the long run. Con­ven­tional wis­dom says stock mar­kets are the best way in his­tory to gen­er­ate wealth. Some main­tain that this wealth does not get re­dis­trib­uted to the pub­lic in any sig­nif­i­cant man­ner. Ar­gu­ments against stock mar­kets in­clude the cost of entry and the com­plex­ity of the rules gov­ern­ing trans­ac­tions.

To un­der­stand the dys­func­tions of the stock mar­ket, we must un­der­stand what a stock mar­ket is. As early as the 1600s the con­cept of shared cor­po­rate in­ter­est was ce­mented in mod­ern West­ern civ­i­liza­tion when the dutch of­fered own­er­ship stakes in the Dutch East India Com­pany. The basis for col­lec­tive own­er­ship, how­ever, may have been in­tro­duced to Eu­rope as early as the Bronze Age. Shar­ing risk and re­sources among many stake­hold­ers is a nat­ural in­fu­sion of the most prim­i­tive prin­ci­ples of human co­op­er­a­tion. The con­cept of a pub­licly par­tic­i­pa­tory stock mar­ket, how­ever, is a much more re­cent in­ven­tion.

... just thinking about it makes me tired. It shouldn't - it's these very fundamental questions we should be asking. But all I can think of is how the very people who should be putting forward those questions - our so-called "progressive" orgs and entities - Labor, the "change/action" orgs, etc, are so enmeshed in bandaids and futile political campaigns that they never do ask them. Which all comes down to protecting their own turf/hides.

We know the answers. We're just not ready to face them.

In light of the Melt Down - I don't find the question surprising - it's kinda right there.

So now I wonder why progressive institutions don't ask - they should be in front of me, Joe Schmoe, after all.

which is nothing at all like going to the light...I hope! It's 34F out! After two weeks of 80+!
Freaky weather...

Except I don't have to put up with 34F! (At 5:30, it's 56F, should hit low 70s.)

My workday actually starts about 8:00 p.m., so right now I'm finishing up Friday's work. I'll start today's tonight, and when I finish that tomorrow, I'm done for the week. I'm taking a min-vacation because I am so far behind on EVERYTHING at home and I have a major art show coming up next Sunday for which I have woefully too little inventory.

I did get some time out in the studio yesterday and wrapped this long (2.5 in.) skinny angel feather.

front:



and back:

have a good day, miss demeter

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12935/ges_warm_and_fuzzy_ad_campaign_ignores_job-slasher_role/



No corporation has surpassed General Electic's mastery of profit-maximization, or its use of public-relations ("corporate propaganda&quot to mask its true aims behind the widely-supported goals of expanding scientific horizons, "bringing good things to life" and rebuilding America's industrial base.

But sometimes the profit-maximization skills of GE's top executives and tax lawyers surpass the ability of its PR staff to put an appealing gloss on the company's conduct. For example, the disclosure that GE racked up $14.2 billion in profits in 2010 while paying no federal income taxes was not well-received by the American public. GE not only avoided paying any taxes, but even managed to collect $3.2 billion in federal tax credits. This occurred against a backdrop of GE continuing to slash its U.S. workforce by 32,000 jobs, from 165,000 to 133,000 over the 2004-2010 period.

For millions of American facing a shrinking supply of middle-class jobs, falling wages, and disappearing benefits, revelations about GE have fed a renewed hostility to "free enterprise" and undoubtedly helped fuel the "Occupy" movement, now experiencing a spring resurgence.

"In my 25 years of dealing with GE, I have never seem them that embarrassed by any other issue, and so knocked off stride," said Chris Townsend, political director of the United Radio, Electrical and Machine workers (UE) union and a veteran of negotiations with GE over the past 25 years. "GE had so agitated even the mainstream media that the media sought us out," a rare occasion in the unionist's experience.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/25/business/german-raises-firewall/index.html?hpt=ibu_c2

(Financial Times) -- Germany is poised to bow to international pressure and allow a temporary increase in the eurozone's financial "firewall" this week, to prevent the crisis in the region's periphery spreading to other member states.

Officials in Berlin signalled on Sunday that the government would allow funds to be boosted as a way of calming financial market pressures.

Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, had resisted any increase, despite pressure from most of her eurozone partners and the US administration, because she risks a political backlash from sceptical allies in her ruling coalition if it means any increase in Germany's overall financial guarantees for its partners. But the thinking in Berlin is that she cannot resist the international pressure indefinitely.

Olli Rehn, EU commissioner for monetary affairs, expected eurozone finance ministers to reach a decision at a meeting in Copenhagen this Friday.

3/26/12 MF Global `Red Flags' Remain, Barofsky Says

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Neil Barofsky, former special inspector for the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program and a Bloomberg Television contributing editor, talks about a Bloomberg News report that Jon S. Corzine, MF Global Holding Ltd.’s former chief executive officer, gave “direct instructions” to transfer $200 million from a customer fund account to meet an overdraft in a brokerage account with JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to a memo written by congressional investigators. He speaks with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg)

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/88960275/ appx 6 minutes

A North Brunswick-based manufacturer called XPAK USA has developed machinery that is so advanced that it can, for example, help PepsiCo robotically bundle different flavors of Gatorade into one package. The company is taking off; sales in the first quarter are 10 times higher than they were in all of 2007. And who knows how much faster it could grow if it could find the skilled workers it needs to keep up with its expansion.
...

The plight of XPAK is a sign that the economic recovery is heating up. But it also shines a spotlight on the possibility that New Jersey, in its haste to write off the manufacturing sector, in favor of, say, health care or engineering, made a bad bet.
...
Manufacturers now, however, say they were written off too fast. XPAK, for example, makes machines that allow companies to package anything from drinks to firewood quickly and efficiently. The company has grown to 11 employees and has become part of a new generation of manufacturers that combine high-tech computers with old-fashioned machinery.

With the economy strengthening, it has openings for at least five more workers who can assemble and fix the equipment. But Minond said she is having trouble finding workers comfortable with both parts of the business. “We’re looking for a well-rounded person who will understand the concept of how the machine works and how everything goes together,” she said. “They need to know the basic components – chains and sprockets, how does metal behave, where you put stainless steel, where you put aluminum, and the basic logic of where you put the motor and how the motor works.”
...
Some, although not many, students can attest to the demand for their skills. James Iaccarino, 18 of Old Bridge, and Ramon Pagan, 18, of Sayreville, take part in a manufacturing program offered at Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School, spending the morning taking academic classes and the afternoon learning their craft, often on site at companies. They said the job can be complex. They need to understand math. They need to know how to read blueprints. They need to know the inner workings of machines and how to work in teams.

http://www.app.com/article/20120325/NJBIZ/303250010/NJ-s-high-tech-manufacturers-trouble-finding-workers-who-can-do-job

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/NC27Ad01.html

There is little question but that the Chinese economy, after its spectacular performance over the past two decades, is currently in the process of slowing down. From growth rates in terms of real Gross Domestic Product reaching 9% per annum, it is now declining toward the 8% level or even less in the near future. Some say that this represents the start of a bubble bursting following the path taken by Japan in about 1990 and the US in 2008/9. Others believe, however, that this shift is merely a small correction towards a more sustainable growth path.

The pessimists point to recent declines in housing prices in major Chinese cities, and also the substantial increase in vacant



properties that may have been built for speculative purposes. From that vantage point, there appear to be striking similarities to real estate markets in Japan and the US when those bubbles burst.

On the other hand, optimists believe that the recent decline in economic growth is the direct result of government policies whose intended purpose is specifically to restrain real estate speculation and ease inflationary pressures. The goal is to engineer a "soft landing" at a growth rate that can be maintained for a substantial period of time; and that the recent slowdown is entirely consistent with achieving that objective.

China observers are conflicted, and include knowledgeable people on both sides of the divide. The question asked is which side is right; which side more accurately describes what is actually going on in China? This debate is really over near-term forecasts. While the pessimists foresee a decline in Chinese growth rates, the optimists see only bright lights ahead, although perhaps with slightly slower growth rates. Interestingly, such polarizing views regarding China are not uncommon. One explanation is that both alternatives are found within the vast confines of that country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/21/us-sweden-inequality-idUSBRE82K0W320120321?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FworldNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+International%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

...Sweden has seen the steepest increase in inequality over 15 years amongst the 34 OECD nations, with disparities rising at four times the pace of the United States, the think tank said. Once the darling of the political left, heavy state control and wealth distribution through high taxes and generous benefits gave the country's have-nots an enviable standard of living at the expense of the wealthiest members of society. Although still one of the most equal countries in the world, the last two decades have seen a marked change. Market reforms have helped the economy become one of Europe's best performers but this has Swedes wondering if their love affair with state welfare was coming to an end.

The real tipping point came in 2006 when the centre-right government swept to power, bringing an end to a Social Democratic era which stretched for most of the 20th century. Swedes had grown increasingly weary of their high taxes and with more jobs going overseas, the new government laid out a plan to fine-tune the old welfare system. It slashed income taxes, sold state assets and tried to make it pay to work. Spending on welfare benefits such as pensions, unemployment and incapacity assistance has fallen by almost a third to 13 percent of GDP from the early nineties, putting Sweden only just above the 11 percent OECD average.

At the other end of the spectrum, tax changes and housing market reforms have made the rich richer. Since the mid-80s, income from savings, private pensions or rentals, jumped 10 percent for the richest fifth of the population while falling one percent for the poorest 20 percent. Critics say the changes have left many behind...Eurostat said recently that after Bulgaria, Sweden had the second biggest rise in the percentage of its population deemed at-risk-of poverty...A recent study by the National Board of Health and Welfare showed a 25 percent jump to 4,500 in the number faced with "acute" homeless situations - those who required emergency accommodation, shelter or slept outdoors - compared with 2005.

These diverging pictures of Sweden are increasingly common and are also being seen in neighboring Finland and Denmark, albeit at a slower pace. "I certainly don't think Sweden is a utopia. Sweden has become much more of a fairly normal European country," said Stefan Folster, chief economist at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise...Some believe the latest trends in Sweden may hurt the centre-right government, especially if unemployment, running near 8 percent, remains high as the country heads towards new elections in 2014....

http://www.nationofchange.org/rent-too-damn-high-apple-edition-1332430863

The basic facts of inequality are beyond dispute: The top 1 percent sucked in more than 42 percent of the gains of economic growth over the last three decades, with the bottom 90 percent sharing less than 37 percent. This means that most of the population has seen little improvement in living standards over this period in spite of the great breakthroughs in technology and increases in productivity.

This background provides the fuel of the Occupy Wall Street movement and its sympathizers around the country. However there is a counter-story that the media continually bombard us with. This counter-story has its hero, Steve Jobs.

The counter-story is that under Jobs’ leadership, Apple has produced one breakthrough after another, revolutionizing the way that we use computers, listen to music, make phone calls and live our lives. Jobs died a very wealthy man because of his success in bringing great products to the market. The pushers of the counter-story ask us if we would be happier if Steve Jobs had not been rich, but we didn’t have the iPod, the iPad, the iPhone and all the other products developed by Jobs and Apple over the last three decades. The moral of this counter-story is to shut up and eat your inequality. This counter-story might provide good rhetoric, but it suffers from bad logic. The question is not whether we are better off with Steve Jobs getting very rich and all the products that Apple developed, or having Steve Jobs be poor and not having these products, the question is whether it was necessary for Jobs to get quite so rich in order to get these products.

The difference is the concept of economic rent. Rent is the additional money that Jobs collected beyond what would have been needed to get him to innovate great products. This rent was likely substantial in Jobs’ case and is probably even higher for other members of the 1 percent....There are many other areas where it is possible to identify large rents that allow the 1 percent to profit at the expense of the rest of us. Honest economists would be looking to design mechanisms that whittle down the size of these rents so that the bulk of the population could enjoy more of the benefits of economic growth. However, if most economists are employed by rich firefighters, then the experts will tell us that the alternative is to watch our loved ones burn to death.

http://www.nationofchange.org/myth-knowledge-economy-1332512349

Only 25 percent of all Americans go to college, and only 16 percent of those actually try to learn anything. Welcome a nation of helots. (Helot: One of a class of serfs in ancient Sparta, neither a slave nor a free citizen. 2. A person in servitude; a serf.)

"In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a first-class education," President Obama famously declared in his 2010 State of the Union address, just as millions of high-schoolers across the nation were going through the annual ritual of picking their preferred colleges and preparing the grand tour of the prospects, with parents in tow, gazing ashen faced at the prospective fees. The image is of the toiling students springing from lecture room to well-paying jobs, demanding advanced skills in all the arts that can make America great again — outthinking and out knowing the Chinese, Japanese, Indians, South Koreans and Germans in the cutting-edge, cut-throat, high-tech economies of tomorrow.

Start with the raw material in this epic knowledge battle. As a dose of cold water over all this high-minded talk, it's worth looking at Josipa Roksa and Richard Arum's recently published "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses." The two professors followed more than 2,300 undergraduates at 29 universities, selected to represent the range of America's 2000-plus four-year college institutions. Among the authors' findings: 32 percent of the students who they followed in an average semester did not take any courses that assigned more than 40 pages of reading per week. Half did not take any courses in which more than 20 pages of writing were assigned throughout the entire term. Furthermore, 35 percent of the students sampled spent five hours or less a week studying alone. Typical students spent about 16 percent of their time on academic pursuits, and were "academically engaged," write the authors, less than 30 hours a week. After two years in college, 45 percent of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, 36 percent showed little change. And the students who did show improvement only logged very modest gains. Students spent 50 percent less time studying compared with students a few decades ago.

One of the study's authors, Richard Arum, says college governing boards — shoveling out colossal sums to their presidents, athletic coaches and senior administrative staff — demand that the focus be "student retention," also known as not kicking anyone out for not doing any measurable work. As Arum put it to Daily Finance, "Students are much more likely to drop out of school when they are not socially engaged, and colleges and universities increasingly view students as consumers and clients. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that all students want to be exposed to a rigorous academic program."...In his one sensible sally Rick Santorum briefly struck out at ingrained snobbery about going to college, a piece of derision it didn't take him long to retract. It turns out only about 30 percent of Americans over the age of 25 have bachelor's degrees. Jack Metzgar had a useful piece recently on the Talking Union site with this and other useful facts. The U.S. government's Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2010 only 20 percent of jobs required a bachelor's degree, whereas 26 percent of jobs did not even require a high school diploma and another 43 percent required only a high school diploma or equivalent. Please note that the latter 69 percent were therefore devoid of the one debt in America that's even more certain than taxes — student's loans. At least if you're provably broke, the IRS will countenance an "offer in compromise." In fact, they recently made the process slightly easier. No such luck with student loans. The banks are in your pocket till the last dime of loan-plus-interest has been extorted. Now for the next dose of cold water. The BLS reckons that by 2020 the overwhelming majority of jobs will still require only a high school diploma or less and that nearly three-fourths of "job openings due to growth and replacement needs" over the next 10 years will pay a median wage of less than $35,000 a year, with nearly 30 percent paying a median of about $20,000 a year (in 2010 dollars). In other words, millions of Americans are over-educated, servicing debt to the banks and boosting the bottom lines of Red Bull and the breweries. The snobbery stems from the fact that America's endless, mostly arid debates about education are conducted by the roughly one-third who are college-educated and have OK jobs and a decent income. The "knowledge economy" in the U.S. now needs more than 6 million people with masters or doctoral degrees, with another 1.3 million needed by 2020. But this will still be less than 5 percent of the overall economy.



So what is the best anti-poverty program? Higher wages for the jobs that are out there, currently yielding impossibly low annual incomes. The current American minimum wage ranges between $7.25 and $8.67 per hour. On a fairly regular basis, executives of Wal-Mart call for a rise in the minimum wage since, in the words of one Wal-Mart CEO, Lee Scott, "Our customers simply don't have the money to buy basic necessities between pay checks." The minimum wage in Ontario, Canada, is currently well over $10 per hour, while in France it now stands at nearly $13. Australia recently raised its minimum wage to over $16 per hour and nonetheless, it has an unemployment rate of just 5 percent. Any Republican candidate seriously pledging to raise the minimum wage to $12 would gallop into the White House, unless — a solid chance — he wasn't shot dead by the commentarial or maybe by a Delta team acting on Obama's determination relayed to him by the bankers, that this pledge constituted a terrorist assault on America. As Ron Unz, publisher of The American Conservative recently wrote (calling for a big hike), "The minimum wage represents one of those political issues whose vast appeal to ordinary voters is matched by little, if any, interest among establishment political elites."

http://www.nationofchange.org/reporter-matt-taibbi-says-fraud-and-bailouts-are-secrets-bank-america-s-success-1332691057

TRANSCRIPT AT LINK