Charlie Rose

SharkswithfrikingLazers  09/16/2011 02:38 AM Report

How many jobs were exported to get us to the unemployment numbers we have today--two million?

Thomas Friedman likes to go on shows and point to all of the jobs that are gone and never coming back.

So how many jobs need to be filled now but there aren't qualified applicants and how many jobs are gone forever?

We need to look at the math. We can't all work in health care (where the job growth is). So what is really practical in reducing unemployment if so many jobs are exported forever?

SharkswithfrikingLazers  09/16/2011 02:27 AM Report

Job sharing in Germany was mentioned during the conversation.

Instead of people, companies reduce hours and then the government pays unemployment to make up the difference.

Would it work here? The employers in America also have the health care and retirement/401K. So lots of loose ends.

However, it may be cheaper than the total unemployment cost and keep the economy moving instead of having our big shock to the system.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/12/is_germanstyle_jobsharing_cure.html

tabs  09/11/2011 04:31 PM Report

MR Rose this is a retort to the Presidents Economic Plan

One does not engage in idealistic wishfull thinking nor in emotion or suppostion but the cold hard facts of history. If you recall that by the early 1980's the Japanese were eating Americas lunch economically, by beating us at our own game. In the mid to late 1980's American corporations put themselves on a path that by the 1990's paid off with economic prosperity. This had nothing to do with taxes or and increased role of government. So you may ask what caused this great surge in economic activity. It is really very simple American corporations cleaned out the dead wood or put another way the bureaucracy of Middle managment. Corporations became concerned with PRODUCTIVITY and not maintaining a cumbersome bureaucratic structure. In other words US corporations became lean and mean in order to remain competitive in a now Global economy.

The US government never got the message, and now it is in their face on a daily basis with the unstability of the financial markets and a morbund economy. For as stated previousily the US government is exacting a huge amount of capital from the system to sustain itself and it has grown so large and unwieldly that it is impeding not only economic growth but sustainability over the long run. What worked for US corporations in the late 1980's will have to be implemented by the not only the US governemtn but the governments of the EU, because if it doesn't the system will become so unwieldly that it will casue the system to implode upon itself. We have reached that tipping point and the choice is ours to make.

TABS

doodah  09/11/2011 07:46 AM Report

Perry and Romney are ALREADY starting to Stink worse than Obama and 'they' aren't even President yet.

Their biggest problem is, the truth behind their bullshit rhetoric, they just want to pick up where Bush left off (DO NOTHING) Let the Ship SINK! (Probably use the New Big RepublicanSocialist Bureaucracy to help finish off the dying middle class); sounds far fetched?, Hey, what else is there to do (now that Osama is dead)? Do what Buddy Roemer advises?, Darth Vader doesn't think so (too many more boogiemen to kill). Like those boogie children in Waco.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  09/10/2011 07:42 PM Report

Lots of errors in the GOP debate:

FACT CHECK: Perry, Romney twist records in debate

http://www.chron.com/news/article/FACT-CHECK-Perry-Romney-twist-records-in-debate-2160343.php#page-2

PERRY: "Ninety-five percent of all the jobs that we've created have been above minimum wage."

Only if you contort the stats and don't have the data for the actual jobs created.

PERRY: "What I find compelling is what we've done in the state of Texas, using our ability to regulate our clean air. We cleaned up our air in the state of Texas, more than any other state in the nation during the decade." He specifically mentioned successes in reducing nitrous oxide emissions by 58 percent and ozone levels by 27 percent.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently rescinded the state's authority to grant some air pollution permits because the state did not comply with federal regulations. Perry also signed a law that will DELAY enforcing stiffer clean air regulations by two years.

What a spin meister! Reminds me of the joke--how do you tell when a politician is lying . . .

Just think what Washington would do to the Fonz. Perry is right. Washington is a terrible place and we must protect him from it.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  09/10/2011 07:28 PM Report

On the GOP debate:

Fonzi or Richie Cunningham?

Jon Stewart nailed it. For the Republicans, it's the Fonz.

However, has Perry really been vetted yet? Seems like he got a wild card slot.

doodah  09/10/2011 07:25 AM Report

@ afm528 09/09/2011 08:53 PM

That was the 'entrepreneurship' (and Tea Party) EXCUSE last year, then when the tax cuts were extended, what happened? NOTHING. . HIGHER UNEMPLOYMENT and a Renig on 'Stimulus' Hiring.

Now the ball is in the Tea Party's court, How long is it going to take NOW?! If it happens at all, because who gets credit for what and who gets blamed for that Matters MORE to Politicians than your stinking job; because it's not really their jobs at stake but their Egos and LIFESTYLES that are at stake! That's why if I had the power, I'd burn them at the Stake!

afm528  09/09/2011 08:53 PM Report

I need to understand why it is that Ron Paul is the invisible man. I'm definitely undecided on how I'll vote and I would like to know why Paul is never given any chance, and very rarely even mentioned as a contender. I ask in all sincerity, why is Ron Paul so easily dismissed?

As for the comments on entrepreneurship, as a multi-time business starter on the periphery of Silicon Valley, I have to agree that Washington and politicians don't have the slightest clue about how entrepreneurship works. It is the polar opposite of bureaucratic processes and endless committee meetings. It is a source of great frustration to us that things in Washington move so slowly that we practically ignore them. The capital is out there, we just need SOME idea of what the rules are going to be before we can make any sort of serious financial plans. We cannot be cajoled into hiring ahead of demand, as was suggested by the head of the AFL-CIO, or someone similar, recently. Give us the rules by which we're going to play, and get the hell out of the way!

rtb  09/09/2011 06:08 PM Report

The first thing I think of when I see mark halperin is a well-educated journalist who thinks the president is a dick.

doodah  09/09/2011 04:19 PM Report

... and then hence, the birth of the Tea Party.

doodah  09/09/2011 04:18 PM Report

...LOL what a moron! But what a great ally! Now back to the wine and cheese.

doodah  09/09/2011 04:09 PM Report

...and continues to work (the political stalemate) to this day. It's like a big circle, how the money is given to the lobbyists and then to the politicians and then back again two fold. And it just keeps going round and round and round, it's Good ole time, laughing at Joe the Plumber on Youtube and TV barking at his shadow, because the stimulus isn't working because Obama invented the debt.

doodah  09/09/2011 03:52 PM Report

To this day, Paulson, is very proud of 'the panic' (he calls it 'a crisis'; whatever) he stirred up to "get things done". His rich friends remind him everyday how well the 800 billion dollar stimulus worked.

doodah  09/09/2011 03:31 PM Report

... stole from the poor and gave to the rich

doodah  09/09/2011 03:30 PM Report

.. ole Fat Face Shelby

doodah  09/09/2011 03:29 PM Report

... ole 'Shelby' should have gotten an Oscar for that performance. I remember it like it was yesterday; and I'll remember it when I vote.

doodah  09/09/2011 03:26 PM Report

...just as it was planned and rehearsed.

doodah  09/09/2011 03:25 PM Report

...Paulson, already gave them all the 'stimulus' they needed.

doodah  09/09/2011 03:16 PM Report

The Big Money Loves it the way it is, 10-20% unemployment; It works for them. Why would they want a 'stimulus' to work?.

Of course they'll never publicly say that, so they shift the focus to 'debt'. If I figure that out, what is wrong with the rest of America's dumb asses?. .. They just must be dumber, which makes me feel good, but not really.

doodah  09/09/2011 03:07 PM Report

john Heilmann, wow, what a drama queen

doodah  09/09/2011 03:01 PM Report

These experts are fools if they seriously believe that the electorate is literally divided between repugnantcans and demogogcrats. That's exactly how the powers that be (the media) wants keep it (us, the peons) organized. They just don't know what it Really is. And they're getting paid to write this nonsense?.

charlizecourriers  09/09/2011 02:54 PM Report

It's hard to see how these expenditures can be stimulative on top of a one and a half trillion dollar stimulus call the deficit. A mental bar graph puts it in perspective, remembering that these deficits stretch out for years. Keynes must be laughing in his grave-this speech is a deliberate campaign 'distractor' from the real budget problems, that if discussed, would doom Obama. Curiously, they were mentioned at the end of the Friedman interview, but buried collusively by the host and his guests. Call it the Good Democrat Club and you "get the drift" of the Rose agenda.

doodah  09/09/2011 02:47 PM Report

What next? A government shutdown.?. They say history repeats. Is this enough? What does the Nobel Laureates think?

Man, how did things get so Extreme? He's a pinball wizard, there must be a twist. Hell No You Can't!

SharkswithfrikingLazers  09/09/2011 01:30 PM Report

It was a wonderful speech.

Charlie, are we on a seven second delay here?

Mark Halperin--kinda being a bit of a d-ick. The President does not have to bow to the people (I'm being generous) in Congress who have taken a vow to a criminal--a criminal who should have gone to prison with Casino Jack.

The President is the Chief Executive not the guy who boils the water for the Tea Party.

REMant  09/09/2011 11:42 AM Report

According to the Post's Ezra Klein, the Act:

- Completely eliminates the payroll tax for workers, which amount to a $175 billion tax break, and cuts it in half for businesses until they reach the $5 million mark on their payrolls, at a cost of $65 billion. The idea there is to target the tax cut to struggling small businesses, rather than the cash-rich large businesses. It also extends the credit allowing businesses to expense 100 percent of their investments through 2012, which the White House predicts will cost $5 billion.

- Offers $35 billion in aid to states and cities to prevent teacher layoffs, and earmarks $25 billion for investments in school infrastructure.

- Sets aside $50 billion for investments in transportation infrastructure, $15 billion for investments in vacant or foreclosed properties, and $10 billion for an infrastructure bank. It also makes mention of a program to "deploy high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans," but it doesn't offer many details on that program.

- Provides $49 billion to extend expanded unemployment insurance benefits. $8 billion for a new tax credit to encourage businesses to hire the long-term unemployed, and $5 billion for a new program aimed at supporting part-time and summer jobs for youth and job training for the unemployed.

- Encourages the Federal Housing Finance Authority to make it easier for underwater homeowners to refinance their mortgages.

If all of that could be spent in 2012 it would be bigger, in annual terms, Klein says, than the Recovery Act.

Ppl like the president say we have jobs to be done and unemployed to do them, WHY can't we just put them together? The reason is that we remain so deeply in debt, because we spent so prodigally, that we cannot finance those projects, even assuming they will pay. We have a DEBT crisis, not an unemployment crisis, not a crisis of confidence, or a sudden onset of Silas Marner Syndrome. Cos as much as consumers are repairing their balance sheets, and, like anyone else, if merely given money they use it to speculate or acquire, or just sit on it realizing that it portends worse times. If they do have a real surplus it might be better if they paid it out in dividends. But certainly, if you want investment, it needs to come from real earnings, not handouts. That usually means, as was mentioned, from new enterprises. All the money printing the Fed has done, and all the funds the govt has spent in the past three years, has, and could never have, done anything to redress this fundamental problem. But the president seems to be asking for even more debt to boost ephemeral demand.

I can't disagree with the president's belated realization that we must become more productive, or that that must come from entrepreneurs. I applaud acceptance of the idea that things must be paid for, and I don't begrudge helping those in need, refinancing their homes if possible, or with revising the tax code and code of federal regulations, and so forth, but, I thought the speech came perilously close to just "passing" the buck. Congress may vote to once again trade tax cuts for welfare, but IMHO if they do, they, themselves, will be passing the buck.

Assuming he means what he says, I think seeing the media talking about this in partisan terms, and about things like jump-starting jobs, etc, is undercutting his position, and as with several of his speeches I think this one was rather schizophrenic, far more positive in the middle than at either end. For instance, I have no idea of what he means about abrogating a "national compact." I guess he's talking common law; surely he can't be saying the legitimacy of govt depends on the dole. But I doubt Congress is solely to blame for not doing much the speech mentions, and surely taunting them is no way to achieve his stated objective. They have reason to be suspicious. The record of his admin the past three years has not been all that auspicious, and this looks a lot like a political maneuver.

But it isn't a question of what I or anyone else likes or doesn't like, rather what this proposal will do to resolve the debt crisis which underlies unemployment. That may have to wait until next week's planned deficit reduction proposal, but my guess is that it will do little except rearrange spending priorities.

Candidate Roosevelt said, "Any government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns. But you and I know that a continuation of that habit means the poorhouse." I think THAT resonated with his audience, and still, quite correctly, does. Whether he meant it, or even knew what he was saying, is, of course, another matter. With this president, unfortunately, we may wonder as well.

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IMHO Romney's "plan" betrays the same sort of economics the last two administrations have pursued, while his adviser, Glenn Hubbard, is a Wall St minion. As he was four years ago, Romney is the Bush candidate - make no mistake about it - and I doubt the country will vote for another Bush.

The Ponzi remark, BTW, originated in a 1967 Newsweek column by Paul Samuelson, the famed Keynesian author of the economic textbook used by generations of students in this country, and as Democratic an animal as has ever existed. "The beauty about social insurance," he wrote, "is that it is actuarially unsound. Everyone who reaches retirement age is given benefit privileges that far exceed anything he has paid in. And exceed his payments by more than ten times as much (or five times, counting in employer payments)!" The mechanism worked, according to Samuelson, because "there are always more youths than old folks in a growing population.... A growing nation is the greatest Ponzi scheme ever contrived. And that is a fact, not a paradox." Milton Friedman, also a Newsweek oolumnist at this time, deprecated the idea in 1999 NYT piece advocating Social Security's retirement http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7523

Social Security would not have passed as a welfare measure in the FDR admin, even if it had ever been intended as one, and because there was no money to pay benefits to those immediately eligible and who had obviously never paid in, it became a pay-go proposal to "insure" everyone. One Ida Turner paid in $22 and living to 99, withdrew $20,000. Aside from such things as baby booms, and the threat of overpopulation, there is nothing wrong with it, except that it discourages saving, and in an economic environment that discourages saving as a basic premise, it has to be considered a scam, because it is saving alone which provides the foundation for economic success. Only saving will prevent the kind of deterioration in morals and wealth disparity engendered by credit creation, the object of Keynesianism, and the interminable bubbles experienced since fractional reserve banking was introduced.

When Bernanke talks about the "insurance function" of the Fed, essentially printing money, he is talking about the way Social Security works. More than simple insurance, in Keynesian theory, credit is believed to pay for itself, the more the better, because contrary to what some have said Keynes made little or no distinction between the Depression and any other time, nor did his mercantilist predecessors, except for Steuart, who, in fact, is the rule-proving exception, because he lampooned that aspect of the theory. This idea is the Keynesian "paradox" of thrift, referred to in passing by Samuelson (which I would quote more fully if I could find the article). To keep talking about Phillips curve balance is to talk about just how much stagflation you can afford.

There is very little money actually in the "trust fund" added later to smooth demographics, because Congress spends it, too, as fast as it comes in, and much more, relying on future generations to pick up the tab. Friedman remarked that it amounts to annual redistribution, yet the public is given the impression they are actually purchasing an annuity with their payroll taxes. He pointed out it would be more progressive to just pay for it out of the income tax. But it is insurance in that it passes Marx's test: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Besides this, the only advantage of paying for it by taxation is to make saving compulsory. Samuelson no doubt considered it, like so many other things he did, as a public good. But considering the moral hazard created by not actually saving, it might rather be considered a public bad.

To remedy shortfalls, liberals suggest taxing the wealthy, which simply perpetuates the kind of stagflationary spiral we've seen out of welfare capitalism for a century now, because the essential fact is that the inflation created by Keynesianism through inflation running at about 10% a year in real terms, in the end transfers wealth from labor to speculators. Some erstwhile conservatives have argued therefore that Social Security should invest in the stock mkt where the "return" is greater, tho I doubt they should be returning to that argument anytime soon, but with Wall St pushing Romney, maybe not.