Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[vinsanity]

I'm starting to think we're close to our new natural rate of unemployment. Corporate profits and productivity are great. Why hire?

Well, that's a bummer outlook. Isn't the theory that productivity is reaching its max ceiling and companies will have to hire?

Well, you can always squeeze a few more drops of blood from the white collar turnips. (i.e. easier to get more production for same/less cost from a White Collar/Salaried employee than hourly).

But I was always of the opinion that it doesn't really matter much money GM/GE/Ford/Wal-Mart has...if no one is around to buy from them. Why would Asia/Europe buy costly, inefficient American Cars? Do we really think Wal-Mart would catch on in Japan? These companies need the middle/working class to survive in this country and I'm afraid they're too short sighted to see it that way.

As far as jobs? Why do Americans think cutting taxes for the top 1% and corporations means job creation? Under 8 years of W we had historically low tax rates, but experienced 22 months of recession. 22 of his 96 months were spent in recession. Source. He ranks last in nearly every measure of job creation since the Labor Dept started recording statistics.

First? Clinton.

It's not a Republican/Democrat thing, but no one in congress can hide behind 'fiscal conservativism'. When we were running surpluses we should have been paying down debt, not borrowing so people could use their houses as ATM's. We shouldn't have been relaxing borrowing standards to get every American a house. So Boehner can shove it if he's all the sudden worried about deficits and National Debt, they were ok borrowing 8 years ago./rant

[vinsanity]

I'm starting to think we're close to our new natural rate of unemployment. Corporate profits and productivity are great. Why hire?

Well, that's a bummer outlook. Isn't the theory that productivity is reaching its max ceiling and companies will have to hire?

Well, you can always squeeze a few more drops of blood from the white collar turnips. (i.e. easier to get more production for same/less cost from a White Collar/Salaried employee than hourly).

But I was always of the opinion that it doesn't really matter much money GM/GE/Ford/Wal-Mart has...if no one is around to buy from them. Why would Asia/Europe buy costly, inefficient American Cars? Do we really think Wal-Mart would catch on in Japan? These companies need the middle/working class to survive in this country and I'm afraid they're too short sighted to see it that way.

As far as jobs? Why do Americans think cutting taxes for the top 1% and corporations means job creation? Under 8 years of W we had historically low tax rates, but experienced 22 months of recession. 22 of his 96 months were spent in recession. Source. He ranks last in nearly every measure of job creation since the Labor Dept started recording statistics.

First? Clinton.

It's not a Republican/Democrat thing, but no one in congress can hide behind 'fiscal conservativism'. When we were running surpluses we should have been paying down debt, not borrowing so people could use their houses as ATM's. We shouldn't have been relaxing borrowing standards to get every American a house. So Boehner can shove it if he's all the sudden worried about deficits and National Debt, they were ok borrowing 8 years ago./rant

[Freed Roger]

I think Paul Krugman is right on the money: moderated fair trade is good, but unrestricted
free trade results in international wage races to the bottom where America cannot compete
due to its relatively higher cost of living.

The mega-corporations don't need a healthy US middle class anymore, and that's why no one
is doing anything to reverse this train wreck.

I agree. It is the modern version of plantation society.

[Jocephus]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/0 ... last-year/

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/0 ... nd-lowest/

[Freed Roger]

.

[Freed Roger]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/0 ... last-year/

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/0 ... nd-lowest/

Yeah, I don't know how much further fed state and local govts can bend over for big business and the wealthy. TIFS, credits, the historically low taxes, eased regulations on most fronts. They take take take for a return of pittance in jobs.

So much wealth is being sat on by such a relative few, and god forbid we ever try to tax investments and property reasonably. Lets just tax all the wage earners and consumers to the hilt.

The WI Scott Walker asshat mantra "Open for Business" means reducing regulation, no power for workers, low taxes for the wealthy, kickbacks in the form of cash saleable tax credits, no obligation to invest in education.

So Open for Business means remaking ourselves to be like a 3rd world country. Get your 3rd World Sexy on for the job Creators. Coming soon to state by you.

[New Pagodi]

My boss even said the company expects 50 hours a week out of us.

That right there is a good chunk of the problem with employment in America. There just aren't enough jobs left in America these days, and employers should be trying to adapt to that fact by going to 30 hour work weeks and using 4 employees instead of 3 when possible. Instead they're going the opposite direction of making fewer employees work longer hours.

[greenback44]

Sheila Bair, who stepped down as head of the FDIC yesterday, has an "exit interview" with Joe Nocera of the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/magaz ... wanted=all

This is both true and amazing:

At the same time, she was fighting a rear-guard battle on another critical banking issue — so-called capital requirements, the amount of capital banks must hold as a cushion against losses. Banks always want their capital requirements to be as low as possible, so they can take more risks, which can enable them to make more money — and reap bigger bonuses for executives. In 2004, an international group called the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision proposed rules that would allow banks to hold capital on a “risk-weighted” basis, meaning that assets with lower risk would require less capital. (As it turned out, triple-A-rated mortgage bonds stuffed with bad subprime mortgages were considered very low risk under the Basel proposal. That is why so many banks loaded up on them in the years leading up to the crisis.) To make matters worse, the Basel II accords, as they were called, permitted banks to evaluate their assets with their own internal risk models.

Most European countries quickly adopted Basel II. In the United States, the Federal Reserve was strongly in favor of doing so, too, as was the O.C.C. But the F.D.I.C., fearing that lower capital requirements and the self-selection of risk models would increase the risk of bank failures, opposed Basel II. This meshed perfectly with Bair’s own instincts, and once she arrived at the F.D.I.C., she became the standard-bearer in opposing the new rules. The Fed, in particular, pushed her to sign on; it didn’t need the F.D.I.C.’s approval, but it is politically important for all the regulators to be aligned when instituting such an important change. Instead, Bair conceded, “we dragged it out and dragged it out.” She dragged it out so long, in fact, that the financial crisis arrived before Basel II was ever implemented in the United States.

Foot-dragging is not the sort of bureaucratic tactic that draws praise or even much notice. But I’ve long believed that her opposition to Basel II has been a hugely underappreciated factor in helping to save the financial system when the crisis came. The European banks, lacking adequate capital, were crushed by the financial crisis. Big banks in places like Ireland and Iceland collapsed. Germany doled out hundreds of billions of dollars to shore up its banks. Even today, banks in Europe are in far worse shape than they are in the U.S. American banks didn’t have enough capital, either, but they had a lot more than their European counterparts, and for all their ongoing problems, they are much healthier institutions today.

Yes, it could have been worse.

[sighyoung]

Bravo to her.

[Hungary Jack]

My boss even said the company expects 50 hours a week out of us.

That right there is a good chunk of the problem with employment in America. There just aren't enough jobs left in America these days, and employers should be trying to adapt to that fact by going to 30 hour work weeks and using 4 employees instead of 3 when possible. Instead they're going the opposite direction of making fewer employees work longer hours.

France tried this. It didn't work.