alienation

Welcome to the New Normal

How does raising taxes on small business owners lead to increased unemployment? If the taxes increase, wouldn't the owners try to defer getting paid in cash, and seek compensation in other ways? I thought that was part of the reason for owning a small business - so you can move the profits away from your income, and put it toward assets that the business owns (i.e company car, real estate, equipment, etc.)

Sears: Retail Social Networking Pioneers

I've spent a lot of money with Sears, largely due to Sears.com. (Not a *lot*, but a couple thousand dollars. It's a lot to me.) This is money that didn't go to Amazon.com, Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy, or the local stores (though Sears is local to me).

I'm not sure why, because, in the past, I never really thought of Sears as a place to get things. Prices were kind of high, service was not good, stuff wasn't in stock. Over the past three years, or so, things have improved. I've also gotten older, and maybe my priorities are aligning with Sears.

Sears.com is good. They have some reviews on most of their big items. You have to read between the lines of course. The site accepts customer feedback, and sometimes, it seems to go to the right people. It's not as good as Amazon, but it's better than the other appliance stores. Also, they have parts, and they guarantee to stock them for a while, which is a big plus for me. I also like that they keep selling the same thing year in and out, for some simple things.

The site has a nice "in stock" feature that checks the local store's inventory. It's useful, because you improve your odds of getting what you need when you get there.

I also started shopping at Kmart again a few years back. It used to be a mess, but it's gotten better. I get my fake Dockers there for very little money. I'm a simple guy.

I guess Sears and Kmart are good for people like me, who don't like to shop. They're relatively efficient and safe. I'm sure I could do better, but I just don't care enough to seek out a better pair of fake Dockers or the ultimate mattress.

It Isn't Just Location: Housing and the Economic Recovery

How can the media be preventing a recovery when we're in no position to have a recovery? We're just not there yet - 11 months of inventory? That says it right there. Confidence can be high, and you still have to clear that inventory.

One other thing: the Toyota workers in Japan are unionized.

Wal-Mart and Offering Employees 'Strategic' Healthcare

The mandate without a public option will grow out of control. The public option, contrary to opinion on this forum, will be more efficient and cheaper than the private options.

Now, as for Wal Mart playing with the government -- you're forgetting that WM has a big lobbying budget, and they have been getting involved in politics since the mid 1990s. Believe me. I had to volunteer to help elect some anti-Wal-Mart candidates. Wal-Mart had a professional political operative to organize to defeat us (and he's still doing the work, outlasting community opposition). Wal-Mart outspent us 10 to 1, lost once, then won, later.

When you look at a WM store, remember - the HQ is willing to hire a political consultant and spend money to protect that store, and make sure City Hall is friendly to it.

Broadband: Why Government Investment Is Justified Now

I grew up using 1200 baud modems to access BBSs, and I turned out just fine. The BBSs and online services were fine just the way they were. We don't need more government intervention and waste.

The Internet was already heavily subsidized by the government, and look how that turned out. It's a free-speech mess, with many low-cost services, a low barrier to entry, and a virtual "free market" in ecommerce sites. Amazon.com destroyed the Waldenbooks at the mall. Because of Ebay, my local computer vendor no longer has a big retail storefront on the main drag. It's some kind of curio shop now. Craigslist has harmed the newspapers.

This internet government socialism totally destroyed the private online services, save for AOL, which is still hanging on. Imagine how much better off we'd be if we still had these private services, keeping their users separated on private network, so it was impossible to send email from one service to another. There'd be less spam, and more, better advertising email mediated by the online service provider.

Thankfully, the mobile phone carrier networks are rebuilding the walls between networks, raising prices, and acting as an intermediary between independent services vendors and the customer. Profits in wireless are healthy, fees are high, and capitalism is doing well again. These "app stores" may prove to be a huge boon to the wireless companies, too.

Let's not build out a universal internet that will allow rural and lower-income people to get online at higher speeds. Let's not create open wireless standards that will harm the large global telecom companies' profits, and cut into their Congressional lobbying budget. This is the slippery slope to government waste, socialism, and COMMUNISM. Just Say NO!

Three Christmas Presents from the U.S. Economy

Median household income is $50k (Wikipedia). Average credit card debt (for households with at least 1 card) is around $8,600 (ZDNet article).

On Dec 25 09:12 AM Cynical Sam wrote:

> The average US household Credit Card balance is now at about $10,000?
> Bull! If that often repeated statistic is true, the long overdue
> correction is just starting. What's the Average Household Income?
> I think it's around $60K - they have $10K in high interest CC debt?
> Either hide the women & children & stuff your money in the
> mattress or quit repeating that rediculous stat. Do yourself &
> your readers a favor & investigate the source of the CC debt
> "legend".

Economic Outlook: Bracing for a Rocky Road?

The next president may not be able to implement any social programs... but someone will have an easier time organizing people to demand these social program when the economy sucks.

Regulators Share Blame for the Financial Crisis

sorry - accidentally posted to the wrong thread

Regulators Share Blame for the Financial Crisis

@ozzy - do you have any references about that theory that the New Deal didn't help? As I understand it, the GD was caused by a number of factors, including global depression after ww1, uneven distribution of wealth, a housing bubble, and the business cycle. GNP collapsed before the New Deal was proposed. The recovery didn't come, and then the Second New Deal, a more traditionally socialist program that established Social Security, the FDIC and SEC, was put into effect. The economy remained in a depression for the rest of the 1930s until massive government spending for ww2 in the early 1940s created jobs.

I believe the New Deal did prolong the GD, but, during the postwar boom, the so-called "socialist" laws and bureacracy led to the creation of the "middle class". This more even redistribution of wealth, combined with increased regulation, has helped prevent subsequent dips in the business cycle from turning into depressions.

@ original post - perhaps we're seeing increases in government employment as a reaction to a fears of a recession, and increased unemployment. Perhaps it is merely smart management - if your income isn't directly dependent on the market, hire in a down market. Healthcare employment may be increasing due to marketing efforts by insurance companies to be health insurace more accessible -- due to fears of socialized insurance, they try to increase the number of insured to create political resistance to "single payer". Healthcare and the insurance industry spending that funds healthcare may behave more like government or "socialized" spending, because the services they provide are like socialism, except service is not available to people who do not purchase the insurance (the expenses of poverty are not included).

The Election's Impact on the Market

4) Labor laws are enforced under D administrations, leading to higher wages and income stability. This contributes to consumer spending. The problem with this, last time, was that it wasn't very well regulated, and we kicked off a series of speculative bubbles.

Questioning Obamanomics

101... bad idea. That would make every politician a lame duck. Having at least one term where they have to please the populace is a good thing. Also, one thing that term limits have done, especially at the state level, is give more power to behind-the-scenes bureaucrats, who actually know how to run things. That's a mixed blessing.

@BCNCV - he'll probably make good on the tax cut promise. We're taking a one-two punch, first this housing crash, then the war debt. There's no way to raise taxes when people are experiencing increasing unemployment and the economy is soft. I suspect Obama's divergence from the traditional Democratic Party policy will be that government money will be funneled more into this energy project, to "make jobs," rather than to pay for social services (he said nothing at all about protecting welfare, but raised infrastructure and energy issues). I wouldn't be surprised if the conditions for receiving this workfare were even harsher than what we're used to -- he may require that people travel for these jobs, put up with low pay, and even do actual labor.

Questioning Obamanomics

I think that he's looking at doing at least one year of running a big deficit, but that's usually what you should do during a recession: tax revenues take a hit due to declining incomes, and people require more government services due to increased poverty. Also, interest rates on bonds are low, so the debt is cheap. What you're supposed to do is get into a recovery, and then raise taxes and cut government spending, to generate a small surplus, and then start paying off debt faster (the investors will cash out their bonds early, and reinvest it into equities).

The Republicans aren't so good at this second phase - they keep cutting taxes and put us deeper into debt.