They have just released a study that is so damning, it really deserves a full bore blog post. For now, some snippets:
The growth of U.S. trade with China since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 has had a devastating effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy. Between 2001 and 2007 2.3 million jobs were lost or displaced, including 366,000 in 2007 alone. New demographic research shows that, even when re-employed in non-traded industries, the 2.3 million workers displaced by the increase in China trade deficits in this period have lost an average $8,146 per worker/year. In 2007, these losses totaled $19.4 billion
and it goes into details, but here is something I think should raise all eyebrows!
The US is no longer the engine, or at least the sole engine, of global economic growth. That mantle is shared, at least, with Europe, and even moreso with emerging Asia, and nowhere so much as China, now the world's 4th largest economy and 47wallst.com/2008/07/china-a-10-gdp.html">growing at a rate of 10% a year.
That growth has run smack up against at least short term limits on the availability of resources -- metals, livestock, rice, and more than anything else, Oil.
While growth in the US peaked about two years ago and has been generally declining since, most recently measured at about 1.9% (but perhaps in a year or three retroactively to be revised into negative territory, as Q4 2007 just was), China in particular has continued to boom, as I described in China's Out of Control Inflationary Boom.
... the U.S. housing market is “nowhere near the bottom” and that the U.S. economy is “right on the brink” of slipping into a recession. But he told CNBC the latest economic data don’t yet indicate that a recession is inevitable.
I'm having deja vu. Didn't Citigroup get into big trouble during the dot con era for insider IPOs recommended by their broker division and some other things?
Looks like the New York State Attorney is filing charges:
One of the things that's always irritated me about the blogosphere is how the idea that people who work in a factory should be able to have the same living standard as white-collar occupations gets pissed on. I've always found that the worst hate is reserved for the UAW, which in general is lumped in with the management in Detroit whenever a discussion about the auto industry pops up. Like today on Daily Kos, from Kos himself.
For years, Democrats outside of Michigan tried to coax Detroit into making more fuel efficient vehicles. The automakers, the autoworker unions, Republicans, and Michigan Democrats all fought those efforts tooth and nail. Successfully.
Time to relax, put your feet up on the couch, lay back, and watch some detailed videos on economic policy!
This week, I found some original reports on worker displacement through insourcing from the 2003-2004 time frame. Insourcing is when corporations bring over cheaper labor via guest worker Visas and displace US workers. In other words, the jobs exist, US workers are simply swapped out for cheaper counter parts. I think to believe it, and get your head around this practice, you just plain have to see it.
This story rarely gets out but when you see the real people this is happening to, it makes the unbelievable real. It is real.
You hear it whispered all the time " We are on the verge of upheaval if the inequality keeps growing". It's worth taking an an historical snapshot of where U.S. Society is now in terms of its long term stability. A solid historical analysis is the work
by Harvard Historian Crane Brinton "Anatomy of Revolution".
Brinton analyzed the British, American, French and Russian revolutions to find their commonalities and difference. He was far from a advocate of the principles of any of the 4 big Revolutions. Revolutions are like volcanos: sudden, violent and very difficult to predict, but also have tell-tale warning signals, like tremors.
- Sheer Incompetence of the Doomed Regime. All great upheavals share a government that just stumbles its way into being overthrown. Anybody think of examples close to home in the last few years?
In the middle column is a new title Instapopulist.
These are the latest forum topic posts.
If you see a news article, just want to briefly mention some fact or start a discussion thread, the forums are the place to do it. You don't need to invest the time to write a full bore, cited blog post to write in the forums.
Well, I'd say this is a good sign for believing in Democrats. Thanks Wal-Mart for that inside tidbit!
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart
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