Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

[chene]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

China can and is building infrastructure, but they are decades behind.

They were century behind regarding the manufacturing capability and in a decade they narrow the gap... so why not for the infrastructure...

But for the rest...
So why bother building such infrastructure in the USA ? Let's build an efficiency infrastructure in china and import low cost product... that will be good for USA competitiveness, so good for USA employment ... no ? -- that's ironic of course...
... that was IRONIC !!!

As for importing products - this doesn't help with unemployment in the US.

I fully agree and that's exactly my point.

As long as the import are easy, you destroy the employment in the country where wages (or others indirect advantages for employee) are the highest ...regardless of the effort to gain competitive advantages by others means ...

Or in others words... you must have a high geographic advantage that compensate for the loss in wages... but in order for an economy to fully expend this advantage must last over a long period and across all the economy, not restricted to a niche... export chopsticks in China or temporary (high efficiency infrastructure before the others narrow the gap...)

We enter in a world where every country will fight to gain this advantage... BECAUSE there is no protected area anymore. That could lead to war indeed...

If we can't find a way to re-balance the world organization we are back in a world where slavery with a few rich masters are the new norm of the society...

[Ellen Z]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

The growing split between those who serve in the military and everyone else......I think in the US it used to be far more intertwined....now it seems more like a caste system....

..........I think the best thing we can do is to try and find that spot post WWII where we had veterans all around us everyday...

There was a draft (both WWII and Vietnam.)

Everyone had an equal chance of serving. That's why it was "far more intertwined."

[c1ue]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

Prove it.

Pick any measure.

Let's use electricity, for example:

http://www.iea.org/stats/electricity...OUNTRY_CODE=14

China presently generates 3.5 million Gigawatt-hours of electricity.

This comes out to 2,700 Kilowatt-hours per person

The US in contrast generates 4.37 million Gigawatt-hours of electricity, which equates to 13,240 Kilowatt-hours per person.

France generates 0.575 million Gigawatt-hours of electricity, which equates to 9,185 Kilowatt-hours per person

China has to at least double, if not triple or quadruple, its electricity generation in order to raise electricity related living standards close to 1st world status. This is why they're building 2 coal fired electricity generation plants every week.

Or do you consider this massive spending pure luxury?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

Excellent post! DSpenser has a point, though:

What happens if we end our foreign wars and occupations like Ron Paul wants to do, and bring home thousands upon thousands of soldiers and other personnel when there are no jobs to be had?

Well as a nation there is a responsibility to look after the ones who are broken...and by that I mean not just their physical injuries, but their mental injuries as well.

I think you will find many will be able to compete quite well in the private sector work force when it's a level playing field.

Unfortunately, I don't think enough employers accurately perceive the value of the life experience, training, and skills acquired by many armed forces veterans.

A lot of folks who leave the military DO have a hard time adjusting to civilian workforce life......in my experience it seems to mostly be careerists who leave the forces with a high degree of rank/responsibility/power/authority having a hard time adjusting to being a smaller cog in a bigger wheel with lots of undisciplined hippies underfoot.

Just my anecdotal opinion as far as that goes.

Same for my belief that young folks who spend 3-5-10 years in the armed forces and have a mix of military and civilian work experiences have a lot to offer current and future employers.

At the end of the day, I think if an additional 100,000 men and women, mostly in their 20's-40's were suddenly unemployed soldiers/sailors/airmen it would differ little from 100,000 men and women in their 20's-40's who were suddenly unemployed from GE, UPS, Intel, Caterpiller, Harley-Davidson, and Wal-Mart.

In my opinion, we would eventually see a spike in new small business creation/development if unemployment stretched on for too long....as well as a bit of bad news on the social side of the house(crime/substance abuse).

But if anyone is concerned out of some misplaced fear that bringing home every US service member and not having post service work for them will be like "crossing the Rubicon" is part of the problem I mentioned in my last post.

The growing split between those who serve in the military and everyone else......I think in the US it used to be far more intertwined....now it seems more like a caste system....while I think the personal split is real...I don't think anyone has any legitimate/justified concerns about insurrection or such.

While I wouldn't be surprised to see issues moving forward in regards to veteran's pensions/benefits(it's already happening now) and there's historical examples of peaceful veterans protests being smashed by government such as the Bonus Army:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

EDIT: Interesting tidbit....MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Patton were all involved in the US Army being used to aggressively disrupt the Bonus Army march.

I think the best thing we can do is to try and find that spot post WWII where we had veterans all around us everyday...and less of the caste system that seems to have developed in society in some places.

Veteran service men and women entering the work force in increasing numbers, over time, will surely help that I would think.

Just my 0.02c

[shiny!]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

While I often find excessive patriotism and "worshipping" of folks serving their country a bit awkward and embarrassing.....even eerily sycophantic at times........it's also easy to get a bit agitated by folks who imply or assume that those serving in the military are only good at killing.

I think a lot of it can be explained away by the deepening divide between those who do serve, and those who don't or have no personal/familial/community connection to those who do....in any case that's a whole other topic of concern.

Anywho....

Personal anecdote:

I was a very early employee of a household name dot com during it's extremely high growth phase.

At the time(mid late 90's) the US military was shrinking from the post cold war "Peace Dividend".

I personally interviewed and hired a rather substantial number of ex-military platoon commanders, company commanders, junior officers, mid-level officers, and senior NCOs who were able to add a substantial amount of much needed discipline, structure, and focus to the organization. As well as the ability to successfully accomplish objectives in a financially austere environment.

To be honest, were it not for those folks who were able to hit the ground running and mesh well with the dope smoking hippies with the great ideas but inability to successfully implement them, the company would have suffered considerably, possibly catastrophically, during that chaotic period.

The taxpayer has invested a massive amount of money into serving soldiers, sailors, and airmen.

Even "teeth arms", combat arms soldiers bring a lot to the table in terms of leadership, people management, and problem solving skills in high stress and ambiguous environments.

Graduates of the 3 service academies also turn out a healthy percentage of hard science graduates with strong foundations in engineering and other tangible skills.

I'm quite confident that folks leaving the US military to join the private sector will be, on average, overall assets to the US economy as well as their local communities if given half an opportunity.

I'm not trying to have a go at you DSpenser, but I wanted to address what is often a common misperception that ex-servicemen and women are only good at killing.

Killing's a part of it, but only a very small part of what they can bring to the party.

Sorry for going a bit off topic.

Excellent post! DSpenser has a point, though:

What happens if we end our foreign wars and occupations like Ron Paul wants to do, and bring home thousands upon thousands of soldiers and other personnel when there are no jobs to be had?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

Am I understanding this correctly:

Soldiers who were trained to shoot rifles will be brought home to build high speed rail and nuclear power plants?

While I often find excessive patriotism and "worshipping" of folks serving their country a bit awkward and embarrassing.....even eerily sycophantic at times........it's also easy to get a bit agitated by folks who imply or assume that those serving in the military are only good at killing.

I think a lot of it can be explained away by the deepening divide between those who do serve, and those who don't or have no personal/familial/community connection to those who do....in any case that's a whole other topic of concern.

Anywho....

Personal anecdote:

I was a very early employee of a household name dot com during it's extremely high growth phase.

At the time(mid late 90's) the US military was shrinking from the post cold war "Peace Dividend".

I personally interviewed and hired a rather substantial number of ex-military platoon commanders, company commanders, junior officers, mid-level officers, and senior NCOs who were able to add a substantial amount of much needed discipline, structure, and focus to the organization. As well as the ability to successfully accomplish objectives in a financially austere environment.

To be honest, were it not for those folks who were able to hit the ground running and mesh well with the dope smoking hippies with the great ideas but inability to successfully implement them, the company would have suffered considerably, possibly catastrophically, during that chaotic period.

The taxpayer has invested a massive amount of money into serving soldiers, sailors, and airmen.

Even "teeth arms", combat arms soldiers bring a lot to the table in terms of leadership, people management, and problem solving skills in high stress and ambiguous environments.

Graduates of the 3 service academies also turn out a healthy percentage of hard science graduates with strong foundations in engineering and other tangible skills.

I'm quite confident that folks leaving the US military to join the private sector will be, on average, overall assets to the US economy as well as their local communities if given half an opportunity.

I'm not trying to have a go at you DSpenser, but I wanted to address what is often a common misperception that ex-servicemen and women are only good at killing.

Killing's a part of it, but only a very small part of what they can bring to the party.

Sorry for going a bit off topic.

[aaron]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

China can and is building infrastructure, but they are decades behind.

Prove it.

[c1ue]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

You're analysis Eric makes a lot of sense but in my opinion you are missing a structural factor in your solution.

Do you think that Chinese can't build a high efficiency infrastructure... at lower cost ?
So why bother building such infrastructure in the USA ? Let's build an efficiency infrastructure in china and import low cost product... that will be good for USA competitiveness, so good for USA employment ... no ? -- that's ironic of course...

China can and is building infrastructure, but they are decades behind.

Infrastructure isn't just bridges, road, and rail, it is also residential buildings. Regulatory frameworks. Water and sewer systems.

As for importing products - this doesn't help with unemployment in the US. Unemployment in the US leads to large structural government deficits. Large structural government deficits affect overall economic growth. Poor economic growth reduces the ability to pay for imports.

[FRED]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

1992 Untitled work by Flexner

http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&i...iw=858&bih=555

Thank you!

[LazyBoy]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

1992 Untitled work by Flexner

http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&i...iw=858&bih=555

[chene]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print, spend, and wait has officially failed - Eric Janszen

You're analysis Eric makes a lot of sense but in my opinion you are missing a structural factor in your solution.

Do you think that Chinese can't build a high efficiency infrastructure... at lower cost ?
So why bother building such infrastructure in the USA ? Let's build an efficiency infrastructure in china and import low cost product... that will be good for USA competitiveness, so good for USA employment ... no ? -- that's ironic of course...

The dynamic that lead to where we are now have been driven by one main factor: the ability to freely and easily import product manufactured elsewhere.
A social class push this ideology because it perceived that it can benefit from it. And indeed, because of this structural condition, they started to control (for their benefit) the wages of employees by putting them into competition with one another across the globe.
This situation will continue by putting in competition country and policy to keep their advantages...

By destroying the local economy you destroy TAX(income) for the country and income for the people.
That put country in a very unstable and dangerous situation : rising violence due to social misery. I agree with what's ahead...
Be sure, that for this wealthy social class it doesn't matter, they can live anywhere on the globe.

A simple rule can break this : a product can be sold in an area if it has been manufactured in this area.
Areas are defined by the average income : USA, Europe, Japan / Emerging country / Poor country
That can be set up in an orderly manner or not.
The probability is that will be put in place by protectionism war and bi-lateral alliance for resources.

Found it here at iTulip , very interesting : : Goldsmith interview 1994 !
Happy that a site of such quality exists...

[dcarrigg]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

EJ took the photo of a painting hanging in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nice, France. Unlike US museums where photography is forbidden, photography is encouraged. Unfortunately, EJ lost his notes that identified the artists. Below are others. Maybe readers can identify the less obvious ones, besides Robert Rauschenberg and Pablo Picasso.

The horns I believe are Heroica by Arman. I don't recognize the others immediately, but google search by image should pick up a few for you.

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

That's a very underappreciated museum, surrounded as it is by so many other fine galleries and museums.

[FRED]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

Hi Chris, I am sure you meant to help by that post but I am having a hard time understanding how that html color code chart is relevant. I already looked at the code... I'm a web dev. I also ran a tineye search on it and couldn't find any thing. I meant, where the image came from. Is it an aritst's ? Was it made for this post by itulip staff? etc... Sorry for the bit of a derail.

EJ took the photo of a painting hanging in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nice, France. Unlike US museums where photography is forbidden, photography is encouraged. Unfortunately, EJ lost his notes that identified the artists. Below are others. Maybe readers can identify the less obvious ones, besides Robert Rauschenberg and Pablo Picasso.

[nidenel]

Re: Illusion of Recovery – Part I: Print and pray has officially failed - Eric Janszen

Hi Chris, I am sure you meant to help by that post but I am having a hard time understanding how that html color code chart is relevant. I already looked at the code... I'm a web dev. I also ran a tineye search on it and couldn't find any thing. I meant, where the image came from. Is it an aritst's ? Was it made for this post by itulip staff? etc... Sorry for the bit of a derail.