The Goat Pen

State controlled media:

http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424 ... 2?mobile=y

The slope is getting slipperyer and slipperyer.

Who controls the state?

The FCC move is a backlash to that Wall St. party story, clearly.

Jungle Rat wrote:If your poop is bloody what exactly does that mean? Ulcers?

Steely dan

how does eCat not know that Steely Dan was a name for a dildo? I knew that in 5th grade in 1977.

Saint wrote:how does eCat not know that Steely Dan was a name for a dildo? I knew that in 5th grade in 1977.

I must have missed out on the whole playground strap on phase

I just remember one of the kids who had an older brother talking about it at lunch in 5th grade, when the topic every day at lunch was sex.

sardis wrote:I respect the one percenters who have private businesses that have to take personal risk on the decisions they make. They deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Like the hedge-funders that were there at the party? It's just the Goldman and JPMorgan guys making the big bucks that you have no respect for?

I think Stu was punked concerning Steely Dan as a kid.

http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp

Countries Ranked By Military Strength

The hedge fund industry is too scattered to put in one category. There are some that are totally independent of assistance and then there are those who have ties, either by ownership or relationship to a big bank and indirectly benefit from bailout protection. Historically, there have been hedge funds bailed out by the federal reserve and big banks, which can be bullied into helping with the promise that the government has their back. Most, though, have to face the consequences of their decisions. I am sure there is some pain in the hedge fund market with a loss of investors since most did worse than the stock index. They still made money for investors so they may get some bonuses; however, probably not as much as 2012 year end.

I read about two paragraphs and go too depressed to continue

Yeah, it's not pretty but I powered through it. I just hear so many people arguing against this reality (Perkins most recently, publicly), I have to armor myself with the facts of our system.

I am not sure what you mean by "system". I think it is a reality of the modern day economy, no matter what system you have in place. Nowadays, you don't need as many people to build wealth as you used to. Technology changed that.

Our current system (the regulatory and treasury framework aligned with our capitalist structure) has placed a premium to capital over labor. As a result, the relationship between those two pieces of the economic engine has been skewed more and more over the past 30 years. The article highlights it in the most practical terms, stating that 50% of the populace is not a participant in the capital markets (even factoring in retirement accounts), thereby leaving them out of any real recovery considering the effect of wage stagnation.

Now, we can argue about what it would take to get the pie (capital vs labor) to be more aligned with how it had been for the first 100 years, prior to 1980, but I don't think this issue is laid at the feet of technology and then declaring there is nothing else to see here. Technology has been a common thread through all business cycles since the industrial revolution (at least). It's an excuse to just end the discussion there today.

to no surprise to anyone here - this is exactly why I push for a living wage

Our government lines up to fight against a living wage AND against Union organization - something they shouldn't do in either case, but since there is a clear bias toward business profit over building the middle class, then I think there should be a living wage - and by virtue of a high tide raises all boats, the middle class will grow (admittedly not very much) indirectly.

And just so everyone is clear when I speak about the relationship of capital vs labor, allow me to expound.

Since it was identified and studied, the capital vs labor relationship was largely tracked at about 51 to 49%. Over the first 100 years of tracking, that percentage would widen by a percent or two...or tighten by a percent or two (depending on the state of labor protests and other business/governmental factors), for a time before resting around that 51/49...52/48 pocket. It was such a stable metric that economists did not believe that relationship would ever break. It was damn near a law of economics.

Since 1980, the relationship has started to widen. At last measure (which was probably 2 or 3 years ago, to my recollection), the relationship was 57% capital vs 43% labor. It's the widest it has ever been recorded. We did that.

Actually, it was probably Jack Welch...

Bklyn wrote:And just so everyone is clear when I speak about the relationship of capital vs labor, allow me to expound.

Since it was identified and studied, the capital vs labor relationship was largely tracked at about 51 to 49%. Over the first 100 years of tracking, that percentage would widen by a percent or two...or tighten by a percent or two (depending on the state of labor protests and other business/governmental factors), for a time before resting around that 51/49...52/48 pocket. It was such a stable metric that economists did not believe that relationship would ever break. It was damn near a law of economics.

Since 1980, the relationship has started to widen. At last measure (which was probably 2 or 3 years ago, to my recollection), the relationship was 57% capital vs 43% labor. It's the widest it has ever been recorded. We did that.

Actually, it was probably Jack Welch...

You see that every day when you hear about the productivity of Americans increasing at rather astonishing rates given the number of workers actually doing the work either stays the same or decreases year over year.

I saw a variation of that first hand when in India. It was a sad sight actually but we were driving to some place and in the early morning I saw people - mostly women out breaking up rocks in the road with small hammers and it occurred to me that labor was probably so cheap that it didn't make sense to invest in heavy equipment to do that work. We went back later that day and I saw one woman I saw earlier in the day and she had rags wrapped around her hands and the rags were bloody, I assume from her breaking those rocks all day without gloves.

That moment really influenced my opinions about supporting the worker in this country.

Bklyn wrote:Our current system (the regulatory and treasury framework aligned with our capitalist structure) has placed a premium to capital over labor.

Labor doesn't matter. Only capital. You need labor, call China. They will beat ANY PRICE (any price in thee entire world) on well formed, repetitive, systematic, labor.