Long term economic trends and what they imply

[Mikebert]

Here is a chart of Federal deficit since 1950.  Democratic and Republican administrations (lagged one year) are colored in blue and red, respectively. The reason for the lag is that incoming president inherits an economy and budget from his predecessor.  His policies enacted in his first year won't really have an impact on the statistics until the next year.


The chart clearly shows that both parties sought to keep the budget fairly close to balanced for the first 25 years in the chart. Average deficits during that time were 0.7% of GDP. Inflation averaged 3% and wage growth was strong.  After our "friends" the Saudis hiked oil prices 300% the budget went out of control, deficits rose to 2.7% and inflation soared to 9.1%. Conventional economics was clear on the issue, deficits needed to be brought under control as the economy recovered.  This could be done with tax increases (e.g. restore the 1968 surtax, cancelled by Nixon in 1970, or pass the necessary payroll tax increases to put that program back into solvency, as Reagan later did) or with spending cuts (future presidents found stuff to cut, why not then?). 

Well, they didn't. Hence Carter placed Volcker as Fed Chief, who promised to pursue inflation control through extreme interest rate policy, which works by suppressing wage growth, reducing wage-push inflation.  High inflation meant the wage increases workers were getting in the late seventies did not keep up with inflation, real wages fell 0.4% per year over that period (see table).  The Volcker policy was successful.  Inflation was moderated despite the enormous deficits run over the 1980's and early 1990's.  As expected, wages continue to fall at a good clip.  When Clinton was president, a determined effort was made to balance the budget, which was successful.  Positive wage growth was restored, with wage growth 1.6 percentage points higher than the prior era and 1.3 points higher than the subsequent period. After the start of the new century, we went back to running big deficits again.  And wage growth has fallen as expected.


Summary Table
Period     Deficit/GDP   Wage Growth   Inflation
1950-1974     0.7                 2.1                   3.0
1975-1981     2.7                -0.4                   9.1
1982-1993     4.1                -0.5                   3.9
1994-2001     0.1                 1.1                   2.6
2002-2016     4.2                -0.2                   2.0
Wages here are unskilled wage rates from Measuring Worth.

[Warren Dew]

(02-26-2017, 09:02 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Here is a chart of Federal deficit since 1950.  Democratic and Republican administrations (lagged one year) are colored in blue and red, respectively. The reason for the lag is that incoming president inherits an economy and budget from his predecessor.

Let's be honest.  The reason you use that lag is cherry picking to blame Republicans, for example for Obama's billion dollar "stimulus" program.

[Mikebert]

(02-26-2017, 09:17 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(02-26-2017, 09:02 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Here is a chart of Federal deficit since 1950.  Democratic and Republican administrations (lagged one year) are colored in blue and red, respectively. The reason for the lag is that incoming president inherits an economy and budget from his predecessor.

Let's be honest.  The reason you use that lag is cherry picking to blame Republicans, for example for Obama's billion dollar "stimulus" program.

It also blames Carter for stagflation and recession that Reagan inherited.  Over a near-70 year period the shoe falls on both sides. Besides all the data is there, simply ignore the colors if you prefer. The story is unchanged. Just where do I talk about Republicans and Democrats anyways?  If blame is to be assigned by the chart it would go to the Saudis and the Fed.

And here is the rest of the story, the effect on investors.

Period     Deficit/GDP   Wage Growth   Inflation    Investment Return
1950-1974     0.7                 2.1                   3.0              -0.1
1975-1981     2.7                -0.4                   9.1             -5.3
1982-1993     4.1                -0.5                   3.9               5.3
1994-2001     0.1                 1.1                   2.6               4.9
2002-2016     4.2                -0.2                   2.0               2.2

Investment return is the real after-tax return on a hypothetical 50-50 stocks/bonds portfolio that turns over once per year.

[Mikebert]

(02-27-2017, 12:01 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: It appears that Reagan pioneered some of the methods that were successful for Bush 41, Clinton and Obama in reducing the deficit.

Huh? How'd you get that?

[pbrower2a]

Things of which we should be wary:



The infamous triple-top. In the third peak people are betting to recover their losses. The sellers are intent on selling and the buyers are leaving. Ouch!  The gains from before the start of the run-up will vanish.

Head and shoulders. Much like the triple-top, except that the first and third peaks are much lower than the second peak.  It is likely that the stock will go back to where it was before the start of the rise to the first peak. The third peak, as in the triple-top, is a sucker's rally.



The evening star indicates through the activity near the end of the rally that sellers are becoming the norm and that buyers are betting scarce. Sell and wait.



http://www.investopedia.com/

[Mikebert]

(02-28-2017, 12:59 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(02-27-2017, 08:20 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(02-27-2017, 12:01 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: It appears that Reagan pioneered some of the methods that were successful for Bush 41, Clinton and Obama in reducing the deficit.

Huh? How'd you get that?

1979 - 1983 - deficit was increasing.

Then, an inflection point in '83.

Then, statiscally decreasing or flat, until '89.

Then, '89 - '91 increased, '91 another inflection point (but Bush 41 paid for taxes he allowed aka "read my lips," rest is history). That inflection point having been crossed, excellent decrease for years.

I can see the chart. Why do you assume that Reagan had anything to do  with deficit reduction?  According to Dick Cheney, Reagan proved deficits don't matter.

[Odin]

This is some interesting stuff, Mike!

[Mikebert]

(02-28-2017, 05:41 PM)Odin Wrote: This is some interesting stuff, Mike!

Well, what do you make of it?  What does the data imply as you look at it?

Here's a hint.  When you read articles about the Fed and inflation, what sorts of things does the Fed look for as evidence of inflationary pressures that call for interest rate hikes?

[Odin]

(03-02-2017, 08:45 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Here's a hint.  When you read articles about the Fed and inflation, what sorts of things does the Fed look for as evidence of inflationary pressures that call for interest rate hikes?

Unemployment getting below 5% and wage-push pressures starting up?

I know you have commented many times that since Volcker the Fed has been in a "fight wage-push inflation at any cost, even people's incomes" mentality.

[Ragnarök_62]

(03-03-2017, 08:10 AM)Odin Wrote:

(03-02-2017, 08:45 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Here's a hint.  When you read articles about the Fed and inflation, what sorts of things does the Fed look for as evidence of inflationary pressures that call for interest rate hikes?

Unemployment getting below 5% and wage-push pressures starting up?

I know you have commented many times that since Volcker the Fed has been in a "fight wage-push inflation at any cost, even people's incomes" mentality.

I call bullshit here on the so called unemployment rate.

https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/the...2016-07-08

It's more like 10% in the real world.

So who in their right mind would like to work for Amazon in their hell hole fullfillment centers?  Amazon is in dire need of labor organization.  They're liberals, so they ought to support labor rights?  If they, don't then the management is just another example of hypocrisy.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/...story.html


OK,  let's just kill off all H1-B visas.  I want total war on H1-B's.  Somebody, just fucking kill it off, it's a parasite and needs to die.  I don't fucking care if US tech suffers for this, because I WANT THEM TO SUFFER AND HAVE THEIR STOCKS CRASH.  I'd just love that. This is 'cause Rags has a vendetta on any company that hires H1-B's .  In fact, I don't care if they get destroyed by H1-B access denied.  Total war = ban and back to wherever they came from. Ship 'em out, deport now, one way trips back from whence they came.

Wage - push inflation.  Odin, only fat cats get raises now, you know.  Jack the upper brackets up the fuck up.  That'll fix wage push inflation 'cause again, only fat cats have gotten real wage increases. We 99%'ers have have no such thing.

[Ragnarök_62]

(03-03-2017, 07:23 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: I can see stopping H1Bs for coders and various more common engineering disciplines.

However, there is still a need.

I hired people from other countries to do jobs they were the 1 in 1000 person for. These were global experts in their fields. The normal MO was, they came to school in the US. Then more school. These were people with an MS or PhD. They got a Practical Training Visa and started to build a career network. These were like super new grads. Maybe even 1 in 10000 or 1 in 100000. I'd rather have them working for me than a competitor, or even worse, an offshore competitor. Every one of them got a Green Card and then became a Citizen. I personally helped make America more great.

1.  I'm sorry, but I disagree. 
a. Coding in general is easy.  Now if some company needs something special, they need to set up this thing, called a paid internship. I even had those. So , if a company needs coding for app type X, with programming language Y, they need to go back to the early 1980's and do what they used to before all of fucking Neoliberalism crap happened.
b. Experts can be cloned for the right price here in the USA.
c. Let's just substitute "they" with "US citizens who can get "Practical Training and use now, Facebook or whatever to build a career network.
d. Bottom line. Would be H1B employers just need to man up and allocate resources to train the proper man power. Just have a contract that states you must work for sponsor country A in exchange for working there for Z years. 
e.Bottom line 2.  Foreign competition.  I'd make a special tax of $100,000 per violation + back taxes + 5 years in Pelican Bay for the senior management that dares to hire furreners instead of paying US labor.

2.  I guess you can continue to use that, given the run to the bottom current law that all needs to be swept aside.  I support making Middle aged Americans great again by shutting off access to cheap furring labor. Let's call it, MMAAGA  I think all tech companies need to go contrite themselves, agree to rehire all American tech workers + college STEM folks, train them, and then rehire them.  That's the just and righteous way to start fixing what Neoliberalism/NeoCON   Axis of Evil : destroyed since 1980.

And... let me remind you, extremism in defense of economic justice is no vice. And also let me remind you, moderation in pursuit of worker's rights is no virtue.

[Eric the Green]

What to know about the H-1B visa program
By Ray Sanchez and Sara Ashley O'Brien
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/04/us/h1b-visa-explainer/
(see video)

(CNN)President Donald Trump's immigration policies have drawn both widespread praise and condemnation during his first two months.

The administration's latest move -- a temporary suspension of the expedited processing of H-1B visas -- comes as the Trump White House tweaks a court-halted executive order that banned travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

The controversial ban led to massive protests at airports across the country after travelers with valid visas were detained. The new ban will exclude existing visa holders, sources familiar with the plan have told CNN.

The revamping of the H-1B program is part of Trump's pledge to crack down on the misuse of work visas.
Here's what you need to know about the visa program:

What is the H1-B visa?

The visa is the popular pathway for high-skilled foreigners to work at companies in the United States. Long embraced by the tech community, the program has many talented engineers vying for one of the 85,000 visas each year.

Companies ranging from health care to media use H-1B visas to help fill their workforces. But tech companies are most commonly associated with the program.

Tech firms of all sizes claim they need the H-1Bs to hire trained talent they can't find at home. The visas are doled out by a lottery, and the number of applicants continues to swell each year.

Outsourcing firms flood the system with applicants, obtaining visas for foreign workers and then farming them out to tech companies. They take a sizable cut of the salary.

What is an expedited H1-B visa?

Under the current system, companies submitting applications for H-1B visas for potential employees can pay extra for expedited processing, which is referred to as premium processing.

Premium processing costs an additional $1,225 and ensures a response from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services in 15 days or the fee is refunded.

Processing of standard H-1B applications -- those that are not premium -- takes between three to six months.

The suspension on expedited visas becomes effective April 3 and could last up to six months, according to the agency.

Why are the visas important?

The visas enable foreign workers with special skills and tech know-how to showcase those talents at US companies, hospitals and other institutions. The visas not only help the economy but society overall.

Rosario Marin, former US treasurer under President George W. Bush, called for the expansion of the H-1B program in an opinion piece for CNN last year.

She wrote of the overwhelming demand from American companies for educated, skilled foreign workers to fill jobs in computer programming, coding, medicine and information technology.

"These are jobs that would be left largely unfilled if not for international workers, as our domestic workforce doesn't consist of graduates with these skills in the enormous numbers we require," wrote Marin, co-chair of the American Competitiveness Alliance, a coalition of organizations dedicated to advancing immigration reform.

Marin described H-1B as "a cornerstone of the American economic system."

"Without them, companies struggle to locate the specific people with the specific computer and science skills they need to grow, translating into an inability to expand, to create jobs, to scale up. The United States must work to address our shortage of students graduating with advanced science, math and technology skills, but until it does, American companies need high-skilled international workers, not only to compete, but to survive."

Are there problems associated with H1-B visas?

A common complaint among critics of the program is that some companies use H-1B visas to get cheap foreign labor. As a result, startups can lose out to big outsourcing firms, which are able to gobble up a disproportionate share of the visas.

The vast majority of H-1B holders have only bachelor's degrees.

At the three companies with the most H-1B employees -- 80% of visa holders possess only bachelor's degrees, according to Ronil Hira, an associate professor at Howard University who studies the H-1B program and outsourcing industry.

Critics maintain that people with bachelor's degrees are not necessary to fill the so-called skills gap and that these people are just taking jobs from Americans.

Of the 85,000 visas handed out annually, 20,000 are reserved for people with advanced degrees.

Other critics fear that H-1Bs pave the way for cheap foreign labor despite safeguards that should theoretically prevent that from happening.

Employers must pay visa holders, at a minimum, a job's prevailing wage, which varies by job description and location.

A group of professors studying how H-1B holders affect the economy said wages for US computer scientists were lower in 2001 as a result of the influx of the visa holders. They used data from the dot-com bubble between 1994 and 2001.

In addition, the existing H-1B program doesn't exactly work in favor of entrepreneurs with fledgling companies. Some startups don't bother applying on behalf of prospective employees because of the costs. And there are no guarantees of a pick in the lottery. It's impossible to compete with the big tech companies and offshoring firms that often submit a huge amount of applications, entrepreneurs argue.

Immigrants who want to start companies also can have a hard time with the current system.

How are the visas granted?

In 2015, some 233,000 visas were requested, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, far exceeding the 65,000 general-category cap and the 20,000 advanced-degree cap.

There's no prioritization within the lottery system, which means many of the most highly educated workers could be turned away.

"This is the heart of the issue that legislators have begun to tackle: how to prioritize who should get the H-1B visa and also to make sure Americans are not displaced by workers brought in by the visa program," said Neil Ruiz, executive director of the Center for Law, Economics and Finance at the George Washington University Law School.

Can H1-B visa holders get green cards?

Yes. The US employer must offer the employee a permanent job in the United States. The green card process requires the employer to file a certification with the Department of Labor before filing a petition with the Citizenship and Immigration Services. The processing time is lengthy, and H-1B workers are allowed to extend their status past the six years normally allowed, but only if they have reached a certain stage in the green card process.

What's the reason for suspending the expedited processing?

The Citizenship and Immigration Services says the suspension, which may last up to six months, will help it reduce overall H-1B processing times.

The agency says it has been unable to process long-pending petitions because of the high volume of new petitions and a significant surge in expedited processing requests in recent years.

Who will the suspension affect?

The temporary suspension applies to all H-1B petitions filed on or after April 3.

Have there been calls for change?

A new bipartisan bill introduced this week in the House of Representatives is taking aim at H-1B and other popular visa programs.

The legislation would replace the lottery with a "preference system," giving priority to foreign students educated in the United States. It aims to help weed out foreign outsourcing firms, which critics say exploit the system.

In addition, employers would be required to make a "good faith effort" to recruit American workers over foreigners and give the Homeland Security and Labor departments more authority to investigate fraud and abuse.

CNN's Faith Karimi contributed to this report.

[Eric the Green]

(03-03-2017, 09:57 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: And... let me remind you, extremism in defense of economic justice is no vice. And also let me remind you, moderation in pursuit of worker's rights is no virtue.

And let me remind you also, that Barry Goldwater didn't get very far with that line.

[Odin]

(03-03-2017, 06:37 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(03-03-2017, 08:10 AM)Odin Wrote:

(03-02-2017, 08:45 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Here's a hint.  When you read articles about the Fed and inflation, what sorts of things does the Fed look for as evidence of inflationary pressures that call for interest rate hikes?

Unemployment getting below 5% and wage-push pressures starting up?

I know you have commented many times that since Volcker the Fed has been in a "fight wage-push inflation at any cost, even people's incomes" mentality.

I call bullshit here on the so called unemployment rate.

https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/the...2016-07-08

It's more like 10% in the real world.

So who in their right mind would like to work for Amazon in their hell hole fullfillment centers?  Amazon is in dire need of labor organization.  They're liberals, so they ought to support labor rights?  If they, don't then the management is just another example of hypocrisy.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/...story.html


OK,  let's just kill off all H1-B visas.  I want total war on H1-B's.  Somebody, just fucking kill it off, it's a parasite and needs to die.  I don't fucking care if US tech suffers for this, because I WANT THEM TO SUFFER AND HAVE THEIR STOCKS CRASH.  I'd just love that. This is 'cause Rags has a vendetta on any company that hires H1-B's .  In fact, I don't care if they get destroyed by H1-B access denied.  Total war = ban and back to wherever they came from. Ship 'em out, deport now, one way trips back from whence they came.

Wage - push inflation.  Odin, only fat cats get raises now, you know.  Jack the upper brackets up the fuck up.  That'll fix wage push inflation 'cause again, only fat cats have gotten real wage increases. We 99%'ers have have no such thing.

I'm no fan of H1-B visa abuse, either, but let's not engage in the same pathetic conspiracy theories about economic data that Donnie Moscow engages in.

[The Wonkette]

(03-03-2017, 06:37 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: So who in their right mind would like to work for Amazon in their hell hole fullfillment centers?  Amazon is in dire need of labor organization.  They're liberals, so they ought to support labor rights?  If they, don't then the management is just another example of hypocrisy.

Isn't Bezos a libertarian? I don't think libertarians are big fans of the labor movement, although I could be mistaken.

[David Horn]

(03-06-2017, 12:06 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(03-03-2017, 06:37 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: So who in their right mind would like to work for Amazon in their hell hole fullfillment centers?  Amazon is in dire need of labor organization.  They're liberals, so they ought to support labor rights?  If they, don't then the management is just another example of hypocrisy.

Isn't Bezos a libertarian?  I don't think libertarians are big fans of the labor movement, although I could be mistaken.

He's certainly not a laborite! I heard a story on NPR by a journalist that took a job to get a story about working in a fulfillment center that makes slavery seem tame.

'Associates' are issued combination tracker/scanners. They get direction to a particular bin to claim a certain item, and the clock starts on them getting it scanned and on its way. Once they run to the bin and complete the scan, they are immediately directed to another. Typically, a nights work (and most work at night) is about 12 miles of running, with a single 30 minute break. Bio-breaks are on the clock, at the 'associates' risk of inadequate performance. And another thing, if the item being acquired is not in the bin, every item in the bin needs to be scanned, one at a time, to prove it isn't there. Again, that's on the 'associate', not the company.

Inadequate performance is justification for immediate dismissal.

[Mikebert]

(02-27-2017, 11:57 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: 1980 - ~ 2000 is the most anomalous part of the chart. For budget hawks, those were good times.

1990's sure. The 1980's were terrible for budget hawks, peacetime deficits were the highest in history up to that time. At that time I was a budget hawk.  By 1989 I had despaired that the budget would ever come under control.  Around that time I did calculations that suggested things could hold together until around 2040, when I would be 80, either dead or too old to care.  Then I watched the deficit go away and I thought hot damn we fixed this.  Then I watched during the 2000 election one candidate promise to use the surplus to reduce debt/GDP (remember the lockbox?) and the other who promised to piss it away.  Then the spendthrift got elected and true to his promise pissed it all away.  I stopped caring about the deficit around 2003, as I has learned more about how these things work--besides worrying does no good--what will be, will be.  A few years after that I stopped being a realist in FP and started to think more and more along isolationist lines.  Sometime over the 1997-2003 period I stopped being a free trader and some years later (2007ish?) more of a protectionist:
(ref: http://www.safehaven.com/article/2709/in...erspective )

me Wrote:Louis Vincent Gave of Gave-Kal research discusses a misperception about Chinese debt that may shed some light on my argument [5]. Chinese banks currently hold a large amount of bad domestic debt. Normally, one would expect them to be reigning in domestic lending, which would lead to higher domestic interest rates, which carry a risk for economic slowdown. It is the Chinese banks that are the losers in the maintenance of the Chinese economic boom. During WW II, it was American bond investors who were the losers, but a putative case can be made for patriotism leading to a willingness to buy war bonds yielding a negative return. Why should Chinese bankers be willing to do the same?

Gave tells us that Chinese banks are different. Unlike in the West, where bankers are capitalists, Chinese banks are an extension of the government, a holdover from China's communist past. Politics is central to their motivation for lending; profit is of secondary concern. Not only will Chinese banks continue to fund the economic boom at home when profits become negative, but the Chinese central bank will continue to support American borrowing to keep the dollar from falling relative to the renminbi, despite certain financial loss. The reason for doing this is to continue the economic boom, which will employ China's potentially destabilizing labor force and build the economic underpinnings for national power in the future.

The way this works, when loans go bad, rather than liquidating the assets and taking a loss on the bank's books, the government will print money to make up for the bank's loss. This is analogous to how the US government monetized its massive WW II debt, which represents a loss (waste) of wealth (productive capital). In both cases what is financially irrational behavior turned out to be politically rational, and since the agent responsible for both (government) is motivated by politics, not financial returns, it makes sense that such a policy would be pursued.
Debt monetization can be highly inflationary (e.g. the Weimar inflation of 1923) and represents a confiscation of private savings, which is why it is rarely pursued in capitalist countries during peacetime. Debt monetization also results in a decline in the real value of the currency (i.e. a rise in commodity prices expressed in that currency). A weak Chinese renminbi will be unlikely to rise against a weak US dollar and both currencies should decline together in real value. That is, China will be able to maintain its currency peg to the dollar, and may even see the renminbi fall relative to the dollar. Gave opines that betting on a renminbi (upward) revaluation might play out like a bet on Ringgit or Baht revaluation in 1995-96.

What is likely in the face of Chinese debt monetization (both domestic and foreign) is continued commodity inflation in both America and China (but not necessarily in Europe). Relative prices between China and the US will remain the same, allowing American consumers to continue to buy cheap Chinese goods and US businesses to continue to outsource to China. Chinese banks will continue to be able to recycle dollars back to the US to fund enormous federal deficits. Interest rates will remain low despite high inflation.
The strategy being pursued by the Chinese to accelerate their development has been assisted by the Bush administration choice to pursue an expensive project of nation building in Iraq (something conservative Republicans would normally eschew) while cutting taxes. These actions have provided an abundant supply of US Treasuries in which to park dollars. Had Bush been running a surplus like his predecessor, the Chinese would have had to invest in non-governmental debt or equities, which adds investment risk to currency risk. The decision to undertake operation Iraqi freedom, with the goal of regime change and replacement with an elected government was strongly influenced by the World Trade Center terrorist attack. This event produced what amounts to a "paradigm shift" in US foreign policy from the humble policy espoused by Candidate Bush in 2000 to the transformational, or even bellicose policy outlined by President Bush in his 2002 State of the Union message. The 2001 terrorist attack, it would seem, may be a triggering event for the secular crisis turning. Turnings are historical periods used in William Strauss and Neil Howe's generational model for cyclical history [6]. The secular crisis turning is correlated with Kondratiev winter [7]. Thus, we see non-economic support for the idea of a season change from Fall to Winter in 2001.

The Kondratiev Winter paradigm means that interest rates will not rise dramatically, because the Chinese (and others) will continue to support low interest rate policy, fully understanding the financial costs, in order to build the power of their state. Thus, the economy will not be thrown into recession, sending stocks into a deep bear market, despite burgeoning debt and high oil prices, both of which will likely persist. I do not expect a recession coinciding with the next Kitchin cycle low in 2006, but rather with the next Kitchin cycle low in 2010. As I discussed in my article last month[8], stock valuations according to P/R are not unusually high and advances to considerably higher levels before the next recession in 2008-2010 are to be expected.

[pbrower2a]

(03-06-2017, 01:58 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-06-2017, 12:06 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(03-03-2017, 06:37 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: So who in their right mind would like to work for Amazon in their hell hole fullfillment centers?  Amazon is in dire need of labor organization.  They're liberals, so they ought to support labor rights?  If they, don't then the management is just another example of hypocrisy.

Isn't Bezos a libertarian?  I don't think libertarians are big fans of the labor movement, although I could be mistaken.

He's certainly not a laborite! I heard a story on NPR by a journalist that took a job to get a story about working in a fulfillment center that makes slavery seem tame.  

'Associates' are issued combination tracker/scanners.  They get direction to a particular bin to claim a certain item, and the clock starts on them getting it scanned and on its way.  Once they run to the bin and complete the scan, they are immediately directed to another.  Typically, a nights work (and most work at night) is about 12 miles of running, with a single 30 minute break.  Bio-breaks are on the clock, at the 'associates' risk of inadequate performance.  And another thing, if the item being acquired is not in the bin, every item in the bin needs to be scanned, one at a time, to prove it isn't there.  Again, that's on the 'associate', not the company.  

Inadequate performance is justification for immediate dismissal.

The new wave of exploitation -- workers as athletes. Athleticism degrades rapidly as one gets into one's thirties... all that I can figure is that people get promised that they will have a chance to go into management after ten years or so after graduating from college. Obviously almost all are through at age 35 if they haven't gone into management.

I would have to be desperate to take such a position out of college.

[Ragnarök_62]

(03-03-2017, 07:23 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

Rags Wrote:OK,  let's just kill off all H1-B visas.  I want total war on H1-B's.  Somebody, just fucking kill it off, it's a parasite and needs to die.  I don't fucking care if US tech suffers for this, because I WANT THEM TO SUFFER AND HAVE THEIR STOCKS CRASH.  I'd just love that. This is 'cause Rags has a vendetta on any company that hires H1-B's .  In fact, I don't care if they get destroyed by H1-B access denied.  Total war = ban and back to wherever they came from. Ship 'em out, deport now, one way trips back from whence they came.

Wage - push inflation.  Odin, only fat cats get raises now, you know.  Jack the upper brackets up the fuck up.  That'll fix wage push inflation 'cause again, only fat cats have gotten real wage increases. We 99%'ers have have no such thing.

I can see stopping H1Bs for coders and various more common engineering disciplines.

However, there is still a need.

I hired people from other countries to do jobs they were the 1 in 1000 person for. These were global experts in their fields. The normal MO was, they came to school in the US. Then more school. These were people with an MS or PhD. They got a Practical Training Visa and started to build a career network. These were like super new grads. Maybe even 1 in 10000 or 1 in 100000. I'd rather have them working for me than a competitor, or even worse, an offshore competitor. Every one of them got a Green Card and then became a Citizen. I personally helped make America more great.

1. Well, I'd counter to say it appears the US  economy appears addicted to cheap imported labor, just like cheap imported oil. Here's what I'd do. After a short period of time, say 4 years since that's the amount of time to get a B.S. degree. I propose during that 4 year transition period, that H1-B's train their replacements. At year 0, all employers with H1-B's would assess what skills they'll need at the end of the 4 year period. Germany has a train for jobs program we can just copy. Since it's companies who are listing out the required skills, it will be up to a pool of job seekers + educational establishments to fill the future labor force needs in lieu of H1-B's.


2. So, for you, all you need to do is make an RFP for skills to the State of California employment bureau [or what it's called out there]. The California employment bureau would be charged with collecting employer RFP's for the purpose of training an all US citizen workforce to meet those needs. Each employer can avail themselves to hiring interns and offer jobs to said interns via contracts.  Like we'll pay your education expenses in exchange , you work for us for x number of years.

3. Offshore competition.  If I had my way, that won't be a problem.  Offshore stuff has to pay a VAT, then a displaced American worker tax, H1-B payroll tax which I'd jack up to be twice the SS/Medicare taxes we now have.  Essentially, if you don't want something, tax the hell out of it.

4. Why not let American citizens get that practical training education?