LastPommerFan

I drove from Baton Rouge to Houston today. I got to see most of our capacity. They are wildly important, filthy, dangerous complexes. NIMBY. for sure.

Crude oil requires an export license, but they are granted as a matter of course. There were 2 separate attempts to control exports this spring by the dems. First, a proposal that the keystone pipeline would only be used for domestic production, and second that gasoline exports not be allowed. Currently, an amount of gasoline equal to the gas used by NY and NJ is exported every day to customers in other countries that will pay more for it. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/12/column-oil-idUSL2E8EC3Y120120312 Domestic production is a national security issue, but will do nothing to bring down the price of gas.

I don't even care about control. Build the wind farm and give it to a private utility (or the awesome public utility that makes Fairport, NY the most energy desirable place to live in upstate NY) It's not all about cheap labor. Energy reliability is the biggest reason some manufacturing is NOT going to India. Intellectual Property protection is a real consideration that keeps some manufacturers from going to China. Germany has a booming manufacturing sector, and higher wages than the United States. in fact manufacturing output has been growing in the US, as well as in Germany and Japan (also higher wages than the US), so it's not really that US companies are making less in the united states, it's largely that the higher labor/low dollar stuff has moved to china, while the US has focused more on large dollar/skilled labor goods like jet engines, power plants, and healthcare equipment. Yes, china is making a bunch of stuff, but Germany and Japan and the US are still increasing their manufacturing output. all with high wages. Making the environment more competitive will only help that trend continue. Private markets won't invest in these improvements because their benefits can't be contained and their investment won't be directly recouped. So should we never have a high speed fiber network, because the benefits will go to individuals and disparate companies that provide new services across those lines? or should we band together and say "Yes! I want HD cat videos at my fingertips 24/7!" I prefer the later. And the country wasn't founded on private market industrial capitalism. It wasn't founded on that idea because that idea didn't even exist yet. You can't have industrial capitalism without the industrial revolution, which occurred decades after our founding. The Mercantilism that this nation was founded on was far closer to feudalism than modern capitalism. Hence land owners were the only ones allowed to vote and certain people were bound to their lords and land. So with that contention failing, there we can't look at private markets as some sacred cow not to be touched. Public funding of communal works are at the core of our nation. This is why, as the west was settled, section 16 of every town was set aside for funding public schooling. This is why, in the same 1785 law, 1/3rd of all gold copper and silver mined on these lands was reserved for the federal government. Private enterprise wasn't so critical to the founders that they would never impinge on its domain. It was secondary to the good of the american people. It became protected by the government during the late 19th century as america's first billionaires found ways to turn their monopolies on the means of production into political power. Citizen's United was simply the ultimate end of that dynamic. Corporations would never have been viewed by the founders as "people". They knew better.

These are the exact reasons why i proposed energy improvements and highways and fiber optic network improvements as great stimulative government spending. They improve the economic competitiveness of the United States, create employment in their implementation, and would not be naturally funded by the market.

Yes, it's not fully interconnected. My statement was misleading. There are several large "regions" that are largely separate from each other, but the 2003 NE blackout shows that these are huge regions. And improvements to the transmission lines will increase this inter-connectivity. Increased generation in the NE region, for instance, will help far more people than say an additional interstate spur between Corning and Harrisburg. Many highways are privately owned, including I-90 in Indiana. I'm not following as to why you mention the cost of the transmission lines. Edit: I should say, "increased generation capacity". Capacity can increase and lower prices, generation will always equal demand in the electricity world.

The government has not followed a true Keynesian model since before Nixon. Even Obama's stimulus was far too watered down to be considered a strong attempt at stimulus. I don't know where i insinuated that the tech sector would save us. If I have been nothing else in this conversation, and my life for that matter, it's a champion for American Manufacturing. Power is absolutely like the interstate system. It is an interconnected national resource. And with improvements to the grid, will become even more so. The first 2 aspects of your rebuttal are exactly why I made my analysis end at 1995, to avoid the confusion with those issues. With the third: healthcare, food, fuel, utilities, and education are all far more expensive today. And until 2008, so was housing. My list is far more concerning to the middle class than yours, IMO.

Bush ran up huge deficits during a period of economic growth. And his stimulative measures were skewed too far toward the class of people unlikely to spend their money in economically effective ways. He was still focused on protecting capital (Elimination of estate tax, severe reductions in capital gains taxes, etc.) Obama's stimulus was far too small, like half the size it needed to be, and as a result of the 2010 elections, far too short. In addition, as sizzle points out, it was not as focused on spending in short term economicly stimulative ways. I disagree with his assessment of the scale of the failures, but even if all the green energy money that went toward investing in companies (a very small portion of a far too small stimulus package) was successful, instead of just investing in these companies, he should have been purchasing product from them. I would have rather seen $30B spent straight up on grants to power companies to buy solar panels and wind turbines. And the infrastructure spending (my dream project would have been a nationwide fiber network, running high speed connections to every residence and business in the country, imagine the boom this would have created in Corning) was probably a third as large as it should have been.

I very much prefer it, although i am in favor of modernizing the approach. The basic idea is that, during times of recession, the government should step in as a last resort source of demand. It is not in favor of governments taking on debt during periods of economic expansion. basically, balance the budget during the good years, spend to stabilize employment (the ultimate source of demand) during recessions.

If you look at the wages graph, the stable wages as a % of GDP from 1945 - 1973 (The Keynesian Period in american economics) and add the information that GDP tripled in that time (in constant dollars), you can see that in that economic regime, real wages for the american people grew. GDP in the proceeding 25 years (a time dominated by supply side economics), merely doubled, while the wages as a % of GDP took a dive. This shows the stagnation and eventual drop in real wages for the american people. All of this occurs prior to the mass outsourcing of the late 90s and 2000s. While there was some, it isn't a significant part of the equation. I'll bring this back to our values as a nation. We don't value capital for what it is, but rather for what it can bring us as people. During the economic regime that we protected people, employment, and wages, the people of the united states had better ability to achieve their singular goal, providing for their family and giving their children a better opportunity than they had. During the economic regime that we protected capital, business, and wealth, the people saw there ability to achieve this goal decline.

In the first graph I see an economy in 2008 hemorrhage jobs at a literally unprecedented rate in the post war era. In the second I see a trend decreasing the economic value of wages ever since Nixon abandoned Keynesian economics for supply side, monetarist economics with the only significant disruption to that trend occurring during the most significant technological revolution (PC/Internet) since the Industrial Revolution. Incidentally, the desire by major economists to switch back to Keynsian economics (and the recognition that the monetarist experiment of the last 40 years is a failure) is best emphasized by the IMF's change in stance on austerity. The IMF has long imposed grave austerity on debtor nations in an attempt to keep inflation in check and protect the value of the debts owed to lender nations. Now, officially, the IMF is calling for a focus on job creation through government spending. This marks a significant change in thinking by the many economists world wide who advise and lead the this largest international lending institution.

You would trade the current economy for the 2008 economy?

We've been locked out this long because the players wouldn't have considered this until this week. The biggest thing that's changed since august: The players have now missed a paycheck.

The rhetoric sounds very promising.

Not in the video, he looks like a douche bag.

I try to keep the rhetoric and personal slams out of my political commentary, but I'm sorry, but Paul Ryan is a ###### tool. "I washed dishes for the summer once. We used to get callouses on our fingers cause it was so hot." http://youtu.be/M2WVJNxOpvY

Thanks, I figured it was more of a feel thing. I didn't feel it.

Can you expand on your definition of controlling tempo. Yesterday I saw the Bills get out-gained, on the ground and in the air, out possessed, and deliver half as many drives over 40 yards as the other guys. It doesn't fit my definition of controlling tempo, I'm guessing yours is slightly more ethereal. I also wouldn't classify NE's self inflicted wounds in the second quarter as "control" by the bills. Welker and Gronkowski put on their fumble gloves and NE missed 2 field goals.

I think the economy still stinks for a lot of businesses. But the Economy is not a monolithic thing. My current company is about to announce its 5th consecutive quarter of record revenue and profits. The economy is absolutely awesome for us right now. The economy still stinks in the consumer goods industry because we don't sell those things in the parts of the world that are growing quickly right now. Employment stinks right now for a lot of people. But there is a massive shortage of skilled manufacturing workers, if you can program and operate an NC machine you basically get to write your own ticket with one of hundreds of companies in pretty much ever state in the country. Employment stinks in low-tech, low-skill consumer based jobs right now because we've (a) outsourced most of those jobs (like call centers) (b) increased productivity through the use of technology (like selling things on the interwebs rather than in showrooms) or © we just don't need that job anymore (think everyone who used to make film in rochester)

To the bolded. This is not a fact. This is not even close to a fact. We have not been in a recession since June of 2009 according to the people who get to determine exactly what a recession is. http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/09/americas_recession To the hypothetical question, I have some thoughts on that, but since you addressed LGR, I'll let him answer first.

I agree as well, for instance what's the difference between a person working 20/hrs a week and making ends meet and a single mother of 3 working 40/hrs a week at min wage who can't? If we looked at the number of working people who still don't make enough to move out of poverty, the numbers look even worse. But that would force Romney's plan to address some tough questions about minimum wage and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

I don't want businesses paying into that system based on the number of employees they have. If someone wants to set up some of the 25-28% corporate tax to go into the system, that's fine, but i want to break the connection between a businesses number of employees and their health care costs.

The most important thing to keep in mind when looking at this problem is that Protectionism is an absolutely terrible idea. So we can throw out all the plans that begin with import tariffs on low-labor cost foreign goods. They will destroy far more of the economy than they will help. The key is shifting the economics of sourcing decisions back to in-sourced, domestic hiring/production. I have worked at established "legacy" manufacturers for about a decade, and we'd love to do everything in house and domestic, but the economics of the decision make it extremely difficult to justify that decision. I believe it is possible through public policy to affect the market in ways that will shift these economics without fundamentally altering the market system, which acts as a spectacularly good facilitator of growth. I look at three major areas where public policy can shift these economics: Removing the burden of benefits from employers, Incentivizing domestic production through the corporate tax structure, and reducing regulatory barriers that stifle economic growth. The first makes me a liberal, the second jives with both parties, and the third makes me a conservative. So please follow me as a describe a completely politically impossible economic plan: As you accurately describe, it's the benefits and pension that drive employers to overseas/contract work rather than traditional in house work. Health care in particular is a huge driver of this. The best thing that could be done to increase the economic viability of hiring full time employees in the United States would be to go full out into a national health care system, so employers can just forget about this issue entirely. It could either be a single payer system like the NHS, or a voucher system similar to the medicare program proposed by Paul Ryan. For non-business related reasons, I would prefer the NHS type system, but from a business standpoint, it makes no difference. Just remove the burden of health care costs and increases from US businesses. Similar things could be done with pension by adding a 401(k) type system on top of the existing Defined Benefit Social Security system. Both of these should be funded by payroll taxes without a cap, similar to the medicare part of FICA. I will not deny that this plan draws heavily on socialism, but the intent is to give american companies more freedom, not less. Both tickets say it's time to reduce the corporate tax rates (Obama to 28%, Romney to 25% from the current 35%) this is a good idea and will significantly impact every company's decision making process when looking at where to put certain pieces of their company. I would also favor further incentives to american manufacturing that would reduce this rate further, but I'm selfish like that. Finally, every regulation currently administered by the state or federal governments needs to be reviewed for the following criteria: Does it serve a public interest in line with it's cost? could this interest be served with a less restrictive regulation or with a different scheme altogether? Could the regulation be modified to benefit domestic production/hiring? Two examples: The EPA currently requires that certain amounts of hazardous materials be reported annually to the government. This serves a few purposes, among them, allowing first responders to have the knowledge of the chemical risks in there response area, and allowing the EPA to reduce the potential for a catastrophic release by limiting the total amounts of some chemicals to be stored in a given area. This regulation should be kept in place as it costs businesses little to comply, but serves a great public good. Another example is the ethanol requirements in fuel. This regulation serves to increase the use of ethanol, a renewable, in our nations fuel supply. The problem with this is, most studies show that ethanol actually takes more BTUs of oil to produce that the correlating amount of unleaded. This regulation is straight up pandering to the corn belt, harms the environment, and causes the large seasonal spikes in gas prices like you saw in California last week. This regulation has got to go. There are 84,000+ pages of regulations in the Federal Register alone. This is not a small task, but it could greatly increase the competitiveness of hiring in the united states with minimal impact on american working conditions, the environment, or any of the other worthy causes these regulations nobly attempt to fulfill. Edited to fix a through/throw error.

Fair, I did not vet my source and I fell victim to reading something that simply reinforced what I already suspected. I owe you one beer. Pm me next time you are upstate. :)

This was true until the tea party actually got into power in state and fed legislature. I'll try and find the article, but tea party candidates spent a majority of their legislative efforts on christian social issues. Edit: Here's the article: http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/26/opinion/avlon-social-issues-gop/index.html

absolutely. i think it's a strategic win for the dems if it just stops the bleeding.