June 10, 2012

Cite the differences between Conservative economic principles and life in a jungle.

Are there any differences?

June 9, 2012

The problem with Conservatism is that it's maintained by mass hypnosis.

That's not a tinfoil hat theory. Look how it worked in Germany.

How else do you explain so many working class Americans who vote for the same people and policies that are going to lead to their utter impoverishment? It's the Stockholm syndrome, writ large.

Oddly enough, it is contained to one demographical group, albeit the single largest group by a long shot. One that is steadily shrinking.

Will we beat this mass hypnosis by sheer evolving population dynamics or will it bring the country completely down before then? It sounds like we're going to find out. It took the defeat of a nation and the subjugation of a people to break it the last time it got this widespread.

June 8, 2012

Increased automation now only helps those who have jobs.

For the increasing number of the world's unemployed it means little better than complete marginalization.

In the past, automation opened technological doors that created more jobs than they eliminated. There was more job creation in 'creative destruction'.

Today, however, the jobs are not appearing. More jobs are being eliminated than are being created. This is fairly evident in the fact that there are 50 million fewer jobs in the global economy than before the recession began in 2008

, according to a recent study by the International Labor Organization.

Beyond all the arguments about Luddism and the benefits of automation, there lies another question which few people are even willing to ask, much less answer:

What are we going to do with all the people who can't find work? How is automation going to benefit them? What can you buy on $0 an hour?

Society has no answers. Perhaps, except the Republican Party answer: "see, we have too many people, time to cut down on the population".

June 8, 2012

I've got GREAT NEWS for you if you like to do crunches to burn fat.

You'll have to do them 250,000 times just to burn one effing pound.

http://health.yahoo.net/articles/fitness/3-step-strategy-flat-stomach

June 7, 2012

Warren "Not a card-carrying Democrat" Buffett knocks it out of the park with this one.

http://news.yahoo.com/warren-buffett-no-card-carrying-democrat-110141669--abc-news-politics.html

"I've operated under all kinds of tax rates including 39.6 percent on capital gains and the country has grown under all these circumstances," Buffett said.

June 6, 2012

Back in 1992, when Bill Clinton won the election, Rush Limbaugh said

don't be glum, it's a happy day, keep fighting.

2 years later we all know what happened.

There's a lesson to be learned in that.

June 6, 2012

Show of hands, fellow Democrats. How many of you would choose to let your job go overseas?

Which one of you would choose unemployment and hunting for 2 years for a lower-paying job over keeping your job in the United States?

June 6, 2012

H-1B workers is about cheap labor. And discriminating against American citizens.

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html

Professor Norm Matloff's H-1B Web Page

Overview:

The H-1B work visa is fundamentally about cheap labor.

Though the tech industry lobbyists portray H-1B as a remedy for labor shortages and as a means of hiring "the best and the brightest" from around the world (which I strongly support), the vast majority are ordinary people doing ordinary work. Instead of being about talent, H-1B is about cheap labor.

Employers accrue Type I wage savings by paying H-1Bs less than comparable Americans (U.S. citizens and permanent residents).
Employers accrue Type II wage savings by hiring younger, thus cheaper, H-1Bs in lieu of older, thus more expensive (age 35+) Americans.
Both types of wage savings are fully LEGAL, due to loopholes in the law and regulations. The problem is NOT one of lack of enforcement.
Use of H-1B for cheap labor extends across the industry including the large U.S. mainstream firms., facilitated by the nation's top immigration law firms. It does NOT occur primarily in the Indian " body shops," and it DOES occur in the hiring of international students from U.S. university campuses.
The underpayment of H-1Bs is well-established fact, not rumor, anecdote or ideology. It has been confirmed by two congressionally-commissioned reports, and a number of academic studies, in both statistical and qualitative analyses.

June 6, 2012

Further proof that there is a big fat skills gap that's fueling unemployment in America

NOT!!!!!!!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/y-big-story-why-t-job-210829464.html

Y! Big Story: Why you can’t get that job
By Vera H-C Chan | Trending Now – 3 hrs ago

"Wanted: Someone exactly like my last boyfriend (see list of qualities), only better. Demonstrate success in a proven relationship, preferably a current one. You should know what I want without my telling you."

There wouldn't be enough 10-foot poles to poke at a dating ad like that. Replace that mating call with a job posting, though, and that's what many employers are asking for these days—and more.

The latest hiring numbers made markets skitter and economists gloomy. Yet this time, attention also focused on commitment-phobe employers, who can't seem to bridge the gulf between unemployed workers and job vacancies. The growing consensus—which won't surprise frustrated job seekers—is that fickle companies in a surplus labor market are demanding perfect candidates without paying market wages or investing in training. Worse, some discriminate against the unemployed, figuring if they're not taken, they must be tainted goods. And because employees are taking their sweet time sifting through so many potential suitors, they're piling the workload on existing staffers, who are often ready for a breakup.

It's not me, it's you. Dismal hiring numbers stem from plenty of sound reasons, among them fears of a Euro-thrashed market and uncertainty in an election year. Yet the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted about 3.7 million job openings in March—still below the 4.4 million jobs posted when the recession began, but "up significantly from a year earlier." Plus, those vacancies have been piling up since mid-2009. The reason? The supposed skills shortage of our shiftless, undereducated, out-of-touch American workforce.

Peter Cappelli, who just released his book "Why Good People Can't Get Jobs," dismisses the idea of a skills gap. Instead, the Wharton management professor says "inflexible" employers are "the real culprits."

June 5, 2012

Tea Partiers having a hard time voting for Walker in Wisconsin!

Okay, no they're not... er, can someone point me to a single report of such problems occurring?

No?

Figures. Funny how they're not getting their right to vote suppressed....