No Light or No End to This Economic Tunnel?

**Gannon** · June-26-12, 09:12 AM

Not a very encouraging read...but it seems this fellow has some meat in his analysis.

http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/...MO_CODE=F144-1

He's calling for a certain recession near the beginning of next year. 100%. Never heard an economist with such conviction. But they call him Dr. Doom.

If only the guy who correctly forecasted our current malaise wasn't even MORE certain the doomish doctor is correct...

yuck

**Gannon** · June-26-12, 09:15 AM

http://w3.newsmax.com/a/aftershockb/...mo_code=F144-1

**Jimaz** · June-26-12, 01:06 PM

You might find Dr. Ravi Batra interesting too.

**Meddle** · June-26-12, 01:31 PM

I don't see it getting any better until there is a fundamental change in attitude at all levels, government, business and public.

**oladub** · June-26-12, 02:16 PM

I did open the Dr. Ravi Batra page and came across this interesting article of his: http://truth-out.org/index.php?optio...ony-capitalism. in this article, he takes kind of a middle of the road position on what, he too, sees as the coming crises including renewing taxes on the rich, ending the trade imbalance including taxing outsourcing, and balancing the federal budget.

A site I like is Tyler Durden's Zerohedge. It offers a daily array of economic news and opinion more along the lines of Gannon's Dr. Gloom article with quite a bit recently about the deteriorating situation in Europe. Some days I don't find anything interesting to read on Zerohedge and then there is a gem of an article found no where in the MSM. http://www.zerohedge.com/

**rb336** · June-26-12, 04:35 PM

This is the end result of a 30-year war against the working class by the Republicans. No economy based on consumption can be stable when you concentrate all that wealth in so few; the rest have nothing with which they can buy shit. A strong economy requires a strong consumer base. That means paying workers, teachers, police, fire, etc more instead of demanding givebacks while simultaneously fattening execs' Cayman bank accounts.

However, anyone who predicts "100%" anything in economics immediately lowers his credibility. When it is said in a publication of that most extreme of right-wing online "news" sites, that credibility becomes very low indeed.

**Meddle** · June-26-12, 05:03 PM

Originally Posted by rb336

This is the end result of a 30-year war against the working class by the Republicans.

By businesses and corporations, no matter their political leanings. It's all about money and the 'Haves' doing whatever they can to get more at the expense of everyone else.

That's what has to change before we can even begin to get back on track.

**gazhekwe** · June-26-12, 05:27 PM

Every now and then, Meddle, I actually agree with you. However there is a Republican connection to the Haves, since the GOP is hell bent on espousing the failed Trickle Down policies of Saint Reagan and other elephants.

**Meddle** · June-26-12, 06:42 PM

In my mind, this goes back far beyond Bonzo's Buddy ..... at least to the elitist attitudes and styles of 'Camelot' and the Kennedy Klan and their association with certain celebrities.

**rb336** · June-26-12, 07:00 PM

what celebrities have to do with anything is beyond me, but yes, Kennedy did slash the taxes for the wealthy - i think it remains the largest such tax cut

**firstandten** · June-26-12, 11:31 PM

Originally Posted by rb336

This is the end result of a 30-year war against the working class by the Republicans. No economy based on consumption can be stable when you concentrate all that wealth in so few; the rest have nothing with which they can buy shit. A strong economy requires a strong consumer base. That means paying workers, teachers, police, fire, etc more instead of demanding givebacks while simultaneously fattening execs' Cayman bank accounts.

However, anyone who predicts "100%" anything in economics immediately lowers his credibility. When it is said in a publication of that most extreme of right-wing online "news" sites, that credibility becomes very low indeed.

I would believe as well that between the net out migration of jobs oversea's and jobs eliminated by advanced technology the result is that we have become a global economy and I don't think our country has ever faced anything like this before. As a result I don't see our economy getting better
anytime soon.

**oladub** · June-27-12, 11:16 AM

In a link that Jimez posted, Dr. Ravi Batra points out the need to renew taxes on the rich, end the trade imbalance including taxing outsourcing, and balancing the federal budget. That taxing outsourcing idea struck me as a great idea because I just had someone, who works for a high tech fortune 500 company, tell me that they his IT department had just received instructions from a VP to outsource 25% of their work to India so the hours billed to the client would be more profitable.

The US working class is more affected by government and fed policies than which party is in office. If there is no demand for US workers, then printing infinite dollars to pay "workers, teachers, police, fire, etc more." isn't going to work. if it did, it would make more sense to give them all $100,000 a year raises than $10,000 raises. Such policy works as well as trying to push string.

That is the same sort of thinking expressed by White House senior advisor Jarrett, "[[the welfare safety net) not only is good for the family, but it’s good for the economy. People who receive that unemployment check go out and spend it and help stimulate the economy, so that’s healthy as well.” Sorry, but unemployment checks do not stimulate the economy because more than the same amount of money has to be drawn out of the economy to pay for the unemployment checks and their administration. Again, if this works, why not significantly increase unemployment benefits to help the economy?

Demand for US workers, or lack thereof, is something the federal government can effect. Specifically, what our federal government does with regard to sending US jobs abroad and letting in foreign workers, both legal and illegal, to compete for remaining US jobs. Clinton signed NAFTA and recently Obama was caught red handed working on the TPP "NAFTA II". Bush had a horrible record in stemming the flow of illegal aliens into the US; so bad that until recently Obama was repatriating more illegal aliens than Bush. Now, Obama is doing everything in his power to keep illegal alien workers in the US. Without a real demand for US workers, all other efforts to revive the plight of working Americans will fail but if the US government can improvise policies which create a shortage of US workers, workers can organize and demand a larger share of the economic pie. Until them, the best US workers can do is hope for some scraps off of the masters' table like a job at Solyndra or some other favored corporatist enterprise.

**Meddle** · June-27-12, 12:15 PM

That taxing outsourcing idea struck me as a great idea because I just had someone, who works for a high tech fortune 500 company, tell me that they his IT department had just received instructions from a VP to outsource 25% of their work to India so the hours billed to the client would be more profitable.

Holy Run-On sentence, Batman!!

Seriously, this is something I've been saying for decades. Let's say a company is paying U.S workers $10/hr to make a product they sell for $15.00 retail. They find that they can pay Pakistani workers $1/hr. They close U.S plants and send the work to Pakistan, then ship the product back to the U.S. where they put it in stores for the same $15.00, or maybe a bit more.

The tax or import duty should be at least the difference between the $1 offshore labor rate and the $10 U.S. labor rate.

The only way to stop or reverse offshoring is to make it cost at least the same as, if not more than it would to produce it here.