Speaking of unemployment

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mtmynd
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Speaking of unemployment

Post by mtmynd » April 19th, 2010, 11:57 am

Speaking of unemployment…

I do believe those in the know, know only too well that the full employment we had in the recent past will never be had again.

Society is undergoing a massive change brought on in large part by the internet. How many of you readers have shifted from doing business thru 'brick & mortar' stores to online shopping for music, books and electronics to begin with? There are more that we care to acknowledge leaving the 'brick & mortar stores' looking somewhat empty (have you been to your once flourishing malls lately?).

Add to this the Postal Service, that (one time) reliable, always there for delivery of our bills and correspondence, is now struggling with how to pay for it's long term existence. Why? The internet has given rise to emails and a much easier way to make most of our payments for the general variety of services we utilize daily.

The once ubiquitous newspapers that every community throughout the country (and world) is now another struggling institution that is desperate to find how it fits in with the new digital age we're living in as we speak.

Technology is not going to stop because there is a 1-15% unemployment. Those fortunate enough to have a job are easily lured into the latest and greatest high-tech gadgetry to amaze us. But some of this high tech is not as frivolous as some would lead us to believe - Apple's (read Jobs) iPad... which very well may be the next major step for the PC/Mac and iPhone category.

Our world is changing more quickly that most will or can accept. It's understandable if someone is unemployed and has been for months and stressed that giving the digital world even a second thought would seem to be superfluous. But it is the digital revolution and all that encompasses which is the future. To believe otherwise or hope for a return to 'the good old days of Bush and full employment' is but a foolish fantasy that is best reserved for a novel.

IMHO, Barack Obama is of the age and awareness that recognizes this future we're all sniffing around, wondering how we'll fit in and even if there is a place for us in the Digital World of today and beyond. The various programs he had suggested are not dreams he had while sleeping in Lincoln's bed, but rather a curiosity that impels him to seek out what is new and necessary for the future of this country. It is unfortunate there are so many who oppose his seemingly radical solutions to what must by the next direction for the U.S. to go.

I'm sure we've all seen and heard on the news those Tea Party folks yell out things like "We want our country back!" or "Obama is destroying our country" and on and on... voices of desperation that perhaps subconsciously know deep down inside that here in 2010, the beginnings of the New Millennium, a huge and deep change the world over is in progress... and there are many of us who feel like 'our world as we know it' is becoming more and more unrecognizable... and it is, there is no doubt.

But to be fearful of these changes will only delay the future... it will delay that future for our children who could very well be left out of that future that must be in order for there to be a sense of unity and understanding throughout our small world as it is. If the future is not accepted, if it becomes so feared that we prevent our kids from taking part, we are denying them something wonderful and exciting. We are denying them a life that belongs not to yesterday's way of doing things, but tomorrow's way of doing things.

I have total faith that our President is the best man to be at the helm of our country during this time of upheaval and unrest that is mostly brought on by fear (imagine a McCain during these times) ... and we know what one of our greatest leaders said about fear...


Cecil
4.19.10
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hester_prynne
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Post by hester_prynne » April 19th, 2010, 3:15 pm

Right on Cec.
I think Obama is savvy to the implications of change our new technologies are bringing.
The changes will be huge. I work for the Gov. you know, and their online and computer programs are extremely old, partially due to old contracts I think, but there is also resistance from Gov. workers who do not want to change their systems/comfort zones, despite the current clunky outmoded system.
It's interesting.
Enjoyed reading your post.
HP 8)
"I am a victim of society, and, an entertainer"........DW

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Post by mtmynd » April 19th, 2010, 3:25 pm

Thx, Hes'...

I wish I could think of some things to increase employment nowadays to go along with this future reality, but ... Transitions can be a bitch and this one may prove to be massive.

I often wonder about Karma and if and how that is what is going on to balance the extreme we've been thru for so many years of greed, lies, deceit and other nefarious acts. :)
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Barry
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Post by Barry » April 20th, 2010, 9:24 pm

I believe in Obama too, Cecil. He really does get it, in the sense that "getting it" is understanding that you can't possibly get it all, and working best you can in that state of not getting it all while getting some of it, if that makes any sense.

What I'm struggling to say in my own child-like way is that "getting it" means you understand that the past is to be learned from, the present is important, but that really all we do now is for the future, and that Obama somehow gets that.

I think I need a job. All this time not working gives me too much time to think. ;)

Peace,
Barry

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Post by stilltrucking » April 23rd, 2010, 10:49 am

Vonnegut covered some to the same ground in his 1952 novel Player Piano.
1]

.
....
In the same interview he acknowledges that he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We."[3]

I was working for General Electric at the time, right after World War II , and I saw a milling machine for cutting the rotors on jet engines, gas turbines. This was a very expensive thing for a machinist to do, to cut what is essentially one of those Brancusi forms. So they had a computer-operated milling machine built to cut the blades, and I was fascinated by that. This was in 1949 and the guys who were working on it were foreseeing all sorts of machines being run by little boxes and punched cards. Player Piano was my response to the implications of having everything run by little boxes. The idea of doing that, you know, made sense, perfect sense. To have a little clicking box make all the decisions wasn't a vicious thing to do. But it was too bad for the human beings who got their dignity from their jobs.





wikipedia

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Post by sweetwater » April 30th, 2010, 6:45 pm

Bush and the Republicans are supply siders, while the Democrats and Obama are demand siders.
What side are you on? How do you answer the equation of supply and demand?

Do you think less taxes create more jobs, for instance? Is the future predicated by supply side economics or is it predicated by demand side economics?

The Obama administration has a different fiscal policy than the Republicans! There is an historic argument about supply side economics. What do you think?

Non Sum

Post by Non Sum » May 1st, 2010, 11:37 am

Barry: ... "getting it" means you understand that the past is to be learned from, the present is important, but that really all we do now is for the future, and that Obama somehow gets that.

NS: Too bad Obama skipped the history chapters on Vietnam, and the great depression. He would have "learned" a lot there.

Sweetwater: What side are you on? How do you answer the equation of supply and demand?

NS: Never an equation to be too onesided about, or it will never balance out right. There is truth in both positions, but failure in overplaying either side, as well.

SW: Do you think less taxes create more jobs, for instance?

NS: Yes, and more tax revenue besides. During the Reagan administration, the substantial change in the tax code altered the top marginal individual income tax rate fell from 70% to 28%, but federal receipts actually grew at an average rate of 8.2%.
This though, is about the general counterproductivity, and regressivity, of income taxes, not actually 'sided economics.'

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Post by sooZen » May 1st, 2010, 11:58 am

It seems to me that being the Presidente means that you cannot follow your own path but must herd all the cats along with you. Not an easy task.

I am disappointed in the cat herding mentality and the inability to end the 'wars' or make some real hard choices environmentally. Other than that, it is refreshing to have someone that is not a goof up in office and has some 'learnin'. All of our Presidents, past and present have taught us something(s) good or bad.

This one ran on the idea of "hope" so I do...

No thing is perfect, wabi sabi?

edited to say, good article Em T! You always wear your heart on your sleeve... Maybe you need a tattoo? :wink:
Freedom's just another word...



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Post by sweetwater » May 1st, 2010, 12:27 pm

tax breaks means less tax revenue for public services
would you like also to include how many people were without healthcare
and the hidden cost which doesn't get factored in?????????

tax breaks for the wealthy doesn't create more jobs
it creates recessions and job losses

just like what is happening now in this future
high unemployment and a recession
all stemming from a fiscal policy of supply side economics

create jobs not tax breaks

Non Sum

Post by Non Sum » May 1st, 2010, 4:11 pm

SW: tax breaks means less tax revenue for public services

NS: No, higher ‘income’ taxes only reduce revenue. This may at first strike you as counter-intuitive, but tax records do not lie. The reasons for this are not all that mysterious. Primarily, the harder/smarter you work – the more you are rewarded. But, I can discourage you from this industrious behavior by simply adding into the formula: ‘the more you make – the more I’ll take.’ For some odd reason this will be discouraging to you. So, you will: not work so hard, and/or go to trouble and expense to lessen your ‘taxable’ gains.

SW: would you like also to include how many people were without healthcare

NS: Whole nother issue, that. There are poor third world countries that provide universal health care. When the UK was on its knees, at the end of the war, with pathetic tax revenues; that was when they initiated National Health.

SW: create jobs not tax breaks

NS: Only profitable business, operating in a free market can create real lasting jobs. Government jobs are ultimately a drain of national treasure. Greece has nearly half of the population in created Gov jobs. Notice how well that is working for them. “Supply side,” is as wrong-headed as is “demand side.” Any artificial Frankenstein (‘managed’) economy carries the seeds of its own destruction.

Hi,
SooZen: This one ran on the idea of "hope" so I do...

NS: ‘Hope’ works poorly in life. Ask the Haitians how it’s been working for them?

SZ: No thing is perfect

NS: Granted. It’s just how far out from it one is willing to go. Sure, we’re all relieved to get the neocons out of office. I’m still cheering about it. It would have been hard for anyone to not be an improvement. Best to judge each policy decision on its own merits. I give BHO good marks on most social justice causes, but failing grades on some of the biggest issues.

We didn’t give Johnson a break on his war, when he was an otherwise excellent leader with good policies. Nor should we have. Predatory war is just not forgivable. His economic policies are ruinous on a world scale of human misery. His furthering of the drug war in Mexico and here, and all its attendant death and destruction is down right evil in my view. Think of just the economic costs of these ‘wars,’ and then listen to his supposed concern about the economy. What does winning any of these wars actually win ‘us.’ Do we then get: richer, freer, happier, safer some how? What are we actually buying with all this money, and lives, that makes the costs worth it?

Can anyone answer, does anyone (liberal, or Tea party, Christian) even bother to ask why this is BHO policy? Is he an idiot? Is he a bad guy? Is he a nice figurehead but for ‘Other’ interests?

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Post by sooZen » May 1st, 2010, 5:00 pm

Hi,
SooZen: This one ran on the idea of "hope" so I do...

NS: ‘Hope’ works poorly in life. Ask the Haitians how it’s been working for them?

Howdy Non,

Hope and trust work just fine for me in that everything happens for a reason (sometimes unbeknown to me until later) and the UNIverse is clicking along just as it should. That may seem a dichotomy to some of my passions and my need to protect them but such as it is.

I am not of the opinion that all human life is sacred. The biggest problem this ole' world has is the rampant over population of us and if peoples want to plant themselves in a place that is fragile and suppect to the vagaries of the old Motha Nature continually, sorry, but adios. Don't live on an island in the path of hurricanes and subject to earthquakes unless you are prepared to do so with forethought. Don't plant yerself next to a volcano that may errupt, etc. ect. That is why I live where I live (not all the reasons, but one.)

Many people live on the brink because they want to see the view or wade in the ocean or can't afford to live anywhere else. I am so sorry for the latter but Polar Bears want glaciers and ice burgs too and those places are endangered. We are NOT. Not at this moment in time unless we start making sense and stop living like there is no tomorrow or there won't be...

It is not that I don't feel compassion for the Hatians or their suffering but who feels compassion for the fact that their are fewer than 300 or so Tigers left in the wild? Our ego centrist attitudes have brought us to this point. Of course, I want to survive, I want my children and my friends children to survive but selfishly so.

And as far as war(s) go it has been my short experience in observation that wars are started by old men too old to participate in them. (Not a great population control method either, I prefer women's rights to choose and common sense.) I guess I am searching for a Cosmic Consciousness to evolve in humanity which at this point, I can only HOPE for and continue to just do the best I can. :wink:

(Btw, I am not sure what post it was but you called me a "young woman" (over on the Stream?) which I guess is supposed to be flattering but to me, not really. I have worked really hard to get this old and wise ass.) 8)

You guys carry on with your numbers and politics and stuff...
Freedom's just another word...



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sweetwater
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Post by sweetwater » May 2nd, 2010, 3:37 pm

the absurd logic of no sum

how does less tax revenue create more tax revenue?

absurd

esplain the math lucy???????

ie -
100 dollars saved in a tax break
would equal only a percentage of it as spending
it would only equal a fraction of tax revenue

explain the special circumstances
other than cooking the books

or creative math

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hester_prynne
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Post by hester_prynne » May 2nd, 2010, 4:28 pm

Interesting thread to happen in on this afternoon.
My gut is screaming that there are very different levels of experience, belief and income in this conversation.

The way I see it, is since and maybe even before Reagan's incompetent changes to regulations we have been on a downhill slide when it comes to balance in the system.

It is my personal belief that some sort of high-money powered group behind the scenes, paid it's way in to run the country to their benefit, and Reagan more openly went for it, perhaps under duress, more likely due to the usual ego flaws we all have when it comes to what we really need and the status quo's guilt quotient. The proof I have of this is my own experience of human nature. I know this is what happened.

Now of course we're hitting bottom 40 years later and everyone wants to blame someone. There is no one person to blame really, but there is a gerbil wheel the media can spin around this and make money on for years.

Aside from all the crap and sideshow circumstance currently barraging everyone, I believe strongly that BHO is himself the change we've needed to break this destructive and imbalanced slide we've been on. I believe BHO will allow this group of ignorant thugs that have been imbalancing the American system of capitalism for the past few decades to reveal themselves, as he has been so brilliantly doing.

BHO is smart enough and I think he has lived/experienced both wealth and poverty enough himself to have a more realistic insight into the extreme importance of America's goal of having balances that equate to an equal chance at success for all.

More taxes, less taxes, more revenues, less, oh bah humbug. These things are a diversion.
Plus, to talk on those levels is to talk down to most people and it kinda pisses me off as it seems insensitive, divisive, and even ignorant to a bigger reality.

"if men were not inherently evil and greedy we would not need government"

Imbalance has become an entitled expectation for a few, to the detriment of the many, like a spoiled child. I mean really, isn't this obvious??????

Let's keep the subject at a place the majority can relate to!
We'll hear more sensibility then, and have to deal with less outrageous reacting.
H 8)
Last edited by hester_prynne on May 2nd, 2010, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Barry
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Post by Barry » May 2nd, 2010, 4:28 pm

We got a guy running for governor here in Oregon on the slogan, "We don't need more taxes; we need more taxpayers," the theory being, provide incentives for business to locate in our state (meaning tax them little or nothing at all) and they will locate there, providing more jobs, allowing more people to pay taxes. But what this really means is that the finite tax burden is unfairly shouldered by the citizenry, while the business community gets the benefits all want from tax-supported governance (stability) without paying for it.

It's like spreading butter on a piece of bread; there is a finite amount of butter; do we spread it evenly or in lumps?

Can't wait to see what you do with that, NS. Have fun with it. :)

Peace,
Barry

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Post by sweetwater » May 3rd, 2010, 12:54 pm

yeah Barry i agree

it's a shifting of the tax burden down on the middle class
or on its citizens while others are getting tax breaks

but the logic (supply side economics) seems to be born
of a fallacy where they maintain that less tax revenue
under 'special circumstances' leads to more tax revenue

but no one seems capable of explaing these special circumstances

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