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little c
|  06 Oct '08 10:11 : 0 recs
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Goel
| 12 May '07 16:04 : 0 recs
It is always easier to abolish than reform, SO.
This cat simply isn't catching enough mice.
G. |
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Slightly Optimistic
| 11 May '07 15:45 : 0 recs
Ming
Fascinating territory. Alan Blinder introduces his article "offshoring may be the biggest political issue in economics for a generation."
How should capitalism be improved? Politicians may feign interest in pursuing the chronic weaknesses, but in reality there's apathy. I was astonished that, for example, the international community so easily allowed the destruction of financial discipline globally 30 years ago, the attempts to destroy a European common currency 20 years ago (remember Black Wednesday), and the Asian financial crisis 10 years ago.
But Blinder is persistent. He warned last year of the dangers of offshoring. Offshoring: The Next Industrial Revolution? |
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MingToo
| 11 May '07 13:03 : 0 recs
SO:
Interesting article. This bit made me think the most:
In addition, we need to rethink our education system so that it turns out more people who are trained for the jobs that will remain in the United States and fewer for the jobs that will migrate overseas. We cannot, of course, foresee exactly which jobs will go and which will stay. But one good bet is that many electronic service jobs will move offshore, whereas personal service jobs will not. Here are a few examples. Tax accounting is easily offshorable; onsite auditing is not. Computer programming is offshorable; computer repair is not. Architects could be endangered, but builders aren't. Were it not for stiff regulations, radiology would be offshorable; but pediatrics and geriatrics aren't. Lawyers who write contracts can do so at a distance and deliver them electronically; litigators who argue cases in court cannot.
Even though he is being realistic about the issues of offshoring, he is still somewhat in denial about the effects. His assumption is that companies will still stay based in the US and just offshore everything that they can (the platform model). I have made the argument here before that I just don't see this working. The US would become uncompetitive from a tax point of view since all of those redundant people would need supporting with a safety net of some sort and the whole company will just move offshore and hire cheaper labour for all the jobs he mentions that need a physical presence.
Also, for every 1000 IT jobs that move offshore, how many jobs supporting them also move offshore ? Everything from secretaries, cleaners, staff in coffee shops etc.
Ming |
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Waterloo Sunset
| 11 May '07 12:27 : 0 recs
shhhhh |
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Slightly Optimistic
| 10 May '07 14:32 : 0 recs
Are Sarkozy and Brown right to oppose discipline on finance?
They seem to be ruling out the chance of another world war. A former vice-chairman of the US Federal Reserve is less certain. Alan Blinder called this week for a debate in the US on how to address the worsening US finances; writing in the Washington Post he ruled out sealing US borders to imports from the rest of the world (no doubt because the US relies hugely on daily loans of millions of dollars from the ROW), but said: "If we economists stubbornly insist on chanting "Free trade is good for you" to people who know that it is not, we will quickly become irrelevant to the public debate." Free Trade's Great, but Offshoring Rattles Me
One way forward of course is international discipline on finance. Reintroduce, for example, the Bretton Woods monetary discipline that was drawn up post WW2 to prevent another world war but later scrapped. However this may be unacceptable. |
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Waterloo Sunset
| 10 May '07 14:09 : 0 recs : edited 1 time : last edit 10 May '07 14:11
once agin for the (stuck) record
-Sarko and Brown do not share a dislike of financial discipline
-Financial discipline was not destroyed 30 years ago
-There was no attempt to destroy a European currency 20 years ago
but what about the little baby seals. ahhhhhh the little fellas will starve wont they SO
lets discuss it, unless of course you want to explain why its wrong to state
-Sarko and Brown do not share a dislike of financial discipline
-Financial discipline was not destroyed 30 years ago
-There was no attempt to destroy a European currency 20 years ago
WS |
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Slightly Optimistic
| 10 May '07 14:03 : 0 recs
What prompted the latest hysteria from WS?
Learning that political will in the international community could have prevented The destruction of financial discipline globally 30 years ago, the attempts to destroy a European common currency 20 years ago (remember Black Wednesday), and the Asian financial crisis 10 years ago was too much for WS.
What set him off though was hearing that Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown share a dislike of independent financial discipline. WS will no doubt continue to sulk (abusively) for some time. |
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Waterloo Sunset
| 10 May '07 13:59 : 0 recs
Yes SO, and what about the gulls? Its good you understand the implications for global seafood discipline |
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Slightly Optimistic
| 10 May '07 13:46 : 0 recs
There there. |
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Waterloo Sunset
| 10 May '07 13:43 : 0 recs : edited 1 time : last edit 10 May '07 13:43
Sarko is in fact a penguin in disguise and as such the price of fish is set to crash agrees SO. Gannets are imperilled! |
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Slightly Optimistic
| 10 May '07 13:38 : 0 recs
Still he sulks abusively. No doubt it'll pass eventually. |
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Waterloo Sunset
| 10 May '07 13:33 : 0 recs : edited 1 time : last edit 10 May '07 13:34
all of which is of course 100% invention by SO and 0% factually correct.
Do all authority figures throughout your life share this characteristic of being "set off" by some of your "ideas" SO? LOL
So, once agin for the (stuck) record
-Sarko and Brown do not share a dislike of financial discipline
-Financial discipline was not destroyed 30 years ago
-There was no attempt to destroy a European currency 20 years ago
-The Asian financial crisis did however happen 10 years ago (you seem to have run out of "steam" and failed to complete this little folly)
Now SO, I would like to point out that Sarko is in fact a penguin in disguise and as such the price of fish is set to crash.
I hope you wont be making me have to repeat this endlessly (and mindlessly) by telling me its a load of twaddle (which it is). Of course I would never deign to lower myself to actually explaining what I mean, no, repetition of the original is the rudest possible riposte. much ruder than silly swear words wouldnt you agree you juvenile tw*at?
WS |
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Slightly Optimistic
| 10 May '07 13:21 : 0 recs
Learning that political will in the international community could have prevented The destruction of financial discipline globally 30 years ago, the attempts to destroy a European common currency 20 years ago (remember Black Wednesday), and the Asian financial crisis 10 years ago was too much for WS.
What set him off though was hearing that Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown share a dislike of independent financial discipline. WS will no doubt continue to sulk (abusively) for some time. |
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Waterloo Sunset
| 10 May '07 12:19 : 0 recs
Biff,
Really. I merely pointed out that the success of Lewis Hamilton was a good thing and showed how your ethnic background is less of an impediment to success in the UK than France IMO.
It was however you who said there was little difference between the actuality of racial harmony in France compared England. In a despreate attempt to cover up your own collosal bigotry abd racism you then have to harp on about something else to distract
I am happy to defer to any sane person on who is the tw*at. Its all in black and white below.
You see Biff on the rare occasions I turn out to be wrong i put my hand up and change my ways. Hence it is rare for me to be wrong for long you see. You however seem to put the "winning the argument" above common sense, right and wrong and indeed anything. Didnt soemone once lie to you about WMD so now we can abandon 27 million people to barbarity then?!
I feel sorry for your wife. Did you particulalry "want" an Indian one? I understand you see 
WS |
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Warren BuffetCar
| 10 May '07 11:24 : 0 recs : edited 2 times : last edit 10 May '07 11:26
Waterloo,
I'd have thought you'd have dropped that line.
Wasn't it you who quoted (clearly without reading it) Trevor Phillips saying we needed more of the French form of assimilation?
I haven't doubted that the French and UK/US models are different. My point was that we need a combination of the two, as Mr Phillips noted (blaming multiculturalism in part for the creation of our home grown terrorists).
I believe I adequately dismantled your argument last time you bought this issue up which if you recall was (snigger) that Lewis Hamilton, a half white kid with a white name, white accent, and white mother was an example of multiculturalism, rather than assimilation. Perhaps you can explain to the class how things might have been different if multicultural icon Lewis Hamilton had have been "assimilated" instead?
Its clear to all that you have no idea what the difference is, which is why your original post on the matter was so amusing.
WBC |
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Waterloo Sunset
| 10 May '07 07:38 : 0 recs
great post 3dc,
perhaps Biffy will comment on this bit ?
fear he will "americanize" France, turn it into an "officially" multiracial society, with affirmative action (as he advocates, or at least advocated it)
this frenchman has no idea Biff and clearly needs to hear your drivel to educate him about his own country LOL. Unlike you Biff, the expert on France who seems to know virtually nothing of the reality outside of the Paris 9th arrondissment, he thinks France is totally different to US/UK Anglo Saxon multiculturalism
Amicalement
WS |
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3dc
| 10 May '07 05:42 : 0 recs
Another Frenchman's response to my congrats:
Hello, 3dc, Powerful American!
Ok, I hope you'll forgive me for not being polite enough to respond immediatly, but I thought I would make a long, thoughtful email... and as it's usually the case with me, I didn't do anything of that, so I'm late, and you're only getting a short email. Go figure.
By the way, nice nick, now I understand it, thanks to your email address.
So, I'd like to sincerely thank you for taking the time to salute us ungrateful froggies for this election. That's a very nice attention, and I wish and hope I'll be able to do the same for you US Hegemons in 2008.
Regarding my thoughts on Sarko, basically, I know he can only be a good surprize to me, having such low expectations. Hum, that's not quite true. The bottom line is that french people voted for a change, after what is basically 30 years of socialism or cryptosocialism and stagnation under shiraq. So, if sarko heeds the call and indeed intends to *change* France (if only to get re-elected in 2012), that will be a great advance; by the way, him changing France is one reason why a large part of the french right opposed him, out of fear he will "americanize" France, turn it into an "officially" multiracial society, with affirmative action (as he advocates, or at least advocated it), with a law on Church/State separation altered to allow public funding of mosques (as opposed to the disguised public funding of nowadays),...
BUT, he has not yet started governing, so everything is open; perhaps he will indeed be a positive force for France, bringing it kicking and screaming into modernity; at the very least, he should have a good impact economically, though he is a statist, no doubt about it, but I think he should bring positive reforms on this at the very least, as believed by a few free-markets or administrations-reform think tanks.
One thing you must understand about post-WWII France is that many power structures are inherently built to be communist; after the liberation, there was a gaullist-commie alliance, and between 1945 and 1947, France was shaped into a commie-friendly country : social redistrubution, subsized unions (State pays 500 millions euros a year to people who represent 7% of the public sector, and 1% of private sector), insane status for civil servants (like a jammed gun, won't work, can't be fired), commie stroghold in the union (with a monopoly in printing, sewer maintenance and docking, three strategic function), on national education, in book publishing,...
And the Vth we're into has been from the start a vehicle for de gaulle's messianic delusion, with the legislative branch basically being neutered and all the power going to the executive.
With de gaulle gone, the executive has became haywire, and the power has been usurped by the technocrats. France is a bureaucracy or a technocracy if you wish, with the technocrats even now having a quasi-monopoly on politics (most MP are civil servants, and enarchs and similar "grandes écoles" graduates make a large majority if not the almost integrality of national-lvel politicians, and also having a similar quasi-monoply in big business and big media); unlike in the USA, new presidents (french presidents are very powerful) doesn't bring a new administration, he just bring new ministers and all. Thus, the ministers come and go, but their respective administration remains... and as many, many minister who attempted a reform has told, true power lies within the technocracy of his minister.
So, sarko will have to fight the INERTIA (assuming he's willing to reform France, at it badly, badly needs), from his opponents, who will play the street (strikes, demonstrations, legislative guerilla, rabid opposition from the msm), but also from the very power structure of France. Good luck.
3dc, many thanks for your email, it's a very nice gesture, and I'm much grateful for it... but, don't forget, when thinking about France : we're not done disappointing you (and ourselves) yet.
Best regards to you and yours!
Amicalement,
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Slightly Optimistic
| 09 May '07 20:07 : 0 recs : edited 1 time : last edit 09 May '07 20:07
Tediously predictable. The only comment that WS can offer is abuse.
Anyway, the lack of political will around the world to protect huge public funds is startling. No doubt South Africa's G-20 have identified this massive weakness iin safeguards. |
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Waterloo Sunset
| 09 May '07 18:44 : 0 recs
nil points SO. utterly economically illiterate and stupid and dangerous.
pretty much par for you
WS |
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