Thursday, February 17, 2011

MORE OF THE SAME

I'm still a little under the weather (and spectacularly Spring-like, even Summer-like, weather it is for the middle of winter, but I'm not hearing anything from the climate change deniers this week!) but thought this short post on Krugman's blog today gets it "right" (and did anyone see this other recent post with those statistics that when asked forty-four percent of Social Security retirees could not name one government program they thought they benefited from, and forty percent of Medicare recipients had the same response!).

11 comments:

JIm said...

It is nice that the January thaw finally showed up. Better late than never. Just as the earlier extreme cold and snow was a confirmation of man caused global warming for the Goreoracle, a late January thaw is just further confirmation for true believers.

Ignorant recipients of entitlements are not a reason to put off reform which is bankrupting state and federal government. Even Democrat governors like Cuomo are getting the message, that fiscal sanity must and will be restored.

Shem The Penman said...

And what do you say, Jim, to those captains of industry who took all the factories out of Massachusetts and New York and Connecticut and New Jersey, etc., and relocated them in Mexico, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Idonesia, etc., in perpetual pursuit of ever cheaper labor, those same factories which once employed millions of Americans and produced billions of dollars in tax revenues for the states and the federal government, the loss of which revenues produces the Great recessions of our time?
Shem The Penman

JIm said...

Shem,
One can bewail the world as it is or adapt. Successful societies adapt. Textile and shoe factories left New England and high tech and biomedical moved in. As long as the US has an anti business high corporate tax inviroment, low skill jobs will continue to go over seas. But there is hope. A wiff of real change is in the air, with the last election. If in fact we are about to rediscover the miracle of a competitve free enterprized economy and a great scaling back of big government ecoonomy with a return to fiscal sanity, I believe our best days are ahead of us.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

I was in a superwalmart last year and it took me an hour, but I found and purchased four items that were "Made in the USA." As to Jim's free enterprise cheer, Michael Bloomberg once said "the trick is to make the customer think he's getting laid, when in fact he's getting fucked."

JIm said...

Robert, your eloquence is overwhelming.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

It's a direct quote, and it basically sums up unregulated free enterprise.

Anonymous said...

What happened to Jim's threat to go away? Please, Jim, go away--far away.

JIm said...

Robert, It is good to have rules, like no stealing, monopolies, misrepresention etc. Obama has rules based on campaign contributions or favored industries or groups. An example is Obamacare, where waivers from the onerous rules have been granted to unions and favored companies. Is that the kind of regulation you had in mind?

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

regulation that keeps industry here, that requires corporations to be socially responsible, law-abiding and ethical (BP, Exxon, Enron, Wall Street), that limits gratuitous violence and gun promotion....

JIm said...

Robert,

Law abiding and socially responsiblity is good. A requirement to keep corporatins in the US here is impossible. It is a big world and investment money and corporations go where the climate for investment and the likelyhood of profit is best.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

which costs jobs here in the u.s. and weakens the dollar. there's no easy way. profit is not almighty and your notion of it in fact causes deficit in other ways i'm afraid. All corporate decisions should be subject to the "great grandchildren clause" - that is how is this decision going to affect my great grandchildren. Sadly most of what happens only considers short term gain without considering long term consequences.