Pressure Remains on the EUR

post from Jutia Group on 06 September 2011 04:07:43 AM. © Jutia Group

Source: ForexYard Pressure Remains on the EUR

The EUR continues to be pressured as a combination of Greek and Italian debt issues combined with a slowing of the global economy weighs on the EUR. This week is an important week as six G10 central banks meet along with a planned economic speech by President Obama.

Economic News USD – Ugly Return to US Trading

US traders will return from their Labor Day holiday to find the state of markets in turmoil. A combination of the euro zone debt crisis and the slowing of the global economy are pressuring risky assets. With the US stock markets closed on Monday the S&P 500 looks to gap significantly lower upon Tuesday's . . . → Read More: Pressure Remains on the EUR

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Late Night Karaoke

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 06 September 2011 03:00:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

[...]

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Texas WildfiresRick Perry Puts Small Government
Ideology Over The Safety And Well-Being Of Everyday Texans

post from Texas Liberal on 06 September 2011 02:14:59 AM. © Texas Liberal

There are wildfires taking place in Texas. There have been many wildfires in Texas in 2011 due to drought and extreme heat. Many people have had to leave their homes in this most recent round of fires. Here is a Texas Forest Service map of the fires. Governor Rick Perry has taken time off from the [...]

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There Is An Option

post from jobsanger on 06 September 2011 01:07:00 AM. © jobsanger

This is just a little reminder to those Democrats who think progressives have no option except to vote for them. If they don't start fighting to uphold the progressive values they claim to believe in, they could easily find themselves losing more and more people to a true progressive party -- the Green Party. Here's an interesting question -- how many people joining the Greens would it take before the Democrats found themselves joining the Whigs as only a historical anecdote? The graphic above is from the blog Thurman's Notebook.

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Are Corporations Patriotic (Or Just Greedy)

post from jobsanger on 06 September 2011 01:06:00 AM. © jobsanger

Are corporations patriotic? It's an intriguing question. It seems to be the Republican point of view that it is patriotic to support America's giant corporations and their need for ever greater percentages of profit. They would tell you that whatever is good for the giant corporations is good for America, because corporations produce jobs and a rising tide of wealth for all Americans.

It's not true, of course. Most of the jobs in this country are produced by small businesses, not corporations. And most of the jobs created by corporations in the last few years were not even in this country. They were outsourced to countries where workers could be abused by paying almost starvation wages with no benefits. As for that rising tide of wealth, that has been restricted to only the top 1%-5% of the wealthiest people.

But even if it was true (a huge and false assumption), it really doesn't answer the question of corporate patriotism. Supporting corporations as a patriotic effort and corporations acting in a patriotic way are two separate things, and whether the former is true or false has no bearing on the truth of the latter. The patriotism of a corporation can only be judged through the actions of the corporation. And I believe there are three corporate actions at least that tends to place doubt on their patriotism.

The first of these is tax avoidance (and the accepting of unneeded government subsidies). There are three unavoidable facts in today's economy. The average American citizen is hurting. The government deficit and debt are growing. And the giant corporations are making huge and many times record-breaking profits. And contributing to all three of these factors is the refusal of giant corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, by using loopholes, subsidies they don't need, and hiding corporate money in tax-haven countries.

The corporations and their cohorts, Republicans in Congress, would have us believe that the U.S. corporations couldn't compete with foreign corporations if they were required to pay their full burden of taxes. That is utter horse manure. Income taxes are not a business expense that might prevent a company from posting a profit (like the cost of materials, labor, insurance, etc.). The are a percentage of net profits (after expenses have been accounted for), and if there are little or no net profits then there would be little or no income taxes owed. By their very nature, being a percentage of net profit, income taxes could never keep a company from posting and keeping most of a profit.

Since income taxes would never keep a corporation from turning a profit, is it patriotic for a corporation to hide money in other countries and then use loopholes in tax law and subsidies they no longer need to avoid paying taxes -- while the average American pays his/her taxes? I submit it is not. This corporate tax avoidance not only increases government deficit and debt, it places a larger burden on others (real people who must take up the slack). How patriotic is that?

Second, American corporations have a long history of enriching themselves through warfare while ordinary Americans die fighting those wars and civilians sacrifice for those doing the fighting. Whether it's for the fruit companies wanting cheap produce from Central America or the oil companies wanting cheap crude from Kuwait, this has been going on for a long time. And it's still happening. Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, and many others have made exorbitant profits in Iraq and Afghanistan -- while American soldiers die, the national debt is ballooned, and nothing seems to have been accomplished outside the establishment of a puppet government.

Now we are simply fighting to keep those corrupt puppet governments in place, especially in Afghanistan where huge untapped mineral resources have been discovered (and a Western-friendly government is necessary for corporate access to that untapped mineral wealth). Is it patriotic to increase corporate wealth on the dead bodies of American soldiers and the sacrifices of American families? I submit it is not.

The third reason for doubting corporate patriotism is the huge and continual outsourcing of American jobs to low-wage no-benefit countries where workers can still be abused. The corporations and their Republican lackeys want us to believe that the cost of American labor is prohibitive, and they could not make a decent profit if they didn't send the work to a low-wage foreign country.

Let's look at one of these companies that is outsourcing labor -- Apple. I don't pick this corporation because I have anything against it. I actually like Apple products, and in fact, this post is being typed on an Apple MacBook. But they are a good example of what is happening. For instance, the iPhone is assembled in China, where workers are lucky to get paid $1 an hour for the task. Using that figure, the labor cost of an iPhone is about $6.50. When that is added to the materials cost of %172.46, we find that Apple must pay out $178.96 to build an iPhone. Since the product sells for about $500.00, the company makes a profit of 64.2% on each sale.

But what would happen to their profit if the iPhone was made in the United States? Assuming it would cost 10 times as much to assemble the product in the United States (a reasonable assumption), the labor cost would then be $65.00 per unit. Adding that to the materials cost of $172.46 (which would remain the same) we get a product cost to the company of $237.46. Assuming the phone would still sell for $500.00, the company would now make a 52.5% profit on each sale. Is that a bad profit margin?

As can be easily seen, the company did not outsource those jobs to help them squeeze out a small profit (as most corporations would have us believe). They did it to turn a more than respectable 52.5% profit into a 64.2% profit. I can understand the desire of a corporation to make a good profit, but is it patriotic to outsource labor so an already good profit can be made even better? I submit it is not.

And I'll bet the same is true of all or at least nearly all of the American corporations that have outsourced jobs (and continue to do so). They are not doing it to make a profit -- but to turn a good profit into an exorbitant profit. And in doing so they are acting against the best interests of the country they claim as their own. This is not patriotism -- it is greed.

Are the giant American corporations patriotic? No, it takes more than some flag-waving and fancy talk from a CEO to be truly patriotic. Corporations are not people, regardless of what the Supreme Court thinks. They are legal entities dedicated to only one thing -- making ever larger profits. They will be patriotic only as long as it benefits their bottom line. When it doesn't they will abandon doing what is best for America (although they will probably continue to mouth patriotic platitudes). Don't buy into it -- it's greed, pure and simple.

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Teabaggers And Government

post from jobsanger on 06 September 2011 01:05:00 AM. © jobsanger

Political Cartoon is by Rob Rogers in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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Perry Ducks Another Debate

post from jobsanger on 06 September 2011 01:04:00 AM. © jobsanger

Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) held his Palmetto Forum yesterday. This is where he invites the Republican presidential candidates to gather and be questioned on their views and qualifications to be the eventual nominee of the Republican Party. Of course, in his own little attemp to be a kingmaker, DeMint didn't invite all of the candidates -- just the ones he liked or thought had a real chance of becoming the nominee. Jon Huntsman, Buddy Roemer, Rick Santorum, and Thad McCotter weren't included.

The five invited candidates pictured above made an appearance -- Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney. You might notice a candidate missing from that group. The candidate that is currently leading in all the polls -- Rick Perry. Perry was invited and was actually in South Carolina, but at the last minute he found an excuse to scamper back to Texas. In other words, he ducked another debate.

This comes as no surprise to those of us who live in Texas. We know that Perry has a history of ducking debates. In the last gubernatorial election he didn't participate in a single debate. The governor doesn't think too fast on his feet (remember, his college GPA was even lower than George W. Bush's), and he didn't want to be exposed on statewide television as the fraud he really is. Although the Palmetto Forum wasn't an actual debate, it would have put him on the same stage as the other candidates answering the same questions -- and I think that scared the hell out of him.

Of course, he claimed to have a good excuse for missing the forum. He said he needed to return to Texas because of the wildfires raging in many parts of the state. But as Texans know, those wildfires have been going for a couple of months now. And the extent of Perry's reaction to them was to call for a statewide day of public prayer, which you might note did no good at all.

I will grant that the fires are closer to the capitol in Austin now, but what does Perry think he can do about them by returning to Texas. Couldn't he have called a press conference and done a public prayer while in South Carolina? I'm sure the press would have accommodated him (since they like that sort of thing better than ferreting out real news). Maybe he thinks public prayers work better if offered from Texas rather than South Carolina.

Personally, I think he just ducked another debate. There are three more coming up this month (Republicans seem to love their debates). I doubt he can duck out on all of them, but it really wouldn't surprise me if he tried. The man really really hates debates.

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Father

Political Cartoon is by Brian Fairrington at caglecartoons.com.

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Krugman On Unemployment

All the talk the last few days has been about jobs, although we've heard very little from anyone with a plan that might actually work. Maybe that'll change when the president speaks on Thursday night. Anyway, Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and NY Times columnist, has a few words to say about jobs -- and Krugman is always worth reading. You can get the entire article from the Times, but here is some of what he had to say:

Although you?d never know it listening to the ranters, the past year has actually been a pretty good test of the theory that slashing government spending actually creates jobs. The deficit obsession has blocked a much-needed second round of federal stimulus, and with stimulus spending, such as it was, fading out, we?re experiencing de facto fiscal austerity. State and local governments, in particular, faced with the loss of federal aid, have been sharply cutting many programs and have been laying off a lot of workers, mostly schoolteachers.And somehow the private sector hasn?t responded to these layoffs by rejoicing at the sight of a shrinking government and embarking on a hiring spree.O.K., I know what the usual suspects will say ? namely, that fears of regulation and higher taxes are holding businesses back. But this is just a right-wing fantasy. Multiple surveys have shown that lack of demand ? a lack that is being exacerbated by government cutbacks ? is the overwhelming problem businesses face, with regulation and taxes barely even in the picture.For example, when McClatchy Newspapers recently canvassed a random selection of small-business owners to find out what was hurting them, not a single one complained about regulation of his or her industry, and few complained much about taxes. And did I mention that profits after taxes, as a share of national income, are at record levels?So short-run deficits aren?t a problem; lack of demand is, and spending cuts are making things much worse. Maybe it?s time to change course?Which brings me to President Obama?s planned speech on the economy.I find it useful to think in terms of three questions: What should we be doing to create jobs? What will Republicans in Congress agree to? And given that political reality, what should the president propose?The answer to the first question is that we should have a lot of job-creating spending on the part of the federal government, largely in the form of much-needed spending to repair and upgrade the nation?s infrastructure. Oh, and we need more aid to state and local governments, so that they can stop laying off schoolteachers.But what will Republicans agree to? That?s easy: nothing. They will oppose anything Mr. Obama proposes, even if it would clearly help the economy ? or maybe I should say, especially if it would help the economy, since high unemployment helps them politically.This reality makes the third question ? what the president should propose ? hard to answer, since nothing he proposes will actually happen anytime soon. So I?m personally prepared to cut Mr. Obama a lot of slack on the specifics of his proposal, as long as it?s big and bold. For what he mostly needs to do now is to change the conversation ? to get Washington talking again about jobs and how the government can help create them.For the sake of the nation, and especially for millions of unemployed Americans who see little prospect of finding another job, I hope he pulls it off.

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