Obama Addresses Job Creation For Election Year (Video) and GOP ect..

Obama Addresses Job Creation For Election Year

“President Barack Obama’s “billion-dollar war chest”"

 

We are proud of it.

Still things seem to be going all right, toward reasonable directions. And there is an “INTRIGUING,“ “HILLARIOUS“  title of  Yahoo news.:

 

“The evangelical dilemma in South Carolina: adulterer or Mormon?” 

 

“For South Carolina conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, the 2012 campaign season is the year of magical rethinking. Look at the frontrunners:

If you want a president with a legacy of marital fidelity, you’re going to have to work around Newt Gingrich’s adultery.

If you believe that Mormons don’t really qualify as Christian, you may find yourself struggling with Mitt Romney.“

 

“almost-dead.bz.cm” you are none of my concern. you are too stupid, trivial, meaningless, filthy, same with your Russian whore and her stupid husband. YOU THINK I”M ALMOST DEAD?; your life has been useless, full of dirts with your dirty heart/eyes, even messing up churches with your filthy, dirty eyes. The LORD will deal with you, what you have done. not me. Despite all cruel/brutal things you’ve done to make me disappear, why do you think i’m still here?

“In your righteousness, bring me out of trouble. In your unfailing love, silence my enemies; destroy all my foes, for I am your servant.” “The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shred. You saved the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light…..You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn. I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed. I crushed them so that they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet. You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet. You made my enemies turn their backs in flight, and I destroyed my foes. They cried for help, but there was no one to save them – to the LORD, but he did not answer. I beat them as fine as dust borne on the wind…“ “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”;  Psalms 18″ Thank G-.

“The Real News on Jobs”: Who’s Blame for Job Losses and Gains?

There is good news that US job situation and economy. Private sector created 222,000 new jobs in Feb 2011 and the unemployment rate decreased to the lowest point of 8.9% since April 2009. These new jobs were dominantly created in the sectors of “factories, trucking companies, health care providers, construction firms, hotels and restaurants”. Economists say that the US economy needs 125,000 new jobs per month to maintain steady unemployment rate account for population growth, and 300,000 new jobs per month to get serious decrease in unemployment rate.(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_economy)

On the other hand, increasing oil prices, which is expected to continue through this summer, due to the political crises in Middle East and recent firing of public workers from state local governments are expected to be counteracting forces against this recovery of job-economy-condition.

Professor Robert Reich points out the problem of wage gap regarding the recent job growth (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-real-news-on-jobs_b_831493.html):

“New jobs created since February 2010 (about 1.26 million) pay significantly lower wages than the jobs lost (8.4 million) between January 2008 and February 2010. While the biggest losses were higher-wage jobs paying an average of $19.05 to $31.40 an hour, the biggest gains have been lower-wage jobs paying an average of $9.03 to $12.91 an hour. In other words, the big news isn’t jobs. It’s wages.”

This deteriorating wage gap is understandable if we considered that the most recently job creating sectors have been “factories, trucking companies, health care providers, construction firms, hotels and restaurants” as mentioned above.

He points out:

Regarding Prof. Reich’s statement, “Conservative economists have it wrong. The underlying problem isn’t that so many Americans have priced themselves out of the global/high-tech labor market. It’s that they’re getting a smaller and smaller share of the pie.”

If we look into the detailed view of this “smaller smaller share of American worker’s pies, there are multi-layers of problems:

-The American Pie piece in Global Manufacturing Market is shrinking smaller and smaller.

-Inefficiences and bureacracies in most of US political, industrial entities and even labor unions have collectively contributed to the “dwindling American pies.” Loose government regulations on industries/business allowed these entities to take slices from workers’ pays and benefits, as seen in healthcare, housing/financial market messes, to bloat the wealth of high income groups while dwindling middle classes. But some part of labor also have their portion of blame for their shrinking pies: instead of focusing on working hard and increasing productivity to cut production costs and their global competitiveness, some of them (I am not talking about hard working workers. I praise them) has taken lazy approach of taking unheardly high paid vacation/sick days of almost one month out of twelve months while demanding high pays/benefits and protection of workers’ right, which seems to be inappropriate abuse of their right to protect their jobs. All these inefficiencies, bureaucracies from every entities sum up to “Slashed American Pie.” Everybody demand their right but don’t meet their performance requirements.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

always been waiting.

Regarding “Federal Reserve ‘Will Be Gone’ In 25 Years, Top Financial Mind Predicts, Despite Geithner’s Vote Of Confidence”

Regarding Dr. Nassim Taleb’s criticism of the government’s bailout of financial sector:
“This transformation from private debt … to public debt” is “bad” from a risk standpoint and “immoral” from an ethical standpoint.” (Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/30/nassim-taleb-federal-reserve-will-be-gone_n_746109.html)

Dr. Taleb may be true that making financial sector’s debt as public debt through government bailout of the sector doesn’t sound right from risk and ethical standpoints.

However, from the standpoints of national economic security and anti-Possible 2nd Great Depression, bailingout financial sector was inevitable, necessary evil, not for the love of greedy financiers (who will live happily ever after, with or without bailout, with their accumulated wealth hidden in their backyard) but for the love of country and the majority of population who would have actually bore the devastating aftershock, real costs of collapsing financial sectors if there had not been government bailout. To achieve bigger goals, maybe we should sacrifice smaller goals if they are conflicting each other and cannot be achieved all together.

It seems to be a matter of right priority setting; I believe, national economic security and preventing second great depression domestically and internationally should be in higher order than risks and ethics in the hierarchy of national priority. Save big chunk first and solve smaller problems one by one.

Fed may or may not exist in next a few decades if it keeps mis-estimating its costs and benefits and continue misjudgement.

Elizabeth Warren, Tim Geithner Look To Simplify Mortgage Red Tape

It sounds great that Prof. Warren and Treasury Geithner are doing their best to work together and make progress in consumer protection. Fantastic to read that:

“Warren said that Obama told her not to worry about job titles, but to “start pushing back” against companies fighting new regulations aimed at protecting borrowers. She said, “That’s exactly what I intend to do, and I intend to do it as hard as I can.”

A string of positive changes that the administration is making recently, along with the positive action of group of economists against deficit hawks, celebrities John Stewart and Colbert’s March to Washington to Restore Sanity, which will definitely draw huge public attention, these changes should eventually soften public’s heart toward election.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100922/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_economic_adviser

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/20/obama-hedges-on-possible-_n_732520.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/21/elizabeth-warren-tim-geit_n_733615.html

Former Wall Street Banker Supporters Turning against President

“‘how on earth”………only one matters.

The news is, ”….that the honeymoon between Washington and Wall Street has turned to bitter recriminations is not news, given that the administration had long pledged to revamp Wall Street regulation in the wake of a crisis that rattled the global financial system.”

“Why so personal? The prevailing view is that bankers, hedge fund mangers and traders supported the Obama candidacy because he appealed to their egos.” Mr. Obama was viewed as a member of the elite, an Ivy League graduate (Columbia, class of ’83, the same as Mr. Loeb), president of The Harvard Law Review — he was supposed to be just like them. President Obama was the “intelligent” choice, the same way they felt about themselves. They say that they knew he would seek higher taxes and tighter regulation; that was O.K. What they say they did not realize was that they were going to be painted as villains.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/business/31sorkin.html?_r=2&ref=business

It must be tough news for President Obama to hear that his former supporters of wall street are now turning against him. Although this news must be very hard for him, because of the critical timing of US politics that is in desperate need of fundamental financial reform and the incompatibility of what is needed for this country and the majority of population and what wall street wants, this breakup might have been inevitable thing to happen from the beginning of the administration. There is no way to please both main street and wall street and properly manage the work done. If President has to choose between them, definitely it should be main street from long-term perspective.

When looking back, ex-president Bush had such low rating after his inauguration. It was 9/11 event that gave him the opportunity to “Physically” work hard (not contents of his policies) in public view and recover some of public support for him. Especially when there are few ways to bring economic recovery to this country in timely manner, probably President Obama should do the same thing as Bush did. Physically working hard, showing up every possible places, and gaining people’s heart toward him even without strong economic numbers to support him.

Opportunity for American Manufacturing, Jobs: The Case of Luxury Goods – Export?

In the beginning of Obama Administration, there had been voices that the US is in need of comprehensive analyses of US industrial competitiveness, strategic identification / development of industrial portfolio of which industries are viable, competitive, sustainable, or have growth potentials. At that time, there had also been some notion that “New Deal” style economic stimulus will not be viable, that “New Deal” failed as the New Deal construction boom of infrastructure for a few years (1933- 1937) went into another deep recession……

US market has been considered saturated as too many foreign and domestic competitors fight in a aging market while US producers have been defunctional in adapting to consumer demand but mainly surviving by manipulating US policies. Despite that, many giant US firms without competitiveness have still fallen, including labor intensive industries and auto industry.

However, despite worldwide recession, reportedly worldwide-widening income gap between rich and poor means means that there are sizable, lucrative foreign markets for US manufacturing of luxury goods, especially in countries like Brazil, Argentina, Korea, Asian tigers, India, China where riches are competing with those in this country. Rich people’s consumption are recession-resistant, meaning they will buy whatever they like, no matter it is recession or not. Do you remember the old news of some Koreans smuggling Viagra into Korea and got the whole country mad about those reckless, non-patriotic rich sons of etc. who care for those while the whole country suffers from financial madness?  On the other hand, US has unbeatable competitiveness in luxury goods that has cajoled the luxury lifestyles of American mass modern dynasties of rich and famous entrepreneurs, hollywood, basketball stars, etc. US entrepreneurs can strive to export these luxury goods to leisurely classes of foreign countries, such as bollywood (or dollywood? what was that) stars of India or you name them; foreign consumers can not buy American luxuries because they are not available either because of their governments’ import restriction or Americans don’t exports them.

Chinese Consumers in the Era of China As #2 Super Economy

Recently, China became the number 2 world economic superpower after the United States.

In an article, “The Truth About China as #2″, Dr. Robert Reich talks about China’s production and consumption expansion as below:

“But Chinese wages are so meager relative to China’s productive capacity that it would take a tsunami of labor agitation to push pay up to where it should be.

China is now the world’s largest market for everything from cars to cell phones – but that’s not because these items are within easy reach of the average Chinese. It’s because, out of 1.3 billion people, a couple of hundred million can save enough to buy them.

If the wages and purchasing power of Chinese households continues to rise more slowly than China’s capacity to produce goods and services — more slowly than China’s corporate profits and the government’s share of national income — we’re all in trouble.

Think of China as a giant production machine that’s growing 10 percent a year (this year, somewhat less). The machine sucks in more and more raw materials and components from rest of world — it’s now the world’s #1 buyer of iron ore and copper, and close to the #1 importer of crude oil — and spews out a growing mountain of stuff, along with huge environmental problems.” (source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-truth-about-china-as-_b_684004.html)

I wonder whether Dr. Reich’s view of Chinese consumer is too simplistic. China appears to have huge dichotomy of economic development levels because of extreme urbanization/industrialization in cities while most rural areas suffer lack of infrastructure, industrial/employment sources, unimaginable poverty, resembling African poverty and starvation.

Chinese people in urban areas get along well with fast increasing wages, available modern appliances and lifestyles, the corresponding consumption. Chinese in urban areas or cities imitate lifestyles of people in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, or New York. While urbanization has been growing fast in China, it is the vast size of Chinese rural areas and their consumers’ extreme poverty, starvation that drag down the overall consumption level of Chinese consumers.

It will change over time depending on the speed of China’s urbanization/industrialization process.
China, in general, is extremely underdeveloped and have to undergo hell of industrialization process couttry-wide for Chinese’s individual average level of consumption to reach the level of other industrializing and industrialized countries. Although China now reached the #2 world economy status after the US, in terms of the level of economic growth or maturity, still the country is in the stage of early teenage level, I would say, which means unimaginable potential for further growth over prolonged period until next super power rises.

In terms of China’s production growth, it will also depend on the world market condition. During recession like this, world demand for Chinese goods either slows down or stagnates, which limit Chinese expansion of production.

My Name is Beautiful City.

I admire big trees with deep roots, withstanding everything – rains, storms, snow, thunders to prosper hundreds years. They look enduring, trustworthy.

My name means “beautiful city” in Chinese character. When I was little, my name was different. When I was about 2-3 years old, a guy who was disabled during the Vietnamese war and rented a room at my parents’ house observed  me crying. He told my mother that my original name was not good for me, he will make another one that will bless my future. My mother waited a month or so for him to tell her my new name. This disabled war veteran came up with my current name, mi kyung, which he decided mainly based on the number of lines of the Chinese words because that specific number of lines of chinese characters happens to give me blessed future. That happens to be this name. There are many same names like mine in Asia, using different chinese characters, meaning different, but sounding same.

Strangely, I don’t have birth dreams of my kids. Maybe because I was in America, not in Asia. In Asia, baby-expecting mothers or their mothers or somebody close to those expecting mothers usually have birth dreams of expected babies that give symbolizing meaning about their babies. When pregnant with me, my mother’s birth dream was, she was flying in sky above her house and saw her front yard of house completely covered with white cherry blossoms. She flew down to the house and saw an very old woman with gray hair (a legendary woman who is believed to bring babies to families) plants endless numbers of cherry trees that were covered with white cherry blossoms. She noticed that those cherry trees didn’t have roots and asked the old lady why she was planting those rootless cherry trees although they will die. The old lady said that she will see in future how these rootless cherry trees will blossom and prosper. And now I am in America (rootless), but my skin is yellow, or rather say olive color instead of white. I write small things from time to time as notes, planning to use them somewhere sometime.

The Real Meaning of Michigan Gov. Granholm’s “Cracking the Code’ to Keeping Manufacturing Jobs in America”

Govenor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan suggested three industrial strategies in her blog post “Cracking the Code to Keeping Manufacturing Jobs in America.” (source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-m-granholm/cracking-the-code-to-keep_b_664287.html)

In this post, her three strategies are:

“First, the auto companies needed to get religion. The car companies are making major new investments in green technology in all aspects of their business. Second, labor needed to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Modern, flexible, lower-cost agreements are becoming the norm. Finally, government must play a key role. We need well thought-out policy, consistent enforcement of fair trade policies, and competitive tax laws that reward companies for creating jobs in America. We need smart, public direct investment in research and development, infrastructure and targeted strategic industries.”

She states that “while we won’t be able to keep all labor-intensive manufacturing jobs in America…we can keep skill-intensive, advanced manufacturing jobs….”

This has been repeatedly said over decades. But few have defined which specific industries are skill-intensive, advanced manufacturing industries that US can have competitiveness over those of other countries. Although the US auto industry is striving to recover from near-collapse to gain competitiveness in green technology, it is just one industry that has shrunken in its industry size and employment level. There’s a question whether, by specializing in green technology, the US auto industry can succeeded in recovering its originia industry size and employment level and go further to compete with, excell over those of Japanese and other countries. And what about other industries? The needed government’s tight control of industrial strategies (previously Huffpost blogger also mentioned the need to develop national industrial strategies) should come to identify US-competitive industries and formulate national industrial and trade policies in ways of boosting them.

Regarding US need of modern, flexible, lower-cost agreements with labor, in ideal world, maybe. In real world, it is not feasible, sustainable under current wasteful, crisis-tuned US social systems. Current public outcry is about, along with bailout-gone-bad problems, the rapidest growth of richests’ income and flat growth/real decline of middle and low class income, which mean increasingly damaged consumer market and demand (no wonder why recovery is not going well) of middle class and low income classes. Unreasonable social economic system and slow/real decline of income that has deprived disposable income from middle/low income classes, disappearing middle class, increasing poverty, and housing crisis mean unstable, often unsustainable US living conditions with current wage levels and damaged consumer market, which make current US economic and job recovery more difficult without enough consumer purchasing power of goods. US labor obviously has it’s own problem of ignoring the factor of international competition. Sometime ago, NPR reported that US auto workers have been taking 30 work-free days (probably paid) per year (while the corresponding workers in other countries often work overtime at lower wages), which include sick days and holidays. One month off from work every year and still imagine that the US auto industry should thrive and auto workers’ wages should increase as much as they want. Working less than other workers but claiming their inborn entitlement of higher wages is called “daydreaming.” Nonetheless, demanding lower-costs agreement with labor may mean even further damaging of middle/low incomers’ economic lives, further shrinking of consumer demand/market.

“Without through reforms of US social structure, demanding lower-costs agreement with labor may only mean even further damaging of middle/low incomers’ economic lives, further shrinking of consumer demand/market“

Regarding Prof. Robert Reigh’s “The Rebirth of Regulation.”

Professor Robert Reigh says that recent BP’s oil spill, Massey’s mine disaster, and Goldman’s alleged fraud, all are the outcomes of government deregulation of businesses and few or low penalties for business misconduct over the three decades. He states:

“When shareholders demand the highest returns possible and executive pay is linked to stock performance, many companies will do whatever necessary to squeeze out added profits. And that will spell disaster – giant oil spills, terrible coal-mine disasters, and Wall Street meltdowns — unless the nation has tough regulations backed up by significant penalties….After thirty years of deregulation, it’s time for the rebirth of regulation: Not heavy-handed and unnecessarily costly regulation, but regulation that’s up to the task of protecting the public from companies and executives that will do almost anything to make a buck.”

Full Text: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-rebirth-of-regulation_b_561962.html

In the middle of economic meltdown, though it seems to be heading toward recovery, his proposal sounds very convincing.

The problem with extreme government deregulation seems to be, as the economic history of last decades has shown, it has actually created market barriers, prevented market from functioning efficiently, smoothly, properly.

Instead of clearing barriers for market to function best, deregulation has rather caused market crashes, economic meltdowns. It is because careless deregulation has ultimately empowered human greediness over reasoning and conscience, paved ways for business corruptions and misallocated nation’s resources, instead of motivating entrepreneurs to re-invest, re-oil their business structure and helping, promoting corporations to function at their best not only for their own sake and but also for their customers.

When companies collapse, are their CEOs happy? Because they already earned enough? Hopely not. There should be the limitations of corporate joy-rides without taking responsibilities for their actions. They have been acting like children. It’s time for them to start to act like grown-ups.