trade and jobs
seems a suitable topic

“the use of tariffs
should remain a ready tool

available to protect our political economy”

no

the exchange rate pattern needs to be addressed

the whole cross border cross currency zone system
needs to operate toward a fast return to balanced trade

at the national level

unfortunately
larry summers stateless elite

ie the trans nat corporations

make their extra special profits

off protracted imbalances

none of this exceeds the science we know
and could use

if the broader interests

of the bottom 5.5 billion humans

played the controling role

in the forex system

and the evil immiserating

credit flow hodge podge

behind it all

“The convergence of trade and technology has been disastrous”

why assume technology played any role beyond
opportunity to squeeze the secular trend

of domestic wage rates

u are dead right
this tech squeeze opportunity

works in conjunction

with the threat of production flight

which

only gets its longer run teeth

from the chronic trade gap

a too high trade dollar

vs low wage asia

produces

btw the switch to low wage asia
prolly retards

global technical advance

even as it

increases global median

value added per hour

imagine a fully automated domestic production system

one large enough
so as a whole

our manufacturing sector

produces a value equivalent

of all the manufactured products

we consume

yes this could employ
no operatives at all

and have zero impact

on relative wage structures

so long as production
is located here

and we import no more

then we export

the balance will not harm wages

by creating domestic product demand slack

the whole relative wage biz
is based on a discredited marginal

revenue notion

of labor ” productivity “

most college vs hs wage diffs
are process extrinsic

signaling premia

empty of any underlying bed rock
link to value added outcome

sweep away any tendency of the system
to head for

an all job markets clearing

pure comp convergence point

and the whole rig up

looks like an accident of history

“So my question is, why are service jobs also not paying well?”

trends in non trade sector wage rates
are ultimately interconnected

with trends in the trade-ables sector …eh ???

i agree blaming it on immigration is nonsense
the source of lower growth trends in all wages

is flight threat and import pressure

the counter beyond a popular demand
to end the unpatriotic forex fiddle

is a full employment macro policy
un-afraid of cost push inflation

because its prepared

to set up a mark up market

man are all you folks

pointing at german exceptionalism

to off load the forex fiddle

in for a pranging

theamazing 60 year old

out of the ashes uber machine

is in the process of packing up

and moving further ost

yup headed east

to low wage country

at best
east slaboobia is the post war dixie

to germany's new england

only far far grander

take the region from western penn and ny
above the ohio thru the great lakes past the mississippi

all the way to the edge of the great plains

the rust bowl eh???

now snap a picture of it
and send it to berlin

with this note

” u in 20 years or less ”
“what the hell is that supposed to mean in terms of understanding the issue of trade policy and inequality and rest?”

i'm glad i at long last hit a nerve

on this tedious subject

even if its a 70 year old nerve

it will precisely be
trade and its policies

—-including open economy

credit policy

and forex policy ——

that will bring this about

the unequal contest
will be the source of unequal outcomes

and by this i mean

the unequal exchange rates
euro vs ost currencies

and the unequal outcome

of wide open

cross border transfers

of production

by the big corporations

the trans nats and their security holders
will see their “intangible property ” income advance

over and against

the wage earners

who will see their pay packets stagnate

the euro is way way over valued
if this is not reversed

and i see only spasmotic responses so far

this capital export

product import friendly high euro policy

will

by degrees and stages

over the fullness of time

destroy the german industrial base

as the industrial base of new england

and now the midwest has been destroyed

“capitalism and its free market mentality will NOT protect redundant labour from extinction. The social safety net came into political acceptance, as result”

all well and goood

the german system has better economic nursing

for the systems artificially created

job casualties

you don't get muy point perhaps

its all about the set of newly emerging jobs
not the old destroyed jobs

unless the german wage class has a macro policy

that maintains maximum jobs growth

then the rate of changes in wages

will fall below

the rate of changes in labor productivity

as it has here

ever since the open door policy

allowed chronic trade imbalances

made possible
gold bugs take note

once the dollar

cut its ties to gold

…

alex t

you give examples of non trade ables

traffic controlers and local news paper printers

check out steel or auto parts or hand tools
fishing reels

well rusty can wax up this roll call
far far better then i

from his vantage point near ground zero

yes the assault on wages came from several directions
but the core of the union movement

after 37 here in the states

has been industry

and industry has suffered from run away plants

and run away threats

and low balled dumping and .

threats of low ball dumping and

….

” Are the ratios of graduates to non-graduates the same in 1973 as today”

my crit of bivens dean baker
and his fellow union flacks

why blame the professional class
when its the multi national corporate

ownership and top managment class

that are really racking in the proceeds

of america's open door trade policy

yes professionals may be snatching
earned income share

from bottom half wage fritters

but lets unite and increase the earned income share
not fight over internal shares

not yet

btw

a lifting of the minimum wage
at the rate of average productivity

is the single easiest move

earned income share wise

looking at both internal shares and those

between

earned income and property income

“the poor and vulnerable “

god i hate sob mate
blither words

poor
the white american job class

ain't poor

the haitian under class

that's poor

vulnerable

the white yankee wage class
might get laid off

but hey

in congo in bengladesh ….

….

“In terms of immigration, it has been the major factor in the destruction of unions in the building trades and in meatpacking”

building trades ???
please

so long as they hold on to prevailing wage

for the elite of the trades …

but meatpacking … shit
who u dickin ' here

the undocs can be orged

and in dixie they better be

the meat cuttin' fight there

unions

must win

no room for alibis
or scape goats

talking about real immigo comp

wait till the mexicans
can take over

interstate truck driving

……

“don't see why balancing trade
and using tariffs

as a stick to do so aren't complementary”

they are meldable indeed
but they aren't as good

as a forex rate drop

exchange rate drops
are rent seeker neutral

ie no special intrest loop holing

quotas and tarriffs are meant to be broken

then theres the pecuniary incentive
for immigo job seeking

its immigo dampening

when the earned dollars

don't go so far south of the border

and most important
a low dollar

is a capital export killer

ie

run away plant dampening

so it's
a three fer

“What instruments are you planing to use to get us there?”

quota threats
wto sanction seeking

jawboning won't do it obviously

a strictly chinese aimed trade containment policy
is a very very very bad idea

so of course
the policy must be

a fair and total plan

to attack all low ball currencies

u set up a metric
for all trading nations' currencies

and start a big fuss at the wto

the imf any global trade forum

will any conceivable
us gubmint do this

i doubt it

“an economist's Theogony, where abstract principles wage war: “Skills” “Globalization” “Technological Change” are the new gods, anthropologized agents, who keep our masters anonymous.”

lovely bruce

only a true devil a master class flack
like

larry summers

will call a spade a spade

well not a spade

he won't finger the multi national corporations

and their bankers

but at least

he uses a servicable polite company

euphemism

“a stateles elite “

…….

wjd123: “Doesn't competition taketh
away what China giveth?”

Is this supposed to be a joke?

he's eating lunch
hope its better then mine was

but bruce i sure hope he's joshing us here

if not
then the invisible hand job

strikes again

Posted by js paine at 06:21 PM

if the class tasks ahead
require at least a few key moments

where unity of action

is critical to success

then isn't subordination
of the individual necessary ??

even the vanguard needs internal organization…hierarchy 

don't like hierarchy ?
i hate it frankly ….but

if its just too much for u to bare
even in a progressive cause

i suggest you figure out

how to get yourself reborn

a thousand years from now

maybe by then

we'll have sublated

all this shit ass stuff

” class emergency emergency
for your own good

for our own class's brightest opportunity

our own higher ups

must be obeyed 

to the letter

of the party line

even

if not in the spirit of the masses “

Posted by js paine at 03:10 PM

my my my

file this inder

'deliver mine enemies unto me '

brad has broken the light barrier here

this is possibly as wooly
an ivy league hee haw hay ride

as the pugsly of the dismal science

has yet “syndicated”

it parties with the neo lib creed
like its what ??

1992 ???

…
reason

u imply a relation between real interest rates

and productivity enhancing investment

lower real rates
lead to higher productivity enhancing investments

investment may be
credit constrained

not debt service constrained

btw
when in your estimation

does the federal deficit

start crowding out

productivity enhancing investment ????

could a certain level of house lot mortgages
crowd out productivity enhancing investment too ???

…
the auntie cry

“At some point this becomes unsustainable”

as the car reaches 40 miles an hour

we ain't any wheres near
our productive systems

technical top end yet folks

if there's production slack
the deficit is sub optimal ….period

spot off delong
not withstanding

…
“Policies that ignore the level of government debt lead to the currency’s collapse, depression (due to the resulting disruption of the sectoral division of labour), and high inflation – perhaps hyperinflation”

what can a poor man say

perhaps
brad's pet desert toad wrote this eh ???

if so
if his toad indeed found a way to get

his webbed memes syndicated

by using the vast prestige

of his human proprietor

then i say

brad's toad oughta

face a long jail term in the family cat box

…
Debt must be paid back

no it doesn't
not dollar debt at least

not by uncle sam

not by

the one horizonless institution

with control of the ultimate source

of all dollar credit

…
jamzo

its time to sweep the leaves out of the pool

Posted by: paine | Link to comment | April 30, 2008 at 08:17 PM

paine says…
the debt does need to be serviced of course

and i and my gang of lawless resolutes
plan on shifting the tax burden

for that servicing onto

the stock bond holding class

beware the great shift of the tax shaft
coming to a federal gub near u

some time after january 2013

…
“Care to tell me why I or my country should loan you that money?”

the whole cross border trade system
would collapse if you didn't

i must say
sour grapes over the free ride aspects of the imperial dollar

coming from

a member of the uber alles crowd

kinda makes me laugh

the con's on u guys

that anal fear of inflation
hell

you could have been

a 80 million strong sweden by now

instead you're lookin more and more

like our midwest 35 years ago

—-with a better health system—-

…

“No conservative elite”

nope they are all equally free
and independent under god

and btw

unlike the liberal elite

with their ceaseless clustering

of the latest peer reviewed ” secular wisdoms “

the conservatives are rock of ages types
they have only two wisdoms

mammon and george patton

…
“(hint: you are not allowed to loot the Social Security trust fund)”

look lets get this intergenerational gig straight

the payroll tax is now
paying for a chunk of general budget expenditures

in the future the income tax will pay some
of the security payments

its a tax base to tax base time shift

the real game
alas an impossible board room day dream

somehow keep the payroll tax running

a surplus

at least till hell freezes

…
“America will be much poorer if McCain is elected president”

what the devil could “much poorer” mean ???

given our now trinary
and ultimately binary

white house czar choice

there's no reason to believe

there's much of a much in any diffrences

i'd allow the use of “somewhat poorer” ….
just to be sociable and hopeful and the like

Posted by js paine at 02:12 PM

dani
still a loyal reader

but nothing to add

so no comments

don't want
to become one of those nascar like commenters here

ever circling
the same simple slanted oval of a track

lap after lap

ever and always turning
in only one way and one direction

in my case

 hard left

ps
i get my need to nascar

out of my system

over at economist's view

Posted by pinky at 12:57 AM

“It will amount to no more than shifting yet another huge pile of debt onto the huge pile our descendants will have to pay off”

this is simply wrong swells
all of uncles debts

nedd never be reduced

all our descendants for ever and ever

will “need pay”

is the foreign owned

debt service

as for the here and now
so long as we are below

macro output capacity

and we are always operating below capacity

and even if we hit capacity

this is an open economy

embedded in a very slack

global industrial system

don't confuse raw commodity surges
with industrial limits

noe asume the price level is adjusted
only at great risk

and with diverse misery

those alleged aweful options
are the one's posed

by

the spoksmen

for the beneficiaries

of chronic system wide

job and credit slack

Posted by pinky at 12:38 AM

What the heck was happening since 2001?

the deficit was way too small for fiscal thrust
to counter import over export

trade drain

mind experiment

if all the tax cut money
and i mean all the money

is simply lent back

to cover uncle's expenditures

that dollar for dollar

otherwise would have been paid out of

the lost tax revenue …

ie the land where ricardian ratx rules …

is it any different

then if its lent to lot holders

for excess consumption expenditures ???

i say”yes indeed”

uncle has unlimited credit
householders …don't

trade opens doors indeed

but protection and reg waves
promising nothing but

“less opportunity “

for who ???
the rest of the pop ???

the non lib 77% ???

surely
it isn't even 1 % of the pop

that will be better off

over the next four years

thru entrepreneurial umph and ooohhummm pah pah

if we operate under optimal GOP

” free firms be fab firms ” type policy sets——

our demanding and exacting
national ” martkets”

will ratify a precious few

entrepreneurs dreams

however
a more and better paying jobs program

built on a fair trade dollar

and a full employment budget ….

“”Significant labor law changes will likely start with the elimination of secret ballots for union organizing elections, so that unions can verbally “ask” workers if they would like to join (read: intimidate them into saying yes). Then may come repeal of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act provision that allows states to enact “right to work” laws – 22 of them have done so – that allow workers to take jobs even if they decide not to join a union.”

repeal taft -hartley ???

man oh man
hell comes to amerika !!!!

btw

the woes of dixie pre date taft hartley

for sure

but the cotton state stymie
on unions surely hurts the region's wagery

if they'd like to dig their way out
from under the jim crow mausoleum

they need to repeal these

de facto state wage shackles

Posted by pinky at 12:33 AM

put brand momentum aside
—-you now the stuff

that gives throw weight to

“making promises they can never keep”

the party ballot contest
is like a civil court jury trial

its an act of construction not discovery

fiction ???
dream work ???

why not

the side wins
that paints the more compelling pictures

tells the better stories

ritual…entertainment …emotional outlet
…national travesty …

ahh what simple if as often harmful as useful… fun

what good sport

as much
the means of fierce them vs us circus

as the promise

of “free” bread

Posted by pinky at 12:31 AM

famous pasage :

“This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham.”

Freedom,
because both buyer and seller of a commodity,

say of labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents,

and the agreement they come to,

is but the form in which they give legal expression

to their common will.

Equality,
because each enters into relation with the other,

as with a simple owner of commodities,

and they exchange equivalent for equivalent.

Property, because each disposes
only of what is his own.

And
Bentham,

because each looks only to himself.

The only force that brings them together

and puts them in relation with each other,

is the selfishness,

the gain and the private interests of each.

Each looks to himself only,

and no one troubles himself about the rest,”

here's his mephistos paraphrase of smith's
principle of the divine hand like outcome

of spontaneous market forces

” and just because they do so,
do they all,

in accordance with

the pre-established harmony of things,

or

under the auspices of an all-shrewd providence,

work together to their mutual advantage,

for the common weal

and in the interest of all. “

no as if ..here

has karl missed the point ???

failed to capture
smiths natural liberty conjecture

the existence of a  pareto optimality
just out of the interactions

of self seeking self guided traders

 the sweet harmony produced by
unleashing folks

to go about

buying and selling and making

just as they please

is karl

simply saying

this is a secular fantasy

the interacting of ego centric agents
can't promote a common good ???

more in our next med moment 

Posted by pinky at 12:09 AM

On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of commodities, which furnishes the “Free-trader Vulgaris” with his views and ideas, and with the standard by which he judges a society based on capital and wages, we think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but — a hiding.

mark
i admire your bold and naked explorations in this post

i wish you had time for more such
none of the usual clever loop holing and off setting words

more like …well delong at his most boorish
(and most useful )

take the straight off implications of this line:

“… I wonder if monetary policy will slowly run out of rigidities to exploit ..”

my take
monetary theory has exploited price stickiness way too long

and its in fact its ten million
modeling ” place holders “

simulative of realistic results

but empty of plausibly motivated actions

sticky quantities exist too at the phenomenal level
and at least some degree

of “less then perfectly swift and accurate”

adjustments

in either and or both

the p and q dimensions

can't really be avoided

and yet my deeper sense of the 'ting ooon sack'
keynes grabbed at in his GT

wasn't about kinematics per se

but conflicting property interests

as much
about the sudden clench

the sudden paralizing action

of the hand of the creditor class

on the mommentum of the limited liability

for profit firms

thru the precise but now hopelessly crunched

mechanisms of an existing

but post train wrecked

and thus essentially irrelevent

credit structure

as irrelevent
going forward

to the best operation of “the system “

—-like all sunk costs—-

as it is the non plus ultra

of its individual agents

the contradiction embedded in the system
emerges from the workings of the system itself

the non optimal by the book guidance
at these points where the system needs to toss out all the books

declare a jubilee

” burn the records”

ie the cob wed chests of numbers

we must worship only because

this is what motivates

incentivizes the systems agents

improve info on
the balance sheets

the accounts r and p

debt structures

the whole panjamdrone

of paper choke effects

and my gut sez the system seizes up even faster

not out of panic and uncertainty

but the profound awareness of insolvency … bankrupcy

purvasive
loses realized …big time

a sudden wave of
“stop the music folks

i just took a huge beating here “

the after math
means

the slow output reducing

“work out phase “

sorting out
who owes what to who

since who did what to who

all the sunken treasure diving

who has and who hasn't …the means of payment

where is that means of payment

who goes under who to jail etc etc

more and better info more and better forecasts
more and better trans[arency

more and better and faster adjusting

of prices purchases and outputs …..

simply builds the speed of the system

while increasing the cataclysmic effect

of the self inflicted next crisis

face it

the systems dominant players
are faustian folk

they push beyond safety

even as safety offers more

risk always offers

even more still

…

bw gets my point

and in spades

what i don't see
in doc bruce's institutional vision

is

where the on going system's

stage by stage self sublation is heading

to wax 1848 ish

the step by step from crisis to crisis
abolition

by means of various new forms

of social expropriation

of all privately held

socially productive property

If all prices are perfectly flexible so that all markets clear at all points in time…”

assume the can openner and damn it
suddenly the cans disappear

“best possible markets”
in this nth best

of all possible market worlds

never clear

job markets and credit markets
are not marshall markets “If the Fed has ever worked on the part of its mandate to help full employment, I'm not aware of it.”

certainly true figuratively

at least
since the truman “give back “

ie

in and of themselves
the strategic interests of the wage earning class

count for zero among the members of …

“the governing board ”

“It is an undemocratic organization run for the benefit of banks, and perhaps it is time that its organizational structure be reformed”

bravo
…

“… the asymmetrical information problem is intractable for unique products and long-term relationships”

i prefer the simpler
clear as a bell ringing at mid nite

indispensible motivational visions

in a zillion job toiling bill paying heads

of joining the ravenous hords

of the job lessly idled

and credit wise nyet ed

the shut out class

…
“this is true in virtually all

reasonable models

of

the economy ”

reasonable models of spot market exchange

but not of production or of …money

…
mark's little tease

question:

“Should we worry that monetary policy may lose effectiveness over time?”

answer :

” Not if our models are correct. In fact, this would be desirable”

reason:

” If all prices are perfectly flexible,
markets will behave optimally on their own”

result :

” there would be no need for the Fed to intervene to stabilize the economy”
no secret

i attempt to attack social policy
from the lower middle left

is this below quote
in concert ???

“inflation”

on inflation:

“vulnerable agents are unable to protect themselves adequately, creating real pain. These effects are generally ignored as trivial, but they are not “

nope

it ain't just SSI indexing
even if we go naked unto

the hydra headed monster of inflation

on the whole

—ie putting aside
the zero sum intra stratum shifts—-

the prole bottom does better
in inflationary periods

then the silk hat top

relatively speaking of course

and in the royalists'
dream stage

deflation…the bottom does…well

watch any sob series

on the GREAT DEP

the wind that calls itself
by its hereditary enermy “inflation”

blows at us

intentionally or not

from the upper right

hey hedge

price system relies on relative prices not absolute prices

if there's some spooky moving floor
under present absolute prices

then to allow max flex

the de facto ceiling must rise enough

to allow for fairly efficient and swift

relative price adjustments eh ??

price shocks like crude oil presents from time to time
ned a certain temporary acceleration

in the ceiling rise rate

wanna insure the system don't touch off
a wage profit spiral ??

implement a big firm MAP

a market anti inflation program
for firms

large enough to influence

market wide prices

“Bidding up prices to hedge inflation
is a non productive activity “

this is at best a very x ray telescopic
view of the involved agents actions

a sudden reinforcing craze
to buy ever pricier house lot

with borrowed money

is not really about

a better store of wealth

ie a pure inflation hedge

in fact a hedge is an off set

ie

not betting on the level change

in the purchasing power of a buck

calls for an indexed security

sure” the equity “
such as it was

out performed an idexed t bond these last ten years

in fact who's to say
it still won't over the next ten years ???

then again a ten year
real lot value stag

looks more likely

so the t bond with index

is more likely to appreciate faster

over the next n periods

so where does this lead us ???
then the rate of general lot values

“A healthy economy
has both upward and downward

price flexibility.

We don't live in one”

who ever did flow-chart ??

err a healthy economy sure
but

an up/down full flexer ???

no way

and so your omni flex capacity
is not necessary for “health “

thank god

…
bruce w

your very fine

long post above

fairly anchors u

as a guy

having more fun focusing

clearly and with insight

on the whole damn

self morphing social process

and the amazing light show

of zigs and zags

of deluded aims and unintended ends

bereft of any hope

but thru a placebo effect

for u there is no careful if mysterious workings
of a plan

no higher guidance of our acts

carrying us forward ….and surely not upward

there's an older school of course
a school of prophetic ministry

—-like rev j wright—-

from time to time

judgement days arrive in this genre

i find that notion

—-even as it remains
only a figurative gig—-

very comforting

—————
btw

i'm most

entertained by the unobserved

class based constraining factors

that betray

class neutral

“best for us all”

plans and intentions

example :

my favorite part
of the c manifesto

the catalogue

of

class by class specified

false socialisms

…
“the plutocrats have had their uses for inflation”

case in point

the great war inflation of 1915- to 1919

…

” The economics of the op-ed page, financed by the plutocracy, with its simple-minded “smaller government” and “lower taxes spur growth” is completely ass-backwards for our moment: progress from here requires higher, more progressive taxes, more social insurance, more public investment, new institutions to manage every thing.”

it occurs to me
how similar you are bruce

to the minds inside fdr's

original brains trust

but this time
its 

a national pira we need

not a national ira

a national post industrial recovery act

i see tattoo shouting

” it's the plan boss …the plan “

Posted by js paine at 11:43 PM