Stephen Joseph

And we expect Bush to be non-human? Hindsight buddy. Wishful expectational updating. If you expect a President to act in anything other than a superhuman manner, you're an idiot. They're human. If it was Gore, or Kerry, or Clinton, I'd be saying the same thing. You're criticizing a man on just normal human reaction. Whatever.

Oh please, you'll say anything to bash Bush. We occupying a country and we've lost 932 lives? I'd say that's one hellaciously effective army. And you cannot pin the loss of life 100% on anyone's shoulders, that's ludicrious. It's called 30 plus year of instability, dictators, and social chaos in that region...sure the US has its part, but c'mon man...really you expect for me to consider Bush MORE guilty than those who profit from the beheadings and Mr. Hussein himself? As if. I'm waiting for you to bring some facts. Explain that.

You mean you started to read Steele's article For shame KKK...go sit in the KKKorner

Hmm, I'm not voting.

Well, gee I'm definitely in favor of it. And to quip a line from the democrats ... ANYTHING BUT current income tax system. The problem with cutting waste is that any of these programs benefits a few *relatively* greatly at the expense of many for much less. It's difficult to get people to care when its minorly impacting them. Course sum it all up, and we're probably losing 10-15% of our income on shit we don't care to support. As long as the lobbyists and special interests hold sway over DC, it'll never happen. Which is why , gasp, believe it or not... I support full public and only public funding for high elected offices. I don't like supporting it, its wasteful, but if it would break the strangehold of the lobbyists, the long-term benefits would so far outweight the short term cost

David. Ricardo. Until someone disproves his theory on comparative advantage, the argument holds. Pure free trade. Anything other than that, and well then, all bets off. I advocate purely free trade

Why the hell was I chastised by Mike, Marney, etc. when I suggested this months ago? I don't know Tyler, because obviously I agree with you. I'm a libertarian that believes in public education. Go figure.

to JOTW: 1) I'll restate something I've said before. We need good policy for job retraining and education, specifically educating and continuing to education. It costs money, but it returns alot in the long run. Honestly, if you can't get hired at the new jobs, take our a loan and invest in education at the new job. I also don't see how you're saying that if more people are hiring than are firing, at higher wage jobs *which they are* how that couldn't be good. 2) I am using it as an indicator of economic health. That's what it is. And as I pointed out of who is hiring, it is not "Walmart" jobs. Increasingly job creation has been in positions with higher educational requirements than "service/retail/food" jobs. Those who perform those jobs have little power over their wage, are easily replaced, and earn little. I'd like to see those jobs disappear over time, replaced with more livable wage jobs. Unless you can point to data to disprove my claim on where the job growth is going, don't assume. The Census is very helpful as well as the BLS. 3) Keynesian theory states that wages and labor can be sticky, and that real problems do occur. If people stay out to long of the labor force, they lose skills (hysteresis). There's frictional issues, structural issues, etc... Hysteresis is probably the most problematic, but not here. That's in Europe, big time (because of high unemployment benefits). When you don't have the education to get the created jobs, that's frictional. When industries change, that's structural. When you're lazy, that hysteresis. I wouldn't say someone wouldn't have a problem getting a job if they're more openings, they could not have the quals. But that problem is more easily solved (education), and definitely not worth trying to retain the crappier jobs that are disappearing.

yeah...happy birthday

Perhaps not, but Clinton didn't leave us with record deficits, and occupation in two nations, either. So he really comes out ahead. I may be wrong but aren't we still occupying several of the nations we went to during the Clinton years? Yes, but in smaller numbers

Paul, Q1: Tax breaks to keep workers could help stamp out resourcing by lowering the costs of retaining them. However, corporations are only taxed on profits, not retained earnings. You'd likely see a substitution towards higher R&D rather than a lessening of outsourcing. Oh, and btw, more jobs are being insourced in the last few months than outsourced. But the idea is sound. Q2: Bad Paul. We want free trade. Every argument for protectionism has been solidly debunked in the last 20 years by economists. Even the infant industry argument can't hold water. An insane amount of evidence has been compiled that as free trade increases, the economic well-being of the country/countries involved increases dramatically towards the long run. Do we have short-term shocks as economies change? Yes. This isn't problematic if we have the right policies to help those get re-educated in another field. The US's comparative advantage has been for the last 50 years in innovation of new products. Coincidentially, those are the industries that pay the highest wages. We want those. So I'm all for free trade which shucks our old innovations to other countries where they can be produced by cheaper *and less productive* labor while we keep getting the new and better industries here. There's a reason why Ross Perot didn't win in 1992, besides from the ears. Free trade is one of the best things for any country, no matter what economic position they hold (see: Ricardo, David)

Umm...if more people are hiring than are firing...thats a good thing right? I just put that out there so people could see where the job growth is coming from. Unless I'm mistaken, investmen analysts typically watch figures on hiring...not firing. It's difficult to accurately measure the firing side of job growth as there's so many reasons for it. Just saying, new hires are TYPICALLY used as indicators of the economy whereas new fires are not. And on the role of the economy... http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/39214...07|reuters.html Credit - Reuters and MyWay The Fed action, which boosted the dollar and weighed on U.S. government bonds and the stock market, came despite anemic job growth in July as well as oil prices that hit records above $45 a barrel on Tuesday. "In recent months, output growth has moderated and the pace of improvement in labor market conditions has slowed. This softness likely owes importantly to the substantial rise in energy prices," the Fed said in a statement outlining its rate decision. "The economy nevertheless appears poised to resume a stronger pace of expansion going forward," it added. The central bank said the risks to the U.S. economy remained balanced between weaker growth and higher prices, reiterating that some of the recent climb in prices appeared due to transitory factors.

i bet i could go back 6 presidents and do the same thing Just saying, no one really believes what they say anyways i hope not at least

Umm... every policy benefits some and hurts others...there's no free lunch. I fail to see the point. I quote "The business of America is business" Economic growth helps everyone out in the end. I favor policies that allow our businesses to grow. I think its also stupid to think that Bush would weigh moneyied interests and world peace on the same scale and then go with the moneyied interests. At least, by an economic persepective, he and his advisors would be incredibly stupid to do so otherwise. If you honestly think this war was about oil, then I won't be able to convince you. Simply put, the war was more about ideology than about oil. Any economic advisor wouldve told anyone wanting to benefit by going to war over oil that the idea is flawed at best. Anyways, its hopeless. I won't convince you that this war wasnt about oil, and you wont convince me your first argument has a logical point other than duh.

i hate you alf

Really? There's a place that would actually want me? Does it need saving? =)

HAHA! I love chaos! And KKK, if you really feel that way about me, we can meet up later *wink*

I don't think I like what you're implying. He didn't get death because he was a conspirator in the bombing and helped it along, but didn't actually pull the trigger... This was not an issue that religion saved his ass. This is not some issue of pity on the Christian. Don't even pretend to insinuate that.

F that, I'll start up a rival network

They're a cartel, that's how. Just like Diamonds and Milk. Yup...Milk. They coordinate by meeting and mutually agreeing to do stuff. Normally there's a leader (Saudi Arabia) who gets the stuff together and they all decide on quotas and what-not. Enforcement mechanisms come from possible retaliation if they're caught cheating, fines, lost profits due to unchecked competition once cheating starts...etc. The longer a cartel is around, the more time they have to learn not to cheat. However, if a cartle is operating on anything other than an infinite time horizon, cheating always occurs, and it always breaks down (God Bless John Nash). They sell their oil to refiners, shippers, users. It's all crude coming up at first. A cartel is like a union, but for goods and not labor. Unions are able to coordinate demands on behalf of alot of people, cartels can do the same. And again, there's punishment for any members that don't tow the line. Of course, profits are mighty tempting when prices are really freaking high, and so they cheat...again and again. A buyer's cartel aka monopsony (when buyers have market power) cant work because there's so many users to a relatively small number of pure providers. It is much easier to coordinate a small group, geographically located, than a larger group. Cartels always have some influence over price. I won't deny that. But the difference is the influence they have over the short-term and long-term. Short-term, yeah they can make life a pain. Long-term, they don't have much power. I mean, look at what the diamond cartels are facing now...synthetic diamonds that cannot be distinguished from the real...at all! and at half the price.

He was talking to me fool Go smoke on your KKKrackpipe

That actually couldn't be further from the truth Jobber Most investment comes from the upper class. The lower class has to spend their money to survive and pay for stuff, the middle class contributes a decent bit. Most of the upper class stay upper class because theyre putting their money in investments. By the law of large numbers, even if less of a percentage of the upper class were investing *which theyre not* theyd still contribute more When was the last time you knew of a person contributing 1000 dollars a month to a 401k who worked at McDonalds?

Paul (from a few posts up) ----- Yes,cuz the oil companies that have their hands up Bush's ass actually want the oil price to drop,right? They do what they do to get controll of the oil they don't give a fuck about your gas prices,Mike. ---- That's where I drew my inference, from where you said they don't want prices to drop. They'd definitely want them to drop if the increased quantity purchased would increase their total profit In response to your new post, Cartels aren't inspired to produce greater quantities. They're induced to cheat and hope the others don't notice it. I have no doubt OPEC will crack, as it has always. I greatly dislike insinuations that Bush, or any president, has the ability to manipulate markets to the benefit of a few. That's laughable at best. Nine times out of ten, the president has no short-term control over what goes on, and only a slight bit in the long-run. What I wanted to get across is that as you have higher profit opportunities, you'll get the following responses: Entry, increased production, increased R&D into substitutes, etc...Time and again we've seen competitors destroy profits of a once great firm *automobiles, anyone...1980s?* Considering that the US is still nowhere close to paying for its energy what the rest of the world is, adjusted for exchange rate differences, I'm not very concerned about the rise in energy prices. You can't maintain below market rates for very long. In reality, most of the price rise has nothing to do with cartels, or companies, but with exchange rate changes. And ohh, AoO, i got your pun, took me awhile. =)

Well then go save another message board, bitch. I love the petty name-calling... This one is hardly saved ... yet Don't worry KKK...Me and My ECONO-powers will soon transform this board into a utopian heaven ...with commies.

So Paul, econ 101. A company isn't just concerned about price, they're concerned about price AND quantity. A company who simply pursued getting prices higher and higher would soon find themselves not selling anything. The best cure for high prices is high prices. Why? Because others are induced to either create a substitute or enter the market to compete for profits. Both drop price. Companies want to maximize profit (Q*P)-C(Q). That's what they care about, not Price. Got it? Good.