While looking at a website written up in the saturday newspaper
computer section I found a link to The Economist. I like to read
the economist, so I clicked on the link.On the first page I
found stories opening on the current economic crises.

Conservatives like to say, "The economy is not a zero sum game"
when you raise the issue of wealth disparity. Well, the first
article that I saw was how it is a zero sum game. At least, it
is under the current economic crises, and that crises is not
likely to go away for a long time.

Next comes articles on just why do corporations exist in the
first place. Seems corporations are anti-market. Think that one
through. Centrally planned economies are generally recognized as
inefficient and cumbersome, but corporations are centrally
planned mini-economies.

Rather prominent is the interactive chart allowing you to
predict when China will top the US as the world's largest
economy. The consensus analysis seems to be 2019. With a
significant reduction in China's growth it goes to 2022. The
range seems 2017 to 2025.

There are a number of other articles, some a couple months old,
on things like the health care bill, Iran, Christmas in Vietnam,
Wikileaks etc.

On the health care bill, their biggest complaint is that it
doesn't do near enough to restrain costs. They analysize
America's health care system as the world's most expensive,
obviously true, and wasteful all the while leaving out a lot of
people. All the national health care bill does is bring more
people into a wasteful and expensive system.

Ok, it also actually provides health care for millions. And it
does counter balance a lot of the cost by shifting from more
expensive care to less expensive care. However, the lack of the
public option drastically increases the cost.

The also pointed out that the health care bill, as written,
could have been a republican bill. Other sources have pointed
out it practically is, it's very close to what Nixon came up
with back in the '70s.

On Iran, it seems the sanctions are actually likely to start
hurting the economy.

Back in 2004 many right wingers, including in Fidonet, made a
big deal out of Kerry's writing up his journey up a river
listening to the Vietnamese in a nearby village firing off guns
in celebration of Christmas. They smeard that over Vietnam being
a Buddhist country so they would not celebrate Christmas. I
pointed out then that Vietnam not only had a lot of Christians,
but the government was dominated by Christians.

The economist reports on current celebration of Christmas in
Vietnam, where even non-Christians show up to enjoy the
celebrations. At over 6 million Catholics, Vietnam has the
second largest Catholic population in Asia, after the
Phillipines.

Oh, and the BBC recently reported on Algiers, a 99% Muslim
country, where Muslims go to the Catholic Cathedral to pray. The
Cathedral of Our Lady of Africa is a major point of pride in
Algiers. Just a digression from the political.

The Wikileaks article is more about how the US document dump is
perceived. No specific conclusion reached. I suspect it will
prove to be a great favor to the US in the long run.

Then we go onto the really good one, how poverty is the future
for America's long term unemployed. This one is more than
speculation, it's analysis. And it does make sense. Long term
unemployment today is setting post WWII records. I went to the
BLS website, and ran up the statistics. It is easier to see on
the charts, how 15 to 26 week unemployment, and over 26 week
unemployment, went up and down over the last 60some years, but
in the last couple shot off the charts.

They give the stats on the counted and uncounted unemployed and
the part time should be full time unemployed. I went to the BLS
stats, and looked again at the unemployed but out of the labor
force therefore not counted numbers. Those numbers are only
recorded from 1994 on.

What surprised me is, the numbers are not up noticably, but the
number of unemployed is way out of the ball park. IOW, the
unemployed are not pushed out of the labor force yet, they are
very much the recently unemployed, or those who left the labor
force and went on social security and retired so are not counted
at all.

What did not surprise me was how high unemployment was in Bush's
first few years. In fact, it peaked in his third year, then went
down some, then went out of sight in 2008.

IOW, poverty could very well be the future of today's
unemployed.

Added note:

Normally I do not have skype running on my computer all the
time. Due to the holidays and maybe wanting to reach people I
have had it up and running. In the middle of composing this msg
I got beeped by one of my Skype contacts.

In the past I have mentioned my "friendly neighborhood
economist". He is now in Europe, where he is an engineering
manager for an auto supplier. We chatted in general, then on the
Economist article on China surpassing the US as world's biggest
economy.

His response was, the US has 40 years still to come at the top.
Ok, he's very pro-American, and 40 years is a bit long to
predict, but he is a bit of a realist also. On the current
situation, he predicts companies will start hiring in 5 or 6
months. I pointed out how the republicans have publically stated
their sole intention is to beat Obama, and stand against
whatever he favors, regardless of the intent.

Remember, Obama's tax bill included stimulous to small business,
America's job force. The republicans were ready to block that
forever only to get tax cuts for the rich extended. So I pointed
out the republicans will have great opportunities to screw
things up.

He sticks to his hiring improvement prediction.



BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... Tell me again...My memory refresh missed a few cycles.
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