Dances with Pundits

Today, Jake Tapper of ABC reports, the President lunched with:

Mike Allen – Politico

David Brooks – New York Times

Chris Cillizza – Washington ost

Gail Collins  – New York Times

Howard Fineman – Newsweek

David Gergen – Media Whore

Mara Liasson – NPR

Josh Marshall – Talking Points Blog

John Meacham – Newsweek

Cynthia Tucker – Atlanta Journal Constitution

Andrew Rosenthal – New York Times

With his Journo List and the use of the National Endowment for the Arts for propaganda purposes, we have never seen a president waging all out propaganda warfare in this country. To Obama, Obama is the Message. As we see Paul Krugman advocate Weimar monetary policy, it would seem that much of the punditocracy have lost all critical perspective, and perhaps some of their common sense as well.

The President has used these lunches and dinners to communicate his message, which is then interpreted the pundits. No one discussed the religious aspect of yesterday’s massacre, I’m sure, just as no one questioned the foreign policy fiascos that are racking up like frequent flyer miles as the president’s strategies on Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, Honduras, and Central Europe go awry. No one, I am sure, brought up the monstrosity of the Health Care bill before the house tonight.

No, these are party line affairs meant to co-opt his friends and neutralize or win his opponents. The hard questions go unanswered as they build up day by day. The announced unemployment rate is 10.2%. The structural rate including those who have given up on their searches for jobs is closer to 14% or 15%. In parts of the country unemployment is above the levels of the Great Depression.

As the President and his staff have, in an unprecedented manner, waged war against Limbaugh and Fox News, everyone had a nice lunch and oh so interesting conversation. Thomas Jefferson said ” were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter”. He also said “the force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed”.  Obama’s co-option of the message is unprecedented, and if anyone should be wary, it is these very pundits.

 

 

 

"La economía va cada vez mejor a ritmo más rápido"

Paul Romer, economista, uno de los candidatos favoritos al premio Nobel de Economía

“La economía va cada vez mejor a ritmo más rápido”

53 años. Nací en Denver (Colorado) y vivo en California. Divorciado, tengo dos hijos y un nieto. Licenciado en Matemáticas y Física y doctor en Economía. Profesor de la Universidad de Stanford. La política más importante es la buena organización. Creo en el ser humano

¿Qué provocó el salto de la física a la economía?

Las perspectivas de trabajo en física no eran demasiado prometedoras y sí lo era la investigación en economía.

Crematístico, pero suena usted para el Nobel.

Seguí investigando en las grandes preguntas que me interesaban en física y las apliqué al ámbito de la economía.

¿Y cuáles eran esas grandes preguntas?

En física, la creación del universo, y en economía, por qué aumentaba el crecimiento visto con la perspectiva de miles de años. La mayoría de los economistas mira qué pasó el año pasado y qué pasará el próximo. Yo observé que la economía aumenta y va cada vez mejor a ritmos más rápidos.

¿Ya sabe por qué?

La teoría económica dice que las cosas deberían empeorar porque los recursos son limitados. Pero la otra fuerza es el descubrimiento de ideas, y los humanos han ido descubriendo ideas cada vez más rápido. Yo trabajo la economía de las ideas en lugar de la economía de los objetos.

¿Y así llegó a su famosa teoría del crecimiento?

Empecé a trabajar en economía a finales de los 70, cuando todos pensaban que la inflación estaba fuera de control y que nos íbamos a quedar sin petróleo. Era una época que se parecía bastante a la de ahora.

¿Una época pesimista?

Sí, y yo dije que era sólo una bajada temporal de una tendencia al alza, y tenía razón.

¿Ahora volverá a tener razón?

Estoy convencido. Me interesan las normas que rigen la economía y el día a día: las de circulación, cortesía, intercambio de ideas…; todo ese tipo de normas que establecen cómo interactuamos, ahí está el quid.

¿Cuál es su previsión?

Los países que puedan mejorar sus normas mejorarán y crecerán más rápidamente.

¿Normas que se establecen desde los gobiernos?

Las más fáciles de cambiar son las leyes y los reglamentos. Pero hoy las más importantes son las relacionadas con el sector financiero: cómo podemos cambiar las normas para frenar los booms y las caídas en picado.

¿No son consecuencia de la avaricia?

Hay que cambiar las normas para desanimar a toda esta gente avariciosa y, una vez las cambiemos, la gente empezará a cambiar su percepción de lo que está bien y lo que está mal, sus valores.

Parece sencillo…

En muchos países tenemos normas que dicen que si el sector financiero asume un riesgo grande y todo marcha bien, se queda con las ganancias; pero si sale mal son los contribuyentes los que sufren. Tenemos que cambiar eso.

Clama al cielo.

Hay que implementar normas que animen a la movilidad, al cambio de empresa e incluso de profesión, favorecer por ejemplo los años sabáticos.

Muchos de sus colegas dicen que se acabó el capitalismo rabioso.

Hay que implantar normas medioambientales y seguir descubriendo cosas que producen más valor con menos recursos (del tocadiscos al iPod). Si realmente creamos valor, todos los seres humanos podrán tener una mejor calidad de vida en el futuro, y eso es básico porque nos ayuda a ser optimistas y tener esperanza, ser mejores personas.

¿Está seguro?

El optimismo del buen crecimiento saca lo mejor de la gente y evita el pesimismo de tener que luchar por los recursos escasos, que ha sido la realidad durante gran parte de la historia de la humanidad.

Las ciudades están llenas de hoteles y comercios que no venden.

Muchas economías como la de EE. UU. se han basado en el exceso de consumo y no en invertir en el futuro a través de un buen sistema sanitario y de la educación, un bien básico que nos hace mejores ciudadanos y trabajadores más productivos, es decir, mejores a la hora de solucionar problemas.

Ya.

Pero no podemos obtener una mayor educación aumentando el tiempo que los alumnos pasan en la escuela; hay que encontrar maneras de aprender más, aumentar la productividad de la educación, y aquí de nuevo es donde deberíamos cambiar normas.

El ciudadano está muy normatizado.

Hay que encontrar buenas normas que dejen a la gente mucha libertad para que muestre sus propias capacidades. Normas que saquen lo mejor de nosotros.

¿De dónde deben proceder las normas?

Esta es actualmente la pregunta más importante para la economía. Algunas veces las normas vienen de los políticos; otras, de los activistas sociales y de gente con autoridad moral, que cambian nuestros valores y eso cambia las regulaciones.

Acaba de decir algo importante.

Sí, que la comunidad activista bien formada y pensante puede ser una fuerza muy positiva que nos empuje hacia mejores normas.

¿Y qué haremos con el 30% de paro?

Mayor flexibilidad y respuesta por parte de la Administración. Más apoyo a las personas para que cambien de sector: si ahora la construcción no es boyante, haz otra cosa. Y animar las iniciativas. El problema es que no tenemos buenos sistemas para cambiar las normas, es ahí donde hay que innovar. Las buenas normas es el gran reto humano.

“La economía va cada vez mejor a ritmo más rápido”

El optimista

Está considerado una de las 25 personas más influyentes por la revista Times.Ya con su tesis doctoral, a comienzos de los 80, puso del revés la idea que economistas y políticos tenían sobre la macroeconomía. En su teoría del crecimiento, que para muchos es merecedora del premio Nobel, Romer asegura que el conocimiento ha desplazado a la fabricación de objetos físicos en el crecimiento. Sobre eso habló en la 14. ª edición de la Jornada d´Economia de Caixa Manresa y sobre su actual trabajo: construir nuevas ciudades con normas adecuadas, bien gobernadas, en países en vías de desarrollo. “Yo siempre he sido un rebelde en el mundo de la economía porque me niego a no ser optimista”.

Revenue and Profit Declines at Time Warner

Time Warner, the media conglomerate that was once the world’s largest but has lately slimmed down by shedding some businesses, said both revenue and profits declined in the recent quarter.

The results were hurt by one business that the company has said it will spin-off — AOL — and another that has been battered by the advertising recession and is not viewed by executives as central to the company’s future, the Time Inc. magazine publishing empire.

The company’s biggest business, cable networks, which includes channels such as HBO, TNT, TBS and CNN, gained in revenue and profit. Revenue at the movie unit, the Warner Brothers studio, declined mainly because of lower DVD sales, a trend that has been felt across Hollywood, although its profitability improved.

Time Warner’s performance, like the results posted Monday by a rival, Viacom, is emblematic of a mainstream media industry that is largely contracting as consumers change how they view television and movies. The trend is compounded by the recession.

So media executives are left to cut costs to maintain profitability, rather than increase the revenue pie.

“We are executing well, despite the tough environment,” said Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive officer, in a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

Over all in the third quarter, revenue declined 6 percent, to $7.1 billion. Net income was $661 million, down from $1.1 billion in the last year’s third quarter. Operating income decreased 10 percent, to $1.4 billion.

The results, though, were better than Wall Street forecast, and the company raised its financial outlook for the remainder of the year. Excluding certain items, the company reported earnings-per-share of 61 cents, better than the 55 cents expected by Wall Street, according to Thomson Reuters.

AOL posted a 23 percent drop in revenue, to $777 million. But the company plans to complete its spin-off of the unit by the end of the year. At Warner Brothers, revenue fell 4 percent, while operating income increased 6 percent to $291 million .

Warner Brothers, like other studios, is facing a decline in DVD sales, which once drove growth in Hollywood. But the performance of the unit, particularly the increase in profits, surpassed what many on Wall Street expected. The studio’s major release in the quarter was “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” “I think the most noteworthy thing in the quarter is film,” said Anthony DiClemente, an analyst at Barclays Capital. “They’ve grown operating profits at film for each of the past six quarters. “A lot of it is streamlining and cost cutting,” he said.

The only division of Time Warner to post revenue growth was its cable networks. Revenue there rose to $2.87 billion, from $2.73 billion in the quarter a year ago. Operating income rose to $938 million from $909 million.

Time Warner confirmed that it would take a $100 million restructuring charge to lay off hundreds of workers at Time Inc., which publishes titles like Time, Sports Illustrated, People and Fortune. Also Tuesday, the company said it would close Fortune Small Business, which is produced by Time Inc. but owned by American Express. In the quarter, Time Inc.’s revenue declined 18 percent to $914 million, while its operating income declined 40 percent, to $97 million, from last year’s third quarter.

Advertising revenue declined by $129 million, or 22 percent, while subscriptions declined 13 percent, to $49 million.

Mr. Bewkes said he believed much of the downturn in magazine advertising a result of the recession rather than permanent shifts of readers turning away from print and toward the Internet. This view runs counter to that of many others who believe that print is on a steady decline and will never return to the growth it once enjoyed.

Revenue and Profit Declines at Time Warner

Taxpayers Take Yet Another Screwing!

The bailout thing has been nothing but a good gang rape of the taxpayer from the beginning…..the bags of money delivered to Wall Street by the government  has done nothing for the taxpayer and everything for the greedy people on Easy Street…..

The Business journal is reporting:

CIT Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday after its board of directors approved of a plan to reorganize the giant small business lender.

The plan has also been approved by CIT’s creditors.

The bankruptcy of CIT is likely to hand the Treasury Department its biggest loss to date under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. It invested $2.3 billion in CIT last December.

CIT was caught in a squeeze between loans gone bad as the economy worsened in the past year and being cut off from the unsecured debt market, which it relied on for about 75 percent of its funding. More stable bank deposits made up less than 5 percent of its funds.

Wait!  Did the article say that the creditors approved the action?  Since the taxpayer is on the hook for billions……did anyone ask them if they approved?  I did not get a note asking me….how about you?

When are the people going to start exercising their muscle on asll this silliness?

The Democratic and Republican Progressive Parties--A Plague On Both Of Them--American Conservative/Libertarian Tea Party Time

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 1 of 5

 

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 2 of 5

 

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 3 of 5

 

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 4 of 5

 

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 5 of 5

 

Background Articles and Videos

 

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In Defense of Brain Drain

Michael Clemens and David McKenzie argue that the “movement of skilled workers from poor countries to rich ones is nothing to fear. In the long run,” they argue, “it will benefit both.”

Conventional wisdom once held that the wealth of a country declined when it imported foreign goods, since obviously cash was wealth and obviously buying foreign goods sent cash abroad. Adam Smith argued that economic development — or the “wealth of nations” — depends not a country’s stock of cash but on structural changes that international exchange could encourage. In today’s information age, the view has taken hold that human capital now rules the wealth of nations, and that its departure in any circumstance must harm a country’s development. But economic development is much more complex than that.

…But thanks to new research, we have learned that the international movement of educated people changes the incentives to acquire education, sends enormous quantities of money across borders, leads to movements back and forth, and can contribute to the spread of trade, investment, technology, and ideas. All of this fits very uncomfortably in a rhyming phrase like “brain drain,” a caricature that would be best discarded in favor of a richer view of the links between human movement and development.

Click here to read the entire article, it is worth the time.

HT: Andew Sullivan

The Public Option Has a Problem…

…and no, it isn’t Joe Lieberman.

Slate Magazine has an article pointing out that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found that "[A] public plan paying negotiated rates … would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges."

What? I thought the public option was good to go. Now, this quote will be all over the air waves and the blogosphere (it already is) which will put more pressure on Congressional and Senate weenies moderates to capitulate on this important and necessary aspect of healthcare reform.

But not all is lost. The CBO is also clear that a public option will be more efficient than the private sector and will force overall prices down. The trouble is that the insurance industry are experts at not paying premiums especially for those who are very sick. This is the time honored way to keep costs down and profits high. The government-run option will tend to take all comers and pay a higher benefits to a larger proportion of its members. Consequently, the public option will tend to attract the people with serious health risks and those who cannot afford to take a chance that Blue Cross will deny payments. This means that the pool of members in a public option will tend to have more expensive needs than the private industry, which will tend to drive up premiums. As premiums go up, those who are healthier will flock to private insurers exacerbating the problem.

The trouble then is not a flaw in the public option, but in the fact that congress is requiring that the public option run completely as an insurance group that will require no governmental help. If that is to work, the government needs to insure that the insurance companies take users with pre-existing conditions and pay out premiums to one and all.

…well, Joe Lieberman is still a problem.