Owing $100T+, STEM Jobs Bill, Workplace Harassment (updated 12dec12)

George Rebane

Now how do I pull all those together into one cohesive topic?  Two former congressmen, Chris Cox and Bill Archer, just informed the country of our real debt problem, ‘Why $16T Only Hints at the True US Debt’ – something of which you fortunate RR readers were apprised of years ago.  It’s more than worth a read since you have to hear from someone besides moi.  The punch line of that piece is, “Hiding the government’s liabilities from the public makes it seem that we can tax our way out of mounting deficits.  We can’t.”

This truth has been and continues to be most successfully hidden from our progressives and those just plain stupid.  The ONLY legitimate way out of our mounting deficits is to set the stage for historically unprecedented GDP growth levels.  And all that invokes today is visions of a snowball’s chance in hell.

But what would make such growth levels possible is a brand new tax code, the shutdown of about a dozen rogue federal departments, bureaus, and administrations, a massive rollback of insane regulations, and the wholesale attraction of foreign STEM graduates from US universities.  The latter was promoted by Republicans in Congress pushing the STEM Jobs Bill, and predictably, being strongly opposed by that institution’s union sock puppets – aka Democrats.  The bill failed to garner the needed two thirds majority last September to pass the House.

The bill’s passage would have allowed all STEM graduates to automatically qualify for a green card, and climb on a fast track to US citizenship.  Opposing sanity are certifiable idiots like Illinois congressman Luis Gutierrez who wants to continue our current worthless immigration law that permits only 55,000 annual immigrant visas drawn by lottery to enter America.

In response to recent efforts to reintroduce the legislation, Gutierrez asks the new century’s most stupid question to date – Aren’t the lottery drawn immigrants from Africa and East Europe “just as valuable, aren’t they just as worthy” as the US graduated STEM majors?  The country should echo coast to coast with a resounding HELL NO! but all we hear is crickets in support of the revised STEM Jobs bill.  And so it goes.

But wait, there’s more on the employment front.  To make sure that with each passing month every potential employer would have more difficult decisions when hiring new employees, we now are told of SCOTUS having agreed to hear a workplace harassment case.  It all depends on what the new national definition of ‘supervisor’ will be.  The decision will be handed down in 2013, and is expected to set new precedents for how poorly performing workers can be encouraged by their employers.

Something for all to ponder.  If you only have commodity skills to offer in the labor market, and you want to receive higher than commodity wages, what do you do?  You get together with your equally undistinguished colleagues at your workplace, and organize into a unit - let's call it a 'union' - that can and will threaten your employer with massive financial loss or even the shutdown of his business if your demands are not met.  Since what you have to offer is nothing special – i.e. you can be replaced with any of a hundred immediately summoned workers – you can only keep your job if your organization is backed by the full force and fury of the government.  And that is not a difficult hurdle since the sumbiches there are regularly bought and paid for.

The employer’s alternative is to move the business activity someplace else with lower labor costs, or to replace the workers with machines that are smarter and more productive.  Technology is abetting the latter alternative as these pages have documented for years.  Now we add another such newsworthy item.  A company called Momentum Machines has built and is marketing a robot hamburger maker that can make every competing minimum wage patty flipper suffer the fate of the fabled John Henry.

To all this the Left’s understanding is equivalent to that of a freshly painted corral post that has just had Hayek’s Road to Serfdom read to it.

[30nov12 update]  The following graphic from the St Louis Fed is a devastating underline to the systemic unemployment picture I have been painting for the last several years.  The employment curve will not recover much because of technology abetted productivity increases and insane government policies that minimize entry of useful immigrants while at the same time, as argued above, driving existing jobs overseas.

We can also report that the STEM Jobs Act passed the House today.  It would let 55K STEM grads get green cards, instead of spraying that number of cards across a random population of applicants from third world countries.  It was pointed out that 38% of STEM grads from US universities are from foreign countries, and that three fourth of technology patents filed by US companies have one or more inventors as foreigners.

[12dec12 update]  The Association of Computing Machinery reports - "Engine Advocacy and the Bay Area Council Economic Institute have released a report that details key findings on how technology sector jobs impact the overall U.S. economy. The report, "Technology Works: High-Tech Employment and Wages in the United States," says that since 2004, tech employment growth has outpaced the performance of the private sector by a ratio of three to one, and tech jobs have been more resistant to fluctuations in the economy. From 2002 to 2011, job growth was faster in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields than in all other occupations by a ratio of 27 to one. The high demand is expected to continue through 2020 and possibly beyond, with high-tech employment projected to continue to lead other sectors in growth. The report says high-tech and STEM jobs paid 17 percent to 27 percent more than other jobs. The report also notes that tech jobs are key to regional economic development. "The creation of one job in the high-tech sector of a region is associated with the creation of 4.3 additional jobs in the local goods and services economy of the same region in the long run," the report says."

The original article is found here.

Comments

[Gregory]

George, letting the world immigrate to the US en mass if they have a minimally qualifying "STEM" degree has the unintended side effect of further depressing wages in those fields in the US and decreasing the number of young Americans willing to take on the challenge. Most H-1 visa holders aren't anything special and are paid below market wages despite hoops being in place intended to insure that isn't the case.

A slightly unrelated link that made me think of this blog...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/when-work-punished-tragedy-americas-welfare-state

[George Rebane]

Gregory 938am - Good link Greg, and augments well this piece. My experience with H-1B visa holders has been different than yours - the ones I hired have been special, and I paid them market equivalent wages.

But your point about the entire foreign STEM cohort is probably true. Nevertheless, since Johnnie and Susie don't do STEM, and we need STEM workers, what is the alternative? Do we train them here, and then send them elsewhere to compete, or worse, also have American jobs follow them overseas? If we are to increase our immigration quotas, let's at least do it in the occupational fields that make the immigrants wealth generators, and not those joining the gimme ranks, which we seem quite capable of swelling with gringos and illegal aliens.

[Gregory]

If wages and employment possibilities look good, they will attract students. Or maybe even hire older workers more often; that's something the EoC doesn't even track.

I've it on good authority that at least one cutting edge digital animation house prefers to hire animators in their 20's and not their 30's or beyond because they're cheaper and didn't start their training in pen and ink.

If Microsoft and Intel want 2nd and 3rd world cannon fodder fighting in their trenches, let them pay dearly for it.

[Walt B]

Some of us Conservatives saw the bait and switch of Progressives when the "agreement" of giving "O" and Co. all that money when the deal ( with LIBS fingers crossed behind their backs) was struck. You know,,, big cuts in FED spending, while at the same time, hiking taxes.
Now the Left just wants to raise taxes. Screw the Government spending cuts.
Ya' gotta love the new description. " an agreement on a "framework" of future spending cuts."

Then we hear Princess Nancy and "dirty" Harry saying " we have already made those cuts in spending, and we "just" can't cut any more!" Funny how we the commoners have to keep cutting to live within our means.

Nope don't count on any real cuts by "O" and Co. They just want the House to sign a blank check so "O" can keep right on spending.
Remember when I posted what Little Timmy said? " Just remove all ceilings on spending".

[JesusBetterman]

Looks like Greg can be as protective of his turf as any union member, when push comes to shove, HA! As for animators and age, check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vqyzHwnEiY&feature=g-logo Dislocated shoulder a week ago and Thanksgiving festivities have kept me from my appointed rounds.

I think you all miss what is going on with respect to USA students and STEM enthusiasm. The differential between rich and poor here is nowhere near as extreme as in the rest of the world, and just making it into the USA former middle class is a huge pusher of those abroad. Also a great deal of effort on the part of both the left and the right here goes into explaining how rigged and corrupt the system is, the right often just by example: The H of R chairpersons are all white and male for next year....

[JesusBetterman]

I wonder if that animation house gets the same results as B.A.R.F. Construction, "just give us instructions, and we'll throw it up."

[George Rebane]

JesusB 525pm - Doug, you are a hard man to track with all your different sackheads that come on and off willy nilly.

I did my best to follow your line of thought and failed utterly. In the event that other readers have suffered the same fate, could you please say it clearly enough for us to understand?

[Account Deleted]

I'm constantly fascinated by the way folks expect the 'markets' to work. The worth of an item is what the buyer and seller freely agree to. Why is it any different for labor? I know the govt loves to jump in and compel prices that the govt considers 'fair' based on what ever philosophy of life the bureaucrats have at that particular time, but why is the selling of my time different from the selling of my goods? Why do libs get their undies in a bunch when the govt institutes some rules that control the transaction between patient and doctor, but think it's just fine to have that same govt interfere with financial transactions? We shop for the best price for goods, why not labor? If we can have folks come here from other countries and are willing to work at skilled and professional labor for lower rates, doesn't that help our country maintain a competitive edge over other countries?

[Gregory]

I've no problem with open borders, Scott, but if we are going to have them let's do it for all professions, not just mine and my son's. If you want fewer American kids being attracted to science and tech, make sure it doesn't pay enough to make the work be worthwhile to those who have choices.

Inexpensive drywall installers and heavy equipment operators are just as good for the economy as cheap engineers for Microsoft. Might even be better.

[JesusBetterman]

Hey, that's a way to get cheap teachers too! Throw out all three million American citizen teachers and replace them with Nigerians who teach math and Russians who teach English, and Tibetan football coaches. Ameriucan't citizens are good for fast food servers only.

BTW keeping American citizens pregnant and harried assures the capitalists of many workers for every job, at the lowest possible wage. I don't believe the "sanctity of life" has a damn thing to do with the real pushers behind the pro life movement. Cheap and expendable is what every capitalist needs in his work force.

If you can't see Greg busily protecting his and his son's bailiwicks, you're blind.

[George Rebane]

Gregory 804pm - I can't but think that somewhere in this discussion we're losing sight of what jobs, sooner or later, will become fodder for the machine. We are not short of workers with all kinds of skills, only certain types. And even many of the jobs that gringos won't touch are such only because our government pays them for their elitism.

[Gregory]

George, if there's a shortage, the prices paid would have gone up. Is that the case?

Ask if you need a hint.

[Gregory]

Keach, teacher's put in barriers to entry to teaching that keeps Americans with appropriate degrees from choosing it. Teachers put barriers to moving state to state.

This is importing Indian and Chinese Braceros to do engineering because large employers like Microsoft want to reduce their costs. That's way beyond relaxing credentialing requirements for Ivy league grads who want to teach.

[JesusBetterman]

Ivy league grads who couldn't sleepwalk their way through the credentialing process probably lied about where they went to school.

As for Intel and Microsoft, don't you think they'd be smart enough to size up what the need and can live with?

[George Rebane]

Gregory 932pm - The salaries for American STEM jobs correctly reflect the market because the market is worldwide. If we are sanguine with that solution per se, then we should quit bitching and let the talent be hired where it is most cost effective. But our Left (and you?) demand a mysteriously assigned 'living wage' for workers whose skills can't command such in a competitive labor market.

[Russ Steele]

Gregory@09:22

Son-in-law is a graphic designer who lives in San Francisco. He has a great job with a solid startup, but six month ago he was with another start up that failed. He continues to get several unsolicited offers a month, there is a shortage of graphic designers in SFO. Every move has resulted in significant increase in $$$. Shortage is of graphic designer with knowledge of the latest web and programing tools. He did not learn those tool in university. The problem with some of the older designers is they have not kept up with the tool evolution.

[Bill Tozer]

Nice back and forth, but can anyone tell me how we get GDP growth off flatline?? Hey, all this jawboning and we continue to bounce along the bottom fishing for halibut. What is wrong with fantastic growth, or do you believe the friggin lies that this is the new normal?

Maybe normal for libs, but not me. Grover Norquist is not the problem. Spending is the problem. Reagen got snookered when the libbies told him there would be big spending cuts in exchange for tax increases. George H W Bush fell into the sucker trap as well when he broke his promise not to raise taxes when the libbies promised him they would pass spending cuts. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Now Obama is talking about a balanced approach. Yeah, right, I will hold my breath. Not! I don't buy it for a millisecond. Libs have never seen a dollar they don't think it is theirs and have never looked upon a dollar without spending it. The faster the better. They are a bunch of lying sacks of grunt and they hinder growth. Whats the plan to have GDP soar???

Obama said just today that he does not want a $2,000 tax increase on the middle class. Well, Mr President, what do you call Obamacare?? Lying sacks of grunt. You libbies can eat your grunt sandwiches till the cows come home. You hate growth, you hate profits, but you love the new normal.

[Account Deleted]

Can anyone out there tell me why Americans consider it a right to be able to chose the lowest price for a product, but think that their boss shouldn't be able to pay the lowest price he can get for a worker? We exchange money for something of value in both cases. If you want more money for your product, you make it worth more to the consumer. If you want a higher salary you make your self more valuable to the person who pays you. If there are workers in other countries that will do the same work as you and do it for less, eventually they will do it in this country or somewhere else. If they work here, they create jobs here for the folks that build houses and grow food and sell them clothes and cars. If they work in another country, their money is spent in that country, not here. Trying to demand that the water level of one end of the lake be higher than the other end is ultimately just a waste of time and energy. We are in a world economy and the more we fight it, the worse off we will be. Increasingly, machines are able to do more and more tasks more accurately and faster than we can. It would be a good idea for colleges to only teach skills that will be needed for the type of work that machines are not likely to be able to do. You have a right to choose your type of work, but society has no obligation to pay you, unless someone finds value in what you've done. If we continue to pay artificial wage levels that are decreed by the govt instead of pay that is set by the free market, then we will eventually price ourselves out of the world market. Other countries have done that and it tends to end rather badly.
Mr. Tozer - we will have explosive economic growth when we have a free market and I don't see this country wanting that. Too many folks these days want security over freedom and we all know where that takes us. Welcome to the new normal.

[JesusBetterman]

"Mr. Tozer - we will have explosive economic growth when we have a free market and I don't see this country wanting that. Too many folks these days want security over freedom and we all know where that takes us. Welcome to the new normal.

Posted by: Scott Obermuller | 28 November 2012 at 11:23 PM "

So we had explosive growth under the Free Markets of Bill Clinton, and a recession under the not so free markets of Bush? Does that make sense?

[Gregory]

Scott O... tell me again why immigrants with "STEM" graduate degrees should be given immigration preference to those with degrees in music, the arts, language, business, finance, etc? Leave out any reasons with roots in crony capitalism; we already have the gov't picking too many winners and losers.

[Gregory]

Keachie (12:32) the growth under Clinton was from the commercialization of internet technologies which, contrary to Big Al's views, had little to do with Clinton or Gore.

Bush II inherited a recession which started before Bush v. Gore (think internet sock puppets selling 50# sacks of dog food to be delivered by UPS; lots of companies were pushing business plans that didn't include becoming profitable and so needed to be put to sleep), and the economy hadn't yet recovered when 9/11 vaporized about a trillion dollars in market capitalization.

How soon they forget when it's expedient to do so.

[Russ Steele]

Zerohedge has the bad news this morning: Ugly Q3 GDP Confirms Personal Consumption Collapsing; Headline "Growth" Driven By Government, Inventory Accumulation

One glance at today's second read of Q3 GDP may leave some with the false impression that the US economy is soaring, because after sliding to 1.3% in Q2, and after a preliminary read of 2.0% in the first Q3 estimate, today's print, which missed estimates of a 2.8% print, did nonetheless rise to 2.7%. "A stunning success", the administration sycophants would say. Absolutely wrong. Because a quick glance at the underlying numbers shows the true picture of the economy which contracted far more than most expected, with personal consumption collapsing to 1.4% Q/Q, on hopes of a 1.9% rise, and down from 2.0%. In fact, at 0.99% personal consumption expenditures - the core driver of 70% of the US economy - were a tiny 36% of the headline number. Ironically today's second GDP revision was far worse when analyzed at the component level, than the first Q3 estimate, which while lower overall at 2.0%, at least had personal consumption nearly 50% higher at 1.42%, or well over half of the total contribution. So what drove "growth" in Q3? Nothing short of the most hollow and worst components of GDP: Government Spending, which soared to 0.67% of the annualized number, the first positive print in years, and of course, Inventories, which were responsible for 30% of the headline number. Finally, and most importantly, Fixed Investment, aka CapEx, was a meager 0.1%, or the lowest GDP contribution since Q1 2011. Without CapEx there is no corporate revenue growth (and future hiring intentions) period.

Sadly not even Sandy can be blamed on the collapse in consumption in Q3, for the simple reason that the Hurricane did not hit until 1 month into Q4. Perhaps it is Sandy's fault it did not hit sooner. In the meantime, all those hoping that the US consumer is finally waking up from his slumber and is spending (on credit of course) like a drunken sailor (for anything more than iPads using student loan proceeds), will have to wait until Q1 2013, as the Q4 2012 number will be even uglier than the one just released.

The data supports our plung over the cliff. Only government manipulation has fogged the view of the cliff from the public. Could this have been an effort to hide reality from the public before the election?

Consider this:

“Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions--all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.”

― Friedrich A. von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

For the visual learners the ugly charts are HERE.

[Todd Juvinall]

MichaelA and PaulE will like your above post Russ.

[Russ Steele]

Where will you be when the county goes over the cliff? Obama will be on vacation in Hawaii:

President Obama is reportedly scheduled to be vacationing in Hawaii on January 2, the date billions in spending cuts – and untold consequences for the economy – will kick in if a deal is not reached on the “fiscal cliff.”

According to the Hawaii Reporter, residents who live in the area of Oahu where Obama and his family vacation have been told that the usual restrictions on their movements during an Obama stay will be in place for 21 days, from December 17 through January 6.
...
The Hawaii Reporter estimates that the total cost of the vacation to Hawaii and federal taxpayers, including funding for travel, staff and protection, is at least $4 million. Obama’s vacations are more expensive than those of previous presidents because of the huge costs to fly Air Foce One and an accompanying cargo plane for nine hours or so to Hawaii.

[George Rebane]

BillT 1052pm - Mr Tozer, RR has posted the answer to your question for most of the last five years - the latest being in the current piece - "But what would make such growth levels possible is a brand new tax code, the shutdown of about a dozen rogue federal departments, bureaus, and administrations, a massive rollback of insane regulations, and the wholesale attraction of foreign STEM graduates from US universities."

That is Plan A; there is no Plan B.

The last part is a version of the complete revamping of our education system that takes politicians and teachers' unions out of the equation.

Sadly, as seen in these pages, it is not only progressives (like my cited Gutierrez) who do not understand the difference between favoring visas to the STEM skilled, versus violin players. What they seem to miss is scalability. STEM workers overwhelmingly initiate and support the establishment and expansion of scalable enterprises that grow our economy; music majors and similar skill sets don't. All the latter can do is sell their man-hours into undertakings which for the most part are not as attractive in the marketplace, and America produces an overflow of music majors, MBAs, financial types (including 'masters of the universe'), lawyers, and people for other laudable careers.

[George Rebane]

Re the socialized healthcare thread that emerges here as regularly as the sunrise - as the horrendous details about the workings of Obamacare continue to emerge (remember the Pelosi Principle?), more and more Americans are having second thoughts. The latest Gallup poll just announced reports that 54% of Americans are against government providing healthcare. And the full impact of that mountain of legislative crap has yet to come on line.

[Russ Steele]

8 College Degrees with the Worst Return on Investment. These Careers Might Make You Happy, But Fail the Tuition ROI Test.

These Careers have a low return on investment because the products they produce do not have the wealth generation capacity that other degrees have.

While there's no doubt that a college degree increases earning power and broadens opportunities, today's high cost of education means it makes sense to more carefully consider which degree you earn. When it comes to return on investment (ROI), not all degrees are considered equal. This article exposes eight college degrees with poor ROI. 

Can you guess the 8 degrees with worst ROI before going to THIS article?

[JesusBetterman]

Greg, thank-you for chiming in and making my point. Free market capitalism is only one part of the the equation, when viewing economic history. Bakeries are already making up much improved versions of Twinkies, and hiring more folks to make them.

8 degrees? anything in art, music, or the humanities, but most noteworthy architecture. It's been that way since the Sixties and earlier. The problem is, the costs have gone way up beyond the rest of inflation. Now I'll peek.

[JesusBetterman]

You have no link to the worst performers, Russ.

[JesusBetterman]

BTW, the obsession with physical products breaks down badly here. Most of the best performers have little or nothing to do with physical products (except engineering).

[JesusBetterman]

The Five Year Real Average Personal Consumption chart seems to indicate that the consumers jumped off the Fiscal Cliff when Bush took office, hit a bump on the way down in 2004, and then sank to the sewer,well before Obama got there.

[Russ Steele]

JB@10:27 Note the word THIS. It is the link!

[JesusBetterman]

Russ, note you first asked folks to guess the 8 worst, and there is no link for that. I found the 2nd link with no trouble, the one leading to the 8 best, according to salary.com, who likes to make you wait forever to get more than 3 pages in, hoping you'll click on an ad, where the transition is instantaneous.

[Paul Emery]

George

I'm not sure where you got those numbers George. This is what I found from Gallup. There is a distinction between a government run sytem and Obamacare which is an insurance for all plan.

Gallup Poll. Nov. 15-18, 2012. N=1,015 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 3.

"Do you generally approve or disapprove of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as 'Obama-care,' that restructured the U.S. health care system?"

Approve 48 Disapprove 45 Unsure 7

http://www.gallup.com/poll/4708/healthcare-system.aspx

[Ryan Mount]

I'm hoping people have actually read the zerohedge post shared by Russ. It's rather poignant and disturbing.

You don't have to read tea leaves to know something ominous is going in the economy. Wealthy elites, as predicted, are quickly shorting the economy with the prospect of higher taxes come Jan 1st, because they can. I heard on the radio this morning that George Lucas' sale of his Star Wars franchise to Disney earned him an additional 400 million in pre-fiscal cliff dollars. I'm sure January 1st had nothing to do with the motivation to sell it off, right? ;-)

But that's what these wealthy elites do when the fiscal road map (either good or bad) finally appears: they act. It's not a secret why things like credit and capital expenditures have been down despite the monetary efforts of the Fed and the government: business just didn't/don't trust the economy and the government (like a Federal budget in the past 3 years? Anyone? Hello? McFly?) Well now they do know what's going to happen, and they're singing, "Come on, take the money and run" off to safer tax havens.

So, forget the first of the year as it appears that we're in the process of going over it right at this moment. Add in the Zerohedge post, and it should be a foregone conclusion.

[JesusBetterman]

Ryan, nice description of the wealthy non-patriotic opportunists among us. Stash the cash, then blame Obama. Such a Plan!

[Ryan Mount]

Doug, I'm not going to apologize or attempt to rationalize the behavior of wealthy elites, because I'm very remote from that existence. I'm just saying that they're way ahead of the government as they've always been and will continue to be.

(I've never understood why Progressives are dismissive of something like Objectivism, as that bearded potato Paul Krugman often does, when they should be studying it carefully and taking it very seriously.)

It's gotta be a strange and helpless feeling to be a government official and watch potential 2013+ revenue (taxes) simply go poof. If the government was smart and organized, and they're not by any measure, they'd announce that tax hikes would be retroactive to, I dunno, Sept 2012 to stop the rush of the figurative tax supermarkets.

Then you add the inventory stuffing and government payroll inflation mentioned in the zerohedge article...holy sa-moly!

[George Rebane]

PaulE 1131am - http://www.gallup.com/poll/4708/healthcare-system.aspx

[Account Deleted]

Greg - "tell me again why immigrants with "STEM" graduate degrees should be given immigration preference to those with degrees in music, the arts, language, business, finance, etc?" I think it's more a matter of why we should throw out folks that are needed for our economy. Music? the arts? You can't be serious. We don't need them for anything other than entertainment. We have a surfeit of highly talented artists - it's the engineers and techies we need and plenty of them.
Ryan - the tax RATE hikes the Obama admin and the Dems constantly go on about has absolutely nothing to do with increasing revenues to the treasury. Even the class clown Joe Biden knows we can never pay for the unfunded liabilities and debt we face in this nation. It's all window dressing for the sheeple to view. "See - we showed them rich b***ds who's boss and stuck it to them". We are in post-modernist mode here and it's all about the narrative of showing how much we care. The fact that the ship is sinking is just those conservative neanderthals fussing over a minor detail. When the ship actually goes under, we'll make up a new narrative. It's all good.

[Ryan Mount]

Scott-

If you are correct, and this is cynical class warfare circus, we're even worse off than I'm observing. Either way, I think we both might agree that there's no there "there" in taxing people over $250K. At least not in any meaningful way beyond his Maximilien de Robespierre points Obama will score in the short term.

But I'm not that cynical. Skeptical, but not cynical. I think the Obama Administration and its supporters *believe* that they can score class points with a hit at the wealthy AND raise revenues. I am skeptical, because I don't think there will be revenues to harvest given the massive shorting that's currently going on. So as Progressives love to tout: Math. If there isn't a significant revenue stream from the over $250K crowd, and we're not going to raise taxes on everyone else, what the net of that? Zip-o.

It's just another example of how our Progressive Tax system is utterly broken beyond repair as one would expect from a system that was born a 100 years ago.

[Ryan Mount]

Kaboom! (that's the sound of Democrat heads exploding).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324352004578131162698206512.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

And we still have a month to go. Plenty of time to run and hide money.

And Bam! (60's Batman style, no less)

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/ignore-gdp-fiscal-cliff-u-already-recession-ecri-174612999.html?l=1

Achuthan: 2013 is really gonna hurt chumps. We're already in a recession, that is, if we ever left it.

[George Rebane]

RyanM 414pm - yes, those are good links that continue to paint reality for all to see who want to see. But our Left sees none of it. Like the highland natives of Papua-New Guinea (I've described before), their world stops at the edge of their Messiah's message. That is why all we'll hear is crickets in response to reports from the real world.

[D. King]

George Rebane | 29 November 2012 at 04:26 PM

"That is why all we'll hear is crickets in response to reports from the real world."

Well said. Their world can't exist where the rubber meets the road.

[JesusBetterman]

Since you all seem to agree the USA is going to be in shambles, where are you planning on moving to, or what do you plan to do to change things? Supporting the Tea Party House of Representatives has certainly helped, hasn't it?

[Gregory]

SO (2:11PM) I'm dead serious. I remember in the mid '70's when employment prospects were bleak for newly graduated engineers, chemists, physicists and mathematicians and, despite all the current huffing and puffing, I wouldn't bet next June's crop won't have to be scrambling, too.

It isn't "throwing them out"; it's filling the terms of the student visa. If you want more scientists and engineers graduating in the US to work in the US, forgive the student loans, or institute other subsidies, for citizens who choose to study science and engineering.

If a foreign student was willing to spend $200K of their country's cash for a baccalaureate at a UC in music or the fine arts, who are you to say we wouldn't be better off were they to stay?

[D. King]

JesusBetterman | 30 November 2012 at 11:29 AM

"...or what do you plan to do to change things?"

But Doug, we're just old white guys! You folks have the ball; run with it! I'm sure things will be fine.:)

[JesusBetterman]

D King, you had the ball and sat on it. No wonder it's deflated.

[Michael Anderson]

I am suddenly not liking the STEM acronym. I would like to make a motion (and I am asking for a second) that the acronym be changed to SMET-B.

* Science
* Mathematics
* Engineering
* Technology

+ Business

I put the subjects in order of importance; science and math are probably interchangeable but MSET-B is un-pronounceable. Engineering is next, and the technology category is a bit amorphous, but I'm OK with it.

My big addition is "B" for business. No student with a college degree should leave university w/o knowing how to interpret a P&L, a balance sheet, and a cash flow statement. You can have all the STEM education imaginable, but without a fundamental understanding of how money works, those skills are useless.

[Account Deleted]

Greg - Who am I to say? Yes, I do say. We don't need pictures or movies or pro ball players or works of public "art" like the unimaginative orange pile of steel near hwy 80 in Roseville. It all has it's place and I appreciate art far more than most folks. But it shouldn't take one dime of public money, ever. Period. I was an art major in college, but I never thought that any kind of art was a necessity. Art and sports and entertainment did just fine before they received public money and they can do just fine on their own again. But I'm far better off in a country where we let qualified engineers stay here, rather than send them off with their knowledge to another country. More welfare for whining wanna-bees isn't any good either.

[JesusBetterman]

Without an understanding of how the pie is being sliced up (various theories and real life examples, Walmart and the California welfare system), by government and business and labor, you leave college in an ethical vacuum, with the switch frozen at off.

[George Rebane]

MichaelA 1231am - I have no fundamental problem with your points. My only nits are that (applied) mathematics is FUNDAMENTAL to all the others; it is the language in which the others are conceived, take shape, and are implemented.

The business component of learning the three financial management tools of business - P&L, Balance Sheet, Cashflow (sources & uses of cash) - need to be learned in high school. They require no tools beyond arithmetic and their mechanics teach young people early a dose of reality that is useful whether they go on to college or start a business, or not. (My natural cynicism tells me that incorporating this into the high school curriculum would be strongly resisted by progressives. Why? because the Left would lose voters by the droves after they have tools with which to see through the campaign propaganda.)

JesusB 826am - I don't think that ethics (social justice?) needs to be mingled with the learning of the business management tools. Ethics is culture and ideology dependent, and should be considered in classes on political philosophy and/or civics (in a stretch). Only progressives think that there is only one gold standard of ethics, namely theirs that is based on a society under some form of collective governance.

[JesusBetterman]

George, note the use of the term "various theories." That is plural and can include Carnegie/Vanderbilt/Rockefeller styles and Bastiat, as well as socialism. And it too should be taught in high school. It would be of much higher interest than business spreadsheets, since most high schools start with the assumption that kids will become employees, not business owners. Most kids have those expectations too, except for the offspring of business owners, and those who have a hard burn to get out from under, via traditional means. Kids exposed in advance to how business works currently would be more inclined to pay attention to business spreadsheets. I once captured a class discussing spreadsheets and drug dealing, including rainy day funds for jail time, to have a fresh nut. I made the occupation very bleak by the time I was done.

[JesusBetterman]

On a related topic, how many of us attended classes, high school and/or college, in which we were taught that a Great Depression could never happen again, because of all the controls in place? Heh heh, the yoke's on you!

[George Rebane]

JesusB 926am - you missed my contention. I don't recommend co-mingling the topic of business management tools instruction with that of the several brands of social ethics that cover notions like wealth re/distribution. To me, the former is a must in high school, the latter is optional if/when time and resources permit. Better to consider the latter as part of the humanities component of a college curriculum.

[Michael Anderson]

George wrote: "My only nits are that (applied) mathematics is FUNDAMENTAL to all the others; it is the language in which the others are conceived, take shape, and are implemented."

I totally agree.