February 2009

Intel - Invest in the United States

This just shocks me but is such a pleasant surprise. Paul Otellini, Intel CEO called on other corporations to invest in the United States.

What I'm asking is that other companies join us

This $7 billion dollar 32nm FAB announcement plus the new corporate patriotism speech won the ear of the President.

Now this is a change, a shock. Intel is even shutting down a FAB in China.

Intel has been notorious to labor arbitrage workers, pay less than other chip manufacturers and offshore outsource.

Just like every other corporation, Intel seemed to care less about the United States, it's workers and the national economy...so whammo, something has significantly changed.

Border Hopping Doesn't Pay - Illegal Labor Leaving

It is fairly well understood by anyone living in statistical reality that illegal immigration is fueled by economics. Since the United States does not enforce it's immigration laws, illegal labor could earn more money in the United States and employers loved the cheaper wages, no workman's comp, no unemployment benefits and no taxes.

So, now that the economy is falling apart illegal labor is going home.

Will this help the unemployment statistics and wage levels for U.S. legal unskilled labor? It's yet to be seen but at least the economic realities of what causes massive influxes of illegal workers is being made quite clear for the majority. Of course the multi-billion dollar underground drug economy is a whole other ball game.

Geithner's New TARP Plan - BARF

The Treasury Secretary has issued a new plan (small pdf) for TARP management.

Yglesias believes there is a window in this fact sheet for nationalization of the banks.

What is most amusing is Krugman is calling the plan a Rorschach test.

I heartily agree and wonder if a public relations, marketing master wrote up this plan for one can project what one wants to believe within the text.

But I have a funny feeling investors aren't too hip to projecting their beliefs into a nebulous bullet point page.

Want to Know What was Said in September to Get Congress to Approve TARP?

This is from a Daily Kos,
USA was 3 hrs away from Economic, Political Collapse in September 2008
.

In a CSPAN call-in Paul Kanjorski (D) (PA-11) described what Congress told in September, in answer to a desperate American questioning the insanity of the TARP.

I was there when the secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve came those days and talked to members of Congress about what was going on... Here's the facts. We don't even talk about these things.

On Thursday, at about 11 o'clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to a tune of $550 billion being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two.

The Treasury opened up its window to help. They pumped $105 billion into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks.

Manufacturing Tuesday


Greetings folks, beginning of the week and that means the latest edition in the Manufacturing series. I do hope everyone is doing better than our economy. The President was on television talking about jobs. He had visited a town in Indiana where the unemployment rate had reached 18%. The stimulus plan being laid before us, President Obama hopes, will eventually lead to several million jobs. But before we get to the latest on jobs and manufacturing, let's look at this week's Numbers.

The Numbers

Last Thursday, on the 5th of February, we saw the release of the latest Factory Orders figure. Now this indicator, for you newcomers, measures the growth (or shrinkage)from month-to-month in new orders for durable and non-durable goods from our nation's factories.

Weekly Audit: Welfare, Work and the Bailout Bonanza

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger

The U.S. economy lost nearly 600,000 jobs in January, bringing total losses in the past three months over 1.5 million—more than the entire population of Philadelphia. If there ever was a good time to mend the tattered U.S. social safety net, it's now. While unemployment benefits and food stamps remain relatively uncontroversial, basic welfare continues to be neglected by the general media and vilified by the right. And as of this moment, a responsible welfare program is needed more than at any point since the 1930s.

Roubini and Taleb tell CNBC Geithner will fail

CNBC has a ten-minute interview with Nouriel Roubini and Nasem Taleb in which Taleb said Geithner is "that class of people who have failed, and they're going to fail again."

The entire interview is an interesting example of how insane media people are. They kept trying to get Roubini and Taleb to provide investment recommendations, to which Roubini and Taleb all but said "You stupid horses asses, the world economy is collapsing! There's no investment that's safe right now, and there won't be any safe investments until the whole rotten system is replaced!"

One of the CNBC idiots even said that since such horrible bears as Roubini and Taleb have achieved "rock star status" it's a sure sign that the bottom has been reached. Honest! (I wish I could make this crap up, and make a living writing best-selling novels.)

Treasury Secretary Geithner Overrules on TARP reforms

Aren't you glad this guy is in charge? I'm just shaking my head reading about the guy who blamed TurboTax first actions as Treasury Secretary.

According to the New York Times

The Obama administration’s new plan to bail out the nation’s banks was fashioned after a spirited internal debate that pitted the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, against some of the president’s top political hands.

In the end, Mr. Geithner largely prevailed in opposing tougher conditions on financial institutions that were sought by presidential aides, including David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, according to administration and Congressional officials.

Mr. Geithner, who will announce the broad outlines of the plan on Tuesday, successfully fought against more severe limits on executive pay for companies receiving government aid.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Lobbyist to Be Justice Department

This is just sickening. Mark Gitenstein, a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to be nominated to head the Justice Department.

The leading candidate to head the Justice Department office that oversees legal policy and judicial nominations recently has been a lobbyist for several business clients, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and would require a waiver from the Obama administration's recently imposed ethics rules

David Sirota has a piece up on Open Left.

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