patrick.net

My question is, would tariffs not actually help the US economy by promoting production here? I don’t buy the argument that we even have free trade now.

Absolutely not! Tariff begets tariff and world trade will grind to a halt.

We do not need to encourage production here. We should liquidate any excessive production capacity, here and all around the world.

Interesting you asked that - just this morning on Central Expressway through Sunnyvale, I passed a Caltrain with just three coaches instead of the usual five or more, and was wondering if they are running shorter trains.

What time was that? I am sure my train had at least 4 cars.

Alas, I know the statistically probable locations of the train doors, so I can usually get a seat in Sunnyvale.

It is already getting hard to secure a seat if you get on from Peninsula.

Past Sunnyvale/Mountain View it is nearly impossible to secure a seat on a bullet.

Soon enough, I will have to take non-bullets. I have my laptop and I do enjoy a few nice games of Solitaire.

BTW, did you see the PPT action towards the end of the day?

Well, that's the whole premise for my thinking. I think we do need to encourage production here. The only way to get out of this mess is to do real value add work here and get people at the lower levels of society into good paying jobs. I blame the WalMart model for a lot of the mess this country is in.

And I don't think we should exempt foreign products coming in under the guise that they are for American companies, if you make your product overseas it is a foreign import.

The best way to encourage production here is to foster an entrepreneurial environment. Perhaps we can use some bailout money as prize money for basic scientific research.

How is solar holding up? I hope alternative energy does not get affected by the collapsing oil price.

It could but solar is looking really good right now. It is not depression proof though and it is definitely a purchase people can put off although the state incentives with the tax credit make it cheaper than ever before.

Even that is pissing me off though. Now the industry leaders panels are made in China as well. There's just no getting around this crap. We have created a serf class of hopeless people so that others could make more money retailing these goods.

Goods in general that is.

I have a very low opinion on humanity.

If we all get together and do something good, we have limitless potential.

However, there is just no way to align people for the right way.

That's true, that's why I see no reason to have American workers competing with Chinese and other foreign workers who are one level up from being slaves. How is that free trade or even right? We had a nice run where prices stayed level and fell as wages were propped up by various bubbles. My opinion is that it has run its course and it is time to shore things up here.

I recently received a balance txfr offer:

0% for 12 months then X%
no balance txfr fee with this offer

But it was the first one I've seen in months...

Also, credit card arbitrage in my opinion is kind of high risk for the reward...
if you screw up you can get dinged pretty badly! But it may be good for someone with credit card debt...

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Peter,

I did notice the PPT. The old dump n' pump. It was so obvious they were going to intervene. There is even an index out there tracking the likelihood of their intervention. Pretty soon the market will get used to it and render them useless.

The manufacturing of everything getting sent to China is also starting to piss me off Malcolm. Everytime we come up with something good, some slick American fuck decides he'll be able to make more money by sending his manufacturing to China. Little does he realize the long term consequence of this. We keep transferring our skills over there. At some point, they will start making their own discoveries.

The consumer is fucked. And our companies are even more fucked. We can't even compete with the monster we've created.

oh it holds. I get 5 emails a day from IT firms in India who want to write code for me for $10/hour.

globalization is retarded when there is only one country that consumes.

I get 5 emails a day from IT firms in India who want to write code for me for $10/hour.

Do they write bugs or features?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aMXzD7tQQGdY&refer=home

so the dickwad who just socialized the entire financial system now calls for free markets?

I'm just about done with this fucking place.

Indian programmers are crap. Some of the eastern european countries might be better than the US, but India is junk.

Most of the manufacturing I have seen come from China is also junk. Until "headquarters" has spent several million dollars flying miserable Americans back and forth between here and there to fix the problems.

I have met some very brilliant Indian developers.

However, I am bearish on the outsourcing crap.

FuzzyMath Says:
November 13th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
"so the dickwad who just socialized the entire financial system now calls for free markets?
I’m just about done with this fucking place."

I know, and it pisses me off to then have to explain to people that I am neither a liberal or a soc1list. I'm sick of warding off single labels for what is a more complicated belief system than what some clown wears on his sleeve. I'm pretty much done with the whole thing too, but God I am so hopeful. I am admitedly caught up in the whole, Obama is the second coming stuff. I have high hopes for that guy.

To clarify, I blame liberals for chasing manufacturing away. I hate them for trying to micromanage people's lives, and I believe they are parasites verses contributors.
While I believe in government being a mechanism to help free markets reach levels they couldn't on their own, I am not a soc1alist for the mere fact that I believe in free markets, free movements of prices, and certainly want minimal government ownership of infrastructure.

Fuzzy, I was watching this speech live in disbelief, which is why I posed the question.

Lost Cause Says:
Try to get a student loan from one of the banks. Just try.

Uh... as several posters above mentioned, Paulson is now planning on throwing a goodly portion of the remaining $350 billion in approved TARP borrowings at student and consumer loans.

And for the record, the whole "non one's getting student loans" meme is pure bunk. I have several nieces & nephews of college age all borrowing quite well, thank you. I strongly suspect student loan borrowing will be the very *last* bastions of easy credit to collapse, for this reason:

YOU CANNOT DISCHARGE STUDENT LOANS IN BANKRUPTCY
(i.e., Uncle Sam has Sallie Mae's back 100%)
http://bankruptcy.lawyers.com/Debts-You-Cannot-Discharge-in-Bankruptcy.html

The BK laws were amended under Bush I in 1991 to limit BK discharges to "severe hardship" or cases where the debtor is permanently disabled or otherwise has extrememly bleak future earnings potential. Nothing shorrt of that will do. This is true even for Chapter 13 (repayment plan BK). SLs are in a legally unique category of debts, along with child support/alimony and federal taxes.

Legal precedents established in civil court cases since 1991 have invariably placed the burden of proof squarely on the debtor, and BKs are very rarely granted for SLs. IANAL, but faced some rather 'bleak prospects' myself during the early 1990s, so I am well versed on the matter.

Bottom line: DO NOT OBTAIN ANY STUDENT LOAN YOU CANNOT EASILY REPAY ON THE MINIMUM SALARY YOU CAN EXPECT DURING HARD TIMES.

Having student loans on a limited (or no) income is the 21st century equivalent of debtor's prison. I do not recommend it. Far better: take advantage of the many excellent state and community colleges, and pay as you go.

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be"
--Bill Shakespeare, Hamlet

Hi Harm, I was recently thinking it had been a while since I saw you here.

And having student loans in a deflationary environment is downright depressing.

HARM, we should have a NorCal blog party with Randy and others. :)

Malcolm,

also incredibly ironic was a clear PPT move in the middle of the day... not even 2 hours after the fucker's speech.

I wouldn't be surprised if the PPT takes the winnings from their orchestrated short covering rallies, and then leverages off them to loan more money to the banks. They could have easily made a couple hundred billion today with that move.

If I stop posting for a week, you can all righfully assume that I was dragged off in a black SUV in the middle of the night for this post.

LOL!

That "PPT" could be the Invisible Hand (as opposed to the Black Hand).

Hi, guys,

Yes, it's been a long time. My new job has been keeping me *very* busy, but I do continue to lurk here and there. NorCal blog party sounds like a good plan --let's consider a place & time.

There is always the Larkspur Brewing Company. :)

http://patrick.net/wp/?p=161

Perhaps not this week though.

Peter P,

Can you be in downtown S.F. tomorrow around 5pm?

Can you be in downtown S.F. tomorrow around 5pm?

Maybe. I work in the city now.

But I probably need to be on the train by 6pm though.

Re: Student loans.

I work in higher education.

If you are intelligent, work hard and apply yourself, then college will either be cheap or free if you are of need. Whether you choose public or private school. Princeton and Stanford covered 100% of student fees for students of need this year. In general, the rule is that the less industrious students subsidize the better ones (which is as it should be in my opinion).

If you are a bad student, you are better off not going to college rather than getting yourself up to your ears in debt. Join the Army, learn a trade or get a 2-year associates degree.

There are way, way too many people in college that simply should not be there. I always feel sad when I encounter someone that is 30, just got out of school with a PhD and 100k of student loan debt and can't find a job.

I dropped out when I was 20, have no debt, 15 years of experience and a great job, salary, pension and benefits. A degree isn't everything. And it certainly isn't worth mortgaging your future for.

Peter P,

I'll ping you via email (don't want to hijack the thread). You still have the same gmail address as last year?

Yes.

kewp,

Point taken on the part about not everyone *should* insist on obtaining a degree. However, I take exception to the "everyone not receiving 100% grants/scholarships is an idiot" generalization. It's simply not true.

I was:
--an A/honor roll student
--worked my ass off before, during and after college
--took mostly AP & honors classes (at a time --80's-- before they even offered AP track for many subjects)
--National Merit Scholar
--received Cal grants & a private scholarship

And it *still* wasn't enough to cover the majority of costs. Granted, pursuing an M.A. at age 22 was not the best decision, but how was I to know the U.S. was about to go into recession (1990)?

Besides, if there's anything in the world *worth* borrowing money for, shouldn't higher education be near the top of that list? Oh, right, I forgot --it's A-ok to borrow millions to flip RE and live it up like the Donald then default without recourse, but NOT for education, no sir. Odd priorities we have.

I thought it seemed harsh too but then again I went to JCs then to SDSU so my cost was small. I graduated in 1998 with a BS and $16,000 of student loans. $12,000 of which I used as a down payment on my first house. Hey, they said housing was a proper use of the money :)

I paid it all off in 2003, and in 2004 I went to grad school. $1,200 per semester hardly seemed noticeable and I think it was a good investment.

Off-topic: I just received 3 (count 'em) spam emails from Barbara Boxer that she had received my various opinions on the bailout.

It seems like ages ago that I sent them ....

I still have her letter from some time ago saying there were no bailout plans. LOL

If you are a bad student, you are better off not going to college rather than getting yourself up to your ears in debt. Join the Army, learn a trade or get a 2-year associates degree.

There are way, way too many people in college that simply should not be there.

I can mostly agree with this, though I don't believe not graduating at the top of your class automatically makes you a "bad"student. And for the record there are plenty of truly "bad"/unqualified legacy students who get there solely due to connections and money (our current President *cough*, *cough*).

In this country, you are looked down upon if you learn a trade vs. going to college, which does many people a disservice.

just got those same emails