patrick.net

There are lots of sweat shops in the BA that offer jobs exactly like the one advertised, but they don't say it out loud :-)

You need to sugar coat it, sugar coat...

Or instead of sugar coating, you only need the following line to get the idea across: Only those who are desperate for a green card need to apply.

Found this on Patrick's front page:
http://www.dailynews.lk/2008/11/15/fea02.asp?ref=patrick.net

"The need of the hour is the injection of demand through direct fiscal action by Governments across the world. For activating Governments for this, two conditions have to be satisfied.

The second is the setting up of an international financial facility, operated on principles different from the Bretton Woods Institutions, which not only makes concessional finance available to developing economies, but also enables them to substitute long-term loans for their current short-term borrowing. "

The above concluding remarks were presented at the UN General Assembly - although it is driven from the viewpoint of developing nations, it gives a clear indication of what governments are thinking. Currency Controls to prevent capital flight, followed by a move away from Bretton Woods.

If the US government follows the same prescription, it would have profound implications for anyone who has USD savings. I have seen a situation when currency controls were imposed literally overnight - it is an indication of huge bad news, which you can't avoid because you cannot convert.

Who cares about development nations?

Don't we want to buy goods from them at ever lower costs?

Anyway, food will be the next big thing.

And, there is such a thing as population bubble in developing countries.

We are living in interesting times.

TOB, I will not say anything about protectionism here. One way or the other, it serves our interests to maintain low trade barriers for us in other countries.

There are usually signs of capital control before it is suddenly imposed.

1) Rapidly deteriorating government finance (check, but not there yet)
2) Rapidly depreciating currency (not checked, right now USD is very strong due to deleveraging, the interesting thing to see is what happens AFTER the deleveraging)
3) Rapidly deteriorating stock market which indicates possible capital flight by foreigners (half check)

It will be of no use if you keep FX in Argentina, Thailand or Indonesia during the financial crisis, because all your currency holding will be FORCED to convert to the local currency at the "official rate".

But, somehow I am more optimistic about the US because after all this is not a developing country, so the reset will be much milder, although I am sure it is not going to be pleasant.

TOB,

people were looking up how much SiPort was paying their employees and it turned out all the green card petitioners are getting paid $60K to $85K despite their years of experience and education background.

Similar jobs would be paying $110-120K for a startup (cos the only attraction of startup is higher pay, since stock option is usually worth crap), and that is how lots of companies keep their cost low in BA.

People shouldn't worry about illegal labor, it is impossible for a Mexican labor migrant hanging outside of HD to steal your job. However, H1B and green card applicants will keep the wage rate compressed for a long time, if you do not have something highly unique and skillful to offer, which is the case for many BA worker bees.

OO,

how did you find out how much SiPort was paying?

I didn't find out, I read about it from some blogs where people dug up SiPort's green card petitions and the salary information is public.

http://www.myvisajobs.com/Green-Card-Sponsor/Siport.htm

OO,

It is heresay at best. I think SiPort management was OK since:

1. They agreed to provide reference for Jing Hua Wu

2. They agreed to meet him after he was fired

I think they also provided him with severance ..... what information you have to show that SiPort management was a shitty bunch ... except that it was a sweat shop...

Lucknow, November 17 Relatives of Siddh Agarwal — the murdered CEO of an US-based semi-conductor company — left for the San Fransisco on Monday to attend his funeral.
Agarwal (58), the CEO of SiPort Inc, was shot dead by a sacked employee in north California two days ago. Two others died in the shooting. The assailant, Jing Hua Wu (47), a lead product test engineer, has been arrested.

Agarwal's younger brother Pawan Agarwal said with the arrest of Wu, the case is almost solved. “There is no question of meeting any officials,” said Pawan, who runs a garment showroom in Sitapur. The body is in the custody of the US police and is likely to be handed over to the family tomorrow evening.

The family received the news from a relative, Ritu Agarwal, who lives near Agarwal's home in San Fransisco.

“I was in my shop. We informed the family of Siddh's wife Asha as well,” said Pawan.

Asha's sister Mangala Das, her husband Hari Mohan and daughter Ragni will be attending the funeral.

Another relative of Agarwal, Ram Avtar said, “Siddh last visited two years ago, on the occasion of my son Rahul's wedding. He came with his family and stayed for three-days.”

Agarwal, who had been abroad for the last 34 years, is survived by his wife and two sons who are medical students. An electrical engineer from IIT-Kanpur, Agarwal had worked with several technology companies.

Peter Schiff Was Right 2006-2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8r-nDBx5Jg

Gotta hand it to Peter - in hindsight, he was soooo right and all the others were soooo wrong in all those TV appearances over the last few years.

# OO Says:
Only those who are desperate for a green card need to apply.

OO, get real - that company sounds like it will flame out in a year - nobody is going to get a green card through them. :-)

@permarenter, who here cares which extended relatives are showing up for the Siport funeral? We have better things to worry about...

@peterP - I didn't say we should care about developing nations. But we should care about whether the US will end up with currency controls - it is not about "this can't happen here" - the banksters are looking for "coordinated" action, which might include some of these stunts.

Peter Schiff is the man!

Even though I did not expect the severity he predicted, I did expect trouble and I sold most of my stock during 2007. I am so so very glad that I did. My cash is up 3% since last year.

All we need now to turn this disaster into a full depression is to make it harder for businesses to make money (and employ people). The best way to hurt business is to raise interest rates, raise taxes, and restrict trade.

The 3% is better than holding assets that went down. He sold some assets before they went down in value and I consider that UP. He can now buy those assets he sold in 2007 and have some money left over:)

Realestate is under deflationary forces while many other things are suffering from inflationary forces. It is all about perspective.

Peter Schiff was able to see the crash coming but totally missed the boat with his prediction on inflation.

Monetarily speaking, we are deflating. This will lead to lower prices for most things.

Gotta hand it to Peter - in hindsight, he was soooo right and all the others were soooo wrong in all those TV appearances over the last few years.

Peter Schiff was the worst kind of right; *half* right.

His fund is entirely long gold, oil, foreign equities and short the dollar. He got *hammered* this year. In fact, I've said a few times that the best investment for '08 was shorting the Schiff!

Something you won't see him mention in TV appearances is that many of the foreign exchanges he trades on *banned* short-selling of their securities. We had no such restrictions here and domestic hedge funds basically stripped all the equity out of the foreign markets. The Asians are rubes when it comes to trading and we took them to the cleaners.

More here:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/11/peter-schiff-hugely-right-enormously.html

I disagree with Mish that decoupling is dead, but I have to admit its looking that way.

For all the talk of a credit/housing/stock bubbles in the U.S. its obvious in hindsight that this was really a global problem.

Peter Schiff has been right in the macro view. You cannot expect one to be right all time. I don't agree with him and Ron Paul all the time. Definitely we need some government action now, while peter claims that let the market work it out.

I don't support the bailout. Look at Paulson's change right now after he bailed out his friends. Even if we need a bailout, we need to invest somewhere else, such as the infrastructure. The will be the real sector boosting up the economy.

OO Wrote:

> People shouldn’t worry about illegal labor, it
> is impossible for a Mexican labor migrant
> hanging outside of HD to steal your job.

That's what this guy thought:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuDjKGqjC1M

TOB,

"3% against what?"

My cash is up 3% because I have been paid 3% interest on it and, most importantly this last year, I still have the beginning balance.

Peter Schiff was the worst kind of right; *half* right.

There is only one kind of "right." It is the kind that is profitable.

What about this CL job posting?

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/ldn/783766933.html

Schiff was half right. He nailedwhat was going to happen, but his 'decoupling theory', the 'collapse of the dollar' and the 'stelar rise of gold' have all been so totally wrong that everyone invested with Schiff is down 50%.
He may be proven right over the next few years. . .
But I doubt it.
Decoupling is not correct. China is not the engine of the world economy and investing there will continue to b a losing strategy. Gold is suffering the same fate of any commoditiy. Until we hit the inflation side, which may not happen since we are getting a world-wide recession, gold will continue to underperform.
Everything else he says was well thought out and completely correct. As ever,it is 'what do I do given this insight' is where he falls down.

Significant decoupling is not realitic - but I expect that we will see some incremental move in that direction over time as more of the world becomes wealthier and consumes more.

We are still facing deflationary pressures from the both the globalization effect and the current financial panic. The bubblicious monetary policy of 2002 - 2005 offset the global deflationary effect, but the collapse since then exacerbates the deflationary pressures. Deflation is by definition a stronger currency, and will imply lower prices for nearly everything including gold.

The recent monetary policy and bailout policy will ultimately be very inflationary. But the macro tide is still heavily deflationary. So for now cash is king.

The recent monetary policy and bailout policy will ultimately be very inflationary.

But money supply is still not growing nearly as fast as debt/asset deflation, right?

Money supply is growing fast but velocity has slowed dramitaclly. The impact from deleveraging is very powerful.

The tide is going out.

Cash is king.

dramatically

The Great Money hole:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_should_the_government

The time for action is now!

# Peter P Says:
But money supply is still not growing nearly as fast as debt/asset deflation, right?

True, but the debt/asset deflation will stop at some point. If monetary policy does not tighten immediately in response, you will see a spike in monetary inflation. Given the lack of discipline and caution at Central Banks, I am not too sanguine about their competence and ability to correctly time this to avoid inflation.

The CB's would have to overshoot on the tightening in order to mop up the excess liquidity they have p*ssed onto the "market". Again, not sure if they will have the sense, the guts and the ability to do this correctly.

Exactly _when_ we cross the event horizon from deflation to inflation, I don't know. What worries me is that so far, we seem to have net monetary deflation but real asset prices have been more or less propped up. Will "they" be able to keep this up long enough to enter the inflationary phase without snapping down first? I don't believe they can pull that off - but I don't know for sure.

What worries me is that so far, we seem to have net monetary deflation but real asset prices have been more or less propped up.

Because people are still in their jobs. Human beings are emotional and they do not make economic decisions as a group.

Soon enough, the job market will be affected more profoundly and we will see more corrections.

God help us.

"What worries me is that so far, we seem to have net monetary deflation but real asset prices have been more or less propped up."

I disagree.

Monetary policy is very inflationary now. Probably more so than ever before. The fed is pumping like crazy in an effort to stop the financial crisis. And asset prices have declined dramatically in the last year. Look at real estate and stocks - down about 40-50% in real terms.

Just look at a gollon of gas.

Yes. Credit is being destroyed far faster than the money supply is expanding. Hence delfation.
Ironically, a future part of monetary policy will be to spike up interest rates to soak up the liquidity now being deployed.
As we know here, when that happens, housing will have yet another leg down as home prices are very sensitive to interest rates.

It never occred to me after the current big correction in housing we are getting now, we will get a short reprieve, then another correction to the down-side becuase the Fed will simply have to raise rates.

Hmm, there has been mumblings that the Fed govt will start a new, new deal home mortgage branch. This would make sense as high future mortgage rates will cause much of we are already seeing in terms of the Big Recession. I wonder what rate the new agency will use. 5%?

gallon

Real rates will be high - they already are.

Housing will not recover until several factors change:
- excess inventory is absorbed
- real interest rates decline
- consumer confidence improves

We have a glut of homes as a result of overbuilding. This will take a while to work off. With deflation, or no inflation, real rates will remain high for a while. A return of inflation will lower real interest rates as rates will rise slower than inflation. Consumer confidence will not return until home prices stop falling. This will not happen until a slight shortage develops.

It will be a long slog from where we are now.

The fundamental cause of our current deflationary pressure is a glut of goods and assets for sale. It is exacerbated by the financial panic - but there is no shortage of money.

While I appreciate Schiff "carrying the flag" for so many years during the boom times, he did not anticipate that the European banks would be even more overleveraged than their American counterparts...
FWIW, terms on TAF are 28 and 84 days. The Fed can yank dollars out of the system rather quickly, but if they misjudge an 84 day term auction, that's $150B doing damage for 3 months. TSLF terms are 28 days.

Yes. Credit is being destroyed far faster than the money supply is expanding. Hence delfation.

Well, technically its debt that is being destroyed, but same difference.

I've said something for the last year that I just saw Mish echo in a recent post. What hurts your bottom line more, your house losing a few hundred K in equity or spending an extra few hundred a year on gas?

Its even worse now, as you are spending less on everything and your house is *still* losing value!

It is exacerbated by the financial panic - but there is no shortage of money.

Actually there is. People are fighting over whatever few dollars they can make just to service their debt.

There was too much credit and now we have too much debt. Debt can only be serviced or defaulted on, both of which destroy liquidity.

Too much credit is too much debt - by definition.

There is plenty of money in the system - but (as always) not everyone has enough. Too many people got used to easy borrowing to buy more than they could afford. Now too many are not repaying their debt. Banks are now afraid to lend, and are hoarding their cash. They are depositing with the federal reserve bank instead of lending. Loads of money in the system, but a huge reluctance to loan it out.