state of solar power

Economist article on state of solar power.

Richard Florida "How the Crash Will Reshape America"

urban studies professor Richard Florida article

Ian Welsh @ Firedoglake

UPDATE, apparently now Welsh does most of his writing on his own ianwelsh.net, while still posting somewhat on Firedoglake

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Ian Welsh @ Firedoglake blog, is a 40s-yo Canadian in Toronto with a great broad take on US economic/politics topics, with an ability to take long historical perspective, ala Thom Hartmann.

I stumbled upon 1 of Welsh's posts. Welsh is great, I'll likely become a regular reader because this guy is dropping too much insight to be slept on.

Here's an example post labeling 3 groups in US political spectrum
reactionaries (Rethugs)
conservatives ("centrist" Dems like Obama)
liberals (very few exist in House & Sen)

stimulus for electronic medical records = corporate welfare

Part of the 2009 economic stimulus plan making its way through the Congressional "sausage factory" includes money for electronic medical records (EMR).

EMR itself is a good idea. Healthcare industry is horrible at using, er not using, information technology to increase productivity. For example, the practice of some physicians poorly handwriting a prescription that a pharmacist can't read is excessive industry inefficiency, not to mention extreme incompetent arrogance (a deadly combination) for the physician offenders.

However, I don't see why in principle the Fed Government should be paying for EMR, this is straight corporate welfare for the healthcare industry.

To my knowledge, no other industries have gotten such corporate welfare for their IT. I suppose their may be some tax credit, but even so this would be at worst a partial deduction of the cost. Eg if a grocery retailer buys a $2 million transaction information system, they don't pay $2 million less in taxes, maybe at best they get to deduct $200K from their tax bill or some such.

Speaking of grocery retailers, I heard that they are often the least profitable industry in the US, with a slim profit margin of say 3%, which often times is less than that of a regular savings account (depending on the interest rate level). If grocery retailers can pay for their own IT, why can't the super-expensive health care industry?

Perhaps the Feds should just mandate/regulate that EMR must be implemented by say 2014. Or implement EMR corporate welfare as an low-interest loan of sorts. Various healthcare industry participants could be levied a tax to ensure that they pay back the EMR corporate welfare within say 8 years. The tough thing would be ensuring that the healthcare industry doesn't just pass the tax on the consumers. Perhaps health care insurers & pharma companies company profits, as well physician/dentist/pharmacist incomes should get an extra 10% tax for the 3-10 years it takes to pay off this EMR loan.

Another point about EMR, is that the Feds should insist that any software used in the EMR should be completely FOSS (free & open source). This way whoever is paying the EMR bill, Feds &/or healthcare industry, they would be paying only the initial implementation/consulting fee, & a minimal annual maintenance fees. I don't want to see the closed proprietary enterprise software cartel of Oracle/SAP get paid off of this EMR corporate welfare, with their ridic initial license fees & usurious 22% annual maintenance fees. If there is any "functionality holes" in what is needed, the Feds could hire maybe at most 100 of the vast sea of US unemployed IT professionals to develop the missing functionality. If a small software vendor is already working on this functionality, the Feds could give some free IT workers' time in exchange for the vendor's committment to FOSS. Wikipedia notes that several FOSS EMR apps already exist.

Obama blacklists Progressive Economists

David Sirota editorial & Christopher Hayes editorial detail how Obama has shunned Progressive hires for the economic-related cabinet jobs. It would be great is Obama had named Dean Baker, who is not only Progressive, innovative, but most importantly has the benefit of being correct on calling the Nasdaq bubble in 1999 & housing bubble in 2004.

These Obama economists Larry Summers & Timothy Geithner were incompetent in the 1990s & deregulated financial derives. This action made the housing bubble & 2008 Financial ELE worse. Summers & Geithner also Wall Street Welfare Whores.

On economics, it seems that Obama is a Corporate Welfare Whore Lite, ala Bill Clinton.

I sincerely hope that Obama will prove Sirota, Hayes, & myself wrong.

Baker's ideas for 2009 stimulus package

Dean Baker article has some ideas for the 2009 stimulus package, many of which are ideas from his Conservative Nanny State book. I really support the public funding of pharma clinical trials that would eliminate the current pharma monopoly system.

Obama's current stimulus plan is very disappointing. Per Rachel Maddow, only 18% is on infrastructure. More than that infrastructure amount is more supply-side Reaganomics tax cuts, which have been proven failures since the 1980s. If the Feds are gonna spend $820 B, it should all be bang-for-the-buck items that have a good chance of getting a return.

It seems that on economic policy, Obama is like B Clinton, a moderate ReThug, a less whorish Corporate Welfare Whore. I sincerely hope Obama proves me wrong on this stimulus package & other economic policies in this 2009Q1. Just being less corporate welfare whorish than WOAT Bush, but still whorish, is NOT "change that I can believe in".

Carbonomics

free ebook Carbonomics by Steven Stoft on energy/economics issues. You can download the free pdf here or cop a printed book at that same site or at Amazon.

I dig the tagline "How to fix the climate & charge it to OPEC". Word?! I love the sound of that solution! "Fock it, do it live", no Bile O'Really.

Even offshore outsourced at enterprise software oligopolists getting ethered

Even the enterprise software oligopolists SAP & Oracle are laying off workers at their offshore outsourced Indian offices.

Supposedly some of this is India-specific sales, which I could understand more.

But the majority of these Indian offices are working on offshored work in product dev, consulting, internal G&A tasks such as Finance/Accounting, etc, for a rich country end customer, especially the US.

Either overall global employment in enterprise application software is in a bubble, or SAP or Oracle are just too damn greedy. Perhaps the CXOs feel that to maintain their multimillion pay packages, they need to eliminate even those "greedy" $10-25K (not sure on actual amount, just know it's much lower than the US which motivated the offshoring) salaried Indian employees doing real customer work.

If the oligopolist offshored knowledge workers getting eliminated like this, what does this say for US workers at non-oligopolist vendors? "Shhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid" (c) The Wire's MD State Senator Clay Davis.

I hope open source takes over the enterprise app software business, indy or small business software engineers, project consultants, etc have a chance at decent careers, or even self-employment.

Those that don't actually help the end customer, brutal arrogant oligopolist, parasite CXOs like Larry Ellison or Safra Catz can eat an infinite johns sandwich. I'm sure the Bangalore staff are saying similar things in Hindi right about now.

CNN profiles the underemployed

Case studies on how several workers have seen their careers ethered, going from 110K to 33K for instance.

Keep in mind these "underemployed" don't show up in the U3 reported unemployment figures. They sometimes show up in the U6 figures.

Expect to see more college degreed "knowledge workers" driving trucks, taxis, waiters, etc. Nothing wrong with those jobs, but it shows the social contract in the US is broken. Workers take time, & often debt, to become a knowledge worker.

Apparently in the US now, it's a luxury to work a knowledge worker job until retirement.

Unions & pro-employee government policies are needed ASAP. Let's see if Obama & the Dems do a little something for us wage slaves & unemployed wage slaves, or they bitch out as Corporate Whore DINOs ala Bill Clinton did on NAFTA in the 90s.

Equity markets globally ethered in 2008

Check out this Economist magazine link.

I had already known the US equity market (S&P 500) had collapsed 40.8% in 2008.

I was surprised to learn most other countries' equity markets had been more severely ethered.

In particular, the BRIC countries, aka "their takin our US jobbs" coalition aka the 21st Century new superpowers got pwned in 2008, both in their own currency & in USD terms.

In other words, the BRIC caught a brick, dunny! More like a dumptruck of bricks fell on their head.

Damn sonn, this doesn't bode well for labor globally, whether you're in the US or Vietnam. Whether you're a PhD scientist or a HS dropout manual laborer. More justification for more race to the bottom tactics. China is getting ethered despite paying $0.40/hr for factory workers, & India likewise paying $15K/year for PhD engineers & scientists in offshore outsourcing R&D centers? If the "Ownership Society" cats are getting ethered, best believe they will "trickle down" the pain to us wage slave laborers. Maybe Busta Rhymes was prophetic, yet 10 years early in his ELE prognostications.

Country Local Currency USD
Brazil -42.0% -57.0%
Russia -66.6% -71.9%
India -53.0% -61.7%
China -64.8% -62.5%

Question: I like how The Economist lists all this data, but I also want to see Price-to-Earnings (PE) & Price-to-Sales (PS) ratios to see the relevant valuations between countries, & more importantly, the relevant current valuations over the 100+ year historical valuations of the US stock market. Hit up the comments if you know of such a site, help a brother out mayne!

Stevie Wonder "All Day Sucker" = GOAT song on "calenta huevo hoes"

This funk song "All Day Sucker" off of Stevie Wonder 1976 Song In The Key Of Life is great. The beat is great, sick funky guitar & even the random xylophone on the chorus. Outstanding 5/5.



Also the lyrics are very relatable to any guys that have dealt with a calenta huevo girl. Aka approximately 99.7% of all heterosexual men alive. And that number is prolly rising, because it seems the plague of calentahuevoism is most likely rising in the past few years from all anecdotal evidence.

What is a calenta huevo girl/woman? Calenta Huevo is a genius term an old Peruvian friend from Dallas invented, literally means a "ball warmer". A girl that flirts tremendously with a dude, but in the end just wants to be friends, &/or use the dude to do some task, such as help her move apartments.

To be clear, I'm not being misogynistic, many women are very altruistic/non-calenta huevoish, just like many women are calenta huevoish. Just like a fair mind women would say many dudes are jerks or non-jerks.

Free Consulting to anyone if relevant: some sociologist do a PhD on trends in calentahuevoism since 1976 to 2008.

Damn, so many of Stevie's lyrics are timeless. The song "Black Man" should be played at Obama's inauguration

If you feel me [||] on calentahuevoism, hit up the comments on ur calenta huevo stories.

fw - Wall Street Lays Golden Egg

Niall Ferguson Vanity Fair article Wall Street Lays Golden Egg

Cali government torching Aguablanca neighborhood

Aguablanca pre-Cali Police's ethering


Aguablanca post-ethering

I stumbled upon this sad story. This story makes me ashamed of the "C" of my "EGC" blog name.

Cali, Colombia police in 2006 burned a neighborhood of shack houses in the Aguablanca neighborhood, destroying the meager property & official Government documents ("papers") of all the community's members & rendering all homeless. 1 infant baby died as a result of the police's tear gas. Many other people including women & elderly were injured, via the police's physical assaults.

That Aguablanca neighborhood was an illegal settlement of makeshift shack houses. The fact that the settlement was illegal, IMHO does not justify the police's inexcusable behavior. I'm not an expert on human rights, but it seems, at a minimum, the Government could have transported the people, along with their posessions, to a temporary refugee area.

After reading story, I gotta say a big 100% NO to this US-COL "free trade" agreement. Maybe COL Pres. Alvaro Uribe, McShame, & WOAT Bush can have randomly have the police burn down their house & all their possessions & papers, & then smack them silly, & leave them homeless. Then let's see if these plutocratic douches think this type of behavior is "acceptable". Why should the US workers join the "race to the bottom", with the country whose government participates in such blatant human rights abuses. Keep in right that civil rights are hard to win, & our ancestors died to win them, but can easily be lost when under attack by plutocrats or fascists.

The concept of a egalitarian society, of equal rights of all citizens, is under assault in USA, & was frankly always focked up in COL. We have the proto-fascist ReThug wing of the Republican party, encouraged by McShame & PalInsane, encouraging the notion that non-white or non-rural Americans are "not Real Americans". These ReThugs are also painting blacks & Muslims as non-real Americans & 2nd class citizens.

If like me, you believe in equal rights, you must influence your circle of family/friends to be aware of this assault on egalitarianism. Don't allow the USA society to gradually drift further in the direction of COL society.

Subprime Primer

This Subprime Primer cartoon Google presentation file breaks the Financial Disaster 08 down like an organic compound.

IMHO there should have been some basic regulations to prevent this nonsense.

economist Jeffrey Sachs: Social Welfare State, beyond ideology

economist Jeffrey Sachs concludes that the data shows that social democracy pwns market fundamentalist economies.

Baby Boomers damaged the USA

Check this great post from the Economics Finance & Investment blogspot

The early Baby Boomer generation (1946-1955) has taken it all.

* Their parents had meager (or no) employer provided retirement benefits; Boomers had generous defined benefit pensions PLUS retiree medical benefits; their kids will have 401(k)s with pathetic returns as the effects of the "age wave" kick in.

* Their parents had the Great Depression; Boomers had the greatest economic expansion in history; their kids will have a decades-long recession like Japan's "lost decade" only longer.

* Their parents had ditch digging jobs under Roosevelt's jobs program; the Boomers had great jobs; their kids will have the jobs that are not outsourced to India

* Their parents' government ran a balanced budget; the Boomers' government ran a deficit almost every year of their adult lives; their kids will be saddled with tens of trillions of dollars of debt

However the Boomers need to remember that the next generation needs to keep paying taxes for Social Security and Medicare to maintain them in the style to which they have become accustomed. However, these programs (particulary Medicare) will be bankrupt before that next generation can use them, so Boomers should tread lightly. In the next 10 years, this country is going to have generational warfare that will make the "class warfare" that our politicans often mention seem like high tea at the Ritz.

Investment Bank, RIP

good articles 1 2 on future of investment bank industry.

The industry's current revenue model is done. Good riddance on these Corporate Welfare Whores.

fw - Corporate Welfare for ex Freddie Mac CEO

this is 1 of the most obscene Corporate Welfare story ever.

The incompetent loser unethical ex-CEOs of Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae might get $8M+ severance packages. WTF?!

Since US Fed Gov is bailing these "GSE" entities out, these lames should get nathan.

Why is it that pensions go broke, an average worker is screwed, but these incompetent Corporate Welfare C-E-heez-Os get paid?

Man, Funk Dat (c) Sagat

Perot Charts

"now here's the deal see"

Ross Perot is "back up that ass with a resurrection" (c) Samir from Office Space.

Perot has a site with charts on the US Gov & economy.

fw - Republicans & Military men on John McCain

powerful 5-min youtube clip on John McWarmongerer