<p>So, why not ask Google and Facebook to cooperate in using computers to ask questions and screen data, in a for-results comp effort to save this country?</p>
<p>Have them work with an array of economists to set up questions about the data, to test their solutions.
Computers got us into this mess (with their ability to program out risk in the financial sector -smile), so why not ask the private sector to do this???
The amount of data is astronomical and so is the number of variables.</p>
<p>I am sure there are lots of software engineers who are looking for work these days…</p>
<p>“Maybe we are so big that we HAVE to fail, as a nation, because nobody can figure this out anymore…”</p>
<p>That is what a friend of mine thinks…</p>
<p>We are going to have to hit rock bottom.</p>
<p>We are also in a catch 22…</p>
<p>Requiring more capital for banks…I think is necessary…but if you do that…by definition they have less to loan…and if they have less to loan…asset prices drop…fewer businesses are created…fewer jobs might be created…</p>
<p>His actions since the TARP have been less than what I would have hoped for. I’m not actually criticizing him. His job is to create wealth for his shareholders.</p>
<p>I just don’t like the way he (during this administration) has become one of the ones who is picking the winners and losers. I don’t like that he has benefitted so much from this administration and is still acting as if he hasn’t gotten anything. It’s annoying.</p>
<p>I am totally in favor of bringing back Glass-Steagll, poetgirl. It would be a fabulous way to prevent a lot of disasters, and makes things much easier to monitor.</p>
<p>I do worry about protectionism, though. Particularly hard to implement when corps are so global top to bottom. Maybe your reforms would help LT, but would be tough ST!!!</p>
<p>add to your list of ideas:
something to keep the enterprise interests of any industry out of DC (particularly finance)
outlaw political lobbyists
simplification of tax code, whatever the code’s policies are</p>
<p>I used to worry about protectionism. But, the problem is that the US treats the world as if we are operating a free trade system, and they protect their economies.</p>
<p>Let me just put it this way, if we start to tarrif, then they will start to play more fair.</p>
<p>But, I’m most in favor of tarriffing products from US based companies which offshore manufacturing and then bring their products back here. We can either protect our work force or we can go broke. It might not be perfect, but I’m convinced it will be better.</p>
<p>poetgirl,
So are you saying that protectionism is a passe concept, along the lines we were brought up to think of it, BECAUSE corps and markets are so global?</p>
<p>The corporations have found a way to exploit the vision of free trade. In an article today, Orzag calls it a “global workforce” as if it is a fait acompli. But, why?</p>
<p>Other countries require their corporations to stay national in employment. germany certainly does.</p>
<p>negotiate bulk price breaks. Become a little bit more expensive, to some extent.</p>
<p>But, are we going to live on taiwanese plastics and taiwanese manufactured ipods while our children can’t get a job?</p>
<p>In the meantime, China practices protectionism, so do all countries which have laws which require a certain percentage of their workforce to be native. I’m just saying, they have found ways to pass laws which protect the workers from “the global workforce”…we can, too.</p>
<p>I saw a study somewhere which shows that every time we sign a “free trade agreement” with another country, we lose jobs. I mean, Alh talks about the middle class voting against their best interest. as a country, we do this too, based on some ideal of 'free trade" which has allowed us to be exploited by nearly every other country in the world.</p>
<p>I’m not one to continually go back to the founding fathers, or whatever. but, originally, we only tarriffed. We did not tax work.</p>
<p>Poetgirl,
I have lived in japan. You are right. They are positively xenophobically protectionistic.</p>
<p>D2 was born there- no Nihon passport bec parents were not born there.
(Yet, even with US Passport, she is worried that she could never run for Pres… smile)</p>
<p>Without having read the entire thread, I think top 1% must vary significantly by age. It’s possible my children are in the top 1% of 25-year-olds, for example: no student loans, a positive net worth, and they have jobs!</p>
<p>Just came back to this thread since last night. (Yep spent a long day at the JOB that pays the bills and the full pay tuition at a LAC). I just wanted to say how very much I’ve enjoyed this thread, and how impressed I am with the dialogue. In particular, people with different value systems and opinions have shared openly and easily but with little rancor, vitriol, or personalization. This is the best of CC when it happens.</p>
<p>And PS–I nominate SewHappy to run for national office. She represents my views quite nicely. Nothing more to add. ;-)</p>