Objective review of the US 2012 Presidential and Congressional general campaign

[Scarpia]

Hey now, worst case the US will have both wallowing tubs of misery and wealthy, vibrant areas.

Well, that's what we've always had, except that the wallowing tubs of misery are getting bigger and more miserable, and the wealthy vibrant areas are getting smaller and wealthier. 

[Scarpia]

You're asking a personal question. I am one of these people. Tomorrow is my 23rd birthday and I am laughably underemployed at a company where I am paid by the hour on a temporary basis to compare PDFs and see if the people who generated them added any errors to the texts they contain. This morning I had a meeting with a brand-new boss, who, after hearing me list my education and work history, said, "what on earth are you doing here??" I have applied to 52 jobs in the past 52 weeks, which is fewer than many unemployed people because I work 40 hour weeks and want to continue living in Texas (I know people who've applied to 200+), but these have resulted in 6 interviews, 3 of which ended in me never hearing back about the hiring decision.

There are obviously many problems. For one, I clearly chose the wrong skillset. I am a writer, and an editor, and if it's not egotistical to say so, I am unusually good at both. My writing once got a praisequote from Joyce DiDonato. But America evidently doesn't need writers.

So am I supposed to be establishing a career path? Probably. Am I? Definitely not. Whatever job I land next will probably be yet another "filler" job to bide my time. In many ways I'm luckier than a lot of my fellow recent graduates: I am receiving a paycheck, I have supportive parents and friends (although my friends all live quite far away), I don't have any student loan debts, and I have genuine ability and published writing clips. But no, I don't see any sign that the economy will improve significantly, I don't see any sign that I have a place in it, and I don't see any hope of achieving the kind of financial security and career satisfaction that my parents have.

Even my engineer friends are significantly underpaid comparable to entry-level engineers in years past; my best friend is an engineer who tells me she's in the 25th percentile for recent college grads in her field. But she's 23 and owns her own modest home (four-room condo), so she has me beat by a solid 5-10 years.

Have you considered tech writing.  All those tech companies in Austin must need people who can communicate in human language?

Anyway, maybe you did not choose the right skill set, but I don't know what the right skill set is.  I would have said science/technology, but the US has lost its ability to compete in that area, and multinational companies are finding it is more cost effective to move their research and development out of the US to Asia or Europe.

[drogulus]

So I guess I not only don't see American collapse, I don't see the Russian and Chinese bogeymen that you do.  Perhaps a unipolar world becomes bipolar (ie, US and China) for while before becoming multi-polar with many players.  Maybe effective supranational government could emerge, though I don't think I'll see that in my lifetime.

      China will hit the export model wall in the near future. The U.S. advantage is that it's prosperity is largely based on internal production and consumption, at least to a far greater degree than many rivals. As a result we will decline periodically, while first one then another challenger rises and falls, based on their success against competitors at the all important task of selling to us.

      We've already declined from our all time peak when our rivals were destroyed by war, the same war that rebuilt our own economy with the biggest stimulus program in history. We won't return to that level of dominance. The question is are there factors that could lead to further decline unrelated to the correlations I outlined? I think not.

[Karl Henning]

Well, that's what we've always had, except that the wallowing tubs of misery are getting bigger and more miserable, and the wealthy vibrant areas are getting smaller and wealthier. 

And Mitt's okay with that!

[Karl Henning]

There are obviously many problems. For one, I clearly chose the wrong skillset. I am a writer, and an editor, and if it's not egotistical to say so, I am unusually good at both.

I agree that you're good (have not been in a position to have a proper opinion on unusually), so your saying so is not egotism; I consider it fair self-appraisal.

Obviously, as another fellow fully employed (and happy to be so) but outside his field of interest and (highest) expertise, I don't have guidance for you.  Chin up, and keep doing your best work.  No idea if it will get either of us anywhere, but we can hold our heads up for doing our best, and for doing work which can stand against a great many of our peers.

[Scarpia]

Obviously, as another fellow fully employed (and happy to be so) but outside his field of interest and (highest) expertise, I don't have guidance for you.  Chin up, and keep doing your best work.  No idea if it will get either of us anywhere, but we can hold our heads up for doing our best, and for doing work which can stand against a great many of our peers.[/font]

You can whimsically doodle with the best of 'em?

[Karl Henning]

Thread duty: Mitt is too much of a pansy to spell out his plan, because "voters won't like me then!"

Call him Mr Non-Transparency.

For you little people, it's strictly need-to-know. And I've determined that you don't need to.

[North Star]

Yeah, this knife does look scary. Still, no need for running away - just close your eyes and I'll surprise you!

[Brian]

None other than The Economist is firing a broadside attack against Mitt.

"In theory, Mr Romney has a detailed 59-point economic plan. In practice, it ignores virtually all the difficult or interesting questions (indeed, "The Romney Programme for Economic Recovery, Growth and Jobs" is like "Fifty Shades of Grey" without the sex)."

And as great as that line is, it gets even crueler: "Mr Romney may calculate that it is best to keep quiet: the faltering economy will drive voters towards him. It is more likely, however, that his evasiveness will erode his main competitive advantage. A businessman without a credible plan to fix a problem stops being a credible businessman. So does a businessman who tells you one thing at breakfast and the opposite at supper."
http://www.economist.com/node/21560864

[kishnevi]

2. During the very recent Romanian political turmoils (of which I can safely bet you have not the slightest idea, we are not  a country in the position of shaking the whole world because of our political strife) the special emissary of President Obama, Phillip Gordon, came to Bucharest and summoned to order the Romanian political forces: cease the fight or else ... (the fact that I fully support Romanian political parties being reprimanded from abroad does not change the nature of facts: a US special emissary can dictate to our politicians how to behave).

We've been too busy paying attention to those spendthrifts to the south of you in Athens.   Can I ask what they were fighting about and why they needed a firm nanny to rap their knuckles? The Romanian parties, I mean, not the Greeks.

Of course,  it's probably a good think that Romania's economic woes, whatever they are at the moment, are not the sort that might drag the world economy off a cliff.

[Todd]

None other than The Economist is firing a broadside attack against Mitt.

The Economist has been critical of both candidates for a while, reveling in the inconsistencies, etc.  BusinessWeek also came out in a recent opening article and called out Romney's economic plan as basically ineffective nonsense.  Of course, BW also pointed out that a tax plan even more ambitious that Obama's but operated along the same lines would raise only about $1.9 trillion over the next decade, whereas about $4 trillion is needed. 

I'm beginning to wonder if the candidates are telling the truth.

[eyeresist]

I'm beginning to wonder if the candidates are telling the truth.

Cynic! 

[ibanezmonster]

You're asking a personal question. I am one of these people. Tomorrow is my 23rd birthday and I am laughably underemployed at a company where I am paid by the hour on a temporary basis to compare PDFs and see if the people who generated them added any errors to the texts they contain. This morning I had a meeting with a brand-new boss, who, after hearing me list my education and work history, said, "what on earth are you doing here??" I have applied to 52 jobs in the past 52 weeks, which is fewer than many unemployed people because I work 40 hour weeks and want to continue living in Texas (I know people who've applied to 200+), but these have resulted in 6 interviews, 3 of which ended in me never hearing back about the hiring decision.

There are obviously many problems. For one, I clearly chose the wrong skillset. I am a writer, and an editor, and if it's not egotistical to say so, I am unusually good at both. My writing once got a praisequote from Joyce DiDonato. But America evidently doesn't need writers.

So am I supposed to be establishing a career path? Probably. Am I? Definitely not. Whatever job I land next will probably be yet another "filler" job to bide my time. In many ways I'm luckier than a lot of my fellow recent graduates: I am receiving a paycheck, I have supportive parents and friends (although my friends all live quite far away), I don't have any student loan debts, and I have genuine ability and published writing clips. But no, I don't see any sign that the economy will improve significantly, I don't see any sign that I have a place in it, and I don't see any hope of achieving the kind of financial security and career satisfaction that my parents have.

Even my engineer friends are significantly underpaid comparable to entry-level engineers in years past; my best friend is an engineer who tells me she's in the 25th percentile for recent college grads in her field. But she's 23 and owns her own modest home (four-room condo), so she has me beat by a solid 5-10 years.

If there aren't any jobs here by the time I graduate with my Bachelor's in Software Development, I'm moving to India...

The nice thing for you is that either you got a scholarship of some sort or your parents have helped you... I'll be graduating when I'm 28 and couldn't attend school immediately because my parents didn't want to cosign for any type of loan, and you have to be 24 to be considered independent.

I just listened on the radio today about how this generation is the first in US History (though are they omitting the Great Depression?) that young people won't be expected to earn what their parents earned. That makes me feel very hopeful about my future. It also mentioned how the unemployment rate of people age 18-24 is twice the national average (according to that rule, the unemployment rate of the age group in my area must be about 20% or so).

Also: what type of punishment did the banks who started all of this receive again? These people who ruined millions of lives and by now have probably driven thousands to suicide get what type of punishment? Maybe not legally, but in a sense, this is mass murder and mass robbery. What type of punishment, again?... 

[Scarpia]

Also: what type of punishment did the banks who started all of this receive again? These people who ruined millions of lives and by now have probably driven thousands to suicide get what type of punishment? Maybe not legally, but in a sense, this is mass murder and mass robbery. What type of punishment, again?...

My view is that the government should have written down the principal owed by people who got mortgages for primary residences during the bubble.  If you bought a house in 2006 when the valuations were 150% of normal, your principal should be reduced by the same factor.  As it is there has been a huge transfer of capital from individuals to banks, who now owe huge amounts of money to banks and in return have a property which is worth a lot less.  If my plan were followed, the banks would take the loss, rather than homeowners.  Maybe that would make the banks insolvent, but is that worse than the population of the country being insolvent?  The narrative that the banks were the victims of shrewd sub-prime mortgage holders is absurd. Some will also say that this is wrong because it rewards people who did stupid things, but now we are rewarding the banks that did stupid things rather than the ordinary homeowner.

Of course, I can't say that I know that the federal government has the authority to do this.

[kishnevi]

If there aren't any jobs here by the time I graduate with my Bachelor's in Software Development, I'm moving to India...

paging Navneeth

The nice thing for you is that either you got a scholarship of some sort or your parents have helped you... I'll be graduating when I'm 28 and couldn't attend school immediately because my parents didn't want to cosign for any type of loan, and you have to be 24 to be considered independent.

Interesting.  When I was in school,  a generation ago, no one was asked to cosign any loans;  my signature was enough, even for the two trimesters before I turned 18.  Unless my mother signed something and never told me, which is not likely (the not telling me part, that is).  Of course, most of my financial aid was scholarship and outright grant, and the loans for undergraduate were the smaller part (but not for law school).  I came out of seven years owing something in the neighborhood of 25k,  at that time a huge amount.

I just listened on the radio today about how this generation is the first in US History (though are they omitting the Great Depression?) that young people won't be expected to earn what their parents earned. That makes me feel very hopeful about my future.

From what I know, that would include the Depression.  However,  it should be remembered that wages in the 1920s were for most people not munificent.    People were not paid less in the Depression if they had a job, if only because it was rather hard to decrease the pay from next to nothing to nothing; the hard part was (not) having a job.  And that's not to downplay how hard things were in the Depression.  My grandfather was a tailor, often a seasonal job, and my mother remembered him walking across the city of Boston to and from work each day because he felt the street car fare--perhaps ten cents a day--was too much money.

It also mentioned how the unemployment rate of people age 18-24 is twice the national average (according to that rule, the unemployment rate of the age group in my area must be about 20% or so).

Also: what type of punishment did the banks who started all of this receive again? These people who ruined millions of lives and by now have probably driven thousands to suicide get what type of punishment? Maybe not legally, but in a sense, this is mass murder and mass robbery. What type of punishment, again?...

I think your suicide rate is overstated by a couple of orders of magnitude.  The common answer seems to be not suicide but to ignore foreclosure as long as possible, and then complaining how your life was ruined by that nasty bank.

I don't have any sympathy for the banks,  but I don't have any sympathy for the "victims", many of whom are simply sorry they bought high in a market that is now considerabley lower and don't have the patience to  wait for the market to raise up to the level at which they bought (and it will, although it may take ten or even twenty years to do so).  We've lived long enough in this house (my mother's) that the mortgage was paid off long ago,  and if my mother could do that on a minimal salary,--well,  those other people don't get any sympathy from me, is all I can say.

[Scarpia]

I don't have any sympathy for the banks,  but I don't have any sympathy for the "victims", many of whom are simply sorry they bought high in a market that is now considerabley lower and don't have the patience to  wait for the market to raise up to the level at which they bought (and it will, although it may take ten or even twenty years to do so).  We've lived long enough in this house (my mother's) that the mortgage was paid off long ago,  and if my mother could do that on a minimal salary,--well,  those other people don't get any sympathy from me, is all I can say.

I find it odd that you proudly claim to have no sympathy for people who made apparently wise, conservative financial decisions, but who have had their savings obliterated by a market bubble.  Perhaps you imagine a sub-prime mortgage customer who bought a house with a huge mortgage he or she couldn't afford and expects to be bailed out.  There were some of those, but that is not the typical victim today.  Those people are already foreclosed.  Imagine a person who got their first good job during the bubble, moved to a new city, and needed to find a place to live.  That person gets a sensible 20 year, fixed rate mortgage that they can afford to pay, and suddenly the value of the house drops 30% or more, so that they are paying a $500k mortgage on a property now worth $300k  Maybe that person keeps his or her job, but now has a net worth of negative $200k.  Maybe that person loses his or her job and has to move to take a new job.  That person has no choice but to sell and has a $200k mortgage, and no property.   You have no sympathy for that person?  The banks, on the other hand, deserve that $200k windfall, collecting a $500k mortgage on a $300k property.   After all, it was their bubble, don't they deserve to profit from it?

But in your case, your mother gave you a house, and that makes you more deserving than the person in the story.

[drogulus]

    I have sympathy for everyone caught in this mess. If only the deserving got help very few would, which I think is the point of the vengeful moralists who use any excuse they can to avoid helping. This happened in the '30s, too, when the same types talked about all the millions of suddenly lazy workers who in a few short years reverted to industriousness and helped build the strongest country the world has ever seen.
   

[Florestan]

We've been too busy paying attention to those spendthrifts to the south of you in Athens.   Can I ask what they were fighting about and why they needed a firm nanny to rap their knuckles? The Romanian parties, I mean, not the Greeks.

The ruling left coalition of socialists and liberals tried desperately to oust the conservative president.Their tactics included modifying laws by governmental decree, illegally replacing the speakers of both houses, replacing the independent ombudsman with a puppet of the socialists, impeaching the president for fictive or puerile reasons in defiance of the Constitution, calling a referendum for this impeachment to be approved and trying to change its rules just before, during and just after the vote (for instance, according to the law the referendum is considered not valid if less than 50% of the people voted; the actual result was 47%.; then the ruling parties said that the total number of electors was actually smaller than the one on the basis of which the referendum was organized (and which the very minister of the interior made public twice) and began to reevaluate this number after the vote has taken place... probably the only case in history that a government challenges the result of a referendum called and organized by themselves...)  As a result of this mess, the currency reached its historical low and the society was bitterly divided. Fortunately for him (and for Romania as a whole) the president has the full support of the EU leaders and of the US government. By their energic protestations, interpellations and even direct intervention, they were able to make the left come to their senses, revert to the strictest legality and accept that they have failed - which they grudgingly did, but not without launching personal attacks against the EU leaders and plainly insulting them.

Of course,  it's probably a good think that Romania's economic woes, whatever they are at the moment, are not the sort that might drag the world economy off a cliff.

Absolutely.

[Florestan]

There are obviously many problems. For one, I clearly chose the wrong skillset. I am a writer, and an editor, and if it's not egotistical to say so, I am unusually good at both. My writing once got a praisequote from Joyce DiDonato. But America evidently doesn't need writers.

I think you have the wrong perspective if you expect to make a living from writing books. Except some really succesful ones no writer in the world today lives solely by their books.

Have you considered journalism? Or teaching creative writing? For someone with excellent writing skills like you these should be good options.

[Karl Henning]

I think you have the wrong perspective if you expect to make a living from writing books. Except some really succesful ones no writer in the world today lives solely by their books.

For myself, I found a tremendous musical freedom, once I realized that I shall never earn a living as a composer; and a parallel (or, complimentary) freedom in understanding that I can write music, without any burden upon it, that it should be the sort of music which can be sent out for hire.