The Conversation
- “But he hit me back first!” (13)
- Siegfried: If it was a Russian or any other white man who told blacks”to go back to Africa”, it would...
- Raguel: I saw that Spike Lee film “Do the Right Thing” years ago but still can’t understand it.
- bigWOWO: Stele: “Care to qualify that statement? Even if that were true, you have to look at this case on its...
- Two podcasts that address racism in the military, and Danny Chen the person (9)
- Raguel: The origins of racism in the American military as described by loudestfuckingazns is accurate. Very recently,...
- bigWOWO: Sorry, Larry, just noticed that the spam robot junked your comment. Approved!
- bigWOWO: Agreed. It just has more weight if you include your name. Not that the ideas are any less valid, but it just...
- Facebook IPO (5)
- King: Actually WOWO, I bump into plenty of Asians up at the Art Center College of Design http://www.artcenter.edu/a...
- bigWOWO: Agree with King. This might not be a bad thing for Asian Americans to hear about. We can jump off the STEM...
- Raguel: People are too accustomed to thinking about value only in terms of money. Even artists are guilty of it. Some...
- Stop SOPA and PIPA (7)
- Raguel: Found a great website, take a look at this: https://www.cdt.org/ Why should privacy be important, in an age...
- Raguel: Following the temporary shelving of SOPA and PIPA in the long line of net neutrality battles, the feds and...
- Chr..: “Asian American men have to get more involved, not less. It’s a civic responsibility, and you have to...
- Activism is as activism does (10)
- trolldetector: Brooks also goes onto say ‘You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of...
- bigWOWO: By the way, speaking of activism, there was a great David Brooks column recently. He talks about how people...
- Raguel: I have no experience whatsoever with activism. I simply do not feel safe participating in it. There is always...
- How to Win a Streetfight (18)
- bigWOWO: No worries. I feel the same way. Nothing against her, but just doubtful.
- Raguel: Hi Byron! I’ve been occupied doing a lot of reading and thinking recently. I suppose its just another...
- bigWOWO: Hey Raguel, What about your comments on ASSK?
I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
- What Cultures Value (19)
- UFC 117 Sonnen vs. Silva Recap (1)
- bigWOWO: I think Michael Bisping solved the Chael Sonnen puzzle today, even though he lost a controversial decision....
- 6 on 1 Beatdown of Asian Man (36)
- King: “I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima...
- SWR: Apparently the girl in the second video was not the girl who filmed the fight. It was probably unwise of her to...
- Raguel: I mean I look around me and 99% of the time there are no women that look like or dress like Adriana Lima in...
- Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids by Bryan Caplan (Review) (6)
- bigWOWO: Jeff, You called it! They were (if I recall correctly) 7 (twins) and 2. He’s still in the honeymoon...
- jeffat8asians: “Overpaying?” With the possible exception of college tuition (and even that is arguable),...
- Hitler: Kids suck lol.
- The Asian Rock Thread (16)
- ben: I’ve been getting into Asian rock music recently so thank you all very much for uploading all these videos.
- Simple Pickup on ABC News (132)
- Tommy: I think I’m coming here more for Moro’s comments than BigWoWO’s posts.
- Moroboshi: I didn’t say that. All I said was guys who believe in HBD are the same guys who probably also follow...
- Chr..: Moro, I don’t want to argue with you anymore! You seem to think that AMs are just as popular as other...
- “Lazy” Americans and the Decline of the American Middle Class (6)
- bigWOWO: But kobu, how can we have literature and art without money to support artists and writers? About...
- kobukson: I don’t know why everyone seems to think the notion of the decline of the middle class is such a bad...
- bigWOWO: There are a lot of veterans (supposedly) on that site. I can kind of understand it–military guys are...
- Aung Sung Suu Kyi Movie with Michelle Yeoh (45)
- bigWOWO: Eurasian, Lee Kuan Yew has always been upfront about Singapore’s hybrid system. To the best of my...
- Eurasian Sensation: @ BigWowo: New governments following independence or a major power struggle often have the sort...
- N: @bww And ironically, one of the rare democratic successes in the region that is Singapore behaves much closer to a...
- Paper Pushers by the Stunt People (4)
- Andre M. Smith: I divide my year annually between New York and Shanghai. One of my common visitations in the latter...
- Raguel: Smiley tests 8 )
8( - Raguel: ROFL! Thank you for thoroughly destroying Amy Chua, Andre. WELL SAID ^_^ You know the destruction is so...
- Amy Chua: Chinese Conceit, Chinese Ignorance, and the $24,000 question (245)
- Andre M. Smith: I believe some useful purpose will be served by offering here, what the lawyers might like to call,...
- N: What’s your opinion on Yundi Li and Yoyo Ma.
- Andre M. Smith: Amy Chua has never lived in China. Her understanding of its culture, that is, the culture as it’s...
- How to Finish Life With No Regrets (9)
- trolldetector: ^ i’d agree with that. but i wouldnt call them ‘idiots’, just misguided. crazy media...
- N: Agree with Jeff that not one regret is unlikely, the key is learn from it. Another way to look at it is that...
- American Jobs and India (14)
- lingyai: I am not sure what happen there with my name, that is not my email, so just ignore.
- lingyai@hotmail.com: @bigwowo Just because the average income in India is $2 a day doesn’t make a person...
- AM/AF couple: Nottyboy, Yes, just like every place of employment, upper management needs to do a better job in terms...
- Literary Fiction vs. Realistic Fiction and the Literary Hierarchy (6)
- Sana Rose: Well, now I am confused. I still can’t classify the novel I am writing.
I wouldn’t say...
- Sana Rose: Well, now I am confused. I still can’t classify the novel I am writing.
- National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2012 (32)
- Raguel: http://www.occupydream.org/ ^ I heard about this from Russell Simmons. I hope that things develop well to...
- Raguel: So is that the reasoning for why you don’t need the right to due process? Are you some kind of fucking...
- N: @King The constitution gave power to the states to benefit white america or the constitution gave benefitial power...
- When Your Fan Base is Full of Crazy People (24)
- N: @American girl Too be honest, I don’t really see why this video that ‘disgusting’ –...
- Mitt Romney and the Problem of Wealth (6)
- Raguel: Where do people get their information and knowledge from, though? Media, and education, word of mouth only...
- “But he hit me back first!” (13)
Tag Archives: economy
“Lazy” Americans and the Decline of the American Middle Class
The NY Times had a great article on Apple and why Apple employs so few people in the U.S.: Apple, America, and the Squeezed Middle Class. We’ve talked about Tyler Cowan’s Great Stagnation and how Google, Twitter, and Facebook don’t need lots of bodies to make their products, but Apple, a company that manufactures electronic components, does need lots of people. They just don’t hire them here. Apple made $400,000 per employee last year, in large part because they outsource their work overseas. Apple says that the labor costs aren’t the major reason for outsourcing, that there are other logistical reasons for centralizing their work in Asia. But when Foxconn, the company that assembles iPhones, pays many of its workers $17 a day, it’s a bit hard to believe that labor costs don’t play a role.
Occupy Wall Street
I wasn’t sure if anyone wanted to comment on Occupy Wall Street, seeing that it’s all over the news. Or maybe people thought it was time for yet another IR, PUA, or HBD post?
My view is that Occupy Wall Street seems like it’s getting attention. People are taking notice. There are more than a few actors and actresses who have given their support. Senator Bernie Sanders supports the protestors. And that’s where Occupy Wall Street will hopefully have an impact: Washington. Washington needs to pass some laws/tarriffs to discourage outsourcing, to encourage local hiring, and to bring back manufacturing, among other things. It won’t happen though unless people let lawmakers know and then vote as a block.
Ha-Joon Chang book review coming up
Ha-Joon Chang
I know this is short notice, but I’m going to be reviewing Ha-Joon Chang’s 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism next week. If anyone wants to read it to discuss later, go buy it now. It’s a phenomenal book by a Cambridge economist who is against free markets. I’m usually not a big fan of simplified pop-econ books written by professors (didn’t care too much for Freakonomics), but this book is excellent. I will caution you: it’s actually not easy reading and takes a bit of extra effort to understand the points he makes. But it’s well worth reading, given the fact that we all need to be thinking about economics during these hard times. If you’re interested in reading it, post below. Learn more about Mr. Chang here.
Robert Reich’s Labor Day Essay
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On Labor Day, we’re supposed to be celebrating labor, but it’s hard to do that given the recent report that there was “no jobs growth” in August. Check out Robert Reich’s great short essay in the NY Times about what happened to the economy and how we got here. It’s a great summary of what our most esteemed financial experts have been saying for some quite time: Increasing inequality will prolong and worsen the financial crisis. Without a middle class, there is less discretionary income for most families, and therefore the economy can’t find enough spenders to spend. Traditional trickle-down economics holds the idea that giving more money to the wealthy will enable them to invest more and create more jobs, but that clearly hasn’t happened in this economy.
Warren Buffett’s Op-Ed on Coddling the Rich
Warren Buffett’s Op-Ed on why we should raise taxes on the rich is making the rounds. Check it out at the NYTimes, and read more about the opinions of other super wealthy people here. According to Buffett, he pays too little in taxes. He writes:
Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.
Where Do the Dollars Go?
Thanks, MLC, for the following Chicago Tribune article: ‘Made in China’ ranks only 2.7% of U.S. spending. According to the article:
Goods and services from China accounted for only 2.7% of U.S. personal consumption spending in 2010, according to the report titled “The U.S. Content of ‘Made in China.’ ” About 88.5% of U.S. spending last year was on American-made products and services.
The article says that a relatively small amount of money is leaving the country because 2/3 of what we spend goes towards services. Most of our dollars go towards our dry cleaners, accountants, financial planners, mechanics, and doctors. Then there is food and gasoline–most food is produced locally, and relatively little gasoline is imported from China. The article goes on to describe what we import:
This Woeful Economy
A world without low hanging fruit
David Brooks hit another homer with his column yesterday in which he discussed Tyler Cowan’s e-book (is it not available in print?) “The Great Stagnation.” There’s a good summary of the book in the Economist. (I’d buy it, but alas, I’m still without a Kindle!) The basic premise of the book, according to both articles, is that economies grow when they have low hanging fruit and can exploit big changes. But now that a lot of people have education and basic needs, there isn’t all that much low hanging fruit left. Hence, we’re left with stagnation. The economic output moves to an area where there is low hanging fruit–i.e. China and India.
China’s College Educated: The Ant Tribe
The NY Times has a great article on China and its new graduates: China’s Army of Graduates is Struggling. In the article, the author writes about how there exists a glut of college graduates whom the economy doesn’t yet support. People with degrees in accounting, computer programming, and finance are having trouble finding work. Factory blue collar jobs are booming, but the white collar sector is falling. The article says:
Between 2003 and 2009, the average starting salary for migrant laborers grew by nearly 80 percent; during the same period, starting pay for college graduates stayed the same, although their wages actually decreased if inflation is taken into account.
Chinese economy surpasses Japan
China is now the world’s second largest economy after it surpassed Japan, according to numbers released Monday (today). Experts are estimating that it will surpass the U.S. by 2030.
Two thoughts:
1. The article says,
Economists say that China’s economy is too heavily dependent on exports and investment and that it needs to encourage greater domestic consumption — something China has struggled to do.
First, I’m not sure this will be a problem. Right now people in China don’t yet have the money to engage in consumerism, but once those salaries hit a critical threshold, I’d be surprised if it continues to be a problem.
Japanese Living in Capsule Hotels
According to the NY Times, many Japanese are now staying at capsule hotels because of the bad economy. Capsule hotels, as you can see from the picture above, are “hotels” that rent out small boxes where people can sleep. There are so many people who have moved out from real homes that the capsule hotels are now allowing people to pay monthly and to register the hotels as their official addresses. In the past, these hotels were mostly patronized by salarymen who had missed the last train.
