Political Roundtable - Part VI

[fishercob]

Salon posted a nauseating piece with the title "the rich are parasites". Very dangerous, completely ignorant propaganda piece.

I've been poor, I've been wealthy. The "road to success" used to be a respected journey in the "land of opportunity". It's not as simple as "the rich aren't hiring enough people".

Between overseas outsourcing, programmatic and robotic automation I hire probably 75% less US employees compared to 2005. Between amazing tools like Amazon's Mechanical Turk, custom automated data sifting, Postmates for random office supplies....I simply don't need as many employees. Being efficient is a good thing. I can "fail fast" and try 4-5 ideas in 6 months and not bet my future on one idea.

Low skill jobs like "office managers", "receptionists", "secretaries", low level paper shufflers are gone or disappearing fast. They've been automated via outside services or programmatically.

Combine the above with the death of a large chunk of physical retail jobs, and the real issue is an under skilled/ill-prepared citizenry. Maybe you can't find a job because you don't have any relevant skills for the current job market? People need to ask themselves if they've been automated out of a job, if so find a new skill.

Education reform in the US is desperately needed, adults and kids alike need to be competent in low level computer science. AI/automation is just getting started. IoT combined with AI is going to kill off a whole sector of technology jobs as well.

Time to adapt, the circa 1995 service economy isn't coming back.

I think I'm pretty liberal on a host of issues and I take very little of what Salon posts seriously -- particularly the headlines. They're pretty disappointing.

[Zonkerbl]

You learn something new every day!

[dckingsfan]

Michael Malone - normally a technology writer for the Wall Street Journal - had a good (in my opinion) editorial on the problems that Silicon Valley has with new start-ups. I don't think it is behind the firewall.

Google: Michael Malone and Wall Street Journal, you should see a "Reviving the Flagging Spirit of Silicon Valley", that should not be behind the firewall. I largely agree with his points. I think that the rules have slowly made it more difficult for startups:

The great turning point came with the dot-com bubble and its bust at the turn of the century. The bust allowed powerful institutions to get their hands on a place considered too renegade, too independent, and too successful to decide its own destiny. The federal government, long believing the Valley’s great companies were not displaying sufficient fealty—i.e., lobbyists and campaign money—came down hard on the tech industry. And as we all know, the Valley caved.

Then came a series of regulatory handcuffs. First was Sarbanes-Oxley, sold to the public as a curb on the corruption of the stock markets by over-pumped IPOs. In reality Sarbox was a way for Washington and big, mature tech companies to suppress new competitive startups that would lure away their talented employees.

Next came the expensing of stock options by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. FASB had been trying for a decade to control the enthusiastic distribution of options to employees of tech startups—and losing the debate every time for the obvious reason that it was impossible to predict the value of the shares, which indeed often ended up worthless. But with some Black-Scholes mumbo-jumbo and the country looking for scapegoats to blame for a crashed stock market, FASB finally got its way.

Since then it has been one long campaign. There was Dodd-Frank, with its new executive compensation clawback provisions and “say on pay,” the Affordable Care Act, new rules for directors, local taxes on employees temporarily working in other offices, etc., by federal and state governments. All of which reduce the freedom of tech companies to maneuver.

...

[queridiculo]

I'm surprised he didn't manage to throw in environmental regulations as another attempt to reduce the freedom of tech companies. While we're at it, minimum wage, and perhaps net neutrality?

Yawn.

Big bad government, only out to crush the entrepreneurial spirit.

[Zonkerbl]

Yeah when Sarbanes-Oxley came out all the GoP political appointees at Commerce had a cow. They asked us to try to quantify the damage it would do to U.S. competitiveness but yeah, see there's this thing called data that we need to do things like that.

[dckingsfan]

I think there is a balance though right? I think regulations are good in and of themselves. But you can cross the line and create so many regulations as to make it too difficult to start new companies. I think new banks are a case in point. No one in there right mind would want to try to create a new small bank now.

So although it may be a "yawn" to someone that wants to see business more locked down, it may not be in their best interests over the long haul. I don't think government wants to crush small business - I think they do it with the best of intentions.

But then we have very small growth and we can't fund the programs that are near and dear to their hearts. Can't really have it both ways - can't grow entitlements & defense AND crush business.

[fishercob]

This resonated with me. Not a Hillary fan, but at the end of the day I'd rather her make SCOTUS appointments than any of the GOP alternatives. http://www.forwardprogressives.com/real ... need-face/

The irony here is that were in not for the Citizens United decision -- which basically ruined our political system -- I might have viable alternatives to HIllary. But that decision and her war chest have given me little option.

[dobrojim]

Not a big HRC fan either Fish, for a variety of reasons.

This election, by virtue of her apparent clear path to the nomination, is looking
epically bad in terms of candidates.

That said, I think our political system was already heading in a very dysfunctional
direction before Citizens. CU just accelerated the degeneration.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

This resonated with me. Not a Hillary fan, but at the end of the day I'd rather her make SCOTUS appointments than any of the GOP alternatives. http://www.forwardprogressives.com/real ... need-face/

The irony here is that were in not for the Citizens United decision -- which basically ruined our political system -- I might have viable alternatives to HIllary. But that decision and her war chest have given me little option.

I don't even lurk the politics thread, but Hillary has given me the need to vent.

I wouldn't vote for her if she were the only candidate.

I've never voted Republican for the POTUS race; but if she's who the Dems trot out there, there's a very strong chance I will vote for the GOP. Unless it's the other monarch, Jeb Bush.

I think it's terrible the way power, graft, ego, and just plain old corruption rules the day in Washington.

[Zonkerbl]

Wow, this hits close to home.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball- ... 49399.html

Wow. Just...

Wow.

[Zonkerbl]

Although if you look at the video there's no obvious strike there and Thabo isn't limping. Thabo says that's when the injury occurred but I don't see it.

[Induveca]

A few good articles on job automation....

http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gat ... obs-2014-3

http://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-tha ... ots-2014-1

[DCZards]

ObamaCare support hits two-year high

"For the first time since the fall of 2012, the percentage of people who say they support the healthcare law is greater than those who oppose it. While that result is within the margin of error, with ‪43 supporting the law and 42‬ percent opposing it, the overall favorability for ObamaCare has risen dramatically since November 2013, when the government’s disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov put the White House on the defensive.

Still, public opinion on the law remains fiercely divided, with the vast majority of Democrats in favor of the law and nearly the same percent of Republicans opposed to it.

The poll found that just over 50 percent of people with insurance generally noticed that their healthcare premiums were holding steady or increasing “a little.” About one-quarter said their premiums had “gone up a lot.” '

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/23 ... -year-high

When history is written sometime in the near (or distant) future, Obamacare will have proven to been a good thing for America and the overwhelming majority of Americans. And Obama will forever be applauded as the president who had the balls to step up and do something about our broken healthcare system.

[dckingsfan]

yeah, I think he will be looked upon as the president with the worst post recession recovery and one of the most failed foreign policies. As well as writing a law that over time will fold in upon itself due to its complexities and costs.

[dobrojim]

In 2014, a chorus of analyses from major financial institutions—including Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Fitch Ratings, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS—found that solar-plus-battery systems pose a real and present threat to traditional utility business models. Many of them directly cited RMI’s report The Economics of Grid Defection, which assessed when and where distributed solar-plus-battery systems could reach economic parity with the electric grid, creating the possibility for defection of utility customers. Their perspectives varied, but all echoed the common theme of increasing challenges for the current utility business model.

However our recently released report, The Economics of Load Defection, shows a much more likely scenario—one that is coming sooner for more customers in more places, with arguably far greater implications than grid defection—the migration of load from central systems to distributed ones, what we call load defection. The customers don’t leave, but their load does, “defecting” from grid supply to behind-the-meter, grid-connected solar PV and batteries. They thus risk becoming phantom customers.

more here
http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2015_04_14_finance_industry_on_ders_solar_and_batteries_are_coming

[dckingsfan]

Pretty interesting - First Solar seems to have a good model.

[dobrojim]

Electric Utilities in many geographic areas of the country are destined to become more grid
managers/innovators than producers if they want to survive. The economics of this are strong.

[Induveca]

yeah, I think he will be looked upon as the president with the worst post recession recovery and one of the most failed foreign policies. As well as writing a law that over time will fold in upon itself due to its complexities and costs.

I'll forever look at him as the guy who "fixed" healthcare by raising my premium 150% and forcing me to change insurers every year......for far worse care than I received 3 years ago.

When your options are two insurers in the marketplace at 300-400 dollars, it's inevitable my rates will keep rising astronomically. Literally two options in my marketplace for a healthy self-employed individual. Great way to encourage innovation.

[DCZards]

More good news for Obama.

Obama Approval Soars: President Is Now More Popular Than Bush and Equal To Reagan

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/04/21/ ... obama.html

Thanks to a growing economy President Obama’s approval rating has reached its highest level since May of 2013. Obama is now more popular than George W. Bush, and as popular as Ronald Reagan was at the same point in their second terms.

According to the latest CNN/ORC poll, the Obama resurgence is being fueled by the growing economy. Fifty-two percent of respondents called the U.S. economy very or somewhat good while 48% said the economy was very or somewhat poor. The President’s approval rating has increased with 18-29-year-olds (57%), women (51%), Democrats (88%), and liberal Democrats (97%).

[dckingsfan]

Hey is trending up... but soars is misleading overall 48%
Most recent weekly average 46%
Term to date 47%

And it doesn't show the trends among non-democrats...