Global Trends

Two Door Cinema Club “I Can Talk” Looks like a Wes...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:34:32 -0500

Two Door Cinema Club “I Can Talk”

Looks like a Wes Anderson flick

Conspiracy of the century: global warming is hoax. I told one of...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:28:30 -0500

Conspiracy of the century: global warming is hoax. I told one of my professors this last year and he said I was a nut. It’s funny how indoctrinated with textbook liberal nonsense most professors I know are. Moreover, why isn’t this on any U.S. stations yet?

How a few central bankers caused the Great Depression and World War II. Ah, a few egos that run the...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:46:36 -0500

How a few central bankers caused the Great Depression and World War II. Ah, a few egos that run the world.

“Homes are too expensive for the average american’s...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:42:35 -0500

“Homes are too expensive for the average american’s income, but the government can’t let home prices deflate without bankrupting the companies they just bailed out.”

America’s fiscal hole

“Brooklyn (go hard)” Jay Z feat. Santogold nuff...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:08:13 -0500

“Brooklyn (go hard)” Jay Z feat. Santogold

nuff said. the only bad thing about this video is that it induces seizures.

BlakRoc: Ain’t Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo) Ft. Mos Def...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:48:38 -0500

BlakRoc: Ain’t Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo) Ft. Mos Def and Jim Jones

very cool. borrowed this from a friend..

What's News this Week?

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:55:00 -0500

House finally passes the long awaited health care reform. It will be the largest social safety net since the Great Society Legislation and Medicare. The bill will increase national debt 1T over a decade, raise taxes for high income households, offer the public option to compete with private insurance companies and cut out wasteful spending on Medicare. The result of the narrowly passed bill will be increased coverage to 96 percent of Americans by the end of the decade. On the flip side, it adds twice the amount of debt we’ve accumulated in the last decade in a day. In large part, this really comes down the American interest vs. Chinese investors.

Productivity skyrockets to twenty-five year high at 9.7 percent growth! But the growth comes straight from increased margins from the waining workforce, where price of unit X marginal productivity = value of marginal product. Deflation in prices and decreased velocity, or number of times money is exchanged, should hold down inflation despite the 1T monetary stimulus and near 0 percent interest rates by the FED (supposedly). This is good news for the average joe because increased vmp correlates directly with how many employees a firm can hire at any given wage. And a combination of both increased productivity and employment growth usually leads to higher wages, although that’s a very distant future with hurdles to be sure!

We didn’t go to war with Iraq for oil right? Well that seems doubtful today because this week Exxon Mobil Corp. just finished a twenty-year service contract with Oil Minister Hussain Al-Shahristani behind the back of the Iraqi parliament. The deal is huge for American oil refiners who have been struggling to find a foothold in the few remaining oil reserves in the world. It also beats out Russian and Chinese firms, Lukoil and CNP. And U.S global hegemony continues..

mattpayton: reblogged from abbyjean: A firm’s compensation for...

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:33:37 -0400

mattpayton:

reblogged from abbyjean:

A firm’s compensation for its workers is pretty static, and if relatively more goes to health-care costs, relatively less will go to wages, and vice-versa. The correlation between the two data sets is -0.8, which is incredibly high for this sort of thing. To give you an idea, I also ran the correlation between GDP growth and median wages over the period: It was 0.7, which is to say that there was a weaker connection between economic growth and median wages than between health-care costs and median wages.

There is, in other words, very good evidence that employers pass health-care savings onto employees. A Rand study by Dana Goldman, Neeraj Sood and Arleen Leibowitz examined a particular firm’s response to a period of premium increases and found that “about two-thirds of the premium increase is financed out of cash wages and the remaining one-thirds is financed by a reduction in benefits.” Another study by Katherine Baicker and Amitabh Chandra found that a 10 percent increase in premiums “results in an offsetting decrease in wages of 2.3 percent,” which is fairly impressive given that income is much higher than health-care premiums.

There’s good reason to think that if health-care costs can be tamed, wages will rise. But one of the big problems in health-care reform is that workers don’t understand this connection. They think of health-care coverage as a “benefit,” rather than a form of compensation engaged in a fairly zero-sum competition against their wages. (ezra)

That’s interesting and probably fairly accurate. The only thing to consider is the purchasing power of higher wages and how much disposable income people will be left with after taxes. At the current rate I don’t think that the U.S. is going to be faced with high inflation in the near future, despite the stimulus package. The disciples of of Milton Friedman or “doom sayers” like this rhetoric, but his quantity formula or MV=PY that proves a correlation between an increase in the money supply with that of higher inflation depends on Velocity and real GDP or “Y” being held constant. Velocity, however, has plummeted with lucratively low consumer spending and as such weakens the argument of higher prices. That withstanding, the amount of capital and the increase in spending that a healthcare overhaul would require could substantially increase inflation, therefore, lowering the purchasing power of consumers despite increases in salary. Not to mention, the increase in income taxes to repay the national debt which is already over 100 percent of GDP as a ratio could also potentially cripple the effects of higher wages. Not doing anything could potentially be just as bad, but this rebuttal is just one of many to consider.

The Stills “Still in Love Song”

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:50:44 -0400

The Stills “Still in Love Song”

alilbit: littledynamite: from the San Diego Union...

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:47:19 -0400

alilbit:

littledynamite:

from the San Diego Union Tribune.

(via maxistentialist)

CNN. you FAIL

Sometimes i wish i had a Korean MTV subscription. M-flo feat Boa...

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:51:22 -0400

Sometimes i wish i had a Korean MTV subscription. M-flo feat Boa “the love bug” >__<

laylo: ♫ Of Montreal - The Stills I remember when i first saw...

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:34:30 -0400

laylo:

♫ Of Montreal - The Stills

I remember when i first saw them. The bassist Olivier Corbeil is fucking incredible.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Heads Will Roll” A-Track remix

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:37:45 -0400

Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Heads Will Roll” A-Track remix

TwoDoor Cinema Club- Something Good Can Work

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:35:54 -0400

TwoDoor Cinema Club- Something Good Can Work

Public Enemy- He Got Game “fuck the game if it isn’t...

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:06:00 -0400

Public Enemy- He Got Game

“fuck the game if it isn’t saying nothing [sic]”

Led Zeppelin-Whole Lotta Love (xaphoon josnes clipse birdman...

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:45:26 -0400

Led Zeppelin-Whole Lotta Love (xaphoon josnes clipse birdman remix)

I like how this lets you visualize the stock market

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:32:19 -0400

I like how this lets you visualize the stock market

Mew “Introducing Palace Players” Portentous,...

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:23:26 -0400

Mew “Introducing Palace Players”

Portentous, sublime, and amazing.

I’ve been a member for about three years now and just...

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:39:14 -0400

I’ve been a member for about three years now and just reaching my maturation date.

very real talk. Jasiri X “what’s peace” How...

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:32:26 -0400

very real talk. Jasiri X “what’s peace”

How does a man who proliferates war get a nobel peace prize.