Things Occupy Wall Street activists should demand

[The Don]

The small family farm may have to go the way of the Dodo. We do need agriculture and if the most efficient way to deliver it is from a series of large corporations then so be it.

I thought that industrial farming was a bad thing and that for the good of the land and the benefit of animal welfare there should be smaller farming units run by people who actually care about their stake.

It's also about security of food supplies, there's nothing to stop Chinacorp buying the Agri-business that grows xx% of America's food. Individual farmers on the other hand would want to keep their land in their family.

This is why I proposed to bust up the contractors simultaneously. Doing this will require seed money to establish numerous new businesses or allow existing ones to diversify. Maybe Lockheed and Northrop would get into the commercial airliner game? That might be bad for Boeing but would probably be better for everyone else.

Otherwise I'm pretty sure the DOD can absorb a 20% cut and still remain functional in it's missions. We'd have to refocus some. Keep more troops home and rely more on prepositioning and fast sealift.

Lockheed and Northrop couldn't afford to get into the civil airliner game, that's why Boeing is the only US-based manufacturer of large commercial airliners. The reason why these companies have consolidated is to allow them to make the multi-billion dollar investment necessary to develop new weapon systems.

If you're going to reduce DOD costs by 20% it will require some combination of:

• Fewer people in the military - resulting in fewer employed people
• Less spending on equipment - resulting in a loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector
• Lower spending on services - resulting in job losses in the service sector

I always hear this argument. I'm not convinced. Major corporations need the stability and economy of societies with strong government social support.

The United States will get into very hot water if it attempts to tax, in the United States, the earnings of companies not based in the United States on operations not in the United States. In other words, the US cannot tax BMW's European earnings.

If that is the case then if the United States taxed the all the earnings of US based companies (for example GM's European earnings) then GM would be at a significant disadvantage if the US tax rates are higher (and if they're lower then BMW would already be trying to maximise the amount of income subject to United States taxes).

Actually it's much more complex than that. Tax havens are used to minimise tax.

The United States has no jurisdiction over overseas companies so if the local tax regime is tougher, Unites States companies would be disadvantaged.

From the money freed up from the cuts to the DOD and agriculture.

Oh, ending oil subsidies would be nice too.

Fair enough

Well right now they are dealing with more and more defaults. This might actually help the banks.

If it would help the banks, they'd already be doing it or putting pressure on the government to bring it about. Introducing grace periods means that there are loans which are not currently being repaid. How can this possibly benefit the banks ?

Maybe that isn't the right thing to replace it with. But what I do know is that the current paradigm is insane. Schools no longer teach they just prepare kids to pass the seemingly endless tests. As if they were the same thing.

It's nuts and needs to stop immediately before we screw up even more generations.

It's human nature. If you base performance on an objective measure then the people being judged by that objective measure will attempt to maximise their performance. So if it's test based (and I cannot see any other objective measure) then they'll teach to the test. In the UK, students are regularly tested by at least at 16 and 18 the performance is gauged by performance in national examinations. At least teaching to these tests will result in the transfer of some knowledge.

If the assessment is subjective (as is the case with an Ofsted inspection in the UK) then there is a risk that those being judged will seek to curry favour with those doing the judging and of course it also relies on the competence of the assessors.

IMO objective assessment based on the school's value-add is the least bad way of assessing performance

That is one possible side effect. Everything has it's price.

I find it amazing that people would be happy to restrict access to the upper echelons of democracy to the very wealthy. How about a European model where campaign expenditure is restricted ?

Very few infrastructure projects are actual boondoggles. Even ones that are much maligned like the Big Dig were actually net benefits to their communities once finished.

I can really only name one complete boondoogle off the top of my head, The Bay Bridge East Span replacement. For the price we're paying we could have retrofited the existing one and built an entirely new bridge parallel to the old one. Of course when they started building it over ten years ago no one knew that steel and concrete would triple in price thanks to demand in China.

I just know that a lot of major government-funded projects here in the UK have resulted in huge overspends. The ones I have been involved with have suffered from

• Inadequate project management - although to be fair there are a handful of people in the UK who could manage projects on that scale
• Terrible requirements gathering and management - the equivalent of wanting the road bridge being built to also be a tidal power station, rail bridge and a habitat for the lesser spotted whatchamacallit
• Contactors taking the goverment for a ride, my former employer Accenture are experts at this, taking £millions doing exactly as they are asked and delivering nothing useful, exploiting the previous two points

I don't know about that. We have companies building space delivery systems using the amount of money that Boeing probably spends on styrofoam coffee cups in any given year.

But they haven't delivered because they don't have the financial muscle to finish the certification.

The Airbus 380 programme is estimated to have cost 11 Billion Euros before the first plane flew:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380

You need HUGE companies to support this kind of investment. One of the reasons why Boeing can still compete globally is because military programmes help to subsidise commercial aircraft development.

As a European, I'd love to see the United States' aerospace industry broken up because Airbus (and hence UK based manufacturing jobs) would be given a huge advantage, or at least a level playing field .

 

[Travis]

This OWS protester has a simple demand:

That's not good. Hopefully she is a minority down there in LA.

I thought that industrial farming was a bad thing and that for the good of the land and the benefit of animal welfare there should be smaller farming units run by people who actually care about their stake.

If you've followed me on the forum you'd know that I tend to dislike alternative farming methods. In a world where fertile land is already at a premium and will be further squeezed by climate change we do not have the luxury of accommodating things like the organic food movement.

It's also about security of food supplies, there's nothing to stop Chinacorp buying the Agri-business that grows xx% of America's food. Individual farmers on the other hand would want to keep their land in their family.

If your aim is to keep diversification going at any price then go that route. If your aim is to keep food plentiful and cheap then something else needs to happen.

Lockheed and Northrop couldn't afford to get into the civil airliner game, that's why Boeing is the only US-based manufacturer of large commercial airliners.

Actually there a lot of reasons for that. Lockheed actually had a really good airliner on the market. They shelved it when management decided that huge military contracts were more lucrative.

The reason why these companies have consolidated is to allow them to make the multi-billion dollar investment necessary to develop new weapon systems.

Except the government provides all the money even for the R&D.

If you're going to reduce DOD costs by 20% it will require some combination of:

• Fewer people in the military - resulting in fewer employed people
• Less spending on equipment - resulting in a loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector
• Lower spending on services - resulting in job losses in the service sector

Yep. Probably more from the last two then the first.

The idea, though, is that you can generate more jobs for the same money elsewhere.

The United States will get into very hot water if it attempts to tax, in the United States, the earnings of companies not based in the United States on operations not in the United States. In other words, the US cannot tax BMW's European earnings.

If that is the case then if the United States taxed the all the earnings of US based companies (for example GM's European earnings) then GM would be at a significant disadvantage if the US tax rates are higher (and if they're lower then BMW would already be trying to maximise the amount of income subject to United States taxes).

Actually it's much more complex than that. Tax havens are used to minimise tax.

The United States has no jurisdiction over overseas companies so if the local tax regime is tougher, Unites States companies would be disadvantaged.

So the argument here is that corporate taxes are hard therefore we should just let huge corporations pay nothing when they make $12 billion in profits?

Combine that with the rich paying almost nothing in income taxes and I have to wonder where any money will come from.

If it would help the banks, they'd already be doing it or putting pressure on the government to bring it about. Introducing grace periods means that there are loans which are not currently being repaid. How can this possibly benefit the banks ?

Banks already are doing this. It's just they are currently hurting while doing it. Under my plan the government would be assisting the banks so they don't go under in exchange for the grace periods.

It's human nature. If you base performance on an objective measure then the people being judged by that objective measure will attempt to maximise their performance. So if it's test based (and I cannot see any other objective measure) then they'll teach to the test. In the UK, students are regularly tested by at least at 16 and 18 the performance is gauged by performance in national examinations. At least teaching to these tests will result in the transfer of some knowledge.

If the assessment is subjective (as is the case with an Ofsted inspection in the UK) then there is a risk that those being judged will seek to curry favour with those doing the judging and of course it also relies on the competence of the assessors.

IMO objective assessment based on the school's value-add is the least bad way of assessing performance

I disagree. Being personally involved with many teachers I have heard how much things now suffer. Kids learn that The Jungle is the correct answer to questions about worker safety reform but know nothing about the book itself. That is no way to teach kids. No wonder they increasingly end up in universities with no clue what real education looks like.

Personally I don't think any of this is even necessary. For hundreds of years schools existed and did good jobs without a huge bureaucracy analyzing their every move in some lame attempt to quantify "performance" in something as nebulous as pedagogy.

I find it amazing that people would be happy to restrict access to the upper echelons of democracy to the very wealthy. How about a European model where campaign expenditure is restricted ?

Sure, why not?

I just know that a lot of major government-funded projects here in the UK have resulted in huge overspends. The ones I have been involved with have suffered from

• Inadequate project management - although to be fair there are a handful of people in the UK who could manage projects on that scale
• Terrible requirements gathering and management - the equivalent of wanting the road bridge being built to also be a tidal power station, rail bridge and a habitat for the lesser spotted whatchamacallit
• Contactors taking the goverment for a ride, my former employer Accenture are experts at this, taking £millions doing exactly as they are asked and delivering nothing useful, exploiting the previous two points

Spain seems to do a good job with major infrastructure projects. What are they doing right?

But they haven't delivered because they don't have the financial muscle to finish the certification.

The Airbus 380 programme is estimated to have cost 11 Billion Euros before the first plane flew:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380

You need HUGE companies to support this kind of investment. One of the reasons why Boeing can still compete globally is because military programmes help to subsidise commercial aircraft development.

As a European, I'd love to see the United States' aerospace industry broken up because Airbus (and hence UK based manufacturing jobs) would be given a huge advantage, or at least a level playing field.

Don't worry. That demand has the least chance of happening anyways.

Perhaps I am wistful for the days when just a handful of men designed and built the Have Blue prototype under budget. Read Ben Rich's book Skunkworks if you want a good history of that.

 

[The Don]

If you've followed me on the forum you'd know that I tend to dislike alternative farming methods. In a world where fertile land is already at a premium and will be further squeezed by climate change we do not have the luxury of accommodating things like the organic food movement.

If your aim is to keep diversification going at any price then go that route. If your aim is to keep food plentiful and cheap then something else needs to happen.

I personally don't care who produces food in the United States and animal welfare standards aside, how. I was mistakenly trying to guess how the Occupy Wall Street folks would feel about agriculture becoming more corporate and more more industrialised and thought that perhaps they may not like it.

Actually there a lot of reasons for that. Lockheed actually had a really good airliner on the market. They shelved it when management decided that huge military contracts were more lucrative.

If you're talking about the L1011 Tri-star then it was an acceptable product but they couldn't sell enough to make it profitably. The economics of commercial aircraft manufacture are even worse these days. Looking at the commercial aircraft market there seems to be space for two large players, Boeing and Airbus and a couple of regional players, Bombardier and EMBRAER. it'd be very difficult for a new entrant to break into the market due to the immense costs involved.

Except the government provides all the money even for the R&D.

...and now you're talking about removing that support.

Yep. Probably more from the last two then the first.

The idea, though, is that you can generate more jobs for the same money elsewhere.

Well we've tried it here in the UK and haven't managed to replace those jobs yet. There aren't enough jobs in the United States as it stands, now mix in the results of the layoffs from $140Billion in cuts, let's call it a million jobs, and explain how the situation is better

So the argument here is that corporate taxes are hard therefore we should just let huge corporations pay nothing when they make $12 billion in profits?

Combine that with the rich paying almost nothing in income taxes and I have to wonder where any money will come from.

I was attempting to demonstrate that saying "close tax loopholes" is easy to do but it's fiendishly difficult to do. If you make it more difficult for United States based companies to avoid taxation they will just incorporate overseas.

Banks already are doing this. It's just they are currently hurting while doing it. Under my plan the government would be assisting the banks so they don't go under in exchange for the grace periods.

So what you're asking for is government support for banks to continue something they're already doing. Isn't that against what Occupy Wall Street stands for.

I disagree. Being personally involved with many teachers I have heard how much things now suffer. Kids learn that The Jungle is the correct answer to questions about worker safety reform but know nothing about the book itself. That is no way to teach kids. No wonder they increasingly end up in universities with no clue what real education looks like.

Personally I don't think any of this is even necessary. For hundreds of years schools existed and did good jobs without a huge bureaucracy analyzing their every move in some lame attempt to quantify "performance" in something as nebulous as pedagogy.

I don't know enough about United States education, although I talk about it at length with Mrs Don's parents who are recently retired teachers. I do know a lot more about the UK education system.

Education in the UK was shockingly poor and patchy until the 1944 Education Act. In the United States completing elementary education wasn't compulsory in all states until 1918.

The idea of a halcyon time where dedicated teachers imparted knowledge to groups of children is IMO a middle-class fantasy. Daddy Don attended a technical highschool in Buffalo New York and he has said that the quality of education was terrible. All they seemed to care about was teaching enough skills to allow the boys to work in local heavy industry.

The bureaucracy exists to make sure that large sums of government money are used effectively. Leaving it to teachers to teach may work on some, or even many circumstances but allowing free reign is the route to anarchy.

Spain seems to do a good job with major infrastructure projects. What are they doing right?

They do a terrible job. The money they are spending is not their own (it's European Development Fund money) and as I learned in an earlier thread, corruption in Spain, and in particular on these large projects is infamous.

 

[Mark6]

Rather than knock on them for their many faults. Let's get to the meat of what they should be demanding if they wanted to do something about what they are mad about.

Unfotunately, they are not demanding any of this -- at least, not in any coherent fashion. So your post effectively "knocks on them" for the fault of being incoherent.

 

[WildCat]

As a European, I'd love to see the United States' aerospace industry broken up because Airbus (and hence UK based manufacturing jobs) would be given a huge advantage, or at least a level playing field .

Is this the same Airbus that received guarantees from the EU that they could not lose money no matter what? It's already tilted in their favor.

 

[WildCat]

Personally I don't think any of this is even necessary. For hundreds of years schools existed and did good jobs without a huge bureaucracy analyzing their every move in some lame attempt to quantify "performance" in something as nebulous as pedagogy.

For hundreds of years few made it through high school, like Jethro Bodine you were considered educated if you done graddyated the 6th grade.

 

[The Don]

Is this the same Airbus that received guarantees from the EU that they could not lose money no matter what? It's already tilted in their favor.

.....edited to add bits in italics

Airbus has received illegal loans from the European Union but at least here in Europe that's presented as a levelling of the playing field and an offset of Boeing's support from the US Government and Washington State

The "well not according to the WTO" relates only to the levelness (or otherwise) of the playing field


Well, not according to the WTO.

Planemaker Boeing received at least $5.3 billion of illegal U.S. subsidies, the World Trade Organization said on Thursday in a dispute that shows no signs of an end to years of inconclusive wrangling.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/31/us-boeing-airbus-wto-idUSTRE72U40Z20110331

They're as bad as each other.

 

[WildCat]

Well, not according to the WTO.



http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/31/us-boeing-airbus-wto-idUSTRE72U40Z20110331

They're as bad as each other.

"According to the United States, the European subsidies for Airbus faulted by the WTO last year exceeded $20 billion."

Lat I checked $20 billion is a bit more than $5.3 billion. And what is the value of a guarantee that you can't lose money?

 

[The Don]

"According to the United States, the European subsidies for Airbus faulted by the WTO last year exceeded $20 billion."

Lat I checked $20 billion is a bit more than $5.3 billion. And what is the value of a guarantee that you can't lose money?

I would insist that that the United States isn't the most objective judge as to the level of subsidy.

The value of the United States' subsidy has also been assessed at $20 billion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11312819

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ordered more than $20bn (£13bn) in US government subsidies should be withdrawn from Boeing, according to agency reports.

Each side will seek to underplay their own subsidy and maximise that for the other side.

I cannot find a WTO calculated (and therefore IMO unbiased) assessment of the Airbus subsidy.

Here is the WTO judgement.

http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds316_e.htm





edited to add.........

Here is a breakdown of the alleged $20bn Boeing subsidy:

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/september/tradoc_146484.pdf

 

[The Don]

Here's a breakdown of the he said/she said of the Airbus/Boeing subsidy spat:

http://www.euractiv.com/trade/eu-attacks-us-stance-airbus-boeing-subsidy-battle/article-165858

The United States claims that the $20bn was effectively $205bn

Europe challenge both figures and in particular the method of calculating the $205bn and say that their claim of $23.7bn of United States subsidy would be $305bn if the same calculation method was used.

 

[WildCat]

I would insist that that the United States isn't the most objective judge as to the level of subsidy.

The value of the United States' subsidy has also been assessed at $20 billion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11312819

Oh, that's rich! Now state and municipal governments are "the US government"? There is a huge difference here - the EU subsidies are for the sole purpose of giving Airbus an unfair trade advantage, while most of those "US subsidies" for Boeing are states playing off each other to get a Boeing plant or office and are unrelated to any trade considerations. Chicago didn't give Boeing property tax incentives in order to make their products more competitive internationally, they were so Boeing would locate their headquarters in Chicago and not keep it in Seattle. They pay less property taxes than other Chicago businesses, but more than in many other parts of the US. If they had headquartered in a low-tax state (but not received any special breaks) and paid the same taxes they pay in Chicago that wouldn't be a subsisy, but because Chicago and Illinois lowered their high tax rates for Boeing now it's a subsidy?

 

[The Don]

Oh, that's rich! Now state and municipal governments are "the US government"? There is a huge difference here - the EU subsidies are for the sole purpose of giving Airbus an unfair trade advantage, while most of those "US subsidies" for Boeing are states playing off each other to get a Boeing plant or office and are unrelated to any trade considerations. Chicago didn't give Boeing property tax incentives in order to make their products more competitive internationally, they were so Boeing would locate their headquarters in Chicago and not keep it in Seattle. They pay less property taxes than other Chicago businesses, but more than in many other parts of the US. If they had headquartered in a low-tax state (but not received any special breaks) and paid the same taxes they pay in Chicago that wouldn't be a subsisy, but because Chicago and Illinois lowered their high tax rates for Boeing now it's a subsidy?

Yes it is a subsidy, particularly when it's unlikely that Boeing is going to leave Washington state:

Other examples include:

State of Kansas pays the interest on bonds that will be used to facilitate production of a portion of the 787 fuselage

City of Chicago pays to retire the lease of the former occupant of Boeing’s headquarters in Chicago

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/september/tradoc_146484.pdf

I know that companies in the United States like to claim that they don't receive subsidies and that the rest of the world does but it simply isn't true. Governments are as bad as each other when it comes to supporting indigenous industry and will find any way to support it against foreign competition.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Yes it is a subsidy, particularly when it's unlikely that Boeing is going to leave Washington state:

/Nit

Technically, Boeing is HQ'd in Chicago.

 

[WildCat]

Yes it is a subsidy, particularly when it's unlikely that Boeing is going to leave Washington state:

But they did leave Washington, they're headquartered in Chicago.

Other examples include:




http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/september/tradoc_146484.pdf

I know that companies in the United States like to claim that they don't receive subsidies and that the rest of the world does but it simply isn't true. Governments are as bad as each other when it comes to supporting indigenous industry and will find any way to support it against foreign competition.

You still don't get it, I imagine this is because you don't understand that we have 50 sovereign states in the US. The states don't make trade policy, they compete with each other for business. This might mean tax breaks or other incentives to large companies that have a lot of clout due to the jobs they bring. It has squat to do with free trade, the states actually work against each other, they're not giving tax breaks in order for Boeing to compete with Airbus.

Airbus is directly funded by tax dollars, it was a creation of several European governments. It is subsidized for the sole purpose of giving it an advantage in international trade, not because Madrid is trying to undercut Munich for an assembly plant.

 

[Drs_Res]

This OWS protester has a simple demand:

And a follow up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIZZDUTbhNk

 

[amused]

One change is all it takes to make all the other changes possible - Do away with gerrymandered US congressional districts.

Then we would have actual representative government that is responsive to voting citizens. As it is, 85-90% of incumbents win every time because the districts are gerrymandered to give the controlling party a clear advantage. Which frees the congressperson to ignore the voters and pander to the high dollar donors to the party.

 

[SezMe]

If you're going to reduce DOD costs by 20% it will require some combination of:

• Fewer people in the military - resulting in fewer employed people
• Less spending on equipment - resulting in a loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector
• Lower spending on services - resulting in job losses in the service sector

You're basically arguing that the DoD is a jobs program and you're right. But the number of jobs created per defense dollar is low compared to other schemes. Thus, I would argue that DoD cuts, if matched with higher spending elsewhere, would result in more jobs.

BTW, I think cutting closing overseas bases would save money with minimal job losses stateside.

 

[SezMe]

You still don't get it, I imagine this is because you don't understand that we have 50 sovereign states in the US.

Nit picking:

I don't think it is correct to use the word "sovereign" to describe the several states.

/Nit

 

[JihadJane]

They shouldn't make any demands. They are experimenting with horizontal power structures and the movement is likely to hugely expand after the next financial collapse and demands for more bailouts from the banksters. There will be many more voices to listen to.

 

[WildCat]

Nit picking:

I don't think it is correct to use the word "sovereign" to describe the several states.

/Nit

"one that exercises supreme authority within a limited sphere"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sovereign

They certainly are sovereign in many areas, such as tax policy in this case. The feds can't tell Illinois, for example, not to give Boeing tax breaks.