Prometheus 6 - Economics

I am SO glad I live in a modern city

Prometheus 6 — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 16:11:23 -0400

Mall officials won’t clarify what clothing and accessories are prohibited.
"The code of conduct is pretty clear, and, you know, I think common sense should prevail," said Les Morris, spokesman for Simon Property Group Inc., which owns the mall...
"There are things we sell that it’s OK to own them, but to use them in the mall setting is inappropriate," Morris said.

Bandanna banned in Springfield mall
Officials won’t explain how headgear is offensive.
Published Thursday, June 22, 2006

SPRINGFIELD (AP) - A southwest Missouri mall defended its dress code after a security guard told a 10-year-old girl her bandanna decorated with peace signs, smiley faces and flowers violated the mall’s code of conduct.

Fences won't stop this

Prometheus 6 — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 15:47:34 -0400

Tech worker group files complaints over H-1B job ads
Complaints accuse U.S. companies of violating U.S. Immigration and Naturality Act
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
June 22, 2006

The Programmers Guild, a group representing IT workers, has begun filing what will amount to about 380 legal complaints against U.S. companies advertising that they prefer to hire foreign workers with H-1B visas.

The group has filed about 100 complaints since May and plans to file about 280 more over the next six months, said John Miano, founder of the Guild. The complaints, made to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), accuse several companies of advertising that they specifically want H-1B workers, a violation of U.S. law.

It's not part of the core inflation figures, so it doesn't matter

Prometheus 6 — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 06:04:31 -0400

Drug Prices Up Sharply This Year
By MILT FREUDENHEIM

Prices of the most widely used prescription drugs rose sharply in this year's first quarter, just as the new Medicare drug coverage program was going into effect, according to separate studies issued yesterday by two large consumer advocacy groups.

AARP, which represents older Americans, said prices charged by drug makers for brand-name pharmaceuticals jumped 3.9 percent, four times the general inflation rate during the first three months of this year and the largest quarterly price increase in six years.

Price increases for some of the most popular brand-name drugs were much steeper; the sleeping pill Ambien was up 13.3 percent, and the best-selling cholesterol drug, Lipitor, was up 4.7 to 6.5 percent, depending on dosage.

Dammit, another book for the pile...

Prometheus 6 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:39:04 -0400

[TS] Class War Politics
By PAUL KRUGMAN

So what's our bitter partisan divide really about? In two words: class warfare. That's the lesson of an important new book, "Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches," by Nolan McCarty of Princeton University, Keith Poole of the University of California, San Diego, and Howard Rosenthal of New York University.
"Polarized America" is a technical book written for political scientists. But it's essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what's happening to America.
What the book shows, using a sophisticated analysis of Congressional votes and other data, is that for the past century, political polarization and economic inequality have moved hand in hand. Politics during the Gilded Age, an era of huge income gaps, was a nasty business — as nasty as it is today. The era of bipartisanship, which lasted for roughly a generation after World War II, corresponded to the high tide of America's middle class. That high tide began receding in the late 1970's, as middle-class incomes grew slowly at best while incomes at the top soared; and as income gaps widened, a deep partisan divide re-emerged.
read more

How do you think those bids came in so low?

Prometheus 6 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:41:06 -0400

Quote of note:

The findings, though a small snapshot of the vast number of public projects undertaken throughout the state, suggest how the use of undocumented workers has extended into almost every corner of the economy. Republicans in Massachusetts trumpeted plans last month to stiffen fines on companies that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants, which is illegal under state law. But there is no requirement that employers, including those receiving public funds, demonstrate that their workers are legal, and undocumented workers employed on the projects say that contractors are all too happy to look the other way.

Fake IDs are rife at state job sites
Mass. contractors hire the undocumented
By Jonathan Saltzman and Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff | June 18, 2006

How many overstayed their work or education visas?

Prometheus 6 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:37:04 -0400

Quote of note:

More than half of the estimated seven million immigrants toiling illegally in the United States get a regular paycheck every week or two, experts say. At the end of the year they receive a W-2 form. Come April 15, many file income tax returns using special ID numbers issued by the Internal Revenue Service so foreigners can pay taxes. Some even get a refund check in the mail.
And they are now present in low-skilled jobs across the country. Illegal immigrants account for 12 percent of workers in food preparation occupations, for instance, according to an analysis of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center. In total, they account for an estimated one in 20 workers in the United States.

Here Illegally, Working Hard and Paying Taxes
By EDUARDO PORTER

Excuses, excuses

Prometheus 6 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:16:58 -0400

I find it funny in a way for Republicans to blame politics and 9/11 for its failure to enforce the law against employers.

Illegal Hiring Is Rarely Penalized
Politics, 9/11 Cited in Lax Enforcement
By Spencer S. Hsu and Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 19, 2006; A01

The Bush administration, which is vowing to crack down on U.S. companies that hire illegal workers, virtually abandoned such employer sanctions before it began pushing to overhaul U.S. immigration laws last year, government statistics show.

Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.

New-age business model undermined by old-style selfishness

Prometheus 6 — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 11:39:54 -0400

Quote of note:

The clause that is being used to block us is a "one-man-one-vote" clause that requires that a majority of the shareholders approve any change to the shareholders' agreement. Mergers and financings require such changes. Asset sales do not. What that means is that one of our shareholders who has 75 shares has as much voting power as I do with my 540,000 shares (38.8% of the company). So, a tiny minority is able to block us moving forward on any of the normal paths for raising money. If no alternatives arise, we'll be in bankruptcy and we'll lose the employees within days.

The Rumors of our death are only slightly exaggerated.

What part of 'voluntary' do you not understand?

Prometheus 6 — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 06:29:11 -0400

Fees Sought for Oil Leases
By BLOOMBERG NEWS

The Bush administration wants 56 oil and gas producers to renegotiate Gulf of Mexico drilling leases that let them avoid paying as much as $10 billion in government fees.

The Interior Department may ask the companies to voluntarily rewrite contracts from 1998 and 1999 to add a provision for royalty payments when oil and gas prices are high, said Johnnie Burton, director of the Minerals Management Service. Price thresholds for relief from royalty fees were accidentally omitted in those years.

"I am hoping that maybe some industry folks would be willing to come back and talk to us about getting some thresholds in those two years of leases," Ms. Burton said yesterday in Washington.

Soon housing will be removed from the "core inflation" figures

Prometheus 6 — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:52:30 -0400

Why not? They don't count food prices and you KNOW those have been rising for a while. They don't count energy prices either.

Consumer Prices Rise in May
By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 14, 2006; 1:42 PM

Consumer prices rose briskly again in May, led by rising costs for gasoline and housing, the Labor Department reported today, boosting the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will keep raising rates to restrain inflation.

With many motorists paying more than $3 a gallon for gasoline, landlords hiking rents and businesses passing on more of their rising energy and materials costs to shoppers, the department's consumer price index rose a sizeable 0.4 percent last month, after a 0.6 percent increase the month before.