[YouTube] Victor Davis Hanson delves into a critical topic: the worst thing any president has done in his lifetime. Drawing upon his vast expertise and deep knowledge of American history, Hanson offers thought-provoking insights and analysis on this significant subject. Through meticulous research and captivating storytelling, he uncovers the actions and decisions that he believes have had the most detrimental impact on our nation.
'Anyone who works in a 10,000+ person or larger white-collar job company knows that a bunch of the people can probably be let go tomorrow and the company wouldn't really feel the difference, maybe it'd even improve with less people inserting themselves into things,' he said.
He went on to explain how the overflow of workers who are not contributing to the company is actually detracting from the workforce's retirement programs.
'Google is an amazing example of this. I don't think it's crazy to believe that half the white-collar staff at Google probably does no real work,' he said.
'The company has spent billions and billions of dollars per year on projects that go nowhere for over a decade, and all that money could have been returned to shareholders who have retirement accounts. So real people actually lose out when BS jobs exist.'
But Google, with its extensive overhead, has been able to quickly adapt to technological advancements, and even mimic them.
As AI chatbots grew in popularity in 2023, Google hopped on the bandwagon, merging its chatbot, Bard, with their new service, Gemini - an AI model similar to ChatGPT that responds to questions with a human-like cadence.
Although Ulevitch has not been impressed by Google's projects, the shares of their parent company, Alphabet, have gone up 22% from last year and 57% in the past 12 months.
A consequence of Ulevitch's theory of 'BS jobs' is that the U.S. is struggling to develop the workforce needed to manufacture goods for its own future industry.
'We have outsourced much of their work overseas, increasingly to countries we are getting less and less friendly with (China) but also because we've just made those jobs seem less desirable,' he said.
However, while Ulevitch acknowledges the potential risks of relying on economic competitors, he also sees this as an opportunity for innovative startups to step in and fill the manufacturing void.
The 'tech wreck' sweeping Silicon Valley has wiped out tens of thousands of jobs paying a combined $12 billion annually, an analysis of the largest recent cuts shows.
Recently Google laid off around 200 of its core team in California and will fill some of the positions in India and Mexico as tech companies in Silicon Valley continue to shed employees en masse.
#1
When I was in consulting, our salesmen would routinely promise the client a 10% savings in costs. At first I was terrified we couldn't get that much. But after my first few assignments I realized that 10% was a very achievable floor that we could surpass without a whole lot of effort. The amount of deadwood in companies never ceased to surprise me.
Posted by: Tom ||
05/09/2024 14:39 Comments ||
Top||
The idea that interest rates are not high enough is beginning to gain a foothold at the Federal Reserve.
Neel Kashkari, our esteemed monetary shepherd from the Minneapolis Fed, has once again taken to the digital pen with commendable transparency to point out that the economy is not behaving as you might expect it to if the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy were all that restrictive.
Kashkari’s focus is on the housing market. This makes sense. Housing is considered one of the most interest-rate-sensitive segments of the economy because homes are typically purchased with mortgages. As a result, the housing market is one of the primary channels through which monetary policy is transmitted to the real economy.
Here’s how that works. When the Fed raises its target for overnight interest rates for loans between banks, this tends to raise yields on longer term bonds because these are essentially just a series of short-term loans. Because mortgage-backed securities are a somewhat close substitute for Treasuries, mortgage rates tend to follow the yield on 10-year Treasuries.
Higher interest rates make buying homes less affordable. They can either depress home prices or at least slow down the rise in prices by reducing demand. They also tend to slow down home building, which is an economically intensive activity that employs lots of labor, materials, and manufactured products. So, if you can slow down the housing market, you can probably slow down the economy and reduce inflation.
#5
Interest rates should be high. Borrowing money should always be more expensive than earning it. As the gummint doesn't earn at all, it should pay a higher rate than the rest of us.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/09/2024 13:39 Comments ||
Top||
#6
up here in NH apparently it's a real sellers market. Lots of buyers no product.
[Breitbart] President Joe Biden’s migration crisis raises the mortgage rates that burden young couples and families, according to the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
“While the long-run effect of increased immigration on inflation is unclear, immigrants nonetheless need a place to live, and their arrival in the U.S. has likely also increased demand for housing,” said Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said on May 7.
In turn, he said, mortgage rates are nudged upwards with higher interest rates, saying, “Perhaps a neutral [interest] rate for the housing market is higher than before the pandemic.”
Kashkari is a member of the Federal Reserve, which is now raising interest rates to reduce the unpopular inflation caused by the federal government’s deficit spending.
But since 2021, Biden’s deputies have also worsened inflation by importing roughly ten million legal, illegal, and quasi-legal migrants.
The migrants are intended to fill jobs, reduce wages, spur the consumer economy, and boost rental rates. The human-resources stimulus is good for investors who want more consumer demand and lower wages, and for progressives who want more government dependents and potential voters.
But this huge inflow has inflated housing prices, used autos, and other consumer items while also cutting wages for Americans.
“Abundant labor coming across the border” is reducing the wages paid to Americans, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said in April.
“Across the G10 [group of wealthy countries] … there is no doubt immigrants need things as soon as they arrive, boosting demand [for used autos, food, etc.],” the Economist magazine admitted. “Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of rental housing, which is in short supply across the anglosphere.”
The chaos caused by mass migration is forcing an elite rethink of economic policy.
“The big winners are the countries that have shrinking populations … [such as China and Japan who] will rapidly develop robotics and AI and technology,” BlackRock founder Larry Fink said at an April 29 event hosted by the World Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia. He continued:
If a promise of all that [technology] transforms [per person] productivity, which most of us think it will [emphasis added] — we’ll be able to elevate the standard living in countries, the standard of living for individuals, even with shrinking populations.
Democrats, however, prefer to stimulate the nation’s consumer economy with more migrants.
Migrants — not voting Americans and their children — “are what makes us [economically] strong,” Biden told a May 1 fundraiser for pro-migration groups at the elite Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC.
[FoxNews] A Republican lawmaker from New Jersey praised Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to visit Columbia University in response to the anti-Israel protests on campus and blasted President Biden’s leadership on the issue that has spread to campuses nationwide.
"October 7th should have been the absolute wake-up call as to what Hamas and company are all about, Iran too, so Speaker Johnson did a magnificent job," Chris Smith told Fox News Digital this week about Speaker Johnson’s visit to Columbia’s campus contrasted with President Biden’s leadership on the issue.
"Not so with the president. The president has been nowhere to be found. He's been AWOL. He's been enabling. He's so worried about losing Dearborn, Michigan votes that he has thrown Jews and the Israeli people under the bus and I think it's shameful. Shameful. And he needs to get his voice and speak out boldly. Zero tolerance for antisemitism."
Michigan is seen by many as a "must win" state for Biden this November after he narrowly won there by less than 3 points. In recent months, a growing number of Palestinians in Dearborn, Michigan and other places in the state have suggested they will drop their support of him if he continues to support Israel's military operations in Gaza.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Americans living a red state are receiving the best education even though the governor has been criticized for using the classroom for his cultural war.
Florida has topped the chart for the second year in a row, as Governor Ron DeSantis has redesigning the educational system by banning discussions about sexuality and gender and letting parents decide what materials are used.
While the laws have sparked criticism, a new report has determined that Florida performs best in college readiness among children in pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) through 12th grade and state universities have a 74 percent graduation rate.
In my day New York State was number 1, deliberately outspending everyone else to achieve it. Now they can’t afford to, even if they were willing to allow such inequality of outcome.
However, the state fell short in math and reading scores among students in elementary school.
The other states that followed Florida were Utah, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Colorado.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Gevorg Mirzayan
[REGNUM] The current head of the White House, Joe Biden, intends to withdraw from the presidential race in the summer, the German magazine Spiegel reported.
And they would know! Or not, as the case may be.
At the same time, according to the publication, the US presidential candidate from the Democratic Party will not be the current Vice President Kamala Harris, but the former first lady Michelle Obama.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/09/2024 6:47 Comments ||
Top||
#4
This is just wishful thinking on the eurines' part.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/09/2024 6:59 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Yeah, the eurines only received the extremely filtered reporting about her at the time.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/09/2024 7:23 Comments ||
Top||
#6
From the first Related link:
Sixty-year-old Michelle Obama has said multiple times she isn't interested in running for office and has admitted she is 'terrified' of the outcome of this year's election.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/09/2024 8:07 Comments ||
Top||
#8
The Light Bringer is running things from his basement SCIF. He is very busy these days. You may have notice his absence from television, public appearances, and speaking engagements. His third term consumes much of his time and energy.
#9
His third term consumes much of his time and energy.
Mostly putting out fires, I would assume.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/09/2024 8:53 Comments ||
Top||
#10
I'm old enough to remember when party conventions included a fight to pick the candidate. Today they are just coronations of the selected one.
The Democratic convention this year may be different. Maybe they will realize that Joe is too old/feeble/demented to run. Then the fight will be to find someone to replace him.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/09/2024 9:53 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Maybe they will realize that Joe is too old/feeble/demented to run.
They already know that. The convention will putter along and show no problems to the fawning media that will be there. We will rarely see Joe, unless it's right after his meds have kicked in. And then only for about 10-15 minutes before they wear off.
I also somewhat expect some shenanigans regarding his health just prior to, or immediately after, the election (getting the sympathy vote) and a substitute will be called in.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/09/2024 10:44 Comments ||
Top||
#12
The problem is Kamala Toe
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/09/2024 11:03 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Personally, I trust the Republicans to do what they always do.
#14
Biden is getting progressively worse. Whatever they are giving him appears to be less effective in the short term and detrimental in the long term. He is not electable. The question is whether Joe can finish this term.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/09/2024 12:37 Comments ||
Top||
#18
I'm not sure even the zombie's cucumber can help Joe now.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/09/2024 13:25 Comments ||
Top||
#19
this all started at lbj's affirmative action.
if i am interviewing 2 persons for a job and give preference to one above the other because of skin color then i am bigoted.
#20
I don't believe it. Joe is the absolute perfect candidate for the bureaucrats in the government an in the Democratic party. He is a feckless figurehead who will never, never interfere with all their pet schemes and empire building.
Posted by: Tom ||
05/09/2024 14:42 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
