While looking at a website written up in the saturday newspaper
 computer section I found a link to The Economist. I like to read
 the economist, so I clicked on the link.On the first page I
 found stories opening on the current economic crises.

 Conservatives like to say, "The economy is not a zero sum game"
 when you raise the issue of wealth disparity. Well, the first
 article that I saw was how it is a zero sum game. At least, it
 is under the current economic crises, and that crises is not
 likely to go away for a long time.

 Next comes articles on just why do corporations exist in the
 first place. Seems corporations are anti-market. Think that one
 through. Centrally planned economies are generally recognized as
 inefficient and cumbersome, but corporations are centrally
 planned mini-economies.

 Rather prominent is the interactive chart allowing you to
 predict when China will top the US as the world's largest
 economy. The consensus analysis seems to be 2019. With a
 significant reduction in China's growth it goes to 2022. The
 range seems 2017 to 2025.

 There are a number of other articles, some a couple months old,
 on things like the health care bill, Iran, Christmas in Vietnam,
 Wikileaks etc.

 On the health care bill, their biggest complaint is that it
 doesn't do near enough to restrain costs. They analysize
 America's health care system as the world's most expensive,
 obviously true, and wasteful all the while leaving out a lot of
 people. All the national health care bill does is bring more
 people into a wasteful and expensive system.

 Ok, it also actually provides health care for millions. And it
 does counter balance a lot of the cost by shifting from more
 expensive care to less expensive care. However, the lack of the
 public option drastically increases the cost.

 The also pointed out that the health care bill, as written,
 could have been a republican bill. Other sources have pointed
 out it practically is, it's very close to what Nixon came up
 with back in the '70s.

 On Iran, it seems the sanctions are actually likely to start
 hurting the economy.

 Back in 2004 many right wingers, including in Fidonet, made a
 big deal out of Kerry's writing up his journey up a river
 listening to the Vietnamese in a nearby village firing off guns
 in celebration of Christmas. They smeard that over Vietnam being
 a Buddhist country so they would not celebrate Christmas. I
 pointed out then that Vietnam not only had a lot of Christians,
 but the government was dominated by Christians.

 The economist reports on current celebration of Christmas in
 Vietnam, where even non-Christians show up to enjoy the
 celebrations. At over 6 million Catholics, Vietnam has the
 second largest Catholic population in Asia, after the
 Phillipines.

 Oh, and the BBC recently reported on Algiers, a 99% Muslim
 country, where Muslims go to the Catholic Cathedral to pray. The
 Cathedral of Our Lady of Africa is a major point of pride in
 Algiers. Just a digression from the political.

 The Wikileaks article is more about how the US document dump is
 perceived. No specific conclusion reached. I suspect it will
 prove to be a great favor to the US in the long run.

 Then we go onto the really good one, how poverty is the future
 for America's long term unemployed. This one is more than
 speculation, it's analysis. And it does make sense. Long term
 unemployment today is setting post WWII records. I went to the
 BLS website, and ran up the statistics. It is easier to see on
 the charts, how 15 to 26 week unemployment, and over 26 week
 unemployment, went up and down over the last 60some years, but
 in the last couple shot off the charts.

 They give the stats on the counted and uncounted unemployed and
 the part time should be full time unemployed. I went to the BLS
 stats, and looked again at the unemployed but out of the labor
 force therefore not counted numbers. Those numbers are only
 recorded from 1994 on.

 What surprised me is, the numbers are not up noticably, but the
 number of unemployed is way out of the ball park. IOW, the
 unemployed are not pushed out of the labor force yet, they are
 very much the recently unemployed, or those who left the labor
 force and went on social security and retired so are not counted
 at all.

 What did not surprise me was how high unemployment was in Bush's
 first few years. In fact, it peaked in his third year, then went
 down some, then went out of sight in 2008.

 IOW, poverty could very well be the future of today's
 unemployed.

 Added note:

 Normally I do not have skype running on my computer all the
 time. Due to the holidays and maybe wanting to reach people I
 have had it up and running. In the middle of composing this msg
 I got beeped by one of my Skype contacts.

 In the past I have mentioned my "friendly neighborhood
 economist". He is now in Europe, where he is an engineering
 manager for an auto supplier. We chatted in general, then on the
 Economist article on China surpassing the US as world's biggest
 economy.

 His response was, the US has 40 years still to come at the top.
 Ok, he's very pro-American, and 40 years is a bit long to
 predict, but he is a bit of a realist also. On the current
 situation, he predicts companies will start hiring in 5 or 6
 months. I pointed out how the republicans have publically stated
 their sole intention is to beat Obama, and stand against
 whatever he favors, regardless of the intent.

 Remember, Obama's tax bill included stimulous to small business,
 America's job force. The republicans were ready to block that
 forever only to get tax cuts for the rich extended. So I pointed
 out the republicans will have great opportunities to screw
 things up.

 He sticks to his hiring improvement prediction.



BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

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