Who shipwrecked the economy?

Astronuc

Interestingly, Charles Koch is speaking out against crony capitalism, a topic of one of Moyers's programs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...226083178.html

edward

Time Magazine 25 people To Blame For The Financial Crisis.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...877351,00.html

WhoWee

I see Lew Ranieri made the list. Personally, I think Barney Frank and Chris Dodd earned a seat.

rhody

Bingo, WhoWee wins a cupie doll.

Rhody...

ThomasT

Looks like they left out Reagan, Geithner, Paulson, Bernanke, Summers, etc., etc., etc., etc.

OmCheeto

Ugh! Kochs! Vomit! (and there I always liked you....)

Koch Industries
2009 Revenue: $100 BILLION
U.S. employees: 50,000
2009 revenue/U.S. employee: $2,000,000

Time it takes the average American to make $2,000,000?

47.99 years.....

Interpolating the numbers to pay Koch Industries employees an average of $41,673.83 per year vs. $2,000,000 per year?

Koch Industries could employ 2,399,587 people.

**** the Kochs.

hock tooey! ach. spit. gurgle gurgle. spit again....

The company I work for:

Om Industries
2009 Revenue: $2 BILLION
U.S. employees: 15,000
2009 revenue/U.S. employee: $133,000

Time it takes the average American to make $133,000?

3.2 years.....

Interpolating the numbers to pay Koch Industries employees an average of $133,000 per year vs. $2,000,000 per year?

Koch Industries could employ 752,000 people.

Pardon my French, but the number of people Koch industries could employ in either scenario goes way off of Ivan's friends chart.

gravenewworld

Senator Byron Dorgan wisely speaking out against the commodities futures modernization act in 1999:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2nZbo8SKbg


Integrity in Washington falls on deaf ears.

ThomasT

@ OmCheeto,

I think your numbers are a bit off. Not sure what your point is.

ThomasT

Not entirely, I think. But, yeah, power and money generally tends to trump integrity. The good news is that the American people, collectively, have an immense power to effect positive changes.

Astronuc

I don't necessarily agree with Koch on all points. I just thought it rather interesting that Charles Koch seemed to share the same concern that Moyers expressed about crony capitalism. I'm sure both have different views on the solution.

I'd like to see Koch on the Moyers program.

lisab

I'd pay to see that!

OmCheeto

Yes, it's odd that the Koch's are such generous supporters of public broadcasting, yet we never see them. I'd like to meet them both. I'd like to bounce my business plan off of them.

Just to see how hard they laugh of course. I love to hear people laugh.

OmCheeto

hmmm....

us gdp = 14,580 billlion
koch gdp = 100 billion

--> 1/145.8

us employment ~ 130,000,000?
130,000,000/145.8 = ~<1 million

hmmm...

You're probably right.

My point was probably that dollars shuttled into pockets because of abnormally low tax rates do no one any good.

(Unless of course you want a $2,000,000 toy train set in your basement. )

OmCheeto

Argh! That was just what he was overcharged.

I am way off on everything today.

ThomasT

I guess I'd have to disagree with this. Those dollars apparently do somebody some good, in some sense. And, apparently, those that it's apparently doing good for are expending a great deal of effort to ensure that that trend continues.

OmCheeto

Well, at least one of the commentors thought the way I do:

ThomasT

Some consider this to be a myth, and that the American manufacturing industry has in fact increased. I'm not sure how this is being gauged. When I mentioned in another thread that there's been about an 80% drop in manufacturing in areas that I'm familiar with, one poster replied that a lot of that manufacturing is still being done in the US, but it's been moved to other locations and automated. Well, I don't really know. My impression is that America has been systematically deindustrialized, and that this is one very important source of America's economic problems.

If that's the case, then I see no hope of the general American economy reemerging in any strong sense. I see a continual decline in the general American economy, and a continual incline in the American financial sector, at least for the foreseeable future.