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Seth's Blog : Innumeracy and the power of choice

 

Innumeracy and the power of choice

This video about income distribution in the USA is extraordinary. First, because it's so well produced, well researched and calm. Second, because it does a beautiful job of making statistics come to life. There's a story behind the numbers, and the producers bring the story to life.

There are two lessons to be learned about communicating about (as opposed to with) numbers here:

1. As the data from the Harvard study shows, people are incredibly, almost willfully, bad at visualizing and understanding anything beyond really simple distributions.
2. Giving people the appearance of choice, "if you could organize this, how would you," is a significantly better question than, "what's fair?" By reminding people that they actually do have a voice, you open the discussion wider.

If you agree or disagree with the 92% of the sample that is quoted in the video, my point is still the same: presenting information in this way, in a way that allows people to hear and see and think, is one of the most powerful tools available to people who'd like to make change. It's far more powerful than yelling.

       

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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Ten "Real" Problems With the US Economy; A Behind the Scene Look at Auto Manufacturing Posted: 10 Oct 2013 01:14 PM PDT Here is a fascinating look at auto manufacturing at Tesla. Reflections on "Real Problems" follow. I will tie the two seemingly unrelated ideas together. Link if video does not play: How the Tesla Model S is Made "The Real Problem" Please take that video into consideration when considering a rant from Paul Craig Roberts called The Real Crisis Is Not The Government Shutdown Roberts claims the "The real crisis is that jobs offshoring by US corporations has permanently lowered US tax revenues by shifting what would have been consumer income, US GDP, and tax base to China, India, and other countries where wages and the cost of living are relatively low. On the spending side, twelve years of wars have inflated annual expenditures. The consequence is a wide deficit gap between revenues and expenditures." I will grant him that war-mongering is a huge problem. As for the loss of manufacturing jobs, I would point out that even China is losing them - to automation. More importantly Roberts fails to understand the relationship between Fed policy and Nixon closing the gold window for the initial outsourcing. Roberts also fails to understand that unions wrecked GM and that GM is on the rebound because of wage reductions made in GM's bankruptcy. Gold and the Trade Deficit For an explanation as to how gold is related to the trade deficit, please see Hugo Salinas Price and Michael Pettis on the Trade Imbalance Dilemma; Gold's Honest Discipline Revisited  Roberts continues with his mostly-nonsensical rant: The real crisis is the absence of intelligence among economists and policymakers who told us for 20 years not to worry about the offshoring of US jobs, because we were going to have a "New Economy" with better jobs. As I report each month, not a single one of these "New Economy" jobs has appeared in the payroll jobs statistics or in the Labor Department's projections of future jobs. Economists and policymakers simply gave away a good chunk of the US economy in order to enhance corporate profits. One result has been to create in the US the worst distribution of income of all developed countries and of many undeveloped ones. In the scheme of things, the enhanced profits are a short-run thing, because by halting the growth in consumer income, jobs offshoring has destroyed the US consumer market. Disability Fraud and the Demand for Goods The demand for consumer goods is surprisingly high. And I believe that's a bad thing. People ought to be more concerned about retirement, and less concerned about the latest toy or gadget, than they are. Rampant fraud in collecting disability checks and welfare just may explain the lack of concern, or at least a healthy chunk of it. I have been talking about disability fraud for five years, but mainstream media is just now investigating: Mainstream Media Finally Catches on to Disability Fraud: 60 Minutes Reports on "Disability USA" The "real" problem is not offshoring, NAFTA, or declining real wages as Roberts suggests. Those are symptoms of problems not the "real problem". However, I can easily name many real problems. Ten Real Problems Fractional Reserve Lending The Fed Lack of a gold standard Deficit Spending Public unions Davis Bacon and prevailing wage laws drive up costs Disability fraud Warmongering Politicians get into bed with corporations, unions, and crony constituents Lack of incentives to hold down costs on medicare, food stamps, and entitlements If you fix the first four or five, most of the rest of the problems will be fixed automatically. Wage Inequality and Declining Real Wages The primary reason for wage inequity is the Fed's inflationary boom-bust practices. In addition, public unions and untenable pension obligations drive up costs (and taxes). As I have stated dozens of times, inflation benefits those with first access to money (the banks and the already wealthy). Three Key Reads On Who Benefits From Inflation Top 1% Received 121% of Income Gains During the Recovery, Bottom 99% Lose .4%; How, Why, Solutions Reader Asks Me to Prove "Inflation Benefits the Wealthy" (At the Expense of Everyone Else) Illusion of Prosperity: Deflating the American Dream; No Recovery in "Real" Income Ironically, "onshoring" is now the buzzword. Thanks to robotics, some manufacturing has returned to the US (but the jobs didn't, and won't). When it comes to "real" problems, Roberts really misses the boat. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Law of Career Security: France's Minister of Digital Economy Orders Telecom Companies "to be Virtuous and Patriotic" and to Use Alcatel-Lucent to Prevent Layoffs Posted: 10 Oct 2013 10:37 AM PDT In France, companies need approval from the unions and the government to fire workers. The government gets to decide if you make too much money to lay anyone off. Moreover, the government can decide you make too much money, even if you have a loss. Then there's the newly passed "Law of Career Security" to consider. Yes, that's the precise title. It took me a bit to piece this story together because translations from French are particularly difficult. Alcatel-Lucent Background Before tackling French news reports from Wednesday, here is an Alcatel-Lucent Factbox from the Chicago Tribune, in English. Paris-based telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent unveiled plans on Tuesday to cut about 10,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2015 in a cost-cutting drive to save 1 billion euros and reverse years of losses. Alcatel mainly builds and develops telecommunications networks and related equipment for network operators - such as Verizon or AT&T - and other enterprise customers. Alcatel-Lucent was created from the merger of France's Alcatel and U.S. firm Lucent in 2006, against a backdrop of global competitive pressures that also led to a similar tie-up between Nokia and Siemens to create Nokia Siemens Networks. The cuts announced on Tuesday are across all regions, with 4,100 jobs to go in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 3,800 in Asia-Pacific and 2,100 in the Americas. It is not the first job-cuts plan at Alcatel-Lucent: in 2012, it said it would axe 5,000 jobs and in 2007 it announced 12,500 job losses. Alcatel has only reported one year of profit since the merger, in 2011, ending every other year in the red. In 2012, Alcatel swung to a full-year net loss of 1.2 billion euros, hit by lower sales in Europe and China, and an impairment charge. 10,000 Job Cuts (900 in France) Cutting 10,000 jobs would generally not be a problem for any company of sufficient size, unless 900 of them are in France (as is the case here). Jean-Marc Ayrault, the socialist prime minister of France, warned the management of Alcatel-Lucent that it was "no go" on job cuts unless the unions agreed. I propose the likelihood of union agreement is about zero. With that background out of the way, please consider a pair of articles translated from  from Le Monde. Alcatel-Lucent Showdown Begins First consider Alcatel-Lucent: The Showdown Begins "If there is no majority agreement, the layoff plan will not be approved, since the law now gives the state the responsibility to approve layoffs" warned prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. Mr. Ayrault said that future negotiations between management and staff representatives,  will begin on October 23. Negotiations will be under the national agreement (ANI) which covers modernization of the labor market. The ANI provides procedures for collective redundancies including validation by the administration. Arnaud Montebourg Chimes In Where there's socialist nonsense in France, one can expect to find Arnaud Montebourg, France's "Minister of Industrial Renewal". In addition to Montebourg, I have a new position to discuss: "Minister of Digital Economy". Icing on the socialist cake is the "Law of Career Security", passed just this year. Le Monde reports Alcatel government called telephone operators to "solidarity" The announcement of a plan office at Alcatel-Lucent, which will remove 10,000 jobs worldwide, including 900 in France, led the government to ask the French public telephone operators make efforts to help Alcatel-Lucent in preference to its foreign competitors. "Mobile telephony operators are in the midst of extraordinarily destructive competition. Alcatel-Lucent is the first victim. I was forced to call for solidarity amongst national telephone operators such as France Telecom, and also private operators, to encourage  use  of  telecom equipment manufactured in France, on European soil, instead of the cheapest equipment companies can find," said Montebourg. Minister of Digital Economy Orders Telecom Companies to Use Lucent As preposterous as the story is already, it gets even more preposterous. Fleur Pellerin, the Minister of Digital Economy, went further on Wednesday, requiring operators to be "virtuous and patriotic", and to use Alcatel-Lucent, especially at large tenders related to 4G. Two of four large telecom companies have agreed. Law of Career Security On Wednesday, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, called for a "negotiation" to save as many jobs as Alcatel, noting that the law of career security, the Florange law, passed earlier this year, "gives new rights to employees to negotiate." The Florange law gives the government fifteen days to accept a majority collective agreement negotiated between the company management and the unions and 21 days to give the green light (or reject) unilateral action by the employer in absence of a majority agreement. Is it any wonder France is going downhill and President Francois Hollande's ratings are the lowest in history? Is it any wonder the extreme-right is surging in French polls? For details regarding the extreme-right, please see Marine Le Pen's Eurosceptic "National Front" Party Takes Lead in France National Poll. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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