What should the US do about the job drain?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


[typical conservative rant]

and thats what got us to a recession in the first place

[/typical conservative rant]

So, his raising taxes in '93 got us into a recession eight years later? Silly capitalist running dog.

[Shi Huangdi]

"
Why not? It worked for Clinton."

The economy was already on the rise before Clinton came into office. Similarly the economy was already beginning to deteriorate before Clinton left office.

"
Maybe for you soulless robots. For us humans, happiness is more important than some arbitrary definition of efficiency. "

It isn't a matter of boring graphs. It is bad for an economy long term and bad for the overall economic welfare of the country if we prop up inefficent industries.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Obviously not. The whole euphoria of tech stocks fed the bubble. One could actually argue that since more money wan't around to feed the hysteria it might have been a good thing rather than evaporating in the wake of the stock market adjustment and then 9/11. I don't buy that though.

In any event, had nothing to do with Clinton and taxes other than in good times it is a generally a good time to raise taxes and reduce debt. (So no I don't really have issue with his raising taxes at THAT time) The assumption here of course is that governmental spending/bloat is held to a minimum.

Now tho' is the time to continue to feed therecovery not crush it by repealing tax cuts.

[Sava]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
Elect a democrat

oh yeah, and stop giving rich people massive tax cuts... how about tax CREDITS to small businesses who create jobs, targeted middle class tax cuts so consumers can spend, and ENFORCE current laws against corporate tax EVADERS and PROSECUTE corporate criminals.

FUND the IRS and SEC so they can do our jobs...

Bush needs to gain 156k jobs per month until October to avoid becoming the first president since Herbert Hoover to avoid net job loss.

BTW, don't give me the 9-11 or "he inhereted the recession deficit". The "recession" has been over for nearly 2 years, and 9-11's cost to the economy was 4 times less than the tax cuts to the rich.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Sava

FUND the IRS and SEC so they can do our jobs...

This says it all.

[Sava]

oops... I meant "THEIR" jobs...

[chequita guevara]

Jobless recoveries are a misnomer. I like Paul Krugman's term better, "growth recessions." The economy wasn't on the mend where it really counted in '92, which was in jobs. You can report all the positive indicators you want, but unless unemployment is dropping, it don't mean a thing to those of us who must work for a living. I guess the best that could be said about '92 is it didn't get any worse.

[Imran Siddiqui]

unless unemployment is dropping, it don't mean a thing to those of us who must work for a living.

Ah yes... for the commies economic indicators don't matter unless it is that one economic indicator. I guess they must think the US is a preferable country than France and Sweden which have more socialist policies, but more unemployment as well .

[rah]

The new laws passed in 2002 have had an impact.

From this weeks tribune.

**********
White collars, prison blues
Stepped-up federal prosecution puts corporate leaders under more intense scrutiny, and stricter sentencing rules mean convicted executives find hard time coming their way

AYER, Mass. -- Sitting erect in a green plastic chair, tan jumpsuit neatly buttoned and pressed, wire-rim glasses lending a professional air, David Heath Swanson looked every inch the chief executive.

Even here, in federal prison.

After a long career at the top of Midwest agribusiness, Swanson at age 61 is just beginning a 15-year sentence on corporate fraud charges.

His move from the boardroom to the big house comes amid a federal crackdown on white-collar crime. Under criticism for failing to pursue the corporate elite in the past, the Justice Department is finally starting to boost its caseload. But the biggest changes, as Swanson can attest, involve penalties.

Even before the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 dramatically increased jail time for standard white-collar offenses such as mail and wire fraud, prosecutors were bringing more extensive charges, toughening up on plea bargains and protesting when nonviolent offenders were sent directly to halfway houses.

"The prospect of prison, more than any other sanction, is feared by white-collar criminals and has a powerful deterrent effect," a top Justice Department official declared last summer.

These days, executives who get caught can expect to serve considerably longer stretches than noted business crooks of the past, according to criminologists and government officials.

Where junk-bond manipulator Michael Milken served two years and savings-and-loan cheat Charles Keating a little more than three, the Bureau of Prisons pegs Swanson's release date with good behavior at March 9, 2016. He'll be 73.

Swanson still proclaims his innocence and vows to carry on an appeal, but he's realistic about the message his long sentence conveys.

"I think it would deter anybody from doing anything that will attract the attention of the government," he said in an interview just before the holidays, as the children of fellow inmates romped past him in the visiting room. "You won't believe what the government is going to do to you. They're out there to get you, so beware. That's the only lesson you can learn."

Swanson's new life as federal prisoner No. 06614-028 got off to a rocky start.

On the eve of his Jan. 24 sentencing for looting a prominent farm cooperative based in Indiana, Swanson took a taxicab from Indianapolis to Chicago, then an Amtrak sleeper on to Seattle. He made a run for that city, he said, to avoid treatment for alcohol abuse at the Indianapolis jail.

When U.S. marshals finally brought him back to Indiana in March, U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Barker greeted the one-time fugitive with a sarcastic, "Long time, no see," then lowered the boom.

Even before his Seattle detour made him eligible for additional jail time, Swanson faced a stiff sentence. After a 15-day trial, a federal jury deliberated just eight hours before convicting him of sweeping tax evasion, fraud and money laundering charges. He accepted no responsibility for any wrongdoing.

Baker imposed 180 months out of a possible 188 under federal sentencing guidelines, noting that Swanson had abused his power as the chief executive of Countrymark Cooperative and destroyed the financial security of its employees and shareholders. She also ordered him to pay back $5.5 million and forfeit another $53.8 million.

After that, Swanson spent short stretches in the local jail and a federal prisoner transit center before landing on April 23 at the Federal Medical Center here on the decommissioned Ft. Devens military base.

Devens, as it's known, is primarily a prison hospital that also houses able-bodied inmates like Swanson to help maintain the facility. The Harvard and University of Chicago graduate said he is mostly employed scraping, mopping, waxing and buffing the dining-hall floor.

Swanson's sentence is too long for a "Club Fed"-style minimum-security federal prison camp, and he requested Devens to be close to his family four hours away in New York.

No country-club setting

Because it accepts inmates from across the federal system for medical treatment, Devens maintains a high level of security. Swanson's every movement is carefully controlled, behind brick walls topped with coils of razor wire.

He lives in a noisy 120-inmate dorm, sharing a bunk bed with a 22-year-old drug offender. With plenty of time on his hands, he has finished writing a history of New York's prestigious Explorer's Club for world travelers, which he once headed, and an unpublished novel of international intrigue entitled, "Betrayal on the Silk Road." He also teaches beginning Spanish.

Once chief executive of Central Soya Co. and a prominent figure in Chicago's commodity markets, Swanson has learned to cut a deal in the prison economy. Earlier this month, he traded three packs of preserved mackerel purchased in the commissary for a stylish haircut from an inmate using blunt-tipped scissors, he said.

Still an oddity

Although Swanson said he has met at least five fellow inmates who previously headed private companies, and others who were millionaires before Uncle Sam intervened, the prison population hails overwhelmingly from the bottom of the economic food chain.

His presence is a sign of the times, Swanson said. "They are treating CEOs like everybody else," he said. "They take the houses and attack the families just the same as for drug dealers. It's a fire-bombing."

If so, it's a new phenomenon.

Among a U.S. prison population of 2.16 million, barely more than a thousand are believed to be serving time for engineering corporate frauds.

Break with the past

For years, prosecutors shied away from those cases, critics say, reflecting in part the difficulty of winning a conviction against wealthy and powerful defendants involved in complex financial crimes.

Between 1992 and 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission referred 523 cases to the Justice Department for criminal charges, according to the TRAC criminal-justice database at Syracuse University. In that same period, federal prosecutors declined to pursue nearly 300 referrals and won convictions on just 135.

"The creme de la creme virtually never get jail time," said Henry Pontell, an influential criminologist at University of California in Irvine.

Of the few charged in connection with the massive savings-and-loan fraud of the 1980s, for instance, sanctions were lower "than for burglars and car thieves," he said.

Minimum sanctions set

In 2002, however, the outlook changed with the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley. Under revised sentencing guidelines, an officer of a public company who defrauds a group of investors out of more than $1 million merits a minimum 10-year prison sentence, almost double the previous minimum term.

At the same time, the government established a corporate-fraud task force with the goal of pursuing more cases. In the past two years, the SEC made 129 referrals and prosecutors won 89 convictions, according to TRAC data.

Altogether, the Justice Department says it has brought 267 corporate fraud cases against 613 defendants in the past year and a half, according to spokesman Bryan Sierra.

Momentum is building as prosecutors develop more expertise, he said. "We're bringing cases that might not have been brought in the past because we have more experience."

Still, the numbers pale beside the 151,000 inmates in the federal system overall, and some of the get-tough policies primarily affect low-profile offenders who have no connection with corporate crime.

Indeed, some big cases appear to be languishing. Although both men deny wrongdoing, the absence of charges against Enron Corp. leaders Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay is widely viewed as evidence the task force reels in CEOs such as Swanson only in the rarest circumstances.

"I guess you'd call him one of the stupid ones," Pontell said. "He got nailed."

For his part, Swanson said he worries the crackdown will discourage corporate leaders from taking the chances necessary to build businesses.

"They're trying to kill off the CEO class," he said. "We're risk-takers. I'm a mountain climber, a marathon runner, an ambitious businessman. I ate good food and drank a lot."

As visiting hours concluded, Swanson had more modest plans. First, he would be strip-searched for contraband. Then he would prepare for the Spanish class he teaches, work a little on another novel he's writing and probably watch a basketball game on TV with other inmates.

"You have to accept it," he said. "Life as you know it is over."

*****************
So there have been improvements in the number of indictments and convictions that carry some real punishment. Please think of that when you say the current administration is soft on white collar crime.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by rah
So there have been improvements in the number of indictments and convictions that carry some real punishment. Please think of that when you say the current administration is soft on white collar crime.

When they indict Bush for his insider trading at Harken, I'll be convinced.

[rah]

Picky picky picky. they even waited for Clinton to finish his term before charging him. Please give George the same privlege.

[Shi Huangdi]

"BTW, don't give me the 9-11 or "he inhereted the recession deficit". The "recession" has been over for nearly 2 years, and 9-11's cost to the economy was 4 times less than the tax cuts to the rich."

You can check the figures yourself, the bubble we had began to burst towards the end of the Clinton administration. The bubble economy we had was predicted to pop well before BUsh was elected.

And what's this about "tax cuts cost to the economy" !?Tax cuts put more money into the general populace for spending. Do you mean in terms of costs to the government budget?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I guess they must think the US is a preferable country than France and Sweden which have more socialist policies, but more unemployment as well .

I don't know for Sweden, but France is one of the best countries in the EU for a foreign investor to invest to (foreign investment has lowered by 10% last year in France becaue of the internationaly bad economic weather, while it has dropped by 30% in the EU).
Our high unemployment rate doesn't come from a lack of foreign investment, but from the factthat we do not allow underpaid and overtime jobs. As such, we have no legal sector of cheap services (which are almost always domestically fueled)

[Ned]

Grant citizenship to foreigner's who work for American companies?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
And what's this about "tax cuts cost to the economy" !?Tax cuts put more money into the general populace for spending. Do you mean in terms of costs to the government budget?

Not really true, as the vast majority of the tax cuts go to a small percentage of the population. People on the bottom were hardly affected. Us in the middle will be blinded sided by the AMT, and only those making tall bucks will have any more money to put in circulation, but it's more likely to be invested.