Jonathan Tasini

   On Monday, Reuters had this piece:

Tensions Mount Inside Actors Union Over Contract
By REUTERS

Filed at 9:28 p.m. ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Tensions within the Screen Actors Guild mounted on Monday as the union's Hollywood-based leaders rejected a call by SAG's New York branch to bring in a federal mediator to break a deadlock in contract talks with major studios.

Members of the New York regional board also publicly challenged the assertions of SAG president Alan Rosenberg and chief negotiator Doug Allen that the union is holding informal talks with studio representatives in a bid to close a deal.

And they accused SAG negotiators, in a resolution passed unanimously last week by the 23-member New York board, of "failing to bargain realistically ... and remove unattainable items from the table."

"There's no discernible plan here," New York division board member Paul Christie told Reuters. "You can't have a plan that just says, 'We're holding secret meetings.' And our question is just what the hell does that mean?"

Rosenberg condemned the resolution as "political" in nature and "an attempt to damage SAG's negotiations."
 

   A lot of the tension comes out of the feud between SAG and AFTRA. Speaking of Rosenberg:

Both accuse his coalition of straining relations with SAG's smaller sister union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, through SAG's failed campaign to scuttle a contract negotiated separately between AFTRA and the studios.

   This is all pretty sad. SAG has had internal battles for the past couple of decades. But, AFTRA skates free from criticism in this article--and it shouldn't. AFTRA was equally at fault in creating the tension, as I observed back when this whole thing bubbled up.

   I'm always in favor of a little street theater and humor in this oh, so, serious business. So, there's been a bus tour underwritten by the Consumer Electronics Association called "America Wins With Trade", drummed up to try to generate a pulse for the quickly dying so-called "free trade" agenda. Some clever folks in Oregon, organized by the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign and Portland's Jobs With Justice, had a unique way of greeting the tour, as this release and pic show:

Affluent Traders of Oregon Welcomes the  “Corporate America Wins with Trade” Tour to Portland

Portland, OR — Affluent Traders of Oregon (ATO) helped welcome the “Corporate America Wins with Trade” tour during its visit to Triad Speakers, Inc in northeast Portland this morning.  The bus tour, sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association, is traveling the United States to drum up support for the Bush administration’s stalled free trade pacts with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

“The public relations subcontractors running this bus tour are fighting the good fight.  Free trade agreements may not be popular with voters, but they are absolutely crucial if corporations are to continue shifting jobs around the globe to where labor is the cheapest and environmental protections the weakest,” said ATO Communications Director Rob Depoor.  “Those rare businesses like Triad that still manufacture in the U.S. are wise to keep their options open.  There is still a killing to be made in offshoring.”

ATO joined the Consumer Electronics Association in calling on Congress to immediately pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, arguing that the ongoing human rights violations in Colombia make for a sound investment climate that affluent traders are eager to exploit.

“Some people find the murder of trade unionists in Colombia distasteful, but in tough economic times like these, a cooperative labor pool is essential in order to ensure rising returns on investment,” said Depoor.  “Until people are voluntarily willing to accept a couple dollars a day in wages and be happy about it, partnerships with military and paramilitary regimes are simply a fact of life in the business world.  If that reality makes Americans uncomfortable, they should stop paying attention.” 

“The ‘Corporate America Wins with Trade’ tour is just what we need to jumpstart support for continued NAFTA expansion,” said ATO President Ivanna Slavesbach.  “My only hope is that next time they will find a jet or a helicopter for their tour.  Quite frankly, this whole bus theme is a little trashy.  Overall, great work though!”
 

   Nice.

   I'm always in favor of a little street theater and humor in this oh, so, serious business. So, there's been a bus tour underwritten by the Consumer Electronics Association called "America Wins With Trade", drummed up to try to generate a pulse for the quickly dying so-called "free trade" agenda. Some clever folks in Oregon, organized by the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign and Portland's Jobs With Justice, had a unique way of greeting the tour, as this release and pic show:

Affluent Traders of Oregon Welcomes the  “Corporate America Wins with Trade” Tour to Portland

Portland, OR — Affluent Traders of Oregon (ATO) helped welcome the “Corporate America Wins with Trade” tour during its visit to Triad Speakers, Inc in northeast Portland this morning.  The bus tour, sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association, is traveling the United States to drum up support for the Bush administration’s stalled free trade pacts with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.

“The public relations subcontractors running this bus tour are fighting the good fight.  Free trade agreements may not be popular with voters, but they are absolutely crucial if corporations are to continue shifting jobs around the globe to where labor is the cheapest and environmental protections the weakest,” said ATO Communications Director Rob Depoor.  “Those rare businesses like Triad that still manufacture in the U.S. are wise to keep their options open.  There is still a killing to be made in offshoring.”

ATO joined the Consumer Electronics Association in calling on Congress to immediately pass the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, arguing that the ongoing human rights violations in Colombia make for a sound investment climate that affluent traders are eager to exploit.

“Some people find the murder of trade unionists in Colombia distasteful, but in tough economic times like these, a cooperative labor pool is essential in order to ensure rising returns on investment,” said Depoor.  “Until people are voluntarily willing to accept a couple dollars a day in wages and be happy about it, partnerships with military and paramilitary regimes are simply a fact of life in the business world.  If that reality makes Americans uncomfortable, they should stop paying attention.” 

“The ‘Corporate America Wins with Trade’ tour is just what we need to jumpstart support for continued NAFTA expansion,” said ATO President Ivanna Slavesbach.  “My only hope is that next time they will find a jet or a helicopter for their tour.  Quite frankly, this whole bus theme is a little trashy.  Overall, great work though!”
 

   Nice.

   Well, Wal-Mart has a union...but not in the U.S...across the border, and only because a judge imposed the union on the Beast. Shows you what a slightly better legal system can do for union organizing. Here's what The Wall Street Journal has today:

An arbitrator has imposed a contract on a Wal-Mart Canada auto center in Quebec that received union certification three years ago.

The auto center, Tire & Lube Express, is part of a store in Gatineau, near the Ontario border. It was union-certified in 2005 and its first collective agreement has been expected since the binding-arbitration process ended in June.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is known for strongly opposing unions. Back in 2005, Wal-Mart shut a Quebec store in Jonquiere after it was unionized; Wal-Mart said the store wasn't profitable. The Supreme Court of Canada recently decided to hear a case challenging the closure.

   Even in Canada it took three years for workers to get justice. Which makes me still leery that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is the nirvana that we hope for. From where I sit, it's employer neutrality that is really needed--something EFCA does not require. Does anyone believe that employers won't come up with new and "improved" tactics if EFCA is passed? Hopefully, we will get to test that environment.

   Well, Wal-Mart has a union...but not in the U.S...across the border, and only because a judge imposed the union on the Beast. Shows you what a slightly better legal system can do for union organizing. Here's what The Wall Street Journal has today:

An arbitrator has imposed a contract on a Wal-Mart Canada auto center in Quebec that received union certification three years ago.

The auto center, Tire & Lube Express, is part of a store in Gatineau, near the Ontario border. It was union-certified in 2005 and its first collective agreement has been expected since the binding-arbitration process ended in June.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is known for strongly opposing unions. Back in 2005, Wal-Mart shut a Quebec store in Jonquiere after it was unionized; Wal-Mart said the store wasn't profitable. The Supreme Court of Canada recently decided to hear a case challenging the closure.

   Even in Canada it took three years for workers to get justice. Which makes me still leery that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is the nirvana that we hope for. From where I sit, it's employer neutrality that is really needed--something EFCA does not require. Does anyone believe that employers won't come up with new and "improved" tactics if EFCA is passed? Hopefully, we will get to test that environment.

   Other people are feeling the pain, so says The Wall Street Journal:

The global economy -- which had long remained resilient despite U.S. weakness -- is now slowing significantly, with Europe offering the latest evidence of trouble.

On Thursday, the European Union's statistics agency said gross domestic product in the euro zone contracted 0.2% in the second quarter, the equivalent of a 0.8% annual rate of decline. It marked the first time since the early 1990s that GDP has fallen overall in the 15 countries that use the euro.

In a fresh sign of the pressures facing the American economy, the Labor Department said Thursday that U.S. consumer-price inflation hit a 17-year high in July, rising 5.6% from a year earlier.

With the European growth report, four of the world's five biggest economies -- the U.S., the euro zone, Japan and the U.K. -- are now flirting with recession.

China, the world's fourth-largest economy, is still expanding strongly, as are India and other large developing economies. Still, weak growth elsewhere in the world is tempering the torrid rise in prices of commodities such as oil, copper and corn, giving relief to consumers from high gasoline and food costs and cutting manufacturers' raw-materials bills. U.S. benchmark crude on Thursday closed at $115.01, down roughly 20% from its July 3 peak of $145.29 a barrel. Easing inflation pressures could also make it easier for the world's central banks to lower rates in an attempt to fan flagging growth.

The global weakness marks a sharp reversal of expectations for many corporations and investors, who at the year's outset had predicted that major economies would remain largely insulated from America's woes.

   No word in the Journal whether CEOs are taking a hit i.e., suffering a slow-down in their compensation packages...

   To reiterate what I've said before: the slowdown is measured in statistics that don't capture the full crushing weight that has been born by workers in this country, and elsewhere, for a lot longer than this current slowdown.

   And, there is an irony here. Oil prices are driving part of the economic problem. Oil prices SHOULD be higher, if we want to save the planet. We've lived, in tbis country, way too long with subsidized, cheap energy that allowed the dumb auto companies to keep putting SUVs on the road, among other things. But, the people bearing the price of the high oil prices are not the CEOs an certainly not the likes of Exxon (which keeps posting record profits) but the average person who has no buffer against the mistakes made by the bozos who have mismanaged the economy for so many years.

   Other people are feeling the pain, so says The Wall Street Journal:

The global economy -- which had long remained resilient despite U.S. weakness -- is now slowing significantly, with Europe offering the latest evidence of trouble.

On Thursday, the European Union's statistics agency said gross domestic product in the euro zone contracted 0.2% in the second quarter, the equivalent of a 0.8% annual rate of decline. It marked the first time since the early 1990s that GDP has fallen overall in the 15 countries that use the euro.

In a fresh sign of the pressures facing the American economy, the Labor Department said Thursday that U.S. consumer-price inflation hit a 17-year high in July, rising 5.6% from a year earlier.

With the European growth report, four of the world's five biggest economies -- the U.S., the euro zone, Japan and the U.K. -- are now flirting with recession.

China, the world's fourth-largest economy, is still expanding strongly, as are India and other large developing economies. Still, weak growth elsewhere in the world is tempering the torrid rise in prices of commodities such as oil, copper and corn, giving relief to consumers from high gasoline and food costs and cutting manufacturers' raw-materials bills. U.S. benchmark crude on Thursday closed at $115.01, down roughly 20% from its July 3 peak of $145.29 a barrel. Easing inflation pressures could also make it easier for the world's central banks to lower rates in an attempt to fan flagging growth.

The global weakness marks a sharp reversal of expectations for many corporations and investors, who at the year's outset had predicted that major economies would remain largely insulated from America's woes.

   No word in the Journal whether CEOs are taking a hit i.e., suffering a slow-down in their compensation packages...

   To reiterate what I've said before: the slowdown is measured in statistics that don't capture the full crushing weight that has been born by workers in this country, and elsewhere, for a lot longer than this current slowdown.

   And, there is an irony here. Oil prices are driving part of the economic problem. Oil prices SHOULD be higher, if we want to save the planet. We've lived, in tbis country, way too long with subsidized, cheap energy that allowed the dumb auto companies to keep putting SUVs on the road, among other things. But, the people bearing the price of the high oil prices are not the CEOs an certainly not the likes of Exxon (which keeps posting record profits) but the average person who has no buffer against the mistakes made by the bozos who have mismanaged the economy for so many years.

   I am not surprised by this but it makes me wonder why there is this general whispering campaign that critics of Sen. Obama's economic proposals should keep quiet. The Wall Street Journal this morning:

The campaign for the CEO vote is heating up. With increasing attention on the economy, the presidential candidates are trying to wrap themselves in business's embrace by wooing some of the best-known chief executives.

In the Obama campaign's latest effort to calm business, its economists are providing specific numbers for his proposed tax increases on investment income and payroll taxes -- essentially smaller increases than many had feared based on his campaign rhetoric. Messrs. Furman and Goolsbee now say Sen. Obama would raise capital-gains tax rates from the current 15% to 20% for families making more than $250,000. Payroll taxes would also rise for that income group to a range between 2% and 4% (to be borne by the employee and employer), but the increase wouldn't take effect for at least 10 years.

   The rich are getting away with hundreds of billions of dollars and there is a campaign to "calm business" about raising taxes on corporations? Give me a friggin' break.

Business had argued that a big tax increase would discourage investment and increase costs, and Republicans -- including Sen. John McCain -- had criticized Sen. Obama's tax plan as being harmful to the economy.

   Haven't we heard this song before? Oh, no, don't raise the minimum wage because it will cost  jobs--and that turns out not to be true. Oh, no, don't raise taxes...even though corporate taxes are pretty darn low (not to mention the fact that most corporations aren't apparently paying taxes). C'mon...

   But, what's most interesting is the notion that, with the economy in trouble, it's the CEO vote that's being sought? Huh. Let me think about this for a moment: wasn't it the CEOs of the banks (Robert Rubin, please take a bow) who destroyed hundreds of billions of dollars in the mortgage crisis? Wasn't it the CEOs of the auto companies who foolishly sat around selling SUVs and ceding the market to Japanese hybrids? Hasn't it been the CEOs of American-based companies who, while taking millions for themselves, have beaten down wages so badly that workers are leveraged to the hilt and, now that their homes have declined in value, can't buy the very products companies are trying to sell?

   I mean, I could go on. But, the CEOs are not the ones who will save the country. They destroyed it. Rather than embrace them, give them a kick in the pants and start rewriting the rules of the economy.

   I am not surprised by this but it makes me wonder why there is this general whispering campaign that critics of Sen. Obama's economic proposals should keep quiet. The Wall Street Journal this morning:

The campaign for the CEO vote is heating up. With increasing attention on the economy, the presidential candidates are trying to wrap themselves in business's embrace by wooing some of the best-known chief executives.

In the Obama campaign's latest effort to calm business, its economists are providing specific numbers for his proposed tax increases on investment income and payroll taxes -- essentially smaller increases than many had feared based on his campaign rhetoric. Messrs. Furman and Goolsbee now say Sen. Obama would raise capital-gains tax rates from the current 15% to 20% for families making more than $250,000. Payroll taxes would also rise for that income group to a range between 2% and 4% (to be borne by the employee and employer), but the increase wouldn't take effect for at least 10 years.

   The rich are getting away with hundreds of billions of dollars and there is a campaign to "calm business" about raising taxes on corporations? Give me a friggin' break.

Business had argued that a big tax increase would discourage investment and increase costs, and Republicans -- including Sen. John McCain -- had criticized Sen. Obama's tax plan as being harmful to the economy.

   Haven't we heard this song before? Oh, no, don't raise the minimum wage because it will cost  jobs--and that turns out not to be true. Oh, no, don't raise taxes...even though corporate taxes are pretty darn low (not to mention the fact that most corporations aren't apparently paying taxes). C'mon...

   But, what's most interesting is the notion that, with the economy in trouble, it's the CEO vote that's being sought? Huh. Let me think about this for a moment: wasn't it the CEOs of the banks (Robert Rubin, please take a bow) who destroyed hundreds of billions of dollars in the mortgage crisis? Wasn't it the CEOs of the auto companies who foolishly sat around selling SUVs and ceding the market to Japanese hybrids? Hasn't it been the CEOs of American-based companies who, while taking millions for themselves, have beaten down wages so badly that workers are leveraged to the hilt and, now that their homes have declined in value, can't buy the very products companies are trying to sell?

   I mean, I could go on. But, the CEOs are not the ones who will save the country. They destroyed it. Rather than embrace them, give them a kick in the pants and start rewriting the rules of the economy.

   Huh. Why worry about cutting corporate taxes when they don't even bother to pay any?:

Two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

The study, which is likely to add to a growing debate among politicians and policy experts over the contribution of businesses to Treasury coffers, did not identify the corporations or analyze why they had paid no taxes. It also did not say whether they had been operating properly within the tax code or illegally evading it.

The study covers 1.3 million corporations of all sizes, most of them small, with a collective $2.5 trillion in sales. It includes foreign corporations that do business in the United States.

   I wonder what's next? Letting them just run the government? Oh, forgot, that's already checked off the list.

   Huh. Why worry about cutting corporate taxes when they don't even bother to pay any?:

Two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005, according to a report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

The study, which is likely to add to a growing debate among politicians and policy experts over the contribution of businesses to Treasury coffers, did not identify the corporations or analyze why they had paid no taxes. It also did not say whether they had been operating properly within the tax code or illegally evading it.

The study covers 1.3 million corporations of all sizes, most of them small, with a collective $2.5 trillion in sales. It includes foreign corporations that do business in the United States.

   I wonder what's next? Letting them just run the government? Oh, forgot, that's already checked off the list.

   I mean, this is just pathetic. We've all heard about people getting married so that one spouse can get covered by the other spouse's health care plan, and that's what most of this story recounts. But, the new twist:

Other couples, like Michelle and Marion Moulton, are forced to consider divorce so that an ailing spouse can qualify for affordable insurance.

Ms. Moulton, 46, a homemaker who lives near Seattle with her husband and two children, learned three years ago that she had serious liver damage, a side effect, she believes, of drugs she was once prescribed. She is trying to get on a transplant list, but the clock is ticking; her once slender body has ballooned, and her doctors say her liver could give out at any time.

Mr. Moulton, a self-employed painting contractor, maintains a catastrophic coverage plan for his family, but its high deductibles and unpredictable reimbursements have left them $50,000 in debt. Without better coverage, a transplant could add unthinkable sums.

Two years ago, Ms. Moulton looked into buying more comprehensive coverage through the Washington State Health Insurance Pool, a state-financed program for high-risk patients. She found the premiums unaffordable, but noticed that the state offered subsidies to those with low incomes. As their debts and desperation multiplied, it occurred to Ms. Moulton that divorcing her husband of 17 years would make her eligible for the subsidized coverage.

“I felt like I had done this to us,” she said. “We had worked hard our entire lives, and if this was all the insurance we had, we could become homeless. I just said, ‘You know, we really need to sit down and talk about divorce.’ ”

Mr. Moulton would not consider it — at first. “From a male point of view, you want to be able to fix things, you want to be able to provide,” he said.

“Then you start looking at what things cost and what someone with no assets can get in terms of funding, and you have to start thinking about it.”

   I see it now: all those family values people, who care so much about preserving the sanctity of marriage, will now become raging advocates for a single-payer system, which would keep people from divorcing...at least for health care coverage reasons. Ain't America great?

   And the reason some people want to keep the leeches from the private insurance game around is...why?

   I mean, this is just pathetic. We've all heard about people getting married so that one spouse can get covered by the other spouse's health care plan, and that's what most of this story recounts. But, the new twist:

Other couples, like Michelle and Marion Moulton, are forced to consider divorce so that an ailing spouse can qualify for affordable insurance.

Ms. Moulton, 46, a homemaker who lives near Seattle with her husband and two children, learned three years ago that she had serious liver damage, a side effect, she believes, of drugs she was once prescribed. She is trying to get on a transplant list, but the clock is ticking; her once slender body has ballooned, and her doctors say her liver could give out at any time.

Mr. Moulton, a self-employed painting contractor, maintains a catastrophic coverage plan for his family, but its high deductibles and unpredictable reimbursements have left them $50,000 in debt. Without better coverage, a transplant could add unthinkable sums.

Two years ago, Ms. Moulton looked into buying more comprehensive coverage through the Washington State Health Insurance Pool, a state-financed program for high-risk patients. She found the premiums unaffordable, but noticed that the state offered subsidies to those with low incomes. As their debts and desperation multiplied, it occurred to Ms. Moulton that divorcing her husband of 17 years would make her eligible for the subsidized coverage.

“I felt like I had done this to us,” she said. “We had worked hard our entire lives, and if this was all the insurance we had, we could become homeless. I just said, ‘You know, we really need to sit down and talk about divorce.’ ”

Mr. Moulton would not consider it — at first. “From a male point of view, you want to be able to fix things, you want to be able to provide,” he said.

“Then you start looking at what things cost and what someone with no assets can get in terms of funding, and you have to start thinking about it.”

   I see it now: all those family values people, who care so much about preserving the sanctity of marriage, will now become raging advocates for a single-payer system, which would keep people from divorcing...at least for health care coverage reasons. Ain't America great?

   And the reason some people want to keep the leeches from the private insurance game around is...why?

Well, it never gets old--watching the reality unfold that contradicts what the blind advocates of so-called "free trade" and "liberalization" want people to believe. One of the great lies of the globalization scam is that, hey, don't worry, if we just educate people more and have them do higher-skilled jobs, not to worry, everyone will be just fine and globalization will be that warm and fuzzy trend that just makes everyone feel better. Unfortunately, the facts keep getting in the way.

  Today's New York Times has yet another example:

Wall Street’s losses are fast becoming India’s gain. After outsourcing much of their back-office work to India, banks are now exporting data-intensive jobs from higher up the food chain to cities that cost less than New York, London and Hong Kong, either at their own offices or to third parties.

Bank executives call this shift "knowledge process outsourcing," "off-shoring" or "high-value outsourcing." It is affecting just about everyone, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse and Citibank — to name a few.

  And...

The work these bankers were doing is not necessarily going away, though. Instead, jobs are popping up in places like India and Eastern Europe, often where healthier local markets exist.

In addition to moving some lower-level banking and research positions to support bankers and analysts in New York and London, firms are shipping some of their top bankers from those cities to faster-growing developing markets to handle clients there.

Owing in part to credit weaknesses and billion-dollar charges from the subprime crisis, "people who were off-shoring high value jobs are increasing the intensity of that, and people who were not are now in the planning stage," said Andrew Power, a financial services partner at Deloitte Consulting.

And...

"There’s a huge amount of grunt work that has been done by $250,000-a-year Wharton M.B.A.’s," Mr. Kessler said. "Some of that stuff, it’s natural to outsource it."

He added, "These are middle of the office jobs, not back office, but they’re not the people on the front line."

After research, the next wave may include more sophisticated jobs like the creation of derivative products, quantitative trading models and even sales jobs from the trading floors.

Proponents of the change say Wall Street’s wary embrace of the activity may signal the beginning of a profound shift in the way investment banks are structured, with everyone but the top deal makers, client representatives and the bank management permanently relocated to cheaper locales like India, the Philippines and Eastern Europe.

In the future, executives in India like to joke, the only function for highly paid bankers in New York or London will be to greet clients and shake hands when the deals close.

  Now, don't get me wrong--I have very little sympathy for Wharton MBA's and their co-horts who are the kind of folks that oil the financialization of the economy that has undermined a stable living for a whole lot of people. But, this does point up the fallacy that if people just get educated more, all will be well.

  The truth is much less hopeful. Retraining is a hoax and getting more education is fine in the abstract but it is also a cruel hoax.

  As long as wages are the principal--and, in some case, only--reason motivating companies to move jobs or locate production, it will be irrelevant how smart you are. I've also pointed out that those people who say Americans are the smartest workers in the world and if they just had the right skills they would beat anyone in the world, are bordering, if not crossing the line, in expressing some fairly racist opinions. Human beings anywhere in the world can learn and be equal to their counterparts.

  What makes the difference here is not intelligence but how little they are willing to sell their bodies to do the bidding of global capital. That is the bottom line, no matter how much phony talking heads, politicians and economists want to cloud the air with talk of competition, efficiency and other nonsense.

Well, it never gets old--watching the reality unfold that contradicts what the blind advocates of so-called "free trade" and "liberalization" want people to believe. One of the great lies of the globalization scam is that, hey, don't worry, if we just educate people more and have them do higher-skilled jobs, not to worry, everyone will be just fine and globalization will be that warm and fuzzy trend that just makes everyone feel better. Unfortunately, the facts keep getting in the way.

  Today's New York Times has yet another example:

Wall Street’s losses are fast becoming India’s gain. After outsourcing much of their back-office work to India, banks are now exporting data-intensive jobs from higher up the food chain to cities that cost less than New York, London and Hong Kong, either at their own offices or to third parties.

Bank executives call this shift "knowledge process outsourcing," "off-shoring" or "high-value outsourcing." It is affecting just about everyone, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Credit Suisse and Citibank — to name a few.

  And...

The work these bankers were doing is not necessarily going away, though. Instead, jobs are popping up in places like India and Eastern Europe, often where healthier local markets exist.

In addition to moving some lower-level banking and research positions to support bankers and analysts in New York and London, firms are shipping some of their top bankers from those cities to faster-growing developing markets to handle clients there.

Owing in part to credit weaknesses and billion-dollar charges from the subprime crisis, "people who were off-shoring high value jobs are increasing the intensity of that, and people who were not are now in the planning stage," said Andrew Power, a financial services partner at Deloitte Consulting.

And...

"There’s a huge amount of grunt work that has been done by $250,000-a-year Wharton M.B.A.’s," Mr. Kessler said. "Some of that stuff, it’s natural to outsource it."

He added, "These are middle of the office jobs, not back office, but they’re not the people on the front line."

After research, the next wave may include more sophisticated jobs like the creation of derivative products, quantitative trading models and even sales jobs from the trading floors.

Proponents of the change say Wall Street’s wary embrace of the activity may signal the beginning of a profound shift in the way investment banks are structured, with everyone but the top deal makers, client representatives and the bank management permanently relocated to cheaper locales like India, the Philippines and Eastern Europe.

In the future, executives in India like to joke, the only function for highly paid bankers in New York or London will be to greet clients and shake hands when the deals close.

  Now, don't get me wrong--I have very little sympathy for Wharton MBA's and their co-horts who are the kind of folks that oil the financialization of the economy that has undermined a stable living for a whole lot of people. But, this does point up the fallacy that if people just get educated more, all will be well.

  The truth is much less hopeful. Retraining is a hoax and getting more education is fine in the abstract but it is also a cruel hoax.

  As long as wages are the principal--and, in some case, only--reason motivating companies to move jobs or locate production, it will be irrelevant how smart you are. I've also pointed out that those people who say Americans are the smartest workers in the world and if they just had the right skills they would beat anyone in the world, are bordering, if not crossing the line, in expressing some fairly racist opinions. Human beings anywhere in the world can learn and be equal to their counterparts.

  What makes the difference here is not intelligence but how little they are willing to sell their bodies to do the bidding of global capital. That is the bottom line, no matter how much phony talking heads, politicians and economists want to cloud the air with talk of competition, efficiency and other nonsense.

   On Friday, I observed that the Democrats were caving in too early on the question of what health care plan is the best plan to move to. It is obviously single-payer--no contest. Economically and morally. The leeches of the private insurance industry will always undercut any plan that keeps a role for for-profit health care insurance.

   And the caving in continues. Paul Krugman writes today:

Some health care reformers wanted the Democrats to endorse a single-payer, Medicare-type system for all. On the sheer economic merits, they’re right: single-payer would be more efficient than a system that preserves a role for private insurance companies.

   In other words, if you are a conservative and you are looking just at the numbers, single-payer is the only way to go. And, then, he caves in:

But it’s better to have an imperfect universal health care plan than none at all — and the only way to get a universal health care plan passed soon is to inoculate it against Harry-and-Louise-type claims that people will be forced into plans “designed by government bureaucrats.” So the Democratic platform emphasizes choice, declaring that Americans “should have the option of keeping the coverage they have or choosing from a wide array of health insurance plans, including many private health insurance options and a public plan.” We’ll see if that’s enough.

   If we want to health care system we deserve, then, yes, it won't be handed to us. We will have to fight. And the scum and leeches in the insurance industry--including the CEOs who make millions of dollars--are going to hold on to the last fightinb breathe to their little kingdoms even if it means your mother or aunt or friend dies from inadequate care or is driven into bankruptcy because they can't afford coverage. These people are organized crime dressed up in nice suites working in corporate suites.

   On Friday, I observed that the Democrats were caving in too early on the question of what health care plan is the best plan to move to. It is obviously single-payer--no contest. Economically and morally. The leeches of the private insurance industry will always undercut any plan that keeps a role for for-profit health care insurance.

   And the caving in continues. Paul Krugman writes today:

Some health care reformers wanted the Democrats to endorse a single-payer, Medicare-type system for all. On the sheer economic merits, they’re right: single-payer would be more efficient than a system that preserves a role for private insurance companies.

   In other words, if you are a conservative and you are looking just at the numbers, single-payer is the only way to go. And, then, he caves in:

But it’s better to have an imperfect universal health care plan than none at all — and the only way to get a universal health care plan passed soon is to inoculate it against Harry-and-Louise-type claims that people will be forced into plans “designed by government bureaucrats.” So the Democratic platform emphasizes choice, declaring that Americans “should have the option of keeping the coverage they have or choosing from a wide array of health insurance plans, including many private health insurance options and a public plan.” We’ll see if that’s enough.

   If we want to health care system we deserve, then, yes, it won't be handed to us. We will have to fight. And the scum and leeches in the insurance industry--including the CEOs who make millions of dollars--are going to hold on to the last fightinb breathe to their little kingdoms even if it means your mother or aunt or friend dies from inadequate care or is driven into bankruptcy because they can't afford coverage. These people are organized crime dressed up in nice suites working in corporate suites.

   Though I mentioned this yesterday in the posting of the newest, latest version of the Democratic Party platform, this bears repeating: you can't have the private insurance industry mucking around with health care. It is really painful to watch a kind of cognitive dissonance playing out here. Watch this, on page 22, in the context of the discussion about Fiscal Responsibility:

The real long-run fiscal challenge is rooted in the rising spending on health care, but we cannot address this in a way that puts our most vulnerable families in jeopardy.

   It is the height of IRRESPONSIBILITY to pretend like you can really protect vulnerable families by keeping health care a for-profit business. It's phony and misleading.

Instead, we must strengthen our public programs by bringing down the cost of health care and reducing waste while making strategic investments that emphasize quality, efficiency, and prevention.

   This is utter nonsense. It is mumbo-jumbo, market-driven language that obscures the statement being made: we don't have the backbone to take on a fight with a powerful industry so we are going to embrace the idea of Market Fundamentalism and con the American people into believing that you can solve the health care crisis by letting the people, who actually created the inefficient model in the first place, try to fix it.

   But, obviously, I don't feel strongly about this. Sorry for being so wishy-washy.

   Though I mentioned this yesterday in the posting of the newest, latest version of the Democratic Party platform, this bears repeating: you can't have the private insurance industry mucking around with health care. It is really painful to watch a kind of cognitive dissonance playing out here. Watch this, on page 22, in the context of the discussion about Fiscal Responsibility:

The real long-run fiscal challenge is rooted in the rising spending on health care, but we cannot address this in a way that puts our most vulnerable families in jeopardy.

   It is the height of IRRESPONSIBILITY to pretend like you can really protect vulnerable families by keeping health care a for-profit business. It's phony and misleading.

Instead, we must strengthen our public programs by bringing down the cost of health care and reducing waste while making strategic investments that emphasize quality, efficiency, and prevention.

   This is utter nonsense. It is mumbo-jumbo, market-driven language that obscures the statement being made: we don't have the backbone to take on a fight with a powerful industry so we are going to embrace the idea of Market Fundamentalism and con the American people into believing that you can solve the health care crisis by letting the people, who actually created the inefficient model in the first place, try to fix it.

   But, obviously, I don't feel strongly about this. Sorry for being so wishy-washy.

  Here, for your reading pleasure, is the draft, as of today, of the entire Democratic Party's Platform.

   Besides the trade language, here are my initial thoughts about some of the other economic-related language.

   The good:

   There is very strong language about the right to organize and other similar worker protection issues. And it is quite good that the language is inserted under the heading "Good Jobs With Good Pay:

That is why we support the right to organize. We know that when unions are allowed to do their job of making sure that workers get their fair share, they pull people out of poverty and create a stronger middle class. We will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions and fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. We will restore pro-worker voices to the National Labor Relations Board and the National Mediation Board and we support overturning the NLRB’s and NMB’s many harmful decisions that undermine the collective bargaining rights of millions of workers. We will ensure that federal employees, including public safety officers who put their lives on the line every day have the right to bargain collectively, and we will fix the broken bargaining process at the Federal Aviation Administration. We will fight to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so that workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their livelihoods. We will continue to vigorously oppose “Right-to-Work” Laws and “paycheck protection” efforts whenever they are proposed.

   The platform also attacks the Bush Administration for suspending Davis-Bacon provision, and other unfriendly worker acts:

Suspending labor protections during national emergencies compounds the devastation from the emergency. We opposed suspension of Davis-Bacon following Hurricane Katrina, and we support broad application of Davis-Bacon worker protections to all federal projects. We will stop the abuse of privatization of government jobs. We will end the exploitative practice of employers wrongly misclassifying workers as independent contractors.

The Bush Administration Department of Labor has failed in its obligation to stand up and protect American workers. Our Department of Labor will restore and expand overtime rights for millions of Americans, and will actively enforce wage and hour laws. Our Occupational Safety and Health Administration will adopt and enforce comprehensive safety standards; he Bush Administration is the only administration that has never voluntarily issued a significant final standard for workplace safety. Right now, far too many workers-especially those in the construction and mining industries-risk their lives every day just by going to work.

   One of the greatest sentences in the platform is this one (on page 22):

We recognize that Social Security is not in crisis and we should do everything we can to strengthen this vital program, including asking those making over $250,000 to pay a bit more.

   Finally, the first step in defeating the idiotic repeated theme by the media, politicians and elites that Social Security is in crisis. IT ISN'T. I consider that sentence to be a huge victory--if we can now get people to repeat it.

   My biggest gripe, besides what I wrote previously about trade, is the health care section. In the Fiscal Responsibility section, the platform clearly states that:

   Instead, we must strengthen our public programs by bringing down the cost of health care and reducing waste while making strategic investments that emphasize quality, efficiency, and prevention.

   And, yet, if you go back to the long section devoted to health care, the platform calls for an "affordable, comprehensive alternative"--yet does not make a call for single-payer, "Medicare For All". This is going to be a tough fight, in my opinion. The words "universal coverage" and "affordable" are all in the eye of the beholder. And the langauge is being shaped now to convince people that we can truly get real health care for people with the involvement of the private insurance industry. That is a lie.