Re: Time for a Crash
 

All of those would be neoliberal economists.

I don't use it as a term for someone I don't like. As I stated, it's a pragmatic school of economics.

The problem I see with embracing it as most economists have done is they laud its positives and refuse to assess its negatives. For instance, a tenet of the school is a market based view of the world. This reduces almost everything to a commodity. Which, of course, turns people into commodities. Of course they've always been commodities, but neoliberal economics have accelerated the dehumanization.

A purely neoliberal view of the current situation wouldn't see the economy as having any problems at all. Technically, the economy is in pretty good shape. It's only when we input the societal problems occasioned by the changes within it, and the impact on workers, and the inequality within it, that one sees a less than rosy economic picture.

Neoliberal economic policy insists on expansion of global trade and labor arbitrage. It also favors removal of labor via technological advances. These are all positive advances. Except when you factor in what becomes of the displaced labor.

Neoliberal policies as currently applied ignore too much until its too late.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

Okay. It's been bad for longer than I stated. The economic crisis simply made it even worse.

Actually, it is. Unless you believe it's boomers retiring.

http://www.epi.org/publication/chart...ge-stagnation/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...te-since-1990/

I agree both are problems. Labor unions could fix a good bit of this, but they're so fucked right now, that's hopeless.

And you know why they're fucked? Because automation and globalized labor market expansion undercut the only leverage workers have had or ever will have.

It's funny how when you allow a situation to emerge in which labor's sole leverage is eliminated, labor has no leverage.

Re: Reality is a Neoliberal Conspiracy
 

Thanks for confirming that you use it as a term for people and things you dislike.

Re: Reality is a Neoliberal Conspiracy
 

Where in there do I say I dislike it? Use my words. Not your characterization of my words.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

No, it's much older than that.

It mostly is. As we've discussed, prime age participation is slightly below the pre-recession peak and roughly inline with mid-1990s normal. Yes, that's still below the late-1990s peak and even the pre-2001 recession peak. Problem just isn't as big as you think it is.

No, that's the numbers talking.

They can't both be still working and not in the labor force.

It began in the 1970s. Every measured prime age labor force participation that was higher than today's was after the age of automation began.

You're looking at a Solow world and seeing Malthus.

No, that's not right. And if you're trying to argue that the labor market is bleak relative to all of the 20th Century and not just relative to the late 1990s boom, you're even more wrong.

Re: Reality is a Neoliberal Conspiracy
 

Wait, what? You saying this is as close to the purest definition of irony we have ever seen on these lawyer chatting boards. Someone call SEC Chick!

Re: Time for a Crash
 

Quite the opposite. In Sebby's world, just about everyone wears loafer. A loafer is a soled thing that goes on your foot.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

A neo-liberal economist walked into a bar, where he bent down to tie his nice loafers.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

A person walked into a bar. Sebby said, hello Neo-Liberal Economist.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

Fixed that for you. Now it sounds more like Sebby.


Knock knock.

Who's there?

Joe.

Joe wh.... Oh, shit, another neo-liberal economist.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

A Neo-Liberal Economist walks into a bar and orders a beer. It was a pragmatic short term solution to his thirst and vexing sobriety, but was essentially a palliative measure that did nothing to address the root causes of the problems.

This game is kind of dumb.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

What did the Neo-Liberal Economist say when he walked into a bar?

Ouch.

From Ray Dalio, Malthusian
 

Re: Time for a Crash
 

Wow! You found one!

So Neo-Liberal Economists are people who drink beer when they're thirsty.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

for anyone who cares about this country to not boycott 538 makes me ill. 538 is why we have trump. for 538 to report on R's losing stuff it should say, "because we ignored polls and lulled everyone into a false sense of security, space fucks voted third party, and now that an insane person is prez, voters are turning against his party." If it posted that then maybe you can read it, but otherwise, no.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

Time for a crash indeed.

Observations

1. I am loathe to agree with sebby on almost anything. Yet his obsession about robotics and the long term effect on employment has a good deal of validity. Look at our own profession. There was a time when platoons of associates did document discovery, and the lead associate/fungible work unit became the master of the facts for either negotiations, or, if necessary, trials. The head associate then sat second seat at the trial, making the partner look good.

Those platoons of associates have been replaced by a squad of electronic discovery technocrats who can computerize the documents, sort them chronologically, or by subject matter, or keyword, or by author, in a heartbeat.

This Board has discussed the foregoing point endlessly; I just think it ends poorly for the future workforce, particularly in professions and manufacturing. And what the ‘bots don’t get, cheap overseas labor will...

2. I am taking some S&P 500 index profits off the table today. I believe the run-up is over. Cumulative little signs seem to me to indicate that the long slog out of the Great Recession has peaked. Stupid things, taken in isolation, seem cumulative.

Fast casual food places have reached maximum expansions. Same with Starbucks.

There hasn’t been even a hint of a infrastructure spending bill.

Numbnuts will foul our existing international trade relations to the detriment of the economy.

Many of the jobs that have been created over the last 5 years underemploy the people taking those positions. Better than the dole but insufficient to build a better life.

The pervasive negativity of the majority party and the pervasive ineptitiude of the minority party.

Unsustainable state and municipal debt.

Heroin.

3. Even the good news doesn’t seem to be that good, when examined. My adopted home state of Virginia just took a massive Dump on Trump. Excellent….until you look at the map of the state by county. The high population areas of Northern Virginia, Richmond, Tidewater, and (I think) the area around Virginia Tech at Blacksburg turned out in force and resolutely moved the Virginia chess pieces to the Democrats. But looking at the map shows that the negative Republican campaign still commands huge portions of the state.

I’m a profit-taker today.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

Enjoy the profits.

I'm afraid the changes in law aren't driven mainly by technology, but instead by the strange economics that led us to massively increase associate compensation at the same time large parts of the business were being commodified. We still have more lawyers than any society in its right mind needs.

I'm more worried about robots replacing agricultural workers than lawyers. And they are. But there are alternate areas of great growth, notably healthcare, where a wealthy, automated service economy can create large numbers of jobs that are better than the ones being lost.

One of the interesting parts of this equation is the gender disparities. The most at risk jobs are ones traditionally held by men, while many of the ones traditionally held by women, often caregiving and educational in nature, are the ones we ought to be investing in.

Make a cultural shift away from the traditional roles and their misogyny and the economy looks much better for the next generation.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Not just 538 but the whole numerics based reporting industry is deeply at fault, but to a great degree because of the numeric illiteracy of the population. Nate always told us there was a good chance Hilary would lose, we just assumed that because there was a better chance she would win, that would happen.

As someone once given a 1-in-8 chance of living six months (and whose poor wife was once told I had a one-in-four chance of seeing morning), I've come to embrace and appreciate long odds.

And Sebby will tell you he wasn't making a Pascalian wager with his vote, and that he still doesn't regret his vote. Your call as to whether you think he's a moron or a liar, but I think many third party voters fit into the same mindset.

At the end of the day, I'll put Nate after the Foxes of the World and the Sebby's of the world in the blame game. Still in the top three.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Blame the box, not Pandora.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

You call this board "strange economics?"

Re: Time for a Crash
 

We're the only industry that never burst the y2000 bubble.

Thanks Obama!
 

FYI: don't go to the Daley Center the same day President Obama has jury duty. Security wouldn't let me use my special lawyer pass that allows me to avoid the hoi polloi line. I HAD TO STAND IN LINE WITH THE UNWASHED!

Thanks Obama!

Re: Time for a Crash
 

I would find the concerns about robots a little more compelling if people proposed that we give up our robot smartphones, robot washing machines, and our robot cars, and go back to non-robot messenger boys, non-robot washer women, and non-robot horses. Yesterday's robots are all awesome -- it's only tomorrow's robots that are the problem.

Re: Thanks Obama!
 

You're picking a jury. He's in your pool. Do you bounce him?

Re: Thanks Obama!
 

Doesn't it depend on what you're trying? In a criminal case, the prosecution would want him every time.

Re: Thanks Obama!
 

Why? Prosecutors never want someone who understands the law, right?

Re: Thanks Obama!
 

When I was on jury duty, a judge told me that prosecutors want someone whom the rest of the jury will listen to and follow, because then they can focus on that person.

Re: Thanks Obama!
 

I was in pool for a murder trial. The evidence was scientific- carpet fibers.

The D attorney asked us the question, "given what you know now, would you find my client guilty or not guilty?" People are saying, "I haven't decided yet," or some such.

She asked me and I said, "Well given the burdens, I would have to find not guilty, that's what you're trying to teach? Sort of a cheap trick."

Then the prosecutor asked what I did, and "patent attorney" on a case involving scientific evidence got him to send me home early!

Re: Time for a Crash
 

You have just summarized the plot of Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut, 1952.
(Unemployed and Underemployed Revolutionaries riot, smash the robots, and them rebuild them because the robots are, you know, cool.)

The fact that the unemployed lack a certain sense of irony doesn't destroy the premise.

Re: Thanks Obama!
 

I went to law school with the prosecutor in the only criminal jury that I have been in the pool for. The case was plead before they got to jury selection, so she never got to bump me.

The only other jury pool I've ever been on was some sort of HOA dispute. I got bumped as soon as I said "I don't believe in HOAs." Apparently Senator Rand and I have something in common.

Re: Thanks Obama!
 

I don't. I've only been involved in civil trials as a defendant. Most of them had a science element (engineering, industrial hygiene, hydro-geology, etc.). We always wanted smart jurors.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I served on a jury in a criminal trial when I was a midlevel associate at Biglaw. I was shocked I didn't get bumped because I was juror 60 something in the pool, but it was a child molestation case. We gave the guy 17 years for molesting his daughter, though I and a guy from an energy company had to talk up the people that wanted to give him probation.

To date, that is still the only courtroom legal activity in which I have participated.

Beige 5
 

Nothing infuriates Pitchfork as much as the blandly successful:

"It’s this utter lack of libido that ends up making Red Pill Blues so difficult to even finish. Soft rock and sex have a tricky relationship, and so do sex and Hot 100 pop. It’s the ostensible subject, or the ultimate aim, of 99% of the material, but actual, physical copulation is a nasty rumor to most of these songs. On “Lips on You,” Levine offers, in a gentlemanly way, to go down on you; the offer might be sexier if the heart-thump of the drum programming and the new age synth didn’t sound like Sting was servicing you in a Pier 1 Imports store."

Ick.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums...ed-pill-blues/

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Seb Gorka FTW.

Re: Beige 5
 

I had to take off my belt and put it on the conveyor. And then I had to put my belt back on. Fucking Obama.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

The goal is not to challenge them to duels, but to get them to challenge each other to duels. Let the herd thin itself.

caption, please
 

Re: Thanks Obama!
 

Depends on your case. My last trial I represented patentee for a patent on a caulking tube. there was a little bump of plastic on it that let air escape when the tube was filled. Ty could understand the technology is what I'm saying. A big issue was my firm made a math error when drafting the patent- it was meaningless, but Defendant made a big deal of it.

the potential jurors were asked, "have you ever gotten a patent?"

One guy says "yes." "on what?" "Several on high tech chemistry!"

I bounced that mf in a NY minute. I had a nice P And D were dirty copiers and the last thing I wanted was any juror smart enough to see past that, plus the guy said "high tech chemistry?" And my guy invented a bump on a piece of plastic? Umm nope. Plus, he seemed not the sort to forgive a math error. No jury for you!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

A couple of weeks after starting as a 1st year litigation associate at a big firm I was put on a jury for a multiple defendant felony murder case involving 8 or so victims. I was sure I wouldn't get picked since I was a lawyer - obviously wrong. After it was all over (for me at least) I went to watch the sentencing hearing, and afterwards spoke with the defense attorneys. They said they didn't bump me because they trusted I would understand their case.