That Stay Puft Man

One of the funniest bits in all of film comedy is the Stay Puft Man vignette in "Ghostbusters". It would be nice to see that look on the faces of Fat Men in Famine (way back in May, 2010 they were my subject). As second prize, is today's NY Times; a mother lode of confirmation. I just got back from my reading of the dead trees version, and here are the stories which relate to Obese Oligarches (comforting to see that the Mainstream Media finally gets it):

Corporations cash out and layoff
LinkedIn's execs cash out, big time
Europe's continuing angst
the party never started

I'll give you just one quote (from the first cite):
"But spending on capital investments like new plants and infrastructure has stagnated more broadly in corporate America, confounding efforts by the Obama administration to spur economic growth. Capital expenditures by companies on the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index are expected to total $546 billion in 2011, down from $560 billion in 2008, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters Eikon."

As the Fat Man pieces explain, when you've got lots o cash, deflation is the guaranteed, risk free, way to acquire income. Now, that's what's wrong with this country. What the Right Wingnuts won't admit, for if they did their arguments collapse, is that the "debt" of our middle class (here and in Europe) is the necessary cost/price of capitalists' wealth. Without the cash, no one buys the stuff, and if no one buys the stuff, there's no return on capital. Note, carefully, the implication of the quote; to the extent that corporations make "profit" from financial manipulations rather than goods production, is the measure (inverse, alas) of an economy's stature. Jesus threw out the money changers. Oddly, our self-righteous Right Wingnuts don't seem to mind them. As I've written a number of times, economic growth isn't measured by cash increasing, but by increasing production of consumable goods. The only way for a business to re-pay debt is to generate *new* income (or cut costs, but that's explicitly limited to shutting down the business) levels from increased production. Real economic growth comes from better production, not money manipulation. Wall Street Banksters managed to change the rules to favour money manipulation. We, and not they, are the ones harmed by such "free market" decisions.

That last cite might seem out of place. But it fits in this way: I watch Bill Maher's show on Friday/HBO when he doesn't load up on Right Wingnuts; however, during his last show he ranted that college students were not majoring in science and engineering enough to suit him. He quoted some numbers, I forget the particulars, but he contrasted performance art (or somesuch) to engineering (ditto), with the former number of graduates greater than the latter.

Here's a paper looking at the issue, and a quote:
"Paul J. Kostek, who previously managed career activities as vice president of IEEE-USA, the electrical and electronic engineering institute, says there is no shortage. 'You saw what happened to the price of gasoline when there was a shortage last summer. If there's a shortage of engineers, why aren't people paying $200,000 to hire an engineer.'"

There's been plenty of anecdotal evidence that undergraduates flocked to Finance just because it was less rigorous and more lucrative. It's no secret that a degree from a business school was worth many Bongo Bucks. Not so much anymore. It's also documented that undergraduates are leaving computer science; there's no way to earn back the cost competing against a $2/hour Indian.