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In the United States, we have had a rapidly growing money supply, based entirely on the Fed printing money, and it has not led to inflation.

This is misleading. The whole point of QE was to prevent a deflationary spiral in the aftermath of the financial crisis. So while it didn't lead to high inflation, it did lead to much higher inflation than we would have otherwise had.

The money was pumped into the financial sector and government. The Fed bought mortgages and government debt. I seem to recall the Fed buying some unusual loans, auto and the like, for a while.

The financial sector trades in financial and physical assets. It's the "house" for making bets on real life. There has been quite a bit of inflation in financial assets and real estate. The government, via the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) is heavily involved in real estate, financing (purchasing) nearly all new mortgages since the 2008 Financial Crisis.

There are two kinds of inflation: 1) Cost push and 2) Demand Pull (they mean what they say: cost push means costs are pushing the prices higher; demand pull means demand is pulling the prices higher). The definition of inflation is "the rate at which the general level of prices for goods and services is rising."

It does smell ridiculous that the government and central bank bailed out Wall Street for the benefit of the rest of society; that implies that Wall Street is operating for the benefit of the rest of society. I don't think that's true. The bailouts rescued the old system. The problem with the old system is that it was extractive, not productive.

Here is a link to the actual report: https://www2.deloitte.com/cont...

Reading it, they say that consumers do actually understand that companies (ab)use their personal data and share it with third parties. They also say that 91% are willing to accept legal terms when using apps, web sites and wifi without bothering to read them. Most importantly, since there is no real choice (everything has an EULA, all of them are impenetrable legalese) consumers don't see that as a barrier to ownership, just an inherent part of the technology.

So actually the summary of this report seems to be saying the opposite of what the report does. Consumers are not put off at all by privacy violations, they just accept that if they want that tech they have little choice.

Well how about that! Good for them. But there seems to be something wrong with the market in Italy. From this paper:

On the spot power market, Italy is one of only two European countries (with the UK) where prices on the power
exchange have not shown some higher degree of convergence over the 2011-2014 period. Electricity usually trades
at a premium compared to most continental peers due to high dependence on natural gas.

This indicates pretty strongly that market forces are not in fact at work. This is probably one reason:

In 2014, there still exists a regulated tariff for households and SMEs.

And finally, it looks like they tax the hell out of it to support renewables - plus the rates are dictated by the government to increase with consumption:

The general tendency of electricity prices to rise for final consumers is mainly driven by grid costs and
increasing taxes to support renewables development, as well as additional measures to promote energy
efficiency. Furthermore, the energy component of consumer electricity bills is influenced by the peculiar Italian
electricity mix, which is based mostly on gas. The electricity bill for all final consumers increased in the last few years,
but not uniformly, with wide differences between consumers depending on the amount of their consumption.
No provisions are in place to reduce charges to electricity-intensive consumers, unlike in most other countries. The
price dynamic for industrial users also raises competitive issues for the economy: as an example, a mid-size industrial
company with two similar producing facilities in Finland and in Italy will receive an electricity bill of 75 €/MWh from
Finland and of more than 200 €/MWh from Italy

So while there may be more of a market than there was 30 years ago, it's still heavily regulated and the rate structure is centrally planned.

It scares you that officials seek to do their job effectively?

The government does not handle money effectively nor efficiently.

They are infamous for fraud and waste.

Even their so-called success is insanely wasteful in comparison to alternatives.

Why? Because their goal is political support not financial wisdom.

So before digging deeper into my pockets I want them to figure out how to manage the trillions that they are already getting. Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, and most other private companies can manage to put out good products and continue to improve them year after year... and yet the government still hasn't fixed the huge pot hole on the off-ramp by my house that has been there for years. They infamously can't even put up a website to handle registrations for mandatory health care-- Google, operating on miniscule budget in comparison somehow manages to run a near monopoly on world internet searches.

Some taxes must be paid, of course!
But what if we could reduce taxes by twenty five percent and still have a surplus and still meet the government's obligations?

and there's no way SAP will allow someone to see data from their ERP system without paying for it. We've invested over $200 million in licensing fees and configuration. That isn't counting the money we've lost since it doesn't fit into our company's business model very well. After an audit in 1996 when we exposed data via a web site that I wrote in C in 1996 (which was like digging a hole to China with a spoon), we've paid user fees for customers since they have access to a small portion of their ERP data. It's great that we have a "single source of truth" with SAP and in the previous ten years before 1993 when we didn't use SAP things were just a disaster, but it's not worth the cost. Over my company's 45 year history, we've had total profits less than what we've pad to SAP which isn't including the about $75 million we spend in configuration.

According to:

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/mx/Documents/human-capital/01_ERP_Top10_Challenges.pdf

" 55% to 75% of all ERP projects fail to meet their objectives." I don't see how that number is not larger considering the difficulty in getting SAP to do even basic stuff and the cost of customization. From talking to friends that use SAP, I would guess the failure number would be well over 90%.

Dammit... broke the link. *plays jeopardy theme song while waiting out the multiple post delay timer*

https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/n...

> People say we're one of the top countries in manufacturing output, but the reality is that this is due to high dollar items like airplanes and weapons systems.

In 2015, US manufacturing generated $2.17 trillion.
Total 2015 defense and aerospace revenue (domestic and foreign sales) was less than one third of that at $682 billion.

Since NAFTA passed, US manufacturing output has increased by 70%. So even if we completely toss out all defense and aerospace and pretend there was zero such spending in 1990, that's still 16% growth.

> t I would definitely like to see all the manufacturing come back

It is coming back, reshoring has been a growing trend since the great recession. But much of it is automated, the industry is coming back but the jobs are not. Or more accurately, the jobs that are coming back require more education than the jobs that left since NAFTA.

Correlation is not causation.

I did not imply that it is, I said that it disproves your assertion. If you make an assertion that $X causes $Y, and we find an inverse correlation, then we can be pretty sure that $X does not cause $Y. You asserted that $ISM causes $OBSERVATION. I contend that assertion by observing that $ISM is actually inversely correlated to your $OBSERVATION.

And I doubt the correlation. Do you have any evidence to support your conclusion, like a peer reviewed study?

You would doubt it; your ideology fails if the correlation of "more options for girls" = "Less girls in CS". Let's look at my observations, shall we?

Iran (few female rights): females account for 70% CS and STEM graduates (source)

Gulf region (so few female rights they can't even display their face in linked photo): females account for 60% CS and STEM graduates (source)

Qatar (few female rights): females account for 60% of CS and STEM students (source)

Malaysia (few rights for women): females account for 52% of CS undergraduates (Peer reviewed source)

Now let's see what the top ten feminist countries in the world look like:

Finland: 32% female CS students (source)

Sweden (possibly the largest number of female rights in the world?): 22% CS grads (source

Norway - newest figure I can find on line is from 1999, so ignoring it for now

New Zealand: less than 33% female CS graduates (source).

UK: 13% female CS graduates (source)

Canada: 27% female graduates (maths and CS) (source)

USA: 18% female graduates in CS (source

Netherlands: Can't find sources for this either.

The best countries for female rights have fewer female CS graduates than the worst countries for female rights. This is directly observable.

Now that I got some of the numbers, you just know that I'm going to repost this list (not a link, the actual list) every time you make the incorrect assertion that sexism *must* be responsible for the dearth of females in CS.

My position is backed by evidence. Women's experiences, detailed and comprehensive studies. I'm on my phone now so ask again tomorrow if you want a list, but Wikipedia has a good article about it with 59 references: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

You've given a list of 59 references, of which only one academic article supports your position (somewhat tenously, but there you go). As it is clear that you did not read your own references, I'll leave it to you to figure out which one supports your $X causes $Y position. The other articles all repeat your mantra - that there are fewer females in CS - but none of them address the glaring issue of why this is not

Basically, I was wearing a bulletproof vest, but got shot in the leg.

You were wearing the a bulletproof vest produced by the same designer who made the Emperor's new clothes.

The Flu vaccine is no more effective than random chance, but it's a huge money maker for the pharmaceutical industry.

Another conspiracy against the Common Man!!! Annual pharmaceutical sales - approximately $1 trillion. http://www2.deloitte.com/conte... Annual flu vaccine sales - approximately $3 billion. http://www.kaloramainformation... Hugemoneymakerness index of flu vaccine to pharmaceutical industry - 0.003. (I just created this metric, but you get the idea)

Both. Scarcity will disappear for a larger portion of the population, but imo wealth is already just consuming higher-end versions of the same toys.
There will be a point where labor+logistics within the country will be a equation, but fuel costs and overseas instability will have to rise.
Such as
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-it-in-america/308844/
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/a-simple-graph-showing-the-american-manufacturing-worker-is-suddenly-an-incredible-bargain/266339/

But survey results from executives seem to disagree
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Industries/Process-Industrial-Products/manufacturing-competitiveness/mfg-competitiveness-index/index.htm?id=us_furl_pip_gcmi_121412

The biggest question I have is just how many shops will be able to re-awaken manufacturing at large-scale if/when. One of several common concerns:
http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/2012/08/28/4-key-roadblocks-to-u-s-manufacturing-competitiveness/

Many commercial free wifi services do similar tracking and even eavesdrop on the data passing through them (although of those with disclaimer portal pages, none have mentioned this). I always thought it was odd that so many of them run full-blown Windows...

http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GX/global/industries/technology-media-telecommunications/tmt-predictions-2011/telecommunications/16629ece1407d210VgnVCM2000001b56f00aRCRD.htm

They only off-shored because it was cheaper, and it was cheaper because American workers were not competitive enough.

Actually, according to a study cited in the gp's report, the top ranked driver for manufacturing location according to the 400 CEO's surveyed was employee talent driven innovation. Source This driver comprised the quality and availability of the companies skilled workers which, according to the survey, are recognized as the ones able to "continuously innovate and, simultaneously, improve production efficiency." This driver was ranked at 9.22 on a 10 point scale, whereas the cost of labor and materials was ranked second at 7.67.

Of course this still doesn't help because the US is lagging in a skilled workforce as well. The report goes on to address that the US is still lagging in STEM core components and without addressing them and other core areas of lagging advanced manufacturing , the US could very well fall deeper into a position where we are "shut out from competing altogether in certain industries as knowledge and inventions are increasingly produced abroad in addition to the products that result from them."

To put this in perspective,

The current account balance on a country describes whether it is a net importer or a net exporter of goods. Similarly, the current account balance of Canada with the US describes whether Canada is relatively a net exporter or net importer of goods from the USA.

Now, Canada has a net positive current account balance of around 2% GDP (IMF 2005) which means, overall, a stronger Canadian currency is a good thing for Canada (compared to the rest of the world).

However, the situation here is more about the dollar falling vis-a-vis all other currencies. And since the USA is the world's biggest net importer of goods with a current account balance of -6% (deficit) (IMF 2005), a weaker US currency is bad for the US, leading to inflationary pressure (All things become more expensive), which is further exacerbated by profligate spending by the government (essentially, the government prints money to spend, which reduces the value of ALL dollars).

At the same time, the natural correction is (as some readers point out), more manufacturing being done inside the USA to counter the current account imbalance. Less imports to the US, more exports from the US, more jobs in the US etc. etc. The challenge is to keep inflation in control at the same time.

The US is, however, exceptional in the global macro-economic context because it has the largest economy, and the de-facto world standard currency. The US currency is heavily supported by Asian banks which moderates the drop in it's value somewhat. All in all, a very interesting and complicated situation to learn about - you may wish to start with these:

http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/dtt_GlobEcon07_091506.pdf
http://www.jcif.or.jp/pdf/e_outlook2006.pdf

Amen to that! I just did I.T. as a way to pay for school. Now that I've got a grad degree I'm still stuck doing techie flunkie things. Our organization undervalues I.T. anyway, but 90% of these functions are outsourced which makes it even worse (picture turf wars and you get the idea). I'm desperately seeking another job in (any) analytical capacity - as long as I never have to hear another person complain about a broken mouse or popups.

Incidentally, Deloitte released a most interesting report on outsourcing some time ago. URL www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/us_outsourcin g_callingachange.pdf

That being said, the I.T. industry seems to be too unstable for long-term work/financial security. By that I mean the repeated cycles of oursourcing, overvalued stocks (even today sometimes), and all the mergers and acquisitions among other things. Instead of developing new talent or cultivating the talent they already have, companies "develop" new technology by gobbling up other companies. The resulting glut of buying can ruin them financially. I'm no economist, but that's just common sense to not buy more than one can afford!

Corporations have limited liability, meaning no one is liable for the actions of the corporation.

This is no longer correct, according to a 2002 law called Sarbanes-Oxley. Here is a page with links to information and analysis of the legislation.

Most of this is designed to protect investors from companies cooking their books, but it holds company executives directly (criminally) responsible for their company's financial misdeeds (whether or not they were aware of them). It didn't really work against Healthsouth CEO Scrushy, which is a bummer (because the guy is a total crook)...but I believe that this was a case of an incompotent prosecutor rather than a poorly written law.

How many of you are experiancing THAT?

Try The Buzzword Compliant Dictionary. Sadly, Bullfighter is no longer available.

Slashdot is so primitive

http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/research/0,2310,sid%25 3D1000%2526cid%253D28906,00.html

What a coincidince; I was just plugging a BS-o-meter earlier today.
Named "Bullfighter" from Deloitte & Touch, it is an add-in for MSword and PowerPoint. You can download the regular version or a for the nonprofit sector.
-theGreater Picador.

What a coincidince; I was just plugging a BS-o-meter earlier today.
Named "Bullfighter" from Deloitte & Touch, it is an add-in for MSword and PowerPoint. You can download the regular version or a for the nonprofit sector.
-theGreater Picador.

Funny i know, but actually such an app actually exists
Deloitte & Touche's Bullfighter

BullfighterTM is software that runs in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, within Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP. It works a lot like the spelling and grammar checker in those applications, but focuses on jargon and readability.

What you are referring to is enforceability of those laws. True, the US may not be able to enforce its laws against those resident in other countries who do not have presence or assets in the USA.

But it means anyone connected with such an operation better not have assets in the US. Or even visit the US.

And, depending on how the law is drafted, perhaps no person in the US (or with assets there) better use such an operation to *send* spam, or face being prosecuted, or other consequences. Vide internet gambling.

So that US laws, alone, could stop (a) American spammers; and (b) anyone in or doing business with America or visiting America or with assets there (NYSE shares, anyone?) from *using* overseas spammers who do not comply with US law.

And for those that are left, the US can just lean on other countries to enact similar laws, either as part of international treaties (GATT and TRIPS, anyone?) or bilateral trade treaties, or just by leaning on them.

Methinks that would do a great deal to cut down on spam...

If you doubt this, see how effectively the US is able to export its copyright laws to other countries. Or Sarbanes-Oxley, as applied to foreign lawyers or accountants. And how it is now doing the same thing with bank secrecy laws (with an emphasis on terrorism; it has done the same previously with respect to evasion of US taxes). There are many relevant links.