Faking the Hand-off

One more article in the popular press proposes that the economy is waiting for consumers or employers to blink...this one suggests that employers will blink first.

Employer-consumer standoff is key to economy - Stocks & economy- msnbc.com: "Therein lies the standoff that helps explain the weakness of the recovery and the depth of the jobs crisis. Each side — employers on one, consumers on the other — is waiting for the other to spend more. Until then, the recovery will likely feel shaky. And job openings will be few."

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Will the employers blink or wink? Certain sectors like restaurants are likely to increase hiring when there are more consumers. However, quite a few of the firms who create high-paying jobs are not waiting for demand to come back. Demand has come back, especially in other countries. When consumers are shifting their purchases, on the margin, from physical stores to Amazon, it does not create as many jobs at Amazon when compared to the impact on the physical stores. Firms like GE, Yahoo, IBM and others are hiring in huge numbers in India- the intellectual work can be done anywhere.

It is time that the politicians and media start reporting the hard truth- either we work and pray for another "Internet-like phenomenon"that will drive explosive job growth, or work on continuous improvement and accept the realism of higher unemployment and lower pay without a dramatic lowering of affordability and life style.

Nothing to Short Home About...

It is amazing to watch government's efforts, with all the hazards built in, to deal with the mortgage and foreclosure issues.

Short-Sale Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss - NYTimes.com: "Taking effect on April 5, the program could encourage hundreds of thousands of delinquent borrowers who have not been rescued by the loan modification program to shed their houses through a process known as a short sale, in which property is sold for less than the balance of the mortgage. Lenders will be compelled to accept that arrangement, forgiving the difference between the market price of the property and what they are owed.

“We want to streamline and standardize the short sale process to make it much easier on the borrower and much easier on the lender,” said Seth Wheeler, a Treasury senior adviser."

Bugged...by Bugs

Op-Ed Columnist - The Spread of Superbugs - NYTimes.com: "Mr. Dukes, 52, picked up a kind of bacteria called ESBL-producing E. coli. While it’s conceivable that he touched a contaminated surface, a likely scenario is that he ate tainted meat, said Dr. Brad Spellberg, an infectious-diseases specialist and the author of “Rising Plague,” a book about antibiotic resistance.

Vegetarians are also vulnerable to antibiotic resistance nurtured in hog barns. Microbes swap genes, so antibiotic resistance developed in pigs can jump to microbes that infect humans in hospitals, locker rooms, schools or homes.

Routine use of antibiotics to raise livestock is widely seen as a major reason for the rise of superbugs. But Congress and the Obama administration have refused to curb agriculture’s addiction to antibiotics, apparently because of the power of the agribusiness lobby."

Poverty...of Thought

Went to Odyssey, a bookstore in Gandhinagar this afternoon. A nice bookstore in the hustle and bustle. The clientele appeared to be on the heavier side- figuratively, not intellectually. A look at one segment of society. As I came out I walked past an older woman carrying five big bags on her back and she was asking for money. Could not help but give her a big note- I thought of my mother and how society could be so cruel, to put an old woman in that state. As I walking further, a car pulled out of a restaurant and a woman in her twenties rolled down the window and threw out trash, with no consideration of the outside world. Ah! The frustrations!