Global Economy Bursting?

[Riick]

>> And if you hold 2 part time jobs you are counted twice....

Ergo, not even # of the part time jobs went up.....?
/

 

[Restrain]

There are low-end jobs to be had around here at convenience stores, etc, but the signs all say "Part Time". Employers are still looking at contractor-hires instead of employee hires, especially in IT.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Wal-Mart uses that ploy a lot. The maintenance and janitorial is almost all by service companies. It creates a "firewall" between them and the illegals that may be filling the jobs. Ditto for Tyson and other poultry companies. The chicken catchers are contractors. The feed haulers, etc. etc. Let someone else deal with it.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Chinese Solar Panel Giant Is Tainted by Bankruptcy

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/b....html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130321

It was the Icarus of the solar power industry. And, on Wednesday, it fell to earth.

The main subsidiary of Suntech Power, one of the world’s largest makers of solar panels, collapsed into bankruptcy in a remarkable reversal for what had been part of a huge Chinese government effort to dominate renewable energy industries.

The bankruptcy is a sign of the worldwide consolidation of the solar industry, which has been crippled by a glut of products on world markets and Western tariffs on Chinese products. It also signals China’s unwillingness to continue to subsidize struggling manufacturers in the industry, which is contributing to the steep decline of its green energy pursuits.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

The Face of Future Health Care

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/b....html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130321

When people talk about the future of health care, Kaiser Permanente is often the model they have in mind.

The organization, which combines a nonprofit insurance plan with its own hospitals and clinics, is the kind of holistic health system that President Obama’s health care law encourages.

Kaiser has sophisticated electronic records and computer systems that — after 10 years and $30 billion in technology spending — have led to better-coordinated patient care, another goal of the president. And because the plan is paid a fixed amount for medical care per member, there is a strong financial incentive to keep people healthy and out of the hospital, the same goal of the hundreds of accountable care organizations now being created.

Although Kaiser Permanente is considered an example of the future of health care, its chief acknowledges that it has not been able to deliver that care at a low enough cost.

“We think the future of health care is going to be rationing or re-engineering,” he said.

He also says that the way to get costs lower is to move care farther and farther from the hospital setting — and even out of doctors’ offices.

He also argues that lower costs are going to be about finding ways to get people to take more responsibility for their health — for losing weight, for example, or bringing their blood pressure down.

“The more you restrict the patient’s ability to do what they want, you risk reigniting the backlash we had in the past,” Mr. Lansky said.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

China's problem is that bad loans threaten their banking system...where have we heard that before? The Solar glut managed to ruin the U. S. manufacturers but seems the Chineses started something they couldn't stop and now the subsidized costs are coming to light they have to choose between their banks and their companies.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Chicago Says It Will Close 54 Public Schools

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/education/chicago-says-it-will-close-54-public-schools.html?_r=0

After weeks of uncertainty, principals were officially notified of the closings, which represent the largest group of campuses to be shut down at one time by a city in recent memory.

The closings represent about 8 percent of the 681 public schools in Chicago, the third-largest school district in the country. More than 400,000 students are enrolled in public schools, a large majority black or Hispanic and from low-income families.

Union leaders and parent activists protested the decision, saying that closings can undermine neighborhoods and cause safety problems for students who may as a result have to cross gang lines.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

He also argues that lower costs are going to be about finding ways to get people to take more responsibility for their health — for losing weight, for example, or bringing their blood pressure down.

Great, why not do that now? I would love to manage my own BP and blood sugars. Will doctors let me? They insist upon you being there every 90 days for blood work (cha-ching $290), follow ups the following week (cha-ching $110); if they are confused they send you to the specialist (cha-ching $385); He follows up 90 days (can-ching $325 blood work, $85 office); meanwhile Doctor 1 is yammering at you to come back... Blood work again - the specialist didn't check your chloresteral...and you need an EKG...(Cha-ching $450); and, the inevitable follow up (Cha-ching $110)...now how does that work? The GP charges $110 for the follow up but the specialist only chargest $85???? All to tell you that your arteries are clear, your ticker is fine, your BP is under control and by the way....why the L are you here you haven't been sick in 2 years?

 

[Randolph Kinney]

A Strange Computer Promises Great Speed

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/t....html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130322

Lockheed Martin will make commercial use of quantum computing, which could solve some business and science problems millions of times faster than can be done today.

A powerful new type of computer that is about to be commercially deployed by a major American military contractor is taking computing into the strange, subatomic realm of quantum mechanics. In that infinitesimal neighborhood, common sense logic no longer seems to apply. A one can be a one, or it can be a one and a zero and everything in between — all at the same time.

Quantum computing relies on the fact that subatomic particles inhabit a range of states. Different relationships among the particles may coexist, as well. Those probable states can be narrowed to determine an optimal outcome among a near-infinitude of possibilities, which allows certain types of problems to be solved rapidly.

There are a variety of ways scientists create the conditions needed to achieve superposition as well as a second quantum state known as entanglement, which are both necessary for quantum computing. Researchers have suspended ions in magnetic fields, trapped photons or manipulated phosphorus atoms in silicon.

In the D-Wave system, a quantum computing processor, made from a lattice of tiny superconducting wires, is chilled close to absolute zero. It is then programmed by loading a set of mathematical equations into the lattice.

The processor then moves through a near-infinity of possibilities to determine the lowest energy required to form those relationships. That state, seen as the optimal outcome, is the answer.

While similar subatomic properties are used by plants to turn sunlight into photosynthetic energy in a few million-billionths of a second, critics of D-Wave’s method say it is not quantum computing at all, but a form of standard thermal behavior.

 

[Big ole Boy]

Yes,

... this machine as they say ..... can transfer information faster than the speed of light ...

... this ability is "Bitcoin" on steroids ....

.... this is the foundation of unbounded fiat currency .......

... currency that reflects the holographic nature of and expanding cosmos ....

... noosephere economics

... type 1 civilization stuff

... the end of scarcity and debt and inflation in any traditional sense