C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh — And Now, Price Deflation in India and China?

 Obviously other factors must also be at play in the ongoing producer price deflation in both countries. It may be that the features that have operated to cause price deflation in the advanced economies – inadequate effective demand because of suppression of wage incomes and continuing emphasis on fiscal consolidation, with very loose monetary policies no longer working as stimulus – are also operated to at least some degree in these economies. 

Clearly, the lack of “decoupling” of these economies from the advanced economies goes beyond GDP and extends also to the behaviour of producer prices. This can only add to the concerns for policy makers in both countries, especially in India where debt default is already putting major strains on bank balance sheets.

TripleCrisis
And Now, Price Deflation in India and China?
C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh

Yves Smith — Why George Lucas, Eric Schmidt, (and yes, Steve Jobs) Should Go to Jail: Conspiring to Reduce Wages of 100,000 Tech Pros

Conspiracy theory or conspiracy? More heroes with feet of clay?

Naked Capitalism
Why George Lucas, Eric Schmidt, (and yes, Steve Jobs) Should Go to Jail: Conspiring to Reduce Wages of 100,000 Tech Pros
Yves Smith

Robert Oak — Comprehensive Immigration Bill is a Disaster for American Workers

America has a problem, a big problem. We have a Congress who will only act when powerful lobbyists throw enough money at them. Such is the result of the new Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill. This bill will be an unmitigated disaster for working America. The bill increases the U.S. legal labor supply by at least 14 million by giving not just those here illegally legal status but also those who were previously deported who still have family members in the U.S. the legal status to work. Yet the massive increase in the U.S. labor supply caused by legalizing those here unauthorized isn't even half of the labor disaster story this bill will bring....

Hit particularly hard will be American Scientists, Technologists, Engineers and Mathematicians (STEM). Not only will the bill increase H-1B Visas from 85,000 to 135,000, they are allowing the limit to go to 180,000 per year. That is basically all of the jobs created each year in these occupations. That means every single STEM job would end up beingforeigners preferred, forcing U.S. workers out of their careers as the faux pas worker protections are clearly written to be vague and loophole ridden. Just as lobbyists wrote this turkey in actuality, big business will also make sure any U.S. workers protections will be removed before actual legislation passage.

We have shown many times, there is no labor shortage at any skill level in the United States. In particular there is no labor shortage in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics occupational areas. Yet in this bill there would be no limits [f]or instant green cards for the below occupational categories....

The Economic Populist
Comprehensive Immigration Bill is a Disaster for American Workers
Robert Oak

More wage repression and a further attack on labor bargaining power in order to increase profit share.