The Economist reports online about the "public sector employment bubble."

Actually, I had not seen that characterization before, and Economist does not use the terminology. I invented it because after the housing bubble - a real one - the term is up for grabs to suit anything a politician of any stripe wishes to say is inflated and due for shrinkage.

Economist, here in an opening intro and an in-depth follow-up article here looks at the US situation, already noted by NY Times and derivatively by Crabgrass; this link. You know it's Brits producing the graph below, because of the spelling, "labour."

With private sector unionism waning as charted, the looming big business alliance - Chamber of Commerce target is not hard to discern. Dem bureaucrats, cut Dem down to size, ya betcha. And most probably are Dem, to further fan the flames of GOP labor undermining passions. And if the drumbeat is heard across the Atlantic, can you doubt it's being strongly orchestrated? Movement in lockstep is always interesting to see, and to ponder.

What would John Galt say?

We know whatever it is, Ayn Rand, were she still sucking air and writing volumes, would tell us but would take 802 pages to do so, as to her Galt and this Economist item.

RAMSEY - This from Michele Bachmann, showing her and a collection of other publicity hounds looking stupid with hard hats and shovels.

Isn't it wonderful how they posed and cropped the thing, to show Jim Deal's building in the background but without showing the big "For Lease" sign on it? And not showing much of the empty sand-bur fields, the vastness and truth of what Ramsey Town Center really is. The camera can do wonderous things in the right hands.

_________UPDATE__________
Unless I am wrong, Bachmann is second from the left, and Jim Deal second from the right (and the only left-hander in the bunch). The background sign indicates PSD,LLC builds and owns, with the VA renting. Readers can help on two things, identifying each of the magnificent seven, and disclosing terms and conditions of the VA-PSD lease.

The Gifford shooting in Arizona. Krugman editorialzes, "Climate of Hate."

This link, stating in its opening part:

When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?

Put me in the latter category. I’ve had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the final stages of the 2008campaign. I remembered the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 — an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again. The Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion: in April 2009 an internal report warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence.

Conservatives denounced that report. But there has, in fact, been a rising tide of threats and vandalism aimed at elected officials, including both Judge John Roll, who was killed Saturday, and Representative Gabrielle Giffords. One of these days, someone was bound to take it to the next level. And now someone has.

It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.

Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness — but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence.

And there’s not much question what has changed. As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, it’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.

[italics added] Toxic rhetoric is an apt description.

Put me in the same category as Krugman, in not being too surprised that an inflamed and troubled right-winger did this. It was spawned by some who in the recent past were reveling in divisiveness amid a hyperbolic rhetoric of violence.

Further links to consider: Here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, noting at p.2,

Law enforcement recovered a Glock 9mm pistol that Loughner bought in November [probably post-election] and is alleged to have used in the shooting, according to the [released official] statement.

Hat tip to Avidor at Dump Bachmann, for the Krugman and City Pages links.

Surely it can be said that pointing fingers now is political opportunism, and there is that flavor. However, it's a good time for a Jesus lesson for the Jesus Jockeys among the collection of those who said in the past what they said, and now aptly should be called to task; hence let of all things Urban Dictionary carry the lesson to these self-supposing savants.

Finally, the worse of reactions is lying disingenuousness along with an utter and shameful self-denial of what one has quite recently done and said previously, as if suddenly a victim of a total [and suitably convenient] short term memory failure; this troubling link.

Hypocrites of the world, unite.

You now have a standard bearer whose audacity you are hard pressed to match. One who appears to want the reap-and-sow adage to reach only to others. Not for the home front. Not for the more blatant of the toxic rhetoricians.

"I was only speaking figuratively, and please forget I spoke at all," just does not cut it, no way, no how. Dead bodies exist. The killer was "armed and dangerous," as urged.

Leftists criticize, constructively. Right-wingnuts aim to kill.

__________UPDATE___________
In the doomed to repeat forgotten history queue, Bradblog publishes this leaflet circulated in Dallas the day before the Kennedy shooting, (click it to enlarge and read - it's the best resolution available from the original post at Bradblog).

Palin and Bachmann had toxic rhetoric precursors, and invented nothing themselves. Their thing has been using it as a springboard in office seeking.

The entire Bradblog post is worth reader attention. Again, this link.

The United States will need to come to terms with the fact that its prevalence in the world is fated to come to an end, Jorgenson said. This will be difficult for many Americans to swallow and the United States should brace for social unrest amid blame over who was responsible for squandering global primacy, he said.

It was the leadership string who wasted the legacy starting with Johnson, the death of Kennedy, the plunge deeper into Vietnam without letting people know the guns and butter Econ 101 situation. Then the Bushes, they along with Nixon, Clinton, and now Obama - and the accompanying Congresses and the lobbyists who wasted the legacy yet more. It was putting Wall Street ahead of Main Street which dates back at least to 1913 and creation of the Federal Reserve - a "national bank," but one owned and run by and for the banking elite. When the national interest and the banking elite interests differ, guess who gets served and who is kept waiting in line. And only Ron Paul and a few others are telling near truths about the set-up. And the press [now, the "media"] marginalizes that viepoint. But figure who, including especially Rupert Murdoch, owns that voice and outlet.

The headline is a quote from within an interesting Reuters, Jan. 9, 2011 item, stating in part:

Economists foretell of U.S. decline, China's ascension
(Reuters) - To hear a number of prominent economists tell it, it doesn't look good for the U.S. economy, not this year, not in 10 years.

Leading thinkers in the dismal science speaking at an annual convention offered varying visions of U.S. economic decline, in the short, medium and long term. This year, the recovery may bog down as government stimulus measures dry up.

In the long run, the United States must face up to inevitably being overtaken by China as the world's largest economy. And it may have missed a chance to rein in its largest financial institutions, many of whom remain too big to fail and are getting bigger.

Most estimates put the size of the Chinese economy on par with the United States by the early 2020s, said Dale Jorgenson, also of Harvard.

Jorgenson sees Asian emerging markets as the most dynamic in the world, eclipsing other emerging market contenders such as Brazil and Russia with steady growth over the next decade.

"The rise of developing Asia is going to accompany slower world economic growth," he said.

The United States will need to come to terms with the fact that its prevalence in the world is fated to come to an end, Jorgenson said. This will be difficult for many Americans to swallow and the United States should brace for social unrest amid blame over who was responsible for squandering global primacy, he said.

MIT's Simon Johnson put it more bluntly, saying the damage from the financial crisis and its aftermath have dealt U.S. prominence a permanent blow.

"The age of American predominance is over," he told a panel. "The (Chinese) Yuan will be the world's reserve currency within two decades."

Johnson said he believes the United States has failed to learn its lesson from the financial crisis and continues to implicitly back its largest financial institutions.

"I'm concerned about the excessive power of the largest global banks," he said. "Who are the government-sponsored enterprises now? It's the six biggest bank holding companies."

There are caveats and counter-opinions in the item, so read the entire thing. But the government is controlled by the banks, big corporations, and they control and bid via the lobbyists, many of whom are former elected officials - cashing in for what they delivered while in office.

Dayton in leaving aptly called DC "a cesspool" and I wonder if any readers honestly see any end in sight - in terms of mismanagement and the few commanding and holding up the many.

It's highway robbery. And the wealthy elite owns the highway, telling everyone else to stand and deliver.

So, Republicans and Dems alike, wave those tiny US of A flags, made in China. True patriotism costs more - much more - than putting on a show via paying the price of a Chinese-made flag and lapel pin. It means calling out the economic movers and shakers; and beyond that, fairly taxing the lot of them all instead of allowing them, as now, to skate. To run the show without paying for the privilege is their agenda - and one the rest of us are under and must overcome.

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image from this link

You don't recognize the commerce trade marks of the banks on the bandits and horse rumps in the cartoon? Well, it's an Australian item, and it's their banks - but that's Yogi Berra's "Deja vu all over again" at play. It is true for any nations four largest banking enterprises; and that's one of the big scares in globalization. Besides shipping all the nation's  manufacturing jobs to China, all the global banks are in cahoots.

Evidence debunking the naysayer group chanting, "Single Payer in the US of A is financially unsustainable." No secret. Redistribution works.

This NY Times link, this excerpt:

Parts of Brazil look like southern California. Parts of it look like Haiti. Many countries display great wealth side by side with great poverty. But until recently, Brazil was the most unequal country in the world.

Today, however, Brazil’s level of economic inequality is dropping at a faster rate than that of almost any other country. Between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians. Poverty has fallen during that time from 22 percent of the population to 7 percent.

Contrast this with the United States, where from 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent of earners. (see this great series in Slate by Timothy Noah on American inequality) Productivity among low and middle-income American workers increased, but their incomes did not. If current trends continue, the United States may soon be more unequal than Brazil.

"More unequal" in that context means nothing but less compassionate, more heartless, nastier. Given that the US is the wealthiest of nations, there is NO EXCUSE.

More from the item, showing what makes sense vs. what's done by "leadership" in the US:

The program, called Bolsa Familia (Family Grant) in Brazil, goes by different names in different places. In Mexico, where it first began on a national scale and has been equally successful at reducing poverty, it is Oportunidades. The generic term for the program is conditional cash transfers. The idea is to give regular payments to poor families, in the form of cash or electronic transfers into their bank accounts, if they meet certain requirements. The requirements vary, but many countries employ those used by Mexico: families must keep their children in school and go for regular medical checkups, and mom must attend workshops on subjects like nutrition or disease prevention. The payments almost always go to women, as they are the most likely to spend the money on their families. The elegant idea behind conditional cash transfers is to combat poverty today while breaking the cycle of poverty for tomorrow.

In Mexico, Oportunidades today covers 5.8 million families, about 30 percent of the population. An Oportunidades family with a child in primary school and a child in middle school that meets all its responsibilities can get a total of about $123 a month in grants. Students can also get money for school supplies, and children who finish high school in a timely fashion get a one-time payment of $330.

Bolsa Familia, which has similar requirements, is even bigger. Brazil’s conditional cash transfer programs were begun before the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but he consolidated various programs and expanded it. It now covers about 50 million Brazilians, about a quarter of the country. It pays a monthly stipend of about $13 to poor families for each child 15 or younger who is attending school, up to three children. Families can get additional payments of $19 a month for each child of 16 or 17 still in school, up to two children. Families that live in extreme poverty get a basic benefit of about $40, with no conditions.

Do these sums seem heartbreakingly small? They are. But a family living in extreme poverty in Brazil doubles its income when it gets the basic benefit. It has long been clear that Bolsa Familia has reduced poverty in Brazil. But research has only recently revealed its role in enabling Brazil to reduce economic inequality.

The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank are working with individual governments to spread these programs around the globe, providing technical help and loans. Conditional cash transfer programs are now found in 14 countries in Latin America and some 26 other countries, according to the World Bank. (One of the programs was in New York City — a small, privately-financed pilot program called Opportunity NYC. A preliminary evaluation showed mixed success, but it is too soon to draw conclusions.) Each program is tailored to local conditions. Some in Latin America, for example, emphasize nutrition. One in Tanzania is experimenting with conditioning payments on an entire community’s behavior.

That is a substantial gist of the item, but the original is even more detailed.

People running those other nations must be more enlightened, or more humane, than those NOT doing similar things in our very prosperous nation. Put the programs in place, single payer and direct redistribution, and the money can be found. Perhaps Helmsley at United Health could take a few hundred million less per year, or take it but then be taxed out of at least half of it, for the benefit of all in the nation where he, clearly beyond any doubt, gets more.

Put another way - Tax the rich. Decent government exists primarily to protect the poor from the rich and the rich from each other. Bernie Madoff is in jail for a crime of rich-on-rich. That part is not the problem. It's in place, even with glitches. Figure out what's not in place and who marginally benefits that way.

Reading. Economic thinking - Bernanke's motives, coinciding bubbles, trust me, and such.

Here, here, here, here, here and here. Sornette has written a substantial amount of econophysics literature, much on extreme events, bubbles, earthquakes, etc. The arXiv site is interesting for anyone who's unfamiliar with it, and worth exploring. I have no idea who Vince is, but his view of economic matters has some sense to it, in a Ron Paul way. Enjoy.

________UPDATE_________
More Sornette, terminology aside, perhaps interesting, here. Author listing, SSRN, here.