Walmart hires Dan Bartlett, former George W. Bush spokesman, as executive VP

Walmart has announced the hiring of Dan Bartlett as executive vice president for corporate affairs.
Bartlett, who's been in PR, is best known as former spokesman for President George W. Bush. His work included pushing reporters to find out who sent Joseph Wilson to Niger (the famous incident that ultimately led to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame) and defending Bush against post-administration charges by a former aide, Scott McClellan, that the administration had been untruthful in the runup to the Iraq war and in the Plame matter.
He did speak bluntly and accurately on at least one occasion, as told in Wikipedia:

At the end of 2007 Bartlett, during an interview with Evan Smith published in the January '08 Texas Monthly, implied some conservative bloggers, such as Hugh Hewitt, were unfiltered mouthpieces for the GOP and Bush White House.

I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.

Rush Limbaugh, Mr. Bartlett from Walmart is on the line.
He'll be moving to Northwest Arkansas, where he should feel right at home.
WALMART NEWS RELEASE
Dan Bartlett Joins Walmart as
Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs

BENTONVILLE, Ark., May 22, 2013 — Today Walmart announced that Dan Bartlett, 41, will become the company’s new executive vice president of Corporate Affairs in late June. Bartlett was most recently president and CEO of the U.S. arm of Hill+Knowlton Strategies, a global business advisory firm serving corporations, non-profits and associations in 52 countries.

Bartlett will report to Mike Duke, Walmart’s president and CEO, and will serve as a member of the company’s executive council. His responsibilities will include oversight of external communications, government relations and sustainability, as well as the Walmart Foundation, which contributed more than $1 billion in cash and in-kind donations last year.

“Corporate Affairs plays a strong role in helping us meet our business objectives at Walmart,” said Mike Duke. “The team also helps us step up to the broader role we can play in meeting some of the biggest social challenges in the world today — issues like fighting hunger, job creation, sustainability, women’s economic empowerment and the availability of healthier food.”

Duke added, “Dan’s personal integrity, strong professional skills and broad understanding of world affairs make him the ideal leader to continue moving us forward. He has had key roles in government and at a major communications company. He has also counseled a wide range of multinational corporate clients in areas such as growth strategy, crisis management and public opinion. He is known for being straightforward, a good listener and collaborative — all traits that will serve him well at Walmart.”

“Growing up in a small Texas town, I've seen first-hand the opportunity Walmart provides and the positive impact it can have on local communities,” said Bartlett. “Now Walmart is in a unique position to make a difference in the lives of millions of people around the world. I am honored and excited to be part of that.”

At Hill+Knowlton, Bartlett helped lead the firm’s international growth and managed its day-to-day operations. He provided strategic counsel to the company’s largest accounts, which represent key industries, including finance, telecommunications and defense. He has also helped multinational companies and NGOs build and align their sustainability, public policy and philanthropic programs.

Prior to this, Bartlett was a senior counselor to President George W. Bush. In this role he was responsible for all aspects of the president’s strategic communications planning, formulation of policy and implementation of the president’s agenda. He also oversaw the White House press office and the Offices of Communications, Media Affairs and Speechwriting and Global Communications. Bartlett also played a key role in George W. Bush’s presidential and Texas gubernatorial campaigns.

Bartlett has a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently an adjunct professor at the university’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

The Economic Crisis and the American Dream

The Economic Crisis and the American Dream

I do not know what is going on anymore.  I mean the reality we have to endure seems to be slipping in the cracks of the political intent.  I understand somewhat the intent of President Obama’s job bill, but will it fix anything or just allow us to travel down the road of disaster at a slower but steady pace?  We are on a road towards economic destruction and there may well be no turning back.

Are we about to repeat the same folly that caused the economic crisis in the first place or will we design a system of genuine change.  Is President Obama’s administration’s intelligence level over estimated? Is he really a very smart man or just another politician with smooth words and style.  If he is the intelligent man I came to believe he is, it is about time he showed me something.

President Obama needs to return to the grassroots that created him and come to the frontline and see real people in real time in real situations, then and only then will he get a grasp of reality about the economic situation Americans must endure.   He talks a good game, but I am sorry I am not feeling it.

You have to take it to the street Mr. President.   The American dream is dead.  The first law of nature is self preservation and people are starting to do whatever is necessary to survive.  Young parents are selling their body and souls to feed their children to people who have little more than them, meaning very cheap on the streets.  And if you go to a typical street corner 9 out of 10 of the people out there are selling drugs because they are starving.  So to eat they sell poison to their neighbors in the form of crack, dope and ecstasy.  As they themselves smoke marijuana to live with themselves.  That is reality!  The American Dream is Dead!

We no longer believe in the American dream, when the education of illiterate afghans supersede feeding Americans.  Are the afghans required to take drug tests or ship us heroin?  The American dream is dead Mr. President and reality is the matter of facts.  As we spend more money on the Pentagon to dominate militarily around the world, Americans are starving literally.  It isn’t right.

This jobs bill is a joke and will not be taken seriously in Washington.   Just because you can afford crack does not make it a good buy.  This is crack economics.  This is spending money simply to support a habit.  All it does is support a habit the government has called aimlessly spending and it is not a good idea, because it does not deal with any of the real issues that must be addressed.

People are afraid to invest their money because there is no foreseeable return on a new investment and those in business are simply trying not to lose it all and be forced to go out of business.  We need an incentive for investment at the small business level and not big corporate America.  I could create 10 jobs with under $50G.

There is no investment capital for the small businesses.  We at the NCNCHINC like many organizations are stalled due to no investment capital.  We have a building worth $125 that we cannot open due to a $10G roof, we have a restaurant we are welling to turn into a soup kitchen to feed the poor who are only getting poorer and cannot do it because we can not pass code inspections.  We cannot operate our businesses because of investment capital, because the banks are also holding on to their money.  So people who could invest are not because out of fear of losing their investment capital as well as the banks and this package does nothing to address these fears.

Fear has replaced the dream of America!  America does not need continued unemployment, we need jobs.  We do not need to just build infrastructure we need jobs.  What good is a new paved road and renovated schools when you cannot afford gas to drive your car or repairs to keep it on the road, while the mother of the children in schools gets sick from AIDS trying to make ends meet?  This is a joke and it is not funny at all!

The American Mentality needs an overhaul.  We legalize same sax marriage to prove what?  And in the name of Hollywood fixated love?  We are a sick nation about to fall.  We have oppressive drug laws for what, to punish?  Don’t tell me it is about the security of American Society, because it is another Hollywood lie.  Mr. President we are dying due to our sick mindset as a nation.

Unemployment benefits cannot fix this, it will only prolong the agony.   While you give me $200 you give a singer, baseball player and actor billions to fool us into believing in a lie called the American dream?    Children do not want to go to school they want to be baseball players and entertainers not because of reality but because it is the dream, they were sold and that is your problem.  They want to be drug dealers because they heard of Frank Lucas and saw American Gangster in the movies.  As Hollywood glorifies sicknesses and you allow it. It is so bad now that even the news is nothing more than entertainment and half lies and you wonder why this nation is about to be destroyed?

Mr. President and the United States Congress, please address the real issues, which will require many bills being passed from regulating Hollywood for the security of our nation, to putting money in the hands of small businesses to creating new laws and ordinances to allow businesses to operate. And please stop playing games.

Ecuador Celebrates Best Dark Chocolate in the World

Pacari Chocolate was started as a small, family owned company in 2000 by Santiago Peralta and Carla Barboto. The couple set out to build a business that was based on socially and environmentally sustainable principals to ensure that their products would support the well-being of the land and community they were a part of. They also sought to keep their core ingredient, the native Arriba Nacional cacao, from nature to consumption, as pure as possible and in so doing created the first single-origin, organic chocolate made entirely in Ecuador. (http://3dms-adult-sites.blogspot.com/)
Pacari now exports to 19 countries around the world and has been recognized by the leading dark chocolate authority, SeventyPercent.com as being one of the world's best dark chocolates.
Throughout their journey, Pacari has kept focus on their mission statement and commitment to their ecosystem. From growers to producers, the founders and the company at large are involved in every step of production, ensuring the healthy, ecologically conscious and consistent delivery of quality, organic products to their worldwide buyers.
Pacari Chocolate is a representation of the excellence achieved by many small and medium sized Ecuadorian companies. The growth in globally successful Ecuadorian exporters is in part a result of the outstanding efforts of the Government of Ecuador under President Rafael Correa’s Popular and Solidarity Economy, which has encouraged independent and mirco producers to band together as associations (called AEPYS or Actores de la Economia Popular y Solidaria). The collective or AEPYS, operating as a unified group, is able to meet and fulfill the market demand on a consistent basis, while maintaining the highest quality. AEPYS exist in all industries, with an emphasis on food, textile and agricultural products.
According to the National Assembly of Ecuador (Asamblea Nacional del Ecuador) in 2010, 48.9% of total employment was generated by enterprises with 1 to 10 employees; these micro and small enterprises generated 67.1% of total employment. Revenues from small business accounted for 27.7% of the gross domestic product.
"Pacari Chocolate is one of many outstanding, globally successful companies from Ecuador, " says Dick Vega, Trade Commissioner for Ecuador in Los Angeles, "at the Trade Commission of Ecuador in Los Angeles, our doors are always open. We invite companies and individuals to meet with us and explore the opportunities of doing business and investing in Ecuador. We are committed to helping find the right partners who will provide the best possible products and their successful, consistent delivery to market."
[Translation]["Pacari es una de las muchas destacadas empresas que se han colocado en el mercado internacional exitosamente." dice Dick Vega, Jefe Comercial de Ecuador en Los Angeles. " La oficina comercial del Ecuador mantiene las puertas abiertas a empresas y personas para que se reúnan con nosotros y exploren nuevas oportunidades para hacer negocios con Ecuador. Nuestro principal compromiso es ofrecer los mejores productos y su ingreso exitoso y constante de acuerdo al mercado."]
For interested parties, the Trade Commission of Ecuador in Los Angeles will be hosting Pacari Chocolate and several other outstanding Ecuadorian exporters this coming October. For an opportunity to meet with the Trade Commission, Exhibitors or to attend the product showcase, contact: ecuadortradelax(at)mmrree(dot)gov(dot)ec or Ecuador(at)ppmg(dot)info
For media inquiries contact: Popular Press Media Group (PPMG), +1-310-860-7774, media(at)ppmg(dot)info

Seth Ackerman And Mike Beggs On The Intellectual And Moral Bankruptcy Of Mainstream Economics

Seth Ackerman and Mike Beggs have an interesting article in Jacobin. They note:Marginalist economics arose as a reaction against the analysis of class conflict in classical economics.

• Greg Mankiw's defense of the 1% is deeply muddled.
• The Arrow-Debreu model's use as a benchmark reflects a "broken" "belief system".
• Marx and Keynes developed different, but perhaps compatible views of political economy.
• Post Keynesians developed anti-neoclassical elements in Keynes' theory and revived the surplus-based approach to political economy.I'll quote the last two paragraphs here:"But in the long run, radicals need something more from their economics. Class conflict is at the heart of the capitalist economy and the capitalist state, yet neoclassical economics will not acknowledge the fact. How, then, should we think about economics as a discipline and the question of inequality as its subject? At an individual level, there are truly great economists working in the mainstream — some harboring deeply humane instincts, and some even with good politics. As a body of knowledge, economics yields a flood of invaluable empirical data and a trove of sophisticated tools for thinking through discrete analytical questions.But as a vision of capitalist society, mainstream economics is simply hollow at its core — and the hollow place has been filled up with a distorted bourgeois ideology that does nothing but impede our understanding of the social world."

On The Ideological Function Of Certain Ideas Of Friedman And Barro

A Simple Keynes-Like Model

1.0 Introduction
I want to comment on an ideology that would lead to an acceptance of:

• Milton Friedman's Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH)
• Robert Barro's so-called theory of Ricardian Equivalence

My claim is that Friedman and Barro were each responding, in their own way, to the (policy implications suggested by) Keynes' General Theory. So first, I outline, very superficially, some ideas related to the General Theory. I then briefly describe how Friedman and Barro each tried to downplay these ideas, before finally concluding.
I have a number of inspirations for this post, including Robert Waldmann's assertion that the denial of the PIH is consistent with the data; Brad DeLong noting Simon Wren-Lewis and Chris Dillow commenting on the incompetence of, say, Robert Lucas; and Josh Mason pointing out the nonsense that is taught in graduate macroenonomics about the government budget constraint and interest rates.
2.0 Governments Can End Depressions
The figure above illustrates some basic elements of Keynes' theory. This specification of a discrete-time, dynamic system includes an accounting identity for a closed economy, namely, that national income in any time period is the sum of consumption spending, investment, and government spending. And it includes a behavioral relation, namely, a dynamic formulation of a consumption function. In this system, consumption is the sum of autonomous consumption and a term proportional to national income in the previous period. One should assume that the parameter b lies between zero and one.
A policy consequence follows: government can lift the economy out of a depression by spending more. Government spending increases national income immediately. Through the consumption function, it has a positive feedback on next period's income, as well.
3.0 The Permanent Income Hypothesis
Suppose you are hostile to this policy conclusion and, like the current Republican party in the USA, dislike your fellow countrymen. How might you suggest a theoretical revision to the system structure to mitigate the influence of current government spending? One possibility is to suggest more terms enter the consumption function. With the proper manipulation, current government spending will have a smaller impact, since current income will have a smaller impact on consumption.
So, suppose the consumption function does not contain a term multiplying b by income lagged one period. Instead, assume b multiplies an unobserved and (directly) unobservable state variable which, in turn, is an aggregate of current income lagged multiple periods (Y_{t - 1}, Y_{t - 2}, ..., Y_{t - n}). Call this state variable "permanent income", and assume the aggregation is a matter of forming expectations about this variable based on a number of past values of income.
This accomplishes the goal. Current government spending can directly affect current income. But to have the same size impact as before on future income, it would have to be maintained through many lags. The policy impact of increased government spending is attenuated in this model, as compared to the dynamic system illustrated in the figure. 4.0 "Ricardian" Equivalence
One can go further with unobserved state variables. Suppose that households consume based less on recent income, but, once again, on expected values of future income. And suppose that consumers operate under the mainstream economist's mistaken theory of a government budget constraint. So consumers expect increased income today, if it results from increased government spending, to be accompanied by some combination of future decreased government spending and increased taxes. So the same current upward shock to the system causes an expectation of a future downward shock.
This is the theory of Ricardian equivalence. And, like the PIH, it suggests that Keynesian effects are not as dependable as otherwise would be the case.
5.0 Conclusion
The above story portrays economics as driven by results favorable to the biases and perceived self-interests of the extremely affluent. One would hope that academic economics is not entirely like this.

S. Abu Turab Rizvi, Not Steve Keen

Notice the point about the need in neoclassical theory to assume that preferences satisfy Gorman's assumptions of identical and homothetic (non-varying with income) preferences:

"Extensions of the basic arbitrariness results to configurations of preferences and endowments which are in no way 'pathological', and are in fact more and more restrictive, indicate the robustness of S[onnenschein-]M[antel-]D[ebreu] theory.

For instance, an assumption which is often made to improve the chances of meaningful aggregation is that of homothetic preferences, which yields linear Engel curves and so no complicated income effects at the level of the individual. However, with only a slight strengthening of the requirements of Debreu's theorem, Mantel (1976) showed that the assumption of homotheticity does not remove the arbitrariness of A[ggregate] E[xcess] D[emand functions].

Moreover, the possibility that consumers have to be very different, or that unusual endowment effects need to take place, in order for SMD-type results to hold was refuted by Kirman and Koch (1986): even supposing consumers to have identical preferences and collinear endowments does not remove the arbitrariness of the AEDs. Of course, if preferences are simultaneously identical and homothetic, AED is a proportional magnification of individual excess demand (Gorman, 1953; Nataf, 1953) and the whole economy behaves as if it were an individual (obeying the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference in the aggregate), but this is an extremely special situation. The Mantel and Kirman-Koch theorems effectively countered the criticism of SMD theory raised by Deaton by showing that the primitives can be arrayed in ways which on the face of it are very congenial towards generating well-behaved results, yet the arbitrariness property of AEDs remains." -- S. Abu Turab Rizvi, "The Microfoundations Project in General Equilibrium Theory", Cambridge Journal of Economics, V. 18 (1994): p. 362.

In short, neoclassical economists have proved (by contradiction, in some sense) that neoclassical microeconomics is not even wrong and that methodological individualism has failed.

CAIXA ECONÔMICA

CAIXA ECONÔMICA ADIA O SORTEIO DAS CHAVES DO RESIDENCIAL TERRA DO SOL

A Superintendência da Caixa Federal informou na tarde desta sexta-feira que o sorteio das chaves das 1.440 Unidades Habitacionais do Residencial Terra do Sol I, II, III que seria realizado na próxima segunda-feira dia 15 foi adiado para o dia 22 do mês em curso. a solenidade terá inicio às 14 horas e será realizada no estádio Correião. Os mutuários devem comparecer munidos de seus respectivos.