US Presidential Election: Tuesday November 6th, 2012

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mjs020294 said:
Probably still number one where its been for over a century. However the share is dropping and using dollar value isn't the best barometer because US goods cost a lot more to produce, and there lies the problem.
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Leaving aside the implication that it's a problem that American workers aren't paid what they are in China, the point is that this nonsense about "we don't make anything anymore" is just that. Also, using the share to compare developing economies with developed ones is far more problematic than using dollar values.

(For those curious, the number is 17.7%, and given that the UN stats don't separate mining and utilities from manufacturing, if anything it inflates China's actual production.)
 
Solution to what, precisely? The fact that a rapidly-growing developing economy with eight times our population is at some point in the near future going to manufacture more than us? No solution. It's going to happen.

If you mean the solution to the economy being down, then that's another thing, but it's not about how much China does or doesn't make. Our problem is maintaining our manufacturing capacity and an educated workforce.

In the short-term, this means getting through the adjustments of housing prices and the hits the economy has taken and, when it stabilizes, providing inducements for new growth, and continuing stimulus efforts which have real benefits (e.g. not capital gains tax cuts FFS) such as infrastructure investments and targeted social welfare programs such as unemployment.

In the long term, it requires a paradigm shift in our educational system, health care system, and social safety net, with a real look at what is and isn't working. Also, if what is working is something used in a country somewhere in Europe, a punch in the mouth for anyone who screams "socialism!"
 
Excal said:
Leaving aside the implication that it's a problem that American workers aren't paid what they are in China, the point is that this nonsense about "we don't make anything anymore" is just that.
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The "manufacturing" stats are very skewed. For instance they include aircraft, including military aircraft, and military ordnance. Pharmaceuticals and health care products are also include. Not to mention the refined oil products like, those count in the figures as well.

When it comes to manufacturing everyday things, which creates a lot of jobs and distributes wealth, the US is failing woefully. Don't believe me, try checking where 100 things are made next time you go to a store. The US has lost 40% of its manufacturing jobs in 30 years, that is 8,000,000 jobs lost.
 
mjs020294 said:
The "manufacturing" stats are very skewed. For instance they include aircraft, including military aircraft, and military ordnance. Pharmaceuticals and health care products are also include. Not to mention the refined oil products like, those count in the figures as well.
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Yeah, no money in any of that.

When it comes to manufacturing everyday things, which creates a lot of jobs and distributes wealth, the US is failing woefully. Don't believe me, try checking where 100 things are made next time you go to a store. The US has lost 40% of its manufacturing jobs in 30 years, that is 8,000,000 jobs lost.
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So the fact that we make planes and medicine while China makes Nerf toys and nylon American flags means we don't make anything?

The fact that our production levels over the period you've mentioned has gone down by only about 7% in real dollars means the the manufacturing industry is dying?

You're quibbling over statistics while your basic premise, that "we don't make anything anymore", is demonstrably false, as was your corollary assertion that this means the US economy is incapable of significantly rebounding.
 
Excal said:
Yeah, no money in any of that.

So the fact that we make planes and medicine while China makes Nerf toys and nylon American flags means we don't make anything?

The fact that our production levels over the period you've mentioned has gone down by only about 7% in real dollars means the the manufacturing industry is dying?

You're quibbling over statistics while your basic premise, that "we don't make anything anymore", is demonstrably false, as was your corollary assertion that this means the US economy is incapable of significantly rebounding.
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The point is "manufacturing" as a statistic traditionally meant labor intensive, and was synonymous with exports. Both facets are very important for obvious reasons, one distributes the wealth and the other helps the balance of payments.

Unfortunately a large chunk of the US manufacturing base now is very much for internal use only. You really have to make stuff and export a fair amount of it to sustain your economy in the long term.

Obviously "we don't make anything anymore" was an exaggeration but the current state of the manufacturing economy and trade deficit is a real issue that is hard to overcome. And the US will not overcome. By rebound people expect things to be like they were a decade or two ago, and those days are never come back.
 
mjs020294 said:
The point is "manufacturing" as a statistic traditionally meant labor intensive, and was synonymous with exports.
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Except manufacturing isn't necessarily labor intensive anymore, due to increased automation. China's manufacturing is because Chinese labor is so cheap that it's less costly than automating. It allows them to bolster their economy in the short-term, but it means they'll lag behind in efficiency and production capacity, and there's other negative effects such as the ecological nightmare China is in serious danger of becoming.

Meanwhile, profitable and productive sectors such as software development (a field the BLS expects to grow by 35% over the next ten years) get left out of manufacturing statistics because they don't necessarily provide a physical good that sits on a shelf.

Both facets are very important for obvious reasons, one distributes the wealth and the other helps the balance of payments.
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Except there are other ways to distribute the wealth. Better ones, in a lot of ways, albeit ones less dependent on unskilled labor.

Unfortunately a large chunk of the US manufacturing base now is very much for internal use only. You really have to make stuff and export a fair amount of it to sustain your economy in the long term.
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You really don't. "Stuff" is just stuff. Economic sectors such as software development and financial services create and distribute wealth in as real a sense as a factory does.

What we have to transition away from is an expectation that these sorts of low-education professions can sustain a middle-class lifestyle, and frankly given the number of children who expect to go to college, I think we've done well at that, (though the education system itself needs massive alteration).
 
The United States enacting tarriffs would be ridiculous, it has enforced free trade for years when it worked for it.

And before anybody mentions currency manipulation, QE doesn't do the world economy much good either.

These arguments annoy me, goods cannot be produced cheap enough in the West so enough people can but them and workers to be able to live on producing them. Unless of course you want to spend much more on your ipads and televisions, have more congestion and much, much more pollution - hence these jobs left.
 
For me it's the middle class that drives an economy. They've been squeezed too much in recent years with most of their income being lost to the well-off rather than down to the poor. Income disparity is out of whack and needs to be addressed. Yes the top 1% create jobs and should not be taxed onerously, but they don't need the vast wealth that they are enjoying nowadays.

The pendulum has swung too far in their favour.
 
Grinner said:
For me it's the middle class that drives an economy. They've been squeezed too much in recent years with most of their income being lost to the well-off rather than down to the poor. Income disparity is out of whack and needs to be addressed. Yes the top 1% create jobs and should not be taxed onerously, but they don't need the vast wealth that they are enjoying nowadays.
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Plus losing 8,000,000 factory jobs, which equates to over $300,000,000,000 in wages doesn't help. Especially when you consider much of that $300 billion is still being produced and the money finds its way to the wealthy through dividends etc.

As the landscape of the economy changed the wealthy made more money, yet the tax system changed to give them tax breaks, brilliant. :(
 
Grinner said:
For me it's the middle class that drives an economy. They've been squeezed too much in recent years with most of their income being lost to the well-off rather than down to the poor. Income disparity is out of whack and needs to be addressed. Yes the top 1% create jobs and should not be taxed onerously, but they don't need the vast wealth that they are enjoying nowadays.

The pendulum has swung too far in their favour.
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I don't agree with that. It's the capital they hold that creates jobs, not them personally. If that capital is redistributed among the population, it will mean more people have more money in their pockets so demand within the economy will increase. More demand = more jobs.
 
Grinner said:
For me it's the middle class that drives an economy. They've been squeezed too much in recent years with most of their income being lost to the well-off rather than down to the poor. Income disparity is out of whack and needs to be addressed. Yes the top 1% create jobs and should not be taxed onerously, but they don't need the vast wealth that they are enjoying nowadays.

The pendulum has swung too far in their favour.
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Capitalist economies are demand-led, socialist economies are command-led.
 
this top 1% being job creators is BS. How does a CEO making 10M a year create a job exactly? In my mind they've taken 9.5M out of the salary pool for that company which equates to say 100 jobs at 95K/year. Worse, often these CEOs milk the company for many more millions on their exits when they gave FAILED in their roles. This can equate to thousands of good annual salaries. Small business owners on the other hand create jobs but many are not in the 1%.
 
I've never agreed with these compensation packages for CEOs. It's larceny. Spread the wealth some. Workers get small bonuses, if that, while the CEO often receives millions. CEO also gets stock in some cases - don't see the average worker getting that choice, unless he/she is willing to pay for it of course. I know management has quite a bit to do in running a business, but when the compensation package is 1000s time bigger than the actual worker of the company, something is quite wrong.

The Elite Circle of $1 CEOs

Barbarians at the Gate is a good movie about the CEO life.
 
Very hard to control what people get paid through regulation but its not so hard to control what they take home. Just increase taxes on people over certain earnings. Retain the current bands plus:

> $250k + 5% tax
> $500k + 10% tax
> $1 million + 15% tax
> $10 million + 25% tax

That would mean the super rich would be paying 60% tax on their top end earnings, which I think is reasonable. The extra revenue raised and some prudent cuts in some public spending would allow the US to pay down the debt and maybe improve public healthcare.
 
Slow road to communism etc etc

Of course, no-one makes the argument that it is only 60% tax on the money earned over £10m, rather than 60% tax on everything.
 
senorgregster said:
this top 1% being job creators is BS. How does a CEO making 10M a year create a job exactly? In my mind they've taken 9.5M out of the salary pool for that company which equates to say 100 jobs at 95K/year. Worse, often these CEOs milk the company for many more millions on their exits when they gave FAILED in their roles. This can equate to thousands of good annual salaries. Small business owners on the other hand create jobs but many are not in the 1%.
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Exactly. The only way that the top 1% make jobs is when they are encouraged to invest their money or face loosing it. Give them tax breaks if they invest it, but tax them heavily for every penny that they do not. Which is exactly what they do do, except they do it in such a way that for a small investment they pay near no tax on anything they earn.
 
I'm not sure why the democrats are not all over this wealth gap issue. only reason I can think of is that they're beholden to the same masters the reubs are so they're not likely to tax themselves or their buddies. they are the most likely to do it though.
seems like the repubs wouldn't piss on the poor if they were on fire. the democrats are quite happy to piss on them, whether they're on fire or not.
 
utdalltheway said:
I'm not sure why the democrats are not all over this wealth gap issue. only reason I can think of is that they're beholden to the same masters the reubs are so they're not likely to tax themselves or their buddies. they are the most likely to do it though.
seems like the repubs wouldn't piss on the poor if they were on fire. the democrats are quite happy to piss on them, whether they're on fire or not.
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Ya think! The money in politics is rife on both sides. The repubs are just more brazen about it.
 
mjs020294 said:
Very hard to control what people get paid through regulation but its not so hard to control what they take home. Just increase taxes on people over certain earnings. Retain the current bands plus:

> $250k + 5% tax
> $500k + 10% tax
> $1 million + 15% tax
> $10 million + 25% tax

That would mean the super rich would be paying 60% tax on their top end earnings, which I think is reasonable. The extra revenue raised and some prudent cuts in some public spending would allow the US to pay down the debt and maybe improve public healthcare.
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plus block the loop holes.
 
mjs020294 said:
Very hard to control what people get paid through regulation but its not so hard to control what they take home. Just increase taxes on people over certain earnings. Retain the current bands plus:

> $250k + 5% tax
> $500k + 10% tax
> $1 million + 15% tax
> $10 million + 25% tax

That would mean the super rich would be paying 60% tax on their top end earnings, which I think is reasonable. The extra revenue raised and some prudent cuts in some public spending would allow the US to pay down the debt and maybe improve public healthcare.
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...and the rich people would move out of US to some "paradise island". I would not let companies to move out of the country ->for example factories which people would have more jobs if they stayed and I would reduce the government expenses including the military. Raising taxes doesn't fix anything and we can see Europe in deep trouble and with higher taxes than US.
 
The United States is in worse trouble than France, Germany and the United Kingdom and political resistance prevents tax rises despite the fact the burden of the public sector is smaller.
 
barros said:
...and the rich people would move out of US to some "paradise island".
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Most wouldn't and couldn't. Not too many jobs or ways of making a fortune on paradise islands, trust me I have been researching that one for two decades. And many of the rich are not against paying more tax anyway.

Using my rough assumptions above earnings under $10 million would be taxed at below 50%.
 
Team Brian GB said:
The United States is in worse trouble than France, Germany and the United Kingdom and political resistance prevents tax rises despite the fact the burden of the public sector is smaller.
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Got to disagree with the first bit TBH. The debt per capita isn't that bad in the US, and when you factor in the GDP per capita the situation is very manageable. The US could start paying its debt down with small cuts in spending and modest tax rises on the rich. Countries with more social programs have much harder decisions to make.
 
the biggest problem for ordinary people in the US is health expense costs. There is no political will because both parties are 'owned' by these insurance companies. The President expended most of his political capital on the Affordable Health Care Act. It is very unpopular because people on both sides of the spectrum hate it for opposing reasons.

Still when most of it kicks in, in 2014 there is a lot of good in it.

Ultimately single payer is the answer. It will take time.
 
I think the clock is running down on US power, because the people who control the country no longer seek to make Americans smarter and richer. Instead the economic and political scene is like the picking of a dying carcass that is admittedly still fat and plentiful enough.

I can't help but feel the decline of Rome through plutocrats like Ceasar and Octavian is very similar to what's happening here. When the model fails, democracy is suspended in a desperate attempt to save the center. But we know it won't work.
 
Red Dreams said:
the biggest problem for ordinary people in the US is health expense costs.
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Health costs are a problem the world over. If we increase the number of healthcare professionals it will help keep costs under control. Its ridiculously hard to get a place in nursing school, and the curriculum is overkill. Change the courses, increase the places and give generous grants to students. Same goes for every other profession in healthcare.

Then you tackle the cost of drugs and reduce the administrative overheads. Single payer and federal regulated is the way to go but it will be hard convincing most Americans that.
 
gooDevil said:
I think the clock is running down on US power, because the people who control the country no longer seek to make Americans smarter and richer. Instead the economic and political scene is like the picking of a dying carcass that is admittedly still fat and plentiful enough.

I can't help but feel the decline of Rome through plutocrats like Caesar and Octavian is very similar to what's happening here. When the model fails, democracy is suspended in a desperate attempt to save the center. But we know it won't work.
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The decline hardly started with Caesar and Augustus. Rome grew for another couple of hundred years after that.
 
mjs020294 said:
Health costs are a problem the world over. If we increase the number of healthcare professionals it will help keep costs under control. Its ridiculously hard to get a place in nursing school, and the curriculum is overkill. Change the courses, increase the places and give generous grants to students. Same goes for every other profession in healthcare.

Then you tackle the cost of drugs and reduce the administrative overheads. Single payer and federal regulated is the way to go but it will be hard convincing most Americans that.
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good points. But I was addressing the unnecessary insurance expenses. It should be non profit insurance.
Currently they are protected and act like extortionists.

Removing that layer will reduce costs not just for ordinary people but reduce the huge deficits as well.
 
Red Dreams said:
good points. But I was addressing the unnecessary insurance expenses. It should be non profit insurance.
Currently they are protected and act like extortionists.

Removing that layer will reduce costs not just for ordinary people but reduce the huge deficits as well.
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Next you'll want us to print money without paying a private company for the privilege.
 
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