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Plainly not. Then again, this little part of C-D is labeled the Economics forum. Maybe those who understand nothing of that topic should be off in the Gardening forum or some such.
No matter how hard someone tries to prove their opinion to be fact, economics is all theory based.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LordSquidworth
We shipped $1.623 trillion in 2014 out of the country. Airplanes, cars, engines, medical equipment, machines, electronics.
I was mistaken. We're second. So we don't manufacture shovels anymore. Big deal.
The difference would go down if we'd take the soft gloves off with China. They tariff many of our imports while we do nothing.
If you think the value of our output is the only thing making it appear we are competitive than you don't understand economics.
American workers abandoned Unions. American workers cannot stand up against corporations alone, something they refuse to learn. While Unions can get out of hand, a united group of workers is a stronger group than a split up group.
We don't suck at competing because of American business, value of output, etc. We suck at competing because of people constantly whining instead of getting off their rears and doing something. The American appetite for being your own boss is disappearing. I'm not sure why anyone just expects an upper middle class living working for someone else. The value of raw labor is getting cheaper and cheaper, so stop selling raw labor and build something.
You think China is making only cheap trinkets these days? You don't understand the here and now. Many products cannot be made here because we lost the infrastructure to support it. We lack the trained workforce, we lack competitive pricing, we have hung on to dilapidated equipment for too long (since margins make it difficult to invest in modern machinery), we can't secure affordable raw commodities on the scale necessary to support true mass production. I could go on and on.
In China, they have all their ducks in a row. They can make anything they want, where here, we depend on other countries for a large volume of work, and long delays due to industrial consolidation. Theirs is a command system, and this is what they set out to do. They have beat the capitalist at their own game. And since manufacturing has been such a large source of innovation and economic success in previous years, they will now enjoy the benefits.
We suck at competing because the value has been drained out of manufacturing, causing permanent damage. You can't compete against a nation that does not require their businesses to make a profit. Why do you think Americans would want to start a business competing under such challenging circumstances? So many of our best manufacturers gave up decades ago. It's better to learn from the lessons and mistakes of others, and stupid to try to repeat them.
No matter how hard someone tries to prove their opinion to be fact, economics is all theory based.
Fact or theory, all that the clueless gardeners here do is babble.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andywire
In China, they have all their ducks in a row.
LOL! In China, the boom times are over. All the low hanging stuff has been harvested. They are now desperately trying to remake their economy, weaning themselves off export-driven growth to become a more durable and westernized consumer-based economy. It isn't going ael that well so far. They had hoped to drive personal consumption expenditures above 50% of GDP by this year. Instead, it has fallen. Growth targets have been revised (i.e., lowered) over and over again. Fears are that a declining China will be enough to drag all of Asia down. The risk is that the government will feel the need to foment some regional military crisis in a desperate appeal to Chinese nationalism that would deflect attention away from ongoing economic woes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andywire
We suck at competing because the value has been drained out of manufacturing, causing permanent damage.
Fact: In terms of manufacturing output, China -- with some ten times the number of manufacturing workers that we have -- has managed just lately to draw even with and then move beyond the US as the world's largest manufacturing economy. They do low-end manufacturing like bulk steel. We do high-end manufacturing like electronics and aerospace equipment. Like China and every other major manufactuing economy, the US has lost manufacturing jobs since the mid-1990s. Our losses have been about average for the group, but the larger point is that, like agriculture a century or so before, manufacturing has lost whatever capacity it might once have had for providing jobs for the masses. Better just get used to that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andywire
You can't compete against a nation that does not require their businesses to make a profit.
Subsidize or punt. Which one of those do you think would work out best?
We as in 99.9% of US citizens. Pardon me if you aren't in that category.
We are long overdue for economic policies that work for us.
I hate to nit-pick. But it couldn't be as high as 99.9%.
First off we take good care of our poor. So there's a goodly percent.
Next it isn't the whole middle class. Upper middles like myself have done well, as have many lower in the middle class.
So we are left with a large chunk for sure, just not as high as you post.
Fact or theory, all that the clueless gardeners here do is babble.
LOL! In China, the boom times are over. All the low hanging stuff has been harvested. They are now desperately trying to remake their economy, weaning themselves off export-driven growth to become a more durable and westernized consumer-based economy. It isn't going ael that well so far. They had hoped to drive personal consumption expenditures above 50% of GDP by this year. Instead, it has fallen. Growth targets have been revised (i.e., lowered) over and over again. Fears are that a declining China will be enough to drag all of Asia down. The risk is that the government will feel the need to foment some regional military crisis in a desperate appeal to Chinese nationalism that would deflect attention away from ongoing economic woes.
Fact: In terms of manufacturing output, China -- with some ten times the number of manufacturing workers that we have -- has managed just lately to draw even with and then move beyond the US as the world's largest manufacturing economy. They do low-end manufacturing like bulk steel. We do high-end manufacturing like electronics and aerospace equipment. Like China and every other major manufactuing economy, the US has lost manufacturing jobs since the mid-1990s. Our losses have been about average for the group, but the larger point is that, like agriculture a century or so before, manufacturing has lost whatever capacity it might once have had for providing jobs for the masses. Better just get used to that.
Subsidize or punt. Which one of those do you think would work out best?
The Major as usual is hitting on some very germane points.
Some very quick and easy, yet eye opening reads if you haven't had the chance:
China is indeed moving their country, society and economy more toward their people. Just as we in the USA have done since WW2. Only their system can inherently moves and evolves much faster.
Anything lower would simply be a more negative slope.
Why are you using zero increase as your baseline? That makes no sense. The pie grew by 90%. If your piece grew by less than that, then you didn't do better than average...ie better than you would have done if the gains in productivity had been equally distributed.
Anything lower would simply be a more negative slope.
Why are you using zero increase as your baseline? That makes no sense. The pie grew by 90%. If your piece grew by less than that, then you didn't do better than average...ie better than you would have done if the gains in productivity had been equally distributed.
Zero growth, inflation adjusted seems like a sensible baseline to me. I'm merely meaning to show the realities of changes in each group.
Of course the very rich have benefited the most. But many 'non-rich' have done well too. I wouldn't expect any increases to necessarily be equally distributed throughout the classes. That would be 'nice', but not realistic.
I wouldn't expect any increases to necessarily be equally distributed throughout the classes. That would be 'nice', but not realistic.
It's easily achievable and even *normal* for consumer/capitalist/socialist countries (which all the developed ones are). This is precisely what we did before the late 70s. Why do you say it isn't realistic?
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