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The economy is fine for those who are smart and have 21st century job skills. If you're still waiting for one of those factory jobs where you get paid $40 an hour to throw a bolt on something you will be disappointed.
What about someone making $20/hour to throw a bolt on something?
You guys would get along great with Pangloss. You think the US economy is doing so great, when it is failing half the population. Half of all Americans get direct government assistance because the economy is a steaming pile of crap, and in your minds that is wonderful.
When you have another post defining "government assistance" as things like social security, medicare, vet benefits, and anyone with a federal pension or job you're hard to take seriously when using it as a barometer of a failing economy.
There are millions of retired Americans who fit into those "government assistance" categories who are in perfectly good financial health.
There were not enough jobs for everyone, and will not be again. Currently about 95 million people are out of the labor market entirely, living on government handouts and under the table hustling.
This sounds like you're just inventing "facts" as you go along here. I'm in my 40s, not in the labor market, and am not living on government handouts.
What is your source for knowing how people not in the labor force live, and why wasn't I sent the survey?
I would be interested in how you justify your statement that the defense budget is "money well spent." However, the annual interest on the national debt would easily fund over half of our military budget, and I don't know of anyone who thinks that is "money well spent." The source of the majority of that debt is our military adventurism, but it really doesn't matter where it came from.
The problem is the ongoing deficit. That money is borrowed, and is not available for domestic investment, so the economy fails to grow fast enough to meet the needs of its citizens.
The defense budget includes veterans affairs, military pay, some state department activities, intelligence services, and various non-war related activities. Even with the wars, surprisingly the military budget remains pretty much constant with pre 9/11 - and less than the Vietnam era.
Apart from the war expenditures which are of course debatable, YES defense spending is money well spent in my opinion. We have the most powerful and most advanced military in the world, and I hope it stays that way.
The defense budget includes veterans affairs, military pay, some state department activities, intelligence services, and various non-war related activities. Even with the wars, surprisingly the military budget remains pretty much constant with pre 9/11 - and less than the Vietnam era.
Apart from the war expenditures which are of course debatable, YES defense spending is money well spent in my opinion. We have the most powerful and most advanced military in the world, and I hope it stays that way.
You have walked through the forest and missed all the trees.
Germany’s success ought to be a resounding lesson and case-study for all first-world nations. What did Germany do correctly, that others could emulate? After all, Germany didn’t exactly start from a position of affluence or good political stability 72 years ago. Neither is it replete with natural-resources such as oil or metals.
My guess, and it’s more of a guess than an expostulation of political thesis, is that Germany has found a viable compromise between free-market capitalism and the sort of regulatory/centralized practices that are all too easy to decry, and which indeed, are all too likely to fail. Yet they haven’t failed in Germany’s case. One of our semi-frequent posters here, a Silicon Valley wunderkind who now sings praises of the free-market, likes to point out the role of “bloat” in the exorbitant cost of American public-works projects (bridges, tunnels, airports, etc.). He points out that these costs are higher in the US, than in Europe or Japan. And he’s right. But why is he right? It can’t just be a matter of one “-ism” vs. another. It must be something deeper. Can it be exported? Or is it somehow exclusively German?
Truly a topic worthy of consideration, but I like the dual points.
China has been able to (at least at first) keep its currency low and its wages lower. By the sheer size of their potential market, and key bans on products they were able to bring in assembly jobs in key industries, including automotive and construction manufacturing. Further enticement was brought in by building up steel capacity that was sold at a loss, creating an incentive in cheap labor and cheap inputs to finally win over the initial assemblies. After that, there was a careful cat an mouse game played to capture entire supply chains. Need tires on that car? Well, there's caps and tarriffs and lengthy delays to import them, but perhaps the raw materials are ok and can be assembled in a free trade zone for export anywhere. The country's reach into the world's basic commodities markets with direct ownership (via cheap credit to trusted businessmen via government banks) then additional resources can be brought in and used as incentives on the material end of the spectrum. Next, look at the equipment in manufacturing. First, ban the import of any used equipment. Sending the old stuff won't work now. Now it has to be new or nothing. Next figure out how to make the equipment yourself. Stealing blueprints from things you've been contracted to assemble is a great start. As expertise is gained, maybe the equipment isn't as good, but offering a mix of significant credits for buying Chinese and significant delays and costs for direct imports and eventually you'll win the market. Finally take the traditional layer of a company and government, and create thousands of controlled entities. Beat the system by realizing the world is running under rules with an assumption that each participant is out for their own best interest...and the rules set to safeguard this are defeated with collusion. Done on a massive scale, many of the world's governments were caught flat footed and not paying attention. By the time attention was paid, it was too late. The world's supply chain had moved.
What made it work? Having a billion people able to be suckered into lower wages and audacious ambition and cleverness like the world has never seen combined with the ability to lever on cheap governmental debt and having unfair free trade agreements in place.
Germany's post war rise has hardly been linear, but they certainly saw the threat of China after having survived through the onslaught of Eastern Europe's capacity coming online. Germany doesn't have the people of China, but it is a huge market, large enough that people will put up with some mercantilism to sell there. Further, it has engineering and a sense of order in many of its cultural aspects. They were able to use the feel good aspects to protect their economy. When selling to Germany, you need to be of the highest possible order. Most of the green regulation is done because it adds a layer of protection. While initially expensive to develop, once it has been developed, they now have an advantage over everyone else. So China can't sell their cheap refrigerators in Germany because they're simply not good enough. Add to it Germany's spot in the EU, and they can begin pushing those standards throughout Europe. Beyond regulation though, there's also the components of the culture that help minimize spend items. Towns are compact and high density, supported by effective mass transit. The country subsidizes its industrial firms with low cost training of students, which many of the students trade for further on the job training in a journeyman style approach to working with large companies. Again, we see aspects of people forgoing their own personal well being in order to support a cultural norm. You have industry working closely with government and ever rising standards in order for business to be done. You have a government that has taken full advantage of the cheap defense offered by the US from Russia. Merkel's governments have been astounding. She promises little except for pragmatism and feel good moves designed for the longer term benefit of the country, such as the immigration of late. Now she has her next round of workers, and immigration grows economies. The rest is just feel good stuff.
What makes it work? Community organization. Industries that realize the value of increased regulation. A working ecosystem that maximizes individual's development in areas that can be used by industry and cheap retraining encompassed in a free trade zone that it is content to quietly control.
The US....can't win from either example. We are individualistic. We govern by consensus built on each and every issue. Misinformation is rife. Regulations are used to protect incumbents, not to raise standards. The approach is that everyone reaching for their own individual best at their own individual cost will work overall as people will not deny themselves opportunity. For a long time, this has worked...but no longer. Exxon may have been the largest company in the world for a long time, but how can it compete with Aramaco or Petrobas which have direct support with governments. How can risk taking entities compete with those backed with unlimited leverage from China. The US can win, but there's no incentive for keeping anything within our borders. Tech giants don't have nearly the employees the industrial giants of old did. A look inside of many shows massive amounts of non-core services performed by outsourcing firms, many located overseas. Our government comes together only on one thing. The military. That, liked or not, is our competitive advantage. The idea of keeping a large standing military for the betterment of the world will become an expensive thing to maintain. So do we shrink the military, or do we start annexing countries to get resources. We'll never agree to have low cost healthcare, retraining and education, be on the bleeding edge of green development...so expansion is our only way forward. Maybe it will be in space, but otherwise it's war.
The short version as to why the U.S. economy sucks: Too many takers (at every income level) and not enough givers. The populace is kept divided fighting with each other about whether it's the rich doing the taking or the poor. In reality, there are takers at all income levels. This article will give you the details:
AEI is a rote propaganda shop. The best you can say for them is that they aren't quite as bad as the Heritage Foundation.
By the way, the need to make everything binary is not a positive sign. We are all in fact takers and makers in our turn. Only the utterly blind fail to see that. That same group is the only one impressed by the useless 95 million not in the labor force number as well. The vast majority of those people are retired, disabled, full-time students, or providing full-time home care for family members. Just because the President routinely makes worthless claims and arguments doesn't mean that you have to. Aim higher.
The vast majority of those people are retired, disabled, full-time students, or providing full-time home care for family members.
There's also the non-working spouse and living in parents basement playing video games. If you have a low skill spouse, a quick look at daycare costs, taxes, and work expenses often has people do the rational thing and go with one income. I think we also have an enormous "failure to launch" problem. We're so affluent that our children get the false impression that they're entitled to an upper middle class existence without working for it. They do poorly in school. They have minimal work ethic. Their parents enable the behavior. This is hardly new. I'm 59. I certainly saw it when I was in my late-teens and 20's. It's far more prevalent now because so many more people grew up affluent.
The theory depends on the existence of mass stupidity. I'm younger than Hugh Hefner was, but not by all that much. I've not at any time seen evidence of this problem at the levels that would be called for. In any case, the 95 million number is an absolute fraud as used by bots and knee-jerks.
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