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1) "As a percentage of GDP only". That happens to be the only sensible way to look at it.
2&3) Sure it's up from the all time low reached in 2009, but it hasn't even made it as high as the low point we hit after the 2001 recession!
You can't seriously believe you are making substantive points?
1). You really don't get it do you? Does it not make sense to you that a metric may be down in percent terms relative to a measure but up in nominal and inflation adjusted terms over time?
2). Since the bust private business investment has up relative to GDP just about every quarter - this alone invalidates your earlier claim.
3). R&D spending is right at all time highs vs. GDP and has been for years. Haver has a chart that shows since 1978, with dips in '91, '92 and '07, '08 R&D vs. GDP has been on a very clear upward trend. From roughly 2.15% of GDP in '78 to right a 2.96% last year. This too invalidates your earlier claim.
Being only minimally patronizing my advice to you would be get on the internet and actually take a maco-econ. class. One of two things is going on with you.....either you simply don't understand this stuff at all and think you can bluster through arguments or you are letting your politics cloud your better judgement.
1). You really don't get it do you? Does it not make sense to you that a metric may be down in percent terms relative to a measure but up in nominal and inflation adjusted terms over time?
2). Since the bust private business investment has up relative to GDP just about every quarter - this alone invalidates your earlier claim.
3). R&D spending is right at all time highs vs. GDP and has been for years. Haver has a chart that shows since 1978, with dips in '91, '92 and '07, '08 R&D vs. GDP has been on a very clear upward trend. From roughly 2.15% of GDP in '78 to right a 2.96% last year. This too invalidates your earlier claim.
Being only minimally patronizing my advice to you would be get on the internet and actually take a maco-econ. class. One of two things is going on with you.....either you simply don't understand this stuff at all and think you can bluster through arguments or you are letting your politics cloud your better judgement.
1) Of course I do. But you don't get to pick one that suits your narrative. You have to pick the *right* one, and that is relative to GDP.
2) My earlier claim? Can you show me the exact claim you are referring to? I'm sure the only place you'll find it is in your mind...
3) When did I ever mention R&D spending? I was talking about investment in production, and you said "The domestic business portion of Gross Private Domestic Investment was the highest it's ever been last quarter according to the St. Louis Fed." So I posted this chart, showing that you are wrong.
The US corporations have a lot of things built overseas, but they don't do the R&D there, for obvious reasons. R&D is certainly not equivalent to domestic investment! But since you brought it up, we just recently hit new highs for R&D spending. The business portion has been rising for decades, but only because the government has stopped funding research.
Can you explain how if one person gets rich, it is at the expense of someone else exactly?
In a system of government where private property ownership cannot be maintained, it is possible for a government or monarch to take riches created by an entity and put it under their own control.
In a free market system, riches must be derived by doing something relevent enough to attract customers, doing it well, and doing it often enough to get paid. Success in doing this leads to riches earned by helping people. If people were not helped, they would not pay money.
1) Of course I do. But you don't get to pick one that suits your narrative. You have to pick the *right* one, and that is relative to GDP.
2) My earlier claim? Can you show me the exact claim you are referring to? I'm sure the only place you'll find it is in your mind...
3) When did I ever mention R&D spending? I was talking about investment in production, and you said "The domestic business portion of Gross Private Domestic Investment was the highest it's ever been last quarter according to the St. Louis Fed." So I posted this chart, showing that you are wrong.
The US corporations have a lot of things built overseas, but they don't do the R&D there, for obvious reasons. R&D is certainly not equivalent to domestic investment! But since you brought it up, we just recently hit new highs for R&D spending. The business portion has been rising for decades, but only because the government has stopped funding research.
Your gold standard and plea for higher taxes rant in post #1015.
In a free market system, riches must be derived by doing something relevent enough to attract customers, doing it well, and doing it often enough to get paid. Success in doing this leads to riches earned by helping people. If people were not helped, they would not pay money.
To be more precise, value is derived from providing products and services that people want. Prosperity (the size of the pie) can only increase if human labor cost (hrs of work) to provide products and services declines. This is why productivity and efficiency are primary.
Where those riches end up is often far removed from the person's most responsible for creating wealth. The great majority of the "creators" work for modest pay. Gaming the system to get many millions or billions of $$$ in your account is a completely different activity from creating prosperity.
Even Apple Steve wasniak was the real inventor, Steve Jobs was just a vile human being, there were reports he was hostile to employees and cut wasniak out of the deal. This is typical of most mega corps genisis story so if they are snuffed our its no big loss just put the actual inventors back in charge.
It's Steve *Wozniak*. But you are correct Jobs was a fraud. Didn't graduate college, knew nothing about engineering hardware or developing software. Plenty of other Bay Area residents agree with you on this one.
Generally I don't hate people for being rich. While even Bill Gates can have some insults thrown against him for shady practices there are some good rich people certainly. Assuming they're all evil is wrong.
Some like Warren Buffett even ridicule the system. Buffett used to joke he paid lower taxes as a percentage of his income than his secretary making $60,000/yr. He generally votes Democrat too, but one guys opinion even if it's revered by financiers can only do so much.
I think simply establishing laws helping prop up private sector unions, removing the cap on social security taxes (while still maintaining a Max payout), raising capital gains taxes over a certain amount, and a Medicare for all option for everyone could do wonders. As it stands the very rich usually only pay about 20% of their income in taxes, while middle class people pay a much larger amount.
To be more precise, value is derived from providing products and services that people want. Prosperity (the size of the pie) can only increase if human labor cost (hrs of work) to provide products and services declines. This is why productivity and efficiency are primary.
Where those riches end up is often far removed from the person's most responsible for creating wealth. The great majority of the "creators" work for modest pay. Gaming the system to get many millions or billions of $$$ in your account is a completely different activity from creating prosperity.
Some people play games. And if the world of 100 were 99 good people and 1 gamer...that gamer might win for awhile. But there's lots of gamers. Look at help desk scammers. I'm sure the first one was very effective and got lots of people to send him/her money. Yet there's no moat to a scam. It's easy to copy because there's no value there. Suddenly 10,000 people in India are all trying to run the same scam and everyone wises up.
If I see my neighbor selling lemonade in their front lawn for $10 a glass and they're selling 100 a day, I might say....you know, I can do the same thing. There's value there, but the profit margins are too high. If I see they're selling it for .50, I might say...I could compete, but my time is more valuable elsewhere.
The problem most people have is they view their "Job" as the most instrumental component of an organization. A company can't run without Sales...Salespeople are the best. Inside Sales says, those idiots in Sales just shake hands and talk, we're the ones that get the orders for what's really wanted. Scheduling says, these idiots would completely overwhelm/run empty if I wasn't there to manage the two processes. The factory, well of course they're the ones doing all the work getting things built. Built in an engineered facility to the specs that have been gone through by engineering support. Shipping and logistics....and purchasing....hey we gotta find this stuff, get it in, get it out and do it controlled. Accounting...hey we keep all you guys inline and keep all the records straight and money moving. HR says you wouldn't have any of it we don't get the people in.
Everyone contributes. The positions that are hardest to fill are the ones that get paid the most. If you can put together a better company, you're free to do so...just like that lemonade stand. But if you only know how to mix the lemonade but can't put up a stand, or don't interact with customers...you may have to be a worker. You may make lemonade but if you can't do everything that's needed to get to a product a customer wants, when and how they want it enough to pay you money...and someone else can organize that...who is really the most valuable?
To organize a company is hard. To organize a company making something new is harder still. All the workers get guarantees of some sort....all except the owner.
The positions that are hardest to fill are the ones that get paid the most.
I agree with everything you said! Does it have something to do with my post?
Gaming the system for $$$ is hard. The ones who are good at it tend to be extremely talented, as well as having no scruples (whatever it takes). If you are good at getting a lot of money into a company's accounts they will pay you handsomely.
If they have the talent then they aren't gaming anything.
Seriously?
The "game" is getting $$$ into your accounts while providing little or no (or at least disproportionately low) benefit to the prosperity and well being of society. The people who excel at this tend to be very intelligent and talented.
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Does it have something to do with my post?
