patrick.net

The real problem isn't necessarily the bloated CEO and BOD salaries, it's the stagnant wages of everyone else. Thanks to free trade, outsourcing, and stupid consumers who somehow seem to think that they can have their Mazda and it somehow doesn't affect the job market here???

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

At the end, the cops and soldiers will be bitching about pension benefits on the beach when the Chinese arrive and saw them in half with Gatling guns that cost 11 cents to manufacture in China and wonder WTF how could this hun be skull fucking me while trading fantasies to his colleague about killing and raping my wife?

I eat right and take care of myself only because I live in hope of seeing the Chinese invasion. There can be nothing sweeter than seeing Americans get what they deserve: full-blown occupation.

How I hate America - especially the middle class!

HydroCabron is Kochel 271 says

I eat right and take care of myself only because I live in hope

Of seeing the Chinese invasion. There can be nothing sweeter than seeing Americans get what they deserve: full-blown occupation.

I plan on relocating to Poland before that happens.

mfs.admin says

live with lower pay and lower standards of living like the rest of the world.

Here is Wolfensohn former head of the World Bank telling you how we, the West, have lost 10% of the global income in the last few years, 80% down to 70%, and how it, and with it your prosperity, is going to keep falling.

Inevitably.

(I wanted to start at 4 min. but PatNet won't seem to take the modified URL)

http://www.youtube.com/embed/6a0zhc1y_Ns&t=3m55s

CaptainShuddup says

Now you want to bitch about those that are still making money, that the long oppressive overreaching arm of Obama, hasn't destroyed the jobs for, and make them out to be the villains?

The evisceration of our manufacturing sector was well under way long before President Obama wandered into the mess.

And the fuckers "still making money" are the same fucks at the top who pay to have trickle-up legislation drafted and passed by their bought-&-paid-for lawmakers/apple polishers on capitol hill. Think ALEC.

Meanwhile, all the scrubbers at the bottom are too busy flinging their shit turds at one another, dickering and bickering about why that rude spic at the grocery store doesn't deserve to make a few shekels more make in order to be able to afford even a modest standard of living.

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

The Poles are better on horseback but fuck how do you fight against 11 cent Gatling guns?

With nukes. Duh.

Straw Man says

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

The Poles are better on horseback but fuck how do you fight against 11 cent Gatling guns?

With nukes. Duh.

Those 11 cent Gatling guns will jam or explode upon the first pull of the trigger taking out the shooter. The owner of the factory will be executed for his treasonous crap. The American made guns on the other hand will work just fine.

The 11 cent imported Gatling guns would save about $11k for taxpayers who have to pay those things for the police department . . . assuming the police department doesn't abscond with the money.

Cheaper imports should enable more jobs (all else being equal; i.e. without bureaucratic monopolists absconding the gain from the cost advantage). There are always more things and services that people want; it is the cost of resources required for those things and services that's preventing the Want translating into (Qualified) Demand. Take for example the most common consumer good, if oil were available as "import" at the lowest cost possible, free like rain water, wouldn't that translate to far more jobs now prevented by the cost of transportation and energy cost? Likewise, widgets becoming cheaper would enable far more jobs that need to use widgets than the few jobs lost due to widgets becoming less expensive.

Another way of thinking through this, think of NYC: do you really think NYC would have done better if they had instituted a law banning food import in the early 1800's when cheap "imported" food from the midwest by the canals drove down food prices dramatically in the city and put the local farmers in what is now Central Park out of business. NYC lost the the farming jobs, and later sweatshop jobs too, but it gained new industries that paid far more instead, in ways that the farmers and sweatshop workers couldn't have dreamed of.

Such prosperity through being a trade hub however does breed complacency sometimes. The locals growing up in prosperity may lose sight of the importance of the very free market that is enabling their prosperity. Then they think up all sorts of government coercions to "make the place better," and as the inevitable consequence produce a Detroit.

JodyChunder says

And the fuckers "still making money" are the same fucks at the top who pay to have trickle-up legislation drafted and passed by their bought-&-paid-for lawmakers/apple polishers on capitol hill. Think ALEC.

Some "jobs" at the very top of the income scale, yes. But not the bulk of the top 10% earners, most of whom are actually very productive workers who work very hard.

Meanwhile, all the scrubbers at the bottom are too busy flinging their shit turds at one another, dickering and bickering

Agree on that.

about why that rude spic at the grocery store doesn't deserve to make a few shekels more make in order to be able to afford even a modest standard of living.

Laws banning jobs that make a few shekels less would reduce a 2-income / 3-income family into a 1-income family. That would mean a much lower income for the family as a whole.

Reality says

Cheaper imports should enable more jobs (all else being equal; i.e. without bureaucratic monopolists absconding the gain from the cost advantage). There are always more things and services that people want; it is the cost of resources required for those things and services that's preventing the Want translating into (Qualified) Demand.

That's really a weird post even for you. The cheaper part is because the manufacturing went overseas with all the jobs. People unemployed or working at walmart for half the money can't buy the cheaper products they used to be paid to produce so they can't translate Want into Demand.

I believe it was Buffet who said a nation can't be prosperous selling itself hamburgers and insurance policies.

Reality says

Laws banning jobs that make a few shekels less would reduce a 2-income / 3-income family into a 1-income family.

If that line of thinking were true, then I would rather have one Robert Deniro in my film than ten Ed Nortons.

But they'd be healthy and well fed...
what more do you want?

bob2356 says

I believe it was Buffet who said a nation can't be prosperous selling itself hamburgers and insurance policies.

bob2356 says

That's really a weird post even for you. The cheaper part is because the manufacturing went overseas with all the jobs. People unemployed or working at walmart for half the money can't buy the cheaper products they used to be paid to produce so they can't translate Want into Demand.

With first farming and then sweatshops (manufacturing) leaving NYC, did NYC become a landscape dominated by low-paying jobs? There are always more people using a manufactured product than people working on manufacturing them. When people have to spend less on food and manufactured goods, they have more money to spend on other things, hence creating new job opportunities that are more productive than if the locals are forced grow food and make T shirts . . . unless that money is siphoned off by taxation and other government run or sponsored monopolies.

I believe it was Buffet who said a nation can't be prosperous selling itself hamburgers and insurance policies.

Yet, the food cart owners in the streets of NYC make far more money than the typical Iowa family farmer, before government taxation and transfers. A gormet hamburger in a NYC fancy restaurant can be priced dozens of times the price of a pound of beef at the Oklahoma farm gate. Why? because being located in a relatively free trade hub, the hamburger maker in NYC gets to provide his service to a much more productive clientelle whose time is far more valuable than fellow ranching neighbors in Oklahoma. As for selling each other insurance, so long as there is no government coercion involved to distort prices, insurances on crops and shipping have been an indispensable part of production and transportation for several centuries now.

JodyChunder says

Reality says

Laws banning jobs that make a few shekels less would reduce a 2-income / 3-income family into a 1-income family.

If that line of thinking were true, then I would rather have one Robert Deniro in my film than ten Ed Nortons.

You may think that way, but others may well like Ed Norton better than Deniro. Different people have different preferences. I'm sure a lot of the young people would like to have a job instead of being entirely dependent on their parents for allowance at 20 if not 30. If you want laws to permit old experienced actors/workers only, then don't be surprised by high youth unemployment, which is exactly what our economy is facing.

Reality says

Take for example the most common consumer good, if oil were available as "import" at the lowest cost possible, free like rain water, wouldn't that translate to far more jobs now prevented by the cost of transportation and energy cost?

Agreed - good example. If you want to see another example of stifling competition by government bureaucracy, look no further than CA which just introduced this "gem":
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/15/california-bartenders-gloves_n_4605193.html

Reality says

Some "jobs" at the very top of the income scale, yes. But not the bulk of the top 10% earners, most of whom are actually very productive workers who work very hard.

Some are. Most haven't worked an hour of honest labor in their life, just sit and collect their money by taking huge cuts in the middle class and sending our jobs overseas.

sbh says

Why don't those people grasp the increase in their standard of living at work in the deportation of their jobs? If these lazy takers want to work for a living they should just leave the country and compete for their jobs outside Shanghai.

That suggestion is as absurd as telling New Yorkers in the early 1800's to chase jobs to the midwest farm belt when the farms in the city (in what is now Central Park) were put out of business by the cheap food "imports" from the midwest.

There are indeed some jobs overseas for Americans, but most are management and entreprenuerial jobs that pay very well, not mindless manufacturing jobs on a production line.

There's a 70 year-old asian standing knee-deep in toxic sludge with blood streaming from his nose and ears making 12 cents an hour who's just about to drop dead. SHOW SOME PERSONAL RESPONSIBILTY!

That's a testament to the damage done by their socialist central planning past. Chinese and Vietnamese workers had been making about 12 cents or less an hour before their markets were opened up to free trade. They have been experiencing double-digit wage growth almost every year since they opened up to free trade. Now the wages there are about $2/hr, about 1/4 of our $7.xx minimum wage, but 16x increase from their communist past. It's already reaching a point where exporting jobs to China doesn't pay; even the Chinese are exporting jobs to Vietnam, India and Africa because the local Chinese wages are becoming too high by world standards . . . just like what happened to Mexican light manufacturing jobs a decade ago.

sbh says

Reality says

When people have to spend less on food and manufactured goods, they have more money to spend on other things, hence creating new job opportunities

except when they have no job or earnings. The first rule in lowering production costs is extreme rendition of the customer (uh, worker) to China. For any whiners.....see the comment above.

"No jobs or earnings" is obviously the result of taxation/regulation preventing the market from clearing. A person, any person, obviusly has to have either income or savings to keep buying food to stay alive. Since saving is not likely in those scenarios, it's an issue of how you count "income." Many "unemployed" are simply in the business of making their family and friends happy in return for support. Some of the activities may not be legal. That's what high taxation and regulation does to the youth: driving them into the underground economy.

sbh says

Reality says

There are always more people using a manufactured product than people working on manufacturing them.

As in $200 million yachts, $275K Bentleys, LearJets, gold-plated toilets, French Chateaus and boutique vineyards, Impressionist art?

$200mil yachts, gold-plated toilets, some French Chatewu and boutique vineyards are not manufactured products, but one-off craftsmanship. Bentleys and Learjets have far more customers than workers involved in manufacturing them. If the prices of Bentleys were lowered, there would be more buyers . . . like in a VW. LOL.

sbh says

Reality says

unless that money is siphoned off by taxation and other government run or sponsored monopolies.

Since the CEO siphons off the job and monetizes it in a Chinese cesspool to buy Impressionist art made over a hundred years ago by one person, and flies it back on his LearJet to stash it in a Napa Valley winery built by minimum wage grunts sixty years ago, the unemployed get to spend 3 cents less on a burger.....and you're still ranting about government.

That's utter nonsense. LearJets don't fly themselves or maintain themselves. Pilots, mechanics and flight attendants are required, along with the college aged hottie accompanying the trip. The vineyard and winery don't run themselves either without people hired to run them. If air and water quality in the US is far better than that of China, it makes very good sense to sell expensive wines to Chinese in exchange for letting the Chinese poison their own health making widgets for us. If wine making commands better pricing power, why get one's head stuck up in the manufacturing rectum?

Regarding art collection, the auction houses alone collect a higher margin than most Chinese manufacturing margins.

FortWayne says

Reality says

Some "jobs" at the very top of the income scale, yes. But not the bulk of the top 10% earners, most of whom are actually very productive workers who work very hard.

Some are. Most haven't worked an hour of honest labor in their life, just sit and collect their money by taking huge cuts in the middle class and sending our jobs overseas.

The cut-off line for top 10% is about $100k for household income. That's a family with two earners making $50k each . . . not nearly high enough in the corporate ladder to make outsourcing decisions. Small business owners making that little don't have much pricing power or the means to outsource significantly. OTOH, the bureaucrats making $80k to $100k+ do fit your profile "collect their money by taking huge cuts in the middle class."

bob2356 says

a nation can't be prosperous selling itself hamburgers and insurance policies.

The new economy of tweets and facebook postings will save us.

sbh says

If they really want to reap the vast rewards of rising standards of living overseas they can run through the opium fields in Afghanistan, but they're just too lazy and the ridiculously high minimum wage here at home keeps them on their asses.

Some Americans do take those jobs, as in intelligence operatives for the government. Growing opium in Afghanistan is a low paying job (albeit higher than growing other stuff there, but still much lower than minimum wage in this country). The money is in transporting it to the US under cover of government business. Some argue that the entire war on drugs is a fabrication to enable high profit drug trade by the intelligence service to pay their black projects.

sbh says

They have been experiencing double-digit wage growth almost every year since they opened up to free trade. Now the wages there are about $2/hr

The lazy average American worker who thinks he shouldn't be renditioned to Asia should become a goatherd over there. Mutton is cheap, women don't talk back, you don't even have to wash your hands to take a shit. Now THAT'S a standard of living we mustn't ignore when considering domestic policy in the US.

You obviusely have not travelled much abroad. Women in the far east are quite assertive in business. There are many in leadership roles in the private industries there. The middle class there are often neat freaks and germphobes. Many of their new kitchens have medical grade auclaves installed, as apparently they deem mere dishwashers like ours inadequate.

sbh says

" Many "unemployed" are simply in the business of making their family and friends happy in return for support.

Many CEOs are simply in the business of converting jobs into share repurchases making their boards and bankers happy in return for blowjobs and bailouts.

Who do you think is responsible for that kind of behavior? The government official doling out bailouts to their friends at taxpayer expense.

sbh says

If you just gave them away, no one would need a job in order to have one. Or you could get there by firing everyone, that way as well, they would be too cheap to pass up: instant increase in living standard! Better still to simply pay less in wage every year until everyone has a LearJet. Then next you can tackle the matter the blowjob economy. How many months of giving free blowjobs does it take for a hottie to afford a French Chateau? Get back to me on that one.

Some college age hotties do get to ride in LearJets and stay at French Chateau. Sometimes I wonder if that is the very purpose of the power elite deliberately crashing the economy.

sbh says

If board-of-director/golden parachute making commands better pricing power then it makes sense to sell penury to American workers in exchange for letting them eat pink slime. Rendition the customer and eat your seed corn. Then blame the customer for being too poor to buy what you won't hire someone to plant because you have neither seed nor worker nor customer. And yet they all have LearJets.

Try to parse your own sentences again please. Without government coercion, most people would put the need for food ahead of the need for LearJets. However, with government coercion benefitting an elite few at the expense of the rest of the population, all bets are off.

sbh says

Reality says

Regarding art collection, the auction houses alone collect a higher margin than most Chinese manufacturing margins.

Back to just saying anything. Margins now replace your claim about more this than that. Don't you tire of scripture?

Business margin is what pays wages one way or another, whether it's wages for the line workers, the engineers/marketeers putting together the product design or website design promoting the production/auction, or the domestic servants taking care of the house cleaning or even your favorite "blowjob" providers . . . all of their pay have to come from business margins, i.e. turning something worth less to something worth more.

sbh says

Some Americans do take those jobs, as in intelligence operatives for the government

Right. Despite the vastly better comparative rise in living standards over there (we just haven't debased wages enough here yet) it still doesn't woo lazy Americans away. If we could just drop pay in America to an equal 2 buck an hour we could match their vaunted rise in standard of living and make ourselves the envy of world once again.

Utter nonsense. You have serious reading problems. Afghans farmers growing opium don't make anywhere near $2/hr. The US intelligence agents shipping the product back into the US however probably make more than $100k/yr on government salary and black project money. The $2/hr is what typical manufacturing jobs make in the far east nowadays. If beyond that and they get replaced by Indian labor making $1/hr or robots.

sbh says

You obviusely have not travelled much abroad.

Obviously you need a refresher course in basic geography. What you describe is not predominant in this part of the world:

Obviously your only experience with the rest of the world is looking at the neat geopolitical maps. For your information, the vast stans of interior asia do not yet participate much in the global manufacturing, nor will they ever do much as the land there has low population density. The real parts that matter for global manufacturing trade are a few hot spots concentrated on the coast of the far east and Indian subcontinent: southern China near Hongkong, southern Vietnam near Saigon (Ho Chin Minh City), and the areas near Calicut and Mumbai in India. These are the areas that witnessed the fastest manufacturing job growth in the past two decades. Those regional economies are far more connected to the rest of the world than to their own home countries painted in the same color in your geopolitical map.

sbh says

Reality says

Who do you think is responsible for that kind of behavior? The government official doling out bailouts to their friends at taxpayer expense.

Here is another example of your limp verbiage. Those who act are "responsible" for actions, none other. CEOs have been behaving this way forever. The history of bailouts is not such that they save every asshole CEO from themselves or induce CEOs to make integral to business models the recent bailouts you refer to. But you will conveniently expand the scripture of government sin to include all it acts to be coercion and therefore a fractional bailout. Once you have defined Satan you get to attribute everything to him.

It's not just the CEO's, but a cross section of executives in the decision making process. They get reward very well by the government bailout scam, which is the very driving force behind those mis-behavior. For example, neither AIG nor GS had the $80billion involved in their gambles, but the gambling led to the nominal loss, and "bailout" money that can be split in the industry. It's akin to if the two of us had $1Million in each of our names, we decide to bet $10M on the next coin flip; it's a guaranteed outcome that one of us will be $9M in the hole while the other is allegedly "winning" $10M. Since the man losing the bet only has $1M, in a free market the winner would never be able to collect, and hence the contract would be non-enforceable. However, with government bailout, the taxpayers are forced to stump up the $9M; so now you and I get to split that $9M regardless who wins or loses on the bet. the "loser" of the bet can partake on the $9M by signing up a new job with the "winner." That's how the game is played!

sbh says

The power elite crash specific economies because they make shitloads of money in doing it.

By looting taxpayers via excuses and bailouts.

What I'm saying, and what you don't agree with is that it is a natural action within a sociopathy. Natural enough as long as not every agent does it lest it indeed become the entire economy that they crash, at which point there is no one left to play the customer: the standard of living is so high that everyone is too impoverished to buy the cheap goods.

That's utter nonsense. Market clears when regulators are out of the way. The same house can be worth $1M or can be worth $100k. In fact, the typical $1M house in many hot areas was probably worth $100k 20 years ago.

sbh says

Without government coercion, most people would put the need for food ahead of the need for LearJets.

For cryin' out loud ,man, where do you come from? EVERYONE including CEOs already puts the need for food waaaay ahead of the need for LearJets. For pity's sake this is getting pathetic. Now government is to blame for LearJet lust? What about blowjobs? Would there be no porn in the Austrian utopia?

You were the one who lamented the CEO's lust for LearJet came before the common men's need for food. The government is of course to blame for drastically increasing wealth disparity in the past 40 years, since the US Dollar became pure fiat money after Nixon administration closed the gold window. The government meddling is what's making CEO's especially valuable to shareholders due to their connection to government regulators, often at the expense of consumers and the workers alike.

What about blowjobs and porn? You were the one lamenting high flying CEO's getting blowjobs. Young women throughout history have capitalized on their natural assets to gain socioeconomic status that they do not have at birth. OTOH, the typical socialist utopia often involve the leaders having gaggles of less than willing sex objects. At least in a capitalistic society, even the LearJet owning CEO has to seduce the girl into voluntarily boarding the plane, instead of by threatening to blow her parents up or sending them to the gulags. As for porn government bureaucrats are notorious for watching porn at their jobs. There's nothing particularly wrong for adults watching porn per se, but something is very wrong when taxpayers are drafted into paying for their time watching porn.

sbh says

turning something worth less to something worth more.

The something made less is the workers pay. The something made more is the share price. When the less approaches zero in purchase power it matters little what pricing power there is in the share price or the widget. Penury rules. But at least you still have Satan to blame it on.

The workers' productivity at a particular existing job in terms of market value is reduced by technology advance and transportation improvement. Do you think the horse shoe maker should still have his high pay when horses were replaced by cars? What about the wage of the typists when wordprocessors and desktop publishing made them obsolete? The CEO did not make the jobs obsolete. The shifting consumer desire (always wanting a better thing or wanting a lower price for the same thing) made the job obsolete. The consumer is the ultimate boss (in the absence of government coercion).

When existing jobs are obsolete, it takes another group of entreprenuers to take advantage of workers looking for jobs (and workers taking advantage of the capital provided by the new entreprenuers) in order for new jobs to be created. Capitalizing on the lowered cost on some input factors, the new jobs should be more productive and higher pay. For example, the cars made the horse shoe maker job obsolste, but enable much lower price for cab rides and vastly expanded the taxi market in NYC (before the city stepped in with Medallion requirement) Government taxation and regulation get in the way of new job creation. That is the fundamental problem in our economy: not enough new jobs are created thanks to all the government meddling while the economy is making old jobs obsolete as it always does.

sbh says

Reality says

You have serious reading problems. Afghans farmers growing opium don't make anywhere near $2/hr. The $2/hr is what typical manufacturing jobs make in the far east nowadays.

I read perfectly well, thank you, as this is my native language. What is true is that you have no grasp of humor in English. And thank you for backstopping my point: we need more $2/hr. jobs here in the US to make your system work.

Your claim of humor is just a veneer covering your ignorance and idiocy. The world price for manufacturing job on a production is worth less than $2/hr, as the Chinese are finding out now as they are losing those jobs to Indians who are willing to do the same job for $1/hr, just like Mexican workers found out a decade ago when they lost those jobs to Chinese. how to enable the US workers earn more than $2/hr? Let them find better jobs than production line manufacturing! Layering bureaucrats on top of US workers to "protect" those manufacturing jobs would only make the real purchasing power of those jobs even less.

sbh says

sufficient to acquaint me with the difference between "asia" and the "far east", and to know that what makes you swell with pride, namely the increase from making 1 cent per hour to making $2 per day, does not warrant criticizing American workers who fail to think that wage destruction at home will lead to an increase in their standard of living.

Far East is a trade term emphasizing the very east end of the Eurasian continent and its link to the European heartland primarily via sea transportation. "Asia" is a dumb geopolitical map concept that doesn't signify anything on the ground; various parts of Asia is far more different from each other than parts of Far East differentiates from the West. "Asia" is not the concept relevant to trade discussion, but Far East is, emphasizing the various entreports on the coast of East Asia. That's where the vast majority of real trade with the West has always been, not the interior "Asian" heartland, which is quite irrelevant except for pointless imperialist map painting fantasy (e.g. Afghanistan being the destroyer of empires).

Nobody thinks wage destruction at home will lead to an increase in standard of living. However, wage increase has to come from productivity increase. You would not be able to maintain the wages of existing typists in 1980 by banning word processors and desktop computers. Instead, a solution is to be found by letting the typists transition themselves into secretaries, nurses and perhaps even restaurant/bar owners/servers. Job mixes change over time as result of technological change. Protecting manufacturing jobs at $20-60/hr when the world market clearing price for them is closer to $2/hr would only lower American standards of living and eventually losing those jobs anyway! Just like protecting horse cab drivers' jobs at the onslaught of automobiles would be.

sbh says

You were the one lamenting high flying CEO's getting blowjobs

No, you brought up hotties to buttress your claim that LearJets provide sooooo much secondary employment demand. Since falling wages is a key component of living standard increase, if the hottie is ever going to buy a LearJet she had better prepare for her services to approach maximum pricing power, which in your bizarro world is near zero or maybe $2 if she lives in Asia. Hence, my comment about your "blowjob" economy.

Do you just string a few phrases together and hope (against hope) that they make any sense at all? Falling real wages is of course not a key component of living standard increase. However, maintaining nominal wages is not an effective way to prevent real wages from falling. Real wages are measured in purchasing power.

Attractive travel companion does not necessarily mean blowjobs. No, young hotties don't need to buy LearJets in order to ride in them. I wouldn't even want to own a LearJet if one were given to me. I simply don't have the money to pay for the jobs that I would have to create in order to keep a LearJet: maintenance, inspection, pilot, parking hangar fee, etc. etc.; may well run into the high six-figures each year! You probably don't understand the difference between a LearJet vs. a little two-seat Cessna. BTW, if you want to fly across the Pacific nonstop, you probably want something other than LearJet. Gulfstream sells some of the longer-range jets. Learjets became popular for private jet flights to Western Europe across the Atlantic.

sbh says

Reality says

The CEO did not make the jobs obsolete.

Yes he/she did. Of course he/she did. He/she saw more short term gain in liquidating a job and destroying that customer than in reducing profit and extending a relationship with a labor provider. If the CEO doesn't realize his worker is his customer he, like you, will claim it is the consumer/customer/worker who has demanded that he be fired. The answer to that lunacy is to blame the government.

I see, you are really conned by old Henry Ford's propaganda piece. Workers in a mass production facility can not possibly make up for a significant part of the consumer base for the same product, in any modern economy with advanced division of labor anyway. Take old Henry's own case, there were 15,000,000+ copies of Model T made . . . at a time when he had something like 20,000 workers. Even if every single worker bought a Model T, their purchases would account for less than 0.2% of the total output!

In a modern economy with advanced division of labor, the workers' own consumption has to account for a miniscule portion of a specific output product in order for him to be able to afford all the other products in the market that also pique his interest. Your argument about paying workers more through protectionism instead of raising worker productivity by switching jobs is actually Ludditism: the silly idea that automation lower standards of living because machines replace workers! No, you silly, machines take over certain jobs, so the workers can reinvent themselves and take on more productive jobs! Likewise, foreigners in a far away land take over menial jobs at lower pay, so we Americans can find better jobs taking advantage of the lower priced products.

What's ailing the economy is the government growth sucking up and wasting the new opportunity created by all the producers both domestic and foreign. For example, lower priced and higher quality cars should be able to allow lower priced taxi fare and/or higher taxi driver wages . . . however a NYC Medallion (license to operate taxi) costing over $1M each renders whatever cost reduction offered by Toyota/Honda/Ford new car model reducing the vehicle life time operating cost by $30k or so moot in comparison. Likewise, it is the stifling tax and regulation in this country that wipes out the economic advantages conferred to us by all those hard working foreigners making things cheaper for us.

sbh says

Reality says

how to enable the US workers earn more than $2/hr?

It's obvious! make the US worker into an Asian worker by firing them. It works for you, and at least SOMEBODY gets rich. Sheesh, what's so hard about that?

If an American does the exact same work that can be easily substituted by an overseas worker (soon to be African, btw) or a robot either here or overseas for far less, then the job is dead and only waiting to be buried by whoever is brave enough to point out the obvious. For that particular American worker's own benefit, the sooner he/she can find a more productive job the better while still young enough to make the career change.

sbh says

"Asia" is a dumb geopolitical map concept

Oh, OK. Any other inconvenient concepts you feel like redefining?

Goes to show just how stupid you are. You came here showing a multi-color geopolitical map (with questionable drawing around Kashmire and other disputed areas) in a discussion on trade. I already explained to you the difference between "Asia" a geopolitical term vs. "Far East" a trade term. Then you come back with stupid shit like this while ignoring the most important parts of what I wrote. You are a dumb fuck and too dumb to learn new tricks.

sbh says

Reality says

Nobody thinks wage destruction at home will lead to an increase in standard of living.

Well, you've clearly slipped another one of your redefinitions passed me there. When did you redefine deflation as a something other than a rise in living standard?

I never defined deflation as rise in living standards. You tried to engage in strawman tactic. When did you rape your neighbor's wife? LOL. The key to maintaining and improving living standards is letting the market clear. A functional and clearing market is what keeps generating the wealth of nations.

sbh says

Instead, a solution is to be found by letting the typists transition themselves into secretaries, nurses and perhaps even restaurant/bar owners/servers.

Yeah, but after the market clears there won't be anyone buying burgers and beers. Nope, just blowjobs and LearJets....all four of them.

What world do you live in? The typist jobs are long gone. The market already cleared on that. The ex-typists became secretaries, nurses and holders of many other jobs, most of which have nothing to do with blowjobs or Learjets, two of your own obsessions.

All this excess compensation like the one for yahoo's cfo is only possible because the government and the Fed have been keeping inefficient companies alive by inducing and sustaining non-organic consumption. If you support these policies you cannot complain about a disproportionally large amount of that money taken out right at the top. Heck, with bubbly valuations, propped up failures (making 52 week highs) and overhyped IPOs back en vogue, why would you not squander money at the executive level while the party is still going?

Private companies operating more efficiently and less hype-based have the hardest time hiring skilled programmers around 120K and below in the bay area because they can "make more at yahoo or google". I often tell candidates that the jobs there are less stable and less balanced, but it's hard to get that through with all the hype out there once again. At least you can make a killing in the stock market ;)

the article sucks. what matters is the top half of the top 1%.

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html

The biggest export from America? The middle class.
"In 1960 you had roughly 8 manufacturing jobs for each one in finance. Today this is less than 2 manufacturing jobs per each job in finance. In the real economy, we still purchase goods that have to be made (i.e., cars, real estate, etc). Yet we have a giant industry that for the most part, is rent seeking."
http://www.mybudget360.com/us-biggest-export-middle-class-jobs/

sbh says

Real wages are measured in purchasing power.

And your favorite way to get there is through a deflationary spiral.

Utter nonsense. One of the objections that I have against government borrowing and spending is that in the long run it is deflationary: every cent borrowed has to be paid plus interest. High real wages as measured in purchasing power can only be achieved through higher worker productivity. More bureaucrats meddling in the market place would just put a higher burden on the real workers.

sbh says

Attractive travel companion does not necessarily mean blowjobs.

Hard to believe you still buy this as a legitimate topic of debate. It's a distraction used to showcase your tin ear. Eventually you'll get it. I'll wait.

You are the one who is obsessed with "blowjobs." In case you did not know, dating and marriage consist of one of the largest forms of wealth transfer historically. What do you think happens after the prince finds Cinderella by fitting the crystal shoe? wealth transfer and sharing between the rich and the poor without the third party taxman in between.

sbh says

I see, you are really

unwilling to let you stage my position. It sucks, I know, but maybe eventually you will learn to let people speak for themselves without bastardizing the discussion in a form that favors your bias.

That would be your own favorite tactic.

Robert Sproul says

The biggest export from America? The middle class.

"In 1960 you had roughly 8 manufacturing jobs for each one in finance. Today this is less than 2 manufacturing jobs per each job in finance. In the real economy, we still purchase goods that have to be made (i.e., cars, real estate, etc). Yet we have a giant industry that for the most part, is rent seeking."

So what?

The US is the largest manufacturer by far it is just that todays manufacturers are highly automated.

The economy changes all the time. The only problem is when the government sticks their nose where it doesn't belong with their "know best" and stop job creation through ENDLESS meddling.

Think about it Henry Paulson runs around like chicken little telling everyone the sky will fall if we don't do TARP and then, they said if a "little" is good more is better and have now spent 6 trillion dollars.

Along with Frank Dodd the Consumer Protection Act and the ACA. You have to wonder how it hasn't imploded already. They really have to be stupid to be so arrogant to think they can "help" the economy. There is a reason why soldiers shoot the lieutenant.

sbh says

In a modern economy with advanced division of labor, the workers' own consumption has to account for a miniscule portion of a specific output product in order for him to be able to afford all the other products in the market that also pique his interest.

What the fuck is this supposed to say let alone mean? Reducing it to basic elements of sentence structure: worker consumption must equal, but not exceed, output equal to his demand? If he is in penury, by employer election, how does compensation ever underpin opportunity? Compensation is always at the point of survival.

Go back and re-read what I wrote and what you quoted for clarification. Put in simple terms: if you work as a hat maker in an economy with advanced division of labor, the number of hats you personally consume would have to be a tiny proportion of the number of hats that you make . . . simply because you need to buy shirt, pants, socks, shoes, food and roof over your head! All those would have to be paid by the numerous hats that you make but do not consume personally. Fairly simple concept summarized by "division of labor." The idea that "worker is consumer" is simply wrong. We do not live in a self-sufficient subsistence farming society.

Compensation is hardly ever at "the point of survival" (whatever that means), just like prices for most products and services are hardly ever at the zero-profit point as the dumb-ass "evenly revolving economy model" would dictate. New products emerge (like the iPhone) and have extremely high profit margins built into the price; Profit attracts competition, then the similar products become commodity in a few years, then manufacturing becomes consolidated to squeeze profit out of lowered prices as most players exit; then the next generation of products of higher margins emerge. Likewise, jobs go through similar cycles: steel making became highly profitable in the late 19th century and could pay very wages for workers . . . then the high profit attracted competition, which drove down prices . . . then carmaking taking advantage of low price steel emerged and created a new drove of high paying jobs. That's how the price cycle works for both products and jobs. Your idea of government intervention to protect old obsolete jobs would only prevent workers from transitioning to the latest/greatest line of jobs while breed more and more bureaucratic monopolies, the burden of which all have to be carried by real workers.

sbh says

Reality says

What's ailing the economy is the government growth..... Likewise, it is the stifling tax and regulation

Bullshit. Corporate profits have NEVER BEEN HIGHER. Can you read? NEVER BEEN HIGHER.

You are talking about large corporations listed among the indices, many of which having achieved some degree of government sponsored monopolistic position. Just look at how many banks are among the list of corporations.

Reality says

If an American does the exact same work that can be easily substituted by an overseas worker

don't blame the worker when he can't buy anything. The worker is the customer.

He is not the only customer. If he is even 1% (usually less) of the total customers for the product, artificially raising the price would make the other 99% of the customers less capable of affording the very same product. The only people enabled in such a process is the bureaucrat assigned to police the price, at the expense of every single customer of the product.

sbh says

I already explained to you the difference between "Asia" a geopolitical term vs. "Far East" a trade term. Then you come back with stupid shit like this while ignoring the most important parts of what I wrote. You are a dumb fuck and too dumb

No, you ran away from what wasn't useful to you. You don't want to face the labor abuses of the rising standards of countries we offshore jobs to, so you make and end-run around generic geography and try to substitute what works better for you.

No I did not. I used the term "Far East" to begin with. You are the stupid fuck who brought here a junior high geopolitical map of Asia. I explained to you why such a map is irrelevant. "Far East" is a reference to the entreports where trade to the west has been concentrated for 5 centuries, not the vast interior wasteland of Asia, which is usually not relevant in trade discussion, but only handy for morons out to paint maps and build empires. You are acting as stupid as the Italian imperialists in the late 19th century: specializing in acquiring deserts!

sbh says

What world do you live in? The typist jobs are long gone. The market already cleared on that.

The world I live in is the one you can't tolerate, you know, the one where the market didn't clear. You've been braying all along that we have no market clearing, that we have all these illegitimate jobs that don't deserve to exist because, well, let's face it, we don't have anarchy. If government exists there are just too many jobs that pay too much. And yes, asshole, you think by forcing down the level of compensation for all those falsely forced-upon jobs there would be a renaissance of living standards due to the resulting deflation and collapse. It's your wet dream.

You are now putting your own stupidity on full display. Market being prevented from clearing is the very definition of Depression. What do you think trade is? What do you think economic activity is? Market clearing! Market clearing through continued trade is what enable division of labor to continue. Obviously your fantasy is to live in a self-sufficient subsistence farming world where each ounce of grain is priced at $1Million and nobody buys or sells anything any way.

When market is being held up by taxation, debt service burden and old input factor price structure, the way forward is to let market find a price point without these hinderences.

If each American production line worker can make 100 widgets an hour. In order to improve productivity, you can try to make them work harder and make 200 widgets an hour, or give them a new job to watch 5 robots each making 100 widgets an hour, or train them to become liasons/purchase-managers who go overseas each watching over 20 foreigners each making 100 widgets an hour. The result is 200/hr vs. 500/hr - capital invest cost in robots vs. 2000/hr - cost of paying foreign workers and travel cost for the American worker. The worker himself may consume only 1 widget/hr or less, the rest is made for all the other Americans who just want the best widgets at the lowest price. Fairly elementary stuff.

When 100 robots replace 100 employees....

Well assuming robots did not build the robots, some jobs were created in building and maintenance of robots.

sbh says

Wasn't it when an ocean of insolvency was lapping at the shores of every continent on this planet? Couldn't you just taste the vindication coming, the big "I told you so"?

No. I didn't tell anyone "I told you so." Not when I shorted the market in 2000, not when I bought long in 2009, not when I sold my primary residence in early 2000's (too early), not when I bought in 2011. In any case, I don't get hard-on from investing in financial assets or real estates. I get hard-on from investing in young women; women little over half my own age. I don't like economic depressions making too many young women desperate; I don't like desperate young women. Too many of them throwing themselves at me makes it hard to find the ones that I'm looking for: the ones who can really take advantage of the opportunities that I offer and make a better future life for herself in the long run.

And then....those ASSHOLES.....you know, Bush's tag-team of Hank and Ben suspended mark-to-market AND TOOK IT ALL AWAY. You've had nothing but flaccid resentment ever since (and I apologize to your significant other, whatever his name is).

I don't have any SO at the moment. I have had 2 serial long term GF's (plus a couple short-term ones in between) since 2008. They were very hot, and I usually last hours when intimate; girls tend to walk funny the next day. In any case, the Bush tag-team were assholes. This depression should have been over in a year to 18 months like the 1921-22 depression instead of the long drag-out affair 5 years later and fraying the fibers of the society itself.

sbh says

Gone was the apocalyptic, blood-in-the-streets market clear and its cathartic phoenix renaissance renewal. THAT'S the world I live in, where I stoically walk through the gauntlet of government coercion down to CVS to buy some anti-biotics with fiat currency rather than having to beat in the head with some rebar some other poor schlub in order to steal the last bottle on the shelf.

In case you did not notice, the "flash mob" and "knock-out" nonsense only became frequent in the last year or so. Prolonged high youth unemployment is leading to severe social problems. A rapid crash in the asset market and new entrepreneurs being allowed to buy up the assets on the cheap then launch new enterprises with little debt burden would have produced far more job opportunities! Yes, that might have killed a few million-dollar bonus Wall Street jobs.

sbh says

After saving the asset markets I now want government to prop up labor markets and force QE down into the servant classes by raising minimum wage to $15 and to triple the taxes for the top 10%.

Such a policy would be just as misguided. A $15/hr minimum wage law would preclude many young people from their first legal jobs. . . while businesses would be forced to turn to banksters for more loans to invest in automatic machines to replace entry level jobs. The problem with the "liberal" statist mind is that they are too dumb to see the unintended consequences; either that, or the leftist leaders are in the pockets of the banksters and see the consequences very well.

Triple the taxes for the top 10%? Are you talking about raising the 37% to 111% of income or tripling the income tax on couples livign on two $50k/yr incomes (the cut-off line for top 10% income is around $100k/yr)? The former is mathematically impossible. The latter would destroy the middle class.

Reality says

Austrian Economics is not in the prediction business per se

It's not in the explanation business either. Really, it's not in any business....

thunderlips11 says

...impose a modest tariff, like we've had almost the entire history of the USA until the 70s, and keep our standard of living.

I'd be OK with a more then modest tariff.