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Dan8267
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2012 Nov 7, 5:04am
You're right and we're flourishing under Obama just fine.
Obama's economic policies are terrible. There the same as Bush's and Romney's except without letting the rich screw the middle class. The only difference between the Democratic policies and the Republican policies is that the Republicans would eliminate taxes on the richest 1% and cut PBS (a few million) instead of the military (a few tens of billions). Hence, the national debt would increase more under the Republican plan.
Bellingham Bill
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2012 Nov 7, 5:49am
>The Key to jobs is allowing free enterprise dictate the winners and losers
jobs in India and Africa, sure.
Wake up, trout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_in_Peoples_Republic_of_China
MisdemeanorRebel
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2012 Nov 7, 5:52am
1. Slaves (cheaper to buy people than rent their services).
2. Children (they have no bargaining power and can be easily abused).
3. Third world labor (practically slaves and can be abused as such, but cannot do onsite work, so they aren't available for things like agriculture).
4. Illegal immigrants (they have no rights, work for less than minimum wage, and can be abused because if they go to the police, they get deported).
5. H1B visa workers (they have few rights, get deported if they lose their jobs, so they accept far lower wages than Americans, i.e., they give a bigger cut of the wealth they produce to their employers sometimes over 90%).
6. Unskilled Americans (have less bargaining power than skilled Americans hence the motive to try to turn everything into unskill labor).
7. Skilled Americans (the scum of the Earth, these expect to keep the majority of the wealth they produce).
This ought to be mounted on a wall.
Bellingham Bill
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2012 Nov 7, 5:54am
instead of the military (a few tens of billions)
We need to cut the military around $300B/yr to return it to the level of spending ca. 1999 in real terms (ie $300B in 1999 is $500B today, and we're spending $800B/yr now:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FDEFX
That's over 10% of wages. We need to pay a 12.5% income tax to just cover the DOD alone.
No corporation hires a person unless it has to in order to fulfill demand.
Dan, you think in the industrial age terms. In our post-industrial society corporations do not fulfill demand, they create demand. The main product of Google, Apple, Facebook, Hollywood is demand. Banks work hard to create demand for mortgages and housing, etc. Some of them also fulfill some or all of the demand they create, like Apple, in this case they use slave labor, but that's not their main product.
To fulfill demand robots may successfully replace your 1. thru 4. categories, but creating demand requires two things:
A. Skilled workers (your cat. 5. and up to certain extend cat. 7., even though there is such a big problem with American education that cat. 5. will remain necessary for a loong time.)
B. Guinea pig population: your cat. 6. -- unskilled Americans.
Dan8267
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2012 Nov 8, 10:58am
Dan, you think in the industrial age terms. In our post-industrial society corporations do not fulfill demand, they create demand.
Some industries do. Others like retail stores, restaurants, and service industries do not. And the industries that do create demand will hire when and only when the demand they created is greater than their capacity to deliver. Hence, the principle still applies unaltered.
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I'm watching Real Time with Bill Maher, and Rob Reiner tells everyone exactly what the key to job creation is. He does so clearly and succinctly, and he's absolutely right.
Tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations do not create jobs. No corporation hires a person unless it has to in order to fulfill demand. And then, the corporations hires in the following order based on what is available:
1. Slaves (cheaper to buy people than rent their services).
2. Children (they have no bargaining power and can be easily abused).
3. Third world labor (practically slaves and can be abused as such, but cannot do onsite work, so they aren't available for things like agriculture).
4. Illegal immigrants (they have no rights, work for less than minimum wage, and can be abused because if they go to the police, they get deported).
5. H1B visa workers (they have few rights, get deported if they lose their jobs, so they accept far lower wages than Americans, i.e., they give a bigger cut of the wealth they produce to their employers sometimes over 90%).
6. Unskilled Americans (have less bargaining power than skilled Americans hence the motive to try to turn everything into unskill labor).
7. Skilled Americans (the scum of the Earth, these expect to keep the majority of the wealth they produce).
Depending on costs, robots will be preferred to anything more expensive, even slaves. You don't have to feed robots. Of course, it's not worth developing the robots yourself since that would take actual effort or hiring skilled employees (yikes!).
On the bright side, robots may become cheap enough to replace humans in the near future. The downside is that those robots will also be available to your competitors. Hmmmm, we corporations seem to be having the same problem with third world labor. Now anyone can hire the Chinese slave workers and we have to compete with startups and foreign competitors. Must find way to patent robots and Chinese babies.