Tom E.

Another Reason Why America's Glory Days Are Over

If you want smaller government, then stop business from sending all the private sector jobs overseas. We have had practically no net new private sector jobs created in the US, in this decade.

The public sector expands to fill the vacuum.

U.S. Economy Gathering Momentum for Renewed Expansion

I wonder if this recession is more like a "panic" like in 1819 or 1907 than a depression. It happened so quick, it sure seemed like a panic.

Too Big to Initiate an Anti-Trust Suit Against?

A lot of these mergers are driven by Wall Streeter seeking fees and CEOs who get bonuses for doing a deal. Often they are not good for the shareholders and mostly bad for the employees (companies get money to pay the merger fees by firing employees).

I would ban mergers between two healthy companies. More competition is better for small business.

Capitalism Gone Wild

Free trade also has a fatal flaw and that is its race to the bottom mentality. If there are no global standards & rules like environmental, worker safety etc. the wild horses of global capitalism will use global arbitrage to lower the standard of living (reverse civilization) in developed countries.

This will eventually undermine support for free trade and kill it for a generation or more.

So Many (Non-)Taxpayers with No Skin in the Game

Zing!

The incomes of workers has been declining for decades and this joker wonders why they are not paying more in taxes.

Of course they are still paying excise, property, sales tax etc and doing it out of non-discretionary income unlike the rich who pay taxes out of their discretionary income or play money.


On Dec 08 09:02 AM lower98th wrote:

> Perhaps if you consider the concentration in distribution of corporate
> earnings away from workers and to top management, another theory
> emerges.
>
> What kind of society structures itself so that 45% of Working Americans
> are unable to earn a taxable wage.

The Destruction of the Dollar: It's Nearly Inevitable

What is the point of your babbling? One-way trade, currency manipulation off shoring and outsourcing are the source of our problem. You are like a man who says that he hates malaria, but has nothing against mosquitoes.

Author said:"Don’t get me wrong: I’m no protectionist. I believe the U.S. deserves everything it’s experiencing, and I certainly don’t believe in limiting immigration or trade."

China: The Consumption Conundrum

China gets 10% growth, we get 10% unemployment. Win-win?

The Jobless Decade

I think people would rather have private sector jobs in the productive economy, but what are you going to do when big business sends all these jobs overseas or outsource them?

The key point is that it is business (US Chamber of Commerce and transnationals and international labor arbitrage) that are causing the lack of private jobs in the US and forcing government to expand to take up the slack. If there were private sector jobs, there would be no need for big government. What is the alternative, let people starve?


On Dec 07 11:07 AM User 353732 wrote:

> Only the Productive Economy can create real, enduring, good value
> added , jobs. The Productive Economy is driven by innovation and
> motivated workers; sustained by risk capital , real assets and the
> just allocation of credit and rewards; and resides on a foundation
> of liberty.
> In 2009 the Productive Economy is under tremendous stress and siege.
>
>
> It is being pillaged, enslaved and compressed by the liars, cheats
> and thieves of the US Regime from above. It is being bled by the
> parasites from below.
> As goes the Productive Economy so go good jobs where real people
> make real things of real value.
>
> The more the Parasitic Economy consumes the substance and vitality
> of the Productive Economy the more the capacity to create and sustain
> real jobs diminishes. The unemployment and underemployment of time
> and (but even more cruelly) skills increase, as a result. The longer
> skilled and quasi-skilled workers are idle or employed in jobs well
> below their skill level, the more the regenerative power of the Productive
> Economy atrophies. Less real work at lower pay for fewer real Americans
> is the inevitable consequence of the atrophying of the Productive
> Economy.
>
> The US Regime claims that the Productive Economy is really just an
> embarrassing relic of the dark age of work, production, frugality,
> savings,exports, hard assets, innovation and entrepreneurship. The
> New Economics has made it irrelevant. What matters is that the Statistical
> Economy ,which has been conjured up by the black arts of the Regime,
> is in a "V" recovery and the Parasitic economy is expanding by the
> moment.
>
> Entitlements and transfer payments not obligations and jobs are the
> true measures of economic success to the Regime........They have
> the growing wealth, power and status to prove it.

Employment Data Show Workers Moving from Skilled to Unskilled Jobs

I thought free trade was suppose to be win-win?

Its a win for CEO's and a loss for everyone else. Here is a good video of James Goldsmith on the Charlie Rose show predicting what would happen if GATT passed.

video.google.com/video...#

Cyclical and Structural Dynamics in U.S. Economic Activity

We have to face the fact that big business has hollowed out the US labor force. All the warnings about nonreciprocal free trade have proven to be true. This decade we will probably end up with no new private sector jobs created and all job growth in the public sector.

As the article shows, the only reason the unemployment rate was low in 2005 was because of declining labor participation and the credit bubble.

Here is a video by Sir James Goldsmith on Charlie Rose predicting what would happen with GATT (WTO) and globalization:

video.google.com/video...#

If all the private sector jobs are sent overseas, that means that the government must get bigger to take up the slack in the form of public sector jobs. In France half the jobs are now public sector (did not use to be so). Perhaps that is our future in the US unless we change course.

The Jobless Decade

All the talk about hollowing out the US was true. More money for the top 1% and nothing for the rest. Certainly not my idea of the win-win that globalization activist sold us.

The private sector has probably created no new jobs in the decade. All job growth has come from the public sector. Free trade leads to big government.

Sir James Goldsmith predicted this all on the Charlie Rose show November 15, 1994:

video.google.com/video...#

The Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor Are Getting Richer Too

Nice try Mark, but you are overlooking the huge inflation in housing, health care and education that has more than wiped out any savings from cheaper appliances.

In other words, its nice to have inexpensive appliances but if you can't afford a house to put them in they don't do you any good.

In 1973 a working person could afford to own a house, car and have their spouse stay at home to raise the kids. Now days both parents need to work - and when you deduct the extra costs of childcare and transportation - in my opinion they are still behind the 1973 household.

One-way trade agreements have given us cheap appliances but at the cost of declining incomes and asset inflation as cheap money floats around the world.

We’ve Survived Worse Markets (and Economies) Before – the 1970s

The US economy is dependent on the consumer buying domestic products or services. The consumer is the worker (we are all workers to some degree).

To shore up the worker and reduce import consumption versus exports, we must first reduce the cost of employing a worker. We should eliminate the payroll tax for both the employee and employer and remove the burden from the employer of paying for health care. The lost tax revenues would be replaced with a value added tax (VAT).

www.cnbc.com/id/34161814

A VAT would reduce imported consumption and increase exports (most VAT taxes are deducted for exports).

David Rosenberg: The U.S. Is in a Form of Depression

The aftermath of an asset inflation bubble is no better than a wage-push inflation bubble (like in the 1970's). And yet the Fed treats wage-push (workers wages rising) as some kind of terrible event, while turning a near blind eye to asset inflation.

Its like saying rich people behaving badly is ok and workers behaving badly is not ok.

The Death of the U.S. Consumer

We have less private sector jobs in the US now than in 1999 and we need a huge amount of new jobs each year just to absorb the new graduates. Time Magazine has a good piece calling 2000-2009, the decade from hell.

www.time.com/time/nati...