GUNS OR BUTTER?

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by LafayetteBis, Feb 20, 2020.

  1. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What many Americans think is that "ability" is bred into the individual. IT ISN'T! FOR AS LONG AS THEY HAVE THE INNATE ABILITY TO LEARN!

    Which is why we must spend Mountains of Money on Learning and not Guns-for-our-boys Over in the Sandbox! (Once upon a time known as the Guns-or-butter Option).

    With the advent of the Information Age, the Industrial Age in America has hightailed to the Far-east! Only 12% of all jobs are found in the "Industry" in America!

    It's time we Got Off Our Collective Duffs and pursued a pro-Education program (content&finance) for both Secondary and Post-secondary educations, which are both keys to a better lifestyle for all Americans.

    Instead of wasting money on the DoD, where Donald Dork has just increased its total take of the Discretionary Budget. See that chart here:
    [​IMG]
    Note that DoD-spending is more than half the total! Have we not better uses for that money? (Some of which will go from the DoD-contractor's profits into his reelection campaign funding!)

    Methinks we do!
    Educating our youth in preparation for a decent LifeStyle should be our paramount concern ...
     
  2. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We need to teach them something that will actually add value to the overall economy, and not because an employer would rather hire someone with a college degree than someone else without.

    (Helping everyone to run faster isn't going to result in more winners in the race)
     
  3. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    No, we should note that education's intrinsic reward is more important than its extrinsic. There should be no use of the market to determine worth.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  4. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Industry has been the easiest jobs to outsource to China, where there are often slave level wages.

    If we got rid of all the other government roadblocks that constitute labor/trade protectionism, we could probably outsource all sorts of additional jobs, like pharmaceuticals and teaching (just pay an English-speaking Indian or Chinese person to teach an American classroom through teleconference). Of course the public employee's union would never stand for that, and the pharmaceutical industry will send lobbyists to government to make sure the "health" of Americans is protected from Chinese companies that "can't be trusted".
     
  5. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Then account for Germany's high export rate, coupled with high wage and strong collective bargaining?
     
  6. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So you admit that the market can't necessarily be used to gauge how much an education is actually worth.

    Thus college graduates earning more, as individuals compared to individuals without, doesn't necessarily mean their education provided any net benefit to the economy.
     
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  7. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    It can't, at all. Education goes beyond standard public good characteristic. It involves intrinsic rewards which are crucial for humanity.
     
  8. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Cheaper labor from Turkish migrants German industries have brought in to do the lower paying more menial jobs.

    Plus the French are lazy and French industry is burdened with endless regulations, so Germany getting a market in France is easy competition.

    Simply look at the trade balances between specific EU countries.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  9. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Nonsense comment, given collective bargaining and high wage rates.
     
  10. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Seems pretty vague for an economics discussion.
    One could say similar things about military intervention.

    How many inventions and beneficial technological advances have come out of war and military spending?

    Maybe we need to invest more in technological research, and less in just blanket education.

    Educating children for the future is useless if there are no jobs for them in that field.
    Something policymakers need to keep in mind more often.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  11. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If the wages are so high, why aren't native Germans enthusiastically scrambling to do those jobs?

    Do you think Germany could still export so readily to lower income countries if they had to pay what it costs to hire German workers?

    (and I'm not talking about specialty niche applications or the high-end luxury market)
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  12. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You show your naivety. The difference between intrinsic and extrinsic reward is well understood in economics.

    No you couldn't. You'd typically refer to rent from the military industrial complex.

    Old hat comment. We know that the military sector does not contribute to technical progress like the civilian sector. It is spin-in, rather than spin-off.

    You've constructed a fake opportunity cost.

    Rubbish. Sounds like you haven't understood intrinsic rewards at all.
     
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  13. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You've really confused yourself. For working poverty, look to the UK not Germany. The UK has relatively minor collective bargaining (reflecting Thatcherism) and has stripped away labour rights to a working poverty 'zero hour contracts' outcome. End result? Low productivity and therefore stunted exports.

    You've allowed your right wing knuckle dragging politics to get in the way of any economic understanding.
     
  14. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't know about Europe, but in the US, Free Trade deals over several decades killed collective bargaining. In all sectors except the public employee's unions, who have a more direct grip on government and can make sure their employer (government) will protect them.

    Massive levels of low-skill migration were another factor.
    ("Why go to the bargaining table when you can hire a Mexican?" the saying goes)
     
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  15. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    That's also a nonsense comment. Free Trade deals did not kill collective bargaining. The EU is 'free trade' on steroids after all. What killed US collective bargaining is free market economics and the neoliberalism it coerced.
     
  16. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Read up on Marx's "army of the unemployed". A surplus of supply of labor to demand of labor will result in workers losing their individual clout and bargaining leverage.

    Free trade outsourcing and high levels of immigration.

    Unions in America used to have much more weight many decades ago than they do now.
     
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  17. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Also nonsense. Free trade deals will increase trade and therefore create employment. The only issue is the application of right wing economics. Germany hasn't fallen foul of that. It has maintained high productivity. The UK did, it competes according to low wage exploitation.

    As I said, right wing grunt makes folk incapable of understanding basic economics.
     
  18. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Maybe they will mostly just move the trade. And who benefits when prices go down and wages go down? Consumers, but not workers. That benefits one segment of society more than it does another.

    Like the saying goes "Free trade results in less inequality between countries but more inequality within countries".
    If you think that is good for employment.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  19. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Bobbins! This is all understood within trade analysis. Trade creation beats trade diversion.

    Also nonsense. Where is the inequality in Germany compared to the UK? Both have been within the same 'free trade' arrangements. The UK only suffered because it was corrupted by free market economics.
     
  20. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You're deluded if you think college is going to be they key to better lifestyle for all Americans. Or even most of them.

    Trying to nudge even 60% of the entire population into getting through college would be entirely unrealistic.
    Just look at the statistics if you don't believe me.

    What is it? The amount of people that get a college degree by the time they are age 24 is only 25%, or something like that?

    There have been threads in this forum posted about this in the past.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  21. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't know where you've been but inequity in Germany has been going up.

    I won't disagree with you that a strong export market and surplus balance of trade helps reduce the level of that country's inequality.

    But again, would Germany have this if we took France and all those poorer deficit spending Mediterranean countries out of the mix?
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  22. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    If you think it can be compared with the UK then you've gone off on one again!

    I didn't say this and I don't appreciate the deliberate misrepresentation. I don't support economic nationalism and therefore the folly of mercantilism. I'm merely describing how every comment you've come out with is free of valid economic comment.
     
  23. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Germany's only in the EU Free Trade zone because they get access to the French market.
    Take that away and they would start wanting to pull out tomorrow.
     
  24. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Another utterly useless comment. Germany exports around the world. Neither trade liberalisation or free tade arrangement has hindered it. That just doesn't fit with your non-economic grunt.
     
  25. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It seems to have worked well for China.

    Wasn't Great Britain operating under mercantilism when they built themselves up into a Great World Empire?
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020

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