The Blockade Stopping the Economy From Recovering

I live in FL. I work for one of the best best companies in the US, according to a few lists and plenty more exist here as well. No unions. The owners of the companies know that abusing the people under you doesn't work for long. You can be very profitable and not treat anyone badly. Its not hard.

 

Yes but while we sit back and wait for the Chinese to revolt [remember the last time they tried?], our economy will die.

We need proactive solutions now, not passive ones sometime off in the distant future.

 

Most have not only been dismantled the equipment was destroyed, the manufacturers of such equipment, also bought out and dismantled or destroyed. This has been a complex orchestrated effort between the banks, the stock market, and the best government corporate money can buy, AKA the two party system. The only way to fix it is to dismantle what they have built in the past 40 years and relieve them of their power/control. Most of the average population is too busy concerned with their day to day survival to stop chasing that dangling carrot at the end of the tread mill. Until the people wake up, and demand change, real change not a political slogan, we are doomed.

 

Nah, I'm not a pessimist like you are. I think saying you are doomed confirms it. I think we are blessed with innovations, inspired with new ideas and motivated to get them done by blood, sweat and tears. That is how America became great. Can you imagine the founding fathers saying "until the people wake up...we're doomed"...They WOKE THEM UP. They kicked them in the butts hard and handed them all muskets and an ultimatum. "Give me liberty or give me death".

 

I never said "I" was doomed. I'll be fine since I have skills and am invaluable in my own way because of them. The nation as a whole is doomed if the current trend of complacency continues, and since you just admitted, 'our economy will die', in the post before mine, I would say we are in agreement.

The only question is, what can be done to get the country back on track? Voting democrat or republican obviously isn't the answer.

 

I agree, but look at what the priorities of the US Congress. Their top tier issues are immigration, gay marriage, gun control, cable TV packages and internet tax collection. We need to contact our representatives in the House and Senate, and impress upon them where our priorities are, because our priorities are in variance with those of the Congress.

We have the debt ceiling and the federal budget hanging out there like a ticking time bomb, and the president and congress are completely ignoring it. but a few weeks before the debt bomb goes off, they will be running around with their heads cut off, telling us we need to quickly pass and sign some unread bill, because their is no more time left to debate the bill.

0bama will come out and say: "The hour for immediate action is here, it is now. We've got to get this done."

 

It's hard for Greedheads, who are insatiably addicted to easy money and are not especially talented except at squeezing money out of intimidated workers.

Besides, if Libretardianism wasn't so one-sided, it would allow us to say the same thing about union leaders, that they know excessive wage demands will bankrupt the company and then no one will get any wages at all, so, using Free Market logic, it is impossible for them to demand more than they are worth.

As soon as a crisis hits because of inferior people in superior positions, your management will take it out of your hide first. Without unions, you have no insurance against that inevitability.

Henry Ford started out with high wages and high profits. But when Heirhead Edsel Ford took over, he was naturally incompetent, not having earned his position, so he squeezed the workers and drove them into unionizing.

 

Thanks for pointing out another fallacy in the Free Market's bubblegum logic. Even if everything turns out fair in a certain temporarily unfair situation, people are crushed in the meantime. And the weasel gets to keep his gum after his bubble pops. The rest of us get his hot air in our face.

 

So what are you saying? Eventually all companies without unions will turn everyone except executives into slaves?

 

If you wish to expand exports, then the US must allow imports.

If the US places tariffs on imports, then foreign nations will place tariffs on US exports.

If the US wishes to export, then the US must be able to compete on quality and price with foreign-made products.

Approximately 70% of GDP is personal consumption meaning ~30% is exports.

I haven't seen recent numbers but I also believe current imports exceed US exports...a trade imbalance.

Yesterday a friend told me they actually found some new shoes that were made in the USA...the price was $146 and they guessed similar shoes made off-shore might cost $75. IMO this exemplifies the root problem; I agree that expanding export sales is a great goal, but in order to do that US companies must figure out how to compete with foreign companies...

 

I see all the carefully selected reasons why we can't save the US. But very few concrete alternatives to mine offered in order to save the US.

 

What do you think they are doing when they outsource to sweatshops? These dumb jock bullies from Bizz Skule are incapable of making money any other way. They are parasites just like their role models, the medieval European aristocrats.

 

There's making money and there's making money. For some reason corporate heads only feel they've "made it" in the world if their own wealth is so disproportionate to those who actually make them rich day in and day out as to border on the phantasmagorically-absurd.

When this stops, America will return to her former greatness. It used to be that we had morality. To be so filthy rich and waltz right by your workers who were just crushed in your substandard sweatshop collapse is amoral. God-fearing capitalists of bygone days at least cringed a little before lighting their cigar and brushing it all off like so much "acceptable collateral damage".

 

It would make no difference what-so-ever since most of their earnings come from stock options, not salary and that came about because of Congress.

 

What you want is literally impossible. There's no way you can run a factory in the US that can compete with a factory in Bangledesh. You can literally hire an entire factorysworth of Bangladeshis for the cost of hiring 2 Americans. And that's before you start competing with the Robotization that's coming.

Robots are going to end up doing those jobs even in the poorest countries because a robot can work for free. And we've already got robots capable of doing all kinds of things that are done by the people you want in your factories and restaurants for that matter. We already have cooking robots (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NHvSivLwyw), robots that can make things, 3D printing, and self-scanning checkouts. Once self driving trucks go mainstream, you can forget about a job as a trucker, and I don't think shelf stocking will exist in 10 years.

So tell me, how do you employ people in retail, restaurants, and factories when we're on the cusp of replacing even the few industries we still have with robotics? The problem is that our technology is making humans obsolete and the low wages of Bangladesh are the only reason that anything is made there is that the wages cost less than the cost of buying a robot.

 

Capitalism in Bangladesh is still in progress, which means one can't apply the same standards.
But with Patience, the US economy will make a difference, promoting their Location as factor, compared to Bangladesh.
Further, it seems odd to imagine robots actually taking over the jobs of the usual workers, but as technology grows production by men becomes less significant.

 

What location advantage is there? I mean be real here, as I said, you can hire 200 Bangladeshis or 100 Chinese who will work 12 hour days, and work really hard for all 12 hours, or you can go to America, hire one or two people who will (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) the entire time about low wages, half-ass their work, and work for 7 hours (once you count lunches and breaks). And when I'm counting the cost, I'm not counting insurance, taxes, or working conditions, just wages. Once you add in that other stuff (like no need for pollution or OSHA compliance, property taxes, health insurance, SSI, and so on) there's more disadvantage than advantage to making a product in the US, unless what you're making is so unstable that it cannot wait a week for ocean crossing without deteriorating.

Secondly, people have always underestimated the impact of technology. People in 1980 thought there would still be mail rooms and secretaries in 1990. I think the same is true today. If anything, I'm underestimating the impact of cheap programmable robots, because they're essentially where the PC was in 1970 or 1980 -- people know about them, but assume that they're mostly gimicks that won't affect their jobs. Robots can already do a lot of production labor, and the few that remain remain mostly because the robots to replace them still cost a lot of money. The robot that makes hamburgers is still in development, but once the kinks get worked out, it's coming to a restaurant near you. That's going to happen in most retail stores as well, once robots get cheap and accurate enough, you don't need a human to stock shelves or unload trucks or order materials or anything. I'll put $50 down right now that when you walk into a store in 2033, it will be rare to find humans working in that store, and the same will be true of low-end restaurants. You'll walk in, get your stuff, and walk out, but the only people there will be other customers. Once google cars really start going, which might be 2023, we'll have to find new work for cab drivers, bus drivers, truckers, and so on.

I won't say that it's going to spell the end of the American Economy, but as i said, the idea of "re-onshoring" as a way to produce an economic recovery is like trying to fix the economy of 1929 by revitalizing the buggy whip industry. It's not only not going to work, but it's going to retard the process of doing what would work. What would work is getting as many people as possible into designing, building and programming these robots, or failing that robot repairs. That's going to be the next big thing, because the robots will be everywhere.

 

"What's best for the 1% is best for all you little people too."

Be warned that automation will destroy their apologists' jobs too. Being futuristic means that soon a patient will just go into a booth, get diagnosed by a machine, and have his medicine pop out. No more doctors, in fact no more professionals at all. Need a lawyer? Computers will do that for you, even present your case in the automated court. Need IT? Just click a link and some program will fix your computer or create your website. Humans not necessary, except privileged Heirheads to manage the process. With this threat hanging over the class-climbers, why waste years of your life in college only to find out your intended field has become obsolete? When the flunkies get down-sized, the owner parasites will go down in flames of rebellion.

Job-killing innovations, which only benefit the economic ruling class, were harmless in the past because job-creating innovations counter-balanced them. What jobs were lost by the invention of the telephone? Hardly any, but millions of jobs were created. In fact, job-killers were actually beneficial because they freed up workers for the jobs created by scientists, not capital. Invention is dynamic, but investment is static. Beyond a reasonable return from making money merely through having money, investors become parasites. They are a cancer that kills its host. Time for the host to make the ruling class a ghost.

 

But robots don't buy stuff. The dragon will eat the end of its tail. It's already almost done doing that exactly and people at the top of the capitalism pyramid are ripping their hair out wondering where all the good old profits have gone? Robots don't buy houses. They don't go on vacations. They don't have children. They don't gamble at casinos. They don't go out for dinner. They don't buy cars. They don't go shopping at Wallmart.

Henry Ford knew enough to pay his workers an amount that they could afford to buy his cars. We could learn a little from Henry Ford...

Those who eliminate jobs to increase profits are not allowed to complain about the woes of the welfare state. And since they're going to "pay" one way or the other, it might as well be to employees and the fiscal solvency of this nation...

 

The japanese apply Robot Technology for the care of the elderly and disabled, which is promised to be a future Technology of devices used as a mediator between humans and machines. The thought of using machines to help elderly absolutely fascinates me.
From a technocratic point, one could argue that communications only require humans, because face to face care and the feeling of touching gives people the opportunity of being close and direct human contact, otherwise they kinda lose their senses, but it would revolutionize the actual Treatment.
It does sound odd and in a way surreal, but I think, it will make its points, as people face Problems in the Treatment on both sides, those, who engage in elderly treatment and the elderly.
You can easily extend this example and immediatly Name so many more Areas, in which Technology replaces the human capital.

Talking about the US economy, we agree that minimum wages have clearly shown their pitfalls, such as poverty, like Friedman predicted.
By highlighting the Location factor, I meant to say, that the USA provides its workers with better working conditions and a advanced infrastructure system, which Bangladesh can't.
You are absolutely right about the yada yada of workers, yapping about wages and all the costs, the Enterprise has to carry. But the government has done a very poor Job at improving conditions, because they actually implemented changes of contracts between the employees and employeurs, which cuts freedom in its dangerous ways, but under the guise of social equality and justice.

 

You are also free to act morally with regards to the people who butter your bread [daily labor], so that the government doesn't have to step in and force you to. The government doesn't go around actively searching for reasons to limit personal liberties. We only do so when our Considerations are being stomped on so hard that People are screaming "Ouch!". Stop stomping, start having compassion for your fellow men and the Government will go back to sleep.

And if you're wondering where all your profits have gone, start to pay more attention to your workers and before you know it, your profits will "magically" appear again. [It's so magical!] That's the funny thing about consumers. They consume so much better when they have money...

 

If things don't change within the more intrusive government of the two party scam, there is no where to go but down.

 

I don't wish the country "down" a much as some others seem to do. After a certain point, pessimism fails to describe why so many here are doing so. It's that broken english thing I spoke about earlier.

Things always start for the better at a personal level. When a corporate board decides against the grain, and at diminished uber-profits to their top heads and even diminished stock value temporarily to relocate a factory back to the US, that is a personal decision at ground level to improve the country where they live and do most of their business in. When I say "temporary" loss in stock value, what I mean is when the "made in the USA" labels start going back on that product and advertising goes along with it, people will buy it. I search for "made in the USA" stickers on products. Hardly ever find one, but when I do, I select it over others.

I could even envision a tax bill that gave a hefty break to corporations that have recently relocated back to the USA; say within the last five years? There can be incentives given for good behavior. It doesn't always have to be slaps on the wrist.

 

I believe there is some truth to this. But the question that has to be asked is can America compete with the low wages and lack of expensive regulations in other third world countries?

And there is another option. America does not absolutely have to compete with other third world countries. They could persue a policy of economic protectionism. A strong argument could be made in favor of this. Yes, it would mean higher prices, but it would also mean higher wages, likely less unemployment, and would stop the wealth from being drained out of the country.

 

You will only get higher wages when the demand for labor is much higher than the supply and for unskilled to low skilled jobs this might be a problem for the next decade or longer.

If you could get higher wages, and if the cost of everything is higher, then one's purchasing power has not increased.

A protectionist economy IMO is the worst possible direction to consider! If you stop imports then you also will be forced to stop exports...which today represents about 45 million US jobs (30% of GDP/$100K of GDP per worker). And lots of these exports, like military weapons and jets, etc. can't be purchased by Americans so you would just sacrifice millions of jobs! And this GDP and loss of jobs can't be made up with more personal consumption...