The Guilded Age ended before the depression. I will grant you that there was a chage, but I wouldn't agree that it was a reaction to income inequality.
The reforms that both Roosevelts pushed, it could be argued, were not a result of a revolution of the poor, but of the better off middle class. They were now well enough off that things like health and safety were more important. It's just like environmental laws, it's the rich countries that can most afford the strict environmental laws, since they can afford the cleaner technology and have the investment money to make these things happen. Burma isn't doing research into alternative fuels, the US and EU are.
That isn't even true at the federal level, let alone if you include state and local governments. Unless, of course, you exempt social security and medicare, which have grown exponentially faster than miliary spending has.
You forget the employee's cost way more than their salary, espeically if you are giving them any benefits. You better cut your estimate in half, at least. Though I'm not in total disagreement about the subsidies.
Of course your proposition all depends upon how effective you view the wars and weapons to be. And that's the rub, none of us knows for sure the future consequences of those actions, or what would have happened if those actions were not undertaken. Is the installment of a democratic government in Iraq and Afghanistan worth 200B? I mean that's the equivalent of transforming CA from a dictatorship to a democracy in terms of the number of people.
If concentration of wealth is so important and is leading us to impending revolution, then how did we live through the "Guilded Age" in the US when income inequality was MUCH MUCH greater than it is now. Eliminating all income inequality also means the elemination of all economic incentives (read: elimination of capitialsm), which is not at all what the FF had in mind. Income inequality is the cost of progress. Read Schumpeter.
The only way for the wealthy to hoard their money would be for them to make like Scrooge McDuck and to stuff it all under the matress (or in the McDuck money bin). It's either "spent" on investment or consumption, barring the previous statement, which I can't pretty much state is not what most wealthy people do. VC's aren't being stingy to be stingy, they are being stingy cause a lot of their money was SPENT POORLY during the dot com boom, and they just don't have as much of it as they used to as many of those investment dollars went up in smoke. They certainly aren't being stingy because of the Bush tax cut plan.
Taxes don't encourage money flow, they penalize it. Since increased flow means more income, higher taxes lower the profitability of new investment, making such investment/spending less likely to occur, other things being equal. Taxes have the same affect on income/spending as interest rates do on your interest in borrowing money.
Time to go back to school and retake econ 101.
Trade wouldn't take place if both countries didn't benefit. Now the benefits within the country and company are unevenly distributed, but the NET is positive for both sides, or they wouldn't trade to begin with. Your argument about the distribution is true to some extent, the gains are initially taken in the form of profits rather than higher wages and lower prices, but over time higher profits tend to be reduced by competition and wage pressure, as well as inflation. This is true for all things in capitalistic enterprises, this characteristic is not unique to outsourcing. So trade is a net plus, though you can certainly argue that some individuals are less well off.
As for distribution of wealth, before the advent of modern financial markets, only the wealthy could own a company, since only they (or a small group of relatively wealthy people) had the money to invest in such a thing. The average person now is much more likely to be a beneficiary of higher profits than before, as more people own stocks etc, compared to before. This trend will only continue.
As a note, the higher wages you talk about in your protectionism scenario would be almost entirely inflationary (no real improvement for the people earning them). One of the effects of outsourcing is to moderate inflation, reversing this would cause a rapid rise in inflation, totally eviscerating any gains you speak of for the average person.
The same great Japanese economy that has been in the tank for almost a decade (just starting to recover now)? The same Japanese government that is a major financier of US debt (in order to keep the exchance rate favorable to their exporters)?
I think the Japan example is instructive!
was that it won't effect income in total, meerly it's distribution. I could make the case that the same thing (hording, aka "saving") happens with individuals, but not as much. This is very much due to the weird incentives of our tax system.
Samuelson is hardly "Drowned out" especially since his stuff is regularly printed in the NYT and newsweek. Try again. In fact he is one of the more cited economists in "main stream" news type publications.
Sorry, blatent ripoff.
"Someone once asked the economics professor at my school "If you know so much about starting companies, why aren't you a millionaire?" He answered "I am.""
Economists DO claim that outsourcing has helped the average american. But just because the average benefit is positive, that does not mean that some individuals will not be on the negative side of the distribution, possibly very negative. The benefits are accrued to the owners of the company and the consumers of their product. The benefits are so widely dispersed that they appear almost neglidgeble, and the costs are focused on a small group of people. So even though the benefits actually outweigh the costs, it isn't obvious since the benefits are hidden and the costs are obvious.
"It does not take an economist to figure out that with only half the wages, the impact is on the entire economy. Two income families that bought two cars, can only afford one, or certainly not two new cars. Home buyers that had combined incomes of 130k, now have 70k to use as their financial base."
Of course the lower prices, better quality, or higher profits don't yeild a net gain FOR THE WORKER WHO LOSES HIS JOB, that was never the claim. The claim is that for every $50k that becomes a $10k one overseas, the company saves the difference. That difference MUST (mathematically) result in either lower prices or higher profits. So dollar wise there is no difference to the US economy, it transfers wealth to the consumers and companies at the expense of the workers.
Again, I am not arguing there isn't suffering, that's inherent in any change. It just means that outsourcing is MORE good than bad, it doesn't imply that there is no downside.
Outsouring is a substitute for the free flow of labor. It works precisely for the reason you cite as it's failure. Instead of moving workers to the jobs, you move jobs to the workers and ship the goods.
A fair society doesn't necessarily guarantee equal outcomes for equal work, it just means the rules are the same for everyone. That doesn't mean that some people will not have advantages over others. If that were the case, then the Handicapper General would have to get really busy, Stat.
Let them fail, crumble, whatever. I'm serious. You can't make them learn if they don't want to and their parents dont care either. All they are doing is wasting the resources that should be spent on those families and kids that value learning. The kids that are "left behind" in a voucher system are those that are wrecking the system in the first place, and there is nothing society can do for them, because they themselves don't care.
As if the current system prevents "skimming" those students who are good and can afford a private education from the public schools. It doesn't, vouchers would only, "level the playing field" of who can afford these schools.
Most (but certainly not all) private schools have a per pupil cost much lower than their neighboring public systems, and at least SEEM to produce better results, even comparing apples to apples in terms of student body.
I really don't understand how the same people who decry k12 educational vouchers in one breath are happily choosing to attend whatever college they want, knowing that Federal loans and grants etc. are available regardless of the school you choose, public or private. Why can k12 education operate this way?
Each k12 school ought to be controlled by a board that is elected by the parents of the attending students. They would set tuition, hire the principal(s)/administration, and make school policy. Parents would be free to use the stipend from the state to pay for fees/tuition at any school. Least that's my idea.
Atheism (as opposed to agnosticism) is a belief that God does not exist. If you want to call it a creed or something else, whatever. But it (and things like humanism) are a belief/belief system never-the-less.
There is a 'seriously complicated subsystem' underneath windows too. The difference is that microsoft has spend a lot of time guessing the kind of things the "average user" might want to do and making those options easy to get to. Linux doesn't really hide its complexity in the same way, at least not until recently. It has/had GUI tools, but they weren't designed to simplify things for the user, they were really designed more for power users. It was just another way to do things for the poweruser (cause those really are/were the only ppl using linux.)
You will be able to send "work email from home" if your company uses SMTP AUTH like it should (or webmail or SMTPS) if your ISP blocks outbound port 25.
Even US conservative types aren't happy with the level of market influence in the US. Health insurance isn't insurance, it's really a tax-free cash benefit, started to get around wage controls decades ago. Any third party payer system is not going to be economially (or fiscally, just look at that billing overhead) as optimal as a first party system. Insurance should be exactly that, insurance with deductables and low percentage copays. The problem is even the US has a highly distorted market w.r.t. healthcare.
I would only add that the copper is much more useful than you think. The problem is that much of the US telecom network has very heavy sunk costs, it's actually cheeper to leave the lines and change the switching and signaling equipment on either end than to run fiber in area's that are already wired with copper. The benefit is marginal, compared to what they CAN do with copper. The problem is partly demand, and partly that of "good enough" being the enemy of better.
Slashdot Mirror
The reforms that both Roosevelts pushed, it could be argued, were not a result of a revolution of the poor, but of the better off middle class. They were now well enough off that things like health and safety were more important. It's just like environmental laws, it's the rich countries that can most afford the strict environmental laws, since they can afford the cleaner technology and have the investment money to make these things happen. Burma isn't doing research into alternative fuels, the US and EU are.
That isn't even true at the federal level, let alone if you include state and local governments. Unless, of course, you exempt social security and medicare, which have grown exponentially faster than miliary spending has.
Of course your proposition all depends upon how effective you view the wars and weapons to be. And that's the rub, none of us knows for sure the future consequences of those actions, or what would have happened if those actions were not undertaken. Is the installment of a democratic government in Iraq and Afghanistan worth 200B? I mean that's the equivalent of transforming CA from a dictatorship to a democracy in terms of the number of people.
If concentration of wealth is so important and is leading us to impending revolution, then how did we live through the "Guilded Age" in the US when income inequality was MUCH MUCH greater than it is now. Eliminating all income inequality also means the elemination of all economic incentives (read: elimination of capitialsm), which is not at all what the FF had in mind. Income inequality is the cost of progress. Read Schumpeter.
Taxes don't encourage money flow, they penalize it. Since increased flow means more income, higher taxes lower the profitability of new investment, making such investment/spending less likely to occur, other things being equal. Taxes have the same affect on income/spending as interest rates do on your interest in borrowing money. Time to go back to school and retake econ 101.
As for distribution of wealth, before the advent of modern financial markets, only the wealthy could own a company, since only they (or a small group of relatively wealthy people) had the money to invest in such a thing. The average person now is much more likely to be a beneficiary of higher profits than before, as more people own stocks etc, compared to before. This trend will only continue.
As a note, the higher wages you talk about in your protectionism scenario would be almost entirely inflationary (no real improvement for the people earning them). One of the effects of outsourcing is to moderate inflation, reversing this would cause a rapid rise in inflation, totally eviscerating any gains you speak of for the average person.
The same great Japanese economy that has been in the tank for almost a decade (just starting to recover now)? The same Japanese government that is a major financier of US debt (in order to keep the exchance rate favorable to their exporters)? I think the Japan example is instructive!
was that it won't effect income in total, meerly it's distribution. I could make the case that the same thing (hording, aka "saving") happens with individuals, but not as much. This is very much due to the weird incentives of our tax system.
Samuelson is hardly "Drowned out" especially since his stuff is regularly printed in the NYT and newsweek. Try again. In fact he is one of the more cited economists in "main stream" news type publications.
Sorry, blatent ripoff. "Someone once asked the economics professor at my school "If you know so much about starting companies, why aren't you a millionaire?" He answered "I am.""
Economists DO claim that outsourcing has helped the average american. But just because the average benefit is positive, that does not mean that some individuals will not be on the negative side of the distribution, possibly very negative. The benefits are accrued to the owners of the company and the consumers of their product. The benefits are so widely dispersed that they appear almost neglidgeble, and the costs are focused on a small group of people. So even though the benefits actually outweigh the costs, it isn't obvious since the benefits are hidden and the costs are obvious.
Of course the lower prices, better quality, or higher profits don't yeild a net gain FOR THE WORKER WHO LOSES HIS JOB, that was never the claim. The claim is that for every $50k that becomes a $10k one overseas, the company saves the difference. That difference MUST (mathematically) result in either lower prices or higher profits. So dollar wise there is no difference to the US economy, it transfers wealth to the consumers and companies at the expense of the workers.
Again, I am not arguing there isn't suffering, that's inherent in any change. It just means that outsourcing is MORE good than bad, it doesn't imply that there is no downside.
Outsouring is a substitute for the free flow of labor. It works precisely for the reason you cite as it's failure. Instead of moving workers to the jobs, you move jobs to the workers and ship the goods.
A fair society doesn't necessarily guarantee equal outcomes for equal work, it just means the rules are the same for everyone. That doesn't mean that some people will not have advantages over others. If that were the case, then the Handicapper General would have to get really busy, Stat.
I think they are saying that lots of people outsource TO them, not that they outsource all of their support personel.
Let them fail, crumble, whatever. I'm serious. You can't make them learn if they don't want to and their parents dont care either. All they are doing is wasting the resources that should be spent on those families and kids that value learning. The kids that are "left behind" in a voucher system are those that are wrecking the system in the first place, and there is nothing society can do for them, because they themselves don't care.
Most (but certainly not all) private schools have a per pupil cost much lower than their neighboring public systems, and at least SEEM to produce better results, even comparing apples to apples in terms of student body.
I really don't understand how the same people who decry k12 educational vouchers in one breath are happily choosing to attend whatever college they want, knowing that Federal loans and grants etc. are available regardless of the school you choose, public or private. Why can k12 education operate this way?
Each k12 school ought to be controlled by a board that is elected by the parents of the attending students. They would set tuition, hire the principal(s)/administration, and make school policy. Parents would be free to use the stipend from the state to pay for fees/tuition at any school. Least that's my idea.
I don't think canada has the same degree of non-english speaking immigrants though.
Atheism (as opposed to agnosticism) is a belief that God does not exist. If you want to call it a creed or something else, whatever. But it (and things like humanism) are a belief/belief system never-the-less.
There is a 'seriously complicated subsystem' underneath windows too. The difference is that microsoft has spend a lot of time guessing the kind of things the "average user" might want to do and making those options easy to get to. Linux doesn't really hide its complexity in the same way, at least not until recently. It has/had GUI tools, but they weren't designed to simplify things for the user, they were really designed more for power users. It was just another way to do things for the poweruser (cause those really are/were the only ppl using linux.)
The benefits of trade are greater than the costs of trade, but the benefits are diffuse and the costs/pain are concentrated.
You will be able to send "work email from home" if your company uses SMTP AUTH like it should (or webmail or SMTPS) if your ISP blocks outbound port 25.
nt
Even US conservative types aren't happy with the level of market influence in the US. Health insurance isn't insurance, it's really a tax-free cash benefit, started to get around wage controls decades ago. Any third party payer system is not going to be economially (or fiscally, just look at that billing overhead) as optimal as a first party system. Insurance should be exactly that, insurance with deductables and low percentage copays. The problem is even the US has a highly distorted market w.r.t. healthcare.
I would only add that the copper is much more useful than you think. The problem is that much of the US telecom network has very heavy sunk costs, it's actually cheeper to leave the lines and change the switching and signaling equipment on either end than to run fiber in area's that are already wired with copper. The benefit is marginal, compared to what they CAN do with copper. The problem is partly demand, and partly that of "good enough" being the enemy of better.