Tax cuts only increase government debt, unless they accompany government spending reductions, which would put millions out of work and wreck the economy.
Oh, for years I've advocated a federal government that was within it's constitutional limits. Half of the alphabet soup of agencies, bureaus, departments, and offices can be eliminated then the defense budget cut dramatically. As for those put out of work, yea all those government bureaucrats who only sit around making rules and regulations favorable to big businesses but hostile to citizens. Just because those people can't make it on their own it doesn't mean tax payers owe them a living.
Either you're buying an iPod Nano with your six years worth of savings, or you're buying it with the coinage you got stuck underneath your fingernail from breakfast
If it takes the average person 6 years to save money to buy an iPod then they're a fool. They could have saved more, opened an account with E*Trade and bought shares of Apple. Heck because Apple closed at $200.59 Friday they could have bought Walmart shares which closed Friday at $54.63 or Target which closed at $47.70. If those stock prices are too high then they could buy Macy's which closed at $16.97. Then after years of saving and investing they could become wealthy too. Just as the Chinese are doing.
It would be so much more efficient
to cut out the middle men and supply iPOD's on demand...
Funny, I can cut the middle man by ordering an iPod, which I don't want, online. That's how I ordered my Mac, even though there are 4 Apple stores in my area, and who knows how many third party retailers.
Which is worse? Having a job that pays $1000 per month and having to spend $200 on groceries, or having a job that pays only $500 per month (or no job at all) and having to spend only $150 on groceries?
And where do these numbers come from? Or did you just pull them out of your ass?
Well what actually happens is that some of the cost comes back to a wealthy subset of the US population.
Even the low income can be investors, and as more investors have more money to invest they will which then will create new well paying jobs. I know all about that, my family was poor. My older sister and I went into the military before we went to college and my younger sister worked her way through college. My older sister is now a nurse and my younger sister got here Masters, is a Certified Public Accountant who runs her own business, and owns rental property. She owns the building my apartment is in, and plans to sell it to me. Me? Things didn't turn out so well for me. As a college student majoring in Computer Engineering I was hit one day riding my bike after classes. I now have a disability. But I am hoping to start my own part tyme business, in photography, now as well as finish my degree.
The US are a debt addict. Their luck is that their debt dealer, China, only has one customer.
Not at all. Europe has lost jobs to China too. China exports to Europe, not just the US. The European Commission says "China is the single most important challenge for EU trade policy. China has re-emerged as the world's fourth economy and third exporter, but also an increasingly important political power. EU-China trade has increased dramatically in recent years. China is now the EU's 2nd trading partner behind the USA and the biggest source of imports. The EU is China's biggest trading partner."
When we import any thing, some number of dollars leave this nation. If a corresponding number of exports be it in commodities such as grain or coal, or brain share such as banking services or designs (or legal fees), is not made, we end up owing the nation from which we imported the good from.
That is only half the story. Even the Chinese want their iPhones, which don't have to be exported or imported and Apple still gets paid. Some of that money comes back to the US. Technically while the US isn't exporting the iPhones it does have money coming back in.
That reminds me of the British and the Opium Wars. With the British importing so much tea from India, they wanted to balance their trade deficit. So what did they do? They bought opium in South Asia and exported it to China, and thus were able to pocket the profits. However opium was illegal in China so the Chinese government tried to stop it. When they did the British military intervened on the side of the opium dealers. Which is why Lyndon LaRouche and others called the British crown a drug dealer.
Face it, you are a nation of consumers with no real manufacturing left.
The US still has manufacturing though much of it is hidden and you have to look for it. Check out Etsy, the place to buy and sell hand made things. Makezine and Craftzine are American zines for American makers and crafters. The US still has spinners who spin and create their own threads. Some of whom will go on to make their own cloth, others sell their threads to those who will make cloth. Then they will make or sell to those who make clothing. Only a few blocks from where I am typing this there's a workshop for hand bound books. Actually Minneapolis has a few places that custom bind books.
And this isn't particularly a dig at the US... I think all Western economies will go the same way, as the governments and people all have the same short-sighted attitude. Pretty soon the only things left will be service jobs and tech jobs in the West, all manufacturing and production will be done in China and the surrounding ASEAN nations.
Ah but those other nations will become like the West too. The beauty of freer markets is that they improve everyone's lives who are allowed to participate. Your sweatshop is their employees' good life. Even Chinese want their iPhones.
Considering that American recovery (and quite a few other countries according to wikipedia) from the Great Depression began in 1933,
American recovery yes, but America didn't start WWII. Europe wasn't recovering as early as the US. You mention wiki but obviously you didn't read the wiki article on the Grreat Depression, otherwise you would not have missed the second sentence which says "The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s".
So you're still making things up and I'm end here.
The fact remains that Apple will have to continue innovating to retain their market share.
That is exactly how things should be. That's what patents were originally for, to encourage progress, but now they stifle progress.
I can't imagine many iPhones being sold 12 months from now.
While I like and have owned Macs, I'm typing this on one, I can't see buying an iPhone. I'm not even sure I'd get an iPod unless I was given the money.
Taiwan is composed of all of the capitalists who were forcibly evicted from the mainland.
Chinese weren't evicted from mainland China, instead some 2 million KTM Nationalists fled Mainland China and invaded Formosa. There is a reason Formosans call 28 February 1947 Taiwan's Holocaust. Some capitalists stayed on the Mainland though, and had their property taken away. Others made it to Macau or Hong Kong.
Actually the US is one of the largest, if not the largest, food exporter in the world.
Not for long, if things keep going at the present rate.
Curious I wanted to see what foods China exports and found this: Chinese Food Exports to US Top US$4 Billion in 2007. At the top of that list, with more than $2 Billion in exports is fish and shellfish. That won't last long as overfishing is depleting fish stocks. The next highest is fruits and preparations including juices, at less than half that, only $816 Million. The top 10 Chinese food exports to the US come to less than $5 Billion. Yet in that same year the US exported $11.2 Billion of corn. Now those aren't really comparative because the China data is for export to the US whereas the US data is total corn exports. Darn, after several minutes looking I didn't find either US exports to China or total Chinese exports. My Google fu isn't that good.
As for California's Prop 2, packaging animals like the prop makes illegal requires a lot more antibiotics and other drugs which leads to the reduced effectiveness of the drugs. Personally as much as I can I eat organic free range food.
Applied to China I bet it will be bloody. Then again the unification of China as is it today was bloody too. Even at it's founding in 1912 the Republic of China wasn't as big as China is today. Mao Zedong had his army invade other sovereign nations. And though it's rarely heard about China has what it calls "terrorists". If I recall right one of the detainees the US has or had in Gitmo is from China.
Where is this slave labor? None of those Chinese are chained or watched over by a shotgun toting guard. Instead Chinese compeat with each other to get good jobs. It is a lie to say they're slaves just because you don't want to compeat with them.
Quite simply China's middle class is growing. The thing US businesses need to figure out is what can they export and sell to the middle, and upper, class in China.
In my view, that's the right benchmark for success. We should not measure ourselves against how well we were doing as a nation 120 years ago; but against how well we could be doing *today*.
And how are we to know how we "could be" but aren't?
We could be doing a lot better for a lot less cost on those key health measures.
Yea, if we had a free market in health care and insurance along with the competition such markets encourage. But the US does not have a free market in either medicine or insurance. And the bill the House of Reps passed does not change that.
So it's not surprising that much of the money is not tied up in manufacturing the product. Nobody is getting rich actually making the thing. Even if you paid the factory floor worker a decent wage, it wouldn't change things all that much.
"Even if you paid the factory floor worker a decent wage"? While people in the US don't think much of what Chinese factory workers get paid those Chinese certainly do. They don't get paid as much but their costs of living is a lot lower too. Those Chinese employees can work in a factory saving their money, many employers have dorms employees live in at low cost if not free as well as provide meals, then in a few years start their own business.
TFA suggests that this means the financial hit of off-shoring manufacturing is actually small. Whether or not the article is correct on money making its way back to the US, there is an important factor. The money is making its way right back into the pockets of the company owners and rights holders. The people who would normally make their living in these manufacturing jobs are still stuffed. I don't think that any "trickle down" effect from returned profits is going to make up for that.
Those who previously made their money making stuff would have lost their jobs anyway, it doesn't matter if a domestic company imports them or a foreign business exports them. Put it this way, which are you going to pay, $300 for an imported item or $1000 for one made in the US? If Company A does not offer the item for $300 another one will. And of course many people will buy the cheaper item.
And don't even try to bring up protectionist laws. If any country raises barriers to trade other nations will retaliate by raising their own. That was one of the things that made the Great Depression as bad as it got. After the US passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 US exports decreased by more than 60% hurting many, many, exporting businesses. Businesses that employed people.
and then one or more of those letters gets replaced by a machine...
basically, the world, for the first time in documented history, may be heading towards a surplus of labor, thanks to automation that multiplies the output of each laborer...
and that should scare just about any scarcity focused economist on this planet...
And how many jobs do those machines create. Look at computers, they created whole new industries and brought great benefits. Or the auto and medical industries. I don't know about vehicles but computers created many high paying jobs.
When the price of food doubles farming becomes more profitable so more people will farm. Since at least 1990 in the US people more people are leaving farms than moving to farms almost every year despite growth in the population. Increases in productivity is partially responsible but rising production costs and declining if not disappearing profits is also responsible.
Wal-mart in particular is fond of advertising their big $1.14 discounts on an otherwise $15 pack of socks, which actually costs them $2.
With the quarter ending 31-10-2009 Walmart had total revenue of $99,411.00 million and gross profit of $24,862.00 million. That's a return of about 25% Where'd all that profit go to? Or did you make up numbers to make it look like Walmart was making a killing? It's competitor Target had a better return. Not in absolute numbers but in percentages Macy's had a much better return, about 33%.
The web is a good opportunity to turn this around... Do a quick search, and find the cheapest supplier among many thousands of stores, and you're likely to find one selling with small margins, and without the brand name and retail mark-up.
Walmart is one of those stores and it sells many of the same stuff as other stores, sometimes with a lower price.
Which is it, Walmart is making large profits or Walmart is dropping prices?
Someone needs to find a way to make satisfying the customer profitable. That way, progress will be a natural goal of corporations - everyone will benefit.
Hmmn. how would that work.... ? Some kind of free market (really free, rather than all the bs we have today?)
The way is there but various people and factions oppose it. There was and I fear there will always be those who oppose free markets. Heck even businesses and corporations oppose free markets.
Well because it does so at the expense of our own economy. Most of this money coming back to the US isn't going to the working and lower classes - its going to the upper class (the owners) who own more wealth than anyone at any time in history - again at the expense of our economy.
It wouldn't harm the poor more if they had to pay more? Lower prices make thing more affordable. Of course if you're poor you shouldn't be wasting money on an iPhone when cheap cell phones are available. Where I see a problem is where jobs are offshore or outsourced and those losing their jobs are close to retirement. Just as soon as they can be trained they're old enough to retire.
Slashdot Mirror
Tax cuts only increase government debt, unless they accompany government spending reductions, which would put millions out of work and wreck the economy.
Oh, for years I've advocated a federal government that was within it's constitutional limits. Half of the alphabet soup of agencies, bureaus, departments, and offices can be eliminated then the defense budget cut dramatically. As for those put out of work, yea all those government bureaucrats who only sit around making rules and regulations favorable to big businesses but hostile to citizens. Just because those people can't make it on their own it doesn't mean tax payers owe them a living.
Falcon
Either you're buying an iPod Nano with your six years worth of savings, or you're buying it with the coinage you got stuck underneath your fingernail from breakfast
If it takes the average person 6 years to save money to buy an iPod then they're a fool. They could have saved more, opened an account with E*Trade and bought shares of Apple. Heck because Apple closed at $200.59 Friday they could have bought Walmart shares which closed Friday at $54.63 or Target which closed at $47.70. If those stock prices are too high then they could buy Macy's which closed at $16.97. Then after years of saving and investing they could become wealthy too. Just as the Chinese are doing.
Falcon
It would be so much more efficient to cut out the middle men and supply iPOD's on demand...
Funny, I can cut the middle man by ordering an iPod, which I don't want, online. That's how I ordered my Mac, even though there are 4 Apple stores in my area, and who knows how many third party retailers.
Falcon
Which is worse? Having a job that pays $1000 per month and having to spend $200 on groceries, or having a job that pays only $500 per month (or no job at all) and having to spend only $150 on groceries?
And where do these numbers come from? Or did you just pull them out of your ass?
Well what actually happens is that some of the cost comes back to a wealthy subset of the US population.
Even the low income can be investors, and as more investors have more money to invest they will which then will create new well paying jobs. I know all about that, my family was poor. My older sister and I went into the military before we went to college and my younger sister worked her way through college. My older sister is now a nurse and my younger sister got here Masters, is a Certified Public Accountant who runs her own business, and owns rental property. She owns the building my apartment is in, and plans to sell it to me. Me? Things didn't turn out so well for me. As a college student majoring in Computer Engineering I was hit one day riding my bike after classes. I now have a disability. But I am hoping to start my own part tyme business, in photography, now as well as finish my degree.
Falcon
The US are a debt addict. Their luck is that their debt dealer, China, only has one customer.
Not at all. Europe has lost jobs to China too. China exports to Europe, not just the US. The European Commission says "China is the single most important challenge for EU trade policy. China has re-emerged as the world's fourth economy and third exporter, but also an increasingly important political power. EU-China trade has increased dramatically in recent years. China is now the EU's 2nd trading partner behind the USA and the biggest source of imports. The EU is China's biggest trading partner."
Falcon
When we import any thing, some number of dollars leave this nation. If a corresponding number of exports be it in commodities such as grain or coal, or brain share such as banking services or designs (or legal fees), is not made, we end up owing the nation from which we imported the good from.
That is only half the story. Even the Chinese want their iPhones, which don't have to be exported or imported and Apple still gets paid. Some of that money comes back to the US. Technically while the US isn't exporting the iPhones it does have money coming back in.
That reminds me of the British and the Opium Wars. With the British importing so much tea from India, they wanted to balance their trade deficit. So what did they do? They bought opium in South Asia and exported it to China, and thus were able to pocket the profits. However opium was illegal in China so the Chinese government tried to stop it. When they did the British military intervened on the side of the opium dealers. Which is why Lyndon LaRouche and others called the British crown a drug dealer.
Falcon
Face it, you are a nation of consumers with no real manufacturing left.
The US still has manufacturing though much of it is hidden and you have to look for it. Check out Etsy, the place to buy and sell hand made things. Makezine and Craftzine are American zines for American makers and crafters. The US still has spinners who spin and create their own threads. Some of whom will go on to make their own cloth, others sell their threads to those who will make cloth. Then they will make or sell to those who make clothing. Only a few blocks from where I am typing this there's a workshop for hand bound books. Actually Minneapolis has a few places that custom bind books.
And this isn't particularly a dig at the US ... I think all Western economies will go the same way, as the governments and people all have the same short-sighted attitude. Pretty soon the only things left will be service jobs and tech jobs in the West, all manufacturing and production will be done in China and the surrounding ASEAN nations.
Ah but those other nations will become like the West too. The beauty of freer markets is that they improve everyone's lives who are allowed to participate. Your sweatshop is their employees' good life. Even Chinese want their iPhones.
Falcon
Another anti-capitalist anti-free market demigod.
Falcon
Considering that American recovery (and quite a few other countries according to wikipedia) from the Great Depression began in 1933,
American recovery yes, but America didn't start WWII. Europe wasn't recovering as early as the US. You mention wiki but obviously you didn't read the wiki article on the Grreat Depression, otherwise you would not have missed the second sentence which says "The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s".
So you're still making things up and I'm end here.
Falcon
The fact remains that Apple will have to continue innovating to retain their market share.
That is exactly how things should be. That's what patents were originally for, to encourage progress, but now they stifle progress.
I can't imagine many iPhones being sold 12 months from now.
While I like and have owned Macs, I'm typing this on one, I can't see buying an iPhone. I'm not even sure I'd get an iPod unless I was given the money.
Falcon
Taiwan is composed of all of the capitalists who were forcibly evicted from the mainland.
Chinese weren't evicted from mainland China, instead some 2 million KTM Nationalists fled Mainland China and invaded Formosa. There is a reason Formosans call 28 February 1947 Taiwan's Holocaust. Some capitalists stayed on the Mainland though, and had their property taken away. Others made it to Macau or Hong Kong.
Falcon
Actually the US is one of the largest, if not the largest, food exporter in the world.
Not for long, if things keep going at the present rate.
Curious I wanted to see what foods China exports and found this: Chinese Food Exports to US Top US$4 Billion in 2007. At the top of that list, with more than $2 Billion in exports is fish and shellfish. That won't last long as overfishing is depleting fish stocks. The next highest is fruits and preparations including juices, at less than half that, only $816 Million. The top 10 Chinese food exports to the US come to less than $5 Billion. Yet in that same year the US exported $11.2 Billion of corn. Now those aren't really comparative because the China data is for export to the US whereas the US data is total corn exports. Darn, after several minutes looking I didn't find either US exports to China or total Chinese exports. My Google fu isn't that good.
As for California's Prop 2, packaging animals like the prop makes illegal requires a lot more antibiotics and other drugs which leads to the reduced effectiveness of the drugs. Personally as much as I can I eat organic free range food.
Falcon
And the Great Depression had nothing to do with it? HAHA!!! Who's making things up?
Falcon
Applied to China I bet it will be bloody. Then again the unification of China as is it today was bloody too. Even at it's founding in 1912 the Republic of China wasn't as big as China is today. Mao Zedong had his army invade other sovereign nations. And though it's rarely heard about China has what it calls "terrorists". If I recall right one of the detainees the US has or had in Gitmo is from China.
Falcon
Actually the US is one of the largest, if not the largest, food exporter in the world.
Falcon
Besides its hard to compete with slave labor....
Where is this slave labor? None of those Chinese are chained or watched over by a shotgun toting guard. Instead Chinese compeat with each other to get good jobs. It is a lie to say they're slaves just because you don't want to compeat with them.
Quite simply China's middle class is growing. The thing US businesses need to figure out is what can they export and sell to the middle, and upper, class in China.
In my view, that's the right benchmark for success. We should not measure ourselves against how well we were doing as a nation 120 years ago; but against how well we could be doing *today*.
And how are we to know how we "could be" but aren't?
We could be doing a lot better for a lot less cost on those key health measures.
Yea, if we had a free market in health care and insurance along with the competition such markets encourage. But the US does not have a free market in either medicine or insurance. And the bill the House of Reps passed does not change that.
Falcon
So it's not surprising that much of the money is not tied up in manufacturing the product. Nobody is getting rich actually making the thing. Even if you paid the factory floor worker a decent wage, it wouldn't change things all that much.
"Even if you paid the factory floor worker a decent wage"? While people in the US don't think much of what Chinese factory workers get paid those Chinese certainly do. They don't get paid as much but their costs of living is a lot lower too. Those Chinese employees can work in a factory saving their money, many employers have dorms employees live in at low cost if not free as well as provide meals, then in a few years start their own business.
TFA suggests that this means the financial hit of off-shoring manufacturing is actually small. Whether or not the article is correct on money making its way back to the US, there is an important factor. The money is making its way right back into the pockets of the company owners and rights holders. The people who would normally make their living in these manufacturing jobs are still stuffed. I don't think that any "trickle down" effect from returned profits is going to make up for that.
Those who previously made their money making stuff would have lost their jobs anyway, it doesn't matter if a domestic company imports them or a foreign business exports them. Put it this way, which are you going to pay, $300 for an imported item or $1000 for one made in the US? If Company A does not offer the item for $300 another one will. And of course many people will buy the cheaper item.
And don't even try to bring up protectionist laws. If any country raises barriers to trade other nations will retaliate by raising their own. That was one of the things that made the Great Depression as bad as it got. After the US passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 US exports decreased by more than 60% hurting many, many, exporting businesses. Businesses that employed people.
Falcon
Where did I say that high-margin products make up 100% of Walmart's sales?
With your quote that I included in my post you implied Walmart made vast profits, selling a pack of sock that cost $2 for $13.86.
Falcon
Oh, and BTW I haven't paid more than $10 for a pack of socks at Walmart. Of course it's been more than a couple of years since I bought socks there.
and then one or more of those letters gets replaced by a machine...
basically, the world, for the first time in documented history, may be heading towards a surplus of labor, thanks to automation that multiplies the output of each laborer...
and that should scare just about any scarcity focused economist on this planet...
And how many jobs do those machines create. Look at computers, they created whole new industries and brought great benefits. Or the auto and medical industries. I don't know about vehicles but computers created many high paying jobs.
Falcon
When the price of food doubles farming becomes more profitable so more people will farm. Since at least 1990 in the US people more people are leaving farms than moving to farms almost every year despite growth in the population. Increases in productivity is partially responsible but rising production costs and declining if not disappearing profits is also responsible.
Falcon
Wal-mart in particular is fond of advertising their big $1.14 discounts on an otherwise $15 pack of socks, which actually costs them $2.
With the quarter ending 31-10-2009 Walmart had total revenue of $99,411.00 million and gross profit of $24,862.00 million. That's a return of about 25% Where'd all that profit go to? Or did you make up numbers to make it look like Walmart was making a killing? It's competitor Target had a better return. Not in absolute numbers but in percentages Macy's had a much better return, about 33%.
The web is a good opportunity to turn this around... Do a quick search, and find the cheapest supplier among many thousands of stores, and you're likely to find one selling with small margins, and without the brand name and retail mark-up.
Walmart is one of those stores and it sells many of the same stuff as other stores, sometimes with a lower price.
Which is it, Walmart is making large profits or Walmart is dropping prices?
Falcon
Someone needs to find a way to make satisfying the customer profitable. That way, progress will be a natural goal of corporations - everyone will benefit.
Hmmn. how would that work.... ? Some kind of free market (really free, rather than all the bs we have today?)
The way is there but various people and factions oppose it. There was and I fear there will always be those who oppose free markets. Heck even businesses and corporations oppose free markets.
Falcon
Well because it does so at the expense of our own economy. Most of this money coming back to the US isn't going to the working and lower classes - its going to the upper class (the owners) who own more wealth than anyone at any time in history - again at the expense of our economy.
It wouldn't harm the poor more if they had to pay more? Lower prices make thing more affordable. Of course if you're poor you shouldn't be wasting money on an iPhone when cheap cell phones are available. Where I see a problem is where jobs are offshore or outsourced and those losing their jobs are close to retirement. Just as soon as they can be trained they're old enough to retire.
Falcon