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Inflation is the result of income growth outpacing productivity growth to which there is very little in the near term. However, households are undeniably feeling the pinch as indicated by the balance sheets of all households and non profit organizations .....
Are you aware of what is happening in Greece ? Italy ? Ireland ? To their standards of living ? What does "austerity measures" mean to you ?
Comparative advantage was a neat thing for a long time. But now, an American can invent something, or take some brilliant idea, and if you blink its being made in China or Indonesia, etc., before we have one off the assembly line. What used to be a head start of a decade in now worth about 10 minutes.
Free and open trade now guarantees that our standard of living will be pulled down to that of the folks whose products we buy. You can see it ebb in the size of our trade deficits.
Not that complicated anymore.....
And you have to ask why i call your posts on this topic incoherent?
The only time we reduce our trade deficit is to put ourselves into a bigger recession than our trade partners.
When your trade imbalance grows to the negative, you are losing your comparative advantage. We were in the $700 B per year range just prior to the Recession.
With a trade imbalance of that magnitude, our standard of living is going to go down.
What on earth are you rambling about? A reduction in the current account deficit was a result in a slowdown in international demand for U.S. products combined with an increase in personal saving.
Again, incoherent nonsense. U.S. comparative advantage is driven primarily by innovation and gains in knowledge.
You are obviously confused; mercantilism died in the 19th century.
Wonderful job our Republican majority House has been doing eh?
When a Maytag plant in Iowa closes down because of foreign competition, or moves its production to Mexico, show us the comparative advantage benefit to those that lost the jobs. Show us what they are now doing with their advantage and how they are now earning more.
Likewise with the TV's we no longer make. And the cars. And the tools. Etc. Show us how we have collectively benefitted. Being able to buy something cheaper because it is made in China has an advantage as a consumer, but only for so long as I have income with which to consume.
Unfortunately those who lost their jobs won't see much advantage, but everyone who buys a washing machine or dryer will, in the form of lower prices. Ask the Soviet Union, or Cuba, or North Korea how well closed economies work.
............... So when we lose our income but want to retain our standard of living, to where do we turn nowadays? The federal government, who will literally pay us to keep consuming. If we did today what we would have done 100 years ago, that self-sufficiency would detrimentally impact the bottom lines of many corporations. Dependence on government is profitable to large corporations, and therefore we have a growing government to render us dependent on them and make self-sufficiency non-feasible.
But that is a short lived advantage. You buy a washer and save $50, for a washer that will last $10 years. That's $5 per year benefit. Meanwhile, the Mexican that made it will be earning $500 of more per month with his "comparative advantage" than he otherwise would have, 12 months a year, for those 10 years.
I am not advocating a closed economy. I am debatiung that we have lost our comparative advantage, and any arguments which use it to ignore the mess we are in are stupid arguments. Not unlike you mentioning N. Korea. It is not hard to see.
When the results of opening up your trade barriers are ever growing trade deficits, evenutally reaching near to 5% of your GDP, you are getting pummeled on comparative advantage. There is essentially not enough other things where you are now having an increased advantage.
Of course we're not just talking about washers and dryers, but all products. When you erect trade barriers you are in effect raising the cost of goods and services (increasing inflation) and stifling free market competition. That is why Americans objected so strenuously to tariffs in the early days of the Republic when they were the government's primary source of revenue. It didn't work then and it won't work now.
Of course we're not just talking about washers and dryers, but all products. When you erect trade barriers you are in effect raising the cost of goods and services (increasing inflation) and stifling free market competition. That is why Americans objected so strenuously to tariffs in the early days of the Republic when they were the government's primary source of revenue. It didn't work then and it won't work now.
It's interesting to watch a liberal debate for free trade against a conservative.
Like it or not libs, the US is now at a comparative disadvantage. And liberalism is first and foremost what did it.
If your going to make an accusation like that why not be a little more specific. Please point out how liberalism has made the US uncompetitive.
If your going to make an accusation like that why not be a little more specific. Please point out how liberalism has made the US uncompetitive.
Number one job today is to create jobs
The number one job today is to create jobs. America only works when American's are working. And nothing would do more to balance the budget than to go from 9.2 percent back down to 4 percent unemployment, taking 5 percent of people off of unemployment, off of food stamps, off of Medicaid, put them back with a job, paying taxes, giving their family a future.
And I'll be candid. We did not need a deficit commission. We needed a jobs commission who talked with people who only create jobs. I am sick and tired of Congressional hearings, where people who have never created a job show up to explain what their theory is of doing something they have never done.
I am going to outline two large strategies that will move us towards job creation: an American Energy Plan and an Environmental Solutions Agency to replace the Environmental Protection Agency.
Source: Speech at 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference Feb 11, 2011
Unions want to take away right to secret-ballot elections
As unions cannot win many secret-ballot elections to organize workers, they have come up with a new solution. It's not to make the union more desirable. It's simply to take away the American worker's right to have a secret-ballot election. This would repeal reforms to protect workers from intimidation and extortion that go back to 1935. It's not an idle left-wing fantasy: it actually passed the House of Representatives in early 2007 with almost no public notice. Under the Orwellian name of the "Freedom of Choice Act," this legislation is backed by President Obama, who has vowed to sign the measure if passed by Congress, where it enjoys wide Democratic support. This the Democratic Congress and president are fighting to eliminate a fundamental American right just to make it easier for their union allies to acquire more members, more dues, and more power. And yet 89 percent of the American people don't want workers to lose their secret-ballot rights.
Source: Real Change, by Newt Gingrich, p. 35 Dec 18, 2007
Union leaders prefer protection over competition
In the United States, there exists a coalition of union leaders who prefer protection over competition; environmental extremists who value nature over the well-being and prosperity of their fellow citizens; and liberal intellectuals who distrust the fluidity and uncertainty of the market and prefer the orderliness of command bureaucracies. This liberal coalition complains about companies’ outsourcing jobs while insisting on corporate taxes that encourage companies to go overseas. They prefer that government impose on business obsolete, absurd work rules, even though these raise costs, lower productivity, and make America less competitive in the world market. These liberals believe in expanding regulation even when it fails to meet any cost-benefit test and clearly drives jobs out of the US. The Left refuses to reform litigation or create a better system of civil justice even though it knows the explosion of lawsuits makes it less desirable to create jobs and invest in the US.
Source: Gingrich Communications website, Newt Gingrich 2012 | Leadership Now, “Issues” Sep 1, 2007
Unions focus on politics; corporations on doing business
The media have in recent years become fixated on the questions of corporate contributions and what they call “soft” money for financing campaigns, but the truth is, nothing on the right is at all comparable to what the unions do. First of all, corporations are much less capable of being organized--each of them operates politically on its own--and they are, as profit-seeking institutions, much more inclined to seek accommodation with whoever is in power. Labor bosses, on the other hand, have a strategic view of politics and spend a great deal of time and effort developing long-term political muscle. By contrast corporate leaders focus mainly on their respective businesses and spend very little time of effort on politics. When major business leaders do for one reason or another concern themselves with Washington, they usually set up Washington offices or lobbyists and leave matters to them.
Source: Lessons Learned the Hard Way, by Newt Gingrich, p. 71-72 Jul 2, 1998
Newt Gingrich on Jobs
Start here:
j-mac
So, 500K people retired or enrolled in collage in the last two months? Bull!
j-mac
I believe his previous paragraph, and previous posts, mention that "When we impose egregious regulations on production and labor, via such as our EPA and NLRB and a host of other agencies, while we import products that cost less primarily because they are produced with no such added costs, we are destroying advantage"
We are at a competitive disadvantage worldwide when we handicap our own processes.
Too much work to look for work, I like that!
Sure times are hard but people need to stop looking for a hand out and at least keep trying. Success is not assured but the opportunity to succeed is, that is the promise of America. If we don't have that then what do we have?
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