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Why the unemployment? A poll

Unemployment....why???


  • Total voters
    59
  • Poll closed .
Other.

The moronic behavior of our Congress and President have made doing business here, less stable.
Banks/businesses have a cash surplus right now and won't hire anyone because of uncertainty.

That may address why nothing is changing but noit the root cause. We went through a period of great affluence. As much as people bang on the Bush tax cuts we forget that markets were up, home costs were up, private business ownership was up, and unemployment was at 3-5%. The problem is the nation squandered that opportunity. And the blame runs across the board. The government spent money like crazy. No one is guiltless there. Both sides rolled in the trough and Bush signed the legislation. Banks and big business to be sure went after profit and did so irresponsibly. But lets not forget...we the people. We saw the housing boom...we bought homes we couldnt afford, we bought into the second and third home flipping markets, and housing costs SOARED. 150,000.00 house is STILL really only worth 150,000.00...but due to the boom buying and spending it now goes for 4-500,000.00 dollars. And for a while there...3-5 years...that was fine. Destructive, but fine. We were bujying trucks (which kept getting bigger and more lavish) for 45-50,000.00 WHO CARES! Mwuhahaha!!! Credit that beeeyotch...hell lets go froma 4 to an 8 year loan...keep the payments affordable..and hey...you know what? Screw that...Im going to refinance my 500,000.00 home and roll all my loans into the loan amount. Yahoo!!! More money to spend! OK...so now my $150,000.00 home costs $625,000.00...before interest...but who cares...its only money, right?

George Bush didnt do it. Barney Frank didnt do it. Fat cat bankers didnt do it. Amercan people want to know who REALLY ****ed things up? Grab a mirror.
 
People thought that investments couldn't fail. Truly believed it. Hopefully this is a good shock to the system at least. Investment should be based on a reasonable expectation of future demand, not the idea that "housing prices will never fall" (which is something I'm sure we all heard before the crash).
 
So if protectionism is the reason, why didn't it work for Brazil?

Protectionism did work for Brazil, at least in the market for ethanol. Brazil has had substantial government support of its ethanol industry and tariffs on imported ethanol. Now that it has a dominant position in the world ethanol market, it wants "free trade":

“We would not support reducing the U.S. import tariff, despite whatever Brazil is temporarily doing, because Brazilian ethanol already enjoys generous subsidies from the Brazilian government and to provide them access to additional subsidies from the U.S. government makes no sense,” said Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis. “If we want to import something from Brazil it should be the same resolve to become energy independent. Brazil wisely saw the importance of supporting and incentivizing their domestic ethanol industry and now they are energy exporters while the U.S. continues to rely heavily on foreign oil. The U.S. would do well to follow their example and promote American ethanol producers rather than giving tax breaks to foreign ethanol and increasing our dependence on foreign energy.”

Brazil Eliminates Tariff on Ethanol Imports - Domestic Fuel
 
That may address why nothing is changing but noit the root cause. We went through a period of great affluence. As much as people bang on the Bush tax cuts we forget that markets were up, home costs were up, private business ownership was up, and unemployment was at 3-5%. The problem is the nation squandered that opportunity. And the blame runs across the board. The government spent money like crazy. No one is guiltless there. Both sides rolled in the trough and Bush signed the legislation. Banks and big business to be sure went after profit and did so irresponsibly. But lets not forget...we the people. We saw the housing boom...we bought homes we couldnt afford, we bought into the second and third home flipping markets, and housing costs SOARED. 150,000.00 house is STILL really only worth 150,000.00...but due to the boom buying and spending it now goes for 4-500,000.00 dollars. And for a while there...3-5 years...that was fine. Destructive, but fine. We were bujying trucks (which kept getting bigger and more lavish) for 45-50,000.00 WHO CARES! Mwuhahaha!!! Credit that beeeyotch...hell lets go froma 4 to an 8 year loan...keep the payments affordable..and hey...you know what? Screw that...Im going to refinance my 500,000.00 home and roll all my loans into the loan amount. Yahoo!!! More money to spend! OK...so now my $150,000.00 home costs $625,000.00...before interest...but who cares...its only money, right?

George Bush didnt do it. Barney Frank didnt do it. Fat cat bankers didnt do it. Amercan people want to know who REALLY ****ed things up? Grab a mirror.

Wait...theres more...

Industry...sure...the business sold the jobs overseas in the name of profit...blame them...but also blame the unions that priced the American worker out of the market and made dealing with unions a nightmare. Healthcare? Sure...blame the evil insurance industry and hospitals...buit how often do you see commercials for lawyers that sue for everything in the world? If a scar is a few centimeters longer than it might have been, hell...sue the doc. make the doc charge MORE to pay for malpractice insurance. And on the subject of lawsuits...coffee too hot? Sue. Slip on ice in front of someones house? Sue. You make the choice to eat at McDonalds and get fat? Sue. And lets not forget the poor class...poor dears...its not your fault. You CANT succeed even if you WANT to..blame someone else and keep them poor.

Why are we in an economic mess? Its not capitalism...its bull**** like this stuff we have been doing since the 60s. And its coming home to roost.
 
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Protectionism did work for Brazil, at least in the market for ethanol. Brazil has had substantial government support of its ethanol industry and tariffs on imported ethanol. Now that it has a dominant position in the world ethanol market, it wants "free trade":

Hasn't brought them prosperity though. You can't forget that promoting one industry always comes at the expense of all of the others. I'm not doubting that protectionism works. I'm doubting that it is good for the country. Btw, it didn't work when they did it for their high-tech industry.
 
So if protectionism is the reason, why didn't it work for Brazil?

A few reasons

Brazil of course has a corruption problem like many developed countries. But the main reason would be the racism within the country between the ethnic spanish, black and indian populations. The dominate ethnic spanish population want to maintain power both economic and political (as they go hand in hand generaly). As such they did not invest in the health and education of the ethnic black population, preventing much of that population from improving themselves economically, which would also improve the country economically. Brazil never focused on being an exporter of manufactured goods, just producing such goods for the domestic market (Notice how most manufacturers in Brazil are transplants). Ford, GM, Volkswagen and Fiat all produce cars in Brazil typically for the Brazilian market with design work being done in the home country not in Brazil, the same goes for farm equipment where John Deer is strong. Brazil never developed much in the way of domestically owned and operated manufacturers (Embraer(sp) being an exception). All Brazil did was require the foreign manufacturers to build their cars in Brazil. While that might produce manufacturing jobs and reduce trade deficits, it does not create much in the way of higher value or domestic profit (as the profits leave the country).

Japan and South Korea focused on building domestically owned and operated companies, providing protected markets like Brazil, but focus's on creating the higher value jobs that Brazil did not. Which of course means that protectionism by itself is useless without other policies to encourage domestically owned and operated industries to go along with them. Where the protected home market can ensure the growing company has the time to expand and improve untill it can compete on the world level. Without that sort of policy, protectionism is useless
 
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So it worked for ethanol, but not for high tech. The reason is racism?
 
So it worked for ethanol, but not for high tech. The reason is racism?

Dont be so simple

Ethnic divisions in a country where one ethnic group is smaller by population, but holds the economic and political power and wants to maintain that power, generally causes less investment in education for the other ethnic groups. A large poorly educated population is generally not good for high tech industries. But is quite good at farming sugar cane
 
I'm not doubting that protectionism works. I'm doubting that it is good for the country.

I think it depends. Defense is a vital role of government. I don't want to be dependent on a country like China for defense-related goods like aircraft and satellites, which we seem to have successfully subsidized and exploited over the years for civilian use. But the Chinese seem to be doing a good job stealing our technology and finding companies willing to make a buck by transferring technology to them in exchange for access to their markets. No one should think for one minute that China believes in free trade. China is all about industrial policy.
 
I think it depends. Defense is a vital role of government. I don't want to be dependent on a country like China for defense-related goods like aircraft and satellites, which we seem to have successfully subsidized and exploited over the years for civilian use. But the Chinese seem to be doing a good job stealing our technology and finding companies willing to make a buck by transferring technology to them in exchange for access to their markets. No one should think for one minute that China believes in free trade. China is all about industrial policy.

I've made an exception for defense but that's it.
 
Dont be so simple

Ethnic divisions in a country where one ethnic group is smaller by population, but holds the economic and political power and wants to maintain that power, generally causes less investment in education for the other ethnic groups. A large poorly educated population is generally not good for high tech industries. But is quite good at farming sugar cane

Free trade though would fix that problem, would it not? Outside investors would want to tap that unused resource, as inhumane as it may sound, it's better for those people.
 
Free trade though would fix that problem, would it not? Outside investors would want to tap that unused resource, as inhumane as it may sound, it's better for those people.

Not always, if there is an excess supply of labour then it would not fix the problem. Unlike shutting down mines or oil wells, to reduce supply of raw materials, people still need to eat, put a roof over their head and put cloths on their back
 
Not always, if there is an excess supply of labour then it would not fix the problem. Unlike shutting down mines or oil wells, to reduce supply of raw materials, people still need to eat, put a roof over their head and put cloths on their back

Excess supply of labor? Only if you ignore the fact that these people demand too. People won't be out of work because of free trade (unless their position was overvalued and benefited from the country not being open for investment), free trade opens up new job opportunities to them. In all, you get a much more efficient economy with free trade because you get a better division of labor.
 
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