[sasaderesada]

Cut through all the whining right wing gibberish, and we get the actual quote that "set him off".

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes – especially for the wealthy – our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.
Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the 50s and 60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.

Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history. And what did it get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class – things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and social security

Absolutely correct on all counts. Slow job growth. Now massive unemployment. Yet the rich are getting richer, and corporate profits are at record highs. "Let the market fix everything" doesn't work. It has never worked.

The other problem is that the Republicans realize that a lot of the people who experienced that slow growth from the 50s forward are either dying, or else are too few to pay attention to. Fortunately, I'm still here, and I can remember the hoopla from that period. Truman was President when I was born, and I was 5 when Ike became President, so the winner of the first presidential election I experienced was a Republican, and the immediate Postwar Boom was drawing to a close. The new issue on the block was the start of the dismantling of domestic Heavy industry, and the transfer of that technology elsewhere. The Roebling Company - the company that invented most of the technology that resulted in infrastructure such as the George Washington and Golden Gate Bridges and their siblings, started to close, and was history by 1974. The Automotive Industry was down to the Big Four by approximately the same year, and the World Trade Center and the Sears Tower were the very last of the Mega Building projects. By 1980, the so-called Rust Belt, a phrase that describes the segment of the nation where most of the major Steel Plants that have closed for good were located, became an oft-used term in our daily conversation, and the template for the current unemployment problem was set in stone. The booms we have experienced during the same period have never been able to sustain themselves, mostly because the technologies involved were relatively new and still developing, and were automated enough so that the number of human hands needed to do the labor never equaled the number of people who lost their jobs from previous technologies going out the door. If you ever get the chance, go take a tour of an Automotive Plant, or the one remaining Cell Phone Plant in America - Motorola - and count the number of Robots that do the actual assembling, with a handful of Humans needed to Quality Control. My Son is a Licensed Electrician, and his job is with the contractor that services the Honda Robots at their Marysville, Ohio Plant. You would think that he would be making big bucks keeping those robots in motion, but he actually has to subsidize his Robot Servicing money by running his own one-man business doing pick-up electrical work to make ends meet for his family. Right here in Bordentown, the two "Big Businesses" that keep Bordentown prosperous are Ocean Spray, and Agway. The former is the Cranberry company, while the latter is a distribution center of agricultural products for Burlington County farmers. Ocean Spray works three Tours, but the output has reduced to the point where the distribution is no longer by rail, but by truck, and only a handful of trucks arrive and leave each day. They have given advanced notice that they are exploring the probability of consolidating the Bordentown plant with another plant in Pennsylvania, which would close the one remaining really large-scale plant in the area. The Agway distribution point is safe since the farms in Burlington County have leveled off as far as leaving the business is concerned, but as soon as the housing boom re-starts - if ever - more farm land will turn into Housing Land for persons who work in Philadelphia or NYC, and the downward spiral will resume. And so, the Business Implosion continues in its slow, excruciating tempo.

[oxinsnepe]

And as I said earlier, there is a reason corporations are regulated. This took a hundred years. They hired mercenaries. They burned protestor camps. They deliberately murdered women and children - all to protect their financial interests. I don't feel like having to fight that battle all over again. And frankly, I think most people who advocate de-regulation don't realize how much blood was spilled to get that regulation installed in the first place.

For someone who says our system is inefficient, you see no inefficiency in this? One man deserves a paycheck and separation package larger than that of tens of thousands of "little people" combined - or that he takes in a hundred million while at the same time his company is laying off thousands of employees?

The Finance business is burning. Banks are laying off people every year, and its only going to continue. Yet the CEOs of these operations continue to be rewarded with obscene amounts of money, whether or not their leadership was even effective?

As I said earlier, there are certainly pieces of legislation that corporations like (like "right to work" laws, the Republican Party's wet dream) - but as a general principle, less accountability is preferable to more accountability.

That's emotionally appealing, but not practical. As I said earlier, if a new drug, car, children's toy, power tool, sunscreen, or appliance is unsafe - are you going to know? You and I cannot be experts in every field, which is why someone who IS an expert (like the FDA for example) needs to exist to hold that relevant industry accountable.

I don't think TARP and Stimulus were applied in the most moral and efficient way possible - but surely you agree that they needed to happen?

Which is why our "minimum wage" laws don't just affect the wage. They also dictate what hours employees can work, breaks... time management in general. While a corporation would love to assign the work of 10 men to just 5 to save money, our laws are SUPPOSED to prevent that from happening. Again, as I said earlier, corporations WANT unemployment. Unemployment drives wages down, and keeps the workers in fear of losing their jobs. Unfortunately, in a capitalist system, there is no easy solution to that. However, using stimulus money to build a jobs program would mitigate a lot of negative effects from unemployment, and in the long run be positive for the economy.

Well then, that's where we're going to have to disagree. People are selfish short sighted little monsters. Its biology. It was all fine and dandy when we were primitive hunter-gatherers or small agricultural communities. The Left has a fetish for the "noble savage" and the Right has a fetish for Ann Raynd's "superhuman individuals". Both are wrong.

As small populations of villages or tribes, man had very little control over his environment, food supply, or neighbors. Now in the post-industrial world, that's all changed. We have no equilibrium, because we have the power to irrepairably damage both the environment and ourselves. Without controls, people would scoop up every last fish in the sea, burn holes in the ozone layer, exhaust every inch of usable farmland, and oppress every other person weaker than them. We used to believe the "free market" was omnipent. That idea was finally disproven the hard way with the Great Depression. We tried to fix the Great Depression with Austerity programs under Hoover. We failed miserably. We only left the great depression under FDR and the New Deal.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately dancing around or simply missing it because my point is, the WAY we're regulated and the WAY things are set up. The regulations simply don't function as intended. They are unenforceable. We can lay out thousands of "rules" to go by that mean nothing if the only individuals observing them are the ones neither of us cares about. I think it's fair to say judging by recent events such as B.P. that it wasn't caused by a lack of rules to follow.

The imbalance of compensation to CEOs and the penalties for failure are entirely independent entities. The Board of Directors is elected with one of their specific functions being to determine what a specific executive's individual contributions are "worth" to the company and to its shareholders. As they do assume a significant level of "risk" and "responsibility" as well as contributing a significant amount of their personal time some company's feel that contribution to be worth a substantial sum of money. Since the skill sets required to oversee an extremely large organization in a highly competitive industry and to ensure that the company is not only sustainable but on the leading edge is not one that every citizen in the street has at their disposal, there is a question of demand for those skill sets in a single individual and a lot of competition in both similar and other markets to "outbid" an organization for that particular individual. Does it seem a little inflated? Maybe, I'd say the skill sets and individual contributions are more unique and significant than any major athlete or Hollywood actor. If anyone could do it, everyone would, and they'd get paid in peanuts because their contributions just wouldn't be considered all that valuable.

I would say Federal agents are 10% expert, 90% ambitious hacks trying to move onto the next best thing, they've little accountability for doing anything beyond the bare minimum and I wouldn't trust someone with those motivations to drive my car around the block much less effectively and ethically regulate something I am concerned about. The fact that they frequently transition between the government and the private sector make a conflict of interests not only occurring occasionally but actually frequently a huge concern for me.

I would say the TARP funds by principle, not just methodology, are a big part of the problem. They're one giant safety net a corrupt and/or incompetent corporation, frequently a GSE ironically, can fall back on. That's like begging for more of the same failure.

Everything else you've stated with regards to "minimum wage" can also be applied towards what is the "fair market value". I know you're afraid that when we cut back on labor laws everything will turn into a black lunged sweat shop. I don't think that's entirely realistic in today's American society, word travels too fast, whistleblowers have a means to voice their concerns (albeit not a perfect one), and people in today's community understand they don't have to unnecessarily risk their lives and livelihoods for pennies on the dollar to what they can earn for something much safer at a better rate with a similar level of skill applied. That's the factor the compels "fair market" value and every time someone signs up for employment, they do so as an agreed-upon social contract with a baseline set of rules for both employer and employee that can be sued for in court if one party defaults in a manner that is inconsistent with the terms of the contract.

We didn't have a significantly more "free market" during or even before the great depression for a great many years, plus we were now wrestling with a relatively new phenomenon as a society known as a "fiat" currency, it might have been less regulated in certain areas, but it was a slightly different colored mutt than what it is now. It had certain elements, as booms and busts happen quite naturally in virtually any market system, but it was also in the first couple of decades since the government decided to assume a central role in economic planning, this making the market affects less predictable to the common individual, inflating and collapsing bubbles in a manner that is translucent to the consumer, and lengthening the duration and severity of cycles as a means to appear "stable". Thus transitions that previously were over inside of a couple of years now lasted decades, and the "poor/innocent/naive" consumer the government had sought to protect was even more afraid and more confused, or also given a false sense of security for reasons such as artificially low interest rates, in both cases encouraging fiscally irresponsible behaviors. But of course the experts, who understand financing theory and the means by which the government operates, were of course able to exploit the system because they had a relatively decent understanding of when to finance their companies by incurring liabilities and when to finance them through stock issues and how to exploit loopholes that are a bit more complex than the average high school graduate might be able to follow. Thus the rich made bank by harvesting the gains of a dilluting currency while the rest of society incurred debts that over a period of time grew larger and larger and people took on these debts for increasingly more frivolous of reasons. Meanwhile, because our government decided to regulate for whatever reason (often just because it could) prices to the consumer have increased fairly substantially as a result of the recurring violations towards the simple and predictable supply and demand cycle. This allowed for a simple dillution not only of our currency but our base purchasing power without our realizing it. Of course the government in its infinite wisdom was aware of the changes, so more than a few regulations have been passed historically strictly for the purpose of making it easier for an individual to borrow against their earnings in a manner that is contrary to a fair market assessment of an individual's creditabilty, we all know how this market collapsed more recently, what is ironic is it's hardly the first opportunity we've had to learn these types of lessons but hadn't.

The problem here is you seem to have this wish to equate society to government, society solves cultural problems, government does not. Every problem you concern yourself with is a societal issue, but never has government performed a very effective role in correcting society beyond inserting unpredictable elements into the natural transition. The government didn't effectively abolish slavery, it followed in society's footsteps as conscientious and innovative individuals saw the changes necessary to make things better and took actions to preserve the natural rights of their fellow humans. The government did institute a war over the issue that arguably could have been resolved much more peacably, and cost not only lives of individuals during the war, but the near century of mistrust, resentment, and ensuing disparity of human natural rights for the following century. The government served no better in curing the racism, as many individuals familiar with "Jim Crow Laws" can attest to. The very same principle can be applied towards economics, warfare, education, religion, or any other burning issue of the day.

If we really wish to be free and prosperous as people, part of that equation is rediscovering the paradigm that a society of individuals is far more powerful than any system of government and no system of government is immune to the temptation to reverse the natural course of society, and when it does so it always costs us in the end. When we begin to understand that we can begin to see how detrimental our overly-intrusive government has become and abolish every form that does not serve to protect our natural and Constitutionally guaranteed rights as individuals.

[Preorbtat]

I'm not sure if you're deliberately dancing around or simply missing it because my point is, the WAY we're regulated and the WAY things are set up. The regulations simply don't function as intended. They are unenforceable. We can lay out thousands of "rules" to go by that mean nothing if the only individuals observing them are the ones neither of us cares about. I think it's fair to say judging by recent events such as B.P. that it wasn't caused by a lack of rules to follow.

Again, I've addressed this question. If your model is right, why did the economy collapse after decades of DE-regulation? Yes, there is still a lot of regulation, but the corporations - financial firms, banks, etc - have far less government oversight and a much smaller tax burden than they did in, say, 1950. Yet the recession still happened, and will probably happen again within thenext couple of years. Why?

The imbalance of compensation to CEOs and the penalties for failure are entirely independent entities. The Board of Directors is elected with one of their specific functions being to determine what a specific executive's individual contributions are "worth" to the company and to its shareholders. As they do assume a significant level of "risk" and "responsibility" as well as contributing a significant amount of their personal time some company's feel that contribution to be worth a substantial sum of money. Since the skill sets required to oversee an extremely large organization in a highly competitive industry and to ensure that the company is not only sustainable but on the leading edge is not one that every citizen in the street has at their disposal, there is a question of demand for those skill sets in a single individual and a lot of competition in both similar and other markets to "outbid" an organization for that particular individual. Does it seem a little inflated? Maybe, I'd say the skill sets and individual contributions are more unique and significant than any major athlete or Hollywood actor. If anyone could do it, everyone would, and they'd get paid in peanuts because their contributions just wouldn't be considered all that valuable. Let's take your analogy and run with it. So - is Barry Bonds any better than the college grad who couldn't make it into the draft? Is Tom Cruise really any better than the guy stuck doing soap operas his whole career? Is Brittany Spears any better than the Minnesota girl who couldn't get 5 digits in cd sales? Is the CEO any better than the mid-level vice president who got laid off along with the rest of his division? Or were they just the ones lucky/well connected enough to get picked to make the "big bucks"?

What you're not getting here is that the US has turned into a "winner takes all" system. A handful make millions, or even billions - while the rest in their field is stuck just barely making ends meet. New information is partially responsible for that - but mostly its our economic system that pushes money and resources into a shrinking percentage of the population. This is exactly the invisible hand at work - the rich get richer, the business world adapts to cater to them, accelerating the process - a vicious cycle.

I would say Federal agents are 10% expert, 90% ambitious hacks trying to move onto the next best thing, they've little accountability for doing anything beyond the bare minimum and I wouldn't trust someone with those motivations to drive my car around the block much less effectively and ethically regulate something I am concerned about. The fact that they frequently transition between the government and the private sector make a conflict of interests not only occurring occasionally but actually frequently a huge concern for me. I agree absolutely. Yet this same person, who you would call an ambitious hack while he's working for the Fed, the second he goes back to his old job at Goldman Saccs, he suddenly transforms back into a moral smart businessman with rare skills who you would trust to control the "invisible hand"?

I would say the TARP funds by principle, not just methodology, are a big part of the problem. They're one giant safety net a corrupt and/or incompetent corporation, frequently a GSE ironically, can fall back on. That's like begging for more of the same failure. Yet if the banks collapse, the economy collapses with them. The EU is facing the same problem. They need a stimulus, but they probably can't - the Euro prevents any one nation from unilaterally inflating their currency, and the voters aren't in the mood for a bank bailout. The future is impossible to predict, but one possible outcome is political dissolution, and another worldwide recession.

Europe is also a perfect example of why the Republicans' proposed Austerity program just doesn't work. Yes, Greece had a huge government deficit. But Spain and Italy did not. They had TRADE deficits - Spain in particular actually was running a surplus in their government budget. Its the trade deficit that is killing them, and brought along a 23% unemployment rate.

Everything else you've stated with regards to "minimum wage" can also be applied towards what is the "fair market value". I know you're afraid that when we cut back on labor laws everything will turn into a black lunged sweat shop. I don't think that's entirely realistic in today's American society, word travels too fast, whistleblowers have a means to voice their concerns (albeit not a perfect one), and people in today's community understand they don't have to unnecessarily risk their lives and livelihoods for pennies on the dollar to what they can earn for something much safer at a better rate with a similar level of skill applied. That's the factor the compels "fair market" value and every time someone signs up for employment, they do so as an agreed-upon social contract with a baseline set of rules for both employer and employee that can be sued for in court if one party defaults in a manner that is inconsistent with the terms of the contract. So basically - bad working conditions can't happen because corporate leaders are just so nice awesome people, and they would never dream of doing such a thing? You MIGHT have had an argument - except once again - the unemployment rate comes into play. With a high unemployment rate, corporations can treat their employees any way they like, because people have no choice but to accept whatever jobs they can get.

We didn't have a significantly more "free market" during or even before the great depression for a great many years, plus we were now wrestling with a relatively new phenomenon as a society known as a "fiat" currency, it might have been less regulated in certain areas, but it was a slightly different colored mutt than what it is now. It had certain elements, as booms and busts happen quite naturally in virtually any market system, but it was also in the first couple of decades since the government decided to assume a central role in economic planning, this making the market affects less predictable to the common individual, inflating and collapsing bubbles in a manner that is translucent to the consumer, and lengthening the duration and severity of cycles as a means to appear "stable". Thus transitions that previously were over inside of a couple of years now lasted decades, and the "poor/innocent/naive" consumer the government had sought to protect was even more afraid and more confused, or also given a false sense of security for reasons such as artificially low interest rates, in both cases encouraging fiscally irresponsible behaviors. But of course the experts, who understand financing theory and the means by which the government operates, were of course able to exploit the system because they had a relatively decent understanding of when to finance their companies by incurring liabilities and when to finance them through stock issues and how to exploit loopholes that are a bit more complex than the average high school graduate might be able to follow. Thus the rich made bank by harvesting the gains of a dilluting currency while the rest of society incurred debts that over a period of time grew larger and larger and people took on these debts for increasingly more frivolous of reasons. Meanwhile, because our government decided to regulate for whatever reason (often just because it could) prices to the consumer have increased fairly substantially as a result of the recurring violations towards the simple and predictable supply and demand cycle. This allowed for a simple dillution not only of our currency but our base purchasing power without our realizing it. Of course the government in its infinite wisdom was aware of the changes, so more than a few regulations have been passed historically strictly for the purpose of making it easier for an individual to borrow against their earnings in a manner that is contrary to a fair market assessment of an individual's creditabilty, we all know how this market collapsed more recently, what is ironic is it's hardly the first opportunity we've had to learn these types of lessons but hadn't. A picture is worth a thousand words.



It's called "golden fetters".

The problem here is you seem to have this wish to equate society to government, society solves cultural problems, government does not. Every problem you concern yourself with is a societal issue, but never has government performed a very effective role in correcting society beyond inserting unpredictable elements into the natural transition. The government didn't effectively abolish slavery, it followed in society's footsteps as conscientious and innovative individuals saw the changes necessary to make things better and took actions to preserve the natural rights of their fellow humans. The government did institute a war over the issue that arguably could have been resolved much more peacably, and cost not only lives of individuals during the war, but the near century of mistrust, resentment, and ensuing disparity of human natural rights for the following century.
A couple problems with that revisionist history - first off, "peacable methods" had been tried, and failed. Every emancipation effort, even compensated emancipation (where the slaves are bought en masse by the Federal Government, and then freed. This is what Britain did in the colonies), was shot down by the Southern States.

Why? Well, it had deep ideological roots. While its true the abolitionists had a Christian motivation to want to free the slaves, the Southerners also believed it was their "Christian duty" to enslave the black race. Robert E. Lee literally believed it was God's will that the blacks be enslaved, to teach them "discipline". Even during the war, every Northern black captured by the Confederate army was immediately sent South and enslaved. Black soldiers captured were either executed on the spot, or also sold into slavery.

So you're right - there wasn't really a "political/government" solution to slavery. The solution turned out to be Genocide. The war didn't end, and the slaves weren't freed - until the Southern white aristocracy was wiped out. The war couldn't end until the Southern aristocrats of military age were virtually exterminated.

So unfortunately, you're wrong. The war was necessary. It was necessary to wipe out the whites who benefited from slavery. Sad, but their crime was unforgivable. They had it coming.

The government served no better in curing the racism, as many individuals familiar with "Jim Crow Laws" can attest to. The very same principle can be applied towards economics, warfare, education, religion, or any other burning issue of the day. Again, a quick overview of the facts will dispell this revisionist history. The civil rights movement was not a gradual process of smiling citizens learning the error of their ways and pushing civil liberties forward. It was the Federal government, Army soldiers, literally facing and sometimes fighting mobs of local racists. First with Eisenhower. Again with Kennedy. After him Johnson. Perhaps the one of the most brutal incidents happened when the University of Mississippi was desegregated, and thousands of KKK rioters attempted to burn the school down - stopped only by US Marshals and the National Guard (under Federal control, the state governor refused to accept integration). 2 people killed. Dozens more wounded. Federal forces did not open fire on the rioters, even after receiving fire, and KKK members attempted to decapitate black soldiers.

If we really wish to be free and prosperous as people, part of that equation is rediscovering the paradigm that a society of individuals is far more powerful than any system of government and no system of government is immune to the temptation to reverse the natural course of society, and when it does so it always costs us in the end. When we begin to understand that we can begin to see how detrimental our overly-intrusive government has become and abolish every form that does not serve to protect our natural and Constitutionally guaranteed rights as individuals. Isn't this exactly what you're proposing?

[g4YthYXx]

Again, I've addressed this question. If your model is right, why did the economy collapse after decades of DE-regulation? Yes, there is still a lot of regulation, but the corporations - financial firms, banks, etc - have far less government oversight and a much smaller tax burden than they did in, say, 1950. Yet the recession still happened, and will probably happen again within thenext couple of years. Why?

I'm cutting back on the length a bit here for consumption purposes. Cause and effect are key components of any example and a very interesting subject for analysis. Yes, we did de-regulate post World War II and a lot of it was simply because they regulated nearly every facet of our lives and livelihoods (did you want steak for dinner? too bad, due to rationing there is none available today!) Then a bunch of others got tacked on, maybe less strict on occasion but certainly sufficient to dillute the pool and make individual regulations less effective. Another way to ask the question is why did prosperity last so long under a de-regulated state before 2008? (of course there were hiccups, we don't need to delve down that path.) I take chicken-egg arguments specifically with a grain of salt because frankly they're far too misleading due to the bias of the analyst skewing facts in a manner to support their position. Sometimes it comes down to a simple question of whether good and bad things happen as a result of government or despite it.

I have no problem with a model that allows a rich person to get very rich fundamentally, if we value their KSA's in a field to the extent we feel their contributions to be worth millions or even billions, so be it. Envy gets a person nowhere, and I see absolutely no point in bringing those individuals down if they acquired that venerated status honestly through their professions rather than dishonestly through their crony positioning with people who are postitioned to unbalance the system.

Again with Europe, we're back on the chicken-egg thing, it's not a well-kept secret that historically the majority of European models have utilized a more socialist system of government, not to mention the fact that they deliberately tied in their currency to one another under an even more flexible fiat variety than even our own.

No model, whatever variety will ever be the perfect one. The largest risk towards free markets is not dishonesty, it's not even corruption, it's two things, firstly monopolistic enterprise and secondly oligopolistic enterprise in high demand markets. When the government gets its hands in the cookie jar, the direction always defaults to one of these two scenarios, which is a strong indicator of why many GSE's may feel secure enough to assume increasing levels of risk such as financing subprime lending, especially when de-regulation in the form of alternative regulation is imposed to encourage assuming risk under artificially low interest rate levels.

You're right in a sense about revisionist history perspective, it is all hypothetical. But as you indicated it had worked in Britain and this could allow a person to hypothesize whether we had done the right things in a timely fashion to attempt an alternative to war, which it's fair to say that if we had found that alternative we MIGHT have avoided one of the darkest chapters in our own history. I would say many things happened in the civil rights era despite our Federal Government intervention, not because of it. I would venture in many cases the government was all too eager to segregate our society, reinforcing the perception that different people of different races were "seperate but equal". By barring our own freedom to associate at the outset the government did far more to deter successful integration of our races than it ever had to "forcibly integrate" us later on, which by its own premise is problematic, because put simply, it is the right of every person to be discriminatory towards who they associate with, especially privately, regardless of the sensitivities around the issue. In the public sphere the only means a person has to exercise that right is not go to a place where those they do not wish to associate with are going to be, or at least minimize interaction when they do happen to be in a similar location, as both parties have a freedom to be there.

Exactly what I'm proposing is to cut the chaff, there are far too many distractors, complexities, and deterrents in our own government to confound the most critical of observers, much less the layman. We're in a situation right now it is irrelevant how trasnparently our government operates because it becomes a full time job just to work our way through the smoke and mirrors. We have a set of boundaries by which we can define our role of government, and it was laid out very clearly for us. This government at the consent of the governed has turned into a rotted onion and our only recourse is to begin peeling back the layers or dispense with it in its entirety.

[feeshyLew]

I'm cutting back on the length a bit here for consumption purposes. Cause and effect are key components of any example and a very interesting subject for analysis. Yes, we did de-regulate post World War II and a lot of it was simply because they regulated nearly every facet of our lives and livelihoods (did you want steak for dinner? too bad, due to rationing there is none available today!) Then a bunch of others got tacked on, maybe less strict on occasion but certainly sufficient to dillute the pool and make individual regulations less effective. Another way to ask the question is why did prosperity last so long under a de-regulated state before 2008? (of course there were hiccups, we don't need to delve down that path.) I take chicken-egg arguments specifically with a grain of salt because frankly they're far too misleading due to the bias of the analyst skewing facts in a manner to support their position. Sometimes it comes down to a simple question of whether good and bad things happen as a result of government or despite it.

I agree that finding exact causes can be speculative in many respects - in regards to your question - was our "prosperity" particularly long lived? Economic growth slowed almost immediately after derregulation began - the hyper-growth that happened in Asia never saw the light of day in the US. De-regulation and tax cuts really took off with Reagan, and American wages have been almost completely stagnant since then. Bush pushed through another round of massive tax cuts, and the Recession started before he even left office.

Now perhaps one could argue that these are unrelated to the deterioration of our economy, but this long lived prosperity you speak of simply didn't happen.

I have no problem with a model that allows a rich person to get very rich fundamentally, if we value their KSA's in a field to the extent we feel their contributions to be worth millions or even billions, so be it. Envy gets a person nowhere, and I see absolutely no point in bringing those individuals down if they acquired that venerated status honestly through their professions rather than dishonestly through their crony positioning with people who are postitioned to unbalance the system. I'm guessing you would bawk if a congressman got a hundred million dollars when he left office. Why is it any different with a CEO? For that matter, why should a CEO be given a hundred million dollars while hundreds or thousands of employees are being laid off? If you want to talk about "waste and inefficiency" - that certainly fits the criteria. I doubt a CEO is smarter or more qualified than a typical mid-level engineer. It is fortunate that the DoD doesn't follow this model - or General Conway and McCrhystal would have gotten a hundred million dollars when they retired - because they're "smarter" than everyone else in the military.

Again with Europe, we're back on the chicken-egg thing, it's not a well-kept secret that historically the majority of European models have utilized a more socialist system of government, not to mention the fact that they deliberately tied in their currency to one another under an even more flexible fiat variety than even our own. How does that have ANYTHING to do with socialism? All fifty states in the US use the same currency. Is this socialism? What makes the two systems different is we established political unity before a currency unification - they attempted the reverse, to use a unified currency to establish political unity in Europe. This didn't work, and its screwing them. They've tried to set up an equivalent of the Fed to oversee the Euro and set up loans to the relevant parties - so far they've failed, largely because the voters see such an idea as imperialism. The collective identity we take for granted in the USA didn't happen for Europe.

No model, whatever variety will ever be the perfect one. The largest risk towards free markets is not dishonesty, it's not even corruption, it's two things, firstly monopolistic enterprise and secondly oligopolistic enterprise in high demand markets. When the government gets its hands in the cookie jar, the direction always defaults to one of these two scenarios, which is a strong indicator of why many GSE's may feel secure enough to assume increasing levels of risk such as financing subprime lending, especially when de-regulation in the form of alternative regulation is imposed to encourage assuming risk under artificially low interest rate levels. The free market isn't a person, or a group. Its just an environment with people in it. The biggest "threat" in a free market is the prols getting fed up and hanging the rich off lamp posts. While artificial controls are a nuisance to the rich, they keep the rest of the population placated enough to prevent revolution.

There's the pragmatic reality of it - the rich won't do anything about widespread misery until the problem gets big enough for even the rich to get scared. The fall of the czar in Russia scared the living shiat out of aristocracies across the world. So while the Great Depression and the recent Recession didn't hurt the rich, not at all - they actually got richer - the widespread poverty in "the 99%" can lead to wealth redistribution by force. FDR was allowed to push through his new deal in large part because the American elite feared another Communist Revolution. Allowing those pesky poor people to have jobs and food was annoying, but it was better than getting lynched by a mob.

You're right in a sense about revisionist history perspective, it is all hypothetical. But as you indicated it had worked in Britain and this could allow a person to hypothesize whether we had done the right things in a timely fashion to attempt an alternative to war, which it's fair to say that if we had found that alternative we MIGHT have avoided one of the darkest chapters in our own history. True. But a choice was made. The Southern Aristocracy chose to fight, and suffered the consequences. Over 10% of the Federal Army was black - all volunteers - the Southern whites' worst nightmare, the negroes rising up to kill them, had come true. It was time to pay the piper, so to speak.

I would say many things happened in the civil rights era despite our Federal Government intervention, not because of it. I would venture in many cases the government was all too eager to segregate our society, reinforcing the perception that different people of different races were "seperate but equal". By barring our own freedom to associate at the outset the government did far more to deter successful integration of our races than it ever had to "forcibly integrate" us later on, Yes, but remember, that was no accident. The Reconstruction was a very tricky period - segregation was a compromise, the South was still racist to the bone, it was deemed necessary to offer them a system that they could accept - no slavery, but they could still treat blacks like shit. Its not a compromise I agree with, but it was better than slavery. The Democrats, and later on the Republicans, used this racist sentiment to control the Southern white vote.

which by its own premise is problematic, because put simply, it is the right of every person to be discriminatory towards who they associate with, especially privately, regardless of the sensitivities around the issue. In the public sphere the only means a person has to exercise that right is not go to a place where those they do not wish to associate with are going to be, or at least minimize interaction when they do happen to be in a similar location, as both parties have a freedom to be there. That's, at best, a dubious claim. Even if we concede that on a private basis we have a right to discriminate (which I don't) - the government is still involved. White businesses used the sheriff departments and police to enforce segregation. State police were used to suppress black demonstrators and civil disobedience. Federal grants were given to whites-only schools. So no, it was NOT just a matter of personal choice - public money was used to enforce and promote segregaton.

Exactly what I'm proposing is to cut the chaff, there are far too many distractors, complexities, and deterrents in our own government to confound the most critical of observers, much less the layman. We're in a situation right now it is irrelevant how trasnparently our government operates because it becomes a full time job just to work our way through the smoke and mirrors. We have a set of boundaries by which we can define our role of government, and it was laid out very clearly for us. This government at the consent of the governed has turned into a rotted onion and our only recourse is to begin peeling back the layers or dispense with it in its entirety. Yes, but look at our actual economic problems - a broken medical system. High unemployment. Massive outsourcing... NONE of these are solved by de-regulation. Streamlining our regulatory system is an admirable idea, but its really not relevant to the serious dilemas at hand.

[Zpxbawtz]

Yes, but look at our actual economic problems - a broken medical system. High unemployment. Massive outsourcing... NONE of these are solved by de-regulation. Streamlining our regulatory system is an admirable idea, but its really not relevant to the serious dilemas at hand.

It's all tied in together, but no single solution will simply avert all of what ails us. Which is part of my point here. We've got a table here that if you leave out one leg, it will become unbalanced and unreliable.

Prosperity is a misleading and nebulous term which can be used quite incorrectly as the metrics people use to define it are often part of the problem. GDP? Money Supply? Relative value of the US Dollar vs. foreign currencies? Poverty levels? Unemployment Rates? CPI? Any one of these factors can be indicators, but I'd challenge anyone who claims we have "prosperity" at a given moment to get them all to align for more than a brief snapshot of time in our history, and then the longer term boom-bust effects come into play where, maybe we had a rise then, but what happened when the cycle turned?

I'm curious how you cite the FDR years as almost a form of "Golden Age" for progressivism. From a certain perspective you're right, but I'm curious what the non-interventionist blowback-minded individual I know thinks about the massive expansion of the military industrial complex during that era? We weren't "prosperous" because individual families felt particularly rich and free to live their lives in relative luxury. Our production levels were so high because we were funding the greatest production of military capabilities in known human history (including since) and we had most of our citizens gainfully employed because they were busy dying for our country on the battlefields of Africa and on small islands in the Pacific.

I've no question in my mind there is a fundamental problem with the way we're running this country if we feel the duties of a senator or a congressman to be so consuming that they receive what they do as compensation for services rendered. I don't for one get all wrapped up in what they're making on a base premise, if we set the rates too low, it would be a surefire track to ensure only the rich get elected, even moreso than what it is now. By comparison to what I think the government should need to be discussing and how often they should need to do it, however, I've no question we took a wrong detour somewhere down the line to get where we are today.

You've made good points about "alerting the rich" towards contributing to a financial crisis, I'll concede that in a heartbeat. Elites throughout history have displayed themselves to be entirely unreliable when it comes to contributing to the solution of a financial crisis. I don't believe it's solely their responsibility either, nor that they should be forced to pay proportionately higher amounts as a "thank you" for all of the gifts "society" has given them, as through free enterprise itself they have contributed quite substantially simply through the superior products and services they've made available for purchase by a willing consumer. I also grow very concerned when it is the government specifically that is creating the mechanisms for the rich to isolate themselves, whereas I take absolutely no issue with them acquiring their wealth by providing the best version of what they do on the market. What I don't agree with is that the "regulating" government does is all that burdensome to the wealthiest, in a relative sense to the new entrants the established leaders in the industry have very limited amount of required capital expenditures to remain sufficiently "compliant" with the new terms, especially when using lobbyists to pull the strings and getting them to sneak through legislation that gives them more competitive advantage in their respective market niches.

The Civil War and the Jim Crow era are interesting topics by themselves, and I realize I brought them up, but for the purposes of avoiding derailing the conversation too far I'm going to leave it to the individuals to speculate about, we could trudge through over two and a quarter century of racism in America but I'd prefer to do it elsewhere if we had to. I do like the "what if's" and I think it's important to ask them but I don't think it's important enough to detract from the key focus.

Your quote above identified the symptoms quite well. I would say the government is never going to have the ability to find a comprehensive, sustainable cure, which it's also fair to say the same is true of free markets. What unburdened free markets provide when given opportunity to do so is competitive healthcare services offered at competitive rates, an opportunity to find employment at fair market wage levels at rates which by default would be competitive with outsourcing overseas, and the incentive to operate a business here in the US because there are simply no tax and regulatory loopholes to be exploited overseas, because our rates are as good or better than theirs. Plus a government that doesn't become so exhorbitantly costly that it requires taxing the average American at a quarter or more of their personal earnings just to bring in revenues just to keep the deficit from increasing at rates that don't fully resemble a parabolic increase. Can people "lose" in a free market? Absolutely, without question. Then another question is whether good-hearted individuals may step in to help pick up the slack. I think some can and will to a certain extent. Even today with almost a third of my income subsidizing government excess, I rarely say no to an offer to contribute towards charitable causes to the extent I feel myself to be able. Given that extra third of my income I believe a significantly greater amount would be made available to do the very same thing and at much greater and direct proportions. Which begs the question whether the behavior is anomalous or more normal. Considering how many businesses I see offering these charitable donations it gives reason to have hope. I also don't see harm in having those that can pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and try again, being forced to do so for their own survival, as sometimes the worst thing that can happen to a person in their lives is to be mislead into the belief that they can screw up forever and expect to be taken care of.

The one thing I find people to be especially good at in this day and age is airing their personal grievances, justified or unjustified. I don't think it's an issue of whether we'll know if someone is struggling to the point of being completely incapable of getting themselves out of it. I think what is at issue is when knowing this will someone step in and lend a hand. I think there is a good number of pay-it-forward-minded individuals out there who do these things because they feel morally and ethically compelled to. It may be a spiritual thing or it may be other things (even a factor of greed in a sense) but there are those that definitely will. I think a big part of that is getting government out of their way as a crutch and an excuse big businesses as well as individuals can use to help avoid facing the growing phenomena of social responsibility.

Again, it is pointless to harbor illusions that any system will be perfect in its results. The first solution I would choose is to dispense with any notion that anybody can live their lives free from want or fear, once these notions go away a person will have to decide for themselves whether they control the conditions of their lives or their conditions in their lives controls them, which in my mind is a key element of personal maturity.

[Grennios]

It's all tied in together, but no single solution will simply avert all of what ails us. Which is part of my point here. We've got a table here that if you leave out one leg, it will become unbalanced and unreliable.

Prosperity is a misleading and nebulous term which can be used quite incorrectly as the metrics people use to define it are often part of the problem. GDP? Money Supply? Relative value of the US Dollar vs. foreign currencies? Poverty levels? Unemployment Rates? CPI? Any one of these factors can be indicators, but I'd challenge anyone who claims we have "prosperity" at a given moment to get them all to align for more than a brief snapshot of time in our history, and then the longer term boom-bust effects come into play where, maybe we had a rise then, but what happened when the cycle turned?

All true - but the trends are fairly obvious. The USA is gradually becoming increasingly Conservative and increasingly Right-Wing. Yet this political trend has an almost inverse relationship with our economic prosperity. Increasingly Conservative economic policies may not directly destroy the economy, but they certainly don't seem to be doing any good.
I'm curious how you cite the FDR years as almost a form of "Golden Age" for progressivism. From a certain perspective you're right, but I'm curious what the non-interventionist blowback-minded individual I know thinks about the massive expansion of the military industrial complex during that era? We weren't "prosperous" because individual families felt particularly rich and free to live their lives in relative luxury. Our production levels were so high because we were funding the greatest production of military capabilities in known human history (including since) and we had most of our citizens gainfully employed because they were busy dying for our country on the battlefields of Africa and on small islands in the Pacific. From a purely pragmatic sense, yes. Fighting the war gave us the benefit of reaping the economic boom without suffering the destruction to our infrastructure or population like most of the other players did.

But the war aside, the period leading up to it was riddled with mistakes. Hoover's policies were an outright disaster, and even FDR was flying blind - that's understandable. This was a new situation nobody understood. Keynes hadn't put pen to paper yet, modern monetary policy was unheard of - of course we screwed up Round #1.

What is absolutely inexcusable is that we repeat the exact same mistakes. Austerity doesn't work. It didn't work in the Great Depression. Its not working for the EU. And it won't work for us if we try it.

I've no question in my mind there is a fundamental problem with the way we're running this country if we feel the duties of a senator or a congressman to be so consuming that they receive what they do as compensation for services rendered. I don't for one get all wrapped up in what they're making on a base premise, if we set the rates too low, it would be a surefire track to ensure only the rich get elected, even moreso than what it is now. By comparison to what I think the government should need to be discussing and how often they should need to do it, however, I've no question we took a wrong detour somewhere down the line to get where we are today. True - also there's the problem of bribery. If you don't pay your elected officials enough, some of them will find other "income".

However, I'm still curious as to why a PRIVATE representative should receive such an ungodly sum of money - surely you can see that they're gaming the system.

You've made good points about "alerting the rich" towards contributing to a financial crisis, I'll concede that in a heartbeat. Elites throughout history have displayed themselves to be entirely unreliable when it comes to contributing to the solution of a financial crisis. I don't believe it's solely their responsibility either, nor that they should be forced to pay proportionately higher amounts as a "thank you" for all of the gifts "society" has given them, as through free enterprise itself they have contributed quite substantially simply through the superior products and services they've made available for purchase by a willing consumer. I also grow very concerned when it is the government specifically that is creating the mechanisms for the rich to isolate themselves, whereas I take absolutely no issue with them acquiring their wealth by providing the best version of what they do on the market. Which can be good - but not always. Is it a good thing if Walmart crushes every other competitor? Sure, they bring affordable goods. But at what cost? Labor. The major cost-saving measure Walmart, Amazon, and the like use is paying their employees less, giving them shitty benefits - all fine and dandy except they destroy small business, and pretty much anyone else that doesn't use a similar technique.

Hence my earlier point about unemployment - the rich and the corporations WANT higher unemployment, because it enables them to pay their employees less.



What I don't agree with is that the "regulating" government does is all that burdensome to the wealthiest, in a relative sense to the new entrants the established leaders in the industry have very limited amount of required capital expenditures to remain sufficiently "compliant" with the new terms, especially when using lobbyists to pull the strings and getting them to sneak through legislation that gives them more competitive advantage in their respective market niches. Which may very well be - but I would hardly consider that a priority problem in a system with rising unemployment and crashing wages.

The Civil War and the Jim Crow era are interesting topics by themselves, and I realize I brought them up, but for the purposes of avoiding derailing the conversation too far I'm going to leave it to the individuals to speculate about, we could trudge through over two and a quarter century of racism in America but I'd prefer to do it elsewhere if we had to. I do like the "what if's" and I think it's important to ask them but I don't think it's important enough to detract from the key focus. Agreed.

Your quote above identified the symptoms quite well. I would say the government is never going to have the ability to find a comprehensive, sustainable cure, which it's also fair to say the same is true of free markets. What unburdened free markets provide when given opportunity to do so is competitive healthcare services offered at competitive rates, Which it doesn't. We spend more on healthcare, with more or less the same results as the socialized healthcare systems. Not to mention the rising number of bankruptcies caused by medical expenses.

an opportunity to find employment at fair market wage levels at rates which by default would be competitive with outsourcing overseas, You see no problem with being paid the same as a Chinese eight year old in a sweat shop? You think you could pay the rent at 25 cents an hour?

and the incentive to operate a business here in the US because there are simply no tax and regulatory loopholes to be exploited overseas, because our rates are as good or better than theirs. Or we could achieve the same results with tariffs. American Corporations lay off American workers and take their business overseas simply because we allow them to do so.

Accumulating a trade deficit is bad, very bad - but if the free market works as well as you believe, corporations will have no problem staying in business by hiring actual Americans.

Plus a government that doesn't become so exhorbitantly costly that it requires taxing the average American at a quarter or more of their personal earnings just to bring in revenues just to keep the deficit from increasing at rates that don't fully resemble a parabolic increase. Here we are again - like we discussed earlier - what are the three major spending items on the Federal budget?

-Medicare/aid - a product of our bloated and out of control private healthcare system. No one else in the world spends anywhere even close to what we do. Some very basic reforms - we could virtually copy/paste a European healthcare system and see tremendous improvements.

-Social Security - going into the red because of a demographic hiccup. The baby boomers are more numerous than the generation before and the generation after. This problem will fix itself in time as the population balances out.

-The DoD. A personal choice. The American population remains to this day pro-war - as we can see of the lack of support for anti-war candidates. Its expensive, but we can hardly complain because we continue to vote for it.

With the exception of Social Security, or financial wwoes exist as a result from our choices - choices we made because of FEAR. Americans are deathly afraid of anything and everything "socialist" in nature, even if it works better than our own system, which is why we still haven't reformed our medical system. We're at war across the world for the same reason - because we fear the "enemies of freedom" scheming to destroy us at any moment.

Can people "lose" in a free market? Absolutely, without question. Then another question is whether good-hearted individuals may step in to help pick up the slack. I think some can and will to a certain extent. Even today with almost a third of my income subsidizing government excess, I rarely say no to an offer to contribute towards charitable causes to the extent I feel myself to be able. Given that extra third of my income I believe a significantly greater amount would be made available to do the very same thing and at much greater and direct proportions. Which begs the question whether the behavior is anomalous or more normal. Considering how many businesses I see offering these charitable donations it gives reason to have hope. Statistics show otherwise. We've had the massive tax cuts Conservatives clamored for - corporate profits are at record highs - the richer are getting richer - yet we've seen no corresponding increase in charitable donations. Quite the opposite, American charity declined slightly in 08 when the recession hit, and dropped another 10-11% in 09. Shelters and soup kitchens are being forced to either charge for their services, or shut down altogether.

It makes no sense to cut taxes to the rich and HOPE he decides to give that money to charity.

I also don't see harm in having those that can pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and try again, being forced to do so for their own survival, as sometimes the worst thing that can happen to a person in their lives is to be mislead into the belief that they can screw up forever and expect to be taken care of. yeah... unfortunately real life doesn't work like that.

The one thing I find people to be especially good at in this day and age is airing their personal grievances, justified or unjustified. I don't think it's an issue of whether we'll know if someone is struggling to the point of being completely incapable of getting themselves out of it. I think what is at issue is when knowing this will someone step in and lend a hand. I think there is a good number of pay-it-forward-minded individuals out there who do these things because they feel morally and ethically compelled to. It may be a spiritual thing or it may be other things (even a factor of greed in a sense) but there are those that definitely will. I think a big part of that is getting government out of their way as a crutch and an excuse big businesses as well as individuals can use to help avoid facing the growing phenomena of social responsibility. Then why are you against the New Deal jobs program?

I don't know if this is deliberate, but it seems like you're evading my point on unemployment. The rich WANT unemployment. Corporations WANT unemployment. It increases their profits, and not only will they do nothing to stop it, they'll actually fight to keep unemployment high.

Again, it is pointless to harbor illusions that any system will be perfect in its results. The first solution I would choose is to dispense with any notion that anybody can live their lives free from want or fear, once these notions go away a person will have to decide for themselves whether they control the conditions of their lives or their conditions in their lives controls them, which in my mind is a key element of personal maturity. A nice sentiment - but pretty much everybody is controlled by the conditions. And this is only growing more true with time. As the modern world grows more complex, jobs and professions are growing increasingly narrow. Simply switching to another job is not anywhere as easy as Conservatives pretend it is. Especially if the economy as a whole is going through a rut, a corporation is not going to hire an older inexperienced unskilled new worker - your skills and experiences in an unrelated field are worthless to them.

[viagraman]

I don't know if this is deliberate, but it seems like you're evading my point on unemployment. The rich WANT unemployment. Corporations WANT unemployment. It increases their profits, and not only will they do nothing to stop it, they'll actually fight to keep unemployment high.

I'm unaware that was your point. I'm curious at your reasoning, the math and the theory (not to matter simple common sense) doesn't follow into this line of thinking. Rather than going back-and-forth attempting to rebut each other on every point I want to pull this thread some more because I do find this to be a particularly interesting assertion. This may be the core to our discussion or maybe I am reading more into it than is appropriate.

[DrKirkNoliss]

Its basic supply and demand. Marx called it the "Reserve Army of Labor". High unemployment means lower wages, lower benefits (if any), and a much easier time suppressing unionization. Preventing Unions is the key - routinely lay off workers, often rehiring the same people later, to prevent long-time employees who might foolishly believe they should be paid living-wages. This also has the added benefit of keeping your workforce anonymous, employees don't build relationships and networks, a critical step in creating a union. Miminum wage laws are an annoyance - if corporations could pay their workers less, they certainly would and people would still accept it (as they have no other choice) - so it should be no surprise that Conservatives oppose minimum wage laws. Another lovely movement is anti-union legislation, like the "right to work" laws - so even if a union is established, its immediately rendered ineffective.

If we could pick just one word to describe this process - it would be FEAR.

[foonlesse]

Its basic supply and demand. Marx called it the "Reserve Army of Labor". High unemployment means lower wages, lower benefits (if any), and a much easier time suppressing unionization. Preventing Unions is the key - routinely lay off workers, often rehiring the same people later, to prevent long-time employees who might foolishly believe they should be paid living-wages. This also has the added benefit of keeping your workforce anonymous, employees don't build relationships and networks, a critical step in creating a union. Miminum wage laws are an annoyance - if corporations could pay their workers less, they certainly would and people would still accept it (as they have no other choice) - so it should be no surprise that Conservatives oppose minimum wage laws. Another lovely movement is anti-union legislation, like the "right to work" laws - so even if a union is established, its immediately rendered ineffective.

If we could pick just one word to describe this process - it would be FEAR.

Interesting analysis, if I read what you're saying here correctly, put simply more profit via lower operational costs via human resourcing, not entirely untenable or unrealistic, but it runs on the basic assumption that no competition exists for labor. Thus the basic premise here is convincing the population that they will have to settle for the absolute worst of living conditions. This means it would be in the interests to stifle any and all competition in the market for labor. That's not something they can do entirely by themselves, and to be discovered for taking such action would be extremely detrimental to their professional reputations, and I know of many an earnest competitor who would take it upon themselves to expose them and besmirch said reputations. So the only way to make a system of this nature would be in a monopolistic or an oligopolistic environment. These conditions could not exist in an open system where businesses are in the position of competing for skilled labor. So the question in my mind is what are tenable solutions to these other types of markets? Unions were formed partially for this reasoning, which makes sense if they don't force the market into yet another monopolistic or oligopolistic environment by forcing the laborer to deal with an employer through them, which is unfortunately the stigma many such unions harbor today, which is why they are often observed under such scrutiny. Another manner to break it is the introduction of new competition, which requires the free actions of entrepreneurs, it cannot be forcibly established, but barriers can be removed to encourage new entrants. Both methods are workable in theory and in practice to a certain extent. I think the reason we can observe a lot of failure is we try to forcibly set the conditions and wind up swinging the pendulum from one bad direction into yet another one.

[casinobonuscxz]

Interesting analysis, if I read what you're saying here correctly, put simply more profit via lower operational costs via human resourcing, not entirely untenable or unrealistic, but it runs on the basic assumption that no competition exists for labor. Thus the basic premise here is convincing the population that they will have to settle for the absolute worst of living conditions. This means it would be in the interests to stifle any and all competition in the market for labor. That's not something they can do entirely by themselves, and to be discovered for taking such action would be extremely detrimental to their professional reputations, and I know of many an earnest competitor who would take it upon themselves to expose them and besmirch said reputations. So the only way to make a system of this nature would be in a monopolistic or an oligopolistic environment. These conditions could not exist in an open system where businesses are in the position of competing for skilled labor. So the question in my mind is what are tenable solutions to these other types of markets? Unions were formed partially for this reasoning, which makes sense if they don't force the market into yet another monopolistic or oligopolistic environment by forcing the laborer to deal with an employer through them, which is unfortunately the stigma many such unions harbor today, which is why they are often observed under such scrutiny. Another manner to break it is the introduction of new competition, which requires the free actions of entrepreneurs, it cannot be forcibly established, but barriers can be removed to encourage new entrants. Both methods are workable in theory and in practice to a certain extent. I think the reason we can observe a lot of failure is we try to forcibly set the conditions and wind up swinging the pendulum from one bad direction into yet another one.

Which is EXACTLY THE POINT. With a high unemployment rate, there is no competition for labor, because there is a SURPLUS in labor. Naturally that won't affect certain professions as much - simply because they are experiencing SHORTAGES in labor, even after the recession - the field of medicine being one example (Bear in mind however, this is partly due to the AMA setting the bar high).

Now you seem to believe that if corporations treat their employees like dirt (which they do) - that's going to somehow give them a bad rep and hurt their business. Well - its a well known fact that Walmart is a shitty place to work for, and they're taking advantage of the high unemployment to slash employee benefits. Amazon does the same thing. Now that you know this, are you going to boycott them? If you do, that's admirable -but there are more than enough customers who don't care to keep the profits rolling in.

[DJElizardo]

Wages as a percentage of GDP:



Corporate profits:



Obviously corporate profits dropped when the recession first hit, yet now they're skyrocketting to record highs... why? Because they've figured out how to exploit the labor surplus. Cut "associate*" costs.

The new friendly term for "employee". McDonalds is a family, donchya know.

[AccusaJalsBub]

Wages as a percentage of GDP:



Corporate profits:



Obviously corporate profits dropped when the recession first hit, yet now they're skyrocketting to record highs... why? Because they've figured out how to exploit the labor surplus. Cut "associate*" costs.

The new friendly term for "employee". McDonalds is a family, donchya know.

And with almost unlimited government subsidies to keep the workers fed, who should fight to get paid high wages? I mean it just sounds petty greed when the poor say the need to be paid more so they can buy a new car, or TV, or rims, or movies, or etc. As long as the government keeps the poor fat and happy, they won't have a really strong motivator to get a better education, demand their wages go up, or fight to show their bosses that they deserve a raise. Thank goodness for Democrats keeping people down through welfare and food stamps eh?

[Indessasp]

And with almost unlimited government subsidies to keep the workers fed, who should fight to get paid high wages?

Man can't live on bread alone. Who said that? Hmm...

I mean it just sounds petty greed when the poor say the need to be paid more so they can buy a new car, or TV, or rims, or movies, or etc. As long as the government keeps the poor fat and happy, they won't have a really strong motivator to get a better education, demand their wages go up, or fight to show their bosses that they deserve a raise. Thank goodness for Democrats keeping people down through welfare and food stamps eh? Ok, you hate poor people. I get it.

[Amomiamup]

Which is EXACTLY THE POINT. With a high unemployment rate, there is no competition for labor, because there is a SURPLUS in labor. Naturally that won't affect certain professions as much - simply because they are experiencing SHORTAGES in labor, even after the recession - the field of medicine being one example (Bear in mind however, this is partly due to the AMA setting the bar high).

Now you seem to believe that if corporations treat their employees like dirt (which they do) - that's going to somehow give them a bad rep and hurt their business. Well - its a well known fact that Walmart is a shitty place to work for, and they're taking advantage of the high unemployment to slash employee benefits. Amazon does the same thing. Now that you know this, are you going to boycott them? If you do, that's admirable -but there are more than enough customers who don't care to keep the profits rolling in.

I have no problem with anything specific you're stating here as being applicable to some businesses. It requires very specific conditions to be a viable approach. 1. Near perfect control of the supply and demand side of goods and services provided, whereas consumers having a lower average income would have a near-negligible impact towards revenues. 2. Significant shortages in labor (like you said) where employees have very few options available from which to be selective about the conditions they work under (which implies they also have very limited KSA's to begin with). I would say what is more common is a matter of mere pragmatism in trying to stay afloat in an industry that has found itself in decline. Home Depot as a for instance has always had a fairly strong total rewards package for its employees as it is a large part of its overall business strategy. Yet in 2009 the company was forced to lay off 7,000 employees as a result of the significant impact the bursting of the housing bubble had on its revenues, this is of course unfortunate but I wouldn't begrudge executives making the decision if the only viable alternative is to become unable to pay its obligations for liabilities incurred.

In either case, conditions will improve as the market does. There is no effective way that a government can apply force to businesses like Walmart without expecting some unforeseen consequences (think economic blowback). Unions are a handy tool that I appreciate what they are capable of, with a healthy bit of skepticism as it also opens the door for another strategic partenership (between the major corporation and the union, yes this happens too) which again occurs at the expense of the laborer. True recovery requires a private initiative. Who knows, I may become an example one day when I'm not thinking about when and where I'll have to deploy next. Maybe I'll take on the market of secondary loans in the homebuying industry, I hear there's a bunch of crooks and cronies in that market so it shouldn't be too difficult to provide a better service and establish a more solid reputation than the giants in that industry, but again who knows. My only concern is the barriers erected by government-corporate-union crony partnerships will make conditions for entry completely untenable and the only opportunities may be the ones where I would have to go global. The government's idea of incentives are pithy and only apply effectively towards established business owners (which is actually quite practical, as I would never advocate throwing taxpayer dollars at every nutjob who thinks they have a viable business idea). My alternative is barrier removal, let the individual assume the risk for the rewards and get the government and the corporations out of their way.

[Agitoligflise]

I have no problem with anything specific you're stating here as being applicable to some businesses. It requires very specific conditions to be a viable approach. 1. Near perfect control of the supply and demand side of goods and services provided, whereas consumers having a lower average income would have a near-negligible impact towards revenues. 2. Significant shortages in labor (like you said) where employees have very few options available from which to be selective about the conditions they work under (which implies they also have very limited KSA's to begin with). I would say what is more common is a matter of mere pragmatism in trying to stay afloat in an industry that has found itself in decline. Home Depot as a for instance has always had a fairly strong total rewards package for its employees as it is a large part of its overall business strategy. Yet in 2009 the company was forced to lay off 7,000 employees as a result of the significant impact the bursting of the housing bubble had on its revenues, this is of course unfortunate but I wouldn't begrudge executives making the decision if the only viable alternative is to become unable to pay its obligations for liabilities incurred.

In either case, conditions will improve as the market does. There is no effective way that a government can apply force to businesses like Walmart without expecting some unforeseen consequences (think economic blowback). Unions are a handy tool that I appreciate what they are capable of, with a healthy bit of skepticism as it also opens the door for another strategic partenership (between the major corporation and the union, yes this happens too) which again occurs at the expense of the laborer. True recovery requires a private initiative. Who knows, I may become an example one day when I'm not thinking about when and where I'll have to deploy next. Maybe I'll take on the market of secondary loans in the homebuying industry, I hear there's a bunch of crooks and cronies in that market so it shouldn't be too difficult to provide a better service and establish a more solid reputation than the giants in that industry, but again who knows. My only concern is the barriers erected by government-corporate-union crony partnerships will make conditions for entry completely untenable and the only opportunities may be the ones where I would have to go global. The government's idea of incentives are pithy and only apply effectively towards established business owners (which is actually quite practical, as I would never advocate throwing taxpayer dollars at every nutjob who thinks they have a viable business idea). My alternative is barrier removal, let the individual assume the risk for the rewards and get the government and the corporations out of their way.

And there's the problem - the economy as a whole sucks, but corporate profits are higher than ever. They are not going to do anything about high unemployment because it is making them rich.

I find it strange that you resist the notion of a jobs program so strongly. It would keep the unemployed afloat while also keeping them productively employed. And it would set a minimum bar that corporations would have to stay above in order to compete. It would level the playing field. Corporations would be more careful about firing employees and overall treating them like dirt, because they would no longer have a reserve army of labor to fall back on.

[duribass]

And there's the problem - the economy as a whole sucks, but corporate profits are higher than ever. They are not going to do anything about high unemployment because it is making them rich.

I find it strange that you resist the notion of a jobs program so strongly. It would keep the unemployed afloat while also keeping them productively employed. And it would set a minimum bar that corporations would have to stay above in order to compete. It would level the playing field. Corporations would be more careful about firing employees and overall treating them like dirt, because they would no longer have a reserve army of labor to fall back on.

I resist the notion of trying to extinguish the fire by trying to smother it with gasoline mainly. In some cases you're right, and those that actually enjoy the notion of treating their employees like dirt may continue to do so indefinitely, but in others when the economy does turn, businesses, corporations included, will seek to expand their operations, and hire new employees. The ones that don't exploit their employee base as a sole means to accrue profit from limited operational costs of production will introduce new competition in the industry for employees, effectively pushing the supply for jobs back over the demand, and to stay competitive during the "surplus" scenario, like you said corporations would have to be more careful about how they treat their employees.

The job programs government provide have the knack of introducing false signals into the markets, unfortunately those who are dependent on the "shovel ready" variety to seek employment are fairly easily mislead into perceiving these jobs will be available in perpetuity, whether via the emotional response from desperation or simple naivete. Like the bubbles themselves collapsing they always suffer the most from shifts in the economic situation, which happen very naturally in any economy regardless. In the meantime, the true potential job creators, whether through expanded taxation or government-imposed constraints, are significantly hampered in their own capacity to run their businesses, and expand their operations, opening the field of employment. I think we as a nation need to become comfortable with the fact that we can't compete with foreign labor supplies with our current expectations of compensation for the baseline levels of effort for the positions that require the minimum KSA's. We try to game the system by throwing tariffs at the problem the big dog corporations will just shift their operations around and throw up new smoke and mirrors to meet the challenge and sustain their profitability. I don't even begrudge them the decision because that falls under simple pragmatism of wanting to survive in an almost unforgiving market.

I think part of the solution for America is to provide employment opportunities in new areas that may in fact be a little less "physically demanding" although not necessarily as "respectable" as one entitlement-minded individual may desire. Many of the rich got where they are by making a living out of finding work-arounds, and since many have political campaigns on their payroll they know of ways to get the legislation out there to provide convenient loopholes they can use to do it. Unfortunately, one reason the not-so-rich are so relatively poor is they don't have a very solid grasp of the complexities of economics and the secondary causes and effects of financial decisions made by the government towards how they affected short of a possible flow of money towards or away from them. Thus if anyone is going to get screwed, especially over the long-term, it will more likely be those that have such limited comprehension of it. To me, the only way to protect the
rest, the 99% if you will, is to limit any potential to game the system as much as possible and I cannot foresee that happening by providing the same solution that gave us the problem to begin with.

[SHpuntik]

I resist the notion of trying to extinguish the fire by trying to smother it with gasoline mainly. In some cases you're right, and those that actually enjoy the notion of treating their employees like dirt may continue to do so indefinitely, but in others when the economy does turn, businesses, corporations included, will seek to expand their operations, and hire new employees. The ones that don't exploit their employee base as a sole means to accrue profit from limited operational costs of production will introduce new competition in the industry for employees, effectively pushing the supply for jobs back over the demand, and to stay competitive during the "surplus" scenario, like you said corporations would have to be more careful about how they treat their employees.

The job programs government provide have the knack of introducing false signals into the markets, unfortunately those who are dependent on the "shovel ready" variety to seek employment are fairly easily mislead into perceiving these jobs will be available in perpetuity, whether via the emotional response from desperation or simple naivete. Like the bubbles themselves collapsing they always suffer the most from shifts in the economic situation, which happen very naturally in any economy regardless. In the meantime, the true potential job creators, whether through expanded taxation or government-imposed constraints, are significantly hampered in their own capacity to run their businesses, and expand their operations, opening the field of employment. I think we as a nation need to become comfortable with the fact that we can't compete with foreign labor supplies with our current expectations of compensation for the baseline levels of effort for the positions that require the minimum KSA's. We try to game the system by throwing tariffs at the problem the big dog corporations will just shift their operations around and throw up new smoke and mirrors to meet the challenge and sustain their profitability. I don't even begrudge them the decision because that falls under simple pragmatism of wanting to survive in an almost unforgiving market.

There, I think, we're having a problem. It certainly benefits a corporation to move their operations to, say, Mexico - or even a Southern state with anti-union laws - but as a nation it only hurts us. Even internally shifting to Republican states that hate unions isn't necessarily beneficial - as you said, it forces competitors to also find ways to reduce employee costs - which drives wages down, or sends jobs overseas altogether.

Corporate profits are higher than ever, thanks to the "invisible hand", but American industry is dying, wages are stagnating, and unemployment is high. We may be the world's "last superpower", but quite frankly, we are increasingly becoming like a third world country. Our industry is dying, our public infrastructure is rotting, and wealth is being increasingly concentrated. The "1%" will be unaffected by this (Even the worst third world country has a wealthy elite), so there is absolutely no motivation for them to stop this downard spiral.

To be frank, the American government is pretty much irrelevant to the American elite. Even the military and law enforcement are redundant, as the rich can afford their own private security and armies (like in Hurricane Katrina). So they have no motivation to pay higher taxes or contribute more than absolutely necessary to the common good.

I think part of the solution for America is to provide employment opportunities in new areas that may in fact be a little less "physically demanding" although not necessarily as "respectable" as one entitlement-minded individual may desire. I don't buy the "lazy poor" argument - but as far as non-physical professions god, there could easily be jobs for them as well. Any large scale public project would require skill sets from across the board, not just nail pushers and ditch diggers.

Many of the rich got where they are by making a living out of finding work-arounds, and since many have political campaigns on their payroll they know of ways to get the legislation out there to provide convenient loopholes they can use to do it. Unfortunately, one reason the not-so-rich are so relatively poor is they don't have a very solid grasp of the complexities of economics and the secondary causes and effects of financial decisions made by the government towards how they affected short of a possible flow of money towards or away from them. Thus if anyone is going to get screwed, especially over the long-term, it will more likely be those that have such limited comprehension of it. To me, the only way to protect the
rest, the 99% if you will, is to limit any potential to game the system as much as possible and I cannot foresee that happening by providing the same solution that gave us the problem to begin with. Its a common Leftie mantra to say the rich got rich by "cheating" - I don't necessarily buy that. There is a lot of "gaming the system" going around - but in the end - the most common way to get rich is to have some money to begin with, and networking. I'm not rich, I'll probably never be rich, but I do have family connections, and of course VA networking that the average Joe doesn't get - getting wealthy often requires a "head start", be it family or business connections.

You're absolutely right that the vast majority of people have no grasp of economics, I have a vague understanding in a very limited sense, but I'm hardly an economist, If I were to invest in the stock market, I would never be crazy enough to try to build my own portfolio, I don't have the background to make intelligent decisions in that respect. But that's not necessary, as long as there's intelligent policymakers at the top with a beneficial long term strategy, we're okay.

In the military, we wouldn't let individual companies and batalions just do whatever they want, there's an overrall doctrine they need to follow. The same goes for macro-economics. The government doesn't need to dictate individual business strategies, but there does need to be an overrall policy for our economy.

[Darlmtgq]

There, I think, we're having a problem. It certainly benefits a corporation to move their operations to, say, Mexico - or even a Southern state with anti-union laws - but as a nation it only hurts us. Even internally shifting to Republican states that hate unions isn't necessarily beneficial - as you said, it forces competitors to also find ways to reduce employee costs - which drives wages down, or sends jobs overseas altogether.

I think in the case of the high corporate profits it would be safer to say it results no thanks to the "invisible hand" more as a result of its inability to function. It's what I alluded to before, the prevalence of oligarchies and monopolies in some facets of the industry where the seller has near perfect control of the supply and demand there. That's where capitalisn abd socialism both run into roadblocks, elites can only exist when they're not effectively challenged, in the socialist system the elites just happen to be a mixture of government cronies in addition to the wall street fat cats.

What I don't think is that government will ever be an effective solution to that problem, at least not in the fashion it's currently being used, but it can certainly make it worse via bailouts and corporation friendly legislation that favors one competitor over the next via tax incentives and other mechanisms to attempt to steer the natural course of things. You've said it quite well in stating the government is nearly irrelevant to American elites, I would say that's true with the key exception to the extent that our government can help widen the gap, which in my mind is exactly why all that cash flows into political campaigns, the mechanisms can be devious or pragmatic but I think we can agree it wouldn't be even considered if they weren't of the opinion that doing so would accomplish something.

I'm not of the "lazy poor" mindset either necessarily, I'm not of the opinion the jobs aren't available because of the physical demands themselves, but because those that do have those physical demands sometimes coincide with those that have wage rates below our general average expectations, which is why illegal aliens and outsourced sources of labor often come into play. If a company can get the same functionality for significantly cheaper externally it doesn't cause me to raise an eyebrow if they should choose to utilize them. Let's face it, nobody is referring to the $45 per hour construction jobs when we're talking "physically demanding" labor that we're losing to foreign sources these days.

How people "Make it in America" is a fascinating question in and of itself. There is a portion (from what I've encountered a fairly significant minority of it) that accomplish it mainly by inheritance. Some start from a good place (think high middle class or lower upper class) and make their situation significantly better. Many rise many levels in their status over the period of their lifetimes, in the case of many in the Generation X community, actually achieve that even before their 30th birthdays (which in my mind has had a hugely detrimental impact on the mindsets of the Gen Y/Millenial mentalities towards engendering a solid work ethic). If you look at the averages (I'm not advocating collectivist analysis but I do see this occurring often), from the boomer crowd you get a lot stronger work ethic than the following generations. Gen X is sort of hit or miss, and everything after is becoming even more sporadic. (I won't get into my opinion on how media networks like E! and MTV, and various internet sources fall into that cultural influence). What I think of the younger crowd is not necessarily a factor of laziness but of damaged pride when being "forced" to take on the more menial tasks in society.

[DumbNelmcrece]

I think in the case of the high corporate profits it would be safer to say it results no thanks to the "invisible hand" more as a result of its inability to function. It's what I alluded to before, the prevalence of oligarchies and monopolies in some facets of the industry where the seller has near perfect control of the supply and demand there. That's where capitalisn abd socialism both run into roadblocks, elites can only exist when they're not effectively challenged, in the socialist system the elites just happen to be a mixture of government cronies in addition to the wall street fat cats.

There is ALWAYS an elite. And the "wall street fat cats" dominating the government is nothing new. Corporations have dominated the American government almost right from the beginning. Even in the libertarian dream world of the late 19th century. For example the Transcontinental railroad was a long story of subsidies, corruption, unsustainable business practices, and general incompetence. The underlying problem was that there was simply not enough demand for such a project to make it profitable without government intervention. After it was built slowly economic infrastructure built up around it, and eventually became more viable than transport by sea (making a pit stop to cross over Panama). But that only happened after the initial tracks were laid and large sums of public money was spent to keep the industry afloat long enough to become profitable.

The key difference between then and now is that corporations could use mercenaries, and the American military to suppress the working class, Native Americans, or stubborn landowners who didn't see the benefit in selling the ranch for half of what it was worth. However, the rise of mercenary armies, and the Defense Authorization Bill (allowing the DoD to operate with impunity on domestic soil) could make such practices a reality again.

What I don't think is that government will ever be an effective solution to that problem, at least not in the fashion it's currently being used, but it can certainly make it worse via bailouts and corporation friendly legislation that favors one competitor over the next via tax incentives and other mechanisms to attempt to steer the natural course of things. You've said it quite well in stating the government is nearly irrelevant to American elites, I would say that's true with the key exception to the extent that our government can help widen the gap, which in my mind is exactly why all that cash flows into political campaigns, the mechanisms can be devious or pragmatic but I think we can agree it wouldn't be even considered if they weren't of the opinion that doing so would accomplish something.
Maybe. But businesses balking about "interfering government" should be enough evidence that it is working. If the corporations aren't complaining about restraints in how they treat the peasants... something's wrong.

I'm not of the "lazy poor" mindset either necessarily, I'm not of the opinion the jobs aren't available because of the physical demands themselves, but because those that do have those physical demands sometimes coincide with those that have wage rates below our general average expectations, which is why illegal aliens and outsourced sources of labor often come into play. If a company can get the same functionality for significantly cheaper externally it doesn't cause me to raise an eyebrow if they should choose to utilize them. Let's face it, nobody is referring to the $45 per hour construction jobs when we're talking "physically demanding" labor that we're losing to foreign sources these days. Living costs are higher here. Wages need to be high enough to match that. Another key factor is education costs, which drives up the cost of entering that field. If corporations have to shell out a few more nickles to hire Americans... well... too bad. As already stated, corporate profits are at record highs. Its inexcusable that we still have a high unemployment rate.