The Long Cold Winter

[geekster]

[quote]Officials at the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Stability contracted with a small consulting firm that has given nearly $25,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005 (and no money to Republicans) to hire “Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Analysts to support the Disclosure Services, Privacy and Treasury Records.â€

[can't sit still]

1durphul., WE have no reason to be in Afghanistan. There may be some sector that profits from the wars but, we have no reason to be there. WE don't need a continuation of the patriot Act. WE don't benefit from the ongoing purchase of MBS by the FED,,,, to later be redeemed by US.
Congress rejected the implementation of the Codex Alimentarus 6 times. Obummer simply shoved it down OUR throats with an executive order. You'll need a doctor's prescription for any vitamins. Obummer was instrumental in letting Basel II be severely watered down. The list goes on and on.

[geekster]

Oh, and things like legislation designed to get insurance to 23 million people is going to ruin the insurance plans of an order of magnitude larger number of people. I would have been cheaper to simply put those 23 million on medicaid and send the states a subsidy to pay for it.

Then there's this from yesterday:

http://www.cutimes.com/News/2010/10/Pag ... asury.aspx

[quote]“While it may be true that many homeowners may benefit from temporarily reduced payments even though the modification ultimately fails,â€

[1durphul]

1. Has absolutely no practical experience in being executive of anything. Hasn't even run so much as a lemonade stand in his life. At least Carter had run a farm.

This is not an action. It doesn't even indicate a negative outcome occurred.

2. His administration is staffed with the least amount of practical experience of any administration in modern history. He picked people whose viewpoints and opinions he liked, not people with any experience at doing what they were tasked to do. Hell, a labor union boss is now chairman of the NY Fed.

While choosing people is an action, you've failed to point out even a single negative outcome of the appointments.

3. Tim Geithner appointed Treasury Secretary.

Yes, but what was the outcome? What THING happened that would not have happened had he appointed YOUR favorite to be the Treasury Sec?

As I said, you don't have anything to rationalize your irrational hatred of the man. He really hasn't done much of anything, and that is why I don't like him. I assure you, had he been as awful as you make him out to be I'd be happier than a pig wearing lipstick and wallowing in the mud. Sadly, he really hasn't done much of anything. He backed down off his progressive promises, didn't do anything to get equal time on the radio air waves, didn't do anything to fix electronic vote machines, didn't do anything to undo the laws that allow corporations to be considered citizens.

The problem is that you're so far crazy right that you have completely lost sight of what the middle is. I know I'm on the left, but I assure you, I'm center-left.

Now you'll point at all three of the CENTER positions I took two paragraphs back and say "NO YOU'RE A LEFT WING COMMIE NUT" to which I'll respond: No, if I were a left wing nut my positions would have been as follows: seize the radio stations and make them all play Democracy Now none stop. Making voting by consensus. Seize the banks and give the money to the poor by nullifying the mortgages and turning over the leans to the homeowners. THAT is a crazy left wing set of positions.

What would be a different course? Well, rather than simply flooding money out there, why not offer to convert all those adjustable rate mortgages to fixed and then let rates find their own levels?

They continue treating the symptoms without addressing the cause. They use TARP for everything but buying "troubled assets" unless it is buying a couple of auto makers for the labor unions.

TARP was Bush's brain child. Tea Baggers and Republicans seem to have amnesia about that.

I agree wtith you about converting the variable rate mortgages to fixed. [/quote]

[can't sit still]

If this link works, there is an interesting article. Hard to tell how much is speculation and how much is fact. http://www.gata.org/files/Vieira-ACross ... 1-2010.pdf
This article will take your breath away if you understand all of it.
http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2010/10/its-flow-stupid.html
There are a couple of other articles that I scanned that might be good. I'll link them here and read tomorrow. http://www.reformation.org/bank-of-england.html
http://csper.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/d ... solutions/
The developed nations don't really need many people to produce what they need. They need even fewer producers when they outsource much of the labor. The parasitic sector of the population must take their sustenance from the producers. As automation increases, the net number of producers goes down. Certain sectors of the parasitic sector have been very successful at forcing the producers to support them very handsomely.

The sectors of non-producers that do not have influence are being squeezed away from the fruits of the producers.... children, Amerinds, the non-working and the non-employed.

Over time, many of the not-so-productive have tried to find a secure niche in the bosom of the parasitic class. Every lost job puts an added burden on the ever-shrinking number of producers. Most every added job with GOV does the same. GOV buys votes with jobs.
The burden of nurturing the parasites was carried, in a large part, by the automated producers, rather than the human ones. As the corporations gained more control, they were able to shed this burden. At one time, corporations paid 30 % of the tax burden in America. It is less than 3 %. Like every other powerful group; the more power they gained, the less they paid in taxes.
The number of taxpayers just keeps going down. GOV expenditures just keep going up. The number of workers needed to keep the system going is going down.
These are all trends that have NO solution within the current framework of GOV, society, and capitalism.

[1durphul]

The developed nations don't really need many people to produce what they need. They need even fewer producers when they outsource much of the labor. The parasitic sector of the population must take their sustenance from the producers. As automation increases, the net number of producers goes down. Certain sectors of the parasitic sector have been very successful at forcing the producers to support them very handsomely.

The sectors of non-producers that do not have influence are being squeezed away from the fruits of the producers.... children, Amerinds, the non-working and the non-employed.

So, I have a basic question for you: do the non-productive people deserve to live in a first world manner?

Everything you say above is that they aren't "needed." Under that premise if they aren't "needed" then should they be relegated to a third-world life of poverty?

Someday computers, robots, and machines will be able to do almost all the labor for humanity. Should only the wealthy, and intelligent be able to benefit from that labor while the rest of humanity reverts to hunter gatherer modes of living?

[geekster]

Heard an interesting caller on Al Sharpton's radio show today. Said that Democrats have been in charge of Chicago for 50 years and things aren't any better. Billions of federal money has been poured into the city, and it just keeps getting worse. He wanted to know exactly what the Democrats had to offer. He said he was tired of being used for his vote.

I imagine that the people of Detroit could say the same thing. Every year the amount of federal money pouring in there increases. Every year it goes deeper into the shit hole. Why are these people continuing to elect these idiots?

The man on the radio said he was tired of doing the same thing election after election and expecting a different result. I think a lot of other people are too. I am going to do something I have never done in my entire life ... vote a straight Republican ticket. And apparently I am not alone. There are apparently a lot of voters in Chicago doing the same damned thing.

Hey, check this out in Florida:

http://www.wftv.com/news/25536806/detail.html

No mention of party ... so that means he wasn't a Republican.

Oh, and apparently it isn't only Florida:

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_de ... llots.html

The Democrats are the party that has a culture of corruption these days.

Maybe Hillary will run as a Republican in 2012

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

In the meantime, you withholding tax is getting ready to go up, your paycheck will get smaller. If you are having trouble paying that mortgage, it is going to get a little harder:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-2 ... e-pay.html

One big Obama dick up the ass is what you are getting for Christmas.

And China says we are nuts:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

Have you seen what THESE Chicago Democrats are doing?

http://hillbuzz.org/

[youtube][/youtube]

[geekster]

So, I have a basic question for you: do the non-productive people deserve to live in a first world manner?

Nobody "deserves" anything. The first thing people need to understand is that your neighbors don't owe you a fucking thing when you are born. They don't owe you a job, they don't owe you an income, and they don't owe you a retirement. All they owe you is the right for you to suffer whatever existence you make for yourself without their early termination of it.

Pursuit of happiness does not mean the attainment of it. "Promoting the general welfare" does not mean "providing the general welfare". YOU are responsible for your condition and your neighbor is not to blame. You have no right to take from them to enrich yourself. "Redistribution of wealth" is institutionalized theft. Nobody "owes" you shit. Life is radical self-reliance. Get used to it.

Everything you say above is that they aren't "needed." Under that premise if they aren't "needed" then should they be relegated to a third-world life of poverty?

Quite frankly, that is up to them and not of my concern. Yes, some people have no chance or fall on hard times. I have no problem helping my neighbor who needs a bridge through a tough time, but he isn't going to live on me and my labor his entire life. At some point he gets off his dead ass and goes to work. And it isn't my responsibility to "give" him a job, either. He goes out and finds or makes his own damn job.

Someday computers, robots, and machines will be able to do almost all the labor for humanity. Should only the wealthy, and intelligent be able to benefit from that labor while the rest of humanity reverts to hunter gatherer modes of living?

We aren't talking about some fantasy "someday". We are talking about right fucking now.

YOU are responsible for you own condition. Not your neighbor, not he government (which is your neighbor). The sooner you realize that your condition is YOUR responsibility as it is the responsibility of everyone on this planet, the better. Government doesn't grant you rights. In this country you already have every right. Only the government is granted what rights we choose to grant it in this country. Stop sitting around waiting for someone to "empower" you, you already are "empowered". The only thing holding you back is you.

[can't sit still]

1durphul, Like geekster, I've read Ayn Rand and Charles Darwin. The answers to your questions touch on evolution, economics and philosophy. Most importantly, they touch on human nature.
From an adaptive-evolutionary standpoint, any organism that does not have a niche will die quickly.
From an economic point of view, industry / society CAN support the non-producers. There will eventually come a time when the earth is too small and resource-limited to continue this.
The next question is ; who gets support and at what level?
GOV supports armies of people who just shuffle papers around to each other. Should they continue to get a salary. Should the third-generation welfare recipient get money. Should society pay extra because someone has kids?
Banks offered loans to people who had no money. Of course, they took it. If GOV offers support to sectors of the general public, they're going to grab it up. At the same time, the demands of GOV destroy motivation in the producing sector. GOV destroys motivation in BOTH the producing sector AND the welfare sector. This doesn't look like a long-term strategy.

Then, you have to consider the full ramifications of increasing automation. Japan is making great progress with robots. They also have built an amazingly dexterous mechanical hand. A.I. will son be upon us. A couple of studies have pointed out that most executives could be replaced by niche-dedicated software. Another research paper says that 26 % more of American jobs could be outsourced.

There are about 156 million in the workforce out of 306 million people. 1% is in the military and 1 % is in prison. 1 % work in agriculture. Many millions work in GOV and manufacturing. The U.S. borrowed 80 % of the savings worldwide so, it's safe to say that many of the employed are payed with borrowed money. The borrowing will come to an end before long. We don't pay good interest. Much of the current economic activity is only profitable because of very low interest rates. If we raise interest rates to attract loans, we wipe out industry that depends on cheap money. A huge part of all this is floating on a sea of credit. What will be the employment rate when the sea of credit washes away?
How many will be needed in the workplace when our consumption is commensurate with our productivity MINUS the sea of credit?

At what level should the redundant people be supported at? Should they be shoved out the back door at the nursing home to die in the alley? Do we , as a society, cast them off or do we support them? If we support them,,, at what level? Currently, the non-working want to live as well as the working. I don't believe that this is fair or intelligent. GOV kills motivation at both ends of the spectrum.
Look at the per-capita GDP of East Germany compared to West Germany to see what the effect is of a removal of motivation.
Democracies always fail by suicide. Bankers always crash the system out of excess greed.
I need to run in and get to work. More later

[ygmir]

So, I have a basic question for you: do the non-productive people deserve to live in a first world manner?

Nobody "deserves" anything. The first thing people need to understand is that your neighbors don't owe you a fucking thing when you are born. They don't owe you a job, they don't owe you an income, and they don't owe you a retirement. All they owe you is the right for you to suffer whatever existence you make for yourself without their early termination of it.

Pursuit of happiness does not mean the attainment of it. "Promoting the general welfare" does not mean "providing the general welfare". YOU are responsible for your condition and your neighbor is not to blame. You have no right to take from them to enrich yourself. "Redistribution of wealth" is institutionalized theft. Nobody "owes" you shit. Life is radical self-reliance. Get used to it.

Everything you say above is that they aren't "needed." Under that premise if they aren't "needed" then should they be relegated to a third-world life of poverty?

Quite frankly, that is up to them and not of my concern. Yes, some people have no chance or fall on hard times. I have no problem helping my neighbor who needs a bridge through a tough time, but he isn't going to live on me and my labor his entire life. At some point he gets off his dead ass and goes to work. And it isn't my responsibility to "give" him a job, either. He goes out and finds or makes his own damn job.

Someday computers, robots, and machines will be able to do almost all the labor for humanity. Should only the wealthy, and intelligent be able to benefit from that labor while the rest of humanity reverts to hunter gatherer modes of living?

We aren't talking about some fantasy "someday". We are talking about right fucking now.

YOU are responsible for you own condition. Not your neighbor, not he government (which is your neighbor). The sooner you realize that your condition is YOUR responsibility as it is the responsibility of everyone on this planet, the better. Government doesn't grant you rights. In this country you already have every right. Only the government is granted what rights we choose to grant it in this country. Stop sitting around waiting for someone to "empower" you, you already are "empowered". The only thing holding you back is you.

[youtube][/youtube]

[Ugly Dougly]

Amen, a truly Burneresque attitude.

"Life is what you can get away with."
-possibly Robert Anton Wilson.

[can't sit still]

When the hell is Larry Harvey going to post his take on this subject?

1durphul, The answers to your questions are completely gray.
Look at social contracts. The family is the basic social unit. The family exists for the continuation of the species. The strong protect the weak to insure successful reproduction. The clan is an extension of the family, with the same values. The clan and tribe protect the weak Tribes agglomerate to "nations" to more efficiently protect their gene pool against incursions from other gene pools.
A gene pool must protect their young. The producers protect the old,,, who protected them when they were young. A debt to patrimony. The prime motivation is the continuation of the gene pool.

Look at a corporation. To it's internal reference, it is immortal. It doesn't reproduce. It's only drive for existence is it's drive to grow, preferably without limits. It logically follows that it devours the weak. Corporations don't exist to be benevolent, only profitable. Like a knife, they are designed for a specific purpose. They are not designed to deviate from their path of maximum profitability. A corporation will always follow a logical path to maximum profit. Collateral damage is ONLY reckoned as a profit / loss question. Death or damage is only referenced in dollars.

Death and damage from incidents like Bhopal or Love Canal or Kerr-Mcgee or the gulf spill are not even incidental, Only the dollar cost is a factor to the non-sentient corporation.
Financial logic will point the path for corporate decisions. If there is no morality in the officers, financial logic will carry the day.


GOV, especially democracy and socialism, is designed to give some support to the weak. GOV is not generally designed or expressed to be efficient. It is meant to be inclusive of the weaker members.
Capitalism is very specific about efficiency. Capitalism is always in a tug-of-war with democracy.
Currently, American democracy is trying to morph into socialism. Everybody wants a free ride. As corporations gain more influence and power, they try to become more efficient and profitable. GOV regulations stand in their way. They want
NO exposure to liability. They want NO limits to profit.

What we are seeing is a slow overlay of corporate mentality on GOV. The corporation demands efficiency without limit. The family can not survive if is ruthlessly efficient. It can't cast out the weak non-producers. The corporation has no awareness of non-producers. It is aware of profit potential only.

Countless investment papers are extolling the virtues of investing in the guaranteed misery of the hundreds of millions of obese and diabetic people. The neurotoxin Aspartamine is lauded as a huge money-maker for Searle. The fast-food industry invests $ billions in pharmaceutical companies that have lucrative markets treating people who eat fast-food. Big Pharma is having great success attacking vitamins. They have NO interest in disease prevention or cures,,,, just expensive treatments.

Corporations are just a vehicle to maximize the profit-motive. Avoiding misery is NOT in their charter. They do exactly what they are designed to do. A corporation is not evil.
A corporation can give an impervious mantle of protection to those who ARE evil. The bigger a corporation is,,,, the more powerful. Power corrupts and attracts the already corrupted.
What does this imply for a large corporation? What if the corporation is immortal?

Above all, you must remember that no corporation is "aware" of it's harmful effects.

ONLY the officers are aware. Enron felt no pain when it ruined the life savings of thousands of people. I doubt that Milken did either. There is no arguing the negative effect of some corporations. There is no redress either.

I'm hungry

[ygmir]

+1

[1durphul]

1durphul,...

In your post that sparked my question to you I think you hit on a new truth: most of the world's population is no longer needed, and in fact it would be undesirable, for the purpose of labor.

So where does that leave the no longer wanted majority? Should they be expected to starve to death because a machine can do their work now? We can't support a planet of 6 billion entrepreneurs.

Perhaps this is the great realignment we are seeing now. The bottom 80% that at one time provided physical labor is being squeezed out of society all together.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm willing to bet that those of us living in the top 20% are going to find ourselves in real danger from that 80% unless we come to define what society must give freely to the 80% that are no longer needed.

And let's not kid ourselves, if that 80% is both unemployed, bored, and threatened with the loss of everything in their lives, they'll revolt and kill the rest of us. They aren't going to spend years "enriching" their minds so that they can join the still needed 20% because they don't have years, they probably have days, weeks, or months before they are in starvation survival mode.

Perhaps that is the real reason europe and canada have become socialist nations. They saw this coming long ago and acted to stabilize their nation early.

So perhaps that is really what the recession of 2008-201? is all about. We're abandoning the 80% of Americans that aren't needed, while 19% of us keep our jobs (for god knows how long) and the 1% at the top accelerate their growth in wealth by not having to pay that 80% anymore.

And someday, once that 80% has had the last drop of blood squeezed out of it they'll strike back, because we abandoned them. We told them it was their fault that society replaced them with machines that were more efficient. We didn't even really give them an option to change their economic role. Instead we just dropped them and blamed them for not being in the top 20%.

So the question becomes, do we want a nation that looks like Mexico, or a nation that looks like Sweden? Mexico with it's deep poverty, violence, corruption, and cartels. Or Sweden with it's worst off citizens living at levels that are bearable for the average person.

It looks to me like we've made the choice to pursue a future that loos like Mexico.

[1durphul]

YOU are responsible for you own condition. Not your neighbor, not he government (which is your neighbor). The sooner you realize that your condition is YOUR responsibility as it is the responsibility of everyone on this planet, the better. Government doesn't grant you rights. In this country you already have every right. Only the government is granted what rights we choose to grant it in this country. Stop sitting around waiting for someone to "empower" you, you already are "empowered". The only thing holding you back is you.

Geekster, machines and improvements in automation have made the average human obsolete. What is the future for the United States that you want? Do you want our future to look like modern day Mexico, or like Sweden? Think twice before you answer, you appear to have a mean streak that just wants people to suffer regardless of whether not it is actually the better solution for our nation.

All the rights in the world don't matter when you are not wanted and left to die.

[can't sit still]

1durphul, you really hit the nail on the head. The Great Realignment is what I was alluding to when I wrote about "market forces" in JK's thread on balancing the budget.
In the 40s,,,, 44 % of Americans worked on the farm. Agriculture was mechanized and automated. These displaced people moved to manufacturing. Manufacturing has been mechanized and automated. I don't see a big enough niche for all of them to move to.

Consider the forklift. Before the invention of the forklift, any able-bodied person could get a job as a stevedore. We streamline and automate the jobs that are most susceptible to automation. As we get more clever, even more jobs can be automated. The more difficult it is to automate a job, the longer that niche will hold out. The first jobs to go are the ones most likely to be done by people with low abilities and qualifications.

Since we don't legislate human reproduction, society can't breed for needed traits. We tend to knock off niches for those less intelligent. Industrial Darwinism selects for brains not physical attributes. A.I. will start knocking off some of the more intellectual niches.

The big crash du jour is from a collision of 2 facets of society. Keynesian economics demands unlimited expansion of credit and growth. Corporate capitalism demands ruthless efficiency. Keynes demands growth in credit and spending. Capitalism demands reduction in spending. [simplified] Democracy demands supporting those who corporate capitalism deems to be excess and useless.

As long as the crash du jour is thought to be a simple market pullback, the roots of the crash will never be understood or addressed.
Gotta run to work before efficiency gives me the boot

[gyre]

I think this about automation is vastly oversimplified.

I hear the most skilled job in rifle manufacture is still done by eye and hand, because doing it by machine has been unsuccessful.
I would have never guessed.

[1durphul]

I think this about automation is vastly oversimplified.

I hear the most skilled job in rifle manufacture is still done by eye and hand, because doing it by machine has been unsuccessful.
I would have never guessed.

There are two ways to look at that:
1) hand made goods often have a luxury appeal to them. In fact, in Europe there are many towns/cities that took the high road in globalization and decided to make luxury goods rather than outsource to cheaper china, or automate the production process.

or

2) they simply have not figured out a way to automate the process, but the day they do those workers will be out on their ass.

[can't sit still]

"So, I have a basic question for you: do the non-productive people deserve to live in a first world manner? "
"Deserve" isn't necessarily the right word. Whatever they receive has to fit into a long-term survival strategy. If it's going to be long-term, it has to "fit" human nature.
Over-taxing the producers diminishes motivation. Providing handouts to any and all who ask for them kills motivation.
We have to distinguish between able-bodied people and those who aren't.
We also have to distinguish between those who have worked to support the system but, can no longer do it.... and those who have never supported it.
There is also the very-tough question of who to support in a country with a static or declining population.
In GENERAL, those who have put the most into the system should get the most out. Those who are unable to work would be further down the list. Those who have never worked to support the system BUT are able-bodied should receive a minimum stipend. If the stipend is at all generous, there would be little motivation to work in some unpleasant job.
Kids would have support commensurate with their learning,,, not necessarily with their grades. They would be expected to join the workforce early unless they showed aptitude in a vocation that had a future.
This in itself is a problem because there are a declining number of job niches.
It's a hard subject to delineate. Still, those who chose to do nothing for their own support, should learn to appreciate poverty.

[geekster]

Over-taxing the producers diminishes motivation. Providing handouts to any and all who ask for them kills motivation.

There is a larger problem.

I am going to assume that percentages of state income taxes paid by tax bracket track the same as federal income tax.

The top 10% of income, those making over $113,799 per year, pay about 70% of the total income tax revenue. The top 50% of earners pay 97% of total income tax revenue. (for tax year 2008)

If jobs move out of the state and people move to follow those jobs, it is most likely the higher earning people who will move with that job. Moving those people out of the tax pool has a huge impact. A person making $150,000 per year moving out of the state takes a large portion of the state's tax revenue with them. It does not change in any appreciable way what the number of people needing government assistance or the amount of road maintenance or the amount of bureaucrats that need to be paid, but it has a great impact on the state's tax revenue.

If the population is 36 million in California, then 3.6 million people pay 70% of the state's income tax. If 10,000 of those people move away or become unemployed, the state loses a huge chunk of revenue with no measurable reduction in expenses. Since it is the people who make over $100K/year who finance the state, it would be in the state's interest to see that A: those people are as successful as possible. B: see that more people are able to move up to those tax brackets. C: that the state do whatever it can to prevent the loss of those jobs.

Instead, the state does the opposite. They attempt to tax those people out of existence, they do what they can to prevent people becoming more successful, and it is driving those jobs out of the state.

If only 1 million of those people leave the state, the state would be utterly bankrupt with absolutely no hope of digging its way out.

When you increase taxes, you decrease revenue. If you want to increase tax revenues, then provide incentives for people to make more money, provide incentives for businesses to locate to your state and hire people, cut regulations that impede the construction of factories and other facilities that pay real salaries to real taxpayers.

A low end job does nothing for state revenues. The bottom 50% of earners, those making less than $33,048 per year, pay only 2.7% of the income tax revenue. Adding jobs at that level of pay does practically nothing to increase tax revenue.

Adding 1 million jobs that pay $30,000 or less per year (a little less than 2x minimum wage) does practically nothing for state revenues. Adding 1 million jobs that pay $70,000 or more per year has a HUGE impact on revenue.

Until this state wakes up to the fact that the "rich" are their allies and not their enemies, we are doomed.

[geekster]

Geekster, machines and improvements in automation have made the average human obsolete. What is the future for the United States that you want? Do you want our future to look like modern day Mexico, or like Sweden? Think twice before you answer, you appear to have a mean streak that just wants people to suffer regardless of whether not it is actually the better solution for our nation.

Think for a moment about what you said above. Machines and improvements in automation are a *result* of people demanding ever increasing amounts of money for less work. Nobody would invest the time and effort to develop such automation if there wasn't a financial incentive to do so. In other words, a car plant would not develop and deploy robots unless the humans have priced themselves out of the job.

Look at China and India. A lot of manufacturing has moved there because it is cheaper to build a factory in China and staff it with Chinese than to build a factory in the US and staff it with robots.

The comment you made about automation is not a global truth, it is a local truth. It is a local truth because labor has priced itself out of that market. It is now too expensive, whether that is from wages or insurance requirements or regulations or other costs imposed, to hire someone to do a job. It is now too expensive to even build a factory that is populated with robots.

We are actively forcing industry of all sorts out of the country.

[can't sit still]

Echoing what Geelster said; We in the West want to work for luxuries. Billions of other people are happy to work for survival. There is another thing that must be factored into the equation.,,,, capital costs.
Imagine that you have a project that will require that you buy a $ million machine. OR
Imagine that you have the same project that can be accomplished by hiring 25 people.
The machine could break down. If the workers have no "workmens comp", they can beat the price of the machine.
Our protection of the environment casts money. Our protection of the workman costs money. All of these things add to the cost of manufacturing. China has no capital gains tax. They allow the money to circulate and "produce". Here, GOV withdraws the money to pursue empire and social welfare.
Their business model may not be friendly to the enviornment or the welfare of the worker, but, it kicks ass for productivity and efficiency.
BRIC kicks ass because they are late arrivals to the industrial revolution. They don't have the complete permeation of industry. Billions of agrarian peasants want manufactured goods. $10 a day is $10 more than they earned in the subsistence agrarian economy.

They don't have to be brilliant, They can just copy everything that we make. They don't have to waste millions of man-hours doing the R&D. The focal point of our industry is to make EVERYTHING easily duplicable. The Chinese et al are scrambling up on top of the carcass of the West.
Look at the evolution of the chemical rocket. A 1200 years from Chinese gunpowder to Goddard . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard .90 years from Goddard to the shuttle. China copied all of it in just a few years. For the time being, it's their turn at the top of the heap.

[geekster]

Another consideration is the tax on capital gains. The US has one of the world's highest taxes on capital gains and that is set to rise at the first of the year. Most of the world has either no or very low taxes on capital gains. That attracts investment from abroad and encourages local investment. It also encourages "turnover" of investment capital where a gain realized in some enterprise is realized and the proceeds used for further investment.

In the US, the high capital gains tax and even such things as AMT on certain unrealized gains discourages such reinvestment.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet do not make their money on "income". Their fortunes sit in unrealized capital gains. If there were no tax on those gains, once an investment is no longer growing in value or once that growth slows considerably, they could realize that gain (sell that investment) and put that cash to work in a new investment. This also encourages and assists growth. Our current tax laws act to stifle reinvestment into new endeavors and so economic growth slows down.

At some point, though, many choose to "bite the bullet", realize those gains, and then invest them outside the US where capital gains regulations are more favorable. That is what is happening right now as CG taxes are slated to rise on Jan 1, 2011 people are cashing in their gains at today's tax rates and reinvesting them outside the country.

Again, US government regulations are by their very nature pushing more capital investment out of the country. So it is yet another example where raising taxes results in decreased revenue because while you are taking a larger portion of the pie, you have created a smaller pie. 15% of a 10-inch pie might actually be more than 30% of a 5-inch pie.

(15% of a 10-inch pie is 11.78 units 30% of a 5-inch pie is 5.89 units)

If the impact of your tax increase is to create less of what you are taxing (as taxes always do) then you have to be sure that the decrease it creates doesn't more than offset the revenue generated by it.

[1durphul]

Think for a moment about what you said above. Machines and improvements in automation are a *result* of people demanding ever increasing amounts of money for less work.

Geekster, how about you think about what you say when you type something for once. I do think about what I say (even if I don't always proofread to check for typos...)

Your premise could not be more wrong. No human being can produce goods at the rate that an assembly line of robots can. A robot can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Only stopping for required maintenance.

Look at China and India. A lot of manufacturing has moved there because it is cheaper to build a factory in China and staff it with Chinese than to build a factory in the US and staff it with robots.

If tomorrow they could replace the Chinese workers with cost effective machines they would. If they could replace all humans and have nothing but executives to make decisions, they would.

The comment you made about automation is not a global truth, it is a local truth. It is a local truth because labor has priced itself out of that market. It is now too expensive, whether that is from wages or insurance requirements or regulations or other costs imposed, to hire someone to do a job. It is now too expensive to even build a factory that is populated with robots.

It isn't too expensive and has already been done. Some factories still require humans, because as you said, the robots aren't cheap enough (yet). But, if a Robot that costs less, and produces more, than the cheapest human on earth becomes available you can bet that there won't be any humans left doing that type of work.

My question to you was simple:
Do you want the U.S. to look like Mexico, or like Sweden in 20 years?

Your way takes us down the route of looking like Mexico. All your "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps or die of starvation" crap is the same ideology that makes Mexico a shithole for the majority of it's population. The ideology of socialist nations in europe is "let's help you pull yourself up."

We are actively forcing industry of all sorts out of the country.

No we're not, they are leaving because they can find a cheaper deal elsewhere. Our rate of poverty is going to continue increasing unless we make real advancements in our culture's value of education, and quality (whether that be quality of life, or what we produce.) In other words since we can't produce with physical labor intensive manufacturing we should be spending money to retool our populace to fit the modern economy.

I realize of course that you are a lost cause. You are so proud of your ignorance, and proud to follow people who have demonstrated repeatedly that they are liars (Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh.) People who think like you are the reason that the U.S. is going to look like Mexico in 20-30 years rather than just about any european country which has taken educating it's population seriously since WWII. 30 years of Republican political dominance and we're halfway there (you ignore that fact of course), give it another 30 and we'll look just like Mexico: a very wealthy and impenetrable upper class, and everybody else is a peasant living in 3rd world conditions.

Keep on fighting the fight. We're almost to the point of no return. I bet you'll be so proud of all you've accomplished once we're all earning 50 cents a day and scrounging in the dumpsters of the upper class for food.

Oh, and P.S. the ultra-wealthy will find a way to screw you out of your land, and your secured wealth. And you won't have any recourse because you rooted for the deck to be stacked completely in their favor. In the world you want so bad their army of lawyers, and mercenaries will be all that matter in resolving whether or not your land is yours or theirs.

[geekster]

Your premise could not be more wrong. No human being can produce goods at the rate that an assembly line of robots can. A robot can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Only stopping for required maintenance.

But that isn't quite what I said, is it? That statement is orthogonal to my point. Using your logic, GM should be producing bazillions more cars today than they were in 1965 simply due to automation. GM did not automate in order to produce more cars. They automated to reduce the cost of building cars. The automotive assembly operations began large scale robotics when Japanese imports began to improve in quality and GM began to lose sales. They automated in order to reduce production costs in order to compete with global manufacturers. GM will only produce enough vehicles to meet demand. Automation for the sake of it does nothing if it results in a surplus inventory. GM automated because people became too expensive to do the job in the US.

If tomorrow they could replace the Chinese workers with cost effective machines they would. If they could replace all humans and have nothing but executives to make decisions, they would.

Look at very easy to automate operations such as textiles or electronics pick and place. That has been automated in the US for decades. Equipment to perform that function can be had on the open market and the Chinese companies have the money to buy it. But they don't because it is still cheaper to pay a person to do it. Wages are under pressure in China and much of the more labor intensive industry such as textiles has already left for places such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

It isn't too expensive and has already been done. Some factories still require humans, because as you said, the robots aren't cheap enough (yet). But, if a Robot that costs less, and produces more, than the cheapest human on earth becomes available you can bet that there won't be any humans left doing that type of work.

Partially true. In order to automate a plant there is a certain skill set required to maintain that automation infrastructure. Until there is a generation of people capable of being taught how to build and maintain those robots, they will rely on manual labor. The problem with large scale automation is that you need a constant supply of technicians to maintain it. They aren't there yet. People are still coming in off the farms. These, in many cases, are people who have never driven a car in their life or even owned a TV before, let alone know how to repair one. In time that will change and then China will face wage pressure of its own. China is already moving a lot of heavy industry to Brazil. It is cheaper to open a mine, build a road to a mill, mill the ore into finished product and ship the finished product than it is to ship ore. One shipload of finished steel represents many shiploads of ore.

Do you want the U.S. to look like Mexico, or like Sweden in 20 years?

Well, consider Sweden for a moment. Over the past several years they have discovered that their social democracy was not sustainable. They had far too many people sitting on the couch collecting a check. They elected a center-right government that has begun to dismantle their welfare system and their economy is picking up. They are now experiencing a rate of growth that is one of the best in Europe and they recently re-elected that center-right government. That is the first time in decades that a center-right government has been re-elected in Sweden.

Germany is experiencing the same resurgence since they kicked the Social Democrats out. Germany just reported its best unemployment rate in 11 years. Their economy is beginning to turn around. France is getting a handle on things and is paring back their social welfare benefits and so is the UK.

Mexico's troubles are ultimately rooted in its legal system. It doesn't really have a legal system in the sense that we have one. In Mexico, you are presumed guilty and must prove your innocence of the charge.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 38318.html

Given the choice of the two, I would say Sweden without a doubt and even more so 10 years from now. They are on the road to sanity having gone through their 60's baby boomer leadership phase. We will regain our sanity, too, very shortly. Simply throwing money at problems does not solve them. You can "help" people to death.

Your way takes us down the route of looking like Mexico. All your "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps or die of starvation" crap is the same ideology that makes Mexico a shithole for the majority of it's population. The ideology of socialist nations in europe is "let's help you pull yourself up."

The specter of failure is a great motivator. The important thing is this notion that your neighbor is somehow legally responsible for your condition and that you have the right under force of law to take their earnings and put it in your pocket. You don't. You have no right to expect your neighbors to provide you with a living under force of law. Basically at the point of a gun. If you don't believe that, don't pay your taxes for a while and see if the guys with the guns don't show up.

I am not against paying taxes. We need roads and other infrastructure. But we don't need bread and circuses from the public coffers. Now the STATE governments have the right to do pretty much whatever they want. But the FEDERAL government has no authority to provide any sort of payments of benevolence to anyone. Federal unemployment compensation, for example, is probably very unconstitutional. The federal government is tasked to "promote the general welfare" not "provide" it.

Adult illiteracy is one example. That is a personal choice. There are a bazillion adult literacy programs out there. Any adult that honestly wants to learn to read, can learn to read. Anyone who is illiterate as an adult is illiterate by personal choice. They haven't learned to read because they don't have to. They can get by just fine on various programs. And they will vote for whoever provides those programs, or better, vote against anyone that threatens those programs and might want to force them to learn to read and get a job. Detroit adult illiteracy is through the roof as increasing federal dollars are poured into the city.

If you have a program that is budgeted a certain amount of money, if after 5 years of the program there are more people on it than when you started, then the program is a failure. It is making the problem WORSE. Human beings are very enterprising. They will take the path of least resistance to what they need.

In 1971 only 18% of all households in the US had a dishwasher. By 1994, 19% of "poor" households had them. In 1971 only 31% of all households in the US had an air conditioner. In 1994 50% of "poor" households had them.

http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/w ... prove.html

Who is paying for that? Can you get by without a dishwasher and air conditioner? Sure you can. Now we are talking about giving free cell phones to the poor on the public nickle. Where does it stop? What gives them ANY incentive to put any work at all into improving their own situation? At what point do we say "ok, if you want to keep getting this money then you are going to have to enroll in and successfully complete an adult literacy course". Why is expecting them to have some investment in themselves if we are going to make an investment in them a bad thing?

What is the functional illiteracy rate in Detroit?
47% of metro Detroiters are reportedly functional illiterate.

That is according to the Detroit Literacy Coalition. No wonder they can't support a newspaper. Nobody can read it. Throwing money at organizations like the DLC doesn't make the people come in and actually complete a program. Only the possibility that they are going to HAVE to learn to read or their welfare money is going to be cut off will do that. If it was otherwise, than it would have happened already.

I realize of course that you are a lost cause. You are so proud of your ignorance, and proud to follow people who have demonstrated repeatedly that they are liars (Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh.) People who think like you are the reason that the U.S. is going to look like Mexico in 20-30 years rather than just about any european country which has taken educating it's population seriously since WWII.

So you can't argue the message, so you insult the messenger. Then you say that anyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid. Maybe it is you who is the stupid one. I don't listen to Beck or Hannity or Limbaugh. As a matter of fact, I can't stand Beck or Hannity and most people aren't smart enough to "get" Limbaugh. His commentary is actually on two levels at the same time ... sort of like The Jetsons.

Read Ayn Rand.

ADDED: Actually, this is my favorite radio show at the moment:

http://johnbatchelorshow.com/

The podcasts are on the right side about halfway down. He does some telephone interviews but it isn't a listener "call in" show.

[geekster]

I will use Spain as an example of what is going to happen to the US. They were the powerhouse economy in Europe in 2000. They were growing fast. Then they elected the Socialists and have become one of the worst economies. They have only now discovered that their "Green Jobs" program cost them two jobs for every job it created. They basically wasted a huge amount of their treasury on a pipe dream and enacted regulations that have put a stop to industrial growth. As a result, energy costs are higher, business is fleeing, unemployment is rising, tax revenues are down, and the government is in serious trouble. This is the same Spain that Obama held up as some sort of model to emulate.

It simply does not work. It has never worked. Everywhere it has been tried, paying people money or giving them free stuff does not pay unless the people somehow have to earn it. If expecting a person to invest in themselves at least as much as I am investing in them is "evil" or "mean" than so be it. I see anything otherwise as stupid.

Oh, and that "too stupid to understand" elitist horse crap doesn't fly with me. I did take some college economics. I did live in Europe during the cold war. I saw first hand the shops in East Berlin which was the showcase of Eastern Europe. It was particularly interesting on "meat day" or "fruit day".

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/ ... itics.html


[quote] Every “green jobâ€

[1durphul]

...blah..blah...blah... I want the United States to be a shithole like Mexico, the sooner the better so that people I think are undeserving can start their suffering sooner...blahblahblah...

So you can't argue the message, so you insult the messenger. Then you say that anyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid. Maybe it is you who is the stupid one. I don't listen to Beck or Hannity or Limbaugh. As a matter of fact, I can't stand Beck or Hannity and most people aren't smart enough to "get" Limbaugh. His commentary is actually on two levels at the same time ... sort of like The Jetsons.

Read Ayn Rand.

ADDED: Actually, this is my favorite radio show at the moment:

http://johnbatchelorshow.com/

The podcasts are on the right side about halfway down. He does some telephone interviews but it isn't a listener "call in" show.

I've read Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead, Anthem.) She is a terrible writer. Any author that drops the character's voice to drop in a seventy page thesis should rethink whether they are an author or a propagandist. (That said, I enjoyed the 1000 pages leading up to the John Galt speech.)

Speaking of propagandist, you should stop listening to right wing talk radio shows. In fact, I challenge you to go 3 months listening to NPR instead of right wing radio.

**waits for your outraged reply that NPR's news department is nothing but left wing propaganda**

Nevermind, I won't wait, NPR news works hard to present unbiased news. The problem is that any person that would make that claim has either never listened to NPR news, or has gone so far to the right that they can't identify the center anymore. If you want to find out what left wing nuttery is, I challenge you to spend 3 months listening to KPFA (Pacifica) radio.

I suspect you're pretty comfortable in wing nut land, so I won't expect you to give up your gold balm commercials, and "if you're last name begins with A through N, call today" commercials. Before you level a reciprocal challenge that I listen to nothing but right wing nuttery talk I'll let you know I've listened to plenty, and even seek it out on long drives. (They get me pissed off and it helps me stay awake while I drive.)

[geekster]

You really are exactly what you accuse the right of being, aren't you?

I was married to one of the most left-wing people alive. She was a journalist for a major US daily and at one point was a staffer in Washington DC for a very prominent US Senator. I lived and worked abroad and in the halls of government in Washington DC. My background is electrical engineering, economics and history are major interests of mine. I was a Carter supporter in 1976. My change came with my study of economics and history. Ronald Reagan's economic policy appealed to me because for the first time we had a President that was making economic sense. That was not surprising since he was an economics major in college. He was the first President we had who had a bachelors degree in economics.

I listen to NPR frequently though not a frequently as I did when my wife was living. Up until about 3.5 years ago, it was generally on all the time. I also believe that in order to get a good picture of what is *really* going on in the world, you need to listen to both the left wing propaganda and the right wing propaganda because neither one is telling the truth. My current opinion is that the left is living in a fantasy world and not speaking from a position of real-world experience and the extreme margin of that party is pulling it more extremely left into oblivion. They are putting forth notions that have been tried and have failed repeatedly. They advocate processes and programs that have been utterly ineffective or worse, enable the very problems they are billed as trying to solve.

I happen to like Batchelor because he has guests from across the political spectrum and interviews people from many different backgrounds.

The things you say in your postings seem to indicate a lot of preconceived notions about what I do and don't do and what I like and don't like and what I agree with. I am not parroting someone's talking points, believe it or not. The opinions I hold are from experience and my own research and education. I have owned my own business before. Have you? That is a very enlightening experience. You look at all those regulations in a different light when you are the employer.

I tend to find a lot of truth in Winston Churchill when he said "If you are not liberal when you are young, then you have no heart. If you are not conservative when you are old, then you have no brain". And in this case "conservative" is in the context of fiscal conservativism and role of government issues, not social policy.

As for social policy, I don't believe that belongs in the discussion at the federal level. I am quite happy to see that discussion done at the state and local level. People have different values in different parts of the country and they should be free to express those values in their local laws without interference from others in other areas. People are then free to vote with their feet.

If one region makes a disastrous decision, the impact is limited to that region. People in one region can look at what is done in another, emulate what works, avoid what doesn't work. The federal government can play a vital role in facilitating that communication between states by collecting and disseminating that information. Having too much centralized control increases the possibility that a bad decision damages the entire country. People are then free to "vote with their feet" and migrate away from places with a poor business environment to places where a good set of decisions is resulting in economic growth. As the population falls in areas that have made poor decisions, the political influence of those places wane and the influence of prosperous places increases. A once-size-fits-all mandate out of Washington DC is just a bad idea. Each state has their own challenges and their own resources. What works well for California might not work well for Montana.

But really, the condescending attitude isn't working.

[geekster]

Another good read is

[1durphul]

yada yada yada

Sorry about my last post, my tone was overtly mean. Of course you don't want us to become a second Mexico (even though I believe that is where your ideology is likely to take us.)

I'm curious, did you see this 60 minutes piece last night?