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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: peter michaelson who wrote (78078)	8/20/2011 10:27:44 PM
From: Wildstar	1 Recommendation Respond to of 217830

I'll have to disagree with that in a big way. As I interpret it, your argument boils down to more labor supply means lower wages, right? Consider various changes that result in a large chunk of workers who no longer have jobs: * foreign cheap-wage workers (as you state) * technology makes workers obselete (milkmen, toll booth operators, bank tellers) * population of the world grows I submit that these trends have been going on for centuries, yet the standard of living has grown substantially. The economy is always in flux, and input costs to create most things eventually decrease secularly, yet real wages grow over the long term. Why is that? It's because those displaced workers have till now always found new work. Human wants are unlimited, yet we live in a scarce universe. There are always other things people will want that aren't being made today (ex: robot butlers, jetpacks, flying cars...). At one time, 25% of Americans were farmers. It became cheaper for Americans to buy their food from the cheaper labor of the rest of the world. Those farmers--or at least their sons and daughters--became accountants, teachers, and programmers. The number of people who can supply computer programming skills to Americans has at least tripled over the last 15 years, yet American programmers are in high demand and their wages have gone up. The rest of the world coming into the economy is a good thing for Americans overall, and a good thing for the whole world. People will simply have to adapt as they've always done and meet other wants of consumers, which as mentioned above, are endless. A larger supply of workers can explain temporary rises in unemployment due to the friction of finding a new job, relocating, and retraining, but it cannot explain the sustained economic downturn of the last 3-4 years.

To: peter michaelson who wrote (78078)	8/21/2011 2:11:57 AM
From: studdog	1 Recommendation Respond to of 217830

Agree with your basic premise, but we compounded the problem considerably by taking on debt trying to maintain the higher standard of living we felt we were entitled to. As wages got squeezed, we just borrowed more, and the lenders were only too happy to accommodate us. Private debt went from 4 trillion in 2000 to 12 trillion in 2008. A tripling of mortgage and credit card debt in a scant 8 years! After 3 years we have paid it down to 11 trillion. Less than a 10% reduction. Bummer. Not only do we have to wait for the rest of the world's wages to catch up, we have to pay off an untenable debt burden. Forget the public debt, the US can pay its bills by printing. The private debt is what is killing us and it looks like it is going to be several years before we get out from under it. The drag on our own economy will reduce growth in the BRIC's making it take even longer to see the rise of emerging market wages to a point where it makes sense to make stuff here again.

To: peter michaelson who wrote (78078)	8/21/2011 5:42:52 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217830

I remind all that gold is a china-play, an American-play, and also hedges against most other china/American-plays

To: peter michaelson who wrote (78078)	8/21/2011 7:14:45 AM
From: maceng2	2 Recommendations Respond to of 217830

hope they seem interesting, maybe even useful Thanks for the soapbox btw, Yes, your thoughts are both interesting and useful. May I also say your argument is eloquently stated and clearly thought out. I shall present an entirely different argument that I also hope is interesting and useful. For the sake of clarity I shall label your argument “BLAME THE POOR”, perhaps unfairly, but now I shall present an argument that we can equally simplistically label “BLAME THE CORPORATIONS”. While you are thinking of that label, what are the real reasons why the Glass Steagal Act was repealed in 1998 or whenever? How do Americans pay their national bills? There are some significant outgoings. The whole transport infrastructure, Social Security, National Defense, State government, Federal Government, I will let you fill in the rest of the outgoing bill that Americans have to pay as a nation. How are these bills paid? They should be paid for by taxes on the American citizens. Where do taxes come from, the answer is simple. Taxes are paid by wages. Most tax is paid by the bulk of the population, distrubuted as per this link... ntu.org So how is the USA going to pay for it’s bills? There are only two choices, and one of them is to increase wages. Two video clips to ponder on to seek solutions to problems stated. “Economic Basket Cases” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4yVhxDTom0 "Defense" http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/u-war-china-inevitable-author-glain-says-185732514.html Now, we could all stop paying for government, roads, schools, looking after the (local) environment etc but who really wants to live in a polluted chit hole?? How are bills going to be paid? Where will boots be manufactured for USA army come from? The politicians have expenses too, and we all know they need wages as well, where are those going to come from? Increasingly their money seems to be coming from the corporations. Americans are being denied wages to pay taxes, yet are being dumped by ever higher bills to solve all the global problems. My view is I should not even have to present this argument. Our politicians (including mine, I live in the UK) should be ensuring that all the citizens they are supposed to represent are properly aware of the facts and are educated enough in the basics to make an informed decision. I shall finish by stating that the politicians have plainly failed in this regard. Whoever wants the soapbox can have it, I said my piece.

To: peter michaelson who wrote (78078)	6/9/2012 6:48:43 AM
From: elmatador	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217830

"I ask people here in the US to imagine for a moment that no restrictions on immigration exist. Suddenly 200 million Chinese show up to compete for American jobs. Imagine the impact on wages and how wages cut in half might ripple through the economy. Hint...people will argue endlessly to maintain their piece of a shrinking pie. They will be angry and depressed. They will rush from one false answer to the other." When I tell people that the US should have half billion people. Canada 140 million and Australia 100 million, they come out with all kinds of excuses fr not having this amount of people. Still the very same people complain that their countries are going into irrelevance.