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Bush's "Economic Recovery" for Dummies
- Thread starter Drinky Crow
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Drinky Crow
Banned
I'll answer that question when I'm done sodomizing the corpse of Leon Trotsky, sir.
JackFrost2012
Banned
Drinky Crow said:
Actually, in communist Russia, the corpse of Leon Trotsky sodomizes you!
Evolution VIII
Banned
Oh, the EPI. They're one of the most liberal economic think tanks in the country. I'll pass.
Perhaps this is the problem with the working class, and not with the corporation. Why exactly does the working class have to finance their purchasing power through debt, when all they actually need to do is adjust their consumption patterns, thereby enjoying a healthier, affordable lifestyle?
Perhaps this is the problem with the working class, and not with the corporation. Why exactly does the working class have to finance their purchasing power through debt, when all they actually need to do is adjust their consumption patterns, thereby enjoying a healthier, affordable lifestyle?
Evolution VIII said:
That just makes their conclusions or contextual observations "biased". It doe not change the statistical information comparing this to the last eight economic recoveries (from the US government). It does not change historic peaks for these statistics.
http://www.bea.doc.gov/
you can argue that if you want.
You can argue whether or not these particular indexes are meaningful.
You can even argue that the graph is misleading or unfair.
Its hard to argue that the US gov. as a source of this information is somehow invalid.
EDIT:
Evolution VIII said:
You are making an assumption that all of the consumption patterns of the entire working class are somehow gross or unwarrented. Not everyone is out buying and HDTV that is outside of their means, I assume some are just trying to get to work, feed the kids and pay the bills.
Evolution VIII
Banned
scola said:
The beauty of economics is you can bend it to meet whatever political agenda you most align yourself with. Get a conservative think tank and they will say that the economy is all hunky dory. So I'll pass on both.
Oh, and if you read the stats on inflation adjusted income, it says that personal income rose .6 percent in the month of April. I guess workers are worse off, eh?
Of course, consumers don't have a hand in that.
And that's even more of a case to cut back on spending. But of course, consumers should freely choose to spend themselves into a hole because hey, they know what's best.
No, but most consumers are out buying lattes, cigarettes, fast food, eating out in restaurants, taking out loans way above their budgets for houses and cars, buying expensive clothes, etc., etc., etc., etc.
No, consumers can't control their spending so what do you suggest? Let's give them even more money so they can spend even more and get themselves into even bigger financial duress!!
Cerebral Palsy
Banned
Where did I put my Bush #1 foam hand...
Neutron Night
Banned
Solution to poverty: BUY LESS STUFF!!!
Brilliant. Oh wait, no, you're an idiot.
Evolution VIII
Banned
Neutron Night said:
So you think the answer is to give them MORE MONEY? Thereby just increasing their ability to spend, thereby pushing themselves further into a deeper hole? There are two key words in that EPI study that you guys glance over. It's called "purchasing power". This is not the ability of a person to pay bills or to feed the children, or to cover the rent. This is the ability of the person to buy goods and services within or beyond their means. So from the sounds of the report, they are already controlling for people's necessities and what they are left to spend with afterwards. So basically it is saying that consumers must borrow to buy the plasma TVs, the expensive clothes, the designer bags, the expensive watches, and all those necessities in life that drown people further into debt. Do you know that bankruptcy filings increase EXPONENTIALLY each year? Do you know that many people FORECLOSE on their homes and have their cars REPOSSESSED because they can't afford the payments? Do you really think that giving people more money will allow them to curtail their spending? That sir, is idiocy.
Uh no, purchasing power merely refers to the goods and services actually attainable with a given amount of money.
And sir, you are basing your argument on a claim you have yet to prove: that they are actually spending beyond their means through "lattes, cigarettes, [and] fast food".
And sir, you are basing your argument on a claim you have yet to prove: that they are actually spending beyond their means through "lattes, cigarettes, [and] fast food".
"So you think the answer is to give them MORE MONEY?"
You're arguing from an extreme. Are you saying that the answer is to give them less money? No, you're not, and I doubt the people you're talking to are saying "Give them more money to fuel their caffeine riddled, plasma screen TV habits!"
Oh, and if the answer it not to give them more money, what were the rebates for?
Anyway, just to make you feel guilty Drinky, everytime you post a chart like that, a republican chokes into his cornflakes!
You're arguing from an extreme. Are you saying that the answer is to give them less money? No, you're not, and I doubt the people you're talking to are saying "Give them more money to fuel their caffeine riddled, plasma screen TV habits!"
Oh, and if the answer it not to give them more money, what were the rebates for?
Anyway, just to make you feel guilty Drinky, everytime you post a chart like that, a republican chokes into his cornflakes!
brooklyngooner
Member
Drinky Crow said:
Um, well that would make this thread worthless without pics then.
not surprising but not a crisis, businesses have made productivity gains, so they need the same or less workers at this point, when demand picks up, they will have to hire and it goes from a business market where they can pick and choose to a employee market where they will have to lay down incentives to have people working for them.
CrunchyB and pollo pointed it out. If people "adjust their consumption patterns" (stop spending), then the economy doesn't recover. Revenues shrink, employment shrinks, the economy shrinks. Reaganomics is financial crack. Reps got idiots hooked on the concept.
"It's YOUR money!" Here Frank, you can keep this extra $100. Go buy a boombox or a toaster oven. Now with a few thousand of your equally gullible friends, I've made $1 million ....and you've got crap. Isn't it great?
PEACE.Translation: A bunch of layoffs, and the remaining employees are now working harder.
Translation: The corporate profits bump on the graph hasn't yet translated into actual jobs, and probably never will.
Seriously, profits are up. Why? Aren't the richboy tax cuts (aka economic stimulus) supposed to translate into more jobs? Aren't these companies supposed to keep their profits at a nominal level and transfer the profits into job creation??? Oops, Error 001 for Reaganomics. You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make rich people stop hording their money. The job market shouldn't have to shrink. As profits increase, these companies should be rehiring all those lost positions. Instead, they are just grinding their current employees more, replacing some of the lost jobs with lower paying ones, and reinvesting the rest of the money elsewhere.
Reaganomics is only good for making rich people richer. Let's put that phoney on the $10 bill! PEACE.
You do know the rich are the ones who pay the taxes right?Pimpwerx said:
I know what you are trying to say, but don't you think that most corporations had way too many people from the boom of the late 90's? They "trimmed the fat" and unfortunately will not be hiring as many as they laid-off. (Especially now that labor is dirt cheap in India and other Asian countries and is the current, widely-accepted trend.)Aren't these companies supposed to keep their profits at a nominal level and transfer the profits into job creation??? Oops, Error 001 for Reaganomics. You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make rich people stop hording their money. The job market shouldn't have to shrink. As profits increase, these companies should be rehiring all those lost positions. Instead, they are just grinding their current employees more, replacing some of the lost jobs with lower paying ones, and reinvesting the rest of the money elsewhere.
what is this "nominal" level? companies goal is to make as much profit as possible, not we have a profit, lets make jobs for the helluva of it, you create jobs to fill a need of a business. companies are hiring and hourly wages are up this year keeping pace with consumer price inflation.
No one has a right to a job nor should companies ever be forced to hire just because, thats the sort of nonsense that is killing the German market.
Outsourcing being cost-effective is not an excuse. The tax cuts should have come with a strict stipulation that profits within a certain percentage should go directly to employment, otherwise they don't qualify. There's no reason companies should be able to take their tax savings and send it to India. That's stealing from American tax payers. The globalist socialis in me agrees with the concept of wealth redistribution, but it seems obvious to me that this is a great disservice to the American people who essentially co-signed to it. The tax cuts were meant to help here, not abroad.
So if we are going to be realistic about the way capitalism works, then what was the point of the tax cuts? My whole point is that the tax cuts were a colossal mistake. You kickstart an economy by giving money to the rich? You know they're just gonna get richer. And they're gonna get richer by much more than anyone else who manages to catch a few scraps from the trickledown. Who are the tax cuts to benefit? Joe Sixpack saves like $500 a year. Big, fucking deal. Bill Trump IV is saving $50,000. We're getting nickel and dimed here. The people read the headlines and see that there's growth. They see their tax return and see a few hundred dollars more on there, and everything is fine. They are capitalizing on people's greed. Nothing new there, but I find it sickening.
Good, so the tax cuts should be repealed. No one has a right to do anything apparently. The tax cuts aren't there just to generate numbers on a quarterly report. They weren't just to allow Bush's Yale buddies to horde a few more millions. It's supposed to create jobs and get people back spending and building the economy again. It has not done that. Trickle-down my ass. You say no one has a right to a job? Well, businesses don't have a right to tax cuts. PEACE.
Most of the tax relieve helped the middle- and upper-class -- the one's who pay taxes. The poorer people pay jack with respect to their income. And that's a fact. Outsourcing has been a common practice for years in corporate America, it's just now becoming more widely accepted. The tax cuts aren't stealing from American tax payers -- remember, it's the rich that pay taxes.
The more disposable income people have (no matter how wealthy), the more services are used and then the more service-type jobs are created. Look at Starbucks, they just reported an increase in revenue. It does trickle down, just not as fast as some were hoping. And all reports from the last several months show an increase in jobs.
Fragamemnon
Member
Has it done that task consumate with the costs of the tax cut? I don't think many Americans think so. I don't think many economists think so. Most people and experts agree with some parts of the tax legislation, and view the other parts-specifically the estate tax and the reduction on taxes paid by people making over 200K a year-as insanity.
A tax cut was needed to stimulate the economy. The Bush proposals had merit and horror alike. It's time to go back and slay the things that aren't helping, and focus on bringing aid to the parts of the economy that can really create new, well-paying jobs and not keep funneling money to those on the top of the heap, and repealing an estate tax designed so that we don't have a institutional aristocracy in this land.
Yes, those high-paying service jobs will save us all! News Flash: People want jobs that have benefits and a future, not dead end jobs at placed like Wal-Mart and Starbucks.
reggieandTFE
Member
Pfft, no surprise. The gaps in income and wealth have been increasing since 1973 in America (even during the democratic control.)
Remember folks, that high taxes are bad because it means hand-outs to drug addicts and welfare queens... (all that Federal mortgage insurance, FDIC, building of interstates, rampant military budgets, etc. doesn't cost a thing or disproportionately help the middle and upper classes anyways.)
Remember folks, that high taxes are bad because it means hand-outs to drug addicts and welfare queens... (all that Federal mortgage insurance, FDIC, building of interstates, rampant military budgets, etc. doesn't cost a thing or disproportionately help the middle and upper classes anyways.)
Outsourcing is just silly, in my opinion. The inevitable consequence of it, if it's done for long enough, is that enough workers will be displaced so that there won't be any consumers to buy the products that're made overseas.
Those corporate idiots could learn something from Henry Ford. He raised the wages of his workers, and gave them benefits; because of this, they became consumers of the Model T's as well, as they could actually afford them, adding to his fortune.
What I'm trying to say, is that even if you ignore the "human" aspects of Bush's economic policies, they still don't make any sense logically.
Those corporate idiots could learn something from Henry Ford. He raised the wages of his workers, and gave them benefits; because of this, they became consumers of the Model T's as well, as they could actually afford them, adding to his fortune.
What I'm trying to say, is that even if you ignore the "human" aspects of Bush's economic policies, they still don't make any sense logically.
Doesn't that chart say otherwise? Those charts should vary proportionally. They don't. Where's that money going, and why? You can't seriously say it's not a big deal, b/c this is supposed to be the point of the tax cuts. Otherwise, all they've done is stalled the recession and made some rich people richer. The whole point should be wealth redistribution. PEACE.
I know very little about economics, but the thing that worries me is that the likely salary range I'll receive as a new lawyer will not be enough to purchase a single family home in my area. I did not expect this situation ten years or even three years ago. I suspect that this is a trend in many lines of work. Owning a condo or townhome is becoming more and more common... I just wish there was more of a middle ground in property value.
Evolution VIII
Banned
Hitokage said:
Uh, that is EXACTLY what I said. Purchasing power refers to the amount of goods and services within or beyond the means of an individual. If it's within their means, then they actually have the purchasing power to buy those goods given the amount of dollars they have. If it is beyond their means, they have to finance their purchasing power through debt to attain goods and services. But thanks for the correction.
And how much do you think the average American spends on "lattes, cigarettes, and fast food"? Billions of dollars within a MONTH. Just imagine if Americans saved the money on these goods and put it towards savings. Do you know that if a person just saved $10 a day, they would be a millionaire within 30 years? $2,948,000 richer to be exact.
Companies give consumers rebates because they are trying to attract consumers who would normally not buy their goods by giving them an incentive to buy it. Anyway, I'm not saying to give them less money, but what I am saying is that most socialists seem to think that the easiest way to solve the problems of the poor is to spend money to increase their welfare. Well, that doesn't really work because we still have poor individuals in society. However, if you encourage people to save by discouraging them to spend frivolously, they are better off because they have money saved for future spending.
And I'm glad because Reagonomics was a shitacular economic policy.
Uh, no. If people adjust their consumption patterns by buying goods and services that are relatively cheaper than the goods and services they were originally going to buy, the money saved can be put to other goods and services. Here's an example. Say there's a two plasma TVs, one costs $4000 and another costs $2000. They're the same size, offer the same quality, but the only difference is that one is from Sony and the other is from Akai. Let's say there is a consumption tax of 10% in place. If the consumer buys the $4000 TV, he pays $400 in taxes. If he buys the $2000 TV, he only pays $200. The consumer chooses to buy the second TV because he doesn't want to pay the higher tax. The consumer has just saved $1800 ($4000-$2000-$200 tax), with which he can spend his left over money on other goods and services OR (preferably) he can save that money and gain a pretty good interest on it. If he chooses the former, he's still better off because he has $1800 to spend, but he hurts the economy because we don't know whether if he is going to spend that money on domestic goods or imported goods. If he chooses the latter he is better AND helps the economy because he is saving his money and allowing the banks to use his funds to give out loans to private individuals, firms, and the government. The firm is better off because they are able to borrow money to finance ffuture projects and hire more workers because they will demand more workers. The government is better off because they are able to finance social programs that will make all citizens better off. The economy as WHOLE is better off because we have ample money saved that will cover future consumption AND it controls inflation because less goods are demanded over time.
And before anyone thinks I'm a kook for calling for putting in a consumption tax, don't be alarmed. Many of the great economic minds (Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, David Ricardo, John Hicks, Milton Friedman, David Becker, John Keynes, etc.) proposed that the best type of tax is a consumption tax because it's better to tax consumption than to tax wealth. And it makes perfect sense.
Evolution VIII
Banned
levious said:
That probably reflects the fact that we are overburdened with lawyers. Since there are an influx of lawyers, then the wage would go down because companies have a ready supply of lawyers to choose from.
Also, where are you practicing law? Private or public, or non-profit? Non-profit lawyers don't make much at all and public sector lawyers make less than private lawyers. And that's actually true for most careers.
Evolution VIII
Banned
kablooey said:
You do realize that when you raise the wages of workers, you raising the criteria for the firm to hire individuals, right? The reason Henry Ford's plan had worked was because his business was growing exponentially, and at the same time he was also improving the process in which the cars were being built, which in turn translated into raising the productivity of his workers, which in turn justifies the reason to raise their wages.
And outsourcing has been done since mankind could work. No one will ever stop it. And rightfully so. Do you realize the country that has the most outsourced workers is the United States? We issue visas all the time to foreign workers and many of those foreign workers come here to get trained at our schools. Just last year 35% of Doctoral recipients were foreign born and most of them stay here to work, probably because the returns to their education is higher here than what they would get in the home countries. Do you honestly think that all of the technological advances and medical breakthroughs were done by just Americans? Put another way, if we didn't "outsource" the Manhattan Project to get minds like Albert Einstein then we wouldn't have had the atom bomb. So no country benefits more from outsourcing than do the United States. 4 manufacturing jobs for 1 nuclear physicist from India? I'll take it.
A consumption tax is an interesting concept. But it seems to have a problem. What incentive is there to generate jobs? Any greedy bastard running a company would just milk all the productivity he can from as few employees as profitable, maximize profits and then cash out. Or, buy more sweatshops to double the money. PEACE.
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