Posted on 01/11/2014 5:46:53 AM PST by killermosquito
The problem with the economy is that it used to take 100 people 8 hours to create a widget. Now a 100 widgets can be created by 5 people in 1 hour. We have too many people to create the number of widgets that are needed so widget manufacturers don't need to hire more people.
Unfortunately, widget manufacturers have discovered that people in other countries can make widgets too. And they can ship those widgets here at less cost than the cost of paying 5 people to create a 100 widgets in an hour. The widgets aren't made as well as they used to be but no one seems to mind since the widgets cost less to buy.
Sadly, the widget retailers are beginning to learn that they can no longer hire people to sell widgets because people can buy widgets while surfing the web from the comfort of their Lazyboys.
Our only hope is that our children can learn to repair widgets or Lazyboys and that the cost of each doesn't become so low that people decide to discard their widgets and Lazyboys rather than buy new ones in which case all of our children will work in the waste removal industry.
When both parties are in favor of no (or historically low) tariffs, income taxes, and open borders you know something is wrong.
The problem with the economy is that...
...there’s a destructive asshole in the White House.
Well it’s pretty obvious, when we are buying everything from a massive communist country which has now overtaken us on the global exporting stage, that we should...
BRING JOBS BACK TO AMERICA.
Just saying.
Nowadays, especially with electronic gadgets, it’s cheaper to just buy a new one than to repair it.
Gen.Blather, I think you have hit upon something. Security jobs will be plentif.
ronnie raygun, mulligan & 1rudeboy, we agree government is a huge part of the problem not the solution.
Yardstick, I agree we need better widgets. To get them we need more mathemeticians, scientists and engineers and fewer degrees in the humanities. And less lawyers.
Cringing Negativism Network, we should never have opened up our economy to a communist country.
Alberta's Child, Erik Latranyi & old curmudgeon, of course my explanation is simplistic. I'm not sure you detected my sarcasm and humor.
tflabo, soon robots will do to McDonalds what Red Box did to Blockbuster. Though I think McDonalds is smart enough to lead fast food into the robotic age.
TexasFreeper2009, Tupelo, El Laton Caliente, Mister Da, RoosterRedux, stevem, wayoverontheright, Pollster1, blueunicorn6 & SeminoleCounty, I think we are on the same page.
blueunicorn6, you said, "Our government and our businesses cannot be at odds with each other." They can't be in bed with each other either.
Ted Grant, you're missing my point. The problem isn't really the problem. I want more product with less labor. I want more competition and not less. I want innovation. And I want people who can adapt. ---------
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
Things need to become more organic. We individually need to grow more of our own food. Make and fix more of our own stuff.
I don't think we will become an agricultural based society again but decreasing our dependence on others with big gardens and chickens can help.
We need to decentralize. Wealth and power are concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer people. I don't have a problem if that is happening on a level playing field but the game is fixed.
States have to take back our country from the federal government.
End the minimum wage.
End the 17th amendment.
I am almost persuaded that only property owners should be allowed to vote but that might be too drastic. Certainly increase the voting age to at least 21 and maybe 25.
Incentivize government in ways that politicians are rewarded for spending cuts, reduced regulations, and lower taxes.
Competition always works: it increases choice, quality, and lowers cost. How can we increase competition? How can we increase innovation so that new products are entering the market place faster?
Government must stop rewarding bad behavior and stop penalizing successful people.
End the IRS, EPA, NEA, NEA, FEMA, HUD, NLRB, FED, DHHS (Dept Health & Human Services), and DHS (Dept of Homeland Security). End welfare. End extended unemployment benefits.
The time has come for term limits.
No lawyers in elected office for the next 10 years.
The education system from top to bottom is a complete joke. Schools are children warehouses. Colleges are diploma mills.
I don't like the idea of dismantling large businesses but the large businesses have become influential to the point that I don't know if they own the government or if the government owns them.
How can we penalize the media for choosing sides?
How can we penalize the abuses in the lobbying industry?
People were scared to death of NAFTA but most of the jobs went to China not Mexico.
THANKS TO ALL FOR PARTICIPATING.
Well to tell the truth, I never said we should never have opened America to a communist country.
What I am saying is, we are not demanding anything in return.
China is walking away with everything of value in America.
What is our plan???
Are we simply going to outsource everything and eventually collapse?
That appears to me, to be what is happening.
Bring back American industry. Protect American jobs.
Grow.
Big business has decided that profit is more important than country.
Until Wall Street places value on Main Street things are not likely to improve.
The guy I work for sells Product Manufactured in China.
It used to be Manufactured in Taiwan, and before that Japan.
Now, Vietnam and Indonesia are undercutting China.
If he bought from US Manufacturers, if there are any left that make what he sells, he wouldn’t be able to sell a thing because his Customers couldn’t afford the Cost He would be out of Business in a matter of weeks.
That is how it is, especially when you sell Products bought with discretionary Income. Heck, Obamacare might just finish him off anyway.
Vietnam and China have fought in recent history, perhaps China is looking for a pretext to go to war with them again.
>”Big business has decided that profit is more important than country”<
BS, if you don’t keep costs down while your Competitors do, you are out of Business, period. Your Employees lose their Jobs and your Investors lose their Money.
Profits spur Investment and Expansion. Losing Money has the opposite effect.
However in regard to tariffs:
“caltaxed & qman, I don't think tarrifs are a good idea. “
I was a grown man traveling most of the East Coast as a manufacturer's distributor during the period from 1950 to the year 2000.
I assure you that life was much much better when we were selling our products to each other.
Tariff free international trade is another theory of the ivory tower brief case carrying professor who has never had to make his living on the street.
There were more new factories built, more wealth (real wealth) created during the early years of that period then any other period since the industrial revolution.
Obviously my opinion is in the minority, but that does not make it less relevant.
The theory of total free trade has destroyed the very manufacturing base that we need to give people jobs.
Disagree, but you can not escape the fact that our economy sucks and it sucks because of our policies over the last 20 years.
Obviously those policies are totally incorrect.
Free trade might work if every single nation in the world had the same government, the same financial structure.
So now you are back to the idea of one world government.
How has that worked for the EU?
How do you like the idea of Shari law?
“you” does not mean you personally. It is meant to refer to everyone on FR, so don't take offense.
Your post was really very interesting.
Not an issue. The quality of products made in those two Countries, especially Vietnam, is seriously lacking.
Given enough time and that will change, just as it did when China became a player.
To my surprise I have learned that China has many of the highest tech and low labor manufacturing plants.
You are right.
I missed the sarcasm.
We agree except for the tariff thing.
I like what you wrote and actually agree. we are in a global economy and US business must compete. But I read recently that Lockhead or some major defense contractor bought $2 parts for our fighter jets that are faulty. What came first; country or profit?
What we have had for a long time is a one party system and a propaganda machine media, similar to the old Soviet system.
Well, were there more expensive parts that did the job better or were those $2 parts all that were needed?
If they did it to save money like Ford did when they didn’t put a trunk floor in their exploding Pintos, it’s Criminal Behavior.
No lawyers in office ever, it is a conflict of interest.
Yeah I don’t get that either. So let’s have less stuff, it’s the stuff that’s the real wealth.
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