Posted on 03/05/2010 1:32:25 AM PST by bruinbirdman
Most of the handwringing about debt in concert with support for continuing the trade paradigm from the same people doesn’t make sense. Do you know why? I know of one reason. They’re all either employed or supported by various levels of government, or taking advantage of regulations and other “gatekeeping” partnerships to hold onto monopolies in their respective markets.
I discovered that by watching meetings at county and state levels and following up on the so-called “environmentalists”: family members, employees, former employees and investors of businesses that use them to prevent competition. That’s why I say that we need the defaults to come.
Defaults are fine by me. Many contracts need to be revised. Anyways they will happen no matter what I think
I read Bill Gross saying to only invest in companies that are “connected” with the Feds and/or other levels of gov’t. Invest in companies that have an in. That are rent seekers
I don’t think so. Just phony numbers. If US is producing so much, why the huge trade deficit
Hot new book critical of “free trade”
The same people who were pimping free trade for the last 30 years are the ones on Wall Street who created the MBS and credit default swaps crisis
That does happen with thinly traded stocks that come with a lot of uncertainty, but we're talking T-bills here. T-bills are the lowest interest, stodgiest, studied-to-death securities in existence.
--and they're worth every penny. When we do cost estimates for international construction we use the same unit prices regardless of the nationality of the labor, because American high priced labor gets the same work done per dollar as the cheaper third world worker.
Third-worlder's aren't lower wage because of tariffs, it's because they're just not as productive.
http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/index.php?page=REAL+WAGES++1947-2000
Nice try. Real US wages peaked in 1972 according to many sources not just this website. And we ran a trade surplus back then. USG was in the black too. All forms of debt were nothing compared to today
The net worth of a country is not determined by its balance of trade. The net worth of the US household sector is $54 trillion and rising. It is largely driven by changes in the value of existing capital assets we own. Little things like all the real estate in the country and nearly all of the stock, all the private businesses, etc.
In an average year, the value of the pool of capital Americans own can and does swing $3-5 trillion. That is an order of magnitude larger than the balance of payments. Whether our investments are sensible, not how we finance them, determines our future wealth.
The debt side of the ledger looks awful all around. You have a one sided perspective on the economy and just tout the happy face stuff. The good things you mention are outweighed by crushing debt that can only be dealt with by debt repudiation, default or hyper-inflation
US GDP at the end of 1972 was $1.286 trillion. Today it is $14.461 trillion. Personal income after taxes then was $925.9 billion. Today it is $11.046 trillion. Those are increases of 11.24 and 11.93 times, respectively. The CPI has risen 5.1 fold over the same stretch. Real income after taxes are more than doubled - up 2.34 times - a rate of increase of 2.3% a year faster than inflation.
The US is one of the richest societies in human history and this is about the richest we've ever been. The peak of the recent cycle was, in every measure there is. And in 3 to 5 years we will be the richest we've ever been, with the regularity of a Swiss watch.
Your not finding this convenient for your doom mongering ideology is not required for its truth.
You can spout whatever lies you want but I gave you the charts that do not lie. That real wages are down from 1972. That would be real wages in the real world. Not Jason’s fantasy world
You are an empty head cheerleader ..... I hear the LA Rams are hiring
$18.25 trillion in real estate
$11.5 trillion in pension funds
$7.4 trillion in corporate stock directly held
$6.5 trillion ownership of small businesses
$6 trillion in CDs and savings accounts
$4.2 trillion in mutual fund shares
$2.4 trillion in corporate bonds directly held
$1.4 trillion in money funds directly held
$1.23 trillion in savings-form life insurance
$1 trillion in municipal bonds directly held
$600 billion in treasury bonds directly held
$380 billion in checking accounts and currency
$200 billion in US savings bonds
$100 billion in directly owned mortgages etc
Against those major assets, they have these major liabilities
$10.3 trillion in mortgages
$2.5 trillion in consumer credit
And a few hundred billion scale miscellaneous loan categories (bank loans not otherwise covered etc)
The American people are not paupers. Stop peddling commie class war bilge.
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