Posted on 07/11/2016 7:53:35 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
Berkeley economist has stumbled on a trend an increasing number of Americans experience annually: We’ve had a pretend economy in the United States for at least 16 years. "Bottom 99% incomes grew by 3.9% from 2014 to 2015, the best annual growth rate since 1999," Emmanuel Saez wrote in a paper on June 30, 2016.
A trio of researchers from the International Monetary Fund was much less oblique in a paper that they wrote last month on "the rise of income polarization — what some have referred to as the 'hollowing out' of the income distribution — in the United States, since the 1970s."
"While in the initial decades more middle-income households moved up, rather than down, the income ladder, since the turn of the current century, most of polarization has been towards lower incomes," Ali Alichi, Kory Kantenga, Juan Solé wrote.
It is worth noting that, during this time period, the survival rates of new businesses, as compiled by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, decreased from 48.8 percent to 20.4 percent. So if you think that you have noticed an increasing number of "Going out of business" signs in the past 16 years, it is not your imagination.
The true unemployment rate in America is between twenty and thirty percent. I'd say worse. People cope with the failed economy by borrowing and working two incomes. It undermines integrity and the family
That would not have anything to do with the voluminous amounts of government regulations, would it?
Small business being driven under by government. At the behest of big business, which is paying protection money. All according to plan.
On one hand, I can see the business failure rate increase because so many businesses are nothing more than middlemen or service-based entities with few or no hard assets ie IT firms etc. who fold and reform many times over.
However, I have long believed that we have what I term a Propaganda Economy once politicians discovered (or perfected) the technique of pumping Wall Street up in order to placate East Coast media types who convinced the rest of America that everything was going smoothly.
Naturally we decry governmental interference in the marketplace but it’s much worse than that because it’s all political/ideological. As with all things, the race bizness caused the subprime disaster. Less well-known but still problematic was the targeting of insurance firms for nonexistent ‘redlining’ ie the very rational and sensible actuarial assessment of risk by geography. This , of course, was not good enough for race hustlers who did not want to admit that a bad neighborhood was a bad neighborhood so they went after the insurers. Like the banks, the insurers had to offer products to deadbeats and, like the banks, they sure as hell weren’t going to do it out of kindness. This means you and I and every other responsible policy holder got to subsidize the criminal, the dangerous and the perpetually pi**ed off.
Insurance rates for a safe, accident-free motorist with an older vehicle are ludicrous.
Plus cheep labor from our outsourced and imported/immigrant global economy.
>>That would not have anything to do with the voluminous amounts of government regulations, would it?
It has to do with a lot of things. Stop looking for a single bogeyman and seek the full truth of our situation.
now that’s an interesting point. According to the Heritage Foundation, the Obama Administration slapped $100 billion worth of new regulations on the economy. The more conservative Bush Administration which preceded it only dumped $70 billion worth of new regulations on it.
> The true unemployment rate in America is between twenty and thirty percent. I’d say worse. People cope with the failed economy by borrowing and working two incomes. It undermines integrity and the family
Last year I experienced the most difficult year I’ve had in all my adult years. I had to watch every penny sent and that’s only when I had them. I attribute the horrible economy to the failed economic policies of the administration (the new regulations, fees, and taxes that cut into the bottom line of companies), the general overallsocialist mindset in general that businesses making a profit are bad, ergo they should be punished with higher taxes, and just the overal general feeling of fear which gripped the entire nation. There was no feeling of security. Everything coming at you from every direction which just a bad feeling in the pit of you stomach that kicks in when your instincts sense something isn’t right and you get the feeling that the Gestapo is ready to put their heel to your neck. People do not invest or risk much in such a business environment. Another one of my buddies whose business went downhill beginning sometime in 2011 or 2012 like myself went through the same thing. He went to a bank to get a loan in a small town where the loan officer was a friend and was denied. He asked why because he always repaid his loans and the loan officer calmly said,
“you need to wait until we a new president in office”. I know so many others who went through the same type of thing when they lost their jobs, many who had held their jobs for several decades. I’d like to see a TRUE comparison of the business closure rate during the last 7 years as compared to other presidents. I bet the results would reveal that the administration has been cooking the numbers so bad it would blow most people’s minds.
Saw one of those “prices back in the year so-and-so” things the other day.
Everything was about 20x as high (housing, cars, wages).
Staple foods were at least double that.
So it is your supposition that gov reg's had nothing to do with businesses failing?
Economists have been searching for a way to tame the “business cycle” or whatever you want to call it for over a hundred years. The remedies are always worse than the disease. If they wanted to be serious there is a 3,000 year old formula but no one has ever seriously tried it.
You are exactly right.
Good point to remember. How often does one look at startup businesses, especially retail establishments, and wonder who in their right mind would ever have approved their business plans.
I started 2 companies in the 90’s. Hated the government but it wasn’t too bad even with up to 5 employees.
Started another 2 companies in the last 4 years. Government is worse and I have avoided hiring employees even though I can get enough work. I’ve seriously looked into employees for both companies and decided I’d rather not. Shutting down one of the companies next month even though I could give 2-4 employees full time work for the foreseeable future. Not worth it because of the government paperwork and the crap-shoot in hiring junior IT people (i.e. millennials) who may be great for a few months then decide “work/life balance” needs to skew too much to “life” (20 hours a week of actual work is too much).
>>So it is your supposition that gov reg’s had nothing to do with businesses failing?
Nice try at selectively ignoring the parts of my post that matter, but this is what I said:
“It has to do with a lot of things. Stop looking for a single bogeyman and seek the full truth of our situation.”
Try to be a bit more honest in the future. OK?
I am not being dishonest and you are dodging the question.
>>I am not being dishonest and you are dodging the question.
There was no legitimate question. I said that there are a lot of causes. Some business owners cite OSHA as a cause. That means that they are claiming that maintaining a safe workplace is a reason they can’t be profitable because OSHA maintains a very light footprint except in places where people are getting hurt routinely.
But government regulation does add costs to a business so it is a contributor. But there are plenty of other causes as well.
I said to stop looking for a SINGLE bogeyman. Bad management kills more businesses than government regulation.
I did not say that gov reg's were the only cause, but you chose to latch onto that. Fact of the matter is, gov reg's DO cause businesses to go under, to say the obverse is denying the facts. Management also plays into the calculus, not denying that but my statement was pointed at one, not every aspect.
Your decision to begin this discourse on an hostile note was uncalled for.
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