NIALL FERGUSON: This Is The Study That Shows Why The US Economy Is Doomed

BI ^ | 04/05/12 | Rob Wile

[TigerLikesRooster]

http://www.businessinsider.com/study-company-us-2012-4

NIALL FERGUSON: This Is The Study That Shows Why The US Economy Is Doomed

Rob Wile | Apr. 5, 2012, 2:02 PM | 17,651 | 67

A Harvard Business School study that Niall Ferguson pointed us to today shows the U.S. has fallen severely behind in terms of international competitiveness.

The study, from January, found that for Harvard alums personally involved in a company relocation decision, 57 percent said the decision "involved the possibility of moving existing activities out of the U.S."

Meanwhile, only 9 percent considered moving existing activities from another country into the U.S. "A U.S.-based respondent was three times as likely to be considering moving business activity out of the U.S. than a non-U.S. respondent was likely to be considering moving an activity into the U.S," writes Professor Michael Porter, the study's author.

The most interesting table from the study plotted current versus expected American industry sector global success.

No, you're not missing something: The respondents expect a decline in competitiveness for all sectors.

[unkus]

Add this to Facebook , if you like:

---

The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.” — Author Unknown

[unkus]

Communism is insidious and ever so evil.

[JudgemAll]

THey always demand obedience while they riot and rape our lives “in the name of public disobedience and sexual freedom”.

[unkus]

THey always demand obedience while they riot and rape our lives “in the name of public disobedience and sexual freedom”.

---

Yes, that’s a small part of it.

[JudgemAll]

What they do apparently is modeled after Jersey Shores, which is where people have no weapons but keep threatening each other for little things and what not. Sartres called it “hell is the other”, as a sort of ideal thing.

PEople with guns do not lead “stupid little detailed” argumentative conversations, they go with the constitution and general peace. What is being bread is a bunch of crazies, and then weapons or government powers are handed to those crazies who bugger the nation out and call it “moderate” behavior.

[JudgemAll]

I think the key is to be just as argumentative stupid and berate them for sports, and if they really wish to bring in the guns, then it’s game time. But, in the meantime, it is mere “tribal broohaha”, all those stupid laws, unless lemmings start selling their guns for Mac meals.

[unkus]

You’re right. It’s Social Engeneering.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

I think this has something to do with it, too.

17 Facts About The Decline Of The U.S. Auto Industry That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

Even if you don't agree with all of the author's conclusions, there can be no doubt that the decline of the US auto industry has a lot to do with what's wrong now.

[wintertime]

Perhaps the NUMBER ONE issue conservatives should be focused on is ending the government monopoly on the schools. 100% school choice needs to be the law of the land, so that religious schools could be freely chosen by everyone who wants to attend them.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thank goodness! Another conservative that “gets it” !

Government K-12 socialist-entitlement schooling is our nation's **most** serious and urgent threat. I doubt that our nation can survive one more generation of voters being indoctrinated in these souless pits of ignorance.

Government owned and run schools are godless! **ALL** of them! Children who attend **will** learn to think and reason godlessly. They must simply to cooperate in the classroom. How could it be otherwise?

Modern government owned and run schools are the very definition of a socialist entitlement. They have **always** been a socialist entitlement. Children who attend these schools risk learning that the voting mob that is powerful enough to give them tuition-free schooling is, indeed, powerful enough to give them **lots** of free stuff. ( Franklin D. Roosevelt wasn't an accident. He was the result of 1 to 3 generations of socialist-entitlement government schooling.)

Modern government schools are run like prisons. Every First Amendment Right of the child and parent and ( indirectly) the taxpayer is crushed. In other words, government schools are training our nation's children to be compliant prisoners of the state. If and when tyranny comes, the oligarchy will not use cattle cards. They will use yellow school buses to haul citizens off to the concentration camps, and citizens will placidly comply!

[mo]

The CommiCrats running the US have created an utterly hostile tax and regulatory environment.

[COUNTrecount]

Noted.

[wintertime]

I urge all Freepers to read this article. It is well worth the time.

I especially urge them to go to the link at the bottom of the article to review charts #9 and #10.

Here is a link to these charts. Please note K-12 education and availability of skilled workers.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-1-thing-that-businesses-hate-about-the-us-economy-2012-4

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

“..it’s not as dire as you conclude. If the US government stopped borrowing, all the money currently going to buy T-bills would go elsewhere, possibly including funding new startups, low-interest business loans, buying new bonds, ... all of which would grow our economy much more than government spending.”

I am not sure that’s a true truth, indeed, I tend to doubt it. I agree with you in an idealized “lab” environment, but I posit we are not in such. The gov’t cannot “stop” borrowing because it would run right over a cliff in scary short time. We would see dramatic forced reductions in entitlements that would almost certainly create civil unrest and I do not exaggerate. I’m talking 30-40-50%, “overnight”.

So, let’s ponder “slowing” borrowing. I think there’s reason to project that this would be a multiple-moving-part situation. Lots of demand (currently in form of synthetic, non-market-driven) buying of bills would disappear. Prices would fall, rates would rise. Some organic demand would come back to chase the higher yields, but I think this would place all of Barnankes’ purchases to date under water, meaning he would have to hold them to maturity or take losses on them. I can’t say what he would do, but we can conclude that he wouldn’t be buying Kagenloads of T-bills now today if he liked higher rates. No, he thinks lower rates and easy money are the answer to everything. So part of what this discussion is about is what the natural market would do, and part is what Bernank would do. If the USGuv *stopped* borrowing (by buying T-bills) then the price of those bills would almost certainly rise. Then those bills would become lots more attractive to investors (which is why I disagree with the idea that investment money would begin to flow into productive startups, etc;)

But that would mean the larger economy would crater. I mean just imagine if mort rates went back to 6-7-8% like they’ve been probably for most of your life and my life. Housing would implode, and the costs of refinancing existing US debt would sky. This is the box Bernanke is in.

[alrea]

Romney is a national socialist, a fascist; please explain how that is better?

The Romneys donated about 16.4 percent of their adjusted gross income of $42.5 million in the two-year period, according to their 2010 tax returns and an estimate for 2011 taxes. Would a socialist give to charity and church like this?

Doubt it.

[Captain Peter Blood]

The short term effects would be worse than that. The contraction would be more like 50%.
We are borrowing .53 cents of every dollar spent.
To put things in immediate balance would require across the board spending cut us of at least 50% or more and no more debt.
That in itself will mean massive reductions in Social Security and Medicare benefits and the Baby Boomers heading into retirement get nothing.

[Bryanw92]

I didn’t call him a national socialist. I was just quoting another post. I was pointing out that a national socialist is preferable to an america-hating communist like Obama. I’m no a Romney fan, but this “Romney is the same as Obama” hysteria on FR is ridiculous. Obama represents the end of the US as we know it and his speeches and writings prove his intent, so anyone is better than him.

But, in answer to your question: yes, I think that a socialist with a strong sense of the “social gospel” would give 15% of his income to charity, especially his church. I know several very liberal Methodists who give freely to charity and directly to the poor and they far exceed any 10% tithe. A devout Mormon who gives 16% would not surprise me at all, regardless of his politics.

[SatinDoll]

George Soros has said that there is no difference between BHO2 and Romney.

One is a communist (Marxist-Leninist) and the other a fascist (national socialist). Both believe government is God and neither has any respect for the U.S.Constitution.

Neither gives a damn about the rights of individuals. The common man, or woman, on the street is just a “unit” to be taxed or obliterated, it matters not to them.

The last thing that either man wants is for Americans with Bibles and guns asserting their God-given rights and demanding that Washington, D.C., changes how it does business.

Obama is an atheist. He is only a Muslim or Christian when politically expedient. What he has done in North Africa is to destroy the westernized economies of those nations and set them back three hundred years. Those people will be starving during the next two to three years, resulting in plagues and massive upheaval, the perfect political scenario for imposing Marxism. Obama is evil, on that we both agree.

Romney and Wall Street are Globalists who care not a wit for American values. First and foremost, they see themselves as world citizens, responsible for maintaining peace and security world-wide through commerce. The role U.S. military plays is to maintain that global presence, project American military might, and provide security for international business under the guise of “U.S. national interests”.

Unfortunately, that military is paid for by tax revenue and staffed by the sons and daughters of people who no longer have jobs, as those have all been moved offshore by the above mentioned “world citizens” who want only money.

This election in 2012 is all about money, power, and who will eventually wield both here at home and internationally.

Gov.Mitt Romney is the candidate for the elitist Republicans who are, in essense, supporters of Globalism.
Wall Street’s business model is international in scope and must have security overseas in order for commerce to thrive. In an attempt to dominate international commerce AND the monetary structure, the U.S.A. must project military strength world wide. This has been neither conservative nor liberal in the past, both Democrats and Republicans have been involved over the decades, and our Congress quietly went along. Then Obama arrived on the scene when Democrats saw an opportunity to control all aspects of the U.S.government.

Obama is a Marxist. He’s all about Global Social Justice (communism) which means redistributing wealth and destroying the United States.

The choice we’re facing is quick and brutal destruction by Obama, or slow, sure destruction via by Romney.

It is easier to overhtrow the elitists in the Republican Party and Conservatives take the Party back from the fascists. That is the path we should take.

I doubt another opportunity will arise in the next two decades.

[Bryanw92]

>>The choice we’re facing is quick and brutal destruction by Obama, or slow, sure destruction via by Romney.

The problem is more complicated. Technology has broken capitalism. I am an automation engineer. I put people out of work. I can take a process that used to require a dozen skilled or semi-skilled humans and reduce it to one or two barely literate machine operators who just monitor the machinery. How can you have a free market economy where human labor is cheapened like that?

Obama and Romney are both in favor of this because to the former, that means that people have to go on the dole to survive and to the latter, that means profits for the rich and nothing more for the dwindling working class than just enough money to survive. But, most people on FR are also in favor of this because they believe that all profits are for the shareholders. If we truly had a free market, I would make $300k+ a year or more because I replace 100 workers. But, the shareholder class has decided that even though I replace 100 workers, I am still just a worker and deserve a worker’s wage.

>>Neither gives a damn about the rights of individuals. The common man, or woman, on the street is just a “unit” to be taxed or obliterated, it matters not to them.

You say “taxed or obliterated”. I say that Obama wants us controlled via “subsidies” if we are poor or taxed harshly if we are rich. Romney wants us to serve our employers, if we have one, but only as temporary labor so that we can be retasked continuously to send massive profits to the top while the worker toils endlessly with no security other than the hope of a new boss tomorrow.

So, to me the economics of Romney vs Obama are moot. The only thing that matters is that Romney does not hate me for my skin color or religion or nationality, but Obama hates me for all three.

[redgolum]

I think that is a possibility, but also realize the other side of the coin. We continue down the slope to a police state.

In the end, democracies always do.

[redgolum]

Hate to say it, but you are right. To an extent.