Why did the US send so much work overseas?

Quote from KINGOFSHORTS:

So you are saying Americans can achieve home ownership, family car and TV set, food on the table 3 kids and capacity to afford health care with just one person working and the other staying home?


Today?
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Yes, but it depends on where you live. If you choose to live where housing is expensive, then no. Where I live, $35K a year will get you a 4 bdrm, 3bath home, 2 cars, health care, and food on the table.

How do I know, because two of my siblings and a few of my friends are in that exact situation.

My brother makes $35K gross.
Wife stays home with 2 kids
House = 5 bdrm 3 bath
They have 2 cars
48" flat panel TV
They don't even run a really tight budget.

Depends on what you consider middle class. Not sure that I would consider a 3,500s.f. home to be middle class in most areas of the country.
 
Where your brother lives, $35k likely isn't the median salary. It's probably closer to $25k. Can someone who makes $20-25k afford the same things? Doubtful. In fact, someone who makes $25k probably couldn't even afford a 1200 square foot house and one kid.
 
Quote from psychonin:

Where do you live?
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He clearly lives in Fantasy Land.

I live in Florida. Even a few hundred miles northwest from here, you couldn't afford a 3500 square foot house on a $35k/year salary in the Alabama backwoods. So, I call bullshit.
 
Quote from aegis:

Where your brother lives, $35k likely isn't the median salary. It's probably closer to $25k. Can someone who makes $20-25k afford the same things? Doubtful. In fact, someone who makes $25k probably couldn't even afford a 1200 square foot house and one kid.
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You're right. Point well taken. Median income for males here was only $32,000 and for families it was $39K. Average family size here is 3.5.

I live in Utah. The house I referred to cost $190K and is very typical of homes built in the late 60's early 70's. Ranch style. There are tons of them on about 1/4acre lots.

1,200s.f. townhome here costs about $105K.
 
Why did the US send so much work overseas?

Because Americans spends more money than they make. If you consume more than you produce, the only place for the shortfall has to come from outside of the country.
 
1200 sf townhome in some parts of houston is only 50k.
3000sf in suburb of houston only 105k new (I will admit the labor used wasn't the highest quality and wasn't legal either)

btw, its alwasy been that way, even before the collapse.

while other fight over rat holes and sardine cans, some live easy
 
Learn to build your own homes...wtf.

It's not difficult, you can snag contractors for 50% their former pay right now, and materials are down anywhere from 20% to 45%, if you know where to buy and how to negotiate.
 
Quote from Random.Capital:

Would be interesting to see GDP growth normalized to debt growth over the past 3 decades or so. The data is available, I just haven't had a chance to put it together yet.
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Ask and you shall receive. Attached is a graph comparing GDP to Public Debt since 1969. Both have been adjusted to 2008 dollars.

I realize that I'm gonna catch a ton of flack for this graph, because there are so many out there who are claiming that the debt is simply exploding. I don't really care, I don't really have a position one way or the other. I just pulled the numbers and performed the inflation adjustments, then double checked the numbers to find any errors.

In summary, over the last 4 decades, there has been a pretty constant $4 Trillion gap between the public debt and GDP. At first glance one might think that this is not a problem as the debt doesn't seem to be overtaking the GDP. The problem becomes evident in the proportions.

IN 1969 the public debt was 36% of GDP. It has gradually grown to a size now of 70% of GDP. IOW, or ability to pay off the debt is dropping quickly. My interest is now drawn to the significance of the $4trillion number.
 

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