Why don't the top 5% spend more and lift the economy?

Mav88 · Sep 16, 2008

Well there is plenty of american shit that don't work either, my main point is that we are actually trading with a superior competitor and that spells trouble. They are just as skilled, if not more, but will work at a much lower wage.

Without a comparative advantage, American labor will be drug down.

vv111y · Sep 16, 2008

Quote from GermanTrader:

Trickle-down didn't trickle.

Respectfully, If you think globalisation is good, you don't understand it. Read the NAFTA treaty. I did. It's 6,192 pages with side agreements. And no, reading only the summaries, or someone else's opinion of the summaries, won't help.

You're killing me... and probably other people too

There's got to be a decent summary somewhere we can use.

gnome · Sep 16, 2008

Quote from GermanTrader:

The choice is to:

1) pay the least amount to buy the most stuff, and ignore the loss of living-wage jobs that you and your kids could have had;
OR
2) pay the amount it takes to make it here, to preserve the living-wage jobs that you and your kids could have.

Recently wifey must have had some money burning a hole in her pocket.... "had" to go buy some new furniture.

Found some nice cherry wood stuff at one store for about $2900. Found some nice cherry wood in another store for nearly $10,000. When I asked the sales person why theirs was so much more expensive, she replied "ours is made in America"....

Hydroblunt · Sep 16, 2008

Quote from vv111y:

You're killing me... and probably other people too

There's got to be a decent summary somewhere we can use.

Plenty of research on the web and videos on youtube where people focus on key parts of NAFTA, WTO and the likes.

It's relatively basic at its nature:

1) destroy sovereignty
2) consolidate power via a bureaucracy with no oversight
3) consolidate wealth

It gets scarier when you get into the provisions about food & genetics.

walter4 · Sep 16, 2008

Quote from gnome:

Found some nice cherry wood stuff at one store for about $2900. Found some nice cherry wood in another store for nearly $10,000. When I asked the sales person why theirs was so much more expensive, she replied "ours is made in America"....

So, which one did you buy?

GermanTrader · Sep 16, 2008

Quote from Mav88:

Well there is plenty of american shit that don't work either, my main point is that we are actually trading with a superior competitor and that spells trouble. They are just as skilled, if not more, but will work at a much lower wage.

Without a comparative advantage, American labor will be drug down.

No, they are not superior competitors. They are given superior leverage in the marketplace via free trade, which is not fair trade without proper tariffs. Given a choice of American-made or foreign-made at the same price, we always chose American-made until globalism started crapping on our way of life. American labor has been going down for two generations now. The only way to fix it is to reindustrialize America. Without it, we have nothing value-added to sell, even to ourselves.

gnome · Sep 16, 2008

Quote from walter4:

So, which one did you buy?

I asked her, "Would you rather have Door #1 + $7,000 to spend on other things" or "Door #2, and no $7,000"?

Which do you think?

Until 10 years ago or so, there would have been no "choice"... just Door #2.... That's NAFTA and its progeny for you.

bkveen3 · Sep 16, 2008

Quote from gnome:

The rich and powerful have always been in on the "design" of things... plenty enough reason to aspire to become one of them.

In a capitalistic economy there is "unequal distribution of the fruits"... in a socialistic economy, there is "equal distribution of the misery". (Government controllers excluded, of course.)

I think gnome nails it on the head. It isn't about the rich giving to the poor. Its about the poor seeing the rich and trying to be like them.

poyayan · Sep 16, 2008

Quote from walter4:

I don't think so. Look at the bullshit they're buying: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=131728

That's how you contribute to the economy? By buying dirt cheap chinese bullshit?
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=113113&perpage=6&pagenumber=1

That's some funny comment. Try to restrict your buying only to US made only. See how long you can last. Oh, no multi-national US stock neither.

US can't even balance the budget and therefore it is cheating money out of next generation. Now, you are talking about sacrificing yourself for US labor. Give me a break.

You call it cheap labor, the reality is US labor currently is not competitive. There are only 2 ways to fix it. Increase cost of foreign labor or decrease cost of US labor. Increase shpping cost will do it too. The gap is getting smaller everyday.

The real solution for manufacturing is neither. US once dominate manufacturer by assembly lines. It can once dominate again by fully automated manufacturing lines. But yea, that still won't help high school drop out.

Mav88 · Sep 16, 2008

No, they are not superior competitors. They are given superior leverage in the marketplace via free trade, which is not fair trade without proper tariffs. Given a choice of American-made or foreign-made at the same price, we always chose American-made until globalism started crapping on our way of life. American labor has been going down for two generations now. The only way to fix it is to reindustrialize America. Without it, we have nothing value-added to sell, even to ourselves.

fair trade = tariffs? the other guy would not call it fair, just goes to show the relative nature of that concept.

Actually I wasn't even thinking about just manufacturing, but rather the services and high tech. They are starting to put out more and better engineers which makes them a superior competitor. Why on earth would we want to trasnsfer more wealth to them than we have to.