Another Great Depression

[Guest]

Points to ponder.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell122308.php3 :bowdown:

[Guest]

I am frightened that we are going to see bad bad things for the end of our lives.

[Guest]

I am frightened that we are going to see bad bad things for the end of our lives.

While I DO see some positive signs coming from President Elect Obama, I am still very afraid that the current financial crisis and the election make up the "perfect storm" !!! I do not see the same "signs" coming from congress or others who supported and financed his election....one example being the UAW...it will be very interesting how the new President handles the situation once he has the power to reverse the conditions of the auto bail out !

[Guest]

There is a time and a place for government involvement, and trying to rapidly change corporate and union greed isn't one of them. The best "market corrections" are those that occur without government intervention. Politics and business have always been a bad mix.

[Guest]

I think we need to have the American public buy more foreign cars to help our economy, last time I looked there were about 75% foreign cars in the parking lots here in TV (I wonder how many residents in TV retired from Toyota, Honda or some other foreign car manufacturer). Maybe if we can get the foreign car % ownership up closer to 90% we can turn this economy around.

[Guest]

It might be interesting to know what percentage of our total economy is based on the big three domestic automakers.
What percentage of our economy is spent at Walmart on Chinese goods?

If you may have some stake in the welfare of UAW, you may be biased in your argument. IMHO, the American automaker sold us planned obsolescence. The Japanese ate their lunch. It should never have been that way. We should have been at the forefront of technology. When did we stop being at the forefront?
Why did we ever allow them to build a better vehicle than we could build?
It is a scary world right now. Maybe our lawmakers and our workers should all go back and read "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead".

[Guest]

I think we need to have the American public buy more foreign cars to help our economy, last time I looked there were about 75% foreign cars in the parking lots here in TV (I wonder how many residents in TV retired from Toyota, Honda or some other foreign car manufacturer). Maybe if we can get the foreign car % ownership up closer to 90% we can turn this economy around.

The economy didn't tank because Americans buy ANY foreign products, but because the American public went on a credit spending spree, caused in most part by the governments insistence that banks give loans to less than credit worthy borrowers.

How many stupid people tried to live "large" on credit? They took mortgages they couldn't afford and took "paper" equity out of their homes to buy huge American SUVs, and second homes to try to flip them.

You've heard that "it's the economy stupid"? Well it's really all those people that "lived beyond their means stupid"?:evil6:

[Guest]

The economy didn't tank because Americans buy ANY foreign products, but because the American public went on a credit spending spree, caused in most part by the governments insistence that banks give loans to less than credit worthy borrowers.

How many stupid people tried to live "large" on credit? They took mortgages they couldn't afford and took "paper" equity out of their homes to buy huge American SUVs, and second homes to try to flip them.

You've heard that "it's the economy stupid"? Well it's really all those people that "lived beyond their means stupid"?:evil6:

IMHO we have become a nation of spoiled, instant gratification people that think we are OWED things...not that we need to earn ! Credit became a vehicle to get those things that we did not earn...we have to have it faster and quicker than our parents, etc. The credit became easy because money was being made by many, INCLUDING POLITICIANS !!!

We MUST HAVE and DESERVE things...such is the mindset. We are owed a college education, a large house, a car of our choice...the mindset today is that those things are our birthright and NOT things to be worked for and earned. The UAW, not only them, fell into this line of thinking...read about those who get paid for not working, etc. They believed this was owed to them and held the companies up to get it. I am not talking about a decent wage here, a good workplace....well beyond that.

Sorry if this sounds negative, but I have yet to see any evidence that my opinion is not correct.

[Guest]

I agree. In my business I have seen many people live beyond their means. I wish our auto companies could get it together. I would gladly buy an American car, if they built a reliable one. I got tired of driving my car out of the showroom and coming back repeatedly for repairs.

[Guest]

just eat your imports!!!!

BTK

[Guest]

just eat your imports!!!!

BTK

Including the Fords and Chevys built in Mexico?

[Guest]

just eat your imports!!!!

BTK
There's a lot more involved here than automobiles - and that's the rub. The auto industry is trying nto make themselves as the biggie, but I'm not sure they're right.

I strolled through Target yesterday and didn't find a manufactured anything that didn't have a ""Made in China" label. Target probably had Americn-made goods, but they just weren't evident. Have tried the same stroll through Walmart, with similar results. Vendor night in TV isn't much different, with the luggage, leather goods and other stuff having a "M-I-C" tag.

In a perfect economic world, money cycles through the community several times. Wages are used to buy local goods, which result in more wages, and so on and so on. The government gets its cut several times along the way, resulting in many "litte bites" instead of a couple big ones.

The US economic model is now wages buying Chinese goods, resulting in the money being taken out of the economy and sent across the Pacific. There is no cycling of the money, resulting in the "economic wheel" stopping. So, any "economic stimulus" which puts more money into consumers' pockets to spend does no good, if the spent funds are for Chinese (and other) goods resulting in the money not internally cycling.

While motor vehicle purchases are significant, the everyday purchase of foreign-made televisions, computers, vacuum cleaners, counter-top grills, picture frames, coffee cups, and other under-$1000 purchases is what's stalling the US economy.

[Guest]

and when pointing out non recycling of money...lest we all forget the biggie of that club....$700,000,000,000 to foreign oil suppliers and GROWING!

What you point out is an aspect of the economic cycle that the masses have no concept or understanding.

My favorite subject of lost manufacturing because of unions or cost saving measures....each and every industry...for example machine tool manufacturers...once upon a time almost all were used in USA factories...there were upwards to 800 machine tool companies here in the USA....in the late 80's that number was less than 100....

So in addition to the masses consumer product $$ not coming back..ditto for commercial and almost any other manufactured products.

No manufacturing = no jobs...no rocket science.

And when considering the future one can only look at today and safely say it will never BE THIS GOOD AGAIN...not just a prognosis...it is a continuum!!!!!

BTK

[Guest]

It is changing to high value added products. Steve is right when he says that the stores are filled with lots of consumer products from China. However, the nation with the largest manufacturing base in the world is the United States with 21% of the manufacturing world wide.. The US no longer makes tv's, video games, dvd players, etc. We do have the largest marketshare of the integrated circuit manufacturing.

We make more than half of all commercial and military aircraft in the world as well as better than two-thirds of the engines that power these planes. We have lost share is automobile production but dominate in construction and farm equipment. We do not make shoes, but provide the hides that are converted into leather in Brazil and then made into shoes in Italy.

We no longer sew shirts and blouses, (remember, "Look for the union label.") but do produce large quantities of engineering plastics.

Our manufacturing sector has grown steadily since WWII and shows no sign of decline. What has changed is the nature of manufacturing. The 'blue collar' worker we think of when we talk of manufacturing has in large part been replaced by people in white coats working in clean rooms. Think of drugs and medical equipment where we are so far ahead, it is hard to find second place.

Our manufacturing sector will continue to grow if new tax policies do not prop up old industries at the expense of the new and critical sectors. If we do not build cars, that is a loss, but if we lose our way in the new fields such as nano-technology, we are finished as a first rank country.

[Guest]

It might be interesting to know what percentage of our total economy is based on the big three domestic automakers.
What percentage of our economy is spent at Walmart on Chinese goods?

If you may have some stake in the welfare of UAW, you may be biased in your argument. IMHO, the American automaker sold us planned obsolescence. The Japanese ate their lunch. It should never have been that way. We should have been at the forefront of technology. When did we stop being at the forefront?

Why did we ever allow them to build a better vehicle than we could build?
It is a scary world right now. Maybe our lawmakers and our workers should all go back and read "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead".

I don't know what percentage of our total economy is based on the Big Three, nor do I know what percentage of our economy is spent at Wal-Mart on Chinese goods (though I do suspect it is not low). What I was told by an economist friend struck me as a staggering statistic: that 1% of the GNP of China--a huge and rapidly growing economy--is Wal-Mart alone!

The last 'Big Three' car we ever owned was a 1984 Ford. It had three warranty problems, none really major, but I had to do endless battle, fighting tooth and nail nonstop with Ford Motor Company, to get them to stand behind their warranty--and deal with the inconvenience of bringing the car back and forth, having it laid up, and so forth. I can't say--I don't know--if this was a management or a UAW or some other issue, but at that point we said 'never again,' and so it's been. Since then we've owned Honda, Toyota, and Mitsubishi and have never had such problems.

When I was a kid growing up in New York City I used to go to lectures given by Nathaniel Brandon and Ayn Rand. Both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are sitting on our bookshelf waiting for me to find that 'copious free time' that I thought came with retirement to re-read. And maybe it should be required reading....

[Guest]

My last 6 cars have been made in the USA. HHR, Impala, Silverado, 3 Rangers, and they all have served me well. It isn't the 70's anymore. I will continue to buy American, not just help our economy, but because they are good products at a good value.

[Guest]

It is changing to high value added products. Steve is right when he says that the stores are filled with lots of consumer products from China. However, the nation with the largest manufacturing base in the world is the United States with 21% of the manufacturing world wide.. The US no longer makes tv's, video games, dvd players, etc. We do have the largest marketshare of the integrated circuit manufacturing.

We make more than half of all commercial and military aircraft in the world as well as better than two-thirds of the engines that power these planes. We have lost share is automobile production but dominate in construction and farm equipment. We do not make shoes, but provide the hides that are converted into leather in Brazil and then made into shoes in Italy.

We no longer sew shirts and blouses, (remember, "Look for the union label.") but do produce large quantities of engineering plastics.

Our manufacturing sector has grown steadily since WWII and shows no sign of decline. What has changed is the nature of manufacturing. The 'blue collar' worker we think of when we talk of manufacturing has in large part been replaced by people in white coats working in clean rooms. Think of drugs and medical equipment where we are so far ahead, it is hard to find second place.

Our manufacturing sector will continue to grow if new tax policies do not prop up old industries at the expense of the new and critical sectors. If we do not build cars, that is a loss, but if we lose our way in the new fields such as nano-technology, we are finished as a first rank country.

I am not a "big thinker" like most of you, but this post was encouraging. Thank you.

[Guest]

and longer.
There are many categories of "manufacturing"...like pills or locomotives or nano components or washers & dryers...
Auto, appliance, locomotive and machine tool manufacturing are just a few of the traditional manufacturing...all in decline to almost extinction....
see the following to get a calibration:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/97xx/doc9749/12-23-Manufacturing.pdf

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp149

http://www.workingforamerica.org/documents/manuupdate.htm

Manufacturing employment decline has been and continues to be real...

BTK

[Guest]

and longer.
There are many categories of "manufacturing"...like pills or locomotives or nano components or washers & dryers...
Auto, appliance, locomotive and machine tool manufacturing are just a few of the traditional manufacturing...all in decline to almost extinction....
see the following to get a calibration:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/97xx/doc9749/12-23-Manufacturing.pdf

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp149

http://www.workingforamerica.org/documents/manuupdate.htm

Manufacturing employment decline has been and continues to be real...

BTK

This is correct - manufacturing employment has been declining and will continue to do so. However, manufacturing output will continue to increase. This is the result of increased productivity. The easiest way to understand this is to look at the ratio of farmers to city dwellers. In the late 1800's/early 1900's 90% of the population lived and worked on the farm and was able to provide enough food for themselves and the 10% who lived in cities. Today, less than 5% of the population lives and works on the farm and they not only feed the rest of us but have enough left over to feed a large export industry.

Farming is reaping the rewards of technology. Manufacturing is now going through a similar transition. A number of critical developments created the need/opportunity for manufacturing to flourish. Key among them, electricity. Their would be no need for washing machines, consumer electronics and a host of other things w/o electricity in the home.

Today we are looking at amazing new technologies in virtually every field. Our great challenge is to find the knowledge workers that can let us develop them and put them into production.

[Guest]

This is correct - manufacturing employment has been declining and will continue to do so. However, manufacturing output will continue to increase. This is the result of increased productivity. The easiest way to understand this is to look at the ratio of farmers to city dwellers. In the late 1800's/early 1900's 90% of the population lived and worked on the farm and was able to provide enough food for themselves and the 10% who lived in cities. Today, less than 5% of the population lives and works on the farm and they not only feed the rest of us but have enough left over to feed a large export industry.

Farming is reaping the rewards of technology. Manufacturing is now going through a similar transition. A number of critical developments created the need/opportunity for manufacturing to flourish. Key among them, electricity. Their would be no need for washing machines, consumer electronics and a host of other things w/o electricity in the home.

Today we are looking at amazing new technologies in virtually every field. Our great challenge is to find the knowledge workers that can let us develop them and put them into production.

However, the high-end manufacturing doesn't promulgate the economic cycle as low-end does. Low-end tends to keep the money in local circulation, unless the low-end comes from offshore. Very few people buy aircraft or Cray supercomputers, whereas the number of coffee cups, TVs and radios, under-$500 electronics, appliances of all sizes are in constant sales.

Every consumer purchase of $100 for Chinese goods results in approximately $30 sent to the manufacturer, $10 in international shipping, and the rest to middle-men and domestic transport. The percentages may be off somewhat, but not by a lot. So, that's approximately 40% of the consumer cost for Chinese (and other foreign) goods forever taken out of our economic cycle for each purchase made. Now, if the Chinese imported the same value from the US, then the economic effect would be Zero. However, with our balance of payments way to the negative, their economy is a boomtown, and ours is heading for the dustbin.

You cannot keep having a negative balance of payments and be in a positive economic position.

[Guest]

You cannot keep having a negative balance of payments and be in a positive economic position.

Every bit of common sense would say that this is true. However, we have been doing this for decades. Money has been returning to the US in ways other than trade - services, immigration, education, technology user fees, land purchase, etc. All of us remember the 80's when the big concern was Japan, not China. That worked itself out in a series of ways and balance was restored and continues between our two countries.

My biggest concern, in regards to the balance of payments, is energy. This is the Achilles heel of our foreign policy, military capability and domestic economy.

BTW, it is not a question of how many people can afford a jet, but rather how many people make a living by creating the plane.

[Guest]

Every bit of common sense would say that this is true. However, we have been doing this for decades. Money has been returning to the US in ways other than trade - services, immigration, education, technology user fees, land purchase, etc. All of us remember the 80's when the big concern was Japan, not China. That worked itself out in a series of ways and balance was restored and continues between our two countries.

My biggest concern, in regards to the balance of payments, is energy. This is the Achilles heel of our foreign policy, military capability and domestic economy.

BTW, it is not a question of how many people can afford a jet, but rather how many people make a living by creating the plane.
I respectfully agree in part and disagree in part.

We've done this negative balance-of-payments for so long, we've become desensitized to the effect. The situation with Japan was "worked out" with a major devaluation of the dollar to the yen. In 1968 the exchange rate was Y360=$1, then in 1972 it was Y305=$1, by the early 1980's it was Y200>$1, to the mid 1990s of Y140>$1, to today of Y91=$1. We've already seen similar exhange rate dips against the Euro, the Swiss Franc, British Pound, Canadian Dollar and most Pacific Rim currencies. At this rate, the paper will definitely be worth more than the US currency rate printed on it.

I agree that people make a living making aircraft - at the system integrator and subcontractor level. I'm just not convinced that "aircraft" and other dazzler products are enough to support in any measurable level the national economy.

[Guest]

However, the high-end manufacturing doesn't promulgate the economic cycle as low-end does. Low-end tends to keep the money in local circulation, unless the low-end comes from offshore. Very few people buy aircraft or Cray supercomputers, whereas the number of coffee cups, TVs and radios, under-$500 electronics, appliances of all sizes are in constant sales.

Every consumer purchase of $100 for Chinese goods results in approximately $30 sent to the manufacturer, $10 in international shipping, and the rest to middle-men and domestic transport. The percentages may be off somewhat, but not by a lot. So, that's approximately 40% of the consumer cost for Chinese (and other foreign) goods forever taken out of our economic cycle for each purchase made. Now, if the Chinese imported the same value from the US, then the economic effect would be Zero. However, with our balance of payments way to the negative, their economy is a boomtown, and ours is heading for the dustbin.

You cannot keep having a negative balance of payments and be in a positive economic position.

Steve, I see what your saying, but what I haven't seen in your or others posts is how to change our manufacturing profile to compete in the global market short of isolationizem.

[Guest]

real manufacturing as in appliances, machine tools, jet engines, etc....it is very easy to prescribe....but near impossible to implement.
Of course there is no room for a union in the revised format...
Lower cost = lower wages....as in no $40 per hour sweepers....$50 per hour assemblers....etc
At the lower wages out put more per hour than in years gone by....
Quality second to none....
Service second to none......
Continuous improvement....make it better, faster, lower cost than last year.....

If this were in place over the last 40 years the United States would not have the problems it currently faces......there would be no balance of trade problems...employment would be BACK to where it was when we had all the manufacturing here in the USA.....there would most certainly be more people employed....etc.....etc....etc.

None of the prescription is new by the way. These are manufacturing basics hammered home by Jack Welch during his tenure at GE.
The automotive industry allowed unions to drive the costs in the wrong direction.
There are so many politicians now worried about who they might offend OUTSIDE THE USA....to take the drastic steps to return the USA to it's former manufacturing leadership.....plus eradicating the unions has it's own political life as well.

Add in the current permissive pacifism of an apathetic, do nothing, allow everything population and we don't stand a chance.

Too bad....it is so easy to cure.....SO EASY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTK

[Guest]

Steve, I see what your saying, but what I haven't seen in your or others posts is how to change our manufacturing profile to compete in the global market short of isolationizem.
It would seem logical that the first step would be to adjust our balance of payments so that it isn't going to cause another destruction of the value of the US dollar.

As far as China is concerned, the monetary scale needs to get back to center-balance. That can be accomplished by volume tarriffs meaning that after a certain dollar-value of imports, any others are tariffed to prevent the flooding of the market with goods so cheap that the domestic and other goods cannot compete.

NAFTA gets a bad slam, but the intent of developing the Mexican manufacturing industry - so that their workers stay there instead of being illegal immigrants here - is a good one, and well within our national interest.

That's a start.