Blue Tsunami approaching?

[Rhea]

Thirdly, the republicans have the greatest most influential and dependable voting block in the country: older white women.

Perhaps largest, but not most dependable. That medal goes to bblack women. They vote at a higher turnout and more reliably for their party than any other block.

 

[Harry Bosch]

There are at least two options to prevent the Democrats from getting anywhere.

One is a major act of Islamic terrorism. This can be facilitated by the Russian or the US government. Even merely turning a blind eye will do.

The other is a dramatic development in regard to North Korea triggered by a Tonkin style Incident.

The democrats greatest challenge is over confidence. Sure the trend seems to be going our way. But let's not get cocky crazy. The republicans have built in incredible advantages. I was joking above about the Russians. But they are a true factor. They have already hacked 31 states. They will be a factor again. Secondly, due to gerrymandering, the republicans can win elections with fewer votes. Far fewer votes. Thirdly, the republicans have the greatest most influential and dependable voting block in the country: older white women. Then they have the second most powerful voting block: older white men. Wave a flag, play Nascar on TV, threaten Jihadist holocaust, and you got their vote. The democratic voting blocks are smaller in number and more nuanced, requiring more advertising to reach and excite to vote. In fact, many experts predict the republicans to retain at least the senate in 2018; and Trump to win reelection.....

Yes, overconfidence is a real danger. It's not as though the Democrats have been on the side of ordinary folks. They have not been for quite a while, beginning with Bill Clinton's presidency. Yes, unemployment was under control. The economy kept growing at a pleasant rate, but where did all the money go?

View attachment 14470

It's no wonder some populist con artist captured the imagination of so many. Really, in light of their performance at the last presidential elections the Dems need to have a good, hard look at themselves, what they represent and figure out why they were so much on the nose to so many that they turned to some reprehensible, populist con man, a man they'd rather vote for even if he stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot someone dead just because he felt like it. They have a fuck-load of work to do. A sea change in policy is well and truly overdue.

Well, I'm not an economist, but clearly gain in productivity does not automatically equal increasing cash! BTW: same thing with profits. Profits do not automatically equal cash. In fact it's very easy for a company to have rising productivity and rising profit but to be losing cash. My guess is that the wages aren't climbing as fast as productivity is mostly due to competition. I believe that companies were more protected in the 60's and 70's. I work in a technology company. We can now roll out a brand new product with a patent in 3 years. But competitors are always right on our heels. We can't relax for a minute.

 

[Rhea]

Well, I'm not an economist, but clearly gain in productivity does not automatically equal increasing cash! BTW: same thing with profits. Profits do not automatically equal cash. In fact it's very easy for a company to have rising productivity and rising profit but to be losing cash.

Can you name some of the easy ways in which a company can be gaining in profits and have no cash to increase worker pay? Where to the profits go (and how does “competition” make that happen?) If you are saying that they immediately plow it into capital investment, you probably have evidence for why you think that?

Because it is my understanding that if you put _executive_ pay on that graph, you can immediately see where the profits are going.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Well, I'm not an economist, but clearly gain in productivity does not automatically equal increasing cash! BTW: same thing with profits. Profits do not automatically equal cash. In fact it's very easy for a company to have rising productivity and rising profit but to be losing cash.

Can you name some of the easy ways in which a company can be gaining in profits and have no cash? Where to the profits go (and how does “competition” make that happen? If you are saying that they immediately plow it into capital investment, you probably have evidence for why you think that?

Because it is my understanding that if you put _executive_ pay on that graph, you can immediately see where the profits are going.

That's a very good question that even a lot of finance people don't understand. The difference between profit and cash is time. A dollar profit equals a dollar in the future. The problem is that companies often will stretch the time when they receive the cash. The disruptions are mostly caused by changes in payables and receivables and growth. For example: if a company is profitable but their customers start slow paying them, cash is slowed down. Early in my career I had a customer who was willing to allow us to increase our prices to him (increasing profit), in exchange for longer receivable terms (wanted to pay us net 45 days). Not receiving the cash for 45 days almost put us out of business because our normal expenses had to be paid - despite how much longer it took to get the cash. The turn on receivables has a huge impact on cash flow. Sometimes a company's vendors will demand quicker payment - that will drain cash. Other issues that affect cash: inventory write-downs, receivable write-downs, equipment purchases, and etc. Secondly, as companies grow - their profit cycle (when they get cash) is stretched. However, their expenses don't stretch. I have payroll at my company every week. I pay most of our expenses either weekly or monthly. As we grow, it creates a longer cycle to realize the cash needed to pay the fixed expenses.

Secondly, I think that some of the profit to owners stats are skewed because of pass-through entities. I'm a partial owner of an S-corp. I'm paid a wage. But all the yearly profits from the company flow to my (and my partners) personal tax returns. On our tax returns, it appears that we are taking huge profits. But we aren't. We actually only take as much profit (distributions) that we need to pay the increased personal taxes that result from the company profit. We retain all excess profits to the company. Our company is growing fast and is always short on cash. We would retain more, if we could. So, on paper, it would appear that all our profits are going to the owners. Does that make sense?

 

[Elixir]

Well, I'm not an economist, but clearly gain in productivity does not automatically equal increasing cash! BTW: same thing with profits. Profits do not automatically equal cash. In fact it's very easy for a company to have rising productivity and rising profit but to be losing cash.

Can you name some of the easy ways in which a company can be gaining in profits and have no cash? Where to the profits go (and how does “competition” make that happen? If you are saying that they immediately plow it into capital investment, you probably have evidence for why you think that?

Because it is my understanding that if you put _executive_ pay on that graph, you can immediately see where the profits are going.

That's a very good question that even a lot of finance people don't understand. The difference between profit and cash is time. A dollar profit equals a dollar in the future. The problem is that companies often will stretch the time when they receive the cash. The disruptions are mostly caused by changes in payables and receivables and growth. For example: if a company is profitable but their customers start slow paying them, cash is slowed down. Early in my career I had a customer who was willing to allow us to increase our prices to him (increasing profit), in exchange for longer receivable terms (wanted to pay us net 45 days). Not receiving the cash for 45 days almost put us out of business because our normal expenses had to be paid - despite how much longer it took to get the cash. The turn on receivables has a huge impact on cash flow. Sometimes a company's vendors will demand quicker payment - that will drain cash. Other issues that affect cash: inventory write-downs, receivable write-downs, equipment purchases, and etc. Secondly, as companies grow - their profit cycle (when they get cash) is stretched. However, their expenses don't stretch. I have payroll at my company every week. I pay most of our expenses either weekly or monthly. As we grow, it creates a longer cycle to realize the cash needed to pay the fixed expenses.

Secondly, I think that some of the profit to owners stats are skewed because of pass-through entities. I'm a partial owner of an S-corp. I'm paid a wage. But all the yearly profits from the company flow to my (and my partners) personal tax returns. On our tax returns, it appears that we are taking huge profits. But we aren't. We actually only take as much profit (distributions) that we need to pay the increased personal taxes that result from the company profit. We retain all excess profits to the company. Our company is growing fast and is always short on cash. We would retain more, if we could. So, on paper, it would appear that all our profits are going to the owners. Does that make sense?

Same boat. But his year we sold. I'm still drawing salary, but taxes will more than eat up every penny of that.

 

[Copernicus]

I think it likely that there will be a "blue wave" in November, but I am skeptical that either house of Congress will flip to the Democrats. First of all, it is too early to make such a prediction. The congressional races have not started in earnest. So money is not being spent to back up Republican incumbents. Yet. But that will change. And, secondly, the Russians will necessarily be a factor, because they want to keep the US government in a weakened state of paralysis. Expect lots of surprising disclosures of scandalous details about the lives of Democratic candidates. Finally, the huge surplus of seats in the House is protected by a gerrymander cushion that could still stymie any popular surge to throw out Republicans. The Senate is not prone to gerrymandering, but states with smaller populations tend to be more conservative. So Republicans have a natural advantage in the Senate. During this election cycle, Democrats are defending far more incumbent seats that Republicans, so the likelihood of a flip to the Democrats is statistically improbable.

 

[Hermit]

Well, I'm not an economist, but clearly gain in productivity does not automatically equal increasing cash! BTW: same thing with profits. Profits do not automatically equal cash. In fact it's very easy for a company to have rising productivity and rising profit but to be losing cash. My guess is that the wages aren't climbing as fast as productivity is mostly due to competition. I believe that companies were more protected in the 60's and 70's. I work in a technology company. We can now roll out a brand new product with a patent in 3 years. But competitors are always right on our heels. We can't relax for a minute.

Some statistical backup for your train of thought might be in order.

Anyway, the Business Insider looks at what I indicated in my previous post from another angle:

1) Corporate profit margins just hit an all-time high. Companies are making more per dollar of sales than they ever have before. (And some people are still saying that companies are suffering from "too much regulation" and "too many taxes." Maybe little companies are, but big ones certainly aren't).




2) Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. This is closely related to the chart above. One reason companies are so profitable is that they're paying employees less than they ever have before.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Well, I'm not an economist, but clearly gain in productivity does not automatically equal increasing cash! BTW: same thing with profits. Profits do not automatically equal cash. In fact it's very easy for a company to have rising productivity and rising profit but to be losing cash. My guess is that the wages aren't climbing as fast as productivity is mostly due to competition. I believe that companies were more protected in the 60's and 70's. I work in a technology company. We can now roll out a brand new product with a patent in 3 years. But competitors are always right on our heels. We can't relax for a minute.

Some statistical backup for your train of thought might be in order.

Anyway, the Business Insider looks at what I indicated in my previous post from another angle:

1) Corporate profit margins just hit an all-time high. Companies are making more per dollar of sales than they ever have before. (And some people are still saying that companies are suffering from "too much regulation" and "too many taxes." Maybe little companies are, but big ones certainly aren't).

View attachment 14491


2) Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. This is closely related to the chart above. One reason companies are so profitable is that they're paying employees less than they ever have before.

View attachment 14492

What stats would you like me to find? That profits and increased productivity don't necessarily equal cash? Just go down to the local car dealership and try to buy a car using profits rather than cash.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

View attachment 14470

Isn't a lot of this due to modern technology and globalization? Keep raising those wages, and for many jobs, aren't you pricing them out of the global marketplace? Better technology and communications and logistics means workers are competing with workers overseas where they are paid a tiny fraction of what workers are paid here, and increase worker pay here and don't you drive them out even more? What we seem to need is a global labour union against these multi-national companies or bans on these companies from selling products here if they produce them elsewhere where its cheaper. Universal Basic Income funded by taxes on the beneficiary companies of all that high productivity would also help even things out. I keep hearing we can't afford to fund UBI. Yes we can. You just have to stomach taxing the rich multi-national companies more. Make them pay their fair share to help support their fellow citizens (who are propping up the society they are getting rich off of if they sell product here) even if they don't employ them and find cheap near-slave labour elsewhere.

 

[Hermit]

What stats would you like me to find? That profits and increased productivity don't necessarily equal cash?

That would be a start.

Just go down to the local car dealership and try to buy a car using profits rather than cash.

I've done better than that. Using $12,000 I saved as a wage earner I bought a second-hand truck. Two years later I used the profits I made operating that truck to buy a brand new one. A year after that I made enough profit to serve as a deposit for a house, and in just under ten years my annual profit sufficed to repay the entire mortgage, sell the previously new truck - now five years old - and buy another new truck and buy the house next door. One way or another, profit is as good as cash, even though you ordinarily don't get to see it in that form.

Anyway, you seem to have missed the point, which is that as the economy grew and profits grew in the past several decades, the benefits accrued to the owners of production. Wage earners saw none of it. That's why I wrote

Yes, overconfidence is a real danger. It's not as though the Democrats have been on the side of ordinary folks. They have not been for quite a while, beginning with Bill Clinton's presidency. Yes, unemployment was under control. The economy kept growing at a pleasant rate, but where did all the money go?

...

It's no wonder some populist con artist captured the imagination of so many. Really, in light of their performance at the last presidential elections the Dems need to have a good, hard look at themselves, what they represent and figure out why they were so much on the nose to so many that they turned to some reprehensible, populist con man, a man they'd rather vote for even if he stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot someone dead just because he felt like it. They have a fuck-load of work to do. A sea change in policy is well and truly overdue.

 

[bilby]

View attachment 14470

Isn't a lot of this due to modern technology and globalization? Keep raising those wages, and for many jobs, aren't you pricing them out of the global marketplace? Better technology and communications and logistics means workers are competing with workers overseas where they are paid a tiny fraction of what workers are paid here, and increase worker pay here and don't you drive them out even more? What we seem to need is a global labour union against these multi-national companies or bans on these companies from selling products here if they produce them elsewhere where its cheaper. Universal Basic Income funded by taxes on the beneficiary companies of all that high productivity would also help even things out. I keep hearing we can't afford to fund UBI. Yes we can. You just have to stomach taxing the rich multi-national companies more. Make them pay their fair share to help support their fellow citizens (who are propping up the society they are getting rich off of if they sell product here) even if they don't employ them and find cheap near-slave labour elsewhere.

Certainly containerization led to a massive drop in shipping costs, and meant that US workers were competing not only with other US workers, but with all the workers of the world - many of whom were paid significantly less than any US worker could tolerate.

The timing certainly fits:

In the United States, containerization and other advances in shipping were impeded by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which was created in 1887 to keep railroads from using monopolist pricing and rate discrimination but fell victim to regulatory capture. By the 1960s, ICC approval was required before any shipper could carry different items in the same vehicle or change rates. The fully integrated systems in the United States today became possible only after the ICC's regulatory oversight was cut back (and abolished in 1995); trucking and rail were deregulated in the 1970s and maritime rates were deregulated in 1984.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#Mid-twentieth_century

 

[ZiprHead]

Trump Lost One Of His Own

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/373572-chairman-of-bay-county-republican-party-resigns-i-could-no-longer-remain

The chairman of the Republican Party in Bay County, Mich., announced last week he was resigning from his position, saying he could "no longer remain silent" about President Trump.

"I have not seen a leader, I've only seen more of the same," Brandon DeFrain, who has served in his post since 2014, wrote in a Facebook post, according to MLive.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-w...blican-party-resigns-i-could-no-longer-remain

The chairman of the Republican Party in Bay County, Mich., announced last week he was resigning from his position, saying he could "no longer remain silent" about President Trump.

"I have not seen a leader, I've only seen more of the same," Brandon DeFrain, who has served in his post since 2014, wrote in a Facebook post, according to MLive.

The scope of this 'loss' is a little overstated.

 

[Elixir]

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/373572-chairman-of-bay-county-republican-party-resigns-i-could-no-longer-remain

The chairman of the Republican Party in Bay County, Mich., announced last week he was resigning from his position, saying he could "no longer remain silent" about President Trump.

"I have not seen a leader, I've only seen more of the same," Brandon DeFrain, who has served in his post since 2014, wrote in a Facebook post, according to MLive.

"An emergency meeting has been planned for Tuesday to talk about a replacement"

I hear Roy Moore is available...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

"An emergency meeting has been planned for Tuesday to talk about a replacement"

I hear Roy Moore is available...

We should say such things.

 

[Worldtraveller]

I think 'Blue Tsunami' (great band name!) is optimistic, to say the least. We've seen a few seats change hands already, but I think in November, we will maybe see a little more than the usual political 'correction' that comes with a mid term. Although, if some of these lawsuits against gerymandering keep winning, the elections may start to reflect actual voter representations (which is a good thing, based on non-district polling).

 

[ElectEngr]

Nahhh....the lawsuits against gerymandering will get tost in the Supreme along strick party lines, 5 to 4

Later,
ElectEngr