How Will the Economy Improve?

[bilby]

I agree losing unions was devastating to the middle class. I disagree with you who caused most of this. The Democrats hurt unions FAR worse than the oligarchs when they shunned all the manufacturing jobs that could support unions. Even today, they are attempting to bring down Tesla which is one of the few firms still able to support high wages and/or unions.

Tesla is the only major American automaker whose workforce is not represented by a union in the United States. None of the union drives in Tesla Fremont Factory and Gigafactory New York have been successful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_and_trade_unions

 

[Millrat]

Outsourcing industry wasn’t a political decision. It was a business decision. You could argue that more political intervention may have prevented industries from offshoring, but free markets, small government, blah blah blah.

 

[ZiprHead]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

It was called "Bankruptcy 1995."

An excellent point I take seriously because like you I remember a lot of doom and gloom throughout the years.

But the predicted doom does finally seem to be arriving now. Look at how un-affordable and un-attainable housing is for young people today. Look at how young people can not find decent employment without an un-affordable college degree. Look at how those same young people can not afford to reproduce anymore as well. Look at how automated and digital our economy is, yet with all this tech our productivity is still so embarrassing low, a family can not survive without both parents working.

These problems you are complaining about happened because of the destruction of unions, which is something the oligarchs helped to cause, i.e., people like Trump. Even now, he is destroying a federal employee union, which only helps to disempower labor everywhere else. They won't be happy until poor people and their poor children work in factories again for less money than in China.

I agree losing unions was devastating to the middle class. I disagree with you who caused most of this. The Democrats hurt unions FAR worse than the oligarchs when they shunned all the manufacturing jobs that could support unions. Even today, they are attempting to bring down Tesla which is one of the few firms still able to support high wages and/or unions. Even today Democrats will do their best to make sure the US does not mine rare earth materials.

A lot of wildlife extinction comes about due to destruction of natural habitat. That is exactly what Democrats did to high wages and unions. Today they are doing everything possible to make sure Trump fails with bringing high wage high value manufacturing back to America. That's because Democrats want the US to be a poor country so they can better be elected with give away programs the government can no longer afford to pay.

Are you saying Musk would welcome the UAW coming in to organize Tesla auto workers???

 

[RVonse]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

It was called "Bankruptcy 1995."

An excellent point I take seriously because like you I remember a lot of doom and gloom throughout the years.

But the predicted doom does finally seem to be arriving now. Look at how un-affordable and un-attainable housing is for young people today. Look at how young people can not find decent employment without an un-affordable college degree. Look at how those same young people can not afford to reproduce anymore as well. Look at how automated and digital our economy is, yet with all this tech our productivity is still so embarrassing low, a family can not survive without both parents working.

These problems you are complaining about happened because of the destruction of unions, which is something the oligarchs helped to cause, i.e., people like Trump. Even now, he is destroying a federal employee union, which only helps to disempower labor everywhere else. They won't be happy until poor people and their poor children work in factories again for less money than in China.

I agree losing unions was devastating to the middle class. I disagree with you who caused most of this. The Democrats hurt unions FAR worse than the oligarchs when they shunned all the manufacturing jobs that could support unions. Even today, they are attempting to bring down Tesla which is one of the few firms still able to support high wages and/or unions. Even today Democrats will do their best to make sure the US does not mine rare earth materials.

A lot of wildlife extinction comes about due to destruction of natural habitat. That is exactly what Democrats did to high wages and unions. Today they are doing everything possible to make sure Trump fails with bringing high wage high value manufacturing back to America. That's because Democrats want the US to be a poor country so they can better be elected with give away programs the government can no longer afford to pay.

Are you saying Musk would welcome the UAW coming in to organize Tesla auto workers???

Not at all. The oligarchs are against unions just like Henry Ford was in his later life. Obviously management and labor only want what is favorable for themselves. But Henry Ford also created the factories and high wages in the first place. He created the habitat for the middle class to thrive in. And so has Musk with Tesla.

Without their habitat the middle class becomes extinct. The middle class can not go on strike unless there is viable capitalism, factory and firms to begin with.

 

[TV and credit cards]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

It was called "Bankruptcy 1995."

An excellent point I take seriously because like you I remember a lot of doom and gloom throughout the years.

But the predicted doom does finally seem to be arriving now. Look at how un-affordable and un-attainable housing is for young people today. Look at how young people can not find decent employment without an un-affordable college degree. Look at how those same young people can not afford to reproduce anymore as well. Look at how automated and digital our economy is, yet with all this tech our productivity is still so embarrassing low, a family can not survive without both parents working.

These problems you are complaining about happened because of the destruction of unions, which is something the oligarchs helped to cause, i.e., people like Trump. Even now, he is destroying a federal employee union, which only helps to disempower labor everywhere else. They won't be happy until poor people and their poor children work in factories again for less money than in China.

I agree losing unions was devastating to the middle class. I disagree with you who caused most of this. The Democrats hurt unions FAR worse than the oligarchs when they shunned all the manufacturing jobs that could support unions. Even today, they are attempting to bring down Tesla which is one of the few firms still able to support high wages and/or unions. Even today Democrats will do their best to make sure the US does not mine rare earth materials.

A lot of wildlife extinction comes about due to destruction of natural habitat. That is exactly what Democrats did to high wages and unions. Today they are doing everything possible to make sure Trump fails with bringing high wage high value manufacturing back to America. That's because Democrats want the US to be a poor country so they can better be elected with give away programs the government can no longer afford to pay.

Are you saying Musk would welcome the UAW coming in to organize Tesla auto workers???

Not at all. The oligarchs are against unions just like Henry Ford was in his later life. Obviously management and labor only want what is favorable for themselves. But Henry Ford also created the factories and high wages in the first place. He created the habitat for the middle class to thrive in. And so has Musk with Tesla.

Without their habitat the middle class becomes extinct. The middle class can not go on strike unless there is viable capitalism, factory and firms to begin with.

And with no contract to protect you you live your life by someone else's leave. The bills you have, the family dependent upon you is all at the mercy of one individual. A Musk can wake up tomorrow and destroy you and you have no recourse. I would not be comfortable taking on any long term debt working for Musk, especially now with how he seems to be trashing Tesla, driving down sales.
This is not Japan. There is no corporate sense of duty of lifetime employment to the employees. This is the United States of America where capitalism runs amok and employees are like any other expense, available to be trimmed when conditions call for.

 

[ZiprHead]

Not at all. The oligarchs are against unions just like Henry Ford was in his later life. Obviously management and labor only want what is favorable for themselves. But Henry Ford also created the factories and high wages in the first place. He created the habitat for the middle class to thrive in. And so has Musk with Tesla.

As so often happens, myths spread quickly. And there are several about Henry Ford.

2: He Was a Progressive Manager​

On the surface, Henry Ford implemented a lot of different programs and policies that helped his workers. Some of his supporters tout these as "progressive" or even "liberal" ideas. Without any backstory, that interpretation is understandable. But as we've already discussed, Henry Ford was anything but liberal. In his defense, his motivation wasn't really profit. He simply wanted to improve the way he ran his business. Despite Ford's seemingly family-friendly policies, though, he really did try to control much of his employees' lives outside the plant. As the biggest auto manufacturer in the world (at the time) this behavior had far-reaching effects. Ford was particularly vexed by the possibility of unionization, and worked so hard to prevent his employees from unionizing that the National Labor Relations Board had to step in. In the late 1930s, when the unions were picking up steam throughout Detroit, Henry Ford was contemplating shutting down his company to prevent it [source: History.com]. He eventually gave in. In 1941, Ford signed a contract with the United Auto Workers.

As you'll see on the next page, the myth about Henry Ford's "progressive" workplace culture is worth discussing even further.

1: That "Liberal" Wage Hike​

This is perhaps the most persistent Ford myth. It's true, Henry Ford raised wages to a level unheard-of at it the time: Assembly line workers had the potential to earn $5 a day. But it wasn't so they could buy their own Model Ts, as is widely repeated. Ford wasn't a liberal champion. He didn't particularly care about his workers' individual economic situations. He just wanted his workers to stop getting fed-up and walking off the line mid-shift, which cost the factory in wasted time, reduced or lost productivity and the headache of constantly hiring and training new employees. After the pay increase, productivity and quality improved, turnover was reduced and Ford was satisfied he'd made a sound investment [source: Leef]. However, with that increase, workers had to agree to a code of conduct that applied on the job and on personal time. They couldn't drink, gamble, or allow their wives to work outside the home. Immigrants had to learn English. Ford even employed a committee who would make home visits to ensure these standards were met.

So even though Henry Ford invented methods that changed manufacturing forever, his 'big brother' approach to employee management wasn't one that was especially celebrated — or widely adopted.

5 Myths About Henry Ford

Henry Ford didn't just build cars - he totally revolutionized the process, inventing new systems and methods that are still in use today. But is everything you've heard about the man accurate?

auto.howstuffworks.com

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The point here being painfully visible through the fact that nobody in the media is still discussing Luigi. All my friends love Luigi. He was all the buzz, but somehow Aunt Millie doesn't even know who that is.

Nothing new to report, he fell off the news.

Besides, remember it turned out that what he was upset about was the denial of an experimental treatment.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

With asset prices like home pricing so high, the economy actually needs some kind of recession right now. The only way to get asset prices to go lower is for people to stop bidding them up.

You're skipping over a step here. A recession would reduce home prices because it would mean people didn't have the money to bid them up--but if they don't have the money they don't have the money. You can't both have people having the money to buy them and people not having the money to buy them.

With the boomers retiring and the tariffs bringing in local jobs, middle class employment should remain good even though the stock market for the speculators will take a hit. If the stock speculators do worse but the labor class does better that sounds fine to me.

And the factories will fire up their teleporters and come here?

No, that's not how it works.

Besides, if the goal were to bring production to the US the tariffs would ramp up slowly. And they wouldn't keep changing.

Tariffs encourage local productive work and discourage consumption by taxing it. That also sounds great.

It sounds great, it doesn't actually work. There's a huge relationship between high tariffs and a shitty local economy.

 

[Toni]

What am I missing? Do people just want to sit around and wait to die?

It was called "Bankruptcy 1995."

An excellent point I take seriously because like you I remember a lot of doom and gloom throughout the years.

But the predicted doom does finally seem to be arriving now. Look at how un-affordable and un-attainable housing is for young people today. Look at how young people can not find decent employment without an un-affordable college degree. Look at how those same young people can not afford to reproduce anymore as well. Look at how automated and digital our economy is, yet with all this tech our productivity is still so embarrassing low, a family can not survive without both parents working.

These problems you are complaining about happened because of the destruction of unions, which is something the oligarchs helped to cause, i.e., people like Trump. Even now, he is destroying a federal employee union, which only helps to disempower labor everywhere else. They won't be happy until poor people and their poor children work in factories again for less money than in China.

I agree losing unions was devastating to the middle class. I disagree with you who caused most of this. The Democrats hurt unions FAR worse than the oligarchs when they shunned all the manufacturing jobs that could support unions. Even today, they are attempting to bring down Tesla which is one of the few firms still able to support high wages and/or unions. Even today Democrats will do their best to make sure the US does not mine rare earth materials.

A lot of wildlife extinction comes about due to destruction of natural habitat. That is exactly what Democrats did to high wages and unions. Today they are doing everything possible to make sure Trump fails with bringing high wage high value manufacturing back to America. That's because Democrats want the US to be a poor country so they can better be elected with give away programs the government can no longer afford to pay.

Are you saying Musk would welcome the UAW coming in to organize Tesla auto workers???

Not at all. The oligarchs are against unions just like Henry Ford was in his later life. Obviously management and labor only want what is favorable for themselves. But Henry Ford also created the factories and high wages in the first place. He created the habitat for the middle class to thrive in. And so has Musk with Tesla.

Without their habitat the middle class becomes extinct. The middle class can not go on strike unless there is viable capitalism, factory and firms to begin with.

Wait, what? HOW has Musk ‘created a habitat for the middle class’ or contributed to one? His vehicles are far too expensive for most people.

Ford only paid his workers decent wages so that they Could become his customers and buy his products, not because he had any social conscience.

Without the middle class, the business class have no market for their products, and no managers or doctors or lawyers or engineers, etc.

The middle class can and will go on strike if they believe it is in their best interests. And then the oligarchs can find out what kind of suppression their money can buy.

 

[Toni]

With asset prices like home pricing so high, the economy actually needs some kind of recession right now. The only way to get asset prices to go lower is for people to stop bidding them up.

You're skipping over a step here. A recession would reduce home prices because it would mean people didn't have the money to bid them up--but if they don't have the money they don't have the money. You can't both have people having the money to buy them and people not having the money to buy them.

With the boomers retiring and the tariffs bringing in local jobs, middle class employment should remain good even though the stock market for the speculators will take a hit. If the stock speculators do worse but the labor class does better that sounds fine to me.

And the factories will fire up their teleporters and come here?

No, that's not how it works.

Besides, if the goal were to bring production to the US the tariffs would ramp up slowly. And they wouldn't keep changing.

Tariffs encourage local productive work and discourage consumption by taxing it. That also sounds great.

It sounds great, it doesn't actually work. There's a huge relationship between high tariffs and a shitty local economy.

Besides that, if products are too expensive for the masses, why produce the products? The businessmen won’t make any money.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Meanwhile, China and Xi are playing the long game, and they've been doing it for quite some time.

Trump has the attention span of a toddler, and can be swayed by a pretty blonde woman whispering in his ear or a sycophant in a blue suit telling him what will play well in the right wing press and social media tomorrow. Xi and the CCP are thinking "this is great! Our 50 year plan to become the dominant world economy has been accelerated by this idiot, and all we've gotta do is tell our people to tighten their belts (and roads) for a few years." Trump is acting like a bull in a (no pun intended) china shop, while China is ramping up a charm offensive to shift their business to other countries that the US has pissed off.

I heard Trump saying that "Xi is a very smart guy." Yes, he is. He's smarter than you, Donnie. You just don't realize it yet, and you probably never will.

Bold: Good luck with that. Countries make deals with China because they are easier to get than with the IMF or World Bank. Countries then complain about deals with China being a debt trap, China not using local labor, and a lack of reciprocity. Poorer countries are more likely to do deals with China than wealthier nations. They are like poor people having few options and being taken advantage of by a loan shark. I don't think China is exactly endearing themselves on the international stage.

It's easier to borrow from China because China wants it to fail. When they don't pay the loan China seizes whatever was funded with the loan.

 

[Elixir]

"Tariffs encourage local productive work and discourage consumption by taxing it."

Ask an economist about the effect of "discouraging consumption".
Kool Ade anyone?
Tesla workers start at $22/hr.
17 year old lifeguards at the pool where I swim start a $20/hr.
Yay, Leon.

Anyhow, the operative principle here is that UNCERTAIN tariffs stifle economic activity altogether.
My former Company is at a standstill right now, as all their government contracts have been put on hold.
They cannot order most of their supplies, components and raw materials because they don't know what they're going to cost, they don't know if their customers will be able to buy whatever finished product they produce, and they won't know what price to offer until after they go ahead and pay uncertain prices.
The solution? THEY DON'T.
They are trying to keep the few hundred employees busy with stuff they can sell through their non-government pipelines, and do it at the smallest loss they can manage, just in order to retain the workforce it has taken years to assemble. The Company that has saved so many lives, including high threat operatives, is going to be on the rocks soon if someone can't remove Trump's head from Putin's dick.
.
Fuck Trump, fuck the people who voted for him, and especially, fuck the ignorant self appointed economists spouting ignorant nonsense about how what this administration is doing is anything other than the outright destruction of our previously booming economy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In your wordview, how does the US project strength when our military can not even source drones with parts not made in China? In your worldview how does the exceptional US project power and leadership when it can not source antibiotics or masks for its own population during a pandemic?

Your view of the US looks like some beautiful well appointed house but the reality is there are some huge flaws in the foundation and the living room is starting to list sideways now. And everyone except you knows this.

Doing nothing at all is simply not an option at this point. It would be nicer not to lose what little honor we have left but pretending there are no problems does not make them disappear.

I do agree we should be onshoring that which is needed for military purposes.

That does not mean the rest of it makes any sense, though. You see one piece of truth in a vast pack of lies and you fall for the lies.

The old adage about the frying pan and the fire is very much on target.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Gold is way above projections for 2025. It's not really an investment historically. More of a preservation if things crater. Many people have used it to restart life easier after living through tough times. Cash doesn't increase with inflation. Gold tends to track it. So you don't make money or lose money.

Central banks around the world are buying. Germany is considering pulling it's physical gold held in NY back to Germany. Apparently, some in the government there are starting to view the US as unstable for some reason. They have the second largests reserves and 37% (worth ~$127 billion) of it stored in the US.

And they can just come and take the gold. My wife lived through the cultural revolution.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A simplistic, but mostly correct, way to explain the U.S. trade deficit is high dollar valuation. If the dollar is "over-valued" relative to other currencies, U.S. consumers will be happy to spend those dollars on foreign-made goods. Conversely, foreigners are reluctant to buy U.S. goods priced in the "over-valued" dollar. (I use quotes on "over-valued" to abstain from a judgement of what the "correct" value of the dollar is.) Seemingly high dollar valuation is due not only to the dollar's special status as a reserve currency, but also due to the high performance of U.S. assets, e.g. profitable corporations.

Thus a dollar devaluation is a logical approach to reducing the trade deficit. Trump does understand this much -- one of his complaints is that countries like China deliberately "under-value" their currency -- and weakening the dollar may be one of his objectives. (Any U.S. politician advocating a weaker dollar is unlikely to say so publicly: It sounds bad!)

The markets seem to understand that a weaker dollar is likely. Bond prices fell when the tariffs were announced, and then continued to fall when Trump made his retraction. I do NOT have any particular predictions to offer, but I will note that the long-term/short-term yield curve is back in "inverted" territory; historically this has presaged recession.

Yup, in the long run the markets self-correct, you can't maintain a trade deficit. Yet ours continues to "exist", thus showing there must be a flow in the other direction that's not being counted.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The problem is that this will not happen, because the media is as much controlled opposition as the "moderates".

"The media" theses days is Aunt Millie on Twitter and Facebook

No, the media these days is still CNN, Fox, Breitbart, etc.

It just gets filtered on through Aunt Millie sometimes.

The point here being painfully visible through the fact that nobody in the media is still discussing Luigi. All my friends love Luigi. He was all the buzz, but somehow Aunt Millie doesn't even know who that is.

If the media were not controlled by such interests, the media wouldn't have quit reporting abruptly on the shooting of a CEO who murdered untold thousands through his death panels.

"The revolution will not be televised."

You have friends who love a person who decided to become judge and executioner and murdered a man with a family? Yikes.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I know that. I know you're no fan of gold, but I've also read that despite it being off it's recent high, a lot of people are buying gold.

I have no problem with gold; I just have a problem with people who believe that it has a value derived from some magical "intrinsic" property of the metal, when in fact its value comes from the exact same place as the value of Bitcoin - the expectation that you can find a future idiot to buy it from you.

That's probably true, so it's probably a good investment.

Note that the time to buy gold is when things are good, sell when things are bad. The exact opposite of what most people do.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It would be nicer not to lose what little honor we have left

You've gotta be drunker than a Defense Secretary to believe Trump is restoring US honour amongst the world.

By the way, doing nothing is infinitely better than putting out a fire with gasoline.

He doesn't understand that bullies don't have honor.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I know that. I know you're no fan of gold, but I've also read that despite it being off it's recent high, a lot of people are buying gold.

I have no problem with gold; I just have a problem with people who believe that it has a value derived from some magical "intrinsic" property of the metal, when in fact its value comes from the exact same place as the value of Bitcoin - the expectation that you can find a future idiot to buy it from you.

That's probably true, so it's probably a good investment.

Note that the time to buy gold is when things are good, sell when things are bad. The exact opposite of what most people do.

Same thing for equities. Smarter to buy when the market is tanking; sell or stand fast when it’s booming. The exact opposite of what most people do.

 

[TomC]

I do agree we should be onshoring that which is needed for military purposes.

Personally,
I like seeing all the impediments to unilateral, preemptive, war put in place as fast as possible!
Less war is better.
Tom