Political Discussion

[LimpDisc]

Obama is looking to increase the capital gains tax 33%. He is even planning to increase the lowest marginal tax rate 50%.

Could you please provide a source for this statement?

[onwards]

The new jobs that technological advances are creating require training that displaced manufacturing workers are currently not getting. I agree that if we trained them, there would be new jobs for some of them in these new sectors.

And?

Look, as an advanced economy - as the US surely is - shifts resources from one sector to another, jobs are lost in one and gained in the other. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

As for training - it is now the EXPECTATION that a college grad will have 4-5 careers in their life time, and they will need to figure out how to transition between them. I am in the middle of my second at this point (or possibly third depending on how narrowly you define it). It has required me to adapt and get my retrained and branch into areas I had never seen before and I would never trade that for a job that meant I would be doing essentially the same thing at varying degrees of competency over 40 years.

It's that sense of entitlement again. Car workers are complaining about losing their jobs; well, guess what, it would probably be more useful to figure out what NEXT you are going to do, OUTSIDE the car making business, and pursue it vigorously. Or figure out how to get into Tesla. Or start a garage that specializes in reconfiguring cars computer systems to better interface with gizmos, or one of a million other things. Yes, we could as a society set up better avenues for such switches, but quite a few of them already exist and those that take advantage of them do continue to prosper in the middle-class sense of the word.

The point is that shifts create loss AND opportunity. If you focus on the former, you will miss the latter. I work in technology, and I can tell you that the same kind of thing is happening in IT, as outsourcing is scaring some people to a point where they have frozen in their tracks. Others, however, have reinvented themselves with new skills around emerging trends (clouds, infosec, social media and so on) and have found better and more interesting jobs, in some cases literally starting a new career in the process. This will continue to happen at an ever accelerating rate. I don't see anything wrong with that.

And no, there is absolutely no reason why US companies can't "make stuff" elsewhere cheaper without destroying the economy. It's been happening for 30 years and will continue to happen, it's nothing new. It just means there will be more R&D jobs here and assembly line jobs there, except for certain specialized industries with significant knowhow. And even then that doesn't really guarantee anything - look at Japan.

[momisery]

Someone who has worked in the auto industry for a lifetime maybe 50 or 60 now and out of a job, so you recommend college?? That takes 4 years or 2 years how do they pay for it and what do they do in the meantime spend their retirement? Business use to train people, now they want people to pay for college at prices that are far too high, and work for them for cheap. We as the working class simply can not pay for taxes, healthcare, college, and bail out the world and banking on wages that are dropping. The last few recession/depressions were different. Wives went to work and bailed out the home until things got better. Today, wives are already working so in effect we are losing incomes that can not be replaced.

Millions would return to school if they could afford to, but many boomers are sandwiched between paying for their kids college and supporting them as they are laid off, and taking care of their own parents while they themselves are aging. We can not balance everything at once. Job training needs to be available to everyone and affordable. I live in victorville, ca for a while. The incomes up there were terrible for the people born and raised there. The local college offered classes in RN or CNA nothing for a LPN or LVN. You had to work full time and drive down the hill for evening classes. Lower income people do not have the car or the money to do that, and working full time plus classes that require hours of homework are impossible for families. So, people could pick between bottom feeder wages, or a 4 year school. myself I am 60 never made a ton of money and worked two jobs often. We lost ours in being laid off, and medical bills. I am working and hubby is too, but we would have to work until 6pm and take classes at night at what? How long will it take us, and can we afford it on the low wages that are now available? Maybe the ex-union workers can because they made a decent wage and had good health insurance, but most wage earners do not have those options. We were too busy trying to pay our bills with our last dollar to keep our homes and doctor paid during a lay off. Give me classes I can afford and time to do it and I would be happy to do that.. but at 60 I need to know when will I make this big money so I can pay my college debt off?

[momisery]

I have to tell you I thought that years ago that as mfg left service jobs would have to pay more. I was wrong, they simply extended the credit timeframe on cars and homes and put both spouses to work instead. We need mfg, we can not do it with service jobs. China is uninflating her money so it is even cheaper for her to take our jobs. Think about it, they work 25 cents and hour, or slave labor, and ship this stuff on huge ships that cost a fortune to us... how can that work? Simple, they have the tramp stamp of multi-national corporations all over theirselves... China will be forced to pay more in wages to better the standard of living for its people someday, and then multi-nationals will move on and destroy them like they are doing to our living standards and take on a new slave nation. Right now China is building wind turbines and solar for OUR FUTURE.. At what point do you stop blaming the government which is we the people and start changing it so big business is not controlling it? Do we want multi-nationals to have control of us, the supreme court thinks we do.

[francis]

does anyone on here know what sparked the economy after the last depression.or if you want to call it.down turn in the economy.wasnt it manufacturing?im asking because im 50 and didnt live those days.so dont know.is that what revived things then?.....its a real shame that people today have to have several jobs to make ends meet.it should not be that way at all.

[backtoschool]

And?

Look, as an advanced economy - as the US surely is - shifts resources from one sector to another, jobs are lost in one and gained in the other. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

As for training - it is now the EXPECTATION that a college grad will have 4-5 careers in their life time, and they will need to figure out how to transition between them. I am in the middle of my second at this point (or possibly third depending on how narrowly you define it). It has required me to adapt and get my retrained and branch into areas I had never seen before and I would never trade that for a job that meant I would be doing essentially the same thing at varying degrees of competency over 40 years.

It's that sense of entitlement again. Car workers are complaining about losing their jobs; well, guess what, it would probably be more useful to figure out what NEXT you are going to do, OUTSIDE the car making business, and pursue it vigorously. Or figure out how to get into Tesla. Or start a garage that specializes in reconfiguring cars computer systems to better interface with gizmos, or one of a million other things. Yes, we could as a society set up better avenues for such switches, but quite a few of them already exist and those that take advantage of them do continue to prosper in the middle-class sense of the word.

The point is that shifts create loss AND opportunity. If you focus on the former, you will miss the latter. I work in technology, and I can tell you that the same kind of thing is happening in IT, as outsourcing is scaring some people to a point where they have frozen in their tracks. Others, however, have reinvented themselves with new skills around emerging trends (clouds, infosec, social media and so on) and have found better and more interesting jobs, in some cases literally starting a new career in the process. This will continue to happen at an ever accelerating rate. I don't see anything wrong with that.

And no, there is absolutely no reason why US companies can't "make stuff" elsewhere cheaper without destroying the economy. It's been happening for 30 years and will continue to happen, it's nothing new. It just means there will be more R&D jobs here and assembly line jobs there, except for certain specialized industries with significant knowhow. And even then that doesn't really guarantee anything - look at Japan.

This all sounds good in theory, but reality is playing out quite differently.

First of all, jobs that we are losing in the manufacturing sector, are not "shifting" into other categories. The US is losing jobs. Period. And the jobs that are being created are low paying service jobs that do not enable workers to sustain a middle class lifestyle.

There will always be people who reinvent themselves. It's the 80/20 rule. Call the people who "reinvent" themselves the 20%. Those people would survive under most conditions and are highly adaptable. But what about the other 80%? We need that 80% to pay their mortgages, go out to eat, buy consumer goods, etc in order to keep our economy growing.

I am all for free trade. I do not think tariffs or any other trade restricting actions will help heal unemployment. But I am a pragmatist and I believe that we need to figure out as a country what to do with our displaced workers. It is not a matter of entitlement. It is a matter of understanding that you cannot grow the economy out of this recession if there is no middle class.

[backtoschool]

does anyone on here know what sparked the economy after the last depression.or if you want to call it.down turn in the economy.wasnt it manufacturing?im asking because im 50 and didnt live those days.so dont know.is that what revived things then?.....its a real shame that people today have to have several jobs to make ends meet.it should not be that way at all.

It was the manufacturing and military ramp up for WWII that finally ended the Great Depression.

[backtoschool]

I don't rant. That is a factual statement made with clarity.

I am not sure which part of the last part of your statement is "fact" OF. Last time I was in Chicago it bore no resemblence to a "Banana Republic". And if the act of trying to raise taxes constituted Marxism, then every politician would be a Marxist.

[JRScott]

Lost property tax revenue is a non-issue. Obama is determined no government employee shall lose his or her job with no concern for the private sector. While I dispute his claim of "saving" 2,000,000 jobs I believe no governmental agency really fears losing employees, especially if those employees are members of a union.

This is the problem with the federal government. For example instead of watching the banks as they were suppose to the SEC has 28 employees including at least one supervisor who spent more time watching porn on their work computers than doing their jobs. Not one was fired. That is unacceptable. Would never happen in the private sector.

This is just one example, but there are many examples of this sort of stealing by government employees of taxpayers money but they are not fired because of civil service protections in the law that makes it practically impossible to fire them, much like tenured professors. It is long time those protections were removed, then we might see the elimination of government waste, folks likely to be fired for actions they know are contrary to their assigned duties will quickly become more efficient or someone will replace them.

[JRScott]

Technology has made far more jobs obsolete than any wage issue. Do you also advocate we discard computers and return to the age of steno pools to salvage good paying jobs? We could eliminate power tools and ask all carpenters to strictly use hand tools as well. That would double the need for skilled carpenters.

Manufacturing jobs can not be replaced by fast food jobs. As more people become un- or under-employed the need for fast food workers decreases. No one out of a job can afford to buy the stuff.

Manufacturing jobs ARE created by entrepreneurs and investors, many of whom are reluctant to create such jobs because the future is uncertain. Obama is looking to increase the capital gains tax 33%. He is even planning to increase the lowest marginal tax rate 50%. This guy is hellbent on destroying our country. This is what we get for electing a banana republic, completely inexperienced Marxist as president.

No I don't advocate getting rid of computers.

At the same time was your computer built in the USA? Was all of its components built in the USA?

I highly doubt the answer to both of those is yes.

Why aren't they?

Because our politicians made it to expensive to build things here and made it to cheap to import goods into the United States.

I agree that uncertainty is a large reason your not seeing much recovery. No one wants to undertake expansion not knowing what health care and cap and trade will cost them if the democrats push it through congress. Both of these will drive up the cost of running a business and thus why many are not investing right now.

I agree that Obama has made some foolish decisions, but keep in mind the blame is not his alone. He can do nothing of substance in truth without Congress passing it. Its always curious how in every speech he wants to blame the Bush Administration, yet he was in Congress for two years and voted for every budget and pork laden bill, every stimulus and all that spending.

[MSbklawyer]

The double digit inflation we will experience will not include the wage increases that we saw in the seventies. Prices will go up in double digits but wages will stay the same or go down.

Why so, BTS? If the price for everything else is going up in double digits -- for whatever reason -- why would the price of labor , i.e. wages, not follow suit?

[OhioFiler]

Could you please provide a source for this statement?

It was a Rueter's news story, since rescinded at the request of the White House.

[OhioFiler]

No I don't advocate getting rid of computers.

At the same time was your computer built in the USA? Was all of its components built in the USA?

I highly doubt the answer to both of those is yes.

Why aren't they?

Because our politicians made it to expensive to build things here and made it to cheap to import goods into the United States.

I agree that uncertainty is a large reason your not seeing much recovery. No one wants to undertake expansion not knowing what health care and cap and trade will cost them if the democrats push it through congress. Both of these will drive up the cost of running a business and thus why many are not investing right now.

I agree that Obama has made some foolish decisions, but keep in mind the blame is not his alone. He can do nothing of substance in truth without Congress passing it. Its always curious how in every speech he wants to blame the Bush Administration, yet he was in Congress for two years and voted for every budget and pork laden bill, every stimulus and all that spending.

Your next post will be number 5,000. Make it a good one!

[backtoschool]

Why so, BTS? If the price for everything else is going up in double digits -- for whatever reason -- why would the price of labor , i.e. wages, not follow suit?

I see your point, but there are different pressures in addition to inflationary pressures on wages. Wages in third world countries, coupled with small businesses not being able to get loans, coupled with higher overall expenses for businesses, coupled with higher taxes for businesses will keep wages down in relation to inflation, ie wages will not keep up with inflation.

[onwards]

Why so, BTS? If the price for everything else is going up in double digits -- for whatever reason -- why would the price of labor , i.e. wages, not follow suit?

They have to in order for inflation to persist. It's a necessary component. You can reduce standard of living somewhat by making things more expensive, but if wages don't go up then they become out of reach and drop in prices.

I think what BTS is saying that wages will go up but not as much as inflation, which is mostly a statistical point.

I do view double digit inflation for a few years as a positive. Yes, it will ultimately mean a less prominent role for the US in the world for a while, although I do think we can then more easily gain it back, and it will mean the dollar will get devalued ($3 to the Euro is probably a good bet) thereby effecting a partial default, and a number of other things. But it's probably the least painful solution to the mess we're in right now - even on a global basis - AS LONG AS IT HAPPENS GRADUALLY. I think in central bankers know this and are preparing economies for it (hence the gradual shift into the Euro and gold, still oddly coupled with an apparent willingness to finance our debt for a while longer. It seems like a script being played out).