Avi's Economics Thread

[Avi1001]

So what's a pinko?

It means a liberal

 

[Avi1001]

...The only major manufacturing operations left in the lower 48 states are the military contractors....and that's because they have one customer - the U.S. Government.

Your observation, here, makes sense, WIP, and gives us some insight about how to solve our present dilemma. If we could morph our military contractors into an R&D arm for advanced manufacturing, we might have some chance of improving our economy.

 

[Revoltingest]

It means a liberal

No, no, no! "Pinkos" are authoritarian socialists.
Libertarians are the true liberals (like Jefferson).
(Pinkos coopted the word after the 19th century.)
This does raise a question though.... If Pubs are red,
Dems are blue, Greens are (or should be) green &
commies are pink, what color should we libs be? Is
blue avaialble? (I don't want to go infrared or ultraviolet.)

 

[metis]

The CEO's and major investors progressed just fine! The unfettered/unregulated capitalism that so many rightwingers idealize, only rewards the owners of capital, not their employees, nor the cities where they have manufacturing operations.

At both the Chrysler Plant and GM, your work had to provide surplus value to keep your job there. If these operations were worker co-ops, that surplus value of labor - which provides profits for the owners in a capitalist operation, would belong to the people working at the plant.

Outsourcing would be immediately out of the question, as nobody is going to outsource their own jobs to China or Bangladesh etc.. And, if a management committee wanted to make capital investments in new labor-saving equipment, they would have to plan out in advance what to do with the surplus staff. A capitalist operation has profit incentives to fire employees, rather than look after their long term needs, and even to move production to foreign countries, after writing up trade pact schemes eliminating tariffs and duties on imports.

The only major manufacturing operations left in the lower 48 states are the military contractors....and that's because they have one customer - the U.S. Government. Outsourcing the production of weapons of war might save money on production costs, but that would not be enough to outweigh the loss of influence with Congress, because having manufacturing operations scattered widely across the U.S. adds to their effectiveness in lobbying politicians to buy their latest and increasingly expensive war toys.

I go out of my way to go to buy stuff at coops and to buy products made by them. I love the Green Bay Packer franchise and how that's handled. Also, I support unions that also want to keep jobs here, and I try to avoid as much as possible buying non-union products. Walmart is a scourge as far as I'm concerned, and that's the nice name for it.

 

[esmith]

No, no, no! "Pinkos" are authoritarian socialists.
Libertarians are the true liberals (like Jefferson).
(Pinkos coopted the word after the 19th century.)
This does raise a question though.... If Pubs are red,
Dems are blue, Greens are (or should be) green &
commies are pink, what color should we libs be? Is
blue avaialble? (I don't want to go infrared or ultraviolet.)

How about molted green camouflage, that way they won't see us coming until it's to late.

 

[Revoltingest]

How about molted green camouflage, that way they won't see us coming until it's to late.

A melange of colors?
Hmmm......I like it!
I'm thinking of Hawaiian shirt patterns....

 

[Avi1001]

A melange of colors?
Hmmm......I like it!
I'm thinking of Hawaiian shirt patterns....

That's how ES dresses normally

 

[esmith]

A melange of colors?
Hmmm......I like it!
I'm thinking of Hawaiian shirt patterns....

I'm thunking that shirt will have everyone running screaming from the wearer. But, it will work, we just use rotating wearers outside polling places and only Libertarians will have the nerve to proceed into vote.

 

[Revoltingest]

I don't know who ES is, but I like his/her style!

The example above is one of the most beauteous of all vintage shirts.
There are other great ones at this on-line museum...
http://www.vintagehawaiianshirt.net/

 

[work in progress]

I go out of my way to go to buy stuff at coops and to buy products made by them. I love the Green Bay Packer franchise and how that's handled. Also, I support unions that also want to keep jobs here, and I try to avoid as much as possible buying non-union products. Walmart is a scourge as far as I'm concerned, and that's the nice name for it.

I agree, even that it's a good thing that the NFL at least allowed for revenue sharing to prevent the Dallas Cowboys from turning into the New York Yankees of football. The community-owned Packers would have likely had to have been sold to some billionaire and moved otherwise.

But, the problem with the buy local, support union labor initiatives, is that these are things that can have little effect when the system is dominated by business bent on outsourcing and enabling government institutions to speed up the process.

After the disasters in Bangladesh, there were voices raised to support U.S. or North American-produced clothing....but after decades of textile outsourcing, such a thing hardly exists anymore, except in specialty shops.

Buying locally grown food is taking off though, because global agribusiness is getting hit with costs of floods, droughts, and rising transportation costs making their substandard fruits, grains and vegetables more expensive. I suppose that is a bit of silver lining in generally bad news stories on globalization.

 

[Avi1001]

I don't know who ES is, but I like his/her style!

The example above is one of the most beauteous of all vintage shirts.
There are other great ones at this on-line museum...
vintagehawaiianshirt.net

ES=esmith

 

[Brickjectivity]

I think balancing the labor between manufacturing and services sounds reasonable, but how would you go about doing that? Here's a summary of statements so far:

Metis suggested not shopping at Wal-Mart and buying from businesses that are allied with unions. Avis said he isn't expecting things to work out and something something about automation, also that renewable energy would very much help with a recovery. Revoltingest said that Pinkos aren't liberals but authoritarians and not to always vote for the same political party, but he did not offer to single-handedly fix the economy. ES said that the US is not a true capitalistic country because there are forms of socialism. Work in Progress said that US manufacturing today is owned by the military or nearly so. Freethinker likes tariffs. MysticSang'ha points to crony captalism as the source of our woes (hence removing crony capitalism might fix them?). Also there is the problem of USA's increasingly angry labour pool and also discouraged workers.

Does that summarize where we are at? Did I miss anything?

 

[esmith]

I think balancing the labor between manufacturing and services sounds reasonable, but how would you go about doing that? Here's a summary of statements so far:

Metis suggested not shopping at Wal-Mart and buying from businesses that are allied with unions. Avis said he isn't expecting things to work out and something something about automation, also that renewable energy would very much help with a recovery. Revoltingest said that Pinkos aren't liberals but authoritarians and not to always vote for the same political party, but he did not offer to single-handedly fix the economy. ES said that the US is not a true capitalistic country because there are forms of socialism. Work in Progress said that US manufacturing today is owned by the military or nearly so. Freethinker likes tariffs. MysticSang'ha points to crony captalism as the source of our woes (hence removing crony capitalism might fix them?). Also there is the problem of USA's increasingly angry labour pool and also discouraged workers.

Does that summarize where we are at? Did I miss anything?

I think you covered most of the bases. No real agreement anywhere though and no real solutions put forth.

 

[Revoltingest]

What I do to help the economy:
- Starve the beast (pay as little tax as possible).
- Buy/hire non-union.
- Buy quality stuff.
- Fight excessive regulation.

 

[metis]

I think balancing the labor between manufacturing and services sounds reasonable, but how would you go about doing that?

Buying local and locally made products whenever possible automatically does this. However, it is not always possible to do as such. As unpopular as this would be, some higher tariffs selectively placed can also be a help.

But I think one of the biggest incentives that could help is to help teach us that when we ship jobs out of the country, this affects where our kids and grandkids in quite possible negative ways. We also need to realize that when we waste resources and energy, we're forcing more hardships on our kids and grandkids down the line.

There's really a lot that can be done, but as long as we encourage consumption and greed, no improvement is likely. I guess maybe a campaign slogan like this might help by trying to get us to think long term: "Do you like your children and grandchildren enough to try and leave them more resources with less pollution so they can have a brighter future?".

 

[work in progress]

Work in Progress said that US manufacturing today is owned by the military or nearly so.

Actually I said that the only U.S. manufacturing that are not subject to outsourcing...at least not subject to complete outsourcing, is military. But, an argument can be made that, since the major contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics etc. hire retired high ranking generals as lobbyists, it's more of a case of the contractor tail wagging the Defense Dept. dog.

Does that summarize where we are at? Did I miss anything?

I suppose it summarizes much of it; but I wasn't aware that we are supposed to reach some kind of consensus of opinion here!

 

[esmith]

Actually I said that the only U.S. manufacturing that are not subject to outsourcing...at least not subject to complete outsourcing, is military. But, an argument can be made that, since the major contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics etc. hire retired high ranking generals as lobbyists, it's more of a case of the contractor tail wagging the Defense Dept. dog.

I suppose it summarizes much of it; but I wasn't aware that we are supposed to reach some kind of consensus of opinion here!

Think maybe you misspoke prior to researching your point. Now you may or may not like the source but the information is there. Some military components are outsourced

American Defense Outsourcing Has Become a National Security Threat

 

[Revoltingest]

Think maybe you misspoke prior to researching your point. Now you may or may not like the source but the information is there. Some military components are outsourced

American Defense Outsourcing Has Become a National Security Threat

This is one area where I've been advocating protectionism.
Compelling strategic reasons, ya know.

 

[work in progress]

Think maybe you misspoke prior to researching your point. Now you may or may not like the source but the information is there. Some military components are outsourced

American Defense Outsourcing Has Become a National Security Threat

Yes, but in that article, they're referring to components and electronics outsourced to China because they are producing most of the world's supply of rare earth elements today.

A former high ranking employee of Lockheed-Martin claimed in an interview that the only reason why they have production facilities in all of the lower 48 states is so that almost every congressman can be hit with attack ads and news stories about 'killing jobs' if he dares vote to cancel one of their major projects or votes against a proposed new war toy they want to sell to the Government. So, they will keep as much production in America as necessary to blackmail elected officials into approving their contracts.

 

[Avi1001]

One of the good guys, Picketty, in the news again. Comments ?:

Thomas Piketty's economic data 'came out of thin air' | Business | theguardian.com