171–180 of 412 posts
Better to let those countries provide the cash for building via state loans rather than the company investing it's own money. Then if the factory is confiscated or the company is kicked out of the country for whatever reason the loans are defaulted on and the company's money is intact.
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That's not "trickle down" economics, which is not actually a real thing at all. That's a nonsensical political term that the Democrats seized upon during Reagan's "supply side" economic policy; which has beginnings much earlier than Reagan, and likely older than Jean-Baptiste Say's formulation. There isn't an idea that alone "capital drives growth," that's an idea that Keynes came up with by misreading Jean-Baptiste…
There is a school of economics, sometimes called the "freshwater school" (from the Chicago School and Milton Friedman) which claims you can't run out of demand. This is a classic position. But productivity is now so good that we can run out of demand. Classically, countries ran out of land, labor, capital, or management before they ran out of demand. There were occasional recessions, but that wasn't a permanent condi…
China has for years done intense injections into its economy (both top and bottom down), with worker training programs, state owned enterprises, etc; and now they became so reliant on the artificial demand created by their own government that they have huge slack in inventories. There's a reason why copper/steel/oil are plunging.
There aren't many, if any, examples of "demand drives growth" working in a long term situation. In the short run economies simply need to work out their gluts, and slack. Famously coined "creative destruction," the unhealthy aspect (especially after Keynes) is that growth become a policy goal rather than sustainability in that growth. To this Keynes said "in the long run we're all dead," putting short term growth into focus of government policy makers rather than long term growth which often requires negative GDP growth and recessions.
Anyhow, you're also mischaracterizing the Chicago School and Milton Friedman. There is no claim that you can "never run out of demand." And the "freshwater school" is about discretionary policy of government policy, not whatever you just tried to say. This is one reason why Friedman was fond of the "Friedman rule" or the "K% Rule," because it took discretionary powers away from the Federal Reserve. The idea is that with rational expectation of monetary growth the market can set its expectations to not be prone to monetary policy failures. The same is true of government failures. The idea of "market failure" is a criticism, but the Chicago School doesn't deny market failure exists, only that the government should have a limited discretionary role involved in picking up any demand slack.
If the government bought wheat, for instance, to keep its price high and keep farmers employed; then burns it, this creates asset misallocations, though it is technically creating demand (this still happens to this day.) A policy measure is put into place to address a problem, but instead of the market correcting to shift to different types of production it continues its course and creates slack in other areas (such as too little corn, or soy.)
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As far as I know the US taxes the income of its citizens even when they live outside the US. So why can't the US just tax the offshore income of the companies?
It depends; if you are paying taxes to the government of the country you reside in (say, Australia), the US has a reciprocal agreement with them, and you are not charged tax two different times on your income. On a company level, this seems to translate into "we have super low local tax rates, build companies and campuses here to boost our local economy!" (see: Ireland).
The US is out of demand. Workers are spent out. Thus, there's no need to increase output, because nobody has the money to buy it. The US has huge excess manufacturing capacity, thousands of malls which could handle more traffic ("there's always parking at Sears", a rather pathetic ad), and services which could handle more business. There's a glut of capital, plenty of available unemployed or underemployed workers, no…
Is this so bad? Falling into something of a European-type rut with permanent 8-12% unemployment and modest GDP gains? I remember the 90s. Everyone was buying shit non-stop. What kind of life is that? Sure it created jobs and growth but to the ludicrous end where we refused to accept the gravy train was ending. I remember Bush 43 pleading for Americans to "go back shopping" the black friday after 9/11 when the writing…
You do see that there is a price to pay for that, right?
Future generations pay the cost, not you. So you are deciding to imperil people who are children, or who do not yet exist. There's a clear line to draw from "more holidays" and "more leisure" to "fewer diseases cured" and "E.U.-style fiscal crisis."
The American tradition of working away continuously, hacking away, jamming hard on a challenge all night is really, really a good thing. It's saved the world a few times. It's good.
The US is out of demand. Workers are spent out. Thus, there's no need to increase output, because nobody has the money to buy it. The US has huge excess manufacturing capacity, thousands of malls which could handle more traffic ("there's always parking at Sears", a rather pathetic ad), and services which could handle more business. There's a glut of capital, plenty of available unemployed or underemployed workers, no…
And a major reason workers are spent out is because of high rents. If the US would build enough housing in the major employment centers that the highly skilled workers wouldn't spend 90% of their after-tax income on fixed expenses, they'd have more money to spend to drive other businesses. All the disposable income is being sucked into rents, and eventually that will make the economy run slower and slower, fewer sale…
But you should state the answer directly rather than assuming it under a layer of indirection.
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> A modern "new deal" for elder care would also do the trick.. Oh please no! Boomers have already pillaged and mortgaged the futures of the youth enough already. The last thing we need is for them to stick it one more time with a new set of unpaid indefinite obligations. For a simpler approach, just give everybody $X (00 or 000?) either one off or repeatedly. It's as progressive as it gets and at least some youth wil…
unpaid indefinite obligations I'm pretty sure elder care isn't indefinite. Maybe we end it after this current generation of old people (our parents/grandparents) are no longer around. One of the biggest social problems we'll face in the next 10 years is millions of people with dementia who can't take care of themselves just... existing. What do we do? One fun story I've heard is a doctor gave an old woman with full b…
Once you reach 65 and are eligible to start receiving payments, are you going to be okay when they say "nope, well's dry?" You would if you didn't realize they had been garnishing your salary for thirty years. But anyone with any sense of responsibility would be furious if they decided to just stop paying benefits after one generation.
Besides, how do you decide when a generation ends to stop paying?!
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This is the ultimate problem with "trickle down" economics. Capital doesn't drive growth. Lack of capital limits growth, but excess capital doesn't generate additional growth. Demand drives growth and 35 years of stagnant wages (wages are basically where they were in 1981) have put a chokehold on growth. This is why you have the seemingly incongruous effect of high taxes encouraging growth and low taxes stifling it.…
That's not "trickle down" economics, which is not actually a real thing at all. That's a nonsensical political term that the Democrats seized upon during Reagan's "supply side" economic policy; which has beginnings much earlier than Reagan, and likely older than Jean-Baptiste Say's formulation. There isn't an idea that alone "capital drives growth," that's an idea that Keynes came up with by misreading Jean-Baptiste…
How is it not an idea and an idea simultaneously
The US is out of demand. Workers are spent out. Thus, there's no need to increase output, because nobody has the money to buy it. The US has huge excess manufacturing capacity, thousands of malls which could handle more traffic ("there's always parking at Sears", a rather pathetic ad), and services which could handle more business. There's a glut of capital, plenty of available unemployed or underemployed workers, no…
This is the ultimate problem with "trickle down" economics. Capital doesn't drive growth. Lack of capital limits growth, but excess capital doesn't generate additional growth. Demand drives growth and 35 years of stagnant wages (wages are basically where they were in 1981) have put a chokehold on growth. This is why you have the seemingly incongruous effect of high taxes encouraging growth and low taxes stifling it.…
What we both want is basic income. But I'm not sure about taxing "rich" who could easily leave. Then you're not taxing the "rich" any more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this so bad? Falling into something of a European-type rut with permanent 8-12% unemployment and modest GDP gains? I remember the 90s. Everyone was buying shit non-stop. What kind of life is that? Sure it created jobs and growth but to the ludicrous end where we refused to accept the gravy train was ending. I remember Bush 43 pleading for Americans to "go back shopping" the black friday after 9/11 when the writing…
"a shorter work-week, more holidays, and more leisure" You do see that there is a price to pay for that, right? Future generations pay the cost, not you. So you are deciding to imperil people who are children, or who do not yet exist. There's a clear line to draw from "more holidays" and "more leisure" to "fewer diseases cured" and "E.U.-style fiscal crisis." The American tradition of working away continuously, hacki…
I'd much rather have my grandkids enjoy a 24 hour workweek and be surrounded by automation than continuing the keep up this house of cards with its 50-60 hours work weeks, endless stress, constant retraining, constant layoffs, endless warfare for resources, etc to keep the status quo afloat.
Its clear to me that Bush 43 was our last hurrah for the old way of doing things. Automation is just eating the world and denying that is just not going to help us.
>The American tradition of working away continuously, hacking away, jamming hard on a challenge all night is really, really a good thing.
Creative people will always be this way. You're confusing values with jobs. The hardest and best projects in my life were done with zero exception of monetary gain. Ask any hacker. They'd be doing this shit anyway. Linus had no idea Linux would go anywhere, for example, and thought of his project as being largely academic at first.
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No more than I do now. I want the wage increase to come from lowering the company's profitability. And it is... In 2016 Walmart is spending $1.2bn more on wages, and in 2017 it'll spend $1.5bn more. That's without putting prices up. The 2014 wage hike hit the share price quite hard, but Walmart has the cash to do it and I imagine the shares will bounce back. I hope other businesses follow their lead. http://www.thegu…
They aren't raising prices, however they are firing 16,000 employees: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-15/walmart-fire-16000-...