I think you should take some of your own advice. I'm light years away from being an expert but I have read some economics and to me your showing a misunderstanding of some the very basic principles of economics. You rage about greedy capitalists then beat the drum of protectionism. So is your point of view "**** the rest of the world so long as i'm ok?" That is what you are arguing for. Labour costs are currently cheaper in the far east but the jobs the "greedy capitalists" are creating will raise the living standards of the people while producing cheap electrical items for you so you can complain about it on the internet. In fact stop reading this right now and take thirty seconds to look around your room. Nearly everything your looking at is the product of capitalism. The fact your educated, healthy and have the leisure time to think about these issues and discuss them on the internet is because of capitalism. FTFY.
This would be somewhat ill informed, Norway have so many special agreements with the EU that they might as well be a member, add to this that they are a EFTA member. Norway protects its industry no more than the rest of Europe and really cannot be held as an example of protectionism. There are currently no substitution for the jobs lost in production and I cannot imagine what should replace them, but since you are so sure they will just pup op I am no longer going to concern myself with the economy as jobs will just appear out of nowhere whenever many people are out of work. [/sarcasm] This again is somewhat miss informed as the agricultural sector is much more tangled that that and with the EU involved it never gets easier. Firstly it would not be a problem for many of the farmers in europe to compete with the rest of the world for several reasons. The efficiency of especially the German, Danish, British and a few other countries are so high that they would have no problem competing, a good example is that here in Denmark it is actually cheaper to by a litre of milk today than thirty years ago. Many farmers in these countries would actually love to have all support too the agricultural sector removed, however this is much tied into reason number two. The main thing that are protected by the EU money are inefficient farmers. When you have a system like the EU agricultural part where everyone gets something depending on their situation you make it so that the very small inefficient farms can easily compete. The best example here is a large portion of farmers in Italy, Spain and France that get extra money because they live in more difficult terrain than say the Danish farmers, making so that the mountain farmer with 20 animals have the same income as a farmer with 250 animals. This in turn makes it so that the countries with many farmers in such a situation are not interested in the support going away and therefore block any attempt to do so in EU. Thirdly the simple fact that agricultural products are grown in different places, no grapes in northern parts, no rice in Europe, Beets better suited for wetter weather and so on. These are just some of the reasons but in summary it would not (always) be cheaper to import and it would not even be possible to import the goods we require in either quality or quantity. sure there would be some things that would be cheaper to import and a lot of farmers would go bankrupt at first but it would be easily survivable.
Pretty thin but fairly well time hit piece for the UAW et al. He had investments previously placed in funds which had an investment in a car parts company. Hardly a live boy or dead girl.
Thing is that Mr. die-hard capitalist profited hugely from a very socialist bail-out. He is not quite giving that money back on principle now, is he?
I'm a selfemployed graphics-designer. Getting rich isn't my goal though, but rather to make everyone happy. So I mostly do jobs that I'm interested in myself or projects that are fun and I only ask for so much money to cover the costs and it actually works very well for the last 10 years. So it's OK for you to "milk" those developing countries and use their cheap labour to raise the living-standards of the western countries? Seriously, it's the wrong approach. Raising the living-standards of the developing countries can aswell be done by education and helping them to build their own economy. Or we might start paying fair prices for the ressources harvested in these developing countries. --- For Norways protectionism... read up on the "butter-crisis" of last year or the most recent example -> http://theforeigner.no/pages/news/eu-warns-norway-on-protectionist-customs-move/ And in general, read up on the subsidies for european and american agriculture, to beat the prices of south-america, africa, etc, which has led to a situation where it's cheaper for these regions to buy european or US-products instead of their own. I'm not saying that protectionism is the best recipe for the worlds economy, but for every countries own economy. Especially aslong as wages and costs of energy are not leveled throughout the world. If the workers in a chinese factory would get the same wages as in america, and if China would be entitled to the same environmental politics etc, then it would make no sense to produce most of the goods in China anymore. And that's the problem that needs to be solved. The only thing you can do about it currently is to protect your own economy by applying taxes to the imported products, so that the price matches the products manufactured in your country. Then people can choose which product to buy based on quality. This would be fair trade then. Anyways... when Romney gets elected, then more jobs in the manufacturing of products will get lost, as he supports the investors and owners, who try to make more profits by lowering the costs of producing them.
The word "milking" may have rhetorical value but no historical one. The question is, if these economies are being exploited, why is their standard of living rising? Why did Japan's in the 60's, S. Korea in the 70's, Taiwan in the 80's and China now? All of these economies were being "exploited" in the past and they all seem to be better off than other countries in the same situation when they began being "milked". Lowering the cost of production helps the consumer. American workers are among the highest paid in the world. I think you mistake productivity for... well... everything. One thing may not have much to do with the other. People who run businesses don't really have control over that anyhow. Take two companies that make the same product and hire the same amount of workers for the same pay. But one manages to be more efficient, more productive and can offer the same product for less. Who do you think consumers will buy from. They can get the same product for less. If the other company that makes no effort to meet the newer and lower costs goes out of business and has to lay off all its employees, the fact that the person who was running the business had any convictions that match your vision of the world will hold little consolation to them. "I may be out of a job but at least we didn't make our products affordable" said no one ever.
No. You have misunderstood my entire point. You are complaining that jobs are moving from the west to the far east, which is having a negative effect on western economies. The result of this process for the far east is the creation of jobs that lead to an increase of living standards in those countries. Unless I am seriously misreading your posts you want to put protectionist policies in place to prevent this. Now your contradicting yourself. Farming subsidies (which I oppose) are bad because they hurt developing countries but we should put measures in place to stop businesses moving production to these same developing nations? Wages are only part of the equation. China is willing to build all the supporting infrastructure and industry needed to support what ever is being built. That is something an authoritarian regime can do very quickly that western democracies can not. Look I am all for workers in China (and the rest of the developing world) getting a fair deal and I hope their living standards raise to the levels we enjoy here. History has shown that the quickest and most effective way of that happening is capitalism and it is happening right now in front of our eyes. Your advocating policies to be put in place that will stop this from happening to protect the life style of countries who all ready enjoy the benefits of the process.
Yes, the living standards of the developing countries are rising, but at what cost? Environmentally and socially. The whole point is, that we, the western industrialized countries are not playing fair here, not paying a fair amount of money for the products being manufactured in the developing countries. So we try to keep or increase our own living standards on the back of the developing countries instead of developing our own countries eceonomy. Every medal has two sides, and allthough some people in the developing countries do profit in this current process, the costs they have to pay afterwards because of the massive impact on their environment and social structures will show negative results for them aswell in a decade or two. What the developing countries like China or Brazil are doing wihtin two decades currently, is what took the western countries a whole century. And even if it sounds unfair to try slowing their progress, it's needed to make the whole process a healthy one. Anyways, I'll not be living long enough to see the downfall of the current systems in the next decades to come, so I guess I couldn't care less and just be happy with the unhealthy capitalism on steroids. Just one last word... look to indo-china (more precisely the countries adjacent to Himalaya), the 3 billion people living there and then look at how much water there is for these people. Prepare for some nasty conflicts there within the next 20-30 years. And this is a problem that ties in with too fast growing economies in these countries.
Developed and industrialized countries have the cleanest water, largest variety of the most affordable and highest quality food, and more access to medical care. I need you to quantify your argument. "fair amount" - here we go. It's not fair based on what criteria? "Fair" is YOUR subjective take on the transactions between countries. These are transactions that the people with a stake in the matter decide to take because, as bad as it may seem, it is better than any of their other options. This "fairness" intellectual straw-man was address in a very constructive way here (as well as several other threads here).
There's a reason I used the agricultural revolution example. We've gone from a state of 80%+ in the primary sectors too ~2%. People founds job producing good and services instead. Its reasonable to assume that with increasing automation in manufacturing that 2% in primary(farmings/oil/mining), 20% in secondary (manufacturing) would be capable of providing all of a populations material needs. People will create service jobs. Look at the current UK employment structure to get an idea of were they are. Hell healthcare alone could easily take up 15% of the workforce in the future. Are you suggesting we artificially force the split to instead to be say 10/40/50%. There isn't sufficient demand for material products for that split to work assuming Western productivity levels.
You can accept the current systems ofc... I don't. And I haven't even started to talk about global governments and global social systems etc. For the US-election I don't expect too much happening in the USA or the US foreign-policies, if Obama stays president, but it atleast won't get worse.
Very well timed but rather baseless. In short its an allegation that Romney deliberately profiteered. Actual evidence amounts to the fact he owns a stake in companies linked to the US auto industry in 2009 but that's a perfectly reasonable long term investment to hold and its almost certain that someone of Romney's worth will hold at least one company linked to the US auto industry. Then it presumes the fact he didn't release his tax returns before 2010 means that he must be hiding evidence that he only brought the stake just before the bailout on some kind of insider tip. The guy didn't even support the auto bailouts and was very vocal on the issue a few years back.
Pile on the fact that Delphi went bankrupt in 2005, that's some pretty awesome forethought that they would make tons of profit from a government bailout 4 years later. Let's accept the argument for just a moment that what they imply is true. Delphi turned around and a majority of the money they made was a result of the share price going up. Meanwhile, GM was bailed out and basically handed to the UAW (the main fingerpointer in this article - coincidence? no) and they have lost between $25B - $35B in value since going public (it's actually more but that's what the taxpayers are on the hook for). If I were the head of the UAW, I would keep my mouth shut about who benefitted from the bailout.
Your lack of acceptance of what has worked and not worked historically is your prerogative. But expecting everyone else involved in the conversation to accept your arguments based on pure theory requires at least a little credibility. You say you are a freelance artists, to some degree, to get anything done with any clients, you do accept the current system, it seems more like you resent it. prospective client: "Hey can I get a quote for a new page layout design?" artist: "No, I reject the current system." prospective client: "ok" There is no limit to the number of theories that challenge the status quo, but you have to at least accept that people who are expected to bear the costs of any given failure of the actual execution of a theory may want a little more to hang their hat on. I know I do. Not to mention, some theoretical notions are not as novel as some people think. One of my favorite quotes from Paul Johnson addresses this phenomenon about mankind that people are willing to entertain a known theoretical failure if it is just posed in a different manner because it is something they wanted to believe in the first place: I don't mean to quash idealism, it has it's place, especially as an inspiration for considerate and incremental improvement. But if you reject an entire construct, that idealism - for all practical purposes - can only exist in a vacuum.
When I was younger I accepted alot and went along with it. I made lots of money when I was working in agencies before, but seeing more and more people around me loosing wihtin the system, I started to understand tho, that the current system isn't working for all people, but only a very little minority. So I thought about changing my life and my ideals. Today I basically work for the same clients as before, but on my own. I have way more fun doing it and my clients are getting the same quality of work, but for less then half the money. So in all of this only one thing has changed actually... I stopped being a greedy capitalistic btard who worked for 60+ hours a week, having no time for his family, friends or hobbies and everyone got happier this way. Now. When companies would actually start to stop being greedy capitalistic btards and pay fair wages to their workers instead of trying to make more and more profits for their shareholders, with conditions where the workers wont need to work more then some 40 hours a week still being able to make for a living, then everyone would win in the end aswell. It is possible, but we need to stop being greedy, pushing the economic growth to allways new heights etc etc etc. It's basically quiet easy. When someone wins, someone else looses. So the best a community actually can hope for is a draw. And that requires a social economy instead of capitalistic one.
No. You produce something people want for money. You sell it at a profit and win, they get something they want an win. That is the free market. Now start getting protectionist and you don't get to choose what you want with your money and have to take second best. Now you get to loose.
I think that the sticking point with capitalism is that ephemeral concept of 'fairness'. The idea behind a free market is that the buyer and seller both profit more from the transaction than they would have if the transaction had not taken place. The issue is: do both profit in reasonably equal manner? A slum landlord who exploits his tenants could argue that they profit from the transaction as much as he does: it's better than homelessness. Foxconn can argue that its workers still do better than most other workers in China. Similarly when Western companies buy coffee beans at rock bottom prices, they will argue that the South American farmer profits more than if they didn't buy their coffee. But the issue is choice. Without choice there is no free market. The slum landlord, Foxconn, Starbucks, big Pharma, whoever is richest and most powerful always has more choices than the exploited tenant, worker, farmer or patient. Because homelessness, destitution or staying sick/hurt or dying is not really a choice. I think that jrs77 is alluding to that. The free market is not free. Apart from protectionism, the assymmetry of information (the seller knows more about what they are selling than the buyer does) and available resources all skew the balance of choice, and hence bargaining power and position.
When people are free to choose, they can find out any amount of information they think they need about anything. Most people don't need or want to know every detail and certainly no bureaucrat can either anticipate every eventuality or even know everything possible about any given single product/service. I'm just thankful I live in an era of history where people can legitimately make the argument that freedom is no longer defined by being exempt from coercion but that people aren't perfect and omnipotent. That's PROGRESS!!!
That may be true in principle, but in practice sounds as idealistic as jrs77's socialist philosophy. Knowledge is not free. People cannot necessarily find out pertinent information about a product they wish to buy. It's about resources again: are you bright enough, educated enough, literate enough; have you got access to this information (companies may choose to hide or obfuscate disadvantageous information; why is the small print small?), do you have the time and energy to devote to it or is just surviving day to day a priority? Are you raised in a socioculture where knowledge is recognised as empowering? Capitalism (and the American Dream) presumes a level playing field that is a comforting notion but does not exist.
