Brent P wrote:
In article . com, wrote:
Brent P wrote:

Unemployment is near historic lows, GDP is growing at 3.5%, inflation
and interest rates are both low, real estate is at record highs, and
more Americans own homes today than ever before. No reasonable person
and certainly no economist, would call that a collapsing economy.

I didn't call it a collasping economy. I called it an economy of short
term thinking. That is unless you think that 9 trillion in debt and
several times that in future liabilities is something you can shrug off.
Then there is the clever calculations that produce some of those figures
you quote.

So, it's better to rely on personal opinion, than to look at decades of
real economic data that is readily available?

Why don't you pay attention to people from the World Bank, Federal
Reserve, etc and so on if you don't believe me?

I do. They unanimously say that trade is beneficial.


It's not clear what
exact "$9 trillion in debt you are referring to." If it's the US govt
debt, an absolute number doesn't mean much by itself.

Well if you want to play games with the currancy.

Ask grandpa what
he paid for his first house. Does that mean everyone who pays 10X that
for a house today is doing something wrong? If you look at govt debt
as a percentage of GDP, today it's about the same as it was in the mid
90's and also about the same as it was in the mid 50's. During WWII,
it was twice as high. We survived that, didn't we?

So you want to make the debt smaller by inflating the currancy.

The real value of the debt is what matters.


That appears to be what is being done.

That is not what's being done. If your parents earned $10,000 a year
in 1950 and had a $20,000 mortgage on a house, and if your earn
$100,000 a year and have a $200,000 mortgage on a comparable house, and
if the price level today is 10 times what it was in 1950, then you're
in the same financial position regarding housing as your parents were.


As for low cost products doing low income people no good, that is
absolutely false.

In the long term it doesn't. For the short term, get the crap now sure.
But in the long term no. Unless they are always supposed to be poor.

Of course it benefits them in the long term, by low income people being
able to conitnue to buy good cheaply. That continues on.

But work as slaves... like in china.

No one in the U.S. is working as a slave.


But if you don't want to listen to me about the danger of economic
collaspe, maybe you'll listen to this guy:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/01/1...obel_2001.html

I mean he's only been chief economist for the world bank and has a nobel
prize in the field.... and he's not agreeing with you...

Nothing in that page indicates any disagreement.


Look at who shops at Kmart, Walmart, etc. Those
products would cost much more if it were not for foreign low cost labor
producing them.

Funny how I can find even in those stores, in corners and places made in
USA goods that cost no more and even less much of the time.

And do you think you'd find them at those prices if you eliminated
foreign competition?

Strawman.

No, not in the least. It's a legitimate question, and you whiffed on
it.


These low cost products are of tremendous benefit to
everyone, including the low income. As someone earlier pointed out,
China is planning a $7000 entry level car. Do you think that is of no
benefit to low income families here in the USA? You're so biased only
looking for negatives that you can't see the forest for the trees.

I don't think you understand the long term game.

I don't think you understand economics, the great benefit of free
trade, and the huge problems that get caused when you try to have govt
correct perceived imperfections in free markets. Free markets aren't
perfect. Sometimes they are even brutal. But they are far better to
solutions of protectionism, that result in govt management of the
economy and trade wars.

There is no such thing as free trade.

There is more free trade and less free trade. We generally live in a
period of more free trade.


China is playing a long term game while the US is playing a short term one.

According to you, because you focus only on the negatives. There are
many US companies that lead the world today today in many areas. Would
you rather have MSFT, INTC, Boeing, etc, or a country with unskilled
laborers making shirts?

You don't seem to grasp the whole picture. Guess who's going to be
building Airbus aircraft? Guess... you think any job is safe? You're
deluding yourself. It's not just no-skill low-skill or 'dirty-jobs' that
are going to china. In fact, with the manufactruring now much of the
engineering is going too...

The knowledge drain from the US to China has been monumental as well. US
company starts manufacturing over there, next thing they know they have a
new competitor using everything they learned from the US company.

This is the same tired, stale, discredited crap that was said 20 and 30
years ago about Japan. Japan has been mired in stagnation since 1990.

There are *always* gains from exchange - always. China may well master
some manufacturing techniques that we pioneer. No big deal. The U.S.
will continue to have a comparative advantage in activities that
require a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce for decades to
come.


Guess who benefits
from this in the long term? China will be the super power and the US will
in many respects be third worlded. Or do you think it is a good thing to
have people in the USA compete for jobs with china?

What works is a free economy.

There is no such thing.

Yes, there is.


And in that scenario, each country
makes products that fit their workforce and capabilities. Everyone
made your argument 40 years ago, when Japan was the boogey man. Then
is was supposed to be Taiwan that was going to ruin us all. Then
Korea. Funny how we are still here and by any reasonable
interpretation of actual economic statistics, we're doing quite well.

Japan was never a boogey man.

Yes, they most certainly were. You're too young to remember it.


If we're failing anywhere, it's because we have a segment of the
population that doesn't get educated, doesn't even finish high school.
The solution to that is to work on that problem, not try to compete in
making shirts or baskets on the theory that the solution is to have
more no skills jobs to compete with foreign low cost labor.

Again you have no grasp of the situation.

No, that applies to you. You exhibit classic mercantilist ignorance.