NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE2/doodoo.html

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE2/usapower.jpg

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6 a.m. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA).

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in.....AMERICA.....

Meh, and ppl say that outsourcing jobs makes other economies stronger - and ours is falling, fast

That article started with a quote by one of our former Representatives from Ohio, James Traficant. Well I'm an Ohioan and I wouldn't be too trusting of something that started out with a quite from Traficant.

Meh, and ppl say that outsourcing jobs makes other economies stronger - and ours is falling, fast

True.

I'm not saying in any way that everything in this article is right, I posted it here because it makes a valid point and good discussion topic.

Meh, and ppl say that outsourcing jobs makes other economies stronger - and ours is falling, fast
Well, and what would the solution be? I mean, it's one thing to complain, quite another to propose alternatives.

The only thing that has really happened is that we reached the maximum amount the government can borrow. Big debt doesn't imply bankruptcy; it is not until you cannot pay off the interest of that debt that you are bankrupt.

Did they file a Chapter XI? :)

This echoes in a strange way the pattern of British economic practices during the 1700s. They imported raw materials from colonies, put them together in britain and sold them. Then after a while the colonies began to develop industrial abilites, ie the ability to put those raw materials together, particularly after their citizens, schooled in british schools, returned. Although not every country was successful, often due to reasons unique to that country, and not every country's idea of success meshes with ours, many nations' current economic strength -- and this includes the US of A -- was founded on this.

For example, China, Egypt, South Africa, and India all became significantly stronger economically (albeit the latter, India, has waay too much population in too small an area to be considered 1st world, it's certainly stronger than it otherwise would be; Egypt and South Africa are two of the strongest African nations economically if not the two strongest, and China is doing very nicely) because of this policy.

Now, you see other nations following a similar trend. Korea and Mexico are both nations that we have helped out in this manner. The United States has been on the top of the biggest economic boom in the history of mankind, from 1800 to 2000 (taken as a whole, with obvious bumps along the way). Just like in the beginning of this decade, with the bursting of the internet bubble, you'd expect a bit of a ... downturn, once we hit the point at which other nations have began to catch up. It's not a bad thing -- just means we are correcting to the spot which we should be at. Americans just have to get used to the fact that the amazing economic growth we're used to is just not the norm in the world as a whole, unless another amazing technological discovery occurs to massively increase production and efficiency -- which probably wouldn't help jobs out, anyway ...

If you didnt read the whole article please read the whole thing.

I'm not saying in any way that everything in this article is right, I posted it here because it makes a valid point and good discussion topic.

Very well. Carry on.

Now, you see other nations following a similar trend. Korea and Mexico are both nations that we have helped out in this manner. The United States has been on the top of the biggest economic boom in the history of mankind, from 1800 to 2000 (taken as a whole, with obvious bumps along the way). Just like in the beginning of this decade, with the bursting of the internet bubble, you'd expect a bit of a ... downturn, once we hit the point at which other nations have began to catch up. It's not a bad thing -- just means we are correcting to the spot which we should be at. Americans just have to get used to the fact that the amazing economic growth we're used to is just not the norm in the world as a whole, unless another amazing technological discovery occurs to massively increase production and efficiency -- which probably wouldn't help jobs out, anyway ...

Clearly you didnt read the article. The United States has ceased to make enough goods to be sold. The service economy was created by politicians. You can't build a country of wealth by doing other people's laundry. You have to make products that other people will buy.

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6 a.m. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA).

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in.....AMERICA.....

That is kind of amusing. Really does make you think.

It's a serious point.

When your factories are located in foreign countries, and their owners, your workers, and your shareholders and creditors are foreigners, as well as those who transport the raw materials and finished products, what are you left with?

You're left with the brand. Your business is advertising, logistics and managing the brand. Trademarks, copyright and web servers, that's all you've got at the end of the day, not much real wealth.

A lot of Western countries, but most notably the US, have basically ceased to produce much of value to the world, and manage finances, licenses and logistics, while others do the real wealth creation. That's the "service economy".

Which is actually good for the wealthier, more stable parts of the developing world, but my god is globalisation going to bite America on the ass.

Clearly you didnt read the article. The United States has ceased to make enough goods to be sold. The service economy was created by politicians. You can't build a country of wealth by doing other people's laundry. You have to make products that other people will buy.

How then make the US a manufacturing state again? I mean, other countries are also investing in R&D, use the same raw materials and markets as the US, and althought they have some competitive advantages like low wages, the US has others, like a strong economy with a great distribution system and financial structure.

So, what's stopping the US? It can't be unfair trade practices, since global trade had never before been so free and open.

Meh, and ppl say that outsourcing jobs makes other economies stronger - and ours is falling, fast

Globalization is inevitable. I suggest you get use to the idea.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE2/doodoo.html

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE2/usapower.jpg
That's not called bankruptcy. That's called inflation.

What that graph there says is that "Used to you could buy a sandwich for a nickel, but now you can buy a sandwich for $5"

My brother showed me that a while back. Scary to hear Bush has started allowing drilling in protected "collateral" land!

My brother showed me that a while back. Scary to hear Bush has started allowing drilling in protected "collateral" land!

??? Where does drilling come into the picture here? I've noticed this multiple times across the forum. Someone tries to push some anti-Bush or anti-Democrat information into a totally unrelated topic. Is that all you people can think about?

Anyways, I have to agree with Opal Isle. Its inflation, not "destruction of the dollar".

thanx to Dumbya, we have become a third world nation. we import more than we export, we live on credit, our rich and poor classes are growing while the middle class dwindles away, we make most of our productive income from selling not skills but resources such as coal, oil, timber etc.

we are a great big third world nation.

That's not called bankruptcy. That's called inflation.Yup. And it should be on a logrithmic scale. What you really don't want is runaway inflation; that'll just kill your economy. It hasn't happened yet. But, unless I'm much mistaken, a large quantity of greenbacks are held outside the United States, which raises the possibility of a selling panic.

thanx to Dumbya, we have become a third world nation. we import more than we export, we live on credit, our rich and poor classes are growing while the middle class dwindles away, we make most of our productive income from selling not skills but resources such as coal, oil, timber etc.

we are a great big third world nation.

You clearly have little experience with third world nations. Moreover, you do not realize how good you have it here.

Yup. And it should be on a logrithmic scale. What you really don't want is runaway inflation; that'll just kill your economy. It hasn't happened yet. But, unless I'm much mistaken, a large quantity of greenbacks are held outside the United States, which raises the possibility of a selling panic.

A weak dollar is good for the American economy.

You clearly have little experience with third world nations. Moreover, you do not realize how good you have it here.

This guy is not a liberal, he is a dumba$$ rightwinger who can't see that deficits=poverty=Dumbya. His observations are still sound, even if he doesn't have a clue about the causes.

............................................
The US as Third-World Nation
by Bob Wallace

One of my friends, a Filipina who still lives in the Philippines, told me there are basically two economic classes in her country: the rich rich and the poor poor. There isn’t much of a middle-class. How did this sad state of affairs come about? How else – the rich rich have gained control of the State and use it to enrich themselves and impoverish everyone else. This is what always happens. It’s human nature.

It’s what happened in the former Soviet Union, and what is happening in Mexico and the Middle East (the members of the House of Saud – what a joke, because there’s no such thing as Arab "royalty" – are bazillionaires, while the populace is mostly poor and unemployed). It has always happened in the past. The example I generally use is Galilee of Jesus’ time, in which two-thirds of the people were poor because the Romans and the upper-class Pharisees used the State to tax everyone into poverty.

As best as I can tell, under a free market two-thirds of the people are middle-class. When there isn’t a free market, two-thirds of the people are dirt-poor, and a very small minority (those who have gained control of the State) are Scrooge McDuck-rich. That is what the Third World is: a handful of billionaires and everyone living in shacks.

In the Philippines, there is so much poverty that there has sprung up child prostitution to service wealthy pedophiles from other countries. The prostitutes are both boys and girls. The Philippine government looks the other way. Drug abuse is rampant, because the users are without hope.

My friend lives in a gated community with armed guards at the entrance. That’s starting to sound familiar even in America, isn’t it?

What do these other countries have to do with America? They show that America isn’t immune to the diseases of the Third World. Here’s an example: the mean average tax burden in the US is 40 percent of a person’s income. The economist Walter Williams said when you factor in everything else – such as the fact the citizens pay 100 percent of the Social Security tax, since businesses pass their taxes onto their customers – then the tax burden is in reality 50 percent. Someone making $40,000 a year is actually making $20,000.

When you take into account the fact the dollar, because of government-caused inflation, has lost 99 percent of its value in the last 100 years, plus all of the job-destroying regulation of the economy, plus deficits...it’s entirely possible the US could turn into a Third-World country. It might take a century, but it could happen.

My paternal grandfather dropped out of school in the 8th-grade. He spent his life installing wooden-strip floors and finishing them. His wife did some sewing part-time in their home. They raised nine kids and lived a middle-class existence.

This is now impossible in the United States.

How did my grandfather do this? Because taxes and regulations were a fraction of what they are now.

My father’s first brand-new car was a 1967 VW Bug. It costs $1600. He dropped out of high school and opened up his own construction company. He made $10,000 a year, which put him right in the middle of the middle-class. The car costs 16 percent of his yearly income. A cheap car today costs $10,000. The mean average salary is $40,000. The car is now 25 percent of a person’s yearly income, not 16 percent.

My parents’ home – solidly middle-class – costs $12,000 in 1968. A little over one year of my father’s salary. Today, the average home costs $120,000. Three year’s income. While today’s homes are somewhat larger than the ones in 1968, they’re not ten times larger (and if you want to see what houses really cost, look at an amortization table and figure the interest).

The price of a house now cost ten times more than it did a little over 30 years ago. If mean average income had kept pace, people would now be making $100,000 a year.

You clearly have little experience with third world nations. Moreover, you do not realize how good you have it here.

Here is a very well researched educational piece on my point. Read it and weep.

..................................................................................

http://www.uwec.edu/geography/Ivogeler/w111/third2.htm

Inflation is a nice way of saying you have sold your country out. The out sourcing of U.S. has become way out of hand. So the sandwich that you used to be able to buy for 5 cents that now costs you 5 dollars. Along with your low waged Job working at Berger King because that is the only job left in the U.S. you can’t afford that sandwich because you are trying to pay all your utilities, insurance, and car payments with the minimum wage job. The U.S. has sold its land and it people to the foreign nations, and pays these nations to like U.S. policies and political stature in the world. I would not be surprised to see a civil war coming soon in the U.S. to remove lobbyist and its’ corrupted political parties.

This guy is not a liberal, he is a dumba$$ rightwinger who can't see that deficits=poverty=Dumbya. His observations are still sound, even if he doesn't have a clue about the causes.

............................................
The US as Third-World Nation
by Bob Wallace

snip

.


Well, this is an interesting article, but all it is really saying is that you vote for a party that wants smaller govt. sounds good to me.

I dont see hopw it states that America is a third world today. It doesnt even make a good argument on why it will become one.

Here is a very well researched educational piece on my point. Read it and weep.

..................................................................................

http://www.uwec.edu/geography/Ivogeler/w111/third2.htm

This article is garbage and based on very old information.

??? Where does drilling come into the picture here? I've noticed this multiple times across the forum. Someone tries to push some anti-Bush or anti-Democrat information into a totally unrelated topic. Is that all you people can think about?
Actually, if you read the article fully you'll see that I was completely on-topic. Nixon apparently made a great deal of land "protected" as the resources were collateral for the money America owed. Now, Bush is allowing mining of these resources.

My question: WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT CHART HAVE TO DO WITH GEORGE W. BUSH!?!

The chart stops at 2000...


By the way, you notice how the dollar actually had a higher value in the 1930s during the biggest economic depression in American history than it did in the 1920s, one of the largest economic booms in American history? Shouldn't logic imply that the lower the dollar value is, the better off we are?



AND FOR PEOPLE WHO STILL DON'T GET IT...

For instance, what you can get for $1 in 1900, you can get for $25 in 2000...

* TRoK ponders buying the now apparently empty and dis-used Fort Knox for a song and turning it into a dance club. Or the cool-est Paint Ball / Urban Laser Combat range on earth ...

:D

Opal, remember in the good old days you could buy a top of the line sports car for $ 500 ? And get back on topic, please. Can't you see these people are trying to slander opposite political views, and blame current / future politicians for the economy and its past trends ? Shame on you, ;)

Yea...Henry Ford was getting bitchy when other people who owned his stock wanted to move the price up to $800+.

And don't all you guys remember when gas was under a dollar? I just barely do. Some of you probably also remember when gas was around fifty cents.

Who remembers when CDs were closer to $10 instead of $15.

And how come college tuitions keep going up?


This is what this graph is talking about.

Opal, more issues were covered in that paper than inflation and 'that chart'. I'm certainly not trying to blame your president for past economic policies. My point was, America owes those resources to other countries (according to the paper) and now drilling is allowed.

Good info on the outsourcing of jobs..

http://www.factcheck.org/article225.html

Opal, more issues were covered in that paper than inflation and 'that chart'. I'm certainly not trying to blame your president for past economic policies. My point was, America owes those resources to other countries (according to the paper) and now drilling is allowed.
America may owe money to other countries, and it may have said that in the article, but that chart most certainly doesn't say any of that. The chart only shows the decling value of the US Dollar.

The Federal Reserve can halt inflation any time it wants to by simply shutting down those printing presses.


A bit of inflation is good. Deflation is very bad.


We've borrowed so much money the lenders are getting nervous.

Nonsense. They are so nervous they are willing to take a 3% return.


The government has admitted to using covert means to prevent a market downturn; to keep the stock prices at an artificially high and overvalued level, in order to wave those impressive numbers about as "proof" that everything is okay so that the taxpayers go back to work and pay more taxes


False. The Fed kept interest rates low to avoid too much cash flowing in following the Asian economic collapse.


We don't make many of the products we used to make


So what. Do you want to work in a textile factory?

OMG NO OUTSOURCING IS TEH EVIL!

EMPLOYING NON-AMERICANS WHO WORK FOR LESS IS NOT GOOD BUSINESS SENSE, ITS A PLOT TO WEAKEN AND POLLUTE OUR AMERICAN BLOOD! WE'RE FINISHED!!!

/sarcasm

Opal - dude, we appear to be arguing the same point from opposite sides ;D

Santa - all very well, but how are other cultures going to perceive it when they manufacture all your goods and constantly lend you money you'll never pay back in order to buy them / fund your army?

Opal - dude, we appear to be arguing the same point from opposite sides ;D

Santa - all very well, but how are other cultures going to perceive it when they manufacture all your goods and constantly lend you money you'll never pay back in order to buy them / fund your army?


more than half of our National debt is owed to us(the people).

Opal - dude, we appear to be arguing the same point from opposite sides ;D

Santa - all very well, but how are other cultures going to perceive it when they manufacture all your goods and constantly lend you money you'll never pay back in order to buy them / fund your army?



When has the US failed to pay people back?

When has the US failed to pay people back?

The was a technical default by the US govt. It lasted 1 day I believe. This happened when Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton refused to agree and shut down the govt. I dont think it affected our credit rating though.

more than half of our National debt is owed to us(the people).

What about the other 45%?

The 75% of the new debt issued is from other countries.

(Source: Economist a few months back)

The was a technical default by the US govt. It lasted 1 day I believe. This happened when Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton refused to agree and shut down the govt. I dont think it affected our credit rating though.


If there is any bitterness in the book, Rubin reserves it for members of Congress. He spears former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for toying with the possibility of an unprecedented and potentially disastrous default on U.S. government bonds in 1995. Gingrich opposed the normally routine measure to raise the national debt ceiling unless he could attach unrelated and unacceptable items to the legislation. The debate was harsh. Ultimately Rubin found a way to pay the government's bills for a short period, and Gingrich backed down.


http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_12_35/ai_111897447/pg_2

What about the other 45%?

The 75% of the new debt issued is from other countries.

(Source: Economist a few months back)

The rest is being borrowed by foreign investors. What of it? Why is this a thing to fear?