I’d still like to know about my manufacturing errors. Was my Dell computer purchased in 2004 screwed together in Texas or not? I was pretty sure that’s what they told me when I needed service. And what was my other mistake? Not trying to be obtuse, but I would like to know. 
Dude, a liberterian country would be taken over by a dictator within a year or crushed by outside forces. It just couldn’t compete and never could, in pre-history or the modern day. It would not be able to put its resources to use for efficient action, especially not in the modern technological and interconnected global world.
About Dell, sure it was screwed together in Texas and they can mess up like anybody. But what’s your point, I’m talking about manufacturing, not service industries which don’t contribute as much to the economy. 99% of Dell’s components are manufactured overseas. When you buy Dell you don’t buy American, you buy Asian. It also explodes the fallacy that Asia only makes low quality low tech products…couldn’t be further from the truth.
That’s interesting because unemployment grew in all quarters of 2008 (5.0%. 5.3%, 6.0%, 6.9%), so I guess that didn’t help so much - for the working men and women anyway. I bet it helped the shit outta shareholders and currency traders! Good thing they’re not already rich or it’s be yet another example of the rich getting richer while the middle class drops and the poor get poorer. :bluemad:
And this brings up another fallacy the many free marketeers like to peddle: that growing the economy, especially as represented by increases in the stock markets, and especially by the Dow Jones, is necessarily a good thing for society. I find myself shaking my head in sorrow at the herd mentality with which some of the middle-class accept news of “the stock market soared today” as though it meant things were good for their own economic class: quite often it means that some business had some layoffs to become “more efficient”, or moved manufacturing to a cheaper location (at the cost of jobs), or speculators had a run on a particular stock or commercial sector. It’s only obviously bad when the market drops sharply, but people don’t realize that even many stock market increases bode poorly for the average worker.
Let me explain something to you, export numbers aren’t the same as the New York Stock Exchange.
Were those jobs that were lost involved in manufacturing? No they weren’t. They were mostly construction and finance related.
Here’s some background from my country. Ireland is in worse shape than America in some ways, we’ve had a terrible government and very poor policies and short-sightedness, just to let people know I am being evenhanded in my criticisms.
But the only thing I can say is that the tide is turning with the Euro devaluation. I’ve also noticed continuing investments by US IT firms in Dublin recently keen to expand their European business.
So yeah, currency devaluation can help, as long as everybody isn’t doing it!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704227304575326992440186502.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
I said I wouldn’t purchase from Dell again. You said that it wasn’t manufactured in The US. I said the problem was the service (American) and the assembly (American). Maybe at first I wasn’t clear, but I think I’ve made it clear enough that the problem with my Dell computer was a result of faulty assembly. And then their dumbass customer service. :fume: :fume: Not to say another company wouldn’t have problems as well, but I’m sure as hell not going back to a company that I had a bad experience with. I only mentioned it in the context of American companies vs. foreign ones.
And for the libertarian thing, you’re just spouting off statements now. Do you have any reason for believing what you said, or is it just something you came up with in your head? Can you point to one country that ever respected property and individual rights that was somehow taken over by a dictator? Because I can name plenty of dictators who came to power in countries with strong states with no respect for property rights. I’ll even grant you Singapore. I’m not defending Singapore’s system of authoritarianism, but I have some friends from there and they say things are changing.
Let the price of housing collapse and the cost of living fall. Let wages naturally fall to third world or developing country prices. Besides those that have unique skills, there’s no reason to pay an American more money than an Indian person or whoever. This is the only way if you want to play under the scheme of capitalism. Otherwise you could just take a lot more money from those with capital as they’ve been keeping the benefits of increased productivity for themselves since the 70’s.
Oh yeah, and remove minimum wage obviously.
Dictators tend to step into power vacuum or unstable flux states. I can’t help but think Libetarian states would find things such as natural disasters or foreign invaders very hard to deal with. You’d be living practically like Amish or African backwater countries.
So no it’s fair to say it’s not definitely destined have a bad ending but I can see what would probably happen. How would you provide modern medical care, internet broadband, satellite services, military defense? You’d depend on regular organised states for assistance.
I think Singapore is a very cowed city state country where people live for money and brands at the expense of their individual freedoms but that seems fairly normal for the Chinese. I have browsed their online forums before and I couldn’t believe how ‘childish’ the discussions seemed, that’s the only word I can think of to describe it. You can’t even have more than 3 or 4 people standing around in one place saying something or wearing a t-shirt with a statement regarding political views, it’s illegal.
politics.sgforums.com/forums/10
'147th in Media Freedom
The media are strongly controlled by the state, with few alternatives available to citizens for independent news. In 2006, the media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders ranked Singapore 146th in media freedom (out of 168 countries surveyed); Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press 2007 survey considered Singapore “not free” in terms of media freedoms, ranking it 154th (out of 195 countries). Restrictions on the freedom of expression also extend to foreign media outlets, which are sometimes restricted from distributing materials containing negative stories about Singapore or its political leadership. Such censorship has occurred with the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek, and others. The Financial Times has agreed to be sold partly censored, while the Economist refuses to be distributed. All magazines deemed pornographic are banned. Political party newspapers are basically banned through regular use of the slander laws. In the 2006 elections, the possibility for political speech and thus of effective political opposition was further restricted by new rules prohibiting political commentary through websites, blogs, and podcasts that might be considered biased toward a candidate or party, meaning an opposition candidate.
Thanks, I’m just about to finish 2nd grade and that wasn’t clear to me. Now let me explain something to you: the discussion leading up to that point was how jobs were going to be created, and you provided no evidence in your claim that jobs had been created due to the value of the dollar dropping, you simply stated that “manufacturing skyrocketed”. In this topic, without making any other claims or providing any evidence, your implication was clear that the dollar dropping resulted in an increase in manufacturing jobs. My response was that unemployment went up, not down; that manufacturing increases should result in increased profits and share prices, but that doesn’t mean more jobs, in fact, it could mean less jobs. And it would support my point even if no jobs were lost in the sectors that had “skyrocketing”, the only knock would be if unemployment in those sectors actually fell significantly.
That will just lead to other countries retaliating with protectionist measures of their own, which would weaken the export market and effectively neutralize the stimulative effect of the import taxes. It’s a self-defeating policy.
This is an amusing thread. It started out as an apparently good faith request for ideas on economic growth and quickly devolved into an attack on fiscal conservatism. If you guys want a productive discussion, perhaps you shouldn’t sneeringly dismiss any response that doesn’t conform to your own beliefs.
Why do you think it will be neutralized? America is the biggest market in the world, it also has the biggest military. You never hear of play hard-ball?
America also has a huge trade deficit, it will not be harmed even in a zero sum game but has everything to play for.
What’s your plan for jobs?
Man, how can you write these things without a twinge of conscience asking if that might not be correct? All I can say is that if you equate libertarian philosophy with African socialism, and The Amish’ foolish beliefs in the supernatural, then you should take the time to educate yourself. The choice is not what we have now, and anarchy. There is another way, and it is not the ridiculous soundbites that you and TT are spouting here. I’ve beenlistening to these same tired old lines since I was five years old. Give me something new.
:bravo: :bravo: :bravo:
I don’t mean you will have religious beliefs like Amish or socialism, but your infrastructure will be absolutely pathetic compared to a 21st century modern country. You just couldn’t compete.
You also couldn’t withstand epidemics or natural disasters without outside assistance. You’d be quickly divided and conquered (physically/under the table) by more powerful outside interests and countries.
Survival of the fittest? How about we tax the shit out of those who’ve made off like bandits on the backs of those who’ve lost their jobs in the name of increased share price and ridiculous salaries, can we do that too?
Sure there is: I’m in the US, and we don’t vote or have control over India. I want to do what’s best for my country and my society overall, because in general that will ensure that things are best for me and my family and community. India can solve their own problems. We can help if we have extra money and time and people. But my community has different pricing and economy from India. So our wages are different. Claiming that “there’s no reason to pay an American more money than an Indian” is, well, false, there’re plenty of reasons. The only reason there wouldn’t be a reason is if you’re looking at it from a high level economic philosophy view, but that’s nowhere near the real world.
What, right away? So the already poorly paid workers can fight their way even further down as they fend off the unemployed for scraps? For what??? So McDonalds, industrial farms, and so on can make even more profit?
Wait, you’re being facetious, aren’t you…
The fundamental impediment to making any practical progress as I see it is the winner-take-all mentality of the economics debate in the U.S… In other words, the assumption that we have to pick one monolithic public policy and then implement it nation wide to the exclusion of all competing economic philosophies. Will it be liberalism? Will it be conservatism or will it be the libertarian economic model or even some other entirely new economic model not yet clearly on the public radar?
The specific problem is that there’s always enough resistance to fully implementing one overarching national policy over another by large enough segments of the population that the result is perpetual paralysis – or at best watered down measures that never fully lead to a coherent economic agenda.
Vast amounts of time and energy end up being wasted arguing and engaging in ideological struggle with the “enemy” to keep them from “winning.”
The solution would be to try all of these economic models at once, in microcosm, and let the best solution(s) end up being implemented regionally or nationally.
For example, Idaho might be “allowed” to set up an experimental economic zone under the auspices of the University of Idaho in which it had unprecedented freedom to establish rules and regulations at the most fundamental level to just “see what happens.”
Taiwanese-Americans living in the Los Angeles area would be given regulatory authority to set up an autonomous economic zone in which they’d experiment with a Taiwanese economic model on American soil with only some floor restrictions appropriate to American culture and values.
A thousand “candles” would be lit across the nation and some would fritter out and others would burn brightly while most would fall somewhere in between.
Eventually the truly viable solutions would assert their validity by example and we’d finally have a chance to break free of the paralysis which has gripped the nation for the last forty years and will likely paralyze it for the next forty unless something completely different is done.
Byushguy, imagine you were born in India or Zimbabwe. Would you have the same arguments. No minimum wage, everybody fend for themselves. I have been to Mumbai recently and seen some very distressing sights of half naked kids living on the sides of highways, in large parts of the city. Did you know that Mumbai has some of the most expensive real estate in the world!
I also went to Shenzhen and saw a nursing mother eating rice from a trashcan (that might have been to beg but she was really eating from the garbage can).
Imagine you were born into a family that couldn’t pay your education and sent you to work at 13? It always good to put yourself in somebody elses shoes, then see if you would like the results of your theories.
Well, again, if you think that modern libertarian philosophy means don’t build infrastructure, and don’t defend yourself from enemies, you’re just wrong. Many Libertarians think that large scale infrastructure should be handled privately, but not everybody believes that. I don’t. I think the rate of return on large transportation projects is too low and too spread out that no one would invest in it. Many libertarians think we shouldn’t have military bases in Korea, Japan, Germany, Iraq, etc. We also think our military budget is bloated. But we’re not advocating for closing down our military. That’s ridiculous and it’s just a falsehood put out there to scare gullible people.
Why don’t you imagine that you’re an Indian whose father was paying for your school working for Intel when The US imposed tariffs, eliminating his job and his chance at an education.
And anyway, my family didn’t pay for my education. I did. My family is really quite poor. I grew up without any money. I wanted out. Does that help more? Does the fact that I’m not rich somehow change the dynamic of all my arguments? Why don’t we stick to the subject instead of bringing up our parent’s incomes.
Already discussed that about 2 pages ago. It most certainly would not neutralize the effect, as the imbalance is huge. That’s simplified economic theory, not reality.
Uhhh, no one here’s talked about jobs creation except to go full laissez faire, which is preposterous, and to drop the value of the dollar, which I have yet to see any evidence for having worked (briefly?) in 2008, as implied by BSG. What there has been is reference to Ron Paul as a respected libertarian, and at least a case or two of your side being pedagogic - “Let me explain something to you: export numbers aren’t the same as the NYSE” - who’s being sneeringly dismissive here?
I’m definitely dismissive of Ron Paul’s uberlibertarian anti-scientific mumbo jumbo, and free market health care is ludicrous. But if someone wants to offer some libertarian alternatives to job creation - and stability - I’m all ears, haven’t seen it yet here. I think that’s because, almost by definition, libertarian economics relies on corporations, business owners, and the wealthy to do something to create jobs, but that is not at all their goal - as NC stated (god I hope facetiously) - they’re happy to swing around the globe leveling economies to the lowest common denominator, totally uncaring of how many people’s lives they destroy as they try to achieve market equilibrium. Libertarian international economic theory does not support job growth and job stability in domestic markets.
Good point. It looks like we already have the infrastructure for that type of change, there’s just this one behemoth in the way. The Central Government.