Posted on 08/31/2010 6:20:51 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
At present there's quite a lot to criticize President Obama about when it comes to his administration's economic policies. But with regard to last Friday's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) revision which allegedly points to a weakening economy, the anger should center on what a worthless number GDP is, as opposed to Obama's admittedly limited worth as an economic strategist.
One editorial that decried the revised number and the President's surely unfortunate policies noted a big drop in new home sales and weak manufacturing data as symptoms of those policies. It went on to say that during economic recoveries numbers like GDP are supposed to go up. That, of course, would be true if we desired a weaker economy.
A struggling manufacturing sector was cited as evidence of a depressed situation, but in an evolving economy like ours, rational thinkers would be more concerned with rising, as opposed to falling manufacturing activity. The latter surely mattered in the early part of the 20th century when General Motors was the world's most prominent company, but in the 21st a great deal of growth in the factory sector would suggest a move toward falling profit margins and economic backwardness.
Politicians and economic commentators love to romanticize manufacturing, and their elevation of it is most likely evidence that they've never worked in a factory before. Sure enough, there's a reason that the parts of the country reliant on what made us prosperous in the past are the most depressed at present. What this signals is that the best and brightest from those areas long ago migrated to the parts of the U.S. where service economic models dominate relative to the backbreaking - and less profitable - sectors reliant on the production of goods that could easily be made for us overseas.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearmarkets.com ...
Criticized? Try impeached.
John Tamny thinks everyone should be a “journalist” like him.
The same goes for the "inflation" versus "deflation" argument. A selected algorithm can arrive at either result, say throwing in "housing," throwing out "energy," or whatever, all while the material prosperity, quality of life, and optimistic attitude, of the legitimate US taxpaying citizen is plummeting.
Is it not obvious now that academic economists, ala Obama's regime and planet wide Nobel-level (Krugman), have absolutely no idea what they are talking about?
The United States as "fortress America," could be paradise, not isolationist but conscientious; but the globalists, ala Rockefeller, Soros, and the Jewish world-Left (sinister), will fight to the end for this to not be. They atone for their own Greed through Obama's subversion and other people's money. That's why anti-Sarah.
Think in terms of John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, Democratic Senator of WV, a State for which he has NO empathy or connection, serving as infinitely financed, and (Harvard) elitist, majority Senator. God-is-Money has brought us here.
How obvious is it?
Johnny Suntrade, the Suntrade Institute
This cannot be sustained for much longer. The actual numbers will eventually catch up to reflect the real statistics.
Add to that, the fact that manufacturers are closing, moving out of country and are contracting foreign companies to manufacture for them which they then tack on to the US GDP numbers.
It's all smoke and mirrors, presented by the MaObama admin., to make this disaster appear as “not so bad”.
(I agree, we need to IMPEACH this bastard ASAP!)
>> I do recall having to sell old clothes on the streets
In 2005? I thought you were a postal service bigwig, either pulling down a nice salary, or a steady retirement income.
Or are you saying that tongue-in-cheek?
>> Politicians and economic commentators love to romanticize manufacturing, and their elevation of it is most likely evidence that they’ve never worked in a factory before. &etc bla bla bla
That paragraphload of BS exposes the author as one who is pretty ignorant of manufacturing in America himself.
I always come back to the same place: Our problems are because government is so big, so impersonal, so corrupt. There's just too much money in it.
If government were small and limited (as it is supposed to be) then it couldn't do as much damage. Then the people making day to day decisions (you and me) would understand problems and be in a position to do something about the problems in front of us. As it is now, Barney Frank solves all my problems (and that's not working out so well).
So of course WE WERE ALL lined up along I-95 selling our possessions to buy potatoes to bake in roadside firepits provided by the ladies relief society!
Despite the fact that manufacturing comprises a smaller percentage of GDP than it used to, it is still crucially important. An increase in manufacturing is a necessary precursor to recovery and the wealth created by manufacturing allows the rest of the economy to function.
I do, however, agree with him on the imports. Increasing imports can be a sign of recovery. Don't forget that many of those imports are not cheap trinkets from China but crucial raw materials and technology for industry.
He's also right that GDP is a terrible measure of the economy's health. Just the fact that increased government spending can make GDP appear stronger is enough to distrust it.
Take away the trillions in debt spending by the governments and what is the GDP? Negative. Highly negative.
Honestly, I really don’t care if the piece of furniture is made here or in China, or in Indonesia or wherever. Nor do I care about T-shirts, apparel, or any such small consumer product.
We make a lot of things in this country - from advanced polymers, insulation, to biotech, drugs, and really heavy machinery. We actually make more than Japan, Germany and China combined in actual USD value - about 20-25% of the world manufacturing output.
The bitching here is that the jobs went. Well - not really - it’s just now you need a college degree to be in manufacturing. A furniture shop has long closed its doors and a biotech lab sits on top of it. That lab creates more value than five crappy old textile mills.
“The reasons are so simple. So simple in fact, that they will never see it for what it truly is.”
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For a long, long time I have had the notion that many or maybe most people have a way of pretending that really complex issues are simple while refusing to understand things that are really simple and I mean things as simple as, “There is no free lunch”.
:=)
The simple answer is that neither is inherently better. All other things being equal, most Americans would prefer a product made in America, but it is rare that everything but the place of manufacture is equal.
To some extent it is better for all Americans to buy products manufactured in America, but the point of diminishing returns is reached rather quickly and instead of helping themselves by buying a higher priced American product, the extra amount of wealth they are transferring to the producers of the American product far exceeds what they gain from buying American.
In some cases Americans working in manufacturing seem to think that American consumers owe them a very high standard of living at their own expense.
However, in many cases labor and other expenses are just to high in America for a product to be competitively manufactured here. Companies just can't make a profit while paying workers a reasonable wage for the work they do.
The cost of living is much lower in other parts of the world, and less and less of manufacturing relies on skilled trades. Workers in other areas can be paid a reasonable wage, and the companies can still produce the products far cheaper than it can be done here.
Asking people to buy a considerably higher priced American products of equal quality is asking them to lower their own standard of living in order to subsidize the standard of living of the relatively few working in those manufacturing jobs. Those people are especially unwilling to pay more to subsidize workers that make more money and have far better benefits than they do.
Just like the union workers is skeptical of the worth of the executive that makes more than them, the common consumer is skeptical of why a union line worker should make far more than them.
So that is where you guys were! I wondered where everybody went!
It's dead ~ so yeah, that's where we all were, out there on I95 selling stuff to passersby ~ I had a whole bindery line that strapped stuff out at 48 copies ~ just beautiful and you know what those people offered for it?
NOTHIN!
I finally had to just push it off into the Potomac ~ let the tide take it out.
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