Replies

White House Projects Highest Deficit Ever
FEDERAL DEFICIT REALITY-U.S. Treasury Shows Actual 2003 Federal Deficit at $3.7 Trillion
Foreigners own half US debt, tipping point unclear

ping

I think I read somewhere that the fedgov's "unfunded liabilities" is in the area of 60-70 Trillion at this time. Is that a realistic amount and do you know what's included in those figures?

Tariffs and duties like those against Canadian lumber prevent US Americans from owning their own homes. So does the monstrous volume of lumber sales from the US to China and Iraq (Iraq: where it's more sensible to use concrete anyway). "Sustainable development" programs (usually in partnership with the largest developers) also go against Americans owning their own homes, as do some zoning regulations and other "gatekeeping" methods.

Having fun today, WillieJoe?

The United States - the newest third-world country.

Willie, over the years you and I have agreed more times than not. I appreciate the articles you post, keeping some matters that are important to me, front and center.

For me, the time has come to get behind Bush and make sure he gets re-elected. While I have some MAJOR differences with Bush, he is still greatly preferable to John Kerry, and the fact is one of them will wind up president.

I won't be harping on Bush's shortcomings for the next couple of months. I have something in mind for just after the election, but for now I'm going to back off.

Knowing me as you do, I'm sure you realize I haven't changed my mind on any issues.

I just don't want to provide cover for people who might get discouraged and stay home on election day.

You take care. I'll rejoin you after the election.

All the best.

D1

But the biggest obstacle to the ownership society is the steady stripping from Americans of the resources needed to buy control over their lives. And one of the biggest forces behind this worsening incapacity is a trade policy designed to plunge Americans into competition with much lower-paid third world workers, and drive down domestic wages and salaries in the process.

Free trade bump!

I think thinking changes. I'm sure Bush's mind changed in that grade school room on Florida. Let's give him a chance ...

All true. I remember back when people got laid off, they just went and got another job. Now they go and collect unemployment. The neo conservatives would have you believe that people are getting lazy, but come on, really.

EDS just announced earlier this week that they will outsource another 20,000 jobs over the next two years earlier this week.
Now that it looks as though Bush has this thing wrapped up, looks like it's safe for businesses to plan for an environment in which it's ok to sell out American workers for profit.

I saw Cheney on TV tonight touting the administration's plan for a "lifetime of education". I'm surmising that means re-training for a never-ending series of dead-end jobs.

"For example, are individual investors really supposed to keep up with the nanosecond-by-nanosecond changes in the financial markets?"

No. Nor would they have to. Only day traders need to worry about this. Most successful traders don't' even look at quotes during the day. The shorter the time frame of investment, the more risk and margin of error due to murky signals. This is a non-issue.

Is health care really just like any other good or service, and will consumers really shop for it just like they shop for sneakers or SUVs?

Yes. They would. A little competition and caps on frivolous lawsuits would lower the cost. Additionally, you will attract the best and the brightest to the profession. No one is going to expend the cost and time to go to medical school and not be able to make a handsome living at it. Hmmm...let's see...years of school, school loan debt, high stress work atmosphere...who would bother to not make a handsome living.

"But the biggest obstacle to the ownership society is the steady stripping from Americans of the resources needed to buy control over their lives. And one of the biggest forces behind this worsening incapacity is a trade policy designed to plunge Americans into competition with much lower-paid third world workers, and drive down domestic wages and salaries in the process."

First of all the "steady stripping of resources" is the tax on the money we make, not globalization. As far as globalization is concerned, it may be harsh but this is how the game is played. Why would anyone pay inflated salaries in the US for jobs anyone can do. The reason that salaries are high in some professions is supply and demand. The less qualified people you have to fill the job, the higher the pay. If anyone in the world can do the job, you have an excess supply of workers and business can shop for the lowest cost which would be good for people if they had more money in their pocket to invest (in other words own) part of this company. Workers need to take it upon themselves to continually make an effort to update current skills and actively acquire new skills that set them apart from the excess supply to stay employed in a dynamic free market society. No one said it was easy and no one is owed a living.

"Since these peaks, real private sector wages have fallen 4.4 percent – a performance previously unheard of in American history. And manufacturing wages, which are most affected by international competition, have fallen 5.6 percent. Worse, even though the economy has technically been recovering from the last recession for nearly three years, real private sector wages during this period are up only 0.4 percent, and real manufacturing wages are up only 1.4 percent."

Yes, get used to it. The economy has gone through drastic changes in history that were just as painful before. Agriculture to the Industrial revolution to manufacturing to the service and information economy. We are a service and information economy now. I would however agree that we need to keep serious manufacturing (military technology, weapons systems. ship building) in the US for obvious reasons. But anyone in the world can manufacture the majority of the junk that gets produced these days. Again, business will gravitate to the lowest cost which would be good for people with more money in their pockets due to lower taxes. This excess money in peoples pockets could be put to work by investing in these companies that are doing their duty to look for the lowest cost of doing business to turn a profit. Putting your money to work and compounding your profits is what builds wealth. Not working for a paycheck every two weeks and having so much money taken out every year that you really don't start earning anything for yourself until May! That is four months out of every year, you have no money to put to work creating wealth.

"More disturbing, signs keep appearing that the link between work and economic viability is growing weaker in America. Last month´s announcement that the official national poverty rate had risen in 2003 for the third straight year, to 12.5 percent, attracted deserved attention. At least as important, however, is the large and growing number of impoverished Americans who are working Americans. One in every four working Americans today earns less than $8.70 per hour (in 2004 dollars) – the effective federal poverty-level wage. As social policy analyst Beth Shulman wrote on Labor Day in the Washington Post, this trend “undermines our most fundamental [national] ideal: that if you work hard, you can support yourself and your family.”

Could be any number of reasons for this but I suspect a piss poor education system (thanks to the socialist NEA) that does not prepare anyone to compete in the work place. It's just more important to feel good about yourself and adhere to the new religion of political correctness that frowns upon competition. Suddenly at 18 years old, Johnny and Susan leave the NEA cocoon (public schools) unprepared for college or the work force. They know that no one is smarter, better, or stronger than they are and everyone feels good about themselves, so how is it that we keep losing out in interviews and getting rejected by colleges? Why weren't we taught about the real world? We can't compete with the others. No matter, my teachers pushed a socialist agenda that said the workers that do have jobs will take care of me. Wait I know, I can get a job for $500 a week at DNC or some other moon bat organization, vote democrat, and collect my welfare checks. Even though it keeps me below the poverty line, if I keep voting democrat, soon everyone will be equal in salary no matter what job they have.

"It should be obvious to everyone why stagnant and falling incomes will doom the opportunity society. Tax cuts will only marginally help workers who earn increasingly meager wages and, therefore, have less and less taxable income to begin with to cut and transfer to private health and retirement accounts. The idea that these workers will be able to buy a business or a home after tax cuts is downright moronic. Tax cuts will be equally pointless for workers deciding among job training programs if the economy keeps losing job opportunities that can pay a living wage."

Let's face it. Not everyone can be a lawyer, doctor, hot programmer, or other professional earning big money. The economy is not losing job opportunities that can pay a living wage. It's creating different job opportunities paying living wages that our public schools just do not prepare our students to do. If you don't adapt, you perish.

"In other words, tax cuts and privatization can´t drive U.S. economic policy unless the United States retains, or rebuilds, a meaningful tax base. If President Bush knows how to do this without reversing his outsourcing-centered trade policies, now´s the time to tell us. But that´s unlikely unless his opponents start asking him."

This is an outright fabrication. Almost the entire federal tax base of this country is the top 5% of wage earners. They pay 75% of all federal taxes.

But mostly it comes down to the choices and decisions people make. If you don't work hard at improving your lot or adding to your education or pick a profession that is just not going to pay you a decent living wage, I don't want to hear the jealous and covetous whining.

Daniel Akst recently offered in the Wall Street Journal:

If you're newly graduated from college, you may be wondering right about now just how you're going to save the world. Your commencement speech, after all, was probably delivered by a well to-do older person who exhorted you to go out and make a difference somehow. Lots of other people will offer advice on what to with yourself as well -- rent "The Graduate" sometime and listen for that line about "plastics." Joseph Campbell, as silly as he was sage-like, might have suggested you "follow your bliss." The vastly more credible Thoreau urged you to "go confidently in the direction of your dreams." I hope what you are dreaming of is making the world a better place, and unlike all these other kibitzers, I can tell you exactly how to do so. Just go out and make the most money you can. Then, if you still want to do more, give it away. Contrary to your prosperous commencement speaker, anything else you do is selfishness and vanity. Don't get me wrong: It's not bad to delude yourself that you are pursuing a low-paid line of work in the name of helping others. Heck, you probably would be helping others -- only not nearly as much as you could by getting rich. Face the fact that if you embark on a career as, say, a social worker, you've done so because you like it, because it makes you feel important and because you don't have the stomach to do some really major good. That would require making piles and piles of dough. I know this is news you don't especially want to hear. And I know it sounds callous. So instead of trying to prove the case by cold, hard logic, let me tell you a story. This is the tale of a couple of ambitious young men who graduated from an Ivy League university in 1978. One -- we'll call him "Dan" -- idealistically chose a career in journalism, hoping eventually to transcend even this sainted calling in order to write novels. The other, whom we'll call "Alex," descended to the nethermost reaches of Manhattan to work inthe securities industry, where he set about seeking his fortune. Fast-forward 25 years. Our two graduates, out of touch for a while, renew their acquaintance. How have they fared since college? Dan did more or less what he set out to do. He has had a career in journalism (including some modestly edifying muckraking), has published a couple of well-received novels and now spends his days typing industriously away, undeterred by the world's indifference to his work. Alex, mean while, made several hundred million dollars. In fact, Alex is retired from business and spends his time running the foundation he established with some of his wealth. When he dies, a good hunk of the rest will go the same way. Now, my question for all you budding poets and video artists and social workers is: Who ended up doing more to make the world a better place, Dan or Alex? It's hard to argue with Alex's foundation. But Alex was improving the world long before he devoted himself and his wealth to philanthropy. How? First, he made his money by providing an unambiguously valuable service. Trust me, become an activist or artist and sooner or later you will wonder whether what you do is really worth while to anyone. But Alex doesn't have to puzzle over the value of what he did, because someone clearly was willing to pay all that money for the fruits of his labor. Along the way, he treated his employees well, helping them and their families achieve better -- and no doubt longer -- lives, since affluence and longevity are correlated. At the end, when the business was sold, he rewarded them handsomely. What Alex specifically did on Wall Street, moreover, helped make the securities markets more efficient, which benefits everyone -- especially the present and future retirees, middle-class families, endowed colleges and other non-plutocrats who make up so much of the market by investing through pension funds, mutual funds and other institutions. Alex didn't meet a lot of widows and orphans in his work, but what he did almost certainly improved their lot. For doing this work, Alex was magnificently rewarded, enabling him to amass a significant sum of investment capital -- which makes the rest of us richer as well. Capital is the lifeblood of the economy, fueling the productivity gains that in turn fuel expanding affluence and social progress. As if none of this were sufficient, Alex's earnings required him to pay enough income taxes over the years for the government to employ a small army of social workers. He never shirked these obligations through dubious tax-shelter schemes, either. And don't forget the foundation! The conclusion is unavoidable: If you have a good education, you shouldn't just consider getting rich. Creating and amassing wealth is an outright moral obligation. Do so and you can take comfort not just in financing public services but in knowing that you are giving people what they need or want, generating jobs and underwriting the affluence that makes art, justice, environmental protection and other social goods possible. Of course, making yourself a pile of money is good for you too. You'll live in a better neighborhood, drive a safer car, get to be more selectivein choosing a spouse and enjoy a longer, healthier life. Your kids will get a better education, which in turn will mean more of the same for them, too -- and will better equip them to improve the world still more. From a moral standpoint, it is clear that Alex has done his part. With such an eleemosynary career under his belt -- and such bulging bank accounts -- he has decided to indulge himself and stop making money. The money he already has is busily reproducing itself, of course, and mean while he is spending most of his time figuring out how he can use it to make the world a better place. Sounds like fun, no? Meanwhile, Dan is writing another novel -- just what the world needs. The shelves at Barnes & Noble are full of them. Libraries are bursting. Yet he selfishly pours his energies into adding one more. How can he redeem himself for squandering his education in this way? Perhaps his next book should be a story about two friends and what they've learned over the years about saving the world. If it's a bestseller, he can always give the money away.

It should be obvious to everyone why stagnant and falling incomes will doom the opportunity society. Tax cuts will only marginally help workers who earn increasingly meager wages and, therefore, have less and less taxable income to begin with to cut and transfer to private health and retirement accounts. The idea that these workers will be able to buy a business or a home after tax cuts is downright moronic. Tax cuts will be equally pointless for workers deciding among job training programs if the economy keeps losing job opportunities that can pay a living wage.

Sounds tailor-made for Hillary in 2008.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Free trade ping.

Rather than calling American an "ownership society", I think a more appropriate name would be "credit card society".

Take my neighbors for instance. They are about 60 years old - both retired. They own two homes, and some rental property - all mortgaged to the hilt. On their home near me, they have a first and second mortgage, plus an "equity line of credit" which is up to the max to finance their lavish lifestyle.

They fly all over the world (He's sooooo proud of his "Medallion Level" status), take ocean cruises, buy expensive toys, etc.

The wife just went out and bought a new car on credit. Sheesh, at age 60, shouldn't you be able to live within your means?

Oh yes, my neighbor let it slip how much he had to pay in federal income taxes last year. It was more than my wife and I together earned for the whole year.

We will remain hostages of the war on terror until we lose our fear of destroying SA and its support of Wahhabism and AQ.

They have caught us in the twin webs of oil addiction and terroism, and they know it.

Invade SA now !

BUMP

Not disputing the issues raised, but given we have a choice between Kerry and Bush, now is not the best time to be trying to solve this issue. The next president will appoint several Supreme Court Justices and set the agenda for the war on terrorism for the next 4 years. It's about like arguing monetary policy in 1942.

ping

I hereby declare this the LOSERS OF AMERICA thread.