I bet you that the North Koreans have 1% unemployment also with their closed and centrally planned economy economy. Of course they also don't have any electricity.
Posted on 06/07/2005 8:14:42 PM PDT by A. Pole
You're not going to convince me that a journalist has a better handle on economic decision-making than a free market.
Quote: Yeahright. That's why we lost world war ii. We simply couldn't build a war time industrial base largely from scratch fast enough. Again, dude, if you're only advantage is price, and they begin to rise again, you lose.
You don't have a clue. Our machine tool and stamping companies are being shipped to china on a grand scale. You need machine tools to build more machine tools.
We did not build the industrial base from scratch in WWII. It was already there. We just expandned on it.
Those companies are registered in America, thus they benefit from military, civil and diplomatic defense and expenditures. Furthermore, they benefit from US Government (read: taxpayer) subsidies.
Agree. Blackbird
And where is that created wealth being reinvested? In America? Yup, I see the manufacturies going up every day. /sarcasm
I'd be interested in comparing the growth rate of "like-sized" economies, but theres no economy in the world that is even half the size of ours or at our level of maturity (re infrastructure, delivery of services, etc), so its apples and oranges. Go figure !
We did not build the industrial base from scratch in WWII. It was already there. We just expandned on it.That's quite preposterous considering how much industrial capital and technique was developed *during* WWII. People build machine tools, dude, not other machines. Machines are (relatively) cheap, and getting cheaper as productivity continues to rise and the cash value of manufactured goods continues to crash. What matters in the new economy is knowledge more than capital.
This country has been running trade deficits pretty consistently for 40 years, but we continue to get richer.
I feel richer already, don't you? GM to close more plants and cut 25,000 jobs
Japan continues to grow wealthier, and own more of the world.
Its IIP (international investment position) is the highest in the world (although per capita two other countries are still well ahead), and it is the largest single foreign holder of our public debt, having around $700 billion in treasury debt.
The unemployment rate n America does not count those whose benefits ran out and no longer draw money out (the Europeans count everyone because their benefits never run out). The real figure is probably much higher - thank god we have the underground industry to absorb many of these displaced workers - drugs and sex industry.
I have seen many numbers for the Marshall Plan in Europe, but I actually have never seen a number for the U.S. funding of Japanese post-war reconstruction. If you have a good source on this one, I would be most appreciative.
Not to mention, the targeted audience, most everyone on the planet wears clothes, does everyone own a bulldozer or a 747? Blackbird.
Productivity requires that entire industrial base that you blithely dismiss. You are unaware that we have lost the basis of creating the productivity and efficiency gains we enjoyed in the past, as the entire production chain is in the process of being relocated out of the U.S. The collapse of US technical education is a telling symptom as U.S. students flee engineering, math and sciences like the plague.
Japan did try to dominate global manufacturing back in its day, and was on a track to succeed...until Reagan bitch-slapped them hard with trade quotas. And it wasn't just cars. Stopped their momentum dead in its tracks. And gave our manufacturers a breather to figure out how to get competitive again.
George W. Bush did the same kind of thing here with only one industry, Steel, despite the Importers League drumbeat, and an anti-american tilted WTO court. Fortunately Bush prevailed long enough to save our integrated steel mills... mills which are uniquely necessary for defense production. Mini-mills can't, and never will, cut it for defense.
And as for your preposterous conclusion, "A strong economy is no longer an industrial economy." Tell it to China, which you claim "fails to realize" that manufactured goods are a cash loser. They seem to be doing quite nicely don't they, despite your disparaging WORDS. And that is all they are. No truth to them as regards China whatsoever. How much of the U.S. "productivity gains" that you ascribe really are in fact labor substitutions outsourcing componentry for import and slapping U.S. labels on? And it is not just Roberts, but a broad spectrum of economic thinkers Milton Friedman (U. Chicago), Warren Buffet, and Paul Samuelson (MIT) have become deeply suspicious of U.S. productivity claims lately.
And you keep missing the core concern: Manufacturing for national defense requires a deep, broad base. Not just those currently actually hired to do defense work. Think of it in visual metaphor terms like a "pyramid". The top tip end of it is those who do the defense work. But they rest on the foundations below them...and without those foundations, they would collapse. And this is very real-world and very apt.
China is not driving GM out of business. If anything, China is making GM's business stronger because it is putting downward pressure on the dollar, which helps GM.
And a trade deficit is not a "bill." They are accumulating our dollars. The only thing they can do to make this "bill" come due, is they can stop accumulating our dollars, and start spending them. And that's what you want them to do anyway, isn't it?
By the way, we have a 5 % unemployment in comparison to the other industrial market based economies (>10 % in France, Germany). It is true, by comparison, that Cuba and Commie Russia had 1 % rates, but they also had virtually worthless currencies with no goods on the shelves to buy, so its Apples and oranges, again.
I bet you that the North Koreans have 1% unemployment also with their closed and centrally planned economy economy. Of course they also don't have any electricity.
If you're "looking" for work then you are counted among the unemployed. And, as you suggested, there are people who are "officially looking", but who have "other" income, and are counted nonetheless.
Quote: That's quite preposterous considering how much industrial capital and technique was developed *during* WWII. People build machine tools, dude, not other machines. Machines are (relatively) cheap, and getting cheaper as productivity continues to rise and the cash value of manufactured goods continues to crash. What matters in the new economy is knowledge more than capital
o.k. Country B decides to go to war with country A. So if country A has say 10 machine tools and country B has 100 and a war pops up and either country needs to produce 500 machine tools to win the war who is going to replicate the machines the fastest??? Machine tools replicate machine tools. Yes people make the machine tools (with other machine tools) but if people are standing around waiting to get their "nre" machine tool where does that get you??
And I agree we developed capital during WWII but we had a very strong base to begin with. Today all the old machine companies in the northeast are all gone. The few "specialized" companies that yuo call it would not be enough to get the ball rolling in quick order.
3rd World Economy bump [I guess we have to be a 2nd World Economy on our way to 3rd]
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