Posted on 11/29/2006 5:30:58 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
Intellectual properties, software, a whole host or engineering. Office products, wood, paper, the best airplanes in the world. Lots of stuff which the Bucannainite Economic Dinosaurs would know if they ever quit squealing their economic isolationist dogmas long enough to catch up to at least the 19th century. What is it that makes it SO hard for the Economic Nationalists to grasp the fact the BUYER not the SELLER controls the market? WE can find other supplies for anything they produce, they can not find other buyers.
Yes, but that was then, and this is now. What you said was true, but not necessarily now.
[[the BUYER not the SELLER controls the market]]
For simplicity, you nailed it on the head. We will always have these gloom and doomers, usually Keynesians, who grasp onto one negative economic report or set of numbers and start screaming the sky is falling. To add another simple phrase, the other economies in the world cannot afford to have our economy collapse. Technology has made the global economy a very complex construct, and simply citing one set of negative numbers does not a disaster predict. I guarantee you that you could also go find some positive nuumbers that tell you that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is in reach.
There is an upside and downside to many economic issues. Take the devaluation of the dollar, it makes our products more affordable in overseas markets and at home, the downside, our dollar won't buy as much of foreign goods. It makes the US a more affordable place to vacation for foreigners, while making vacationing in Europe for us, more expensive.
It is basic microeconmics, supply and demand, and monetary policy, total sales minus cost of goods sold and overhead (expenses) = net profit. When the dollar is strong, our products cost more and foreign products cost less, both to buy and produce. The inverse holds true with a weak dollar. Strong dollar or weak dollar is only relative to what you are measuring it against and the effect you are looking to create. How weak is the dollar really ? Certainly you don't want to see it go too low, but what is the level that would send of danger signals ? We are not close to such a point, and economically, other countries cannot afford to have that happen.
We became the sole superpower at the right point in history, technology has intricately weaved our economy through out the global economy. We are the world's largest consumer market, all countries want access, and there is no country in a position to replace us.
That seems reasonable, but I think it is a consequence of a greater point -- that the yuan must be unpegged from the dollar if trade is to begin to be fair.
If they won't unpeg voluntarily, they may have to be shaken off the pantleg like an obsessed puppy.
btt
They chicken Little's don't understand that. I remember Alan Greenspan saying that in so many words when asked around the time of the Chinese plane bumping incident.
LOL! It is very funny how the 'I'm not a thinker' crowds just eat up nonsense with both hands...
I apologize for hijacking this thread, it's a good one and I've read many interesting things but given the expertise I've seen here perhaps there is a level of understanding here that can confirm/dispute a theory.
I have to think that with the native US very close to a sub-replacement rate we're in the same boat as old Europe. They've tried to save their bacon by importing muslims and it doesn't seem to be working out too well for them either culturally or economically.
Japan won't bend and I think a very strong argument that the economic condition in Japan over the last decade could be the first population decline recession/depression in modern history. Indeed there are other factors, but still...
"We" are doing it with Mexicans and while it is causing problems in perspective with the solutions of other countries they're actually quite mild.
I'd appreciate criticism on this theory, I can't prove it and maybe I'm just grasping at straws trying to come up with any justification I can for the refusal of Washington to address the border problem.
Politicians are activists, doers, people who think nothing works unless they direct it properly. Such people have not patience for Economics in school. It is the dullest subject one can study. Only two presidents in the last century have actually understood how the market actually works, Coolidge and Reagan. Only Reagan had a degree in Economics. Kennedy was lucky in his choice of advisors. The only proper role of the Federal government is to keep prices stable, no inflation or deflation. Read John Maynard Keynes sometime, not as one looking for enlightenment but as an old time English professor(the kind who still teach English as a rational communication code). You see many logical fallacies and self contradictions. Paragraphs do not make logical sense in themselves. Conclusions do not follow from premises. But he tells politicians that only they can safeguard the economy and that the tools with which to do that are fiscal, creative and prolific taxing and spending and politicians love it. It speaks to their conceit. Bush calls himself a Keynesian but it is the monetarists who prescribe tinkering with the money supply. They are sort of a complement to the Keynesians. The greatest of the Monetarists, Milton Friedman, in his writings stressed stability and cutting regulation. In practice he did not promote tinkering even though the monetarists generally like to fiddle as much as the Keynesians do but with a slightly different set of knobs and dials. Presidents and kings have always resorted to inflation to welsh on the national or royal debt by steadily reducing the value of the currency so that the debt is repaid in cheaper money, i.e. only actually partially repaid. Bush is no different. When that process starts, the inflation rate must increase faster and faster for the government to stay ahead because interest rates rise to compensate for the inflation. Eventually rates go up faster than the inflation and the economy hits the wall of recession/depression.
The little things do tend to go up faster than tho big-ticket things because consumer resistance is less. Someone who buys a lesser car because the price has risen 10% continues to buy those cokes through a much higher price rise maybe to doubling, even.
Strategically, you got it, part of it anyway.
Strategically, you got it, part of it anyway. That is the other side of the inflation/Chinese reserves problem. We are holding ourselves hostage to the mohos.
You are right to some extent. The political repercussions are only beginning. If they remain illegal and real attempts are made to stop the flow and reverse it the political changes are not drastic. An amnesty or perceived amnesty will ratchet up the flood tremendously and will eliminate the Republican Party from contention in national politics and prevent any sort of Conservative party from taking its place. Illegals vote already in all Democrat controlled political districts and they vote Democrat. Amnesty will increase the flow of new illegals and raise the percentage who vote. Actually the US is still above the population replacement minimum and one large segment, orthodox Christians and Protestants are actually increasing birthrates.
I think everyone shoud rush out and invest in Euro Dollars, which show tremendous signs of long term stability. /sarcasm
Not based on what I've seen which puts the US at 2.09 where the neutral (population neither increases or decreases) replacement fertility rate is 2.1. Given that the "boomer" rate was 3.8 no way is 2.09 going to pay for the entitlements for the very much larger boomer generation.
I can't locate anything on birth rates broken down by religious groups but I do know that, at least in Europe, the Pope was issued alarms about the decline in birth rates among Catholics.
Europe is Europe.The lack of births among liberals is severe enough to bring down the national birthrate. There is a shift going on and as the believers increase in numbers the birthrate will turn restorative once again.
Agreed there is manipulation, to a point.
But my inflation indicator is the CRB index which has exploded in the past five years.
Because 'the Boyz' have very little control over global commodity prices.
BUMP
show off.
So do you subscribe to the Austrian economics school of von Mises ? Qualitative theory instead of quantitative ?
BUMP
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