Profits Are Booming. Why Aren’t Jobs?

New York Times ^ | January 8, 2011 | Michael Powell

[arrogantsob]

I gave a sermon on that one day at my church. The message was not wildly acclaimed I must say. It was about as popular as it would be on this thread.

[arrogantsob]

And we didn’t even know that Saddam had farmed out his nuclear weapons research to Libya until Daffy turned the program over to the US after we invaded Iraq. Of course, Saddam funding every terrorist group who wandered in from the desert did not help his case. This INCLUDED al Queda operatives with who he had been working since the group was founded. There were multiple justifiable reasons for invasion as you know.

[arrogantsob]

This shit just keeps getting funnier and funnier. Is it any wonder the US economy is screwed when even FReepers understand so little of how things are.

[arrogantsob]

China a NK are as different as day and night.

[KissMyBarack]

I hope you’re not suggesting that the “trickle-down theory” of economics doesn’t work.

[hedgetrimmer]

Total free traitor globaloney.

What is the Volk? Your people?

[hedgetrimmer]

We know that the transnational trash corporations have utterly corrupted our government and is actively looting our economy until there is nothing left. Sad to say we are almost there.

This economic collapse is due PRECISELY to 30 years of free traitors and free trade.

The lie is on the free traitors.

[gogogodzilla]

The only reason a business hires a new employee is if they have the need for the new hire’s labor. That’s it, end of story.

If there hasn’t been an increase in the amount of labor needed at a business, they ain’t going to hire anyone, regardless of how much money they make.

It’s looking like more businesses are turning to the overseas market to make up the slack in the domestic one. Make up the slack... which means that there wasn’t enough work previously to fully employ their employees in the past. Now, their probably just now hitting the business pace from a few years ago.

As for increased profits... considering the dollar is sinking like a stone, everytime a foreigner pays you in euros, yen, pounds and you then exchange the money into dollars, you end up with more and more each time, for you are now getting more dollars per unit of foreign currency.

And that’s with business staying flat.

[gogogodzilla]

Actually, in the past, America was a powerhouse because the business of America was business. Government stayed out of the way as much as possible.

So it was a good environment for business to thrive.

Nowadays, government looks for any reason (or no reason) to interfere with business. So, nowadays, there is no good environment for business to thrive in America.

Which is why we are quickly ending our powerhouse status.

[gogogodzilla]

How would that solve anything. If corporations are such greedy, unpatriotic scum... wouldn’t that just drive them to re-incorporate in places like Panama, Kiribati, or any other fleaspeck country with lax laws/oversight?

And then where would all those precious taxes you sought from them be?

America has a lot of things going for it... like an educated, English-speaking workforce; large consumer market; highly-mobile labor force; reliable power and transportation networks, etc. That makes it an attractive place to invest in.

What pushes business away is the overregulation, the high taxes, the litigation, and the NIMBY factor.

Fix these and business will come back on it’s own.

[gogogodzilla]

How would that solve anything. If corporations are such greedy, unpatriotic scum... wouldn’t that just drive them to re-incorporate in places like Panama, Kiribati, or any other fleaspeck country with lax laws/oversight?

And then where would all those precious taxes you sought from them be?

America has a lot of things going for it... like an educated, English-speaking workforce; large consumer market; highly-mobile labor force; reliable power and transportation networks, etc. That makes it an attractive place to invest in.

What pushes business away is the overregulation, the high taxes, the litigation, and the NIMBY factor.

Fix these and business will come back on it’s own.

[expat_panama]

Is it any wonder the US economy is screwed when even FReepers understand so little of how things are.

Maybe the problem is thinking the New York Times is "Worth the read."

OK, it's good for finding out what the latest Marxist party line is, but these days anyone interested in 'how things are' with corporate finance can check the BEA directly and find out that for years going into the recession profits fell while pay increased.

I'm trying to remember the 2008 NYT headline "Profits are tanking, Why Aren't Jobs?"  There wasn't one, and the bottom line here is that mean old corporations pay six bucks in employee comp. for ever dollar proft, and when profits tank pay doesn't.

[hedgetrimmer]

wouldn’t that just drive them to re-incorporate in places like Panama, Kiribati, or any other fleaspeck country with lax laws/oversight?

No it wouldn't. The take advantage of the US's copious protections for corporations.

Elsewhere they are at the whim of dictators. If they found an advantage to incorporating in a fleaspeck country they would have done so by now

The maritime industry has found that flagging ships in fleaspeck countries doesn't work so well either.

[hedgetrimmer]

And then where would all those precious taxes you sought from them be?

Whose paying taxes? Not GE.

[hedgetrimmer]

What pushes business away is the overregulation, the high taxes, the litigation, and the NIMBY factor

You'd think that the businesses donating all that money to Congress and the white house would be lobbying to rid us of all these regulations, but they don't. In the warped "free trade" agenda, these regulations give the excuse to go search for slave labor abroad, since it isn't allowed here due to the 13th amendment.

That's exactly why transnational globalist trash corporations like GE promote the 'green' agenda and perpetuate the global warming fraud and cap and trade. They want us to legislate ourselves out of competition with communists and socialists in China and India and other 'fleaspeck' dictatorships around the globe.

That's why we call them free traitors.

[ex-snook]

"You'd think that the businesses donating all that money to Congress and the white house would be lobbying to rid us of all these regulations, but they don't. In the warped "free trade" agenda, these regulations give the excuse to go search for slave labor abroad, since it isn't allowed here due to the 13th amendment. "

Well said. Job exporting companies like to point the finger at taxes and regulations instead of their efforts to make American labor live on third world pay levels. Taxes have been much higher and regulations are unchanged but the quest to undermine American workers persists. All of American needs to be great again not just the buck chasers.

[algernonpj]

Times have changed. Now a days, international corporations have no problem being in bed with the government and promoting regulations that will harm their competitors.

Hedgetrimmer said it better:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2727913/posts?page=215#215

[algernonpj]

We know that the transnational trash corporations have utterly corrupted our government and is actively looting our economy until there is nothing left. Sad to say we are almost there.

This economic collapse is due PRECISELY to 30 years of free traitors and free trade.

The lie is on the free traitors.

Amen !!!

[arrogantsob]

Are you really this ignorant or just trying to be funny?

The “Volk” were the good Germans that Hitler pretended to care about, that he “coordinated” the German economy to “serve”. Only the good Germans were worthy of having a good life so they could enslave everyone else.

Since the capitalist system is the greatest liberating social force in history (unless you give that title to Christianity), taking control of it is critical to the totalitarian inclined.

Your mindless attack on Free Trade indicates your thinking is along those lines.

[arrogantsob]

How dare you post truths rather than chase off after whatever Leftist will-o-the-whisps the Antidiluvians are concerned with?

It is not amazing that we are in the situation we are in, it is amazing we are not in an even WORSE situation given the degree of utter ignorance.

Most of these people have never read a book about economics not taken a course in economics unless they were by total cranks. Personally I incline toward the Chicago School rather than the Crackpot School.