Posted on 08/14/2013 2:58:00 PM PDT by RKBA Democrat
Something funny happened on the road to the epic consumer balance sheet cleansing and subsequent releveraging (without which there can be no actual non-Fed sugar high fueled recovery): the second quarter. And specifically, as the Fed just disclosed in its quarterly Household Debt and Credit Report, the number of consumer bankruptcies during the second quarter, just jumped by 71K, to 380K from 309K in Q1, the biggest quarterly jump in precisely three years - on both an absolute and relative basis - and the most since the 158K jump recorded in Q2 2010. It appears that when the "releveraging" US consumer isn't busy buying stuff on credit, they are just as busy filing for bankruptcy. Healthy consumer-led recovery and all that.
(graph embedded in article)
But wait, there's more.
Because as this other data set also from the NY Fed shows, the proportion of US Consumer that have a third-party collection process commenced against them is pretty much at all time highs, where it has been for the past two quarters. Must be the recovery too.
(graph embedded in article)
“you still can’t compete with Chinese labor that is at 1% the cost of our own. “
Are you sure about that ? Last time I looked, the US wages were running about 17 dollars an hour. The auto industry is getting about 56 dollars an hour.
That would make chinese labor at 17 or 56 cents an hour.
I am pretty sure, the chinese actually make about 4 dollars an hour now.
This is because US gdp is about 16 trillion. China is still behind but in 2nd place at about 12 trillion. China has 1.2 billion people but maybe only 1 billion who work. That works out to $12,000 per chinaman per year or 40 dollars a day (assuming they work 6 days a week with no vacations). At 10 hours a day, you get 4 dollars an hour.
Actually I suspect it is closer to 6-7 dollars an hour.
Now check out this article:
“One big factor behind the move is the rising cost of labor in China. When it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, China’s average manufacturing wage was 58 cents an hour, says Harold Sirkin, senior partner at the Chicago office of BCG and one of the coauthors of its report. Since then, Chinese wages have risen 15 to 20 percent per year.
“The decisions you made when wages were 58 cents an hour are potentially going to look very different than when wages are around $6 per hour, as they will be in China in 2015,” Mr. Sirkin says.”
I don't think you can take GDP and divide it by population that way to get average wages. If you did that with the U.S., you'd get $15.6 Trillion/314 million or an average wage of $50,000. Our average wages are $30,000. You have to leave room for corporate profits. Or in China's case State run companies profits.
Labor costs have risen in some provinces of China. I've seen some people say $6 or $7/hour. But I also saw a recent report that said 10% of Chinese still work for less than $1 a day. So there is at least a couple of hundred million Chinese willing to work for $2 an hour.
I think it really depends on how much you want to train, and where you're willing to locate your plant.
When China is trying to make it sound like they are no longer a thread and are no longer competitive. They play up the rising wages and the ever pending banking crisis and economic gloom and doom.
When China is trying to attract companies, they play up the number of people willing to work for really low wages.
“when I compare $17/hour U.S. manufacturing labor costs to Chinese $0.17/hour, “
You don’t keep up with the world much do you.
That 17 cents an hour is so 1990’s.
read a little ok.
My source says
“As Chinese wages rise, US manufacturers head back home”
“One big factor behind the move is the rising cost of labor in China. When it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, China’s average manufacturing wage was 58 cents an hour, says Harold Sirkin, senior partner at the Chicago office of BCG “
How about a CURRENT SOURCE showing 17 cents an hour in china.
I am sure you can find at least one chinaman working for 17 cents an hour somewhere, but I am talking about an overall wage.
The way to understand economic decisions is on the margins, Danny. Also, keep in mind that you can have flat or negative wage growth if it is outpaced by productivity growth. Much of that productivity growth is largely controlled by bureaucrats and they say, “No” more often than “yes” when it comes to innovations.
Just think about costs. If wages fell say 10% across-the-board and so did costs then, net, net, net you’re the same. Yet, in steps government to prop up sugar or RE or banks or workers, etc. Direct government action and indirect government action are to blame, not the free market.
Slight differences over time act just like compounding - either improving or undoing the healthy state of the economy. Zoning, permitting, and licensing all are anti-entrepreneurial actions at the local, state and county level.
In Illinois you cannot build a hospital without government permission. Licensing keeps out medical professionals. If you come here with a degree in medicine from a first world country you cannot practice without going through a long, arduous and expensive licensing process, but the same thing applies to a doctor from Indiana.
http://www.idfpr.com/Renewals/apply/Physician.asp
That’s crazy. The Commerce Clause guarantees free interstate and intrastate trade in the US. We don’t have it.
You’re a reasonable guy and are partly correct, but your view is too myopic. It isn’t just one thing, it is hundreds of things compounding to make the US less competitive.
In healthcare alone you could simply and Constitutionally:
1. Allow every licensed physician in America practice freely in any state under their original licensure.
2. Allow Americans to buy health insurance from any state they choose.
3. Allow individuals the same corporate tax breaks on health insurance.
Those three alone would solve the vast majority of health care problems - the fundamental issue in health is access to care, not insurance.
The above applies to all kinds of industries within America.
Employers Grapple with Higher Workers’ Compensation Costs
Workers' comp crisis may be costly
Workers compensation hike on California employers proposed
Workers Compensation Draws Scrutiny in Wisconsin from Business Leaders
Myerstown reviews workers' comp for volunteer firefighters
Workers’ comp rates could go up Industry seeks average increase of 19.3% as claims grow costlier
Even if that's true, the damage has already been done. As long as stores are filled with foreign merchandise and Americans are unemployed, I'd want to raise the import tariffs until unemployment drops and American industry is restored.
Even if that's true, the damage has already been done. As long as stores are filled with foreign merchandise and Americans are unemployed, I'd want to raise the import tariffs until unemployment drops and American industry is restored.
You should come to the new aquatic center at the Ohio State U. gym.
You get to see the Chinese vs. the Americans in swimsuits.
The Chinese have better bodies, less fat, BETTER DENTAL WORK, nice more easy going smiles, seem happier.
Now since these chinese students are overseas visitors and the americans are probably on student loans, I am probably comparing the Chinese top upper class vs. the American middle class, but still the differences are striking.
China is not your dirt poor third world country anymore.
Obama wants to build cattle car trains to restrict citizen movement.
We need satelite free self driving cars. End the mass transit construction cronnyism. (see sen. reid)
Certainly. But when the stores are full of foreign merchandise, it doesn't indicate that we have an automation problem. It indicates an import problem.
If most of the products in the stores said "Made in America", then yeah, I'd certainly be thinking automation was the problem and my solution wouldn't be import tariffs, it would be increased safety nets, increased funding for basic research to help spur innovation, and low interest loans for innovative developments.
I hope that robotics reaches the level where inexpensive general purpose robots are produced in mass and are easily trained to do manual tasks. But that is going to cause sudden massive labor dislocations. We will need some serious safety nets as well as programs to assist the market to identify and redirect the labor force into productive uses.
No they aren't. And the reason they aren't is that they have unfettered access to our market. But they don't allow the dollars spent on Chinese goods to come back to purchase trade goods. Instead they route it into buying our manufacturing know how and our debt.
What they are doing is within the rules. But we control the rules. And we've set up a system that is letting them destroy our industries even as they build their own up with the help of our market.
Some companies may move back and forth, but based on the trade deficit numbers with China, I think the momentum is still for companies to relocate operations to China.
Again, a lot of damage is already done. So it doesn’t matter what the Chinese rate is today or in the future. I say raise the tariffs and keep them up until the trade deficit with China is eliminated, and America has reached full employment.
Some companies may move back and forth, but based on the trade deficit numbers with China, I think the momentum is still for companies to relocate operations to China.
Again, a lot of damage is already done. So it doesn’t matter what the Chinese rate is today or in the future. I say raise the tariffs and keep them up until the trade deficit with China is eliminated, and America has reached full employment.
I'm watching this back-and-forth and am quite stunned by the dissonance displayed.
You appeared, at first, to harp on regulations mandated on businesses by the federal government. Dealing with those costs are listed under 'compliance'.
DannyTN, using his own experience in a fairly large firm, documented exactly how much compliance cost as a percentage of labor.
Then you, Mad Dawgg, start emphasizing other points that are not listed under federal compliance, namely benefits and features that are mandated by state/local governments, or are voluntarily taken upon by the business itself.
So DannyTN obliges you and redoes his figures - meticulously, I might add, going above and beyond your generalities - and the costs as percentage of labor goes up. But since they aren't mandated by the federal government, the main thrust of your argument is muddled, prompting Danny to rightly wonder what your whole point was.
And all the while you keep declaring him as being wrong again and again, when you've self-admittedly moved off the very page you claimed to be on.
So...what's the deal?
So...what's the deal?
Well you need to read my responses carefully and note the actually words I use and not the assumptions that DannyTN makes. That will make it much clearer. Further if you google Socratic Dialog and study the subject at length you will understand much more.
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