Posted on 06/28/2002 3:55:08 AM PDT by TightSqueeze
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:55 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
During the late 1990s, Robert Shiller, an economics professor at Yale University and an expert on market volatility, studied the dynamics of an economic bubble as the tech-fueled boom took the financial markets to unprecedented heights. Now Shiller is seeing some of those same dynamics at work, but heading in the opposite direction.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Why not solve the problem? Why is American labor not competitive? It's certainly not because the coroporation isn't loyal to the nation. If anything, when workers organize into labor unions and force corporations to "hand over the loot" the workers themselves are being unAmerican.
Get Congress to lower corporate taxes. That's a good start. After that, eliminate income tax or drastically lower it. Goods and services get ever cheaper (or you get better goods for the same price- same thing) in the long run. If not for taxes they would get even cheaper and were it not for taxes, your same salary would afford you ever more goods and services. Without taxes you wouldn't have to demand such a huge salary from a company that they couldn't afford to pay you. It's a lot more complex than that in actuality (just as the weaker dollar is more complex than investor fraud scares- there's also gov't debt to think about) but the "Land of the Free" should be the most corporate friendly place on Earth. The US should be a tax haven for the world's corporations. Think about it, if it were that way, you'd have corporations from overseas lining up to get into the country- not out. That equals more jobs. It's not the corporations' fault.
I understand your outrage, but put the blame where it belongs. Harangue anybody you know who votes for democrats, explain it to 'em. Socialism bleeds an economy and it bleeds you. Vote those dems out of office.
The 90's had people saying we would become the back office of the world. Deftly shuffling papers, making a nice NASDQ and other markets, while we skim off some of the action created by those foreigners who would labor to make "stuff" for US and those foreigners who do the labor for the world as a whole.
Sure labor is a commodity and it doesn't have the ability to price itself. If there's a scarcity of labor for a particular skill, the price goes up. If there are 10 overly qualified applicants for every position, price goes down. And labor doesn't speculate on the market. Individuals do that. Individual workers might or might not, but you can't say as a general rule that they do or don't because "labor" is a generalizing term that covers a lot of ground.
Every time anybody purchases an item they have actually invested in the company they bought it from. They have evaluated the company's efficiancy and quality control and decided that they were deserving of profit. If the company offered you a piece of shite, you don't invest, they don't get a profit the shareholders don't get paid the workers get fired.
Shareholders should do this same thing- inspect the company for effiency and quality before they invest. If they just invested because "Maria said the stock was hot" they only have themselves to blame. One type of investment is front end ie speculation, before the product has proved its worth, the other is after the product is made and the consumer conducts his analysis of the finished item and gives a thumbs up/down.
The best thing the American people (or any people for that matter) can do is to demand the best products for the cheapest prices and not reward companies that make inferior products (even if that means buying foreign things) AND to demand a gov't that is the most friendly to business. If you mess up this process you get corporations existing on hot air because they are propped up by the gov't or out of patriotism for no valid reason. Eventually they will fall and the larger they managed to get before the fall, the more people (read workers) it affects.
Scandal and corruption is part of the jungle. That's for the shareholders and consumers to sort out not the gov't.
There are others to blame besides labor unions. This just a cliché. I like well run and honest unions. I have no respect for unions for government workers. Union membership is way down compared to a few decades ago. The only union growth is with government workers.
Get Congress to lower corporate taxes. That's a good start.
Corporations pay a lower percentage of the total Federal take these days. Lower than in the 1950's which were prosperous. Your taxes are making up the difference. And don't peddle me the baloney that corporations *just* pass on taxes to consumers.
I would raise tariffs on select foreign goods if corporate taxes for industry are increased. I love tariffs.... Gotta run now.
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Who foots the bill for taxes corporations pay, avoid?
| Staff writer of The Christian Science MonitorDid you know that tax breaks for corporations exceed the amount of taxes they pay to Uncle Sam?
Corporations will pay about $136 billion in federal taxes this fiscal year. But, according to a study by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), a Washington research group, tax loopholes will save them $171 billion.
To liberals, that fact illustrates the power of corporate lobbyists to win what CTJ calls "corporate welfare." And, to the delight of Wall Street, the stimulus package passed by Congress this winter will enlarge those loopholes further.
The effective corporate tax rate – what companies actually pay as a proportion of their earnings – will drop 2.5 percentage points, reckons Bruce Steinberg, chief economist of Merrill Lynch & Co. (The rate last year was 22.1 percent.)
What is happening instead is that corporate taxes are fading gradually in their importance. In the 1960s, corporate tax revenues came to 4 to 5 percent of gross domestic product, the nation's total output of goods and services. By 1995-97, they had fallen to about 2.5 percent. This year and next, corporate tax revenues will amount to only 1.3 percent of GDP, figures CTJ.
Who ultimately bears the burden for the billions of tax dollars corporations pay each year is difficult to determine. The subject has been debated by economists for decades. The tax bill might be paid by consumers through higher prices. Employees can have their salaries or benefits cut. Or shareholders may take the hit via reduced earnings and dividends.
He believes the triggers may turn out to be [1] positive earnings numbers and [2] increased regulation. "If companies start meeting positive earnings estimates, that will make an impression on investors," Shiller said. "Government action could also have an effect. Things started turning around in the 1930s, after the creation of regulatory bodies like the Securities and Exchange Commission," he added. "Investors are pretty confident in the government's ability to enact effective regulations."Shiller believes that [1] Appearances are King. That posititivism and mere reported earnings numbers -- that estimates meet reported numbers -- are all that is needed, becuase only the "impression made" upon investors counts.
This is ridiculuous. There are many reasons we this is a ridiculous premise after a market fall and into a bear and post-bear slow "bottom of the cereal bowl" recovery. All those reasons summarize into a completely different pyshchology, set of expectations, set of reasons to invest.
Shiller can't get away from the old and gone psychology of a late bull market -- where appearances ARE King, and all that counts is mere impression.
We haven't reached bottom until hard, cash-on-the-barrelhead-reliably, pratical investement current yield is King.
* * * * *
Most troubling however, is Shiller's obvious rosy-socialist-cure-all outlook. That is [2], where he claims that everyone loves government regulation, that FDR's socialist polices, FDR's social-facsist SEC, and FDR's bureaucratism of regulation after regulation pulled us out of the Greay Depression during the 30's.
Well the Great Depression began as a market blowout after a loosey-gooosey bubble of charlatans and boosters, but FDR's policies locked that depression in, rather than allowing a natural free market recovery which might have had us out by '36 if not sooner. Instead, we -- in that generation -- NEVER came out of the Great Depression. Something interposed -- that phase of the continuance of the Great War, the phase known as WW II. and only a new generation born after or just before '29 enjoyed a differet economy.
Shiller is a dimwit, except for seeing the obivious and getting credit for being wise about telling us what is clear to any ninny. He not only a dimwit but a fool, and his advice is best ignored as any fools should be, allowing that one does give respect to dimwits for what wit they may show, but slight the fool's advice completely.
It's bad math. These corporations may make some money in the short term, but they are not thinking dynamically.
Look, Polo shirts are made in Taiwan and also with near slave labor on the mainland. The ones made in Taiwan will land at 9 dollars and go directly to the big chains for markup. These shirts will have better quality than the very same design from the mainland. Those shirts land a 4 dollars and go directly to those "factory outlet" stores for a more modest markup. Bottom line, you get what you pay for.
American workers, for all the bad things said about them, are among the very best in the world. Mainland Chicom slaves are not going to buy either the better quality Taiwan Polos nor their own lesser quality versions. Americans, meanwhile will be increasingly unable to afford the American brand, and will choose the even cheaper Chicom Faded Glory brand at their local WalMart. Now Faded Glory gets the earnings and since they don't have to pay squat for the labor, they can build better missiles with which to lob at those stupid, out of work Americans.
I guess patriotism is for suckers, because only the little guy, the one who always goes off to war to defend Exxon's property, ever gets suckered into it. The stockholders, while they demand Uncle Sam come rescue them, never dirty their own hands, and laugh derisively at such quaint notions of patriotism, never mind that they are cutting the throats of their own customer base.
America's death spiral.
No. The appearance of potential pratical investement current yield is King. Again, it comes down to human mob psychology. Unless the human race is assimilated by the Borg, you will never be able to separate that key aspect from the market.
Sure, I admitted that the whole thing is more complex, but they are a big culprit.
I like well run and honest unions.
Why?
I want to trade my labor to a company or individual who will reward it accordingly. In the South, where I was raised, when I was looking for a job I would make the claim to my prospective employer that he could try me out for two weeks and if he didn't like my services he could have his money back. I never had anybody take me up on that offer because of labor laws which is a bunch of BS in my book. I also used to make the claim that if I couldn't outwork his best empoyee in six months time he could cut my salary. I never had my salary cut.
If I can walk in the door and outwork anybody in the joint, I should get the top pay of all the workers. If I show the most potential for promotion, I should get promoted regardless of seniority. This type of thing isn't exactly smiled upon by the unions. Nobody has a right to a job. You only have a right to seek one and to try to make your labor more attractive than the other guy's in the labor market. I wished that it was possible to really have workers compete viciously for their jobs- we'd have a nation full of workers that companies were willing to pay top dollar for.
I've always looked on my labor as a commodity and have striven to make mine as valuable as possible. I was just a welder/assembler by trade but I used my head, worked smart and always strove to outdo my competition ie the other workers. Work is a deadly serious business to me. I don't like it when I am working alongside a lazy worker and I will let him know this quick. He's costing me by lowering the company's efficiency. I am a firm believer in "Job security depends on you" and when I was in a supervisory role I never felt bad about giving a slack worker the boot or verbal incentive because I led by example. To me, that's what America is all about. Not a bunch of thugs standing outside a company's gate with picket signs made out of two by fours for beating scabs.
Also, in your article, it says that the cost gets passed on to consumers right down there at the bottom. Who else pays? The gov't has no money on its own- where does the money come from if not from me and you?
My argument is that if somebody doesn't get forced to pay the price for the government being an impediment to progress, nothing will ever get done about it- now that's a fact. Like I said, the USA, as the land of freedom, should be where corporations flock to, not leave from. And that's about more than just the commies over in China and their sewing machines.
Look at Lifesavers candy, pulling up stakes and moving to Canada for cheaper sugar. Why should they have to do that? Sugar is more expensive in the USA than it is in Canada and Europe- ask yourself why that is, and it isn't because of expensive labor. You see, the gov't "protects" the US sugar industry but in the end they lose Americans their jobs because a manufacturer that can't afford the price of sugar in the US has to leave or go under. If the US sugar industry wasn't propped up, they would be forced to be more competitive, Lifesavers would buy the cheapest sugar available and those workers would still be punching out that hole in the candy.
There are many proactive things the gov't could do to make American manufacturing more attractive. This business with the sugar is just one such example. Abolishing the minimum wage would be another. Lowering taxes another still. The gov't is part of the problem. They're standing in the way of American workers- not helping 'em.
The yield and taxes -- those are two solid measures of a companies ability to pay, and a company that can't pay is -- just for that -- not an investment.
Folks claim that rather than paying out the doubly taxed yield it's better to take that money and invest back in the company. But be careful -- charlatans and frauds will be among the loudest so claiming! Shorthand, it is far healthier to call any tradeable instrument that is unable to or does not return a regular yield a speculation.
You live in a dream world of denial if you think socialism is advanced by only Democrats. Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the socialism being advanced at a rapid pace by our Republican(?) president.
BTW, those corporations you're speaking of for also give a lot of money to Democrats...how about you explain to them how "Socialism bleeds an economy".
I recently purchased a cast iron tub made by Kholer (The Bold Look of Kholer), once manufactured in Kholer Wis...
"Made in China" was proudly cast into the bottom and stamped on the crate....I didn't notice any reduction in price for the reduced cost of labor being passed on to the consumer like YOU think we would get if their taxes were eliminated....I'm wondering how many people in Kholer Wis. can now afford one of those Chinese tubs they, themselves might have manufactured, I hope those foreign Kholer stock holders enjoy their our money, after all what could be more important?
"The Decade of Fraud(s)..."
Actually, the nineteen-nineties were the "Decade of the Brain." Congresss declared it so.
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