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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2012 11:30 pm 
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Sandler wrote:
And again, how come the countries with massive, comprehensive social programs are doing very well? To point to Greece, Spain and Italy and say "europe is in serious trouble" may be an actual true statement, but that's more because of the weird way Europe is united. The core is more "socialist" than those countries and doing just fine.


The failures of Greece, Spain, and Italy has nothing to do with the weird way Europe is united. The failures of other nations might be a result of the weird way Europe is structured, but the failures of Spain, Italy, and Greece are self-inflicted. It's a result of a nation spending more than it can produce on a chronic basis.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2012 11:33 pm 
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LittleWing wrote:
No economic system works for the masses of the people. That's not the point. It is PEOPLE that work for SOCIETY. The purpose of a society, of an economy, of any system, is for people do things for another. It is my job to figure out things that you want, and for you to figure out things that I want so that we gain some mutual benefit from our cooperation with on another. We specialize and exchange our talents to obtain the life we wish. It doesn't matter if it is socialism, communism, anarcho-capitalism, syndicalism, anarchism, a welfare state, or capitalism: An economy is predicated on what it's people are willing to do, and what they are capable of doing. Our economy has languishing unemployment because the people are not willing to do what is actually in demand. They have lost their entrepreneurial spirit. They have no desire to learn. The people of the west want a job, but they do not want to work, and thus the presence of millions of illegal immigrants who are doing the jobs that Americans just won't do (while they decry outsoucing of jobs they don't want to do). I'll spare you my anecdotes about how my company, all of our customers, and all of our suppliers are struggling to find good help. But we have a people problem. A skills gap problem. A work ethic problem. An education problem. The majority of our society has stagnated in the face of a dynamic, globalized world. It yearns for a time that is gone, and refuses to change and adapt. It wants nothing to do with the jobs that actually pay well, they just want to be paid. And if our nation doesn't change? It will die like Greece.


For the most part this is one of your better posts, but outsourcing is not that simple of a topic. I work in a location with lots of IBM techies, they do (did) the hardware behind IBM's cloud solution, they are not a bunch of half-ass visual basic programers or windows admins... and they literally train their Indian replacements on the grounds they will get to retire and keep their pensions. Outsourcing is not just about jobs Americans won't do, it's about managing corporations via EPS and hoping the execs can get out of town before the chickens come back to roost. Too bad our glorious leader won't take a stand against it.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2012 11:43 pm 
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broken iris wrote:
LittleWing wrote:
No economic system works for the masses of the people. That's not the point. It is PEOPLE that work for SOCIETY. The purpose of a society, of an economy, of any system, is for people do things for another. It is my job to figure out things that you want, and for you to figure out things that I want so that we gain some mutual benefit from our cooperation with on another. We specialize and exchange our talents to obtain the life we wish. It doesn't matter if it is socialism, communism, anarcho-capitalism, syndicalism, anarchism, a welfare state, or capitalism: An economy is predicated on what it's people are willing to do, and what they are capable of doing. Our economy has languishing unemployment because the people are not willing to do what is actually in demand. They have lost their entrepreneurial spirit. They have no desire to learn. The people of the west want a job, but they do not want to work, and thus the presence of millions of illegal immigrants who are doing the jobs that Americans just won't do (while they decry outsoucing of jobs they don't want to do). I'll spare you my anecdotes about how my company, all of our customers, and all of our suppliers are struggling to find good help. But we have a people problem. A skills gap problem. A work ethic problem. An education problem. The majority of our society has stagnated in the face of a dynamic, globalized world. It yearns for a time that is gone, and refuses to change and adapt. It wants nothing to do with the jobs that actually pay well, they just want to be paid. And if our nation doesn't change? It will die like Greece.


For the most part this is one of your better posts, but outsourcing is not that simple of a topic. I work in a location with lots of IBM techies, they do (did) the hardware behind IBM's cloud solution, they are not a bunch of half-ass visual basic programers or windows admins... and they literally train their Indian replacements on the grounds they will get to retire and keep their pensions. Outsourcing is not just about jobs Americans won't do, it's about managing corporations via EPS and hoping the execs can get out of town before the chickens come back to roost. Too bad our glorious leader won't take a stand against it.


I disagree. If my boss wanted to outsource my job to India tomorrow, why should I stop him? It simply then becomes my duty to find another job to serve the society I live in. Why should a customer have to pay more for the altruistic reason of me having a job? The worker is a consumer too you know. Economies are built upon value. Everyone functions on the basis of getting the most for their labor. Currency is a division of ones labor. The owner tries to get the most from his customers, the customer tries to get the most for his currency, and the laborer tries to get the most currency for his labor. A romanticism favoring one leg of the stool over the other is pure irrationality, and destroys economies by neglecting the realities of the other two legs: that EVERYONE is trying to get the most value.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2012 11:59 pm 
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i wonder if at some point the rate of innovation outstrips people's ability to train for new jobs created by it. in the early 1900s people could change careers without much trouble, but is that becoming harder? particularly with the massive debt loads we are accruing with our broken education system?

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 12:15 am 
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bmacsmith wrote:
i wonder if at some point the rate of innovation outstrips people's ability to train for new jobs created by it. in the early 1900s people could change careers without much trouble, but is that becoming harder? particularly with the massive debt loads we are accruing with our broken education system?
no, its your own fault if you don't choose a school or major correctly to predict what the Future Society wants from you.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 12:17 am 
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LittleWing wrote:
Capitalism is not the problem. The problem is people refusing to change and adjust to the new information age. There are plenty of good paying jobs out there waiting to be had. Tons of unseen products, software, automated processes, product improvements, creature comforts, consumer demands, medical inventions, new drugs, an enormous demand for doctors. Instead of filling these demands, we sit and pout about how capitalism has failed us and that it's in serious trouble. Our leaders have created credit bubbles in lieu of addressing meaningful changes in societal attitudes. It's much easier to beg a bond purchaser than tell an entire nation that the days of good paying factory jobs are over, and that it's time to get in the lab, start inventing, learn calculus, type code, or run a CNC machine.


Your first response to me was kind of all over the place and not really about capitalism, but about the people, which is typical of capitalism's supporters, and while there may be merit to those types of arguments, I believe our problems are systematic and not cultural.

I agree with you that a refusal to change is what's hurting us. Our current economic system is killing us and no one seems to understand that to replace it would not be catastrophic. You say there's plenty of jobs out there. You mention automated processes. Any time something is automated, jobs are lost. All of the examples you give are in the tech or medical industry. I agree there's tremendous growth there, but those industries can't sustain the entire workforce. Plus, we need to be reducing the costs in the medical industry, which only happens when the population becomes healthier, which means there's less use of the system, which means that the growth can't be sustained forever. And in the tech industry, you've got your big boys who employ a small number of people in the US, and the rest in other countries. It's only a small % here. What does seem interesting though, is the software industry. Silicon Valley seems to disagree with you a bit, since most of the cool software applications that come out today are not made by your big capitalist companies like Apple or IBM, but instead by software engineers who have rejected capitalism and formed a collective enterprise to sell their products on the market.

The problem, LW, is that most people can't learn calculus. Most people can't own a business. Most people don't go to college and that will become moreso as governments cut funding and tuitions rise. When your average blue collar worker can't sustain himself - hell, when your average blue collar couple can't sustain themselves, then you've got a problem. Most people fall into that group, and always will. If everyone went to college and did "professional work" it would not be "professional work" anymore. The standard of living has to be based on your average citizen, and that is falling. I really don't think it's because people are lazy. Some are, no doubt. But not most.

thodoks wrote:
It's always easier to discuss first principles than it is to talk over and past one another.

Sandler, what is your definition of "capitalism?"


Private ownership of the means of production of goods and services. I think that in some respects, things should be privately owned. But I think that any product or service that is required by all people should be publicly owned and operated. I also think that we, as a nation of people who claim to be in favor of democracy, should bring it to the work place. Capitalism has brought an era of boards of directors and majority shareholders who make ALL the decisions in regards to what's done with what the country produces. They decided what to produce, where to produce, what to do with the profits, how to pay those involved, etc... I don't see how this works for the mass of people. It makes it easy to outsource to China or India. It makes it easy to pollute the environment since the people who make the decisions live away from the actual factories. It makes it easy to have a pay scale that pays executives 600% more than the average employee, which we, the consumer pay for in higher premiums.

This whole 1% versus 99% is a valid argument because 1% does control what happens. In Germany, once a company reaches a certain size (I think 2000 employees), 50% of the board of directors has to be elected from the workforce. So Germany is still capitalist, but it understands the flaws of the system and has taken steps to try and minimize them. We lack that here. The private sector, and specifically the top .05% or so, have already "won" capitalism. It just doesn't work anymore. Like I said in my first post, the Fed Reserve has a study that measures our production capacity. We're at 78%, with an unemployment rate of over 8%, and if you use what some people use - a stat called U-6 which more accurately paints a picture, it's closer to 15%. So 22% of our office space, factory space, warehouse space, vehicles, tools, equipments, etc... sits unused while 15% of the population sits without a job or with a part time job that doesn't sustain them. Capitalism is supposed to be efficient. That's its saving grace. It's the main reason we use it. But according to the stats of our own federal reserve, it's anything but efficient.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 12:20 am 
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EllisEamos wrote:
bmacsmith wrote:
i wonder if at some point the rate of innovation outstrips people's ability to train for new jobs created by it. in the early 1900s people could change careers without much trouble, but is that becoming harder? particularly with the massive debt loads we are accruing with our broken education system?
no, its your own fault if you don't choose a school or major correctly to predict what the Future Society wants from you.


Is there a finite limit to the following pursuits of human endeavors: mechanization, medicine, pharmaceuticals, medical technology, software, computers.

Are there not many human basics that we forever and always require to live?

There are wise paths for human beings to follow. And then there's dropping out of high school, or getting a liberal arts degree and protesting in Zuccotti Park.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 12:22 am 
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EllisEamos wrote:
bmacsmith wrote:
i wonder if at some point the rate of innovation outstrips people's ability to train for new jobs created by it. in the early 1900s people could change careers without much trouble, but is that becoming harder? particularly with the massive debt loads we are accruing with our broken education system?
no, its your own fault if you don't choose a school or major correctly to predict what the Future Society wants from you.

and you only get one chance now.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 12:30 am 
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LittleWing wrote:
EllisEamos wrote:
bmacsmith wrote:
i wonder if at some point the rate of innovation outstrips people's ability to train for new jobs created by it. in the early 1900s people could change careers without much trouble, but is that becoming harder? particularly with the massive debt loads we are accruing with our broken education system?
no, its your own fault if you don't choose a school or major correctly to predict what the Future Society wants from you.


Is there a finite limit to the following pursuits of human endeavors: mechanization, medicine, pharmaceuticals, medical technology, software, computers.

Are there not many human basics that we forever and always require to live?

There are wise paths for human beings to follow. And then there's dropping out of high school, or getting a liberal arts degree and protesting in Zuccotti Park.
what about wanting to teach others these things, that's a tremendously lucrative industry that attracts nothing but the best and brightest, amirite?!!

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 12:31 am 
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bmacsmith wrote:
EllisEamos wrote:
bmacsmith wrote:
i wonder if at some point the rate of innovation outstrips people's ability to train for new jobs created by it. in the early 1900s people could change careers without much trouble, but is that becoming harder? particularly with the massive debt loads we are accruing with our broken education system?
no, its your own fault if you don't choose a school or major correctly to predict what the Future Society wants from you.

and you only get one chance now.
unless you're mitt romney or W. bush.

and all i mean by this is that they can afford to make mistakes and use their parents connections to further themselves... not an R thing, just the two examples that came to mind.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 12:57 am 
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I agree with you that a refusal to change is what's hurting us. Our current economic system is killing us and no one seems to understand that to replace it would not be catastrophic. You say there's plenty of jobs out there. You mention automated processes. Any time something is automated, jobs are lost. - Sandler


It's a good thing you weren't around and a popular at the time of the industrial revolution. We'd still all be yeoman farmers.

Quote:
I agree there's tremendous growth there, but those industries can't sustain the entire workforce. - Sandler


You're right, they sustain other things.

Quote:
Plus, we need to be reducing the costs in the medical industry, which only happens when the population becomes healthier, which means there's less use of the system, which means that the growth can't be sustained forever. - Sandler


This is totally unfounded given the history of the entire medical industry. Our societies have become much healthier over time, yet costs have risen a great deal along with it. You will never, ever, ever end the need for healthcare. Humans cannot eliminate accidents 100%.

Quote:
What does seem interesting though, is the software industry. Silicon Valley seems to disagree with you a bit, since most of the cool software applications that come out today are not made by your big capitalist companies like Apple or IBM, but instead by software engineers who have rejected capitalism and formed a collective enterprise to sell their products on the market. - Sandler


Wait, you mean a bunch of people saw a niche in an economy, banded together, and are competing against other people to sell goods and services? You mean, they are engaging in capitalism?

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The problem, LW, is that most people can't learn calculus. - Sandler


No, most people DON'T WANT to learn calculus. I could teach anybody on my shop floor how to do calculus. They simply have no desire to learn it. It's possible that not everyone can own a business, or would even want to. But the bottom line is that many more COULD if they really wanted to. Not enough people want to, and it's why wealth concentrates among those that run successful businesses.

Quote:
Most people don't go to college and that will become moreso as governments cut funding and tuitions rise.


It's not the governments place to finance personal educations. College is like anything. It carries a cost. It is up to the individual to pick the course which society demands so as to pay for the service they desire to obtain. I won't bore you with the problems of universal education and how it leads to societies like Spain where everyone goes to college with the goal of either becoming a government bureaucrat or leaving the country entirely?

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When your average blue collar worker can't sustain himself - hell, when your average blue collar couple can't sustain themselves, then you've got a problem.


Spare me. One of our suppliers in Pittsburgh is losing CNC machinists to major corporations pay THIRTY FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS AN HOUR for people with a two year trade school degree. Any blue collar worker in the nation can go to North Dakota and pull down a six figure salary. The average job in the facking industry in Pennsylvania is paying $85,000 a year, with related jobs paying over 60k. My company is losing workers to the frackers because they are paying thirty dollars an hour, sometimes forty, for skilled labor. Why are the frackers paying so much? Because skills and the willingness to work hard is slim. Wages only rise with scarcity.

Quote:
Most people fall into that group, and always will. If everyone went to college and did "professional work" it would not be "professional work" anymore.


It doesn't require everyone. It just requires SOME. I am not effected, at all, by more engineers entering the marketplace because we create our own wealth. Do you think doctors look to artificially repress the supply of doctors to protect their wages? Skilled professionals create their own self-sustaining wealth. Professional work will always be professional work. The more professional laborers there are, the less workers there are, thus creating scarcity of labor, pushing jobs up, creating a natural equilibrium for demand and wages. Which really exists always...

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I also think that we, as a nation of people who claim to be in favor of democracy, should bring it to the work place.


Yeah, let me know how that works out on a grand scale. You have just stated that people cannot own businesses, now you claim that they should all be able to run them? Do you know what happens when you socialize risk? HA! Socialism can only work on a small scale, with certain groups of people. The dregs of society collapse a socialist business FAR faster than a capitalist one. People all try to do the least as possible to get the reward that they desire. The moment you democratize the means of production and the fruits of the workers labor you do nothing but create an artificial floor where nobody wants responsibility, everyone looks to as much as the laziest person, while trying to get as much as possible out of it.

Welcome to the reason why the world needs capitalism. So that those willing to take risks to bring about progress can have the motivation to do so. Otherwise you have a system of free riders.

Quote:
They decided what to produce, where to produce, what to do with the profits, how to pay those involved, etc


No, consumers do this. Businesses cater to the consumers demand.

Quote:
It makes it easy to have a pay scale that pays executives 600% more than the average employee, which we, the consumer pay for in higher premiums.


Sorry, everything is worth what it's purchaser will pay for. Tell me, do you think executives compete any less in the labor force than other people? For instance, if I rolled into Home Depots headquarters and said I could run their company JUST as well as their current CEO, but for half the price, that they'd turn down my offer?

Quote:
In Germany, once a company reaches a certain size (I think 2000 employees), 50% of the board of directors has to be elected from the workforce. So Germany is still capitalist, but it understands the flaws of the system and has taken steps to try and minimize them. We lack that here. - Sandler


I'd challenge you to find me a US company that doesn't have 50% of its board members as prior people in its workforce. Why does this carry any inherent benefit anyway?

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But according to the stats of our own federal reserve, it's anything but efficient.


Because our people don't have the skills to meet our own demands.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 1:20 am 
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LittleWing wrote:
I disagree. If my boss wanted to outsource my job to India tomorrow, why should I stop him? It simply then becomes my duty to find another job to serve the society I live in. Why should a customer have to pay more for the altruistic reason of me having a job? The worker is a consumer too you know. Economies are built upon value. Everyone functions on the basis of getting the most for their labor. Currency is a division of ones labor. The owner tries to get the most from his customers, the customer tries to get the most for his currency, and the laborer tries to get the most currency for his labor. A romanticism favoring one leg of the stool over the other is pure irrationality, and destroys economies by neglecting the realities of the other two legs: that EVERYONE is trying to get the most value.


There is no reason the customer should have to pay more for local labor, but you are assuming the outsourcing of labor is causing a price reduction as opposed to maintaining profit growth. The consumer is a worker too you know. If there are no good jobs, there are no customers, and thus fewer jobs. Now if the labor market were level, for example if a Chinese factory worker and an American factory worker could compete solely on wage differences, I would be more inclined to agree. But no independent worker can compete with currency manipulation, IP theft, and slave labor distorting the marketplace.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 1:35 am 
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LittleWing wrote:
Wait, you mean a bunch of people saw a niche in an economy, banded together, and are competing against other people to sell goods and services? You mean, they are engaging in capitalism?


Yes, these engineers discovered that they could use the system to better their own standing. They understood that by leaving their structurally top-down companies, they could collectively better themselves in a market. This is a much different approach to the typical setup of a private enterprise in a capitalist society.

LW wrote:
College is like anything


Not everyone should go to college, but the US should make sure that in a globalized economy, we have a very capable work force. That is absolutely necessary and yet completely not profitable. So I think a well run public effort to have a well trained, capable work force is something that would benefit everyone. You can't do it with austerity though.

Quote:
="LW"]Spare me. One of our suppliers in Pittsburgh is losing CNC machinists to major corporations pay THIRTY FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS AN HOUR for people with a two year trade school degree.


You've always got some real world evidence to back up your positions, and that's cool. But there's always exceptions to rules and those exceptions are always very easy to find. If your average community school graduate got $35 an hour, we wouldn't be having this debate.

LW wrote:
Because our people don't have the skills to meet our own demands.


Then we need to fix that. If more people should be going to college and be trained to perform certain jobs, then we need to spend the money to make it happen.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 2:09 am 
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This is totally unfounded given the history of the entire medical industry. Our societies have become much healthier over time, yet costs have risen a great deal along with it. You will never, ever, ever end the need for healthcare. Humans cannot eliminate accidents 100%.

Ya know, if healthcare only needed to provide care for accidents, it'd probably be closer in cost to automobile insurance.

What if by ending subsidies to corn syrup, and redirecting it to some healthier vegetable, we dropped the rate of obesity by 10%? Some people would be crying foul, but maybe it'd save us millions.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 10:12 am 
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Little Wing wrote:
You will never, ever, ever end the need for healthcare.
but if you can't pay for it yourself, too bad, just die.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 10:32 am 
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broken iris wrote:
LittleWing wrote:
I disagree. If my boss wanted to outsource my job to India tomorrow, why should I stop him? It simply then becomes my duty to find another job to serve the society I live in. Why should a customer have to pay more for the altruistic reason of me having a job? The worker is a consumer too you know. Economies are built upon value. Everyone functions on the basis of getting the most for their labor. Currency is a division of ones labor. The owner tries to get the most from his customers, the customer tries to get the most for his currency, and the laborer tries to get the most currency for his labor. A romanticism favoring one leg of the stool over the other is pure irrationality, and destroys economies by neglecting the realities of the other two legs: that EVERYONE is trying to get the most value.


There is no reason the customer should have to pay more for local labor, but you are assuming the outsourcing of labor is causing a price reduction as opposed to maintaining profit growth. The consumer is a worker too you know. If there are no good jobs, there are no customers, and thus fewer jobs. Now if the labor market were level, for example if a Chinese factory worker and an American factory worker could compete solely on wage differences, I would be more inclined to agree. But no independent worker can compete with currency manipulation, IP theft, and slave labor distorting the marketplace.


How do you define what a "good job" is? You're still romanticizing the worker. Again, if you examine currency as nothing but a division of the value of labor, then on what basis can you romanticize the worker? You seem to be wishing to create a society with a provider class, and a recipient class. A society where the rich bestow jobs to the working class regardless of the VALUE that these jobs provide society.

Outsourcing HAS caused price reductions. We are living in an extremely competitive market place. The only area where profit margins have risen in a globalized corporate world is in pre-eminent corporations.

If there are no "good jobs" then there will be customers. The customers are the people who hold currency circulating through the economy. There will always be production, and thus, always be customers. If there happens to be a concentration of wealth at the top, then the wealthy will be the customers. The jobs will then be coming from the demands of the rich. And it would be our job to cater to the demands of the rich, sell and make stuff that rich people want. If rich people want mansions, yachts, private jets, and exotic vacations, then WE can extract OUR wealth by catering to their demands.

I agree that there are issues with China and their IP theft and slave labor. Currency manipulation? All nations do that. We have no right to criticize the Chinese. But it really doesn't matter. Again, we're romanticizing a time period that is GONE! There are still GREAT JOBS available throughout the economy. Our people don't have the skills to fulfill them, and our welfare system encourages people to subside on welfare as opposed to taking them. Then when you look at our low end wages the situation is even worse, as low value, low skill jobs must always compete with the wage of welfare and unemployment.

Quote:
What if by ending subsidies to corn syrup, and redirecting it to some healthier vegetable, we dropped the rate of obesity by 10%? Some people would be crying foul, but maybe it'd save us millions. - Sandler


Human beings are the end. Not the means to an end. That end being "saving money."

Quote:
Yes, these engineers discovered that they could use the system to better their own standing. They understood that by leaving their structurally top-down companies, they could collectively better themselves in a market. This is a much different approach to the typical setup of a private enterprise in a capitalist society. - Sandler


That's fine, just know that these people are capitalists.

Quote:
Not everyone should go to college, but the US should make sure that in a globalized economy, we have a very capable work force. That is absolutely necessary and yet completely not profitable. So I think a well run public effort to have a well trained, capable work force is something that would benefit everyone. You can't do it with austerity though. - Sandler


I still maintain that everyone needs to go to college. That even a trade school needs to be more rigorous. That college is more than turning out cogs for the work force...

But that is neither here nor there I suppose. A well run public effort to have a well trained, capable work force, is NOT something that would benefit everyone. Tell me, how would you ensure that it operated the way you want? By imposing draconian measures dictating what degrees people get? Do you think a government can maintain its pulse on an economy to judge where demand for workers is? Or will you allow the people to choose what they want, and simply force the rest of society to subsidize education? Sorry, education is personal. And it should rightfully be a personal investment. It is up to prospective students to ensure they pick viable career paths, and understand the realities of a college education. If you socialize education in this country you'll do nothing but create new hordes of liberal arts/fine arts/humanities majors who have nothing to offer society. STEM degrees will like drop, perhaps not substantially, but with no profit motive in the mind of the student because the debt burden has been lifted from their shoulders, they will be more inclined to pursue hobbies, and not in demand professional careers. You'll create a glut of educated, but unskilled labor, and starve the economy even more.

Let's look at it like this. Why should non-college attending citizens pay for someones college education? Why should a person enter college, graduate, and then pay taxes, instead of entering college, graduating, and then paying their own personal debts? In either case the education is being paid for at the expense of future production. What sense does it make to socialize this process?

The purpose of high school is to groom young adults that are ready for the world, to take on legal agency, and make their own responsible decisions about their new adult life. That includes going to college.

Quote:
Then we need to fix that. If more people should be going to college and be trained to perform certain jobs, then we need to spend the money to make it happen.


And it should be the private sector that does it.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 10:34 am 
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EllisEamos wrote:
Little Wing wrote:
You will never, ever, ever end the need for healthcare.
but if you can't pay for it yourself, too bad, just die.


If you want modern healthcare, contribute to society in a way that allows you to pay for modern healthcare. Unless you are disabled, you have no right to a free ride.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 6:32 pm 
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Little WIng is rigth about a lot of things. Everyone can learn calculus but a lot of people won't put in the work and then say they can't. Apparently they've swayed a lot of people to believe this.

This is where I get confused about things. LW thinks everyone is equal and treats them that way. They are capable, they can achieve, they can overcome obstacles in their lives. Yet he's treated at times like he hates people. While others who profess to think of people as equal sure don't act as if they believe they're equal. They think some people aren't capable, can't achieve and can't overcome. But they're generally thought to love and be supportive of people. It's damn confusing.

The world has changed. High school education doesn't cut it and I'm okay with that. Hell, a 20 year old university degree doesn't cut it and I'm okay with that. It's my life, I'm responsible for it. It would seem absurd to not invest a little bit of time and money to ensure that I'm continually updating my skill set and ensuring that my skill set is transferable to the hot job markets. The people I see falling behind are the ones not investing time and money into themselves and act as if the world isn't changing, or made a conscientious choice to take a less dollar driven path. It's a life long process, taking two courses a semester at night isn't going to bankrupt anyone. So it may take you six or seven years to get that degree. Big deal. Is it really so bad to graduate university at 25 with next to no student debt and a wealth of work experience. Too many people make excuses for not trying.

Unless anyone on here is going to admit that LW is exceptional, is there any reason why those not keeping up couldn't have made the same choices as LW? It's not like he's the 1%, getting by on nepotism.


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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 7:54 pm 
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I agree with you guys that most people would benefit from college. I agree that people should take responsibility for themselves and invest in their future. I completely disagree, however, that it's anywhere near as easy to do as you guys think.

College tuition has risen at a faster pace than almost everything else. It rises much faster than wages. For the majority of people, loans are the only option, and as I'm sure you've all seen, those loans total more than $1 trillion now. America seems to like bubbles, and we're creating a doozie. People are being priced out of higher education, and those who bite the bullet and take out the loans graduate with huge debt. This is debt that will take many years to pay. A person does not need an advanced math degree to understand that this is a scenario that discourages college enrollment.

There was a point in time in America (and this is still true of many European countries) when we properly funded public higher education. The university systems in California and New York were wonderful models. Tuition was affordable and the quality of education was very good, but the economic crisis is taking its toll. As local and state budgets get squeezed, so do the funds for education.

LW wrote:
A well run public effort to have a well trained, capable work force, is NOT something that would benefit everyone.


I disagree with this. If America is to compete in a global market, it must have a capable workforce with skills and knowledge. If the overwhelming majority of people are priced out of private colleges, then it is absolutely necessary to make public higher education affordable, and you can only do this with subsidies. This DOES benefit everyone. The skilled positions, which are going unfilled today, get filled and there's less people competing for the unskilled jobs.

Healthcare and engineering are two areas in which the demand is far higher than the supply. Why couldn't our government(s) setup a system that encouraged people to earn degrees in these fields? You call this a draconian measure, but it's something that will benefit society and keep America competitive.

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 Post subject: Re: Greece Financial Bailout
PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 9:32 pm 
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Sandler wrote:
Healthcare and engineering are two areas in which the demand is far higher than the supply. Why couldn't our government(s) setup a system that encouraged people to earn degrees in these fields? You call this a draconian measure, but it's something that will benefit society and keep America competitive.
The incentive is there, it's called a good wage and near gauranteed employment.

I do think it's a bit harder now to graduate debt free than when I did it. So take eight years to get that degree part time. Take as many courses as possible at community colleges and make sure your grades are good enough that they can be transferred to university. There are councellors every step of the way who can help you with this. My kid got accepted to Berkley Music School (about $40k a yr) but he also found a school that follows the first two years of Berkley's cirriculum and all courses transferable for about $5k a yr. In the end he chose not to go to either but you can do it smart or you can do it expensive. There is choice out there and a shit load of bursuries and scholarships.

It's your life, you may have to work at it. You may even have to work harder at it than some people. You can focus on the outcome and your goals, or whine about the obstacles. I've yet to see a whiner succeed.


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