OH, and the college thing is no accident either - it would be easy and relatively painless to have in place a policy in every state like the one Wisconsin hd for years - where I was able to go to law school in 86-89 for 600 dollars a semester tuition - and the economic benefits of this very minimal investement for the state were huge - U michigan calculated them at something like a 500% return on state money a few years ago - so why do we not do it? Well, who can afford to go to U Wis or Michigan now?
Greedy, sick people in charge of things right now.
<!–QuoteBegin>
| Quote |
| Exactly what the republicans don’t want to happen. |
<!–QuoteBegin>
| Quote |
| Greedy, sick people in charge of things right now. |
I don’t know if I can agree with such sweeping generalizations Tom. I can see and agree with you on a lot of points but I don’t like to make such sweeping statements myself. Perhaps “Exactly what some Republicans don’t want to happen.” and “There are some greedy, sick people in charge of things right now.” would be more apropos.
That second one would be true regardless of which party were in charge though… I’m tellin’ ya’, this whole Dems versus Repubs thing is a load of horsey pucks. It is just the SAME crap with different faces and party cards.
D – confirmed cynic…
TomS
The problem with your idea that we can support the middle class as it now exists by making better products with better technology is that the technology in countries like China and India is now often as good as the technology in the US and Europe. We might be able to maintain an edge in some industries, but doing this across the entire economy is unlikely. This is thanks to a rapid transfer of manufacturing technology by multinational companies to the new factories that they are opening there. Spend some time around any engineering school. Chances are pretty good that the majority of students you see will not be from the US or Europe. Of course that’s not really new. It was that way 20 years ago when I was in grad school. What is changing is that gifted foreign engineering students once tended to stay in the US after graduation. There is an increasing tendency for them to return to their country of origin now because of increasing opportunity there.
I fully agree that the German middle class has so far been better buffered from the increased competiveness of the developing countries, but have you talked to any Germans lately about their economy? They are feeling the heat too, and in the long run they can’t escape the same situation that we are facing.
I lived in Liberia for several years before their revolution, and I got a chance to see what really bad government was like. While my personal opinion is that we in the US have faced some major failures in policies, are currently in the grip of some unwise political philosophies, and are held much to much in the sway of big money, this is nothing like what you see when government and the political system really isn’t working. That said, I sure will feel a lot better about our future if the current discontent with both the executive branch of government and congress reverses the current drift toward what looks to me a bit like government for the wealthy by the wealthy. I’m back to something that we both agree on I think our government can do some things to ease the transition, but up to now it has pretty much ignored the problem.
T
I dunno, tspringer, seems to me that economies are not natural things but rather human creations, and we can make them do pretty much what we want them to do. So if we need to be fatalist about it, it would only be because we think we can’t get China, e.g., to act in ways that would benefit the west. I agree that the last 15 years or so has been a period of rapid tech transfer - in a way, it’s worth adding, that has done nothing to enhance global well being. D will love the fact that Clinton is primarily to blame there. 
From the perspective of Liberia, I am certain Bush looks like an angel. 
D - OK, some republicans. The ones in charge. Look what politics has done to McCain recently. What a spineless, ambitious fool.
Yep. Now our opinions converge.
I’ve got a story about how things don’t work when there is little trust between groups r that illustrates why it will be so hard to work things out with the developing world.
When I was in Liberia, there was a little town off in the bush near Gbarnga that was just a mile or so from the road leading to Monrovia (the capitol). The local Peace Corps volunteer got the Liberian government to agree to send some equipment to help clear a road, but the time that it would be allowed to stay was limited, and the condition for agreement was that the people in the village had to come out to help with clearing the brush. The PCV had some trouble convincing the local folks that the deal was for real, but finally, on the appointed day, the village people all walked up to the Monrovia road to meet with the equipment. Liberian time is a rather inexact thing, so people were not surprised at waiting. But the equipment never came. A second date was set up, but it was even harder to get the villagers out. Same thing happened. Finally, on the third date, the equipment arrived… but the villagers didn’t. No road. Even less trust. Even less opportunity for positive things to happen. I think of this story every time I see any government pull some underhanded trick to try to gain some advantage. Next time when the government really means what it says, there’s no trust, no villagers, no progress. The principle holds just as much on the international scale as on the local scale. As neither the US nor Chinese governments can currrently be accused of being particularly open and honest in their actions, I don’t have a lot of hope that agreements between the two governments wll to be of much real assistance in reducing the impact of change on our middle class. We will primarily have to look to ourselves to deal with it. Government can do its part by using tax money to subsidize education and health care for the middle class. And if the middle class is going to have no money, where will the tax money have for these subsidies come from? Given the current political climate in the US, the answer to that question will be about as popular as my dog when he’s been our rolling in the fragrant materials he sometimes finds.
T
Great posts guys. Great pics KingFish. I haven’t followed each post to the nTh detail, but our tax policies and laws helped create the middle-tax. It didn’t happen by itself, nor did the “free” market create it - the government did. If the government doesn’t continue to help the middle class, it will erode. People will have jobs, like they do now, but they’ll be jobs w/o health benefits, etc., and the real income will go down. I believe it’s already happening today.
Real incomes for the bottom 3/5 have been going down since 1982, according to the official figures in the congressional record. The 2nd 1/5 has stayed somewhat steady, with a dip since 2001, and the top 1/5 has made out like bandits.
BTW, what’s going on in Afghanistan today? Serious unraveling of the PNAC plan…
The thing that amazes me is that the bottom 4/5 of the American wages earners have been so willing to support policies that excacerbate the wage situation. Probably it is a victory of half-truth told. But when people REALLY figure out what has happened, watch out for the Gbarnga syndrome.
Regarding todays events in Afganistan: I can’t think of anything to say that won’t sound like a rant. So I’m not going to comment at all. Nobody needs to have what is happening there interpreted for them anyway. It is all too obvious.
T
Gbarnga?
Oh sorry… When I said Gbarnga syndrome, I was referring to the story that I posted earlier about how a true lack of trust in the government had degraded the ability of the Liberian village near Gbarnga to improve it’s situation.
T
I agree with Tom’s position for the most part. And the comments by Soul although it isn’t starting now, it started years ago and is being felt more and more. It will not reverse for several reasons.
1) Reagan (aka “Mr. Voodo Economics”) dealt the first blow to our economic growth with his sweeping tax code changes and his 1) inaction on the S & L crisis by delaying regulators findings and firing them (so that this crisis would happen AFTER reelection) 2) wiping out the S & L 's in favor of Banks and Plastic.
2) Reagan sold his tax ideas to you (Trickle Down Theory) and the majority of Americans bought into it.
3) Americans will never give up this idea because it SOUNDS fair.
4) Bush Sr., who thought this idea was “Voodo” did nothing to change it when he was President. Reagan had too much popularity to do anything. When he realized he needed to raise taxes it cost him reelection.
5) Clinton was a good Republican Democrat. He bought the republican idea of Free Trade. Even when some Republicans such as Buchanan predicted what problems NAFTA would cause and even advocated TIGHTER Import/Export control, Clinton went along for the ride. He did pitch Fair Trade vs Free Trade but he did so poorly and I really think that was more Hillary’s position than his. (Buchanan is not my cup of tea as he is pretty racist and prejudice at times but he does have an admirable understanding of what makes an economy work.)
6) Reagan spent us into Oblivion Part 1 and…Bush jr…Well he spent us into Oblivion Part2 to Infinity. The markets don’t like debt. It’s not unlikely to see the Dow back down in the 8000 in the near future. There has been a lot of debt shed in the market since it was at 7000+ but the economy remains sluggish and the increase to 11500 is mostly speculation and wishful thinking.
6) Americans think everyone we deal with is a Free Trade country. We are it boys and girls.
7) Americans are overburdened with Plastic debt at higher interest and larger monthly payments without the protection of Bankruptsy on this debt. Economys don’t work when people don’t spend.
I’ll lead with just those 7 minimal comments in hopes of starting a long and bitter debate (choose only 1 to argue at a time to avoid mass confusion!) that may rage until we’re all unemployed or living in a box under the overpass! 
KingFish
<!–QuoteBegin>
| Quote |
| 6) Americans think everyone we deal with is a Free Trade country. We are it boys and girls. |
If you lare ooking for an argument there KF, you WON’T get it from me. THAT is the absolute truth! It’s also why “globalization” won’t work. For it to work you MUST have a level playing field. We are NOWHERE near a level playing field. Every country on the globe is doing it’s best to screw the USA into the ground with the best weapon available; our own economy. Don’t believe me? Just wait… you will. It’ll be too late though.
D – got my box under the overpass already set up…
I don’t think I “lare ooking” but one can never tell! Shoot…I NEED to argue.
Don’t be goin’ all sane on me!
You are correct. Our economy is (was) our greatest weapon, deterrent and carrot. Greater than any nukeclear (southern accent) arrsenal.
See ya in the soup line!
KingFish
“nuke-u-ker”
KingFish - that is a great summary.
BTW, we just paid off all of our credit cards, and are carrying exactly 0 debt of any kind. How unAmerican is that?
<!–QuoteBegin>
| Quote |
| If you lare ooking |
Sheesh. I wish I could type as well as I play guitar… eh… no I don’t!
<!–QuoteBegin>
| Quote |
| we just paid off all of our credit cards, and are carrying exactly 0 debt of any kind. How unAmerican is that? |
AAACK! You commie pinko! Order some gear NOW! Max out that plastic! Do your part to prop up the economy! Or continue on the WISE path and ignore that drivel.
D
I agree totally Kingfish. And Tom has it right too. The question now is how to grapple with the problem. Tom said something earlier that bears repetition. The great American middle class was, in part, a product of government policies established at the end of world war II. The GI bill educated huge numbers of returning soldiers, and several government programs were set up that encouraged home ownership.
As Kingfish said, the American public was sold on Reagan’s trickle down theory. A small but politcally powereful fraction of American society benefits greatly from maintaining this as the driving force behind economic policies? I no more believe that this is the only sensible policy base than I believe that oysters have ears. Why is that the Democrats don’t seize this issue? My guess it is fear of the half truths that will emanate from those who will lose a fraction of their economic advantage. Half truths are so hard to deal with… you can’t call them lies, and explation of what is true and what is false tends by many as blather.
The right wing in the US has always maintained that the government doesn’t do anything well. I think that because the Bush administration largely believes this, they really have had little interest in trying to make government work. Partly as a result of this attitude and the resultant inattention, we have had huge failures of government such as the Katrina response, and our catastrophic failure to control illegal immigration. A self fulfilling prophecy if I ever saw one. Now it will be extremely hard to convince the American people that they can count on the government to be their dependable partner. How are we going to dig ourselves out of this hole of distrust?
We have a long road ahead. I just hope there are some more TomS, Kingfish, and Diogenes types out there, and that they are talking there heads off. The motto ‘Think globally, act locally’ still holds.
T
| Quote (Diogenes @ May 31 2006,11:16) |
| If you lare ooking |
Sheesh. I wish I could type as well as I play guitar... eh... no I don't!
we just paid off all of our credit cards, and are carrying exactly 0 debt of any kind. How unAmerican is that?
AAACK! You commie pinko! Order some gear NOW! Max out that plastic! Do your part to prop up the economy! Or continue on the WISE path and ignore that drivel.
D
I am resisting!
In fact I recently went on a small gera binge and will try to tone it down for the rest of the year.
But I do so want some new preamps...
only American made preamps, right? 
Clark - Your comment raises an interesting question. Is it even possible to buy a preamp that consists mostly with American made components? Most of the stuff I own is seems a bit like a little silicon UN when I take the lid off and look at the places where the components are made.
T