what i dont get about all these so called political economy experts here, and bush haters... Bush is the one who FIXED china's economy.... and shown them the power of the free trade... so ugh yeah, dieing dollar... doom... lol ok

The populist rhetoric makes for good sound bites and gives you a nice feeling of righteous indignation but it's not based in fact.

The fact of the matter is, and pardon my french, but the chinese and indians are our new n*ggers.
They're not picking cotton, they're making tshirts and tennis shoes, but it's the same principle.
Instead of owning them and having them work the fields for 18 hours a day and providing them with room and board, they work in chinese factories for 18 hours a day for less than it would cost to feed them here

You can whine all day about union this and pension that and sentimentalize about how good you think things used to be....but the fact is that our standard of living is double what our parent's was and more than triple what our grandparent's standard of living was. (depending on your age I suppose, my parents are baby boomers and my grandparents went through the depression and WWII)

The problem that people have now is their ANXIETY over the economy, not the economy itself. It's the uncertainty about the future that scares people and makes them see things as worse than they are. Our parents and grandparents worked at the same place all their lives, we change jobs 5+ times before we're 40. That uncertainty is what worries people, when in fact they are better off than their parents or grandparents were. :2 cents:

The media greatly increases that anxiety.

No, not big difference.

If Americans had such a problem with it, they would boycott Walmart, Walmart would go out of business, and half of the chinese manufacturing base along with it.

Consumers don't care where things are made anymore, they care about who has the best thing for the lowest price.

Indeed. Their ratings go up when people are panicked, so they definitely sensationalize everything that's even slightly negative.

I dunno when i was 6 everything was made in china/tawain, was junk then
now im 40 and eerything is still made in china/tawaiin, now india,pakistan and its still junk.. Can work slaves all they want.. they can't make nothing good cept for a smaller camera we no longer need.

So whats different today? Only thing i see different is instead of buying a toro lawn mower at a service shop that will last 20 years, we buy whatever crap is at home depot and throw it away in 2 years... multiply that by whatever else we buy and use. So guess what.. all the chinese / tawain / india people come setup business here to milk the cow.. now its milked, they will go home and all will be back to normal... No more hyandai dealerships, no more toyota dealerships... bye bye oh wait they make those here now they just ship in the parts lol

But, that lowest price comes with a cost. That was the main point in my first post.

homes where i live were going up so fast it had to break sooner or later

Excellent post.

Few Americans understand the most basic principles of economics, the media exploits their ignorance.

How much in fees do you think online trading companies have made in the last few weeks due to media hype?

If the media has motivated investors to trade at a higher rate, I imagine the brokers are profiting.

Frankly, I haven't been following the mass media lately.

most clueless thread on GFY of the day.

Warren Buffet fake nic :1orglaugh

I guess this pic sums up the entire thread:

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http://www.extremefunnyhumor.com/pics/Stupid%20Bush.jpg

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I think Americans have better and better opportunities as time goes on but the fact is most Americans can't understand nor see the new economy. They are all working on old models that no longer apply. So they think the economy is shit when the reality is they have 5x the opportunities their grandparents had.

great post and here comes one great repost for those who still dont get it:

"Look at all the data you want: in the end you will find that while corporate earnings rose as much as 40% per year, wage increases for working Americans came to a pittance (see chart below, click to enlarge). Businesses "did not share" and this is a monumental mistake that corporate America is going to regret for decades to come.

This is not a morality issue, either. It's not about ethically "bad" corporations vs. "good" workers - though I bet that's how it will ultimately play out when the political pendulum swings to populism. Instead, it's all about competence: if top managers don't have the common sense to pay workers enough to comfortably afford their own goods and services a la Henry Ford, then they are immensely incompetent businessmen, plain and simple. If they face dumping from abroad, then they should be screaming bloody murder to Washington, instead of sending campaign contributions.

Furthermore, making up lost earned income in the form of increased asset wealth is a fool's errand: financial asset ownership is highly concentrated to the top 5-10% of the population and real estate, though more evenly distributed, is not liquid enough to substitute for income. In fact, borrowing against housing "wealth" while incomes stagnated was the proximate cause for the current mess.

Washington needs to wake up. This is not their daddy's ho-hum recession but a virulent grand-daddy come to visit from the late-19th century. The trifecta of high debt-low income, zero saving and asset deflation cannot be overcome with low interest rates and pocket change. The credit crunch shows us that borrowing is part of the problem, not the solution, and panicky tax rebate proposals are proof that it is income that is lacking, not lower taxes.

from:
http://suddendebt.blogspot.com/2008/...-to-water.html


Simply companies are profitable then ever, largely due globalization, but when they dont share it, who is going to buy their products?

excellent post:thumbsup