http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100223/..._stimulus_jobs
To think, it only cost us about $500,000 per job saved in a country where the median income is about one tenth that.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100223/..._stimulus_jobs
To think, it only cost us about $500,000 per job saved in a country where the median income is about one tenth that.
Are you leaning toward fair trade?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Nearly 20 percent of U.S. workers underemployed
Quote:
Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. workforce lacked adequate employment in January and struggled to make ends meet with reduced resources and bleak job prospects, according to a Gallup poll released on Tuesday.
HUH? Loki's coming around to the fact that our government cannot create jobs efficiently... How is a British liberal term related? :|Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
How is it British and how is it liberal?Quote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
Stress
I assume that leads to lowering the unemployment rate.
I don't really know what you mean by "fair trade" (why should "fairness" play a part in trade?) so I took a stab.Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
"Fair Trade" is a term that the British created to show how they are atoning for their century of dominance of African and Asian countries: privately, they buy stuff for a higher price from small villages than American, South American, or European massive farms and claim that it's fairer this way and the stuff is better quality. I think the government also incentives it via some subsidies and taxes but I'm not sure. That goes against all economic principles of efficient trade so that makes it liberal.
Here's a link.
Unemployment Funds for US States Getting Drained in Recession
The recession’s jobless toll is draining unemployment-compensation funds so fast that according to federal projections, 40 state programs will go broke within two years and need $90 billion in loans to keep issuing the benefit checks.
California Unemployment Rate: Unemployment Down but Number of Jobs Falls too.
"The statewide unemployment rate fell slightly to 12.3% last month from 12.5% in October, according to figures released Friday by the Employment Development Department, but only because thousands of discouraged workers have left the labor force or even moved out of state."
FairTrade is the big left thing de jour - it has its problems but is better than most normal lefty things, at least there's actually an element of people working to get help rather than just having it handed to them.
True, true...
Locke Vows to Push for 'Fair Trade'
Quote:
"I've always believed in fair trade. I believe it's appropriate that there's minimum standards that other countries should abide by if we're allowing their products to come in to the United States," Mr. Locke said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
"If the apple growers of Washington State have to abide by all these environmental and health and human safety standards and the workers of other countries don't have to, it puts Washington State apples at a disadvantage," said Mr. Locke, a former governor of Washington State. "Same thing with Boeing airplanes. If other countries are able to significantly subsidize the cost of development and production of an airplane then it puts Boeing at a competitive disadvantage and it hurts the aerospace workers of America."
Fair trade = it's not fair that other people have an advantage over us and benefit the consumers in our country; therefore our government should save us from nefarious competition
Nefarious? Good job of trivializing things.
Which is the complete opposite of FairTrade in the UK.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Just today I've read two articles talking about the winter storms, household survey vs business surveys, distorting data in both, yadayada. Apparently it's not as adjusted as you claim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Fair trade in the UK is choosing random poor people in the developing world and overpaying them for their products, thereby distorting the market (i.e. making people produce things that they don't have a comparative advantage in) and leading to economic collapse the second the fad goes away.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
In the U.S. Free Trade and Fair Trade often conflict because the cost advantage of foreign production is often do to distinct differences in labor and environmental laws.
Who knew that labor-intensive countries would have a comparative advantage in labor costs. Amazing. Now we just need the labor-intensive countries to refuse to import American high-end products, as America is capital abundant. Then we can go back to extreme protectionism, depression, and world war. At least the factory workers in America won't lose their jobs.
Direct labor costs are only a part of the advantage. Indirect labor costs and other externalities are a larger part of the cost disparity of U.S. production versus foreign production. Do you condone dropping our standards to theirs so we are more competative?
Comparative advantage. If people were able to understand it a century and a half ago, you can understand it now.
Cost advantage is part of comparative advantage. And when the cost advantage is due to unfair differences in regulation then the comparative advantage is unfair. Now if you believe I am not understanding comparative advantage then maybe you'd be kind enough to enlighten me.
In a normal world, that is a wake up call to change how you regulate and tax things. Hint hint, US Govt.
But more broadly, it's simply silly to argue that all things should/will cost the same in all countries. Things don't even cost the same in different parts of the US. EG housing. Should landlords in Philadelphia be sued because they are offering comparable products at prices that are higher than Topeka, Kansas?
I agree, that would be silly to expect things to cost the same. Fair Trade is not about making things cost the same. Fair Trade is about taking the externalities imbalance into account when calculating the cost advantage. Direct labor cost would have no effect on this but indirect labor costs (externalities) would.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
http://bastiat.org/en/petition.htmlQuote:
A PETITION From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.
To the Honourable Members of the Chamber of Deputies.
Gentlemen:
You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry. We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for your -- what shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you have a horror of systems, as for principles, you deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call it your practice -- your practice without theory and without principle.
We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us [1].
We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull's-eyes, deadlights, and blinds -- in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat.
Be good enough, honourable deputies, to take our request seriously, and do not reject it without at least hearing the reasons that we have to advance in its support.
First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?
If France consumes more tallow, there will have to be more cattle and sheep, and, consequently, we shall see an increase in cleared fields, meat, wool, leather, and especially manure, the basis of all agricultural wealth.
If France consumes more oil, we shall see an expansion in the cultivation of the poppy, the olive, and rapeseed. These rich yet soil-exhausting plants will come at just the right time to enable us to put to profitable use the increased fertility that the breeding of cattle will impart to the land.
Our moors will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will gather from our mountains the perfumed treasures that today waste their fragrance, like the flowers from which they emanate. Thus, there is not one branch of agriculture that would not undergo a great expansion.
The same holds true of shipping. Thousands of vessels will engage in whaling, and in a short time we shall have a fleet capable of upholding the honour of France and of gratifying the patriotic aspirations of the undersigned petitioners, chandlers, etc.
But what shall we say of the specialities of Parisian manufacture? Henceforth you will behold gilding, bronze, and crystal in candlesticks, in lamps, in chandeliers, in candelabra sparkling in spacious emporia compared with which those of today are but stalls.
There is no needy resin-collector on the heights of his sand dunes, no poor miner in the depths of his black pit, who will not receive higher wages and enjoy increased prosperity.
It needs but a little reflection, gentlemen, to be convinced that there is perhaps not one Frenchman, from the wealthy stockholder of the Anzin Company to the humblest vendor of matches, whose condition would not be improved by the success of our petition.
We anticipate your objections, gentlemen; but there is not a single one of them that you have not picked up from the musty old books of the advocates of free trade. We defy you to utter a word against us that will not instantly rebound against yourselves and the principle behind all your policy.
Will you tell us that, though we may gain by this protection, France will not gain at all, because the consumer will bear the expense?
We have our answer ready:
You no longer have the right to invoke the interests of the consumer. You have sacrificed him whenever you have found his interests opposed to those of the producer. You have done so in order to encourage industry and to increase employment. For the same reason you ought to do so this time too.
Indeed, you yourselves have anticipated this objection. When told that the consumer has a stake in the free entry of iron, coal, sesame, wheat, and textiles, ``Yes,'' you reply, ``but the producer has a stake in their exclusion.'' Very well, surely if consumers have a stake in the admission of natural light, producers have a stake in its interdiction.
``But,'' you may still say, ``the producer and the consumer are one and the same person. If the manufacturer profits by protection, he will make the farmer prosperous. Contrariwise, if agriculture is prosperous, it will open markets for manufactured goods.'' Very well, If you grant us a monopoly over the production of lighting during the day, first of all we shall buy large amounts of tallow, charcoal, oil, resin, wax, alcohol, silver, iron, bronze, and crystal, to supply our industry; and, moreover, we and our numerous suppliers, having become rich, will consume a great deal and spread prosperity into all areas of domestic industry.
Will you say that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift of Nature, and that to reject such gifts would be to reject wealth itself under the pretext of encouraging the means of acquiring it?
But if you take this position, you strike a mortal blow at your own policy; remember that up to now you have always excluded foreign goods because and in proportion as they approximate gratuitous gifts. You have only half as good a reason for complying with the demands of other monopolists as you have for granting our petition, which is in complete accord with your established policy; and to reject our demands precisely because they are better founded than anyone else's would be tantamount to accepting the equation: + x + = -; in other words, it would be to heap absurdity upon absurdity.
Labour and Nature collaborate in varying proportions, depending upon the country and the climate, in the production of a commodity. The part that Nature contributes is always free of charge; it is the part contributed by human labour that constitutes value and is paid for.
If an orange from Lisbon sells for half the price of an orange from Paris, it is because the natural heat of the sun, which is, of course, free of charge, does for the former what the latter owes to artificial heating, which necessarily has to be paid for in the market.
Thus, when an orange reaches us from Portugal, one can say that it is given to us half free of charge, or, in other words, at half price as compared with those from Paris.
Now, it is precisely on the basis of its being semigratuitous (pardon the word) that you maintain it should be barred. You ask: ``How can French labour withstand the competition of foreign labour when the former has to do all the work, whereas the latter has to do only half, the sun taking care of the rest?'' But if the fact that a product is half free of charge leads you to exclude it from competition, how can its being totally free of charge induce you to admit it into competition? Either you are not consistent, or you should, after excluding what is half free of charge as harmful to our domestic industry, exclude what is totally gratuitous with all the more reason and with twice the zeal.
To take another example: When a product -- coal, iron, wheat, or textiles -- comes to us from abroad, and when we can acquire it for less labour than if we produced it ourselves, the difference is a gratuitous gift that is conferred up on us. The size of this gift is proportionate to the extent of this difference. It is a quarter, a half, or three-quarters of the value of the product if the foreigner asks of us only three-quarters, one-half, or one-quarter as high a price. It is as complete as it can be when the donor, like the sun in providing us with light, asks nothing from us. The question, and we pose it formally, is whether what you desire for France is the benefit of consumption free of charge or the alleged advantages of onerous production. Make your choice, but be logical; for as long as you ban, as you do, foreign coal, iron, wheat, and textiles, in proportion as their price approaches zero, how inconsistent it would be to admit the light of the sun, whose price is zero all day long!
Fair Trade is not protectionism. That's an extremist argument. The argument from the other extreme is let's just get rid of all the regulations that act against our advantage; let's get rid of the Superfund.
Yes, but you're mainly harping on cost. You think that it's cheaper to produce things in Asia primarily because they often disregard the environment. Yet you ignore the very natural and obvious issue of price disparities in different countries.
I know that things are cheaper to produce in countries that disregard the environment. But there are other disregards that also affect the advantage. Are you okay with letting American workers, and their family, become begars because they lost their hand in a particle board press. I'm guessing no. So why is it acceptable for that to happen in another country for the sake of comparative advantage?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Become beggars? No, that's not ideal. But institute a socialist government so that no one can ever be down on their luck (which is what you're heading towards)? Also no.
We already have workmen's comp, disability, and unemployment benefits. Does that make the US SSSocialist?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Socialism is producing equal results. The point of those benefits is to provide an equal opportunity. Reform liberalism != democratic socialism.Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Mine was a comment to Dread, as he suggested we're going down the road of a SSSocialist government where no one can ever be down on their luck. :donkey:
re: joblessness and the great recession. To date most of the lay-offs and down-sizing has been in the private sector. But now the second wave is starting to hit the public sector. Since less tax revenue is coming to municipal and state operations, we're seeing cuts in police, fire fighters, teachers, public health workers, DoT workers.....even state university budgets are being slashed, student aid is being cut.....
Using jobless rate, unemployment surveys, labor index, inventory or production rates, or GDP only goes so far to paint the picture of economic "health". What about the number of people who are delaying retirement, the underemployed, consumer confidence, PPI, personal debt to income ratios?
Why isn't there some super-stat that takes all these things into consideration? If there is, what is it called and how is it calculated?
Not ideal but acceptable as long as the cost advantage is significant enough?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
I'll echo what Loki is saying here. The safety net is meant to help people not totally fall off the wagon and ensure they have the opportunity to be employed again.
It really has little to do with imposing tariffs and dismantling trade links just because you don't like that the Chinese can make quality tires more cheaply than a dude in Detroit with a lopsided pension obligation.
Should the reasons that chinese can make tires cheaper ever be a consideration? Or do we just accept the fact they can?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Beyond the numbers and official stats, real or not, people in US are suffering hunger, something that would have been unthinkable in the past.
All the obstacles to reforms of any kind in US are based on the assumption that the system works fairly. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) hates to use words like “hunger” and “malnutrition” in the same sentence as the “United States.”
A paradox of plenty – hunger in America
In this era of bank subsidies and bonuses, almost 50 million in US are chronically lacking adequate food, according to the government. 1 in 8 Americans is now on food stamps. 1 in 6 Americans sometimes goes hungry for lack of money. And it’s getting worse.Quote:
After all, a bedrock belief in America held that this is the land of unlimited opportunities where every citizen has an equal chance to succeed and become rich. That requires an assumption that the system is fair. How many Americans still believe that?
Perhaps what we really need here is a thread titled, "How Many Ways Does the US Suck? Let Us Count The Ways...."
Well, this is a plus but it's no where near enough. Where is all the ideas on how to actually solve the jobs crisis?
Jobs Bill Passes in Senate With 11 Votes From Republicans
I would say: "How many myths around the US system".Quote:
Originally Posted by GGT
Except for US marketing that made the world to believe in myths, the system was plagued with failures.
For example:
- We were told that US was police of the world. It never effectively defended human rights since WWII, and nowadays it has a concentration camp.
- Americans were told that US healthcare system was the best. But even HIV patients are targeted to drop coverage (Insurer targeted HIV patients to drop coverage)
- We were told US was the heart of capitalism, until socialist subsidy/baliout to companies that produce nothing which was supposed to be a loan and not a gift brought losses to taxpayers (Taxpayers hit as TARP takes a new turn and TARP Said to Be Ripe for Fraud ).
Seeing the current status of US reminds me Mexico 25 years ago. At the time Mexico still was a great nation with outstanding talents and a more civilized lifestyle during the first half of 20th century. But it started to go down because of politicians, until it reached current situation.
In the beginning of 20th century Argentina was seen as the south american version of USA.
Both nations are reminders that no matter how developed a nation is, it may fall anytime.
Now it looks like the government is going to start making partial mortgage payments for the unemployed. Seems like a waste of money if there aren't jobs created between now and the time the money runs out.
Obama to push mortgage help for unemployed