# Occupy movement... Fall out for supporters?



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 7, 2011)

I was informed that I am going to be audited. I think mostly due to the fact that I am a vocal, avid supporter for the Occupiers world wide. 

Others have been fired, leases have been revoked etc... 

Is this how we live now-a-days? 

Seriously, and they wonder why people are upset... Pfft!
No this does not have anything to do with writen work, but it does relate to freedom to speak your mind and express yourself. Don't you think?


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 7, 2011)

Audited by who?


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 7, 2011)

The IRS.. whom else. LOL the letter I recived said it had made an "expedited" decision to audit my business and personal returns. 
Funny how that comes 2 weeks after I start working with OWS.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 7, 2011)

Don't give that any credit.  The IRS is usually 4 years behind, so expedited is probably a few years old.  You run a small business I presume?  They are the major targets of audits because they are usually the ones most likely to confuse tax laws, and easiest to extract more money from...and if you haven't notice, the govt is in the red by a few trillion...

While I'm not saying it isn't possible, I'm betting it is more they are hoping you have made mistakes that you will have to pay for (with interest) than your political beliefs.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 7, 2011)

I hope so... but H and R block does my taxes every year, so I know all my things are in order. 
Let em break their heads over my paperwork... I'll sip tea and laugh @ thm


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 7, 2011)

You should be fine then.  It's just one of those things that happens, and if you run a small business, get used to it.  I've known some people who run small businesses that get audited every other year.  Ask H&R Block next time what can be done to minimize the chances of getting audited.  From what I understand of the IRS System (I have a friend who works there) there are flags that are raised for a number of things, and if you get x number of them, then you get audited.  Doesn't mean anything is wrong, it's just that you have enough things that are potential issues that they feel it worth the money to audit you.

Crappy system, but you are the least likely to be able to fight them, so you are, sadly, the easiest prey.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 7, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> you are the least likely to be able to fight them, so you are, sadly, the easiest prey.



ROFL, yeah I'm kinda looking forward to it hahaha... I'm insanely organized and I do love to argue. So... I _almost_ feel sorry for whom ever has to go through my things.  I saved every reciept even if it were a pack of gum since I turned 18.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 7, 2011)

Sounds like my wife, of whom I've learned never to argue with when it comes to something she paid for...she HAS the receipt.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 7, 2011)

I have heard of people losing their jobs, and thats just the nice things... IDK, the whole mess bothers me. The system is broken in a fundamental way. Sadly the morans the TV tends to interview have no clue what they are standing for. I have to trust that something good is going to come of it however. 
At least there is hope, however fleeting.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 7, 2011)

If you used a decently trained h&r block person, you will be fine.  Audits are a part of the small business life.  Ok, not a good part, but it happens.  The best way is to be cooperative and show what they want.  Once they figure out that you aren't hiding anything, you should be fine.


----------



## Shadoe (Oct 7, 2011)

Oh Good Lord, don't mess with the IRS. I used to work with a drug enforcement task force made up of the GBI, FBI, Customs, DEA, and the IRS. When the other groups were out of ideas on getting someone, they'd use the IRS. They're the only government law enforcement agency that can seize all your stuff without a warrant. We once went after a guy and seized everything but his kids' beds and the dog. I seized a subdivision once. Got an award for that one.

I usually don't like to feed suspicions, but... well, the timing is interesting. But really, unless you're high up in the hierarchy with the Occupiers, then it's probably just a normal audit.


----------



## Fnord (Oct 8, 2011)

Audits aren't instantaneous so I imagine it's just a coincidence.  Though if I owned a business, I'd probably keep my politics on the down-low (though easy for me to say, since I tend to be on the side of capitalism more often than not) because it's never a good idea to polarize oneself against customers.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 8, 2011)

I think this might help you understand what I am supporting I am not Anti corp, I am anti un level playing field.

Why We Occupy (The short list.) 

 OK, since so many seem to have a totally wrong idea about what is really going on I will tell you. 

 We occupy because we are sick of seeing 1% of the nation control 95% of the money. 
... 
 We want a fair playing field. We want equal justice EX: rich people do not get away with crimes simply because they are rich, and can afford a better lawyer than you or I. 

 We want wages that someone can actually live on. 

 We want your freedoms which were Guaranteed by our bill of rights to be worth something. 

 We don't want our kids sent off to a war that is pointless. 
 I for one am all about cutting the head off evil people, but does it have to cost billions of dollars a month? Does congress really need a pay raise while you are still looking for a job?

 Do you really make enough money that you are not worried about anything at all?
 I work 3 jobs I know I sure don't. 

 You call the occupiers "Lazy" I call them "Sick of the crap." 
 You see mobs, of kids, I see people who are really honestly trying to find a better way of doing things. 

 I watch my grandfather who worked his whole life as he struggles to make by on his retirement all the while the place he retired from is trying to take away his pension... Really? But hey they are making record profits so it's "ok" right? 

 Yeah there are a lot of them who don't really understand what it is all about, but the vast majority of them do. They are not "making demands" They are voicing their point of view, Hoping that our over inflated GOV will finally "Get a clue!" With out the 99% who work smaller jobs and are not millionaires this country WILL fall. Of that there is no doubt. 

 This is the best country in the world, sadly a few have hijacked it from us all. We want the people to have the power to decide their own fates once more, the way it was meant to be.

 I leave you with this quote, read it and you might begin to understand what we mean. 

 "We're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy." -----Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General

 "Somebody has to take governments' place, and business seems to me to be a logical entity to do it." - D. Rockefeller

 Is that really how you want to live, in a place where you can vote, but it is just for show.? Where your jobs are sent to places like china because our GOV has decided it's better that way, to give companies like GM, Ford, Verizon, etc tax breaks for outsourcing?

 I don't. I want MY country back! I want OUR country to be the wonderful place it used to be, where when they exited College you could find a job with out having to sit and eat Ramon noodles for months on end because there are no jobs to have. 

 I don't want to take anything form anyone, I want to give you the world, and I hope that you will treat it as the special treasure that it is. If you own a business I want you to make lots of money, But I want you to pay your share of the taxes. I don’t want a lobbyist to convince our elected officials that we don’t really need to pay for emergency room visits because someone can’t bring a young child’s fever down to a safe level. 

 If big corps Paid their taxes and we bring the jobs back home where they belong, everyone would have what they needed…

 Did you know that our military’s clothing is NOT made in the USA? How is that for ironic… 

This is what I stand aginst, People who feel like no matter what they do they will never get to the top of the pile. 

Are there lazy ppl out there yes. are there people who work their rear ends off and still get nowhere absolutly.

I refuse to hide my beliefs because they are unpopular... but than again I will die for someones right to call me a moran to. 
I hope everyone is right and this is not BL for my stance, but I know of others who have had BL (fall out) and that is really sad. :'(

No I did not pen this, but it is exactly how I feel.


----------



## Fnord (Oct 8, 2011)

Well if it was just about getting the cronyism out of banking and government (or corporations and government in general), I'd be a lot more sympathetic.  But a lot of the issues above take pretty simplistic takes on very complex issues.  And maybe I'm a lot more cynical *because* I'm so close to this stuff.  But I'm a big supporter of global trade and free enterprise, so I get alarmed when people want to "ship jobs back home" or demand that everyone should "get a guaranteed livable wage".  It's not that I support people losing their jobs or not making any money, but that I understand the complexities in those systems and how working counter to them is actually *not* in our best interest.  

For example, minimum wage laws are one of the biggest contributors to youth unemployment because young people with few skills or experience are priced out of the job market.  Outsourcing labor-intensive jobs to countries with comparative advantages in labor-intensity have _huge_ domestic advantages: it lowers the cost of production (which leads to lower prices paid by the consumer), it allows domestic exports to compete on the world market, it allows firms to move operations closer to other customer bases throughout the world, it lowers production costs so that there can be increases cash flows which allows those firms to engage in expansion activities--activities that usually begin in the home country (thus expanding the job pool of higher-skilled, higher-paying jobs in the home country), it improves wages in the outsourced country (which puts more money into the hands of future consumers), and it promotes global economic dynamism, which is good for all of us.  I'm a big proponent of the "Made on Earth" sentiment.  

I can understand people being mad about the system, but I tend to feel things like this are huge steps in the right direction to addressing these problems.  Use the market and hurt these people where it counts!


----------



## Fnord (Oct 8, 2011)

And here I told Nathan Lauffer that I was going to relax this weekend and not think about the economy for once (I've had a high-stress few weeks about it) and here I am prattling on about it over my morning coffee.  You can take the economist out of the economy but you can't take the economy out of the economist.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 8, 2011)

Fnord said:


> Well if it was just about getting the cronyism out of banking and government (or corporations and government in general), I'd be a lot more sympathetic.  But a lot of the issues above take pretty simplistic takes on very complex issues.  And maybe I'm a lot more cynical *because* I'm so close to this stuff.  But I'm a big supporter of global trade and free enterprise, so I get alarmed when people want to "ship jobs back home" or demand that everyone should "get a guaranteed livable wage".  It's not that I support people losing their jobs or not making any money, but that I understand the complexities in those systems and how working counter to them is actually *not* in our best interest.
> 
> For example, minimum wage laws are one of the biggest contributors to youth unemployment because young people with few skills or experience are priced out of the job market.  Outsourcing labor-intensive jobs to countries with comparative advantages in labor-intensity have _huge_ domestic advantages: it lowers the cost of production (which leads to lower prices paid by the consumer), it allows domestic exports to compete on the world market, it allows firms to move operations closer to other customer bases throughout the world, it lowers production costs so that there can be increases cash flows which allows those firms to engage in expansion activities--activities that usually begin in the home country (thus expanding the job pool of higher-skilled, higher-paying jobs in the home country), it improves wages in the outsourced country (which puts more money into the hands of future consumers), and it promotes global economic dynamism, which is good for all of us.  I'm a big proponent of the "Made on Earth" sentiment.
> 
> I can understand people being mad about the system, but I tend to feel things like this are huge steps in the right direction to addressing these problems.  Use the market and hurt these people where it counts!



I used to say the same things, Until my bank up and closed on me overnight. 

I had asked them if they were gong to be ok and I was told they were just fine. two days later they were gone. People I talked to that day were scared, some of them having lived through the Great Depression were down right petrafied. 

I agree that the Occupy movement is not as slicked out as some of the others *yet* but it is fledgling still and I think once people start taking it seriously some inovative thinkers will hellp bring some cohesion to the movement. 

Fun fact we dismissed the gold standard, now a dollar is worth about 10-20 cents. How lame is that?
If a dollar was worth a dollar, perhaps the wages that we get paid as a minimum would work?
But as it stands, if you work minimum wage have an apartment, and a car a very old one mind you. You have to either work 80 hrs or more a week leaving no time for college or to find another (better) job or you have to work more thn one job. again no time to better yourself. 

I have been there, I was turned down for state health care because I made too much money I pulled in after taxes a full 8 grand whipty do... :/ No a possiability to go to college, I did try... It was only after I quite all my jobs and decided to live out of my car for six months, taking od jobs paid under the table did my sistuation get to the point where I was able to find a decent job and go to college, I do NOT want my son or my baby sister to have to do that.


----------



## Shadoe (Oct 8, 2011)

During the time of America's founding, European countries were ruled by a wealthy elite. This wealthy ruling elite set laws and policies to benefit themselves. The common man could only hope that the laws and policies this wealthy ruling elite made would benefit them as well, or some of the benefits would trickle down to them, or that the wealthy ruling elite would be so happy by the benefits raining down on them by their new laws, that they'd treat the common man a little better. This rarely happened.

The founding fathers decided that was an undesirable situation, and they set up America to be governed by the common people and for the common people - not for the wealthy ruling elite.

Today, America is governed by a wealthy ruling elite. They set laws and policies to benefit mainly themselves. The common man can only hope that the laws and policies this wealthy elite make will benefit him as well, or some of the benefits will trickle down to him, or that the wealthy ruling elite will be so happy by the benefits raining down on them by their new laws, that they'd treat the common man a little better. This doesn't happen.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 8, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> During the time of America's founding, European countries were ruled by a wealthy elite. This wealthy ruling elite set laws and policies to benefit themselves. The common man could only hope that the laws and policies this wealthy ruling elite made would benefit them as well, or some of the benefits would trickle down to them, or that the wealthy ruling elite would be so happy by the benefits raining down on them by their new laws, that they'd treat the common man a little better. This rarely happened.
> 
> The founding fathers decided that was an undesirable situation, and they set up America to be governed by the common people and for the common people - not for the wealthy ruling elite.
> 
> ...



Exactly, Our founders must be so disapointed in us for what we have done to their country. 
It is time we take it back, or burn it down and start over... but something has to change, the system is beyond broken now.


----------



## Shadoe (Oct 8, 2011)

I think things are going to change, but it's going to take some time. Unfortunately, we're going to lose a lot of what it means to be America before that change comes along.


----------



## mythique890 (Oct 8, 2011)

While I agree with the main idea of the movement, Fnord is right about the jobs.  Yes, it would be great if we could bring them home, but companies cannot afford to pay for American workers.  Bringing back outsourced jobs would result in the costs of those products going through the roof.  At the same time, it seems that during our best years, most people worked in factories and could still afford a decent life (3 out of 4 of my grandparents had factory jobs and my parents came from families of 5 and 7 kids).  Honestly curious, and maybe the resident economist can answer/correct me, but why isn't that possible anymore?


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 8, 2011)

How many kids go to college now?  If you don't go, people assume you are ignorant and would have to work in a factory.  A bit generalized, but working in a factory isn't thought of as a 'good' job anymore.  So, if more of the people are going to college to avoid working in a job that requires some form of manual labor, where do you find people to do it?  There used to be vocational schools that tried to teach trade skills to kids that didn't really have the ambition to go an academic route.  Television and movies rarely show people without a college education in a good light.  How many of the kids who went to college would take a job at a factory?  Or in construction?

Another thing to think about.  What did people 50 years ago have?  Home, car, tv, clothes, ect.  No smart phones, or cell phones, long distance cost enough there were fewer multihour conversations, no internet, computers, cable tv, and all the other things we take for granted.  All these toys have a cost, and how many of you really consider them something you could give up?  

Society changes, and as we add more cost to our lives, we need more money to afford them all.  So we want the tv at a price we can afford, and if they were made in America, they would cost three to four times more than they do now.  Most people would be complaining at the high cost of tv's, or phones, or whatever they are used to getting for cheap now.  If most of the population is trained to do some form of intellectual job...who does that leave to do the work?

How do you go back and undo the years of bias we allow others to place on us?  Children are taught more by the tv than parents (yes, there are exceptions, but how many hours of tv do most kids watch today?).  What do they learn?  What is someone on the other end of the tv teaching them?  "Buy the latest gadget, it's cool, you want it. You have to have it!"

Protest get some attention, but then it's over.  Do the politicians care?  Not really.  The problem starts with who we choose to put in the government.  The media tells us who would be best for us, or we pick the one who is the smoothest talker (which anyone who has talked to a used car salesman should know not to believe), or some other superficial thing that has nothing to do with what kind of person they are electing.  What do we end up with?  The best liers in the country.  They control the education system, which if you think about it, despite the money being pumped into it, fails more often than it works.   If it weren't the case, why do all the politicians send their kids to private schools?  

Change has to start with people actually looking at the people they are voting for based on what they are, not on what they say.  What they have done in their life will tell you what they will most likely do.  If we started there, then there might be a chance at fixing it.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 8, 2011)

I worked in a factory, before I graduated HS, I was 18 and allowed to hold a job, so I worked midnights and went to school during the day time. I had left home when I was 16 for reasons that we need not  get into here... I rented a room from a friends parents,before then I worked babysitting and mowing lawns to make the rent and pay for my school supplies, etc.

I ended up losing my job after four years because they started importing people from Japan to do it as part of a "Work Training" program ( which the USA pays for). These guys would come over work 2 years then go back. 

My Grandfather Retired from GM, Both my parents work for a subsid of Ford (non-union) 
My Mom makes less than I do. How the heck does that happen? She has been there 19 years!  

I don't have issues with outsorucing some of the work, I have problems when you take the jobs away jack up the prices of your goods and then scream for a bailout because your bleeding moolah, simply because people can't afford your products. 

Too big to fail or Too small to care about- 

We the people should be the ones who are too big to fail, not morans who can't ballance their own check books. 

If we do not have jobs here ... then we the people can not afford to buy anything. This leads to higher welfare recipients, crime etc.  There is some really old dude robbing banks now, like seriously hes like 80 years old, how despreate must he have been before he started doing that?

This is not our country any more and that breaks my heart. 
But the OT was if anyone else has heard of or seen something happen to someone as a direct result of being a supporter.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 8, 2011)

I've heard that some people on tv that have vocally disagreed with the president have been audited more often than others.  I don't know that it has, but I wouldn't really doubt it.  Really, the IRS wants money, as much as it can get, so if it _thinks_ there is a chance someone is cheating them, they go make sure it isn't happening.  The majority of audits are started because a computer decided you might be cheating the IRS.


----------



## Shadoe (Oct 9, 2011)

mythique890 said:


> While I agree with the main idea of the movement, Fnord is right about the jobs.  Yes, it would be great if we could bring them home, but companies cannot afford to pay for American workers.


Sorry, but that is total BS. The idea that a company making a product that sells for, say, $50 cannot pay $5 to have it made is preposterous. They can certainly "afford" American workers, they just don't want to. They want to pay foreign workers $.50 to make that product so they can pocket the extra $4.50 themselves.

Their little house of cards is going to fall down, however, when the number of Americans able to purchase their $50 product disappears. They're not going to be able to sell that product to the guy making $.50 because he actually won't be able to afford it.

Trust me, American companies can certainly afford to pay American workers. They just don't want to.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 9, 2011)

I agree Shadoe.


----------



## mythique890 (Oct 9, 2011)

> Sorry, but that is total BS. The idea that a company making a product that sells for, say, $50 cannot pay $5 to have it made is preposterous





> Trust me, American companies can certainly afford to pay American workers. They just don't want to.



If we force companies to bring jobs back here, prices would go up because the company would now have to pay workers $8 per hour and would _still_ pocket that $4.50.  And minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25, not $5.   

You are making generalizations, and not accurate ones.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 9, 2011)

Min wages were raised because a dollar is not worth a dollar it was bumped up to try (Read epic fail) to keep up with inflation.

As prices rise, wages stay the same, while taxes go up. Its become impossiable for people working these types of jobs to live a decent life.


----------



## Fnord (Oct 9, 2011)

A few points to address:  

--The average wage in the United States is higher than any other country in the world.  
--The output of the U.S. manufacturing sector is 120% higher than it was 40 years ago.
--The U.S. is the most productive country in the world.  

The dollar *is* indeed only worth around $0.04 compared to its value when it was removed from the gold standard.  Now, one can debate the virtues or problems with being on a gold standard to a pure fiat currency but that's probably a bit beyond the scope of this particular conversation.  That being said, we've certainly inflated away a lot of the value of our currency.  But that doesn't *really* have much to do with minimum wage itself.  But I will give you an example of the problem with a minimum wage in the general.  

Let's look at the last change in minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour.  Now, one thing that is important to realize is that relatively few people actually make minimum wage--the vast share are comprised of teenagers and part-time workers.  Now consider when the minimum wage was $5.15 an hour--most of the jobs are in retail and food service industries.  When a company is forced to pay a higher wage in those industries it usually results in one of two things (or both): they pass the increase in cost off on consumers (especially if their product is not subject to price sensitivity) or they lay off workers and force the remaining workers to work at a level commensurate with their new wage level anyway.  This usually weeds out the workers who were only doing $5.15-an-hour worth of work and allows a firm to draw from the sudden glut of low-skilled workers from the pool who were just let go because of the wage increase.  

But say you were one of those workers who was actually making above minimum wage, because those people are far more numerous.  If you were working for a grocery store as a cashier for $7.30 an hour (a pretty low wage we'd all agree), the change in minimum wage actually hurts you because while the people who were making $5.15 an hour who stayed employed got a $2.10 raise, you got absolutely no raise at all.  And since this change in wage affected the prices in industries that the working poor are more sensitive too (retail, food service, etc), your $7.30-an-hour salary suddenly buys you a lot less.  

So in effect a raise in the minimum wage, which sounds good on paper or coming from the mouth of a politician has A) given teenagers and part-time workers a short-lived raise, B) put a lot of low-skilled people out of work, or locked them out of the labor force and C) has made the price of goods and services that make up a larger portion of their income expenditure go up. As you can see, when broken down, this hasn't made anyone any better off and for the poorest people it has made them worse off. 

So then, what about companies who outsource labor operations overseas?  Well, when wages are high in a given country, the only way developing countries in the world market can compete is through labor costs.  The average wage in a given country is directly correlated with the productivity and skill of its workforce.  Chinese workers are a lot cheaper because they have a low amount of skill and productivity but are willing to do menial and repetitive tasks in factories because the wages in those factories are better than the alternatives available.   So the types of jobs that companies outsource tend to be menial and low-skilled but require a lot of labor, such as assembling consumer goods or sewing apparel.  

But the outsourcing of jobs is not a net loss of jobs in the home country.  We can see this empirically and we can piece it together from the trade models. During the largest surges of global trade unemployment rates actually went down.  To illustrate this on the micro-level I'll use a personal anecdote:

A few years back before the recession I did work for a large manufacturing company that had been purchased by a publicly-traded corporation and the corporation hired a bunch of us to help transition the company into one that both complied with SEC requirements and to help streamline their systems.  I spent my time on the latter.  

The company made heavy equipment:  concrete delivery systems, plants, and things of that nature that were very high quality and subject to full customization, which meant they treated their manufacturing process as a make-to-order process, which is exceptionally costly, especially since there were so many bottlenecks in the finishing process.  After we completely re-engineered their inventory and supply chain systems we moved onto process controls.  The company employed some 150 workers from materials handlers, to materials processors, to fab techs, to painters, and all the intermediate processes in between all the way up to transport and delivery.  In order to be able to grab a larger share of the market, the firm needed to expand its operations and its output.  So through process re-engineering, we found things that were basic to all of its products that could be fabricated in an assembly-line style process.  Therefore we built a small facility in Mexico and shifted 50 job-process jobs at the U.S. facility down to 15 line-process jobs in the facility in Mexico.  This represented a huge cost-cut, especially since an inventory of "skeletons" built in Mexico could be maintained in Mexico and shipped to the U.S. facility when needed.  This cost cut allowed the firm to loosen up cash flow to expand operations domestically.  We opened three more facilities in two states that were put up near key suppliers and each facility specialized in a particular process or product.  This required that we hired about 100 other workers total in those locations.  The process improved so much this way that they had a turnaround time for a fully customized product in under two weeks and grabbed some significant market share.

So the firm took a more labor-intensive process and made it into a more capital-intensive process.  It resulted in a net creation of 65 new manufacturing jobs, 50 of those jobs in the United States in addition to the creation of some high-paying management and supervisory positions.  What do the papers report though?  "50 workers in small town laid off as jobs are shipped to Mexico." 

The jobs that were gotten rid of were largely low-skilled/low-paying jobs--forklift drivers, some uncertified welders, and warehouse workers as well as some redundant middle-management positions.  The jobs that were created were fabrication techs, supervisors, material handlers, and other better-paying, higher-skilled positions.  

This is just one example of the complexity of the global economy.  When people say that jobs are "shipped overseas", they are really only looking at one tiny piece of the overall picture.  A single iPod, for example, is actually built from 451 parts built in several countries--only the final assembly takes place in Asia.  The $73 hard drive is made by Toshiba of Japan, the $8 video/multimedia processor chip and the $5 controller chip are made by Broadcom and PortalPlayer, which are American companies, and so on down the line.  Only $4 of the value-added--the assembly of the final product--is done in China.  But we look at the back of the iPod, see "Assembled in China" and simply assume it's all Chinese work that goes into it.

So this is what I mean about all these things being far more complicated than our media or policymakers make them out to be.  And in a lot of cases, I think a lot of them know this too, but bad news is what sells stories and hyperbole is what buys votes.


----------



## Fnord (Oct 9, 2011)

By the way, this really hammers home the need to address our education system as the low-skilled and uneducated are the ones that suffer most from economic shifts and shocks.  I worked for the Dept. of Education for a short time and saw that we have been increasing the amount of money spent on education at a very steady rate since 1970 with absolutely no increase in student achievement or educational attainment.  Since teacher salaries have stayed steady with inflation but the amount of money spent has increased well ahead of inflation, one can easily see that the money is being chewed up in administration and bureaucracy.  That really needs to be addressed in this country probably more than anything else.


----------



## Shadoe (Oct 9, 2011)

mythique890 said:


> If we force companies to bring jobs back here, prices would go up because the company would now have to pay workers $8 per hour and would _still_ pocket that $4.50.  And minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.25, not $5.


Sweetie, it doesn't actually take an entire hour to make most products. I'm aware of the amount of minimum wage.

I'm not thinking we should force companies to bring jobs back here. I'm thinking we should put a hefty tarriff on any products made outside the country. Companies relying on foreign labor will either bring manufacturing back here or will attempt to sell their product outside the US. If they go out of business, all the better, because then some actual US companies can take their place.



mythique890 said:


> You are making generalizations, and not accurate ones.


No, I'm making accurate, informed statements based on actual events. You're welcome to do a little investigation to find out the truth of those statements. Manufacturing in America works just fine - it simply doesn't bring *As Much* profit as some business owners would like. Just the opposite, as a matter of fact, and I can tell you a personal experience story to back that up.

I used to work for a company that made appliances. You've heard of them, and you could ID their spokesman in a lineup - a BIG company. Their products were top of the line for a hundred years. At one point in the early 90s, they decided to outsource labor to China, Mexico, and a few other non-US places. At first, it worked great. The company profits jumped and everyone who held stock was singing, "We're In the Money." The company profits were so great, they started buying up other appliance companies. There was even talk of buying our closest competitor - the one who always tried to catch up to us but never quite made it. Then the complaints started. Our line of appliances sold for a bit more than the others because we were known as The Best. Our whole advertising campaign that had gone on for decades was based on our products' reliability. But with the cheap foreign labor, the production values dropped. I even got a couple of the company's products for free and went and bought others - who wants a vacuum cleaner that only works once? Very soon - amazingly soon - profits were down. People stopped buying our brand because it was getting a reputation of being cheap, shoddy, foreign-made crap. We went from top of the line to "crap" in about ten years thanks to moving the manufacturing to other countries. They started selling off all those brands they'd spent the last decade acquiring. People I knew, who'd gobbled up stock using payroll deduction lost everything. Did the company learn? Hell no. Instead of bringing the manufacturing back to the US, they decided to outsource even more. They put costumer service in another country. What with all the complaints, you can guess how well that went over. About two years after I left the company, it went bankrupt and was sold. To our closest competitor. They bought nothing more than the name. They make their own product - in the US - and slap our name on it. They're making a fortune. And the company I worked for? A wholly-owned subsidiary of the people who used to eat our dust.

Nothing inaccurate about that.


----------



## mythique890 (Oct 9, 2011)

I enjoy debate, but let's not use pet names, it's condescending.

It sounds like your company cut other corners in addition to cheap labor.  Less costly labor does not necessarily mean lower quality products.  I would love to do some investigating if you would cite your sources.  And the story was really beside the point, which is that American labor is expensive and not as cost-effective for companies as outsourcing, which is why they do it.  But hey, what do I know?  I think Fnord argues the point much better than I do.  Start a dialogue with him about it, because he seems to know what he's talking about more than anyone else here.

You and I will have to agree to disagree, Shadoe.  You're not going to change my mind, and I won't be changing yours.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 10, 2011)

"bad news is what sells stories and hyperbole is what buys votes."

Pfft no kidding...

Myth, 
I can only speak for myself here, but I tend to call everyone Doll, Sweetie, love etc, It's a southern thing I guess.  That being said If I happen to slip and I try not to please don't take offence.  hugz.


----------



## Fnord (Oct 10, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> Sweetie, it doesn't actually take an entire hour to make most products. I'm aware of the amount of minimum wage.
> 
> I'm not thinking we should force companies to bring jobs back here. I'm thinking we should put a hefty tarriff on any products made outside the country. Companies relying on foreign labor will either bring manufacturing back here or will attempt to sell their product outside the US. If they go out of business, all the better, because then some actual US companies can take their place.
> 
> ...



It sounds to me that your company made bad decisions regarding its operations and suffered for it.  Outsourcing labor isn't a panacea for inherent structural problems that are hemorrhaging money.  

But putting massive tariffs on imports won't solve any problems either.  That was exactly the thinking that went into the ill-advised Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930.  In 1929 the tariff was making its way through congress and alarmed trading partners started preparing their own retaliatory policies to punish us.  The Crash of '29 came the stock market plummeted, but so did the commodities market as a result of trade policy uncertainty.  For the next several months, unemployment started falling and the market had gained about 80% of its pre-crash value.  Then the Smoot-Hawley Act came across President Hoover's desk and despite a petition signed by 1,000 economists stating this was the worst possible idea ever, the president signed it into law.  The market plunged again and _stayed_ plunged for a long, long time.  

The idea that you can "tariff" your way to prosperity harkens back to the mercantilist days where trade between nations was considered zero-sum and that the end goal was to export as much as possible and import as little as possible.  It doesn't take too much thinking to realize why that doesn't work.  Throwing up trade barriers, especially if you're a large economy, is a beggar-thy-neighbor policy that hurts the economy, hurts domestic consumers, hurts domestic workers, and sours relations with trading partners.  And it does absolutely nothing to help "bring jobs" back to the economy.  American companies won't suddenly pop up to start producing what used to be imported because they won't be competitive in the world market (especially since other countries will respond to our import tariffs with tariffs and quotas of their own), instead we'll simply produce less and pay more for the things we want.  

Case in point: In 1981, the Reagan administration pressured Japan into reducing its exports of automobiles to the United States. What this did was raise the price of Japanese cars by about $1,000 and raised the price of domestic cars by about $400. Without the competition from abroad, domestic automakers could raise the price on their own cars. The total cost to the American consumer of this policy was between $4 billion and $14 billion. This policy saved around 26,000 jobs in the United States to the tune of $150,000 to $550,000 per job--that's way more than any of those individual workers make in wages. Therefore, on the whole, Reagan's policy actually damaged the economy more than it helped it because it caused the U.S. to be collectively poorer as a result. The only people in the country that weren't made poorer were a relative few who didn't have to go and look for a new job. 


And that's only in regards to finished goods.  Intermediate goods make up a MUCH larger share of our trade with other countries, and that's not reflected in the current account balance. One of George W. Bush's policies illustrates with tariffs on steel imports. Ostensibly such a policy is supposed to help prop up domestic steel production but what actually ended up happening is that the steel industry got a $240 million-dollar boost and saved about 5,000 jobs while all the rest of the manufacturing industries that use steel as a raw material ended up losing $600 million and causing an overall job loss for roughly 26,000 workers. 

When you put the numbers together, as opposed to simply appealing to lobbyists, special interests, and political propaganda, one can see that protectionism always results in a deadweight loss (which is why that term was coined in the first place). Politicians just overlook that fact by only extolling the benefits of these policies (which are easy to see) and ignoring the costs (which aren't so easy to see).


----------



## ShortHair (Oct 10, 2011)

The one thing I see in almost every discussion over economics is this. Speaker 1 has a predisposition to Position 1. Speaker 2 has a predisposition to Position 2. Speaker 1 quotes facts and figures that support Position 1, and meanwhile ignores or tries to explain away facts and figures that support Position 2. Speaker 2 does the same thing, only from the opposite side. Both speakers supply anecdotes that support their positions.

In more than 35 years of studying and following news about economics, I know only one thing for certain. Anything economists say is mostly poop. The theories may be 100% correct, but after they pass through the hands of moronic politicians on their way to becoming policy, they've become worthless. Statistics and macroeconomic realignment don't feed children after a parent gets laid off.


----------



## mythique890 (Oct 10, 2011)

Blue Lotus, I know, my dad's parents are from the South.  My kids have been kind of crazy lately, which has been putting me in a bad mood.  Sorry. 



> Statistics and macroeconomic realignment don't feed children after a parent gets laid off.


True.  Though we don't all agree on the solution, I think we can all agree that things are messed up.  I wouldn't mind so much  if it were only me, but yeah, I've got my kids to worry about.


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne (Oct 10, 2011)

If you want a generalization that works, try this:

There is enough wealth produced in the United States to guarantee every single person living here housing, food and water, basic clothing, and basic medical care, without doing much more than reducing the number of yachts owned by the super-rich.

Our society has the capability to provide a certain basic comfort to _everyone_, and a responsibility to do so. It's natural to worry that we'll all drown under freeloaders, but most people want to find something to do with their time. There's plenty of wealth in the system left over to reward people for hard work, above and beyond the basic necessities of survival.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 10, 2011)

"Outsourcing labor isn't a panacea for inherent structural problems" 
I say this with a lot of love, but come on... Everything China spits out is crap. Name one thing that is not laced with lead, or something equaly dangerous? Name something that does not break down almost as soon as you touch it. 
You get what you pay for... 

China is a place of rich culture, history, wonderful people,food; but even their baby formula kills... And don't get me started on other parts of the world, they are just as bad in other ways.

"I know only one thing for certain. Anything economists say is mostly poop. The theories may be 100% correct, but after they pass through the hands of moronic politicians on their way to becoming policy, they've become worthless. Statistics and macroeconomic realignment don't feed children after a parent gets laid off." Here here, and LOL... poop; well said! No offence to the economists out there, but by the time the politicians get done with it it is indeed gold plated 'turd' nuggets.

Myth, Hope things calm down for ya. I know how that goes. I have 4 Kids myself : 1 ten yr old. 1 31 yr old (hubby) and 1 57yr old (dad) and 1 29yr old(brother) all of them have a bloddy fit if they feel like they are not the center of the world. Ugh.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 11, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> If you want a generalization that works, try this:
> Our society has the capability to provide a certain basic comfort to _everyone_, and a responsibility to do so. It's natural to worry that we'll all drown under freeloaders, but most people want to find something to do with their time. There's plenty of wealth in the system left over to reward people for hard work, above and beyond the basic necessities of survival.



While this might be true, there is a word for this type of system, and it's called socialism.  The countries that practice this, are all pretty much bankrupt...kind of like the US.  Sadly, when you tell someone that they can have a house, a car, food, nice tv, cell phones, and all the things most of us work hard for, all for free...it's begs the question, why work?  

If the only thing you have to look forward to is a 'little bit more' than everyone else by working hard, then at what point do those working hard decide that instead of working long hours, or spending evenings improving themselves, they work the minimum hours and never worry about keeping up to date unless it is on the clock?  Another system that implies we all work hard and equally share in it all and everyone will be happy, that one is called communism, and it's failed time and time again too.  China who is communist in govt, has been moving towards and industrialized system more like America used to have, and they loan money to the rest of the world.

Reality is, if there is no incentive to improving yourself and working hard for more, why do it?  Why invent new things, or come up with better ways of doing things, when it won't benefit the person who creates it.  If the drug companies can't make any profit off the new drug to cure some medical problem, then who will create the new cures?  

It isn't that it can't happen, it's just highly unlikely.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 11, 2011)

I don't think anyone is saying share the wealth equaly (no one I would take seriously at least), we are screaming equalize the freaking system. 

How is that a self employed person ends up paying something in the area of 39% taxes yet the ultra rich pay something like 10% if that... guesstimating here but you can see the imbalance.


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne (Oct 11, 2011)

> If the only thing you have to look forward to is a 'little bit more' than everyone else by working hard,



_*flicks lighter*_ That's a nice straw man you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it. ;-)

Joking aside, the implication is that the baseline is just enough to _survive_. No, you don't get a TV, or a car, or a _house_. You get inexpensive, standard _housing_ (which likely means an apartment), and you can use public transit to get around, and you can afford basic groceries to cook at home; you're not eating out at restaurants. You want more than that shitty, boring life, you go work for it. You want nice electronics? To go to the movies? To see live sporting events? To have nice clothes? To have really tasty food? To be able to afford to eat out at restaurants, go on vacations, travel the world? You're going to have to work for it.

The alternative is that we let people get into situations where even if they _do_ work hard, bad luck or bad influences can make them lose their homes and not be able to afford basic preventive medical care. Hey, that's what we have right now!



> Reality is, if there is no incentive to improving yourself and working hard for more, why do it? Why invent new things, or come up with better ways of doing things, when it won't benefit the person who creates it. If the drug companies can't make any profit off the new drug to cure some medical problem, then who will create the new cures?



But most people _do_ want to do things with their time, even _if_ they don't have to -- self-fulfillment is one of the basic human aspirations. There's plenty of rich folks who don't sit around idly doing nothing. They keep working, even though they have enough money to never work again. Rupert Murdoch, scumbag though he is, could never be accused of idleness.

Again, I'm not talking about giving everyone the good life; I'm talking about giving everyone a _basic level of guaranteed survival_. There's far more than enough wealth in our society to ensure that nobody has to sleep under a bridge, nobody has to go hungry. It's absurd to claim that we have to allow some people to go hungry and homeless in order to cause most people to do productive work.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 11, 2011)

> Again, I'm not talking about giving everyone the good life; I'm talking about giving everyone a basic level of guaranteed survival.



You might want to look at what is currently being provided.  America's poverty level is middle class for a good number of the third world countries.   I've seen a few 'slums' in other countries, and they look bad.  I've seen what is called slums here, and while they might not be a nice place, they have heat and ac, and most come with cable, and far more things than basic survival.

Every 'social' program, for good or bad, has to be paid for by those who work, and for those who don't, it's just another handout they are told they are entitled too.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 11, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> You might want to look at what is currently being provided.  America's poverty level is middle class for a good number of the third world countries.   I've seen a few 'slums' in other countries, and they look bad.  I've seen what is called slums here, and while they might not be a nice place, they have heat and ac, and most come with cable, and far more things than basic survival.
> 
> Every 'social' program, for good or bad, has to be paid for by those who work, and for those who don't, it's just another handout they are told they are entitled too.



Ok I get your point and I agree to some extent, but why is it that when someone is on social assistance they are not _allowed_ to _try_ and better _themselves?_ I mean really if someone is on welfare and they land a job at a gas station why do we kick them off the services after 4 weeks? That is not nearly long enough to get a foot step in the right direction... 

But assistance should not be a life long thing either, training schools, job development etc should be required. As should be Drug testing! Illegales should not be allowed to take part in any program in this country period. 
If we fixed even some of these issues things would be a whole lot better. 

So why don't we do them, because the left won't allow the little people to get ahead and the right wants to help everyone willynilly. It stinks, it's broken and someone has to fix it before our new Emperor tells us we get one meal of pork dumplings per day and we are allowed 5 gallons of water per person a week. 

China owns our sorry butts, they gobbled up everything we had to offer to try and stay afloat and eventualy they will call in their IOU.

Its just freaking sad.


----------



## Fnord (Oct 11, 2011)

Actually, there are a lot of things made (or assembled) in China that don't crumble when you touch them.  Apple products for instance.  Lots of components in people's cars.  Lots of people's clothes.  Certainly there are lots of cheap consumer goods out there that are low quality, but that's the market they're appealing to: people who want a TV or DVD player or clothes or shoes for their kids or whatever but can't afford a fancy name-brand one. 

Darkstorm had a good point about wealth and it bears repeating: the fundamental reason why a country like the U.S. has the level of wealth it has is _because_ of its economic system.  That's why in the United States, someone with an income at our poverty line is still among the top 12% richest people in the world.  Absolute poverty is a much smaller part of our population, and much of that is among first-generation immigrants.  And by the time those immigrants get to their second and third generations, most of that is gone too. And if you look at gains in wealth in real terms, over the past 30 years the number of households that fall below the lower-class line has shrunk and the number of households earning above the upper-class line has increased.  Have the wealthiest in the U.S. gotten richer faster?  They sure have and no one is denying that.  But the poor are getting richer too, and I think that's more important.  Besides, a lot of the wealth at the top are intangible assets, which can be worth absolutely nothing given certain conditions.  They're numbers on a ledger, not gold in a vault.  

Is it a perfect system?  Certainly not.  If there was a perfect system out there someone would be using it by now.  Economies, unfortunately, are all about trade-offs of some form or another.  That means people will want for *something*.  But I'd rather want for a better place to live or a better-working car in the U.S. than want for food or clean water in North Korea.  For much of human history (and in parts of the developing world) the difference between rich and poor was the difference between who ate and who starved.  In industrial countries the difference is between who drives a Lexus and who drives a Cavalier.  _Something_ there is working.  And we can certainly point out what isn't working--the mutual entrenchment of government and business.  Accelerating healthcare and education costs.  Campaign finance.  Equality of opportunity.  Educational attainment.  Where a lot of economists disagree with politicians is on how those problems should actually be addressed.  

That being said, a civilized society should have some form of safety net to protect against disasters.  It's for our benefit after all lest it lead to armed insurrection.  But for all but the most helpless or disabled people, safety nets should be just temporary bridges to cross the chasm of hardship.  Many countries in Europe, for example, have people who are terminally unemployed because of generosity of their welfare systems.  The longer one is unemployed, the higher the chance they will stay that way.  I'm starting to get a little wary of our own extensions of unemployment benefits for this reason.  It's preventing the market adjustment.  

And I'll fully agree that by the time politicians spit out an economic policy it's generally a pile of poop, but that's not the economist's fault!    I remember having dinner with a couple of former presidential economic advisers (from opposing parties no less) and the grim joke was that good economic policy and good political policy rarely align. Or, as Richard Nixon once quipped, "I don't give a good goddamn what Milton Friedman says. He's not running for re-election!"  Despite the seemingly vitriolic public discourse, economists actually agree on most things (Greg Mankiw did a fine job of pointing that out for us, too, because even economists need to be reminded from time to time).  I've often quipped myself is that the reason why economists don't run the world is that politicians are in the business of telling people what they can have and economists are in the business of telling people what they can't.  

Who is going to be more popular?


----------



## Benjamin Clayborne (Oct 11, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> You might want to look at what is currently being provided.  America's poverty level is middle class for a good number of the third world countries.   I've seen a few 'slums' in other countries, and they look bad.  I've seen what is called slums here, and while they might not be a nice place, they have heat and ac, and most come with cable, and far more things than basic survival.



Losing your home and being forced to live on the streets because you can't afford to pay rent because there are _no jobs in your community_ is traumatic and dehumanizing, no matter what the quality of life is for those who do manage to hold on to a residence. Not being able to afford basic medical care that would prevent huge problems (including death) later on, is terrifying. Saying "Well it could be worse" is no excuse for leaving things the way they are.

Please try to get past the belief that the poor are all lazy and shiftless and will gladly suck on the public teat for years rather than do any work. Most of them just want to make something of themselves the same as you, but when the system is built in such a way that it puts its boot on their neck, getting back up can be astonishingly hard.

Try reading something like this, and then stop for a minute and think about what it would _feel_ like to be in that situation. Tell us if you think it'd be easy to just "work hard" and pull yourself out of that death spiral with no problems whatsoever.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 11, 2011)

> Try reading something like this, and then stop for a minute and think about what it would feel like to be in that situation. Tell us if you think it'd be easy to just "work hard" and pull yourself out of that death spiral with no problems whatsoever.



Welfare was created to help housewives who lost their husbands and had no skills to get a job that could support themselves and their kids.  It did help many people.  Move sixty years down the road and you have fourth generation welfare recipients, producing as many children as they could since each child increased the size of the welfare check.  Were the children raised on welfare being taught to work hard?  For many of them, no.  They learned that the system will provide, and there were ways to abuse it so you could live pretty well without having to ever work.  

America has always been a generous nation.  People give to all kinds of charities to help others.  The problem is that when you allow government to control the distribution of money in a charitable fashion, you first remove the right of the people to choose what charities they support, or not support.  Instead of volunteers helping people using that money, you have government workers performing a job (which that money has to pay for the salaries), and as has been seen time and again, opens the door for waste, fraud, and abuse.  

Medical care, in which you can get from any emergency room without insurance or money.  Been that way a long time.  Now health insurance should be another right, since people need it, and some don't have it.  Ok, so you put everyone in the same bucket, then put the same government workers that will do pretty much the same thing they do with every government program, waste, fraud, and abuse.  Then no one really has good health care.  Socialized medicine does wonders for countries. Take the UK, who every doctor is a government employee.  If you do some looking I'm pretty sure you can find out how well that is working out.  Same for Canada.  Why do people all over the world want to come to America to pay for health care?  Because we are the best, for now.  Until you make it a government controlled commodity and devalue it like they have our money.  

I agree, people get into bad situations, but is it right to tell everyone else they are responsible for those choices?  If I go out and get a million dollar house, and I can't afford it, should anyone else be responsible when I loose it?  Yes, I know, it's a bad economy and people are loosing their jobs, and then their homes.  What right is it of the government to decide that they need more of my money to help those in need and don't have?  What if the people who lost their jobs did nothing to keep it?  I work in software development, and I have to spend my own personal time to keep up.  If I don't, I will eventually loose my value to my employer and will find myself without a job.  Is it your responsibility to pay my bills if I do?  This is the problem with government run charity, they make choices based on what is best to get them re-elected, not on any form of reality.  If I gain two hundred pounds and have serious health issues, who's fault is it?  Should anyone else be liable to pay for my own faults?  It's nice to think that everyone is honest, good, and pure.  Never would they do anything that might be a bad decision, so making everyone else responsible for those choices shouldn't be a problem?  

Let people help each other, let those of us that have enough determine what amount we can afford to give to help others.  That way you cut out the very high cost of the government system to waste most of the money by creating a bureaucracy that will eat up most of the money in running the bureaucracy.  Money given to local charities almost all end up with the people who needed it, with little going toward the cost of managing it.   

Besides, it's harder for someone to abuse a charity run by people who care about what they are doing.  Volunteers that have a genuine concern for people will provide far better help to those they are trying to help, in a form that works, not just providing a handout.  There are so many ways that people can fix the problems, but first you need to get the government out of the charity business and back to doing the job we need them to do.

I've worked hard for every thing I have, I don't have a college degree, and I had to work my way up to where I am.  I've been without a job and a place to live, so I did what I needed to to get by.  Not everyone has family that can help out, but a lot of people do.  So I lived with my parents a while when I didn't have an income, and they weren't making much themselves.  Now I help them when I can with some of the things they need.  So if I seem a bit reluctant to accept the grand redistribution concepts the government keeps saying is the answer to all the problems, I will continue to disagree.  Sometimes we need to be humbled a bit to realize that we sometimes have to change our perception of reality and come to grips with what we are, and what we aren't.  Job skills that are stagnant (outside of the few that never really change) become unneeded.  Sadly, ones that can be moved overseas for a fraction of the cost...will.  This is a reality for my own field.  A programmer in India cost 1/4 what they pay me.  Most of them can write code just as functional as mine (ok, they still take twice as long to do it, but that still puts them at 1/2 the cost).  I can complain, grumble, and eventually loose my job, or, I can learn the other skills needed to allow me to make even more money telling the programmers in India what I want them to do.  So I have to learn more, accept new ideas, and accept that things change.  Now, if someone else isn't willing to learn new things, or find new skills, when they loose their job, who's fault is it?  There are government programs out there that pay people to learn new skills, and those programs I do support, but too many people don't take them.

Compassion is a good attribute for people to have, but I don't believe it should be a government mandate.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 11, 2011)

Ah I love this bit here... it makes a strong case for my next point. "Besides, it's harder for someone to abuse a charity run by people who care about what they are doing. Volunteers that have a genuine concern for people will provide far better help to those they are trying to help, in a form that works, not just providing a handout." 



Why is it, that we elect lawyers to confuse matters to the extent that us mere mortals are unable to understand that which is written?

And we do it year after year after year no less! It's shocking to think that we are that stupid to think that if we put pennies in we are somehow going to get gold nuggets out! 



Hire normal people, or better yet remove the "Career" in politics. No lobbyists, no special interest groups, NO PAY perhaps and I am just floating an idea that is popular dinner table conversation at our house, if our officials were unpaid aside from housing, security, and basic foods IE what you or I would have on a normal day, perhaps things would get done faster, and more inline with having the best interests of "we the people" at heart. (they would be volunteers themselves.) 



No system is perfect, I'm not so blind that I don't understand that, but there has to be a better way...


----------



## Leuco (Oct 11, 2011)

It's nice to see that the protests everyone trashes on cable news is actually, and sincerely, stirring an open conversation about where America is today-- and perhaps where it may be going.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 12, 2011)

The only people I have seen who trash the protests are the rebubs. 

Don't get me going on how Ironic I find that since they too were crying about things not working...



Bottom line if it is broken fix it, if you can't fix it tear it down and build a new one. I have no idea which we need to do but I know we have to do something. Our kids, and theirs are counting on us to get it right.





Oh Herman Caine, now there is a real winner. I quote him "if you are poor it is your fault." 

"these protest are un-American" 



I'd like to start with the first one. I know plenty of people who work their fingers to the bone all their lives but never really get ahead of the game because circumstance won't let them. Anyone who says they are lazy, and are not trying hard enough needs medication for their delusions.



Now the second one makes me LOL, This country was started because the people rose up and said 'No more' I guess the first amendment is only ok for us to exercise so long as we are saying exactly what they want us to. Too bad the sheeple have started to take a hard look around. 



You can't pass laws that benefit 1-3% of the population while hurting the rest with out eventually having a serious uprising on your hands. The gov should have known better. History if one does not study and learn from it will repeat its self. 



It has happened the world over, starting with the Arab Spring, it won't be long until the whole world is screaming for a huge shift in how we as humans get things done. I only hope that someone steps up with a way to unite everyone in a fair way. How many honestly decent people who don’t have an ulterior motive are there?


----------



## Leuco (Oct 13, 2011)

The Blue Lotus said:


> Oh Herman Caine, now there is a real winner. I quote him "if you are poor it is your fault."
> "these protest are un-American"



I'm not convinced Caine is a real candidate.

I know it sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory, but look how many candidates they have running. The more that stay in the election, the smaller the margin of victory. Every month the front runner changes. First it was Bachmann, then it was Romney, then Perry, now Cain. They split the vote four ways and everyone gets 25%. Of course Caine is eventually going to win a straw poll. But this is a clearly divided GOP with everyone representing a different right wing interest. We know Romney represents big business, Bachmann the Tea Party, Perry the Evangelists, but what about Cain? What group of Republican voters are going to back a minority candidate with the name _Caine_? He has absolutely no political experience and has never held any government office. If you ask me, he's just there to divide the vote so another candidate has a better chance of winning. It's certainly not a new idea. There were suspicions of such a conspiracy in the South Carolina Senate race. I bet Romney's people are somehow pulling Caine's strings.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 13, 2011)

Sheesh, I don't want to know whos pulling whos anything over there... Frightning. 
So long as they stay out of politics I'm happy.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 13, 2011)

> What group of Republican voters are going to back a minority candidate with the name Caine? He has absolutely no political experience and has never held any government office.


I must ask, so you would prefer to keep seeing people elected who have a vast experience in the way the government thinks?  I remember the slogan "Hope and Change"...and many people are currently hoping for some change, since they don't have a job, and what is the political solution?  Spend more money!?  

Personally, I'm tired of politicians.  Their only goal is re-election, and on the rare occasion one of them does something that might actually be good for the people they are supposed to be representing, the media crucifies them.

Make up your minds, you can call people right winged, left winged, but if they are a politician, I expect they are more concerned for themselves than anyone else.  I can't say I agree with everything Cain says, or even the solutions he has proposed....but at least he has proposed something that I can understand.  I have heard so many politicians say "I have a plan", but no one has actually seen the plan, and when asked you get vague political bs when asked for details.  

Maybe if we look at what people running for office has done prior to the current round of campaign promises they will likely forget the day they win, we should look at what they have done and see if they even have a clue about real problems.  Politicians don't solve problems, I think we need as many non politicians as we can get running the country, then we might actually find some solutions that don't start and end with 'more taxes' and 'more spending' of which I think they have too much.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 13, 2011)

No I most def don't want more of the same... But I'd like to see someone who has a grip on reality at least.

This cat is not that.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 13, 2011)

Then who is?  The right call the left unqualified, the left call the right unqualified, both thing the other is insane, and all of us suffer for it.  

I want to puke ever time I hear some report talk about how one of the candidates "looks so presidential"....What does that mean?  We're looking for actors now to look the part?

The whole process disgusts me.  Not that it matters, by the time primaries come around for me, it's all but already decided...some farmer in Iowa's opinion on who is good for the country is more important than mine, so the media has told me.  It's why they vote first...because otherwise they won't feel important.  

Sorry, some of the ideas of equality get to me, usually when there is nothing equal about it.  Last major primary the people I thought would be good had all dropped out because all the early voting states had decided they weren't good enough.

I should stick to writing, it doesn't depress me.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 13, 2011)

Oh, I know exactly how you feel dear. 
I hate the way things are run in the joint, but I do not think a guy who claims that all your ills are your fault regardless of the fact that our GOV has run things into the ground is the right person for the job. 

We just have to hang back and hope somene steps up I guess.


----------



## Donny Bruso (Oct 13, 2011)

The sad fact of the matter is that Presidential Elections in the US are, as George Carlin said, essentially a form of masturbation. I can already tell you that whoever wins the GOP primary is going to take the election. The American people are so angry with Obama for not being able to wave a magic wand and fix decades of idiocy in a single term that I don't believe he stands a chance of re-'election'.

Despite being in the military, which is primarily Republican, I used to consider myself Independent when it came time to vote. Now I just consider myself Apathetic. No one who will actually fix the problems in this country stands a chance of getting 'elected' because you stopped getting 'elected' decades ago. Congress, the presidency, these positions are all bought and paid for. Whoever spends the most gets the job is what it boils down to. And anyone who will actually change the system can't afford to get into it.

I think it was Blue Lotus who said that public servants shouldn't be paid, or should be paid minimum wage. I completely agree with that, but I would go a step further. Not only are they paid federal minimum wage, but their assets are frozen for their term in office, and they have to support themselves on what they earn. Food, clothing, housing, all on federal minimum wage. Want to make some bets on how fast things start changing then? When these rich, self-centered asshats see how difficult it is to support yourself in this country when you didn't inherit millions from mommy and daddy, or marry into it.

The founding fathers would be spinning in their graves if they could see what this country has done to the ideals they set down in the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. 

Personally I don't believe in, or support the idea of welfare programs. While I understand that people are not unemployed because they are lazy, a sizable portion of them are unemployed because of their own pride. No one wants to go from being VP of marketing to flipping burgers at McDonalds for six hours then selling shoes for another six. Does it suck? Absolutely. Is it fair? Maybe not. But if you had no other choice but to starve would you do it? Of course you would. That is why I don't believe in welfare. It provides people the option to sit on their rear end because they can't find a job they like or want.

I understand that jobs are limited in this economy, but to say there is nothing is grossly overstating the facts. I pass help wanted signs every day on my way to and from work. (different routes, not the same signs twice) I don't know the pay or benefits for these jobs because I haven't asked. For the time being, at least, I have reliable employment. And while I believe wholeheartedly in people's right to assembly and civil disobedience, If they weren't camping on Wall Street, they could be out looking for jobs. Again, maybe not what they went to college for, maybe not something they WANT to do, but something to pay the bills while they continue to look for that.

Yes the government sucks. Yes, they are screwing over the lower-class people, because middle class has become pretty much a fantasy these days. You're either in the rich elite, or you aren't. Yes, the government is allowing companies to get away with making obscene profits at the expense of the American economy. I argue none of those facts. The government is irredeemably corrupt, and needs to be wholly replaced.

What I do argue is that the people themselves are blameless. Simply going to college doesn't guarantee you a job. A good career is like anything else, it takes time and hard work to find one. The government is not obligated to hand you one a silver platter. 

Anyway, I think I've rambled long enough. I'm sure people will find all sorts of things to object to, because that's what political discussions do. So enjoy my $0.02.

Cheers,
-D


----------



## Leuco (Oct 13, 2011)

Lord Darkstorm said:


> Make up your minds, you can call people right winged, left winged, but if they are a politician, I expect they are more concerned for themselves than anyone else.  I can't say I agree with everything Cain says, or even the solutions he has proposed....but at least he has proposed something that I can understand.  I have heard so many politicians say "I have a plan", but no one has actually seen the plan, and when asked you get vague political bs when asked for details.



Sorry if I offended any Cain supporters. And sorry for misspelling his name. I'm sure he is very good at what he does, and I'm sure he is competent enough to hold executive office. I'm just not sure he fully intends to win the primary election. I think he'd be perfectly content with some good publicity or at least a good book deal related to Murdoch's publishing companies. I mean the 2008 election made a hell of a career for Palin. But hey, I could be wrong, and maybe he is the real deal. But right now, I'm just not convinced.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 13, 2011)

Maybe, but I don't think he was poor to start with, and I don't think with two major successes pulling a company out of near bankruptcy would hurt his ability to get more ceo positions.  I'm sure if you read some of my political post I'm not a fan of Obama.  He, like other politicians "had a plan", and most people believed it.  For someone who had done little but campaign, I found his resume thin, and his track record indecisive.  If you vote 'present' in the vast majority of state bill votes, that says something about him.  Disagree if you wish, but I am in no way surprised at his lack of ability to lead.  I have to admit I had no clue how much he could spend.  

I don't like Romney, he's too polished, and very much a politician.  Tired of them.  Does anyone remember what the original requirements for a representative in congress were?   They had to own a business that could run itself six months out of the year (why congress only works half a year) and they DID NOT get paid.  The country did fairly well up until people decided that the system was totally broken and needed to be changed.  Too much trouble to convince a business man to leave his business to help make laws.    Let's pay people to do it for the rest of their lives, that will be far better than people who understand the economy and where jobs really come from.  Another aspect that was in the original constitution, is who had the right to vote, and it was land owners.  While I'm sure someone will call this discrimination, the reason was because they didn't want people who had no stake in the country deciding it's future, they wanted people who were invested in the nation to help pick people to run it.  

While I don't agree with everything Cain does, I find him far more real, and so far from a politician, I might consider voting for him.  Yes, he still has time to prove he's as wacky as Ron Paul (of whom I do think has a few good ideas, if her were nuts...)  I had hopped that Perry might be a decent person with the way Texas has been doing...but after listening to him...he isn't even a good politician.  Sigh.

So, my point is this, if we can't get good people to run, maybe we should look at people who might not be the same professional liers that got us into the crap we are currently in.  How long until we can't support all the spending?  48 of the states are overspending to the point they would all be bankrupt if it weren't for the fact they are states.  Most of them are looking to tax more.

I'm expecting it all to crumble, and everyone is still looking for the smooth talking used car salesman to convince them they can change the world...all they need is 100% of your income and they'll provide you everything they think you need....


----------



## Shadoe (Oct 13, 2011)

Fnord said:


> It sounds to me that your company made bad decisions regarding its operations and suffered for it.  Outsourcing labor isn't a panacea for inherent structural problems that are hemorrhaging money.


Actually, the company was doing quite well and had been for a hundred years. It was definitely the outsourcing that killed it. They did acknowledge this. Their American factories were safe, fairly comfortable, and counted quality as important to the process. The overseas factories were sweatshops that put together as many products as they could, as quickly as they could, with no other concern. Quality wasn't part of the process. It made the washers and dryers and vacuum cleaners very, very cheap to make, but they were then just very, very... cheap. For a company that was built on being the best quality on the market, that was deadly. The company should have seen that the first time they dipped their toes in the proverbial pond, but no, they could only see the dollar signs. The more they outsourced, the more they sank. 



Fnord said:


> The idea that you can "tariff" your way to prosperity harkens back to the mercantilist days where trade between nations was considered zero-sum and that the end goal was to export as much as possible and import as little as possible.


That wasn't really my point. My point was, we should starve the beast. If a company takes its manufacturing to other countries in order to make massive profits here by selling at outrageously high prices, why should we buy it here? American products don't sell well outside of America, so it's not like the company's just going to take the product and sell it to France. France has its own supply line. So does China. So the manufacturer can (try to) sell elsewhere or pay. Pay is nice, but that's not really the goal. You're going to say that they'll just pass the cost on to the customer. But there's a limit to that. There's only so much a person will pay for a given product. After that, they'll just stop buying. And with the middle class shrinking, the pool of American customers is shrinking, so that price tag will need to shrink to even be able to sell at any decent quantity. I'm not really thinking of recouping money here, I'm thinking of getting rid of the beast altogether. Companies that use cheap foreign labor so they can jack the profits astronomically should just... disappear. Seriously. Starve the beast. To death. 



Fnord said:


> Therefore, on the whole, Reagan's policy actually damaged the economy more than it helped it because it caused the U.S. to be collectively poorer as a result.


Really? There was a Reagan policy that hurt the US economy? (yeah, that was sarcasm you heard.)

The biggest problem we have is illustrated by a news piece I read today about the iPhone. It sells for about $200 and it's produced for about $8. Now, the $200 price tag is cheap for anything Apple, and I'm thinking I probably found an introductory price on it or something. But see, the thing is, if it costs $8 to make, why is anyone selling it for $200? Why not $10? The immorality of it disturbs me, I'll admit that. And if we had a guy here in America who figured out that he could make an iPhone-like critter and make it for $40 each, he could sell it for $80, still make a heck of a profit, and undercut the iPhone market. But he can't do that, because the iPhone is still selling here.


----------



## Shadoe (Oct 13, 2011)

Benjamin Clayborne said:


> If you want a generalization that works, try this:
> 
> There is enough wealth produced in the United States to guarantee every single person living here housing, food and water, basic clothing, and basic medical care, without doing much more than reducing the number of yachts owned by the super-rich.
> 
> Our society has the capability to provide a certain basic comfort to _everyone_, and a responsibility to do so. It's natural to worry that we'll all drown under freeloaders, but most people want to find something to do with their time. There's plenty of wealth in the system left over to reward people for hard work, above and beyond the basic necessities of survival.


That's the bit that disturbs me. We have so much here in America that this could be a paradise. But it's not. And we're blithely rushing toward third world status by the day. I'm not thinking we should prop up the freeloaders, but there's a way out of this path toward oblivion, if only we were willing to get off the crazy train.


----------



## Shadoe (Oct 13, 2011)

Fnord said:


> Darkstorm had a good point about wealth and it bears repeating: the fundamental reason why a country like the U.S. has the level of wealth it has is _because_ of its economic system.


No, it's because of the economic system we _had_. The wealth we had as a country is now being sent overseas. We have a small pool of very wealthy and a shrinking middle class. We are no longer at the top of the list and every year, we drop further down the list. The percentage of US citizens under the poverty line is growing every year, not shrinking. The poor are getting poorer, the number of homeless is growing, and we're losing our foothold as the leaders in... Well, anything. Like the economic system we _had_.



Fnord said:


> That being said, a civilized society should have some form of safety net to protect against disasters.  It's for our benefit after all lest it lead to armed insurrection.  But for all but the most helpless or disabled people, safety nets should be just temporary bridges to cross the chasm of hardship.  Many countries in Europe, for example, have people who are terminally unemployed because of generosity of their welfare systems.  The longer one is unemployed, the higher the chance they will stay that way.  I'm starting to get a little wary of our own extensions of unemployment benefits for this reason.  It's preventing the market adjustment.


Your assumption here is that anyone who is unemployed for a long period (extensions of unemployment) is unemployed by choice. You assume that the only thing keeping them from getting a job is the fact that money is still coming in. Twenty or thirty years ago, that would have been a safe assumption. But with 5,000 applicants for every job available in America, that's not the case.  It's the lack of jobs that is keeping people out of work, not the lack of desire for jobs. Certainly there are people who will live by your assumption and sit back and do nothing as long as the money is coming in. But most folks in America have things like house payments and car notes to pay and unemployment doesn't cut it. Why wouldn't they rather have a job so they can do crazy stuff like live with a roof over their heads.

By your assumption, every time I'm unemployed, I just sit around, rolling in the cash that comes my way, hoping that gravy train just keeps rollin'.  After all, unemployment pays practically 13.6% of what I get on my usual salary and I could just live like a... No, wait a minute, that can't be right. Why would I want to live on unemployment when a job can give me so much more?

People don't WANT to sit around and do nothing. It's an assumption that just doesn't hold water in the real world. Most folks dream of having time off and a life of ease. But when push comes to shove, most people want something to do every day.


----------



## Lord Darkstorm (Oct 14, 2011)

Outsourcing is a reality.  If it is made in japan, then it is probably a good product, china, well, could be good or bad, mexico...crap usually, although there are exceptions.  

I think as the world becomes smaller with the way we communicate, it can also become smaller in who produces the items we use.  I forget which company it was, but they said it wasn't the wages that pushed them to move there manufacturing overseas, it was the regulation.  The government imposed such a cost on them to keep making products here, that it made it more profitable to move their factories overseas.  

I don't have the answers, but I do believe if we could get the government out of the way, we might be able to do something here.


----------



## The Blue Lotus (Oct 14, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> No, it's because of the economic system we _had_. The wealth we had as a country is now being sent overseas. We have a small pool of very wealthy and a shrinking middle class. We are no longer at the top of the list and every year, we drop further down the list. The percentage of US citizens under the poverty line is growing every year, not shrinking. The poor are getting poorer, the number of homeless is growing, and we're losing our foothold as the leaders in... Well, anything. Like the economic system we _had_.
> 
> 
> Your assumption here is that anyone who is unemployed for a long period (extensions of unemployment) is unemployed by choice. You assume that the only thing keeping them from getting a job is the fact that money is still coming in. Twenty or thirty years ago, that would have been a safe assumption. But with 5,000 applicants for every job available in America, that's not the case.  It's the lack of jobs that is keeping people out of work, not the lack of desire for jobs. Certainly there are people who will live by your assumption and sit back and do nothing as long as the money is coming in. But most folks in America have things like house payments and car notes to pay and unemployment doesn't cut it. Why wouldn't they rather have a job so they can do crazy stuff like live with a roof over their heads.
> ...



Shadoe, you make some sound points. Thank you.

As for the bit about 5,000 apps for every job you are not kidding. 
I went so far as to apply for a job that paid 8$ an hr 4 hrs a week. Thats it just 4 hours of work per week. 

She had 30 interviews!  

So, to anyone who thinks it is so easy I applied at McDonalds, I was told that since I am not spanish bilingual that I was not fit to serve! OMG. 
How sad is that? And for those who say that welfare is nothing but freeloaders JKR was on assistance at one point too. 

I do not take assistance the hubby, and my company do make enough to get by with. We don't have any savings atm, we are still paying off student loans, and supporting my dad who is disabled,(but our GOV won't give him assistance, IMHO it is all being used up by people who are not suposed to be getting these services) as well as his 70 year old parents (retired, in India) so we can't afford to have kids any time soon. But thats ok, something has to come up eventualy. 

I apply to no less than 100 jobs per day. I am lucky to hear back from just 1 of them a month. I don't get the job because there are other people out there that have far more experiance and a college degree in the field, but I still try.

I have become so fed up with the job hunt that I am about to give up! To that end I invited about 10 other unemployed or under employed friends over for dinner (Pizza was all I could afford, but everyone likes it so...) And laid out an idea, if we were to pool our cash, cram into a house and all buy into something and just pay for the basic things like food and supplies for said idea in 10 years we could all have enough cash on hand to get into something a little better with out having to live like cavepeoples.

Now that is pathetic if you ask me.


----------



## Fnord (Oct 16, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> That wasn't really my point. My point was, we should starve the beast. If a company takes its manufacturing to other countries in order to make massive profits here by selling at outrageously high prices, why should we buy it here? American products don't sell well outside of America, so it's not like the company's just going to take the product and sell it to France. France has its own supply line. So does China. So the manufacturer can (try to) sell elsewhere or pay. Pay is nice, but that's not really the goal. You're going to say that they'll just pass the cost on to the customer. But there's a limit to that. There's only so much a person will pay for a given product. After that, they'll just stop buying. And with the middle class shrinking, the pool of American customers is shrinking, so that price tag will need to shrink to even be able to sell at any decent quantity. I'm not really thinking of recouping money here, I'm thinking of getting rid of the beast altogether. Companies that use cheap foreign labor so they can jack the profits astronomically should just... disappear. Seriously. Starve the beast. To death.



That's not really how it works though.  American products sell plenty well outside of the United States, which is part of the reason why companies build manufacturing operations in other countries in the first place--to be nearer to other markets.  A company that outsources assembly operations, for example, will have the final price of the good reflected in _lower_ prices, not higher prices.  That's the whole point after all.  

Look at the real prices of consumer goods (especially electronics); they have dropped dramatically over the last 30 years or so.  In 1980 the price of a bulky, 19-inch tube tabletop television cost you $400 in _1980_ dollars.  In, _today's_ dollars, $400 will buy you a pretty nice 42-inch plasma television at Best Buy.  So you can't claim that the outsourcing of assembly operations to other countries _raises_ the prices of goods because that's just not true at all.  There's no "jacking up profits"; in consumer goods with many producers the profit margins tend to be very thin.  




> The biggest problem we have is illustrated by a news piece I read today about the iPhone. It sells for about $200 and it's produced for about $8. Now, the $200 price tag is cheap for anything Apple, and I'm thinking I probably found an introductory price on it or something. But see, the thing is, if it costs $8 to make, why is anyone selling it for $200? Why not $10? The immorality of it disturbs me, I'll admit that. And if we had a guy here in America who figured out that he could make an iPhone-like critter and make it for $40 each, he could sell it for $80, still make a heck of a profit, and undercut the iPhone market. But he can't do that, because the iPhone is still selling here.



I don't know where you get your news from, but the cost of making an iPhone is a lot higher than that.  $8 is the price of only the final assembly part of the phone.  The components inside of an iPhone (which are built all over the world, including in the U.S.) cost a lot more than that.  So no need to have your morality disturbed by it, because it's simply not true.  On top of the component and assembly costs, there's also the development cost that has to be recouped and that's not cheap either.  Consider the prices of smartphones in the same market as the iPhone--if a company could make one with similar capabilities for $40 and still reap a profit, they would because they'd win out in sheer volume.  But that's not realistic.  

So "starving the beast" would really amount to "starving the consumer".  American consumers would simply be worse off as a result because we'd be deprived of a great number of goods in the short run and those goods would become much more expensive in the long run if companies bothered to move assembly operations back to the U.S. (which most probably wouldn't because they wouldn't be able to compete in export markets).


----------



## Fnord (Oct 16, 2011)

Shadoe said:


> No, it's because of the economic system we _had_. The wealth we had as a country is now being sent overseas. We have a small pool of very wealthy and a shrinking middle class. We are no longer at the top of the list and every year, we drop further down the list. The percentage of US citizens under the poverty line is growing every year, not shrinking. The poor are getting poorer, the number of homeless is growing, and we're losing our foothold as the leaders in... Well, anything. Like the economic system we _had_.



Our wealth isn't being shipped overseas.  Trade is an exchange--for every dollar sent to another country is a dollar that has to return to the U.S. in the form of purchasing U.S.-made products or investing in U.S.-held assets.  The dollar doesn't disappear into a void.  The trade deficit (which only measures finished goods production, mind you) is really just another term for capital account surplus.  On top of that, foreign holders of U.S. dollars, especially in developing countries, tend to either invest in assets or purchase capital goods from the United States.  

And this is why I don't see a problem with cheap consumer goods being made elsewhere; the United States has a very robust manufacturing sector in the area of capital goods--aircraft, machinery, specialized electronics, and other large and intricate items.  In the developing world, people in those countries aren't buying TVs, Playstations, iPods or any of that stuff that we don't built here, they're buying bulldozers, concrete batch plants, backhoes, and other large pieces of machinery that the United States builds better than anyone else.  Our manufacturing sector has more output now than it has ever had.  



> Your assumption here is that anyone who is unemployed for a long period (extensions of unemployment) is unemployed by choice. You assume that the only thing keeping them from getting a job is the fact that money is still coming in. Twenty or thirty years ago, that would have been a safe assumption. But with 5,000 applicants for every job available in America, that's not the case.  It's the lack of jobs that is keeping people out of work, not the lack of desire for jobs. Certainly there are people who will live by your assumption and sit back and do nothing as long as the money is coming in. But most folks in America have things like house payments and car notes to pay and unemployment doesn't cut it. Why wouldn't they rather have a job so they can do crazy stuff like live with a roof over their heads.
> 
> By your assumption, every time I'm unemployed, I just sit around, rolling in the cash that comes my way, hoping that gravy train just keeps rollin'.  After all, unemployment pays practically 13.6% of what I get on my usual salary and I could just live like a... No, wait a minute, that can't be right. Why would I want to live on unemployment when a job can give me so much more?
> 
> People don't WANT to sit around and do nothing. It's an assumption that just doesn't hold water in the real world. Most folks dream of having time off and a life of ease. But when push comes to shove, most people want something to do every day.



It's not an assumption, it has been observed empirically in numerous studies; the more generous the unemployment benefits, the longer unemployment tends to persist.  We see it in many European countries especially, who have "natural" levels of unemployment much higher than countries who have limited benefits.  While the replacement rate is lower in the U.S., given the treadmill effect of long-term unemployment, it becomes less and less of an incentive to accept a "lower tier" job than it is to wait it out and hope the type of job (and pay) you had before comes back.

But the touches on the psychological effects of being on unemployment too.  While someone can be on unemployment for a year or more, they act in a way that is much different than if they had a job even making the same wage.  Since every citizen exists on both the demand AND the supply side of the producer/consumer relationship, a worker who is not producing will also not be consuming--the fundamental aspect of Say's Law.  That slows recovery significantly.  

We could stand to learn something by looking at a country like Germany, however, who has been something of an economic anomaly in the Euro-zone.  Their unemployment has steadily dropped and it looks to be in large part of how it addresses its labor market problems. For one thing, they have no statutory minimum wage.  Though union contracts generally set some minimum wage, that doesn't affect workers outside of those contracts.  However, instead of paying people money to sit on their couch, the government pays up to 67% of the wage cost to an employer who hires such a worker.  In addition, the worker can also participate in new job training while this is going on.  Such a policy couldn't run forever, but it puts a stipulation on the subsidy to incentivize the worker far better than standard unemployment benefits do, and some of that cost is borne by the employer too.  The employer thus has skin in the game but a lower level of risk (as employing people is expensive beyond just the wage and benefits paid out), the employee has skin in the game and a much better prospect for adjusting to a changing labor market.


----------

