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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588
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 Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 11:55 am Post subject: |
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| Bard, why are you giving Ronald Reagan a pass? That would be unconscionable. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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Bardo—the fact that you don’t seem to be as mean as Isobars or as closed minded as NW doesn’t inoculate you from the viruses of using strange filters to look at the world.
| Quote: | | Our economic downfall started with Bush 1, and has accelerated into infinity with Obama. Just look at per capita GDP for guidance. |
You make the claim that per capita GDP in the United States is collapsing—something that can easily be checked. Look at this graph, which rebuts your argument fully: http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2011/03/08/long-term-real-growth-in-us-gdp-per-capita-1871-2009
Here’s another one, adjusted for inflation:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/224600-2-percent-real-per-capita-gdp-growth-a-long-term-trend-we-can-count-on
Long term upward trend of 2%
If you want to dig a little deeper, you can look at the huge impact of the 2008 recession—caused, I hope you might recall, by Republican-inspired deregulation of the housing finance sector. Look at this page:
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Real-GDP-Per-Capita.php
Now if you wanted to make a more coherent argument that the recovery from the 2008 recession has been weak, and has benefited the rich rather than being more broadly spread, I would agree with you. But then I would ask you for analysis of root causes. Bush and Obama, and a majority of Congress agreed that the first step in responding was to prevent a massive bank failure. That has been the cause of the most serious recessions in US history, and was a very real threat. There is little doubt that TARP was effective and cost-effective. You have made the point that a market based shake out would have revalued assets more realistically. I agree—but think that the damage to consumer confidence would have been huge, and would have resulted in a much more serious recession. Therein lies the difference between Keynesian and non-Keynesians, and it will never be resolved. So far, pretty simple.
Obama and the Democrats were interested in further measures, Keynesian to be sure, to stimulate the economy. Republicans were determined to stop them. Blocked in Congress, and alarmed by the sluggish recovery rate, the Administration engaged in quantitative easing, which helped the economy, but disproportionately benefited those, like me, who own securities. The GOP made no real effort to prevent that.
The long term impacts on the purchasing power of the middle class are substantially more complicated. Many economists predicted in the early 1970’s when I started paying attention that the United States could not continue to garner such a large share of the world’s raw resources with such a small proportional population. That trend was not sustainable, and the impacts of shipping jobs overseas to lower labor costs was predicted while Bush I was still chief spook. The current crop of Democrats, particularly the young, likes to blame those impacts on NAFTA. Not so, the trend started well before NAFTA and would have occurred with or without trade agreements. I think Clinton saw this.
I think there is another root cause that you probably won’t agree with—the collapse of responsible and powerful unions as players. This is substantially the fault of unions—they focused exclusively on wage agreements that were not sustainable, and ignored corruption in their leadership. But business used their mistakes to demonize them, and leave the middle class without effective representation in the brokered interest state that we have.
It is clear to me that increasing salaries for semi-skilled workers in the United States would accelerate the shipping of jobs overseas unless those salaries reflected real increases in productivity. But in many areas of the economy, such increases in productivity have occurred—and the economic benefits have accrued almost exclusively to the management class. US workers are the most productive in the world, yet their salaries have not kept pace with increasing costs. (In this respect, the per capita GDP is a poor metric to test changes over time.)
Here is a reference reflecting that fact:
| Quote: | In his new report, EPI President Lawrence Mishel reveals why the vast majority of workers have not benefited from productivity growth in the United States since the mid-1970s. Unlike the period from 1948 to 1973—when workers’ pay grew in tandem with productivity, resulting in higher living standards across the board—since 2000 we have seen the largest divergence between the growth of productivity and a typical worker’s compensation.
Mishel identifies three “wedges” that have stood between productivity growth and the experience of American workers since 1973, and especially in the past decade:
The share of overall income received in wages by workers has decreased; correspondingly, the share accruing to wealth holders via unearned income (dividends, interest, profits) has increased.
The compensation of the median worker has grown much more slowly than compensation for the highest-paid workers.
Workers have suffered worsening terms of trade, meaning the prices of things workers buy have increased more quickly than the prices of things workers produce.
“We are often told that greater competitiveness and higher productivity are the keys to higher living standards,” said Mishel. “In fact, productivity growth only establishes the potential for improved standards of living. In the past four decades, and especially recently, it has not translated into proportionate gains for working families.” http://www.epi.org/news/workers-benefited-productivity-growth-decades/
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The growth of big money in politics has made this worse. The right likes to scream about the role of unions, and indeed many Democrats in California can’t say no to public employee unions. But the trend is very clear. In the 2012 elections, the spending of groups that were backed by the Koch brothers spent over $412 million. The political spending of the ten biggest unions was a fraction of that—just over $153 million. (Data from Lee Fang and Republic Report, see: http://www.republicreport.org/
Neither party can be trusted to reform government. But it seems to me that the United States is less corrupt than almost any other government, and certainly than any other large economy. And my experience has been, and continues to be, that the most corrupt--and looniest--politicians are from the GOP. |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9300
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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According to your graph, per capita gdp has gone nowhere since 2004. (10 years) But most importantly, there has been an unequal distribution to the top 2%. The 98% per capita gdp has fallen. So to the average American, they've been falling behind for a long time. Food prices etcetera are not properly included in inflation data.
But putting party affiliation aside, they both have a progressive wing. The current Democrats have done more to make the wealthy even more wealthy than any Republican in recent history. The wealthy are all too happy to live within this system.
However, you won't solve this crisis with big government or higher taxes. You equalize this disparity by reducing barriers to entry by small and mid size business. Reduce regulation to businesses with less than $100 million in revenue. Streamline permitting of new energy projects that will create jobs and also put the heat on Russia and the middle east.
Democrats will not do this because they are in bed with the American oligarchs and crony capitalists. Just watch the flow of campaign donations like a revolving door from the WH to major banks, lobbyists and industrial firms.
The cautious savers and middle class are being ruined by this administration. |
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pueno
Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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| stevenbard wrote: |
The cautious savers and middle class are being ruined by this administration. |
Not just this one -- prior administrations, just as much if not more. Obama did not cause the financial mess that he inherited.
Don't forget that John McCain was one of the "Keating Five."
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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Not my graph Bard, facts:
| Quote: | | According to your graph, per capita gdp has gone nowhere since 2004. (10 years) But most importantly, there has been an unequal distribution to the top 2%. The 98% per capita gdp has fallen. So to the average American, they've been falling behind for a long time. Food prices etcetera are not properly included in inflation data. |
You ignored pretty much everything that didn't fit your mindset. I don't disagree that the recent policies of the Obama administration have benefited the rich--but remember for your rebuttal that the years between 2004 and 2008 were during the Bush administration. The Bush tax cuts, which Obama allowed to become permanent to get just a little back, were a big part of this. |
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swchandler
Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:00 pm Post subject: |
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"You equalize this disparity by reducing barriers to entry by small and mid size business. Reduce regulation to businesses with less than $100 million in revenue."
Bard, I have to ask. Where do you see such overarching demand that would change everything? In which business sector(s), and why? How is the average American going to benefit overall, and where are they going to get the money to pay for it.? And, what about illegal immigrants, and their effect on everything? We wouldn't want all those new jobs going to illegals, would we?
Lots of questions where I don't see any easy anwsers. |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9300
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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Chandler, there is little to no competition from the small business sector in every industry. Why? So much regulation compared to when we were in our teens and 20's.
Government is trying to micro manage every aspect of our lives except who we sleep with. With the threat of $37,500 per day fine if you dig a ditch in your dry yard that some bureaucrat deems to be wetlands, you are done.
After 5 years of criminal indictment by the feds for doing such a thing, my own brother was found not guilty. Lawyers get $100k, and he WILL NEVER DIG A DITCH OR FOUNDATION AGAIN.......Because the Nazi's put there boot on his throat. (one of his employees drove a truck over a dry riverbed).
This is what's killing America. |
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pueno
Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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| stevenbard wrote: | | ...except who we sleep with. |
No worries, Mr. B.
The conservatives are going after that one full speed ahead.
| stevenbard wrote: | | ...if you dig a ditch in your dry yard that some bureaucrat deems to be wetlands... |
First, if it's YOUR yard, then you damn well should know whether it falls under the wetlands protection act or not.
Second, we need regulations. I know you and the other righties don't like regulations, but without them, we'd have more Duke Energy disasters. Yes, we have disasters now.... without regulations, we'd have many, many more and much worse disasters. They'd be storing nuclear waste in the house next to yours.
So, where do you start the regs and where do you stop them? Are regs good for the other guy but not for you? Should there be regs only for the big guys but not for you? Should there be appeals boards to consider individual cases?
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm, much is revealed:
| Quote: | | my own brother was found not guilty. |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:14 pm Post subject: |
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So Bard, I think there is much more to the story than:
| Quote: | | After 5 years of criminal indictment by the feds for doing such a thing, my own brother was found not guilty. |
To begin with, wetlands cases are almost always civil cases. The only criminal cases I have heard of are particularly egregious, or involve contempt of court. Care to enlighten us with the rest of the story? Or post the decision? Maybe you and your brother are a lot alike, and get bumpy when someone tries to tell you what to do? |
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