The Glade 4.0

So what do you people think, will the economy turn around this year?

Personally, I don't think the economy will ever go back to what it was. This is just another phase of globalization like the disappearance of wide-spread manufacturing in the US. I think companies are squeezing more out of less people and are not just comfortable with it but totally stoked. Job-insecurity will be the mechanism to create a new permanent norm to keep wages down in the face of what is the largest inflation I have seen in my life. This will create a downward spiral of more foreclosures, the elimination of the existing middle-class and "make the rich richer."

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How does the largest inflation you've seen in your life make the rich richer?

You can't say that the businesses will be raking in increasing revenues to match the inflation (while keeping wages low, relative to inflation) if you're simultaneously claiming the middle class will disappear.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

The economy gets better every year. Everyone has computers that would be worth millions a decade or two ago. More industrial jobs are automated which leads to unemployment... meaning more people can sit around and the economy is the same.

If their growth in wealth keeps pace with inflation while everyone else falls further back it makes them richer by default. Same way you win a car-race if your transmission gets stuck in 2nd gear while everyone else's gets stuck in 1st.


How are these two statements contradictory? Since when have businesses been obligated passed increased revenues on to employees?

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Although the wealthy may have proportionally better cars to win more races, everyone's car gets better each year. (I don't mean actual cars)

They're contradictory because businesses don't have increased revenues when their markets' income shrinks.

Eliminating the middle class decreases revenues sharply because the middle class comprises the majority of spending. The poor don't have money to spend, the wealthy aren't numerous enough to make a dent in the economy even if they didn't typically save/invest a great portion of their excess wealth, rather than consume.

When there is less spending, a company isn't increasing its revenue. When a company isn't increasing its revenue, the wealthy who benefit from the increased revenue don't "get wealthier."

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It certainly doesn't, although the rich are a bit more sheltered from the inflation than everyone else, as their savings tend to be valued in the stocks/bonds/gold/other commodities that are doing the inflating. If wages do not go up to match inflation, the working man is hit hard. The well-invested rich man has savings that have inflated at the same pace as the rest of the economy.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

You are making a gigantic assumption that the consumer base for these business is still and will continue to be the American consumer.

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Who else is the consumer base going to be? Europe is in just as much **** as the US and East Asian governments do everything in their power to maximize exporting and prevent as much importing as they possibly can.

Maybe that's why our businesses are setting up their factories over there. Hmmm. Crazy talk.

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Why do you guys care so much where businesses happen to be? Everything is getting more globalized. It doesn't matter if factories are in Europe if they're going to ship the products back here.

Yes, they set up factories over there to make things that are then sold to the US. The products made there are not sold in China. Chinese citizens have a very strict limit on how much they are allowed to buy from US-owned factories.

It does if the Europeans don't buy any of the products. In that case we're just paying them to make stuff for us instead of doing it ourselves with nothing in return, while getting poorer every day.

Obviously they wouldn't put the businesses in Europe if this would be the result. I don't see them profiting from people not buying stuff.

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Why wouldn't they profit? Instead of making the product in the US and selling it to Americans, they make the product somewhere else for less and sell it to Americans. Their profits increase, the only issue is it just jacks up the trade deficit and makes the average American poorer.



You know that East Asia in general (especially China) doesn't give a **** about US copyrights, brands, trademarks, and copyright law in general, right? That's why all the knockoffs are there. They just use US trademarks without bothering to compensate anyone.

Actually, the average American will have the same quality of life. So they are not "poorer" by any reasonable standard.

I wonder if someone has been pressuring them to crack down on that kind of stuff?
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/natio ... epares.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/busin ... 14914.html
http://www.chinawhisper.com/funny-fake- ... word-games

Not to be a dick, but at this point I am going to flat-out ask if you have anything (you can support with evidence) to contribute to the conversation.

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Peener!

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The Dude abides.

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The trade deficit is increasing, not decreasing. If US companies were realizing vastly increased sales to other countries, the trade deficit would be going down.

Or it is increasing because more and more of our manufacturing is now moving offshore.

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Wait....what? That was my original point. Moving manufacturing offshore doesn't increase the trade deficit unless the result of that manufacturing is sold to Americans. The people who hire Chinese workers expect to get more money back than they send to China, otherwise they wouldn't do it. If all that profit is coming from foreign sources, more money comes into the country than leaves it.

My point is that consumption everywhere else is increasing, our trade deficit continues to grow because we are importing **** that used to be made here which makes us a net importer of what used to be our own stuff. As for your idea that this money is coming back, that money is going into corporate coffers, not employees paychecks here.

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I think you need to get your ideas straight. First, if inflation is going to be extreme, companies are not going to sit on the money they make because that would be throwing it away. Second, you are now saying that our trade deficit is growing because we are importing goods that used to be made here, IE they are manufactured in China instead of here and then we import them from China. That's pretty much exactly what I was saying. Third, your original point was that US companies were going to have great business despite the shrinkage of the middle class by selling their products to people in other countries. If this were to actually happen, the trade deficit would definitely decrease or be eliminated. It does not matter where the products are manufactured, if the ultimate purchaser of the product is not an American and sends money to America to purchase this product, then more money is coming into the country than is leaving it. Even if these companies for some inexplicable reason sit on this money the average American still becomes wealthier because this results in an increase in the value of the dollar.

The fact is there is no emerging market for American products. The rest of the world is just as screwed. China has a housing bubble that makes ours look minor, and we're going to be bailing out **** Europe because Europe does not have enough money to bail out Spain when they start defaulting on everything.