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Does anyone really understand ? - 11/11/2008 1:56:23 PM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		The reason this crisis is so bad is because of certain things. You have these banks, and hopefully within the next four years some people will be going to jail.

However some companies, who actually made something, produced a product, were dependent upon banks and investments to fund their ridiculous pension plans. They were supposed to be making money on this money they invested and now what are they making ? Pretty much nothing. That means they are going to have to pull that money from somewhere, like a rabbit out of a hat. They simply can't do that and support their lifestyle.

So in the case of the auto industry, if they got their head out of their ass they have the means to turn a profit, but it will not be enough.

If there never had been a stock market in the first place, how would people retire ? A valid question, but there is a valid answer. All of these people who are making money for nothing are a drain on the economy as a whole. They increase the price of goods and services because businesses have what is called debt service. However when the company went public it recieved the benefits therefrom. I doubt the workers on the line saw much of that.

So in a world sans the stock market what is a business to do ? Well if you have enough money to invest in stocks and bonds, you have enough money to invest in upgrading and expanding. If it was run that way from the gitgo, current workers would be the chief source of support for the retirees that the investments provide(d) for. In a consumerist society such as this, there is no reason to believe such a system would not work.

The returns for the retirees would of course be less, but at the same time inflation and the massive credit used up would not have happened, and you would probably get a new car for ten grand. For five years, with a hundred bucks down the PI would be $109 per month. You can barely lease a car for that.

By the same token, fake palaces built from stamped steel, drywall, styrofoam and vinyl siding would not fetch a half million dollars. Your car bumper would not be two grand. Your taillight lens would not be two hundred. The labor to install these things would not be as high, nothing would.

Without this going extremely into debt, inflation would have been curbed by normal market forces. I have heard the term "Whatever the market will bear", have you ?

So you see, without the credit, the market could not bear these prices, but the prices became necessary to support debt service.Catch 22. 

This yields an ever climbing spiral, well almost ever. When normal market forces are not allowed to operate, which is exactly what borrowing has done what happens ? Well take a look around. The situation we have now is EXACTLY what happens.

Some people purport to support a real economy, and stop the madness, but are they willing to give up their retirement checks to do it ?

That, you see is why you shouldn't start this bullshit in the first place.

T
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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/11/2008 2:34:51 PM   
pahunkboy


Posts: 33061
Joined: 2/26/2006
From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		No.  No one is going to give one penny. 

What we need to do is to start producing things.   Machinist tool makers are important.

The infastructure has been gutted.  did you know in real terms   the production declined 1968?   in any year since we do not create real items as we did then.

The government has no money.    and can not save us.

keep your tools-  you will be highly sought out.....    

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/11/2008 3:21:07 PM   
Aneirin


Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
Status: offline 		Yep, for all of us who were industrial countries, we need to get back to grass roots before it is too late, regain what we once were, an industrial might to be reckoned with, quality over quantity.

I am a collector of sorts, I collect things of use, but things which excel over other manufacturers, In my collection of useful and dependable things, there is a lot of American made products, in fact the majority is American, from a time where American was the sign of good design and function. Never managed to get a late sixties muscle car though, although I preferred American muscle to any eurobox hairdryer.


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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/11/2008 3:56:11 PM   
LadyEllen


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Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
Status: offline 		Personally I'm wondering whether workers' cooperatives arent the way to go?

You get a job with a company, you buy shares from your wages at a steady rate such that when you retire you're sitting on a portfolio that can be redeemed back to the company - for take up by the next lot of recruits over time. The company is then owned by the workers - and managed by the workers, whose best interests are served by working hard for the success of the company but whose efforts are not subject to the wheeling and dealing of executive types - ie being offshored.

Some will say this is socialist and awful and all that - but considering many workers are already in such arrangements with their pensions et al, albeit that those arrangements are spread across lots of companies by pension funds etc, its not a huge departure. And of course, companies owned by their workers - where the workers benefit from the success and have a say over things, are unlikely to fall into the "socialist curse" as it is often portrayed here, whereby competitiveness is lost.

The ultimate problem of capitalism is that the fates of millions are decided by a very few who have no concern whatever for anything other than their own wealth. This yields up socialism as a reaction against it - industrial strife, class war and all that. With cooperatives the whole decide their fates collectively, with them deriving the benefits and no grounds for complaint.

E


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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/11/2008 4:23:02 PM   
TNstepsout


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Status: offline 		You know Term I was thinking somewhat along the same lines earlier today when I was talking to a friend about the auto industry. He mentioned that it's difficult for some people to be concerned with bailing out auto makers so retirees can retire on pensions better than most of us will have. huh? I agree that our current economic status is simply not sustainable. We don't have enough people willing to make lower wages so goods can be affordable. That's one of the reasons US automakers are in trouble.

I wonder what will happen when the whole world has "emerged" economically and there's no one left to exploit. How the hell are we going to afford stuff then?

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/11/2008 7:15:12 PM   
Termyn8or


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Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		"We don't have enough people willing to make lower wages so goods can be affordable." (add : they are working on that problem)

Zzactly. And they can't because all of our major businesses seem to have some sort of albatross around their neck.It works both ways. How can you pay retirees two grand a month when you don't even want to pay, or find it difficult to pay your current workers that ?  Alot of people are working for alot less than that.

LE I know that's been done, but there is one truth that makes it less than optimally practical. If the employee owned business are owned by employees who are adept enough at business to run the business, why don't they have their own business ?

Employee owned business would be a step in the right direction though I think. Making people responsible for their own future is a good way to teach, and quickly too, but then having the rank and file set the wages of the executives would be something else. Good executives may quit, or demand more money. Crappy executives would stay on for the ride. That is not quite what we had in mind.

Like anything else it is trading one set of problems for another, but then perhaps it is time to do that. The problems we have seem to be getting pretty big.

Get me on a game show or something to win alot of money, in the millions, when they ask me what I am going to do with it, I would say "I am going to start a business manufacturing something, anything, in this country that makes money, and I shall be sole proprietor forever. Never go public".

In other words the business would support it's own growth, which is the way things used to be. And retirement, I'll give you all your money now, of you can't retire, that's your problem. That's how I roll, I have no plans to collect SS or anything else.

Social security, which the repubicans wanted to privatize take 15.2% of everything most people make. People think it's law but you can get out of it, but then you are out of the loop. But you would be out of the loop now if they had privatized social security anyway.

Seeing the handwriting on the wall, privatizing seemed like a good idea to some, but what of now ? My Father's check will be there at the beginning of next month, will your's ?

But the handwriting on the wall is still there. There are not enough workers making enough to fund all these retirees. Retirement used to be totally private. Some bought everything they needed and raised animals and planted a garden and just rarely dealt with money anymore. Others amassed capital in their safes, or matresses and lived a frugal life after retirement. The goods they bought lasted a long time, for example they didn't need another car, the one they had was just fine. Their house was paid off, and if there were property taxes they were low. They had their pot to piss in and a window to throw it out of. They needed not much more. What's more, the value of the currency they had saved up was stable. 

I will reiterate this - the old ways worked, otherwise we would not be here.

How long is our progeny going to last under these new conditions ?

T

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 3:14:49 AM   
LadyEllen


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From: Stourport-England
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
LE I know that's been done, but there is one truth that makes it less than optimally practical. If the employee owned business are owned by employees who are adept enough at business to run the business, why don't they have their own business ?

T


This is true enough for small businesses assuming everyone has what it takes to run a business (which is by no means the case) - but I am thinking more about large scale manufacturing (which is the only way to produce the foundation of wealth we need) where hundreds, maybe thousands might be involved in producing a product.

Instead of getting a bail out as a car producer for instance - transfer the ownership to the workers - (which may include the showroom dealers and even the long term suppliers too) who put in funds from their pay cheque for the shares they hold. This will obviously piss off those holding the shares now, but as long as they get market value they can have no complaint - thats the nature of the market. Make it so that everyone's interests are identical, make it so that cooperation rather than nonproductive infighting is the way - kind of like the culture that Japanese companies seem to espouse, which they dont seem to do badly from, but in a way which also solves the pensions/social security problem.

E

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 4:23:02 AM   
tweedydaddy


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Status: offline 		In an evolving universe, anyone standing still is actually going backwards, very very fast. The whole world changes from time to time, including banking and industry, it's nothing to do with morality. Ask yourself if the dinosaurs worried about their carbon footprints, I doubt it.
Things change, sometimes they change quickly, sometimes slowly, but you just have to move with the times. It's nothing you can do anything to stop.
Stop worrying and start enjoying the view!

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 4:49:13 AM   
MmeGigs


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quote:

ORIGINAL: TNstepsout
We don't have enough people willing to make lower wages so goods can be affordable. That's one of the reasons US automakers are in trouble.


This is something that has boggled me for a while.  There has been a lot of pressure for many years to keep wages low, and it's been working.  The number of people in poverty and in the low-income category is growing.  At least a third of workers in the US make less than a living wage. 

Ours is a consumer economy.  We rely on people buying stuff to keep the whole thing afloat.  Consumers account for 70% of GDP.  Labor are consumers.  The people on the bottom half of the economic ladder are the most effective consumers.  A higher percentage of their income - often 100% - gets pumped back into the economy in the form of purchases of goods and services.  Surely part of the reason that US automakers (and other businesses) are in trouble is that there are so many more people in the US who can't afford to buy their products.

There were some economists who started getting concerned years ago when sales of luxury goods were booming but mid-range department stores were losing bigger and bigger pieces of their market share to discount stores.  They were pointing out that the growing income disparity and decreasing purchasing power for those on the bottom could be a sign of trouble ahead. 

The excesses of some of the financial exploders caused the current crisis, but it certainly has been compounded by the decreasing buying power of our most effective consumers.

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 6:05:14 AM   
TNstepsout


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quote:

ORIGINAL: MmeGigs

quote:

ORIGINAL: TNstepsout
We don't have enough people willing to make lower wages so goods can be affordable. That's one of the reasons US automakers are in trouble.


This is something that has boggled me for a while.  There has been a lot of pressure for many years to keep wages low, and it's been working.  The number of people in poverty and in the low-income category is growing.  At least a third of workers in the US make less than a living wage. 

Ours is a consumer economy.  We rely on people buying stuff to keep the whole thing afloat.  Consumers account for 70% of GDP.  Labor are consumers.  The people on the bottom half of the economic ladder are the most effective consumers.  A higher percentage of their income - often 100% - gets pumped back into the economy in the form of purchases of goods and services.  Surely part of the reason that US automakers (and other businesses) are in trouble is that there are so many more people in the US who can't afford to buy their products.

There were some economists who started getting concerned years ago when sales of luxury goods were booming but mid-range department stores were losing bigger and bigger pieces of their market share to discount stores.  They were pointing out that the growing income disparity and decreasing purchasing power for those on the bottom could be a sign of trouble ahead. 

The excesses of some of the financial exploders caused the current crisis, but it certainly has been compounded by the decreasing buying power of our most effective consumers.


That's a good point. But aren't most autoworkers unionized? I know little of unions having lived most my life in an area with little union influence. I was thinking primarily of the cost to produce goods if workers demand a higher standard of living and want to be paid more. I know part of the reason a lot of jobs were outsourced to other countries is because it was too expensive to pay people in the US to do the same job.

Interesting now that I think of it. I did some temp work for GMAC a couple of years ago and while I was there, they had a big announcement that the entire office was going to be shut down and outsourced. Many of the people working there had been there for 15-20 years. They were going to phase them out over a period of time and help them find jobs if possible. That was GMAC finance.

So my feeling was that many of these people were probably grossly overpaid compared to other people doing the same job elsewhere simply because they had been with the company for so long. So when they left GMAC they probably had to take jobs at a fraction of what they had been making. The idea that we constantly get raises and make more money causes the expense for the company to always increase every year, even if income does not. People expect that increase, without regard for the health of the company but they are simbiotically connected. Would those people all have taken drastic cuts to stay at GMAC and to help keep it afloat? I don't know.

Not the most cohesive thoughts, but I have to run. Time for me to go exploit my employer.

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 6:23:11 AM   
pahunkboy


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From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		All right kids,  

Here is a question,  how is it the NAFTA is bad for the US, ME, and possibly CA?   How is it that all of the trade agreements  are bad for the workers of all countries?

Workers are told they must take pay cuts or the toil of 2 positions, that they must do this to stay employed- then the business consolidates anyway.  All the while the brass gets golden parachutes.

I dont blame the working man one bit.      As to how markets work- how can the peon be functional in a disfunctional system?

The system is top heavy.



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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 6:31:30 AM   
rexrgisformidoni


Posts: 578
Joined: 9/20/2008
Status: offline 		On the news this morning they had some responses to people hearing how AIG is getting even more money annd just this past weekend the bosses went on a "sales retreat". Alot of the response reminded me alot of some of the personal accounts I have read from people right before a revolt. The rich don't care. My kids don't get a christmas. I had to go on food stamps so they can collect millions. etc. people are furious. No one besides those at the top have benifited in anyway from "free trade". We're slowly sliding into some sort of weird stratified 1st/2.5 world country. I wish I had the answer besides a good revolt, or a general work stoppage/buying strike. even if a tenth of the US quit buying any goods, they would be sweating. anyhow thats one of my daily rants.


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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 6:32:18 AM   
Musicmystery


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Status: offline 		T,

You also would have no way to raise money for new ventures, and only the weathy could participate in capitalism.

In short, we'd have glorified feudalism.

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 6:34:13 AM   
rexrgisformidoni


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

T,

You also would have no way to raise money for new ventures, and only the weathy could participate in capitalism.

In short, we'd have glorified feudalism.


Capitalism is a failed system. The past year has proven that.


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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 9:31:56 AM   
stella41b


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Status: offline 		History is repeating itself. It's time for the Bolsheviks again, and for the workers to take over their means of production. Otherwise too many people will fall into poverty, the state will have to take over more and more and before you know it it's communism or if you prefer state capitalsm.

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 11:47:47 AM   
sailorfrank


Posts: 127
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Status: offline 		   Why worry about Money??   Twenty years from now it will be useless and all caused by corporate greed and our elected officials.   Get they to a Commune and start living of the land so you can feed yourself before its too damn late!

  in the US   SS retirement dont count on it, your 401K Goodluck with that should be gone by the idiots running the stock market.   Your savings account frozen in the bank that went under soon or in the near future.

   So who can you relie on, yourself only learn a skill that will keep you alive when the near future comes crashing down on us!

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 2:08:55 PM   
rexrgisformidoni


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quote:

ORIGINAL: stella41b

History is repeating itself. It's time for the Bolsheviks again, and for the workers to take over their means of production. Otherwise too many people will fall into poverty, the state will have to take over more and more and before you know it it's communism or if you prefer state capitalsm.


I agree. I'd prefer it be violent and sudden than a long drawn out process, then maybe the upper ranks can be purged as well. But I don't see it happening anytime soon, people are not revolutionary here. (sadly)


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when all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like nails

“I am the punishment of God...If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 7:06:28 PM   
pahunkboy


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From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		AIG is on their 3rd bail out. not 2nd.

I read that paulsen is pulling the tozic assets buy back.  and of course complaint now is he gave his word on it and he cant go back on that due to his credibility.



on bu;chivicks---  the east india company tactics are alive and well. it is called globalizaTION.   you see any political figure can not get past a certain notch until the grid has the dirt on them so as to pull them down if they go against globalization.  this applies to Obama as well....   tho that larry sinclairs claim of gay sex and drugs in a limo, maybe they wont have anything on obama.

ever wonder why so many scandals happen?   thats because when the politician goes against globalization, the globalists behind the sceens pull him down....up to and including assassinations.
how else do you figure globalizartion is good for.   our rail roads here went bye byes. now every road on its way to being a tool road, and in private hands.   not to mention the fed reserve is a middleman to money- and they are a private corporation, not the goverment.

so  once we have no machinist capabilty- and with monsanto tactics - we wont be able to feed ourtself either.

if you want to get people up on their hind legs- tell them there is no food for thier table tommorow morning.    People will kill for food.

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 7:26:07 PM   
MmeGigs


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quote:

ORIGINAL: TNstepsout
But aren't most autoworkers unionized?


Yes, they are.  Their wages and benefits have been decreasing pretty steeply, and they're not the only folks who buy cars (or can't buy cars anymore).

quote:

I was thinking primarily of the cost to produce goods if workers demand a higher standard of living and want to be paid more. I know part of the reason a lot of jobs were outsourced to other countries is because it was too expensive to pay people in the US to do the same job. 


I don't think that it's as much a matter of wanting a higher standard of living as it is needing a wage that will cover the cost of basic life necessities.  There are an awful lot of full-time responsible jobs in our economy that don't pay enough for a person to live on.  Govt. estimates are that 1/3 of US workers make less than a living wage.  I'm not talking about having money for cable TV and a high-speed internet connection, I'm talking about food, shelter, transportation, and clothing.  Even if we leave out being able to go to the doctor when you're sick, a lot of people in the US can't make ends meet. 

One could argue – and a lot of people do – that increasing wages will lead to higher costs and inflation and such.  It’s a bunch of hooey.  It takes about 20-24 hours of direct labor for the Big 3 automakers to make a car.  If wages were $25 an hour (higher than the average wage for autoworkers today), a 10% bump in compensation would only amount to a $50-$60 increase in the cost of making a car.  That’s less than 1% of the cost of the car.  In the textile industry, direct labor in the US is a higher percentage of cost than it is for the automakers – about 15%.  Increasing these folks’ wages by 50% (which would bring the average wage for these folks close to a living wage) would increase the price of a $25 shirt by less than $2.  In exchange, our economy would get a whole bunch more consumers who could afford to buy a $27 shirt, and maybe buy a car and other things that our businesses want to sell. 

quote:

The idea that we constantly get raises and make more money causes the expense for the company to always increase every year, even if income does not. People expect that increase, without regard for the health of the company but they are simbiotically connected. Would those people all have taken drastic cuts to stay at GMAC and to help keep it afloat? I don't know.


A lot of people/unions have taken cuts in pay and benefits to keep their company afloat and keep their jobs.  There are loads of stories of auto workers taking pay cuts.
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/08/28/needs-posting-tower-workers-agree-to-cuts-save-plants/
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/29/business/auto.php
http://www.newser.com/story/8809/pay-cuts-will-affect-25-of-gm-workforce.html
 
I recall some specific stuff here in MN with the airlines a few years back.  Pilots and flight attendants took huge cuts in pay.  Ground workers making less than $10 an hour were being asked to take pay cuts of 25% or more.  There were some small feeder airlines of the parent company that wanted to pay their pilots less than $18,000 a year - that's $8.65 an hour.  For a pilot.  That’s nuts.  When the company started turning around, they declared big bonuses for top executives while offering no increase or bonus to the employees who took drastic pay cuts to keep the company from going under.  This is pretty much the common experience of employees who make wage and benefit concessions – when the company gets back on its feet, their sacrifices are forgotten.

My first Real Job was as an accounting clerk back in 1981.  I was paid $6 an hour and my employer paid 100% of my health insurance and retirement.  Today – 27 years later - that same job pays $8 an hour, premiums and copays for health insurance are $100-$200 or more a month and deductibles have risen sharply, and if you’re lucky your employer will match your contributions to a 401K to help you save for your retirement.  If I took that job today my paycheck would be smaller than it was in 1981.  I’m not talking “adjusted for inflation” or any of that – the actual dollar amount on the check would be smaller unless I opted out of health insurance and retirement.  In that same time period, the rent on the place I was living has tripled.  The cost of daycare has nearly tripled.  The cost of food, utilities and such has at least doubled.  In 1981, that job paid me enough to make all of my living expenses with a little left over for the occasional small extravagance.  If I were starting out today in the same place that I was then, I’d be several hundred dollars short of making my bills each month.

The fact is that we’re subsidizing low wages with tax dollars.  The Earned Income Credit is a wage subsidy – it’s given to working people whose wages are less than it costs them to live.  Government housing, food, and medical assistance programs for low-income workers are indirect wage subsidies.  Wouldn’t it be better to have companies pay their employees the real cost of their labor and have consumers pay the real cost of goods and services than to have government meddling in the market by shoring up wages with tax credits and social programs? 

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RE: Does anyone really understand ? - 11/12/2008 7:43:44 PM   
candystripper


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quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

All right kids,  

Here is a question,  how is it the NAFTA is bad for the US, ME, and possibly CA?   How is it that all of the trade agreements  are bad for the workers of all countries?

Workers are told they must take pay cuts or the toil of 2 positions, that they must do this to stay employed- then the business consolidates anyway.  All the while the brass gets golden parachutes.

I dont blame the working man one bit.      As to how markets work- how can the peon be functional in a disfunctional system?

The system is top heavy.





NAFTA is NOT a 'free trade agreement'.  It is NOT granting the two countries adjacent to the U.S. 'favored nation status'.  It is a wholesale repeal of tariffs and other protectionist legislation which long protected the U.S. economy.
 
When we permit foreign companies to ship goods into the U.S. without imposing tariffs or taxes, we are basically saying 'come be our National WalMart'.  It wipes out local businesses.
 
I'm not opposed to tax treaties with other countries, but there should be a quid pro quo for U.S. companies doing businiess in the country with whom the treaty is negotiated.
 
Just my own POV, of course.
 
candystripper 

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