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Vitriolic Rhetoric in Wisconsin

Yeah trying to simplify the economy is a huge can of worms. And getting into Keynesian and classical economic schools of thought is just way too big for this venue.
 
GVC said:
Dude said that it is the wage paid and the amount of that wage that is spent that directly drives economic growth. There is no chicken and egg dilemma here. There is at least as much production as there is consumption in the global economy. Consumption can't grow without a growth in production. How that growth in production is achieved is up for debate, sure, but clearly economic growth requires productivity gains.
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Wrong. Standard of living gains require productivity gains. On the other hand, economic growth can be achieved through maximization absent productivity gains. Short term growth, or even long term growth without a living increase, requires no more than maximizing capacity utilization and population growth. Overcoming deflationary pressures requires spending growth, not necessarily production increases (which can hinder recovery). Similarly, labor participation rate increases can fuel GDP growth. This has been a lagging factor since about 2002, when a 50 year pattern peaked and reversed.

Productivity gains during a d-process, as Ray Dalio called it, leads to more unemployment, which leads to more wage pressure, which leads to less stability, which leads to lower consumption, which leads to more trinkets and widgets sitting on the warehouse shelves, which leads to layoffs, which leads to more wage pressure... Just keep producing MORE!
 
franklin said:
That's what the uneducated, uneconomic, stone age argument says. I was keeping it short so my response ended up too vague and open to interpretation, so let me provide a little more. Cherry picking individual circumstances makes for a good emotional story, but it doesn't really tell you much of anything (actually, Apple's pricing doesn't say what you would like it to as their pricing has come down while product value has increased). The Law of Diminishing Returns says your unqualified "more often than not" claim is only going to be correct on a short-run basis in some circumstances. Long term, cheaper costs will lift the standard of living of all.
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Apple started outsourcing in mid/late 2006, and continued outsourcing more and more over the next couple years. The first major product they released during that time was the iPhone in June of 2007 for $521.49. The Verizon iPhone they just released is $749.99. I don't see how that is cheaper. Better, sure- which it should be since it's using technology from 3 years later. But it isn't any cheaper.

There are plenty of examples of companies outsourcing to save money only to see the execs get huge raises/bonuses. There are also plenty of examples of unions taking pay cuts and benefit cuts only to see the execs get huge raises/bonuses. It's not an isolated case at all. I would bet it happens more often than not.
 
Surely said:
I think one thing being overlooked here is the unions in the private sector vs unions in the public sector. I am in no way, shape or form responsible for what the unions negotiate for their retiring members in the private industry. The company they worked for gets to worry about. In the public sector however, we are all paying for the retirement of public employees. When a teacher retires at 70% of their highest paid three years (or whatever it is), that is a liability that doesn't come off the books until they die (correct me if I am wrong). That is just not sustainable.
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The obvious answer here is for you to vote in candidates who won't agree to unsustainable deals (assuming that is really an issue).

I still think an honest days work should merit a living wage and future retirement though. If a decent blue collar job is no longer good enough to live the American dream then all hope is lost.
 
Funny, I've heard a lot of negative opinions about unions.

Not gonna say which one I'm involved in, but recently they raised our dues by 125 %.

Outrageous, I know.

Many of our members fought tooth and nail to dump the union.

Once they realized they'd lose vacation, seniority, and their balls, they changed their mind.

That's right, we now pay WAYYYYYY more than we did a few months ago, but we still have it better than getting cornholed without the union. FACT.



- Signed, hate the Union, but hate management MORE
 
VINYLONE said:
Ahhhh, good to see Godwin's Law in full effect...Thank you Sapa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
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Ya gotta laugh. . . . even with those you disagree with. The cartoon was clearly meant to go overboard for laughs. . . . while still containing some elements that might possibly start some thinking. . . .

I've been listening to Tim Conway Jr. on KFI. He's on a tear about the way public employee comp is so far outta line with private sector comparables, while California State is going under for the third time.

There really has to to be some give here.
 
SaltyDawg said:
Apple started outsourcing in mid/late 2006, and continued outsourcing more and more over the next couple years. The first major product they released during that time was the iPhone in June of 2007 for $521.49. The Verizon iPhone they just released is $749.99. I don't see how that is cheaper. Better, sure- which it should be since it's using technology from 3 years later. But it isn't any cheaper.

There are plenty of examples of companies outsourcing to save money only to see the execs get huge raises/bonuses. There are also plenty of examples of unions taking pay cuts and benefit cuts only to see the execs get huge raises/bonuses. It's not an isolated case at all. I would bet it happens more often than not.
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The tiny picture sure looks bad, doesn't it?

Why did you pick iphone instead of ipod?

Will Apple have this edge forever? Will no business minded person see the high margins as an opportunity?

Are any of those huge executive bonuses spent into the economy?

How widely held is stock in Apple? Do no pensions or 401k's benefit from the increased margins?

Did the current account deficit mean more foreign investment into America created jobs elsewhere?

Have US exports lowered because of all those outsourced jobs presumably leading to higher imports? Or did US workers transition into higher skilled jobs and make more in the remaining factories?

SaltyDawg said:
I still think an honest days work should merit a living wage and future retirement though. If a decent blue collar job is no longer good enough to live the American dream then all hope is lost.
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What are you offering to personally give up to assure every burger flipper earns a "living wage"?

Last time I checked, the healthcare industry was expanding rapidly. Are those not blue collar jobs?
 
franklin said:
Wrong. Standard of living gains require productivity gains. On the other hand, economic growth can be achieved through maximization absent productivity gains. Short term growth, or even long term growth without a living increase, requires no more than maximizing capacity utilization and population growth.
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Fair enough. I don't see how this is a product of wage, though. There were wages long before there was persistent widespread economic growth (certainly on a per capita basis).
 
Surely said:
I think one thing being overlooked here is the unions in the private sector vs unions in the public sector. I am in no way, shape or form responsible for what the unions negotiate for their retiring members in the private industry. The company they worked for gets to worry about. In the public sector however, we are all paying for the retirement of public employees.....
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not entirely true, how about when the government uses tax dollars to bail out private corporations that are in trouble in part due to unsustainable pension benefits negotiated for their retirees

Plus, isn't there something called the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. that is similar to the FDIC that offers pension insurance to private companies? I'm not really sure how it works, but I'm pretty sure it's a federal agency.

Anyhow, wasn't the original intent of unions to provide improved working conditions - and weren't they far more concerned with issues of work-place environment rather than so concerned with wages and benefits? That's what my feeble brain seems to recall learning many eons ago...

And I remember back in the late 70's - early 80's, when I dated a guy who worked for AFSCME and was very involved in their push to unionize workers in Illinois and Ohio, and I worked with a woman whose husband was an air-traffic controller who was out of a job once Regan decertified the union. I recall when we first started working together, she bragged about what a great job he had - sure there was stress, but the pay was great and the hours were good, etc etc etc. Then the union comes in and a year or two later he suddenly has the worst job in the world, and needs the union to make it better for him. And I knew other people who had started working in various capacities for state and city agencies, and they thought they had great jobs - - I remember arguing with my boyfriend at the time who was busy trying to convince them all that their jobs sucked and they needed to unionize to get parity. I knew several people who had turned down jobs in the private sector for a better job in the public sector, so it was difficult for me to understand why there was a need for the union. If the government workers had it so bad, why did they take the job in the first place?

At any rate, that was my line of thinking at the time. And I sort of still ask those same questions!
 
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