Re: [OT] USA Elections
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Nov 05, 2012
- 2907 views
Yeah...I'm not really very interested in what former slave owners thought about things. In fact, the 1920s were incredibly prosperous, and not just for the upper classes.
Until we hit the Great Depression, sure.
Yeah, largely created by the crazy tarrifs, and then New Deal kept the depression going. 
I dispute that. http://iws.collin.edu/kwilkison/Online1302home/20th%20Century/DepressionNewDeal.html
The problem is that free market capitalism almost always ends up treating labor as a necessary commodity. If the price of that commodity can be reduced then the price of the goods can be reduced and the less expensive goods will prevail in the market place.
That's a feature, not a bug! Ask the millions of Chinese
Only millions? Perhaps you're thinking about Taiwan. I certainly agree that Taiwan has done things right.
Or perhaps Hong Kong. Again, I agree.
Taiwan and Hong Kong have obviously done much better than the mainland. [/quote]
No disagreement there.
I've heard Red China's demographics described as a US worth of middle / upper class plus a billion peasants.
Probably, roughly, so.
In a way, that proves the point:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-08/21/c_131798564.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_06/b4214013648109.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/world/asia/26iht-letter26.html?pagewanted=all
who have recently moved out of the middle ages.
Middle ages? China was technologically superior to almost everywhere else until the 19th century.
Yes, but that was all before Mao. But I'll admit, Middle Ages was a bit of hyperbole.
Ok, I'll give you that. Even the CCP admits Mao was wrong.
Ask the people who shop at places like Walmart and have a better standard of living as the result of lower prices.
Better standard of living?
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/08/10/how-everyday-low-prices-are-costing-americans-their-jobs/
Okay.
Yes. Totally. Unfortunately, sustained increases in standards of living requires innovation and creative destruction, which means that people who don't or cannot adjust are hurt. Still, poor but feel good economics will always be with us.
I'm sure why you can see having hundreds of millions, or even tens of millions, of middle class people who "cannot adjust" get hurt (by losing their jobs and losing unemployment benefits and being forced to resort to any measure to stay alive) is something that should be avoided. It goes back to Keynesian economics - companies can fail, but there must be support for those who fall as a result. (Disclaimer: I am not an economist.)
I don't see the relevance of your link. I'm against the economic policy of protectionism and for free trade.
Yes, the 1930s (and really, it started with Hoover...FDR just built on what he started) should have been enough to prove that when the government gets active and tries to make things better, it fails. Not unlike the other 20th century experiments in statism.
Failed enough to get him in the White House four times in a row.
Oh, yes, hugely successful politically. But a catastrophe economically.
I know that I'm repeating myself here, but I dispute that. http://iws.collin.edu/kwilkison/Online1302home/20th%20Century/DepressionNewDeal.html
But, if you were a coal miner, who got paid in company script which could only be used in company stores, I dare say you would view government support of the "right" of labor to collectively bargain for better wages and benefits very liberating.
Not very liberating to collectively bargain for nothing.
That's the point - they were collectively bargainning to get something.
When you don't have a job, and have no prospects of getting a job, with whom do you bargain?
I don't follow. Coal miners don't have jobs?
I'm not arguing that people weren't taken advantage of. But the Wagner Act was and continues to be a disaster.
How?
Perhaps the most obvious example is our sclerotic unionized auto industry (note that the foreign owned, non-union plants have been doing just fine). Of course, even FDR could not support public sector unions. The market eventually sorts out private sector union excesses. It's much more difficult to get rid of the problems with public sector unions.
Matt
I can understand how someone could see public sector unions as a problem. On the other hand, losing half the police force at once is hardly a solution. Unions didn't cause the market to crash down (which wiped out the securities that backed the pensions), nor did they force politicians into deficit spending.
