I think some of us are tired of beating our heads against the wall. There is absolutely no sense in wasting time trying to explain conservative economic philosophy to a liberal...NONE at all. And I am moderate not right wing, but there is no discussion because there is not a rational process. Luckily, there IS a quagmire in Washington at present stuck between a Republican lead congress and Democrat lead senate and Democrat President. I project the only way he will get anything on his agenda done is to do what he has already done and that is to unconstitutionally pass executive orders. If WE as a people and WE as a government can stand by and allow that, then why bother??????????

 

Just stock up the food and ammo and hunker down. The industry that is thriving is the doomsday prepping industry.

H. Get a spotlight on the Federal budget killer - Medicaid/Medicare. Unlike SS it is 'on-budget' and it is way underfunded for what it spends. Maybe like SS - make it off-budget and put in its own stand-alone pool. But this is the third-rail of politics for both parties. No one wants to deal with this critical problem because there is no easy, politically expedient fix. 'Entitlements' is 'code-word' for the problem. Politically neither party will hit the nail on the head. So they dance around it. Raising the payroll tax seems inevitable to have any hope. But the anti-taxers (yes, mostly 'TEA Party' associates) will be against it and the Dems simply want to let it continue to suck away at the rest of the budget. It is the cancer to the current budget without a doubt.

I think some of us are tired of beating our heads against the wall. There is absolutely no sense in wasting time trying to explain conservative economic philosophy to a liberal...NONE at all. And I am moderate not right wing, but there is no discussion because there is not a rational process. Luckily, there IS a quagmire in Washington at present stuck between a Republican lead congress and Democrat lead senate and Democrat President. I project the only way he will get anything on his agenda done is to do what he has already done and that is to unconstitutionally pass executive orders. If WE as a people and WE as a government can stand by and allow that, then why bother??????????

 

Just stock up the food and ammo and hunker down. The industry that is thriving is the doomsday prepping industry.

 

This country's always been polarized historically and I think it's easy to believe that we're in such bad sorts right now that the partisanship is the worst it's ever been.

 

I will say this: I'm a registered Democrat and for good reason. I believe in a lot of the things Democrats endorse. But when talking to the real, full-on rabid lefties, they look at me like my face is upside-down when I start talking about certain things: my opposition to further increases in the minimum wage, that the government is actually keeping gas prices artificially low rather than oil companies keeping it artificially high, my fondness for free trade and internationalism.

 

It's hard to find a way in when people get super defensive about every position and the party has those sorts of "purity tests" to find out if your opinions are the right ones to matter within the group.

H. Get a spotlight on the Federal budget killer - Medicaid/Medicare. Unlike SS it is 'on-budget' and it is way underfunded for what it spends. Maybe like SS - make it off-budget and put in its own stand-alone pool. But this is the third-rail of politics for both parties. No one wants to deal with this critical problem because there is no easy, politically expedient fix. 'Entitlements' is 'code-word' for the problem. Politically neither party will hit the nail on the head. So they dance around it. Raising the payroll tax seems inevitable to have any hope. But the anti-taxers (yes, mostly 'TEA Party' associates) will be against it and the Dems simply want to let it continue to suck away at the rest of the budget. It is the cancer to the current budget without a doubt.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the biggest flaw of the ACA was not the mandate, it was the lack of cost and price-control measures. Something absolutely has to be done to make Medicare and Medicaid work better.

The Papiermark of Germany in the 1930s. Could it happen? See if any of the below sounds a little familiar.

 

- Reducing manufacturing base.

- Paying back reparations to foreign governments.

- Printing of money.

 

 

Weimar Republic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

In 1919, one loaf of bread cost 1 mark; by 1923, the same loaf of bread cost 100 billion marks.

 

 

 

Since striking workers were paid benefits by the state, much additional currency was printed, fuelling a period of hyperinflation. The 1920s German inflation started when Germany had no goods to trade. The government printed money to deal with the crisis; this meant payments within Germany were made with worthless paper money, and helped formerly great industrialists to pay back their own loans. This also led to pay raises for workers and for businessmen who wanted to profit from it. Circulation of money rocketed, and soon banknotes were being overprinted to a thousand times their nominal value and every town produced its own promissory notes; many banks & industrial firms did the same.

 

 

The value of the Papiermark had declined from 4.2 per U.S. dollar at the outbreak of World War I to 1 million per dollar by August 1923. This led to further criticism of the Republic. On 15 November 1923, a new currency, the Rentenmark, was introduced at the rate of 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) Papiermark for one Rentenmark, an action known as a monetary reset. At that time, one U.S. dollar was equal to 4.2 Rentenmark. Reparation payments resumed, and the Ruhr was returned to Germany under the Locarno Treaties, which defined a border between Germany, France and Belgium.

 

Emphasis added.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the biggest flaw of the ACA was not the mandate, it was the lack of cost and price-control measures. Something absolutely has to be done to make Medicare and Medicaid work better.

 

Agree. It just beuracratisized a bad system. When people say single payer has economic advantages my response is - correct, if you actually do it as done some countries and ensure it bids out services aggressively to provide better true costs. ACA did nothing to provide cost-control and provide an actual advocate for the end consumer.

 

Having looked at some of the other 'systems' Germany (surprise, surprise) seems to best approach of a public-private function. Not simple single-payer. But it basically treats the insurance as a regulated monopoly and enforces rates through a central mechanism.

To be sure, our trade deficit is large, but manufacturing as a percentage of U.S. GDP has been steadily rising for the last five years. While the jobs are never coming back, micromanufacturing and automation have increased. Globalization may have cost us some, but revolutions in productivity have been the primary cause of job losses while continuing to generate profits. I think you'll continue to see a rise in manufacturing here in the US.

It just beuracratisized a bad system.

 

Absolutely agreed. When Obama came into office, with at least some mandate to improve the health care system, instead of completely rethinking the way we operate, he and the Congress simply shoved more people in and made a few rules concerning access to coverage. It wasn't great.

This country's always been polarized historically and I think it's easy to believe that we're in such bad sorts right now that the partisanship is the worst it's ever been.

 

I will say this: I'm a registered Democrat and for good reason. I believe in a lot of the things Democrats endorse. But when talking to the real, full-on rabid lefties, they look at me like my face is upside-down when I start talking about certain things: my opposition to further increases in the minimum wage, that the government is actually keeping gas prices artificially low rather than oil companies keeping it artificially high, my fondness for free trade and internationalism.

 

It's hard to find a way in when people get super defensive about every position and the party has those sorts of "purity tests" to find out if your opinions are the right ones to matter within the group.

 

Interesting choice. I am a registered Republican not because I agree with their entire platform, as many Republicans would look at me the way you state some Democrats would look at you. However, the fundamental difference is that while on most environmental and social issues I would be liberal, on the one that matters as much as anything to our country...the strength of our economy...I do NOT believe the Democrats have the best answers. In fact, I believe that party has been at the root of our problem. When a party's entire platform is collecting special interest voting blocks to amass votes then there is not a vision for the county...there is just a vision for winning elections. Just my opinion. We have gotten ourselves so deep into entitlements and spending programs, and there are so many living off the government dole...and not just individuals, but corporations as well, that it may take a complete reset to change it, and I don't believe that will be pretty. Also, I don't believe it is something the people of the US will do willingly because to this point we are at complete polar extremes as to why we are here.

To be sure, our trade deficit is large, but manufacturing as a percentage of U.S. GDP has been steadily rising for the last five years. While the jobs are never coming back, micromanufacturing and automation have increased. Globalization may have cost us some, but revolutions in productivity have been the primary cause of job losses while continuing to generate profits. I think you'll continue to see a rise in manufacturing here in the US.

 

Being now 37 years in manufacturing I have to somewhat disagree with your statement about job losses. Productivity is up because low value, highly intensive labor jobs have moved to (a new term) "best cost countries" including Latin American and Asia. What has made this shift possible are improvements in LOGISTICS over the past two decades. Costs and timeliness to transport goods have both been reduced considerably in the last 20 years.

 

One only has to visit Shanghai and the surrounding areas in the last 15 years to realize how much foreign investment has been put into facilities and capacity. The same can be said for Brazil, India, the Honduras and Mexico to name just a few.

 

When labor has been replaced by technology, a major contributor is that the technology can now be financially justified due to increasing burden of adding a full-time employee: wage/benefits/taxes/health, safety, environmental.

 

Just an example...like it or not. We have two ladies recently gave birth to children. After they are returned from leave, the business is required to have a special private room for lactating mothers. Now they won't be breastfeeding at work because children cannot come in a manufacturing facility. Maybe it is a good idea....but at a minimum it is a cost burden on the business that affects all other 250 employees.

The French are currently fuming over the massive fine just leveled on BNP Paribas for helping bank for the Sudanese government. It makes the US banking regulators look like an extortion racket (Did they deserve a fine? Sure. But that was crazily excessive.) And the effort to help reign-in supposed "tax evaders" by long-arming overseas income just brought on a whole rash of wealthy Americans renouncing their citizenship and staying put permanently in whatever foreign country they're currently domiciled.

 

We've abused our privilege of having the world's reserve currency for trading for far more than the last two presidents and it seems like we're doing everything in the world to shoot ourselves in the foot. This strong-arming of overseas banks and foreign monies is going to be what hurts us even more in the short-term than our own fiscal negligence.

 

Though truthfully I still think any talk of the dollar not being the world's reserve currency is premature. It took two world wars to bring down the British pound as the pre-eminent currency and it would take quite a disaster for the dollar to be bumped off, in my opinion.

Being now 37 years in manufacturing I have to somewhat disagree with your statement about job losses. Productivity is up because low value, highly intensive labor jobs have moved to (a new term) "best cost countries" including Latin American and Asia. What has made this shift possible are improvements in LOGISTICS over the past two decades. Costs and timeliness to transport goods have both been reduced considerably in the last 20 years.

 

So is the recent uptick in domestic manufacturing attributable to increased logistical costs? The greater expense (from rising fuel prices) of shipping finished goods back to the United States from abroad?

If this coalition ever jelled it would represent almost 50% of the world population so it would be a formidable challenge to the dollar continuing as the world's reserve currency. Not sure those 4 can maintain a united coalition though.

So is the recent uptick in domestic manufacturing attributable to increased logistical costs? The greater expense (from rising fuel prices) of shipping finished goods back to the United States from abroad?

 

Some of it is increased fuel costs, and some of it is the weak dollar against the euro. Also, there have been several years of pent-up demand after the near-depression of 2008/2009. It is not clear to me that we can boast that our manufacturing is booming, and much of it is still lower than five years ago. I wonder how much the numbers are inflated by the petroleum industry where capacity has been increased to support exports.

The end of the current party. -2.9% first quarter GDP be dang. 2Q will likely look rosy as heck on the first cut to provide cover and rationalize the end of QE.

 

I guess I better lock in my T-bill-tied HELOC soon.

 

Fed Sets October End for Bond Buying - WSJ

Federal Reserve officials agreed at June's policy meeting to end their bond-buying program in October, putting an explicit end date on the experiment for the first time ...