nah...just trying to get a pass once you start spanking with the monkey rod
I think the current mods have done a thorough whacking of any current OT threats.
Everyone still here should be safe. For now.
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US income inequality at record high
- Thread starter Tony Flow MMMM
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I think the current mods have done a thorough whacking of any current OT threats.
Everyone still here should be safe. For now.
D to the am, I just didn't expect that somehow. BUt I agree with you to a large extent(I've "burned rope" a bit but understand it is not a path to greater achievement). I am generally shocked at how few of our society want to put in a real days work for a real days pay. I've tried to hire people for $15/hr CASH for brainless, safe work and often came up dry. I get a little more than that CASH and I am all over it myself. But hey, I grew up mowing lawns with a push mower, shoveling snow and caddying for rich kids so I could buy so decent clothes and a pawn shop bass. I fear for my children - it seems so cyclical. I mean, I have driven the most pos cars so my family could have, I don't know if my kids can't hack that reality. It's been said that in America it is one generation up, 2 generations down. We don't do "gentrification" but a lot of unprepared people fall through the cracks. And meanwhile, minority folk (highly dependent on where you are as far who qualifies for THAT designation) keep trying to find gears that catch, plans that work. I love this country but it has some serious problems. I will not leave, I will not "OCCUPY", I will continue to fight the powers that be in ways I can.
Some days the best feeling I get is that I convinced someone with too much money to buy an expensive, unnecessary toy off me so I can pursue life, liberty and happiness without making some other poor soul feel worse. And maybe spread the wealth or at least the love.[there should be a red-faced with embarrassment icon, I'm not really yawning over this. A national embarrassment imo.] I'm dead in the water here, it's why I'm a musician....
You know, one of the kindest things I "think" I did lately was buy a homeless dude beer. He tried to panhadle me and I asked him, "dude you want some booze? He kind of stared and then fessed up, yes. So I went in the party store, bought a 6 and a pack of Marlboros. Not like I was going to change his life that night. So we sat in the park and drank some Mickies and smoked a few Burls. And then I left him with the pack and the remaining 2 beers. Comfort is very subjective at times. Dude was already missing half his legs, got froze sleeping under an overpass.man....you don't look anything like i had pictured...
certainly better than me, tho....
Yep. Lots of cases where the homeowner made their payments on time and the bank still foreclosed.
One case in Florida where Bank of America foreclosed on a home where the mortgage (formerly held by a different lender) was completely paid off! The homeowner sued and won a judgement against the bank that they didn't pay. So, the homeowner then had the Sheriffs foreclose on the local bank branch until they paid the judgement.
When RMN took the U.S. off the gold standard (meaning there is an equivalent amount of gold in Fort Knox for each dollar in print) in 1971, it was the biggest fiscal debacle in our (the U.S) history. imo.
We went whizzing down the slippery slope from there. The National Debt in 1971 was $398 billion. Seems high, but still well within the "manageable" category.
Today it is over $16 TRILLION. And climbing at a dizzying pace. No end in in sight.
Im just praying China doesn't want their money back.
You might feel differently if you'd made all your payments on time and met your part of the contract to the letter only to come home to an empty house with new locks on the doors and a foreclosure notice on the door. That's exactly what happened to quite a few families.
Would you call that fraud or not?
It's not exactly wrong, but I don't think it's being explained very well. I think, whether you agree or disagree with me, at least the idea deserves to be explained outside of the context of rich-versus-poor.
The rich aren't exactly hurting us by leaving money in the bank. They just aren't participating. There's plenty of money. Interest rates are very low right now. Besides, how would you throw more money at the rich? Tax breaks? That well is dry.
Demand drives the economy. Weak demand is one of the main problems with our economy right now, and is a major cause of recessions. The poor and middle class help the economy by responding quickly to small increases in their prosperity.
Investors don't build factories and hire people just because they've got cash at their disposal. That would be irrational. They build and hire if they think that people want to buy stuff.
In my view, measures to improve the security and prosperity of the middle class (while also promoting upward class mobility) would be the best way to make the economy more robust, both short- and long-term.
What I'm talking about is not radical. While there is no consensus to be found in the study of economics, what I am talking about is one of the many viewpoints that would be considered mainstream.
Are you in agreement with TwoFingers that regulations rather than relative labor rates are responsible for moving jobs offshore?
Please Fdeck. You need to stop with all the common sense. It has no place here. Instead just say "lift yourself up by the bootstraps" and post colorful graphs.
Please Fdeck. You need to stop with all the common sense. It has no place here. Instead just say "lift yourself up by the bootstraps" and post colorful graphs.
Its all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
It's completely profit and greed-driven thinking that moves most jobs overseas. There was a company in 2011 (I can't name the company but I remember it being talked about because it was owned by a capital company owned by someone running for office); I believe they were in Indiana or Ohio (heartland) and they made sensors for cars.
They announced plans to close the plant, flew in Chinese folks to be trained by the existing employees, and shut it down. The price of the sensor didn't drop, so the price of the car(s) it went in didn't drop. It allowed for greater profits for the owners (that's their right) and left former workers to find jobs that weren't available (that's not right).
I know I'm not intelligent enough to contribute to this thread, so thanks for letting me.
They announced plans to close the plant, flew in Chinese folks to be trained by the existing employees, and shut it down. The price of the sensor didn't drop, so the price of the car(s) it went in didn't drop. It allowed for greater profits for the owners (that's their right) and left former workers to find jobs that weren't available (that's not right).
I know I'm not intelligent enough to contribute to this thread, so thanks for letting me.
6jase5
Mammogram is down but I'm working manually
If I can add my answer, it's both. Remember that it's cheaper to grow cotton in the US south, bring it to the farm, process, load on trucks, take to the port, load on the ship, take it to Asia, load on truck, take to factory, process tshirt, load truck, back to boat, back to US, back on truck, in to warehouse, back to US store shelf than leaving it in the US to be processed in to a shirt.
If you site American Apparel I'm going to e-smack you. Unless you've been inside their locations (which I have many times) and know the true story you really don't want to label that a success story.
Direct Labor and transportation costs drive the consumer product industry. Near sourcing (Mexico for the US) is picking up but when our labor is 10+ times that of most production based countries, it's simple math.
I tried to compete with a US based warehouse against a Mexican warehouse for a distribution account. My annual labor cost was 24.3mil....theirs came in at 3.2mil. Transporting from Mexico all over the US was still cheaper even with cross border headaches and infrastructure challenges.
Also, China doesn't have OSHA. If one guy falls off the unloading dock in Shenzhen, the next guy takes his place...no work stoppage...no investigation...no lawsuit. Not bashing China or judging, just the way it works.
This is ridiculous on its face. Clearly this is a hot button issue for you as you or someone close to you got "screwed". But, as stated by others, the terms and conditions of EVERY loan are CLEARLY stated in the agreement. Now, think what you will, but there is no way we CAN or SHOULD try to legislate away stupidity. I simply can't be done.
So, if you get a loan for a house, and the payment at the current interest rate is $700 (which you can afford), but the POSSIBILITY exists that the rate could go up, shoving your payment to $1200, which you can't afford, who is responsible for knowing that, if it is clearly written out in the contract? The BUYER. Now, I am a Realtor (currently inactive license but I have sold for years up until recently). I have sat through more than a hundred closings with DOZENS of lending institutions. And I sat through a lot before the whole bubble burst a while back. No matter WHO did the loan, it is the job of the CLOSING ATTORNEY to make sure that the buyer understands completely what he is getting into. Also, there are laws in place that insure the LENDING INSTITUTION reads through literally scripted page after page and asks on several occasions "Do you understand completely what I just said?"
Not to mention, if you are in a position where the doubling of your mortgage is enough to get you kicked out of your house, then you SIMPLY CAN NOT AFFORD A HOUSE. PERIOD. There is no RIGHT to home ownership in this country. You don't DESERVE to own a house just because you were born and you happen to still be breathing.
So, to wrap this all up in a pretty little bow, please explain how it is/was that the originators of these loans are/were responsible for people signing on the bottom line when they really could not afford the terms and conditions of the loan. And when the payments could not be made, how is it that the actions taken to cease the properties were illegal? If you signed saying you could make the payments, and you stopped making the payments, the bank gets the house. Anyone who doesn't understand that is a dribbling idiot. sure, there are procedures. But all of those procedures should end up with the bank getting the house back if you aren't paying for it. Banks are not (and should not be) charities.
Thank you for your perspective.
Also, China doesn't have an EPA, but they do have about the worst air pollution known to mankind and very bad water pollution. That's less of a regulatory cost and more of a human cost.
Another consideration, and I'm trying to stick with economics rather than politics on this, would be the manipulation of currency value by the Chinese which gives them an unfair competitive advantage.
How do the poor and middle class help the economy by "responding quickly" to small increases in their prosperity? I'll tell you. They make MORE bad decisions and buy MORE crap they don't need. So they may "help" in the short tern, but in the long term they remain poor and struggling people, only with more crap they didn't need to begin with. I'll find the article somewhere (and link it when I do), but I read recently that most people considered to be "living in poverty" in the US have a microwave, air conditioning, a washer and dryer, at least one flat screen TV, a DVR of some sort (which of course means cable TV), a gaming system, and at least one car (if not more than one). So, you're exactly right. If we just handed the middle class and the poor a check each for $1,000 most of them would blow it and that would cause a bump in the stock market and a rise in orders for new goods (mostly Japanese electronics and appliances). And they would be just as poor 48 hours from now as they are today. But everybody "deserves" an Xbox, right?
And to the second statement in this quote, what "measures" would you take..... exactly? What WOULD you do, with the swipe of a pen, to "improve the security and prosperity of the middle class"? If you were king, what would you order by 10:30 tomorrow morning that would fix it all? Seriously, what policies would you put in place to insure more equal outcome? And what would the poor have to DO to receive such outcome? Just continue breathing?
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