100% economic recovery achieved

After a strong recovery, GDP, adjusted for inflation, should be at

100% pre-recession level by now.

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i

Reply to
Ignoramus7943
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============ if another example is needed, this again indicates the severe problems that arise when the socio-econimic realities of the goverenees and the governors become too divergent, or to put it another way when the leadership starts assuming we all live on Wall Street rather than Main Street.

The sell-out of Baldor, and the loss of yet another unique domestic economic asset, specifically the manufacture/design of large [c. 100 HP] high efficiency electrical motors for the short-term gain of the financial speculators and manipulators and the long-term loss for the country, is another indication of how "globalization" is not in the interests of the huge majority of the American people.

If you find this thread and others like it of interest, you should also gain some additional insight at

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-- Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

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Can we get Bush 43 to pose in front of another "Mission Accomplished" banner at the closing bell?

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

So do you expect Baldor to move offshore? And what if it does? The world is not the same as it was. Shipping by container ships, shipping by air freight, and communication by the internet has changed the world. The physics of high efficiency motors is something that other companies can and will learn.

What is in the interests of the American people is the increase in the living standard of the whole world. You can not keep foreign companies from competing. You can not keep American companies as strictly American, manufacturing only in America, selling only to the American market, having no competition other than American companies.

It is useless to try to separate America from the rest of the world. Technology prevents that. The only solution that I see is to grow the economy of the whole world. When all the workers in India and China make good wages as measured in what they can purchase, then the American workers will also make good wages.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

So do you expect Baldor to move offshore? And what if it does? The world is not the same as it was. Shipping by container ships, shipping by air freight, and communication by the internet has changed the world. The physics of high efficiency motors is something that other companies can and will learn.

What is in the interests of the American people is the increase in the living standard of the whole world. You can not keep foreign companies from competing. You can not keep American companies as strictly American, manufacturing only in America, selling only to the American market, having no competition other than American companies.

It is useless to try to separate America from the rest of the world. Technology prevents that. The only solution that I see is to grow the economy of the whole world. When all the workers in India and China make good wages as measured in what they can purchase, then the American workers will also make good wages.

Dan

*****************************************************

Well said! Protectionism isn't possible anymore but the US Government CAN make American companies less competitive in the world marketplace...and that's what they seem to do on a continuing basis.

Reply to
LibtardStupid

========== Which is where the problem lies.

If the US were truly committed to making sure the workers in all the countries got what they deserved, i.e. good wages and working conditions, we would be another ComIntern spreading revolution as in most cases the problem is the oligarch/plutocrats and kleptocrats, with the solution being their removal from power/influence.

The US can't even get their next door neighbor Mexico to raise their standard of living and improve their working conditions enough to stop the flood of illegal immigration and continuing rise of narcotics financed revolution.

Since it is impossible for the US to raise the living standards of the entire world, what you are saying is that the majority of American workers/citizens are screwed and their living standards/quality of life of the US must fall to third world levels.

-- Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

from CBS News:

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Where the Jobs Are

AP) Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn't anyone hiring?

Actually, many American companies are just maybe not in your town. They're hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat.

More than half of the 15,000 people that Caterpillar Inc. has hired this year were outside the U.S. UPS is also hiring at a faster clip overseas. For both companies, sales in international markets are growing at least twice as fast as domestically.

The trend helps explain why unemployment remains high in the United States, edging up to 9.8 percent last month, even though companies are performing well: All but 4 percent of the top 500 U.S. corporations reported profits this year, and the stock market is close to its highest point since the 2008 financial meltdown.

But the jobs are going elsewhere. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, says American companies have created 1.4 million jobs overseas this year, compared with less than 1 million in the U.S. The additional 1.4 million jobs would have lowered the U.S. unemployment rate to 8.9 percent, says Robert Scott, the institute's senior international economist.

"There's a huge difference between what is good for American companies versus what is good for the American economy," says Scott.

American jobs have been moving overseas for more than two decades. In recent years, though, those jobs have become more sophisticated think semiconductors and software, not toys and clothes.

And now many of the products being made overseas aren't coming back to the United States. Demand has grown dramatically this year in emerging markets like India, China and Brazil.

Meanwhile, consumer demand in the U.S. has been subdued. Despite a strong holiday shopping season, Americans are still spending 3 percent less than before the recession on essential items like clothing and more than 10 percent less on jewelry, furniture, electronics, and big appliances, according to MasterCard's SpendingPulse.

"Companies will go where there are fast-growing markets and big profits," says Jeffrey Sachs, globalization expert and economist at Columbia University. "What's changed is that companies today are getting top talent in emerging economies, and the U.S. has to really watch out."

With the future looking brighter overseas, companies are building there, too. Caterpillar, maker of the signature yellow bulldozers and tractors, has invested in three new plants in China in just the last two months to design and manufacture equipment. The decision is based on demand: Asia-Pacific sales soared 38 percent in the first nine months of the year, compared with 16 percent in the U.S. Caterpillar stock is up 65 percent this year.

"There is a shift in economic power that's going on and will continue. China just became the world's second-largest economy," says David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, who notes that half of the revenue for companies in the S&P 500 in the last couple of years has come from outside the U.S.

(considerably more...)

Reply to
CaveLamb

And all that means what?

Nation on Edge of Double Dip

CNN

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Home prices took a shockingly steep plunge on a monthly basis, an indication that the housing market could be on the verge of -- if it's not already in -- a double-dip slump.

Prices in 20 key cities fell 1.3% in October from a month earlier, an annualized decline of 15%, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday. Prices were down 0.8% from 12 months earlier.

Month-over-month prices dropped in all 20 metro areas covered by the index. Six markets reached their lowest levels since the housing bust first began in 2006 and 2007. They were Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Miami, Portland, Ore., Seattle and Tampa, Fla.

"The double-dip is almost here," said David Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's. "There is no good news in October's report. Home prices across the country continue to fall."

The report was far more dire than anticipated by industry experts, who had forecast an almost flat market in October. It followed weak September numbers.

_"It was a bit of a surprise," said real estate analyst Pat Newport of IHS Global Research. "I wasn't expecting it to lag so badly in all 20 cities."_

He, along with many other experts, has been forecasting further price erosion over the next few months of 5% to 7%, but didn't expect the price drop to hit so fast and so hard. It's mostly attributable to the end of the tax credit for homebuyers, the effects of which started to vanish beginning in June.

"The trends we have seen over the past few months have not changed," said Blitzer. "The tax incentives are over and the national economy remained lackluster in October, the month covered by these data."

Sales volume continues to lag, off 25% even from last October, when markets could hardly be described as robust. Why the housing bulls are wrong

The inventory of homes on the market is up about 50% compared with last year at this time, and there are millions of potential homes for sale waiting on the sideline for markets to improve.

Much of that "shadow inventory" is held as repossessed properties by banks, who will eventually have to release them back on the market.

...

Reply to
CaveLamb

Reply to
Ignoramus24647

And was everyone foolish enough to believe that the 500% runup in the last 20 years wouldn't have an eventual payback?

The great lie right now is that we're only seeing slight inflation. The reality is that in many sectors we are seeing 20% inflation, but it's canceled out in the overall statistics because of the housing deflation....

Reply to
Jim Stewart

An excellent point.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus24647

Another example of what happens when large numbers of people confuse what something costs with what its worth.

Much of the problem remains hidden as the banks are allowed to keep the valuation of the repo houses at what the mortgage was until these go on the market. Be reminded that the banks will get to deduct about 1/3 of their paper losses from their income taxes as a "business loss" when they do write these down, so the taxpayers will bail them out twice. Another major concern is the CDOs are not worth the paper they are written on as the underlying mortgages are faulty, not documented, and from preliminary data, the same mortgages [or at least with the same property descriptions] have been included in multiple CDOs.

The housing bubble is far from unique, only the latest and greatest in living memory.

From the available data it appears that the bubbles currently being inflated include commodities such as petroleum and silver/gold, and financial instruments such as US bonds, although there is some inflation driven price increases in the commodities.

-- Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Its bad for government entities that depend on property taxes. Services that people have taken for granted are seeing cut backs. Police, fire, parks, medicade etc. are all hurting.

Best Regards Tom.

Reply to
azotic

The U.S. ,regardless of how committed it is, can not make sure that foreign workers get what you believe is good wages and working conditions. And it is not the fault of oligarch/plutocrats and kleptocrats. But look at South Korea. They have worked at educating their people and the results have been raising the living standards of the whole country. The wages are probably still below what you consider good, but a hell of a lot higher than they were thirty year ago.

So what I am saying is that the living standards and quality of life can not be much above that of the third world countries. So the solution is to work to raise the third world. Not to have the U.S. fall to the level of the current third world. The U.S. is not screwed, but the way to a higher standard of living is to not complain about companies as Baldor being sold. It is to improve our education system and the education of the rest of the world. We have let our education system stay pretty much the same. Other countries have raised the standards of their educational systems. So we no longer have the best education system. We have a system that is the same as the system we had thirty years ago. But other countries have caught and surpassed us.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

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