Where is the US economy headed?

That's in the nature of things ci. If they weren't so greedy they would never have joined the top echelon. The effort requires an insatiable greed.



Obviously. But they need millions to be respected in their peer group. NFL players aren't interested in survival expenses. It's being the best. And the best for CEOs is having the most dough. Their touchdowns are way beyond that of football players.



That assertion might or might not be true.

Do you understand anything about Economics 101?

I might if you said what "sharing the profit" means. It is much too glib a phrase for an economist. It's ingratiating foam. If you take it to a level where it has economic significance it is communism.

There are many salubrious locations where shareholder dividends create jobs and profits.

You still haven't defined a job ci. in such a way as to distinguish between economic activity and psychological treatment systems.

You really should try to resist the temptation to use that sort of gambit. It neither means that I don't know anything about economics nor that you do. In fact it is meaningless to anyone who can read except as a guide to your methods of discourse.

When a company shares its profits with all the employees rather than just the CEO and Officers, that good capitalism. What we have now is greed by the company heads; that's bad capitalism. Communism is when the government owns the companies, and everybody gets paid the same.

I would not call Wall Street banking, where something on the order of 75% of investment banking profits are handed back to the investment bankers in the form of bonuses , good capitalism. It motivates the bankers to take big risks for profits, and to lie. Plus these guys are not worth to the collective the millions of dollars per year that they collect. We would be better off if most of them disappeared.

You,

Many get caught, and the fines are in the billions. There are laws against using depositor's money to "gamble" in the stock market. They are easily caught.

It seems to me that the issue of "income inequality" is shaping up to be the defining issue in the 2014 and perhaps the 2016 elections.
The government's CBO weighed in over the weekend on a cost/benefit analysis on the President's idea of increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10/hr from the current $7.25/hr. The proposal is that this would be done over 3 years.
CBO's conclusion was that, while the increase would help a lot of folks, it would result in some 500 thousand people losing their jobs.
The Repubs said that this report from a non-partisan government agency is important. Obama's folks claim the report is flawed.
The CBO also analyzed a more modest increase to $9/hr.

Thanks John.

Who won the A2K Pick-um NFL title last time?

I betcha those folks working at CBO makes a lot more than $9/hour.

It's easy to criticize other people's pay when your own is way above the minimum wage.

Doesn't it make you wonder why the GOP doesn't want people to earn a living wage, or to provide extended benefits for the unemployed?

How should I know, Spendi? I can't remember what I ate for breakfast.

When the Labour Government introduced the minimum wage back in 1997 there were similar cries from special interest groups about massive job losses. None of it ever happened.

I've got the vague feeling that most businesses are already at the level of employment they need to continue at their present level of operations.

That's a bit of a broad statement which does not take into account economic upturn and innovation. When Richard Branson started selling mail order records from his bedroom, he had the level of employment needed to continue at his present level of operation.

In their ignorance, Reps keep arguing for tax and regulatory cuts for business as a means to increase employment. But the truth is that only consumer demand increases employment.

so according to you the economy demands that will produce ever greater amounts of stuff, which tends to kill the planet.

Super.

But what about this?

I'm saying that if they could cut their crew levels due to higher minimum wage requirements, they would already have done so to lower payroll costs. I can't tell if you agree or not. Do you anticipate a strong demand for minimum wage type jobs?

I think our economy is okay - to the extent that the fundamentals of our economy is relatively strong with a high degree of products and services that we produce that are still competitive in the world marketplace.

From my observation point, I still see conflicting messages. I notice that the tourism industry is doing pretty good; many are sold out on their tours and cruises for this year - even at prices I find to be quite high.

The good restaurants are doing good business - even at places like the French Laundry in Yountville where they charge about $300 for a prix fix meal, and many pay the $100 extra for the fancier meats and other dishes. I also found this to be true when my wife and I were in Hawaii in January; the top restaurants were all packed.

On the other side of the coin, we still have a relatively high unemployment rate, and many middle class families are turning to food stamps and food kitchens to feed their families.

Construction and retail are down, but I blame some of it on the weather. Over 1,300 flights were cancelled just today in the US alone. That impacts other businesses.

I also noticed that Best Buy, Fry's Electronics, and some other retail stores were not as busy as they usually are during the weekdays.

All these mixed messages are difficult to tie down this time of year.

I have my fingers crossed.

Mixed messages are right. In my own microcosm, the two lower cost restaurants are much less crowed the past half year. The one that offers free pie on Wednesdays has seating available on Wednesday. I encounter more panhandlers in the big city to the south. Still, the stock marked is doing just swell. Tourism isn't bad, but sometimes is seems like we're just taking in each others laundry, and the big economic flywheel is turning a little slower, but hard to notice in such a big economy.

I don't know enough about your economy, but over here the CBI is decrying the shortage of qualified engineers. We're never going to beat China on wage levels so we need a more skilled workforce.

In what way, ci,, are tours and cruises anything to do with economics. They are treatments. Psychological ****. Pacifiers. Restaurants the same. Consumerism generally. What's the point of the gigantic beautification industry? It has no upper limit. It is indefinitely extensible. Hem lines go up and billions of items of clothing become redundant. That's uneconomic. Then they go down again. The old stuff isn't got out of mothballs. It's the wrong colour. 10 yards of wardrobes.

Is anybody sexier? Is anybody more wonderful? As an eating and shitting machine?

I once heard a garage owner's wife say "I've got nothing to wear" when it was suggested they go to a party. And she had 30 yards of wardrobes. Crammed.

A football game is 22 blokes chasing a ball about a field isn't it. Well--it is, as I have heard many a lady say. Then watch the Superbowl.

Politicians have become like jolly-up MCs at a dance or a children's party. I saw Obarmy, yesterday, try to spring up two steps onto a stage as if it is necessary for him to be full of beans. One might think that the burdens of office are such that he would need help to get up one step. And what he said when he got there was pure flannel.

Remember fm bragging about a 40 mile round trip to get a pizza? With cupboards, fridges and freezers stacked with enough food to feed an Indian village for a month. And the Indians are catching us up.

It's a pyramid of pointless pleasure. As Goethe asked--"why can't man sit quietly in his room?"

Proust answered that when he saw, as a lad, a carp leap out of the water. "From time to time, oppressed by boredom, a carp would heave itself out of the water with an anxious gasp."

Call me nuts if you like, but that's how I see you when you travel. I force myself to go for a walk everyday to avoid my legs atrophying. I hate it.

I have no answers. Not even any suggestions. If everybody lived like I do, and I can afford a lot, the DOW would be in single figures.

I'm not a Luddite but they had a point. We can probably afford to have 5 years economic service and then bum around for the rest of our lives. Replacing man and horse power with oil driven machines presents us with a problem. At least we can shoot the horses.

Veblen described the USA, 100 years ago, as "something of a psychiatrical ward". You can see the evidence of £200 hairstyling on most of our top footballers. A few much more costly. Role models.