Where is the US economy headed?

@Kolyo,

I think you bring up some interesting issues about values at different countries, but to some degree the same differences occur in different parts of our country. Just observe the huge range in the cost of living in the different parts of any state or in our country as a whole.

I believe these differences are normal in capitalist countries - and even from country to country.

What has happened since the "birth" of China''s
economic growth based on cheap labor is now in the process of equalization. Even Apple computer is expanding their manufacturing back to the US.

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@realjohnboy,

I don't think we can equate past college student employment against past history, because of the different dynamics at play during past economic times. I believe the new norm for unemployment will remain at much higher "normal" ranges of 5%. Maybe the current 7.6% is the norm for our country's future.

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@hawkeye10,

We can't compete in science when funding for our schools continues to get cuts while increasing defense spending and wars.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

We can't compete in science when funding for our schools continues to get cuts while increasing defense spending and wars.

our schools are broken, but money is not the problem, shitty culture is. just as with our medical system we spend a ton and get not much.

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Even Apple computer is expanding their manufacturing back to the US.

That's the sort of meaninglessness which has contributed to the financial mess.

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@cicerone imposter,

Ge and several other companies have learned that the entire "Chain of production and distribution" has never been fully analyzed in terms of economics. SO, all of a sudden, many companies re reversing the 1980's chestnut about "just in time overseas production by cheap labor" was all crap. When the total chain of costs are analyzed, the source of production labor is less critical to the delta cost than were the combined effects of long distance shipping, recall frequency, and overall poor quality( especially Chinese mfr goods).

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@hawkeye10,

Sorry, hawk, but we have first rate medical care at Kaiser. I have the greatest doc of my life who takes excellent care of me and my wife.

She was trained at Stanford, and was promoted to do some administration duties about ten years ago.

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@cicerone imposter,

The problem isnt poor medical service . We have the best medicine and Med schools in the world. Its a matter of availability to only those who can afford it.

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@farmerman,

Right! 45,000 people each year were dying due to lack of coverage. About a million or more people each year were falling into medical bankruptcy. 30-50 million people lacked coverage. Despite this, we have been paying over double per capita for healthcare compared to any other advanced country. For all this cost, we are ranked 38th out of 40 advanced countries in quality of health care.

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@Kolyo,

Quote:

Higher worker productivity doesn't we're better trained. It just means we get paid more per hour of work

We get paid more per hour of work because we are more productive. I don't think you quite understand how productivity works.
If it takes 4 hours for 4 people to make a widget by hand and you pay those people $20 an hour that doesn't make them more productive than one person being paid $15 an hour to make a widget in 30 minutes using a machine.

Quote:

Do you think an American house cleaner is more "productive" than a Namibian house-cleaner? I doubt it. But who gets paid more in an hour? Obviously, the American.

Actually, an American house cleaner is probably more productive because they have access to cleaning products and devices not available to a Namibian house-cleaner which allows them to clean a house in less time. Consider clothes washing as an example, I can wash and dry a load of clothes with only about 5 minutes of my actual time involved. If I had to hand wash them it would take me a lot longer.

Higher wages are a result of productivity increases not a measure of them. Why do you think we train workers? Because a trained worker has higher productivity.

This is from the BLS on how they measure productivity

Quote:

Labor productivity, or output per hour, is calculated by dividing an index
of real output by an index of hours worked of all persons, including
employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

We can't compete in science when funding for our schools continues to get cuts while increasing defense spending and wars.

Is there really any hope for the American worker? Consider that the real money is not in invention, but is in engineering and manufacture. That seems to say that Asia will eat our lunch.

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@Kolyo,

I applaud what you are doing and agree more women would help. Regardless they should have equal opportunity and equal power. I've seen a lot of change in 50 years. The 'old' guard won't give up easily. It's not just a generation thing. It's the haves vs. have nots. Us vs. them is the natural tendency. A continual struggle.

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@Kolyo,

Quote:

my main hope lies with women.

As long as Ann Coulter isn't one of those women.

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@Advocate,

The biggest problem for our health care industry are the unnecessary procedures performed by doctors that has negative results for the patient, and the high cost of drugs that are over-prescribed. The industry knows about them, but does nothing to improve them.

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@farmerman,

One of the interesting economics courses we had to take was the use of differential calculus to figure out the actual unit cost of products that included most of the important variables. Somebody failed to do their homework to detertmine those actual costs before they started opening plants overseas.

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@Advocate,

It's still not as bad as losing our lunch to Asia, but our stateside governments continue to create unnecessary handicaps for our industries at home. We are now learning that the Chinese boom may be short-lived if we are able to keep a handle on our energy costs.
There's hope if our government learns to give US industries just a little bit of push. Don't forget, many US companies are cash rich, and ready to loosen their purse strings when they learn the governments are on their side.

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@Advocate,

Advocate wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

We can't compete in science when funding for our schools continues to get cuts while increasing defense spending and wars.

Is there really any hope for the American worker? Consider that the real money is not in invention, but is in engineering and manufacture. That seems to say that Asia will eat our lunch.

The "real" money is in banking and finance.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

We can't compete in science when funding for our schools continues to get cuts while increasing defense spending and wars.

our schools are broken, but money is not the problem, shitty culture is. just as with our medical system we spend a ton and get not much.

No, I agree the schools aren't broken and I don't think that money is really the problem. I agree with the idea of a "shitty culture". Many kids, today are not geared to working hard. Do you think students will study Physical Chemistry when they can TWITTER their fingers off? Too many students, today, do NOT want to study. They want to play...because their parents ( for the most part) have made it too dam easy for them.

Too many folks are unemployed today, because they don't WANT to work. Why should they when they can get food stamps, medicaid,disability and unemployment pay. Once folks sit on their buts for decades together with their "but-sitting" friends and families, they aren't easily moved to go out and get a job doing anything.

As far as the medical system is concerned, the physicians are to blame for ever allowing "managed care" to gain a strong hold, as it did in the early 1980s.

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@Miller,

Quote:

The "real" money is in banking and finance

Tell that to Bill Gates, let alone the founders of Apple or facebook or......

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@Miller,

Quote:

Too many folks are unemployed today, because they don't WANT to work. Why should they when they can get food stamps, medicaid,disability and unemployment pay

LOL................another right winger using the silly talking points to explain that it is not the wealthy that had harm our society but those bums who do not wish to work in any case.

That why people are spending four years in college and come out with debts that is equal to home mortgages and then can not find anything beyond minimum wages jobs to pay those loans off.

1 Reply

Where is the US economy headed?

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