Where is the US economy headed?

And we have hundreds of thousands of acres and a few thousand houses in the salubrious Thames Valley flooded for no other reason than that the money for flood defence was cut to provide for aircraft carriers with no planes to fly off them. And a bunch of other stuff.

Flood defence is economic. The cost of dredging the River Parret is probably less than what it costs to facilitate the PM's visit to inspect the mess.

spendi, Nobody said life is easy. The US may be a psycho ward, but the majority of citizens live in luxury compared to the world. It's called capitalism with all its faults and nastiness. Our country's population makes up only five percent of the world's, but we've accomplished miracle never seen in human history prior to this time with so little.

I also believe the imbalance is wealth is obscene, and that's not only in our country. That old saw about getting a good education still pays off, so nothing in this world comes for free.

Trying to understand politics and economics are important to all humans because it impacts 100% of humanity.

That's what human evolution has taught us.

So little? Surely not, America is a big country with lots of resources.

one of those resources was incredibly hard working resourceful people, but we have mostly lost that. Now even the best and the brightest usually hope to avoid hard work by scoring on Wall Street or or limit the hard work to a few years by building a tech company to sell. The dumber place their hopes on the lottery with a fall back of slopping at the public trough.

At the end of the day what ails America is Americans.

Most countries have "resources." It's a matter of how the politics and governments allows its citizens the freedom necessary for it to accomplish its potential.

idiots and slackards only occasionally got to be that way because of government oppression.

You wrote,

That's because you don't understand world history and human psychology.

Give over, America had the best part of an unspoilt continent to exploit, and it's more accessible than a lot of Russia and Canada' untapped potential. Why are the three most powerful countries in the world China, Russia and America? Size.

China has to import most of its raw materials - even now. Japan has always had to import raw materials, and until recently, Japan was the second strongest economy in the world. Germany by size isn't all that big, but they used to be the third largest economy in the world. They're still the strongest economy in Europe.

A very interesting report that claims that even the top 5% has in many places lost household income from the years 07-12

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2014/02/city%20inequality/appendix.pdf

Maybe the story is not " the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer" but is rather " we are mostly all getting poorer, but the rich are losing income more slowly"

I wouldn't say "with so little" ci. It was an open cast ******* gold mine and fracking is sucking on the dregs.

Oh, I quite agree. I somehow thought you were talking about minimum wage increases, which doesn't have much to do with the market for engineering talent and their education. Did you reply in the context of a changed subject?

I was replying to your question about increased minimum wage jobs.

Mr Auberon Waugh (RIP) used to publish in his regular column in The Telegraph the names of the top 10 or maybe 20 graduates each year at the Edinburgh Engineering College, which is the best we have.

He didn't comment because the list told the story. I can't remember when he started sticking that item up the government's arse every year but it must be about the late 80s and he continued until he, very sadly, died.

Every now and again an English name appeared.

Back to the minimum wage issue...
The CBO estimated how many people would be affected, including those now making the current rate of $7.25 up to the proposed rate of $10.10. It broke it down by age and household size. In brief, it appears that the stereotype minimum wage worker is not young, single and child-less.
The CBO report did include an estimate of how many people might lose their jobs. The number was 500,000. That was quickly seized upon by opponents but I don't think that can be supported if the report is read carefully.
The CBO did not, I think, comment on the ripple effect. To wit, if I am a supervisor of burger flippers and I earn $10.15/hr and my staff earns $10.10, can I expect a raise to reflect my duties.

The alternative to a raise in the minimum wage involves the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which was introduced back in the Nixon era. It targets lower income parent(s) and enjoys a certain level of support across the political spectrum. (A cynic might note that it is counted as a tax cut rather than a welfare program, which gives politicians cover.)
I can, I guess, see some benefit in the EITC...but not much. It is corporate welfare, allowing them to pay less than what their employees need to meet their needs. And it is estimated that it is a program where fraud sucks up some 20% of the $50 billion cost.

I do believe that the job loss number is way too low, as such a jump in min wage will cause massive automation of food service and will vastly accelerate the demise of brick and mortar retail. The lack of factoring in the ripple effect is just one part of the flaw, also there seems to be a complete lack of understanding of how fast food operators have chosen to have a high head count because people are cheap, but that machines can do much of the work if the economics support the switch.

Good news -- 310,000 were hired in Jan and Feb, in spite of the terrible East coast weather.

“Government and co-operation are in all things the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, the laws of death.” John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

The best thing that congress can do is go along with Obama on infrastructure creation and improvement. There is extreme need for this work, and many jobs would come out of it.

There is also a big need for a higher minimum wage. However, there will not be a lot of jobs coming out of this.

I read a couple of stories today which are probably not germane to the subject of THE ECONOMY...
> McDonald's (U.S.?) sales fell 1.2% in Feb. Bad weather was blamed, but they acknowledged that they are being challenged by the likes of Chilpotle and 5 Guys (neither of which I have eaten at). Apparently for only a buck or two more you can get better meal.
> In Franee there is a proposed new law that would allow restaurants to use the French language equivalent of "home-made" to food that is prepared from scratch on site. No micro-wave foods.

Hawkeye...I guess I disagree with your suggestion that an argument against raising the minimum wage is that it will increase "robotizaton." If that is the future, it is going to happen.
I apologize if I am misinterpreting you post.

I was amused today to read a report about the price of oil. It had been creeping up for the last few weeks, apparently as a result of concern about Ukraine. US crude hit about $103/bbl.
Then it started dropping. It is now about $98, a drop of about 5%,
I thought it might be about the retraction in the Chinese economy lately.
But no. The U.S. just happens to be "testing" the release of oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve. It is purely coincidental that this is happening now. We should not interpret it as any kind of a signal to Russia.
Right.