Close the borders to cheap imports; legislate anti-usury laws; regulate Wall St. till it screams

[brentspeak]

These are just three things Obama must do if he wants to save the economy. The American people have seen their livelihoods shipped overseas, their debts turned into lifetime millstones, and Wall St. burn the whole house down. Destroy, with extreme predjudice, the forces that have destroyed the American Dream -- or else watch as America turns into Brazil.

[tblue]

1. +1

[Autumn]

2. Make them cry

like babies.

[Ozymanithrax]

3. Most of those cheap imports we don't make here at all, anymore.

Shutting them off suddenly would cause huge problems. We should put tarrifs on them and force the price up until American manufacturers can make a profit making all that stuff.

Anti-usrary laws? Now that is simply medieval.

I agree with regulating Wall Street.

[gateley]

5. We manufacture precious little here anymore. I think that's one of the most

important areas we need to address.

[mkultra]

7. the US is the largest manufacturer in the world

Even when you subtract military. Sounds more like we need to address a poor public educational system to me.

[gateley]

8. What do we manufacture here? I welcome learning all I can and am grateful you

spoke up as you obviously have a far better grasp on the reality than I.

Standing by -- and thanks! :hi:

[mkultra]

9. Here, let me google that for you

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+does+the+US+manufacture

Cars, auto parts, chemicals, rubber products, farm products, turbines, electrical components, Aircraft, Aerospace equipment, heavy equipment, steel, aluminum, software, entertainment,ships. It goes on and on and on. The US accounts for more than 20% of the world's total manufacturing output.


Instead of standing by, maybe you should invest in your own mentality. Stop being mentally lazy.

[gateley]

10. Thank you for helping me. nt

[mkultra]

11. your welcome

[grantcart]

27. You have neglected the most important products that the US exports

1) Movies
2) Video Games
3) Software


Would you rather manufacture the television that a family buys every 5 years or the entertainment that is on every night?


Would you rather manufacture the computer that is purchased every 7 years or the software and games that are used every day and bought all the time.


IPHONE is a perfect example.

of the $ 200 manufactured cost of the phone only about $ 25 stays in China for the hardware and the rest comes back here.

[mkultra]

32. excellent point

I had actually left those out as they seemed non-manufacturing related but, to build on your point, it woudl seem that the evolution of American economics has been toward products like this.

[grantcart]

36. This is the number one complaint of economists outside of the US

especially in third world countries.

If you go into any shopping mall in a third world country and walk past the shops 90% of the material sold and 50% of the food sold in the mall is American.


They may be Jeans made in China or KFC made from Chickens 10 miles away but a cut goes back to the US.


These franchise and branding fees go back as repatriated profits.


Lets say you make a pair of jeans and sell it to a retailer, you could expect about a 12% profit on the retail sales.


But the repatriated profit on goods that the US owns the brand for might be 8%.


When you come to something like a computer game or the IPhone only 20% of the value added pre retail value may be kept in that country with the other 80% going to the US, even though the manufactured product never entered US territory.


All of these financial transactions never show in the "balance of trade".


If you would like to see a Japanese economist cry all you have to do is to say the the Japanese have a significant trade surplus with the US.


They have devised a system, which might be biased but nevertheless is more accurate than the outdated "balance of trade" formula, which shows that when you factor in repatriated profits and the gross profit of American manufactured goods that are produced and sold outside the US but returns substantial dollars to the US, that the US continues to enjoy a substantial balance of trade surplus with most of the world (only suffering a negative relationship with petroleum exporting countries).



And if you think about it you know that this has to be true. Any country that sustains the kind of $ 100 billion trade imbalances for 20 years would suffer an economic collapse. Not only do those "imbalances" continue no American economist ever expresses much concern about it.

[bvar22]

37. Does "assembling" BigMacs still count as a manufacturing job?

?

[dionysus]

12. i didn't know that. learn something every day here.

[mkultra]

13. its pretty amazing considering that china has 4 times the people we do

[amandabeech]

14. I did not see any info on how the numbers are calculated.

For example, what exchange rate was used? Were existing exchange rates used for countries that manipulate their currencies like China, Korea and Japan?

How was value calculated for products that receive final assembly here using many or mostly imported parts? There has been some discussion here on DU that the manufacturing value used counts the final value of the assembled vehicle as representing the value of what was done here.

I did see that in the 1960s, manufacturing was close to one-third of the economy (including the military goods for Viet Nam, undoubtedly) to 9% a couple of years ago (and of course more manufacturing has transferred out since then.)

I find it hard to believe that our manufacturing output is truly sufficient when 70% of the economy is consumer-oriented. With the exception of processed food and vehicles, it is extremely difficult to find U.S. consumer goods manufactured in the U.S. in the stores. I know because I've tried.

[mkultra]

15. well, feel free to continue your research

but the main reason why you don't see a lot of retail products from the us is that we focus mostly on high value goods and very little on retail. It makes since that the average person using nothing more than their empirical evidence would come to the conclusions you have.

[amandabeech]

16. Please read my post before you respond. All of it.

When responding, please leave your condescension behind. It is extraordinarily unbecoming and will only help you lose your audience.

[mkultra]

17. yeah, sorry for that but....

I read the entirety of your response and found it trite. Essentially, your functioning on completely erroneous data and then questioning how the experts calculate value. Seemed pretty condescending to me to begin with.


No, manufacturing is not 9% of our economy, no retail is not 70%. I guess what im saying is that if you don't see or understand something, perhaps you should do some research

[amandabeech]

19. I suggest that you use google yourself. I'm quoting from them.

The kind of rudeness and condescension with which you seem to enjoy coating your posts makes DU a less pleasant place and stymies discussion.

Accordingly, I will say adios to you, and I encourage others to do the same.

[boppers]

26. About the magic "70%"...

That's the consumer spending amount. People who don't get who that's calculated often screw up what it means (it's a common mistake). It includes, for example, apartment rent, car insurance, plumbing repairs (etc. etc. etc.). People hear "consumer spending" and think "retail", when what it really is happens to be "the amount of money shifting hands between end users and businesses to buy or rent things".

[mkultra]

31. well, that may be true but

the topic at hand was this 70% used to disprove the magnitude of US manufacturing. The point made was that manufacturing in the US cant be enough as 70% of spending is consumer related and most retail products are imported.

Your point explains that confusion but to return to the main point i would say that we really cant compete with foreign manufacturers in 3rd world countries. I personally think thats a natural evolution of our economy and i wouldnt want to shut 3rd world countries out of their chance to advance.

Here is a chart of US GDP by sector

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States_by_sector

Even considering that manufacturing is a small portion of our GDP, we STILL produce more than any country in the world. Automation and modern manufacturing techniques have reduced the need for a larger manufacturing sector.

[Ikonoklast]

25. And we are also the third largest exporter of manufactured goods on Earth.

Protectionist policies like the ones espoused by the OP would be reciprocated by the rest of the world, destroying our economy.

The businesses that make up the S&P 500 derives 40% of its revenues from exports.

A tariff war or import protectionism in reatliation would deal a catastrophic blow to manufacturers that derive income from exports.

[mkultra]

33. exactly

To go back to an industrial economy, we would have block all imports which would result in our exports getting blocked. we would essentially be gambling that economic isolationism would be in our best interest. I would say that we would be crushed on food prices alone.

[harkadog]

21. Do you think there is no price to be paid for tariffs?

Every nation in the world would place tariffs on American goods and strangle exports. Millions of jobs would be lost not only in manufacturing but in agriculture and information sectors.

[brentspeak]

22. Wrong. We don't have to place multilateral tariffs on all imported goods

Only on those imported goods from dishonest trading "partners" like China and India. Since China and India allow very little of our exports to enter their borders, we have very little to lose and much to gain by giving them the import stiff-arm. We can trade with honest partners like Canada and much of Europe. In fact, if we want to have any kind of manufacturing industry around to create exports to Canada and Europe, we logically can't let our lunch get eaten by Chinese manufacturing.

[harkadog]

23. You know little about China or India

China and India are importing vast amounts of American agricultural equipment and other technology. India is using American goods to build up their infrastructure.

[brentspeak]

30. Then tell us which American goods, imported FROM the U.S.

(i.e., not made outside the U.S. by American-owned companies), are China and India importing.

[mkultra]

35. we export $30billion a year to china alone.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mkultra]

34. Chinese and Indian trading partners

would block our imports. Our entire manufacturing sector is based around high value goods, many of which are exports. That would truly crush our manufacturing sector.

[The Magistrate]

29. Laws Against Usury, Sir, Are Hardly Medieval

They were dirt normal in the United States until fairly recently. They are simply restrictions on predatory interest rates. Fifty years ago, charging an interest rate of 29 percent, as is often done on credit cards nowadays, would have been a criminal offense in most states. It ought still to be one....

[Cleita]

4. Don't forget repealing or at least amending NAFTA and CAFTA to

bring our jobs back, if it's possible.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. "They trade, and they are trading as a federally protected bank,

meaning they get to borrow at cheaper rates and they are Too Big To Fail. How anyone considering themselves to be a capitalist can support this arrangement is beyond me."

- Charlie Gasparino, as quoted today in Seeking Alpha.

That's the trouble with capitalism. It's a mythical creature. Its proponents are, essentially, cheats and liars*, who have no interest in allowing their incompetence/chicanery to bring about the demise of their milch-cows, their corportations, in the name of competition or anything else; at least, as long as they have a complaisant government to bail them out with taxy-payers' funds.

*And why would they be anything else, since, absolutely contrary to Adam Smith's economic doctrine, capitalism is just one, great, psychopathic, heartless beast which pays governments to do its bidding? If it acknowledges no moral obligations towards the citizenry, why would it abide by its own professed, economic precepts.

Since when has there not been at least a coterie of louche lawmakers who felt under no constraint to abide by the laws they, themselves, drafted, yet law-makers, generally, at least, pay some kind of lip-service to the rough-and-ready justice devised by members from within their own worldly ranks. Not so the world of the corporate leviathons. They are Mammon, period, and all must worship them.

[ej510]

18. Slap tariffs on imports. This will balance out trading.

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. Of course. It's elementary. The Mammon-worshippers have always brandished a

version of Adam Smith's economic doctrine, that is so thoroughly expurgated of his strictures concerning the government's moral obligation to ensure that all workers receive a fair return for their labours, (since without them, there would be no profits,) that Goebbels might have been ashamed of playing the role of that particular censor. Its corollary, of course, were his warnings against the chronically seditious proclivities of businessmen, whom, he insisted, needed to be ruled with an iron rod.

Nor was it pie-in-the-sky idealism on his part. While he was a moral philosopher, he has always been recognised as a pragmatist, as well. Morality and wisdom go together.

[harkadog]

24. What happens when other countries put tariffs on our exports?

How many millions of jobs are you willing to sacrifice?

[Hutzpa]

43. Why should we concern ourselves with what

other countries do, why not take a shot and then see how they respond.

This fear mongering on well, other countries will slap us with high

tariff and yada...yada.. yada... takes us now where but get left behind

while they progress.

[harkadog]

44. That ship has sailed decades ago and isn't coming back

Like it are not we are in a global economy now with global consumers and global producers of almost anything. We have to adjust.

[Joe Chi Minh]

46. I can only assume you are concerned for the welfare of the citizens of other

countries, which is very commendable.

However, the principle of charity beginning at home, seems a very sound one to me, and would provide a sound base from which to help people in other countries, as Pope Benedict proposed in his most recent encyclical.

Your country, whoever, is in an astonishingly good position. Leaving all together to one side the potential for a trading bloc including Latin America and Canada, conducted on a basis that would not disadvantage American workers, you already have a fully-fledged, economic bloc within your own borders. I don't now about now, but not long ago, California, alone, had a larger GDP than all but about two countries in the whole world.

In fact, the truly great economist, Keynes, stated that even little, old us, the UK, could be economically independent. It was a different word then, however, in which peak oil, depletion of other resources and environmental conservation were not pressing factors for a major change in the very nature of our consumer ethos, so such concerns regarding trade-wars are likely to be doubly misconceived.

[Hutzpa]

42. Well

it's like using your own oil to fry you, what I meant by that is....they use
tax payers money to build their products then charge exorbitant amount on
the products.

Easy.

[anonymous171]

28. K&R. nt

[Bonobo]

38. F-ing hell yes!

[Hutzpa]

41. EXTREME PREJUDICE

I love those two words, love them...love them...

My other favorite is 'By Any Means Necessary'

:thumbsup:

[butterfly77]

45. K&R!!!