American companies capture virtually none of the difference between the American wage and the third world wage. Almost all of the difference gets bid down by competitors.
Which completely dances around the central issue- It's American companies paying $2/hr elsewhere vs $20/hr here, and American companies taking the difference as profit, which is reflected in their disbursement of dividends and the capital gains of their stocks. It's not really foreign companies at all, or foreign money financing them. It's American companies & American investment. It won't be foreign companies leading the charge down the road, but the foreign subsidiaries of American companies.
What's happened is that the electorate hasn't insisted on fair compensation for job loss & opportunity loss from corporate entities & their owners. Lowering tax rates on investment income doesn't do that at all, and accelerates the hollowing out process we both see.
An idea that's intrigued me involves eliminating corporate taxes altogether and taxing investment income at the same progressive rates as earned income. The flimflam of offshoring corporate headquarters would disappear, and the practice of holding profits offshore wouldn't stand up to shareholder demands for what's rightfully theirs, dividends, or what's rightfully the govt's, taxes. In many instances, the advantage of offshoring isn't in labor costs, but in corporate tax advantages.
We could use the increased revenue to create systems that currently disadvantage enterprise in this country, like healthcare, and the sort of selective subsidies that other govts use to their competitive advantage. Hell, we'd probably see foreign companies moving their headquarters to this country, bring jobs and the purchase of all the stuff it takes to run a company along with it.
Such a thing would have to involve both changes simultaneously, for sure, not the usual cut taxes first & talk about revenue loss later...
American companies capture virtually none of the difference between the American wage and the third world wage. Almost all of the difference gets bid down by competitors.
Probably. He's become so immersed in his own rants and delusions he's probably no longer able to tell the difference between his world and reality.Spidey isn't lying, it's just that whatever he wants to believe he takes as fact. It's a faith based process of simulated rationality in support of foregone conclusions.It wasn't a juicy bit you tool. More to the point, contrary to your claim, it wasn't one of their demands. In truth they specifically rejected that as a demand. You lied again, no matter how you want to spin it.
I think you'll need to elaborate. American offshore subsidiaries are currently holding profits offshore to avoid the tax burden of bringing them home, and it's not like the world market isn't awash in American branded everything, like Apple products.
Take for example a Dell PC vs an Acer PC. The Dell PC will be sold for roughly the same price as the Acer, at most $50 more. Dell has to use Taiwanese parts to remain cost competitive with Acer.
You don't even need a foreign competitor for this to be true. For example, image you are a US company and your competitor (another US company) builds a factory in China. He's going to drop the price of his product below your cost to manufacture here. You respond by going to China as well. You might even go to China first because you think that he's thinking about going to China. That's competition.
It's one thing to say that global labor arbitrage is a bad thing but US companies are just playing the hand they were dealt.
You still haven't supported the claim that there's lower margin for either company, and neither do current corporate profits on lower volume. Margins are obviously excellent.
The point is in America you can work hard, make good decisions and you can and likely will be successful and in the top 5% of earners and do pretty well.
Those that complain don't understand this simple fact. It's not the banks, it's not capitalism, it's not whatever excuse these hippies have holding you down - it's only yourself to blame. Personal responsibility is a wonderful thing, it empowers and even drives you to become successful.
Luck and timing have ALWAYS been huge factors in success. The key is to properly position yourself to recognize and take advantage of those when the opportunities present themselves -- and to be unafraid to take huge risks.that is the legend, something that is not practically possible in this day and age. You have to add a good heaping of Luck and Timing into the mix to make it to the top 5%.
that is the legend, something that is not practically possible in this day and age. You have to add a good heaping of Luck and Timing into the mix to make it to the top 5%.
When/where has anyone, with ANY sense, stated that it is, or should be, "easy"??!You want to split hairs?
OK, what about the top 2%? Are we talking relative or absolute scale?
The point was, getting into the Millionaires club is not easy, whatever percentage that is.
And, as an engineer with a similarly educated wife, I can tell you that "living the american dream" is not easy. Especially with increasing property tax due to diminishing state and federal aid....
You want to split hairs?
OK, what about the top 2%? Are we talking relative or absolute scale?
The point was, getting into the Millionaires club is not easy, whatever percentage that is.
And, as an engineer with a similarly educated wife, I can tell you that "living the american dream" is not easy. Especially with increasing property tax due to diminishing state and federal aid....
Yes lets split hairs, because the millionaires club starts at somewhere around the .1%.
Where does it saying living the dream is easy? My point is its not impossible, you can do very well in this country by doing a few things right and looking ahead. That doesn't mean bad things can't and wont happen.
The millionaire club actually begins at around 0.5%. The top 0.1% are the elite who are racking in tens of millions a year or have net worths in excess of $50MM. Now our hairs have been correctly split.
But federal government forced you to loan to said crackhead.
pale, the problem is that the GOP hand concerned interest have been marketing this fairy tale "American Dream" as if it were a plausible solution that merely required "gumption" to facilitate.
I do believe that we stand a better chance to make it in the US than, say, Afghanistan, but constantly beating the drum against any reform other than further removal of protections and restrictions designed to benefit the common man...... That just does not work well for the same that hold that American Dream dear.
We forget about the labor market at the turn of the last century. The unsafe fabric mills, the coal mines and the railroad crews. We let time erase all the blood sweat and tears that allowed the PLATINUM PLATED WALLS of their summer Rhode Island residences.
We seem to forget all this under the delusion that maybe someday WE will get the same, when the reality is that few ever do, and even fewer make it farther than the doorstep in a very closed room of the upper echelon.
1000 people die in a fire. We write building code to prevent this requiring fire escapes, alarms, sprinklers and the rest. 50 years or so go by and building developers start crying that the cost is too high for them to provide these measures and still remain competitive/viable. "Nothing bad has happened". "These are too excessive and redundant".
Regulations get relaxed/removed.
The same thing progresses until the next big fire killing 999.
We will ALWAYS keep doing this unless some people are willing to stand up and take the unpopular job of reminding people of why things were done in the first place and why they need to continue to be done.
Those that forget the past are destined to repeat it. We are heading right back to the 1900's.
When/where has anyone, with ANY sense, stated that it is, or should be, "easy"??!
Being in the Top 5% works for me. I fucking earned it.
So, I'm going to continue busting my butt for the next 30-50 years to stay there. I don't expect or want you or anyone else to make it "easier" for me to do so, and I have no interest in making it easier for the collective "you"...
Regulations get relaxed/removed.
I'll take my chances, plan responsibly and accordingly for MY family, and survive, yes. If shit happens, I'll find a way to deal with it, or readily die trying. My wife and kids? I believe they have the cognitive abilities to do the same if/when something happens to me. If not, they'll parish. Such is life... it ain't easy!IOW, that it gets harder every time they legislate another break for big business.
"Easy" meaning IN COMPARISON to the way it was 5, 10, 15 years ago (and no, I am not talking about the bubble either).
And you will fucking swear over it? If you are in the 5% but not the 2% you are like me, the target of MANY of the new tax laws and revenue aquirements.
The bottom 50% has jack, and the top 2% makes the rules.
So you are in favor of paying your "fair share" into things like SS only to have the government "borrow" that money for other things and never return it? You are in favor of removing Welfare and Medicare so it will not burden you only to have the number of communicable diseases rise (polio comes back and periodically makes its way into the "privileged" classes swimming pools/etc).
You will work your ass off, just like the horse in 1984, with the idea that your "hard earned" savings will be safe and sound until you get a broken leg in an accident that, because of new liability restrictions, "awards" you only $100K for your loss. You then run out of money to pay for your medical bills because you can no longer work, and since there is no universal health care you are forced to sell your house to pay for treatments you need to keep you alive.
Your kid does not get the education you had and ends up working minimum wage right out of public school to try, if he is lucky, to earn enough for "community college" which is no longer funded by state tax dollars.
It goes both ways, this luck thing. And since we gave up our whole "home town" ethic, you are well on your own bubbie.
Obviously they should have to pay for their own mistakes in lending. Why should we the tax payers bail either of the idiots out?
You forgot to mention the part where you then turn around, say to the government and other investors that a bundle of these types of loans is AAA rated investments, and convince them to invest when you know there's a high chance those loans get defaulted on.
I heard a great interview last night with one of the lawyers who was involved in the prosecutions of the S&L scandals and how he'd make this case against the banksters. They quite clearly committed fraud and so far have gotten away with it.
I'll take my chances, plan responsibly and accordingly for MY family, and survive, yes. If shit happens, I'll find a way to deal with it, or readily die trying. My wife and kids? I believe they have the cognitive abilities to do the same if/when something happens to me. If not, they'll parish. Such is life... it ain't easy!
Darwinism FTW.
PS: I'd be happy to get rid of SS altogether!
PPS: You appear to have a few Tea Party-esque beliefs... careful there, your OWS friends might find out! lol
You should read up on student loans. It is one of (if not the) only loan that can not be discharged in bankruptcy. That means the lender has little or no risk and is the reason you can go over $100K into debt to become a teacher making $30K a year with no reasonable way to actually pay off that debt in a reasonable time frame.
It is even worse when you consider the people taking on this debt generally have no clue what the "real world" is like. As I said earlier, I don't think they should be able to get out of the debt without consequences but I don't think a person should be fucked for life because of a bad decision made a decade ago. Even our framers realized the importance of some sort of bankruptcy.
Yes there are issues, but most of these people don't want to do anything "hard" they think life should be "easy". Pussification of America everyone, deny it if you like, but that just means you have your blinders on.