The U.S. Economy: Stand by for more worse news

Not where Private Property rights are enforced. Corporations write the regulations that allow them to legally dump their toxins into the waterways without threat of litigation - that's the entire reason for having regulation. Prior to regulation you could sue, now you can't. That's the only, ONLY, difference.

 

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Nonsense. Prior to regulation one could not sue, in practice. The entire history of the industrial revolution and the rise of industrial capitalism is packed with examples of regulations being imposed to curb standard practices that were hurting people who had no recourse.

The default status is legality - what a company is not legally proscribed from doing, it may do without fear of lawsuit. And that is before one factors in the practical impossibility of a victim gaining enough information to even recognize, let alone sue over, the generally distributed effects of a large corporation's behavior.

 

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You literally live in La La Land. Not only is this total bullshit, it's a complete distortion of reality. In the real world we have laws. Laws that protect private property (like your body) and uphold contract. In the real world, companies work hard to provide you with the goods and services you want. They are constantly trying new things and trying to figure out how best to provide you with a good or service you may buy. They worry about their imagine, and they have many internal quality controls to ensure they are not sued for property damage - so as to prevent harming you or selling you something that wasn't exactly as promised. In a competitive market, they also have to worry about going bankrupt as well as lowering costs and being more efficient. This is why an iPhone today is much better than an iPhone 10 years ago - even costing less comparably.

In the real world, the Government doesn't have to worry about the evil "Free Market" (free people). The government also defines itself as the one and only institution that can legally initiate violence against morally innocent 'Citizens' of the Nation State it rules. With this monopoly on violence the Government is able to legally take control of the money, not through competition - such as offering a superior product, but by fiat. It can then sell T-bonds to China, so that unborn future citizens of the nation state (who didn't have a vote) will be forced to repay those bonds with interest or get carted off to a Government run rape-cage. Because of this, we have Government Schools today that "sell" (steal tax money to provide) overly expensive, low quality pedagogy - ones that are not only WORSE than 10 years ago, but of lower quality than a 100 years ago! They're so bad in fact, some Black neighborhoods in Chiraq had a higher literacy rate in 1913 when compared to 2013! So shit that 1 in 5 Government School Certified "Graduates" cannot read or write after 12 YEARS of this overly expensive shit pedagogy. Which makes sense given many of the Public Unioned Government Teachers can barely do so. Oh, well. Good thing for Government, unlike an evil free-market company, it can never go bankrupt - instead we have to wait until entire cities or nation states go bust (see Chiraq, Detroit or Greece and the USA). Another nice thing is, Government Service Providers: Like Government Schools, get to work hand-in-glove with other areas of the Government to pass "Regulations" allowing them to sell Rent-Seekers status to various Citizens for a large cut of the action. Everything from Medial Doctor "Licensing" (that's a sweet-arse scam) to the asinine - like Florist Licencing. Not to mention run the MIC and PIC. Yup, it's nice that Government can shoot you in the face of smoking a weed. And because of thie legal ability, it now controls about 53% of that total economy outright, and the rest through regulatory capture and fiat currency control.

--o--

That aside, we're 8.5 years into "The" Great Recovery from "The" Great Recession that our illustrious Government Certified and Government Central Planners foisted upon us - let's see how Central Planning turns out this time. You know, because socialism has worked out so well in other countries (See: you favored poster-child Sweden). My guess is, 12 more years of Government "Fixing" the "Economy" and then we get to elect Dear POTUS to run our then Police State. He or she can finally usher in "The" Great Redistribution. And, won't that be fun

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I think so

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Whether Redistributor The Great hails from the Fascistic "Left" or Progressive "Right" is as inconsequential as those labels will be to those being 'Redistributed' from

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Who knows? Maybe by then you won't even own your kidney - nope, it'll be "The Peoples Kidney" and can be redistributed from you to someone in 'need' (like a Public Servant). I mean, you have two! That's not right!

LOL

 

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Via the WJ: Starbucks Workers Learn The Grim Reality Of A Higher Minimum Wage

Thus, Starbucks did raise wages, and cut hours - as well as overall pay.

Incidentally: Democratic Party Adopts 15 dollar National Minimum Wage to Party Platform

Oh, and "the Government" is going to pay for K-14 at Government Schools too. Because, you know, free-shit. Tacking two more years onto K-12 will surly lift the overall functional illiteracy rate from 20% to 25%. Oh, wait!

Anyway, the choice is clear, raise the minimum age, bankrupt a lot of Mom-and-Pop stores, helping to consolidate market share for even more retail chains, or bring the minimum wage rise in so slowly that inflation makes it meaningless anyway. Great for SlumLords, not so great for single mothers. SlumLords for the WIN!!

Oh well, lets see who gets elected in a puff of Unicorn Barf.

 

No, it isn't. It's simply the facts of the matter. A company that does not violate regulations and laws is safe from lawsuit. And so they can do what they want. And they do - whatever they can get away with, in a media environment they largely own. The entire history of the industrial revolution is a litany of examples of this, from slavery to leaded gasoline and gas tank design in cars to trans fats and beyond.

In the real world, the corporations currently attempting to launch hard rock heavy metal mining operations in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, in northern Minnesota, are not constrained in the least by anything except government law and its specific regulations. Without such regulations, they can and will manage their operations as they see fit, dump their mine waste wherever and however is most profitable for them, wreck what they will, without fear of lawsuit.

 

Have ever worked for a non-governmental company in any professional capacity? Because I have worked in both private and public institutions. In numerous countries. I can safely say, in general large private companies (Apple, Bayer, Toyota, etc....) have much more stringent internal quality control - WAY MORE when compared against governmental regulations (which are used purely to prevent frivolous litigation). Do companies sometimes cut corners? Sometimes - rarely. These are nothing in comparison to public institutions which are the absolute worst of the worst.

Compare CONgress just about bankrupting VW over a totally inconsequential emissions test (which it puts on as a public show for the functionally illiterate public) with the 1 in 5 Government School graduates who cannot read and write competently. Or the TSA and NSA too busy watching porn all day to do their moronic jobs. Or our incompetently never ending wars killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians in our never ending wars.


Again, you live in La La Land.

 

Get some people together, buy some land that may be spoiled and sue for property damage. Given you think it's all going to hell, I'm sure a small lot will be pretty cheap.

Imagine if we had a completely transparent currency - then we could see the property damage, the people harmed financially, the metal poisoning as well as the people who benefit from the mining (probably baby boomer retirement funds).

 

Nobody's talking about quality control. And no, sound regulations do actually curb behavior and prevent bad stuff - they require good government, of course.

The libertarian fairy tale world is a very strange place.

Unless there is a law, a regulation, there is no "damage", legally. If the land is cheap, the damage is small and not worth suing over. The most likely damage is to resources - air, water, aquifers, forest health, etc. - that cannot be purchased. The most significant damage will not occur for many years - possibly generations. And so forth. You're being silly.

We can see all that now, if we do the research. If we don't, no "transparent currency" is going to help.

 

I'm not talking about just quality control - all large corporations have internal regulations that are IME much more stringent than Government regulations, primarily to prevent litigation and, worse still, tarnish their branding. People work for decades developing a brand. Yet, you seem to think they'll just toss this away at and and every opportunity to make a few extra dollars. This is asinine. Corporations do not work that way.

Further, Government 'regulation' actually lowers quality. Why? Because regulatory-capture, allows for monopolies (you know, removing that evil freedom to trade with one another / free markets). As an example, removing human anatomy from a medical program. Imagine medical students paying 6 figures for such a shit degree that even THEY complain. But, hey, whatever - so long as they can get their MD. A win-win for the rent-seekers at all levels and win-lose for the millions of permanently injured Americans and half million dead each year.

The only person living in a fantasy world is you. Which we see in the real world numbers.

But hey, look at all the green shoots

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As you point out, corporations primarily employ such regulation to avoid litigation and brand tarnishing. So without the possibility of litigation or brand tarnishing they won't do that - it's expensive, and troublesome.

Now consider what exactly is required for litigation and brand tarnishing, in real life. What was involved in the litigation and brand tarnishing over, say, the gas tanks in a Ford Pinto? If you recall, that was when the Ford Motor Corporation did an economic analysis of the cost of repositioning and securing the gas tanks vs the cost of paying off the relatives of a few people burned to death in minor traffic accidents, and decided to go with the litigation expenses to save money.

Or what was required for the litigation and brand tarnishing involved in the Love Canal dumping.

The hard rock heavy metal mining firms currently attempting to begin operations in the watershed of the Boundary Waters do not give a flying fuck about the shininess of their brand among the residents of Minnesota. What they want is freedom from government regulation, so that nobody can sue them when things go sideways. That's how corporations work, in real life.

Removing human anatomy from medical programs is a free market move. It saves a few bucks. There's no government regulation against teaching human anatomy from cadavers, but there is large cost disincentive.

 

No one seems to be bringing up the economy during the discussions that are being thrown around during the questioning of candidates. Americas debt is now over 20 trillion dollars and will be even higher after the election. This is a very bad situation and isn't going to be solved by either party for they both spend. spend , spend without any ways to try and balance the budget without going further in debt. Neither candidate has any good answers to this problem and one day very soon the shits going to hit the fan and we will see a catastrophic result.

 

One Party has - occasionally - fielded candidates for office that proposed repealing the Reagan and W tax cuts for high and corporate incomes, which were the primary cause of the deficits that have piled up into the debt.

These candidates often also opposed the secondary cause, which was of course the Iraq War, and some of them even had a handle on the third cause, which was the collapse of the fraud bubble that built in the deregulated and ungoverned US financial markets.

So if you were worried about the deficit, you of course voted for those candidates, and support them today. Right?

 

Bloomberg: These Grads Are Seeing the Hottest Job Market Since 1996.
(March, 2015)

While Germany and Sweden vie for who can waste the most limited economic resources on a wave of economic immigrants, most of whom will never be productive. Little ole' poor Japan has been slogging along with a 0.75 trend GDP growth. Which may seem low, until you realize, there's no need for a high rate of growth, the population is dramatically shrinking. This means, Japanese high school graduates are in big demand for employers.

Geee, you mean if you reduce the number of illegal immigrants, and are forced to rely on the limited supply of labor, that this labor then raises in value? Supply AND Demand?!?

No.... you don't say.

Another way that the Democratic Party screws over the poor (other than locking them away in Government-run Welfare Estates) is by pushing this asinine narrative called: Multiculturalism (sometimes referred to as: An illegal Immigrant too my Jerb).

Yup, in poor poor poor ultra safe monocultureal Japan, where a 6 year old can take the train unaccompanied to school, you can build a really modern 3 story house for around 200 - 250K.

Bad news for SlumLords looking to milk the poor.
Good news for recent High school Graduates looking to start a family in a safe environment with a wage that pays enough to buy a home. I mean, get this, when prices fall, stuff is CHEAPER.
*GASP*
Can't have that - - - Helicopter Bellen and Multiculturalism to the Rescue!

 

Reducing the number of legal immigrants, as well.

Prosperity through government curbs on capitalist market operations. Works for Japan, yep. Too bad they didn't extend that insight to their banking and finance industry, twenty years ago.

 

I haven't read that Japan has reduced the number of legal immigrants. Where did you read that? It's about the same as it's been for decades. If anything, it's slightly increased due to the Olympics. Also, just like in the West, employers will always claim they need more workers - that's how they drive down the price of labor, bring in more labor. Without the luxury and convenience of importing in skilled labor, Japanese have to double down on developing the skills of the people who do live in Japan. But make no mistake, there are plenty of wealthy Japanese who'd love nothing better than to flood Japan with foreign laborers.

Thus far, the call for 'multiculturalism' (the Narrative used to enact this flood - which worked very successfully in the USA, AU, ENG and now EU) has thankfully thus far, been mostly ignored while those calling for said multiculturalism largely sidelined.

How long I wondered, will Japanese resilience remain? Not indefinitely. At least the Sacrifice Europe is making of itself will have some positive outcomes.


That aside, empirical evidence shows immigrants drive down labor-hour costs (supply and demand). Which is why we have this asinine pro-multiculturalism narrative in the first place. Even though empirical evidence shows multiculturalism correlates strongly with social distrust, loss of social cohesion, increased crime (in some instances: See Swedenstan). Even biologically: girls physically mature quicker in multicultural societies.

But hey, it's a boon for industries that rely on cheap labor as well as Government which relies on increasing GDP and taxes to buy off the electorate though T-Bond sales. Takes a lot of Tax Chattel to repay all the 'freeeee-shit'.

LOL

Japan is prosperous due to the Japanese people (work ethic, honesty, social cohesion, average IQ, etc...). If it was 'through government curbs on capitalist market operations' then any country (say: The Philippians, or Brazil) could replicate the exact same government curbs on capitalist market operations and see the same level of prosperity as Japan. They don't because government curbs on capitalist market operations is not why Japan is prosperous. Japanese prosperity is due to Japanese people - reflected in their monoculturalism.

 

Yes. Reduced - the same as the illegal immigrants, which you described as "reduced".

Sounds reasonable. Not easy to do, of course, but well worth trying.

Yes, it is.
As you noticed yourself, in observations like this:

These industrial capitalists would like to establish a free market in labor in Japan, but the government curbs their market operations. The entire society benefits from those rigid government curbs on capitalist market operations.

And suffers when they are lacking, as in the banking system in Japan.

And their culture reflected in their ability to curb their rich people's abuses via government - as imposed by the US, btw.

There are lots of monocultural people on this planet, including very hard working and honest and socially cohesive ones, who have not become prosperous (rural red communities in Mexico, rural black communities in the SE US, various religious enclaves throughout the Middle East, etc). If you investigate why this is, you will find recurrent patterns.

 

The WSJ: People Are Getting Emotional About Fed’s ‘Schizophrenic’ Debate.
WSJ: What is the term you'd use to describe the Fed right now?
Danielle DiMartino: “At the moment, the best term is ‘schizophrenic'.”

"The six months under review have seen central bankers continuing what is surely the greatest experiment in monetary policy in the history of the world. We are therefore in uncharted waters and it is impossible to predict the unintended consequences of very low interest rates, with some 30% of global government debt at negative yields, combined with quantitative easing on a massive scale."
-- Lord Rothschild (2016)


Greenshoots I tells ya!

Yes, thank the Gawds we have a Central Bank and it bailed out the richest 0.1% (like Warren Buffet, who's currently stumping for Hillary). Oh, the low interest rates have done wonders for SlumLords - incidentally, home ownership is at all time lows. Obviously the Central Bank knows exactly what it's doing. I mean, they have degrees and titles and stuff.**

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wild guess du jour
The fed ain't gonna move until after the election.

 

A privately owned, for profit, Central Bank.

Too bad all the socialist alternatives were taken off the table, eh? Where's that good old Progressive Socialism when you need it - never seems to be around unless its time to blame bad stuff on somebody.