New Rule: Rich People Who Complain About Being Vilified Should Be Vilified

[MacGuffin]

Well, isn't it a fact, that most of the current wealth of the USA is thanks to an enormous domestic demand, fueled and encouraged by easy access to borrowed money? And isn't it also a fact, that it was much easier for the USA to build its wealth on borrowed money because for decades it was practically the only world power? As I said, many third world countries were marionette states of the USA and were being exploited during the decades after WWII, while everyone else was busy with rebuilding their countries.

It's hardly exaggerated when I say, that the post-war USA is basically an empire that lived from its "colonies". But without any actual conquering, this could only last for a short time.

I remember how back in the 1990's, when the USA were prospering under the Clinton administration, Americans told us to boost our domestic demand or we will hopelessly fall behind -- the gloating was hardly bearable.

I'm thankful nobody really listened to that back then, though. Because if you simply concentrate on your domestic market and do not compete with others on a global level, you'll eventually fall behind. And that's what happened to the USA. But still "domestic demand" seems to be the magic word for American economists, despite all the trouble. Domestic demand will have to save GM and Ford and Timothy Geithner is accusing us again for not supporting domestic demand enough...

Today the USA have a couple of companies who are global players, which dominate the stock exchanges and lead the rankings of the world's most valuable brands. But where are the small and medium-sized companies? Germany's economy for example is not run by the multinational corporations like VW, Mercedes, BASF, Bayer, etc. In fact all the multinational corporations here make up only a fraction of it. The vast majority of the economy is run by privately owned, small and mid-sized companies, who are very specialized and often world-leading in their special fields. It's them who make us an export nation, not BMW or Bosch.

One can write a million words about the whole mess but basically it comes down to this: If the USA want to get rid of their economic trouble, they have to produce stuff that the world wants to buy instead of fighting debts with more debts and blaming others for remaining down-to-earth instead of being busy with creating the next bubble.

 

[GRtak]

It is actually increasing exports but vastly increasing imports. Just look at the graph I posted. Exports have increased substantially since the 1970s but imports have increased even faster. Much of our trade deficit comes from oil imports and another huge chunk of it is partially explained by Chinese currency manipulation. Neither of those items are easy quick fixes.

I am still working on a longer well researched post to answer some of your questions twerp and Levels concerns. I don't think you want to read 10-12 pages of junk so I have to condense my research down.

Stop buying Chinese items.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010...Index+3+(Top+Stories+2))&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Employee Survey Labels Gadget Maker Foxconn a ?Prison?


Workers at Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics maker famously known for manufacturing Apple?s iPhone, among other gadgets, used words like ?prison? or ?cage? to describe working conditions at the factory, according to a recent survey.

The workers quoted in the report complained about inhumane schedules requiring regular overtime work, stagnant wages and inflating dorm fees for factory beds, according to Global Post, who has been investigating Asian supply chains. The employee complaints were cited in surveys conducted by roughly 100 academics at China?s top universities.

?Under the labor and dormitory system, there is great physical, spiritual and spatial repression,? the report said when describing Foxconn?s prison-like working conditions. ?An ordinary worker can easily be forced to the edge of collapse.?

Foxconn?s problems are symptomatic of a widespread issue in Asia, where gadget factories are notorious for committing labor violations, sometimes paying hourly wages of a dollar, firing people without notice and violently abusing employees.

Foxconn, however, has been under intense scrutiny in the media spotlight in light of a dozen employee suicides that have occurred at the factory this year. In response, Foxconn opened a tour of the factory to journalists and later promised it would work to improve working conditions by implementing wage hikes, among other changes.

However, the newest survey claims that these promises for improvements have yet to materialize.

In an e-mail response, Foxconn denied the allegations.

?Foxconn is certainly not perfect,? Foxconn said in an e-mail statement sent to The Register, ?but we take our responsibility to our employees very seriously and we are committed to giving each and every one of our more than 937,000 employees in China a safe and positive working environment and compensation and benefits that are competitive with all of our industry peers.?

The Hong Kong-based organized Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, or SACOM, which helped conduct the investigation, said it was calling on manufacturers such as Apple, HP and Dell to take responsibility for the tragedy. The three companies said in May that they were in contact with Foxconn to examine the working conditions.



Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010...tories+2))&utm_content=My+Yahoo#ixzz12Dohl0qr

Sounds a lot like slavery to me. This is why I am in favor of unions. The US had these same problems during the 1800s and early 1900s.

 

[Twerp128]

Well, isn't it a fact, that most of the current wealth of the USA is thanks to an enormous domestic demand, fueled and encouraged by easy access to borrowed money? And isn't it also a fact, that it was much easier for the USA to build its wealth on borrowed money because for decades it was practically the only world power? As I said, many third world countries were marionette states of the USA and were being exploited during the decades after WWII, while everyone else was busy with rebuilding their countries.

No, I would call those opinions. Especially considering, our national debt was mostly negligible up until the early '80s. Also, national debt and the trade deficit are hardly directly correlated, they are triggered by different factors. For you to suggest we exploited Europe after WWII is incredulous! Yes we gained exports to help rebuild countries, and fix YOUR broken economy, we also experienced our biggest spike in national debt as a result of WWII.

I do agree though, America needs to focus on financing it's over-consumption from home. Foreign ownership has risen from basically 0% to 3% in the past decade.

 

[Dogbert]

Sounds a lot like slavery to me. This is why I am in favor of unions. The US had these same problems during the 1800s and early 1900s.

Unions in general? Or just unions over there?

Unionizing over there usually gets you disappearified, but it would solve the problem, and is exactly how the unions got started over here. If you mean in general, though, this problem is hardly evident in any country other than China or India.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Well, the pre-war USA wasn't even a fraction of the post-war USA. For decades they could cover up their trade deficit by the fact, that the USA practically ruled the world outside of the Eastern Block, which gave them a unique position of power and influence, as I tried to explain above.

And as this power is now slowly eroding, the deficit becomes a problem, because there is no mechanism to cover it up anymore. Today I saw U.S. minister of finance, Timothy Geithner, accusing the Europeans (and indirectly the Germans) of being unfair towards the USA, because our economy recovers faster from the crisis and our exports are doing so well again already, which is really a joke, considering who was responsible for the crisis in the first place.

It also tells a lot about the nervousness in the current U.S. administrtion, when they already look for a scapegoat. Blaming others of being responsible for one's own problems, has a long tradition but it never helped a bit.

ive just read, in order... fools gold, liars poker and the big short, as well as some things from a website that collates and archives all the details on classic financial crime/fraud/whatever.

wall street has no accountability. none. yep they played a massive hand creating bonds from sub prime mortgages, then taking the absolute worst of those and bundling them up in CDO's usings loop holes and accounting tricks to get the regulators to pass them off as Double-A or Triple A investment products. they stuck BMW badges on turds and flogged them off. group think then made sure these things rose in value rather than tanking for being full of crap.

it all failed, they got bailed out to the tune of trillions and got some fiddled rules along the way and theyre back doing what they did to fuck it all up in the first place. theyre even essentially lending bail out money back to the government, with interest!.

but none of it is their fault, they wont be punished for it. its all some one else. and the guys seem to believe it

 

[MacGuffin]

For you to suggest we exploited Europe after WWII is incredulous!

I never said that. I was referring mainly to 3rd world countries, namely to South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. You know, the reason why the USA is much hated in many parts of the world today, is not because they didn't like the American's style in clothing...

Does the term "economic hitman" maybe ring a bell?

ive just read, in order... fools gold, liars poker and the big short, as well as some things from a website that collates and archives all the details on classic financial crime/fraud/whatever.

wall street has no accountability. none. yep they played a massive hand creating bonds from sub prime mortgages, then taking the absolute worst of those and bundling them up in CDO's usings loop holes and accounting tricks to get the regulators to pass them off as Double-A or Triple A investment products. they stuck BMW badges on turds and flogged them off. group think then made sure these things rose in value rather than tanking for being full of crap.

it all failed, they got bailed out to the tune of trillions and got some fiddled rules along the way and theyre back doing what they did to fuck it all up in the first place. theyre even essentially lending bail out money back to the government, with interest!.

but none of it is their fault, they wont be punished for it. its all some one else. and the guys seem to believe it

I guess the best way to desribe all that, is playing musical chairs with subprime bonds. Those bundles were handed from one to the other, each one selling them off as fast as possible and when the music stopped, those still having one in their hands, were the losers. Absolutely everybody knew what was going on. If any financial expert tells you something like "We didn't know" or "we couldn't foresee", they're blatantly lying.

Again we're back to kidding oneself. And some of the postings above convince me, that it is still a long way out of it.

 

[GRtak]

Unions in general? Or just unions over there?

Unionizing over there usually gets you disappearified, but it would solve the problem, and is exactly how the unions got started over here. If you mean in general, though, this problem is hardly evident in any country other than China or India.

The early union organizers faced the same problems here. And I know the problem exists in many other countries. I still find it amazing how most people don't know what is going on and where their stuff comes from. If the same situations existed over here, most peeps would just watch TV. And that is the saddest fact of all.

 

[Plissken]

ive just read, in order... fools gold, liars poker and the big short, as well as some things from a website that collates and archives all the details on classic financial crime/fraud/whatever.

I'm starting Liars Poker in a short while, but I can recommend David McWilliams, especially his latest Follow the Money which is a superb account of how Ireland got in the complete mess it is in - and it was the banks and not the stock market and their CDOs that made Ireland the financial basket case it is.

His blog is superb as well.

 

[Twerp128]

I never said that. I was referring mainly to 3rd world countries, namely to South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. You know, the reason why the USA is much hated in many parts of the world today, is not because they didn't like the American's style in clothing...

Does the term "economic hitman" maybe ring a bell?

Conspiracy theories are not fact.

 

[MacGuffin]

I can understand that this doesn't fit into the picture you were taught about your country but not everything they don't teach you in school about U.S. history, is a conspiracy theory.

 

[Gman333-X-ferrari]

I can understand that this doesn't fit into the picture you were taught about your country but not everything they don't teach you in school about U.S. history, is a conspiracy theory.

For once I agree with you.

 

[Twerp128]

I can understand that this doesn't fit into the picture you were taught about your country but not everything they don't teach you in school about U.S. history, is a conspiracy theory.

They don't teach it in school because it's unsubstantiated.

 

[MacGuffin]

You're joking, right? The corresponding CIA files are open for the public for a couple of years now. Everyone is free to look into them and some who did, made the effort of writing a book about it. You don't have to read any book, though, you simply have to make the effort of looking it up on Wikipedia. Simply search for "CIA activities in..." and add any country you like. I recommend the part on "CIA activities in Laos" for reading.

And even if you think that is too much of an effort, I'll post some excerpts from Wikipedia for you:

About Iran:

Britain, resentful of the nationalization of Iran's oil industry, came up with the idea for the coup in 1952 and pressed the U.S. to mount a joint operation to remove the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh[1] and install the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to rule Iran autocratically. Partially due to fear of a Communist overthrow due to increasing influence of the Communist Tudeh party, and partly to gain control of a larger share of Iranian oil supplies, the US agreed. Brigadier General Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr. and CIA guru Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. were ordered to begin a covert operation to overthrow Mossadegh. A complex plot, codenamed Operation Ajax, was conceived and executed from the US Embassy in Tehran. Full details of the operation were released fifty years later, in 2003. Britain, who previously had controlled all of the Iranian oil industry, lost its monopoly and allowed U.S. oil companies to compete in Iran.

About Panama:

In 1989, the United States invaded Panama as part of Operation Just Cause, which involved 25,000 American troops. Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of government of Panama, had been giving military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the U.S.?which, in exchange, allowed him to continue his drug-trafficking activities?which they had known about since the 1960s.[12][13] When the DEA tried to indict Noriega in 1971, the CIA prevented them from doing so.[12] The CIA, which was then directed by future president George H. W. Bush, provided Noriega with hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as payment for his work in Latin America.[12] However, when CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinistas, documents aboard the plane revealed many of the CIA's activities in Latin America, and the CIA's connections with Noriega became a public relations "liability" for the U.S. government, which finally allowed the DEA to indict him for drug trafficking, after decades of allowing his drug operations to proceed unchecked.[12] Operation Just Cause, whose ostensible purpose was to capture Noriega, killed numerous Panamanian civilians, but was successful in removing Noriega. The operation pushed Noriega back into the town asylum along with Papal Nuncio where he surrendered to U.S. authorities. His trial took place in Miami, where he was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

About Guatemala:

PBSUCCESS, authorized by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, was the codename for the CIA first covert operation in Latin America, carried out in Guatemala. The purpose of the operation was to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzm?n, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala. The U.S. began to worry about the growth of Communism there due Jacobo Arbenz's policies. By recruiting a Guatemalan military force the CIA's operation succeeded in eliminating the democratic government and replacing it with a military junta headed by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas.

Contrary to popular belief the responsibility of the United Fruit Company in instigating the coup d'etat was relatively small; it is not mentioned in the declassified CIA history.[3] A U.S. State Department report released in 2003 states that social unrest within Guatemala and Arbenz's alleged Communist ties were the reason the CIA first drew up a contingency plan to oust Arbenz, entitled Operation PBFORTUNE The plan was drafted in 1951, before the U.S.-based United Fruit Company's landholdings had been expropriated.

The CIA's own declassified analysis is generally consistent, although differing in detail with the above. Training for the new PBSUCCESS plan included preparation of a briefing plan for assassinations,separate from the NSC plan.

Dissident leaders urged the "violent disposal" of an opponent, as psychological warfare, but the CIA chief of the temporary covert action base, LINCOLN, cautioned that they only wanted to destroy effectiveness; "we do not mean to kill the man?scare not kill."

Castillo Armas' CIA-supported force entered Guatemala on June 16. Arbenz sought asylum on 27 June, and 120 other Arbenz officials were given safe passage out of the country. There is no evidence of executions. "Discussion of whether to assassinate Guatemalans?took place in a historical era quite different from the present. In the documents, however, was an unsigned, undated technical discussion of assassination.[1]

Soviet Communism had earned a reputation of using whatever means were expedient to advance Moscow's interests internationally?American officials and the public regarded foreign Communist parties as Soviet pawns and as threatening to US security interest. The public perception was that the Soviets were intent on world hegemony -- which the Soviets believed of the US.

The political and consequent social instability created in Guatemala 6 years later resulted in a very long civil war and its consequent, destructive impact upon the society, the economy, human rights and the culture of Guatemala. According to author Kate Doyle, the CIA-sponsored military coup in 1954 was "the poison arrow that pierced the heart of Guatemala's young democracy."

And it goes on and on and on. There is hardly any country on Earth, where no controversial or illegal operations took place. And sometimes the CIA operatives behaved so stupidly, that things got out into the open.

The majority of those countless operations were motivated by a pathological fear of communism -- a danger that in hindsight never really existed. A couple of the early CIA people were mentally instable and ended up in commiting suicide or in a psychiatric clinic.

For the past six decades, U.S. foreign policies were like an axe in the woods and that is the reason, why there is a general mistrust and even hate about the USA in large parts of the world today.

However, U.S. intelligence never really had any hard data on the Soviet Union. Until the 1980's, most analysts vastly exaggerated the threat the Soviet Union was to the free world. And they completely failed to see, that since the 1960's, the Eastern Block was in an economical dead end that would ultimately lead to a complete breakdown of the system.