USA's Continued Economic Suicide.

[DCColegrove]

None of us bought our e30s new.

You may not have...

I sent some serious cash over to the Fatherland in the late 80's and early 90's...

[mrsleeve]

WTF is this wallE thing

why is it so depressing to everyone on here, I have never seen it. But By the way it sounds it has some serious envirodouche "only you can prevent global warming" undertones to it.

[nando]

I thought it was cute but the idea of the entire earth being covered in trash was pretty stupid.

[Farbin Kaiber]

WTF is this wallE thing

why is it so depressing to everyone on here, I have never seen it. But By the way it sounds it has some serious envirodouche "only you can prevent global warming" undertones to it.

It's nowhere as bad as that. You see how the "de-evolution" of a society can run amok.

[Hallen]

Well put Julien.

Although I'm curious about the productivity rates - I think we top them overall in productivity (just because we work so much), but i wonder if the longer hours hurt our score per unit of time. I know when I'm working 11 hour days I'm a lot less efficient than 8 hour days. Why do you think I'm posting this right now? lol

It's a little frustrating that people think we should close our doors and not trade with anyone, because that will lead to the kind of slowdown we saw in the 1930s. We instituted protectionist policies and we didn't fully recover from them until after the war. That kind of mindset could set us all back decades (and by us I mean everyone worldwide, because we all live on the same planet regardless).

We trade heavily with Canada - their standard of living is equal to our own. Canadians and Mexicans are both very patriotic. But how many Canadians do we have jumping the border trying to come here for work? Do you think Mexicans would be coming here illegally if they had something better to do in their own country? Doesn't everyone agree that illegal aliens are a big problem? Does everyone think Mexicans are inherrently worthless slobs who can add no value to the world because they aren't from the USA, or the only thing they are good for is manual labor on farms and construction sites?

Well said both of you.

It is this simple. Unskilled or semi-skilled labor jobs will always go to where it is cheapest. There are only two ways to stop that from happening.
1) Tariffs, taxes and bans (in other words, make it illegal or economically unviable to import stuff made other places)
2) Bring the entire world's standard of living up to our level. Then, it doesn't really matter where you get your labor.

Neither one of those two options are currently viable. However, #2 at least has a shred of a chance of working eventually... probably well after we are dead and turned to dust. #1 is just stupid and would guarantee America's rapid economic decline.

The consumer has to set standards. If all us dumb-ass consumers would quit going to wallymart to buy that light bulb for $0.02 less than we would pay at the local hardware store, then some of this pressure to outsource jobs would go away.

Also, I would much rather be working for a company who makes great products, sells and builds them all over the world, but has 90% of its management and family level jobs right here in the US of A. Seriously guys, we have to import intelligent and well-trained people from all over the world to fill jobs. We can't find enough dedicated Americans to do it. Not with the right skill sets. When for the last 10 years we have been hovering around 4%-5% unemployment ( when historic norms show that something between 6%-7% to be normal, people in transition, types of rates) and people are actually complaining that we shipped that alkaline battery plant over to China???

We have gotten a little lazy. Not all of us, by any means. But enough. And, we are too full of pride. Nobody wants that $7 job trimming Christmas trees, nobody except the "undocumented workers". Hopefully this economic problem will be the kick in the pants we need to start kicking ass again.

[love the booB5]

It's nowhere as bad as that. You see how the "de-evolution" of a society can run amok.

the movie "Idiocracy" is a shining hypothetical example of that as well

[Farbin Kaiber]

the movie "Idiocracy" is a shining hypothetical example of that as well

I had written a concise post touting the social knowledge to be gleaned from those two films, but thought it would go nowhere.

[Maluco]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7866900.stm

EU attacks 'Buy American' clause

The EU has increased its pressure on the US to reconsider the "Buy American" clause in the $800bn (£567bn) economic recovery package now before Congress.
The clause seeks to ensure that only US iron, steel and manufactured goods are used in projects funded by the bill.
A European Commission spokesman said it was the "worst possible signal" the Obama administration could send out.
The EU will launch a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) if the clause remains, the spokesman said.
The EU and Canadian ambassadors to Washington have already warned that the clause could promote protectionism and trigger retaliatory moves.
The rescue plan has already been approved by the US House of Representatives and is under discussion in the Senate this week.
Mixed trade signals
"There isn't a great deal of scope for doing much more but if America went ahead and did this we would have to take it up with the World Trade Organisation," the European Commission trade spokesman, Peter Power, told the BBC's Chris Mason in Brussels.
British Conservative Members of the European Parliament warned of the dangers of "a new economic iron curtain" being drawn across Europe.

The clause "sends a terrible protectionist signal to the rest of the world, and particularly the EU", said Syed Kamall, the Conservative international trade spokesman in the European Parliament.
The White House has said it is reviewing the Buy American part of the stimulus bill, although Vice-President Joe Biden said last week that it was legitimate to have some portion of it in the final measure.
Barack Obama's signals as a presidential candidate on the campaign trail last year that he could rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement were seen as a political gesture to win round the sceptical white working class vote, says the BBC's Jonathan Beale, in Washington.
Perhaps that has become more important with the economic crisis, but it leaves one wondering where the Obama administration really stands on free trade, our correspondent adds.
'Retaliatory risk'
EU Ambassador to Washington John Bruton said that, if passed, the measure could erode global leadership on free trade.
"We regard this legislation as setting a very dangerous precedent at a time when the world is facing a global economic crisis."

Canada's ambassador to Washington warned Senate leaders that if Buy American was in the final legislation, it would set a negative precedent with global repercussions.
"The United States will lose the moral authority to pressure others not to introduce protectionist policies," Michael Wilson wrote in a letter to the senators.
Canada was hoping to be exempted from any Buy American measures, said International Trade Minister Stockwell Day.
"These protectionist measures, in a time of recession, only make things worse," he told broadcaster CBC. "It can only trigger retaliatory action and we don't want to go there." HAVE YOUR SAY At times like this of course a domestic government should encourage the consumption of home produced goods Robert Feal-Martinez, Swindon, UK


There is also opposition from some senior US Republicans who say the measure could start trade wars.
Mr Obama has urged the US Congress not to delay his stimulus plan over modest differences.
The Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, has said he hopes the stimulus can be approved by the end of the week.
It is unlikely that the package will be able to pass the Senate without Republican support.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama is expected to name Republican Senator Judd Gregg as commerce secretary.
Mr Obama will hope that Mr Gregg's nomination can help secure approval for the stimulus package, our Washington correspondent says.
Mr Gregg would be the third Republican in Mr Obama's cabinet. The president's first choice for the post, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, withdrew following questions about his links to big business.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Geeze. We can't make everyone happy. Attempt to shore up a failing economy, then the other guys get pissed. If we don't they'll go with us, If we do, they will impose sanctions? Cant win.

[nando]

A history lesson for people that don't know what would happen if we became "protectionist" again.

Balkanized world

At the worst possible time, we could suddenly find ourselves faced with a balkanization of a world that, until recently, moved quite correctly in just the opposite direction.

How quickly we forget the past. But if we do so, we most definitely could be condemned to repeat it.

Try to remember America's last depression. Yes, we indeed may be headed in that direction. Though a depression is a 10% contraction in GDP, we just hit minus 3.8% for the fourth quarter of last year. That is before January's potentially catastrophic new wave of announced layoffs, and the all-but-inevitable drawdown in the critical element of consumer spending that will result.

The one measure that could indeed catapult us that final leg into full-fledged depression would be to revisit the errors of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff -- that catastrophic move by a group of Congressional know-nothings in 1930.

Three Republicans orchestrated the measure, including the handsome, gregarious American president, Warren G. Harding. Harding had no idea how instrumental his ridiculous economic program, designed to prolong the Roaring '20s boom time when debutantes drank champagne from gilded slippers, was in plunging the nation into recession.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. W.C. Hawley of Oregon and Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah pushed through the tariff that left their names chiseled in infamy for its catastrophic consequences. Signed into law with fanfare on June 17, 1930, it raised duties on 20,000 imported goods to record levels. More than 1,000 economists signed a protest against it. But it was too little, too late.

By 1932, when the U.S. officially entered the Great Depression, imports plunged to half their 1929 highs, as did exports. European nations, feeling pain equally if not more intense than the U.S., raised their own tariffs that choked off imports from America.

Thousands of factories went idle as total world trade plunged by two-thirds between 1929 and 1934. By 1933, unemployment had soared to 25.1% in the United States. By 1937, tariffs had begun to fall again.

But a real move toward global reductions did not gain momentum until the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in the 1950s, a precursor to today's World Trade Organization.

Last summer, before the real dangers of global economic collapse became painfully apparent, the latest talks dissolved in a welter of recriminations between rich and poor nations. The stage was set for each country to begin to look after its own interests.

If such a movement gets up a head of steam, only global disaster can result. And such a scenario is by no means unthinkable.

Already, France's Sarkozy is looking for an extraordinary meeting of the heads of state of the various Eurozone nations in an effort to bring fiscal discipline to each national budget as the common currency begins to spiral downwards out of control. Should the Eurozone begin to fracture, a host of protectionist measures can only be the next, and by no means the final, resort.

In the 1920s, it was Europe that effectively led the world into Depression. As I point out in my book, "," the western Allies, in their efforts to bankrupt Germany after the First World War and make certain it never again posed a military threat, all but choked off expansion in Europe.

Though America in those days saw itself as a largely self-sufficient island of growth and development, it was not by any means as isolated as it believed.

seeing how even the left leaning governments of canada and france are warning against protectionism, there is maybe hope, but somehow we keep electing idiots to our house and senate so who knows what will happen.

[nando]

Geeze. We can't make everyone happy. Attempt to shore up a failing economy, then the other guys get pissed. If we don't they'll go with us, If we do, they will impose sanctions? Cant win.

short term measures to shore up the economy are going to do nothing. The best thing to do would be to stimulate world trade rather than to suffocate it, and wait. the $800 billion "stimulus" package is going to be a disaster, we'd likely be just fine or even better off without it.

[Farbin Kaiber]

short term measures to shore up the economy are going to do nothing. The best thing to do would be to stimulate world trade rather than to suffocate it, and wait. the $800 billion "stimulus" package is going to be a disaster, we'd likely be just fine or even better off without it.

I agree wholeheartedly, but it looks like this generations Hawley-Smoot events are already underway.

[joshh]

short term measures to shore up the economy are going to do nothing. The best thing to do would be to stimulate world trade rather than to suffocate it, and wait. the $800 billion "stimulus" package is going to be a disaster, we'd likely be just fine or even better off without it.

Finally a great post.;)

[Tree18is]

U S A ! ! ! !,
alot of our shit is from those "other" country's but when I buy bikes, bike parts and food, its almost always local.

[scabzzzz]

Unfortunately, everyone seems to be blaming Obama. People around here at least.
I think if there EVER was a time when our country would pull together and make some serious changes, its right now. I think this country is open and welcome for a change, but they wont do it willingly. The government needs to shove this change down our throats immediately.
Obama is going to have one of the toughest presidencies in the history of the world.