I am an Agnostic Conservative Republican and proud of it

Quote: Wizard

It seems to me the philosophy of the Republican party, in a nutshell, is "Don't take a slice of my pie." Isn't the message of Christianity to give a piece of your pie to someone who is hungry?

Mike,
Christianity also states that "Charity begins at home," "better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish," and "do not cast pearls before swine."
Basically, there is a LOT in Christianity that says, "if you're an adult, you shouldn't demand to be suckling on a tit," and "responsibility is freedom."

There is a huge difference between charity, - and patronizing, tolerating, or promoting parasitism.
And this includes some forms of AP-ism.. :)

Quote: AZDuffman

Your premise here is (mostly) the theory called "surplus labor." In a nutshell it states that workers are so productive that no matter what all the wages of labor cannot soak up all of the production in an economy and unemployment will result. It is a flawed theory. First of all, if this was the case then at every invention there would be more and more unemployment. Right from when a horse was attached to a plow it would be, "farmers are out of work, we are doomed!"

Except that's exactly what happened. Lumber mills use giant machines to move trees around now; it used to take hundreds of men. Those men are no longer lumberjacks. Employment in the forest industry has plummeted.

Quote:

On a smaller scale, if one company has a tech breakthrough that allows a 50% reduction in workers the remaining workers will probably be more skilled and be paid more, while the price of the product will fall or/and qulity rise as the producer tries to gain advantage in the marketplace. But again, the other workers will be absorbed into the economy elsewhere as people take the savings on the product and invest it in other production or consumption.

First, "surplus labor" means entirely the opposite of what I'm suggesting. Marx's idea of surplus labor was how much a worker had to work for someone else -- not that there is high unemployment due to hyperproductivity.

I'm not at all convinced that somehow consumption will always rise to a level supporting full employment, but let's suppose you're right and that it will. Even then, you suggest that workers will be absorbed elsewhere. The question is, given the increasing lack of friction in the global economy, whether we are satisfied with "elsewhere" being "outside the United States"? That's option 3 in my list. If corporate profits are highest when domestic companies offshore jobs, domestic unemployment will rise and foreign unemployment will fall. That labor flow is happening now, and will continue to happen at a greater rate for any industry where it doesn't make natural sense to perform labor in the U.S. (e.g. on farms). I was at Nike for a few years, and one executive told me that you can spot a nation's economic maturity by when it exits the textile manufacturing industry. Think about that. Virtually all of Nike's products are manufactured overseas, even if they're designed here.

What policy should be imposed upon unrestricted capitalism to ensure domestic job creation (as opposed to overall job creation, the bulk of which is overseas)?

Quote: MathExtremist

Except that's exactly what happened. Lumber mills use giant machines to move trees around now; it used to take hundreds of men. Those men are no longer lumberjacks. Employment in the forest industry has plummeted.

Yes. And whole industries, like whaling, ahve been wiped out, too. But does that increase unemployment permanently?

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I'm not at all convinced that somehow consumption will always rise to a level supporting full employment, but let's suppose you're right and that it will.

It's not comsumption that drives employemnt, or the economy for that matter. It's production.

Quote: Nareed

Yes. And whole industries, like whaling, ahve been wiped out, too. But does that increase unemployment permanently?
It's not comsumption that drives employemnt, or the economy for that matter. It's production.

Fair enough, but production itself is driven by the companies that produce, which in turn produce only to a level deemed suitable to meet business goals. Ford doesn't produce a billion cars per year. They can't, but even if they could, they wouldn't: that would be oversupply and the cars would not be consumed. The real question is whether the level of production of goods and services will always increase faster than the efficiency with which we can produce them. When productivity outstrips production, jobs will be lost - permanently - unless someone creates jobs that aren't actually necessary to achieve that level of production. That will never happen with a purely capitalist economy, so what's the solution? How do you create jobs when companies on the whole don't need more workers?

Quote: MathExtremist

Fair enough, but production itself is driven by the companies that produce, which in turn produce only to a level deemed suitable to meet business goals.

That was about all I could follow from your psot.

An economy is driven by production. Demand is driven by production, too. That is, in order to produce something, say a car, you need to consume metals, plastics, electronics, etc, etc. So your production needs create a demand. Not just of goods, but also services.

As regards jobs, at the dawn of the industrial revolution many people thought that machines would destroy emplyment. This gets repeated often, but it never comes to pass. About the only sure-fire recipe for permanent high unemployment is to create massive uncertainty in the markets, so that businesses won't hire unless they absolutely have to.

Quote: Nareed

As regards jobs, at the dawn of the industrial revolution many people thought that machines would destroy emplyment. This gets repeated often, but it never comes to pass.

We as yet haven't tested that idea with more fully capable machines. You know, the servant robots/droids. They're not fully capable or really out of the lab testing stage much yet, but they look a lot more capable in recent years.

Quote: Mathextremist

What policy should be imposed upon unrestricted capitalism to ensure domestic job creation (as opposed to overall job creation, the bulk of which is overseas)?

Answer: None. Comments like the one above, to be quite frank, shock and scare the hell out of me, as they should everyone.

Government needs to get the hell out of the work force. Government has no business telling business how many people they will hire, and how much they will pay them. Once government decides how to redistribute the wealth and jobs, the country and society as we know it, will collapse. History has shown, time and time again that socialism is a failure.
When you guarantee everyone a piece of the pie, you take away ambition, motivation, hope, and dreams. It's a great way to destroy a society.

How quickly people forget the lessons of the first early settlements in this country. Today, I doubt that it's even taught in schools because it's not politically correct to point out the failures of socialism. I suppose it's easier for them to move agenda along by keeping people ignorant and by attempting to rewrite history..
In case people have forgotten, here's a refresher. http://www.truthistreason.net/thanksgiving-the-colonists-and-failed-socialism

When socialism rears it's ugly head we must cut it down. Entitlement and dependency will be the kiss of death in this country.

Here are two quotes from Nikita Krushchev that should send chills down any true blooded American's spine.

“I can prophecy that your grandchildren in America will live under socialism…Our firm conviction is that sooner or later Capitalism will give way to Socialism. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.” - Nikita Krushchev, July 1957

“The United States will eventually fly the Communist red flag…The American people will hoist it themselves.” - Nikita Krushchev, July 19, 1962

Was Krushchev right?

The new Obama mentality: "Ask not what I can do for America, ask what America can do for ME" may mean yes.



Again, everyone should also read "Atlas Shrugged".





-Keyser

Quote: Keyser

Answer: None. Comments like the one above, to be quite frank, shock and scare the hell out of me, as they should everyone.
Government needs to get the hell out of the work force. Government has no business telling business how many people they will hire, and how much they will pay them.

Except both the GOP and Democratic establishments are beating each other up on job creation issues. The GOP even has a policy webpage about it.

Are you suggesting that efforts to curtail labor offshoring are mistaken? Is your advice "get used to unemployment?"

Quote: MathExtremist

Are you suggesting that efforts to curtail labor offshoring are mistaken?

I've no idea what he's suggesting, but efforts to curtail labor offshoring are mistaken. This is another area, like immigration, where conservatives are dead wrong.

The sole exception would be liberalizing the labor market at home. But placing restrictions on moving jobs elsewhere, or punishing companies that do, are missguided at least.

I wrote a massive tome to answer you but I could not post it. Suffice it to say that your question is intellectually --a baited trap. If you really want an explantion and I doubt you do and you are an administrator as shown then contact me at my email and leave afollow up to and i will be happy to enlighten you on your query. But it will be private and not public. Sincere. (don't care to hob knob with an administrator) But I do understand this as well as you know your actuarial math!

Answering this here- honestly- can only offend many. .

Quote: scire

I wrote a massive tome to answer you but I could not post it. Suffice it to say that your question is intellectually --a baited trap. If you really want an explantion and I doubt you do and you are an administrator as shown then contact me at my email and leave afollow up to and i will be happy to enlighten you on your query. But it will be private and not public. Sincere. (don't care to hob knob with an administrator) But I do understand this as well as you know your actuarial math!

Answering this here- honestly- can only offend many. .

to wizard