What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[mercury14]

Both sources neglect to identify the geographic locus. Multinational corporations ( which make up the vast majority of amounts reported by the Commerce Department ) derive their profits from many countries.

So what?


American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.

 

[pete]

So what?


American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.

profit in and of itself doesn't necessarily reflect well on the economy. this post provides some reasons as to why.

a business that sits on it's money isn't very helpful to the droves of unemployed. those businesses need to use that money to expand, and with the disincentives this administration has churned out it's no wonder why they haven't.

 

[mercury14]

profit in and of itself doesn't necessarily reflect well on the economy. this post provides some reasons as to why.

a business that sits on it's money isn't very helpful to the droves of unemployed. those businesses need to use that money to expand, and with the disincentives this administration has churned out it's no wonder why they haven't.

I'm not disputing that.

Disincentives... Such as bailing out a range of industries including the financial sector which businesses use to get loans. Try to imagine the state of America if our lending institutions collapsed. How would hiring incentives be better then?

And hrm, Obama gave businesses tax credits for hiring. Let's call that a disincentive as well though....

 

[pete]

I'm not disputing that.

Disincentives... Such as bailing out a range of industries including the financial sector which businesses use to get loans. Try to imagine the state of America if our lending institutions collapsed. How would hiring incentives be better then?

And hrm, Obama gave businesses tax credits for hiring. Let's call that a disincentive as well though....

businesses hire workers (private sector jobs are created) when 1) the expected value of the marginal labor services (output) provided by that job (either additional revenue, or the avoidance of a revenue loss) is greater than 2) the expected net (after-tax) cost of that job in terms of the total remuneration (after-tax wages and fringe benefits) paid by the business. moreover, labor demand is a derived demand — the lack of aggregate demand for final demand for goods and services, dampens the demand for labor. basically, this means that for hiring to increase in the private sector (the principle source of long-term productive labor) businesses have to expect to sell any of labor’s increased output at a high enough price to be able to make a profit.

several programs enacted over the last two years (R&D tax credits, small business tax credits and loan programs, the cash-for-clunker program, the housing tax credits, and infrastructure spending) have either been mis-targeted, too narrowly focused, or were too small to address the lack of labor demand. still other laws and proposed policies have undermined consumer and business confidence and increased economic uncertainty, which have also tended to dampen aggregate demand. much of the spending in the administration’s $864 billion stimulus bill was targeted toward the administration’s special interest constituencies (labor unions, teachers, environmental groups, overpaid public employees, and profligate states), and thus was of limited effectiveness. so, not only was it not targeted to labor market weakness, too costly and largely ineffective, but the resulting increased budget deficits and national debt contributed toward long-term economic instability. in addition, the administration 1) has an industrial policy that rewards failure and punishes success, 2) proposes a smoot-hawley type of trade policy, which threatens to initiate a trade and currency war, 3) supports a herbert hoover type of tax policy that not only would increase income taxes during economic stagnation (by rescinding part of bush’s tax cuts), but proposes additional tax increases (sales taxes or value-added taxes on consumption and spending, energy taxes), 4) espouses a redistributionist philosophy that would reduce the incentive to work, invest, take risks start businesses, and create jobs, 5) promotes an energy and environmental policy that not only subsidizes inefficient and uncompetitive forms of energy, and foreign manufacturers of renewable and alternative energy technologies, but that would impose significant increases in energy costs on the u.s. economy to address what is essentially a global environmental problem.

another of the administration’s policy mistakes is the medicare payroll tax hike under the patient protection and affordable care act (P.L. 111-148), which will raise the cost of labor, further inhibiting hiring. the medicare payroll tax is increased in two ways: first by raising the tax rate on higher income employees from 2.9% to 3.8%, and second by broadening the tax base to include capital gains, interest and dividend income. as a result, beginning in 2012, for every affected worker on a payroll, a business will have to pay a tax of 16.2% of covered wages instead of 15.3% of covered wages. this is in addition to the other tax hikes and regulatory burdens in the nearly $700 billion tax bill (such as the §1099 tax form requirement on virtually all businesses), all of which will increase business costs.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Did those come about from pricing deflation to reduce inventories and the productivity gains created by slashing the work force and by any chance does it make those of us look any smarter who were saying that tax policy has consequences and the Democrats, hell-bent on getting rid of the Bush "tax-cuts" that leviathan boogie-man that they've been tilting at as the source of all fears, have caused business (corporations) to use accounting gimmicks to take profit before the end of the year in order to take advantage of the lower tax rates?

Kinda like the way cash for clunkers accelerated planned purchases and then the slow-down continued...

So what?


American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.

 

[mercury14]

- When we have a recession and business are struggling, it's a problem and it's Obama's fault.

- When we have a recovery where businesses are turning fantastic profits, it's also a problem and clearly Obama's fault.

For these die-hard 110% partisan righties, it's simply impossible for there to be good news when Obama is in power. Bad news is bad news - and good news is also somehow bad news.



Listen, businesses aren't hiring very fast not because of what happens in the Oval Office. They're not hiring very fast because consumer demand is rather weak and forecasted to remain mediocre throughout 2011.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

A Toast to the "Summer of Recovery!"

Thenardier:
Everybody raise a glass

Mme. Thenardier:
Raise it up the master's arse

All
Everybody raise a glass to the Master of the House!

 

[koalabear]

- When we have a recession and business are struggling, it's a problem and it's Obama's fault.

- When we have a recovery where businesses are turning fantastic profits, it's also a problem and clearly Obama's fault.

For these die-hard 110% partisan righties, it's simply impossible for there to be good news when Obama is in power. Bad news is bad news - and good news is also somehow bad news.



Listen, businesses aren't hiring very fast not because of what happens in the Oval Office. They're not hiring very fast because consumer demand is rather weak and forecasted to remain mediocre throughout 2011.

Consumer demand is usually low when no one has a job.

 

[mercury14]

A Toast to the "Summer of Recovery!"

Thenardier:
Everybody raise a glass

Mme. Thenardier:
Raise it up the master's arse

All
Everybody raise a glass to the Master of the House!

We go from losing over 600,000 jobs per month when Obama took office to adding jobs. There's much more recovery ahead and there are obstacles. But boy things are monumentally better now. I'll drink to that.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Yeah. Good news...





This has been the norm for Japan for years now. Oh happy day...

Mme. Thenardier:
I used to dream that I would meet a prince
But God Almighty, have you seen what's happened since?

Master of the house? Isn't worth me spit!
`Comforter, philosopher' and lifelong shit!
Cunning little brain, regular Voltaire​

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

There were good months from time-to-time during the great Depression.

I KNOW!​

Let's create a lot of government agencies, employ more people, print more money, employ price controls and save the East German economy...
__________________
You loot the private sector, strip every dollar of 40¢ for overhead, and then give the other 60¢ to your political base in order to revitalize the looted.

What's not to like about that plan?
A_J, the Stupid

 

[mercury14]

There were good months from time-to-time during the great Depression.

I KNOW!​

Let's create a lot of government agencies, employ more people, print more money, employ price controls and save the East German economy...
__________________
You loot the private sector, strip every dollar of 40¢ for overhead, and then give the other 60¢ to your political base in order to revitalize the looted.

What's not to like about that plan?
A_J, the Stupid

Or we could lay off a few hundred thousand government workers and cancel out all hiring gains for the next 2.5 years. Probably would have an impact on welfare programs as well.

And of course there'd be no ripple effect on the rest of the economy.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

We could cancel the Department of Education. It has failed in all ways at great cost.

Democrats:

We could have acted on a budget and we could have done something about the tax cuts, we could have given the business communtiy and consumers something to plan against, some certainty. But then we might have been blamed and we would rather have a bad economy than take any blame, there's an election to win...

Okay, we didn't win, but we'll win the next one because now we have the Republicans between a rock and a hard place. If they do something, we say no, because it will hurt to many people and if they don't do anything we'll scream to the high heavens about what big spenders they are.

 

[mercury14]

We could cancel the Department of Education. It has failed in all ways at great cost.

Democrats:

We could have acted on a budget and we could have done something about the tax cuts, we could have given the business communtiy and consumers something to plan against, some certainty. But then we might have been blamed and we would rather have a bad economy than take any blame, there's an election to win...

Okay, we didn't win, but we'll win the next one because now we have the Republicans between a rock and a hard place. If they do something, we say no, because it will hurt to many people and if they don't do anything we'll scream to the high heavens about what big spenders they are.

Huh? The Republicans just got done expanding it's size, scope, and cost in completely unprecidented ways. Now you want them to flip-flop?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Huh? The Republicans just got done expanding it's size, scope, and cost in completely unprecidented ways. Now you want them to flip-flop?

The REPUBLICANS???





lol

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

The Obama Administration on Education Spending:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/254175

For about two years now, President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have been co-opting much of the GOP playbook on education. They support charter schools. They endorse merit pay. They decry teacher tenure and seniority. On alternating Thursdays, they bracingly challenge the teachers’ unions.

But on one key issue — spending — they have acted like traditional borrow-and-spend Democrats, only more so. The 2009 stimulus bill included over $100 billion for schools, most of it designed to simply save teachers’ positions. A 2010 “edujobs” bill showered another $10 billion in bailout bucks on K–12 systems to forestall hard choices. And Duncan’s insistence last summer that school districts had already cut “through#…#fat, through flesh, and into bone” only served to undermine the state and local leaders who had been inclined to swing the budget ax by making their efforts seem mean-spirited.

...

It was a humdinger. Duncan opened: “For the next several years, preschool, K–12, and postsecondary educators are likely to face the challenge of doing more with less.#…#[This] can and should be embraced as an opportunity to make dramatic improvements.#…#It’s time to stop treating the problem of educational productivity as a grinding, eat-your-broccoli exercise. It’s time to start treating it as an opportunity for innovation and accelerating progress.”

We couldn’t agree more. Throughout this spending spree, we’ve worried about the pernicious effects of dumping so much cash on our already bloated schools. All this did, we argued, was prop up an unsustainable system whose revenues have grown by one-third since 1995. After three generations of steady growth in per-pupil spending, education was going to have to face its day of reckoning, and schools were going to have to start spending dollars smarter.

This was a speech unlike any we have heard from a U.S. Secretary of Education — Republican or Democrat. Duncan noted that resources are limited, emphasized the need to make tough choices, urged states and districts to contemplate boosting some class sizes and consolidating schools, and didn’t spend much time trying to throw bones to the status quo.

All that money and all we hear about is that we're still behind.

I have to wonder (U_D) if all that technology that is supposed to make our society more superior, smarter, and better able to manage us from a central bureaucracy, is actually a distraction to learning. I mean why read from a variety of sources when you have NPR, the Times and Fable III?
__________________
The more government impedes upon the market with good intention and positive interference, the more expensive that market becomes and the maxim that you get what you pay for becomes outed as an out-and-out lie.
A_J, the Stupid

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

The Obama Administration on Education Spending:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/254175



All that money and all we hear about is that we're still behind.

I have to wonder (U_D) if all that technology that is supposed to make our society more superior, smarter, and better able to manage us from a central bureaucracy, is actually a distraction to learning. I mean why read from a variety of sources when you have NPR, the Times and Fable III?
A_J, the Stupid

It's actually pretty damn funny to hear you talk about reading from a "variety of sources"..

Really, I actually laughed out loud..

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

What's your reading list look like Sparky?

Right now I'm on:

The Last Knight of Liberalism, Hülsmann

A Mises biography that describes his career as an economist and his transformation form Statist to Liberal and how he actually dealt with an economy in crises.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

This actually ties the two threads together (Wikileaks):

That 70s Show

The hip generation that came of age talked about a new, perpetually youthful world that would supplant the values and aspirations of a fading bankrupt establishment (e.g., cf. Bob Dylan’s “the order is rapidly fading”). And in time the promise of the sixties, in fact, did permeate the last half-century, creating a contemporary culture of perpetual adolescence, of defying norms and protocols without offering anything much in their place.

From Lady Gaga to Iranian Nukes

Witness current events. A 22-year-old PFC Bradley Manning, without much experience, knowledge, or maturity, somehow becomes a “military analyst.” (I thought those were 2-star generals, RAND Ph.Ds, decorated colonels, or old Kissingerian National Security Council pros.)

And in our culture without hierarchy and requisites that title apparently allows him — in between downloading Lady Gaga music while in a combat zone in Iraq—to tap into the secret cables of the U.S. State Department, and destroy two decades worth of diplomatic contacts, trust, and friendships.

No matter — you see poor Bradley was also upset, depressed, and he felt underappreciated. In part, that was because his drag-queen boyfriend had recently dumped him. He was, in his own words, “regularly ignored except when I had something essential then it was back to ‘bring me coffee, then sweep the floor.’ … felt like I was an abused work horse.”

Iranian nukes? North Korean missiles? Again, no problem. Bradley, you see, was depressed and in response had the desire and the power to change the global order. (Or in 60s parlance, “who is to say that Bradley doesn’t have the right to shut down the diplomatic world?”) Even Bob Dylan would be impressed with how “the times they are a-changin’.”

Wikicoward

Next, enter one Julian Assange — himself on the lamb, avoiding a little sexy horseplay that the uptight Swedish authorities for some reason deemed thus far sexual battery and molestation. Jason is also angry at “them,” the Western world that does horrific things like guarantees enough affluence and security for those like Julian to jet about at will without any visible means of support. In the tradition of sixties nihilism, Julian, of course, tries to gussy up his destructive egotistical angst into some sort of cosmic humane call for more transparency and nice behavior on the part of the U.S. State Department and military.

In more earthly terms that means he is supposed to be something more than a two-bit computer punk that he is, one who would be terrified to extend his online liberationist creed to Iranian mullahs, Chinese communists, Hezbollah terrorists, or Russian gang lords. The latter do far more to trample the human spirit than does any Western nation, but they also at times tend to decapitate, blow up, or jail permanently any would-be Julian who dares to cross them.

...

On a more global front, we are seeing the children of the sixties deal with debt, as in adolescents buying things even when their parents say they cannot afford them. Sometimes we euphemistically call the binge spending “Keynesian,” sometimes “stimulus,” sometimes “borrowing.” Then when we cannot do it anymore, we look for a “bailout.” That means if you are California, a parent like the federal government should print some money; if Greece or Portugal, parents intervene like those automaton Germanic tribes up north who cluelessly love to work rather than enjoy cappuccino from 1-3 each afternoon.

The EU, after all, was a utopian sixties-style project to the core — multicultural (we can by fiat make all cultures equal); nonjudgmental (lifestyles in Greece are just “different” not more laid back or, I dare saym lazier, than in northern Europe); dishonest (why be tied down by “their” archaic notions of percentages of GDP, when creative bookkeeping is a revolutionary tool to help the helpless?) — and thus bound to fail. What kept such an anti-democratic, anti-free market, anti-sovereign ruling elite so powerful for so long?

A number of things: free, U.S.-subsidized defense that gave them 2-3% of GDP for social spending right off the top; German industry and greed that, in a two-decade shell game, kept making the money to export luxury goods and machine tools to those who bought on credit at cheap interest with no ability to pay anyone back; shared cheap anti-American rhetoric that replaced former unifying commonalities like Christendom and Western civilization; the work of prior generations who rebuilt Europe through thrift and sacrifice after the war and passed on a workable economy and new infrastructure.

Parents, please?

Victor Davis Hanson, Works and Days
Pajamas Media

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

What's your reading list look like Sparky?

Right now I'm on:

The Last Knight of Liberalism, Hülsmann

A Mises biography that describes his career as an economist and his transformation form Statist to Liberal and how he actually dealt with an economy in crises.

My reading list?
At the moment I'm reading two books:
The works of William Shakespeare and "How to defeat your own clone."
Next up: "The Republic" by Plato
then Two works by Carl Jung, "The Association Method" and "Psychological Types".

It comes as no surprise that you're winding your way through the Mises library, such a departure.. Such varied sources of information you expose yourself to.. *cough*

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Victor Davis Hanson, Works and Days
Pajamas Media

Pajamasmedia?

Good Lord, you've become Dizzybooby.. Next you'll be quoting Michelle Malkin.. Oh..

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

You're JUST NOW reading Shakespeare?





That was required in my High School.

What's you basics on economics? After this biography, I'm going to undergo a study of Bastiat...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Pajamasmedia?

Good Lord, you've become Dizzybooby.. Next you'll be quoteing Michelle Malkin.. Oh..

Back to ad hominem...





Just can't help yourself can you...

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

You're JUST NOW reading Shakespeare?

That was required in my High School.

What's you basics on economics? After this biography, I'm going to undergo a study of Bastiat...

Just now reading Shakespeare? No, Again.

Bastiat? Studying all of the old school Libertarians.. Such diversity of thought.

Let me know when you make it into THIS century with your economic basics..

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Back to ad hominem...
Just can't help yourself can you...

It's tough to not bullseye such an easy target. You've put yourself on the same intellectual reading level as the General Board psychotic "conservative", you can't blame anyone for that but yourself, maybe him.

Perhaps if your source material included someone who just a little to the left of Mussolini. I mean Malkin? Pajamasmedia? Really? You're just making it too easy.