Military Spending

[ArlingtonDeac]

None of them are investing in new lines of business or hiring; thus, the economy sputters and chokes its way to long-term, double digit unemployment. There are several explanations for that fact, but undeniably among them are government regulation, the prospect of future taxation to pay for entitlement programs like health care, etc., and restrictions on exploration.

No new lines of business are required. Investing has zero to do with innovation or job creation, and everything to do with picking profitable companies. There a recurrently a wide assortment of lean companies that are not hiring and doing extremely well for well-monied investors. The rich are not hurting at all because of flagging unemployment.

After 2008, you're still pushing deregulation as a positive? And you think restricted oil exploration is an economic growth inhibitor? Why? On what basis?

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

I see >10% real unemployment. We'll see who's right in about 18 months.

To a high profile investor, that's not overwhelmingly important. Corporate balance sheets are flush with cash after the recent downsizing cycle and profits are high in now-streamlined companies. Returns are good, jobless recovery notwithstanding. PLus, the rich can diversify into emerging and foreign markets to offset risk or increase profit potential.

The idea that the rich a suffering right now is inaccurate.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

Those regulations don't protect the little guy from the government class who is also looking to screw him over by making him dependent on them, and the wealthy just take advantage of that dependence. That's how they get over on the little guy in the 2000s.

The government class conned everyone into making cheap guaranteed loans to everyone because it would not be "fair" otherwise. The wealthy then made money on the up and down ride they knew was going to end. Everyone but the government class and ultimately wealthy lost. You blame the wealthy, but they're just doing what you would do. The government class are the ones who set it all up. We could have stopped it, but were too worried about political correctness to do the right thing....too worried about helping the little guy to slash his cheap loan benefits.

You think a so-called government class controls the fate of the wealthy? Seriously? Our government chiefly serves as a depository and buffer to the wealthy class should their economic plans go wrong. The wealthy class owns the government completely. That's what 2002-2008 was all about - get filthy rich with the correct understanding that the government -- which you own and operate -- will be there to catch you when the unsustainable profit schemes fall apart. The US government is essentially a risk management division of corporate America.

 

[RJKarl]

The "over regulation" hasn't kept corporations from setting record profits and having trillions set aside.

It's total crap. Try to start a business in an industrialized nation and then tell me about our "over regulation".

The lack of hiring has little to nothing to do with "over regualtion" or Obamacare. It's about ONE thing- a lack of demand.

No lessening of regulation could ever or would ever impact demand. If we had demand, there would be more employment.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

The "over regulation" hasn't kept corporations from setting record profits and having trillions set aside.

It's total crap. Try to start a business in an industrialized nation and then tell me about our "over regulation".

The lack of hiring has little to nothing to do with "over regualtion" or Obamacare. It's about ONE thing- a lack of demand.

No lessening of regulation could ever or would ever impact demand. If we had demand, there would be more employment.

How do companies have record-setting profits yet also suffer from lack of demand at the same time?

 

[PhDeac]

How do companies have record-setting profits yet also suffer from lack of demand at the same time?

Great question. But it's not like a company actually has to sell a product to make money nowadays.

 

[KanhojiAngre]

And you think restricted oil exploration is an economic growth inhibitor? Why? On what basis?

Is this a serious question?

 

[KanhojiAngre]

To a high profile investor, that's not overwhelmingly important. Corporate balance sheets are flush with cash after the recent downsizing cycle and profits are high in now-streamlined companies. Returns are good, jobless recovery notwithstanding. PLus, the rich can diversify into emerging and foreign markets to offset risk or increase profit potential.

The idea that the rich a suffering right now is inaccurate.

Don't you feel like eventually a weak employment market in the US combined with austerity measures in the US budget is going to tell on many, but not all companies?

 

[RJKarl]

How do companies have record-setting profits yet also suffer from lack of demand at the same time?

Because they are cutting employees and other costs.

 

[jhmd2000]

To a high profile investor, that's not overwhelmingly important. Corporate balance sheets are flush with cash after the recent downsizing cycle and profits are high in now-streamlined companies. Returns are good, jobless recovery notwithstanding. PLus, the rich can diversify into emerging and foreign markets to offset risk or increase profit potential.

The idea that the rich a suffering right now is inaccurate.

How does the bottom 1/3 of your high school graduating class feed their family?

 

[pourdeac]

Who is the "government class" and how do you distinguish them from the wealthy?

Are you serious? The government class is comprised of anyone that works in or around government, including government union members, elected officials, etc. Their leaders are our elected officials and career government leaders...and of course government union leaders. They generally have one goal: to expand government further because the larger the government, the more job security they have and the more power they have (if in a leadership roll).

The wealthy are people with excess cash to ride the ups and downs of a capitalist system. They generally want progress for all, including the little guy, because in our system that lines their pockets more than going the other way, but ultimately they can make money either way. More government and government control over individuals helps them make more money. That's what people don't seem to want to accept.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

Is this a serious question?

Of course? Restricted drilling is the reddest of red herring in the sea.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

Because they are cutting employees and other costs.

That doesn't make much practical sense. For the profits to be "record-setting" while demand is lacking would mean that they would have to cut enough employees and other costs to not only increase profit margin to offset the demand downturn, but also increase the aggregate profits to record levels. If that is occurring, then we have the best business leaders the world has ever known, and they should immediately be lauded for their skills.

 

[RJKarl]

It will take 5-10 years from when you start drilling to when a drop of gas enters a single car's tank. Saying allowing drilling would lower costs is a typical RW, nonsensical talking point that has little to do with the reality of the markets.

As Arlington says, it's the reddest of red herrings. in fact even red herrings would thnik it was a red herring.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

Don't you feel like eventually a weak employment market in the US combined with austerity measures in the US budget is going to tell on many, but not all companies?

In certain sectors, but my point here was that wealthy investors can avoid those sectors. No one is arguing that unemployment being high is a positive.

And, don't forget, those companies of which you speak have taken austerity measures themselves -- that's why we have the high unemployment -- meaning less business is required to make the same profits for wealthy investors. Look at Ford.

In an era where blue collar jobs are evaporating and low-level white collar jobs can be outsourced, higher unemployment is not a product of the federal government's economic management but simply the new reality. And the wealthy are generally fine with that reality, because they can still profit despite higher unemployment, which hits the middle and lower classes, so long as they keep their taxes unnaturally low. This is the GOP economic platform.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

How does the bottom 1/3 of your high school graduating class feed their family?

They get screwed. That's the point I'm making, and why I vote against this scheme. The wealthy are fine with the current system being tilted toward protecting them, and attack spending programs that help support the lower and middle classes-- the people actually feeling the brunt of stagnant wages and evaporating jobs.

The people being squeezed hardest by the downturn are who the GOP would have feel this "austerity." The GOP platform -- keep top-end bracket taxes unnaturally low, but reduce the deficit by cutting programs that only benefit the lower classes -- protects the wealthy.

Wealthy investors can still make money in a high-unemployment economy, and have no real interest in recalibrating the system. In a vacuum, it looks appealing- spend less, tax less. But in reality the tax savings accrued mainly to the rich while the spending cuts impact mainly the poor.

 

[ONW]

In certain sectors, but my point here was that wealthy investors can avoid those sectors. No one is arguing that unemployment being high is a positive.

And, don't forget, those companies of which you speak have taken austerity measures themselves -- that's why we have the high unemployment -- meaning less business is required to make the same profits for wealthy investors. Look at Ford.

In an era where blue collar jobs are evaporating and low-level white collar jobs can be outsourced, higher unemployment is not a product of the federal government's economic management but simply the new reality. And the wealthy are generally fine with that reality, because they can still profit despite higher unemployment, which hits the middle and lower classes, so long as they keep their taxes unnaturally low. This is the GOP economic platform.

The more I read about this topic, the more I believe this is spot on. Unfortunately.

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

Are you serious? The government class is comprised of anyone that works in or around government, including government union members, elected officials, etc. Their leaders are our elected officials and career government leaders...and of course government union leaders. They generally have one goal: to expand government further because the larger the government, the more job security they have and the more power they have (if in a leadership roll).

The wealthy are people with excess cash to ride the ups and downs of a capitalist system. They generally want progress for all, including the little guy, because in our system that lines their pockets more than going the other way, but ultimately they can make money either way. More government and government control over individuals helps them make more money. That's what people don't seem to want to accept.

Government leaders have one goal: to do what the special interests who pay for their campaigns want them to do. There is no government class when government is largely just an extension of corporate donors.

This "government control" argument has never made any sense to me. The government is a tool of the wealthy.

 

[PhDeac]

They get screwed. That's the point I'm making, and why I vote against this scheme. The wealthy are fine with the current system being titled toward protecting the wealthy, and don't care about spending programs that help support the lower and middle classes that are feeling the brunt of stagnant wages and evaporating jobs.

The people being squeezed hardest by the downturn are who the GOP would have feel this austerity. The GOP platform -- keep top-end bracket taxes unnaturally low, but reduce the deficit by cutting programs that only benefit the lower classes -- protects the wealthy.

Wealthy investors can still make money in a high-unemployment economy, and have no real interest in recalibrating the system. In a vacuum, it looks appealing- spend less, tax less. But in reality the tax savings accrued mainly to the rich and the spending cuts impact mainly the poor.

Sadly the conservative response to that question is to pay the bottom third not to have a family.

Good post.

 

[RJKarl]

In certain sectors, but my point here was that wealthy investors can avoid those sectors. No one is arguing that unemployment being high is a positive.

And, don't forget, those companies of which you speak have taken austerity measures themselves -- that's why we have the high unemployment -- meaning less business is required to make the same profits for wealthy investors. Look at Ford.

In an era where blue collar jobs are evaporating and low-level white collar jobs can be outsourced, higher unemployment is not a product of the federal government's economic management but simply the new reality. And the wealthy are generally fine with that reality, because they can still profit despite higher unemployment, which hits the middle and lower classes, so long as they keep their taxes unnaturally low. This is the GOP economic platform.

Well said and what the GOP fails to realize is that the power of the US economy has always been in the lower-middle to middle class not the upper-middle and higher class.

Demand is created by people who need things not by people who can have what they want, when they want it.

Demand is greater when created new demand for new products and services not existing ones. The new corporate dynamic is about not taking chances and maximizing what you have today rather than what you could have tomorrow.