Sactowndog
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- Jul 4, 2011
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It has to do the the trans-oceanic fiber optic cables that dramatically dropped the cost of intercontinental communications. *
The process started in 2001 and has not abated. *
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Thanks. *This is exactly the same year that the labor force participation rate and employment as a percentage of the civilian popupation began falling. I am pretty sure that the labor force participation rate hit an upward bound as well, basically the US was at the absolute peak of employable adults.
It is also, if I recall correctly, the real dollar price of gasoline whent from decades of constant prices and began climbing rapidly to its peak at the beginning of the great recession. *
Are there any other things that began in the 2000 time frame?
Globalization of the economy is surely a great thing, in the long run. *Unfortunately, as many of us suspected, the process included a bit of a decline in the standard of living in some countries as it raised the living standards in others.
Well and it means you have to think differently how you do things. The problem with the US is we are being exploited by multinational countries like African and Asian countries were exploited by Europe in the 1800's. No economy can sustain this type of exploitation and thrive. Let me provide two examples:
1) Apple has been in the news about moving dollars off shore. Many of these dollars are from US Sales where the money is transferred and invested overseas. Pulling the money out of the economy removes capital to invest in jobs, loans for business, machinery, etc. The solution is to replace the corporate income tax with a capital exportation tax.
2) The University of California at Berkely did much of the fundamental research around a technical breakthrough called a Memrister. Basically it is a replacement technology for a transistor. It was the development of the transistor which formed Silicon Valley. HP labs worked with Berkely to further develop and commercialize production of the Memrister. When it came time to produce the technology HP moved it all to Korea. The IP generated by US Universities are US resources. Letting companies mine it and ship the technology overseas is as bad for our economy as companies mining raw materials and shipping them overseas was for Africa and Asia. It must be a condition of utilizing US generated IP whether it comes from US Universities or DoD contracts that the product production occur in the US for the life of the patent. Otherwise no US patent will be granted.
If we do these 2 things and stop the exploitation of US resources and IP by Multinational companies we will see our economy start to rebound. If we don't we will continue to lose ground to Asia countries that already understand this phenomenon and protect their capital and their IP.
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