CDZ The Jobs Ain't Coming Back

[JimBowie1958]

They bought bonds, dude.

No, they bought securities and bonds, but mostly mortgage backed securities.

And the reason why you can't show losses caused by buying shit at par is because they didn't buy shit.
They bought high quality bonds, at the market price, and have made huge profits doing so.

Those were not high quality securities, in fact far from it. They were MBS, CDOs and SIVs that no one else would buy and were thus worthless. And the Federal Reserve bought them for the same price that the banks bought them for orignally and they paid no mind to the current worthless value if marked to market, dude.

Tough to do if your fantasy had been what happened.

The only fantasy here is in your preference to invent the facts instead of digging them up.

And for this $4.5+ trillion gift, the banks owe the rest of us their assets, lock stock and barrel. We have the right to do anything to them that were can get passed through Congress and signed into law.

Breaking them up into much smaller pieces is just the first step. Putting the principal leaders of the whole fiasco on trila and then hanging them would be the next.

The Fed's QE Program Has Been Great for Banks, But Maybe Not for Your Wallet

Quantitative easing (QE), a monetary policy through which central banks purchase government bonds and other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply, is a term with which most Americans became familiar in the wake of the financial crisis in 2007. The U.S. Federal Reserve undertook three rounds of quantitative easing (dubbed QE1, QE2 and QE3) from 2008 to 2014, creating and spending roughly $4 trillion.

With the U.S. QE experiment over (at least for now), the question persists, what has QE done for me?

The clearest beneficiaries of quantitative easing have been Wall Street banks, a point both teams agreed on.

Huszar noted that two-thirds of the $4 trillion injected in QE remains in Wall Street banks. The other third, which he said was intended for mortgage lending, has instead been directed at speculative assets and investing.

 

[Indeependent]

They bought bonds, dude.

No, they bought securities and bonds, but mostly mortgage backed securities.

And the reason why you can't show losses caused by buying shit at par is because they didn't buy shit.
They bought high quality bonds, at the market price, and have made huge profits doing so.

Those were not high quality securities, in fact far from it. They were MBS, CDOs and SIVs that no one else would buy and were thus worthless. And the Federal Reserve bought them for the same price that the banks bought them for orignally and they paid no mind to the current worthless value if marked to market, dude.

Tough to do if your fantasy had been what happened.

The only fantasy here is in your preference to invent the facts instead of digging them up.

And for this $4.5+ trillion gift, the banks owe the rest of us their assets, lock stock and barrel. We have the right to do anything to them that were can get passed through Congress and signed into law.

Breaking them up into much smaller pieces is just the first step. Putting the principal leaders of the whole fiasco on trila and then hanging them would be the next.

The Fed's QE Program Has Been Great for Banks, But Maybe Not for Your Wallet

Quantitative easing (QE), a monetary policy through which central banks purchase government bonds and other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply, is a term with which most Americans became familiar in the wake of the financial crisis in 2007. The U.S. Federal Reserve undertook three rounds of quantitative easing (dubbed QE1, QE2 and QE3) from 2008 to 2014, creating and spending roughly $4 trillion.

With the U.S. QE experiment over (at least for now), the question persists, what has QE done for me?

The clearest beneficiaries of quantitative easing have been Wall Street banks, a point both teams agreed on.

Huszar noted that two-thirds of the $4 trillion injected in QE remains in Wall Street banks. The other third, which he said was intended for mortgage lending, has instead been directed at speculative assets and investing.

I'm waiting for Todd to tell you there wasn't a crash.

 

[JimBowie1958]

They bought bonds, dude.

No, they bought securities and bonds, but mostly mortgage backed securities.

And the reason why you can't show losses caused by buying shit at par is because they didn't buy shit.
They bought high quality bonds, at the market price, and have made huge profits doing so.

Those were not high quality securities, in fact far from it. They were MBS, CDOs and SIVs that no one else would buy and were thus worthless. And the Federal Reserve bought them for the same price that the banks bought them for orignally and they paid no mind to the current worthless value if marked to market, dude.

Tough to do if your fantasy had been what happened.

The only fantasy here is in your preference to invent the facts instead of digging them up.

And for this $4.5+ trillion gift, the banks owe the rest of us their assets, lock stock and barrel. We have the right to do anything to them that were can get passed through Congress and signed into law.

Breaking them up into much smaller pieces is just the first step. Putting the principal leaders of the whole fiasco on trila and then hanging them would be the next.

The Fed's QE Program Has Been Great for Banks, But Maybe Not for Your Wallet

Quantitative easing (QE), a monetary policy through which central banks purchase government bonds and other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply, is a term with which most Americans became familiar in the wake of the financial crisis in 2007. The U.S. Federal Reserve undertook three rounds of quantitative easing (dubbed QE1, QE2 and QE3) from 2008 to 2014, creating and spending roughly $4 trillion.

With the U.S. QE experiment over (at least for now), the question persists, what has QE done for me?

The clearest beneficiaries of quantitative easing have been Wall Street banks, a point both teams agreed on.

Huszar noted that two-thirds of the $4 trillion injected in QE remains in Wall Street banks. The other third, which he said was intended for mortgage lending, has instead been directed at speculative assets and investing.

I'm waiting for Todd to tell you there wasn't a crash.

Well, maybe in his little universe there never was; I dont know.

I guess if a man with a penis can be a female because he thinks he is, Todd can have no recession because he thinks it so as well.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

They bought bonds, dude.

No, they bought securities and bonds, but mostly mortgage backed securities.

And the reason why you can't show losses caused by buying shit at par is because they didn't buy shit.
They bought high quality bonds, at the market price, and have made huge profits doing so.

Those were not high quality securities, in fact far from it. They were MBS, CDOs and SIVs that no one else would buy and were thus worthless. And the Federal Reserve bought them for the same price that the banks bought them for orignally and they paid no mind to the current worthless value if marked to market, dude.

Tough to do if your fantasy had been what happened.

The only fantasy here is in your preference to invent the facts instead of digging them up.

And for this $4.5+ trillion gift, the banks owe the rest of us their assets, lock stock and barrel. We have the right to do anything to them that were can get passed through Congress and signed into law.

Breaking them up into much smaller pieces is just the first step. Putting the principal leaders of the whole fiasco on trila and then hanging them would be the next.

The Fed's QE Program Has Been Great for Banks, But Maybe Not for Your Wallet

Quantitative easing (QE), a monetary policy through which central banks purchase government bonds and other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply, is a term with which most Americans became familiar in the wake of the financial crisis in 2007. The U.S. Federal Reserve undertook three rounds of quantitative easing (dubbed QE1, QE2 and QE3) from 2008 to 2014, creating and spending roughly $4 trillion.

With the U.S. QE experiment over (at least for now), the question persists, what has QE done for me?

The clearest beneficiaries of quantitative easing have been Wall Street banks, a point both teams agreed on.

Huszar noted that two-thirds of the $4 trillion injected in QE remains in Wall Street banks. The other third, which he said was intended for mortgage lending, has instead been directed at speculative assets and investing.

No, they bought securities and bonds, but mostly mortgage backed securities.

Mortgages are bonds. Durr.

Those were not high quality securities, in fact far from it.

The bought US Treasuries and guaranteed MBS.

In response to the emerging financial crisis, and in order to mitigate its implications for the U.S. economy and financial system, the Federal Reserve eased the stance of monetary policy aggressively throughout 2008 by reducing the target for the federal funds rate. By December of 2008, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) had reduced its target federal funds rate to a range of between 0 and 1/4 percent. With the target federal funds rate at the effective lower bound, the FOMC sought to provide additional policy stimulus by expanding the holdings of longer term securities in its portfolio, the System Open Market Account (SOMA), including large-scale purchases of fixed-rate, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae (referred to as "agency MBS"). The purchases were intended to lower longer-term interest rates and contribute to an overall easing of financial conditions.

FRB: Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) Purchase Program

They were MBS, CDOs and SIVs that no one else would buy and were thus worthless.

Tell me how they bought an SIV. Better yet, tell me what an SIV was.

 

[Indeependent]

There was no Great Depression...

 

[JimBowie1958]

[
No, they bought securities and bonds, but mostly mortgage backed securities.

Mortgages are bonds. Durr.

And bonds are securities, dude. I was merely being specific since you claimed the Fed bought bonds instead of securities.

What is your point?

Those were not high quality securities, in fact far from it.

The bought US Treasuries and guaranteed MBS.

In response to the emerging financial crisis, and in order to mitigate its implications for the U.S. economy and financial system, the Federal Reserve eased the stance of monetary policy aggressively throughout 2008 by reducing the target for the federal funds rate. By December of 2008, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) had reduced its target federal funds rate to a range of between 0 and 1/4 percent. With the target federal funds rate at the effective lower bound, the FOMC sought to provide additional policy stimulus by expanding the holdings of longer term securities in its portfolio, the System Open Market Account (SOMA), including large-scale purchases of fixed-rate, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae (referred to as "agency MBS"). The purchases were intended to lower longer-term interest rates and contribute to an overall easing of financial conditions.

FRB: Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) Purchase Program

"overall easing of financial conditions" = bailing out banks for free.

They were MBS, CDOs and SIVs that no one else would buy and were thus worthless.

Tell me how they bought an SIV. Better yet, tell me what an SIV was.

Lol, it is an institution, not a security, but people invested in them and their stocks which went belly up just like the MBS, and CDOs they invested in among other things.

 

[320 Years of History]

They bought bonds, dude.

No, they bought securities and bonds, but mostly mortgage backed securities.

And the reason why you can't show losses caused by buying shit at par is because they didn't buy shit.
They bought high quality bonds, at the market price, and have made huge profits doing so.

Those were not high quality securities, in fact far from it. They were MBS, CDOs and SIVs that no one else would buy and were thus worthless. And the Federal Reserve bought them for the same price that the banks bought them for orignally and they paid no mind to the current worthless value if marked to market, dude.

Tough to do if your fantasy had been what happened.

The only fantasy here is in your preference to invent the facts instead of digging them up.

And for this $4.5+ trillion gift, the banks owe the rest of us their assets, lock stock and barrel. We have the right to do anything to them that were can get passed through Congress and signed into law.

Breaking them up into much smaller pieces is just the first step. Putting the principal leaders of the whole fiasco on trila and then hanging them would be the next.

The Fed's QE Program Has Been Great for Banks, But Maybe Not for Your Wallet

Quantitative easing (QE), a monetary policy through which central banks purchase government bonds and other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply, is a term with which most Americans became familiar in the wake of the financial crisis in 2007. The U.S. Federal Reserve undertook three rounds of quantitative easing (dubbed QE1, QE2 and QE3) from 2008 to 2014, creating and spending roughly $4 trillion.

With the U.S. QE experiment over (at least for now), the question persists, what has QE done for me?

The clearest beneficiaries of quantitative easing have been Wall Street banks, a point both teams agreed on.

Huszar noted that two-thirds of the $4 trillion injected in QE remains in Wall Street banks. The other third, which he said was intended for mortgage lending, has instead been directed at speculative assets and investing.

I'm waiting for Todd to tell you there wasn't a crash.

Well, maybe in his little universe there never was; I dont know.

I guess if a man with a penis can be a female because he thinks he is, Todd can have no recession because he thinks it so as well.

Touché

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

[
No, they bought securities and bonds, but mostly mortgage backed securities.

Mortgages are bonds. Durr.

And bonds are securities, dude. I was merely being specific since you claimed the Fed bought bonds instead of securities.

What is your point?

Those were not high quality securities, in fact far from it.

The bought US Treasuries and guaranteed MBS.

In response to the emerging financial crisis, and in order to mitigate its implications for the U.S. economy and financial system, the Federal Reserve eased the stance of monetary policy aggressively throughout 2008 by reducing the target for the federal funds rate. By December of 2008, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) had reduced its target federal funds rate to a range of between 0 and 1/4 percent. With the target federal funds rate at the effective lower bound, the FOMC sought to provide additional policy stimulus by expanding the holdings of longer term securities in its portfolio, the System Open Market Account (SOMA), including large-scale purchases of fixed-rate, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae (referred to as "agency MBS"). The purchases were intended to lower longer-term interest rates and contribute to an overall easing of financial conditions.

FRB: Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) Purchase Program

"overall easing of financial conditions" = bailing out banks for free.

They were MBS, CDOs and SIVs that no one else would buy and were thus worthless.

Tell me how they bought an SIV. Better yet, tell me what an SIV was.

Lol, it is an institution, not a security, but people invested in them and their stocks which went belly up just like the MBS, and CDOs they invested in among other things.

And bonds are securities, dude. I was merely being specific since you claimed the Fed bought bonds instead of securities.

You said they bought equities. LOL!
Tell me about the equities they bought. Durr.

"overall easing of financial conditions" = bailing out banks for free.

Sure, the Fed bought guaranteed MBS paying 4% and more in exchange for cash paying 0.25%.
That's gonna raise bank income for sure. LOL!

Lol, it is an institution, not a security,

Yeah, so they didn't buy any SIVs you idiot.

but people invested in them and their stocks which went belly up

Ah, geez, you're so fucking clueless. People didn't invest in SIVs, banks set them up to hold assets off their balance sheets.

They are generally established as offshore companies and so avoid paying tax and escape the regulation that banks and finance companies are normally subject to. In addition, until changes in regulations around 2008, they could often be kept off the balance-sheet of the banks that set them up, escaping even indirect restraints through regulation. Due to their structure, the assets and liabilities of the SIV was more transparent than traditional banks for investors. SIVs were given the label by Standard & Poors -- Moody's called them "Limited Purpose Investment Companies" or "LiPICs". They are considered to be part of the non-bank financial system, which has two parts, the shadow banking system comprising the "bank sponsored" SIVs (which operated in the shadows of the bank sponsors balance sheets) and the parallel banking system, made up from independent (i.e. non bank aligned) sponsors.

Invented by Citigroup in 1988, SIVs were large investors in securitisations. Some SIVs had significant concentrations in US subprime mortgages, while other SIV had no exposure to these products that are so linked to the financial crisis in 2008.[2] After a slow start (there were only 7 SIVs before 2000) the SIV sector tripled in assets between 2004 and 2007 and at their peak just before the financial crisis in mid 2007, there were about 36 SIVs[1][3] with assets under management in excess of $400 billion.[4] By October 2008, no SIVs remained active.[5]

The strategy of SIVs is the same as traditional credit spread banking. They raise capital and then lever that capital by issuing short-term securities, such as commercial paper and medium term notes and public bonds, at lower rates and then use that money to buy longer term securities at higher margins, earning the net credit spread for their investors. Long term assets could include, among other things, residential mortgage-backed security (RMBS), collateralized bond obligation, auto loans, student loans, credit cards securitizations, and bank and corporate bonds.

Structured investment vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[JimBowie1958]

Touché

when you have poor instructions for use of the lightsaber

 

[JimBowie1958]

[
No, they bought securities and bonds, but mostly mortgage backed securities.

Mortgages are bonds. Durr.

And bonds are securities, dude. I was merely being specific since you claimed the Fed bought bonds instead of securities.

What is your point?

Those were not high quality securities, in fact far from it.

The bought US Treasuries and guaranteed MBS.

In response to the emerging financial crisis, and in order to mitigate its implications for the U.S. economy and financial system, the Federal Reserve eased the stance of monetary policy aggressively throughout 2008 by reducing the target for the federal funds rate. By December of 2008, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) had reduced its target federal funds rate to a range of between 0 and 1/4 percent. With the target federal funds rate at the effective lower bound, the FOMC sought to provide additional policy stimulus by expanding the holdings of longer term securities in its portfolio, the System Open Market Account (SOMA), including large-scale purchases of fixed-rate, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae (referred to as "agency MBS"). The purchases were intended to lower longer-term interest rates and contribute to an overall easing of financial conditions.

FRB: Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) Purchase Program

"overall easing of financial conditions" = bailing out banks for free.

They were MBS, CDOs and SIVs that no one else would buy and were thus worthless.

Tell me how they bought an SIV. Better yet, tell me what an SIV was.

Lol, it is an institution, not a security, but people invested in them and their stocks which went belly up just like the MBS, and CDOs they invested in among other things.

And bonds are securities, dude. I was merely being specific since you claimed the Fed bought bonds instead of securities.

You said they bought equities. LOL!
Tell me about the equities they bought. Durr.

"overall easing of financial conditions" = bailing out banks for free.

Sure, the Fed bought guaranteed MBS paying 4% and more in exchange for cash paying 0.25%.
That's gonna raise bank income for sure. LOL!

Lol, it is an institution, not a security,

Yeah, so they didn't buy any SIVs you idiot.

but people invested in them and their stocks which went belly up

Ah, geez, you're so fucking clueless. People didn't invest in SIVs, banks set them up to hold assets off their balance sheets.

They are generally established as offshore companies and so avoid paying tax and escape the regulation that banks and finance companies are normally subject to. In addition, until changes in regulations around 2008, they could often be kept off the balance-sheet of the banks that set them up, escaping even indirect restraints through regulation. Due to their structure, the assets and liabilities of the SIV was more transparent than traditional banks for investors. SIVs were given the label by Standard & Poors -- Moody's called them "Limited Purpose Investment Companies" or "LiPICs". They are considered to be part of the non-bank financial system, which has two parts, the shadow banking system comprising the "bank sponsored" SIVs (which operated in the shadows of the bank sponsors balance sheets) and the parallel banking system, made up from independent (i.e. non bank aligned) sponsors.

Invented by Citigroup in 1988, SIVs were large investors in securitisations. Some SIVs had significant concentrations in US subprime mortgages, while other SIV had no exposure to these products that are so linked to the financial crisis in 2008.[2] After a slow start (there were only 7 SIVs before 2000) the SIV sector tripled in assets between 2004 and 2007 and at their peak just before the financial crisis in mid 2007, there were about 36 SIVs[1][3] with assets under management in excess of $400 billion.[4] By October 2008, no SIVs remained active.[5]

The strategy of SIVs is the same as traditional credit spread banking. They raise capital and then lever that capital by issuing short-term securities, such as commercial paper and medium term notes and public bonds, at lower rates and then use that money to buy longer term securities at higher margins, earning the net credit spread for their investors. Long term assets could include, among other things, residential mortgage-backed security (RMBS), collateralized bond obligation, auto loans, student loans, credit cards securitizations, and bank and corporate bonds.

Structured investment vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

lol, whatever

 

[Wilbur Right]

Are you seriously arguing or implying that the 1% away from 100% literacy is causal to anything we're discussing in this thread?

According to a study conducted in late April by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read. That's 14 percent of the population. 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.Sep 6, 2013



Yes. I am not suggesting anything. Poor reading and comprehension skills are a MAJOR issue for this country.
What would you suggest (if anything) be done to help these people become productive members of society?


32 million people can't read. Thats closer to 10% of the population. Where did the 1% number come from?

What do you think our decline in educational performance is caused by if not a lack of critical read skills?

 

[Wilbur Right]

Would it be a major enough event if American consumers in mass, decided that IF a product doesn't say Made in America, it won't be bought?

Most likely not now. The U.S. is no longer a growth market, it's a mature market. If good producers are forced to choose between no profit and profits taken from countries that will buy their products, they'll choose the latter.

Supply and demand still exist as market forces. Right?

They most definitely do. The supply goes where the demand is.

Is the USA no longer the number 1 consumer market in the world?
You believe producers would give up on our market IF consumers wanted to purchase goods made in America? And that those producers couldn't figure out how to be profitable in the changed market?

Japanese build a lot of product with American labor and they are profitable. If the Japanese can do it, why wouldn't other companies do the same?

I believe they (manufactuers) could build and sell product here and still be profitable. Maybe not as profitable as using dirt cheap labor but still profitable. It will take a change in the supply and demand side.
As in the demand for American made goods and a supply to fill that demand.

Imagine if Trump come out and tells all his followers to make sure any product they buy says made in the USA. Think anyone would listen. Think US manufacturers would listen?

 

[rdean]

Sanders promote infrastructure development projects, financed by the rich, to create jobs. This is a proven technique, and would work.

Trump on the other hand, offer absolutely nothing, other than utter bs...

What projects. Name one.

Bernie hasn't been vetted, something Trump would take care of in short order.

 

[Wilbur Right]

And the thing to do about it if one is a worker is to get the skills needed to perform the jobs America has to offer. Look at that job listing cited in the study I referenced.

I looked at that job. I understand what that job entails.
What I dont think you understand is that it has become difficult to obtain the necessary skills for this kind of precision work.

If you were not exposed to machine shops in high school, you might not recognize it as a career path.

If you aren't good at advanced math, you're screwed. I had to do all my advanced math with a slide rule and trig tables.

If you can't write and edit computer programs, you're screwed.

Lots of tool and die workers came to the industry through their dad's. Very uncommon today.

My point in sticking with the tool and die industry is that we had a leadership position in a critical area of manufacturing and we lost it. Why?

I listened to Tim Cook of Apple be asked why he was building everything in China. He pointed to a large room he was in and said that in China he could easily fill the hall with tool and die workers. If he was looking for American tool and die, he said he couldn't fill the first couple rows of seats.

That is a problem for us. If we get to the point where we build nothing, we are screwed.

 

[320 Years of History]

Where did the 1% number come from?

I provided links for the source of my information and the authors of the pages to which I linked provide the source of their information. How about you provide a link for your data source?

 

[320 Years of History]

Would it be a major enough event if American consumers in mass, decided that IF a product doesn't say Made in America, it won't be bought?

Most likely not now. The U.S. is no longer a growth market, it's a mature market. If good producers are forced to choose between no profit and profits taken from countries that will buy their products, they'll choose the latter.

Supply and demand still exist as market forces. Right?

They most definitely do. The supply goes where the demand is.

Is the USA no longer the number 1 consumer market in the world?
You believe producers would give up on our market IF consumers wanted to purchase goods made in America? And that those producers couldn't figure out how to be profitable in the changed market?

Japanese build a lot of product with American labor and they are profitable. If the Japanese can do it, why wouldn't other companies do the same?

I believe they (manufactuers) could build and sell product here and still be profitable. Maybe not as profitable as using dirt cheap labor but still profitable. It will take a change in the supply and demand side.
As in the demand for American made goods and a supply to fill that demand.

Imagine if Trump come out and tells all his followers to make sure any product they buy says made in the USA. Think anyone would listen. Think US manufacturers would listen?

Red:
Please begin reading my posts far more closely than you have been. On several occasions now you've replied with remarks/questions that indicate you've either (1) not paid attention to what you read or (2) opted to be deliberately obtuse in composing your reply. I haven't concluded about which of the two is the predominating factor.

Green:
OMFG!!!

Has anyone suggested that no products can be profitably produced in the U.S? Clearly the U.S. can and does produce some goods domestically, regardless of whether the company producing them is owned and operated largely by U.S. citizens or foreign citizens. Multiple factors affect the types of products for which that is both sensible and profitable to do so. Some, but not all, of those factors are listed below.

• Business operations strategies and objectives
  • The markets the producer aims to address
  • The producer's production and sales strategy
  • The specific mix of tactics that maximize profits using that strategy
    
  • The minimum profitability the company needs achieve to grow.
  • The minimum profitability the company needs to achieve to meet owner expectations
  • The extent to which emotion plays into, perhaps controls, the buying decision for a given product
• Economic factors
  • The nature of competition for the good(s) being produced and purchased -- monopolistic competition, oligopolistic competition, commoditized competition, etc.
  • Availability of substitutes within the markets the producer opts to address
  • Price elasticity of demand within markets the producer opts to address and for the goods the producer aims to sell in them
  • Cultural trends (relevant mostly for the consumer goods)

To offer a very simple example:

• Balmain can produce its jeans anywhere on the planet because the jeans are priced high enough (~$1500) that buyers of them are very unlikely to care about the marginal cost differential between doing so in, say, Mexico vs. doing so in Italy or the U.S. If U.S. Balmain buyers comprise the bulk of the company's purchasers and Balmain can afford to shift its production to the U.S., its managers may opt to do so.
• Faded Glory, on the other hand, are modestly priced jeans (~$10). Buyers of them are far more price sensitive than are Balmain buyers; thus if Faded Glory jeans cost materially more than one of the other available substitutes, consumers won't buy them. For modestly priced products, the marginal cost increase resulting from higher labor costs can often be enough to cause the consumer to buy item A instead of item B, even though they may have an emotional preference for item B.

Is it so that some producers make jeans in America and sell them successfully? Of course it is. But look at the price points. Quite simply, one cannot sell a pair of jeans priced at $30 to a consumer who is willing to spend only $10-$20? If seller must make the profit associated with the jeans selling at $30, they won't sell them at $20 absent extenuating circumstances affecting their profit maximization strategy and tactics.

Blue:
I suggest you familiarize yourself with the relationship between stock price and profits, along with the role corporate performance plays in its financing. The nature of yours, my or anyone else's predictions of a company's profitability really don't matter unless we are among the owners of the company(s) in question.

Purple:
Some will and some won't. Which ones will and which ones won't will depend on whether the company thinks it's in their overall business interest (profit) to do so. Right now, companies aren't forced to make such a choice, but if forced to do so by such a proclamation as you've theorized, they'll make it based on objective analysis of their business situation. It's not lost on businesses these days that, unlike in the heyday of American consumer goods production, there are consumer goods markets that are larger than the entire population of the U.S. and that those markets are where sales growth can be found.

CONSUMER EXPENDITURE GROWTH IN THE FIVE LARGEST DEVELOPED MARKETS: 2015 AND 2016
​

Notice that in the caption are the words "developed markets." Do you understand the distinction between a growth market and a developed one? I can assure you businesses do and the differences feature greatly in their business strategies and operations. (I note for your benefit that "feature greatly" is not synonymous with "feature exclusively.")

 

[320 Years of History]

And the thing to do about it if one is a worker is to get the skills needed to perform the jobs America has to offer. Look at that job listing cited in the study I referenced.

I looked at that job. I understand what that job entails.
What I dont think you understand is that it has become difficult to obtain the necessary skills for this kind of precision work.

If you were not exposed to machine shops in high school, you might not recognize it as a career path.

If you aren't good at advanced math, you're screwed. I had to do all my advanced math with a slide rule and trig tables.

If you can't write and edit computer programs, you're screwed.

Lots of tool and die workers came to the industry through their dad's. Very uncommon today.

My point in sticking with the tool and die industry is that we had a leadership position in a critical area of manufacturing and we lost it. Why?

I listened to Tim Cook of Apple be asked why he was building everything in China. He pointed to a large room he was in and said that in China he could easily fill the hall with tool and die workers. If he was looking for American tool and die, he said he couldn't fill the first couple rows of seats.

That is a problem for us. If we get to the point where we build nothing, we are screwed.

Okay....You've not far too often made remarks of a nature that force me to respectfully ask you the following questions:

• Are you being deliberately obtuse and argumentative?
• Might it instead be that you've opted to engage on this topic while concurrently you genuinely do not understand the progression of business and economic cycles and the consequence of a business, industry, city, nation, etc. being in each of the various stages in them?

Time and time again you respond to me with what appears to be a sincere tone -- thereby suggesting you aren't being willfully obtuse and argumentative -- but the remarks are the sort that only someone who really doesn't understand the topic would make, unless the person is indeed being deliberately obtuse.

Below are two illustrations of the economic cycle. The first one depicts many industry segments and rise, fall and rise again of financial instruments. The second presents the economic cycle in more general terms. The very same cycle -- expansion and contraction -- exists with regard to the labor market overall as well as segments of the labor market, production and specific types of production, the consumer goods market and segments within it, capital markets and segments of them, whole economies (the market called the U.S.) and subsets of the given economy, and so on. What varies is the scale of the market under consideration, not the progression of the economic cycle and the implications of being at any point within it.

​

One thing, if you feel like you have to respond re: the image above, don't reply to me with some puerile comment such as "well, the stock market is up but manufacturing isn't expanding in the U.S." I will truly stop interacting with you if you do because I have only so much patience for conversations about economics with folks who don't understand the entirely of the concepts being discussed. It's not your fault, but too many other folks' poorly considered rebuttals offered in many other threads have used up the vast majority of my patience for having those sorts of conversations. (A member on here somewhere posited that I'm in the wrong place for the types of discussions prefer to have; s/he's likely right, but participating here is the price I must pay for having lost a bet, so here I am.)

Instead, click on the image and read the content on the corresponding web pages. Also read the content and watch the video at the link I provided at the outset of this post.

Here's a different way to depict the same idea; however, it's presented in generalized form rather than with regard to specifics marketplace.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Who pays when the rich leave? Have you noticed that the rich are leaving and are taking their companies with them? Remember when Obomb touted the shovel ready infrastructure bullshit? Ask Flint how well that worked.
Hitlery has already told you that in order to build up the Pacific Rim, that jobs would necessarily HAVE to leave our country.

So ask yourself, why are jobs a bad thing for America but a really good thing for Asia?

You are simply - and as usual - parroting the propaganda from the power elite which is by design mendacious. If you have Netflix I suggest you watch the hour long Requiem for the American Dream. Take some notes and think critically on the validity of the ten points which are punctuated by historical evidence. You might then vote for Bernie, or a least eschew T rump.

 

[Wilbur Right]

Hey 320, you way above my pay grade if you want to discuss esoteric economic theory/practices. You apparently make your living expending mental capital toiling in the fields of economics and academia. Either that or you have a strange hobby.

I made my little money with physical effort. I built things.

Both serve a purpose.
However here's what I know for certain. There is a group of people who have this tremendous understanding of world economics and all that knowledge has only really benefited a very small, elite segment of people. The rich really have gotten much more rich.

Do you really think all the understanding and discussion of economic theory and practices has been particularly beneficial to the majority of Americans?


I liked your segment on art of the insult. Interesting to read about my innate skills.

Does this mean we won't be communicating anymore? Shame.

Ps, you seem taken aback that illiteracy is such an issue in this country. Try Google. It's a real problem. (Literacy and people not using Google for their own edification.)

 

[320 Years of History]

You apparently make your living expending mental capital toiling in the fields of economics and academia.

I make my living in business, and having a strong understanding of economics is among the skills I need to have in order to do my job well.

Does this mean we won't be communicating anymore?

That will depend on the nature of what you say. Frankly, I mostly enjoy our conversations, and that I do has a lot to do with why I said what I did in that other post. I'd just as soon continue discussing things with you. You're polite and that alone is rare on this forum, and ample cause for me to want to continue chatting with you on here.

Your having implied you lack formal training in economics goes a long way. It allows me to understand with whom I'm conversing and thereby align my expectations re: the content of your remarks. In other words, communicating that kind of information manages my expectations which is very important when folks are sharing their thoughts. I appreciate it when folks do so. I'll readily attest to having a very limited understanding on things about which that is so.

Sidebar:

The other side of that "coin" is that I was very well formally educated from childhood to graduate school (I think I got three "Bs" in all those years of school, and one was in golf), and after grad school, I've never stopped reading academic papers on topics that interest me: economics, accounting, taxation, philosophy, sociology, cosmology, astronomy, geology, history, psychology, business, horology, sailing, and more. I have an inquiring mind and I make the effort to find out about things. On the other hand, I have only a passing awareness of things like who Adele is. I have no idea whether the woman is tall, short, white, black, American, French, fat, pudgy, thin, physically handicapped, etc. I do know she sings really well and that I've liked her songs when I've heard them.​

End of sidebar.

I'm perfectly fine with folks not having a strong knowledge of economic "stuff." I get annoyed rapidly when folks who don't have a strong grasp of economics/business yet opine and posit "what is, what will, what should" be in response to stimuli and do so in a way that implores readers to view their remarks as credible.

I think Murray Rothbard said it best, "It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”

There is a group of people who have this tremendous understanding of world economics and all that knowledge has only really benefited a very small, elite segment of people.

Do you really think all the understanding and discussion of economic theory and practices has been particularly beneficial to the majority of Americans?

Continuing from the themes above, the issue isn't all those economics experts who have that knowledge not bringing their expertise to bear in the design and implementation of public policy. The issue is that our nation is one in which literally millions more folks don't have even the most basic formal training in economics think they "know enough" about it that they don't need that training; thus they don't pursue obtaining it. Unfortunately, economics is a discipline that makes great sense when one fully understands it, but it's not one that lends itself to "common sense"/"conventional wisdom" comprehension in simple terms. Those economically untrained folks vote and that they do allows politicians pander to and take unfair advantage of what "conventional wisdom" would lead folks to believe. That is, in order to win elections, pols avail themselves of the general public's lack of econ savviness.

The current "hot button" topic in that regard is free trade. The central questions folks must ask about free trade are these, "Do the overall gains from lower prices exceed the losses from the transference of jobs that results in free trade markets? Or is it the other way around...that is, do the losses from job transference exceed the gains from price reductions?"

People who understand economics understand that, economically speaking, those are really the only two questions that matter. And here's the thing, economists have studied the matter often enough and long enough that they know the answer. Most politicians know the answer too, but they also know that the answer isn't the one a person who is unemployed or underemployed wants to hear. No surprise there either. Economics (macro) doesn't' care if you have food on your individual table; it cares whether as a nation

How do I know that most, if not all, politicians know this? I just have to listen to what they say. Have you heard so much as one political candidate directly address the answer to the pivotal questions I just noted? I know the answer, and it's that not one them has. I doubt any of them ever will. How could they? If they address it directly:

• If they tell the truth about free trade and what economists know about it's value in comparison to the value resulting from job loss, they face being painted as "anti-American" or some other such BS, or
• If they directly say that free trade's merit is less than the merit of implementing protectionist policies (quotas and tariffs) they'll be shown to truly be ignorant/stupid when it comes to economics. Quite literally, I bet not one person on the forum lives in a house large enough to hold all the papers and research studies that have been done since the 1970s and that show that free trade is better than the alternative, which is protected trade.

Quite literally, economists are not in disagreement about the superior merit of free trade in comparison with protected trade. American voters who don't know a damn thing (or who know little about it) are the only folks who genuinely believe protected trade is better than free trade.

It's worth nothing that protection is economically better for one type of industry/market: nascent ones. If the U.S. had an burgeoning cold fusion equipment manufacturing industry, it'd make sense to implement protectionist policies with regard to it. But look at the areas covered by the two free trade deals the U.S. has implemented. Do you see anything there that would put such emerging industries at risk? I bet you don't, and I can tell you now the name of the charity to which you can send the money you'll lose by taking the bet.

The rich really have gotten much more rich.

That's something that the non-rich like to gripe about. Occasionally rich folks recognize the seeming inequity of that happening. The reality is that rich folks are going to get richer no matter what policies are implemented. Why? Because once one is rich, public policy only affects how hard or easy it is got richer, and at what rate getting richer occurs.

The big differnce between folks who get rich and folks who don't is that the folks who get rich "read the writing on the wall" and pay attention to it rather than complaining (1) that the "words on the wall" are what they are and (2) that the "words" are on the wall in the first place. In other words, folks who get rich are folks who choose to play by the rules that are in place at the time rather than wishing the rules were different or complaining that the rules are stacked against them. Folks who get rich don't complain that it's hard to get rich -- make no mistake, it is hard to do -- they just "bite the bullet" do the hard work to make getting rich happen. Admittedly, some folks got rich buying a lottery ticket, and that's not hard to do, but few folks get rich that way too.

liked your segment on art of the insult.

Thank you.

Ps, you seem taken aback that illiteracy is such an issue in this country.

I think I know what post of mine you read that inspired your remark above. At the moment, I'm taken aback that someone who remarked about it being something other than 1% has done so and not provided any credible source substantiating their claim that U.S. illiteracy is well above 1%. (As I write this post, I truly can't tell you off the top of my head who did that. I don't even care who did it; I just know they did it and it's annoying as hell that they did it.)

You'll recall I wrote about my patience ebbing quickly. Another behavior I've experienced on this site is that of folks making claims, in particular claims about simple quantitative facts, in refutation of comments I've made and for which I provided credible and objective support/sources, yet the claimant offered nothing but their own pontifically developed data point, with no corroborating source that is credible, or worse, with no source at all

I think once one someone did provide a reasonably, at least on the face of things, credible source, but then upon looking at the methodology the source used to obtain the data/conclusions it did, it became very clear, very quickly that the approach used was loaded with bias and had left objectivity comfortably ensconced in a hotel room somewhere in a neighboring state.

When I see that sort of thing, what goes through my mind is, "Really? You actually presented that drivel in response to what I shared/provided. Did you bother to look at the methodology before citing that crap?" You see, what I find over and over on USMB is that a lot of folks are well informed as follows:

• Folks who seem well informed on what is the conservative stance on a topic, that is they are very well aware of what well voiced conservatives say on a given topic.
• Folks who seem well informed on what is the liberal stance on a topic, that is they are very well aware of what well voiced liberals say on a given topic.

What see very little of is folks who are well versed on a topic itself, can explain the high level and detailed aspects of the topic, and having that degree of knowledge about the topic can articulate the strengths and weaknesses of their own view on the matter, or even that of other conservatives or liberals. Occasionally, I come by a post that addresses "the forest;" frequently I see a post that addresses "a tree or two." The latter quite often tacitly claims that the few "trees" mentioned are the most important trees in the "forest." That's the nature of most of what folks here post when to anyone who actually does know the topic well, the fact is that there is rarely, if ever, a singularly "most important tree" in the "forest;" thus any cogent individual will consider and address both the "forest and the trees."