Minimum Wage --Prevents-- Wealth Acquisition!

[Dad2three]

. Collapse... meh not so much.

you got on right at last. Central banks now know to prevent runs and panics, thanks to Friedman, so the vast majority of businesses are protected from turmoil in the financial system spreading to the rest of the economy.

Says the Klown who argued the fed was responsible for Dubya's subprime bubble *shaking head*

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

How smart is it to be critical of China's fake markets? LOL!

We should all have fake markets that lift 40% of the world's poor out of poverty!!
Why not ask what psychological weakness makes it impossible for you to see the greatest economic miracle in human history?

Hey, if you want to move there and experience the Chinese miracle first hand, go for it, comrade.

translation: I lost debate so I;ll try to change subject

Translation, invest all your money in the Chinese market, doofus.

investing your money in Chinese stock market is experiencing it first hand??

China's improved economy means their markets are honest???

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

. Collapse... meh not so much.

you got on right at last. Central banks now know to prevent runs and panics, thanks to Friedman, so the vast majority of businesses are protected from turmoil in the financial system spreading to the rest of the economy.

Says the Klown who argued the fed was responsible for Dubya's subprime bubble *shaking head*

dear, Fed, Fan Fred and 132 other liberal programs designed to get people into homes the free market said they could not afford were responsible for the housing crash. Fan Fred would up holding 76% of the all the subprime and Alt A loans.

See why we say dumbto3

 

[danielpalos]

yet, those same politicians refuse to bear true witness to our own laws regarding employment at will, simply for the sake of morals.

 

[Dad2three]

. Collapse... meh not so much.

you got on right at last. Central banks now know to prevent runs and panics, thanks to Friedman, so the vast majority of businesses are protected from turmoil in the financial system spreading to the rest of the economy.

Says the Klown who argued the fed was responsible for Dubya's subprime bubble *shaking head*

dear, Fed, Fan Fred and 132 other liberal programs designed to get people into homes the free market said they could not afford were responsible for the housing crash. Fan Fred would up holding 76% of the all the subprime and Alt A loans.

See why we say dumbto3

oh right Bubba, CONservatives NEVER accept responsibility for the failure of their "free market" BS in the WORLD WIDE CREDIT BUBBLE AND BUST


F/F had 76% of subprimes huh? lol Ed Pinto/Peter Wallison/AEI said so, despite the Gov't backed loans performed 450%-600% better than the Banksters. Weird right? lol

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

oh right Bubba, CONservatives NEVER accept responsibility for the failure of their "free market" BS in the WORLD WIDE CREDIT BUBBLE AND BUST

dear how is Fed Fan Fred and 132 other programs designed to subvert the free market, the free market and not the opposite of the free market???

See how stupid and liberal you are??

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Gov't backed loans performed 450%-600% better than the Banksters. Weird right? lol

dear, most loans were backed by govt through Fan Fred FHA VA etc and as a result were cheaper. Private bankers got the worst customers while the best customers went to the govt for cheaper loans.

Now does dumbto3 understand?

 

[CultureCitizen]

It's far easier to catch up economically, than it is to blaze the trail.

Let me give a single example. My uncle is an engineer at a glassworks company. They build automated glassworks machines. They sent him to China, to sell their products. After a month, meeting with dozens of different companies, he came back with zero sales.

The chinese did in 30 years what took the US nearly a century ( 1830 to 1930 roughly ).
Sout Korea is even more extreme ( though it is a lot smaller and therefore the economy is easier to manage ) in 40 years they developed more than the US in 200 years. A remarkable achievment. (1800 to 1990 levels ) . Of course it would be interesting to watch how Korea develops in the next 20 years.

Regarding you uncle's factory ... indeed , in some aspect the chinese are very far away from US technology. In others they are surprisingly close , their space crafts , their high speed rail ( that one is probably better ) , the skyscrapers , their dams ( three gorges dam is impressive any way you look at it ) . Soon enough their megalopolies will dwarf anything the world has seen to date.

But my main point is that their development has been achieved largely by an increasing trade surplus with the US this is not a sustainable situation. In a long run it will cause trouble for both China and the US.

Now , compare China's development with Mexico, a country who embraced free trade 25 years ago. See my point ? Certainly that particular economy is not booming is it? Else millions would not be flooding the US. Mexico's pre-liberal development was solid . It would probably have been better for both the US and Mexico not to embark into that foolhardy adventure called NAFTA ( at least Stiglitz, who was Cinton's economic advisor, has been brave enough to say NAFTA did not work as he expected and free trade has to be revisited)

 

[CultureCitizen]

How smart is it to be critical of China's fake markets? LOL!

We should all have fake markets that lift 40% of the world's poor out of poverty!!
Why not ask what psychological weakness makes it impossible for you to see the greatest economic miracle in human history?

Hey, if you want to move there and experience the Chinese miracle first hand, go for it, comrade.

translation: I lost debate so I;ll try to change subject

Translation, invest all your money in the Chinese market, doofus.

Better wait until they settle their skyrocketing private debt.

 

[CultureCitizen]

They've got about 3.5 T worth of t-bills to do that...

No they don't.

Reserves & T-bills. Sory for the imprecission... enough to bailout to whoever they want. Hardly an unescapable situation. Hard to manage , yes , certainly . Collapse... meh not so much.

They can't just turn in T-bills/bonds on demand. They have a specific mature date.

The only option would be to sell them on the open market. In small amounts, that would be perfectly fine. But in large numbers, that would start to lower bond prices. While that might screw up the US government (assuming we were borrowing like mad at the time), it would also hurt themselves. The amount of money for the bonds would drop.

The Chinese would end up selling the US bonds at a huge loss.

I don't see that as a realistic option.

The other option, is more possible, but it has a slippery slope to oblivion. They can start printing money, but as we've seen their economy still doesn't have the stability that even the US economy has.

If they printed money, inflation would jump. This would require them to increase pay towards the military, which is their only life line to holding power. With the required increases in military pay, that would require ever increasing the printing of cash, which would cause more inflation, which would require more pay to the military. This is exactly what happened in Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Once he got on that track, he was locked in with no hope of changing it.

I honestly doubt China will jump on either one of those.

Yes , they can sell their t-bills, indeed , they've been doing that for a couple of years now.
If the debt is in yen they can do QE just like the US did or simply write-off debts.
Foreign debt is more complicated.

 

[Andylusion]

It's far easier to catch up economically, than it is to blaze the trail.

Let me give a single example. My uncle is an engineer at a glassworks company. They build automated glassworks machines. They sent him to China, to sell their products. After a month, meeting with dozens of different companies, he came back with zero sales.

The chinese did in 30 years what took the US nearly a century ( 1830 to 1930 roughly ).
Sout Korea is even more extreme ( though it is a lot smaller and therefore the economy is easier to manage ) in 40 years they developed more than the US in 200 years. A remarkable achievment. (1800 to 1990 levels ) . Of course it would be interesting to watch how Korea develops in the next 20 years.

Regarding you uncle's factory ... indeed , in some aspect the chinese are very far away from US technology. In others they are surprisingly close , their space crafts , their high speed rail ( that one is probably better ) , the skyscrapers , their dams ( three gorges dam is impressive any way you look at it ) . Soon enough their megalopolies will dwarf anything the world has seen to date.

But my main point is that their development has been achieved largely by an increasing trade surplus with the US this is not a sustainable situation. In a long run it will cause trouble for both China and the US.

Now , compare China's development with Mexico, a country who embraced free trade 25 years ago. See my point ? Certainly that particular economy is not booming is it? Else millions would not be flooding the US. Mexico's pre-liberal development was solid . It would probably have been better for both the US and Mexico not to embark into that foolhardy adventure called NAFTA ( at least Stiglitz, who was Cinton's economic advisor, has been brave enough to say NAFTA did not work as he expected and free trade has to be revisited)

As should be expected. Why would you think any different? Think about it like this.... If you were going to build a bridge, and had never done it before, it would take you a long time..... However, if you had plans and an example to follow because someone else had been building bridges for a 100 years, it would still take you a while to master building a bridge, but not nearly as long as building it from scratch.

Yes, it required us 100 years. But we started from a position of non-existence, and moved to blazing a trail that had never existed before.

The Chinese had both a foundation of thousands of years of existence, and an example from more advanced countries to follow. I don't know why you think any of what you see going on, would be surprising or unexpected. Once the shackles on the economy were removed, of course they are going to advance, and very quickly.

As for Mexico, that is not an example that you should be using.

Do you know when Mexico first started free-trade with the US? It didn't start with NAFTA. NAFTA was actually making universal, policies that already had been in place. Mexico first started Free-trade, Tax-Free foreign investment policies.... all the way back in 1965.

Maquiladora - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For years we had the bracero program, which allowed manual labor from Mexicans to work in the US as seasonal labor. In 1964, the program was ended, which caused rising unemployment along the border area where people counted on the bracero program for income.

The Border Industrialization Program or the Maquiladora Program, allowed factories to import duty-free, tariff-free materials and equipment from the US or anywhere, for the purpose of manufacturing.

The program was a massive success, and resulted in drastic increases in employment, and economic growth along those areas.

So even with Mexico, clearly free-trade improved the economy.

Now it is true that since NAFTA, Mexico has not done as well, but this is more a result of the Narco wars, than anything to do with trade. By the way, since the wars have declined, Mexico has rebounded well.

BTW, it's amazing how the argument changes depending on the subject.

You claim NAFTA has ruined jobs by sending them to Mexico. But then when discussing free-trade in Mexico, you claim it hasn't helped.

Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive claims. Both can't be true at the same time. Not logical.

 

[Andylusion]

They've got about 3.5 T worth of t-bills to do that...

No they don't.

Reserves & T-bills. Sory for the imprecission... enough to bailout to whoever they want. Hardly an unescapable situation. Hard to manage , yes , certainly . Collapse... meh not so much.

They can't just turn in T-bills/bonds on demand. They have a specific mature date.

The only option would be to sell them on the open market. In small amounts, that would be perfectly fine. But in large numbers, that would start to lower bond prices. While that might screw up the US government (assuming we were borrowing like mad at the time), it would also hurt themselves. The amount of money for the bonds would drop.

The Chinese would end up selling the US bonds at a huge loss.

I don't see that as a realistic option.

The other option, is more possible, but it has a slippery slope to oblivion. They can start printing money, but as we've seen their economy still doesn't have the stability that even the US economy has.

If they printed money, inflation would jump. This would require them to increase pay towards the military, which is their only life line to holding power. With the required increases in military pay, that would require ever increasing the printing of cash, which would cause more inflation, which would require more pay to the military. This is exactly what happened in Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Once he got on that track, he was locked in with no hope of changing it.

I honestly doubt China will jump on either one of those.

Yes , they can sell their t-bills, indeed , they've been doing that for a couple of years now.
If the debt is in yen they can do QE just like the US did or simply write-off debts.
Foreign debt is more complicated.

Simply write it off? Really. You think that debt owed to Union Pension funds, is going to be written off? Yeah, that will go over real well.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

You claim NAFTA has ruined jobs by sending them to Mexico.

For the longest time manufacturing jobs went from our northern states to our southern states. This was an small version of NAFTA to which no one objected. Its no different than farm jobs going to CA just because they have the advantage of land and climate or jobs going to one company from another that has the advantage of superior product. As long a people are free to decide where to buy and sell our standard of living goes up at the fastest possible rate. When govt decides where we buy and sell the opposite happens.

A liberal simply lacks the IQ to understand how freedom works. One libNazi bureaucrat communist does not equal millions of free people making millions of daily decisions freely.

 

[CultureCitizen]

They've got about 3.5 T worth of t-bills to do that...

No they don't.

Reserves & T-bills. Sory for the imprecission... enough to bailout to whoever they want. Hardly an unescapable situation. Hard to manage , yes , certainly . Collapse... meh not so much.

They can't just turn in T-bills/bonds on demand. They have a specific mature date.

The only option would be to sell them on the open market. In small amounts, that would be perfectly fine. But in large numbers, that would start to lower bond prices. While that might screw up the US government (assuming we were borrowing like mad at the time), it would also hurt themselves. The amount of money for the bonds would drop.

The Chinese would end up selling the US bonds at a huge loss.

I don't see that as a realistic option.

The other option, is more possible, but it has a slippery slope to oblivion. They can start printing money, but as we've seen their economy still doesn't have the stability that even the US economy has.

If they printed money, inflation would jump. This would require them to increase pay towards the military, which is their only life line to holding power. With the required increases in military pay, that would require ever increasing the printing of cash, which would cause more inflation, which would require more pay to the military. This is exactly what happened in Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Once he got on that track, he was locked in with no hope of changing it.

I honestly doubt China will jump on either one of those.

Yes , they can sell their t-bills, indeed , they've been doing that for a couple of years now.
If the debt is in yen they can do QE just like the US did or simply write-off debts.
Foreign debt is more complicated.

Simply write it off? Really. You think that debt owed to Union Pension funds, is going to be written off? Yeah, that will go over real well.

No, not that way, rather the QE write-off method :
Create a government bond, exchange it for the bad asset ( unrecoverable debt) and turn the bond into capital.
Deja vu... Where have I seen that ? Oh, my memory fails...

Alternatively:
Emit a bonds , distribute the bonds among the debtors. The bond would be limited in the sense that any entity with debt would have to apply the bond directly to their debt.
Would this cause inflation . Yea, sure, but the government will have controll over how much inflation it will cause.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

They've got about 3.5 T worth of t-bills to do that...

No they don't.

Reserves & T-bills. Sory for the imprecission... enough to bailout to whoever they want. Hardly an unescapable situation. Hard to manage , yes , certainly . Collapse... meh not so much.

They can't just turn in T-bills/bonds on demand. They have a specific mature date.

The only option would be to sell them on the open market. In small amounts, that would be perfectly fine. But in large numbers, that would start to lower bond prices. While that might screw up the US government (assuming we were borrowing like mad at the time), it would also hurt themselves. The amount of money for the bonds would drop.

The Chinese would end up selling the US bonds at a huge loss.

I don't see that as a realistic option.

The other option, is more possible, but it has a slippery slope to oblivion. They can start printing money, but as we've seen their economy still doesn't have the stability that even the US economy has.

If they printed money, inflation would jump. This would require them to increase pay towards the military, which is their only life line to holding power. With the required increases in military pay, that would require ever increasing the printing of cash, which would cause more inflation, which would require more pay to the military. This is exactly what happened in Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Once he got on that track, he was locked in with no hope of changing it.

I honestly doubt China will jump on either one of those.

Yes , they can sell their t-bills, indeed , they've been doing that for a couple of years now.
If the debt is in yen they can do QE just like the US did or simply write-off debts.
Foreign debt is more complicated.

Simply write it off? Really. You think that debt owed to Union Pension funds, is going to be written off? Yeah, that will go over real well.

No, not that way, rather the QE write-off method :
Create a government bond, exchange it for the bad asset ( unrecoverable debt) and turn the bond into capital.
Deja vu... Where have I seen that ? Oh, my memory fails...

Alternatively:
Emit a bonds , distribute the bonds among the debtors. The bond would be limited in the sense that any entity with debt would have to apply the bond directly to their debt.
Would this cause inflation . Yea, sure, but the government will have controll over how much inflation it will cause.

Create a government bond,

You want the Treasury to sell a bond?

exchange it for the bad asset ( unrecoverable debt)

Why would the holder of the Treasury want to do that?

and turn the bond into capital.

Huh?

 

[CultureCitizen]

BTW, it's amazing how the argument changes depending on the subject.

You claim NAFTA has ruined jobs by sending them to Mexico. But then when discussing free-trade in Mexico, you claim it hasn't helped.

Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive claims. Both can't be true at the same time. Not logical.

There is a confusion here.
Boss's claim was that NAFTA exported jobs to Mexico. I actuall argued against it and said that was at most 1,000,000 employments.
My claim was that NAFTA increased the labour supply by pushing 7 million illegals to th USA, and that Mexico would have been better off with a partial trade agreement ( dumping corn into Mexico was a BIG mistake, because it undermined small farmer's ability to create a profit, sure, big companies were able to adapt and cope with the competition, but the small farmers couldn't. Unintended side-efect : massive migration).
Regarding Narcos... I guess it was bad timing. Colombian cartels were dismatled and the Florida route stoped being the main entry point, so drugs started flowing through other routes. So suddenly corn prices drop, and there's a bunch of guys eager to plant marijuana and poppies, some will be tempted , some will be forced.
Bad timming. It is hard to tell which of these factors was stronger : route change or corn dumping. The fact remains that both were active at the same time.

I hope this makes my position clearer.

 

[CultureCitizen]

and turn the bond into capital.

Huh?

The bond, not the bad asset.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

and turn the bond into capital.

Huh?

The bond, not the bad asset.

There is no "turning", the "bad asset" was part of capital, the Treasury was part of capital.

DEFINITION of 'Bank Capital'
The difference between the value of a bank's assets and its liabilities. The bank capital represents the net worth of the bank or its value to investors. The asset portion of a bank's capital includes cash, government securities and interest-earning loans like mortgages, letters of credit and inter-bank loans. The liabilities section of a bank's capital includes loan-loss reserves and any debt it owes.


Bank Capital Definition | Investopedia

 

[Andylusion]

They've got about 3.5 T worth of t-bills to do that...

No they don't.

Reserves & T-bills. Sory for the imprecission... enough to bailout to whoever they want. Hardly an unescapable situation. Hard to manage , yes , certainly . Collapse... meh not so much.

They can't just turn in T-bills/bonds on demand. They have a specific mature date.

The only option would be to sell them on the open market. In small amounts, that would be perfectly fine. But in large numbers, that would start to lower bond prices. While that might screw up the US government (assuming we were borrowing like mad at the time), it would also hurt themselves. The amount of money for the bonds would drop.

The Chinese would end up selling the US bonds at a huge loss.

I don't see that as a realistic option.

The other option, is more possible, but it has a slippery slope to oblivion. They can start printing money, but as we've seen their economy still doesn't have the stability that even the US economy has.

If they printed money, inflation would jump. This would require them to increase pay towards the military, which is their only life line to holding power. With the required increases in military pay, that would require ever increasing the printing of cash, which would cause more inflation, which would require more pay to the military. This is exactly what happened in Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Once he got on that track, he was locked in with no hope of changing it.

I honestly doubt China will jump on either one of those.

Yes , they can sell their t-bills, indeed , they've been doing that for a couple of years now.
If the debt is in yen they can do QE just like the US did or simply write-off debts.
Foreign debt is more complicated.

Simply write it off? Really. You think that debt owed to Union Pension funds, is going to be written off? Yeah, that will go over real well.

No, not that way, rather the QE write-off method :
Create a government bond, exchange it for the bad asset ( unrecoverable debt) and turn the bond into capital.
Deja vu... Where have I seen that ? Oh, my memory fails...

Alternatively:
Emit a bonds , distribute the bonds among the debtors. The bond would be limited in the sense that any entity with debt would have to apply the bond directly to their debt.
Would this cause inflation . Yea, sure, but the government will have controll over how much inflation it will cause.

What are you talking about.........

Create a bond.... ok....

Exchange the bond for a bad asset..... ok.... So national debt, and interest payments go up, in exchange for a asset whose value is going down..... got it.....

Turn the bond into capital...... The bond doesn't turn into capital. Whoever we gave the bond to, in exchange for the asset, we still have to pay back.

And now we have a depreciating asset we can sell for penny on the dollar, to pay back the bond with?

How does that end up with us ahead? Let's just sell the bond, and leave it at that. Then we don't have to pay millions of dollars to the IRS to process the assets. Exchanging bonds for bad assets, is not a way to avoid debt. It's a way to increase our debt. But it looks better on paper.... yes, I can see this as a voting tool. You convince the idiots, that the bonds are exchanged for assets that can be sold.

But no one is going to sell a good asset that get's a 10% ROI, for a bond that has current interest rate of ZERO.

So, like you said, the only assets we can get.... are bad assets. Assets dropping in value. So we're going to sell a bond for several hundred thousand, for an asset that will be almost impossible to sell.... thus nearly worthless. How is this a win?

You sell me an IOU, for my Grand Marquis worth $3,000. When you get the Grand Marquis it will be worth a few hundred bucks, and then you'll owe me $3K plus some interest. Good win there buddy.

And your alternative, while great for institution in debt.... would make the national debt skyrocket. That's not a solution... unless the goal is to wipe out the government.....

I hate to say this, but this post of yours, makes me question if you even understand what you are talking about..... Either you are not explaining it right..... or you are clueless.

 

[Andylusion]

BTW, it's amazing how the argument changes depending on the subject.

You claim NAFTA has ruined jobs by sending them to Mexico. But then when discussing free-trade in Mexico, you claim it hasn't helped.

Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive claims. Both can't be true at the same time. Not logical.

There is a confusion here.
Boss's claim was that NAFTA exported jobs to Mexico. I actuall argued against it and said that was at most 1,000,000 employments.
My claim was that NAFTA increased the labour supply by pushing 7 million illegals to th USA, and that Mexico would have been better off with a partial trade agreement ( dumping corn into Mexico was a BIG mistake, because it undermined small farmer's ability to create a profit, sure, big companies were able to adapt and cope with the competition, but the small farmers couldn't. Unintended side-efect : massive migration).
Regarding Narcos... I guess it was bad timing. Colombian cartels were dismatled and the Florida route stoped being the main entry point, so drugs started flowing through other routes. So suddenly corn prices drop, and there's a bunch of guys eager to plant marijuana and poppies, some will be tempted , some will be forced.
Bad timming. It is hard to tell which of these factors was stronger : route change or corn dumping. The fact remains that both were active at the same time.

I hope this makes my position clearer.

Ah ok.

No, that would not be correct at all. NAFTA allowed more jobs to be created in Mexico, which allowed more people to stay in Mexico and have worth while jobs and a life.

Without NAFTA, the illegal immigration would be drastically worse.

The primary mover of people coming here illegally, is the drug wars in Mexico. Between corruption in the police force, and fighting between rival drug cartels, people have been fleeing here to escape the bloodshed.

There are some areas where people are coming here for economic reasons, but that too is actually driven by the prior reasons. In the areas where corruption and drug wars are happening, business has been rightfully reluctant to invest. Thus no jobs, thus economic reasons to come here illegally.

But it's impossible to tie NAFTA to illegal immigration. Not even close.

Actually corn production in Mexico has dramatically increased. 2008 was a record year in corn production.

Further, consumption of corn has also dramatically increased in relation to the increasing growth of the economy back in the 80s and 90s.

Additionally, with Ethanol causing fields that used to produce corn for food, to be diverted to corn for Ethanol, the result has been predictably that corn prices have increased in Mexico, not decreased.

So I'm not sure where you are getting this idea that imported corn wiped out the Mexican corn growers, but it's not even remotely true.

Now I will say that super small farmers, have been wiped out by the large farms. But that's not related to NAFTA, anymore than the same pattern here in the US, is related to NAFTA, when it's been going on for decades before NAFTA existed.

It's called progress baby...... when a farm advances and becomes more productive, it buys more land, and makes that land more productive, and as productivity goes up, the smaller farms are eventually swallowed up, or pushed out. That's going to happen, with, or without, NAFTA.