• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

WTO cuts 2016 world trade growth forecast to 1.7 percent, cites wake-up call

It might seem that way at first. But, if you model it and do the maths the result is consistently lower general welfare. Anyone that tells you other is a true snake oil salesperson unless they can demonstrate how the loss will be made up. It won't be out of the cancellation of trade alone and will require a means to fix one's problems and so as to return to free trade as well as explain why it should be better than fixing the problems immediately.

Service sector jobs are going to be more sensitive to wages than manufacturing. In my opinion, people wrongly equate things like McDonalds with their product when they are actually selling one a service, for instance. Labor isn't as big of a component in most manufactured products as they once were.
 
I am afraid it all hangs together via the discontent in the population that we are facing from many sides. One of the things worrying people thinking of their old age is calculating an anuity on their savings at near zero interest rates

Why do you think people should get paid for holding money in savings? With inflation so low there is no pressing need for higher interest rates. Are you hoping for inflation? If you want the reason for slower growth you should look at DEMAND for goods. It is falling or holding steady since most of the world is living pay check to pay check...if they even have a paycheck.
 
One can have free trade and not be engaged in international trade.

dear, just as trading among the states of the US is beneficial so is trading among the countries of the world. If China builds cheaper cars or invents a cure for cancer should libturd fools prevent Americans from buying??
 
Service sector jobs are going to be more sensitive to wages than manufacturing. In my opinion, people wrongly equate things like McDonalds with their product when they are actually selling one a service, for instance. Labor isn't as big of a component in most manufactured products as they once were.

A lot of the labor intensive low skill jobs have gone to low income countries or been replaced by machinery. That much is surely true. To remove more, we should increase the minimum wage till everyone makes enough to scare off investors in anything but machines an local services. Then we can borrow money and people can pay for the services and imports with debt. ;)

All joking aside, the US is very competitive and has handled globalization comparatively well. Sure, not everyone won, but look at the numbers and you see that we have done better than most. The reasons are a different matter, but those are the facts.
 
Why do you think people should get paid for holding money in savings? With inflation so low there is no pressing need for higher interest rates. Are you hoping for inflation? If you want the reason for slower growth you should look at DEMAND for goods. It is falling or holding steady since most of the world is living pay check to pay check...if they even have a paycheck.

Interest is also a compensation for other things than economic growth and inflation. It is a fee for delayed use and for the risk involved in lending.
 
I'd be amazed if we don't have any negative quarters of growth by the end of 2017. Things aren't looking good at all.
 
Interest is also a compensation for other things than economic growth and inflation. It is a fee for delayed use and for the risk involved in lending.

The neutral rate of interest is at or below zero... so why on earth would there be a need for higher interest rates?

NA-CK445A_OUTLO_16U_20160610161206.jpg
 
I'd be amazed if we don't have any negative quarters of growth by the end of 2017. Things aren't looking good at all.

Things are looking bad for G.B. for sure. Brexit really mucked things up big time. I have never in my life seen the Pound this low.
 
A lot of the labor intensive low skill jobs have gone to low income countries or been replaced by machinery. That much is surely true. To remove more, we should increase the minimum wage till everyone makes enough to scare off investors in anything but machines an local services. Then we can borrow money and people can pay for the services and imports with debt. ;)

All joking aside, the US is very competitive and has handled globalization comparatively well. Sure, not everyone won, but look at the numbers and you see that we have done better than most. The reasons are a different matter, but those are the facts.

As for your first point, that often happens in tandem. When you buy the new machine you put it somewhere new and keep the old workers working until operation can be moved to where the new machine is. At that point, you can all the people working on the old machine. Likewise if your emerging market is Asia, you help pay for the new machines by putting them there so that your labor cost savings and distribution expense reduction makes them not as expensive on the bottom line due to offsets.

As for your second point, I am not sure if we have handled it well or not. There is so much financial system chaos echoing through the halls of manufacturing, it is hard to sort out.
 
The neutral rate of interest is at or below zero... so why on earth would there be a need for higher interest rates?

NA-CK445A_OUTLO_16U_20160610161206.jpg

Do you have the calculation used for the "natural rate of interest"? Then we can discuss the graph you are using as proof.
 
I think the underlying economic behaviors here are more to do with protectionism. Macro economics serves larger businesses really well, but it's detrimental to local economy and sovereignty. Small businesses don't stand a chance when global giants move in.

Global economy can work but not with huge multinationals controlling the stakes.

Also, the growth model is limited. We are coming to the boundaries of our economic way of life. In order to compete on global levels of scale we need to consume more and more resources which is tantamount it ****ting where we eat.

Time for something different.
 
Things are looking bad for G.B. for sure. Brexit really mucked things up big time. I have never in my life seen the Pound this low.

Yeah, but I think things are even worse for the US, and that the US will be the first domino to fall (out of the countries that are still doing almost ok). The US will collapse 6 months before the UK goes, and when the UK goes Europe will go as a whole.
 
Yeah, but I think things are even worse for the US, and that the US will be the first domino to fall (out of the countries that are still doing almost ok). The US will collapse 6 months before the UK goes, and when the UK goes Europe will go as a whole.

LOL The world is littered with that carcasses of those that underestimated the U.S. of America. Good luck with that. But fear not, we will bail you out.
 
Do you have the calculation used for the "natural rate of interest"? Then we can discuss the graph you are using as proof.

Of course!


This research comes directly from the Fed.
 
And this Keynesian/Krugmanomics nonsense is primarily to blame, imo.

Seems to me it has over-fed an obese America for a good number of years.

Whaddaya complainin aboud?
____________________________
 
LOL The world is littered with that carcasses of those that underestimated the U.S. of America. Good luck with that. But fear not, we will bail you out.

I think that it's you lot who are going to need the bail out ;) You're economy is ****ed.
 

Of course!


This research comes directly from the Fed.

I was not really doubting their authenticity. It is just that inflation can be calculated in a variety of ways and to know each one's implications one needs to know, what goes into it.
 
If you want the reason for slower growth you should look at DEMAND for goods. It is falling or holding steady since most of the world is living pay check to pay check...if they even have a paycheck.

You are blathering in a blog - see Personal Consumption Expenditures (BEA) here.

That's 5.2% growth in just seven quarters - and, like it or not, it is creating jobs. Not fast enough, but very much unlike the years 2010/2014 when the US created NO NEW JOBS. (See Bureau of Labor Statistics here.)

Now ask me politely why it did not create any jobs, and I'll tell you.

Count your blessings (unless you are one of the 43 million Americans living below the Poverty Threshold) ...
______________________
 
Last edited:
I was not really doubting their authenticity. It is just that inflation can be calculated in a variety of ways and to know each one's implications one needs to know, what goes into it.

Why did you respond without answering my question?

The neutral rate of interest is at or below zero... so why on earth would there be a need for higher interest rates?
 
I think that it's you lot who are going to need the bail out ;) You're economy is ****ed.

No, that is just your very uninformed opinion. If anything, the U.K. economy is facing severe headwinds... putting it optimistically. The main weakness in the U.S. is that one of its fastest growing sectors, petroleum extraction, has been cut in half due to low prices.
 
Seems to me it has over-fed an obese America for a good number of years.

Whaddaya complainin aboud?
____________________________

about incomes which are now reaching 1999 levels!!!!
 
If anything, the U.K. economy is facing severe headwinds... putting it optimistically. The main weakness in the U.S. is that one of its fastest growing sectors, petroleum extraction, has been cut in half due to low prices.

Yes, you're right about the UK, which took a turn for the worse as a result of Brexit.

That main weakness in the US means that energy prices are lower and therefore not so much a drag on the economy. So, we continue to employ fossil-fuels because they are cheaper and therefore supposedly that consequence is "goodness". But, is that really true?

There are always two ways to look at the economy: "Supply & Demand" - Business is fixated on Supply, and consumers on Demand. But both must be considered in equal measures as regards their impact when a change of cost incurs. The supply-cost of fossil fuels is nowadays, yes, less than in the past - but by what measure is that goodness if they are more highly air-pollutant (and therefore deleterious to human life) than most other energy sources?

Energy in a developed economy is always a major constant in terms of necessity - and when the US stupidly diminished investments in atomic energy* (as a consequence of Three Mile Island nuclear accident), it retreated into a major energy commitment to highly polluting fossil-fuel sources. The addition of less expensive fracking did not help in the least to change America towards a less polluting future - after all, the pollution is in the air you breath.

Given the Air Pollution Index by city (here), one is worse off in Lima, Peru than Los Angeles - but is that "goodness" if LA is in the higher level of polluted-air cities ... ?

(Yes, that answer depends upon whether you live there!)

*No other source of non air-polluting energy (even solar or wind-mills) can meet peak-energy Demand in most large cities.
__________________________
 
Last edited:
Why did you respond without answering my question?

Because -and this might surprise you- I tend to read documents before I comment on them.
 
THE "MASTER-OF-THE-UNIVERSE" COMPLEX

LOL The world is littered with that carcasses of those that underestimated the U.S. of America. Good luck with that. But fear not, we will bail you out.

I think that it's you lot who are going to need the bail out ;) You're economy is ****ed.

Perhaps not "effed" but Uncle Sam is in a serious economic predicament.

Americans have got used to perpetual growth since WW2 (the Master of the Universe Complex) that has been more or less consistent. With the spectacular exception of the Great Recession that it richly deserved due to illegal manipulations of both Main Street creating of valueless mortgaging-debt and Wall Street's wild attempt at covering the mess up that utterly failed when the "fit hit the shan".

The ensuing Great Recession (2008/9) was a wake-up bell that fell on deaf ears, as Americans gave control of the HofR over to dunderhead Replicants who promptly exacerbated the overall pain by refusing any further stimulus-spending by Obama after the 2010 mid-term elections - when they controlled the HofR (and thus budget-bills).

Despite the fact that his stimulus-spending of 2009 (with ARRA) had spiked an exploding unemployment rate at 10%! (See that achievement shown by the Bureau of Labor Statistics here.)

What ensued was the failure of the American economy to create jobs for the next four years, as seen here in the historical BLS Employment-to-population Ratio.

Since we are collectively to blame, we (the sheeple) should acknowledge two serious mistakes: Thinking that it was "just fine" that Wall Street could make bundles of money by manipulating financial markets AND that the resulting economic collapse needed no remedial action by the Replicants in control of the HofR. They are still in control of the HofR!

Nobody went to jail for the massive banking fraud at the heart of the SubPrime Mess. The banks simply paid a fine, called "the cost of doing business" illegally.

And that same party, the Replicants, now thinks we should elect a wealthy Dunderhead to be PotUS!

Stop the world, I wanna get off ...
_____________________
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom