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A history of America's economic dynamism

Lafayette

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From the Economist: A history of America's economic dynamism

The political machinations that allowed a candidate who lost the popular to become president is acceptable (by law) ONLY IN THE US. Because we have continued, without questioning, formulations of political behaviour (Gerrymandering) and manipulation of the Popular-Vote (the Electoral College) that are rare enough in any other developed democracy on earth.

But beyond that accusation, there is the fact that creates envy throughout other economies and it is Our Economic Dynamism. It this condition that saves us from becoming a backwater country. That is, the ability of the American people to change behaviour - their own and their rules of governance.

Excerpt:
“Capitalism in America: A History”. By Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge. Penguin Random House

NO PAIN, no gain, is the moral of “Capitalism in America”, a business history of the United States by Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and Adrian Wooldridge, The Economist’s political editor. It will surprise no one to learn that these authors are fans of capitalism: the more disruptive it is, the better they like it. America’s exceptionalism as a capitalist economy, they argue, has been its distinctive tolerance for Schumpeterian creative destruction.

Many readers will agree. Less obvious, at least from today’s perspective, is the book’s contention that American capitalism is also the world’s most democratic. “In many countries capitalism has always been associated with a plutocratic elite,” the authors write. “In America, it has been associated with openness and opportunity.” This is far from obvious looking at today’s plutocracy of financiers and Silicon Valley technologists, yet the book is convincing about the uniquely expansive opportunities innovators and entrepreneurs have enjoyed throughout most of American history.

One thread is tolerance for creative destruction, combined with the openness of the frontier, and the country’s early and consistent support for higher education and research. Although they underplay the role of the scale of the American market, the authors are right to emphasise the importance of process innovation, or, in other words, methods of organising production. This is often overlooked in economic histories in favour of product innovation, the exciting new gadgets and goods.

There remains a lot of reformation to be done to correct the unfairness of America's horrible Income Disparity - and the reckless manner in which Upper-income Taxation allows some individuals extremely large fortunes with which they manipulate the political process.

But underlying that wish is - as the above linked article explains well - a market-economy dynamic that works amazingly well ... !
 
From the Economist: A history of America's economic dynamism

The political machinations that allowed a candidate who lost the popular to become president is acceptable (by law) ONLY IN THE US. Because we have continued, without questioning, formulations of political behaviour (Gerrymandering) and manipulation of the Popular-Vote (the Electoral College) that are rare enough in any other developed democracy on earth.

But beyond that accusation, there is the fact that creates envy throughout other economies and it is Our Economic Dynamism. It this condition that saves us from becoming a backwater country. That is, the ability of the American people to change behaviour - their own and their rules of governance.

Excerpt:


There remains a lot of reformation to be done to correct the unfairness of America's horrible Income Disparity - and the reckless manner in which Upper-income Taxation allows some individuals extremely large fortunes with which they manipulate the political process.

But underlying that wish is - as the above linked article explains well - a market-economy dynamic that works amazingly well ... !

But look at all of these bubbles we make and pop, look at how poorly America allocates resources now....this is your clue that markets work poorly now, that they have been corrupted.
 
FIRST & FOREMOST

But look at all of these bubbles we make and pop, look at how poorly America allocates resources now....this is your clue that markets work poorly now, that they have been corrupted.

Your generalizations are incorrect. You haven't had any business experience, have you.

America allocates its resources, for the most part, within a Supple&Demand Market-economy. And if YOU belong to the Supply-side, your company orientates its market as best it can. Which means, it has indeed a "good enough" product or service worth selling.

Which is the first-challenge of any product-or-services company. And, that matter has little to do with government restrictions. It has everything to do with the ability of YOUR product or service to successfully penetrate a market. (Which, traditionally, means you start small and grow because you have chosen the right-product for the right-market.

I am NOT being intentionally vague. Because the principle mentioned in the above statement is general in nature.

Moreover, as I never tire of repeating - we are transiting "Ages". An "Age" is determined by prevalent conditions of Supply&Demand - that is, the general state of an economy and its nature. Ever since mankind stopped roaming and started farming (in whatever very distant age that happened) we have lived in the Agricultural Age.

Then, in the 19th century, when our country was just formulating itself, significant changes in Technology occurred. The foremost being the fact that "industries" were formed based upon key scientific developments (at first, the use of a steam-engine, then a motored or electrical-engine). This evolution continued into the 20th century and most western democracies changed from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age.

Meaning what? Meaning this: Like it or not, labor left farmland and went into large cities where industries were located. That Industrial Age has now been surpassed by a technical evolution (called the Internet) whereby industries have relocated geographically to the least-cost countries. And neither the US nor Europe is one of those low-cost countries!

So, let's face-facts boyz-'n-girlz, we are in a full-fledged period of Age Change since that evolution started at the end of the 1990s. . We (as a nation) are moving from the Industrial to the Information Age. Which means what?

It means that the Manufacturing of products employs ONLY 12% OF AMERICANS TODAY! We are fully into a Services Economy for the most part in which is running off the Internet. That is, we are in the Information Age.

Let's live with that fact, and its most prevalent requirement. That of increasing general knowledge (and thus Know-how or competence) by means of Tertiary Education that is at the heart of the Information Age.

Meaning this: We subsidize its cost as we did for the Industrial Age (when high-school degrees were offered free by cities and states) and our children pass into a third phase of education that will allow them the know-how to build a good life also first and foremost by finding the means to support their families ... !

PS: Somebody explain please why the hell we are pissing away about half a trillion dollars on the DoD, when our Real Need is Postsecondary Education!!!
 
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FIRST & FOREMOST



Your generalizations are incorrect. You haven't had any business experience, have you.

America allocates its resources, for the most part, within a Supple&Demand Market-economy. And if YOU belong to the Supply-side, your company orientates its market as best it can. Which means, it has indeed a "good enough" product or service worth selling.

Which is the first-challenge of any product-or-services company. And, that matter has little to do with government restrictions. It has everything to do with the ability of YOUR product or service to successfully penetrate a market. (Which, traditionally, means you start small and grow because you have chosen the right-product for the right-market.

I am NOT being intentionally vague. Because the principle mentioned in the above statement is general in nature.

Moreover, as I never tire of repeating - we are transiting "Ages". An "Age" is determined by prevalent conditions of Supply&Demand - that is, the general state of an economy and its nature. Ever since mankind stopped roaming and started farming (in whatever very distant age that happened) we have lived in the Agricultural Age.

Then, in the 19th century, when our country was just formulating itself, significant changes in Technology occurred. The foremost being the fact that "industries" were formed based upon key scientific developments (at first, the use of a steam-engine, then a motored or electrical-engine). This evolution continued into the 20th century and most western democracies changed from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age.

Meaning what? Meaning this: Like it or not, labor left farmland and went into large cities where industries were located. That Industrial Age has now been surpassed by a technical evolution (called the Internet) whereby industries have relocated geographically to the least-cost countries. And neither the US nor Europe is one of those low-cost countries!

So, let's face-facts boyz-'n-girlz, we are in a full-fledged period of Age Change since that evolution started at the end of the 1990s. . We (as a nation) are moving from the Industrial to the Information Age. Which means what?

It means that the Manufacturing of products employs ONLY 12% OF AMERICANS TODAY! We are fully into a Services Economy for the most part in which is running off the Internet. That is, we are in the Information Age.

Let's live with that fact, and its most prevalent requirement. That of increasing general knowledge (and thus Know-how or competence) by means of Tertiary Education that is at the heart of the Information Age.

Meaning this: We subsidize its cost as we did for the Industrial Age (when high-school degrees were offered free by cities and states) and our children pass into a third phase of education that will allow them the know-how to build a good life also first and foremost by finding the means to support their families ... !

PS: Somebody explain please why the hell we are pissing away about half a trillion dollars on the DoD, when our Real Need is Postsecondary Education!!!

What you fail to understand is that the system was meant to work for us, when you make humans cogs for the machine...when you put the machine first as you do,....then you have passed over into tyranny and I will not follow.

You have failed to properly supervise your allegiances.
 
What you fail to understand is that the system was meant to work for us, when you make humans cogs for the machine...when you put the machine first as you do,....then you have passed over into tyranny and I will not follow.

You have failed to properly supervise your allegiances.

What "system"? Or do you mean the whole shebang? What EXACTLY does not work for YOU!?!

Because, if I needed to reduce the KEY NECESSITIES of the US, there would be only two;
*A much, much, much lower-cost government Healthcare System. In the US, you-plural pay twice as much as anyone in Europe, because theirs is subventioned out of taxpayer dollars and ours (for the most part) is not. (The taxpayer dollars that subsidize the Discretionary Budget - that in 2017 looked like this - is going to the Wrong Place! We can reduce Defense Spending, and start a National Health Care system with about a third of the current DoD-budget.
*With government subsidized Tertiary Education (at both the state and Federal level) we can offer our kids (and anyone playing "catch-up") a diploma (vocational, 2- or 4- or 6-year) that will allow them to find a decent job at a decent pay.

It is THAT effing simple. But, at present, that is NOT how most Americans are seeing the challenge.

We have been undergoing a fundamental Age Change since the advent of the Internet (1990s). But even before, our high-costs were being undercut by foreign companies who couls very simply) produce not terribly sophisticated products at a much lower cost than our industries could.

Which is why a lot of those industries are no longer around.

True Story: I come from Massachusetts where the "plastics industry" was virtually born. My parents worked in the industry throughout my childhood.

It's all gone, gone, gone. But to where?

First to south of the US. Then to Mexico. And now to the Far East.

Some historians call that Destiny. However you may want to call it, that phenomenon has become a PERMANENT CHALLENGE for all market-economies including ours!

My Point:
*Those Base-Industries are long gone and they aint comin' back! Get used to it!
*The only way to avoid massive unemployment in the future is by going upmarket in terms of our capabilities.
*And that requires more than just 45% of our high-schoolers who are going on to a postsecondary education as is reported by the NCES (National Center for Educational Services)!

From the NCES:
The annual percentage of high school completers who enroll in 2- or 4-year colleges in the fall immediately following high school completion is known as the immediate college enrollment rate. The overall immediate college enrollment rate increased from 63 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in 2016, though the 2016 rate was not measurably different from that in 2010.

The above graphic means what? My take: That 30 to 37% of our kids are NOT GETTING the skills that the Information Age will ask of them ...
 
What you fail to understand is that the system was meant to work for us, when you make humans cogs for the machine...when you put the machine first as you do,....then you have passed over into tyranny and I will not follow.

What twaddle!

What system, pray tell, and who is US? (The Replicant Party?)

You have no conception whatsoever of economic matters and should not be posting in this forum.

(Put the bottle down before posting your inbred misconceptions ...)
 
What twaddle!

What system, pray tell, and who is US? (The Replicant Party?)

You have no conception whatsoever of economic matters and should not be posting in this forum.

(Put the bottle down before posting your inbred misconceptions ...)

I am ready when you are.

Make your case if you are convinced you have one.
 
From the Economist: A history of America's economic dynamism

The political machinations that allowed a candidate who lost the popular to become president is acceptable (by law) ONLY IN THE US. Because we have continued, without questioning, formulations of political behaviour (Gerrymandering) and manipulation of the Popular-Vote (the Electoral College) that are rare enough in any other developed democracy on earth.

But beyond that accusation, there is the fact that creates envy throughout other economies and it is Our Economic Dynamism. It this condition that saves us from becoming a backwater country. That is, the ability of the American people to change behaviour - their own and their rules of governance.

Excerpt:


There remains a lot of reformation to be done to correct the unfairness of America's horrible Income Disparity - and the reckless manner in which Upper-income Taxation allows some individuals extremely large fortunes with which they manipulate the political process.

But underlying that wish is - as the above linked article explains well - a market-economy dynamic that works amazingly well ... !
Absurd assumption that people should have same income or IQ or ambition. We want the promise of $billions to encourage someone to cure cancer!!
no disparity in income means no disparity in cancer cures or no cancer cures.
 
a market-economy dynamic that works amazingly well ... !

but the liberal wants to kill the US economy with huge taxes that destroy the incentive that makes in dynamic??? Slow???
 
I am ready when you are.

Make your case if you are convinced you have one.

I've already answered you in Response No. 5 above.

Never got a germane response, so I've moved on ...
 
These are the people who wanted Jeb to be president. They didn't count on ball caps and old-fashioned political rallies and stump speeches. So much for manipulating the process. :doh

How Jeb Bush Spent $130 Million Running for President With Nothing to Show for It

They did the same with Trump. They don't care particularly who the candidate is, as long as it gets results.

I shall personally celebrate the day that the US wakes up and passes a law allowing only a certain reasonable amount of money to be offered to a candidate. Here in France it is fixed at 4600 Euros (about $5K) per candidate total for a candidacy. Moreover, there are NO TV commercials. The candidates are each given 15 minutes of TV-time all together in the morning during the weeks prior to the election.

We are "selling" presidents like dishwasher powder who promise to "wash whiter than white"; and what we get are Donald Dorks for PotUS who reduce upper-income taxation as a gest of gratitude to "his kinda guys&gals".

Disgusting. Like some Central America Banana Republic ...
 
Somebody explain please why the hell we are pissing away about half a trillion dollars on the DoD,

obviously, so we won't get nuked by Russia, North Korea, Iran, China and so we can police the world. 1+1=2
 
foremost by finding the means[tertiary education] to support their families .

Old folks trying to hang onto their homes and kids not cut out for college don't want to be forced at liberal gun point to pay for your college education!! Dah!!!!
 
what we get are Donald Dorks for PotUS who reduce upper-income taxation as a gest of gratitude to "his kinda guys&gals".
Disgusting. Like some Central America Banana Republic ...

as a gest to freedom from liberal govt, the very principle on which America was founded and grew great!!
 
They did the same with Trump. They don't care particularly who the candidate is, as long as it gets results.

Are you kidding me? With a few exceptions (Peter Thiel, Sheldon Adelson, Carl Icahn, to name a few), really, really rich people wanted anyone BUT Trump. They HATED Trump. Trump got more money selling hats to Flyover Country residents than he got from billionaires.
 
SLOGAN SOCIETY

Are you kidding me? With a few exceptions (Peter Thiel, Sheldon Adelson, Carl Icahn, to name a few), really, really rich people wanted anyone BUT Trump. They HATED Trump. Trump got more money selling hats to Flyover Country residents than he got from billionaires.

Wrong, wrong, wrong and ... wrong.

He got a lot of money from the filthy-rich and a lot from the down-and-out poor who believed his BS "Make America Great Again".

That's what we have become. A "Slogan Society". Poignant Thinking has been replaced by TV catchphrases or taglines that captures our attention for a nanosecond but rarely explains anything at all.

it is a slow but definitive erosion of our mental ability that cannot lead to anything good. On the contrary ...
 
From the Economist: A history of America's economic dynamism

The political machinations that allowed a candidate who lost the popular to become president is acceptable (by law) ONLY IN THE US. Because we have continued, without questioning, formulations of political behaviour (Gerrymandering) and manipulation of the Popular-Vote (the Electoral College) that are rare enough in any other developed democracy on earth.

But beyond that accusation, there is the fact that creates envy throughout other economies and it is Our Economic Dynamism. It this condition that saves us from becoming a backwater country. That is, the ability of the American people to change behaviour - their own and their rules of governance.

Excerpt:


There remains a lot of reformation to be done to correct the unfairness of America's horrible Income Disparity - and the reckless manner in which Upper-income Taxation allows some individuals extremely large fortunes with which they manipulate the political process.

But underlying that wish is - as the above linked article explains well - a market-economy dynamic that works amazingly well ... !

Other countries where the leader lost the popular vote:

Argentina
Australia
Denmark
Ireland
New Zealand
Norway
Portugal
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom

That is certainly an inconvenient fact to the extraneous start of your point.
 
Other countries where the leader lost the popular vote:

That is certainly an inconvenient fact to the extraneous start of your point.

No, they did NOT lose the popular-vote! In fact, they won the most votes but not sufficient for a greater than 50% majority. The countries were NOT a two-party system, so if the majority is not won by one party, then it is cobbled together with another party - typically the one that came in second.

That is the unique difference between the US and Europe. Where only in the two-party system with an Electoral College can the loser win the position of Head of government! Bravo, Uncle Sam!

Merkel did not necessarily "lose" the election the way Donald Dork did in the US, because European countries for the most part are NOT two-party system governances ...
 
No, they did NOT lose the popular-vote! In fact, they won the most votes but not sufficient for a greater than 50% majority. The countries were NOT a two-party system, so if the majority is not won by one party, then it is cobbled together with another party - typically the one that came in second.

That is the unique difference between the US and Europe. Where only in the two-party system with an Electoral College can the loser win the position of Head of government! Bravo, Uncle Sam!

Merkel did not necessarily "lose" the election the way Donald Dork did in the US, because European countries for the most part are NOT two-party system governances ...

If you didn't get more than 50% of the vote, then most people voted against you. Sorry, that is math.
 
That's what we have become. A "Slogan Society". .

This is why our Founders and modern Republicans want to restrict voting to those who are qualified. Liberals want everyone to vote so deserve what they get, namely, The Donald!! On every issue liberals are deadly to America!
 
If you didn't get more than 50% of the vote, then most people voted against you. Sorry, that is math.

If ignorance were bliss you'd think you lived in heaven ...
 
If ignorance were bliss you'd think you lived in heaven ...

Those who can't argue the facts are left with insulting those do. Enjoy Dante's 8th circle.
 
Those who can't argue the facts are left with insulting those do. Enjoy Dante's 8th circle.

Some people must have the last word. It salves their ego.

You've had yours. Feel better now ... ?
 
Some people must have the last word. It salves their ego.

You've had yours. Feel better now ... ?

You are still incorrect and don't care. I hope you feel better.
 
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