Putin calls USA a parasite on the world economy!

[Misha]

Set two products side by side that are virtually identical but one is made in the USA but priced 25 or 50% higher how many American consumers are going to pay the extra.  Darn few.

The challenge is making sure they are not virtually identical. Here is my example. I am now shopping around for a nice portable charcoal grill. I could go down and buy a cheap Made in China grill or I can spend twice as much and buy a Weber grill. Sure, I will save money with the cheaper version, but the odds are good that it will be rusting out in a year or two and will likely be warped by the end of the first season. Or, I can spend more and have a grill that will likely last a decade from a company that I will be able to track down in five years to buy a replacement grill for the portable barbecue.... The moral of the story is that if you can't compete in price, then make something that is worth more money and that will last much longer.

[Muzh]

A very common misconception.

- - - - - - - - -

"New data released by the IRS today offers interesting insights into the distributional spread of the federal income tax burden, new analysis by the Tax Foundation shows."

Top 1% Pay Greater Dollar Amount in Income Taxes to Federal Government than Bottom 90%
Top 5% pay 60% of Federal Income taxes in USA.

Bottom 50% pay only 3% of Federal Income taxes in USA.

Even the bottom 75% pay only 14% of Federal Income taxes in USA.

In America the vast majority, including the middle class, live off the backs of the very few with respect to financing the Federal government and its many programs.

You can find such info for many years in many reputable publications including:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/22652.html

Damn right, I'm with you. If there's going to be any tax increase, and you can bet your beepie there will be one, let's just tax the middle class a bit more. Why burden those poor gazillionaiers?

[Misha]

Damn right, I'm with you. If there's going to be any tax increase, and you can bet your beepie there will be one, let's just tax the middle class a bit more. Why burden those poor gazillionaiers?

The top 10% wealthiest Americans own a measly 70.9% of all American assets. Why burden them on their quest to 80, 90 and 100%     

[Gator]

Turboguy,
 
An excellent post, and exactly what I would expect from a small business owner endeavoring to grow his business.
 

Was it the rich who sent the jobs overseas or was it the American worker, high taxes,  the unions and government regulations? 

Regarding unions, a sterling example is Boeing's new assembly plant in South Carolina.  And Obama did not step in and curtail the action by the unions.
 
Government regulations impede business.  I can not imagine as a small business owner how many different regulations affect your business.  I recall the burden on my consulting firm and our only product was "advice."    Most people are not familiar with the burden that the entire body of regulations have on business, especially one involved in manufacturing.  As an example of a regulation, many men have read IMBRA and seen how it  adds another step + screen in the immigration process even though it would apply to only 1% of the men and perhaps to only 0.01% of the men mentally wired to injure a RW (those percentages are just my guesses).
 
You are correct that corporate taxes in America are high compared to many other countries.   Dividends are paid in after-tax dollars, and until Bush changed it, were taxed again as ordinary income when paid to individuals.  That was double taxation. 
 
Hopefully tax reform and regulatory reform will be addressed by Congress.

[Gator]

The top 10% wealthiest Americans own a measly 70.9% of all American assets. Why burden them on their quest to 80, 90 and 100% 

Interesting.  I wonder how much of that is in corporate stock vs. real estate.  Most of the middle class wealth is in their home.
 
Many of the wealthiest are looking more and more to offshore investments.  Imagine the effect of removing this source of investment capital for business in America.

[Misha]

Interesting.  I wonder how much of that is in corporate stock vs. real estate.  Most of the middle class wealth is in their home.
 
Many of the wealthiest are looking more and more to offshore investments.  Imagine the effect of removing this source of investment capital for business in America.

This is a good analysis: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html


It is interesting that even the followers of Ron Paul are concerned about the increasing concentration of wealth: http://www.dailypaul.com/111232/us-wealth-distribution-10-of-us-citizens-own-709-of-all-us-assets

Our system of freedom is skewed and is becoming very dangerous (approx. 100 million US citizens experience ZERO freedom). You can only cage humans for so long and then something has to give. When liberty is skewed into the hands of a very small number of the population, then our ability to "self-govern" becomes a complete and utter illusion.

I believe in free markets, but this distribution of wealth is not a normal distribution in any way (meaning it is not subject to natural forces- i.e. statistics 101). It can only exist within an un-natural (non-free) system, where the relative nature of freedom is constrained.

[SFandEE]

Government regulations impede business. 

MMS and BP
SEC and Credit Default Swaps
whoever was supposed to regulate AIG selling insurance it didn't have


They are also supposed to impede bad business

These are talking points and I have no doubt that there are truths to this talking point, but I don't want people driving on the city streets without rules and I don't want Goldman Sachs raping our economy ad hoc either


So regulations are necessary and they need to be done by competent and uncorrupted individuals representing American interests (not just special interests).


So this bullet point is hopefully not going to be used any longer in this drone of a thread--regulation is necessary, it needs to be done well and as limited as possible, but it needs to exist.  Even if Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity don't think so.

[Gator]

The challenge is making sure they are not virtually identical. Here is my example. I am now shopping around for a nice portable charcoal grill. I could go down and buy a cheap Made in China grill or I can spend twice as much and buy a Weber grill. Sure, I will save money with the cheaper version, but the odds are good that it will be rusting out in a year or two and will likely be warped by the end of the first season. Or, I can spend more and have a grill that will likely last a decade from a company that I will be able to track down in five years to buy a replacement grill for the portable barbecue.... The moral of the story is that if you can't compete in price, then make something that is worth more money and that will last much longer.

Misha, Chinese quality is improving.  I recall as a youth growing up in the post-WWII how everyone laughed at Japanese gidgets, calling it "junk."  During my university days, Japanese cars were introduced to the American market, and everyone laughed.

[Gator]

So this bullet point is hopefully not going to be used any longer in this drone of a thread--regulation is necessary, it needs to be done well and as limited as possible, but it needs to exist.  Even if Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity don't think so.

Agree, but reg reform is needed, yes?

[Gator]

The DOW was down 350-400 and then Obama spoke.  Here was his opportunity to calm the markets and lead us as our President.  He had little positive to say, and again played the blame game. 
 
The market's response to the President?  Within minutes the market went down another 175 points.
 
Obama  is on the river "de Nile."   He wants to keep his voter base, even if it drags down America (he better as the independents will not vote for him, nor will the young voters).
 
The VIX is spiking....hopefully we will soon capitulate. 
 
 
 
 
 

[BC]

The challenge is making sure they are not virtually identical. Here is my example. I am now shopping around for a nice portable charcoal grill. I could go down and buy a cheap Made in China grill or I can spend twice as much and buy a Weber grill. Sure, I will save money with the cheaper version, but the odds are good that it will be rusting out in a year or two and will likely be warped by the end of the first season. Or, I can spend more and have a grill that will likely last a decade from a company that I will be able to track down in five years to buy a replacement grill for the portable barbecue.... The moral of the story is that if you can't compete in price, then make something that is worth more money and that will last much longer.

Misha,

Excellent example.

I recall looking for good grills in years past over here.  Made in USA, Coleman, Weber, etc are extremely difficult to find at all, even online.  It's almost like there is no interest at all for many US firms.  There are folks here willing to pay a premium if necessary.. but nada... zip..

Does not even have to be high end stuff either..

Doritos, cheetos, Texas Pete, Butterball, Orville Redenbacher popcorn, all would go well but again nothing.  There are even firms here making pseudo taco's that taste pretty crappy and are pretty expensive... but the marketing effort is not being made by US manufacturers to export.  It's like they're happy dealing with the domestic market and that's quite enough for them so don't even bother taking the first steps..

Ask any GI overseas how many requests are made by locals for something from the commissary.

My take is that there is simply no interest addressing the EU consumer. 

When one considers the USD / EUR would give them a huge edge, there should be no excuse.  Original US products would go well here.  Just look at Levi's..

Just look at these prices and multiply by 1.4 to get the dollar price.. then go down to your local JC penny or Sears to get their sale prices....  I paid around 40 bucks for 501's.. and this was wasn't even bargain hunting...  but 144 bucks over here????   

http://www.jeansshop.com/products.php?category=uomo_jeans&products_group=1&products_gender=1&size=36

funny.... ran across the Levis 'made in usa' collection....

http://us.levi.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=11326985  Yeah.. a ripoff in my books..  I don't think they are selling many or?  They're just trying to rip off anyone even trying to go 'made in USA'.  You should be boycotting Levi's!  Comeon Patriots! you can do much better than that!!  It's almost like they are doing this to make a political statement...

[SFandEE]

Agree, but reg reform is needed, yes?

Reformed as in improved so that it is competent which may or may not require that it be redundant in order to protect against corruption and incompetence.


The priority is not this though--it is a distraction used by the parasite business interests that have a disproportionate share of resource and Americans propping up their incompetence (AIG, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citibank, BP, Exxon) and their incompetent leaders should no longer exist and should be bankrupted and having their remaining assets run by competent business people. 


INSTEAD they have used their tax deductible corporate money (from consumers and stock holders) to corrupt the regulation of their business practices that are designed to ruin a free market atmosphere. The US does not have a free market economy it has an economy of corrupt interests governing the distribution of wealth.  Why is cable still more expensive than it ever was, why are mobile phone services at the height of their expense to consumers.  Infrastructure improvement, technological improvement?  Please.


This needs to stop being a discussion of politics and a discussion of competence.  That is why the markets are in decline--our business and political leaders are incompetent or corrupted.  Neither one instills market confidence.


By the way, Bush speaking in September 2008 can be directly correlated to market declines.  Skippy the Wonder president was a complete joke for instilling market confidence.

[Vincenzo]

Of course American and Russian labor can't compete with cheap 3rd world Labor.

Educated and highly skilled Americans and Russians can easily compete.
I asked around. A good programmer in China or India earns $1,000-2,000 a month. That's a lot of money for the cheap countries. That's  almost 30-50% of the average salary of American programmers.

However, if you're a lazy union auto worker earning $70 an hour with benefits, you can be easily replaced by robots or cheap labor in Mexico.

You see, if the Dollar drops 50%, the average salary of American programmers will be the same as their Chinese counterparts.

[Muzh]

Government regulations impede business.  I can not imagine as a small business owner how many different regulations affect your business.
 

So true. Let's just have farmer Joe start selling his chickens out there in the open market to the whole neighborhood. No regulations whatsoever.
 
Or, have Bristol-Myers Squibb dump all their useless wash into the Genessee river. Why regulations indeed?
 
It is still with all these regulations and the waste still find its way to the water.
 
"Ooops, how clumsy of me. A $5,000 fine? Sure, no problem. Here's my wrist for you to slap."
 
Meanwhile, average Joe's taxes go to pay for the ($25,000) clean up, money charged by these nice boys from the consultan's office.

If there is one thing I may agree with you is that there are some regulations that are targeted at the small fish and these regulations are minimalist.
 
I can show you the volumes of the NYCRR and you'll spend months trying to find specific regs that affect Joe Blow.
 
 

I recall the burden on my consulting firm and our only product was "advice."   
 

Puuh leez
 
I deal with consultants all the time and they even thank me for making $50K for them after I'm done answering their "questions" for their clients.
 
There is a lobby group I know who has offered me to enjoy my retirement working 2 days a week dealing with these "questions" for the poor folk at the tune of 10% per case.
 
 

Most people are not familiar with the burden that the entire body of regulations have on business, especially one involved in manufacturing. 
 

There is a good reason for this "entire body of regulations" as you call it. I know you are old enough to remember the Cuyahooga River spontaneously combusting. This is when a Republican President had no choice but to enact the NEPA.
 
Sure, let industry self-regulate. I can see them right now making a decision between human health and the bottom line.
 
 

You are correct that corporate taxes in America are high compared to many other countries.   Dividends are paid in after-tax dollars, and until Bush changed it, were taxed again as ordinary income when paid to individuals.  That was double taxation.
 

Yes, but for who?
 

Hopefully tax reform and regulatory reform will be addressed by Congress.

When was the last time Congress did the right thing for the average Joe?

[BC]

Educated and highly skilled Americans and Russians can easily compete.
I asked around. A good programmer in China or India earns $1,000-2,000 a month. That's a lot of money for the cheap countries. That's  almost 30-50% of the average salary of American programmers.

Thats roughly what I pay my guys UA. 

[SFandEE]

You see, if the Dollar drops 50%, the average salary of American programmers will be the same as their Chinese counterparts.

There are poster(s) on this board from small Scandinavian countries totally dependent on other nations for their security that assure Americans that the decline of the US dollar is great for Americans (because all of the stuff we export is less expensive)


Problem is that we are the


number one importer in the world
a service economy
number one debtor nation in the world
number one exporter of free military services throughout the world (private business interests serviced by public military)


This is old school thinking about import export.  The US no longer is a manufacturing nation--it consumes, weakening of the dollar is one of the main reasons why stock prices increase, gold increases, and oil increases--not value, just weaker dollar

[BC]

I was just doing some thinking...

The US is no longer about making a buck, it's about turning or flipping a buck.

Sorry if this offends anyone.

[SFandEE]

I was just doing some thinking...

The US is no longer about making a buck, it's about turning or flipping a buck.

Sorry if this offends anyone.

That is what is so horrifying to Americans--it is not offensive, it is repulsive.  American government is rewarding the true parasites of Wall St. for gaming not producing.  Our government no longer represents Americans--it whored itself out to corrupt international business interests and one of their refrains is that they can't produce jobs and profits in the world economy because of the "underclass" or "parasite" of America. 


As I posted earlier--


Who was the parasite


The CEO of Merrill Lynch in 2008 or the lady who cleaned his toilet, but had to use public health care to deliver her baby.


The CEO of Merrill Lynch failed to lead his company and was paid tens of millions of dollars.
The cleaning lady cleaned his toilet effectively and was paid market rates.


Who is operating in an honest market?  Who controls the market?  The cleaning lady or the CEO?


Check out this swell guy who died in his Porsche in his resort town Aspen while no doubt making more money on his vacation than others make in 10 years of work.  His death is going to result in bad business somehow?  This is an example of the elite corrupt, acting in their selfish interest with a corrupt government.  Producing wealth for themselves by hiring others at under market prices to create their wealth.



http://news.yahoo.com/texas-billionaire-charles-wyly-killed-colo-084619180.html

[BC]

The DOW was down 350-400 and then Obama spoke.  Here was his opportunity to calm the markets and lead us as our President.  He had little positive to say, and again played the blame game. 
 
The market's response to the President?  Within minutes the market went down another 175 points.
 
Obama  is on the river "de Nile."   He wants to keep his voter base, even if it drags down America (he better as the independents will not vote for him, nor will the young voters).
 
The VIX is spiking....hopefully we will soon capitulate.

Gator,

When you have economic stagnation, you have to create buying opportunities.. Wall Street works the same way..  It's something like bluffing your way through a poker game to come out on top.  Create confusion and you create opportunity.

[Gator]

Muzh,
 
Only an idiot would push to eliminate regulations, yet your response seemed to suggest that was what I meant.  I rarely see you get so worked up. 
 
My entire career was in the environmental consulting business.  And because I go way back, I witnessed  Republicans lead the way in passing early environmental legislation (I am not talking about Teddy Roosevelt  ).   And the Republican initiatives were both protective and pragmatic,  e. g., Spiro's deciding vote to allow the Alaska pipeline (it was good that we built it, yes).  Early on, the Democrats had only a secondary concern about the environment as they were focused on civil rights, etc.  That changed.
 
 
Eventually the pendulum swung too far and became too green, even for a nature boy like me.    I was able to retire early because of this, yet I could see the overkill, especially in Superfund.   And who were the lead proponents for Superfund?  BTW, I have a problem with the tea party's new target in Florida -  they want more high speed boating in manatee protection areas.
 
 
 

[Faux Pas]

Check out this swell guy who died in his Porsche in his resort town Aspen while no doubt making more money on his vacation than others make in 10 years of work.  His death is going to result in bad business somehow?  This is an example of the elite corrupt, acting in their selfish interest with a corrupt government.  Producing wealth for themselves by hiring others at under market prices to create their wealth.




http://news.yahoo.com/texas-billionaire-charles-wyly-killed-colo-084619180.html

Geeze guy, what a stretch. What exactly is Wyly's crime and how do you connect it to support your argument? They have been accused with allegations and he and the brother are denying and fighting them. There nothing there to hang your contention and pretentious argument on

[Gator]

Gator,

When you have economic stagnation, you have to create buying opportunities.. Wall Street works the same way..  It's something like bluffing your way through a poker game to come out on top.  Create confusion and you create opportunity.

Markets are markets and anything can happen when you have hedge funds, ETFs, CDSs, computerized trading (in which the traders locate their servers as close as possible to the NYSE's servers to get a millisecond advantage...).
 
My point was that Obama had his opportunity to calm fears, and he did not.  First, he should have spoken Saturday, not hide his head in the sand.  He spoke when the market was tanking.  And his words prompted it to tank much further.   He used words such as "long-term deficit reduction" rather than suggest balancing the budget over the long term.  More of the same. 
 
The Washington Post wrote summarized his points:
 

He seemed to focus much more on deficits rather than job creation. There was little in the way of new ideas. And while he paid homage to the hard work and tough times average Americans are experiencing, he didn’t address the fears of higher interest rates he surfaced repeatedly during the threat of default. A credit rating downgrade, he said in his July 25 address, would leave “investors around the world to wonder whether the U.S. is still a good bet. Interest rates would skyrocket on credit cards, mortgages and car loans, which amount to a huge tax hike on the American people.” Pretty scary stuff for your average American consumer.   

I did not vote for Obama although he was more intriguing than McCain.  When he was elected, I had high hopes for the good of my country and my prosperity that he would succeed.  He will be tied with Bush for America's worst president.  The real problem is that the Republicans thinking they can not lose  will nominate right wing conservative rather than a moderate centrist.   My hope is that Obama will do a LBJ and decline to run.  Obama is not a LBJ.
 
 

[SFandEE]

Geeze guy, what a stretch. What exactly is Wyly's crime and how do you connect it to support your argument? They have been accused with allegations and he and the brother are denying and fighting them. There nothing there to hang your contention and pretentious argument on

There is plenty to hang--he appears to have been a major white collar criminal.  Tax cheat.

He has been fighting for over 13 years with his tax deductible lawyers the SEC his hiding in offshore account of over $500,000,000.  What federal tax rate to you want to use?  Low of 5% high of 30%


He is stealing over $25,000,000 to $150,000,000.  Parasite.  It was a better business decision for him to evade taxes and then fight the incompetent SEC regulators than to pay his honest tax bill.  Do people earning $50,000 a year go to the same effort to not pay their taxes? 


Did you miss that?  Do you think the SEC is wrong or do you know enough about lawyers to know that this is a matter of who does he need to buy to get out of the problem.


I knew posting this article would get some criticism.  He was a tax evader--which I guess in a capitalist situation is his duty.  He has contributed to people that say he pays too much and that America would work better for all Americans if he were taxed less.


I don't need to mourn people I don't know.  This is purely a political/business example of how a man used his wealth to keep from paying taxes in America.


If you knew him and miss him--I am sorry for your loss.

[Turboguy]

My take is that there is simply no interest addressing the EU consumer. 

Since I am a manufactuer I can say there is lots of interest in addressing the EU market.  The point I want to comment on is the little degree of support a US manufactuer gets. 
 
Before I was a manufactuer I had a marketing business.  I got free trips to trade shows in Italy and Regina Canada paid for by the Italian Government and Canadian government.  Sometimes I see delegations from Italy and Canada at our trade shows.  Who pays their way?  The Italian and Canadian government of course.  Uncle Sam sure won't.
 
Regulations are a problem here but they are also a problem marketing products overseas.  If your product is mechanical or electrical to market in Western Europe you must be "CE" certified.  The governements there make if very difficult to get CE certification and our government does little to help.  Some of our universitys will have a day long seminar for a grand or so that gives you a three ring binder with the regulations and a little knowledge but not a  lot of real help.  The CE certification is bad enough but there is a totally different program for the CIS (Russia) and another for China and a few more around the world.  First off I think the whole thing is stupid but it is even more stupid that our government provides so little help and information.  By the way my product is CE certified and Europe is a good sized market for us.
 
 

[Muzh]

Muzh,
 
Only an idiot would push to eliminate regulations, yet your response seemed to suggest that was what I meant.  I rarely see you get so worked up. 
 

Sorry for the outburst.
 
I went to a symposium sponsored by the EPA Region 2 Office in Manhattan and the topic was green chemistry for Pharmaceuticals. You may know that 95% of their waste are solvents used in the manufacture of drugs.
 
After the Regional Administrator gave her welcoming remarks the next speaker was from the FDA. Very young for his high position. He started by thanking the pharmas for his first ten years of work with them. He kept ranting about how the federal government was stiffling the growth of pharmas and he was pushing hard at the FDA to approve a plan for pharmas to self-regulate. I literally fell from my chair. I mean, you had to have massive balls to say something like that in that room. There were a number of scientists (FDA, EPA, NIH) there that were visibly angered and they let him know in no uncertain way.
 
 
There has been an erosion in regulations affecting the big guys. The little guys are getting the shaft because they are vocal and they give the impression, at least to the public, that the regulators are doing their jobs.
 
Everytime I have an opportunity I steer these starting jobs in the right path for them to avoid unnecessary regulations. Every other day I talk to one of these. At the same time I do find new European initiatives that I pass along to the environmental nuts for them to hound the big guys.
 
You may say that this is reason to reduce government. I can tell you that what you have to reduce are the goddamm incompetent political hacks. If you think we have too much government, me being on the inside, can tell you that we've been under the "do more with less" mantra for the last 15 years. There are many professionals here that are doing the job three of them used to do. In addition, we are having monthly meeting to decide which projects can be relegated to the "oblivion" basket, projects that are mandated by law, because not enough personnel.
 
There is going to be one day where the shit hits the fans and people will start asking why but don't want to hear the reason.