Economy is in the tank, banks are reeling, inflation is sky-high and there's more Biden isn't telling you

[placeholder]

33 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

Wow, sounds just like 2016-19!  Except the inflation part.  And gas is $3.50 a gallon, not $2.50.  So maybe Biden is doing almost as well as Trump did.

How about like Trump in 2020?

[billd766]

On 4/7/2023 at 6:30 AM, SunnyinBangrak said:

exactly why "the distraction" was so desperately needed

The latest "hot" news from "Fox News" only 3 weeks old and you believe it?

 

Well I suppose as a Trump supporter you would believe anything from Fox News slagging President Biden off.

 

How is your superhero getting on with his court cases? 

[billd766]

6 hours ago, Skipalongcassidy said:

Haha... Good luck with that... the truth from Biden is like winning the lottery... one in a billion chance

Would you believe Trump if he said it?

 

He still tells lies every time he speaks.

[candide]

53 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

Wow, sounds just like 2016-19!  Except the inflation part.  And gas is $3.50 a gallon, not $2.50.  So maybe Biden is doing almost as well as Trump did.

2017-2019, which sounded like the continuation of 2013-2016.

About inflation and gas price, are you claiming that Biden is responsible for the global inflation and global oil prices?

[placeholder]

7 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

Wow, sounds just like 2016-19!  Except the inflation part.  And gas is $3.50 a gallon, not $2.50.  So maybe Biden is doing almost as well as Trump did.

It's funny. Not so long ago a member of aseannow.com blamed Biden for the poor performance of the economy in 2020. Ya know, when Trump was President. Now you're crediting Trump for the good performance of the economy in 2016. Ya know, when Obama was President.

[Tug]

17 minutes ago, placeholder said:

It's funny. Not so long ago a member of aseannow.com blamed Biden for the poor performance of the economy in 2020. Ya know, when Trump was President. Now you're crediting Trump for the good performance of the economy in 2016. Ya know, when Obama was President.

Aww cut them some slack they are desperate and sinking fast lol ???? it’s all they have desperate attempts to discredit a successful administration I still think the Biden administration is doing a remarkable job especially considering the slightest of majoritys and the hand we have been dealt with Covid and the failed trump administration + his attempts to poison our democracy 

[placeholder]

6 minutes ago, Tug said:

Aww cut them some slack they are desperate and sinking fast lol ???? it’s all they have desperate attempts to discredit a successful administration I still think the Biden administration is doing a remarkable job especially considering the slightest of majoritys and the hand we have been dealt with Covid and the failed trump administration + his attempts to poison our democracy 

The thing is, the Fed is doing it's level best to slow the growth of the economy by raising interest rates. It may well succeed in throwing the economy into a recession. And who is the chairman of the Fed?  Jerome Powell. And who appointed him?  Donald Trump.

[Tug]

4 minutes ago, placeholder said:

The thing is, the Fed is doing it's level best to slow the growth of the economy by raising interest rates. It may well succeed in throwing the economy into a recession. And who is the chairman of the Fed?  Jerome Powell. And who appointed him?  Donald Trump.

There are good Americans in both political parties the Biden TEAM wouldn’t keep chairman Powell if they didn’t think he is the best person for the job,it is indeed a tight rope walk to cool off and not kill our economy I hope we are successful in pulling it off!

[placeholder]

14 minutes ago, Tug said:

There are good Americans in both political parties the Biden TEAM wouldn’t keep chairman Powell if they didn’t think he is the best person for the job,it is indeed a tight rope walk to cool off and not kill our economy I hope we are successful in pulling it off!

Biden can't dismiss the Fed Chairman arbitrarily, He can only do it "for cause". Anyway, I don't think Powell has done such a great job. It's bad enough that the previous administration relaxed the rules regulating banks. But the current Fed was very lax in supervising the banks. And I think he's now overreacting to the threat of inflation. The banking system's current distress, coupled with the rises already put in place should do the job. Some things, like oil prices are out of the Fed's control.

[nigelforbes]

Complaining about somebody or something, without offering a realistic alternative, is called whining".

[thaibeachlovers]

On 4/7/2023 at 3:18 PM, ozimoron said:

Do we still blame Nixon?

I blame Nixon for letting China take over the west's manufacturing which is what has led IMO to the present western economic crisis. Not enough proper jobs any more IMO.

Great for shareholders of companies that exported the jobs to China, not great for everyone else.

[thaibeachlovers]

16 hours ago, billd766 said:

Well I suppose as a Trump supporter you would believe anything from Fox News slagging President Biden off.

IMO one doesn't have to be a Trump supporter to believe that Biden isn't very good at his job.

Hows it going on that "unite the US" thing he was talking about?

Edited April 10, 2023 by thaibeachlovers

[Pink Mist]

A troll post and reply have been removed

[pomchop]

Everywhere i look in USA most people have nice cars, nice homes, nice clothes, send their kids to nice schools, eat out often, drink $5 coffees like water, go on nice vacations.  All the airlines are packed even with higher prices.  Hotels are full. Concerts are full.  Sports stadiums are full.  Vegas is packed. Disney charges a ransom but is also packed.

 

If one didn't watch fox "news" one would probably not be aware that the USA economy has crashed and the sky is falling.

[pomchop]

Using fox "news" sources is sort of like taking legal advice from Clarence Thomas....there just might be a few "whoppers" in the bag.

[Pink Mist]

25 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I blame Nixon for letting China take over the west's manufacturing which is what has led IMO to the present western economic crisis. Not enough proper jobs any more IMO.

Great for shareholders of companies that exported the jobs to China, not great for everyone else.

In reality it was Reagan who put the US on it's current path. Prior to Nixon the world was already changing, but things grew and so things changed in the US and worldwide. Under Biden the US has been adding jobs back into the economy, but it is not 100% his doing.

 

Here is an interesting article that lays out certain things that sent the US to where it is now..

 

What Happened to American Jobs in the 80s (businessinsider.com)

 

Excerpts from the link.

 

"Chinas big push into global markets is the root cause for stagnant economic and wage growth since the turn of the millennium. But that narrative has a really basic flaw: It's only half the story. And with only half the story, you're not going to find a whole solution to the slow growth, low wage, low unemployment predicament we find ourselves in now."

 

 

[nigelforbes]

44 minutes ago, Pink Mist said:

In reality it was Reagan who put the US on it's current path. Prior to Nixon the world was already changing, but things grew and so things changed in the US and worldwide. Under Biden the US has been adding jobs back into the economy, but it is not 100% his doing.

 

Here is an interesting article that lays out certain things that sent the US to where it is now..

 

What Happened to American Jobs in the 80s (businessinsider.com)

 

Excerpts from the link.

 

"Chinas big push into global markets is the root cause for stagnant economic and wage growth since the turn of the millennium. But that narrative has a really basic flaw: It's only half the story. And with only half the story, you're not going to find a whole solution to the slow growth, low wage, low unemployment predicament we find ourselves in now."

 

 

If the America's had been realistically and sensibly priced in the first place, China's push wouldn't have succeeded.

[Pink Mist]

2 minutes ago, nigelforbes said:

If the America's had been realistically and sensibly priced in the first place, China's push wouldn't have succeeded.

Very true, and corporate greed is what took us to where we are today, in my view of course.

[placeholder]

3 minutes ago, nigelforbes said:

If the America's had been realistically and sensibly priced in the first place, China's push wouldn't have succeeded.

You mean that there was no free market in the US? So, what elements made pricing not sensible? Were workers being paid too much?

[nigelforbes]

22 minutes ago, placeholder said:

You mean that there was no free market in the US? So, what elements made pricing not sensible? Were workers being paid too much?

The automobile industry is a good example. The unions brought the likes of Chrysler and Ford to their knees in the 1970's because overseas cost of production and quality standards were so much higher. By the time the US auto. industry responded to that threat it was too late, overseas labor and production costs undercut domestic costs and the US lost market share, yet overall income and living costs at home didn't fall. 

 

When other mainland corporates decided to follow that lead and outsource manufacturing and production overseas, it was an an attempt to increase corporate profitability at home but had two unintended consequences. Firstly, it created higher levels of unemployment at home which drove up social care costs, it also lowered skilling levels at home. Secondly, the use of cheap labor overseas and created a lower entry cost point for competing business that would otherwise never have entered the market. This had the effect of increasing competition and limiting profitability at home thus also limiting expansion. But because wages and cost of living overall were still not limited, earning expectations didn't fall.

[placeholder]

37 minutes ago, nigelforbes said:

The automobile industry is a good example. The unions brought the likes of Chrysler and Ford to their knees in the 1970's because overseas cost of production and quality standards were so much higher. By the time the US auto. industry responded to that threat it was too late, overseas labor and production costs undercut domestic costs and the US lost market share, yet overall income and living costs at home didn't fall. 

 

When other mainland corporates decided to follow that lead and outsource manufacturing and production overseas, it was an an attempt to increase corporate profitability at home but had two unintended consequences. Firstly, it created higher levels of unemployment at home which drove up social care costs, it also lowered skilling levels at home. Secondly, the use of cheap labor overseas and created a lower entry cost point for competing business that would otherwise never have entered the market. This had the effect of increasing competition and limiting profitability at home thus also limiting expansion. But because wages and cost of living overall were still not limited, earning expectations didn't fall.

I don't know what you mean by "overall income and living costs didn't fall". Certainly income for auto workers fell. Particularly for new hires. And while cost of living didn't actually fall, it certainly rose less than it otherwise would have done.

And I don't know why unions are to blame for low quality. The Japanese were a lot more forward thinking and paid attention to quality long before the US auto industry. In fact, the US auto industry had a lot to learn from the Japanese.

[nigelforbes]

1 minute ago, placeholder said:

I don't know what you mean by "overall income and living costs didn't fall". Certainly income for auto workers fell. Particularly for new hires. And while cost of living didn't actually fall, it certainly rose less than it otherwise would have done.

And I don't know why unions are to blame for low quality. The Japanese were a lot more forward thinking and paid attention to quality long before the US auto industry. In fact, the US auto industry had a lot to learn from the Japanese.

The more money spent paying wages means less money for R&D, Read Iaccoca.

 

Overall income and living costs didn't fall means overall living costs and income didn't fall!

 

 

[placeholder]

Just now, nigelforbes said:

The more money spent paying wages means less money for R&D, Read Iaccoca.

 

Overall income and living costs didn't fall means overall living costs and income didn't fall!

 

 

Are you seriously claiming that automobiles manufactured by American companies didn't suffer a big quality deficit compared to the Japanese? Not at all a matter of research. More not paying attention to major industrial thinkers like Deming. The Japanese didn't neglect him.

And claiming that overall costs didn't fall is like saying that because aspirin doesn't make a fever entirely go away, therefore it's ineffective. It's a misleading statement. 

[heybruce]

33 minutes ago, nigelforbes said:

The automobile industry is a good example. The unions brought the likes of Chrysler and Ford to their knees in the 1970's because overseas cost of production and quality standards were so much higher. By the time the US auto. industry responded to that threat it was too late, overseas labor and production costs undercut domestic costs and the US lost market share, yet overall income and living costs at home didn't fall. 

 

When other mainland corporates decided to follow that lead and outsource manufacturing and production overseas, it was an an attempt to increase corporate profitability at home but had two unintended consequences. Firstly, it created higher levels of unemployment at home which drove up social care costs, it also lowered skilling levels at home. Secondly, the use of cheap labor overseas and created a lower entry cost point for competing business that would otherwise never have entered the market. This had the effect of increasing competition and limiting profitability at home thus also limiting expansion. But because wages and cost of living overall were still not limited, earning expectations didn't fall.

Were you around in the '60's and '70's in America?  Do you remember the crappy car culture, when it was just assumed that after four years or 50,000 miles a car would need major repairs to keep it on the road so you should buy a new one?

 

It wasn't the unions that decided to market crappy cars rather than design and build good cars, it was the managers and stock holders.  They liked cars that had to be replaced every four years.  However during the energy crisis some people started experimenting with Japanese cars and learned, to their amazement, that it was possible to build cars that would last over 100,000 miles.  That's what doomed the US auto industry; free market forces that led to a superior product replacing an inferior one.

 

All this is getting off-topic, but one shouldn't blame unions for America's real and imagined economic ills.  After World War II we could dominate the global free market for years because we were the only major manufacturing country to come out of the war with its industries intact.  However our top managers got complacent and lazy, so eventually other countries figured out how to out design, out build, and out compete us, at least in certain industries.  Many of these countries did so with stronger unions and much better social safety nets than the US. 

 

If you're looking for someone to blame for the fact that the rest of the world has been catching up with us economically, look somewhere other than unions and US workers.

[nigelforbes]

14 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Are you seriously claiming that automobiles manufactured by American companies didn't suffer a big quality deficit compared to the Japanese? Not at all a matter of research. More not paying attention to major industrial thinkers like Deming. The Japanese didn't neglect him.

And claiming that overall costs didn't fall is like saying that because aspirin doesn't make a fever entirely go away, therefore it's ineffective. It's a misleading statement. 

You asked what elements caused pricing not to be sensible and I gave you one example using the car industry. This is not a debate about the quality of American cars or the knowledge gap between the Japanese and the Americans in the 1970'2!

[nigelforbes]

13 minutes ago, heybruce said:

Were you around in the '60's and '70's in America?  Do you remember the crappy car culture, when it was just assumed that after four years or 50,000 miles a car would need major repairs to keep it on the road so you should buy a new one?

 

It wasn't the unions that decided to market crappy cars rather than design and build good cars, it was the managers and stock holders.  They liked cars that had to be replaced every four years.  However during the energy crisis some people started experimenting with Japanese cars and learned, to their amazement, that it was possible to build cars that would last over 100,000 miles.  That's what doomed the US auto industry; free market forces that led to a superior product replacing an inferior one.

 

All this is getting off-topic, but one shouldn't blame unions for America's real and imagined economic ills.  After World War II we could dominate the global free market for years because we were the only major manufacturing country to come out of the war with its industries intact.  However our top managers got complacent and lazy, so eventually other countries figured out how to out design, out build, and out compete us, at least in certain industries.  Many of these countries did so with stronger unions and much better social safety nets than the US. 

 

If you're looking for someone to blame for the fact that the rest of the world has been catching up with us economically, look somewhere other than unions and US workers.

I was in Detroit in the 60's and 70's, yes I saw much of those things first hand as a GM employee. And yes, I do blame the unions, sorry, but the UAW crippled the industry with their excessive demands, everyone in Detroit understands that, whether the rest of America does is debatable. The big three were still drilling their body panels to fit trim strips whilst the Japanese glued them on and didn't suffer from rust. The Japanese were building unit body construction which made them lighter with better gas mileage, the big three loved their chasis's, and so on. But fundamental redesign and retooling on that scale takes R&D expense and time, Chrysler certainly didn't have either and Ford did purely by luck.

[placeholder]

11 minutes ago, nigelforbes said:

I was in Detroit in the 60's and 70's, yes I saw much of those things first hand as a GM employee. And yes, I do blame the unions, sorry, but the UAW crippled the industry with their excessive demands, everyone in Detroit understands that, whether the rest of America does is debatable. The big three were still drilling their body panels to fit trim strips whilst the Japanese glued them on and didn't suffer from rust. The Japanese were building unit body construction which made them lighter with better gas mileage, the big three loved their chasis's, and so on. But fundamental redesign and retooling on that scale takes R&D expense and time, Chrysler certainly didn't have either and Ford did purely by luck.

Wrecked

How the American Automobile Industry Destroyed Its Capacity to Compete

“It’s almost a truism to lay the decline of the American auto industry at the feet of the trade union movement—for demanding too much, not working hard enough, and in so doing, reducing the competitiveness of the Big Three automakers. But in this brilliant book, Josh Murray and Michael Schwartz place the blame back where it belongs—on the managers and owners and their investment decisions. Whereas Japanese competitor firms based their production model on increasing labor productivity, the Big Three turned increasingly to a low-wage, low-cost model—which quickly lost ground to rival producers.

https://www.russellsage.org/publications/wrecked

[nigelforbes]

6 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Wrecked

How the American Automobile Industry Destroyed Its Capacity to Compete

“It’s almost a truism to lay the decline of the American auto industry at the feet of the trade union movement—for demanding too much, not working hard enough, and in so doing, reducing the competitiveness of the Big Three automakers. But in this brilliant book, Josh Murray and Michael Schwartz place the blame back where it belongs—on the managers and owners and their investment decisions. Whereas Japanese competitor firms based their production model on increasing labor productivity, the Big Three turned increasingly to a low-wage, low-cost model—which quickly lost ground to rival producers.

https://www.russellsage.org/publications/wrecked

Josh Murray wasn't even born when this was happening! Go read Iacocca and get back to me, he was head of Chrysler throughout this period..

[placeholder]

Just now, nigelforbes said:

Josh Murray wasn't even born when this was happening! Go read Iacocca and get back to me, he was head of Chrysler throughout this period..

I'm sure we can count on a dispassionate evaluation of the situation from one of the leaders of the management side.

[nigelforbes]

2 minutes ago, placeholder said:

I'm sure we can count on a dispassionate evaluation of the situation from one of the leaders of the management side.

Probably more so than from somebody who hadn't even been born yet!

Look, I'd love to bicker with you for a while but as I said previously, this is not about cars, it was merely a reply to the question you asked.  You couldn't find it in yourself to get back on topic, could you, for the second time of asking.