Okay,
Explain this to me: We have a trade deficit, which means we buy more foreign products than we sell to other countries. We also have a budget deficit, which is where we spend more money via the government than we take in. Are we getting these two numbers confused when we talk about how much in debt we are?
Also, I can see how it’s bad that we send out more money than we take in, trade-wise. But it’s simply bad economics to pay a US worker $6 an hour plus benefits to manufacture something that they can make in China paying $5 a day. We’re a victim of our own standard of living…we need to make too much to live in our country and still compete against manufacturing in other countries. Give China some time, and when their standard of living goes up, they’ll be hard pressed to find $5 a day workers. (Note: numbers are pulled from thin air to make a point).
So what’s the solution for the trade deficit? We can’t compete with the prices. Embargo? That would leave us out of the world trade economy.
Now, with the fiscal deficit, that’s the gov’t spending more than it’s bringing in. That’s bad. But the problem is that to reduce the deficit, the gov’t would have to reduce spending. However, the choices to do that are: reduce spending or bring in more. Obviously, spending less in Iraq is a great choice, but what about the part of the economy that feasts on military spending? Do we spend less by cutting programs? Do we eliminate bloated gov’t jobs? Those things tend to weigh against you in election years. But not nearly as do the opposite approach, which is bringing in more via taxation.
While I don’t advise the US to totally withdraw from global concerns, I think for a period of time it would be wise to pull back. if you overextend yourself financially, you stay home, cook your own food, and save money. I think the US should do that as well. Pull out of Iraq. Concern itself with getting its own house in order before taking care of the neighbors.
But then, if we do withdraw from global affairs, when we look to come back in 5, 10 years after we fix things (oh my hopeless optimism!), do we see our place filled by China?
My $.02 Weed
tough questions
My understanding is that the trade deficit and the budget deficit are often talked about together because the trade deficit is one of the major factors in the budget deficit – but I might be wrong about that.
The global labor issues are incredibly tough, however. As you say, it makes simple economic sense to build a plant in China or India or Mexico rather than the US. By and large, those savings go directly into the pockets of the top executives (and maybe that’s my hopeless pessimism) rather than the consumers.
But we can’t sacrifice our standard of living just to compete more on an international level. The minimum wage is barely enough to support some people, and there are politicians who have advocated eliminating it so that we can compete with foreign labor. That seems to me to be the entirely wrong solution – cutting wages further so the CEOs can keep their private jets.
One of the solutions I’ve heard comes from some globalization experts. They have advocated a position where the US would only agree to trade with countries who maintain a minimum standard of wages and human rights in their workforce, and provide tax incentives to those US companies that comply with those hiring provisions. The US is the largest consumer in the world, by a lot, and that purchasing power should give us a substantial amount of influence over the rest of the world. All it would take would be for one country to step up to the plate and agree to humane wages and rights, and the other countries would step up as well to be able to compete in the market.
There are downsides, of course. US corporations would no longer be able to get cheap sweatshop labor; perhaps CEOs will have to settle with 4 houses instead of 5; and maybe consumers will have to pay a dollar or two more for their goods to assure that they weren’t made by a 10-year-old in Taiwan. Seems worth it to me, tho.
As for the budget deficit, reversing Bush’s tax cuts for the upper class would go a long way towards paying it off.
— Ben
High and mighty
Pessimism or a sheltered shopping experience. Maybe you’re too young to remember prices before Walmart and Home Depot. They were a lot higher.
These kinds of proposals almost make me physically ill. The US, which has clawed its way to the top of the world, now sits atop its throne of priviledge and insists that everyone else must behave exactly like it does on their way up. We used child labor. We used sweat shops. We used lots of dangerous chemicals. Now we’ve progressed beyond that, but we cannot force others to do so.
The most eggregious abuse of this is in environmental protection. Back in the 50’s, we breathed more DDT than oxygen in the Southern US. The result of this was the obliteration of malaria in North America. After some psuedo-science popped up to suggest that that was a bad idea, we led the global effort to eradicate its use. Now malaria is a perpetual plague through the tropics. Too bad for them. Should’ve sprayed more before the US “got religion.”
If it’s worth it to you, then by all means, live that way. It’s quite possible to insist on US-made goods when shopping. You will find a limited selection and much higher prices (50-100% more). I suspect you don’t do this because you’d rather consume more than help fund inefficiencies in the global market. Either way, neither you nor the government have any claim on how I or anyone else chooses to spend money (outside of taxes sufficient to provide law enforcement and defense).
Yes, acculumating wealth is wrong. We must take from those who are successful to satisfy those who are not. Rather than stopping the immoral wealth transfer from current (and future, through the deficit) producers to current moochers, we should fuel it. Have to disagree with you there.
And?
So what’s the alternative? Save a few bucks at the expense of Chinese pre-teens working 80-hour weeks?
And you may think you’re getting a deal at WalMart, but with their absolutely medieval labor policies, it all comes out even when you realize that your tax dollar is paying for the medical expenses of the huge number of WalMart employees who are underpaid and underinsured.
Forgive me for suggesting that maybe it might be a good thing to insist that workers should be treated fairly.
— Ben
Backing up…
Here’s an article backing up Ben’s assertion:
http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/news/20060207-ap.html
Summary: Washington State taxpayers subsidize Wal-Mart to the tune of $22.7 million.
That’s an expensive price tag for “Always Low Prices”.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Two wrongs = ?
So, you’re saying that because the government immorally takes money from one person to give it to another person in the form of Medicaid, we ought to have the government force somebody else to spend more when they go shopping or spend more when they hire people? Do I smell a Five-Year Plan coming on?
Washington taxpayers ought to revolt against their government, not Walmart. This all seems so self-evident to me. Maryland just passed a law to drive Walmart out of the state. New DC’s will now likely be built in DE, meaning 800 fewer people have jobs. Are those people coming off of Medicaid?
Not me disagreeing…
Note that it’s not me disagreeing with you.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
this is a tough one
Daniel, I’m not disagreeing that this is an incredibly messy problem. In a perfect world, the executives at WalMart would actually CARE about their employees enough to want to pay them a fair wage and full benefits for the work they do.
For me personally, I support Maryland’s law against Walmart, and I hope other states follow its lead. I don’t care if Walmart is forced to raise prices, because I choose to shop at Target anyway. I don’t think that Walmart should be allowed to profit off of the desperation of their workforce, and the willingness of the government to pick up the slack. Because the alternative is surely not for the government to STOP helping people who are unable to pay for their own medical expenses.
— Ben
Disagreeing?
Did I say it was messy? I don’t think it’s messy–just wrongheaded on the government’s part.
And who determines that? I think the best person to what my time is worth is me. If I think I’m worth $5/hour, I’ll work for that. The next best person is my employer. If he thinks I’m worth $6/hour, we’ll be somewhere between $5 and $6. If he thinks I’m worth $4, I won’t have a job. (That’s the immediate, and well-documented, impact of minimum wages, by the way.)
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. … Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
No, it’s not an alternative. The government’s got to get out of the evil practice of paying medical bills no matter what!
Pot and Kettle
I;m glad you choose Target, since it’s so much better than Walmart.
Ben, what is unfair about how Walmart pays its employees? Why are they entitled to so much? They make 10x what they’d make doing the same type of work in another country. And what would their drain be on society if Walmart wasn’t there? Do you think all the mom and pop stores Walmart is replacing gave benefits to their employees? Do you think they paid much higher wages?
You act as if Walmart is keeping these people from getting something they’d be getting if Walmart wasn’t around. If Walmart wasn’t around, they’d probably be worse off than they are now.
And why is health care so expensive, anyway? My uninformed opinion is due to rising insurance costs because of rampany lawsuits as well as drug prices. Drug prices I can understand because a lot of R&D goes into any new drug. A lot of effort to develop that drug as well as the slew of drugs that didn’t pan out too.
Instead of making Walmart pay for high health care costs, why don’t we concentrate on lowing health care costs and let the free market work?
My $.02 Weed
No more political arguments for me
I’m not about to get myself into another political argument. It’s exhausting, and we’ll all end up angry. I don’t need that again.
I do want to say however that insurance costs are high because insurance companies are crooked. They make it their job to charge as much as they can and pay out as little as they can get away with. In the tort reform hearings in Congress, representatives from the insurance industry admitted that payouts for medical malpractice made up less than 1% of their operating budget. And while drug companies use R&D as the excuse for charging high prices for drugs, the pharmaceutical industry has the highest profit margin of any industry, and CEOs of pharmaceutical companies make some of the highest salaries in the country.
I know, who cares? Good for them for figuring out a way to make 9-figure salaries, and if you’re making $5 an hour, then obviously you’re lucky to have a job at all, so you should stop complaining. /sarcasm
OK, I said I’d stop, and now i’m stopping.
— Ben
Not political, but ideological
Ben,
When it comes to abortion, I get angry. When it comes to capitalism, I don’t nearly get as worked up.
What made this country great was capitalism. The idea that you could come here, be free, and if you worked hard, make a living for yourself. The great thing about capitalism was that if you worked hard and got lucky, you could be rich. The government stayed out of the way except to protect the country and make sure the playing field was fair.
Then came the Great Depression. The country was out of work, so the government stepped in with all these social programs to help people out during the Depression. But once the Depression was over (thanks to WWII), those programs didn’t go away.
It’s really an idealogical issue. There are people out there who are poor because they’re lazy. There are people out there poor because of bad luck. There are people out there poor because they don’t know any better. You feel it’s the government’s job to help these people to health car, benefits, housing, etc. I think the government should stay out. The federal government, at least. I feel that you’ve seen what happens in the city, where there’s no sense of community and too much sense of entitlement. I see up here where the community helps out those in need, and you still feel like you should earn your keep.
I think helping out those in need should be a local thing, not a federal thing. I don’t feel like I should have to pay more because Baltimore is a rotten city. Why should I subsidize them? I help out up here where I live.
The idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor is ageless. Robin Hood, etc. But America didn’t get to be the greatest country in the world by doing that. It’s the greatest because ti rewards those who work the hardest.
I absolutely refuse to believe someone who wants to go to college can’t. My wife is back in college, and we applied for financial aid, and we got enough to pay for her. We make nearly 6 digits combined. If WE can get enough, I know anyone else can. And my wife goes to school and works at the same time, with two kids. If she csn do it, so can anyone else. So if you don’t like working at your Walmart job, go back to school and get a degree. Then you can make more money.
I agree the health care industry in messed up. But by your reckoning, doctors shouldn’t be making the money they do either. Everyone should make the same amount and give to the central pool.
That’s socialism, and you can experience it in Canada and Europe.
While I prefer capitalism and the USA, I do believe the growing disparity between the rich and the poor here is a problem. I don’t have any problem with the rich being rich. I truly hope to join them someday. It’s when the rich bend the rules to stay rich that I cry foul. Walmart isn’t bending the rules. Insurance companies might be. Drug companies might be. But I don’t feel Walmart is.
And if you’re making $5 an hour, and all you’re doing is complaining about it, then you’re right where you belong. If you’re making $5 an hour and working hard to make it better, then you have my sympathy. We’re entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nowhere does that include anything you refer to.
My $.02 Weed
Capitalism
I’m not against capitalism. I believe in the American dream, that hard work pays off. I believe in some socialist ideals (like that those who have more have a duty to help those who have less), but I certainly don’t think that everyone should make the same amount, or that people who really work hard (like doctors) shouldn’t be paid what they’re worth.
What I’m against is rampant greed. I don’t understand how the CEO of a pharmaceutical company can say that they simply can’t afford to lower costs, but take home a seven-figure salary. If these executives would take $1 million salaries instead of $9 million salaries, that would be a lot more money in the bank for them. And yes, I realize that $8 million is a drop in the bucket for a Big Pharma company, but it’s the principle.
And WalMart does bend rules. They keep the vast majority of their employees working 35 hours a week so that they don’t have to pay for their health benefits. That’s just rude. And yet, H. Lee Scott, the President & CEO of WalMart, made $17 million last year.
One more note: While Baltimore may be a rotten city in certain respects, it’s worth pointing out that the vast majority of welfare recipients are white and rural.
— Ben
Huh
CEOs don’t work hard? They don’t put in 10-12 hour days? Ask Sam how much he’s working starting his small business.
That being said, I agree CEO pay is running rampant, but not just in the health care industry or Walmart. It’s across the board. It should be perfomance based, but often it isn’t. There needs to be reform there.
That being said, if you don’t like the fact Walmart pays you $5 an hour, get a better job. It can be done.
And one last thing: In your link, I didn’t see where the vast majority of welfare recipients were white and poor. I saw that the welfare rate was high in the core inner city, low in the suburbs, and then high again in the country. Plus, noticed that the majority of inner city poor didn’t work. Why should I subsidize you if you’re not working?
Again, let aid be done at the local level, not federally.
My $.02 Weed
Both sides of your keyboard
Again, who determines what “they’re worth?” Obviously, it’s the people who pay them. So, if shareholders want to pay Jack Welch a gazillion dollars, who are you to complain? Is it your money they’re giving away? (It is if you’re a shareholder, but you can easily sell your ownership or buy more shares, then vote to put the kind of person who, for $1 million/year, is willing to work 90-hour weeks with personal liability everytime the stock drops 1%.) Again, if I want to pay my gardener $800,000/year, what right, what possible right, do you have to tell me I can’t do that? If I choose to pay my cook $10/hour, how is that relevant? It’s not. It’s my money, I’ll dole it out how I choose.
The numbers
The 2005 population of Washington was 6 million something. Of those, 63% were between 18 and 65, we’ll say tax-paying citizens. That’s 3,910,000 million taxpayers.
So if you believe the report that Washington State paid Walmart-employees $22.7 million, that comes out to between $5 and $6 per taxpayer.
I bet you save more than that shopping at Walmart.
My $.02 Weed
Cut of your nose…
>>>>The most eggregious abuse of this is in environmental protection. Back in the 50’s, we breathed more DDT than oxygen in the Southern US. The result of this was the obliteration of malaria in North America. After some psuedo-science popped up to suggest that that was a bad idea, we led the global effort to eradicate its use. Now malaria is a perpetual plague through the tropics. Too bad for them. Should’ve sprayed more before the US “got religion.” —————————-
Ah, pesticidal pollution: panacea of our parents’ pain.
You know, when the Ebola virus made its way to our shores and wound up in Reston, VA, my home town, scientists discovered that the surest way to kill it was to convert the entire atmosphere of the monkey house into Clorox Bleach. Wiped out the virus completely.
OK, truthfully it wiped out EVERY living thing completely; for a few days there it was literally the only place on the surface of the earth where there were no signs of life whatsoever.
Perhaps if we can convince everyone living in the tropics to move away for a couple years while we send over a fleet of pesticide-bearing biplanes, we’ll lick that malaria once and for all.
Quick question, and I’m genuinely curious about this one, I swear to you it’s not loaded: If chopping down every tree in the South American rain forest would be a guaranteed cure for every major epidemic in that region, would you consider it worthwhile?
Could I build straw men from the trees?
It’s not loaded, nor is it relevant. Eradicating malaria from the US did not destroy life as we know it. I’m not aware of any objective evidence that it destroyed anything other than mosquitos, actually. Today malaria continues to claim millions of human lives (but they’re just starving Africans, so maybe we shouldn’t really care).
Here are some questions back to you. Is it immoral to kill any life, even bacteria? Would you let any bacterial disease continue to kill people, if the alternative was the extinction of those innocent bacterial species? Is it immoral to cull chicken flocks with H5N1 virus? If a bear is charging toward a person and you have a gun, do you shoot the bear (murder it, in essence) or the person (to shorten his misery)?
Dude, I didn’t care if the
Dude, I didn’t care if the question was relevant, I was just wondering about your opinion on it. I’m always interested in knowing where people’s priorities fall, regardless of whether or not I agree with them.
I’m still curious about your answer, by the way. In a show of good faith, here are my answers to your questions:
>>>>Is it immoral to kill any life, even bacteria? Would you let any bacterial disease continue to kill people, if the alternative was the extinction of those innocent bacterial species?
No.
The taking of life, as a blanket statement, is not immoral. Obviously, since we can consume nothing that was not once alive, and since the very act of breathing massacres millions of innocent bacteria with every exhalation, I’d say we’d be in deep trouble if we tried to take “Thou shalt not kill” to an extreme.
>>>>>Is it immoral to cull chicken flocks with H5N1 virus?
Not sure.
I don’t know what H5N1 is, so I couldn’t answer this question as posed. I believe the act of culling a flock, however, in it’s own right is not necessarily immoral. That is, provided that you’re willing to accept that raising livestock en masse for mass consumption is acceptable. Truthfully, that area’s got so much gray that I really don’t know where right vs. wrong would begin in it.
But I won’t deny that I do love me those McNuggets. So obviously I’m not so opposed to the idea as to actually inconvenience myself.
>>>>If a bear is charging toward a person and you have a gun, do you shoot the bear (murder it, in essence) or the person (to shorten his misery)?
The bear.
That one was easy.
So let me rephrase the question. Again, I’m not trying to prove a point here, I’m just curious as to where your priorities lie: If we determined that wiping out the Amazon rainforest would cure malaria, which would save all those sweet, starving Africans, would you consider it to be a viable option?
Whoops, I forgot to answer
The rainforest has no intrinsic right to exist in its current state, so I would not say there is a moral reason not to destroy it. However, the question as posed is problematic–are there other more detrimental effects from destroying such a massive amount of rainforest? Could be. If you would guarantee (this is a thought expirement, after all) that no external environmental factors would occur (oxygen shortages, global cooling, the erosion of Brazil into the ocean, etc.), but that it was merely a question of malaria eradication vs. the lives of countless trees and cute animals, I’d take malaria eradication any day.
Of course, the starving Africans (and any other interested suffers, I guess) need to come up with a way to pay for said destruction. (I’m not opposed to philanthropic rainforest destruction by the Gates foundation, but no government should be destroying rainforest to eradicate malaria.)
Huh
Isn’t the Amazon in South America? How would clearing a South American rain forest help Africans?
As for the intent of your question, I’d clear the rainforest in a second. Because for all the neat things we find in the rainforest, wonderful things like Ebola and AIDS come from there too.
My $.02 Weed
Crossing the pond
Wondered that myself, but it was all hypothetical, so why not? 😉
Hey, I wasn’t the one who
Hey, I wasn’t the one who brought Africa into this 🙂 :
>>>>>I’m not aware of any objective evidence that it destroyed anything other than mosquitos, actually. Today malaria continues to claim millions of human lives (but they’re just starving Africans, so maybe we shouldn’t really care).
CEOs
Now, I admit some CEOs get paid large and copious salaries as their companies go down, but I bet that’s not the majority of them. There needs to be executive pay reform for those nasty cases that have made the media, but it’s my uninformed opinion that they’re a small sample of the overall population.
Anyway, CEOs don’t get rich simply by cutting a dollar off the price, they get rich when they cut a dollar off the price and the competition can’t. Or they can make a better product for the same price.
Daniel made some good points about our arrogance in the world. We did what had to be done to get to the top of the world economy. It wasn’t and isn’t pretty, but we did it. Now, we seem to handcuff ourselves when it comes to continuing to stay on top. I’m not saying we need to go back to dumping toxic wastes and hiring 10-year-olds, but some recent decisions scare me. Case in point is stem cell research and eugenics. We may think it’s wrong to use these, but other countries don’t, and if they come up with ways to pick the gender, eye color, and such if your baby, I bet you any American who can afford it will be on a plane. Doubly so if we can treat cancer and any other diseases by stem cell research.
So how do we balance our high morals now that we have the ability to consider them and stay alive at the same time with our need to stay ahead in the global economy? China isn’t going to have the same qualms as us about labor and minimum wages, and they’ll be consuming far more than us in 20 years.
And I’m torn on the taxation of the wealthy issue. On one hand, some of them certainly did work hard to get theirs…others didn’t. (read Paris Hilton) But 28% of their income means much less to them in the overall scheme of things than 28% of some family bringing in $40K a year. Maybe a sales tax would work because then when rich people by expensive items, they pay more to the tax fund than when some poor person buys bread. But I think a national sales tax would create an really bug black market. Again, my uninformed opinion.
My $.02 Weed
Exaplanation
Weed,
From the other thread…the current account deficit is the annual trade deficit, which includes things like goods, services and investment income traded across our border. The national debt is the aggregate of the trade deficit over time.
Sammy G solutions for the current account deficit: -Either step up IRS enforcement or eliminate the tax code (IRS) completely and institute a national consumption tax. -Stop rampant trading with countries that don’t calibrate their currency to a globally-accepted exchange rate -Remove the tax exemption protection for churches, all religious houses
Sammy G solutions for the national debt: -Stop paying to prop up democracies half a world away -Medicine needs to become the largest U.S. export -Paying down interest on the national debt becomes the largest item in the federal budget -External dependence on energy needs to drop -Microsoft needs to come out with a new operating system once every 2 years, instead of 5 🙂