by Jack
So I’m sitting here at my writing/art/watch making/gun-smithing/research desk (yes, its a really big, messy, desk) and I’m wondering what 2015 will bring us? The geopolitical risks are running high as ever with brushfire wars in Africa. There’s recession in Japan and all out war in Syria. Russia’s economy is still in meltdown. Ours is somehow clawing it’s way upward on Wall Street, except for the oil industry and except for today when the market tanked. And then we have Western Europe, its economy is hanging by thread…not good for our trade balance. We’re hearing complaining from Greece again, the bailout isn’t working. Next, the strength of our dollar has skyrocketed making exports costly but making foreign travel look pretty good, so there’s at least one bright spot.
There’s going to be more said on these geo-political risks, lot more, especially for North Korea, Iran, ISIS and Syria. We’ve got a real volatile mess with those characters that could explode at any time. And lets not forget Afghanistan, we’ve still got a lot of troops there and we’ll keep 10,000 in country until we’re sure the Afghan Army can handle things.
Good news for California, the rainfall year to date looks good (we’re above average) and this signals the draught may be over, but the bad news is it may take another two years of above average rain to replenish the aquifer especially in Central California where we did a lot of pumping.
More good news for consumers, the price of wholesale commodities continues to edge downward. Wonder why I’m not seeing any retail price drops at the grocery store?
Locally, the walnut crop just starting to see a price drop. The middlemen are saying they are stuck with too much carry-over from last year, so they are adjusting their final payment to growers downward. Well, nothing ever stay high for long in farming. Whenever a good paying crop comes along the farmers all jump on it and then supply v demand kicks in and the price falls. This is just the way it goes and walnut farmers have been making bank for the last few years, I mean really making it big!!! I watched the walnut prices go from .47 cents a pound in hull to triple that. An acre of producing walnuts currently will fetch about $30,000 or more! But, wait another 5 years and see what it brings. Chances are there’s going to be a big surplus and then the price will really tank…but who knows for sure, maybe it will be back to .47 cents? Nah, probably not, but they sure could dive under a dollar with all the new orchards coming on line.
You know that government has always had a reputation for playing fast and loose with numbers and true to form, it turns out that all the big money we made from bailing out GM was not big at all. In fact the revised accounting shows the taxpayers actually lost billions. At the last count it was about $21b in the red, but that’s subject to change and my guess it will go higher, Murphy’s Law. If GM’s bailout cost us, what do you think about all those other bailouts? Well, lets just hope they don’t go the way of GM’s. That’s my morning summary – any thoughts?
I’m off to have coffee, too much work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I’ll see you in a few hours.
What will 2015 bring? It depends on who you ask.
There are those who think we’ve finally turned a corner and 2015 will bring prosperity and a boon to America! I hope they’re right but I also recognize hope as occupying a fairly low level on the certainty scale.
Conversely there are those who think we are headed for a huge financial melt down that will affect the whole world. The optimist in me shudders because their arguments are pretty compelling.
I agree that better and more truthful accounting would be good. I wonder if it’s even possible with a bureaucracy of this size. Remember when The State Department couldn’t account for $6 billion dollars?…yeee gawds! I don’t think this is an unusual occurrence. As conservatives always say, when people are not spending their own money they aren’t as careful…it’s only money…and we can always get more!
I also think that a lot of our troubles are a result of constantly changing rules, regulations and tax laws. The people are constantly being whipped around like a Frisbee at a fraternity party. This is ridiculous! Laws and taxes should be simple and remain somewhat constant in order to create certainty and stability. The year 2014 brought us 75,000 pages of new regulations. The administration has already put in motion plans for new regulations in 2015.
One thing I am optimistic about is the American spirit which seems to be reinvigorated and energized in ordinary citizens and particularly young people. All we need is an inspiring leader with a good plan that addresses our concerns. In no particular order that would include: jobs, security/border, Keystone Pipeline, tax/regulation reform, healthcare, education. Set the people free and we will build a strong America!
“If GM’s bailout cost us, ….”
Well, we sold out our interests in GM $11 billion short. I don’t like that much, but, according to Forbes, we’re supposed to be consoled by the 1.2 million auto industry jobs jobs saved, which is significant.
And … “Despite the $11 billion loss on the GM bailout, the Treasury Department was quick to point out that it has recovered a total of $432.7 billion on all investments under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) – including the sale of its shares in AIG – compared to $421.8 billion disbursed.”
So, seemingly, we’ve broke even, after all. And our government is not in the business of making money … it’s in the business of keeping everybody afloat.
” it’s in the business of keeping everybody afloat”
It actually was not chartered to keep everybody afloat. that is a progressive (socialist) intrusion that has gone way beyond helping the needy and infirm…when big government politicians and corporations collude against the people and small business they have long ago given up “keeping everybody afloat!” And if the government under Obama is supposed to be the knew and improved model he has done a poor job of it.
Obamacare burdens poor, middle class with tax
Middle class is the New Poor
World Economists Confirm Americas Decline Under Obama
Opinion: Obama Has Failed Small and Minority Business
It isn’t too much to ask that our government under any administration not enact policies that create massive and growing debt. That does nothing to keep us afloat and to quote the President, it’s “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.”
A reminder: In 2008 we only had $9.6 trillion in debt. It now stands at over $18trillion.
“It actually was not chartered to keep everybody afloat.”
BINGO, spot on response to a hand out specialist.
If you liked that one Harold you’re going to love what Christopher Chantrill has to say on the subject over at American thinker:
Liberals who post here express themselves from the same basic foundation.
So what does “promote the general welfare” mean … in your book?
Perhaps: “Promote mine, but no one else’s.”
Nasty, that is.
Libby your attitude shows a prejudice that is not only insulting to me but also effectively blinds you!
There’s a whole world of thinking you’ve never bothered to consider just because you think these “nasty” thoughts.
From my perspective it is progressive government policy that pits people and classes against each other and creates special treatment for various special interests groups and classes.
Conservative small government gets out of the way and supports people in taking charge of their own “welfare.” It gives them space to achieve, or not, to whatever degree they desire. It promotes generally rather than specifically!
To be even more specific, “promote the general welfare” would include defending our liberty and keeping us safe so we are free to pursue happiness relatively unencumbered. It would include ensuring that one individual or state cannot take unfair advantage over another, keeping barriers to individual effort at a minimum and maintaining the courts so that disputes can be addressed in a civil manner. It would include simple regulations that are applied to everyone.
Our government today is filled with special interests laws and regulation, so much so that the words “general welfare” have become a giant joke.
Progressivism attempts to create equal outcomes for everyone. It creates dependency for some, bills for others, and barriers for anyone trying to promote his own welfare. It colludes with some of the biggest companies, powerful special interest groups, and wealthiest people. Our nation was not founded on principles that created these special groups and carve outs and for good reason…it does not work.
Under progressive policies the very wealthy become more powerful and control most of the wealth and the middle class disappears. The “general” population is not promoted at all! It is blunted and usually falls into poverty and despair. Aliveness in the people is killed with big government programs. Individual effort is stifled. The poor have little incentive to promote themselves. It’s a sick system that creates a sick society.
Tina: “Under progressive policies the very wealthy become more powerful and control most of the wealth and the middle class disappears.”
You are aware that prior to progressive taxation and the rise of the labor movement and it’s attendant labor laws and regulations, our modern notion of the “middle class” didn’t even exist, right?
The Gilded age began in 1865 thru 1918. Wages increased almost 100%. Many point to this as being the era of the middle class, however Americans had an abundant middle class long before that. The ownership of shops, farms, homes and personal property was substantial compared to their European counterparts. Labor unions helped of course, but America was primed for economic success. We had all the right stuff! I’ve never heard anyone say we didn’t have a middle class until liberals created one.
Also, what’s with this “control most of the wealth” business? Wasn’t it you who objected to this terminology and told me that it’s their wealth whenever I have talked about income inequality?
It’s really telling that after years of claiming that income inequality isn’t real, poor Americans just need to work harder if they want to be rich, and there are no systemic obstacles to success in America, Republicans are now appropriating he language of the left to argue that we really really need to save the poor from the evil pro-corporate government, and that the only way to do that is to elect the most pro-corporate politicians in existence. (Not surprising, though–this is exactly the same logic behind “people who fight bigotry are the REAl bigots,” an argument which has also found a cozy home on the right.)
Jack: “I’ve never heard anyone say we didn’t have a middle class until liberals created one.”
I hope you realize that you still haven’t heard that, since it’s not what I said. 😉
Chris, Seems like you were saying progressives created a middle class: “You are aware that prior to progressive taxation and the rise of the labor movement and it’s attendant labor laws and regulations, our modern notion of the “middle class” didn’t even exist, right?”
“You are aware ….”
You jest … certainly?
They will all eat worms and die before they admit that the American middle class was secured … for a short time … by the New Deal.
Or … that Reaganomics set the seal on its destruction.
Jack: “Chris, Seems like you were saying progressives created a middle class: “You are aware that prior to progressive taxation and the rise of the labor movement and it’s attendant labor laws and regulations, our modern notion of the “middle class” didn’t even exist, right?””
Jack, the key word there is “our modern notion.” Yes, a middle class existed prior to the mid-20th century, but it didn’t explode until then. WWII was a factor, but so was unionization, fair wage laws, and–yes–high taxation on the wealthy. You admit yourself that high wages lead to middle class creation. So…let’s raise wages.
Chris I would love to raise wages…but lets consider why its not so easy to do as said. What happens when government just raises wage? We’ve gone over this many times, please tell us what you think will happen in response to higher wages?
Chris: “You are aware that prior to progressive taxation and the rise of the labor movement and it’s attendant labor laws and regulations, our modern notion of the “middle class” didn’t even exist, right?”
Oh I see. Don’t look at long term negative effects. Leave out the major contributors. The progressive ideas alone caused the rise of the middle class.
Please explain how labor laws or regulations caused people to risk, invest, and create jobs.
Your need to give progressive ideas credit for what individuals accomplished through their own creativity and innovation, investment, and risk astounds me.
Is there nothing for which liberals won’t credit government controls or the coercive nature of big unions?
Do free human beings, acting in their own interests and the interests of their families and communities, get none of the credit? Are human beings robots who act only when government pushes buttons and switches?
And do we just ignore the unsustanibility of companies and government laden over time with massive costs and debt both of which have slowly murdered the opportunities the middle class would still have were it not for progressive ideas.
The ignorance in progressive thinking just amazes. Democrats that embrace the collective and government as the savior and provider have no knowledge of their own heritage as free human beings. They have no appreciation for the individual creativity, the urge, the enthusiasm, the willingness to risk that built and sustained this nation. They are blind to the deleterious effects that progressive policy/big government interference have had!
When you blunt and hinder the potential and power of the people you create growing conditions for two classes, the very wealthy and the poor masses. In a nutsell you create the perfect conditions for the rise of tyranny.
Before you can raise wages businesses need to have the work and the income to support those wages. Progressive policies hinder and blunt economic activity, growth, innovation…there is no money available for higher wages…particularly in small business where most jobs are created!
This is simple logic. Why is it so hard for progressives to get it? Those in charge of the party only care about power and control. Some get it but don’t want it. Who knows what prevents the average leftist citizen from getting the pure logic behind the notion that before you can pay someone you have to have money coming in the door.
It also doesn’t hurt to have a reliable, positive outlook for the future. Ridiculous, complex, punishing regulation and taxation, with assurances that there will be more, does not create certainty about the future.
“explain how labor laws or regulations caused people to risk, invest, and create jobs” They didn’t, they are an impediment to investors, entrepreneurs, investments in business and they work against job creation. As obvious as this is, it is a fact that is completely lost on doctrinaire liberals who are unable to form an independent thought outside their tiny box built by their socialist masters.
Tina: “Oh I see. Don’t look at long term negative effects. Leave out the major contributors. The progressive ideas alone caused the rise of the middle class.”
I never said that it was progressive ideas alone, and I mentioned the effect of WWII.
“Please explain how labor laws or regulations caused people to risk, invest, and create jobs.”
Easy. When the middle and working classes are paid fairly and treated well, this creates more demand. Demand creates jobs. People are also more likely to take risks and invest when they know they have money to fall back on. What’s good for workers is what’s good for the economy.
“Your need to give progressive ideas credit for what individuals accomplished through their own creativity and innovation, investment, and risk astounds me.”
The government, when used properly, is not the enemy of individual accomplishment. When the government works for the people instead of against them, it supports individual accomplishment. The progressive accomplishments of the early-to-mid-20th century did exactly that, and your party’s attempts to denigrate those accomplishments have not helped the economy one bit.
“Do free human beings, acting in their own interests and the interests of their families and communities, get none of the credit?”
Again, you are acting as if individual accomplishment and government support are mutually exclusive, which is shallow and reductive thinking. No one is arguing that “free human beings” should get no credit. It was free human beings who worked very hard to ensure that we have luxuries like child labor laws, the 40 hour work week, and Social Security. Be grateful to them.
“Are human beings robots”
The irony of someone saying this, while at the same time denigrating those who worked to end unfair labor practices which actually did treat workers like robots, would be astounding if not for your long record of equally obliviously ironic statements.
Heck, the word “robot” itself comes from a play about workers overthrowing a system where their labor isn’t fairly rewarded–you couldn’t have picked a more counterproductive phrase if you had tried.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.
“Before you can raise wages businesses need to have the work and the income to support those wages.”
Businesses do have the work and the income to support those wages.
“…there is no money available for higher wages, particularly in small business where most jobs are created!”
Most small business owners disagree with you; 3/5 support raising the wage to $10.10 an hour, precisely because they understand that this would be good for business.
http://www.dol.gov/minwage/mythbuster.htm
Many small businesses are exempt from the minimum wage anyway:
“Under federal law, an employer doesn’t have to pay the minimum wage to a worker if the company’s annual gross sales are less than $500,000 and if it doesn’t do any business across state lines, according to Tsedeye Gebreselassie, a staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project.”
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/23/smallbusiness/minimum-wage-exemptions/
I would be willing to consider expanding those exemptions for more small businesses.
“This is simple logic. Why is it so hard for progressives to get it?”
…How about because your economic theory doesn’t comport with actual, real world evidence?
Jack: “Chris I would love to raise wages…but lets consider why its not so easy to do as said. What happens when government just raises wage? We’ve gone over this many times, please tell us what you think will happen in response to higher wages?”
The great thing about this question, Jack, is that no one has to guess what might happen; we have plenty of data about what does happen after minimum wage increases, and the reality simply never matches the catastrophic dystopia that conservatives claim is going to come about as a result. Typically, there is either no discernible effect on employment, or there is a slight increase in employment as demand grows and people decide that work pays more than a welfare check.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=minimum+wage+studies
Literally every worker protection ever passed in America has been met with opposition from the corporate sector crying job loss and the death of private enterprise. They said it about health and safety laws, child labor laws, they said it about equal pay for women and minorities, they said it about the ADA, they said it about the creation of the min. wage in the first place. They were wrong all of those times. Why should we believe them now?
http://leftycartoons.com/2009/09/04/a-brief-history-of-corporate-whining/
Chris, “Literally every worker protection ever passed in America has been met with opposition from the corporate sector crying job loss and the death of private enterprise. They said it about health and safety laws, child labor laws, they said it about equal pay for women and minorities, they said it about the ADA, they said it about the creation of the min. wage in the first place. They were wrong all of those times. Why should we believe them now?”
Let’s get back to focusing on the key issue because you raise so many sidebar issues there is no way anyone can reply with spending hours on fact finding and this gets boring. So, lets deal with minimum wage…minimum wage raises inflation…agree? I think it does because that increase in wage is passed on to the consumer almost every time. Next, what happens when American products get more expensive than the competition? We lose market share and sometimes we lose the whole business if they relocate outside the USA to survive. Our trade imbalance goes out of whack when we fail to compete with pricing.
This doesn’t mean I’m advocating for slave wages, but lets be real, there comes a tipping point where wages can’t go any higher without something drastic taking place. In most cases this means closing or moving. If you can’t see this casual effect in inflation or the tipping point in wages verses value then I can’t help you. Discussion closed.
Jack: “So, lets deal with minimum wage…minimum wage raises inflation…agree?”
Sometimes, though usually not enough to outweigh the benefits of the increase. These two links might be helpful.
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2014/0714macewan.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/does-raising-the-minimum-wage-cause-inflation.htm
And given that it’s been a very long time since the minimum wage even kept up with inflation, this does not seem like a good argument against it.
“Next, what happens when American products get more expensive than the competition?”
Jack, I beg you to look at the actual data on the relationship between min. wage increases and price increases. When price increases follow they are almost always very modest.
“there comes a tipping point where wages can’t go any higher without something drastic taking place.”
Of course, but we are nowhere near that tipping point.
You are arguing based on theory rather than on evidence.