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eagle2
11-01-2010, 11:44 PM
Please stop comparing apples and oranges. After W.W. II about 1 million men were permanently removed from the work force = killed; MIA and permanently crippled and unable to work out of a total population of about 150 million people and a primarily MALE workforce. You also have to leave the women, children and elderly OUT of the numbers.

Please show your references. There were plenty of disabled vets that were still able to work. Bob Dole was able to become a Senator and Republican Presidential nominee.



In any event, that was a minor factor. The biggest reason was that our industries had little competition for 5 to 10 years as Europe and Japan rebuilt the factories that we had turned into rubble.

I agree it was a minor factor. Melonie seems to think it was a major factor.

The main reason was the pent up demand from not producing consumer goods for about five years and people having money from working in munitions plants and serving in the military.



Rotflmao. Do you seriously think that wealthy Americans were paying 50% of their incomes in Federal Income Taxes ? Does that count all the corporate perks ? Let's assume they were. One , we had 3 recessions under Eisenhower and we had a boom after JFK cut tax rates. Two, what was the incentive to work, save and invest under those rates ? So you could pay 91% of it in taxes to Uncle Sam ?



Rotflmao. Eric is being obnoxious again and making more stuff up based on his ideology. If you dispute those numbers, please show references.


[QUOTE=Eric Stoner;2004057]
In those days we didn't have Medicare; Medicaid; Aid to Education; Food Stamps and a host of other Federal agencies and programs. We also had a much smaller Federal work force with far fewer Federal retirees. THAT is the BIG reason we had deficits so much smaller than we do now. Both in absolute terms and as a % of GDP.

No it wasn't. We had Medicare; Medicaid; Aid to Education; Food Stamps and a host of other Federal agencies and programs in the 60's and 70's but we didn't have large deficits back then either.




Two of the last three recessions were both short and mild , 1991-2 and 2000-1.

The last one was worse than anything we had before, since the Great Depression.



China has a VERY low corporate tax rate. China has problems COLLECTING on those high rates you love so much. China puts its money into creating modern state of the art infrastructure. If only, IF ONLY Obama and the Dems had done likewise. More importantly, many Chinese industries are GOVERNMENT owned and do not pay taxes like private corporations do.

The amount of taxes paid by corporations in the US is very low because of all the loop-holes.



What labor intensive industries would you like to increase spending on ?

roads, bridges, high-speed rail, schools, airports, electric grid, nuclear, wind, and solar power. A new rail tunnel from New Jersey to NYC. There's plenty of work that needs to be done if we were willing to spend the money.



WHO should decide which industries should see this increased spending ?

The government, as it has always done.



HOW do you know that increased spending on those industries would revive the economy ? What is that based on ?

It's common sense. When you spend money to hire people who were unemployed, you have more people working and fewer people unemployed.



How can you seriously expect more economic growth from higher tax rates ? You want to take more money OUT of the private sector to do what exactly ?

The private sector isn't providing enough jobs for everyone. People aren't spending money.




Just how do you think a PRIVATE SECTOR job is created ?
When a business does not have enough employees to meet demand for its products or services, the business will, in most cases, hire more employees.

Melonie
11-02-2010, 05:07 AM
our industries had little competition for 5 to 10 years as Europe and Japan rebuilt the factories that we had turned into rubble.


Melonie seems to think it was a major factor

I would argue that it IS a major factor within the main topic of this thread i.e. CEO's.

At the end of WW2, not only were former foreign competitors industries devastated by physical destruction of their facilities and major permanent losses of their skilled workers, but the foreign countries were left woefully short of capital. In fact, a major source of capital for postwar foreign rebuilding efforts was the Marshall plan ... which by 'sheer coincidence' got near dictatorial power in regard to where capital investment would and WOULD NOT be directed. With the exception of the British gov't and Volkswagen, virtually every other foreign export industry spent the first 15 post-war years slowly rebuilding their own capital via limited production and sales to their own domestic markets. For the CEO's of major US companies in the late 40's and 50's, this made concerns about foreign competition a 'non-issue' where R&D, product 'value' improvements etc. were concerned. Thus the major US companies produced what they wanted to produce without major innovation, essentially colluded with each other ( and with the labor unions they shared ) on pricing levels, used their clout to supress new domestic competition ( ask Preston Tucker or Philo Farnsworth ), and rode a proverbial gravy train for almost 20 years.

The eventual end of this gravy train, however, started to appear in earnest in the early 60's, as enough foreign industry rebuilding of capital had taken place to see some serious import inroads being made by Honda bikes, by Volkswagen and Nissan cars etc. Same situation in the same time period in regard to imported consumer electronics ... mostly driven by the wide popularization of color TV. At this point US company CEO's were forced to begin to address their lack of previous product R&D and 'value' improvement efforts, as well as address their quid pro quo relationship with American labor unions. By the time the economic aftermath of the LBJ years inpacted the 'purchasing power' of the US dollar thus the standard of living / spending ability of American consumers in the '70's, those 'mature industry' US company CEO's were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Those US 'mature industries' that survive today arguably do so via direct or indirect gov't subsidy on the 'price' side, and via stealth or blatant offshoring / outsourcing on the cost side.

~

Eric Stoner
11-02-2010, 07:30 AM
Please show your references. There were plenty of disabled vets that were still able to work. Bob Dole was able to become a Senator and Republican Presidential nominee.


I agree it was a minor factor. Melonie seems to think it was a major factor.

The main reason was the pent up demand from not producing consumer goods for about five years and people having money from working in munitions plants and serving in the military.


[QUOTE=Eric Stoner;2004057]
Rotflmao. Eric is being obnoxious again and making more stuff up based on his ideology. If you dispute those numbers, please show references.



No it wasn't. We had Medicare; Medicaid; Aid to Education; Food Stamps and a host of other Federal agencies and programs in the 60's and 70's but we didn't have large deficits back then either.



The last one was worse than anything we had before, since the Great Depression.


The amount of taxes paid by corporations in the US is very low because of all the loop-holes.


roads, bridges, high-speed rail, schools, airports, electric grid, nuclear, wind, and solar power. A new rail tunnel from New Jersey to NYC. There's plenty of work that needs to be done if we were willing to spend the money.


The government, as it has always done.


It's common sense. When you spend money to hire people who were unemployed, you have more people working and fewer people unemployed.


The private sector isn't providing enough jobs for everyone. People aren't spending money.



When a business does not have enough employees to meet demand for its products or services, the business will, in most cases, hire more employees.

I HAVE shown you the numbers . Over and over again. Since you don't like them you just ignore them or choose to forget. Again and again you purposely confuse wealth creation and accretion and INCOME !

Those Federal programs were created AFTER JFK's tax cuts. Since they coincided with LBJ's Great Society and he refused to raise taxes to pay for Vietnam, we ended up with inflation and then stagflation.

I agree with you about corporate tax collections. I have posted my agreement over and over again. One of many reasons we need a Flat Tax.

Then WHY didn't Obama and the Dems direct more funds to those things you and I agree that we need ?

So you want Government to pick winners and losers ? Please cite a country where that kind of system has worked ?

That is NOT how most jobs are created in this country. It is not even when small business expands. It IS when NEW companies are created. Anywhere from 40 to 50% of NEW jobs are created when new companies are created i.e. "start-ups".
Many analysts do not expect the Fortune 500 to create anything close to those new jobs that we need to employ the unemployed AND to hire the new workers entering the job market. And yet, Obama and the Dems ( cheered on by folks like you ) have done NOTHING to promote the creation of new companies.

Wind and solar have been shown to create very few jobs.

Christie had a very tough call on the new rail tunnel. Yes, it is needed ; yes, it would employ a lot of people BUT cost overruns are guaranteed and neither N.Y.S. nor N.Y.C. are paying a penny and the Feds. won't guarantee N.J. the funds needed to cover those overruns. He refused to write a "blank check" like Dukakis et. al. did up in Mass. for the "Big Dig" to cite just one example.

Eric Stoner
11-02-2010, 10:54 AM
I'm going to take one last shot at this. Even though I have posted this before :
The super-rich in America have TOO much wealth. They do NOT pay their fair share of taxes. They get TOO much income. That is why I support a reasonable estate tax ; favor abolishing perpetual trusts and want to see a Flat Tax.

History has shown that simply increasing Tax RATES will NOT raise sufficient revenue nor will it address the maldistribution of wealth. A flat tax without deductions, credits, allowances etc. will. Ending corporate welfare will. Promoting efficient and effective distribution of capital will.

Clinton raised tax rates and yet the percentage of wealth controlled by the top 1% INCREASED. In 2009, the income of those making more than $10 million a year went UP while everyone else was going down or at best, was holding steady.

Afaic this has nothing to do with "Fairness". I don't give a damn about fairness. Neither should anyone else. "Fairness" is not guaranteed to anyone. Opportunity is. Liberty is . Life is. The PURSUIT of happiness is part of American heritage.No, it has to do with effectiveness. Effectively raising the revenue needed for government to pay its bills.

Melonie
11-02-2010, 11:57 AM
The super-rich in America have TOO much wealth. They do NOT pay their fair share of taxes. They get TOO much income. That is why I support a reasonable estate tax ; favor abolishing perpetual trusts and want to see a Flat Tax.

As a matter of pure economic theory I actually agree with all of the above. However, in the 'real world', any CEO will tell you that they need the following things in order to seriously consider expansion / job creation in America ...

- affordable capital costs / interest rates. This increasingly boils down to tacking on a risk premium on top of the equivalent ( net of taxes ) interest rates being paid by 'safe' investments to the uber-rich. If this means that a California business has to pay 12% fully taxable interest in order to 'compensate' uber-rich potential investors versus their purchasing triple tax free Cal muni bonds paying 7% interest instead, that's a pretty heavy 'millstone' to put around the proverbial neck of the business.

- ( somewhat ) competitive costs of doing business versus foreign competitors. 'Living Wage' minimums of $8.50+ per hour, premium energy prices due to mandated 'green' components and stealth subsidies to low income residential utility customers, high property / business income / other taxes, high environmental and worker safety compliance costs, high mandated employee benefit costs etc. all serve to rebalance the competitive scale in further favor of foreign competitors.

- ( some ) confidence that demand for the business's product and/or service will continue and/or grow at future price levels that still allow the business to earn a net profit. With stagnant ( at best ... arguably negative net of population growth ) employment levels, with stagnant US worker gross wages versus increasing taxes and increasing prices for 'necessities' reducing the net discretionary income of US consumers, etc. there's not much evidence to support such confidence ! And this is particularly true in states that are running massive budget deficits that are now beginning to require MAJOR layoffs of state / municipal workers ( in the absence of additional federal 'stimulus' money to the states for the purpose of continuing their salaries ).

Anecdotally at least, there is some evidence that many small business owners will continue to 'work for nothing', or will even liquidate their own personal assets to offset negative cash flow from their business, in order to keep their small business operating ( and their workers employed ) in the hope that 'better times' are just around the corner. Where CEO's ... and particularly CEO's of public companies ... are concerned, that simply isn't an option. As part of their duty to stockholders / investors, those CEO's aren't allowed to make business decisions based on future hope that are extremely negative in terms of present cash flow !

!

eagle2
11-03-2010, 11:19 PM
Those Federal programs were created AFTER JFK's tax cuts. Since they coincided with LBJ's Great Society and he refused to raise taxes to pay for Vietnam, we ended up with inflation and then stagflation.

We ended up with inflation because the Fed wasn't willing to raise interest rates to prevent it or stop it. LBJ didn't need to raise taxes to pay for Vietnam. Taxes were high enough already. There was no major increase in our national debt from the Vietnam War.



I agree with you about corporate tax collections. I have posted my agreement over and over again. One of many reasons we need a Flat Tax.


We should definitely eliminate a lot of loopholes in the tax code.



Then WHY didn't Obama and the Dems direct more funds to those things you and I agree that we need ?


There were political considerations in addition to economic considerations. We're still a representative democracy. President Obama had to get every Democratic Senator along with two Republicans to get it passed. I'm not the one behind the stimulus. I would have done things differently.



So you want Government to pick winners and losers ? Please cite a country where that kind of system has worked ?


No, but our government should pay for things which benefit the entire country, like our national highway system, our major airports, clean energy, etc.. Some of our most successful industries, such as our aerospace and medical industries, have received significant government investment.




That is NOT how most jobs are created in this country. It is not even when small business expands. It IS when NEW companies are created. Anywhere from 40 to 50% of NEW jobs are created when new companies are created i.e. "start-ups".
Many analysts do not expect the Fortune 500 to create anything close to those new jobs that we need to employ the unemployed AND to hire the new workers entering the job market. And yet, Obama and the Dems ( cheered on by folks like you ) have done NOTHING to promote the creation of new companies.

There is a great deal of excess capacity in our economy. Millions of workers were laid off because demand is low. If demand were to pick up, many of these corporations that have been laying off workers would hire them back.




Wind and solar have been shown to create very few jobs.

That's because they haven't been built on a large scale. I would think that building and installing tens of thousands of wind turbines would require a significant amount of labor.



Christie had a very tough call on the new rail tunnel. Yes, it is needed ; yes, it would employ a lot of people BUT cost overruns are guaranteed and neither N.Y.S. nor N.Y.C. are paying a penny and the Feds. won't guarantee N.J. the funds needed to cover those overruns. He refused to write a "blank check" like Dukakis et. al. did up in Mass. for the "Big Dig" to cite just one example.

While it's true that there were many problems with the "Big Dig" and the costs greatly exceeded expectations, over the long term it will have been worth it. Without it, traffic would have eventually came to a standstill in Boston, and the roads, tunnels, and bridges will be used for many decades. If you spread the cost over how long it's actually used, maybe 60-70 years or more, the overall cost isn't that bad. It was still a very poorly run project.

The same is true for building a new rail tunnel to New York City. The ones currently in use were built 100 years ago. If we build a new one now, it could very possibly be used for 100 years or more.

Eric Stoner
11-04-2010, 08:48 AM
We ended up with inflation because the Fed wasn't willing to raise interest rates to prevent it or stop it. LBJ didn't need to raise taxes to pay for Vietnam. Taxes were high enough already. There was no major increase in our national debt from the Vietnam War.



We should definitely eliminate a lot of loopholes in the tax code.



There were political considerations in addition to economic considerations. We're still a representative democracy. President Obama had to get every Democratic Senator along with two Republicans to get it passed. I'm not the one behind the stimulus. I would have done things differently.



No, but our government should pay for things which benefit the entire country, like our national highway system, our major airports, clean energy, etc.. Some of our most successful industries, such as our aerospace and medical industries, have received significant government investment.



There is a great deal of excess capacity in our economy. Millions of workers were laid off because demand is low. If demand were to pick up, many of these corporations that have been laying off workers would hire them back.



That's because they haven't been built on a large scale. I would think that building and installing tens of thousands of wind turbines would require a significant amount of labor.



While it's true that there were many problems with the "Big Dig" and the costs greatly exceeded expectations, over the long term it will have been worth it. Without it, traffic would have eventually came to a standstill in Boston, and the roads, tunnels, and bridges will be used for many decades. If you spread the cost over how long it's actually used, maybe 60-70 years or more, the overall cost isn't that bad. It was still a very poorly run project.

The same is true for building a new rail tunnel to New York City. The ones currently in use were built 100 years ago. If we build a new one now, it could very possibly be used for 100 years or more.

For the Fed. interest rates are a crude and rather poor tool for controlling inflation.,Inflation results from too much money chasing too few goods and services. When the Fed buys Federal Debt with freshly printed money that increases the money supply. When it buys too much, too fast it creates inflation.

Vietnam would have been affordable had it not coincided with LBJ's Great Society programs. The two together threw the budget out of whack in the out years when Nixon had taken office. Add in the "village idiot" Arthur Burns in charge of the Fed and there was a recipe for economic disaster. Add in increased foreign competition , the Arab Oil Boycott and Nixon taking us completely off the gold standard and the stage was set for a lousy economy culminating in Carter's Misery Index and a severe recession the first two years of Reagan's first term.

We agree about eliminating corporate welfare. Part of the solution is avoiding the kinds of "Investment " that you favor. Let those corporations stand on their own two feet without government help.

Part of governing is choosing and part of choosing is saying : "NO". Obama could have and should have said "NO" to ineffective pork-barreling. If the House couldn't write a proper bill and Nancy's minions proved they could not, Obama could have and should have wrote his own. He made the same mistake with Obamacare which is why he ended up with the ineffective mess of a bill that he got.

Most analysts agree that many jobs eliminated by major corporations are gone for good.

The experience of Spain is instructive. After the socialists took over, Spain tried to "Go Green" big time and invested heavily in both wind and solar. Relatively few jobs were created and Spain now has 20% unemployment and is bankrupt.


Christie used experience with "The Big Dig" and other major projects to warn him away from an open ended obligation for N.J.'s taxpayers. He inherited that project from Corzine who couldn't build a sandcastle without a 100 page instruction booklet and several supervisors getting time and a half. I'm NOT being as tongue in cheek as you think. In the Northeast especially, cost overruns are just accepted.
Why ? Kowtowing to unions and their featherbedding and inefficient workrules. Corruption. Shoddy work. etc.etc. The useful life of such a project is really irrelevant. It still has to be paid for. Corzine was so anxious to curry favor with the unions that he signed on to a lousy deal for N.J. There was no participation from either N.Y. State or N.Y.C. even though N.Y.C. would benefit greatly from a new train tunnel. Corzine also went along with a poorly planned project whereby the tunnel does NOT directly connect to Penn Station OR the new Moynihan station being built in N.Y.C. So in some ways Christie was stuck with a "White Elephant" of indeterminate cost.