Manufacturing in America

Mary Andringa, president and CEO of Iowa manufacturer Vermeer Corporation and then-board chair at the National Association of Manufacturers recently said in an NBC interview.
"What’s really outstanding is the fact that in 2010, the U.S. had an output of $4.8 trillion of manufactured goods. That was up from $4.1 (trillion) in 2000 — and we’ve been through two recessions in the past decade.
Five million manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S. in the last decade. But new jobs have been created too, and believe it or not, many manufacturers in the U.S. are looking for help.
As economist and George Mason University Professor Walter Williams pointed out in a 2011 column:

(In) 1900 … about 41 percent of our labor force was employed in agriculture. By 2008, fewer than 3 percent of Americans were employed in agriculture. … [O]ur farmers are the world’s most productive. As a result, Americans are better off.
In 1970, the telecommunications industry employed 421,000 workers as switchboard operators, annually handling 9.8 billion long-distance calls. Today the telecommunications industry employs only 78,000 operators … (processing) more than 100 billion long-distance calls a year.
Fifty years ago, a typical textile worker operated five machines capable of running thread through a loom 100 times a minute. Today machines run six times as fast, and one worker can oversee 100 of them.
You say, “Williams, certain jobs are destroyed by technology.” You’re right, but many more are created.
 

 With all due respect to Professor Williams above, he would be right about enough replacement jobs being created if we were living in a genuine free-market economy. Unfortunately, that’s not where we are in this nation. Virtually all of the reasons why sufficient job growth isn’t occurring can be traced to the Obama administration’s market-hostile economic policies and postures.
Here are some of the administrations policies that limit the economic growth in the economy.

The war on fossil fuels, which has limited job growth in energy-related industries and caused prices to be higher than they should be for everyone else.

Cronyism on steroids.

Trillion-dollar deficit spending.

New bureaucracies like Dodd-Frank’s Consumer Financial Bureau, which Congress can’t legally touch.

Unemployment and other government benefits which make remaining unemployed relatively attractive, or a least a more tolerable circumstance than it should be, and for a longer period of time than should be necessary.

Onerous labor laws and regulations.

Federal, state, and local tax increases.

Last but certainly not least, Obamacare

Until recently when we were overtaken by China the USA was the largest manufacturer in the world and we are still the most productive, exceeding #2 China by 40%.
Manufacturing is not dead in America, yet.

 

Debt Ceiling Debate

    I get really sick of politicians including the POTUS spouting about how if we don't raise the debt ceiling that SS checks won't go out, our military won't get paid and we will default on our debt. BALONEY. I call BS on all of it and resent the insult to my intelligence.
    First of all. Our debt is denominated in dollars and we can print money so if we needed to we could print money to pay our debtors/bond holders. Default therefore is technically off the table. However, it is more complicated than that. Consider the following.
1) The President and the Treasury Department decide what bills get paid. The Treasury Secy works at the will and pleasure of the President and has the responsibility to manage the countries finances. If the borrowing power is limited the Treasury Department would have to decide which bills to pay and in what priority. If the President said "Pay the troops, the SS checks and interest on the debt" then that would be what he would do.
2) In aggregate interest on the debt is 6% of the total budget, SS is 20% and Department of Defense payroll is 22%. So if push came to shove since we have only $.60 cash from receipts (we borrow the rest) we could easily pay these major obligations.
    Based on this basic information, even if Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling during the negotiations the government could pay the basic obligations of interest, SS and soldiers. To say otherwise is scare tactics plain and simple and is unbecoming of a President of the United States.
   

Socialism is Evil

The main risk facing the world is obviously socialism.
Webster’s defines Freedom as:
1: the quality or state of being free: as
a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action
b : liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence
c : the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous .

All evil arises from people and governments opposing Freedom and imposing their will on others. That includes murder, robbery, rape, all crimes, and all wars. All of America’s real wars were fought to achieve or defend Freedom. Therefore, evil can be defined as some degree of slavery, or as interference with anyone’s Freedom beyond that required to protect oneself or others.

From Wikipedia - "Socialism":

"Democratic socialism seeks to establish socialism through democratic processes and propagate its ideals within the context of a democratic political system."

"Modern socialism originated from an 18th-century intellectual and working class political movement that criticised the effects of industrialisation and private property on society. In the early 19th-century, "socialism" referred to any concern for the social problems of capitalism irrespective of the solutions to those problems. However, by the late 19th-century, "socialism" had come to signify opposition to capitalism and advocacy for an alternative system based on some form of social ownership. Marxists expanded further on this, attributing scientific assessment and democratic planning as critical elements of socialism.
Laissez-faire Free Market Capitalism was described exactly by Jefferson and Franklin and our original Constitution - that is, the role of government is to protect individual rights of Freedom (including the right to Private Property), common interests (which includes welfare), and to provide for the common services (to manage infrastructure that is actually provided by private businesses). Socialism is government interference with the free market system beyond its duty to protect individual rights and the common interests. That interference includes regulation and spending. Any spending beyond that required also qualifies as socialism because it takes money from the tax base, or worse, borrows it, and directs it to others of the government's choice, i.e. it is wealth redistribution. Under those definitions, insuring the banks (FDIC) is socialism. That and the Federal Reserve Act and paper money caused the continuing economic collapse, because of allowed incompetence and unlimited public debt and borrowing, and explains the requirement for the separation of business and government and the balanced budget amendments, the obvious solutions. Taxing income and property is socialism because it confiscates private property through treasonous judicial rulings, rather than protecting it as still required by our Constitution. If our time and labor and their proceeds are not private property as they were originally, and as they were intended to be forever, as an inalienable right explicitly stated in Article V, then we are slaves to those who own or confiscate them.  True free market capitalism naturally maximizes responsibility, growth, advancement, employment and obviously Freedom because it is the same thing, and it does not tax income, labor, or other private property. In a free market system, inefficient or incompetent or irresponsible businesses naturally fail and are replaced by better, more efficient, and more responsible ones all the time, with absolutely no danger to the system - actually the opposite – BUSINESSES FAIL AND ARE REPLACED IN A FREE MARKET SYSTEM WITH THE GREATEST POSSIBLE BENEFIT TO THE ENTIRE SYSTEM, MAXIMIZING GROWTH, RESPONSIBILITY, EMPLOYMENT, PROSPERITY, ADVANCEMENT, AND THE LEVEL OF SERVICES THAT SOCIETY CAN PROVIDE.
So, evil can be defined as interference with anyone’s Freedom beyond that required to protect yourself or others. Socialism can be defined as government interference with the Freedom of citizens or businesses, including all regulation and spending beyond its duty to protect individual rights of Freedom and Private Property and the public interests and to provide the common services. Arguments regarding the definition of common services are not really issues of socialism, as long as they are available to all and only managed by government and provided by the private sector, and as long as society and its level of advancement can responsibly afford to provide them.

The conclusion is obvious. If a=b and b=c, then a=c. I.e., if socialism=interference opposing Freedom beyond that necessary to protect others, and evil=interference opposing Freedom beyond that necessary to protect others, then SOCIALISM=EVIL (= slavery). And where it exists, evil is always the real problem (just in case that isn’t obvious to anyone).

Socialists argue that the government should provide for the people beyond public welfare programs or that some people have a right to the income of some other people, and that the above conclusion that socialism is evil is not true, because the benefit to those receiving it is greater than the detriment of the slavery (confiscation of private property) of others. Socialists often argue that this is necessary in order to resolve the “income inequality” that they claim results from free market capitalism. In true free market capitalism and in the absence of corruption, income inequality is in exact accordance with the inequality of the market value of skills and talent. Income inequality is rising today because of the continuing financial collapse from corruption and irresponsibility due to socialism, and the suffering of the middle class and the falling percentage of skilled and valuable professionals in the population. Socialist arguments are almost always based on misperceptions that free market capitalism (which maximizes growth and responsibility) has caused problems that are actually the result of socialism, as almost all of our current economic and political problems are. When implemented, socialist ideas feed on themselves and grow until the economy is collapsed and reduced to a permanently degraded state.

Debt and Deficit

Today I am pondering why the populace has such a hard time with debt and deficit explanations from our leaders. They seem to use the terms interchangeably and confuse the two. If I borrow money to buy a house I am in debt but as long as I can afford the debt service it is not a bad thing. People get into debt all the time. people get out of debt all the time. The classic debt situation is unsecured debt from a credit card which you then spend on things you don't need and can't afford. The credit card bill comes due and you can't pay for your extravagance so you just pay the interest or the minimum payment. You have just done deficit spending. Many people got into this situation during the days of easy credit. With a good credit history it was easy to obtain credit lines that were more than you could afford. As long as you paid the bill you were OK but it was tempting to buy that extra bauble or eat out that one extra time and incur the extra debt. As the spending got out of hand you got deeper in debt (by the deficit spending) and now you are only able to pay the minimums. For awhile you are able to get a newer credit card at a lower interest rate and stay ahead of the debt. Then you tap the equity in your house for additional credit to stay ahead of the spending and keep the bills paid. The equity line is tapped out, your credit cards are maxxed, what do you do? Any financial advisor will tell you to STOP THE SPENDING, make a budget for spending what you make, pay off the highest interest rate card first and then pay down all the credit cards until you are out of debt. What you don't do is go to the bank and ask them to increase your credit limit and they wouldn't do it anyway since you have been so irresponsible with you deficit spending.
Yesterday, that is exactly what President Obama did. He told the bankers (us and our representatives in Congress) that we MUST increase the credit line of our credit cards because we spent too much and oh by the way we can't stop our spending because it would be too hard. he has singlehandedly increased the debt by $6Trillion dollars but we can't stop spending. We can't even slow the growth of spending. using budget gimmicks he tries to tell us that he really did try to cut spending but those mean ole republicans blocked his every move and wouldn't let him.
I am calling BS on this one. The debt is $16T because we spent TOO MUCH. The only way we increase the credit card limit is if he can convince us that he is serious about controlling spending. Until then default. And none of this crap about SS checks being late and not paying the military. If we stop cutting checks due to default the first ones cut should be the White House staff including the President, then the Cabinet and their staffs, then the Congress and their staffs.
Remember it is our money he is spending.

What Made America Great?

As I sit here pondering the New Year I have paused to wonder. What Made America Great? Was it the freedon we fought for from the English oppressors? Was it the industrialisation from the late 1800s to the present? Was it the Representative Republic form of government? Was it our Constritution? Was it our belief in Capitalism and free markets? Was it our immigration policy, "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free"?
I guess I would say "all of the above" however we are in danger of losing our greatness. The world no longer looks at the US as the saviour of the world and rarely looks at us as their protector either. We have lost the moral high ground by our stance supporting oppresiver dictators and arming factions of rebels that may not have had our interests at heart. We have allowed companies and banks to become "too big to fail" and as a result the fear of failure driving business decisions has been lost. We have eroded our currency by allowing the Federal Reserve to print money and we have skewed the banking business with money too cheap and regulations too much. We have allowed our politicians to become permanent "carreer" bureaucrats instead of the citizen legislators that the founders envisioned. We have allowed a class of low-information voters to skew our recent elections in the direction of an entitlement society instead of the free society we started with.
   I believe that the tide has turned though. With the re-election of Barack Obama we have seen the direction toward a socialist state ever closer and we will begin to turn the tide. We have seen recently that with fewer and fewer people pulling the wagon and more and more people riding in the wagon that the direction we are going in is unsustainable.
   As we move into a new era of government let us see that the people we elect to do the peoples business actually DO the peoples business and not the moochers business and not the cronies business. Let us return to the free markets and capitalism that gave everyone an equal chance and not an equal result. An economy where there is inequality but where everyone thought that they had a chance to be on the top of that graph. Where politicians worked part time and returned to their lives at home and where taxes were fair and low.
    We still have the largest economy in the world by far. We are still the largest manufacturer in the world and we still produce the lions share of the world's food. Let's not forget that.