[quote=briansd1]CA renter, corporations are sitting on
$2 trillion of capital that they are not using. High corporate taxes and profitability are not the problem.
The problem is that businesses lack demand and customers. [/quote]
Absolutely agree, 100%. That was my point.
[quote=CA renter]
The rhetoric on the left isn’t any better…they say that piling more debt onto an already unsustainable pile of debt will magically fix things.
[/quote]
[quote=briansd1]
Who on the left is talking about about more debt? Everybody is talking about spending cuts and paying down the debt.
On least, on the left, there is talk of addressing the demand issue by putting more money in the hands of average American consumers. [/quote]
While I agree that we need to strengthen our social safety net during hard times, there is a limit. It would be much better if we had put these people to work, rather than hand them 99 weeks of unemployment checks.
[quote=CA renter]
We will never dig ourselves out of this hole until someone has the balls to talk about global wage arbitrage (and everything that entails) in a serious way.[/quote]
[quote=briansd1]
Building barriers around our country, erecting tariffs, and retreating into isolationism are not the answer.
eveasdropper addressed education in another thread. We need to encourage education and technology. And we need to learn to do new things and better things than our global competitors.
We need an industrial policy that builds American technological champions.
I think that the left is better equipped to deliver.[/quote]
That’s a nice theory, but I can’t think of a country that had a growing economy because of thinking, alone. It’s only when those thoughts are put into action via manufacturing/exporting that a country really thrives in a sustainable way.
Ultimately, it is always about manufacturing and exporting. That is how a large country becomes rich.
We didn’t lose jobs because our workers weren’t smart enough. We lost jobs because our workers weren’t **cheap** enough. I think most Americans would tell you that we made things better, and that our workers were superior to those who replaced them.
Not everyone can be Bill Gates, and even if we tried, the value of that talent/job would go down as we all rush into the same fields. When everyone has a math or engineering degree, what is the value of mathematicians and engineers? We need an economy that is flexible and varied, and I’ll be the first to say that we need our brilliant thinkers, but we should not understate the importance of manufacturing jobs for the masses.
