Are savers doomed?

[spdrun]

And what did it get them? Low birthrate, aging society, and a ranking in the top 10. Top 10 suicide rates in the world, that is.

Especially high when controlled for their latitude (they don’t have the excuse of seasonal depression).

By contrast, the slackers of Europe (Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal) have low rates of suicide. Proof that slacking is good for the soul.

Japan and Korea are nice places to visit…

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun]Except that most people in developed countries see America as all nice and fuzzy until they get down to the gory details.

People outside the US *like* their month of time off every year. They *like* having their working hours be limited to a sane amount. The US is nice for them to visit. Few want to stay once the details become known.
[/quote]

So our marketing is pretty darn good, huh.
That’s part of selling our ideas.
The way people feel when buying is part of the value added.

[quote=spdrun]
BTW – in the 20th century, working hours were historically longer abroad than in the US. It’s only recently (past 2-3 decades) that the situation flipped. This didn’t actually make the US any less competitive.[/quote]

Competitive advantage for America back then was that the rest of the world was rebuilding infrastructure destroyed during WWII.

Now, factories can be shipped around the world in 30 days.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun]

By contrast, the slackers of Europe (Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal) have low rates of suicide. Proof that slacking is good for the soul.

Japan and Korea are nice places to visit…[/quote]

The Japanese now are shopping more and more at discount stores which didn’t exist in the 1980s. They are getting poorer. Japan will become another Finland, irrelevant.

Korea is on the rise. Until they get old, unless they do something about immigration.

Southern Europe? Germany might kick them out of the Euro.

[spdrun]

So let them ship them to China. We’re one of their largest markets as well — if we slap tariffs on foreign-made goods, guess who has the last laugh. We could kill China’s economy tomorrow if we wanted to.

Make keeping manufacturing in the US *pay!*

Nothing wrong with being another Finland if the alternative is working yourself to death. (Incidentally, Finland’s GDP per capita is higher than Japan’s and South Korea’s)

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun]
Nothing wrong with being another Finland if the alternative is working yourself to death. (Incidentally, Finland’s GDP per capita is higher than Japan’s and South Korea’s)[/quote]

I was just making comparison for “relevance in world affairs” purposes.

Japan has a bigger population… They are fading into irrelevance and I don’t think they like it.

Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden are small countries. There economic situation is different. They are part of Europe which gives them trading advantages. Norway has oil which benefits the region. They don’t make enemies with anyone.

[spdrun]

And that’s smart not to make enemies with anyone. Live, lead by example, not by force.

[The-Shoveler]

I worked on several projects in Europe,

I remember working early morning to late into the evening seven days a week (while the local workers were there right beside me).

I think the IT and other professionals schedule may not be much different than ours from my experience.

Just my two cents.

[CA renter]

[quote=spdrun]Policy should be made for the benefit of the average citizen, not some insane abstract notion of the economy or national interests (aka ugly American d*ck-waving. “WE’RE THE BIGGEST! WE’RE THE BEST! RAH! RAH! RAH”). Really, who gives a flying flip?

The economy is there to benefit the average person. We’re not there to benefit the economy. National interests are only important as far as they benefit people living in a given country. Not as some sort of abstract chest-thumping patriotic idea.

And real standard of living has gone down since the 1990s. OK, people have more tablets and smartphones, but so what? If anything, those devices are more of a leash than a liberator. As long as you have the things in hand, you can’t really disconnect from work or other personal worries.

Longer working hours, but lower rate of employment. Damage to groundwater from fracking. More surveillance since 9/11. Worse food (more HFCS/more obesity). Higher college costs for four-year schools, and less ability to graduate debt-free. Overly rapid industrialization of third-world pestholes, impacting the global environment.[/quote]

Thank you.

[CA renter]

[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=spdrun]FlyerInHI: What’s wrong with just living and letting the other countries take over the world? Fuck our responsibility. Maybe the world would be better off split between the Russians, Chinese, or Iranians. We have enough nuclear weapons to deter invasion, so it might alter our economy, but it won’t alter our rights materially.[/quote]

Because well-being is relative.

There is such as thing as keeping up with the Jones (or even surpassing the Jones) that make people happy and motivates them.

Europe, for a time, went its own way to maximize well-being the way they saw it.

In America, our academics perfected capitalism and developed new ways to make capitalism provide us more material goods and to maximize GDP growth.

Europe (and the rest of the world) then looked at us with envy and changed directions to our way of doing things.

So we won. Our way is the way.[/quote]

We learned how to destroy other countries’ productive capacity. We bombed them back a few decades, at least. We know how to bully other countries and how to stake a claim to their resources.

If that’s “capitalism” I want no part of it.

[CA renter]

[quote=Leorocky]Inflation is not defined as an increase in the money supply and we have not been experiencing “massive inflation” since the Great Recession.

Both of your statements are patently false.[/quote]

Inflation is the result of an increase of the monetary supply, all else being equal.

http://www.stlouisfed.org/education_resources/feducation-money-and-inflation/

In the past few years, housing prices, stock prices, bond prices, and the prices of many commodities have risen near or above “peak” prices, as defined by past bubbles. Of course, you’re welcome to claim that “massive inflation” hasn’t happened…but we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that issue.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article47810.html

[Anonymous]

[quote=CA renter]During deflationary times, the wealth and income gaps narrow, sometimes drastically.

Inflation is what gives the 1% their power. Deflation gives workers (and others living on a fixed income) more power. Asset prices fall much faster than wages, on average.[/quote]

When deflation comes, we can all ride our unicorns to the mall and enjoy the low prices!

[Leorocky]

Inflation is the sustained increase in prices for consumer goods and services (to be brief). And not just one, or two, or three goods and services, it’s across the board.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/economy_14419.htm

You said “the effects of inflation (increased money supply)”. Inflation is not an increase in money supply. Inflation can certainly be a result of an increase in the money supply but is not defined by it.

Houses, stocks and bonds are capital assets; they are not consumer goods and services. Prices of these assets appreciate/depreciate typically due to factors other than and/or not related to inflation/deflation. It is incorrect to state than stocks, for example, have appreciated and to call it inflation.

By no measure that would pass muster with any credible economist has inflation been “massive” in the last several years.

[livinincali]

[quote=Leorocky]Inflation is the sustained increase in prices for consumer goods and services (to be brief). And not just one, or two, or three goods and services, it’s across the board.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/economy_14419.htm

You said “the effects of inflation (increased money supply)”. Inflation is not an increase in money supply. Inflation can certainly be a result of an increase in the money supply but is not defined by it.

Houses, stocks and bonds are capital assets; they are not consumer goods and services. Prices of these assets appreciate/depreciate typically due to factors other than and/or not related to inflation/deflation. It is incorrect to state than stocks, for example, have appreciated and to call it inflation.

By no measure that would pass muster with any credible economist has inflation been “massive” in the last several years.[/quote]

This is exactly what the problem is. People define inflation differently and then use their different definitions to argue a certain point.

At the most fundamental level inflation is an increase in the money supply relative to goods produced. Obviously in the most simple economy where there’s 100 of some type of good and 100 units of money the price of that good is 1 unit of money. If you double the supply of money and hold the number of goods at 100 then that good become 2 units of money.

CPI is the consumer price index, it’s how the fed measures inflation but it’s a flawed measured for a variety of reasons.

The fundamental issue is the fed has printed a bunch of money via bond buying programs, and that money has gone somewhere. It just has gone into asset prices that the fed doesn’t bother to look at when measuring inflation. The fed can print and spend money but it can’t determine where that money goes. That’s why we end up with asset price bubbles.

[Leorocky]

There is one definition for inflation in this context. It’s linked in my post above. If someone chooses to subscribe to a different definition they are incorrect and their subsequent points are likely incorrect.

The money the Fed has “printed” has mostly gone to shore up the balance sheets of large banks. Using your simple economy example if the new money supply was buried in my backyard or in some other inaccessible location (such as a banks deposit account at the Fed) it has no effect on the price of the goods.

[Anonymous]

[quote=livinincali]This is exactly what the problem is. People define inflation differently and then use their different definitions to argue a certain point.

At the most fundamental level inflation is an increase in the money supply relative to goods produced. […][/quote]

It’s early in 2015, but I’m calling it:

Most ironic post of the year.

[Author]

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