Washing machines/dryers prices up 17% under Trump (thank you, tariffs)

[Indeependent]

Go and tell everybody working in all the restaurants in your town how they're making $25.00/hour.
I deal with reality, not ideological bullshit.

Um.... yeah dude.... so no, they are not making $25/hour.... but their earning far more than $9/hour. Far more. Waiters and Waitresses make good coin at the restaurants here.

Regardless, you didn't say "98% of McDonald's staff are making $9".... and even then, that's not true. The store I visit now and then, had a sign on the building, $10/hour to start. Which means everyone in there is making at least $10 or more, and most are earning more. You get an automatic raise after 3 months. You can't start at $10, and get a raise up to $10 after 3 months. Math 101.

So no, your statement was absolutely bonkers stupid. There is no way you can spin that to not make you look like an idiot.

Andy, you're a smart guy and I respect you, but I live in a large metropolitan area...the average is not anywhere near $25.00/hour.
And these people vote.

Now that is more acceptable. There are places where the cost of living is extremely low, and so are wages.

However, I still find myself saying it's up to the individual to find more valuable work. Honestly, anyone can earn more. It's simply a matter of whether they want to.

You can earn more. Anyone can. I went for truck driver training. There were people there that got tired of flipping burgers, and instead learned to drive truck. 3 weeks, paid training, and they were on the road starting at $30,000 a year. In 2 years, you'll be at $45,000 a year.

We had this guy come and do the brick work in front of my parents house. Self-employed brick layer. Made really good money.

Is that fun? of course not. Being out in the heat, or the wind, or whatever... but he made easily $70K a year.

Had a co-worker start doing flooring on the weekends. Work a 9 to 5 all week, and then do flooring all weekend. Pretty soon, he was making more money on the weekend, than he did during the week.

He quit that job, and was making more money 20 hours on his own, than doing a full 40 hours at a job.

You can earn more. Anyone can. Anyone. Its only a matter of if you want to. Phil Robertson was a drunk, serving bear at a bar. He started crafting his duck callers, and now he's a multimillionaire CEO.

The fact is, most people earn crap, because they don't want to do what it takes. I know that's why I don't. Running your own business is hard. 60 hours a week, and there is no vacation time... not really. When you are CEO and something blows up, you get the call. Doesn't matter if you are on vacation or not.

I was working at one company, and the CEO went on vacation. On Tuesday something blew up, and on Wednesday he was back in the office, and on Friday he flew back to his family. He came back the following Tuesday.

Most people don't want that responsibility. They go home, and "this is my time". Right? I'm the same way. When I'm at home, I don't want to hear the phone ring.

But that's why the CEO is paid so much. That's why the business owner earns so much. That's why the burger flipper, who does nothing but turn burgers over, gets paid so little.

NYC and other cities are comprised of high density, minority areas and no lack of Illegals.
What would happen if millions of these $9.00/hour people moved to the Red States?
The Red States would have a heart attack.
The fact still stands that regardless of background stories of nations or individuals, the "Average Income" masks a ton of misconceptions.

There are no red states and blue states. That is a misnomer.

Just big city shiholes. Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Birmingham, Memphis etc are just as big Democrat controlled shitholes as any of the northern cities.

You are really confused about this average income. I doubt you are educable. If you aren't going to accept the the BLS average of 130 million working Americans then there is nothing anyone can say to you. You are one confused Moon Bat.

If you are pissed about making low wages then I would suggest that you do like tens of millions of other Americans and get off your fat ass, put down the bong and work to be more productive.

Sure, just like how the WSJ and all the other Financial Publications since Reagan have told us how Globalization will spread Democracy and Capitalism across the globe.
Face it, either you're a neo-Con or a Liberal.

 

[Indeependent]

Go and tell everybody working in all the restaurants in your town how they're making $25.00/hour.
I deal with reality, not ideological bullshit.

Um.... yeah dude.... so no, they are not making $25/hour.... but their earning far more than $9/hour. Far more. Waiters and Waitresses make good coin at the restaurants here.

Regardless, you didn't say "98% of McDonald's staff are making $9".... and even then, that's not true. The store I visit now and then, had a sign on the building, $10/hour to start. Which means everyone in there is making at least $10 or more, and most are earning more. You get an automatic raise after 3 months. You can't start at $10, and get a raise up to $10 after 3 months. Math 101.

So no, your statement was absolutely bonkers stupid. There is no way you can spin that to not make you look like an idiot.

Andy, you're a smart guy and I respect you, but I live in a large metropolitan area...the average is not anywhere near $25.00/hour.
And these people vote.

Now that is more acceptable. There are places where the cost of living is extremely low, and so are wages.

However, I still find myself saying it's up to the individual to find more valuable work. Honestly, anyone can earn more. It's simply a matter of whether they want to.

You can earn more. Anyone can. I went for truck driver training. There were people there that got tired of flipping burgers, and instead learned to drive truck. 3 weeks, paid training, and they were on the road starting at $30,000 a year. In 2 years, you'll be at $45,000 a year.

We had this guy come and do the brick work in front of my parents house. Self-employed brick layer. Made really good money.

Is that fun? of course not. Being out in the heat, or the wind, or whatever... but he made easily $70K a year.

Had a co-worker start doing flooring on the weekends. Work a 9 to 5 all week, and then do flooring all weekend. Pretty soon, he was making more money on the weekend, than he did during the week.

He quit that job, and was making more money 20 hours on his own, than doing a full 40 hours at a job.

You can earn more. Anyone can. Anyone. Its only a matter of if you want to. Phil Robertson was a drunk, serving bear at a bar. He started crafting his duck callers, and now he's a multimillionaire CEO.

The fact is, most people earn crap, because they don't want to do what it takes. I know that's why I don't. Running your own business is hard. 60 hours a week, and there is no vacation time... not really. When you are CEO and something blows up, you get the call. Doesn't matter if you are on vacation or not.

I was working at one company, and the CEO went on vacation. On Tuesday something blew up, and on Wednesday he was back in the office, and on Friday he flew back to his family. He came back the following Tuesday.

Most people don't want that responsibility. They go home, and "this is my time". Right? I'm the same way. When I'm at home, I don't want to hear the phone ring.

But that's why the CEO is paid so much. That's why the business owner earns so much. That's why the burger flipper, who does nothing but turn burgers over, gets paid so little.

NYC and other cities are comprised of high density, minority areas and no lack of Illegals.
What would happen if millions of these $9.00/hour people moved to the Red States?
The Red States would have a heart attack.
The fact still stands that regardless of background stories of nations or individuals, the "Average Income" masks a ton of misconceptions.

Well, you are not going to like this answer, but one thing you could do that would help, is remove the illegals.

Wages are a function of supply and demand. Remove the supply of extremely low-wage labor, and demand will drive up wages.

The second thing you can do, that most left-wingers oppose, is drastically increase policing. Crime drives out jobs, and drives down wages. It drives out jobs, because the cost of crime has to be passed onto the consumer. So a store in a crime area, will typically have higher prices than stores in low-crime areas. When people figure this out, they start shopping outside their area. That store closes, and then people don't have jobs

Equally, crime lowers wages, both because when the prior store moves out, the supply of labor is up, while the demand is low, thus wages are low.

But also because crime requires the store to divert resources to non-wage expenses. Every security office placed in the store, consumes money that could go to wages. Every security camera, and surveillance system, is an expense that could go to wages. Every lock, every scan, every ID card, every bar on a window, or grate over a door, is money used for security, that thus can't be used for wages. Not to mention the cost of insurance against large scale crime, that is drastically higher for stores located in crime areas.

And for people of faith, like myself, my church supports a program that helps people who immigrate here (legally only), to learn English. Learning English alone, will drastically improve the quality of jobs you can get, and thus your wages.

Lastly, and this one you are not going to buy, but it's true...... Reduce the minimum wage. Many many companies have training programs. But in order to get into those programs, you have to first be hired. In order for people with virtually no skills at all, to get hired on, the company has to be able to earn money off their low labor skills.

If you are simply not able to do $9/hours, then you are not going to get hired if the minimum wage is $9 hour.

By lowering the minimum wage, more of these people would have access to jobs, where they could then gain the skills needed to move up the income ladder.

When I worked for Advance Auto Parts, we had a guy there that enrolled in the free company training program. No college education at all. No training of any kind. No certifications or other qualifications. He just signed up, and started taking the courses.

Now he runs his own store.

I know several people that have taken advantage of company provided training, and now are all in higher level positions earning good money. And they all started at the bottom rung on the ladder, earning garbage wages. The more people are able to get onto that very first step, the more they will be able to climb to the next step and beyond. You have to start somewhere, and the minimum wage makes that harder.

Lots of places train their employees...how to serve a cup of coffee.
I presume you're not yet 40 and as disposable as bathroom tissue.
Let's hope we're going in a good direction.

 

[Flash]

Yes, they take the money we give them and then they create business with them. Then they reap the profits.

If they did not have that cash in the first place then the money would have stayed in the US and used for American investment and the profits would have stayed in the US.

You are richer if you own the business than if you work for the person that owns the business and that is why that rational about foreign investment fails under scrutiny. That is what is wrong with the argument that everything is OK because the foreign entities are buying up America with the money we gave them in unfair trade deals. We may get the crumbs but they get the big bucks.

We should be doing that to other countries not having other countries do that to us. We got a tremendous amount of wealth accumulated in the US because we did that after WWII. Now that wealth is being siphoned off because of unfair trade deals.

That is what Trump is smart enough to understand and what he is trying to fix..

Let me summarize the data for you,

Arguably, Asia makes washers that are unfairly priced because of closed markets and worker abuse. However, trump has fucked you bigly if you're buying a car or truck, and for no reason other than you are buying his tv shit.

Let me lay it out to you.

China subsidizes their industries giving them an unfair cost advantage. China steals our technology so they don't have development cost in their pricing structure. China puts high barriers on our products so their industries don't have to compete.

Because of those things Chinese goods are cheaper than they should be causing a big one way flow of American dollars into their country. Dollars that are a demand on our wealth.

That is what Trump is trying to fix.

You and all other Americans will be much better off in the long run if Trump is successful in establishing fair trade than you would be for the temporary lower price for the washing machine.

Go take a course in Economics.

Again, economists don’t agree with you.

They are not much of an economist if they don't understand what the word "fair" means fair trade, are they?

I'd bet those Chinese trade negotiators would be pretty surprised to hear Trump saying he wants a fair trade treaty.

In economics, fair trade means fair prices are paid to producers in developing countries.

There is no such thing as a "fair" price. That is a stupid Moon Bat social definition. Fuck welfare to developing countries. The free market of supply and demand determines the equilibrium price.

However, when countries like China uses subsidies and barriers to imports then trade become unfair. That is what Trump is trying to correct.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

I thought robots were replacing everyone. Do Chinese robots work cheaper than American robots?

Less robots used with lots of really cheap labor.

What's your answer? Do we give up on the very idea of improving things for the working poor and Middle Class?

No, but you don't do something we know doesn't work. Bush just tried steel tariffs, we lost jobs. If you care about the middle class you should wonder how this happened:
CEOs make $15.6 million on average—here’s how much their pay has increased compared to yours
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.

Although the 271:1 ratio is high, it's still not as high as in previous years. In 2015, CEOs made 286 times the salary of a typical worker and 299 times more in 2014. Compare that to 1978, when CEO earnings were roughly 30 times the typical worker's salary.

And how about that war on Unions? Have you noticed with their decline, so goes the middle class?
Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall Of Unions In One Chart | HuffPost

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

 

[Indeependent]

Less robots used with lots of really cheap labor.

What's your answer? Do we give up on the very idea of improving things for the working poor and Middle Class?

No, but you don't do something we know doesn't work. Bush just tried steel tariffs, we lost jobs. If you care about the middle class you should wonder how this happened:
CEOs make $15.6 million on average—here’s how much their pay has increased compared to yours
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.

Although the 271:1 ratio is high, it's still not as high as in previous years. In 2015, CEOs made 286 times the salary of a typical worker and 299 times more in 2014. Compare that to 1978, when CEO earnings were roughly 30 times the typical worker's salary.

And how about that war on Unions? Have you noticed with their decline, so goes the middle class?
Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall Of Unions In One Chart | HuffPost

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

My wife works for one of the major medical facilities in NYS.
There is a multitude of foolishness at the top.
But they bill, bill, bill and everything's cool.
But you hit it on the head in many respects.

 

[Correll]

Less robots used with lots of really cheap labor.

What's your answer? Do we give up on the very idea of improving things for the working poor and Middle Class?

No, but you don't do something we know doesn't work. Bush just tried steel tariffs, we lost jobs. If you care about the middle class you should wonder how this happened:
CEOs make $15.6 million on average—here’s how much their pay has increased compared to yours
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.

Although the 271:1 ratio is high, it's still not as high as in previous years. In 2015, CEOs made 286 times the salary of a typical worker and 299 times more in 2014. Compare that to 1978, when CEO earnings were roughly 30 times the typical worker's salary.

And how about that war on Unions? Have you noticed with their decline, so goes the middle class?
Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall Of Unions In One Chart | HuffPost

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

 

[Andylusion]

Um.... yeah dude.... so no, they are not making $25/hour.... but their earning far more than $9/hour. Far more. Waiters and Waitresses make good coin at the restaurants here.

Regardless, you didn't say "98% of McDonald's staff are making $9".... and even then, that's not true. The store I visit now and then, had a sign on the building, $10/hour to start. Which means everyone in there is making at least $10 or more, and most are earning more. You get an automatic raise after 3 months. You can't start at $10, and get a raise up to $10 after 3 months. Math 101.

So no, your statement was absolutely bonkers stupid. There is no way you can spin that to not make you look like an idiot.

Andy, you're a smart guy and I respect you, but I live in a large metropolitan area...the average is not anywhere near $25.00/hour.
And these people vote.

Now that is more acceptable. There are places where the cost of living is extremely low, and so are wages.

However, I still find myself saying it's up to the individual to find more valuable work. Honestly, anyone can earn more. It's simply a matter of whether they want to.

You can earn more. Anyone can. I went for truck driver training. There were people there that got tired of flipping burgers, and instead learned to drive truck. 3 weeks, paid training, and they were on the road starting at $30,000 a year. In 2 years, you'll be at $45,000 a year.

We had this guy come and do the brick work in front of my parents house. Self-employed brick layer. Made really good money.

Is that fun? of course not. Being out in the heat, or the wind, or whatever... but he made easily $70K a year.

Had a co-worker start doing flooring on the weekends. Work a 9 to 5 all week, and then do flooring all weekend. Pretty soon, he was making more money on the weekend, than he did during the week.

He quit that job, and was making more money 20 hours on his own, than doing a full 40 hours at a job.

You can earn more. Anyone can. Anyone. Its only a matter of if you want to. Phil Robertson was a drunk, serving bear at a bar. He started crafting his duck callers, and now he's a multimillionaire CEO.

The fact is, most people earn crap, because they don't want to do what it takes. I know that's why I don't. Running your own business is hard. 60 hours a week, and there is no vacation time... not really. When you are CEO and something blows up, you get the call. Doesn't matter if you are on vacation or not.

I was working at one company, and the CEO went on vacation. On Tuesday something blew up, and on Wednesday he was back in the office, and on Friday he flew back to his family. He came back the following Tuesday.

Most people don't want that responsibility. They go home, and "this is my time". Right? I'm the same way. When I'm at home, I don't want to hear the phone ring.

But that's why the CEO is paid so much. That's why the business owner earns so much. That's why the burger flipper, who does nothing but turn burgers over, gets paid so little.

NYC and other cities are comprised of high density, minority areas and no lack of Illegals.
What would happen if millions of these $9.00/hour people moved to the Red States?
The Red States would have a heart attack.
The fact still stands that regardless of background stories of nations or individuals, the "Average Income" masks a ton of misconceptions.

Well, you are not going to like this answer, but one thing you could do that would help, is remove the illegals.

Wages are a function of supply and demand. Remove the supply of extremely low-wage labor, and demand will drive up wages.

The second thing you can do, that most left-wingers oppose, is drastically increase policing. Crime drives out jobs, and drives down wages. It drives out jobs, because the cost of crime has to be passed onto the consumer. So a store in a crime area, will typically have higher prices than stores in low-crime areas. When people figure this out, they start shopping outside their area. That store closes, and then people don't have jobs

Equally, crime lowers wages, both because when the prior store moves out, the supply of labor is up, while the demand is low, thus wages are low.

But also because crime requires the store to divert resources to non-wage expenses. Every security office placed in the store, consumes money that could go to wages. Every security camera, and surveillance system, is an expense that could go to wages. Every lock, every scan, every ID card, every bar on a window, or grate over a door, is money used for security, that thus can't be used for wages. Not to mention the cost of insurance against large scale crime, that is drastically higher for stores located in crime areas.

And for people of faith, like myself, my church supports a program that helps people who immigrate here (legally only), to learn English. Learning English alone, will drastically improve the quality of jobs you can get, and thus your wages.

Lastly, and this one you are not going to buy, but it's true...... Reduce the minimum wage. Many many companies have training programs. But in order to get into those programs, you have to first be hired. In order for people with virtually no skills at all, to get hired on, the company has to be able to earn money off their low labor skills.

If you are simply not able to do $9/hours, then you are not going to get hired if the minimum wage is $9 hour.

By lowering the minimum wage, more of these people would have access to jobs, where they could then gain the skills needed to move up the income ladder.

When I worked for Advance Auto Parts, we had a guy there that enrolled in the free company training program. No college education at all. No training of any kind. No certifications or other qualifications. He just signed up, and started taking the courses.

Now he runs his own store.

I know several people that have taken advantage of company provided training, and now are all in higher level positions earning good money. And they all started at the bottom rung on the ladder, earning garbage wages. The more people are able to get onto that very first step, the more they will be able to climb to the next step and beyond. You have to start somewhere, and the minimum wage makes that harder.

Lots of places train their employees...how to serve a cup of coffee.
I presume you're not yet 40 and as disposable as bathroom tissue.
Let's hope we're going in a good direction.

I'm over 40, and more than disposable. Everyone is disposable. The days where people had some intrinsic irreplaceable value, are long over.

When you lived in small towns, around a single large factory, and the factory knew they couldn't replace you, so you were pretty much set for life...... that's long over.

Today, you have to prove you have value, day by day. You have to prove you have value, by making stuff happen, and producing something of worth to the market. The moment you stop, you are not going to be employed anymore.

Beyond that, the training I'm referring to, is actual accredited management training.

 

[Indeependent]

What's your answer? Do we give up on the very idea of improving things for the working poor and Middle Class?

No, but you don't do something we know doesn't work. Bush just tried steel tariffs, we lost jobs. If you care about the middle class you should wonder how this happened:
CEOs make $15.6 million on average—here’s how much their pay has increased compared to yours
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.

Although the 271:1 ratio is high, it's still not as high as in previous years. In 2015, CEOs made 286 times the salary of a typical worker and 299 times more in 2014. Compare that to 1978, when CEO earnings were roughly 30 times the typical worker's salary.

And how about that war on Unions? Have you noticed with their decline, so goes the middle class?
Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall Of Unions In One Chart | HuffPost

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

The larger the organization and the easier it is to make money without producing an actual product, the easier it is to get away with nonsense.
One thing the ACA did was to make medicine very lucrative.
Yes, the first 3 years where physicians had to upgrade their offices and bring their case management up to date was a nightmare.

 

[airplanemechanic]

I hate Trump!! Why you ask?? Because my fucking Whirlpool cost me 17% more!!!!!!

Fucking washing machine hater!!! Orange wombat!!! He'll have everyone on clotheslines before the end of his administration!

 

[Andylusion]

What's your answer? Do we give up on the very idea of improving things for the working poor and Middle Class?

No, but you don't do something we know doesn't work. Bush just tried steel tariffs, we lost jobs. If you care about the middle class you should wonder how this happened:
CEOs make $15.6 million on average—here’s how much their pay has increased compared to yours
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.

Although the 271:1 ratio is high, it's still not as high as in previous years. In 2015, CEOs made 286 times the salary of a typical worker and 299 times more in 2014. Compare that to 1978, when CEO earnings were roughly 30 times the typical worker's salary.

And how about that war on Unions? Have you noticed with their decline, so goes the middle class?
Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall Of Unions In One Chart | HuffPost

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

My wife works for one of the major medical facilities in NYS.
There is a multitude of foolishness at the top.
But they bill, bill, bill and everything's cool.
But you hit it on the head in many respects.

And that is true. If you want to pick out medical facilities specifically, then you are right. The level of stupidity at a medical facilities is much higher than the average across the economy.

And there is a really simple reason for this. Government. Health care is one of the most highly regulated parts of our economy. And naturally it's the least efficient and most expensive.

Do you see how badly run, and inefficient, and wasteful the office supply market is? No, not at all. It's also almost entirely unregulated. Which is why they have to be efficient and effective, or they go out of business in a competitive market.

The health care market is nothing like that, over all.

There are certain specifics areas, that are completely unregulated, and thus very efficient. Lasik Eye surgery for example. Prices have gone down, and treatment times have decreased, and the quality has improved.

 

[Andylusion]

No, but you don't do something we know doesn't work. Bush just tried steel tariffs, we lost jobs. If you care about the middle class you should wonder how this happened:
CEOs make $15.6 million on average—here’s how much their pay has increased compared to yours
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.

Although the 271:1 ratio is high, it's still not as high as in previous years. In 2015, CEOs made 286 times the salary of a typical worker and 299 times more in 2014. Compare that to 1978, when CEO earnings were roughly 30 times the typical worker's salary.

And how about that war on Unions? Have you noticed with their decline, so goes the middle class?
Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall Of Unions In One Chart | HuffPost

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

The larger the organization and the easier it is to make money without producing an actual product, the easier it is to get away with nonsense.
One thing the ACA did was to make medicine very lucrative.
Yes, the first 3 years where physicians had to upgrade their offices and bring their case management up to date was a nightmare.

If you believe what you said is a good thing, then you can't complain about the cost of health care.

What large organization would you claim, does not produce a product or service, and yet makes tons of money easily, over a long period of time. Note, you can't cite a company with ties to the government.

For example, you can't cite ethanol, where the government mandates the use of ethanol. That's not a free-market system.

 

[Indeependent]

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

The larger the organization and the easier it is to make money without producing an actual product, the easier it is to get away with nonsense.
One thing the ACA did was to make medicine very lucrative.
Yes, the first 3 years where physicians had to upgrade their offices and bring their case management up to date was a nightmare.

If you believe what you said is a good thing, then you can't complain about the cost of health care.

What large organization would you claim, does not produce a product or service, and yet makes tons of money easily, over a long period of time. Note, you can't cite a company with ties to the government.

For example, you can't cite ethanol, where the government mandates the use of ethanol. That's not a free-market system.

Financial Institutions are a joke; they ignore regulations left and right because they never pay the price.
7 CEOs and 0 Directors paid the price for the 2008 crash.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

What's your answer? Do we give up on the very idea of improving things for the working poor and Middle Class?

No, but you don't do something we know doesn't work. Bush just tried steel tariffs, we lost jobs. If you care about the middle class you should wonder how this happened:
CEOs make $15.6 million on average—here’s how much their pay has increased compared to yours
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.

Although the 271:1 ratio is high, it's still not as high as in previous years. In 2015, CEOs made 286 times the salary of a typical worker and 299 times more in 2014. Compare that to 1978, when CEO earnings were roughly 30 times the typical worker's salary.

And how about that war on Unions? Have you noticed with their decline, so goes the middle class?
Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall Of Unions In One Chart | HuffPost

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

Why are you so sure Ray? Trump got rid of regulations, I don't see any increase in wages. Trump gave a huge decrease in taxes, I don't see any increase in wages. Unions have been in declines for years, where are the increased wages? You have been had ray.

You mean the corporate board is loaded with other CEOs who want raises. So of course they all vote to give themselves raises. It is a racket.
CEO Pay and Performance Often Don’t Match Up

I'm not talking about raises so much, I'm talking about why companies make decisions that they do.

But since you bring up raises, thousands of Americans did get raises, bonuses, or both thanks to the tax cut.

You see, we have three options to choose from when it comes to business. We can have......

Lower wages and higher company profits which increase our investment returns.
Lower wages, keep jobs in America, and lower cost products.
Higher wages, lower return on investments, and higher priced products.

We can't have all three. Something has to give.

So we chose lower priced products and higher investment returns since many of us have our IRA in the market. When we made that choice, we put wages on the back burner. We don't care.

When unions had the strength, they didn't give us any option. We had higher priced products, jobs leaving by the millions, lower returns on our investments (which many at the time didn't have) and great paying jobs.

Today we have choices, and we made the ones we wanted.

You mean the guys who's pay went from 20X the average worker to 300X the average worker decided lower priced products and higher investment returns was the way to go. CEOs shipped the jobs away. And their pay includes lots of stock, go figure.

Yes it does. A CEO keeps investors by making decisions like that. The CEO can get an American company to sell in the US by lower labor costs.

And if you are getting 7% return on your investment, are you really concerned with how much a CEO makes? Does anybody making a decent profit even know who the CEO of a company is?

When you buy your string of Christmas lights for your tree during the holidays, or car cleaner for your car, do you look into what the CEO makes? Of course not. You look at the price of the products. You don't care about the CEO, about labor pay, or even automation.

 

[Andylusion]

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

The larger the organization and the easier it is to make money without producing an actual product, the easier it is to get away with nonsense.
One thing the ACA did was to make medicine very lucrative.
Yes, the first 3 years where physicians had to upgrade their offices and bring their case management up to date was a nightmare.

If you believe what you said is a good thing, then you can't complain about the cost of health care.

What large organization would you claim, does not produce a product or service, and yet makes tons of money easily, over a long period of time. Note, you can't cite a company with ties to the government.

For example, you can't cite ethanol, where the government mandates the use of ethanol. That's not a free-market system.

Financial Institutions are a joke; they ignore regulations left and right because they never pay the price.
7 CEOs and 0 Directors paid the price for the 2008 crash.

Well... the problem there is that government itself pushed for Sub-prime loans. Obama specifically, sued banks to force them to make sub-prime loans. Bill Clinton's Andrew Cuomo actually bragged about forcing banks to make sub-prime loans, and even admitted that these loans would have a higher default rate, which of course was true.

So claiming the banks should go to prison, because they were doing exactly what the government wanted, is a little hypocritical.

You do realize that out of all the financial institutions that failed, the most expensive bailout of the entire sub-prime crash..... was Freddie and Fannie. The government run corporations.

Additionally, I think it would be difficult to claim that these financial institutions produce nothing of value, given how many people use them routinely. 25 million use Bank of America, on a daily basis.

They must be doing something right.

 

[Indeependent]

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

The larger the organization and the easier it is to make money without producing an actual product, the easier it is to get away with nonsense.
One thing the ACA did was to make medicine very lucrative.
Yes, the first 3 years where physicians had to upgrade their offices and bring their case management up to date was a nightmare.

If you believe what you said is a good thing, then you can't complain about the cost of health care.

What large organization would you claim, does not produce a product or service, and yet makes tons of money easily, over a long period of time. Note, you can't cite a company with ties to the government.

For example, you can't cite ethanol, where the government mandates the use of ethanol. That's not a free-market system.

I'm not at all concerned about the cost of health.
I am thankful that my family and almost all of the people I know have careers and jobs that supply them with such.
What I am commenting on is processing too many patients, forging case management notes and abusing employees by making them work long hours because the owners, who in many cases work for the practice, are raking in the bucks.
In fact, it's easier under the ACA for MDs to see more patients per day than prior to the ACA.

 

[Indeependent]

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

The larger the organization and the easier it is to make money without producing an actual product, the easier it is to get away with nonsense.
One thing the ACA did was to make medicine very lucrative.
Yes, the first 3 years where physicians had to upgrade their offices and bring their case management up to date was a nightmare.

If you believe what you said is a good thing, then you can't complain about the cost of health care.

What large organization would you claim, does not produce a product or service, and yet makes tons of money easily, over a long period of time. Note, you can't cite a company with ties to the government.

For example, you can't cite ethanol, where the government mandates the use of ethanol. That's not a free-market system.

Financial Institutions are a joke; they ignore regulations left and right because they never pay the price.
7 CEOs and 0 Directors paid the price for the 2008 crash.

Well... the problem there is that government itself pushed for Sub-prime loans. Obama specifically, sued banks to force them to make sub-prime loans. Bill Clinton's Andrew Cuomo actually bragged about forcing banks to make sub-prime loans, and even admitted that these loans would have a higher default rate, which of course was true.

So claiming the banks should go to prison, because they were doing exactly what the government wanted, is a little hypocritical.

You do realize that out of all the financial institutions that failed, the most expensive bailout of the entire sub-prime crash..... was Freddie and Fannie. The government run corporations.

Additionally, I think it would be difficult to claim that these financial institutions produce nothing of value, given how many people use them routinely. 25 million use Bank of America, on a daily basis.

They must be doing something right.

The Sub-Prime loans barely made a blip on the map during the crash.
In fact, Rush spent countless hours praising GW for not getting involved.
The Home Equities, Credit Default Swaps and Mark to Market values on property (thanks to Warren Buffet, may he rot in hell) sank the global economy.
What the US does shakes the globe.

 

[Indeependent]

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

The larger the organization and the easier it is to make money without producing an actual product, the easier it is to get away with nonsense.
One thing the ACA did was to make medicine very lucrative.
Yes, the first 3 years where physicians had to upgrade their offices and bring their case management up to date was a nightmare.

If you believe what you said is a good thing, then you can't complain about the cost of health care.

What large organization would you claim, does not produce a product or service, and yet makes tons of money easily, over a long period of time. Note, you can't cite a company with ties to the government.

For example, you can't cite ethanol, where the government mandates the use of ethanol. That's not a free-market system.

Financial Institutions are a joke; they ignore regulations left and right because they never pay the price.
7 CEOs and 0 Directors paid the price for the 2008 crash.

Well... the problem there is that government itself pushed for Sub-prime loans. Obama specifically, sued banks to force them to make sub-prime loans. Bill Clinton's Andrew Cuomo actually bragged about forcing banks to make sub-prime loans, and even admitted that these loans would have a higher default rate, which of course was true.

So claiming the banks should go to prison, because they were doing exactly what the government wanted, is a little hypocritical.

You do realize that out of all the financial institutions that failed, the most expensive bailout of the entire sub-prime crash..... was Freddie and Fannie. The government run corporations.

Additionally, I think it would be difficult to claim that these financial institutions produce nothing of value, given how many people use them routinely. 25 million use Bank of America, on a daily basis.

They must be doing something right.

"They must be doing something right."
The atheists hang a sign that claims, "In God We Trust".

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

What's your answer? Do we give up on the very idea of improving things for the working poor and Middle Class?

No, but you don't do something we know doesn't work. Bush just tried steel tariffs, we lost jobs. If you care about the middle class you should wonder how this happened:
CEOs make $15.6 million on average—here’s how much their pay has increased compared to yours
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.

Although the 271:1 ratio is high, it's still not as high as in previous years. In 2015, CEOs made 286 times the salary of a typical worker and 299 times more in 2014. Compare that to 1978, when CEO earnings were roughly 30 times the typical worker's salary.

And how about that war on Unions? Have you noticed with their decline, so goes the middle class?
Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall Of Unions In One Chart | HuffPost

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

Then you would probably have to look into it more deeply. All they may tell you is a company lost X while the CEO got paid X. I'm sure it's much more complicated than that.

If a CEO is consistently losing money for the company, the investors will drop their stock and go elsewhere. The company would then spiral downhill until it's demise. No company would allow that to happen. Sure, they may have a bad year or two, but whatever the problem is, they will not let it continue, even if the problem is the CEO.

 

[Indeependent]

No, but you don't do something we know doesn't work. Bush just tried steel tariffs, we lost jobs. If you care about the middle class you should wonder how this happened:
CEOs make $15.6 million on average—here’s how much their pay has increased compared to yours
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.

Although the 271:1 ratio is high, it's still not as high as in previous years. In 2015, CEOs made 286 times the salary of a typical worker and 299 times more in 2014. Compare that to 1978, when CEO earnings were roughly 30 times the typical worker's salary.

And how about that war on Unions? Have you noticed with their decline, so goes the middle class?
Middle-Class Decline Mirrors The Fall Of Unions In One Chart | HuffPost

Unions, taxes and regulations are what chased jobs out of the country in the first place. Left to unions, they would chase out the rest.

You and I own widget factories. We are competitors. You sell more widgets than I do, so I want to hire a CEO that will change all that. The CEO wanted you to pay him 5 mil a year, but you refused and gave the money to your labor. I decide to pay that CEO the five mil, and in a couple of years, I get 50% of your customers because of his skill, connections, and experience.

That's how it works in business. Not just business, but in sports and entertainment as well. You are paid by your past performances, and the highest bidder gets your services.

I think you are underestimating the impact of large institutions owning large amounts of stock and not being involved in providing needed oversight of management.


Plenty of incompetent CEO out there, who get paid, just because the Board are a bunch of inbred fools.

It's contract work. If you ever picked up any Crane's business papers, you would see sections of CEO's who get new jobs all the time. The only reason one gets a new job is because something happened to the last one--usually something not very good.

Some CEO's do fail, but if they have a five year contract, what is the company supposed to do about it?

It's just like if a famous actress makes a bad movie. Her last parts drew millions into the movie theaters, but this one was a flop. She still gets her 10 million (or whatever agreed on) for doing the movie. Same holds true of a star pitcher, a famous country or rock band, or even a quarterback.

If she continues to make bad movies, the price of her services go down--way down.

I have not seen such accountability.


I've seen fools pass the buck and other fools nod their heads like brain damaged parrots.

Then you would probably have to look into it more deeply. All they may tell you is a company lost X while the CEO got paid X. I'm sure it's much more complicated than that.

If a CEO is consistently losing money for the company, the investors will drop their stock and go elsewhere. The company would then spiral downhill until it's demise. No company would allow that to happen. Sure, they may have a bad year or two, but whatever the problem is, they will not let it continue, even if the problem is the CEO.

It took Merrill Lynch many years to lose enough money and not be able to blame it on R&D.

 

[Picaro]

Trump Hates the Trade Deficit. Most Economists Don’t.


Most economists do not see the trade gap as money “lost” to other countries, nor do they worry about trade deficits to a large degree. That’s because trade imbalances are affected by a host of macroeconomic factors, including the relative growth rates of countries, the value of their currencies, and their saving and investment rates. For instance, America’s trade deficit narrowed dramatically during the Great Recession, when national consumption faltered.

I don't know who "most economist" are. That goes against what I was taught in my International Economics course.

When you have a negative trade deficit then that money becomes a demand on your wealth. It is really as simple as that.

A country increases it wealth by getting money from other countries. It loses it wealth when the other countries have its money.

Now to be fair you can have an imbalance in trade and that can be offset by money coming in from other sources like foreign investments. In fact that is what saved the US for many years. We had tremendous worldwide investment and the profits offset what we were losing in trade. That is what those economist are referring to. However, that will evaporate over time as foreign counties use their excess dollars to invest in the US and reverse the flow of money. That is what Trump is concerned about and rightfully so.

Better economists than whoever taught your class. How long ago was this?

The US economy is all smoke and mirrors.

Huh? Wuh? Yeah, it's all a myth.... all that wealth we're creating, that other countries are not.... which is why no country wants to be in the US market...... you know.... except for all of them. They can clearly see the smoke and mirrors they want.

Then why do over 98% of Americans make $9.00/hour?
I was on Wall Street in the early 80s.
Reagan started fixing the economy to exclude minorities.
Now we have an albatross around our necks...a very expensive albatross.

I am hoping Trump's vision of bringing jobs and opportunities back to the US pays off.

Saint Ronald's worst policies was to ignore anti-trust restrictions and allow concentrations of industry to oligarchic and monopolistic levels not seen since the Gilded age of trusts, and this process is still going on. We've never had such a concentration of wealth in our history, and it has killed off small and mid-sized businesses and social mobility, and the sources of training for managerial and organizational talent.