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streamdragon wrote:Japan has a pretty awesome rail system in my (admittedly limited) understanding. Also, most of Europe I believe uses rail for the majority of long distance travel; whereas we usually drive or fly.

They also have superb healthcare and standards of living.

Unfortunately they also don't have enough kids being born (I can fix that...).

Contrary to what Fox News thinks however, they are NOT going to go extinct.

I'll chime in and say japans railway systems are a big reason why they are doing well, with people not needing to drive and can simply get on the train, it saves them money which they can spend on goods and services, which in turn provides growth to the economy...

I hate it when I'm right, 110% right and people still try to shoot me down...

The biggest problem for the US is the size of the country, it makes railways only able to solve some of the problems, not all of them.

Lynata wrote:China isn't communist. But of course the term alone is probably enough to deter most "patriots" from even considering this. Even socialism is used like an insult.

Considering public opinion, it would seem to be more likely that the US privatises all roads and bridges. After all, if the state rebuilds them with tax money, that would make it a "nanny state", no? For some reason, I have a feeling it would seem more acceptable to people to pay a "road subscription fee" to a private company rather than paying evil taxes to the socialist government, even though it's basically the same thing.

Many Communist countries claim to be socialist, such as the now-separated U.S.S.R., and China may well be one of them. But I agree, if the government publicizes roads and bridges, communistophobes (not a real word, I know) will throw a hissy fit, despite the fact that the government is run (at least in part) by fairly elected individuals, whereas corporations can be run by anyone with a lot of money.

Roads and bridges are already public. They are one of the main ways our government supports the economy, because the vast majority of us have to commute to work, and literally all of us are dependent on goods hauled over long distances in trucks. The interstate system in particular is enormously important.

For most of my adult life I've had commutes of 20-40 minutes via freeway to and from work. Without regular care and maintenance of those freeways, my work options would be a lot more limited.

We have a lot of crumbling bridges and infrastructure in this country, which NEEDS attention. Spending on it helps everyone, and creates jobs. This should be a no brainer.

Warren was making an attempt at evoking some classic Cold War-era competitive spirit in American voters. We used to want to be better and more successful than the Soviets. One would think modern Americans, especially ones concerned about America losing its position of economic and political primacy in the world to China, might be stirred by such a sentiment. We're letting the Chinese out-build us! But no, instead the exact anti-China people who should be stirred by that are instead angry at Warren, because they care more about the fact that they consider her their ideological opponent than they do about competing with China, or about getting important stuff done in our country.

Mannahnin wrote:We have a lot of crumbling bridges and infrastructure in this country, which NEEDS attention. Spending on it helps everyone, and creates jobs. This should be a no brainer.

You would think that wouldn't you.

juraigamer wrote:
The biggest problem for the US is the size of the country, it makes railways only able to solve some of the problems, not all of them.

Indeed. Japan is less than 170 miles long correct? Thats literally less than my trip home on the weekend.

Do you work away from home Frazzled and go home on weekends, or something?

Phanatik wrote:"We've got bridges and roads in need of repair and thousands of people in need of work. Why aren't we rebuilding America? Our competitors are putting
people to work, building a future. China invests 9% of its GDP in infrastructure. America? We're at just 2.4%. We can do better. We can build a foundation
for a strong new economy and get people in MA to work right now. I'm Elizabeth Warren and I approve this message. Let's go to work."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFbBDilOizA&feature=youtube_gdata

Just because you don't like something, does not mean that it has some good ideas.

Let me give an example. I dislike the government of the US state of Georgia. I lived their for 17 years, and I moved my family away because of the lack of investment they make into their schools. To make matters worse, one of my kids has cerebal palsy, and the special needs program in Georgia is little more than a handshake an a brochure of physical theorpy.
But....they have an excellent DMV system. Every other state would do well to follow the examples of the Georgia DMV.
See? You can dislike something but acknowledge that they do some things right!

Likewise, we should look at China and follow their good examples. China is beating the tar out of us production wise. Perhaps investing more into infrastructure would help us to compete.

labmouse42 wrote: China is beating the tar out of us industry wise.

By what metric?

Phanatik wrote:I posted it though, because like many lefties, including many in the Obama administration, she seems to admire/prefer communism/communists.

And yet she is running for the U.S. Senate.

And anyone that pays attention to U.S. politics knows that when lefties talk about spending money on the infrastructure, what they really mean is funneling money to the unions, which than donate the money back to the democrats. It's a tax-payer funded money laundering scheme.

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership and cooperative management of the means of production.

News flash. You live in a state that practices socialist policies. When did you last pay your 'firefighter' bill, or your 'police bill'?
When have you had to ask around to find the best price on tap water?

Every government has socialist policies. The question is what goods/services should be socialized and which privatized.

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sourclams wrote:

labmouse42 wrote: China is beating the tar out of us industry wise.

By what metric?

How about the first one that was googled? Seriously, how many of our jobs have been outsourced from china to america?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_industrial_production_growth_rate

MrDwhitey wrote:Do you work away from home Frazzled and go home on weekends, or something?

Exactly.

labmouse42 wrote:How about the first one that was googled? Seriously, how many of our jobs have been outsourced from china to america?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_industrial_production_growth_rate

Growth rate is a pretty ridiculous measure for a comparison between the largest economy in the world and pretty much any other economy given that #2 is less than 1/2 the size of the US, which is roughly as big as the top 3 combined.

#1 on that list, for example, is the Republic of the Congo. Are you suggesting that the Congo is some sort of global economic power house that the US should emulate? How about Qatar, (3), Uzbekistan (9), or Mozambique (15)?

China makes that list by virtue of being a G20 economy, but also being relatively underdeveloped versus its population pool. That's how they can sustain 7%+ growth for many years, while the US will struggle to ever hit 5%. Once you're very large, sustaining incremental growth becomes increasingly difficult.

If you make $5/hour and I make $105, and I magnanimously give you a 10% raise (which is DOUBLE my 5% raise), then would you be pleased that you now make 5.50/hour compared to my paltry 105.53?

sourclams wrote:China makes that list by virtue of being a G20 economy, but also being relatively underdeveloped versus its population pool. That's how they can sustain 7%+ growth for many years, while the US will struggle to ever hit 5%. Once you're very large, sustaining incremental growth becomes increasingly difficult.

So you disagree with my assmenet that China is not producing more than the US. Why are production jobs being exported to China? Why do we not make iphones here in the United States? Why is it that you walk through a walmart and see more goods made in China than the US?

The US has a much greater GDP, but it does not come from production of goods. It comes from services.
If you can prove me wrong, then please do so. I would love to be wrong.

sourclams wrote:If you make $5/hour and I make $105, and I magnanimously give you a 10% raise (which is DOUBLE my 5% raise), then would you be pleased that you now make 5.50/hour compared to my paltry 105.53?

What does that have to do with industrial production?

The thing you linked is, literally, growth rate in industrial production (the basic unit of which is GDP). When a very large country starts at a very low number (like China), and posts big increases over an incrementally small amount, then that is a stupid example of comparison between a developed (US) and largely developing (China) economy.

Second, manufacturing has rarely (I'm willing to say "never") been the mainstay of US industry.In the 50s it was roughly 30% of the nonfarm labor sector, and it declined to roughly 10% in current times. Simultaneously services industries went from a little under 30% to more than 40%, representing the demographics shift towards suburban life and higher-skill job sectors (including manufacturing).

Even if we pulled Services from the US GDP calculation, we'd still have a larger economy than China, so this fixation on "industry", by which you seem to mean manufacturing, is both dated and silly.

sourclams wrote:Second, manufacturing has rarely (I'm willing to say "never") been the mainstay of US industry.In the 50s it was roughly 30% of the nonfarm labor sector, and it declined to roughly 10% in current times. Simultaneously services industries went from a little under 30% to more than 40%, representing the demographics shift towards suburban life and higher-skill job sectors (including manufacturing).

Even if we pulled Services from the US GDP calculation, we'd still have a larger economy than China, so this fixation on "industry", by which you seem to mean manufacturing, is both dated and silly.

Can you quote your sources on this please?

US Bureau of Labor statistics.

On their website?

I am curious to know what percentage of our GDP has been various industries over time.
While the US Bureau of Labor statistics website provides a snapshot of today, I have not discovered a historical trend of that data.
That kind of data would be fascinating to look through.

Edit :
For example, you can see that the US has 13,216,000 people in Goods-Producing Industries, and 114,901,000 people in Service-Providing Industries. What I am curious about is historical trending. When did the US start to change from a Goods-Producing industry to a Service-Providing industry.

It is pretty interesting. Transportation/utilities, gov't, and miscellaneous stuff have retained roughly the same percentage of labor pool makeup since the 50s. Ag and manufacturing have declined, and Services has gained. That's basically the shift to greater automation/technology, and also demographics (young people don't want to farm, don't want to work a "trade").

The really fascinating thing about recent history is how China has actually begun outsourcing--to Vietnam and Cambodia, but also parts of India. Reason being, China's labor is now better paid than those areas. As they gain per cap income, that trend will accelerate. Another interesting tidbit is how 'reverse outsourcing' has been occurring, as companies in the US realize that the loss in productivity of having to go through 3rd world nations and the high turnaround in transporation completely offsets the more expensive, but generally more productive US worker for certain higher skill or time-sensitive industries.

That doesn't mean it is stupid to invest in infrastructure.

No, but it also does not mean Elizabeth Warren is suddenly a champion of Good Ol' American Capitalism.

By all means, redirect funding from entitlement programs to infrastructure. I'd happily see the Government Handout Line get smaller by those individuals having to build a road.

Kilkrazy wrote:That doesn't mean it is stupid to invest in infrastructure.

Correct.

Ouze wrote:It's a whole panoply of strawmen and ludicrousness. It first asserts that because "Communist China" spends 9%, that Mrs. Warren also proposed we match that number (she didn't!) and explains how totally expensive it would be to do so and we'd need tax hikes to cover it

That part there really sums up the stupid noise put out by a decent portion of the fringe of the right wing. It doesn't matter what Warren actually said, all that matters to them is pretending she said something that would actually have been pretty bad, and then complaining about what they were pretending she had said.

It reminds me of this guy I gamed with back in highschool. He had mistakes all through his army lists, and got his army specific rules wrong all the time, and people were understanding, as he was a nice guy and wasn't that hard to beat anyway... except eventually people noticed that everything he got wrong always ended up in his favour. He never misread a rule in his army and thought it was less powerful than it really was, he never made a mistake in his army list that saw him bring too few points into a game.

Same thing with the idiot noise machine of the fringe of the right wing. They never make their fourth grade reading errors to make some left wing person sound more reasonable, and when it keeps happening time after time it becomes obvious that they really are doing it on purpose.

And yet despite there being a clear pattern of what is basically just lying, people like Phanatik will turn up for more, and they'll keep believing it.


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Vulcan wrote:Well, what do you know? I've been using the term 'third world nation' entirely incorrectly.

Well, sort of. That was the original meaning of the term, but the Cold War ended and the concept of aligned and unaligned countries died with it.

But there remains a clear division between the have's and the have-not's, and while 'Third World' isn't probably the best way to describe it, it's what almost everyone means when they use the term.


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Frazzled wrote:Brazil's economy is stronger than every country in Europe outside of Germany. Methinks you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/br.html
Brazil GDP $2.324 trillion (2011 est.)
France $2.246 trillion (2011 est.)
UK $2.29 trillion (2011 est.)

A straight look at GDP figures, with no consideration of population is not how economics works. It matters not one fething bit to the average person whether his whole country generates more in a year than some other country. What matters to him is how much he personally gets to take home.

Also, you misunderstood Vulcan completely.


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purplefood wrote:Has the rail system worked properly for any country?

Yes. You can't have a modern economy and not have a rail network. It is simply not plausible to move the amount of goods shipped around by truck. For this reason rail is beaten only by shipping in the amount of freight transported each year. Its why the development and installation of rail networks is one of the primary drivers in industrialisation in every country that's ever managed a decent industrial base.


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sourclams wrote:By what metric?

China recently (as in the last five years) overtook the USA as the largest producer of manufactured goods. Exactly how relevant this is is up for debate.


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labmouse42 wrote:So you disagree with my assmenet that China is not producing more than the US. Why are production jobs being exported to China?

Because wages are lower in China. If you want to compete with China in the production of low end manufacturing goods, then you need to pay Chinese style wages.

That's what people largely miss in conversations about this kind of thing. What actually matters at the end of the day, really the only thing that really matters, is income/capita. If yours is high, then your economy is a better economy than one where income/capita is low.

Which is why despite all this noise about China's economy being successful, people continue to migrate out of China, not into it.


And for what its worth, as wages in China have grown in the last two decades they've began to lose the very low value added manufacturing, like textiles, to Vietnam and other Asian countries with even lower wages.

sourclams wrote:No, but it also does not mean Elizabeth Warren is suddenly a champion of Good Ol' American Capitalism.

What does that have to do with deciding to invest in Infrastructure or not? Does it only matter "who" wants to do the investing?

All investment requires Capital. The old 'need money to make money'.

How Warren intends to find that capital (likely by hiking taxes on some new sector) is the contentious bit. Especially given the deficit near-crisis that, at this point, is less than 6 months away. Reducing spending somewhere, to increase spending on infrastructure, is probably a good idea. Levying further taxes to "invest" in infrastructure (frankly we already have infrastructure; this is more about maintenance, keeping what we currently have, than creating all-new interstates thus the ROI will be small).

It's also ironic after her whole 'You didn't build that' dealio, which pretty much showed that she has no conceptualization of "the economy" beyond Government mandates and redistribution.

sourclams wrote:showed that she has no conceptualization of "the economy" beyond Government mandates and redistribution.

Careful, sourclams, your getting into strawman territory.

Warren taught law at several universities throughout the country, while researching bankruptcy and middle-class personal finance.
Warren has written several best-selling books on personal finance.
Warren has published studies on bankruptcies and medical bills.
Warren was the chair the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.
Warren long advocated for the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency designed to "make basic financial practices such as taking out a mortgage or loan more clear and transparent while ferreting out unfair lending practices,"

The woman is not without flaws, but she is a very sharp lady. Painting a broad brush saying 'that she has no conceptualization of "the economy"' does not help your case.
Where is your evidence that the capital would be found by hiking taxes?

labmouse42 wrote:

sourclams wrote:showed that she has no conceptualization of "the economy" beyond Government mandates and redistribution.

Careful, sourclams, your getting into strawman territory.

Warren taught law at several universities throughout the country, while researching bankruptcy and middle-class personal finance.
Warren has written several best-selling books on personal finance.
Warren has published studies on bankruptcies and medical bills.
Warren was the chair the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.
Warren long advocated for the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency designed to "make basic financial practices such as taking out a mortgage or loan more clear and transparent while ferreting out unfair lending practices,"

The woman is not without flaws, but she is a very sharp lady. Painting a broad brush saying 'that she has no conceptualization of "the economy"' does not help your case.
Where is your evidence that the capital would be found by hiking taxes?

Then she has no excuse. She's just an idiot.

Yeah, everyone know the govrnment has no business trying to build infrastructure. I mean, that's unprecedented in human history!

What an idiot this Warren lady is.

Also, is it possible that we could reshuffle financing priorities or create an infrastructure bonding bill instead of raising taxes?

Easy E wrote:Yeah, everyone know the govrnment has no business trying to build infrastructure. I mean, that's unprecedented in human history!

What an idiot this Warren lady is.

Also, is it possible that we could reshuffle financing priorities or create an infrastructure bonding bill instead of raising taxes?

You missed that whole $1.5TRILLION DEFICIT EVERY YER FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS thing I take it?

I take Republican deficit complaints seriously as soon as they are willing to cut defense spending and are willing to address the fact that people will have to pay more taxes. Pretty much the only reason I have respect for Oklahoma Senator Coburn.

If you really care about the deficit then you cannot have sacred cows.

d-usa wrote:I take Republican deficit complaints seriously as soon as they are willing to cut defense spending and are willing to address the fact that people will have to pay more taxes. Pretty much the only reason I have respect for Oklahoma Senator Coburn.

If you really care about the deficit then you cannot have sacred cows.

Cut the budget across until it matches revenues. Use 2010 as the baseline for revenues ( expenses can't surpass). CUT EVERYTHING.
How's that?