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Even those who are learned on the subject are probably still doing a lot of guesswork on the subject. Simply because of the already mentioned reasons that China keeps a tight grip on all their information. On top of economics already being a very... loose field of study.

Everybody plays the game of economics. And that game is Russian Roulette, except you're blindfolded and not sure if the gun is pointed at you or the guy sitting next to you when you pull the trigger.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
By another measure, are they 250,000,000 times more useful to society?

Nope. They're not involved in the business at all. They just rake in money from their dividends. Pure parasites on society and on their grandfather's business.

 Vulcan wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
By another measure, are they 250,000,000 times more useful to society?

Nope. They're not involved in the business at all. They just rake in money from their dividends. Pure parasites on society and on their grandfather's business.

Even in situations where a C-Suite exec is involved in the business, their involvement is on such a high ivory tower level that even still, they do not earn 250x the median wage earners of their company.

Speaking of certain terms, and interesting shift that I just today noticed: Back a few years ago, IIRC back when I was living in Germany and similar discussions would be had, we'd discuss CEO/executive pay in terms of X amount higher than the lowest wage earner in the company. . . I've seen a few mentions this last week or so in various media outlets of CEO pay and now they are discussing it in terms of X amount higher than the MEDIAN wage earner of a given company.

IMHO, that is a situation that should never have been allowed to happen, but due to the big P-word, has, and frankly, I think its an untenable situation.

Random thought:

Back when the USSR and "Communism" was a real threat (think 1918 until the late 1980's) the CEOs (and management class for lack of a better word) had some reason to not push too hard on their Shareholder/investor class only agenda.

Once that threat was removed, then the Management class (for lack of a better word) had no reason not to push their agenda as hard as possible. The competing system collapsed and "workers" had no alternative but to live in a new hyper-capitalist reality.

Unless some new dynamic arises, we can expect more hyper-capitalism because..... what is the alternative? I think we maybe starting to see some of that pushback now, but it is unclear which direction it will take and is diffuse enough to not be an effective counter yet.

On Topic:
I have a feeling that China will be hit hard in the next recession and their growth to Super-Power status and challenge to the US will be blunted by social unrest, minority turmoil, and some nationalism within ethnic communities.

I recall in the 80's when everyone thought Japan was going to become the new super-power. I also recall pre-WWI when a lot folks thought Russia's dominance was inevitable. Neither ended up being the Super-power they were projected to become for various reasons. I think China is in the same boat... a paper tiger if you will.

I suspect it has less to do with Communism and more shifts in the nature of the workforce, economy, and the collapse of faith in unions in the 80s and 90s. That last one might be sort of tangentially related to communism, but I'm not sure it's solid to tie western unions with communist states. That's just really shaky.

 LordofHats wrote:
I suspect it has less to do with Communism and more shifts in the nature of the workforce, economy, and the collapse of faith in unions in the 80s and 90s. That last one might be sort of tangentially related to communism, but I'm not sure it's solid to tie western unions with communist states. That's just really shaky.

Oh yeah, I am sure it is way more complicated! However, when you read speeches and talks from business leaders in the late 40's through Kennedy, there is a clear fear that Communism "could happen here" and therefore policies put in place at the corporate level to help avoid that outcome.

I think you are right that the decline of Trade Unions maybe a bigger issue. However, I know since the late 80's the corporate attacks on Unions has been pretty intense. At the last three new corporate jobs I took, we all had to watch a anti-union video day one. The ante-harassment and corporate ethics e-learnings could wait until.... a later date. LOL.

This is interesting, but a huge tangent from the actual thread.... so I think I should probably drop it now.



However, as we talk abut potential winners and losers from a potential next Recession, how does it impact the growth or decline of Unions in the US? Are Unions a potential winner or loser from another Recession? How did the Great Recession impact their membership? My sense is their membership declined further, but I do not have the data.

 Easy E wrote:
Unless some new dynamic arises, we can expect more hyper-capitalism because..... what is the alternative?

Ask the Romanovs. I'd like to think we're past that sort of behavior but.... well, if things get bad enough the civilized veneer remains pretty thin.

 Easy E wrote:

However, as we talk abut potential winners and losers from a potential next Recession, how does it impact the growth or decline of Unions in the US? Are Unions a potential winner or loser from another Recession? How did the Great Recession impact their membership? My sense is their membership declined further, but I do not have the data.

IMO, I think it will depend on a number of factors, and I think we may see a few things. . . First factor is regionality: a number of areas in the US have stronger "pro" union laws on the books, while others have opted for union killing "Right to work" laws, so that will have an affect on things.

As for a theoretical recession and post recession recovery period, I think what we'll see is that the unionized areas recover first and quicker, leaving the right-to-work areas further behind than they generally already are today. . . Maybe we'll see workers in those areas wake up, and demand change, maybe we won't. I'd think that should the workers in right-to-work areas demand change, unionize and all that, we may see a realization of how good unions can be, and thus their numbers will increase.

Honestly, I think blaming "right to work" laws is passing the buck.It's worth pointing out Unions were already dying when the first right to work laws hit the books. If anything, right to work laws probably saved some people some time, since by the time we started seeing such legislation prop up most unions were already anemic organizations.

Unions became bloated, arrogant political machines, and while I won't say <politics ban> didn't play a roll in their downfall, I feel like the foremost group responsible for the collapse of western unionism is western unionism. If unions were worth it people would stick with them in spite of right to work laws because it benefited them, but unions got too tied up in politics throughout the 70s and 80s, didn't look forward when facing economic realities, and signed their own death warrants a long time ago.

 LordofHats wrote:
Honestly, I think blaming "right to work" laws is passing the buck.It's worth pointing out Unions were already dying when the first right to work laws hit the books. If anything, right to work laws probably saved some people some time, since by the time we started seeing such legislation prop up most unions were already anemic organizations.

Unions became bloated, arrogant political machines, and while I won't say <politics ban> didn't play a roll in their downfall, I feel like the foremost group responsible for the collapse of western unionism is western unionism. If unions were worth it people would stick with them in spite of right to work laws because it benefited them, but unions got too tied up in politics throughout the 70s and 80s, didn't look forward when facing economic realities, and signed their own death warrants a long time ago.

I wasn't trying to blame unions. . . merely point out that "right to work" laws do have a sort of habitual way of preventing unions from re-establishing in an area.

From my business school trip to Germany in March, I think that while not perfect, the way they (by and large) handle unions and wage efforts is much better. I will grant obviously that my exposure to unions there was VERY limited by the duration of my stay and the companies we visited, but taken on the whole it is a system that does seem to work much more effectively.

 LordofHats wrote:
Honestly, I think blaming "right to work" laws is passing the buck.It's worth pointing out Unions were already dying when the first right to work laws hit the books. If anything, right to work laws probably saved some people some time, since by the time we started seeing such legislation prop up most unions were already anemic organizations.

Unions became bloated, arrogant political machines, and while I won't say <politics ban> didn't play a roll in their downfall, I feel like the foremost group responsible for the collapse of western unionism is western unionism. If unions were worth it people would stick with them in spite of right to work laws because it benefited them, but unions got too tied up in politics throughout the 70s and 80s, didn't look forward when facing economic realities, and signed their own death warrants a long time ago.

Aye. Unions were a self-defeating thing.

Thats not necessarily a bad thing though. They were successful in improving worker conditions and rights. Its only natural that they should go away when the problems they were meant to address are gone. Unions sticking around and going way beyond what they needed to do and becoming tyrannical organizations was a bad thing. A union becoming a permanent organization means that it will begin to become the very thing it was supposed to fight against.

Well, to be fair arguably worker rights have slid since the fall of the heyday of Unions. Relying on greedy corporate fatcats to benevolently protect their employees interests has hardly been reliable.

Unfortunately, economic conditions render Unions pretty crappy at this stage and expecting them to come back and fix the problem is probably wishful thinking. Honestly the best and most straightforward option is an overhaul/update of labor regulations. I like the idea of encouraging the formation of industry forums where workers and employers can sit down together and hammer things out to set industry standards, but I highly doubt such a system could work with the disparity in spending power that exists.

 LordofHats wrote:

Unfortunately, economic conditions render Unions pretty crappy at this stage and expecting them to come back and fix the problem is probably wishful thinking. Honestly the best and most straightforward option is an overhaul/update of labor regulations. I like the idea of encouraging the formation of industry forums where workers and employers can sit down together and hammer things out to set industry standards, but I highly doubt such a system could work with the disparity in spending power that exists.

It would require a near German styling of the union system (as explained to me in Germany by some of the business folks we visited there): wherein even if you do not join the union for your profession, you still gain all the "benefits" of membership. . . On the business side of things, between the union and industry, wages are set at the state level, with a sort of step/slide scale for cost of living adjustments in areas where the cost of living is higher (ie, differences between living in Darmstadt vs. Wiesbaden or Frankfurt. . . all of which are in Hesse)

But as you say. . . I simply cannot see a situation wherein VW, who has plants in Tennessee would cooperate with Nissan who has plants in Tennessee, on things like wages for workers. . . On the flip side of the utterly foreign idea of "cooperation" in US business practice (despite mountains of academic evidence being published by business schools, including HBC, that shows that cooperation makes you MORE competitive), a system wherein wages were set regionally would make the finances and accounting decisions just that much easier (coincidentally, a reason why many businesses also prefer universal healthcare programs, as it stabilizes the costs of health insurance that they pay and makes accounting easier)

Ina different note, will anyone else feel a certain relief when the next recession does hit? I can't be alone in my belief that we have reached a point where the longer it gets postponed the longer the root problems have to fester.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Ina different note, will anyone else feel a certain relief when the next recession does hit? I can't be alone in my belief that we have reached a point where the longer it gets postponed the longer the root problems have to fester.

Depends. . . I recently graduated college and am still trying to get work. . . if I don't have work before recession hits, I definitely will not feel relief. . . Also, given the way I view politics and "current events" I don't know that I'll feel relief until I see what is done to solve the root problems.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Ina different note, will anyone else feel a certain relief when the next recession does hit? I can't be alone in my belief that we have reached a point where the longer it gets postponed the longer the root problems have to fester.

I can't help but feel the markets for Real Estate are way too hot again. This would help cool it down, but whether that is a good or bad thing is still debatable.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Ina different note, will anyone else feel a certain relief when the next recession does hit? I can't be alone in my belief that we have reached a point where the longer it gets postponed the longer the root problems have to fester.

Unless you’re a bond manager, I don’t understand why anyone would be rooting for recession.

I didn't mean that, what I mean is that it will hit, and it feels like the longer we wait the worse it will be.

I think you're looking at recession like it's the same thing as a market correction.

 gorgon wrote:
I think you're looking at recession like it's the same thing as a market correction.

The latter can easily cause the former...

I think the only real difference between a market correction and a recession is severity. Both are caused by the same fundamental forces.

 LordofHats wrote:
I think the only real difference between a market correction and a recession is severity. Both are caused by the same fundamental forces.

Yeah, those scumbags Weak Nuclear and Gravity *shakes fist angrily at the air*

 LordofHats wrote:
I think the only real difference between a market correction and a recession is severity. Both are caused by the same fundamental forces.

Well, you're wrong about that. There are all kinds of differences between a decline in a financial market and a period of negative GDP growth. If you don't understand the difference between a stock market and GDP...I recommend doing more reading on those subjects.

I am sure in a technical sense it is wrong, but to those impacted it might not feel any different.

If you get laid-off due to a market correction or a recession do you really care?

It's not about technicalities...financial markets and the economy as represented by GDP are completely different things.

And getting back to the specific point, market corrections are about rapid price changes in overpriced securities. They often don't last long, and can be seen as a healthy part of the process. Markets often return right back to growth. Kind of like pruning a tree, if you can pardon a very crude/dumb analogy. And they're mainly going to affect people participating in the given market. I would be surprised if there have been any market corrections taking place in an otherwise decent economy that sparked mass layoffs.

A shrinking *economy* is just that, and it theoretically affects everyone in more meaningful ways. A 'bubble' might be a trigger, but it doesn't have to be. Again, I'm hardly an economist here -- my knowledge extends to financial licenses and experience in financial services. But I would be surprised if there were many economists who would say that recessions are somehow corrective/necessary/helpful to anyone, or that having one sooner is better than later, which seemed to be where NinthMusketeer was going.

 gorgon wrote:
Again, I'm hardly an economist here -- my knowledge extends to financial licenses and experience in financial services. But I would be surprised if there were many economists who would say that recessions are somehow corrective/necessary/helpful to anyone, or that having one sooner is better than later, which seemed to be where NinthMusketeer was going.

Fair enough. I see your point.

That being said, we all know that this economy has boom-and-busts cycles. In fact, this is not new at all and has been going on in America (and probably elsewhere) for a long time.

Since we know there is some sort of "correction" every 10 years or so are these corrections any better at 8 years or 12 years? Ultimately, does it make any difference to the average main street worker?

 gorgon wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Ina different note, will anyone else feel a certain relief when the next recession does hit? I can't be alone in my belief that we have reached a point where the longer it gets postponed the longer the root problems have to fester.

Unless you’re a bond manager, I don’t understand why anyone would be rooting for recession.

Beyond the financial incentives of investing heavily, there are political reasons, the discussion of which is beyond the scope of this forum - but there are definitely strategic reasons to root for recession.

 Ouze wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Ina different note, will anyone else feel a certain relief when the next recession does hit? I can't be alone in my belief that we have reached a point where the longer it gets postponed the longer the root problems have to fester.

Unless you’re a bond manager, I don’t understand why anyone would be rooting for recession.

Beyond the financial incentives of investing heavily, there are political reasons, the discussion of which is beyond the scope of this forum - but there are definitely strategic reasons to root for recession.

It isn't that, nor am I rooting for it (is it even possible to root for the inevitable?). I feel like the next recession will be a pile of crap dumped on people, and the longer we wait the bigger the pile becomes. And the anticipation of imminent crap-piling will at least be relieved when the crap is finally dumped. For me at least, a looming future problem is more unnerving than when it actually happens.

 gorgon wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I think the only real difference between a market correction and a recession is severity. Both are caused by the same fundamental forces.

Well, you're wrong about that. There are all kinds of differences between a decline in a financial market and a period of negative GDP growth. If you don't understand the difference between a stock market and GDP...I recommend doing more reading on those subjects.

Honestly, I think that's just semantics. What measure we choose to observe to declare it, "market corrections" and "recessions" both stem from the reality that the market's value is mostly based on confidence and anxiety. A correction is a simple version where anxiety outweighs confidence and some people start drawing back/reorganizing to see what happens. Confidence holds and all goes back to normal. Recessions is when a whole lot of people anxiously try to withdraw/rearrange their assets to protect themselves and confidence collapses. I don't think there's that much difference after setting aside the technical discussions and cutting away the rhetoric to look at the raw mechanics.

Then again, I'm not an economist

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Ina different note, will anyone else feel a certain relief when the next recession does hit? I can't be alone in my belief that we have reached a point where the longer it gets postponed the longer the root problems have to fester.

Unless you’re a bond manager, I don’t understand why anyone would be rooting for recession.

Beyond the financial incentives of investing heavily, there are political reasons, the discussion of which is beyond the scope of this forum - but there are definitely strategic reasons to root for recession.

It isn't that, nor am I rooting for it (is it even possible to root for the inevitable?). I feel like the next recession will be a pile of crap dumped on people, and the longer we wait the bigger the pile becomes. And the anticipation of imminent crap-piling will at least be relieved when the crap is finally dumped. For me at least, a looming future problem is more unnerving than when it actually happens.

I may be way wrong on this, but I agree with the people who are essentially saying "get on with it". . . . I mean, lets use a gak example off the top of my head for a moment. Lets say that there's a huge imbalance in the stock market on Hot Wheels cars and after several months of the "hot wheels bubble" waiting to burst things are ripe to be bad. . . Now, if the "hot wheels recession" hits much later than expected, it may drag, say beer or Warhammer Plastic Crack down the stock markets with it. I mean, we've seen it before, where a recession is caused by one thing, but due to timing and reactions it follows on and drags other, seemingly unrelated industries down with it (in my uber gak example: Beer is often canned, with metal. Hot Wheels still have metal body bits, and its much the same with the Warhammer Plastic Crack of this example) with the potential to develop into a full blown depression.