Several months ago I heard a Ph.D. in astronomy from JPL who is the world's top tracker of near-earth asteroids (sorry I can't remember his name right now), respond in a public lecture to a question about the Mayan "end of the world" calendar with the statement that the Mayan calendar is cyclical, like a year is cyclical; a year has 365 days, then it starts over. He said 2012 was just a starting-over point, and seemed disgusted anyone would take this seriously. I realize this has not a damn thing to do with economics, but there have been so many references in this thread that I thought maybe it's not entirely off-topic. (But if you want to take it down, I would understand).
I quickly added the best graph I could locate, without downloading the raw data and making one. It does appear actual capacity also dropped earlier in the decade...
the question is I think we could correlate that drop to manufacturing moving to China and services as well moving to India, but this time, is that so, or is it pure downturn?
When Alan Greenspan left as head of the Fed, he makes a boatload of money by betting on the collapse of the financial system.
Now who had a major input into the collapse of the financial system?
While I appreciate Michael Lewis' reportage, I strongly differ from his conclusions, the usual unintended consequences, or it just happened, or that "incentivizing" (a k a, bribery) thing....
Keep your eye on capacity as opposed to utilization. It continues to drop this month as it has for every month since the beginning of 2009. This is an unprecedented situation. Never in the two hundred years before the last recession did the US lose capacity to produce.
with empty attack, rhetoric and either devoid of facts or spewing random citations with no relevance to the issue or topic at hand.
Sorry, no comment trolls allowed on EP. We do not have enough comment police as say dailykos does to get rid of 'em. Most are too busy trying to research out topics too because to be accurate, which we pride ourselves on, takes a lot of work, way too much of our time goes into useful activity vs. dealing with some jackass who for whatever reason or religion wishes to try to spam a website.
Speaking of which, to all EPers with accounts reading this comment, please do step up the comment police and discussion. All anonymous comments go into a moderation queue and that's because spamming is so intense (this is referrer spam, even malware attempts), as your friendly neighborhood admin, I take care of that end, but often I let through anonymous comments which are legit....but sometimes, as is the case with a few vested interests trying at all costs to protect their "emerging economy" financial investments as well as offshore outsourcing agenda in China...will heavily try to spam a site with real people. Case in point is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce literally has hired people to do this and as moderator, I have to clear out every single one of those. Obviously bought and paid for comment spammers are not legit, but then there are others, who say have their investment fund based on a permanent China currency peg and a never ending return advantage....who also get on the blogs and try to skew, do misinformation posts to try to stop a particular policy from happening.
Lobbyists and big money vested interests have deep pockets and they are like roaches, not just infesting the halls of Congress.
Of course, low integrity tactics do have the historical option that tyrants not only prefer, but that they can not exist without. Censorship follows your previous comments as the logical conclusion to your downward trajectory. It was you though that resorted to insults and innuendo.
Populists do not help their cause with oppressive examples of just how dangerous ignorance can be when confronted with unassailable truths.
I saw this first hand. What I like about Michael Lewis is that he calls it delusional. Some of us selling real estate knew that funding these loans was insane, but we just shook our heads. The feeling was who were we to stop someone else from earning a commission. At the top both in brokerage management and organized real estate they not only looked the other way, but were against regulation of any kind. Ethics were not present. It was group think and it was massive. And maybe I should not use the past tense.
It is telling I think that those with weak arguments are the ones who resort to rude and insulting tactics. It is also clear now why this site is not getting much play.
Your argument is very similar to those regarding trade between the USA and Japan back in the 1970s. How did that help our manufacturing sector? How did that work out for Japan and Globalization? Why does the narrow view always have time for insults, but no time to consider applicable references such as the Plaza Accords or the Triffin Dilemma?
Firstly those U.S. companies can simply move production back to the U.S.....that is the entire point here, it's larger MNCs who are manufacturing in China, wiping out any domestic manufacturing new business I might add. "Lower costs" from Walmart do not compare to the job losses and income from the U.S. middle class, or the overall loss of GDP due to the non-oil trade deficit.
This is not human progress to enact global labor arbitrage and the statistics are overwhelming it is not.
I'll agree blaming china instead of derivatives themselves and I think you can throw in the credit ratings agencies in a big way is missing the point...
but on trade, you're just flat out wrong and that's the entire point, the U.S. is losing on trade in a big way and that's America, Americans in addition to the national interest, the trade deficit, GDP. A bunch of MNCs is assuredly not America or the national interest. Is the economy for a few MNCs running amok on the globe hunting for the ultimate cheap labor and means of production or is it for the overall economy? I think the later.
What kills me is the ignorance that somehow if one manufactures in the United States, the end of the world will happen. The China PNTR has only been in existence for 10 years and I think the results are in on what that has done.
also and we allow signatures to show where your site is.
We love Dennis Kucinich as well as Marcy Kaptur. We also like Lou Dobbs. I think Jesse Ventura is a nut job personally but this site is all econ 24/7 and we require all posts be cited with credible sources, fact based. You might not be aware of this but Dobbs has been strongly Pro union, he's also Pro Choice and universal health care. Surprise, surprise.
My apologies to James for the New York Times is now referencing the Mayan calender and the year 2012 to be the end of the world.
When the Mayans envisioned the world coming to an end in 2012 — at least in the Hollywood telling — they didn’t count junk bonds among the perils that would lead to worldwide disaster.
Maybe they should have, because 2012 also is the beginning of a three-year period in which more than $700 billion in risky, high-yield corporate debt begins to come due, an extraordinary surge that some analysts fear could overload the debt markets.
Thank you for bringing all the different strands of thought on these most important issues together.
I am going to quote you on my site.
My candidate is Dennis Kucinich - someone they are terrified of because he can't be bought.
Thanks again for your reporting.
S
To be truly aware today, it is paramount that the citizenry focus on real populists, such as Jesse Ventura, who asks the hard questions, rather than those faux populists (and staunch anti-union, wackadoodle teabaggers) such as Lou Dobbs, who seek to confuse and mislead us.
___________
Relocating one's factories, production facilities and sundry other service industries to China (or any other country) for purposes of cheaper labor, lack of benefits, lack of taxation, and lack of anti-pollution laws (subject to change), isn't "competing."
More than 50% of China's exports to the USA are those from MNCs mostly owned by Americans. Appreciating the Renminbi will therefore cause a loss of market share for US investors and firms, and, this will transfer to higher costs for US consumers. This would have US consumers making a contribution to pay for a downturn caused by Wall Street. Clever.
A devalued dollar on the other hand has every nation that holds dollar related assets helping to ease the cost of Wall Street's blunder. As if the Plaza Accords taught us nothing.
If exports from China that only benefit the Chinese are evaluated separately from MNC platform exports, the ASEAN-China trade deal more than offsets any potential losses caused by elevated trade barriers to weak US markets. It is folly to think that China needs the USA more than the reverse scenario. The USA is the nation trading paper for goods.
Trying to blame China for holding back human progress, after the AAA fraud fiasco, is hypocrisy on steroids.
Mr. Krugman is treading on thin ice. It is very easy to rebuke the Chinese on their manipulation. Let us try to think this through. The idea of tariffs will plunge us into a trade war and subsequent poverty. What are we going to do about it? Here are some ideas from Ravi Batra's book "The New Golden Age: A Revolution Against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos" Dr. Batra proposes a dual currency exchange system. That since the yuan is pegged 8 to 1 dollar "Suppose the United States pegs the greenback at five yuan and makes this rate available only to foreign importers of manufacturing goods. This will cut our prices by almost 40 percent, and sharply increase Chinese imports from the United States, whose goods will become much cheaper in terms of the yuan." He promotes that trade deficits with other nations could be handled the same way. Not sure but I currently feel that we may have already passed the point of no return unfortunately.
Did you know China has universal health care? I thought I mentioned that because there is another thing that U.S. businesses trying to compete with China are up against.
Why are these guys still taken seriously? After the last round of fraud by rating agencies, how do they even have the money to stay in business -- let alone the credibility? Do their shareholders even believe their annual reports?
Frank T.
Several months ago I heard a Ph.D. in astronomy from JPL who is the world's top tracker of near-earth asteroids (sorry I can't remember his name right now), respond in a public lecture to a question about the Mayan "end of the world" calendar with the statement that the Mayan calendar is cyclical, like a year is cyclical; a year has 365 days, then it starts over. He said 2012 was just a starting-over point, and seemed disgusted anyone would take this seriously. I realize this has not a damn thing to do with economics, but there have been so many references in this thread that I thought maybe it's not entirely off-topic. (But if you want to take it down, I would understand).
I quickly added the best graph I could locate, without downloading the raw data and making one. It does appear actual capacity also dropped earlier in the decade...
the question is I think we could correlate that drop to manufacturing moving to China and services as well moving to India, but this time, is that so, or is it pure downturn?
When Alan Greenspan left as head of the Fed, he makes a boatload of money by betting on the collapse of the financial system.
Now who had a major input into the collapse of the financial system?
While I appreciate Michael Lewis' reportage, I strongly differ from his conclusions, the usual unintended consequences, or it just happened, or that "incentivizing" (a k a, bribery) thing....
Keep your eye on capacity as opposed to utilization. It continues to drop this month as it has for every month since the beginning of 2009. This is an unprecedented situation. Never in the two hundred years before the last recession did the US lose capacity to produce.
This is the great missed story of this downturn.
with empty attack, rhetoric and either devoid of facts or spewing random citations with no relevance to the issue or topic at hand.
Sorry, no comment trolls allowed on EP. We do not have enough comment police as say dailykos does to get rid of 'em. Most are too busy trying to research out topics too because to be accurate, which we pride ourselves on, takes a lot of work, way too much of our time goes into useful activity vs. dealing with some jackass who for whatever reason or religion wishes to try to spam a website.
Speaking of which, to all EPers with accounts reading this comment, please do step up the comment police and discussion. All anonymous comments go into a moderation queue and that's because spamming is so intense (this is referrer spam, even malware attempts), as your friendly neighborhood admin, I take care of that end, but often I let through anonymous comments which are legit....but sometimes, as is the case with a few vested interests trying at all costs to protect their "emerging economy" financial investments as well as offshore outsourcing agenda in China...will heavily try to spam a site with real people. Case in point is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce literally has hired people to do this and as moderator, I have to clear out every single one of those. Obviously bought and paid for comment spammers are not legit, but then there are others, who say have their investment fund based on a permanent China currency peg and a never ending return advantage....who also get on the blogs and try to skew, do misinformation posts to try to stop a particular policy from happening.
Lobbyists and big money vested interests have deep pockets and they are like roaches, not just infesting the halls of Congress.
Of course, low integrity tactics do have the historical option that tyrants not only prefer, but that they can not exist without. Censorship follows your previous comments as the logical conclusion to your downward trajectory. It was you though that resorted to insults and innuendo.
Populists do not help their cause with oppressive examples of just how dangerous ignorance can be when confronted with unassailable truths.
I saw this first hand. What I like about Michael Lewis is that he calls it delusional. Some of us selling real estate knew that funding these loans was insane, but we just shook our heads. The feeling was who were we to stop someone else from earning a commission. At the top both in brokerage management and organized real estate they not only looked the other way, but were against regulation of any kind. Ethics were not present. It was group think and it was massive. And maybe I should not use the past tense.
Firstly this site is in the top economics blog rankings and it is the ONLY community site for the every man/woman on economics.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Secondly, I think it worked out for Japan very well and for the U.S., not so much if one bothered to pay attention to the long manufacturing decline.
If you want to blame Japan's woes on their manufacturing policy, think again.....or maybe the blinders to the Banksters do not allow that.
Trying to claim a Japan asset bubble, well, ya know you might consider looking at Japan's own policies...
Speaking of data, The Plaza accords was a planned devaluation of the dollar, so what that has to do with this is more spurious data spewn around
and trying to imply somehow the whole entire problem is the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency..
are you a People's Republic of China agenda troll?
Good god, blowing away the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency is their agenda and will wreck havoc with the U.S. economy.
Anywho, I think you're a representative of the People's Republic of China from your comments, which don't make a lot of sense.
which is very well summed up, although he focuses on incentives (which is a major huge part of this),
Here it is: click here to watch.
Mr. Oak,
It is telling I think that those with weak arguments are the ones who resort to rude and insulting tactics. It is also clear now why this site is not getting much play.
Your argument is very similar to those regarding trade between the USA and Japan back in the 1970s. How did that help our manufacturing sector? How did that work out for Japan and Globalization? Why does the narrow view always have time for insults, but no time to consider applicable references such as the Plaza Accords or the Triffin Dilemma?
Anyway, argue with yourself.
Firstly those U.S. companies can simply move production back to the U.S.....that is the entire point here, it's larger MNCs who are manufacturing in China, wiping out any domestic manufacturing new business I might add. "Lower costs" from Walmart do not compare to the job losses and income from the U.S. middle class, or the overall loss of GDP due to the non-oil trade deficit.
This is not human progress to enact global labor arbitrage and the statistics are overwhelming it is not.
I'll agree blaming china instead of derivatives themselves and I think you can throw in the credit ratings agencies in a big way is missing the point...
but on trade, you're just flat out wrong and that's the entire point, the U.S. is losing on trade in a big way and that's America, Americans in addition to the national interest, the trade deficit, GDP. A bunch of MNCs is assuredly not America or the national interest. Is the economy for a few MNCs running amok on the globe hunting for the ultimate cheap labor and means of production or is it for the overall economy? I think the later.
What kills me is the ignorance that somehow if one manufactures in the United States, the end of the world will happen. The China PNTR has only been in existence for 10 years and I think the results are in on what that has done.
also and we allow signatures to show where your site is.
We love Dennis Kucinich as well as Marcy Kaptur. We also like Lou Dobbs. I think Jesse Ventura is a nut job personally but this site is all econ 24/7 and we require all posts be cited with credible sources, fact based. You might not be aware of this but Dobbs has been strongly Pro union, he's also Pro Choice and universal health care. Surprise, surprise.
My apologies to James for the New York Times is now referencing the Mayan calender and the year 2012 to be the end of the world.
Ok!
Thank you for bringing all the different strands of thought on these most important issues together.
I am going to quote you on my site.
My candidate is Dennis Kucinich - someone they are terrified of because he can't be bought.
Thanks again for your reporting.
S
To be truly aware today, it is paramount that the citizenry focus on real populists, such as Jesse Ventura, who asks the hard questions, rather than those faux populists (and staunch anti-union, wackadoodle teabaggers) such as Lou Dobbs, who seek to confuse and mislead us.
___________
Relocating one's factories, production facilities and sundry other service industries to China (or any other country) for purposes of cheaper labor, lack of benefits, lack of taxation, and lack of anti-pollution laws (subject to change), isn't "competing."
Where did you learn your primary language at?
More than 50% of China's exports to the USA are those from MNCs mostly owned by Americans. Appreciating the Renminbi will therefore cause a loss of market share for US investors and firms, and, this will transfer to higher costs for US consumers. This would have US consumers making a contribution to pay for a downturn caused by Wall Street. Clever.
A devalued dollar on the other hand has every nation that holds dollar related assets helping to ease the cost of Wall Street's blunder. As if the Plaza Accords taught us nothing.
If exports from China that only benefit the Chinese are evaluated separately from MNC platform exports, the ASEAN-China trade deal more than offsets any potential losses caused by elevated trade barriers to weak US markets. It is folly to think that China needs the USA more than the reverse scenario. The USA is the nation trading paper for goods.
Trying to blame China for holding back human progress, after the AAA fraud fiasco, is hypocrisy on steroids.
Mr. Krugman is treading on thin ice. It is very easy to rebuke the Chinese on their manipulation. Let us try to think this through. The idea of tariffs will plunge us into a trade war and subsequent poverty. What are we going to do about it? Here are some ideas from Ravi Batra's book "The New Golden Age: A Revolution Against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos" Dr. Batra proposes a dual currency exchange system. That since the yuan is pegged 8 to 1 dollar "Suppose the United States pegs the greenback at five yuan and makes this rate available only to foreign importers of manufacturing goods. This will cut our prices by almost 40 percent, and sharply increase Chinese imports from the United States, whose goods will become much cheaper in terms of the yuan." He promotes that trade deficits with other nations could be handled the same way. Not sure but I currently feel that we may have already passed the point of no return unfortunately.
Did you know China has universal health care? I thought I mentioned that because there is another thing that U.S. businesses trying to compete with China are up against.
It does seem we get "sold" various "emerging economies" where to "invest" for "huge potential growth" which more just sucks out domestic investment.
Great post and maybe I can go dig into those China flows some more later.
Why are these guys still taken seriously? After the last round of fraud by rating agencies, how do they even have the money to stay in business -- let alone the credibility? Do their shareholders even believe their annual reports?
Frank T.
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