Steep Drop for Americans' Standard of Living

There's no financial freedom when one is shackled with high taxes and fees.

Really, LICC, what a maroon!

Your quotation: "The rate of interest is not self-adjusting at a level best suited to the social advantage but constantly tends to rise too high . . . "

Then continues to say, "...but constantly tends to rise too high, SO THAT A WISE GOVERNMENT IS CONCERNED TO CURB IT BY STATUTE AND CUSTOM AND EVEN BY INVOKING THE SANCTIONS OF THE MORAL LAW."

That's first. Second is the very next paragraph: "Provisions against USURY...."

The passage doesn't say what your clever little right-wingers claim it says; it says the exact opposite. And the discussion is not about market interest rates but about USURY.

You fool. Really, drink the Kool-Aid: it's good for you.

There's no financial freedom when one has no roads, schools, or potable water.

And the gold standard doesn't work, never did: whenever there was inflation or deflation under the gold standard, and people asked for their gold, THE GOVERNMENT SUSPENDED THE GOLD STANDARD.

Because there never was enough gold to go around.

Falco: in NYC (Manhattan anyway), if a modicum of English is required, you can't get any of those aforementioned services for below minimum wage.

Why don't more "native" Americans go for those jobs? They do, but in my experience, it's easier to recruit
non-"natives" (btw, doesn't mean that they're illegal aliens) through existing social networks.

Basically without the gold standard we have the following.
Insolvent banks which are making up capital by taxing savers instead of wiping out Bank Equity and forcing it's lenders to take the hit. Government can't be trusted to play fair when faced between Assets being written down or subsidizing banks via Financial Repression ( negative real interest rates).
Government does not collect taxes on declining asset prices, only on inflated ones.

Why don't more "native" Americans go for those jobs?

do you mean anyone born in the USA or 'Native Americans' (ie The Hakowies)
if it's the later, well, when was the last time you saw two standing together?
Green card holders and US born citizens are unwilling to work at below minimum wage. Unwilling to live in illegal apartments which are cut into tiny rooms and rented to multiple families. Unwilling to live without any type of healthcare. Unwilling to live hand to mouth to care for love ones afar or to get their feet on the ground in a new country. Prehaps we should remove any restraints on wages and benifits. Just one big happy free for all. Let the chips fall where they may!
Yeah.........that's the ticket

I'm trying to get you to refine your comments about how Americans are unwilling to work for below minimum wage in service jobs. In my experience, in Manhattan, as to babysitting jobs, those jobs are NOT minimum wage. In addition, I have found (anecdata obviously) that employers don't necessarily discriminate between legal and illegal aliens when it comes to wages - the great divide is between English-speaking and non-English-speaking (as in not at all).

But, if you're asking whether those service jobs provide a wage and/or benefits that allow one to lead a middle-class life (i.e. buying an apartment, going on vacations), you're right, they don't.

I don't know what the solution is re: the labor market when we have a pool of people (illegals AND legals) who are willing to work and live "hand-to-mouth" and a pool that doesn't (okay, generally "native" Americans and no, I don't mean indigenous-Siberian-land-bridge-types).

A great deal of Americans are unwilling to work below min. wage. Why work if you doing so still won't help you meet the cost of rent and there are some jobs Americans won't do, and realistically will only be filled by immigrants or illegals.

"Basically without the gold standard we have the following:

"Insolvent banks" ... You had that with the gold standard in the early years of the Great Depression.

"wiping out Bank Equity and forcing it's lenders to take the hit" ... You had that in the Great Depression, with the gold standard, when the Fed let banks go bankrupt, making the problem worse.

"negative real interest rates" ... you had that with the gold standard, as well.

"Government does not collect taxes on declining asset prices, only on inflated ones."

Makes no difference, as the government would also be paying its expenses based on declining price levels.

The gold standard makes no difference, and in most cases only makes things worse.

Why are people talking about people working below minimum wage?
Where are your clothes made?
Who answers the phone for tech-support and other "services"?
Who writes program code?
Where does your food come from?
Should we tax the bejesus out of China like the Donald advises?
Or does that just lead to higher prices at home? The Donald likes to frame his solution like this - we win because factories start up in the US and we get all those jobs back. But the factories aren't sitting waiting for someone to press the "on" button. Chinese goods would just cost more. Theoretically this would cause the reaction of manufacturing at home again, but it's not so obvious to me how it's a win/win. At least Donald Trump is talking about the trade deficit and possible solutions rather than to simply ignore the issue as everyone has done for the past 15 years. Meanwhile, who knows the most about Friedman and Keynes and who got the highest grades in college econ classes? Do we care? Show me the jobs. Please don't tell me lowering taxes creates jobs or that lower interest rates creates jobs. It's been done and still ............ no jobs.

In case anyone missed: Outsourcing -- that's where American start going down. So many listed companies are doing nothing but US outsourced contracts. Funny thing is they are taking $billions away from US job market and come back to get more $$$ through stock exchange. Which country allow such stupid things to happen?
Want to hear more? Those companies are growing at pace of 10%, and they expect to grow faster. Now anyone can help do the math to see when US is completely out of jobs, given GDP is at 1% or 2% growth?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-12/infosys-profit-beats-estimates-on-increased-demand-for-computing-services.html

As to outsourcing, either the U.S. decides to keep trade barriers down or erect them - tax imports heavily. This isn't anything new, there's nothing unconstitutional about it. But there seems to be very little political will to do so. As a country that is mostly self-sufficient in food (not at all in energy, but those aren't also the source of cheap imported goods), the U.S. can and should analyze erecting trade barriers.

As to illegal immigration, either the U.S. gets serious about enforcing laws by targeting employers, small and big, or it figures out a way to keep the labor flow but heavily tax and regulate it. Divert the flow of cash from the people smugglers into the federal coffers. End the drug trade, legalize and heavily tax recreational pharmaceuticals.

>Green card holders and US born citizens are unwilling to work at below minimum wage. Unwilling to live in illegal apartments which are cut into tiny rooms and rented to multiple families. Unwilling to live without any type of healthcare. Unwilling to live hand to mouth to care for love ones afar or to get their feet on the ground in a new country. Prehaps we should remove any restraints on wages and benifits. Just one big happy free for all. Let the chips fall where they may!
Yeah.........that's the ticket

Low wage employment is worse than unemployment?

>Please don't tell me lowering taxes creates jobs or that lower interest rates creates jobs. It's been done and still ............ no jobs.

So higher cost of capital would stimulate the economy?

And what do you mean "no jobs"? 85+% of Americans are working, and then we import illegal immigrants.

"Low wage employment is worse than unemployment?"

Not in Alabama, circa 1820.

"Low wage employment is worse than unemployment?"

In some cases, yes. Because when your working, you sometimes make too much to qualify for welfare benefits like Medicaid. Not to mention you have to pay to get to and from work, and for a low wage worker, that makes up a significant amount of their income.

Hey LICC, before you quote Friedman, you should know that he was a huge supporter of the negative income tax that you hate so much and compare to welfare.

american is not selfsufficient in food now, nyc10023
Mexico and South America now export to us staples such as lettuce that we used to grow for ourselves
arable land is shrinking - it's being paved over with concrete
there is nothing new about trade walls, but for some reason all discussion of them has disappeared - it's as though the entire country just collectively forgot the issue

Friedman was a fan of a lot of things, Socialist, including massive government intervention through monetary policy. He was a Big Fan of bailing out the banks in the Depression by having the Fed act as lender of last resort. He just didn't like fiscal policy because he thought it was disruptive to free markets; what we have since he became fashionable is a return to an oligopoly of banks and speculators - thanks to the deregulation that started under St. Ronald of Reagan - that has caused a boom and bust cycle similar to what was seen in the 19th century.

When Dexia got bailed out (for the second time in 3 years) who do you think got the money, RS? If I told you Golden Slacks and Morgan Stanley, would you believe me?

Because it's true.

And, RS, regarding your gold standard nonsense:

http://history1800s.about.com/od/thegildedage/a/financialpanics.htm

Notice that in the 19th century - with the gold standard - there was a financial panic about every 20 years, like clockwork, caused by - yes! - speculation. From the advent of the Fed in 1913, apart from 1929, the only other panic that occurred was in 2008, 80 years later, brought on by the same things that caused the 1929 panic: excess speculation, and a housing bubble.

The gold standard did nothing to prevent the panics of the 1800's; rather, starting in 1913 and through FDR, the government implemented a series of regulations that governed risk and markets, specifically to prevent these boom and bust cycles, and to smooth them out. What the you and LICC espouse is a return to the bad old days, which is why we are where we are today.

That nonsense that you posted that the Fed is responsible for every boom and bust since 1913 is crap - the Fed is far from perfect, but what they do is far, far better than what we used to have.

WAH WAH WAH, I can't afford my 90,000 square foot mansion with 5 kitchens. WAH WAH WAH.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204346104576638981631627402.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_6

Greedy SOBs. What's the matter? 3 kitchens and 70,000 square feet are not good enough for you?

socialist, as usual you missed the point, which was that steve is again fundamentally incorrect. Maintaining artificially low interest rates is a Keynesian principle, not a monetarist one.

>Maintaining artificially low interest rates is a Keynesian principle, not a monetarist one.

Who gives a crap what it is called.

Who gives a crap what it is called.

good point!

"Maintaining artificially low interest rates is a Keynesian principle, not a monetarist one."

Helicopter Ben, you mean?

Pity the poor fool.

Socialist - those people with that house are the JOB CREATORS.

Get that through your thick skull: JOB CREATORS, JOB CREATORS, JOB CREATORS.

I mean come on: they bought Segways, and they have "a small entourage of helpers and staff."

See! ENTOURAGE. They have an ENTOURAGE.