At this point I need to remind you that this is an economics site. Assumptions claiming there is only one breadwinner in the house is a cultural assumption. It is also a cultural assumption that one must stay at home to raise a family, again a cultural assumption, on what your personal beliefs of the power structure and organizational structure of a family unit should be.
None of this has anything to do with labor economics, statistics.
either the woman or the man of the house is the breadwinner. The other, remains at home to raise the family. It doesn't have to be the woman that stays at home. But since we are on the topic of women in the work place, I might remind the reader that women still earn less then men on an average.
Wikipedia on deflation, going to the Liquidity trap article:
John Maynard Keynes is usually seen as the inventor of the liquidity-trap theory. In his view, financial speculators fear the possibility of suffering capital losses on non-money assets and thus hold money (liquid assets) instead. These fears are most likely after a financial crisis such as that associated with the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Further, if interest rates are extremely low, there is no place for them to go but up. That implies that bond prices will likely fall in the near future, causing capital losses
IMF forum on deflation, bond yield curves and the liquidity trap.
I still don't understand all of this except the word bubble economy and the word pop
Hope the links help others but I think we're in crisis 3 although I don't get how this causes deflation when foreigners own US debt and assets and the tanking dollar in a global economy.
My Utopia would allow parents to raise their families without worrying about Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel to cook their food. By spending quantity time with their offspring, they would be given a truly meaningful education in WHAT'S IMPORTANT. Once the children are raised, the parents would join the work force. The matured worker would have so much to offer. Their place in society would be respected instead of today's world view "If you are over 40 you are over the hill and have nothing to offer an employer"
The use of the phrase "Population Control" must be used very cautiously. The issue is more workers than jobs. A solution that would not threaten the human element to this issue could be to have wage earnings high enough to cover the cost of living. Our parents had the ability to raise their family on a single income. Parents today cannot. Housing, food, and fuel prices have sky-rocketed. Take home pay is insufficient to cover these basic needs. Americans are maxed out on their credit cards, employers no longer give raises on an annual basis, there is no sign of light at the end of the tunnel. If wages were high enough, families would have the option to return to the good ol days of single family households.
I know my ideas are utopian, however moving the base of operations to a tax haven wouldn't make any difference. Take Stanley tools which did this a few years ago. The manufacturing stayed where it was (some combination of the US and Asia).
Stanley, Bahamas would not own Stanley, USA. It could lend the USA firm money, but the USA firm would still be incorporated here. The owners would have to be local. This is not as radical as it sounds, many third world countries (and China) restrict the degree of foreign ownership. As far as I know China still requires 51% domestic ownership.
My suggestion would only change things in that foreign investors would not be able to own stock, just lend money. I guess there is nothing to stop the foreign firm from lending money at some artificially high rate so that the local firm shows no profits and escapes taxes, but I'm sure some smart legislators could close this loophole.
on the user look up, I'm still not sure what you want, I've been putting in under "My account" a tracking method on all of your comments with replies, forums posts with comments, new comments (the format is messed up but the info is there, working on it as I type).
Just put in the "new site" blog comment thread what features you want and let me know. I get to things as I can write them up and also try to find consensus that everyone agrees.
Two things I am aware of are the images, putting images in your posts through upload and the WYSIWYG editor that I'm working on.
This also has a lot to do with bad trade deals. Public Citizen talking about the many tax havens in Panama which house corporate subsidiaries in order to avoid taxes, regulations.
We had earlier a CEO claiming that if the US removes the tax incentives to offshore outsource US jobs then they would simply reincorporate (move their headquarters) abroad and no longer be a "US" corporation.
We also have a lot of front groups which are just US subsidiaries of foreign corporations and governments, set up to lobby Congress.
I just found a website Tax Justice USA
seemingly devoted to the topic of offshore havens.
I've heard repeatedly from CEOs who are pure capitalists that they save more money on health care taxes in EU countries that what they pay in the US. Anybody noticed that single payer health care is off the table this election yet in terms of overall costs it appears to be the most effective on multiple levels, including hiring practices.
If anyone knows of a blogger who specializes on benefits cost analysis, multinational comparisons, I'd like to hear more about this.
If we have a series of capitalist CEOs wanting single payer I don't see why it's so off the table.
I think you might enjoy reading the utopian novel "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy.
You can even read it online, but every public library should have a copy: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/624
The author designed a society where people would only work for 20 years, say, 25-45. The rest of their lives would be spent in personal enrichment. His ideas spawned a social movement which was cut short by his untimely death.
There is a nice summary on Wikipedia as well.
Job sharing has been discussed many times, but firms find it cheaper to hire fewer people and overwork them then to spread the work around. A lot of this has to do with the fixed costs of fringe benefits. Notice that a firm like Walmart which offers few benefits to most workers has no problem with a large, part time, and revolving staff.
If benefits were not tied to a given employer, then there could be more job flexibility. Notice that Social Security doesn't affect most hiring decisions since the withholding tax gets paid regardless of whether it is two $30,000 employees or one $60,000. There is a small exception for those who earn more than the cutoff, but that is a tiny part of the workforce ($102,000).
In Michigan, we have cities paying of thousands of dollars to destroy forclosed houses, (tens of thousands in materials and labor)while autoworkers are unemployed. Why not train the autoworker to restore the house and provide a tax holiday to the new owner.
In the developing world, workers could transcribe every news article and noteworthy book in the history of man to electronic format. When they are finished, they could transcribe content to other languages. Imagine having all literature at your disposal for the cost of a few books per year.
Some types of work require no work at all. Take the fire department or police, generally these people are ready to work. When there is no fire, or crime, firefighters and police maintain work readiness, which is part of the job description, but not the actual "work."
As for the two wage-earner requirement for families comment, this is the result of treating the family home as an investment rather that an heirloom. If Americans were living in inherited homes, the second wage-earner would be a matter of choice. A properly constructed home can last centuries and be handed down to your children.
Instead, we are returning to the nomadic ways of early man roving the countryside for sustenance -- famine will surely ensue. The overpopulation problem will cure itself.
The American Family requires a minimum of two incomes. They wake early to allow plenty of time to drop the kids off at the babysitter before arriving at the office. Kids are shuffled from Sitter to School and back to Sitter where they await the arrival of their parent. On the way home with the kids in tow, someone needs supplies from the store to complete an assignment, or a book from the library for a report. Often a trip to the grocery store is needed for packed lunches and easy-fix breakfast foods. Fresh fruit is always needed and must be bought fresh. By the time the family is settled at home, the hour is late. The one thing that keeps mom and dad energized is their night-time intimacy. It's all they got! Responsibility is high for these adult men and women. Birth control is NOT 100%. Only by abstaining is there 100% guarantee. Or obtaining a same-sex partner. Or, taking the advise of the Surgeon General in Bill Clinton's administration - Elders, where she suggested masturbation.
It's not only the "radical religious right" that block forms of birth control. Radicals of all sorts believe their religion, their nationality, their family blood, etc, is SUPERIOR and should not be stifled in their growth as a population of SUPERIORS that will eventually take over the world!!!! We have some very strong egos.
Slowing down our need for things and zeroing in on the basics can certainly slow the depletion of non renewables. However, we still have more workers than work. What I might suggest is that everyone be given a wage that will allow them to adequately support themselves and their family. This should allow the two income family to be reduced to a single income household. Parents that wish to stay home and raise their family would be allowed this essential element in proper development of the future generations. This "people first" would set a social responsibility that we have been lacking since the 70's. Full time working hours should be cut to 32 hours per week. A 4 day work week should be implemented to save fuel consumption. Perhaps more job-sharing could become a way of life.
I know many working mothers and working fathers that work only because their family can simply not make it on a single income. If afforded, they'd be home with the kids giving them the best head start.
The strongest effect on population growth is the education of women. If they are literate and can earn money by their own labor the number of children per woman drops very rapidly, often within one generation.
There is no need for draconian measures, although perhaps China could see no other way since the task of education was just too large to be handled in a reasonable time frame.
Of course, the extra education and economic independence also means that the restrictions of a patriarchal society have to be removed. This also implies access to family planning services. I don't think abortion is as big an issue in those places like Africa which don't have a strong Catholic influence. Birth control isn't frowned upon as much either, it is mostly an issue of access, knowledge and cost.
Providing education through secondary school is also one of the cheapest forms of foreign aid. A bit of assistance with building schools and getting some supplies and then everything else can be handled locally. It wasn't that long ago in the US when recent high school grads were sent to teach in prairie communities, often even without the year of normal school expected.
The reality that population needs to be controlled is something that is never talked about, it's not PC.
But I agree, considering limited global resources it's a pretty obvious thing, from fish to global warming, this is not sustainable. While one probably doesn't want to step into the issue of a woman's right to choose, certainly we can step into this constant block of access to birth control, awareness and family planning, which also has been blocked by those same radical religious right. It's pretty astounding for if they really wish to stop abortions on moral grounds, the very obvious answer to that is access to family planning, education and also raising the financial capabilities of the individuals on the planet to feed and take care of their families. Add to that many cultures refusing to look at the realities of a global overpopulation plus the repression of women, we have an issue here that is a great wall of silence.
At this point I need to remind you that this is an economics site. Assumptions claiming there is only one breadwinner in the house is a cultural assumption. It is also a cultural assumption that one must stay at home to raise a family, again a cultural assumption, on what your personal beliefs of the power structure and organizational structure of a family unit should be.
None of this has anything to do with labor economics, statistics.
It's off topic to this site's focus.
either the woman or the man of the house is the breadwinner. The other, remains at home to raise the family. It doesn't have to be the woman that stays at home. But since we are on the topic of women in the work place, I might remind the reader that women still earn less then men on an average.
Wikipedia on deflation, going to the Liquidity trap article:
IMF forum on deflation, bond yield curves and the liquidity trap.
I still don't understand all of this except the word bubble economy and the word pop
Hope the links help others but I think we're in crisis 3 although I don't get how this causes deflation when foreigners own US debt and assets and the tanking dollar in a global economy.
To see all of the registered users,
http://www.economicpopulist.org/profile
and each is linked to their personal profile.
What are you implying here? Somehow women don't want or should not have careers?
My Utopia would allow parents to raise their families without worrying about Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel to cook their food. By spending quantity time with their offspring, they would be given a truly meaningful education in WHAT'S IMPORTANT. Once the children are raised, the parents would join the work force. The matured worker would have so much to offer. Their place in society would be respected instead of today's world view "If you are over 40 you are over the hill and have nothing to offer an employer"
The use of the phrase "Population Control" must be used very cautiously. The issue is more workers than jobs. A solution that would not threaten the human element to this issue could be to have wage earnings high enough to cover the cost of living. Our parents had the ability to raise their family on a single income. Parents today cannot. Housing, food, and fuel prices have sky-rocketed. Take home pay is insufficient to cover these basic needs. Americans are maxed out on their credit cards, employers no longer give raises on an annual basis, there is no sign of light at the end of the tunnel. If wages were high enough, families would have the option to return to the good ol days of single family households.
I know my ideas are utopian, however moving the base of operations to a tax haven wouldn't make any difference. Take Stanley tools which did this a few years ago. The manufacturing stayed where it was (some combination of the US and Asia).
Stanley, Bahamas would not own Stanley, USA. It could lend the USA firm money, but the USA firm would still be incorporated here. The owners would have to be local. This is not as radical as it sounds, many third world countries (and China) restrict the degree of foreign ownership. As far as I know China still requires 51% domestic ownership.
My suggestion would only change things in that foreign investors would not be able to own stock, just lend money. I guess there is nothing to stop the foreign firm from lending money at some artificially high rate so that the local firm shows no profits and escapes taxes, but I'm sure some smart legislators could close this loophole.
I'm concerned with governance, not taxes.
on the user look up, I'm still not sure what you want, I've been putting in under "My account" a tracking method on all of your comments with replies, forums posts with comments, new comments (the format is messed up but the info is there, working on it as I type).
Just put in the "new site" blog comment thread what features you want and let me know. I get to things as I can write them up and also try to find consensus that everyone agrees.
Two things I am aware of are the images, putting images in your posts through upload and the WYSIWYG editor that I'm working on.
This also has a lot to do with bad trade deals. Public Citizen talking about the many tax havens in Panama which house corporate subsidiaries in order to avoid taxes, regulations.
We had earlier a CEO claiming that if the US removes the tax incentives to offshore outsource US jobs then they would simply reincorporate (move their headquarters) abroad and no longer be a "US" corporation.
We also have a lot of front groups which are just US subsidiaries of foreign corporations and governments, set up to lobby Congress.
I just found a website Tax Justice USA
seemingly devoted to the topic of offshore havens.
Good intel so far!
Joseph Stiglitz video on tax havens offshore.
Try this site, I think it is exactly what you are looking for:
http://www.healthbeatblog.org/
The author is a journalist who specializes in health economics.
Interestingly I agree with her goals, but we seem to differ on which defects in the current US health system are most important.
I've heard repeatedly from CEOs who are pure capitalists that they save more money on health care taxes in EU countries that what they pay in the US. Anybody noticed that single payer health care is off the table this election yet in terms of overall costs it appears to be the most effective on multiple levels, including hiring practices.
If anyone knows of a blogger who specializes on benefits cost analysis, multinational comparisons, I'd like to hear more about this.
If we have a series of capitalist CEOs wanting single payer I don't see why it's so off the table.
I think you might enjoy reading the utopian novel "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy.
You can even read it online, but every public library should have a copy:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/624
The author designed a society where people would only work for 20 years, say, 25-45. The rest of their lives would be spent in personal enrichment. His ideas spawned a social movement which was cut short by his untimely death.
There is a nice summary on Wikipedia as well.
Job sharing has been discussed many times, but firms find it cheaper to hire fewer people and overwork them then to spread the work around. A lot of this has to do with the fixed costs of fringe benefits. Notice that a firm like Walmart which offers few benefits to most workers has no problem with a large, part time, and revolving staff.
If benefits were not tied to a given employer, then there could be more job flexibility. Notice that Social Security doesn't affect most hiring decisions since the withholding tax gets paid regardless of whether it is two $30,000 employees or one $60,000. There is a small exception for those who earn more than the cutoff, but that is a tiny part of the workforce ($102,000).
Is this a lack of work, or imagination?
In Michigan, we have cities paying of thousands of dollars to destroy forclosed houses, (tens of thousands in materials and labor)while autoworkers are unemployed. Why not train the autoworker to restore the house and provide a tax holiday to the new owner.
In the developing world, workers could transcribe every news article and noteworthy book in the history of man to electronic format. When they are finished, they could transcribe content to other languages. Imagine having all literature at your disposal for the cost of a few books per year.
Some types of work require no work at all. Take the fire department or police, generally these people are ready to work. When there is no fire, or crime, firefighters and police maintain work readiness, which is part of the job description, but not the actual "work."
As for the two wage-earner requirement for families comment, this is the result of treating the family home as an investment rather that an heirloom. If Americans were living in inherited homes, the second wage-earner would be a matter of choice. A properly constructed home can last centuries and be handed down to your children.
Instead, we are returning to the nomadic ways of early man roving the countryside for sustenance -- famine will surely ensue. The overpopulation problem will cure itself.
Firstly he's talking about this in terms of economics, it is an economics site.
But are you being sarcastic or are you a closet social conservative?
I don't think he is referring to any particular race, culture and so on here.
that's the problem with these topics it always going into issue areas where I don't think the intent is.
The American Family requires a minimum of two incomes. They wake early to allow plenty of time to drop the kids off at the babysitter before arriving at the office. Kids are shuffled from Sitter to School and back to Sitter where they await the arrival of their parent. On the way home with the kids in tow, someone needs supplies from the store to complete an assignment, or a book from the library for a report. Often a trip to the grocery store is needed for packed lunches and easy-fix breakfast foods. Fresh fruit is always needed and must be bought fresh. By the time the family is settled at home, the hour is late. The one thing that keeps mom and dad energized is their night-time intimacy. It's all they got! Responsibility is high for these adult men and women. Birth control is NOT 100%. Only by abstaining is there 100% guarantee. Or obtaining a same-sex partner. Or, taking the advise of the Surgeon General in Bill Clinton's administration - Elders, where she suggested masturbation.
It's not only the "radical religious right" that block forms of birth control. Radicals of all sorts believe their religion, their nationality, their family blood, etc, is SUPERIOR and should not be stifled in their growth as a population of SUPERIORS that will eventually take over the world!!!! We have some very strong egos.
Slowing down our need for things and zeroing in on the basics can certainly slow the depletion of non renewables. However, we still have more workers than work. What I might suggest is that everyone be given a wage that will allow them to adequately support themselves and their family. This should allow the two income family to be reduced to a single income household. Parents that wish to stay home and raise their family would be allowed this essential element in proper development of the future generations. This "people first" would set a social responsibility that we have been lacking since the 70's. Full time working hours should be cut to 32 hours per week. A 4 day work week should be implemented to save fuel consumption. Perhaps more job-sharing could become a way of life.
I know many working mothers and working fathers that work only because their family can simply not make it on a single income. If afforded, they'd be home with the kids giving them the best head start.
The strongest effect on population growth is the education of women. If they are literate and can earn money by their own labor the number of children per woman drops very rapidly, often within one generation.
There is no need for draconian measures, although perhaps China could see no other way since the task of education was just too large to be handled in a reasonable time frame.
Of course, the extra education and economic independence also means that the restrictions of a patriarchal society have to be removed. This also implies access to family planning services. I don't think abortion is as big an issue in those places like Africa which don't have a strong Catholic influence. Birth control isn't frowned upon as much either, it is mostly an issue of access, knowledge and cost.
Providing education through secondary school is also one of the cheapest forms of foreign aid. A bit of assistance with building schools and getting some supplies and then everything else can be handled locally. It wasn't that long ago in the US when recent high school grads were sent to teach in prairie communities, often even without the year of normal school expected.
The reality that population needs to be controlled is something that is never talked about, it's not PC.
But I agree, considering limited global resources it's a pretty obvious thing, from fish to global warming, this is not sustainable. While one probably doesn't want to step into the issue of a woman's right to choose, certainly we can step into this constant block of access to birth control, awareness and family planning, which also has been blocked by those same radical religious right. It's pretty astounding for if they really wish to stop abortions on moral grounds, the very obvious answer to that is access to family planning, education and also raising the financial capabilities of the individuals on the planet to feed and take care of their families. Add to that many cultures refusing to look at the realities of a global overpopulation plus the repression of women, we have an issue here that is a great wall of silence.
I must say you have guts to mention it.
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