Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "PowerfulJRE" channel.

Baker has some interesting infos - and bought into the ideological talking points and the ludicrous idea of "American exceptionalism". We do things for the right reasons, China is 100 % self interest. - As CIA agent he should be able to discern between pollution (water, air, soil LOCALLY) and CO2 emission (globally). China is MUCH LESS per person than the U.S. A few years ago they had the same consumption of fossil fuels but almost 4 times the population. Europe and Japan also use more per person than China. Not to forget that China has become the workbench of the world while the U.S. has deindustrialized, so the excessive consumption is even worse. On the other hand China took solar and wind to the next level. The technology was there waiting for mass deployment and the drop of costs - and the Chinese did it. China and Japan recently signed a contract for hydrogen production and use. They are going big on that. Saying they did not do their part (and beyond is ridiculous). True the U.S. and Europe should have led the way, but there it is all left to the "free market" with some half baked subsidies. In China it is: Go big or go home. Sadly the dictatorship makes those strategic decisions, not the oligarchy of the U.S. and not the kinda democracies in Canada, Japan, Europe, ....
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The U.S. spied on Brazil (oil drilling technology of Petrobass) and of course Europe, and also China (see Snowden 2013) And that is the shit we KNOW. U.S. stealing technology. For sure
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+ Laurent The wonders of the free market and Capitalism. And the U.S. does not "give" them the money. U.S. manufacturers decided to produce there. Politicians decided to make that posible the population consistenly ignores honest actors in politics.
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+ Laurent The U.S. gets much more from China (goods, REAL THINGS) thanks to cheap labor there (the Chinese pay for that with their incomes) In exchange the Chinese nation gets USD (which are easily created with a few key strokes). And they buy U.S. government debt (bonds). Yes they get "money" which is a highly virtual thing: as long as the Saudis back it with their oil the USD can stay at its current value. Which is way too high, any other currency would have dropped massively, with that debt and that trade deficit. Such a drop It would have been a natural stop to outsourcing and a limit to imports that become more expensive. The USD is NOT backed up by the output and the American economy. It used to be when the U.S. was an economic powerhouse after WW2, the status of the USD as world resrve currency is meantwhile completely undeserved. The distortions are to the disadvantage of the workers that produce the imports, and regular Americans. Only the owners of the export companies profit massively. And the U.S. oligarchs, finance, the people that hold stocks, ....
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+ Laurent The valuable thing for the Chinese is that they got insight in how the Western industrial process works in practice and their workforce was upgraded. Capitalism relies on the narrow self interest (greed) of company owners / shareholders, and the speculators of finance (especially in the last 30 years) - allegedly that is sufficient to create a society and economy. Of course that cannot serve the strategic economic interests of a nation. Not domestically and not internationally. I am not even talking about the dominance that the U.S. wants to exert, just the self interest of a nation.
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@historynut3460 Somehow the taxes were much higher in the past (dropped from 91 - 77 % top marginal income tax in 1965, for over 3,81 million USD in todays ! money), reglations were more (certainly on finance) and the era was called the Golden Era (Economic Miracle in Europe) and Nixon signed the EPA into law. Funny that ! Bill Clinton prepared the deal with China, and around 2000 the jobs started going to China. Almost as if they NEED the permanently secure import tariffs. They cannot sell the stuff that is produced for cheap in China, when they do not pay the workers well, and in 2000 workers got peanuts. Clinton during his presidency used an EO to take the power to grant the yearly better tariffs to China from the House, from then on the State Department was in charge. It was staffed with neoliberals so that was better for big biz. But the oligarchs have not forgotten how Ross Perot got 18 % of the popular vote in 1992, and the lively public debate he started. An international deal is better, that is why the big wave of outsourcing only started in 2000 (Bush 2 signed it a few months after 9/11 - no big debate then - but after the primaires in 2000 the U.S. oligarchs knew they were good. GWB or Gore would sign the deal. Until then a rogue candidate could side with U.S. workers, (Ross Perot might have, and Trump at least had the rhetoric, even if he did not mean it). and if an U.S. government at that time had take the side of U.S. workers former multimillion USD investments in China would be for nought.
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@yumyumgimmesum They could afford then Made In the U.S. just fine and produced with GOOD U.S. wages - until the wage suppression started for real under Reagan. products then were not as sophisticated, (for more simple things like appliances quality was better). But of course technology of manufacturing has advanced it would not cost more compared to the late 1960s or 1970s.
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@yumyumgimmesum Labor is only a PART of the costs of any product / service. 10 - 15 % are the estimate for cars, so if workers got constant raises - prices went up. A little. Even if you double the wages and you pass on all the costs (not more sales that can absorb a part of the higher labor costs) the costs of the product would go up by ONLY 10 - 15 %. But gross wages = disposable income went up MUCH more. Double (almost, depnends on income tax, but it is substantial). The wge increases were paid for by productivity wins (automation was a lot of that). But the workers got the lion's share of those gains in form of more purchasing power. So workerswere always ahead when it came to inflation (then mainly caused by wage increases, which is the GOOD form of inflation) versus what they had more in disposable income. between 1947 and 1970: productivity wins plus 112 % , and average hourly wages adjusted for inflation ! rose by 97 % so almost double the PURCHASING POWER.
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@yumyumgimmesum That is why it worked so well during the time when wages were good. There was a leverage: double wages meant much less than doubling of prices. Workers were ALWAYS ahead. So much so that they got double purchasing power per worked hour in only 23 years. - And productivity wins have not stopped since the 1970s although not as high as in the Golden Era (high taxes FORCE companies to invest, the only chance to evade taxes in thhe past). But not they go almost fully into the pokcets of the owners. This is not about fairness. (Ever more efficient) Mass production needs mass consumption and that needs disposable income. Which so far comes from wages.
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@oleksandrsavitskyy7702 ?!? There are plenty of medium sized companies that produce ESSENTIAL components. Not the huge mass markets, usually high R & D costs. A few producers have the world market. Europe (not only Germany), Japan, Taiwan is big in that segment and those companies have not outsourced. And it is hard to steal from them. btw some of them do not even patent their products. It is not worth the trouble, they just are hard to imitate. Normally these are B2B products.
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@isLife-nn5yl you have absolutely no idea about the economic history of the U.S. Just talking points. Federal minimum wage came in 1937 or 1938. it peaked (purchasing power) in 1968. ONLY adjusted for inflation it would be over 10 USD since 2018 - never mind the productitivity wins that are much higher than only inflation compensation. The federal minimum wage is 7.25 since 2009 (has lost 15 % purchasing power since then) MANUFACTURING has ALWAYS paid more than minimum wage (much more and still does).
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@isLife-nn5yl Jobs were outsourced since corrupt politicians (both parties VERY bipartisan) made it possible. For no other reason.
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@andrewn5239 The number "died due of lack of basic healthcare INSURANCE / treatments" are estimates of studies not stats, I think one from Harvard and one from Yale. Denmark has zero, there are no people that are denied treatment. Even if they would not be insured, as it is rare there will be no hassle. Those people just get a free ride and the providers (or insurance agency) will try later to get a bill paid (I guess normally unsuccessfully).
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@andrewn5239 freshwater is not hard to come by in Europe. lumber is not that much of an asset, that is a side issue in a MODERN economy. and gas is not necessary to have a wealthy nation. Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, France, ..... New Zealand and last but not least Japan.
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@andrewn5239 Whereever China is headed, it is NOT going to be the MAO suit, or the society like when they had the Culture Revolution. it is NOT going to return to the society you parents left.
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