Forums → WEPR → Obama or Romney

Sorry but the steel industry is not owned by one person. United States Steel Company, AK Steel, Commercial Metals Company, Harsco Corporation, Olympic Steel, the list goes on and on. And if it was owned by just one person, that would make it a whole lot worse, given that one person/company controls such a vital raw material.

I don't think you quite understand protectionism. It ensures protection for US companies importing and exporting. It stifles competition since foreign companies are blocked out.

If all men are equal then the poor should be helped. Only people who are doing comfortably think the status quo is good. The rich are obscenely rich, if America truly stands up to it's motto of making the Dream possible for
everyone and for everyone to have equal opportunities then apparently it's a badly kept sham.

The rich will hardly atop working when you cut ther pay. The million of golden handshakes are in themselves obscene and the way they played with people's money is nothing short of scandalous and a major cause of the recession and bubble burst. The rich creating jobs? Please look at how many jobs the banking and insurance industry creates. They create small amounts of high skilled jobs for degree holders, no bank is going to want the million of relatively lowly educated Americans which make up the bulk of the work force.

Sorry but the steel industry is not owned by one person. United States Steel Company, AK Steel, Commercial Metals Company, Harsco Corporation, Olympic Steel, the list goes on and on. And if it was owned by just one person, that would make it a whole lot worse, given that one person/company controls such a vital raw material.

I don't think you quite understand protectionism. It ensures protection for US companies importing and exporting. It stifles competition since foreign companies are blocked out.

If all men are equal then the poor should be helped. Only people who are doing comfortably think the status quo is good. The rich are obscenely rich, if America truly stands up to it's motto of making the Dream possible for
everyone and for everyone to have equal opportunities then apparently it's a badly kept sham.

The rich will hardly atop working when you cut ther pay. The million of golden handshakes are in themselves obscene and the way they played with people's money is nothing short of scandalous and a major cause of the recession and bubble burst. The rich creating jobs? Please look at how many jobs the banking and insurance industry creates. They create small amounts of high skilled jobs for degree holders, no bank is going to want the million of relatively lowly educated Americans which make up the bulk of the work force.

I thought you were refering to Andrew Carnegie . Which the rise in price did happen. He is one of the reasons that we have Monopoly Laws

What that means is that everyone has the same rights, not that everyone has the same thing/things. Giving more rights to people with less money is not good, nor is giving more rights to rich people.

No, I had little knowledge on protectionism. It is supposed to level the playing field for trade vs home-growth. Though I think Singapore does a very nice job of the Free Trade System. For the USA, it would not work as well. We have a large Agricultural area, and we do well with electronics. If we Use a Free Trade system, we would leech energies from other countries to better ourselves, instead of improving them, like we are, and should be...

We have protections in place to help infant companies grow. If we didn't have it, would Bill Gates go from making bicycles to crater of the Ipod, To one of the richest men in the world? Yes, he might have, But it would have been a lot harder, and his production would have suffered. We might still be forced to use those big, clunky Walkman.
*Gasp*! X-D

We were created by

the million of relatively lowly educated Americans

Sorry, Monopoly laws have nothing to do with the two politicians; no one would actually support monopolies without regulations or if they were natural
Monopolies with high economics of scale.

Furthermore it was the USA which was the first which tried to impose free trade around the world after WWII through Bretton Woods, the IMF, WB and GATT. Also I'm not sure you know what yore talking about, especially about "leeching energies". FTAs reduce barriers and tariffs such that it's cheaper and more profitable to export and trade.

Also you don't understand protectionism. Protectionism is an external oriented policy. Bill Gates didn't need protectionism, he was the pioneer in his field, if anything other countries might have wanted to enact protectionism against the USA. Protectionism is a disaster because it fosters inefficiency for the domestic population; they are forced to buy more expensive domestic goods as a result. It also makes local companies less competitive on a global scale since they are insulted from competition overseas.

Also next point on banking. Again you misinterpret "relatively". Millions of people are relatively uneducated compared to bankers. Bankers. And in rutty case the American eduction system isn't as good as it used to be.


Banks put up loans so what? They are the ones who inflated the market with speculation, causing home prices to jack up. People require loans not to start businesses mostly, they need loans to pay back mortgages.

Again there are insufficient jobs not the other way round. The American economy does not churn out enough jobs per month to absorb the workers; not that the people don't want to work. The 99% protests show this; people what jobs they just can't find them.


But itâs worth remembering that before the crash we had nearly full employment, and yet it had already become clear that the American Dream was fading for most Americans. Indeed, the middle class was drifting into insolvency. Through a combination of stagnant wages, indebtedness to often predatory lenders, and the rising cost of middle-class staples such as health care and energy, the average familyâs personal balance sheetâ"assets minus liabilitiesâ"was turning red. Household debt soared from 77 percent of disposable income in 1990 to 127 percent in 2007. During the same interval, the personal savings rate dropped from 7 percent of disposable income to near zero.

Nonfarm payrolls rose 163,000 last month, the Labor Department said o n F riday, breaking three straight months of job gains below 100,000 and offering hope for the ailing economy. This however is not enough. This is a major cause of the joblessness; there aren't enough jobs. There are other reasons such as the qualifications and job requirements gap yada yada, but the jobs issue is the main problem.

Let me rephrase that, I thought you were talking about Carnegie.

Anyway, my search for Protectionism doesn't seem to be accurate in the slightest, that, or we are using one word for two completely different things.

Anyway, I will continue research intill i better under stand what we are talking about.

~krill11

The 99% protests show this; people what jobs they just can't find them.

During the same interval, the personal savings rate dropped from 7 percent of disposable income to near zero.

The 99% protest started out as one against highly paid bankers who have caused this crisis and as a strike for more jobs; it has sadly been hijacked by opportunists; this doesn't change it's core values whatsoever.

Furthermore yes you are spot on; America's GDP is around 70% fueled by consumption, this is unhealthy because it means a high level of imports vs exports, destroying your BOP. In good years this is fine, however now that Americans are cutting back on consumption, the economy suffers. Americans have to stop their disastrous consumption habits and save more, but NOT in times of a recession.

Also, the insanely high consumption levels is part of the problem, the main part is the lack of jobs, driving down national income further.

That was quite economic technical, don't know if it's going to be understood.

Okay, sorry for not being that smart about economics, but this is what I got.

In past years Americans have been spending but not selling, this results in us getting goods from other countries and costing jobs. This caused the United State's economy to crash so people saved their money causing it to crash further.

also the lack of jobs contributes, but that can be fixed by helping people start businesses in the U.S.A. and doing something to partially discourage starting businesses in the P.R.C.

No no. Consumption (C) is an integral part of your GDP. People might not know it, but it's a component of Aggregate Demand. Aggregate Demand is just the demand for total goods and services in the economy and Consumption is one component of this. The problem is that Americans are consuming far too much; they need to keep borrowing to keep this up. Problem number two is that yes America does import more than they export. If this balance of payment deficit is constant and never improves for a long time, then it's a bad thing. Exactly what America is in.

I'm sorry did you actually say that stopping businesses in the PRC would create jobs for America? This is patently false for many industries, if the cost of production is so long in China due to labour costs then why would people start businesses in China where the minimum wage is relatively higher resulting in much lower revenue. Also, we must note that China takes up about a quarter of the trade with America. Protectionism is futile and extremely self contradictory.

then why would people start businesses in China where the minimum wage is relatively higher resulting in much lower revenue

Start businesses in America*. Typo.

And I wouldn't pin the blame entirely on the PRC government. Foreign firms themselves determine wages, so why should we blame China entirely for suppressing wages?

I don't understand why people hate Romney on the grounds of him being pro-life.

I mean, I know he wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade, but do you actually know how he is going to do that? Neither does he I guess. It's not just his decision to make for sure, and stands more to the justices than anyone. The US will NOT ban abortions, regardless of who's president, so why should we care about the candidates' stances on it?

Hope that didn't sound biased, since I am pro-life myself.

How do you know the US won't ban abortions? With the Reps raring to go and having a slight majority in the house, it is a possibility.

Because 75% of the country doesn't mind or is pro abortion. That includes a lot of republicans.

How do you know the US won't ban abortions?