The Economist: The world middle class is largest ever

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1
No I been aware for as long as I can remember. I recognized at a very early age what true evil was. I also realized that man . Can't stop there plan . As its almost perfect . Ya every play Monoply. Well your out of the game fella. Whether you want to except it or not.

So their is only ONE left to rule all. They have indeed won the board. As all games always lead to their victory . But in their arragance. They leave a flaw. One opening.

In monoply Even tho the the board has been won . As they have won it. Their is still the jailer to deal with . I very much doubt the jailer is corrupt.

wut

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
jesus christ the nested quotes have gotten out of hand in here.



the other thing about middle class is that it's sure a hell of a lot nicer being middle class now than it was in the 1970s. i'd take a middle class car of today over a middle class car from the 70s every day of the week and twice on sundays.



and i have to be suspicious of any household income study. divorces have gone up. i'm going to guess that households are smaller than they were back in the 70s, with a much greater number of single adults at any one time.

Thats a fact. I remember my mom helping out my (first) wife and I with a deposit on our first apartment. We were (stupidly) married at 21, I was waiting tables and she wasnt working yet. It was really a pit of a place, but I remember my mom saying "I wish my first place was this nice". Shit...we had a microwave and a vacuum!

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1
My stanard of living is a lie . Based on an old reality . Your about to see the new reality.

How cliche. I'll take your attempt at being philosophical to mean you dont really believe what you speak. That your standard of living has increased over the past decade despite what protectionists and closet racists have told you.

Because americans work more hours than ever for less money.

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: RichardE
This is why protectionism is bad. Free trade allows all nations to improve there quality of life.

While screwing over the poorest of the poor.

Fair trade is the way to go.

 

[imported_K3N]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1

Originally posted by: RichardE
This is why protectionism is bad. Free trade allows all nations to improve there quality of life.

While screwing over the poorest of the poor.

Fair trade is the way to go.

You sir, are a well informed Human Being.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1

Originally posted by: RichardE
This is why protectionism is bad. Free trade allows all nations to improve there quality of life.

While screwing over the poorest of the poor.

Fair trade is the way to go.

In what way does fair and free trade screw over the poor?

 

[freegeeks]

Originally posted by: K3N

Originally posted by: RichardE

Originally posted by: K3N

Originally posted by: RichardE

Originally posted by: K3N

Originally posted by: RichardE

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1

Originally posted by: RichardE
This is why protectionism is bad. Free trade allows all nations to improve there quality of life.

At our expense. No . We ARE AMERICANS, Our elections are based upon (we the people). We are not a World Government. Or a Tool of Industry. Government is to adminster law. and raise an army if required ,. A standing army in a free society is a contradiction in terms . US soldiers patroling American streets is a complete break down of that system . Were As WE THE PEOPLE Has Become WE THE Destoyers of liberity. Its a done deal . Their is nothing you can say or do about . But set back and relize as it unfolds befor your very eyes . How very blind ya really are. IF this System Failed . YOU can't fix it . With the same system or people who destoyed it to begin with .

Your reality is about to change.

Again, who is going to buy your stuff if you return to a industrial nation? :laugh:

Man...you need to subscribe to some different new newsletters..

We Americans can pretend that America is our own world and we buy things from each other. China makes alot of shit but as a result of Americans saving their money , their economy is going to the shitter. You must have a production and consuming economy not just one of the other. Long lvie the Soviet Union, a nation of Self-Suffiency, and long live the Swiss to, a nation of neutrality and non intervention.

The same Soviet Union that bought goods from all the states under its "sphere" of power? And still collapsed from the strain?

What do the swiss have to do with anything on this topic? I'm sure we have American Cheese, so I guess we are good there.

You're ignoring my point on China and a result of a "consumer" economy as a result of "free" trade.

What point was that? You didn't make one. You stated China is loosing ground due to a lack of spending, which has exactly what to do with the problem of free trade?

Heres a question, where would China be without free trade? Still eating rice from bowls as 99% of its society lived in agricultural land. Even *if* China's economy contracted say....40% they would still be better off because of free trade.

You are trying to tie economic cycles and economic reasoning to a direct result of free trade which makes no sense. It's as if you don't even have a basic understand of what free trade is, what markets are, what are some of the reasons of this downturn, why china factories are closing among other things.

So if you have a point about China, I would love to hear it, as such you just rambled on about something that had nothing to do with the topic at hand.

If you look at how the Soviet Union got to become a superpower it was through rapid industrialization, and modernization like the hydroelectric power plant in Ukraine. China was backwards society based on leaders after its Communist revolution.


Industrialization, modernization, and advanced technology through scientific ambitions like space travel (internet came out of this), is the key to gaining a successful economy, not some libertarian monetarist fetish of "free" trade.


Norway had a 2008 nominal GDP of 102000$ son, and guess what? it isn't part of this European Union "free" trade fetish.

1)Norway is member of the European Economic area which basically is the same as the EU in an economic sense

2)they are so filthy rich because of something called oil, controlled by the govt.

 

[piasabird]

The only way the poor countries can profit by free trade is to decrease the quality of the middle class in the more well-off countries. The world economy is only so large and there is only so much trade to go around. The only way for one country to get richer is to take over a marketshare from someone else.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: piasabird
The only way the poor countries can profit by free trade is to decrease the quality of the middle class in the more well-off countries. The world economy is only so large and there is only so much trade to go around. The only way for one country to get richer is to take over a marketshare from someone else.

This only happens if the world economy is a finite resource, which it isnt. It grows and contracts. Meaning just because some 3rd world dump takes over widget production doesnt mean the middle class in the former 1st world producer suffers.

IMO quite the opposite. Because now that middle class finds a better less intensive job and can afford more products made with widgets due to the lower cost. Of course the 3rd world country benefits from new money flowing in their economy and their ability to pool it and raise their standard of living.

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: alphatarget1

Originally posted by: RichardE
This is why protectionism is bad. Free trade allows all nations to improve there quality of life.

While screwing over the poorest of the poor.

Fair trade is the way to go.

In what way does fair and free trade screw over the poor?

Case in point: The Kyoto Treaty that some liberals (lol isn't this free trade idea pretty liberal by itself) strongly support ends up screwing poor people in countries like China, where Germans trade "carbon credits" by building dams in China because there is no way in hell they would meet their emission quotas otherwise.

The problem I have with liberals is that they believe they can continue their lifestyle and telling the lower class people that "it's ours, you can't have it and you'll have to suffer for our lifestyle"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...as/china_s_golden_dams

In poor countries where their governments are even more corrupt than ours (hard to fathom), their authorities will do whatever to facilitate short term gains for themselves while screwing over the poorest of the poor, the people who have no voice. You might say that the workers benefit by having been given jobs and you get products that are cheaper, but companies that put factories next to farmland and don't treat their sewage, poisoning their ground water for generations to come to me is "screwing over the poorest of the poor". Think Superfund sites x 100.

Ultimately global wealth and standard of living will somewhat balance out. I don't think free trade without any restrictions whatsoever can be good for anyone. Maybe people can establish some minimum requirements for things like labor/working conditions/environment, and countries can tighten it as they see fit.

With that said, fvck the UAW and their job banks.

 

[First]

^ Free trade doesn't screw over Chinese labor on the net though, it's just the opposite. Free trade between the U.S. and China has had a direct hand in vastly increasing the wages of Chinese laborers, has helped them create tens of millions of Chinese middle class. Yes, building dams in China has displaced millions and even killed thousands, but that's the insanity of Chinese gov't. In fact, compared to India (who we outsource to now more than ever) it has now become more financially unattractive for the U.S. to outsource to China (though still profitable) precisely because their laborers are more expensive to hire now.

You are on the money about unrestricted free trade, there is some reasonable data that shows small trade tariffs have their advantages. But their limited and difficult to enforce said TOT.

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: Evan
^ Free trade doesn't screw over Chinese labor on the net though, it's just the opposite. Free trade between the U.S. and China has had a direct hand in vastly increasing the wages of Chinese laborers, has helped them create tens of millions of Chinese middle class. Yes, building dams in China has displaced millions and even killed thousands, but that's the insanity of Chinese gov't. In fact, compared to India (who we outsource to now more than ever) it has now become more financially unattractive for the U.S. to outsource to China (though still profitable) precisely because their laborers are more expensive to hire now.

You are on the money about unrestricted free trade, there is some reasonable data that shows small trade tariffs have their advantages. But their limited and difficult to enforce said TOT.

I understand that the exporting economy has lifted a lot of people in China out of poverty. What I'm concerned about is the long term effects of such rapid growth in such a short period of time. Western industrialization occured in about 50-100 years and things were bad back then. The scale of industrialization in China is just hard to imagine. Somebody will be paying for that unchecked growth and its impacts on the later generations, but it sure won't be the assholes who got rich and would've already left the country by then.

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1

Originally posted by: Evan
^ Free trade doesn't screw over Chinese labor on the net though, it's just the opposite. Free trade between the U.S. and China has had a direct hand in vastly increasing the wages of Chinese laborers, has helped them create tens of millions of Chinese middle class. Yes, building dams in China has displaced millions and even killed thousands, but that's the insanity of Chinese gov't. In fact, compared to India (who we outsource to now more than ever) it has now become more financially unattractive for the U.S. to outsource to China (though still profitable) precisely because their laborers are more expensive to hire now.

You are on the money about unrestricted free trade, there is some reasonable data that shows small trade tariffs have their advantages. But their limited and difficult to enforce said TOT.

I understand that the exporting economy has lifted a lot of people in China out of poverty. What I'm concerned about is the long term effects of such rapid growth in such a short period of time. Western industrialization occured in about 50-100 years and things were bad back then. The scale of industrialization in China is just hard to imagine. Somebody will be paying for that unchecked growth and its impacts on the later generations, but it sure won't be the assholes who got rich and would've already left the country by then.

A better comparison of Chinas expansion/modernization/industrialization would be to look at Germans as it went into an industrialized revolution around 1890-1920. Since it came after the British one it had the ability to just mimic all the capital/research/problems the British had and take what worked, thereby industrializing in a few decades compared to the long process the British took. The western world industrialized at different rates. I think the way it is going now is preferable, alot of the problems that caused war due to industrialization are absent nowadays. I think it will work out well, China is just late to the party, but they have alot of past experience with other nations they can draw on.

Fun fact, Germany outpaced Britain in production and innovation around 1914..because Britain was too stubborn to pay to upgrade the outdated systems it had even thought it had been the ones to pay for the research for new systems. Remind you of anyone

 

[nullzero]

This reminds me of the claim bush made when the statistics were out about home ownership being at a all time high...

 

[Zebo]

Free trade sucks. Tuned us from largest creditor to largest debtor. From having no income tax to high income tax to run govt. Turned us from producer with large savings to consumers with huge debt. Took us from smallest stratification of wealth to one of the largest, call gini index. Just because it's taken 40 years to really start happening does not mean the effects of arbitrage are not there. We have essentially sold our earned wealth to others for trinkets and will continue to pay for this until no-think economists get a clue.

We have two choices to start producing again
1, lower our pay and environmental standards to china level
2. demand they come up to our level or we don't trade with them.

You cheerleaders keep waving your pompoms it maybe only job you have left in 20 years

 

[First]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1

Originally posted by: Evan
^ Free trade doesn't screw over Chinese labor on the net though, it's just the opposite. Free trade between the U.S. and China has had a direct hand in vastly increasing the wages of Chinese laborers, has helped them create tens of millions of Chinese middle class. Yes, building dams in China has displaced millions and even killed thousands, but that's the insanity of Chinese gov't. In fact, compared to India (who we outsource to now more than ever) it has now become more financially unattractive for the U.S. to outsource to China (though still profitable) precisely because their laborers are more expensive to hire now.

You are on the money about unrestricted free trade, there is some reasonable data that shows small trade tariffs have their advantages. But their limited and difficult to enforce said TOT.

I understand that the exporting economy has lifted a lot of people in China out of poverty. What I'm concerned about is the long term effects of such rapid growth in such a short period of time. Western industrialization occured in about 50-100 years and things were bad back then. The scale of industrialization in China is just hard to imagine. Somebody will be paying for that unchecked growth and its impacts on the later generations, but it sure won't be the assholes who got rich and would've already left the country by then.

Rapid effects on China are a concern they'll have to deal with, obviously the U.S. (despite the best efforts of some) can't police the politics of every country. It's better to have the problem of middle class population explosion than crippling starvation without that explosion. Some of our best scientists have always been Chinese too, including our new Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Nobel in physics and all that.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Free trade sucks. Tuned us from largest creditor to largest debtor. From having no income tax to high income tax to run govt. Turned us from producer with large savings to consumers with huge debt. Just because it's taken 40 years to really start happening does not mean the effects of arbitrage are not there. We have essentially sold our earned wealth to others for trinkets and will continue to pay for this until no-think economists get a clue.

We have two choices to start producing again
1, lower our pay and environmental standards to china level
2. demand they come up to our level or we don't trade with them.

You cheerleaders keep waving your pompoms it maybe only job you have left in 20 years

This same garbage was said verbatim 20 years ago. It remains garbage today. Feel free to link to research or conduct research that shows otherwise, I'm sure it would be interesting to read.

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Free trade sucks. Tuned us from largest creditor to largest debtor. From having no income tax to high income tax to run govt. Turned us from producer with large savings to consumers with huge debt. Just because it's taken 40 years to really start happening does not mean the effects of arbitrage are not there. We have essentially sold our earned wealth to others for trinkets and will continue to pay for this until no-think economists get a clue.

We have two choices to start producing again
1, lower our pay and environmental standards to china level
2. demand they come up to our level or we don't trade with them.

You cheerleaders keep waving your pompoms it maybe only job you have left in 20 years

Free trade as been a ongoing policy since 1860. Take a look at the scale of income/GDP/Standard of living and see how it has expanded over the last 100 years. People going "1973-now!" ignore the "massive" tripplig of income from 1930-1960 as a result of free trade. We are not even close to being as worse off as we were 1930 and prior. Seeying as 1/3 of houses did not have in house plumbing coming out of WW2 and now we all have multiple TV's/Computers (even the welfare) I think as a standard of living we are doing much better than our Grandfathers and great grandfathers. Some irrational fear of fear trade based on some illusion that "manufacturing jobs are disapering!" (Something that has been happening since 1946 with the advancement of automation). We are better off than our ancestors, we have a higher standard of living, we spend a shit ton of money on "entertainment" and "luxuries" even when we are poor. The world over is rising in prosperity. Compare the lives of people today to the lives of people a 100 years ago...

Free trade brought that.


I will ask you a question I asked others and no one has answered. We were a production economy at a time when most of the world was rebuilding and was experiencing a baby boom. (Rebuilding, houses, appliances for new famillies ect ect).

With no Baby boom, no war devastation and no other power to consume our goods, how do you propose to replicate the "production years". ?

Going even further back, to the industrial revolutions, we had to conquer other nations to open up trade markets to sell our goods we "produced" because there was no big market for them. Who will you sell your products too? Yourself? Why?

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Evan

Originally posted by: Zebo
Free trade sucks. Tuned us from largest creditor to largest debtor. From having no income tax to high income tax to run govt. Turned us from producer with large savings to consumers with huge debt. Just because it's taken 40 years to really start happening does not mean the effects of arbitrage are not there. We have essentially sold our earned wealth to others for trinkets and will continue to pay for this until no-think economists get a clue.

We have two choices to start producing again
1, lower our pay and environmental standards to china level
2. demand they come up to our level or we don't trade with them.

You cheerleaders keep waving your pompoms it maybe only job you have left in 20 years

This same garbage was said verbatim 20 years ago. It remains garbage today. Feel free to link to research or conduct research that shows otherwise, I'm sure it would be interesting to read.

The only garbage is the bankrupt country you guys have created. Bankrupt pensions funds, for those who still have them. Bankrupt production IQ. Among other things utterly bankrupt.

You can start with Outsourcing America linkby economist Ron Hira where he tears outsourcing and free trade to shreds - or just wait another 10-20 years if you make it though the massive civil unrest you will have to spend 8 hours looking for food.

 

[RichardE]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Free trade sucks. Tuned us from largest creditor to largest debtor. From having no income tax to high income tax to run govt. Turned us from producer with large savings to consumers with huge debt. Took us from smallest stratification of wealth to one of the largest, call gini index. Just because it's taken 40 years to really start happening does not mean the effects of arbitrage are not there. We have essentially sold our earned wealth to others for trinkets and will continue to pay for this until no-think economists get a clue.

We have two choices to start producing again
1, lower our pay and environmental standards to china level
2. demand they come up to our level or we don't trade with them.

You cheerleaders keep waving your pompoms it maybe only job you have left in 20 years

As for your ideas.

1) Who will we sell our goods too? Do you think China can switch to a service based economy all of a sudden even if Americans willingly lower there standard of living to become a manufacturing based society (and return to 1890-1920 wealth levels)

2) So ask them to pay there workers more to squeeze more Americans dollars out to China? I thought you wanted to avoid that.

 

[smack Down]

THERE are two main ways to define a middle class: in relative terms, as the middle income range of each country; or in absolute terms, using a fixed band for all countries. An influential exponent of the first approach was Lester Thurow of the MIT?s Sloan School of Management, who took as his reference point the median income in America?where there is an equal number of people above and below the line?and defined the American middle class as the group with incomes lying between 75% and 125% of the median. Nancy Birdsall of the Centre for Global Development applied the same idea to developing countries. Bill Easterly of New York University selected those who were in the three middle quintiles of income (leaving out the poorest 20% and the richest 20%). The problem with this approach is that each country has a different median income, so the definition of what is middle class shifts from place to place.

Hey look when we come up with utterly useless definitions of middle class the middle class is growing. The first definition says that 5% of the people earned 50 cents, 94.9% earned a dollar, and the remaining .1% earned a few billion that the middle class is 94.9% of the population.
Did that other guy get paid for his work? The middle class is defined as 60% of the population and guess what the population is increasing and there for the middle class is increasing.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: Evan

Originally posted by: Zebo
Free trade sucks. Tuned us from largest creditor to largest debtor. From having no income tax to high income tax to run govt. Turned us from producer with large savings to consumers with huge debt. Just because it's taken 40 years to really start happening does not mean the effects of arbitrage are not there. We have essentially sold our earned wealth to others for trinkets and will continue to pay for this until no-think economists get a clue.

We have two choices to start producing again
1, lower our pay and environmental standards to china level
2. demand they come up to our level or we don't trade with them.

You cheerleaders keep waving your pompoms it maybe only job you have left in 20 years

This same garbage was said verbatim 20 years ago. It remains garbage today. Feel free to link to research or conduct research that shows otherwise, I'm sure it would be interesting to read.

The only garbage is the bankrupt country you guys have created. Bankrupt pensions funds, for those who still have them. Bankrupt production IQ. Among other things utterly bankrupt.

You can start with Outsourcing America linkby economist Ron Hira where he tears outsourcing and free trade to shreds - or just wait another 10-20 years if you make it though the massive civil unrest you will have to spend 8 hours looking for food.

You'll have to actually describe in some detail what the book actually argues beyond the Amazon description. The Hiras even present their work as a contrary look to outsourcing, a sort of veiled (perhaps unintentional) admission there has been much more consensus for free trade benefits than not. And btw, international economists readily admit that outsourcing costs U.S. jobs, but of course also point out that consumer prices go down as a result (effectively increasing purchasing power and thereby wages compared to previous generations) while also effectively helping business expand and create U.S. jobs in other sectors.

 

[BansheeX]

All kinds of fail in this thread. Free trade isn't what brought America down, America is what brought America down. We went off the gold standard in 1971 and borrowed ungodly amounts from foreigners to finance our consumption, our entitlements, our unions, our wars. China has none of that overhead, plus less regulatory costs. They took our interest and invested it, or recycled it back to us, and eventually we just convinced ourselves that the more we borrowed, the richer we became. Unfortunately, what we were really doing was mortgaging the farm to buy milk. If they depeg now and buy all the major mining companies with their dollars, they'd have the new reserve currency, the productive capacity, and the means to consume what they produce. We'd get our paper back.