Forum Post: The way to end outsourcing...
Posted 12 years ago on Aug. 7, 2012, 9:31 a.m. EST by niphtrique
(323)
from Sneek, FR
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
... is to have a holding fee on money. If a foreign country (for example China or India) export goods or services to the US, it receives US Dollars. Accumulating currency reserves is unattractive with a holding fee on money. Therefore the following will happen:
- The foreign country will spend the currency as soon as possible, creating employment.
- The foreign country will refrain from exporting as it cannot import something useful from the US so the value of the US Dollar will drop and make the US more competitive.
Natural Money does not only end outsourcing. It is the solution to all current economic problems. An implementable proposal:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/proposal.html
Trade imbalances are economically inefficient and therefore Natural Money will make the economy more efficient. A holding fee on money will make international trade work based on comparative cost advantages like David Ricardo explained in his book On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. A relative cost advantage between countries will result in balanced trade as the currencies will not be hoarded because of the holding fee. A country that has a trade deficit will see its currency drop until exports match imports. Currently some countries run large current account deficits for a long period of time because of carry trades based on interest rate differentials and exporting nations hoarding currencies of importing nations.
Current account deficits destroy productive capital of importing nations. This is a process of reverse economic development resulting in a third world economy. Complete industries have been wiped out in the United States because the US Dollar was propped up by high interest rates and currency hoarding by exporting nations like China and Japan. This created useless capital in China and Japan. Those countries produce goods and services for US Dollars that will prove to be worth less in the future as the United States has too little productive capital to support the value of its currency. To balance the trade useless capital in China and Japan may need to be destroyed and replaced by useful capital in the United States.
Pension funds managers should be investing their money locally rather with wall street who in turn invests it overseas which in turn eventually creates low wage cost / inferior product importation that destroys U.S. manufacturing infrastructure.
You cannot force pension fund managers to invest in something. It must be attractive. You cannot force people to buy local goods. It must be attractive. It is something that many people seem to ignore.
This is why the top 1% makes all the money. They are smarter then the 99%.
But Natural Money provides a solution for this. It makes people prefer local products and trade internationally only when needed or when trade can be balanced so both parties benefit.
This is the starting proposal: http://www.naturalmoney.org/proposal.html
But why force local businesses to pay more and more in taxes even as prior taxes are now competing against them? Do you see the problem here?
You are applying your criticism judgementally without seeing that local businesses have been forced to pay more and more because of the earlier taxes they paid.
Natural Money can make local businesses more competitive for a number of reasons.
Consequently it will be more attractive to invest in them. It is explained here:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/full-theory.html
It will work better than forcing people to invest in local businesses.
There is no need to force, the problem is the pension promises require higher and higher taxation. But the investment fund managers still desire to maximize the return on their investment by investing overseas. It's a double whammy against local businesses.
I just did a post on this very subject a few minutes ago: http://occupywallst.org/forum/forced-taxation-is-violence-it-is-immoral/
How is it ethical to prevent human beings in other countries to become more prosperous, and deny them of wealth. If the banks weren't in control, and people could trade freely as individuals irrespective of borders wouldn't that be a better place?
Why is it ethical to promise unions pensions that states won't be able to honor years later, in exchange for their union vote today?
Those pension promises pressurize local businesses with excessive taxation and regulation. Lets split the difference, invest overseas, but don't raise taxes locally to pay for pensions that were promised in exchange for votes.
I agree with you. The pensions were criminally "given" by pandering politicians with perverse time incentives: I'll promise you a stack of cheese today, that you will be scheduled to receive long after I'm gone...
The old popeye cartoon had a version of that as well. I'll pay you 25 cents on Tuesday for a hamburger today, or something like that. I was a really little kid when I saw that and it confused me.
I would think to myself, "Why would he expect something today for the promise to pay it back next week when he will probably be asking someone else for a hamburger next week as well.
Plus, the character "Whimpy", was overweight as well, making the whole encounter that much more confusing to a five year old.
Markets are not ethical in the first place. If you apply ethics on markets you will lose. If you want to beat the top 1% then you must be smarter than them.
Unbalanced trade is not making people more prosperous for the following reasons:
Trade can better be balanced so all countries can build capital and create wealth.
Not if you use a form of money that has no counter-party risk. It has intrinsic value. It worked brilliantly until WW1 when everybody wanted to start wars, and not pay for them, pulling off of a commodity (independent from .gov) standard currency.
The main problem is still interest on money as the following example demostrates:
If someone brought a 1/10 oz gold coin to the bank in the year 1 AD, and the money remained there until the year 2000 AD, collecting a yearly interest of 4%, the amount of gold in the account would have been 3.6 * 10^31 kilogramme of gold weighing 6,000,000 times the complete mass of the Earth.
If interest is charged on a limited scale or over a short timeframe then those problems do not surface. Over time it is inescapable that it reduces large numbers of people to a state of servitude to the money lenders. This is a long term development that transcends the life span of a human. Interest is the main reason why a number of civilisations have failed and why Western civilisation is about to fail. Therefore all interest is usury and the current financial system is a usury financial system.
Introducing gold as money would inevitably invoke usury.
The natural state of a specie currency is a very mild deflation over the long time period (there are periods of inflation as well when new sources are found - Americas, but has always been low). However, this is tempered by the arbitrage incentive to every acting individual to go dig it up at the current market (or speculated future market price).
Money supply being constrained, forces either a mild deflation in value of the units, coupled with periods of mild inflation (new large discoveries). With a natural and predictable money supply, contracts, interest, etc are calculated based on money supply growth/ population growth. Problems only come up when you have rapid large changes in money supply quantity.
In a true gold standard, money supply equals the oz that exist above ground. Only the amount of gold that exists can be lent out. In a gold exchange standard, you have a fractional reserve gold standard, where banks may lend at leverage to assets held (historically 12-1, now 40-1 with most of the big banks in fiat). In the fiat system we have, we have the instability of governments (perennial incentive to increase money supply) compounded by the banks' reserve ratio - creating extreme volatility risk during crisis periods.
We could use an artificial scheme such as bitcoins that has attempted to simulate mine-life output supply curves (decline over time), but there are risks to the artificial system, in addition to the lack of an intrinsic value to the bitcoin unit.
So back to your scenario, in each basket of loans, you have a percentage of non-performing / default that justify the interest / risk premium. In a pure commodity standard, assuming a mild deflation / with periods of mild inflation you may loan out your 10 oz of metal with hopes of getting principle plus interest, but you're also taking risk that you will take a total loss, otherwise you'd just keep it and spend it. It's not the number of units that are available, it's more important that the quantity gradually but steadily increases. Mild deflation or mild inflation aren't necessarily bad if they are reasonably predictable.
Peter Bernholtz did some interesting charts in his book of monetary systems and hyperinflation discussing the gold supply over history. It's worth looking at.
Certainly, the Koran forbids lending, so did classical christian societies, hence the jewish classes in venice, etc. I don't think lending is necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, it's up to the owner of the assets whether they want to put them at risk in investments.
To ward of economic cycles, you need two things:
Risky lending is only possible with interest. With a limited pool of money (no money printing and loans must be made out of savings) only the best borrowers will be selected. Risky projects and enterprises must then be funded with equity.
The holding fee in itself is already an incentive to lend out at 0%. If you have constant economic growth (e.g. 3%) then you have a real return of 3% when lending out at 0% because economic growth will lower prices.
If you have precious metals currencies then you have the following:
Not exactly. Gold is naturally occurring throughout the world. People out of self interest will dig it up (Arbitrage), just like people mining bitcoins. This worked to maintain a stable money supply for hundreds of years.
The problem with a central monetary authority, is that it eventually becomes irresistible for governments to create it (inflation) to create a false prosperity. An alternative, is that you could allow competing currencies: gold, silver, bitcoins, visa chits, Canadian MintChip, etc. And allow the people to decide what is in their best interest to use.
Depreciating money drives out stable money in circulation. People will circulate the money that loses value and keep the money that has a more stable value. That is also one of the reasons why gold and silver do not circulate as money. Therefore depreciating money is a superior form of money from the circulation perspective. In the long run money of constant or rising value will become more widely accepted because it is more trusted. This is also one of the reason why gold is still accepted as money and paper currencies from the past are not.
If there is sufficient supply of depreciating money or Natural Money then regular money such as the Euro and the Dollar will disappear from circulation. Because the money supply of the natural money is constant, while the supply of Euro and Dollar is increasing steadily, the Natural Money will also become more widely accepted in the long run because the money unit itself has a stable or a rising value. Probably the value of the Natural Money will also rise compared to gold because the supply of gold increases. The Natural Money can therefore become superior in circulation as well as trust.
The best solution I can think of is that gold should not be used as money but that people should be free to hold gold and silver to protect themselves against currency mismanagement. As long as fiat exists alongside with gold, fiat will be used unless it is extremely unreliable. So people will use fiat and not gold in most cases.
With Natural Money there is no monetary authority, nor is there an incentive to create more currency. The money supply is fixed and banks are not allowed to create money so loans must be made out of savings.
It is a long read and it requires a new way of thinking but the solution tackles the all the important issues:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/full-theory.html
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They've been holding down the value of the dollar since 2000, and yes, this will eventually happen.
The US has been trying desperately to destroy the value of the dollar since the 70s (except for the brief time of volker). They're trying to put the printers in hyperspeed to really destroy the value of the dollar now. However, since Europe is falling apart, and Japan is about to go KABOOM (economically), everyone is rushing into the dollar, driving the value up. It will crash in time as well, and it will be a spectacle for the ages... History is pretty clear.
Definitely out of my league here, but as a causal observer, it appeared to me that the Bush administration was intentionally attempting to hold down the dollar in an effort to reduce the trade deficit. It didn't work; our debt has grown, the dollar has lost value against its debt; I suppose we would expect some of those dollars to come back in the form of investment, and it does, to buy treasury bills but the purchase of treasury bills is not investment and does not economically enhance or contribute. We have too much debt and we'll never regain the manufacturing or production to buy our way out of it, unless we can reduce oil consumption, drastically cut imports, and rebuild our own economy. I agree, this administration is hyper printing; it has exasperated the problem to the political will of the moment, which at most, can only last four more years.
They have actually been pushing up the value. We don't actually have the productivity to support the current valuation of the dollar, it's propped up with overall GDP which of late gets it's numbers from Wall Street, which also does not have the productivity to support it's numbers and thats why the FED keeps pumping in money.
The gov uses Wall Street to mask low productivity, Wall Street uses the FED to cover it's low productivity, and the FED depends on the gov to keep an open tab for this circle jerk. Who pays the tab, We The People.
Look at the physical output, then look again at the numbers. If you get caught in the talking points, you would be convinced that pushing paper is the same as production and has a profitability of it's own but that's bullshit. You can increase profit through trade of existing or future production but the production must exist, and it doesn't.
We are being proactively taxed to play a shell game.
If the Chinese had to pay 1% of the face value for keeping US Dollars, then they would spend them directly or not export at all. In both cases this would mean a great boost to US employment.
For the Chinese it is also a good deal as this will refrain them from piling up US Dollars that will prove to be worthless in the end.
This has many consequences not addressed in the OP. The first that comes to mind is domestic inflation as investors/countries stop trading in dollars, the low demand will weaken the dollars value. This would also leave a gaping hole in the power struggle for currency domination and that is what BRICS has been waiting on. You'd be better off setting up a minimum wage for products imported to the US, if they are produced by workers under that wage, they should not be eligible for import to the US.
Wouldn't that end up hurting poor people though? Something as simple as socks and underwear would all of a sudden be a lot more expensive once they are not produced by slave labor anymore.
No, thats the talking point used to prevent action on this front.
There are US manufacturers that still compete with 6cent per hour labor(China) yet still make a profit, working from inside the US. The markup is the only difference. US manufacturers are less profitable for investors but provide more to the overall economy in the form of wages and domestic currency circulation.
The outsourcing companies will still have to compete with the US manufacturers that they currently compete with as well as the prices. This competition will prevent the price inflation you are worried about.
I would love to know where you can get a pair of underwear made in the US at a comparable price to foreign produced. A quick Google search turned up a few sites where you can get American made mens briefs for $20 per 2-pack. WalMart has a 7-pack for $9. So $10 per pair of American made briefs and about $1.28 per pair of foreign made briefs. How exactly are these comparable if you are working in a low skill, low wage job?
Ford seems to be doing pretty well.
Funny you should pick that particular item for debate. I have something for you.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/05/made-in-america-finding-inspiration-in-underwear/
http://signup.getflintandtinder.com
You can't complain about the economy then drop out when it might take an effort on your part.
He says he will sell underwear for the same price as Ralph Lauren and J Crew and I believe him because on Ralph Lauren's site right now they are selling briefs for between $9.50 and $13. These prices are consistant with the prices of underwear actually made in the US that I found in my Google search.
So I ask you again, how is this comparable to the $1.28 pair of briefs you can get at WalMart if you are a low skill, low wage earning worker with a couple of kids at home?
So what, it doesn't seem to keep Ralph Lauren from being successful and it creates american jobs. You wana pay for this recovery in taxes or wages? Only one of those choices is sustainable. At the beginning of every product you buy, there is labor. You can accept your responsibility to pay a fare wage to your fellow Americans or you can just sit in the corner and bitch that you don't wana.
The point is, he is doing it, he will turn a profit, he will employ people, and he will be supporting the american economy by keeping the profits in this country. What the fuck else could you ask for?
You originally said above that products that are made using labor being paid less than minimum wage should not be allowed to be imported. The working poor and middle class do not buy underwear at Ralph Lauren. They get it at Target and WalMart for $1.28 per pair. These are the people who will be hurt the most if you stop importing cheap foreign made goods.
No doubt this guy will make money. I hope he does. That doesn't change the fact that poor people and middle class people can only afford Chinese made underwear (and all kinds of other stuff).
So you think if the cost of production goes up that people will stop selling underwear? Or that enforcing an import minimum wage will suddenly stifle competition? There will always be some who chooses price as their marketing MO, that's why we have anti-monopoly laws. Underwear will always be sold and competition will always sprout up, such is the nature of capitalism.
They will still make underwear, just charge a lot more for it like the guy in your article above. It is great for people who want to buy American and can afford to do so. Not great for people who can't afford it and rely on that Chinese kid making 25 cents an hour so that they can put underwear and socks on their own kids.
Again, so an import minimum wage would put an end to competition?
The poor people would have a job making socks and underwear at fair wages.
Imagine that there is no unemployment and market forces will make wages rise.
Disregard the unemployed for a moment and think about the already working poor, who a lot of times are actually a lot worse off than the non-working poor. Say you are making $12 an hour but all of a sudden that 10-pack of socks is $20 instead of $7 and you are still chugging along at $12 an hour. These people rely on cheap foreign produced goods to live.
I do not think that labour costs do make that much difference. There are many other costs involved. Producing it locally may increase the shop price with 10%.
It is important to note that the money will stay in the US and increase employment so the government needs to spend less on benefits and food stamps. This could be used to reduce taxes.
If there is less unemployment, wages will rise. If wages rise 10% then the price increase is annuled. Full employment is the only way the 99% can win from the 1%.
Refer to the article linked below by richardkentgates that I responded to about the startup made in America underwear company. I give him a lot of credit and hope he succeeds. That being said, he flatly says in the article about his own company that the prices will be similar to underwear at Ralph Lauren or J Crew. This is between $9.50 and $13 per pair for briefs. Google search for made in America underwear confirms the price is about $10 per pair. Compare that to $1.28 per pair at WalMart (which includes essentially the same material costs plus the cost to ship it around the world) and I think you can how labor costs influence the price.
The working poor among us need the products produced by cheap labor to maintain their current standard of living, poor as it may be. Taking away products made by this cheap labor will further their descent.
I do not agree. This is delusional.
If it is really cheaper to produce goods in China, the US must have something to trade, otherwise the US goes into debt.
If socks were made in the US the living standar would rise. If the US continues on the current path it ends up being a deindustrialised third world country.
The holding fee on money will ensure that US trade will be balanced, so if the Chinese have a relative cost advantage in producing socks, they will still produce socks and export them to the US.
If socks were made in the US the living standard would rise for someone who may have been unemployed but is now making socks. But if someone was already working and now their socks cost 8x more, their standard of living will decline.
You can make the argument that a rising tide raises all ships, and I agree to an extent. But that average working middle class guy is not going to see his income rise by a multiple of 8 because of an increase in American manufacturing jobs. That means his purchasing power has gone down and he can no longer afford the things he used to.
The US Dollar has been propped up by its reserve currency status.
If Americans had to live of their own productivity then they would have a significant drop in living status anyway.
This will happen sooner or later. Accepting this reality is the basis of future improvements.
Wrong thinking. Imports whether made by a foreign company entire or made by an outsourcing American company must be made to compete at the same level as completely domestic business. Otherwise you are just encouraging more loss of American work/jobs/employment. And as the consumer market continues to shrink from lack of employment and income eventually these outsourcing businesses must die for lack of sales.
So what do you tell the guy making $14 an hour with a couple kids? That he has to pay $59 for a 6-pack of underwear so that another guy 500 miles away can have a job?
It sounds great in theory but this is something that can never be sold to the average working Joe simply because they cannot afford to pay an American to make a lot of their day to day products. In the underwear example, the American made briefs are 8x more than the foreign made ones.
That's the wrong question.
It should be. Why is that guy only making $14hr, when underwear from the neighborhood is so expensive?
How much more should an unskilled, easily replaceable worker make?
I just got my oil changed at the shop today. I bet the kid wasn't making more than $10 or $12 an hour but if I had to pay much more for the oil change I would just do it myself. Then he would be making nothing. Unfortunately, some people don't really have the skills to warrant much more than $14 an hour. You can't fix this problem by throwing more money at an unskilled worker, you fix it by throwing money at the root of the problem - his or her lack of skills.
What you have described is a form of slavery.
Go ahead, spill the oil all over your driveway.
It's great fun in February with a foot of snow on the ground.
You'll really hate the EPA when you get fined for that.
Open your eyes to all the extraction in the supply chain that was done long before that poor guy was told all they could pay him was $10.
There aren't enough jobs for college grads either. So they can stand in the highly skilled unemployment line?
http://blog.richardkentgates.com
The system is designed for We The People. When it fails to serve We The People, it's broken and needs to be repaired. Capitalism is not a person to be defended, it's a system created by people to serve people. So when you say that the worker doesn't deserve more pay, I want you to consider sleeping with capitalism, hugging capitalism, getting capitalism pregnant and having a child with it. People make the world go around, not shit jotted down on paper. Where's my eraser?...
But there are people on both ends of the equation, and I don't mean 1% vs 99%. I highly doubt this kid's boss at the shop is a member of the 1% - most business owners are not. So if he has to pay this kid more than $12 an hour, that is money coming out of his own pocket. Eventually it gets to a point where he just says screw it, fires the kid, and does the extra work himself.
I start my dental assistants at about $16 an hour or $20 an hour if they are certified to take radiographs. They help me to be more productive. But at the same time, I made it through dental school and residency with no assistant at all so there is a point, probably around $25 an hour or so, where I would just work without them because they aren't worth it. And I don't mean they aren't worth it as a person, their labor is just not worth it.
Imports must be made to compete on a level playing field with domestics. A living wage for all American workers must be mandated and enforced or you will never see the lives of the working people improve - part of a fair labor law.
What would you consider to be a living wage? I know it is dependent on geography, but what would be a national average?
National average? Close to 16.00 an hour tied to inflation/cost of living.
I am aware of this issue.
If you read the proposal then you will see that this idea will improve the efficiency of the economy, and therefore other countries will be forced to do the same.
This is the starting proposal:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/proposal.html
This is the theory in more detail:
http://www.naturalmoney.org/full-theory.html
Being aware of it does not suddenly make it a non-issue.
I guess you did not find the time to read the link. International trade only makes you poor.
Nazi Germany was booming, partly because the country had limited access to international markets and had to trade on a barter basis.
International trade with imbalances in wages makes you poor. Globalization will eventually lead to a world wide leveling of wages. The sooner that happens, the sooner the birthing pains will subside.
I guess not. And this is why: only 5% of the world population is needed to produce the goods and food we need. So wage competition will not end if the chains of international trade are not broken.
Only 5% are needed now or in the future?
Because only 5% are needed, workers can be played out against each other, so international trade makes the 1% rich and the 99% poor.
Being cut off from international trade can be good for the economy. Germany in the 1930's did well while the rest of the world suffered from the Great Depression.
It is even better to have local currencies, high taxes on fossil fuels and no taxes on wages, so the so called economies of scale are reversed and more people have meaningful jobs and good wages.
Only 5% are needed now or in the future? You need to give a timeline because that number is based on circumstances that will change over time. So again, only 5% are needed now or in the future?
You are deflecting attention away from the argument.
I once read this that this was currently the case.
But if it was 10% or if the 5% is in the future this does not change the argument.
The number is based on circumstances that will change over time. It is yourself who refuses to clarify your statement well enough to be debated. If you were interested in debate or even agreement, you would clarify.
I don't understand why anyone posts things when they have no real interest in the conversation. I'l just tell you what you want to hear, (I guess I do understand why), you're right.
Just tell me what you think instead of asking questions. Every opinion is welcome. The 5% number I have read somewhere and I even do not remember where. So if you have an opinion backed up with evidence then I like to read it. I only do not like people that try to look smart by taking up a point and discuss it for the sake of disussing it. You make the impression of being a philosopher with a lot of time on your hands.