Economically who is at fault?

[trialbyerror]

Hi and thanks to all who posted in
I am not an economist, hell, I can't even manage my budget...
One thing I know, lack of competition kills productivity micro or macro.

Our economy is largely a commodity driven one, by and large, exclusively minerals, which are not renew-able. Once they are gone, they are gone.

Already, the gold mines are penetrating the 5 mile mark!
At the farm, on the adjacent farm The Marikana mine complex (Where all the recient shootings where) drilled a prospecting hole 3000m deep.

I think the policy of not enforcing value added before export is what's killing all hope of economic growth..

All commodities, or a percentage thereof, whether it be cotton from Southern USA to iron from SA should be value added first.

That would create jobs, jobs create expenditure, and the wheels turn

That's my view

Now shoot me down! :biggrin:

[Kiid]

The ones who print the monies. I blame them. legal tender is a poo way to trade if you be asking me u.u

[Unfulfilled1]

I read the post related to Wal-Mart last night, and that has prompted me to post this debate

Using the Chinese as an example

Is it the fault of the Chinese, who have grown their economy so extensively that it has shrunk the economies of other countries, including that of South Africa by taking advantage of the comparatively extremely low productivity of their target countries?

Or is it the fault of the "targeted" countries for having such low productivity (and consequentially disproportionate high labor costs), thereby affording the Chinese the opportunity to take economic advantage thereof?

Is it the fault of the Chinese for having a focused government backed market driven economy and buying raw materials such as iron ore, which has no value added, converting it into value added goods such as cars / ships / rail coaches

Or is it the fault of the very same countries for selling the raw materials to them without conversion into high value products?

Trial by error

Are you a laborer?

Do you like being part of a middle class where YOUR time and labor are valued?

Do you know the suicide rate of these "emerging markets"?

Including farmers?

All while we sit in our comfy rooms listening or watching commercials that hype up how valuable farmers are?

[Unfulfilled1]

Hi and thanks to all who posted in
I am not an economist, hell, I can't even manage my budget...
One thing I know, lack of competition kills productivity micro or macro.

Given how companies like Walmart move into towns, drive out competition due to lower costs, but then leave the towns afterward because there's no more profit anymore...

Competition is not always a good thing and when it's thrown around loosely in the media, people often blindly believe it without thinking of the entire macrocosm and how they fit into it.

Our economy is largely a commodity driven one,

We are not a market economy. Haven't been one in a long time. We're becoming a market society. I'm not sure if people really want that...

by and large, exclusively minerals, which are not renew-able. Once they are gone, they are gone.

Which only makes the waste of it for short-term profit for a very few at the expense of everyone else even more irrational and anything but "pro-life"...

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Three generations? Try its happening today.

Resources are limited, finite. We are already at peak everything.

While the move from incandescent light bulbs to CFLs has been touted as part of the green movement, the real underlying reason why light companies are switching over is because all of the easy to reach tungsten deposits are depleted to the point where the cost to extract far exceeds the sales of light bulbs.

Oil, copper, Iron, Magnesium, Bauxite (where aluminum comes from) all of these mineral and metal resources are being tapped out at the surface of earth.

The only reason why we still have gasoline is because our technology has kept pace and allows us to drill deeper - but that comes at a price - BP in the Gulf of Mexico is part of that price, the other part is that its taking more oil to pump oil - eventually we will reach the point where it will take a barrel of oil to pump a barrel.

https://www.google.com/#psj=1&q=peak+everything is a good place to start to learn just how bad it really is.

Not only are we running out of easy to reach resources, idiot humans are still breeding like rabbits. We are currently at 7 billion plus people on earth. In twenty years we will hit 8 billion (if not actually sooner) 2025 is right around the corner.

The problem is exponential numbers - each additional billion people means the next billion is reached sooner.

We already have problems feeding, watering and providing basic life needs for all 7 billion - Who, CDC and all of the experts predict that the world's population will level off at Ten billion.

10,000,000,000 - that's a lot of eaters - if we can't feed 7 billion, how on earth are we to feet ten billion?

Energy is at its end. There is no alternatives - sorry wind, solar, and all of those promising alternatives are bogus - wind requires special rare earth metals to be efficient, solar requires too much plastic and other rare earths - these materials are already limited.

Alcohol fuel requires to much energy in than one gets out.

So we are facing a major energy crunch in the very near future. I fear no economy works without energy being dumped into the system.

You and I will most likely live to see the Great Crash as billions starve to death, as old nations collapse under lack of resources and energy.

Its happening now - not three generations from now, not 20 years down the road - its already here.

[trialbyerror]

Hi!
Unfulfilled, thanks for your perspective.

First, I live in South Africa, our economy is commodity driven (ours not yours)

Secondly, no I am not a worker, I am at executive level but in a medium size enterprise.

Simply put, if I was the only person in the world with my skills, I would command any salary I liked, and I wouldn't have to work very hard at all (no competition, no productivity)

If on the other hand, I had no skills at all, I would have to be highly productive indeed to rise above the competition (lots of competition high productivity)

Bow
I agree 100 % but much like the rapid downward spiral this country has gone into because of the goverment's blatent theft of money at all levels, I have given up being concerned about the outcome, I am too old to be bothered anymore. I don't think the crunch will happen in my lifetime, so quite frankly, I don't care.

The police are corrupt, so I pay the bribe and save a couple of hundred Rands.

I don't bother to report burst water-mains, nothing get's done anyhow, why must I waste money on the call.

The previously disadvantaged have thousands of illegal electricity connections, if my mate has a modified pre-paid meter I don't give two hoots... Good luck to him, same goes for water connections..

I go to a park, it is filthy, so what if I throw my KFC box and empty Coke bottle out the car window I'm past caring nobody else cares about me (the park is filthy).... Used to be clean.... I used to care
sad but true

Ain't my problem

[Vigilias]

I couldn't help notice that things began to go a little wrong around the September - November period of 2007 when a number of nations began squabbling over mining rights to newly found minerals in the Arctic region.

I believe this caused instability in the world markets which in turn affected interest rates, the housing/real estate markets and a knock on effect with banking. A number of banks had created so-called Super Banks which seems to me to be the financial equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket.

Icelandic banks for some reason seemed to be favoured by many pension and investment houses and when the Icelandic banking crisis hit it sent shock waves out like ripples in a pond.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

That's how I see it anyway - we'll probably never really know for sure exactly what caused the present world financial meltdown but lets hope things improve soon because the so-called Austerity Measures are effecting those who are most vulnerable in our society.

Here in the UK, supposedly one the eighth richest countries of the world people are having to resourt to Trussel Trust Food Banks which, I am reliably informed, only give three days worth of groceries per person or household (I'm not sure if everyone gets the same or you get more depending on the size of your dependant family).

I've noticed too a mushrooming of Pay Day loan companies who charge exorbitant interest rates and APR. They seem to be aimed at the type of person who little understands about interest and APR, all they are concerned with is cash.

Then there are high street money lenders, Porn Shops (Porn - not Pornography - lol) such as Cash Converter, Cash Generator etc, etc.

China's rapidly expanding economy will one go Novae and collapse in on its self. That is when I beleive that her political flavour will sweeten somewhat. I heard someone argue once that communism 's seventy or so year experiment had failed. It seems to be working okay to me in China. I believe the time will come when the people of China will tell their leaders that they have had enough of things the way they are, that they want to be more comfortably off and that restrictions on their personal freedoms and civil liberties must end. It will take more than a student standing in the path of a Tank though!

Better still, put *ME* in charge of the world! I'll select a cabinet of ministers drawn from gayspeak (I'll bring Marshlander out of his retirement from this site to run a Hemisphere of the planet at least!) but I'm losing the plot of the thread now!

Back to the studio...

[dfiant1]

I read the post related to Wal-Mart last night, and that has prompted me to post this debate

Using the Chinese as an example

Is it the fault of the Chinese, who have grown their economy so extensively that it has shrunk the economies of other countries, including that of South Africa by taking advantage of the comparatively extremely low productivity of their target countries?

Or is it the fault of the "targeted" countries for having such low productivity (and consequentially disproportionate high labor costs), thereby affording the Chinese the opportunity to take economic advantage thereof?

Is it the fault of the Chinese for having a focused government backed market driven economy and buying raw materials such as iron ore, which has no value added, converting it into value added goods such as cars / ships / rail coaches

Or is it the fault of the very same countries for selling the raw materials to them without conversion into high value products?

Trial by error

It is smart business and the rest of the world could learn from this.

Unfortunately manufacturing costs are enormous in western cultures which are massively materialistic cultures with the support of Unions.

Manufacturing in Australia is prohibitive for example because wages are so high to support lifestyle and general coast of living (Having the best car, living in the most expensive neighbour hood, living on credit to be able to afford the lifestyle) so we export all of our raw materials to countries like China who use it in manufacturing and manufacture exactly what the materialistic world want's and sell it back at profit.

It is smart business.

[putresVigil]

Given how companies like Walmart move into towns, drive out competition due to lower costs, but then leave the towns afterward because there's no more profit anymore...

I would argue that that is not actual competition, though. The economy in the US is simply the illusion of competition. An unrestricted free market can no sooner create competition than unrestricted anarchy can create freedom; it certainly seems like they should be able to do that but in both cases it is just the biggest,, strongest, meanest dogs controlling all the other dogs in the pack.

[nfisher1226]

Unfortunately manufacturing costs are enormous in western cultures which are massively materialistic cultures with the support of Unions.

Support of unions is dubious, at least in the USA. Sure they still exist in some of the major heavy industries, but they've been weakening for decades and have completely failed in most of the "light manufacturing" sectors.

I work in manufacturing. Narrow web flexo printing to be exact, which is to say product label printing. 10+ plants all over the country and counting, all non-union. Top rate is $20 an hour for production workers. My dad made more than that in the 80's at the Hoover plant in Canton, OH. Which now sits empty by the way, as all Hoover products are now cheap imports designed to look somewhat like the former products.

In the town I live in the local supermarket closed years ago in favor of the Walmart 15 miles away. I'm quite disciplined with my money but I've had 3 neighbors move in and out of the duplex next door in a year, with another family close to eviction now for non-payment. These people all make better money than me, they just can't or won't budget. So yeah, I'd say materialism is killing them as they could get by if they would forgo some toys. At the same time, these people are not living large by American standards. They just simply don't have enough income to be "middle class" and have things like smartphones and gaming systems and cable TV, and haven't disciplined themselves enough to live "working class" until they can pull themselves out of it. They're "basic standard" is set higher than mine. I'm willing to live like crap for a while longer until I can pull up by my bootstraps. That doesn't mean I like it.

I don't see high wages as the problem. Wages pretty much suck compared with my childhood, and compared with when I entered the workforce too. But when you're in competition with people in the developing world who will work for pennies on the dollar you're just not able to compete. The awful truth of the free market is that we gave it all away freely.