President Obama Re-Elected - Page 113

On May 26 2012 20:44 Epocalypse wrote:


Where do you think bailouts come from? Taxed money. Printing new money without having anything to back it... called inflation is also a tax, but the rate is unknown until the money printing stops. Unfortunately it's the middle class, lower class that suffer the most.

Foreign cars are already very successful in sales in North America, imagine how much more successful they would be if they were 3,000-10,000 cheaper. Remove tariffs and that's what you get.

On May 26 2012 21:55 Vega62a wrote:


Please address the fact that since the bailouts Chrysler and GM have been turning a profit for the first time in a decade. The link is in my last post.

On May 26 2012 20:44 Epocalypse wrote:


Where do you think bailouts come from? Taxed money. Printing new money without having anything to back it... called inflation is also a tax, but the rate is unknown until the money printing stops. Unfortunately it's the middle class, lower class that suffer the most.

Foreign cars are already very successful in sales in North America, imagine how much more successful they would be if they were 3,000-10,000 cheaper. Remove tariffs and that's what you get.

On May 26 2012 20:46 AUFKLARUNG wrote:
How is Romney even catching up?

On May 26 2012 20:15 Epocalypse wrote:



Why not simply remove tariffs and let the Japanese produce cars way better, and far cheaper than we can. That way we can allocate the funds put into American auto industry somewhere better.

Define successful so far... as in they haven't bankrupted yet? What are their profits like?

"We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." - Winston Churchill

On May 26 2012 20:31 Vega62a wrote:
Why not try to compete with Japanese production? They are an industrialized nation, same as we are. They're not paying workers pennies on our dollar.

On May 27 2012 03:34 sunprince wrote:


We literally can't. Look up the average salary +benefits of a union autoworker in the US and you'll be horrified: it's in excess of $75,000/year for what is essentially unskilled labor. Our decaying industrial infrastructure and lack of technical innovation aren't helpful either.

Because of this, the only way American companies can even begin to compete with Japanese cars are the tariffs we slap on imported vehicles.

TBH this might sound harsh but I think Japanese and German car engineering, production and efficiency are just flat out superior.

On May 27 2012 03:34 sunprince wrote:


We literally can't. Look up the average salary +benefits of a union autoworker in the US and you'll be horrified: it's in excess of $75,000/year for what is essentially unskilled labor. Our decaying industrial infrastructure and lack of technical innovation aren't helpful either.

Because of this, the only way American companies can even begin to compete with Japanese cars are the tariffs we slap on imported vehicles.

On May 27 2012 04:26 Epocalypse wrote:


That's exactly right, because we have to artificially raise the price of the import, thereby devalue it to the American citizen. Imagine the gov't did the same to the iPhone, raised the price by 300 dollars. Their sales would drop significantly. It's an artificial market phenomenon and it is a waste of resources. If we saved the 3,000-10,000 spent on cars, we could then dedicate the saved money to something else... use your imagination to fill the blank. We would have a cheaper Japanese car + something else instead of just an American car. Walmart does the same, makes everything cheaper so that you can have more of everything. Hostile takeover have a similar function in the market and that's the beauty of hostile takeovers. They, very simply put, assess the value of a given company on the market, determine if the resources could be use better elsewhere, and then they do everything to make it so. This increases productivity and increases the amount of wealth made. If you don't understand this, it is beautifully portrayed in the movie "Other People's Money"

On May 27 2012 06:21 BallinWitStalin wrote:


I think it's awesome that you completely ignored the other guy's post above you, pointing out that German workers probably get paid quite substantially, and possibly more, than American auto workers. I imagine Japanese auto workers probably do reasonably well for themselves as well. Productivity (e.g. automation?), engineering, and a whole host of other factors probably have an impact on the profitability of these companies. Does anyone have a comparative breakdown of salaries and benefits, or is this a case of people pulling random numbers out of their ass to justify armchair economic views?

On May 27 2012 01:57 kwizach wrote:

I'm not sure what tariffs and taxes have to do with what we were discussing, but 1. those tariffs are helping save jobs and 2. Churchill's quote is not an argument, so there's really nothing to say here except that government intervention in the economy is a vital part of the history of most modern societies and that intervention is only possible because of the money raised by taxes.

Now, regarding your question, a link was provided to you by someone else to show how well the auto industry has been doing since the bailout. Given your response to that poster, I don't really see how you can be convinced. If the auto industry was doing bad, you'd be saying "see? it's proof the bailouts were a bad idea", but since it's doing well you're saying "it won't last". No amount of evidence will do against this line of reasoning :-)

On May 27 2012 07:51 Vegetarian wrote:


1. + Show Spoiler +

2. Government intervention in the economy has never been shown to be beneficial. If you actually look at the history of modern societies you will see that the countries that intervened most in their economies had the lowest standards of living. Where, the countries that had the lowest taxes and freest markets experienced the highest levels of growth and the highest standards of living. After all, the United States became the most powerful economy in the world during the period that it had no income tax and the fewest regulations on the market.

On May 27 2012 07:51 Vegetarian wrote:


1. The goal of an economy is not to save jobs, it is to increase standard of living. Tariffs do the opposite of this as they force the entire society to pay more for a given product than they would have to absent the tariff. Obviously this is detrimental to the economy as money that could be used to purchase other products and create jobs in other industries is instead wasted subsidizing noncompetitive companies that would not exist in a free market. This is not beneficial to an economy and ignores the most basic concept of comparative advantage which is the whole reason trade exists in the first place. Further, a basic understanding of economics tells us that tariffs most certainly are not saving jobs. When you subsidize a company or a specific industry you divert money from other profitable sectors of the economy. The money has to come from somewhere and therefore there is always an unseen cost that you have to account for. When capital is diverted in order to subsidize one company the cost of capital increases and the supply of it decreases for other companies.

2. Government intervention in the economy has never been shown to be beneficial. If you actually look at the history of modern societies you will see that the countries that intervened most in their economies had the lowest standards of living. Where, the countries that had the lowest taxes and freest markets experienced the highest levels of growth and the highest standards of living. After all, the United States became the most powerful economy in the world during the period that it had no income tax and the fewest regulations on the market.

On May 27 2012 07:56 darthfoley wrote:
If Obama doesn't win i'm moving to Europe.

I must have missed the part where 1950-1970 had no income tax and almost no regulations.

If you're talking about the 19th century, you're going to have to prove when the U.S. surpassed the U.K.

If you're talking about after 1920 that, after Europe was ravaged by the first World War and every country fell into a great depression in the following 2 decades, that's hardly something to brag about.

It's quite wrong to claim that the "highest levels of growth" occurred during a time of low taxes and low government involvement.

In fact, the highest sustained growth period in the U.S. occurred right after WW2, after the U.S. had pumped the 2012 equivalent of $10 trillion into the economy.

On May 27 2012 08:43 aksfjh wrote:

I must have missed the part where 1950-1970 had no income tax and almost no regulations. If you're talking about the 19th century, you're going to have to prove when the U.S. surpassed the U.K. If you're talking about after 1920 that, after Europe was ravaged by the first World War and every country fell into a great depression in the following 2 decades, that's hardly something to brag about.

It's quite wrong to claim that the "highest levels of growth" occurred during a time of low taxes and low government involvement. In fact, the highest sustained growth period in the U.S. occurred right after WW2, after the U.S. had pumped the 2012 equivalent of $10 trillion into the economy.

On May 27 2012 07:51 Vegetarian wrote:
1. The goal of an economy is not to save jobs, it is to increase standard of living.

On May 27 2012 07:56 darthfoley wrote:
If Obama doesn't win i'm moving to Europe.

On May 27 2012 09:00 Vegetarian wrote:
I am not quite sure what your saying here. It is basic economic history that the highest period of economic growth in America occurred in the 1800's. This was a period that had no income tax and very few regulations on business which allowed for rapid growth in the economy. Are you actually trying to argue that 1950-1970 was a period of greater economic growth than the industrial revolution? Also I am not sure how you can call any growth of this era sustained unless you ignore the rest of the 1900s entirely.