Your post really does not deserve a response but I will present this anyhow.
A excellent Time Life video on what America Needs to do in the following article should be seen by all.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2026474_2026675_2026667,00.html
LLR, standing on a soapbox doesn’t make you a messenger.
Again, just a link with nothing of substance RE: America’s competitiveness.
What is your contention about competitiveness and what, in YOUR words, should be done about it?
If you watched the video and still made the above statement then I should place you on ignore because obviously you just want to start an argument and are not interested in relevant facts and opinions from economic experts regarding American competetiveness, the lack thereof or what needs to be done about it.
If you did not watch the video then you should still be ignored because you have a closed mind.
Thus it is obvious I should no longer respond to your attempts to disrupt this thread.
I may possibly eventually state some personal opinions on how we can become more competetive or I may not. For the time being I will continue to cite expert opinions and sources.
It seems I have struck a raw nerve in some on here who do not like their apparant idea that ‘not that much is wrong with our economy’ kinda disputed.
You’ve struck a raw nerve amongst people who don’t like to have their time wasted by newcomers playing coy.
Fine, I’ll stipulate, arguendo, that America is losing its competitive edge. What should be done about that?
I just posted an excellent video on that…did you not see it?
for anyone that missed it>>>>>http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa…026667,00.html
merci–merci
One more time: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2026474_2026675_2026667,00.html
There’s an entire online subculture that seems to think posting blog, YouTube and video news links constitutes a discussion. It would be tolerably amusing if any of them could actually summarize, argue or defend these third-party claims in their own words, instead of insisting that these largely unverified and self-referential snippets constitute truth.
Unfortunately, LLR, you’ve proven yourself to be a shining example of this “I read this somewhere so you should read it and believe, too, and if you don’t you’re just ignorant and want to argue” culture. And you’ve managed to find the one board in the bitstream that’s least tolerant of such argument by (pseudo-)authority. Congrats.
You have one more chance, if that, of making a good argument in your own words for what you’re trying to convince us of. We aren’t interested in what Time.com might have had to say about it in place of what you might have to say. You have an opinion: state it, and defend it. Not by pointing to something else to make your argument for you.
Why should anyone take you seriously? You post an assertion based on no facts, when asked for facts you post an obviously biased article as a drive by link without any explanation as to what the reader is supposed to take out of it. When pressed you either shift the goal posts or basically say that the person disagreeing with you is biased or scared of your facts, then post more drive by links or ‘you must watch this video’ to try and see what the hell you are talking about. Why should people have to click your ridiculous links to sift through whatever it is you think you are saying and make your arguments for you? Why should they have to watch a video to see what the fuck you are getting at? Why should anyone waste their time with you when you can’t be bothered to make a coherent argument on your own without a bunch of unexplained links and videos??
Look, you need to engage the posters here if you want to get anywhere. Posting drive by links and videos without making an argument or quoting the relevant text from them is simply going to do what it’s done…get you dismissed and eventually mocked. Can you please try and engage in the discussion by actually reading what people are saying to you and thinking through a response of your own, in your own words, or at least cut and paste the thoughts from your links that you feel are relevant?
Since you’re new here, I’ll be charitable and inform you that, on this board, there’s a strong culture of “say what you want to discuss, and we’ll discuss it.” Specifically, linking to content and saying “that’s my argument” is boring and unwelcome. I made the mistake of following another of your links, and assumed that you supported that linked content, and look where that got me.
If you have a point to discuss, state it.
Stop posting this link over and over. People who want to watch it can find it.
Now, now, we should all stop this. LLR is going to go back to his tinfoil hat forums and tell them we’re all close-minded and the enemy of America.
I’ll summarize the video a bit, but I’m not doing this again. LLR can do the leg work in the future on his own videos.
The problem with the video are myriad (in context of this thread, anyway. It may actually have some valid points for urban policy and planning). For what it’s worth, it is basically a 2.5 min spiel from Bruce Katz, a member of the Brookings Institute.
It doesn’t state that America is economically uncompetitive at all now but may become uncompetitive further in the 21st century - this is directly contradiction to LLR’s original position of American uncompetitiveness.
It doesn’t posit the existence of an “American” economy at all. What it does is define the “American” economy as a network of loosely affiliated metropolitan (vs rural) economies that compete with other networks of loosely affiliated metropolitan economies from other countries. Further, it’s on each individual metropolitan area individually to determine ways to compete on the global market. There are no real suggestions or implications for nation-wide policies for competitiveness.
Bruce Katz isn’t even an economist. He’s in charge of Brookings’ urban policy. Again, not exactly something that deals with uncompetitiveness now.
I don’t buy the OP. The US is economically competitive and has the largest economy in the world by a long margin. Our labor laws and our environmental laws allow countries like China to catch up, but at a cost in humanity and environment that can best be argued by trying to breath in Beijing.
I think what strikes a nerve is your hostile and opinionated views.
You haven’t linked to any statistics or facts. Just some editorials and blogs on libertarian goldbug sites.
The fact is the US has the largest economic output of any country as measured by GDP. More than China. About as much as the entire EU. That is not to say there isn’t anything “wrong” with our economy. Unemployment is still very high since the 2008 financial crisis. Debt continues to be a drain on economic growth as well.
The reason so much labor is outsourced overseas is because countries like China and India have a huge population with a low standard of living. Labor costs tend to be very high in the US.
I read your link about the emergence of megacities like New York, London, Hong Kong and Sao Paulo as the new drivers of the world economy. I don’t think there is anything new or groundbreaking there. Urbanization has been a growing trend for decades.
Also, I’ve been to Sao Paulo. While Brazil (along with the other BRIC countries) is seeing a great deal of growth, Sao Paulo is kind of a shithole. Crowded. Poor infrastructure. High crime. High income disparity with the wealthy living in walled communities surrounded by “favellas” or shantytowns barely under government control.
It should be noted that the high growth rate of BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) is due to the bar starting so low. The US has been a first world industrialized Western nation for a century.
The video says that “we” (USA) cannot compete globally without investing in our cities; it also offers vague platitudes about increasing exports, building a low carbon economy as well as one “fueled by innovation”. It also says that cities need to compete globally by “need to know who they are in the global market…(and) what makes them distinctive”. I for one would suggest that it isn’t cost effective for U.S. companies to produce low skill items here and that the ones that tried to have failed and moved off-shore or have gone out of business. Hence, the necessity of knowing one’s place in the global economy and knowing what makes your firm distinctive. We shouldn’t be producing t-shirts here anymore than Mali should be designing computer operating systems.
[del]Jerry[/del] LongLineRider, use your words. He’s mad. [del]Jerry[/del] LongLineRider, use your words.
While we’re waiting for [del]Jerry[/del] LongLineRider to use his words, noob poster behavior my post is my cite or my cite is my post, which is more annoying?
CMC
You’re talking to people who have been members of this board for over a decade, in a forum called Great Debates. You are not debating - you are making statements and refuse to back them up with your own words, instead posting various links and asking us to read them.
Make your own case, without links. That’s all we’re asking here. Hell, we’re not even asking, it’s required by the rules of debate as determined through a decade and a half (and more, counting AOL days) of board culture.
Think about a HS or Toastmasters debate - you don’t go up in front of an audience and say “The grass is blue - here, watch this video to prove my case.” You go in front of an audience and say, “The grass is blue, because of (a), (b), and (c), and here are some citations that back my contention.” You are doing #1, we are asking that you do #2.
I would disagree with you somewhat…we could produce low skill items profitably because we do have a potential abundant resource of cheap labor. Meaning–people willing to work for minimum wage and of course thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants willing to work for even less.
Now of course even our minimum wage is much more than China pays its ‘slaves’ Yet, I do think there would be a market for many so called low skill items that we could produce here. I am not saying we concentrate strictly on low skill items but simply making the point we should not exclude them arbitrarily.
Now regarding ‘skill’-- how much ‘skill’ does it take to learn how to run a simple machine…our problem is not ‘low skilled’ workers it is more of a problem of getting business people to invest in factories aka–convincing them they can operate at a profit in America. In order to do that we need to lighten up on government regulations as anyone who has ever been in business knows full well is very costly.
We should also understand that there is more than one reason why so much business fled overseas. Cheaper Labor over there was only one factor. The costs of doing business in America involve much more than that i.e. taxes, government regulations, problems with unions etc.