A Pedant Strikes

"we will loose lots of factory jobs."

What has setting free factory jobs got to do with this?

Or, did you mean "lose"?

Me and My Microcosm

Sorry to break it to ya! As much as you think you know how populations work, Prof Dictator, understand that the best Indian and Chinese students head for the States and have no reason to bother with the UK/EU.

So you're left with those who couldn't make the cut, trust fund babies, and those who want a shorter Master's course and/or dislike American culture.

liberal foaming at the mouth

"Innovation and wealth generally come from the bottom. Startups in garages will always be the inventors of the next big thing."

Thanks to the current tax structure in the US, as of 2011 the typical "small business" will now be taxed at a far higher percentage of their income than even a mid-sized corporation. Due to the way they are structured "sole proprietor" and similar methods of starting a small company while limiting liability to the founder's personal assets, these businesses will be taxed at the personal income rate. So, a small business that makes more the $200K per year will be taxed nearly 33% as income tax. On top of that, you have health insurance costs that have been driven up 25% in less than a year, unemployment insurance costs that went up, in some states, 400% in the last 2 years, and local municipalities adding their fees and taxes on top of that.

Mr Obama is a theorist. He has wonderful "theories" that are based on academic assumptions and stances. He forgets that yes, small companies create jobs. Small companies have 2 sets of customers - the average end consumer, most of whom work for larger corporations (startups and small companies cannot afford to offer competitive wages due to the difference in volume of sales) and the corporations themselves. If the consumer cannot afford to buy your product, and the corporations cannot afford or do not want to buy your product, you are out of business.

Keep in mind that the mass exodus of jobs started when the government started forcing corporations to have higher and higher overhead for their local employees and the current crop of liberally educated business majors started cooking the books.

Too many people think of "Big Companies" as the enemy, instead of thinking of "Big Government" as the thing to watch out for. After all, Intel, Dell, AIG et al will not tax away a part of your income to curb behavior that they don't like-and since they don't like it it must be bad for you.

The US Government is the only entity that can take a million dollar company with 0 overhead and run it into the ground within 12 months due to over regulation and trying to squeeze every nickle and dime out of the public.

Not that this political diatribe will see the light of day.

well said

Bravo. But come on its not like we need to make anything in America anymore. We have the Chinese to do that for us. Instead our brave new world will be selling worthless paper junk bonds to each other that keeping getting so complex that eventually even the quants don't understand them. Heres to yippies in the early 70s showing the true face of Wall Street by throwing hundreds of one dollar bills onto the floor of the NYSE from above and nearly causing a riot. Give me, Give me.

re: liberal foaming at the mouth

"Not that this political diatribe will see the light of day.", giggle, shades of the tards mocked on ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com..

I'm calling bullshit on the simple statement that your healthcare costs haven't gone up.

Mine have gone up by more than the rate of inflation every year for the last 20 years except this one. And the reason they aren't going up this year is the plan the company offered last year got so damned expensive they couldn't afford to offer it to me at twice my previous contribution. So it actually got switched out for and HSA which may or may not cost me more than last year. Won't know until the end of the year.

Nice.

Interesting to see that anti-semitism is alive and well out there in Britain....

I swear.

What is so difficult to believe? The US said a long time ago, "Never Again". That some believe in the principle that a country should keep it's word? Not find excuses to break that word?

Damn, if the same crap happened to Britain, we'd be there too. Doesn't matter who. We're usually there for some reason or another. I would prefer we wouldn't because we screw around too much - there's much to be admired with your basic Roman Legion... lol

And no, not a republican or democrat - Maybe a Constitutionalist perhaps. I vote for the guy/chick who doesn't strike me as a moron.

@StrongType. Let us also hear it for the......

..........Canadians whose "boring" and rather regulated banking and finance sector (so long the butt of many a joke from the masters of the universe on Wall st) survived the recent "unpleasentness" rather well.

@StrongeType

The likes of BMW / VW who ship more out of Deutschland than sell at home were damn lucky the sillly Brits and Yanks were buying with credit otherwise they would have no car industry to speak of. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Calm down

..China will be the most important VW/BMW/Mercedes export market in less than three years at the current growth rates.

Then we have India, Brazil, Russia as export markets. All quite peaceful countries who don't start wars for nothing and have finance under control.

Actually we have to isolate our financial system from the Anglosaxon one, as we will otherwise be infected by the next plague being invented in NY and London.

@StrongType

That was a real tonic.

A sort of Teu-Tonic.

Sorry

..to break the new to you, but it was the idiots of NY and London who brought the world economy on its knees recently.

If you wanted to rape the state financially only thing to do was to hand out a big credit to a broken company at 12% interest, pocket your bonus of 2% and then take out a "credit insurance contract" with American International Group who would "insure" that credit for 3%. Only that AIG never had the financial strength to *really* insure that credit. Instead they went belly-up and the government had to step in with hundreds of billions.

"Insuring" a credit is an unheard-of stupidity here and that's why we are really pissed off with Anglosaxon finance. I could go on to write about Lehman "moving" their liabilites off their balance sheet during certain times (quaterly reports) and thereby effectively Cooking Books.

I am sorry, but any Chinese Banker generates more trust in me than your Bankers. The first one knows he will go to jail (or firing squad) if he rapes the state.

@StrongType

Good point but if we had pulled it off it would have a classic move. Markets are a risk and poeple only yelp and cry when it goes wrong and forget the massive amount of tax the city pays when it goes right. It isn't great but thats at Tertiary economy for you. Congratulate yourself that you still have manufacturing base that we dumped years ago.

Chickens Coming Home To Roost

One American commentard on The Economist always argued that saving money is "hoarding" and thereby immoral behaviour.

Probably because "hoarding" does not contribute to that hot straw fire which AIG & Co lighted up.

The stunning incompetence of the American (and British, Irish) government(s) to control finance is now translating into *real* job losses.

The refusal to spend money on training workers makes American workers little more than very expensive illiterates. Here in Germany everyone gets vocational training for two or three years, including rigourous exams. Haircutters, policemen, bakermen, machine tool mechanics, car mechanics, nurses - all have vocational training and proper exams. This is done in the workplace and State Schools (called Berufsschule). It costs quite a bit, but made Germany a world leader in cars, tool machines of all sorts, munitions plants, main battle tanks, highest quality optics, chemicals and lots of other things.

Those who do not take vocational training go to university, of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship

According to wikipedia, we have 342 different vocational-trained occupations here.

That's the reason why all wealthy Americans buy an VW,Audi, BMW or Mercedes and avoid GM like the plague.

Maybe Mr OBama could get the troops back home and help educate Americans ? Less glory, smaller number of mutilated limbs and more economic strength on the long run.

@StrongType

Having a ton of money pumped into Germany after the second world war to rapidily improve your manufacturing capability had no hand in this of course. Unlike the UK who has paid back every single cent to the US for all the lend lease equipment she used in the war to remove your manufacturing capability ;-)

When in the early 90's?

Not to be too pedantic but, from when (and possibly where) in the "early 90's" are you comparing employment figures? As I recall the period surrounding the opening of the border between the DDR and the Bundesrepublik and the ensuing reunification of East and West Germany was not a great time for German employment figures, unless you are using pre-reunification Bundesrepublik employment numbers. Things certainly picked up fairly well not too long afterward.

Regardless, I do have to agree that the Germans do seem to have things right at the moment.