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Comments
Strongly agree.
Leicas are still great cameras, just expensive. I've read their optics are excellent.
I'd love to have a Leica. I often get tired of lugging my Nikon D90 around. An M9 would be nice, but I'm not near a good enough photographer to justify a $6k camera.
I always remember in the '70's hearing that Curtis Mathes (sp?) were excellent TV's. I think they even advertised being "the most expensive TV you can buy". I doubt they're around anymore but I'm too lazy to look it up (you know, typical American
My view is different. From 1949 until the late 70s, China vainly pursued a Maoist vision of economic self-sufficiency. By the time of Mao's death, it was obvious to the Chinese leadership that this wasn't working & that China had to strike out in another direction.
IMO, the Chinese transformation was largely the handiwork of Deng Xiaoping & his followers. Deng started by rolling back agricultural collectivization to allow limited private ownership of farmland. This proved to be a great success - food supplies increased & prices fell - so he applied similar principles to the industrial sector.
China in the late 70s couldn't afford the luxury of waiting for outsiders to "open" it to the world. It had to do something on its own, & it did.
Hard to believe, but I agree with fintail on this one...we spend billions keeping our troops in something like 120 countries and they don't pay us a dime...maybe letting some of those countries fall to the Commies might not be so bad after all...
The Koreans have shown themselves to be ferocious competitors at the lower end of the market. They won't let the Chinese get a foothold here. And the American manufacturers - particularly Ford - are smarter than they were in the 70s.
Does anyone here seriously believe that the Chinese can break into our automobile market? If so, how?
This number is vehicle count only and has complete disregard for content. If 80% of content is shipped in from S. Korea and they assemble it here, it is counted towards the 70% built in US number.
GM is around 66% built in US and by content, the number is probably higher.
I think that if you read the book "Crash Course" (search Amazon) then you will see how much incompetence, from BOTH the union and the management of the US Corporations, occurred right up until 2008. To me, a Corporation founded here but operating as an inefficient and inept organization is not a desirable quantity. I want only capable, efficient, competitive manufacturing in this country. I certainly admire where Ford is going right now. But if you are looking at what benefits our economy the most, it is NOT whether the corporation is HQ'd in the US. It is how much content is produced in the US. The US companies (except Ford) have been a huge drain on the taxpayers and are not generating income taxes when they don't make any profits.
Even many of the transplants have huge amounts of design work occurring in the US. Honda designs Acuras here. There was a BMW design facility only a few blocks from where I used to work.
their Kia, Nissan and Toyota competitors.
I also noticed recently when riding in the front seat of my sister-in-law's
2001 Jeep Cherokee (with over 200,000 miles) how comfortable the
seats are. They actually have thick foam padding that cushions
your bottom. That's a rarity in today's cars. Most feel like your sitting
on a piece of cardboard. They are way too hard.
I'm glad the new GC is testing well. I can tell you that the previous generation GC was a POS. I had one as a rental and I could not believe (for a vehicle well over $30K) what a crude, noisy, space inefficient, and cheap (interior) vehicle it was.
"Rare earth" minerals are trace minerals (scandium, yttrium, and the fifteen lanthanides) that are very important in certain manufacturing applications. China is the major, perhaps only, source for some of these minerals. Because of a dispute over other things, China recently cut off Japan from buying these materials.
I do take issue with that statement. So in Europe the faculty doesn't get paid, facilities magically appear and maintain themselves and the students don't spend any money while attending i.e food, clothes, beer etc? It's hardly free and it certainly gets added into GDP one way or another.
I live near the university of Illinois and I witness directly how the university effects the local economy regardless of where the tuition comes from or how it's counted. During the summer I can walk into any bar or restaurant and get a table immediately and enjoy a quiet meal. Last Tuesday I took my daughters to a Mexican restaurant which is about 2 miles from campus and it was a 40 minute wait for a table.
It's not that this is a cure. It's just that this is inevitable. Sort of like ice melting if the temperature is above 0 C. So instead of fighting the inevitable, perhaps we should figure out how to make it work? Aren't we smarter than that?
Modern capitalism should have a rightful all-time name now; “Crony Capitalism”. Wall Street—the healthcare industry—pharmaceuticals’--two elective wars over oil and enormous profit for defense contractors' . The father’s of many of these American Corporations, the American entrepreneur, starts a business. It grows as a huge success because of the labor and hard work of the American worker. The founders eventually die and their snot-nosed snobby elitist kids inherit it and have no concept of what went into this corporation that made it highly profitable in the first place. Profit becomes the only, and number one, to such a degree it obscures the system itself. Immoral Profit: The real American God. The poor American worker continues to lose his or her value.
Instead of taking good profit-- they go to the extreme of taking it all—the core problem with crony modern capitalism. Every business considers their fiscal year a flat year or failure if the company does not grow 10-12% every year. That is the minimum target of any business. Super-size your fries, anybody?
When the successes of a nation can only be measured and quantified in terms of profit, and we are no longer concerned about promoting the best possible life for the average American Joe or Jane included in the process, then we have this socioeconomic imbalance between “The Haves” and “The Have-nots” that undeniably exists in America, today.
Yes, America used to be a great nation because all people who were median workers still had other ambitions and dreams besides sustenance and pure survival. This is what our nation once stood for. They robbed us of that dream and now we have a nation of totally disillusioned people who don’t know whose side they should be on. Crony modern capitalism now stands for greed and profit above every other element.
That is what modern capitalism has become. The rich eat the rich through corporate mergers and takeovers. This, in turn, devours the Working Class and marginalizes most Americans over an extended period of time. There are 110 million marginalized working class families in America and almost nobody can agree on a single thing except that nobody in the Working Class is happy with government. One in seven Americans are dirt poor. They have become marginalized because of government policies that favor the super-rich over the needs of its citizens. This severe economic imbalance has peaked over the last decade and it is going to take a long time to recover fully.
America is losing its moral high ground. Nothing is safe or sacred any longer. If you lose your job, Corporate America says "@#$% you!." Wall Street ripped off many Americans and nobody served any jail time for this truly criminal behavior. Wall Street is back in business which says to the American citizen again “"@#$% you!." Reform was half-baked because the Wall Street Lobby continues to bury America's citizens and crushing our nation into the ground.
Fifty years ago was 1960. The poverty rate was over 20%. As of 2008 it was 13%.
We tend to look at the past through rose colored glasses. My parents had one car, no color TV, couldn't call long distance, had much less medicine. Even the poor are better off than before. So some aspects of capitalism are *still working great*.
Modern capitalism should have a rightful all-time name now; “Crony Capitalism”. Wall Street—the healthcare industry—pharmaceuticals’--two elective wars over oil and enormous profit for defense contractors'
Agreed.
The father’s of many of these American Corporations, the American entrepreneur, starts a business. It grows as a huge success because of the labor and hard work of the American worker. The founders eventually die and their snot-nosed snobby elitist kids inherit it and have no concept of what went into this corporation that made it highly profitable in the first place. Profit becomes the only, and number one, to such a degree it obscures the system itself. Immoral Profit: The real American God. The poor American worker continues to lose his or her value.
Largely true. But what does this have to do with American cars? And how do you change this? Is this the flaw in capitalism? - that companies grow and mature, and when they get older they eat each other and then become solely profit-minded and controlling? Perhaps this is the late stage evolution of what is a good system in its early years - perhaps the later years turn ugly. Is there some way the government can enforce "youth" on our economy? Problem is that the government has gone through its own maturation and is now bloated and much more corrupt.
I know in 1960, blacks and women did not have the job opportunities they received later, plus people seemed satisfied with one car and one TV. But my own experience is as plain as can be...in the town I grew up in, opportunities were wayyyyy better in the '60's than they are now. How many people work at Wal Mart now, that had better-paying industry jobs at some point in the past?
Well that depends on what you consider an opportunity. I grew up around the steel mills and in my view that was not an opportunity, but a dead end job.
lhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/US_poverty_rate_timeline.gif-
Officially, you are correct, but what is now Russia may still be a power to be reckoned with, but that was my point agreeing with fintail...whatever may be out there, China, Russia, or whatever, it is no longer our responsibility to protect everybody else at OUR expense while they do nothing for themselves...we should have billed them billions during the Cold War and bill them billions now...and then withdraw and leave them to their own devices...and THEN see how many of those rotgut nations badmouth us in the UN...and then kick the UN out, defund it, and send those diplomats to Moscow...I am quite sure that Arab and African delegates, used to the heat of their home country, will LOVE living in Siberian conditions, double parking along the streets of Moscow, like they now do in NYC...
Maybe yes, maybe no, but I can't see an opening for Chinese cars. The South Koreans pretty much own the bottom end of the market, & I don't think that they'll give up an inch of it.
Keep in mind also that cars are much better made now than they were in the 70s, which makes used cars an enticing option for the budget-minded car buyer. Any hypothetical Chinese newcomer to the U.S. market would have to convince would-be buyers that a new Shanghai Motors Brand X is a better buy than a 2-year-old Corolla, Civic or Sentra. That'll be a real struggle.
For the foreseeable future, Chinese car makers will find it far easier & more profitable to sell to a booming domestic market & also perhaps to emerging markets elsewhere in Asia.
My local Club Car golf cart dealer also sell Chinese made for on road use golf carts. They still run $3-5K for the cart. That's probably 1/2 what a new on road use comparable club car (golf carts are damn expensive) I looked one over and thought it was complete junk. What was really irritating is it qualified for the EV tax credit. Nice.
While I'm not big on tariffs, I sure don't want to see Chinese crap driving on our roads. After seeing some of the crash test videos from Chinese made cars, I don't think they'll be hear for a while.
I agree about the used cars - personally, I'd buy just about anything used vs a new Chinese car. But I very well could be an anecdotal exception - crappy new cars always sell, people love the "new car" ideal no matter the quality or financial sense.
Ingenuity, man! Malthus thought we'd be drowning in horse poop by now, yet we solved that problem!
...the traitorous globalists...
So Boeing shouldn't sell airplanes overseas, GM should not be in China, Apple should not sell iphones anywhere but the US, and Ford should not sell Fusions in this country that are made in Mexico, right? And of course China should not help finance our budget deficit.
Or is globalism only bad when it doesn't benefit us?
No doubt both total poverty numbers and rates will be higher in 08-10, but we'll have to wait a year or so for the data. I'd think data on poverty should be available somewhere through 09 anyway.
I certainly don't plan on buying a Chinese made car regardless of how good it is. I just don't want it. I'd definitely buy something used instead.
Yeah, I have a feeling the poverty stats will definitely look worse for 2009/2010. While the stock market and economy have improved dramatically, let's face it...the poor, for the most part, don't own stocks or any other investments. And I'm sure a lot of formerly middle class people got laid off and had to cash in their investments, at the bottom of the market, so they never got to benefit when the stock market went back up.
Speaking of poverty statistics, here's one thing I wonder, since it seems to be based on income, and not necessarily wealth. For instance, the poverty level for a single person is currently around $11,000. Well, let's say I had $5M worth of growth stocks that don't pay dividends, such as Apple, Google, Berkshire Hathaway, etc, and just had some part-time minimum wage job to fill my idle time, and I brought in less than $11K per year, just cashing in a share here and there when I needed to. Would I be counted among the impoverished?
Well, I guess you would if you were trying to live off $11k per year.
Poverty Rate Much Worse Than You Think
Middle Class Being Wiped Out!
Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009. Lots of detailed info I don't have time to read.
If you believe the articles from Alternet then the government shouldn't bother with the census. Then again, if they can't even conduct a poverty study correctly, how can we expect them to do anything else right.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf
We wouldn't have nearly the same deficit if the same cowardly crap who worked so hard to open China didn't control self-destructive American foreign policy itself. What a coincidence.
The western world should not dumb itself down to "trade" with those who seek to displace who enables the show to begin with.
Globalism in the long run - that timeframe completely unknown to the American corporatist "free marketeer" doesn't benefit "us" (as in the lower 99%) at all. Cheap trinkets built with glorified slave labor to appease the sheeple is not a true benefit.
But we can keep on thinking that allowing China to play on a level playing field is a good idea.
Sort of like "globalists" or "chosen few"? :P
...how can a grand suicidal race to the bottom "work" for anyone but the few who are able to profiteer from the decline?
Do you disagree with my assertion that it is inevitable? So why lament it?
I didn't see you answer the question of whether we should be killing off ALL globalism, or just a one way approach? So that Microsoft, Boeing, Apple, GM, etc. can still reap profits from overseas sales? If globalism is bad, then I guess we cut those companies off at the knees, too.
Is it any coincidence that those who supported the opening of China also support (and mastermind) asinine American foreign policy?
It was never "inevitable". This is an intentional downfall. Today the defense contractors, financiers, and pharma speculators are reaping the rewards. Shocking.
Fair trade, not free trade. They are not one in the same. Trade with those who accept similar standards to ours.
What is the value of the overseas operations of those firms, especially in the part of the world being used to undermine the first world, versus the damage done by unfair trade?