The largest and most vibrant economy in the world has a massive debt of X trillion $.

You produce more lawyers than engineers.

A country that is famous for it's innovations in the past.

Is it because the space program is going south ?

Help me out it is tough for me to understand the reasons.

Vijay

AND no one word anwers like Bush/or the military Industrial Compl MIC) please.

Where did the smiley come from.

It should have read the Military Industrial Complex

[blockquote][strong]QUOTE:[/strong]
Where did the smiley come from.

It should have read the Military Industrial
Complex[/blockquote]

It appeared because you didn't leave a space between the
"x" in the word "complex" and the
"(MIC)" abbreviation in parenthesis. An
"x(" together creates the smiley.  For some reason,
so does an "ex(" in the forum script.  I'm posting
this in plain text, otherwise there would be more smilies.  

Go back to your original post and click "Reply with
quote" and you'll see that you typed everything correctly
except for no space between Complex and (MIC).

Jim.

You have to put a space before the smiley or the smiley will
show and omit that letter.  In this case the "e".

Visit the Basement

You have to remember not to reply in plain text.

Jim.

I have no idea how I did that! I have never posted in plain text. Never see the box to check.


Weird.


Edit: I think the box is automatically checked, because I was replying to your plain text post.

Visit the Basement

It's not weird at all. Your reply was in plain text because you replied to a plain text message. You have to remember to uncheck the message format if you don't intend for your reply to be plain text also.

Jim.

Thanks

We like to spend. We're a lavish group of chums. We like bigger and better. We need it to satisfy our ego's. Our government is no different. We're bad with money.


About 43% of Americans spend more than they make.



The average American household carries $8000 in credit card debt.



Just some quick numbers.


Here's the American way!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn5EP9StlVA

Visit the Basement

Sorry I cant accept that.

Whatever happened to the protestant ethics of saving..A dollar saved..

I dont beleive that the average sensible american is so enamoured of keeping up with the Jones

There has to be another reason.

Help me

Vijay

Perhaps part of the reason could be that we have deep pockets for third World Countries !

Microsoft Windows XP Home
IE Explorer 7.0 2800 1106
330 Intel Celeron Processor
2.66 GHz
256K L2 Cache
533Mhz FSB-60 GB HD

Here are some links you might find interesting about our debt, Vijay.


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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_Public_debt_per_GDP_1791-2006.svg

http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm

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

Yes, the space industry has been a major driving force behind scientific innovation here. Cutting it back cuts back innovation.

Well, IMO, becoming an engineer is more difficult than becoming a lawyer. And, in our litigious society, lawyers are needed.

I did try to read it.

I couldn't understand most of it.

I must be dumb.

Economics is not an easy thing to understand, Vijay.

I don't pretend to understand it either.

You gather 6 economists and, when they are asked a question, you are liable to get 6 different answers.

Yes u do.

but how about new inventions?

You are sooooo predictable.

Do we really need to dredge up all those per capita foreign aid figures again?

Microsoft Windows XP Home
IE Explorer 7.0 2800 1106
330 Intel Celeron Processor
2.66 GHz
256K L2 Cache
533Mhz FSB-60 GB HD

Visit the Basement

What is your real question? What is it exactly are you seeking to understand? The GDP in the US has been expanding at a decent rate. Coupled with this is the fact that unemployment is at at almost all time low. The percentage of citizens who own their own homes is in the mid 60% category. Our over-all standard of living is quite high.

Now this is not a problem of the Military-Industrial Complex. However, the cost of defense, the war in Iraq and the spending on Homeland Security is a contributing factor to the budget. I would suspect that the huge tax cuts we provided a few years ago, while good at the time, should not be extended while we are funding the large costs of the Iraqi war.

Over-all foreign debt is also the result of our insatiable demand for products often produced at a lower cost abroad. This creates an enormous imbalance of trade and leads to deficits. That said most economists agree on the fact that in a market economy debt goes hand in hand with progress. While the country's debt has risen personal household debt in relation to income is also rising.

My fears, although I would like to see a reduction in debt, is the the problem of the growing disparity of income between the lower, middle and upper income groups. It seems as if the middle income group is shrinking in the wrong direction.

Have you noticed the steep increase in revenue to the Gov. since the tax cuts? Same reaction as experienced from the Reagan cuts and was predicted. IMHO, reversing the cuts would be a huge mistake.

Your premise is totally wrong. We lead the word in patents, and wealth.

As for the National Debt



Looks bad and it's source is obvious. but as a percentage of our Gross National Product, it is small.



Any other questions?

Shelly

Attachment #1, (gif file)
Attachment #2, (png file)

Because we live in a global economy, whether we like it or not, and other nations would retaliate by placing heavy duties on our exports.

The American public can not possibly consume the total production of the US. Without world trade over half of our farm and maufactured production would go unsold, and our economy would quickly collapse.

Simplistic answers based upon bar stool philosophy is the last thing we need.

Shelly

MSU

What part of "free trade agreement" don't you understand?

How about some checks and balances so we dont have a deficit like we have had for the last 10 years.

Read Shellys post! .There is the truth.As for checks and balances,that is difficult because both parties see any money (In Local as well as national offices)coming in as money to be spent.See the promises of the presidential hopefuls.
Medicare is broke and in debt but they want to give National health care for everyone!
The Social Security is only IOUs (cash already spent,(not in Al Gores LOCK BOX)with the Baby boomers about to start collecting.Plus some candidates proposing giving it to illegal aliens.Other proposals such as $5000 to each newborn baby and free College tuition.
This happens because we stupid voters are still ready to believe that there is really a FREE LUNCH!

81 Newbee

Have been doing alot of reading.
It seems with the current trade deficit rising every year,we are headed for a recession

Although I am sure some here will say this is a bias site,I think it pretty much fits with my beliefs.

http://www.tradecrisis.org/

I know we need free trading,its not like I said quit trading with everyone while I was on my barstool.














Join "Team PCQ&A" and meet us in the basement.


In memory of Whipat and Tuff

I'm sorry if the bar stool reference bothered you, But I learned a long time ago that you can walk into any bar in the world, and the drunk on the stool next to you will have the answers to all the worlds problems. I am old enough, and traveled enough to have been in a representative number of those bars, and to have listened to too many of those drunks. I get weary of hearing the same old nonsense ideas over and over again.

Shelly

I have been in bars also and heard the same,and probably spouted the same,never did I encounter people in bars that weren't drunk or inebriated,was your visits strictly social?

Microsoft Windows XP Home
IE Explorer 7.0 2800 1106
330 Intel Celeron Processor
2.66 GHz
256K L2 Cache
533Mhz FSB-60 GB HD

They were always social Bob, at least at the start. I was always one of those guys with a hollow leg. I drank more than I should have in those days, could drink just about anyone under the table, but very rarely got drunk. One time I remember getting soused was when I drank a fifth of Irish Whisky, John Jameson and Son's, "Not a drop is sold 'til it's seven years old". To this day I can't even stand to look at that stuff. I lost a lot of brain cells in those days.

Shelly

Thank you,Shelly.

Shelly

We need the uneducated and unskilled in this country. Who else is going to flip our burgers and run those registers at Wal-Mart?


Not everyone can receive higher education. At the same time, I don't want my tax dollars to pay for someone with who received their B.S. for free, to waste it running a register because all the jobs that require a degree are filled.

Visit the Basement

We'll ask for volunteers. Are you interested?

Shelly

No way.

Visit the Basement

Seriously, there will always be a percentage of unskilled and skilled workers even if we had universal free college. We still have high school and college dropouts now. that will not change just because we extend universal free education to college. Many earned but did not take advantage of their GI Bill education benefits either. Conversely, there are plenty of very successful people who dropped out, or never entered college. Bill Gates comes to mind.

Shelly

True, not everyone is going to go to college. There will always be people who think they can't do it, don't think they need to, or are just plain lazy about higher education. Or the classic, "I don't need school, if I keep shoveling this corn, in 5 years I'll be making $20 an hour!" Wow. Those words came out of my best friend from school. $20 is alot of money to some and that's all they need.

But, the unskilled workforce is already suffering a shortage of hourly employees. Now more than ever, companies are having wage wars to get people hired on.

Free college will make that harder because even if it increases college enrollment by 1% that's another 1% burden on Wal-Mart, McDonalds, etc... The higher wages translate to higher costs on the consumer.


It's an ugly circle.

Visit the Basement

I have a workmate with two sons. One has a double degree in Law and Economics, with credits and distinctions along the way. The other left school early and did an apprenticeship as a boilermaker. They are both in their mid 20s. Guess which one is earning $100,000+ a year.

You're right. Let's start a crusade and let everyone know college is a waste, and that they need to drop out now to make the big bucks.


I'll assume the boilermaker is making a 100k? What is a boilermaker? It sounds like a tough job. Is that Australian or US dollars? I bring in close to that at 26 without a degree. It's not alot of money IMO. In 10 years, I plan on making alot more than that with a lot less work.

Visit the Basement

I said nothing of the sort, and you know it, you pompous smartass.

Never heard of Google? Or Wikipedia?

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=boilermaker&btnG=Search&meta=
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilermaker

Adlib has enough intelligence to understand my point. His post was a deliberate misinterpretation thereof.

I know what a boilermaker is Paul, even without the context clue. A lot of us are smartasses here! Why do I get singled out?! I'm telling Shelly!

Visit the Basement

What's it called if it's beer with a whiskey chaser?

Jim.

A humongous headache.

They call it beer with a WHISKY chaser.

Shelly

Damn,that was the first thing to cross my mind too

81 Newbee

QUOTE:

I have a workmate with two sons. One has a double degree in Law and Economics, with credits and distinctions along the way. The other left school early and did an apprenticeship as a boilermaker. They are both in their mid 20s. Guess which one is earning $100,000+ a year.

---

Paul D



The other left school early and did an apprenticeship as a boilermaker .(I would bet)

Those working in the automotive industry earn on average$80k annually.And most have a high school education or less. This is not to say education is not important,it certainly is,and should be available to all that qualify for college and want it,and we must take into consideration,some would never make it, free or not.

Microsoft Windows XP Home
IE Explorer 7.0 2800 1106
330 Intel Celeron Processor
2.66 GHz
256K L2 Cache
533Mhz FSB-60 GB HD

  

He's working in the mining industry. We're in the middle of a mining boom, and if you're prepared to move around the country and have trade skills you can pretty well name your own wage here at present. When I say $1000,000+, I don't know how much, but I do know it's not $100,001.

The work's hard, sure, but you can put away a lot of money in a short time.

What??? Bill Gates will never make it.

Unless you're on an athletic scholarship doesn't one have to work to obtain a degree in higher education in America? Isn't there a curriculum to follow, classes to attend, papers to write, exams to pass? Doesn't sound anything like a free ride to me -- unless, unlike Canada the schools down your way hand out the degrees immediately on payment of tuition, no questions asked.

And I wouldn't worry, Whippersnapper. It's almost certain there will be always be some poor, semi-literate peon around who'll be happy to flip your burger and sweep up your discarded cigarette butts for minimum wage.

And the better paying jobs will always be reserved for the likes of smart, sensitive people like you. God forbid your hard-earned tax dollars should be wasted on elevating the dregs of society to anything approaching your exalted level.

But stand in there and keep swinging, Whippersnapper. I trust I'll live long enough to witness the day you finally put the bat on the ball squarely enough to at least put it into play.

You write with sarcasm, yet you're absolutely correct!

Visit the Basement

MSU

It doesn't. But it does to the majority of your major trading partners. And the USA won a lot more than it lost in the Australian agreement, for one.

Confucius say, never try to jump into argument with the all-knowing. You are most likely to lose!

Visit the Basement

NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/business/29fed.html

October 29, 2007
What Kind of Caution by the Fed This Time?
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — When policy makers at the Federal Reserve set interest rates on Wednesday, they will be paying less attention to what is happening to the economy than to what could happen.

Except for deepening problems in the housing market, much of the American economy shows surprising strength and little need for a boost from cheaper loans.

The Commerce Department is expected to report Wednesday that the economy grew by at least 3 percent in the most recent quarter ended in September. That would meet what economists consider the nation’s natural growth rate. Consumers have kept spending, companies have kept hiring and exports are climbing at double-digit rates.

All of that has happened even though financial markets have been volatile since early in August, when troubles arose in the mortgage market.

But investors now seem convinced that the Federal Reserve, after two days of meetings that start Tuesday, will lower the benchmark federal funds rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 4.5 percent, and Fed officials have done nothing in recent speeches to tamp down those expectations.

Rather, Fed officials have stressed their inclination to act pre-emptively against the possibility of a serious downturn. Instead of pointing to actual weakness in the broad economy, they have focused on worries that the deepening fall in housing prices and the fears running through the credit markets pose dangers that ought to be addressed.

A blunt analysis came from Frederic Mishkin, a Fed governor, speaking at the Fed’s symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Sept. 1. In a dense and detailed analysis of how housing troubles could affect the rest of the economy, Mr. Mishkin estimated that a hypothetical 20 percent drop in housing prices by the end of 2008 could cause total economic output to shrink by as much as 1.5 percent within three years.

Based on that analysis, Mr. Mishkin seemed to argue that the central bank should react to that kind of downturn in housing prices by lowering rates more rapidly than traditional Fed models might suggest.

“Monetary authorities have the tools to limit the negative effects on the economy from a house-price decline,” Mr. Mishkin told the conference.

It is unusual for Fed officials to make a direct link between monetary policy and asset prices — whether for real estate, stocks or commodities like oil, gold and silver. For policy makers, the core issues are consumer price inflation and economic growth.

But the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, has said that declining house prices could interact with problems like the turmoil in the credit markets to derail other parts of the economy.

In a speech Oct. 19 on “monetary policy under uncertainty,” Mr. Bernanke argued for acting sooner rather than later when risks become apparent.

“Intuition suggests that stronger action by the central bank may be warranted to prevent particularly costly outcomes,” he told listeners at a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Mr. Bernanke went on to argue that central banks should sometimes depart from a cautionary principle, first enunciated by the economist William C. Brainard, that central banks have embraced for years.

Mr. Brainard said that a central bank, when confronted with heightened risks in the economy, should react with small steps first and base future measures on the results that follow. If a feared downturn failed to occur, for example, a small reduction in interest rates would be less likely to stoke future inflation.

But Mr. Bernanke maintained that economists had made “substantial progress” over the last decade in analyzing real-time economic data. A wide body of research, he said, suggested that the Brainard principle of caution “may not always hold.”

That view has been echoed by other officials. Charles L. Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said declining house prices could lead to a slowdown in consumer spending, more mortgage delinquencies, more trouble in financial markets and “serious downside risks” to the overall economy.

“I want to emphasize that I do not see this extreme outcome as likely,” Mr. Evans said in a speech last week at the University of Chicago. “But it is one of those high-cost outcomes that we should guard against.”

That would be in line with the approach promoted by Alan Greenspan, Mr. Bernanke’s predecessor. But analysts say this mind-set has a tough corollary that Fed officials have not followed as carefully: if the trouble fails to materialize, the central bank has to take back its generosity and raise interest rates as assertively as it cut them.

Most economists say Mr. Greenspan was correct to reduce interest rates as the economy slid into recession in 2001. But a growing number of experts, including Mr. Evans of the Chicago Fed, contend that the Fed waited too long before it started to raise rates again in June 2004.

Many Fed officials also see a cautionary tale in how the Fed responded to fears in 1998 caused by Russia’s financial breakdown and the collapse of Long Term Capital Management, a major hedge fund company.

Much as today, credit markets began to freeze up in fear. The Fed initially held back from any direct action, and then cut rates less than many in the financial markets hoped. Then it surprised investors with a big rate cut at an unscheduled meeting.

As it happened, the credit panic calmed down, and the American economic boom continued. But it was not until June 1999 that the Fed began to take back its rate cut, a delay that provoked some fear of inflation.

“The first lesson was that if you’re going to be a firefighter, be sure you bring enough water,” said Vincent R. Reinhart, a former adviser to Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Bernanke and now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. As for the second lesson, he said, “As any insurance adjuster will tell you, there can be more damage from the water than from the fire itself.”

I've been meaning to ask you. What's the problem with India? Why are your wages so lousy that you get all of our jobs, causing some of the problem you indicate in your OP?

Visit the Basement

Do try to keep up. Pay and conditions are improving so quickly in India that it is rapidly pricing itself out of the outsourcing market.

For a second there I was getting excited that the jobs would return. But I'm sure major US corporations will just find another cheap country.

Visit the Basement

I'm sure I've read somewhere that India is outsourcing its outsourcing.

India tries outsourcing its outsourcing

Jim.

I understand that ATT is bringing some of its Tech support services back to US and Canada.Too many complaints, complaints,complaints

81 Newbee

So is HP/Compaq, same reasons.

Visit the Basement

Seagate is leaving N. Ireland naxt year to go into Malaysia, the UK government gave £12m to Seagate to finance setting up in N.Ireland in 2001.

They are all going to where they can make the most money.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enjoy life while you can, don't try when you can't 'cos you won't, then it will be too late.

Ianw

Lets see if I can explain.

First our poulation is a billion or so.

Second we have more mouths to feed.

Third hunger is a great incentive to improve ones life and ensure ones children are not deprived.

Fourth we have a lot more engineers than lawyers graduating each year.

Fifth it seems our guys are more competent.

Sixth your companies want cheap labour.

And because of the fact that our cost of living is much much cheaper than that of the US and the EU your companies come to us


This is the best I can do not being an economist

I am amazed at how many bi-lingual folks you have there. Is it normal for everyone to speak english? Or is it training the US companies provide?

Visit the Basement

Get a grip. The USA isn't the only country in the world where English is the native language. In fact some might argue that English isn't the USA's native language.

It may have escaped your notice that India was a British colony for about a zillion years. Did it never occur to you that may just be the reason English is so widely spoken there? In other words, the same reason English is spoken in the USA.

Umm no you get a grip. You've been arrogantly pissy for the past couple days. FFS I'd say lose the tude.

The official language in India isn't English, according to the official languages of India for spoken languages, English is low on the chart and everyone I've talked to in India can barely speak English. If the english I've heard them speak is native, they really suck at it. Or maybe they have been taught ESL.


Which leads me back to my original question, which so far has been unanswered in an un-asinine way.

Visit the Basement

Adam you're wrong. Reading your own link you'll see that English is used in government and judicial proceedings as an official language. It's also taught in most schools and I believe that most educated Indians can speak it.

Please read this article.

Learn to speak English in 10 days flat!

The "ugly American" part of you is showing, Whippersnapper. Not a pretty sight...

Visit the Basement

From your link.

From Wikipedia:

The Ugly American is the title of a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. It became a bestseller, was influential at the time, and is still in print.

The novel describes how the United States is losing the struggle with Communism—what was later to be called the battle for hearts and minds—in Southeast Asia, because of arrogance and failure to understand the local culture.

If you have read the book the Ugly American is a good guy.

You're calling me asrrogant? Your post with its inherent assumption that only the US influence could be responsible for the use of the English language in India was both arrogant and patronising.

Paul,

Though this doesnt relate to your post directly it is still worth reading.

If I.T. Merged With E.T.
Sign In to E-Mail or Save This
Print
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Newsvine
Permalink


By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 31, 2007
Ethakota, India

Skip to next paragraph

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman

Go to Columnist Page » Well, here’s something you don’t see every day. I was visiting an Indian village 350 miles east of Hyderabad and got to watch a very elderly Indian man undergo an EKG in a remote clinic, while a heart specialist, hundreds of miles away in Bangalore, watched via satellite TV and dispensed a diagnosis. This kind of telemedicine is the I.T. revolution at its best. But what struck me most was that just underneath the TV screen, powering the whole endeavor, were 16 car batteries — the E.T., energy technology, revolution, at its worst.

Some 250 million Indians today have cellphones. Many of them are people who make just $2 or $3 a day. More and more are getting access to computers and the Internet, even in villages. But only 85 percent of Indian villages are electrified — and that is being generous, since many still don’t have reliable 24/7 quality power.

If only ... If only we could make a breakthrough in clean, distributed power — an E.T. revolution — it could drive the I.T. revolution into every forgotten corner of the world to create jobs, light up schools and tap the innovative prowess of rural populations, like India’s 700 million villagers. There is a green Edison growing up out here — if only we can give them the light to learn.

To appreciate that potential, look at how much is being done with just car batteries, backup diesel generators and India’s creaky rural electricity grid. I traveled to a cluster of villages with a team from the Byrraju Foundation — a truly impressive nonprofit set up by B. Ramalinga Raju and his family. Raju and his brother Rama are co-founders of one of India’s leading outsourcing companies, Satyam Computer Services. The Hyderabad-based brothers wanted to give back to their country, but they wanted it to be a hand up, not a hand out.

So besides funding health clinics and computer-filled primary schools in villages in their home state of Andhra Pradesh, they tried something new: outsourcing their outsourcing to villages.

Here in Ethakota, amid the banana and palm groves, 120 college-educated villagers, trained in computers and English by Satyam and connected to the world by wireless networks, are processing data for a British publisher and selling services for an Indian phone company. They run two eight-hour shifts, but could run three — if only the electricity didn’t go off for six hours a day!

Talking to the workers at the Ethakota data center — one of three Byrraju has set up — you can see what a merger of I.T. and E.T. could do: enable so many more Indians to live local and act global.

Suresh Varma, 30, one of the data managers, was working for a U.S. oil company in Hyderabad and actually decided to move back to the village where his parents came from. “I have a much higher quality of life here than in an urban area anywhere in India,” he said. “The city is concrete. You spend most of your time in traffic, just getting from one place to another. Here you walk to work. Here I am in touch with what is happening in the cities, but at the same time I don’t miss out on my professional aspirations. ... It is like moving from a Silicon Valley to a real valley.”

Unlike in the city, where outsourcing workers come and go, “in the village, nobody gives up these jobs,” said Verghese Jacob, who heads the Byrraju Foundation, which plans to gradually hand over ownership of the data centers to the villagers. “They are very innovative and positive, and because some of them had never worked on a computer before, their respect for the opportunity is so much more than for a city child who takes it for granted.”

When the world starts getting wired and electrified, you never know who you’ll bump into. In the village of Podagatlapalli, I met Sha Yu, a 22-year-old Chinese graduate of Beijing’s Renmin University and a Byrraju volunteer, teaching rural Indian high school students how to produce their own newspaper on a computer.

“I felt in China people don’t know so much about India, so I thought I want to come and see what is happening here,” she explained. “In rural India, communication is not that developed, so I started a newspaper for the high school. If I can learn something from here, and bring it back, I can give some ideas to the Chinese government. If this rural area can be empowered, it would be an amazing thing for the world.”

Amazing indeed. India’s strained megacities, like Mumbai and Calcutta, can’t keep growing. Mr. Jacob estimates that just one of his rural outsourcing centers creates the equivalent employment and salaries of 400 acres of farm land.

India, in other words, could actually mint more land in the countryside, but it can’t do it off car batteries. It will take a real energy revolution. If only ...

NYT Op _ed

Vijay

Vijay, thanks for that. From what little I know of India I am consistently struck by the anachronisms of the country - a country teeming with intelligence working hard to overcome an overloaded and struggling infrastructure, and on the whole doing it pretty well.

Good post.