Trump Inauguration Thread

The point is the same. We must do the best we can to secure our borders as well as our safety. Don’t you agree?

I think this transcends party lines. And I know that Bill Clinton gave a rousing speech about border security years ago and no one rioted or called him Hitler.

It only makes sense. Without good borders we have no country.

Just to be clear here you’re against stopping the flow of hard drugs into America because in your opinion decreasing the supply will raise the cost and lead to druggies commiting more serious crimes to buy drugs?

BTW not only does a wall make it harder for drugs to enter the country, it also makes it harder for money made on drugs to leave the country.

We haven’t even mentioned the human trafficking element. Plenty of children and women are trafficked into the US to work as prostitutes.

If by “secure our borders” you mean build a wall, I do not agree. The wall is a boondoggle in the making–an unserious, poorly-thought-out, ineffective idea which has an outrageously unfavorable cost-benefit ratio. Like most of what Trump has proposed/enacted, the wall enjoys a first-blush, knee-jerk appeal with certain members of the electorate, but its viability as a solution falls with even cursory scrutiny. In short, it is part-and-parcel of what I call Trump’s ‘loudmouth drunk at the end of the bar’ approach to politics. (‘We should build a wall!’ [hiccup] ‘We should keep all the Moozlems out!’ [hiccup]) And while it’s one thing to run for POTUS using this approach, it’s an entirely different, and potentially disastrous, thing to attempt to govern that way.

The biggest steps we could take to secure our southern border would be 1) comprehensive immigration reform, and 2) a radical re-thinking of our approach to drug abuse here in the US. Without these steps, any border security is chimerical.

It is literally impossible to stop the flow of hard drugs into America, so this is a non-question.

But to answer the question you should be asking: Diminishing the scourge of drug use in this country, along with its penumbra of crime and misery, is not something that can be achieved solely by attempts at stopping the influx of product.

No, it only means the money will leave via different routes. (Including electronic, BTW.)

Women and children can be smuggled in via boat and/or private plane just as easily as a load of cocaine can.

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I never claimed it would stop completely but a wall would noticeably hinder thes rates at which they occur.

If it’s more expensive and harder to come by less kids in the future will get hooked on junk.

I don’t know what ‘they’ refers to here. (But whatever it is, I suspect your claim about ‘noticeably hindering its rate’ relies on data existing only in your imagination.)

You’re assuming the wall will make drugs scarcer (and therefore more expensive/difficult to acquire). This is a fact not in evidence. But even if the wall does impact supply in this manner, you’re assuming the effect will be such as to offset the enormous costs incurred in building and maintaining the wall; ie, that the wall will be a cost-effective means of reducing drug dependence. This, too, is a fact not in evidence.

Building big walls do tend to discourage people from crossing the border other countries have done it. But for some reason the democrats just don’t like the idea. I think it has more to do with who wants to build it than the idea itself. They now must go forward and try to detract from any idea Trump has.

It’s “the game” and how it is played.

Example:
Company A manufactures and sells cars 100% in the U.S.
Company B manufactures cars in Mexico and then sells them in the U.S.

Let’s just assume that all costs are equal (they won’t be) except for labor. To keep things simple, let’s also assume both company’s need 1,000,000 workers to manufacture their inventory and all 1,000,000 make minimum wage.

Company A’s labor costs are 171% higher than company B’s. This is overly simplified on purpose. The point, which I’ve been trying to make for a while now, is that the US labor market cannot compete in the international labor market on jobs that pay close to the minimum, ie, low-skilled work.

I tell you what, though, explain to me how U.S. based companies can:
A) Pay workers a wage they can live off of for low-skilled work while,
b) Keeping prices at or near current levels, and
c) Continue to provide the astronomical social benefits that we provide.

I’m all eyes.

You can thank the UAW for this.

You are making this too easy.

I said making widgets using automation.
IE extruded plastic trim, glass, metal in roll and sheet configuration, every single blow molded item, wire and cable, raw textiles, screws and fasteners, injection molded items, fingernail files, rebar, dish and flat ware, cabinet door pulls, mdf plaques with cutesy sayings like love, laugh, believe, electronic components that are completely produced by machine (that we also build).
I literally have been in thousands of manufacturing plants from 1 - 5000 man shops since the early 80s, selling them automation equipment, components, and consumables. I know first hand how many items are or can be produced virtually untouched. But even in multiple component IPhone study by MIT

Let me ask you 2 questions: Why aren’t the aircraft and heavy construction equipment companies (along with other industrial equipment manufacturers) not relocating to Vietnam? If Pham can build an iPhone, surely he can work on a road maintainer.

And, you have stated your company (an assembly line of components placed in a box or some minor assembly?) can’t afford $15/hr plus benes, why haven’t they automated more or off shored?

Forgot to address autos

Ford and Chevy have to pay more in TN to build than the other foreign owned plants there?

I guess you’re just going to ignore a, b, and c then. It’s fine, I’ll play along anyway.

I haven’t the slightest clue why aircraft and heavy construction equipment isn’t built in Vietnam. I’m willing to bet shipping costs and expertise are significant factors.

More importantly, a Boeing 747 sells for several hundred million dollars per unit and they don’t sell a whole bunch of them. According to their website, “More than 10,000 Boeing-built commercial jetliners are in service worldwide, which is almost half the world fleet.” So, there are something like 20-25k commercial jetliners in service worldwide. In the month of December of 2016 the company that I work for shipped over 31M units. The average selling price of our products is probably $15.

Hundreds probably thousands of businesses sell products just like we do at a price the consumer can afford to buy it at. We live off volume and relatively stable prices. $15/h would cause a lot of disruption for us. The MD minimum wage adjustment to $10.10 has eroded about $8M in year-over-year revenue with zero increase in production.

Because it’s still more cost-effective for us to pay our warehouse personnel (I’m at one of our distribution centers) near minimum (for entry level positions) then to automate. We don’t offshore because we sell to and compete with places like Amazon, Walmart, etc… which means we need to be able to ship our domestic product to pretty much anywhere in the US within two days. You can’t do that from China (not to mention the shipping cost would be insane).

That would depends on the union situation.

What part of this is supposed to convince me that Apple can manufacture in the US without increasing the price of their product or taking a loss?

Are you telling me the company with the most accumulated profits in the world in the last 15ish years can’t absorb a small increase in an expense input that equals 5% of finished price? Did you read MIT article or look at graph on the side of 3 scenarios?

I’m not skipping your a,b, or c as a gotcha. My statement dealt with automating a line to produce a “Non Labor Intensive” item and bring that job back into the US. I am not oblivious to a machine here can do the labor of what formerly took several employees. However, if the job was totally lost to Asia for the previous 15 years - well 1 machine operator vs 0 employees of any sort, is a win.

I have never said we could sew blue jeans that retail for $14.88 at Walmart here, because I understand labor input. But MIT seems to think we could build iPhones here, because Apple has a profit margin that is many times what typical manufactured goods bring.

We need every job that we can get because when your direct competitors Amazon, Walmart e commerce, Ebay have completed as much automation as they can (these 3 and UPS are literally the distribution automation tip of the spear) guess where they will be looking for market share on their march to oligopoly?
Yep, your far smaller and non automated operation. Therefore your lesser paid former coworkers will need somewhere to work. Or else how do we continue our consumer based economy (paraphrased from your words)? No one working = no consuming.

I believe history is instructive for seeing the rise of economic power achieved through manufacturing and export.
In year 1AD, India and China had 50% and 33% of population and GDP
1700 AD, they still held over 1/2 of world GDP
1800s Britain and the Industrial Revolution has led to a series of huge economies built on the back of manufacturing goods for others - UK, the balance of Europe, the US, then Japan, Korea, Asian Tigers, and now BRIC (I question Russia personally).

The power comes from building and selling to others, or building for self consumption. How does buying what others Built (unless it is equipment to allow our manufacturing to be more efficient produced) grow the economy?
Mature consumption based economy is nonsense spewed from ivory towers.
Eventually the savings account is empty.

Corporate debt current $50TT projected to $75TT by 2020
Personal debt $12TT
US debt $20TT

No, I’m telling you for every Apple there are 10 small manufacturing companies that can’t absorb anything. They’re operating on razor thin margins.

It isn’t a win if the cost of the product goes up for every consumer.

Well then let’s just force private company’s to manufacture in America then. I mean, fuck it, who cares about freedom anyway.

Amazon’s out biggest customer so…

How do we continue our consumer based economy if COGS increases across the board?

Come on… Something like 120M American’s work full-time, about 75M are under 18, and about 40M are over 65. So 82M aren’t employed full-time. Something like 20M work part-time. Who knows how many men and women don’t work to raise their kids. 20M or so 18±year-olds are in college. It ain’t all peaches and cream, but it isn’t doomsday either.

It ain’t all peached and cream in China either:

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Yeah I’m mistaken.
We don’t need any jobs here except to trade dollars here among each other, until we empty our piggy banks buying foreign goods on credit, borrowing money, and running huge trade imbalances.

The combined debt of $82TT (256K per person) proves your point.

We’ve had this conversation multiple times now. Do you just not remember or do you for some odd reason purposefully disregard all of the other things I’ve typed?

Trade imbalances are not bad in and of themselves. Invest in trade school. Completely gut our education system. Get people building things in school again. We are leaps and bounds beyond anyone else technologically. We should be working to grow that gap. Let China print our shitty t-shirts.

I want more people to be employed not less, but I also don’t want to hit 88 mph and end up back in the 50s.

You won’t find a single person on these boards that hasn’t advocated for a significant reduction in debt more than me.

@treco

http://www.cio.com/article/3074263/internet-of-things/how-iot-will-change-the-job-market.html

You are the one advocating for a consumption based, service economy.
Show me anything in figures that points to that being a successful long term strategy for a country with 320 MM people and the weight of the world on our shoulders.

I want you to start paying less than your balance due on your credit cards until they are maxed. Then let me know how trade imbalances work.

I keep saying use technology to bring the building jobs back here. You keep refuting that as COGS suicide and then post this? Lo siento, pero no comprendo.

This 50s?
The Decade of Prosperity
The economy overall grew by 37% during the 1950s. At the end of the decade, the median American family had 30% more purchasing power than at the beginning. Inflation, which had wreaked havoc on the economy immediately after World War II, was minimal, in part because of Eisenhower’s persistent efforts to balance the federal budget. Except for a mild recession in 1954 and a more serious one in 1958, unemployment remained low, bottoming at less than 4.5% in the middle of the decade.

I simply can’t understand what you are hoping will happen. I’m advocating for economic well being for you, for my 29 year old, for your baby… Hell I already got mine. I am your parent’s age. Yet all I hear is “I got this.” Guess what? Your generation is going to get something alright, if the ship doesn’t change course.

The feelings mutual.

It isn’t my generation’s fault the economy is in the shape it’s in.

It’s cool, though. Let’s bring all those sweet jobs back from China so we can pay people $15/hour (which you can’t live on in most places anywya) to make our $3/12 pack of socks. I’m sure that’ll workout.