“Obama Call for Manufacturing Revival a Tough Goal” – Really? Don’t Be So Pessimistic, Sheepish. You are Proud American, Aren’t You?

Today’s Yahoo news talks about:

“President Barack Obama is making a strong election-year push for an economic revival “built on American manufacturing.”

But he faces an uphill slog, with little consensus even within his own party on how to do it.“

Trade and industry issues are interesting subjects to me because I like to call myself some kind of expert or something. I included some excerpts from the article and explain some additional points to them.

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-call-manufacturing-revival-tough-095144615.html

Excerpt: “For decades, the United States has gradually shifted from creating goods to providing services. Fifty years ago, a third of U.S. jobs were in manufacturing. Now they account for just 9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.“…

“Economists suggest plans to help boost manufacturing jobs may make more political sense than economic sense.”

Just political sense? Really? I am somewhat disappointed to hear this. Which economists said this? The accuracy of what they are saying may  depend on which area of economics they specialize in, and what kind of data they have been dealing with. Not every economists know everything, every aspects of economics, economy, or industrial competitiveness. Economists have their own specialization area and know better on their experties, not on everything.

To deepen economists’ understanding on economy or industrial competitiveness, they should also know business aspects in details, business mangagement, marketing, etc., and vice versa for business people.

I suggest that:

“World/US market is not an amass of same all, same things. It’s not a standardized, homogenized bunch of consumer, consumer demand. It’s rather a whole mass of all different, heterogeneous bunch of consumers, consumer demands, with different needs/wants/tastes.”

“The revival / survival of US manufacturing / business depends more on how to decompose this big chunk of consumer market into small consumer of different needs, wants, and tastes that share some common factors, detecting the potentially profitable product markets / consumer groups whose demands American manufacturing/business can meet well, and digging into those identified small consumer markets with accurate reading / understanding of consumer mind and developing right strategies to attract their product royalty and purchase behavior.”

“The seeming failure of US manufacturing / business, up to now, may be not only due to the declining price competitiveness of US products but also due to US businesses’ failure in reading consumer mind, or avoiding / neglecting to do so, and running business, producing products as the ways manufactures like, not as the ways consumer like.”

“The key point of US manufacturing / business in dealing with US and world consumer market is to do “Accurate Market Segmentation” and “Zooming into the Right Target Markets” that “well match” with the Competitiveness of US Manufacturing / Business (probably should not be only about “low price.”).”

An Extremely Simplified Example of World/Domestic Market Segmentation: “World market consumers have different needs/wants/desires for different product groups. Some low-income-consumers (Let’s call this “Mass/Standardized Market”) may want cheapest products that meet their basic living conditions, like food, humble clothing, shoes, that’s it. Middle-income consumers (Let’s call this “A-Bit-Differentiated Market”) may want a bit better products at slightly higher prices with more varieties/differentiation of products. Middle-upper, upper, upper-upper, super rich consumers (Let’s call this “Highly Differentiated / Affluent Market”) may go for untra high quality, designs, highly differetiated style/taste, sometimes even eccentric or novelty products that other people usually don’t own, the kind of products that meet their differentiated tastes and desire for signaling their social status or uniqueness, desire to differentiate themselves from the rest of others.” (apology for extreme simplicity of example)

What would be the sizes of each market segments in world market sales (as a whole of all merchandize trade / sales, or those of a product or product groups, for example): to hypothetically guess:

“Mass/Standardized Market” accounts for 50% of world consumption/sales (all all merchandize or a particular product group).

“A-Bit-Differentiated Market” accounts for 30% of world consumption/sales. 

“Highly Differentiated / Affluent Market” accounts for 20% of world consumption/sales.

“So, with given nature of US industrial competitiveness, “Which Market Segments” American Manufactures should go after, tackle?”

Excerpt: “This heavy attention on manufacturing may be misplaced, economists suggest.”

Here, it would be more desirable if the rhetoric changes from “this heavy attention on manufacturing” to “balancing out US industrial structure, including manufacturing to have more desirable US employment structure / job markets” with the revival of declining manufacturing sectors that could have been competitive but were declining anyway, not necessarily because of the death of US competitiveness but probably because of ”Lazy-fair” Approach (watch out the different spelling, instead of laissez-faire) of American businesses to domestic and international consumer demand / markets.”  

As the example of the Super Bowl Ads, “a Chrysler spot featuring actor Clint Eastwood that celebrates Detroit, suggesting it was near collapse until the residents “all pulled together.” Eastwood implores the nation to do the same.” (did “Some Republicans called the spot a valentine to Obama’s auto bailout“? the more proper way of calling it would be “the spot is the Ad incarnation of  “Obama’s Valentine Gift to Detroit,” or American Auto sector”)

So, we have to think about this point. If Detroit, or American autos, or Chrysler had fallen into almost collapse, but is being quickly recovered (though partially) yet) with some government help, ”Is this phenomenon happening because of the American Death of competitiveness in the auto industry?” or “American Business Failure in the industry because of wrong business decisions or doing correct things or negligence, although the industry may still have had remaining potential of staying relatively competitive if the companied have managed their business correctly?”

 

Excerpt: “It is still “20 percent more expensive to manufacture in the United States than it is anywhere else in the world.”: Interpretation - Low product price is an important factor, but not the only single determining factor. There are a lot of other contributing factors in determining the competitiveness of business or products in market competition.   

I respect Professors Robert Reich and Christina Romer for their role in correcting public misconception on recovering the US economy. But I cannot quite agree to their views on US manufacturing:

Excerpt: “Let’s not fool ourselves. We’re not going to have the kind of manufacturing-based economy we had 30 or 40 years ago,” says Robert Reich, labor secretary under President Bill Clinton. And Christina Romer, who headed the president’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2009-2010, says it is wrong to suggest that producing “real things” is more important than “services.” “American consumers value health care and haircuts as much as washing machines and hair dryers. Our earnings from exporting architectural plans for a building in Shanghai are as real as those from exporting cars to Canada,” she wrote. “The vast majority of jobs in the future are going to be created in the service sector, not the manufacturing sector,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for the consulting firm IHS Global Insight. He said he thought it was “a bit misleading” to focus so much on manufacturing. “I’m not sure why manufacturing rather than any other industry warrants tax incentives,” Gault added.

At first, all of us have to remember that how the service/retailing/financial sectors-oriented US economy has melted into (along with other factors though) the current Great Recession. I heard that only fools learn nothing from the lessons of past hardship. Please refer to: http://mikyunglim.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/additional-truth-about-us-inequality-and-economy-global-trade-perspective/

President Obama’s View that “US manufacturers are poised for a renaissance”, is not completely guaranteed with certainty, but quite possible if the right strategies to pursue it is found by someone.”

Economists alone probably can not find the right strategeis to achieve “Amerian Business Renaissance.” Because they only see the big chunk of pictures but miss all details inside it. Business people alone probably can not find it either, because they only see the details of their own business/product  areas but often miss, neglect the big picture of the world.

 

“Only the combined knowledge of both economics and business marketing would be able to produce the right strategies to pursue “US Business/Trade Renaisance.”

“There are political overtones to Obama’s State of the Union appeal for “an economy that’s built to last, an economy built on American manufacturing.”

Yes, that might be quite possible, depending on the creativity of pursuing individual(s).

Good News for the economy but bad news for overall employment?: “Despite the job losses, the U.S. remains an exporting powerhouse, right behind No. 1 China and vying with Germany for the No. 2 rank. U.S. factories have steadily become more advanced and automated, requiring only a fraction of the workers previously needed.”

Obama Addresses Job Creation For Election Year (Video) and GOP ect..

Obama Addresses Job Creation For Election Year

“President Barack Obama’s “billion-dollar war chest”"

 

We are proud of it.

Still things seem to be going all right, toward reasonable directions. And there is an “INTRIGUING,“ “HILLARIOUS“  title of  Yahoo news.:

 

“The evangelical dilemma in South Carolina: adulterer or Mormon?” 

 

“For South Carolina conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, the 2012 campaign season is the year of magical rethinking. Look at the frontrunners:

If you want a president with a legacy of marital fidelity, you’re going to have to work around Newt Gingrich’s adultery.

If you believe that Mormons don’t really qualify as Christian, you may find yourself struggling with Mitt Romney.“

 

“almost-dead.bz.cm” you are none of my concern. you are too stupid, trivial, meaningless, filthy, same with your Russian whore and her stupid husband. YOU THINK I”M ALMOST DEAD?; your life has been useless, full of dirts with your dirty heart/eyes, even messing up churches with your filthy, dirty eyes. The LORD will deal with you, what you have done. not me. Despite all cruel/brutal things you’ve done to make me disappear, why do you think i’m still here?

“In your righteousness, bring me out of trouble. In your unfailing love, silence my enemies; destroy all my foes, for I am your servant.” “The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight. To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shred. You saved the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light…..You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn. I pursued my enemies and overtook them; I did not turn back till they were destroyed. I crushed them so that they could not rise; they fell beneath my feet. You armed me with strength for battle; you made my adversaries bow at my feet. You made my enemies turn their backs in flight, and I destroyed my foes. They cried for help, but there was no one to save them – to the LORD, but he did not answer. I beat them as fine as dust borne on the wind…“ “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”;  Psalms 18″ Thank G-.

“US Self-Sufficiency, No Trade, Global Isolation, Protectionism, and Collective Sliding into a Poorer Nation.” – This is What “The Era of America’s Pacific Century” is About to Cure.

picture source: http://www.cglg.org/projects/trade/Images/World_Map.jpg

This post was originally posted in 2009. As the U.S. continues to face the challenges of Great Recession, high unemployment, and the fundamental social structural problem of intensifying income equality, disappearing middle class and growing poverty in the heartland of America, it has become urgent to find answers to cure these crises.

“The existing American Social Economic System have dictated to diverge, widen the gap of this country’s economic classes among super-rich, middle class, and poor, deteriorating the health, balance of this country’s economy and growth pattern by degradading middle class and promoting extreme poverty in middle America. This has been the very National State which China, the country that has suffered extreme poverty in rural provinces, scarce middle class with overall poor economy nationwide, has been working hard to grow out of, through exports, commerce and economic development. Some politicians in this country keep insisting that we have to maintain the very old sorry policies that drive this country to plunge into the very sorry National State at accerlating rates. Is it wise to maintain the very sorry destructive social economic system while the major rival country(ies) has been moving fast to grow out of it? This is the “Crux of proposed Mr. Obama and Romney Policies.” Whose policy plans propose the U.S. to grow out of the past and current downward spiral of once respected world economic power or to regress back to the old troublesome system or even worsen it?”

One emerging possible solution to soothe these economic crises is to develop global export markets for US produced goods. To clear up the conceptual roadblock for this path, I’d like to explain some existing myth about trade and globalization in very simple way.

False: “America grew strong in isolation and protectionism.”

True: No Trade, No Globalization, Protectionism result in “Restraining Order of American Lives of high living standard”, “Collective Sliding of Consumer into Poorer Living Standard.” Do we really want to see continuous price increases of our groceries, clothing, household items and other goods while our wages are falling down (in relative terms), and medical bills, mortgage payments, and all bunch of bills continue to pouring in? 

True: Trade, Globalization, despite some strings attached, bring in “Collective Enrichment of American Lives, Standard of High Quality Lives”; There have been some job losses in industries of traditional manufacturing that have faced import competition, which should be compensated by improving US global competitiveness of manufacturing and increasing US exports that will create export-related US jobs.

“This is why enforcing the “Era of America’s Pacific Century” is important for the American economy.” 

The above writing was my answer to a reader’s comment to my Huffpost comment the night before Thanksgiving of 2009, which insisted on “the Isolation of US economy from the world,” “ Protectionism,” and “the Lie of Globalization.”  As there may be a lot of people who share the same opinion as this person, I wanted to clarify the myth of globalization, protectionism, no trade. The commentor’s statement was as below:

danarothrock replied on Nov 25, 2009:

“Tariffs were not the main cause of the 1930s depression. The cause was the exact same financial casino gambling that brought us down this time. Hence, the Glass-Steagall Act, which was repealed in 1999. America grew strong in isolation and protectionism. We produced almost everything we needed, except rum, coffee and bananas. Globalization – “Flat Earth” – has been the theory that has destroyed the economy of this country and several other countries. We are on the losing end of every “Free Trade” agreement. We are trading jobs for foreign workers. The Ex-Im Bank and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (two agencies of the US Treasury) are funding $billions every year for American companies to move overseas. 67% of American corporations have plans to increase offshore operations. Do some research on “protectionism”. “Globalization is a LIE.” (to be continued with my response)

The Additional Truth about US Inequality and Economy: “What’s Obama’s America’s Pacific Century Got to Do with Them?” – Global Trade Industry Perspective” (slightly revised)

Thesedays, the issue of “Inequality,” “Middle Class Crisis” has become an increasingly serious national issue over that of economy, being symbolized by the on-going outbursts of “Occupy Wall Street” protestors all over the nation.

Professor Robert Reich talked about six factors that have contributed to this US domestic condition of inequality, middle class crisis in his “The Truth about the US Economy”:

1. Flattening US wage regardless of economic growth over the last decades.

2. Increasing concentration of social wealth/ resources on super rich

3. Rich’s wealth-based political influence on government policies such as lowering taxes on super riches.

4. Huge budget deficits

5. Middle class divided

6. Anemic recovery

To complement Prof. Reich’s domestic perspective on this issue, I’d like to address the global perspective: the contribution of shifting global trade and industrial structure on shifting US job/employment structure and intensifying US inequality and middle class crisis. This global trade and industrial perspective also gives glimpse on

“What would be the Potential Impacts of President Obama’s latest introduction of the Era of America’s Pacific Century and the signing of US Free Trade Agreements including the one with South Korea on “Not Only Boosting the Devastated US Economy (if everything else works well)” “But Also Alleviating the US ill symptoms of Skewed Job/Employment Structure, Inequality, and Middle Class Crisis.”

Especially as China’s devaluation of currency is likely to help boost US exports to the country and the recent signing of US Free Trade Agreement with South Korea is going to boost US exports to the country starting from those of cars (if everything else works well),

“Pres. Obama’s Ushering of America’s Pacific Centry will contribute to creating more export-related middle class jobs in this country, help recover the health/balance of US economy and partially straighten up the skewed national employment structure toward finance, retailing, non-trade sector jobs by adding more export-related manufacturing jobs for middle class workers, and weaken income inequality and middle class crisis (unless Europe financial crisis further depresses the conditions of European and Asian economies).”

I post my previous blog post below because of its relevance with elaborating the points I made above: the shifted, skewed US job / employment structure over the last decades because of increasing globalization, global trade/industrial shifts, flight of traditional US manufacturing jobs to foreign countries of cheaper wages and increasing US outsourcing / imports, which, along with unbalanced domestic economic social structure of flattening wages, increasing concentration of social wealth on super rich that has increasingly exerted interest politics on US policy makings in their favor including lower taxes on them and loose business regulations and so on, have culminated to the current extreme income inequality and middle class crisis.

How to Fix the Economy III: The Big Picture

This was originally posted on 2011/07/23

The increasingly globalizing world economy, trade, and shift of industrialized and industrializing countries’ (US, Western Europe, more advanced Asian countries) manufacturing bases to cheaper producing countries of often less development have greatly contributed to the decreasing US jobs of low, medium value added  goods, the kind of jobs that have mainly supported US middle class. As a result of this trend of global market economy and industrialization in conjunction with the US market economy and industrial structure skewing toward increasingly relying on domestic consumption, the major source of US domestic employment has shifted away from the tradable sector (that includes manufacturing goods, engineering, computer design etc.) toward the non-tradable sector (that includes sectors such as construction, retailing, restaurants, hotel, etc.).” Dr. Spencer points out this US employment shift from the tradable sector to the non-tradable sector.

This global and US trend of industrialization and employment have (a) increasingly eliminated US middle class jobs that hire low-medium educated workers to produce low-medium value added products; (b) increased US jobs of producing high value added, tech/skill/information-intensive goods that hire highly educated workers (This trend appear to have contributed to the increasing concentration of US wealth/resources into the high-income group but minimal effect on creating and increasing the number of employment to replace the lost employment that has resulted from the shift of US manufacturing to foreign countries); and (c)  these shifts increased jobs in non-tradable sector that hire low-medium educated workers and pay lower wages with less fringe benefits, which have increasingly lowed the living quality and standard of middle class people in this country.

The combined effects of this global and domestic industrialization and employment trend, along with the troubles in US social, economic systems that have drained/shifted wealth/resources from the low/middle class to the high income class that had culminated to the US housing, health care, and financial markets crisis and the current great recession comprises current condition of anemic economic recovery and continuously high unemployment. What is needed is to fix the fundamental problems in the economic and social structure of US domestic and global market system?

Here, I repeat the points I made earlier: “If Everything Else goes well,” President Obama’s latest introduction of “the Era of America’s Pacific Century and the Signing of US Free Trade Agreements including the one with South Korea (along with the revaluation / weakening of Chinese Yuen that will make US exports to the country cheaper and Chinese exports to this country more expensive than before) will contribute to boosting US exports to these countries, creating  more export-related middle class manufacturing jobs in this country, helping recover the health / balance of US economy, partially straightening up the skewed national employment structure away from its increased dependence on finance, retailing, and non – manufacturing / non-trade sector jobs toward more manufacturing, middle class jobs, and softening income inequality and middle class crisis.

The prospect of domestic economic growth  by domestic demand may be anemic; but the prospect of US economic growth potential by exploring US global competitiveness and foreign demand for US exports, spurred by the latest White House Initiatives, has not been tested/proved yet and worthy options to explore (unless global financial crisis suddenly worsens it). If these WH Initiatives work well in future, the positive outcomes will “not only boost “the devastated US economy” but also alleviate the US symptoms of unbalanced employment structure by moving it more toward manufacturing, trade sectors that value middle class workers, and soften income Inequality and middle class crisis.

How to Save the Drowning America: “Four Rules” by Robert Reich

America is drowning. It is on the way of going down, unless anybody does anything to change the current destructive ways of things work in this country.

Dr. Robert Reich offers “Four” Simple Rules of How To Prevent This Country from her “Disgraceful Fall”, a country which used to put the world under her command.

Supper Congressional Committee, Super Rich, Super Businessmen, whomever, should think about “Who let them have what they have now at first place?, “Who let them to grow bigger than who they used to be? It’s This Country. This Land. These people. Without them, super rich, super businessmen would not have existed “as who they are now.” If this land and people go down, super rich, super businessmen will go down together, because they will lose the source of their richness. Why don’t they pay back what they owe to the country, to people? Why don’t they let this country, the people to recover from their fall and remain well nourished enough so that they can enable super rich, super businesses to continue their business and earning profits. In a same way that farmers maintain their fields well nurished enough to make sure successful harvest every year. Wisemen will not hang on small profits but look into bigger picture in longer term. That’s what big people do. Don’t be small.

“The Real News on Jobs”: Who’s Blame for Job Losses and Gains?

There is good news that US job situation and economy. Private sector created 222,000 new jobs in Feb 2011 and the unemployment rate decreased to the lowest point of 8.9% since April 2009. These new jobs were dominantly created in the sectors of “factories, trucking companies, health care providers, construction firms, hotels and restaurants”. Economists say that the US economy needs 125,000 new jobs per month to maintain steady unemployment rate account for population growth, and 300,000 new jobs per month to get serious decrease in unemployment rate.(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_economy)

On the other hand, increasing oil prices, which is expected to continue through this summer, due to the political crises in Middle East and recent firing of public workers from state local governments are expected to be counteracting forces against this recovery of job-economy-condition.

Professor Robert Reich points out the problem of wage gap regarding the recent job growth (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-real-news-on-jobs_b_831493.html):

“New jobs created since February 2010 (about 1.26 million) pay significantly lower wages than the jobs lost (8.4 million) between January 2008 and February 2010. While the biggest losses were higher-wage jobs paying an average of $19.05 to $31.40 an hour, the biggest gains have been lower-wage jobs paying an average of $9.03 to $12.91 an hour. In other words, the big news isn’t jobs. It’s wages.”

This deteriorating wage gap is understandable if we considered that the most recently job creating sectors have been “factories, trucking companies, health care providers, construction firms, hotels and restaurants” as mentioned above.

He points out:

Regarding Prof. Reich’s statement, “Conservative economists have it wrong. The underlying problem isn’t that so many Americans have priced themselves out of the global/high-tech labor market. It’s that they’re getting a smaller and smaller share of the pie.”

If we look into the detailed view of this “smaller smaller share of American worker’s pies, there are multi-layers of problems:

-The American Pie piece in Global Manufacturing Market is shrinking smaller and smaller.

-Inefficiences and bureacracies in most of US political, industrial entities and even labor unions have collectively contributed to the “dwindling American pies.” Loose government regulations on industries/business allowed these entities to take slices from workers’ pays and benefits, as seen in healthcare, housing/financial market messes, to bloat the wealth of high income groups while dwindling middle classes. But some part of labor also have their portion of blame for their shrinking pies: instead of focusing on working hard and increasing productivity to cut production costs and their global competitiveness, some of them (I am not talking about hard working workers. I praise them) has taken lazy approach of taking unheardly high paid vacation/sick days of almost one month out of twelve months while demanding high pays/benefits and protection of workers’ right, which seems to be inappropriate abuse of their right to protect their jobs. All these inefficiencies, bureaucracies from every entities sum up to “Slashed American Pie.” Everybody demand their right but don’t meet their performance requirements.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

always been waiting.

“The Left Edge of the Possible?”: “Actually Beyond Right and Left”

Respectable Mr. Robert Kuttner depicts the current national situation pretty well. As he points out in his blog, “The Left Edge of the Possible” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/the-left-edge-of-the-poss_b_828907.html), the real serious national political/economic issues are economic recovery and the budget, the health system, the banking/housing mess, American economic competitiveness in the world, rising gas price and global climate change.

Current national and global economic situation seems to become increasingly beyond the capacity of left and right of US politics. In other words, the right and left of US politics are increasingly limiting their abilityto smaller issues while being oblivious to eminent, bigger issues.  For example, Wisconsin Governor Walker’s attempt to rip of public workers’ right to organize that caused the consequent labor movement against it seems to be a complete sidetrack from what need to be done for the sake of solving current national issues of recession and joblessness, making things worse. Like there are not enough problems now.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Llord anoints Kking;”rainforest waterfalls”.

Obama’s Dillema and Multi-faces of Public

Time article, “How Barack Obama Became Mr. Unpopular”, (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2015629-3,00.html) carries the tone that President Obama became unpopular because he has carried on unpopular, big reform agendas and bailouts of auto and financial sectors which the public didn’t want, instead of pursuing publically popular policy agendas such as government deficits/spending reduction.

It’s regretful that President became unpopular by mid-term because public doesn’t like his main policy agendas. But, to be sure, what public wants are not necessarily what is good for this country. We have to remember how easily public has been manipulated by wrong media messages and how often they change their opinions. There is saying that the worst enemy of you is yourself. There have been many cases that the public has been so wrong to cause harm to themselves.

It is critical to see pieces of information in the context of big picture. As so many experts pointed out, cutting back government spending and focusing on deficits in the heat of recession and high unemployment is like blocking economic recovery, growth, and job recovery further, extending the recession longer. It is the politics of “Myopia.”

Recently, China has reportedly become the number 2 world economic superpower. The U.S. is shrinking in its capacity in world economy and politics. This country’s old hegemony over the world is fading away and giving way to China. The major reforms that President Obama have pursued are the fundamentals to resuscitate the vitality of declining US economy in long-term in this critical time. Sure, there have been problems in the procedures of this approach and many times people wished President to be more aggressive.

Under this situation, US public is demanding the government to take policy measures that will result in ignoring recession and unemployment by only focusing on reducing deficits and spending. If the government does as public wishes, so reduces the government deficits/spending, but unemployment and recession still persist and still many people can not bring food to table, “will the public praise or curse the government for taking the policy measures that the public forced the government to take?” My bet is, public will change their faces, bark, curse at the government, accusing that the government took wrong measures to maintain recession and keep people’s suffering continue.

One good news is, as the article cites,

“At the White House, advisers take comfort in the fact that at this point in their presidencies, both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton scored slightly lower approval ratings than Obama. And the dominant analogy for the past few months has focused not on 1994, when Clinton lost a Democratic Congress in a huge Republican wave, but on ’82, when Reagan lost just 26 seats in the House. Like Obama, Reagan was facing rising discontent at the midterm, driven by huge unemployment numbers that peaked at 10.8% at year’s end. But as the economy rebounded, Reagan’s governing philosophy, “Stay the course,” was vindicated. He won re-election by an enormous margin.”

Opportunity for American Manufacturing, Jobs: The Case of Luxury Goods – Export?

In the beginning of Obama Administration, there had been voices that the US is in need of comprehensive analyses of US industrial competitiveness, strategic identification / development of industrial portfolio of which industries are viable, competitive, sustainable, or have growth potentials. At that time, there had also been some notion that “New Deal” style economic stimulus will not be viable, that “New Deal” failed as the New Deal construction boom of infrastructure for a few years (1933- 1937) went into another deep recession……

US market has been considered saturated as too many foreign and domestic competitors fight in a aging market while US producers have been defunctional in adapting to consumer demand but mainly surviving by manipulating US policies. Despite that, many giant US firms without competitiveness have still fallen, including labor intensive industries and auto industry.

However, despite worldwide recession, reportedly worldwide-widening income gap between rich and poor means means that there are sizable, lucrative foreign markets for US manufacturing of luxury goods, especially in countries like Brazil, Argentina, Korea, Asian tigers, India, China where riches are competing with those in this country. Rich people’s consumption are recession-resistant, meaning they will buy whatever they like, no matter it is recession or not. Do you remember the old news of some Koreans smuggling Viagra into Korea and got the whole country mad about those reckless, non-patriotic rich sons of etc. who care for those while the whole country suffers from financial madness?  On the other hand, US has unbeatable competitiveness in luxury goods that has cajoled the luxury lifestyles of American mass modern dynasties of rich and famous entrepreneurs, hollywood, basketball stars, etc. US entrepreneurs can strive to export these luxury goods to leisurely classes of foreign countries, such as bollywood (or dollywood? what was that) stars of India or you name them; foreign consumers can not buy American luxuries because they are not available either because of their governments’ import restriction or Americans don’t exports them.

Robert Kuttner: Fiscal Folly

Dear Mr. JXJASON,

I believe we wish for the same thing, something good for the country. It’s just different wording.

Based on the solid understanding on the current situation, finding out the best strategies to get back to the healthy economy, that’s what we wish for, right?

We wish to set up the right policies that don’t allow the financial sector to drain this country’s resources, which should be used for building healthy industrial/manufacturing structure, healthy middle/low-income classes, and productive infrastructure, into feeding the top financiers’ fancy lifestyles. Fattening one (or a few) sector’s welfare while the rest of other sectors going anelexic doesn’t seem to be the profile of a healthy country. I am not saying we should suppress the financial sector unconditionally. Balance, fairness for all seem to be the key here.

In Response To:

JXJASON‘s Comment to Mikyung Lim

Mikyung Lim, I disagree with you The past can be undone. You just repeal the law that deregulated the financial industry. You cannot restore prosperity when the wealthy have stolen ( legally mind you) from the less wealthy.

If you Google – Phil Davis Seekingalpha – and read some of Phil’s articles you will learn how the financial industry has conned the average, middle class citizen.

Forbes publishes a list of the 400 richest people in the world. None of them live in 1,200 square foot homes, in middle class towns like, say Scranton, PA or Detroit, Michigan or thousands of other, poor communities in the US.

Finally, your analogy is nonsense. If one is sick, and broke, you cannot borrow more money. If someone doesn’t pay for your medical bills you will get sicker and, eventually die.

I am well educated with two degrees from two, Canadian Universities. Recently, the CEO from TD bank, explained why Canada did not have the same economic crisis as the US.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost