Why is the united states economy bad?

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Poll: Why is the united states economy bad?
Wars on non American soil costing the American people their lives and their tax payer money?
0%
 0%  [0]
Outsourcing every job and factory to India and China?
0%
 0%  [0]
Spending too much on the military?
16%
 16%  [3]
other reason?
38%
 38%  [7]
all of the above?
44%
 44%  [8]
Total Votes : 18

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EyeKanFly
Head Bear Master/Galactic Emperor



Age: 33
Location: Gotham
United States

  • #21
  • Posted: 07/26/2013 17:14
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meccalecca wrote:
I used to agree with the argument that stadiums bring in jobs and tourism which is beneficial to a city. They do, and it is. But they are also businesses that generate massive profits, and would likely exist without that funding. Also, those same taxpayers are the patrons of that business, so they will receive large chunks of money from us. The salaries of professional athletes are beyond insulting to the rest of us. Had the Yankees cut their payroll, they could have easily funded their stadium.

I'm so happy that we didn't build an Olympic Stadium here.

Have you seen what's going on in Brazil?


Yeah... Brazil is basically fucked...

But yeah. As a taxpayer, it sucks that my money would be going to a private stadium (tbh I was more pissed about Citi than new Yankee Stadium), but I'm just trying to justify it from the city's point of view. And yeah, professional athlete salaries are ridiculous. Especially now with the huge steroid investigation, I've been having some big conversations with my dad about how athletes are signing contracts for such enormous sums of money, that the reward for using steroids (playing better, so sponsors, bonuses, bringing fans, etc.) way way way outweighs the risk. That's starting to get off topic though, but I'd be happy to discuss it elsewhere.
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meccalecca
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Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment
United States

  • #22
  • Posted: 07/26/2013 17:35
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EyeKanFly wrote:
Yeah... Brazil is basically fucked...

But yeah. As a taxpayer, it sucks that my money would be going to a private stadium (tbh I was more pissed about Citi than new Yankee Stadium), but I'm just trying to justify it from the city's point of view. And yeah, professional athlete salaries are ridiculous. Especially now with the huge steroid investigation, I've been having some big conversations with my dad about how athletes are signing contracts for such enormous sums of money, that the reward for using steroids (playing better, so sponsors, bonuses, bringing fans, etc.) way way way outweighs the risk. That's starting to get off topic though, but I'd be happy to discuss it elsewhere.


As a Mets fan I was really pissed off about naming it Citi Field. But I think the Yankees received a much larger sum of money for their stadium, so that really bothered me as well.

I completely agree with you about the risk/reward scenario of steroids. And I think it definitely applies to economics in general, since it's symbolic of the greater problem. When a very corrupt politician or corporation gets caught, the penalty never seems to fit the crime. They've learned that they can basically walk away unscathed so they continue on.
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EyeKanFly
Head Bear Master/Galactic Emperor



Age: 33
Location: Gotham
United States

  • #23
  • Posted: 07/26/2013 18:25
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meccalecca wrote:
As a Mets fan I was really pissed off about naming it Citi Field. But I think the Yankees received a much larger sum of money for their stadium, so that really bothered me as well.

I completely agree with you about the risk/reward scenario of steroids. And I think it definitely applies to economics in general, since it's symbolic of the greater problem. When a very corrupt politician or corporation gets caught, the penalty never seems to fit the crime. They've learned that they can basically walk away unscathed so they continue on.


Nice transition, bringing it back on topic. Anyway, yeah I agree. As a Yankee fan I think I was more bothered by Citi (and with the naming, yeah), since Yankee Stadium was the first one I new about, even though Citi was started like a month later (and finished earlier). But the biggest thing that pissed me off was that New York was building 4 major stadia all around the same time (Yankee, Citi, Barclays, and Metlife, which I realize isn't actually in the city but the same ideas apply).
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meccalecca
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Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment
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  • #24
  • Posted: 07/26/2013 18:30
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EyeKanFly wrote:
Nice transition, bringing it back on topic. Anyway, yeah I agree. As a Yankee fan I think I was more bothered by Citi (and with the naming, yeah), since Yankee Stadium was the first one I new about, even though Citi was started like a month later (and finished earlier). But the biggest thing that pissed me off was that New York was building 4 major stadia all around the same time (Yankee, Citi, Barclays, and Metlife, which I realize isn't actually in the city but the same ideas apply).


Yeah I live relatively close to Barclays. That area was really a mess for a while, and pissed off a lot of people. Yes for some reason I don't mind it as much. maybe it's my Brooklyn pride.
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SingingPeasant96
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Gender: Male
Age: 27
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  • #25
  • Posted: 07/27/2013 02:02
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meccalecca wrote:
We can simplify...

Capitalism and corruption.


this
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them




Location: Virginia
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  • #26
  • Posted: 08/08/2013 19:27
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ButterThumbz wrote:
Especially when the US government now seems to look like some kind of homeland security branch of the CIA.


Applause
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them




Location: Virginia
United States

  • #27
  • Posted: 08/08/2013 19:31
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The world's top 5 military spenders in 2012.




$3.7 trillion
Minimum total cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, according to the Brown University research project Costs of War. "Even small chunks" of that amount "could power many efforts at home," says Robert Johnson at Business Insider.



Another Study Confirms: U.S. Has One of the Highest Effective Corporate Tax Rates in the World






1. U.S. multinationals shifted millions of jobs overseas in the 2000s. Data from the U.S. Department of Commerce showed that “U.S. multinational corporations, the big brand-name companies that employ a fifth of all American workers… cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million.”
Furthermore, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis showed, “Thirty-five big U.S.-based multinational companies added jobs much faster than other U.S. employers in the past two years, but nearly three-fourths of those jobs were overseas.”
2. As overseas outsourcing has expanded, U.S. manufacturing has suffered the brunt of the blow. According to a report on outsourcing by Working America, “Manufacturing employment collapsed from a high of 19.5 million workers in June 1979 to 11.5 workers in December 2009, a drop of 8 million workers over 30 years. Between August 2000 and February 2004, manufacturing jobs were lost for a stunning 43 consecutive months—the longest such stretch since the Great Depression.” Manufacturing plants have also declined sharply in the last decade, shrinking by more than 51,000 plants, or 12.5 percent, between 1998 and 2008. These stable, middle-class jobs have been the driving force of the U.S. economy for decades and theses losses have done considerable damage to communities across the country.
3. The global electronics contract manufacturing industry reached a staggering $360 billion of revenue in 2011, and is expected to expand to $426 billion by 2015. This figure consists of companies, many of which are American, contracting outside firms largely in third-world countries with cheaper labor coststo manufacture their products. While this figure is not exclusively U.S. companies, large corporations such as Apple Inc., which conducts all of its manufacturing on foreign shores, and Nike Inc., which subcontracts all of its footwear production to independently owned and operated foreign companies, lead the trend.
4. Private equity firms have increased the pressure to cut costs by any means necessary, leading to more overseas outsourcing. Steve Pearlstein, a professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University and a Pulitzer-prize winning columnist, details the overseas outsourcing done by private equity firms in the 1980s, beginning with:
A wave of corporate takeovers, many of them unwanted and uninvited. Corporate executives came to fear that if they did not run their businesses with the aim of maximizing short-term profits and share prices, their companies would become takeover targets and they would be out of a job. Overnight, outsourcing became a manhood test for corporate executives.
For the private equity firms that took over companies, “the standard strategy has been to load up company executives with so much stock and stock options that they don’t hesitate to make difficult decisions such as shedding divisions, closing plants or outsourcing work overseas.”
5. Labor costs are the main driver of corporations sending jobs overseas, but foreign countries’ costs are increasing compared to the United States. According to a 2012 survey from Duke’s Fuqua School of business, nearly three-quarters of respondents indicated labor cost savings as one of the three most important drivers leading to overseas outsourcing. This was twice the rate of response for any other option. But according to research from the Hackett Group, the cost gap between the United States and China has shrunk by nearly 50 percent over the past eight years, and is expected to stand at just 16 percent by 2013. Labor costs in China and elsewhere are rising, and coupled with rising fuel prices raising shipping costs, the economic argument for sending jobs overseas may be becoming less persuasive.
Despite these increasing costs, the Duke survey found that “only 4 percent of large companies had future plans for relocating jobs back to the United States.” The Duke survey does not identify the reasons for this reluctance to bring these jobs back to our country, but a key factor could be the U.S. tax code, which, as Seth Hanlon explains, “rewards companies for making investments abroad—and leads to them shifting offices, factories, and jobs abroad even if similar investments in the United States would be more profitable absent tax considerations.”
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