How ****ed are we?

[Kidlicious]

Don't you mean deflation?

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Japher
Productivity is nice, but consumption needs to keep pace for real economic growth. Else, you just get inflation.

A favorite phrase I heard years ago...You can produce a bankruptcy

In other words, productivity without efficiency or demand, is not a good thing to have.

If you have 20 facilities producing with 20 employees at each facility, with an actual market demand to support say only 14 facilities with a mere 10 persons at each of those facilities, how exactly will more people working at these facilities, with not enough demand for the goods or services you specialize in, be productive and help anyone?

Flooding the market with too much of an unneeded and unwarranted product will simply not float.

Maybe the owners of this company can save money and pay their employees during slow times and then be ready when it is necessary to be at peak production, however, while that company is not only paying for raw materials to make what they arent selling, where will it store all of these excess items?

Say its perishable, then your variable costs shoot through the ceiling to simply try and save all this stock.

My, looks like a piece of swiss cheese when you hold that theory up to the light, doesnt it?

[Kidlicious]

If you think of demand as part of the system (and it is). A system will only produce what can be produced by the part of the system that is constraining the whole system. If demand is that part that constrains production than retooling won't make the whole system more productive. The only thing that will make the whole system productive is increasing demand.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Kidicious
If you think of demand as part of the system (and it is). A system will only produce what can be produced by the part of the system that is constraining the whole system. If demand is that part that constrains production than retooling won't make the whole system more productive. The only thing that will make the whole system productive is increasing demand.

Well, I understand what you are saying here, and what Grandpa Troll is saying, and Japher. But the thing is, we have plenty of demand. This is America, consumerism central. I want stuff. You want stuff. Nearly everyone wants stuff. Some of us just can't get a job to pay for it. But saying there is no demand strikes me as fallacious.

Originally posted by Grandpa Troll
A favorite phrase I heard years ago...You can produce a bankruptcy

In other words, productivity without efficiency or demand, is not a good thing to have.

Agree. But once again, I think there is demand. Our economy just isn't tooled to meet it.

If you have 20 facilities producing with 20 employees at each facility, with an actual market demand to support say only 14 facilities with a mere 10 persons at each of those facilities, how exactly will more people working at these facilities, with not enough demand for the goods or services you specialize in, be productive and help anyone?

Well, it will help consumers, because with a flood of product, prices will go down. But you are right, not smart business there.

Flooding the market with too much of an unneeded and unwarranted product will simply not float.

Wal-Mart has made it work. So has McDonald's

Maybe the owners of this company can save money and pay their employees during slow times and then be ready when it is necessary to be at peak production, however, while that company is not only paying for raw materials to make what they arent selling, where will it store all of these excess items?

Once again, I agree.

I think there may have been a misunderstanding. I'm not saying the we should produce as much as possible for the mere sake of it. If there isn't demand for something, it is foolish to produce it. At the same time, I don't think we should just shrink the entire economy. If productivity and workers aren't needed in one area/business, move it/them to another. Shift the productivity, don't eliminate it. That's what I'm saying.

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't know why you are getting down on Grampa Troll.

If he chooses to save money by not expanding, that means fewer jobs, not more. It's better if he goes from 50 to 60 folks then if he stays at 50 the whole time.

[Seedle]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I don't know why you are getting down on Grampa Troll.

If he chooses to save money by not expanding, that means fewer jobs, not more. It's better if he goes from 50 to 60 folks then if he stays at 50 the whole time.

Only if there will be demand for 10 more worker's worth of product. The problem, as I see it, and simplified, is this: You have x factories, each with 50 workers. There is an equilibrium. You also have 10*x people who want jobs. If all factories take on 10 workers, the equilibrium will be maintained (in this example.) The problem is, no one factory will want to hire, because if the other's don't, they are only dooming themselves. So you need a concerted effort, you need proper distribution, but you don't need lower production.

Now, as I said, that's as I see it. I did not say that is how it actually is.

[Ben Kenobi]

Oh true, but the same should be true in a downturn. If Gramps hires another 10 workers to meet demand I don't see why he should keep them on when the demand is no longer there.

Fluctuations in staffing are not necessarily a bad thing. In fact the more flexibility he has the better off he will be able to match the demand and not over or undershoot.

[Aeson]

Re: How ****ed are we?

[Zevico]

Re: Re: How ****ed are we?

Originally posted by Aeson

This is what I love about Poly.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Colon™
Have you considered the management is just using Obama as an excuse to enforce a decision they felt was necessary anyway?

There are other factors at play here but what excuse did they need. Obama said he'd raise taxes on business. The owners expect that he'll do so and they have to try to minimize costs.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by MrFun


Let's all scape goat Obama for all future problems before he's even president. That's a good way to run a business.

This is too stupid for further comment.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by SpencerH


There are other factors at play here but what excuse did they need. Obama said he'd raise taxes on business. The owners expect that he'll do so and they have to try to minimize costs.

The thing is that the costs haven't materialised yet, nor is there certainty they will materialise (plenty of elections pledges never do or only in altered form). It's curious that a management can determine what measures are needed to respond to an uncertain cost of an uncertain magnitude.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by SpencerH


There are other factors at play here but what excuse did they need. Obama said he'd raise taxes on business. The owners expect that he'll do so and they have to try to minimize costs.

Really all they are doing is betting that you all won't go somewhere else where someone will pay you more. They're just using taxes as an excuse.

[Blaupanzer]

Thank you Kid. No taxes have been proposed to Congress. Congress can impose new taxes, reenact current taxes, or rescind (lower) taxes. the President cannot do this unilaterally.

As far a retirement for me, my 401Ks are about 40% in the hole cumulatively. So I was planning on working around 5 - 6 more years. Now it will be 9 - 10 most likely.

While the potential for worldwide total collapse of the dollar-based monetary system has existed at least since the Nixon administration, the likelihood that will happen RIGHT NOW is really quite slim. When Nixon shut down the Bretton Woods worldwide monetary guaranty system and took the dollar off the gold standard, all the nations said they understood the risks and would keep selected safeguards in place on their banking and financial systems. Then in 2002 Bush and the Republican Congress dropped those safeguards separating commercial and investment banks and those preventing using one loan as collateral for another. These provisions traced back to the Depression, but Phil Gramm and crew called them antiquated. Six years later we see why those regs were in place. If we are lucky, we can restore that much of the status quo pre-2002. But not without about two to four years of recession.

[Lancer]

Re: Re: How ****ed are we?

Originally posted by Aeson

Are you saying we're so ****ed that we need blond women to rescue us?