This is just ignorant of basic economics. We have a trade deficit because there is more demand for investment in the US economy than domestic savings can supply (a good reason to be skeptical of your thesis that it is about to collapse). This doesn't really imply anything about American GDP.

You're mistaken. Pensions were brought up as a counterpoint to your claim that American income numbers are inflated relative to other countries because of poor government benefits.

Okay.

Okay. I'll forget it and just enjoy low interest rates forever. Sounds great.

Just so I'm clear, your claim is that the US being able to lend money at low interest is a sign that the future prospects for its economy are weak? If so, that is wrong. Right now the US debt is bought on expectations about future economic growth providing enough government revenue to pay these loans back. If the government lent more money than it could pay off through normal GDP growth then the cost of paying these loans back in the future would force it to raise taxes and/or print more money. Raising taxes would lower GDP growth (creating domestic pressure to lower the amount lent) and printing more money would decrease the value of US money, driving up the amount of interest people expect in order to loan the US government money. Thus, current low interest is a market signal about how much inflation and economic growth people expect in the future.

EDIT: This is all fairly off-topic. My interest isn't really in debating with you the state of the US economy, but whether middle-class Americans are doing okay. You claimed that 70% are struggling to get by and I don't really see what these dire economic predictions have to do with that.

How does it change it ?
If you lose a Job making car at Ford for example to end up working at wall mart , pretty normal you need another income to get by .

Maybe with all the data u just spoke of , it explain why wealth gap do exist and keep worsening up ?

Anyway here is a link that even original position should like since it’s the same sources he uses ....

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...d-for-decades/

“After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.“

A strong and good economy is far more complicated than what is the unemployment %.
It’s all about purchasing power that matters .

Look at this chart for example about housers prices.
Pretty clear that house price chart has not follow the same trend of the salaries .
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS


When we say the salary of CEOs for example went from 20-1 to in 1960 to more than 250 -1 , there is a reason the salaries for middle class stagnate and get poorer overtime due to inflation when they have no chance to make money since the fed since 1985 just keep bringing down the interest rates to support wall street when it crashes ...

You're kinda using a kitchen sink approach where you're just throwing everything you got and seeing what sticks. We can talk about that stuff, but what is your justification for saying that we're somehow sending jobs overseas because of a trade deficit given we simultaneously grew a huge deficit and created about as many jobs as there are people to work them? All the while increasing median family income and increasing labor force participation. I'd like to finish this part first.

For the last paragraph,
I’m not claiming US can lend money cheaply..... they are borrowing money cheaply because they can’t pay higher interest rates !!
Why you think the balance sheet of the fed keep climbing like crazy ?
Because about only the fed buy US bonds anymore .

That isn’t a good sign .
And they can’t hikes the rates cause they would default .

It’s pretty easy to figure out .

21 trillions of gdp
3 trilllions Government revenues
Around 28 trillions in debts .

And it keeps growing .....by trillions !

You think it is all fine ?
I have no idea how u can think the US economy is robust or no problems are ahead .
I don’t even know how you expect the US government to pay any of it .
And we are at historical low Interest .

No idea how it’s going to end up ,a deflation crisis or inflation crisis , but a crisis is coming cause it’s unsustainable .

Everything you wrote there explain why it’s wrong in the article I post .
Yes nominal income as increase , doesn’t mean it’s good if you don’t check the cost of living .

I can have 10 % interest rates as a revenue , but how good is it if I suffer 15% inflation ?
I still lose 5% .

Maybe those charts can explain better ?

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Globalisation created a trade deficit for the US because they send job overseas to increase profits for corporations while giving cheaper goods for Americans .

It would of been fine if they wouldn’t of lower corporations taxes for decades, reaching a 1940s low ....

No, none of those charts are relevant. I'm asking specifically what it means that the US has "shipped jobs overseas" because of the trade deficit when we are as close to full employment now as when we had 0 trade deficit. If you don't know what you were saying and just trying to string together something you thought made sense that's fine. But I'm not interested in a general conversation on the state of the US economy, which is less clear cut, if you aren't either able to clearly explain what you meant or are honest enough to admit it makes no sense.

Net capital outflow is equal to net exports. That is, when Americans buy goods from overseas, we pay them in dollars. If we buy more than we sell, that means those people are left with extra dollars. Those dollars are a form of capital held by people in other countries. Eventually they will want to use them to buy something made in the US. Having a trade deficit means that these foreigners are holding American dollars, a form of investment in the American economy. This can be good - say they use these dollars to invest in productive American companies - or bad - say Americans borrow more than they can pay back. Just pointing to the existence of a trade deficit doesn't tell you which of these is going on.

Okay. Then I'll just move on since I don't think you understand how debt works.
As I've said repeatedly, if you measure American households median income by purchasing power parity, it is one of the highest in the world. Just keep ignoring it if you want.

And lower interest rates are great for Americans generally. If the US government can borrow at zero percent interest without worrying about it increasing, then it should do so and use that money to pay for its operations.

Oops, I misspoke, I meant "borrow," not "lend," in that paragraph. The US government's ability to borrow money cheaply is a sign of its solvency. Generally it is the lender that sets rates. Individuals and institutions that are credit risks have to pay more interest, not less. Low US interest rates are a sign that it is solvent. The reason the balance sheet is climbing so much (outside political factors) is because lots of people want to lend money to the US government, which means it only has to pay them a smaller amount of interest in return for accepting those loans.

Lol. No. The American government would not default. Why would it default on a debt when it can literally print money to pay it?

I mean, we can't keep borrowing money like we did in 2020, but I also don't expect us to.

A basic problem here is that you are not clearly distinguishing between the US government and the US economy. The US economy is robust. Our real GDP growth since the recession has been stronger than Europe's (and Asian developed economies as well). Forecast of our GDP growth over the next few years is ahead of Europe's as well.

Your concern is with the solvency of the US government. Right now our debt-to-GDP ratio is 127%, which is pretty high. The general problem here is that typically the more debt, the more money the government has to spent financing that debt. Here are the options government have for getting that money: they can grow their economy, they can raise taxes/cut spending, they can devalue their currency, or they can borrow more money.

Usually having a high debt-to-GDP ratio makes it difficult to do these things without incurring costs. Raising taxes lowers GDP growth and is politically unpopular. Cutting spending is politically unpopular and often lowers GDP growth. Borrowing more money usually means interest rates increases which makes it even more difficult to finance debt. Devaluing your currency is politically unpopular and also raises interest rates.

However, the US government is basically fine to do any of these (except cutting spending). Our total tax rate as a share of GDP is 24.3%, well below the OECD average of 33.7%. Interest rates on government borrowing is extremely low, which means that we have room to increase it. US inflation is also very low - so low the central bank has lately been more worried about deflation than inflation. And US GDP growth is strong and expected to remain so.

This is why so many people are still willing to invest in the US economy and lend money to the US government - they are aware that it is financially sound, even if it has lately been borrowing more money.

But again, I'm not really interested in arguing about the state of the US economy with you. My interest is in contesting your claim about the middle class. Even if you're correct and the US economy is about to collapse, right now it is still doing fine. Right now US workers are some of the richest in the world. My main disagreement with you is about how to understand the current state of affairs, not what will happen in the future.

What’s your question precisely ?
We are talking about what exactly ?
Ubi and the “supposedly “ lack of income for the majority of Americans right ?

What does it matters if you have full employment before or after a trade deficit from your POV ?
What I am saying is the costly jobs for corporations , hence good income job for the middle class, got ship overseas a lot for lowering the cost of production to make higher profits for corporations .
So yeah lot people were able to find others jobs but certainly not as good as what they have .

So what does it matter you have the same number of jobs after or before a deficit trade ?
What’s your point ?

Well i hope everything is fine for now, trillions has been given out and it aint over....other trillions are coming.
i really hope your optimism will prevail, but i am pretty sure major problems still are ahead.

You're talking to a couple of the few people who are making out okay under the Clinton/Obama neo liberal policies. It's like telling Keith Richards he probably should go easy on the dope in 1970 when he was on top of the world. He'd give you just as many reasons why it's harmless.


Trade deficits are good. Just like heroin.

I am saying

doesn't make any sense. Other stuff you're saying doesn't either, but I don't see thr point if you are stringing words together that don't really mean anything then demanding us to explain to you why purple ideas can't only fly after President's Day.

But the notion that companies shipped the "good jobs" is laughable. Look at companies like Apple or really any company. The high end jobs are the US, the low paying low education jobs are done overseas.

That article said that average hourly wage for workers is roughly the same as it was in the 70s. So let's see...in the 70s American workers were doing fine. Then due to increasing female participation in workforce American families had more total hours worked, which led to those household's median incomes increasing, so that they are still nearly the highest in the world. As I said, you are ignoring the reality of how much American families actually make.

i admit it is a crude example but the idea is there....
Buy a car 100% made in mexico or buy a car 100% made in the US, which car you think cost the most to build and ending up paying the most ?

The reason its all low paid job overseas is because at that salary, they would not find anyone working it in the US because the cost of living is too high to permits that.
Hence the cost of production would be higher and the prices of the good will go much higher as well if it was transfer to the states.
Which Trump did try to achieve, he wasnt 100% wrong with that or wanting to impose Tariiffs on China ( even tho he was wrong with about 99% everything else).
That is how you export inflation .
So general goods (CPI) have basically stayed the same and the salaries as well.


But the problem is the expenses in the US kept going up, health care, education ,etc.
those cost are way less perceptible because u do not go to the hospital or school for 30 years straight,right ?

It is the frog in a boiling water scenario.
it was a sneaky inflation that was not really perceptible ( since the general consumptions goods were not jumping in prices like the 1970) but it did go up while the salary would not.

But large profits were made by corporations and the US kept reducing taxes for them.

And some decades later you wake up and realize u lost half your purchasing power as a middle class workers.

So my point is, if job would not be send overseas to reduce inflation, the companies would of been forced to pay higher salaries to their workers in the US.

higher prices in goods, means higher profits for corporations, means forcing the corporations to pay higher salaries and they easily could with much higher nominal return.
That is why i like about small inflation %, yes it is a tax but it is tax that even the best fiscal lawyer in the world cant dismiss compare to the government fiscal taxes.


As a side note, linking the 1971 link i posted it you think is worthless.
Dont you find it strange that when nixon cut the ties to gold in 1971, inflation went super high, gold price went to huge prices and when inflation rates went too problematic in late 1970 what happened ?

opening up diplomatic relation so that China become the cheap producing goods trading partners for the US to reduce inflation right ?

Salaries stop climbing and corporations madea fortune and wealth gap at that point started.

Yes being able in 1980 make a living by 1 only worker for his family then and today needing 2, as nothing to do with the lack of productivity of americans...

it is about trade, fiscal issue, bail outs, value of money going down (inflation), bad redistribution,etc.

it is all about currency wars manipulation....

I don't know why these guys don't understand that good paying, steady US jobs were replaces with lower paying, gig jobs many requiring expensive college degrees that are paid for by debt.

The system has been broke for decades. Sure your kids who can't leave home because they're in debt make your family income rise but.....is that really making the economy stronger for most of the participants ?

Meanwhile we've built a nice middle class for China instead of letting them build their own.

Just stupid. Seafood in my supermarket now comes from China. I guess there's no ocean around the US anymore.

It's like noun verb gumbo. You want to throw in every topic under the sun because when you examine any claim in detail it falls apart. I see now you've switched to low paid jobs are going overseas. That at least has some truth to it. In the car example, the engineering and higher end jobs tend to stay in the US and the grunt assembly, fabrication etc go abroad. So we at least agree on the main point that we aren't losing desirable jobs to other countries. Good.

Many of your other points are fictional anecdotes about life in the past. The truth is people were just poor back in the 60s-80s with 1 person supporting a family unless it was a high end job, just like today. And if the head of household wasn't a white man back then you were probably screwed regardless.

Now we have long term trends of rising real incomes for all groups with possibly the lone exception of white non-college educated men. You can't really contribute to the conversation unless you accept that median wages have gone up in real terms from the times you claim things were better.

+1

Don’t forget free technology transferred by producing overseas .
China is well know for stealing intellectual properties...

First paragraph .it might be undesirable job for you , but I’m sure some Americans would love to be on manufacturing line at 50-70k(?) a year instead working a service job winning 30k , shrug.

Bolder part :
Like I said ..... in the last 40 years wages hasn’t increase !
Meaning purchasing power if you prefer .
Thx for agreeing ......!

Now is it normal a country rich like the US , a “strong” economy like the US , weren’t able to increase wealth for its middle class over 40 years while the increases of wealth for the top 10% are incredibly high ?

I agree median income as increase but from my POV , it is the purchasing power that matters .
And purchasing power hasn’t increase for a big portion of Americans for decades .

What use is of income if it isn’t to buy stuff ?
The best “slaves” are the one getting paid without realizing they aren’t gaining any purchasing power even do the number on paper money are bigger , thinking they win more.


Is that a working economy for you ?
I believe in democracy and I believe an economy that enrich mainly the top 10% of its work force and close to nothing to the rest isn’t a good and strong economy .

To me, economic discussion is impossible in isolation .
Too much interaction factors are at play .

you can’t speak about real estate bubble or stock market bubble without talking about interest rates for example .
You can’t dissociate the 2 .
Economy is about balancing act between multiple factors .

You probably agree with me more than 1 factor are at play ?
Well if I understand you correctly , you say with the coming of woman in the work force , income as increase in total for families ?

But that's not what happened. Real personal incomes are at all time highs. There never was this mass of 70k a year (2019$) manufacturing line jobs. It's simply a myth



If you think things are bad now, they were even worse in the 70s. You're making the same mistake as the MAGA crowd. Fetishizing a fictional past that didn't exist rather than realistically comparing how we're doing now to the reality of the past.And US manufacturing output hit all time highs in 2018. So it's not just not true that we are getting other countries to do all our manufacturing.



Do you know what real income means? I don't think we can continue since it doesn't sound like you do

I'm assuming your view is that in the 70s middle class families were doing fine. If hourly wages since then have only increased slightly in purchasing parity terms, but households are more likely to have two workers, then you would expect total hours worked p/household to have increased, and so median household income to have risen. This is in fact what you see, significant increases in real median family income.

Interestingly enough, this point refutes the one that followed:

The number of hours of nonsupervisory labor required to afford the principal and interest on a median priced home is lower than it's been in over 40 years:



Debt service payments as a percentage of disposable income or GTFO:




How auspicious! The number of manufacturing job openings is at levels not seen since before China joined NAFTA:



He does not, and he doesn't seem understand what happens to purchasing power when domestic price inflation largely outstrips import price inflation.

Ok...
I think I know why we do not understand each other .

Take your graph for example .
Am I right to assume , at around 35k per individual in 2019 dollar it shows on it and it went back in time to around 25k in 1975 and 23k in 1980 ?
Approximately?
In 2019 dollar value correct ?


But 2019 dollar value are far more lower than 1970-1985 dollars .
Someone winning 23k in 1980 would win around 73k in today’s money .

You can’t take 2019 value money and compare it in the past .
It’s the other way around to take Into account inflation .

No, trade deficits are not inherently good or bad, just like borrowing is not inherently good or bad. We've had this discussion before. Here is the standard textbook answer from Greg Mankiw's Principles of Economics 6th ed:

Your real complaint is not about trade deficits, but just trade generally, because you think American workers aren't competitive with international workers and so they'll lose their jobs if we have an open economy. This is also why tariffs don't strongly affect the trade deficit, as we saw under Trump. However, you're also wrong about trade: American workers are competitive internationally, just not at things like making t-shirts. This is why getting a college education has become so much more important in the US for a high income - our comparative advantage over other countries is generally not in physical labor, and so a high income usually requires more specialized education and training.

Huh? The chart shows median job was paying about 25k in 1975 in 2019 dollars . Their W-2s would show them making around 8k a year, not 25k.

Fwiw, I’ve been out of school for a long time now ( sadly lol) , but seeing so many awesome info available about economy and investing in general on the internet, can’t believe it isn’t teach earlier at school .
Maybe now they do , I don’t know .

But imho , massive positive change in behavior could help tremendously....
I know maths is important , geography etc .
But how not knowing to make the money work for you not as important ???