I agree this in a fair world this would work.
However we don’t have the time now for this.
It’s not a fair world and I think to compare technology of 30+ years ago to today is also not a good argument.

In the the 70’s a compact car was a pinto.
People used 8 track players in their cars…

Exactly, as they say 2 peas in the same pot. I believe there are some people out there who took on the sub-prime loan were lured into this, or somehow they were too optimistic so only focusing on the first few years rate. But probably a good portion of them just live beyond their means or stretching the pockets. And even with fix-rate loan, I believe lots of people in this country have stretch their pockets too.

Here’s a question, do you buy a house based on how much you can afford monthly, or how much do you really have to pay over the 15 or 30 years fix-rate loan (interest)? Which one should you take to measure your affordability?

When I mentioned “freedom of choosing a small lifestyle” didn’t mean a poor life, it only means a comfortable life and “not” wanting too much, but again it can be a very subjective view. And the use of the word “freedom” doesn’t need to be taken too literally. You are right, no one stops us from living a lifestyle as we want, but the “freedom” can be very abstract, like the peer pressure, and expectations from your families and society , those things you experienced when you were younger, at times, we do live by others’ expectation. But as you age, you see things differently, you know yourself better and more confident with self value. I probably won’t try to impress other people with material things, or the measurement of success, which I did before admittedly.

The small content lifestyle could also be a lifestyle living within our means, not try to stretch our pockets. That’s all. I wasn’t trying to say being rich is a bad thing, or being poor is the right thing. Nope.

I asked the other poster but he didn’t answer, so maybe I can ask you . . .

In what way do you feel our current society prevents people from choosing a simpler, less-consumer-based lifestyle?

What prevents you or the other poster from, say, taking a part-time low-stress job, living cheaply in an apartment shared with friends and living cheaply and simply?

As I mentioned above, my wife and I live on about 1/3 of our income. We sense no pressure from anyone to live beyond (or even up to) our means.

Love your comment, I share the same thoughts. I hope more people would think this way, freedom of choosing your content small life without being viewed as a unsuccessful being in this society.

Some people enjoy the day by day secular life without hunger for fame and wealth.

I was actually happier before when I didn’t own lots of things, for real!

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, I’m a shareholder in several alternative energy companies that would probably do well for me with this tax credit.

On the other hand my current house was built in the early 80’s when we had another set of tax-credits left over from the Oil Embargo days. So the owner installed all kinds of whiz-bang solar technology, e.g., rooftop water pre-heatings panels. By the time we bought the house the tax credits had expired so the companies that depended on them for business had gone out of business and there was no one to maintain the panels, and we had to have them removed when they started to leak, and replaced out hot-water heater at great cost!

And that’s the problem with tax credits – they create distortions in the market so companies come into existence that would not be viable without them and can’t survive when they end.

In my opinion, instead of MORE tax credits, we should have LESS tax benefits for oil companies and LESS tax-funded military adventures securing oil supplies. This will drive the price of oil up, allowing alternative energy companies to compete on a level playing field. Here in Massachusetts this would be good for jobs because we have several alternative energy companies based here, including Evergreen Solar which is building a brand-new factory and hiring.

Bush economic policies, supported by a republican congress allowed increased wealth, for the wealthiest, not for the rest of us. I hope voters can see we need to change the rules and even out the playing field and a billion dollar a year tax break for Exxon/Mobile (largest earnings in the history of the world in 2006) isn’t the direction we want to go

As it is with all shifts in markets some people are hurt and some gain. Look up the industrial revolution, it made major shifts in the demographics of Great Britain and in this country. We went from an predominately agricultural society into and industrial one pretty quickly.

Now that’s gone and we need to develop some new ideas.

People used to light their houses with whale oil only 140 years ago, give or take a few. Now we have halogen lamps.

Those visa’s are for highly trained skilled people and it’s a fact of life. By the way there are a lot of young Americans working in India and China now as well.
So what Frank the Underemployed Professional is saying is not holding true for smart young people.

We are importing nurses from the Philippines because there is shortage here. We have taken so many of the health care professionals out of that country that now they have shortage.

Maybe Frank needs to change professions, or move to China.

This is a topic I’ve had direct experience with in my industry since I’ve been involved with various interviewing and recruitment activities.

We bring in lots of foreign engineers and scientists, mostly from India and China. We also offshore significantr parts of our software development (I’m a software design engineer).

The simple fact is that we cannot find enough qualified Americans! I’ve been on projects that languished because we couldn’t fill openings. My current company employs math and physics PhD’s, as well as various engineering specialties.

Our FAILURE to import foreign labor is more likely to result in layoffs and job losses because it removes skills that we need to compete in a global marketplace.

This is the thing that many protectionists don’t get. Skilled foreign workers and cheap foreign manufacturing make many US jobs possible. Apple and Dell and HP would not be able to produce the successful, affordable products they make without offshore manufacturing because no one would be able to afford their products. And then there are the jobs produced by export. My company has thousands of US jobs – mostly white collar and skilled manufacturing. But we export about 60% of what we make. That would dry up if the US went protectionist.

We’re in a global economy and we have to learn ti succeed in it.

Nice post, thanks. You’ve raised interesting points referred to as “Global Labor Arbitrage”, a clever variation of the standard arbitrage practices. I must ask though whether you authored the points (both here and on Wikipedia ) or simply copied them. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_labor_arbitrage

Citation others work is still the right thing to do (as is taking credit for one’s own thoughts).

Economics is really more interesting than it gets credit for, if you’ll pardon the expression. I think many times we hurry for the discussion topics that buzz with emotion or make an immediate splash (race, sex, abortion, God, guns, etc.).

Programs like this, while they don’t necessarily dwell on the immediate political concerns of the day, are ultimately useful when thinking about — thinking about — which political party or policies to support.

Excellent show. As someone with no special knowledge of economics, I’d like to hear more discussions of these topics.

The statements in Frank’s long post is pandering to xenophobia.

In simple terms the bonds are safe, the stock holders lots their shirts. Freddie and Fannie had nothing to do with Wall Street firms such as Bear Stearns unless they bought bonds or stocks.

Like I said before this is complicated international finance. It’s how the system works. It’s how it worked for years. I’m not in the financial arena, but I have been reading a lot about this and I was not aware of the implications until a few days ago that if these two went down, we go down with them.

Everything stops, no loans for businesses, trading, student loans with stop. No one would be able to get a dime for anything. In short we don’t have control over this. Just as people in the late 20’s and 30’s had no control over the Great Depression.

Also, great comment from Frank the Underemployed Professional.

Global Labor Arbitrage is an economic phenomenon where, as a result of the removal of or disintegration of barriers to international trade, a nation’s economy and labor market essentially merges with other nations’ economies and labor markets producing an averaging out of the wages paid to labor and, consequently, of nations’ standards of living. Jobs may move to nations where labor is relatively inexpensive and/or relatively impoverished labor may move to nations with higher prevailing wages. Two common barriers to international trade are tariffs, which are politically imposed, and the costs of transporting goods across oceans and long distances. With the advent of the Internet, the decrease of the costs of telecommunications, and the possibility of near-instantaneous document transfer, the barriers to the trade of intellectual work product have almost completely disintegrated.

Oftentimes, a prosperous nation (such as the United States) will remove its barriers to international trade, merging its labor market with those of relatively impoverished nations (such as India, China, and Mexico), resulting in tremendous economic stress on the relatively prosperous nation’s lower and middle classes. The end result is an almost instantaneous dramatic increase in the supply of labor relative to the demand for labor which means a decrease in the price point (wages, standard of living) where supply and demand curves intersect. This means that the owners of capital will be able to keep a relatively larger amount of the value of a laborer’s work product, resulting in the enrichment of the owners of capital and (to a small extent) laborers in the impoverished country at the expense of laborers in the relativley prosperous nation. In the United States, this could mean the extinction of the American middle class.

Global labor arbitrage can take many forms, including but not limited to:

Foreign Outsourcing. (Sometimes also known as Offshore Outsourcing or simply Offshoring.) Capital moves to nations with relatively impoverished labor for the purpose of producing goods and services for export to other markets. The classic example is the case of a factory or office closing in the United States and then moving to China for the purpose of producing goods or services at lower labor costs for export back to the United States. This decreases the supply of capital in the United States, increasing its supply of labor relative to its capital, often resulting in layoffs and increased unemployment and underemployment in the U.S. For example, in the United States, the amount of manufacturing jobs has decreased while the importation of manufactured goods from other nations has increased (along with the U.S. trade deficit).

Importation of Foreign Labor Using Work Visas. Labor, often skilled and educated, migrates to the United States on a probationary “guest” basis. This has the effect of increasing the supply of labor in the U.S. job market. In America, two of the most common foreign work visas are the H-1B and L-1 visas. The use of foreign work visas to import skilled labor can often result in layoffs, decreased wages (supply and demand), unemployment, and underemployment amongst people in the same fields. For example, importing foreign computer programmers into the U.S. can result in layoffs, lower wages, unemployment, and underemployment for displaced American computer programmers. It also removes computer programming as a field for which displaced Americans can retrain and reeducate. This form of global labor arbitrage tends to most directly affect a nation’s middle and upper middle classes. Some American programmers have even been made to train their H-1B and L-1 replacements in order to get severance pay. Victims sometimes quip that, “My job was bombed by the H-1B.”

Immigration — both Legal and Illegal. In this form of global labor arbitrage, relatively impoverished labor moves towards capital in relatively prosperous nations. This tends to increase the supply of labor relative to capital in the prosperous nations and decreases wages, according to the laws of supply and demand (of and for labor). Sometimes the immigration occurs illegally. This form of global labor arbitrage tends to affect the poor and the working classes. The mass immigration (especially illegal immigration) of impoverished people into a relatively prosperous nation also has other effects, including but not limited to the costs of providing education, health care, and a criminal justice system to the impoverished immigrants and/or to the Americans that they have displaced from formerly middle class jobs, such as construction. For example, in the United States illegal immigrants have decreased the wages paid to Americans in the field of construction while increasing local governments’ and hospitals’ expenditures for education and health care for the uninsured.

Population Explosion. Population explosion can occur as a direct consequence of mass immigration and can have the effect of increasing the amount of people relative to a nation’s limited supply of land and natural resources, which might properly be regarded as “resource capital”. Although it may not technically be a form of global labor arbitrage, it may be a direct result of it. As a result of an increased population, the supplies of land and natural resources relative to the demand for land and natural resources decrease, resulting in a higher price point for a nation’s populace and thus a decreased standard of living, especially for the lower and middle classes.

Maintenance of a Trade Deficit by Selling Land and Capital Assets. As a result of Foreign Outsourcing, foreign labor produces goods and/or services for import into the United States without other countries purchasing an equal value of goods and/or services from the U.S. This could result in the restoration of a balance of trade or it could result in the sale of American-owned land and capital assets to people in other countries. In the case of the United States, it appears that we are exchanging our land and capital assets for ephemeral goods and services which will ultimately result in our collective impoverishment. The trade deficit could be the result of the other three forms of outsourcing or merely the purchase of goods and services produced by foreign-owned businesses.

The American media has sometimes erroneously referred to this practice as “insourcing”. In actuality, most of these alleged cases of insourcing have merely been instances of a foreign business purchasing an American company in order to enjoy the profits made by the American company as opposed to opening a new production facility in the United States for the purpose of exporting products back to its home country. Sadly, the news media often mistakenly implies that this constitutes an increase in American employment when in reality only the ownership of a business has changed, ironically symbolizing increasing American impoverishment.

You shouldn’t use bold print in your posts.

Use diction, word order, and sentence structure to communicate your ideas.

(As a matter of fact, my philosophy teacher taught us that, too. And he wasn’t lame at all.)