Walmart - Inflation? or Deflation?

[shiny!]

Re: Regulations, not wages, causing manufacturing to go to China

i tend to agree on that, after working in various types of factories myself, would say that it's easy to blame regulations/unions etc, but well-managed businesses here in The US can compete globally in most any industry.. WHEN the exec's interests are aligned with a _longterm_ strategy, vs whats become all too commonplace these daze: pump up the quarterly numbers to pop the stock price, collect millions in bonuses/options, while gutting the assets that made the biz profitable in the first place - tween that and LBO pirates, using OPM and paying too much, then unable to cashflow their investment, gutting/selling/extracting the core profitability, forcing the help into pay/benefit cuts and to work like dogs to save their jobs and then declaring bankruptcy anyway - _after_ they've paid themselves millions - ala chainsaw al, of sunbeam a few years back.

in short, if businesses were run the way their founders intended them to be run, we would likely still be competitive in most industries - but when the 'new age' MBA whizkids are interested in only _their_ exit strategies, USA inc = doomed
and with the FIREmen calling the shots in Washington??? its going to happen a lot faster than most think.

why i keep repeating: TERM LIMITS FOR CONGRESS - NOW!!!!

I don't think the problem was that these guys couldn't make a go of it because of bad management. This scooter company was a little startup with a great idea, not a huge multinational corporation like GM or even Honda. They weren't pumping up numbers to raise stock prices and collecting millions in bonuses, etc... I don't think they even issued stocks. They were too small to absorb all the expenses of doing a manufacturing business in the United States.

Regulations here for business and agriculture- even the new banking regulations- are written to benefit the large, causing the small to be driven under or absorbed.

Just think about all the other scooter and bicycle factories in the United States. Oh, wait. There aren't any! The only bicycles still made here are handmade high-end specialty bikes costing thousands of dollars, not affordable bikes for the masses.

Ford, Microsoft, Apple... they all started small. They all had a dream in the beginning of making something that had previously been rare and expensive available to the common person for an affordable price. Not a one of them could have survived if they had been burdened at their beginning with the regulations businesses have today.

We live in a country that is downright hostile to entrepreneurship. Federal and local regulations could be greatly reduced for small businesses without sacrificing safety and the environment to any significant degree. Pretty soon there will be regulators with no businesses left to regulate, and then no tax revenues to pay the regulators' salaries. Then we can ALL be unemployed!

And I agree with you on Term Limits.

[DSpencer]

Re: Regulations, not wages, causing manufacturing to go to China

I've worked most of my career in manufacturing in the US, and don't know exactly what you mean. In the chemical industry, we didn't just dump our waste into the nearest creek, but in central america or asia we could. We used guard rails and safety devices in the US, though in other places we could just hope the employees didn't have a momentary lapse of attention and kill themselves, and we could ignore exposure to toxic chemicals for workers; too bad for them long-term, but we could always hire more. They couldn't sue us so no need to bother.

Unless you are talking about going back to killing employees and neighbors for money, I don't understand what this blanket notion of regulation means, exactly.

They aren't typically complaining about the expense of guardrails that keep people from dying. Have you ever run a business in the US?

Take just one example that doesn't relate to safety whatsoever: tax code. It's not possible to know that you are following the law, even if you try. There's not one person on earth that could fully explain US tax law. You also can't get the IRS to tell you up front. They just decide later if they think it's acceptable.

Ignorance of the law is not a defense. Knowing the law is impossible. How is this acceptable?

There are several places with zero regulation, like Somalia, and they don't seem to have much industry.

I hear this Somalia idea thrown around from time to time. I guess it's so that people will jump to the conclusion that this is a causal relationship and not the result of other factors. Personally, I think it has more to do with other factors.