Does Japan's $93 trillion monetary base include their Postal Savings Accounts?

"Tim Worstall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Gray Shockley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 18:42:33 -0600, Bob LeChevalier wrote
> > (in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>):
> >
> > > He doesn't know what a service economy is, and he thinks that
> > > manufacturing could possibly be profitable when the workers are making
> > > American wages.
> >
>
> ??
> You think manufacturing can't be profitable at US wages ? GE makes
> turbines in the US .. Pratt and Whitney makes jet engines....Boeing,
> the largest exporter in the US.....It's pretty hard to argue that
> these are not manufacturing companies, or that they do not pay US
> wages, or that they are not profitable.
> The secret is that those workers being paid US wages are adding more
> value to the product than they are being paid : just as in every other
> business in the world that's making a profit.
> In fact, no secret at all : it's all about productivity and as US
> labour is the most productive in the world, it's the highest paid in
> the world. And as long as the US continues to specialise in industries
> where high labour productivity is possible then high wages will
> continue to be paid : and it's irrelevant whether such possible
> productivity is found in manufacturing, agriculture or services.
>
> Tim Worstall


Dear Tim,

I respectfully disagree.  There was a time, before affirmative action, when
that statement was absolutely true.  Four decades of affirmative action,
though, made it literally impossible to be true now.  You can't spend 40
years hiring the abject morons and firing the best employees and expect to
maintain any type of competitive economic edge.  That's mainly why 40 years
ago 21 of the top 25 manufacturing corporations were US, but today only 6
are (while 12 are Japanese).  On top of that, China now has a contract with
Boeing to build many of their parts, something that will quickly transfer
Boeing's proprietary technology to China just as our proprietary
semiconductor and auto technology was transferred to Japan.

Depending on the industry, incomes in Japan are 25% to 3 fold higher than
ours, plus government spending is only 14% of household incomes (compared to
more than 100% of ours), plus taxes in Japan are so low that they save 25%
of their disposable incomes whereas ours is so high that we now have a
negative personal savings rate.

If we want to destroy U.S. economic competitiveness, we did exactly the
right thing in the last half a century.

> >
> > Ain't /that/ the truth!
> >
> >
> > The Wal*Mart circular that came in the paper a couple of days ago had a
> > 12-cup drip coffee maker for less than five dollars. Also, a "crock pot"
for
> > less than $5.
> >
> > [Of course, as a coffee addict, I have a Bunn - made in the USA - which
costs
> > $100 at your local Ace hardware store. However, I am a dread
disappointment
> > to my coffee connoisseur friends as my favorite coffee is regular
Folgers.]
> >
> >
> >
> > Gray Shockley

While Walmart is listed as an "American" company, and while it has sales
even greater than General Electric, it doesn't sell American products, and
it doesn't manufacture in the US.  The only reason you can get a coffee
maker at Walmart for 1/20th of the price of the Bunn coffeemaker is that
Walmart is in reality a Chinese company, which manufactures in China, and
which hires high school dropouts to sell Chinese products to gullible
Americans who haven't got a clue that when you LOSE almost half a trillion
in foreign trade, then you STOP foreign trade until you are competitive with
the world again.

John Knight