Romney making money by destroying jobs?

[SilverMan995]

Brothern

Heimdalr

I'm not sure if what Bain is doing is in any way comparable to the invention of the automobile. If it shits like a horse, and all that.

Wasn't talking about Bain specifically. I'm referring to large scale economic progress and weeding out economic inefficiencies. Yes, Bain's market function is one of many tools of the free market to do that. And even Bain existing in the market is beneficial to us because it incentives companies' managements to self regulate and embrace efficient resource allocation.

The problem is, that's not always what happened. Apparently, they would do things that saved money in the short term, but might doom the company in the long run. The clear example was when they talked about how they skimped on maintenance. Sure, you can save some money in the short run if you don't take care of the equipment, make the company seem more profitable, but that doesn't actually benefit the company.
The clearest quote from the article, I thought, said something to the effect that they were trying to increase the companies profit, not it's output, or whatever. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes they do not.

[Complex Systems]

TheSilverNoble

Brothern

Heimdalr

I'm not sure if what Bain is doing is in any way comparable to the invention of the automobile. If it shits like a horse, and all that.

Wasn't talking about Bain specifically. I'm referring to large scale economic progress and weeding out economic inefficiencies. Yes, Bain's market function is one of many tools of the free market to do that. And even Bain existing in the market is beneficial to us because it incentives companies' managements to self regulate and embrace efficient resource allocation.

The problem is, that's not always what happened. Apparently, they would do things that saved money in the short term, but might doom the company in the long run. The clear example was when they talked about how they skimped on maintenance. Sure, you can save some money in the short run if you don't take care of the equipment, make the company seem more profitable, but that doesn't actually benefit the company.
The clearest quote from the article, I thought, said something to the effect that they were trying to increase the companies profit, not it's output, or whatever. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes they do not.

Why is increasing output good? Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all? They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad. In fact, access to capital markets, in all it's many forms, has been shown to be the best promoter of increasing real wages at all levels of an economy. We get too caught looking at a single tree to realize the vibrant forest around it.

[razorsarz]

the only question I have is what companies has Obama started that are still running today? The "green" jobs that folded don't count.

[Sarah Louise Kerrigan]

Complex Systems

TheSilverNoble

Brothern

Heimdalr

I'm not sure if what Bain is doing is in any way comparable to the invention of the automobile. If it shits like a horse, and all that.

Wasn't talking about Bain specifically. I'm referring to large scale economic progress and weeding out economic inefficiencies. Yes, Bain's market function is one of many tools of the free market to do that. And even Bain existing in the market is beneficial to us because it incentives companies' managements to self regulate and embrace efficient resource allocation.

The problem is, that's not always what happened. Apparently, they would do things that saved money in the short term, but might doom the company in the long run. The clear example was when they talked about how they skimped on maintenance. Sure, you can save some money in the short run if you don't take care of the equipment, make the company seem more profitable, but that doesn't actually benefit the company.
The clearest quote from the article, I thought, said something to the effect that they were trying to increase the companies profit, not it's output, or whatever. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes they do not.

Why is increasing output good? Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all? They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad. In fact, access to capital markets, in all it's many forms, has been shown to be the best promoter of increasing real wages at all levels of an economy. We get too caught looking at a single tree to realize the vibrant forest around it.

So I guess the fact that the median wage has decreased since the 60's comes from tighter regulation? Or how would you explain it?

[Wendigo]

Complex Systems

Why is increasing output good?

It's presumably good for the customers, unless the quality of that output declines accordingly. Since higher output means more opportunities to purchase, and possibly (although not necessarily) lower prices.

Quote:

Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all?

Because companies are made of people. The investment firm, presumably being staffed by people, should care about people. If they do not, then they are being bad people. We call people who don't care about people sociopaths.

Quote:

They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad.

Except when the world banking system nearly collapses all at once thanks to poorly considered financial derivatives acting on one another and chaining banks all over a country and between one country and another and from continent to continent together with anchor chains that will drag them all down as a single, cohesive unit without drastic action by governments all over the world to stop them from suffering the consequences of their own goddamn retardation.

[Complex Systems]

Sarah Louise Kerrigan

Complex Systems

TheSilverNoble

Brothern

Heimdalr

I'm not sure if what Bain is doing is in any way comparable to the invention of the automobile. If it shits like a horse, and all that.

Wasn't talking about Bain specifically. I'm referring to large scale economic progress and weeding out economic inefficiencies. Yes, Bain's market function is one of many tools of the free market to do that. And even Bain existing in the market is beneficial to us because it incentives companies' managements to self regulate and embrace efficient resource allocation.

The problem is, that's not always what happened. Apparently, they would do things that saved money in the short term, but might doom the company in the long run. The clear example was when they talked about how they skimped on maintenance. Sure, you can save some money in the short run if you don't take care of the equipment, make the company seem more profitable, but that doesn't actually benefit the company.
The clearest quote from the article, I thought, said something to the effect that they were trying to increase the companies profit, not it's output, or whatever. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes they do not.

Why is increasing output good? Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all? They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad. In fact, access to capital markets, in all it's many forms, has been shown to be the best promoter of increasing real wages at all levels of an economy. We get too caught looking at a single tree to realize the vibrant forest around it.

So I guess the fact that the median wage has decreased since the 60's comes from tighter regulation? Or how would you explain it?

Not according to The Census. One can easily see that the greatest income growth has occurred among those in the top 10%, certainly, but all demographics have seen rising real incomes. The real median income went down the most during the 90's and recovered during the 00's, and yet no one is saying clinton is to blame. Furthermore, what exactly people are able to buy with that money has drastically increased.

[Heimdalr]

Quote:

Wendigo

They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad.

Except when the world banking system nearly collapses all at once thanks to poorly considered financial derivatives acting on one another and chaining banks all over a country and between one country and another and from continent to continent together with anchor chains that will drag them all down as a single, cohesive unit without drastic action by governments all over the world to stop them from suffering the consequences of their own goddamn retardation.

It'll be all right. We can count on the collective pool of tax money to keep it all afloat.

[Complex Systems]

Wendigo

Complex Systems

Why is increasing output good?

It's presumably good for the customers, unless the quality of that output declines accordingly. Since higher output means more opportunities to purchase, and possibly (although not necessarily) lower prices.

Quote:

Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all?

Because companies are made of people. The investment firm, presumably being staffed by people, should care about people. If they do not, then they are being bad people. We call people who don't care about people sociopaths.

Quote:

They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad.

Except when the world banking system nearly collapses all at once thanks to poorly considered financial derivatives acting on one another and chaining banks all over a country and between one country and another and from continent to continent together with anchor chains that will drag them all down as a single, cohesive unit without drastic action by governments all over the world to stop them from suffering the consequences of their own goddamn retardation.

I wouldn't consider China, which tries to maximize employment and output a particularly good model of economic activity. Especially since all the environmental damage they cause is a direct cause of over production, and that a lot of the goods sit depreciating in warehouses. There is no particular reason to assume that expanded production is automatically good, even if it might lead to lower prices for some.

Secondly, it is not the role of an investment firm to care about people. Again, finance is weird. I'm sure on some level individuals do, and should, care, but anyone who places it as a primary prerogative is foolish.

Finally, the weight of the financial crisis doesn't rest solely on the banks. They ******** up, and they should have paid the price for that debacle, but there were any number of policy and demand side issues that make financial crises polycentric and hard to lay blame. Finance ******** up, but if you look at countries that have open financial markets, versus ones that don't, those with open financial markets tend to grow faster, deal with less economic crises of all sorts, and generally have faster rising incomes.

[Sarah Louise Kerrigan]

Complex Systems

Sarah Louise Kerrigan

Complex Systems

TheSilverNoble

Brothern

Heimdalr

I'm not sure if what Bain is doing is in any way comparable to the invention of the automobile. If it shits like a horse, and all that.

Wasn't talking about Bain specifically. I'm referring to large scale economic progress and weeding out economic inefficiencies. Yes, Bain's market function is one of many tools of the free market to do that. And even Bain existing in the market is beneficial to us because it incentives companies' managements to self regulate and embrace efficient resource allocation.

The problem is, that's not always what happened. Apparently, they would do things that saved money in the short term, but might doom the company in the long run. The clear example was when they talked about how they skimped on maintenance. Sure, you can save some money in the short run if you don't take care of the equipment, make the company seem more profitable, but that doesn't actually benefit the company.
The clearest quote from the article, I thought, said something to the effect that they were trying to increase the companies profit, not it's output, or whatever. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes they do not.

Why is increasing output good? Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all? They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad. In fact, access to capital markets, in all it's many forms, has been shown to be the best promoter of increasing real wages at all levels of an economy. We get too caught looking at a single tree to realize the vibrant forest around it.

So I guess the fact that the median wage has decreased since the 60's comes from tighter regulation? Or how would you explain it?

Not according to The Census. One can easily see that the greatest income growth has occurred among those in the top 10%, certainly, but all demographics have seen rising real incomes. The real median income went down the most during the 90's and recovered during the 00's, and yet no one is saying clinton is to blame. Furthermore, what exactly people are able to buy with that money has drastically increased.

You're not adjusting for inflation. If you adjust according to the cost of living, say so but I don't believe the cost of living (also adjusted for inflation) has gone down in the same time frame.

[Complex Systems]

Sarah Louise Kerrigan

Complex Systems

Sarah Louise Kerrigan

Complex Systems

TheSilverNoble

The problem is, that's not always what happened. Apparently, they would do things that saved money in the short term, but might doom the company in the long run. The clear example was when they talked about how they skimped on maintenance. Sure, you can save some money in the short run if you don't take care of the equipment, make the company seem more profitable, but that doesn't actually benefit the company.
The clearest quote from the article, I thought, said something to the effect that they were trying to increase the companies profit, not it's output, or whatever. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes they do not.

Why is increasing output good? Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all? They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad. In fact, access to capital markets, in all it's many forms, has been shown to be the best promoter of increasing real wages at all levels of an economy. We get too caught looking at a single tree to realize the vibrant forest around it.

So I guess the fact that the median wage has decreased since the 60's comes from tighter regulation? Or how would you explain it?

Not according to The Census. One can easily see that the greatest income growth has occurred among those in the top 10%, certainly, but all demographics have seen rising real incomes. The real median income went down the most during the 90's and recovered during the 00's, and yet no one is saying clinton is to blame. Furthermore, what exactly people are able to buy with that money has drastically increased.

You're not adjusting for inflation. If you adjust according to the cost of living, say so but I don't believe the cost of living (also adjusted for inflation) has gone down in the same time frame.

Yes I am, the link I provided includes 2010 adjusted real dollars. The real value of a median income is lower than it was in the 70's, sure, but the real value decreased the most from the late 70's to the 90s and saw a rise at the end under Clinton, and came back up to parity with Bush, then dropped slowly through the later part of the decade. But again, that's a relatively meaningless statistic, as using today's income to buy goods in the 1960's or 70's would be comparably ridiculous, even if the "real value" is the same. The price of goods has fallen, which has increased the real buying power.

[Omorose Panya]

razorsarz

the only question I have is what companies has Obama started that are still running today? The "green" jobs that folded don't count.

That is not a fair question, considering he does not have direct control over such things.

[Sarah Louise Kerrigan]

Complex Systems

Sarah Louise Kerrigan

Complex Systems

Sarah Louise Kerrigan

Complex Systems

TheSilverNoble

The problem is, that's not always what happened. Apparently, they would do things that saved money in the short term, but might doom the company in the long run. The clear example was when they talked about how they skimped on maintenance. Sure, you can save some money in the short run if you don't take care of the equipment, make the company seem more profitable, but that doesn't actually benefit the company.
The clearest quote from the article, I thought, said something to the effect that they were trying to increase the companies profit, not it's output, or whatever. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes they do not.

Why is increasing output good? Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all? They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad. In fact, access to capital markets, in all it's many forms, has been shown to be the best promoter of increasing real wages at all levels of an economy. We get too caught looking at a single tree to realize the vibrant forest around it.

So I guess the fact that the median wage has decreased since the 60's comes from tighter regulation? Or how would you explain it?

Not according to The Census. One can easily see that the greatest income growth has occurred among those in the top 10%, certainly, but all demographics have seen rising real incomes. The real median income went down the most during the 90's and recovered during the 00's, and yet no one is saying clinton is to blame. Furthermore, what exactly people are able to buy with that money has drastically increased.

You're not adjusting for inflation. If you adjust according to the cost of living, say so but I don't believe the cost of living (also adjusted for inflation) has gone down in the same time frame.

Yes I am, the link I provided includes 2010 adjusted real dollars. The real value of a median income is lower than it was in the 70's, sure, but the real value decreased the most from the late 70's to the 90s and saw a rise at the end under Clinton, and came back up to parity with Bush, then dropped slowly through the later part of the decade. But again, that's a relatively meaningless statistic, as using today's income to buy goods in the 1960's or 70's would be comparably ridiculous, even if the "real value" is the same. The price of goods has fallen, which has increased the real buying power.

What you're saying is that the President has absolute power to control the market value of labor, and the cost of living, having this power since after Reagan, for an obscure reason.

I gather that Clinton regulated the least? Or the most, I don't know anymore, and count me out of your free market utopia.

[Omorose Panya]

Wendigo

Quote:

Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all?

Because companies are made of people. The investment firm, presumably being staffed by people, should care about people. If they do not, then they are being bad people. We call people who don't care about people sociopaths.

I'm not qualified to analyse Brothern's analysis so I will not, but on the reasoning spectrum I have to agree that you sometimes you have to sacrifice a few to make the whole better. In reality we just can't satisfy everyone and work to everyone's immediate advantage.

On the flip side, is it responsible to sacrifice the whole for the immediate benefit of a few? Is that not what we take issue with in the first place?

[Note that I am not approving of or advocating any particular method, but merely questioning the notion that we shouldn't do something that potentially benefits many people by ******** over some. It's unfortunate, yes, but it has to happen sometimes.]

[SilverMan995]

Complex Systems

TheSilverNoble

Brothern

Heimdalr

I'm not sure if what Bain is doing is in any way comparable to the invention of the automobile. If it shits like a horse, and all that.

Wasn't talking about Bain specifically. I'm referring to large scale economic progress and weeding out economic inefficiencies. Yes, Bain's market function is one of many tools of the free market to do that. And even Bain existing in the market is beneficial to us because it incentives companies' managements to self regulate and embrace efficient resource allocation.

The problem is, that's not always what happened. Apparently, they would do things that saved money in the short term, but might doom the company in the long run. The clear example was when they talked about how they skimped on maintenance. Sure, you can save some money in the short run if you don't take care of the equipment, make the company seem more profitable, but that doesn't actually benefit the company.
The clearest quote from the article, I thought, said something to the effect that they were trying to increase the companies profit, not it's output, or whatever. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes they do not.

Why is increasing output good? Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all? They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad. In fact, access to capital markets, in all it's many forms, has been shown to be the best promoter of increasing real wages at all levels of an economy. We get too caught looking at a single tree to realize the vibrant forest around it.

Well to me, increasing the firm's productivity (specifically long term productivity) seems like it would serve the company better in the long run than just trying to make more money by any means necessary, for the reasons I stated before.
An investment company may not have any incentive to look out for the company. That is, in fact, the problem. Me, I personally think it would benefit the economy more to work on a businesses long-term productivity, ensuring that all its employees stayed employed, rather than have a small group of already very rich people make even more money.
But even if one doesn't expect a businessman to watch out for the little guy, I'm not sure I'd want someone like that for President.
Though again, maybe I'm not understanding something here.

[Neurocracy]

TheSilverNoble

Complex Systems

TheSilverNoble

Brothern

Heimdalr

I'm not sure if what Bain is doing is in any way comparable to the invention of the automobile. If it shits like a horse, and all that.

Wasn't talking about Bain specifically. I'm referring to large scale economic progress and weeding out economic inefficiencies. Yes, Bain's market function is one of many tools of the free market to do that. And even Bain existing in the market is beneficial to us because it incentives companies' managements to self regulate and embrace efficient resource allocation.

The problem is, that's not always what happened. Apparently, they would do things that saved money in the short term, but might doom the company in the long run. The clear example was when they talked about how they skimped on maintenance. Sure, you can save some money in the short run if you don't take care of the equipment, make the company seem more profitable, but that doesn't actually benefit the company.
The clearest quote from the article, I thought, said something to the effect that they were trying to increase the companies profit, not it's output, or whatever. Sometimes those things coincide, sometimes they do not.

Why is increasing output good? Furthermore, if an investment firm buys up a company, why should they necessarily care about the company at all? They're incentive is to maximize their own returns and recoup the losses of buying the company. Again, finance is weird, but little empirical and theoretical work says that finance is bad. In fact, access to capital markets, in all it's many forms, has been shown to be the best promoter of increasing real wages at all levels of an economy. We get too caught looking at a single tree to realize the vibrant forest around it.

Well to me, increasing the firm's productivity (specifically long term productivity) seems like it would serve the company better in the long run than just trying to make more money by any means necessary, for the reasons I stated before.
An investment company may not have any incentive to look out for the company. That is, in fact, the problem. Me, I personally think it would benefit the economy more to work on a businesses long-term productivity, ensuring that all its employees stayed employed, rather than have a small group of already very rich people make even more money.
But even if one doesn't expect a businessman to watch out for the little guy, I'm not sure I'd want someone like that for President.
Though again, maybe I'm not understanding something here.

What you're not understanding is that we need someone to assert our supremacy in the world. Bain Capital is the epitome of what message we want to project: You're weak, you deserve to suffer! A giant '******** you' to the rest of the world, and to the lazy no-good sleazebags who dare make less than 25k a year in a country such as ours. We need progress, not hippie scumbags smoking pot and staining our pavements with rejected burrito. We need strong leaders. People are stupid, they need people that can tell the difference between good and evil. They need someone to tell them so. And that's where Romney comes in.