Gold still climbing $1,331.10 per oz

[HL65]

Originally Posted by fusionstorm

These companies create plenty of jobs domestically, just not in the manufacturing realm. The US will never be able to compete against the cheap labor available overseas. What you highlight is not a tragedy in my mind. None of the Fortune Global 500 companies are vertically integrated entirely within their home countries borders. If any of us here had to choose, I'd daresay most of us would rather keep the skilled, higher paying jobs here and ship the lower paying jobs elsewhere.

Oracle employs more than 70,000 people worldwide, with a significant percentage of that here in the US in high-paying, skilled labor positions and little in the way of manufacturing jobs anywhere in the world. The same could be said of Google or Facebook.

Show me a company overseas that has 100% of its labor force employed within its home country's borders, and you'll have chosen a company that is unable to compete against its US competition unless they're heavily skewed towards manufacturing. There's a reason why the best and brightest engineers, scientists and skilled labor typically flow towards the US. If our population were more heavily invested in learning the sciences and engineering, the employment situation here would be markedly improved and our economy would be much healthier.

You lament the loss of manufacturing jobs. I lament the mentality too prevalent in our society that attaining a good-paying manufacturing job is the road one should take to a comfortable lifestyle.

Well said!! Perhaps in addition if we didn't impose a restrictive 35% corporate tax we might actually encourage companies to both do business here and come here. We are our own worst enemy!!

[DWdrummer]

Originally Posted by 2careless

Lots of US companies are big exporters, e.g. GE (in Energy and Healthcare), Boeing planes, Pfizer drugs. US companies are big in the urbanisation processes, and emerging countries are buyers.

Originally Posted by fusionstorm

Hi-tech. Global economy as it is, companies like Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, HP & IBM are all HQ'ed in the US. The list of tech companies based elsewhere that compete against our tech giants is pretty meager by comparison. No one in the server space. SAP is finding it tougher and tougher to compete against Oracle and Microsoft. Cisco is almost a monopoly in the networking arena. Apple is Apple.

And let's not forget about Google, Yahoo, Facebook and their ilk.

Now I feel foolish. It's one of those "Why didn't I think of that!" type of feelings. Thanks for pointing that out guys. I dont feel so bad now.

[fusionstorm]

Originally Posted by 2careless

This is a very elitest view. If everyone is an engineer, scientist etc etc, then who are the people doing menial work? Also, how can one re-tool a guy who has been a fitter and turner all his working life? These are the people that makes up the 10% unemployment rate. How will you deal with them?

Not sure how you can mention "menial" with "fitter and tuner" in the same breath. You can't ship janitors, food service work, etc. overseas, so there will always be a demand for that. But manufacturing/production line/assembly work certainly can.

Elitist?? I'd argue it's a pragmatist view. At the end of the day, every person must rely on themselves to ultimately guide or dictate their success in life. I don't want or expect our federal, local and state governments to take care of EVERYONE. My view is focused more on "smarter" government, which doesn't fully equate to "less" government.

That guy who was a fitter/turner at some point made conscious decisions on his own that that would be the path he would take. He wasn't doomed from birth to only be a fitter/tuner in that region, with no ability whatsoever to aspire to anything else b/c of a caste system. I am a firm believer in the adage "where there's a will, there's a way". We call the USA the "land of opportunity" b/c it's quite possible for just about anyone of reasonably sound mind and body to make something of themselves (i.e. improve their lot in life). To achieve this success may call for the need along the way to be adaptable and to reengineer oneself. But few people here truly have circumstances that prevent them from improving their job prospects IMO.

There will never ever be full employment, no matter how prosperous the times. But to expect that there will always be a demand for one's skillset (no matter what that skillset actually is) comes across to me as way too complacent in these ever evolving times. That mindset should have ended back in the '80s when it became apparent that manufacturing was a commodity that was easily replicated most anywhere in the world.

[fusionstorm]

Originally Posted by DWdrummer

Now I feel foolish. It's one of those "Why didn't I think of that!" type of feelings. Thanks for pointing that out guys. I dont feel so bad now.

One more industry that I forgot to mention was entertainment. We still create and export a not insignificant percentage of what the world watches at the cineplex or listens to on their iPods/similar devices.

[skypilot]

Originally Posted by 2careless

This is a very elitest view. If everyone is an engineer, scientist etc etc, then who are the people doing menial work? Also, how can one re-tool a guy who has been a fitter and turner all his working life? These are the people that makes up the 10% unemployment rate. How will you deal with them?

I would humbly suggest that much of the menial work is now being done by computers or at least by bigger equipment than in the past. We're not going to retool the older laborer but younger people must learn to do something that cannot be done by everyone else in the world. Rare = valuable to some extent. Moving back to the original subject, at dinner tonight I was trying to explain to a dinner companion that the price of gold is not going up but that the value of the dollar purchasing it is going down but I don't think I did a very good job.

[prc117f]

There is a lot of new Bullion products coming on to the market from different producers. I would not be surprised if all the hoards are being processed and sold now to the masses clamoring for gold and silver holdings.

Historically the crowd is never right when it comes to timing. Notice how no one was clamoring for Gold/silver, when gold was trading in the 200-300's and silver in the 3-5 range.

When the TV pundits, AM radio and informercials start filling up the airwaves for (fill in choice investment instrument, ie: real estate etc..) that should raise a caution flag.

[BarkMaster]

Up almost 3.5% today... $1,383.10

[nejo]

Personally I say we hit 2k within two years, but who knows really. But as long as USD goes down, gold will go up

[niner niner seven]

yeah i cant believe it seems to be no celing