Oil and the 'fiscal cliff'
Tverberg explores the connection between changes in the oil market and growing concern of the 'fiscal cliff.'
(Page 5 of 5)
Perhaps a change closer to the Japanese system of regulation could be coupled with more emphasis on healthy eating and exercise. The major losers in such a change would be surgeons and other specialists earning very high salaries, investors in very high-priced devices, pharmaceutical companies who charge US customers more than elsewhere, and hospitals that need to scale back services to be more in line with what other developed countries provide.
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Gail Tverberg, an actuary with a background in math, analyzes energy and financial matters from a perspective that the world has limited resources. For more of Gail's posts, click here.
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Rethink Foreign Imports. Economists have told us globalization is the only solution. Yet, we cannot compete on a level footing with countries with very low labor costs, especially if their primary fuel is (cheap) coal. We find that we have more and more laid-off workers, at the same time their economies are growing rapidly. (I describe this more in this post.)
It seems likely that over the long-term, globalization is going to shrink, as the cost of importing goods increases, and as financial problems of countries increasingly get in the way of signing longer-term contracts. (Who wants to sign a contract to make products for a country whose currency may radically drop in value before the goods are produced?)
A partial solution might be to penalize companies that outsource jobs to parts of the world with lower wages (but this would be hard to enforce, and likely run afoul of free trade agreements). It would theoretically be possible to re-impose tariffs on selected categories of imported goods and services, to try to encourage more local hiring, even if it means higher production costs. Again, this has free trade agreement issues.
A related issue is the idea of businesses being able to incorporate offshore, and escape US taxation. I know my work as an insurance actuary involved a lot of work for “offshore captives“. Somehow, we should be rethinking whether allowing US companies to take the benefit of these offshore services, without tax, inside the United States, is in the United States’ best interests. Shouldn’t we be taxing goods and services produced elsewhere, to avoid US taxation?
Other Issues
There are many other issues that deserve a more complete treatment, including further discussion of the four causes of the increasing deficit at the beginning of this post. I have treated some parts of these issues in other posts, such as High Price Fuel Syndrome.
Notes:
[1] Wages used as a base consists of “Wages and Salary Disbursements” for both employees in government and in private industry, plus “Employer Contributions for Government Social Insurance” plus “Proprietors Income” relating to both “farm” and “non-farm”. All of these amounts are from Table 2.1, Personal Income and Its Disposition. For most people, this will be the nominal wages a person receives (before deductions of any kind), plus the amount paid by the employer on behalf of the employee for Social Security and Medicare contributions. I have not included “Transfer Payments” such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Unemployment Insurance, since these are likely not to be heavily taxed. For projecting future years wages, I have assumed 3% annual growth (1% increase in labor force and 2% inflation). If there is recession or if the number of jobs fails to rise, this assumption may prove to be too high.
[2] There is a small overlap between federal and state programs. For example, the Federal Government gives State and Local Governments to spend on unemployment benefits, and on Medicaid, and on stimulus projects. The data sources I am using should remove these overlaps correctly.
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