Talk:Economy of the United States - Definition and Overview

removed opinion, uncited

"Carter is consistently ranked from all across the political spectrum as one of the worst presidents in history." Something substantive about Carter's policies and actions would be appropriate for an encyclopedia. This is nothing more than an opinion with no citing. Further, a citing would be inappropriate for an opinion. Also, putting this sentiment in as "many people's opinion is..." would not add any factual substance to the article.

Comment moved to talk page:
Could you write about role of Pentagon, government agencies like NASA and Universities and other scientific organizations in US economy ?

• http://www.whitehouse.gov/fsbr/esbr.html
• http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oecon/homepage.htm
• http://factfinder.census.gov/bf/_lang=en_vt_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_DP3_geo_id=01000US.html
• http://www.lib.memphis.edu/govpubs//statis1.htm
• http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm

Notes for economy article:

• largest GNP
• high in list of GNP per capita
• 5% world population
• 20% world coal production
  • appalachians, wyoming, west va, kentucky, illinois, indiana, ohio
• 20% world copper production
  • az, ut, montana, nv, nm
• 20% world crude oil production
  • 2nd largest producer. major oil fields in:
    • alaska, calif, gulf of mexico, louisiana, oklahoma
• 50% world corn production
• slightly under 20% beef, pork, mutton and lamb
• 10%+ wheat production

US exports account for 10% of world exports.

enterprises such as airlines, telephones that are gov owned in other countries are privately run in US.

Taxation - federal, state and local government

• for federal tax
  • personal income tax (most important source)
  • federal excise tax on alcohol, gasoline, and tobacco.
• state (depends on state)
  • income tax
  • sales tax
  • excise tax
• local
  • sales tax
  • income tax
  • prop tax

labor force 3/4 of all union members are AFL-CIO soc sec taxes

industry manufacturing 20% GNP services second after manufacturing. fastest growth of all sectors in second half of 20th century

financial

• federal reserve - central banking by 12 fed reserve banks supervised by board of govs in DC
• treasury manages national debt - bonds, deposits in fed res banks.
• private commercial banks controlled by state. liberalization of state laws lead to more intra and inter state banking. 40% of all commercial banks belong to fed res system. Req for min reserve deposits in fed banks and req for percentage deposits of savings and checking accounts in fed banks.
• credit agencies, savings and loan institutions
• insurance, security and commodity brokerages

stock exchanges:

• major ones: nyse, amex, cboe, nasdaq(?? not exactly?)
  • minor: pac stock exc

international trade more debt owned to foreign creditors than reverse.

highway system: 44,000 mile Interstate Highway System. In all 50 states. 90% of cities w/ pop > 50,000 are connected. Carries 20% of nation traffic.

railroads: primarily for moving freight. Amtrak is national passenger system.

waterways: mississippi, great lakes, gulf coast, pacific and atlantic coasts.

air: 500 public airports. Busiest is Chicago and Atlanta.

Why is GDP per capita displayed so prominently? I'm sure Saudi Arabia and Brunei have a high GDP as well, but most of that wealth goes to a small minority. What is the reason for mentioning a statistic of GDP divided by population at the top as opposed to some other random statistic? It implies that the average American is better off than other peoples (why else would you do that division), implying that Americans roughly get a similar share of that $33,000. This is nothing like the case. It's funny how capitalists present the US economy in a communist-like manner when it suits there purposes to do so. I am removing this from the top because there is no reason for it's existence, especially the bogus implied impression, at the top of the page. -- Lancemurdoch 04:39, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've added an economic history of the US from 1929 until 1994. I'm sure some might quibble with a point or two, but I think most of it is accurate - 1929 to the early 1940's seems to be an economic period (Depression to WWII), the mid 1940's to late 1960's and early 1970's seems to be another period (Keynes/Bretton Woods) and the mid-1970's to mid 1990's seems to be another era (Friedman, monetarism). I think most would agree major shifts in the economy happened that can space out these periods - and I think conservatives and liberals would agree - a conservative like Daniel Yergin as well as a liberal like Paul Krugman both seem to share this concept of time periods. Even Marxists see the West's adoption of Keynesianism as an important development in capitalism. -- Lancemurdoch 05:15, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Impressive

• For people this is impressive. Someone has aptly noted that the CIA fact book fiscal budget numbers are neither federal nor state and local receipts and expenditures. Does anyone know what the CIA fact book "Budget" (2003): "revenues: $1.782 trillion" and "expenditures: $2.156 trillion, including capital expenditures of NA" ([1] (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/us.html)) are? All the other countries I just checked have their "Budget" in line with the 35-55% of GDP that OECD calculate from the "Fiscal balances and public indebtedness - EO75 Annex Tables" (([2] (http://www.oecd.org/statisticsChannelList/0,2711,en_2825_500246_1_119656_1_1_1,00.html)).
• The BEA NIPA tables ([3] (http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/dn/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=84&FirstYear=2002&LastYear=2004&Freq=Qtr))show 3,120.0 and 3,499.2 for Q1 '04, while this text show $3.127 and $3.499, is that a revision? Are these numbers consolidated by the BEA itself and is that where the numbers are from? - Jerryseinfeld 23:35, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

changes

The term market-oriented makes little sense. People in the USSR went to the market as well. The difference between the USSR and US were in production - control was either by by CPSU or corporate bureaucrats. Thus the difference is one was capitalist, and the other called itself socialist.

This tone goes through much of this, which was originally written by the CIA(!), and includes a lot of double-talk. I've also noted how the US government gave massive funding to things such as the Internet ('nee DARPAnet) and in the recent past has been spending millions a year on biotech projects like the Human Genome Project.

The explanation for a two-tier labor market is equally ideological - industrial productivity has increased over past decades, but the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage has actually fallen. And professionals and white collar workers wages have been under attack as well, compare a programmers inflation-adjusted wages and unemployment rate today to say 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. White collar college-educated professionals were better off by almost any standard in the late 1960s in the US than today. So the idea that the 20% of Americans who are professionals are living some sublime existence.

I have changed much of this. I question whether US corporations "face higher barriers to entry in their rivals' home markets than the barriers to entry of foreign firms in US markets". Barriers in what markets, tomatos? steel? I seriously question whether this is true or not, but I'll leave it in anyway since I haven't researched it thoroughly. Ruy Lopez 12:06, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is it possible for someone to be banned for chronic povulation? The CIA's World Factbook is a source of statistical information you dumbass, it doesn't have anything to do with their spooky Cold War operations. Trey Stone 23:07, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Statistical information" like this that found its way into the Wikipedia article? "In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. US business firms enjoy considerably greater flexibility than their counterparts in Western Europe and Japan in decisions to expand capital plant, to lay off surplus workers, and to develop new products. At the same time, they face higher barriers to entry in their rivals' home markets than the barriers to entry of foreign firms in US markets. US firms are at or near the forefront in technological advances, especially in computers and in medical, aerospace, and military equipment; their advantage has narrowed since the end of World War II. The onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a "two-tier labor market" in which those at the bottom lack the education and the professional/technical skills of those at the top and, more and more, fail to get comparable pay raises, health insurance coverage, and other benefits." Ruy Lopez 17:01, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That passage you quoted seems factually accurate and quite unbiased to me. What is your problem with it? jni 11:52, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We are talking about whether or not this passage contains statistical information or non-statistical information. What are you talking about, and what relation does it have to this thread? Ruy Lopez 12:12, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The CIA World Factbook contains factual data about GDP, unemployment, poverty, population, etc etc., yes, as well as description like that, which as the above user said is factual. J. Parker Stone 00:09, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

POV nonsense

• POV edit [4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Economy_of_the_United_States&diff=8448779&oldid=8447175). Are these users reprimanded somehow? - Jerryseinfeld 17:19, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Because chanses are they won't give up easily ([5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Economy_of_the_United_States&action=history)). - Jerryseinfeld 16:58, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • There is an open (about to be closed soon) arbitration case against Ruy Lopez and his communist propagandist comrades in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily. I suggest you to tell the arbitrators how you feel about this POV crap he is pushing. jni 11:46, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • It seems like he's back.--Jerryseinfeld 00:59, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Roy Lopez' Edits

I have been reverting your edits, reading them as clumsy attempts to present a socialist perspective on the Economy of the United States. However, some of your edits show glimpses of merit, though I have difficulty seeing that merit very well behind the POV form the edits have taken so far. I'd like to discuss the objective of your edits so that we can take advantage of that merit and incorporate it in a manner that fits the NPOV guidelines. — Saxifrage | ☎ 01:56, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

The existing article is ideological. I don't know anyone who would say the US economy is (primarily) capitalist is a "socialist" POV. Many people to the right of socialist concede this, some are even proud of it. I don't know why inserting it is POV. Calling the US a "market economy" as if say the USSR or Cuba doesn't or didn't have markets is absurd, the primary difference between the two economic systems is in the production system for commodities going to the market, not the market itself. I've said this above and don't even know why calling the US economy a capitalist one would be considered socialist.

You seem to be misunderstanding what "market economy" means, both here and at market economy. A market economy doesn't denote the existence of markets, but that the economy is driven by the markets, as opposed to being driven by an organised authority. You are right—there is no difference in the market itself. However, there is a difference in the influence that the market's activities (who buys what and when and for how much) which doesn't occur in a planned economy. The distinctions you are trying to make with your edits are unnecessary unless the reader holds the same misconception of what "market economy" means as you hold.

Re: [I] don't even know why calling the US economy a capitalist one would be considered socialist. Calling it capitalist isn't inherently socialist. ItThe USA is, in fact, capitalist. However, you are removing "market economy" and replacing it with "capitalist", presuming that the former is unimportant and the latter is. The POV comes from insisting on highlighting the capitalist aspect of the USA economy at the same time as highlighting the negative aspects of the system, which you conveniently detail below. — Saxifrage | ☎ 19:20, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

I said "Over the past three decades, the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the United States has dropped. Decades of brisk productivity growth began slowing down in the mid-1960s, since which productivity growth has been slow, and long, deep recessions during which high unemployment exists have returned." These are facts, and are what I replaced the explanation of how a "two-tiered labour market" came about with, which I found completely POV. In fact, it says the exact same thing George W. Bush was saying on the campaign trail, people having trouble finding work should learn computers (he forgot to mention unemployment in IT was higher than the national average at the time). The POV explanation has to go, and some information has to be included about how the US economy has been floundering since the early 1970s - the average inflation adjusted hourly wage is lower (the average wage is lower! People made more per hour 30 years ago than today), economic growth has slowed, the US economy doesn't dominate the world like it used to as other countries and economic blocs have been catching up, recessions and unemployment since the early 1970s have been worse and more frequent compared to the post-war years and so on and so forth. This is mentioned above as well.

Go back and read NPOV and Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial. A cardinal rule is (paraphrasing) "avoid removing information that you consider POV—instead, add more that balances it, and rephrase the existing information to use neutral words." You're not doing that. Yes, the US economy has been in a downturn, and yes, I think much of the problem is the system. However, removing information unilaterally is a no-no. If you think it's POV and a substantial set of editors disagree, the right way to deal with it is to reach consensus here and make the changes multilaterally. — Saxifrage | ☎ 19:20, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Also, the fact that the US government massively subsidized every industry the US is globally competitive in (except for maybe Hollywood) has to be mentioned.

"Massively" is a POV adverb. Cite undisputable facts (like numbers) and let the reader come to their own conclusions about the extent of something. What you should be saying here is some citeable facts about tax breaks or outright subsidies that shows what you call "massive subsidisation" and let the reader decide what to call those facts. — Saxifrage | ☎ 19:20, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

I'm open to changes, but the POV stuff has to go (weasel phrases like "market economy", "surplus workers" etc.; the two-tiered economy explanation; plus the idea that the lower economic groups are stagnating economically - yes, if by lower you mean the majority of the population). Ruy Lopez 03:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Market economy" is only a weasel word if you don't understand what its technical definition is. "Surplus workers" is unnecessarily euphemistic; however, replacing it with something unnecessarily harsh is, well, unnecessarily harsh (and POV, to boot). We don't need to decide for the reader what's bad and what's good, or what they should think about the article.

"Two-tiered" is probably not POV by itself, but it may be worded in a POV way. The only problem with talking about the stagnation of the lower economic groups (in the context of a two-tiered economy) is, perhaps, concealing the fact that this group is the vast majority (if that is, in fact, the case—we need to show the reader that it is, not tell them that it is so).

Finally, please play by the rules. The article stood, by consensus, as it was before you came along. You wish to make contentious edits, therefore, you need to make sure they are not contentious before they can stand. Unilaterally making the edits and then camping on them to defend them is a red flag to most editors that someone is defending bias. Please don't make it hard for everyone else watching this article to extend the basic courtesy of assuming good faith, by showing us that you are interested in consensus. — Saxifrage | ☎ 19:20, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Reversion of Very Verily

I have reverted an edit by VeryVerily to this page. I have no opinion about the paragraph in question, but VV, if you wish to "rm socialist pov nonsense", then I suggest you nut it out on this page and reach consensus first. - Mark 07:49, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A bit of history for context: Ruy Lopez made that edit, removing a (from some POVs, perfectly good) paragraph at the same time. He also sprinkled the "capitalist" label through the first paragraph. After a short revert battle, I engaged him in the talk section immediately above rather than get into a full-blown revert war. Ruy Lopez has not responded in (I think, without checking) about a week. I'm still of the opinion that his addition and deletion need thorough NPOV work at the very least.

However, your reversion of VV's outright deletion, since it ignored the history, talk page, and my edit summary saying that it needed attention, was justified. Again, just some context. I'm not willing to wade into that paragraph myself at this point, though I feel reversion may be in order if Ruy Lopez never returns to the discussion. Cheers!  — Saxifrage | ☎ 00:19, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Saxifrage. A few comments here. First, I did not ignore the history, talk page, etc.; I am well aware of the history of the article, having been intimately involved with it for some time. Ruy Lopez has been on a long-running campaign for a year now using at least twelve different accounts to introduce communist POV into articles. In this one it took the form of putting the American economy in as negative a light as possible, and this paragraph is an example. At present it is nearly exclusively negative, omitting the many positive aspects of recent American economic development. Furthermore, the points it covers are well covered in the sections below in better, clearer, more thorough, and more balanced detail. Certainly POV statements such as that privatized health care is a "problem" have no place in this article. The paragraph is superfluous and POV and wouldn't belong in the "Overview" section even if it weren't. I'm deleting it again. VeryVerily 18:16, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In fairness, it technically said the "Rising costs and profits" are a problem, not the private system itself. Still socialist POV nonsense, of course. - Calmypal 19:54, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

On those grounds I'll agree. I didn't much like either that paragraph or the one Ruy Lopez replaced, and it's true that the useful content of them is covered better elsewhere. What would have made this less controversial would be dropping a note here or in the edit summary saying "as Ruy Lopez has declined to defend the edit on Talk for X time, I have removed the contested paragraph" or some such. Gotta appear to do the right thing just as much as one needs to actually do the right thing, and beyond that, appearance is everything when we need consensus.  — Saxifrage | ☎ 21:14, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

Encylopedia, anyone?

Why do so many articles in Wikipedia deteriorate into pointless, frequently US-centric discussions of the role of government and markets? In a "real encyclopedia" (a comparison I wouldn't have used until recently, but I'm getting increasingly disillusioned with Wikipedia), this would not be the case. There would be substantive discussion, for example, in this article, of the impact of the oil crisis, fluctuations in the dollar, trade wars, GATT and WTO, the current structural trade deficit, to name just some international issues that completely absent. When things deteriorate into pointless edit wars ("no, my POV needs to be in there explicitly! More visibly!") an article that's actually useful for users (as opposed to editors) is not the outcome. Anybody ask themselves, from the point of view of potential readers, what should be in the article? Personally, I think it needs starting from scratch to develop a decent structure; though some of the material could be partially reused. (Sorry, previous contributors, but sometimes it's to speak the brutal truth.) Rd232 15:06, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In summary, virtually the entire article could either be deleted without loss (as being duplicated in more suitable articles or a bad starting-point, even if some of the points/issues come back in) or moved to a daughter article (History of the Economy of the United States). On a basic level, this article should be about the economy. Far too much of it is political; which should be referenced but not dwelt on to this extent. To give another example: deindustrialisation? Outsourcing? Competition with Japan, China, EU? Not worth discussing perhaps?? Rd232 16:50, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In summary of the summary, the article should remind people more of Time [6] (http://www.time.com) or the Economist [7] (http://www.economist.com) than a high school essay. Rd232 16:50, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It could be moved to an article called “An Americana political view of recent US economic history.” It mentions most presidents yet complete ignores economic cycles. As you mentioned, it also deals only with political 'hot potatoes'.

The rest of the article isn't bad, though it repeats a lot of basic concepts. I think some politics might be starting to spill into the rest of the article. Interestingly, despite all the editing wars, no one seems to notice that the top of the article say the US is a market economy, but the middle of the article say it's a mixed economy. Seano1 22:17, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Male-Female Wage Gap

In a discussion of the U.S. economy, I thought that I would see at least a mention of the gender gap in wages. In the Economy of Africa article, the statistic is placed prominently along with GPA and other economic indicators. The gender gap is not such a small difference that I think it a quivel to point out. If it was a fraction of a percent, it probably would better belong in a statistics book, but something as large as a 25% difference (depending on your source, it could be smaller or larger) should be noted since it plays a large role in U.S. economics.