I'm afraid simple it isn't. Well, you could make it simple, send all the poor people to gulags or something, but within the context of our country as is it isn't simple.

On lowering the dollar. Obviously it isn't a panacea. We can't sell cars for a dollar in other countries and come out well for it. Would a 10% shift help? Maybe. I won't claim to know for sure.

But what I meant by a race to the bottom with China is that without various forms of protectionism in place. If someone in China is willing to do the work for almost nothing they're going to keep getting that work.

Things either have to get better there, or we have to have different sorts of jobs here. Hopefully the former will eventually happen, but for now I think we should focus on the latter.

Which, ironically, means they should have poverty. Ah communism. No I don't think taking away welfare here would do that. I would just expect things to be crappier for a subset of the population, and probably some increased crime and civil unrest.

Note that while I don't know this for a fact. I would suspect that a number of the people who are in poverty are still net contributers to the country. i.e. if a family of four has a father working 60 hours a week to make 20,000 a year they're still under the poverty line and would get support. But I believe they're still paying a range of taxes, and certainly sales tax. Quite possibly for a net gain for the country.

On the subject of Ethanol ceasing to make it would reduce the poverty rate. Because the poverty figure is based off of the price of food, and if all that corn that is going into Ethanol were instead used for an edible crop food would be cheaper.

That said, again, I think the reason why Ethanol is so popular at the moment is to reduce the amount of oil we import. And oil is also rising in cost. Additionally we aren't on any friendlier terms with Iran.

So while they might shut Ethanol production down, I wouldn't bet on it.

I don't have numbers, but I'm pretty confident the percentage of Americans in skilled jobs has risen significantly since we founded the country. Certainly the number of people with college degrees has gone up. So through having other countries do the manual labor or through machinery and automation we have been bringing/creating better jobs in America.

True enough that it could. And hence it should be done thoughtlessly. However, particularily if the average employee is being paid less than their marginal value.

It's a rather intensive field of study I'm given to understand. However supposedly it doesn't have the impact some people like to claim. For more info you can read
http://213.253.134.43/oecd/pdfs/browseit/8106071E.PDF
if you have the time.

However the basic supply demand curve model seems obviously wrong to model this. We are at the bottom of the rung of jobs and we are in a system with a finite number of people. The basic supply curve model assumes that workers or their labor vanish and materialize at different price points. However in a system with a finite number of workers, who all want to work but can't shift to a different level of jobs(at least not directly) that model doesn't seem to hold at all.

It would seem to presume that if you pay someone $25 and hour they will work 80 hour weeks, but if you pay them $2.50 an hour they will only want to work, say, 10 hour weeks. That doesn't seem to be the case at all.

It's about time.

But really, all I did was ask a question. There was no reason to insult me.

There, there Mr Bob its all in the rough and tumble of growing up.

__________________
There are only two things wrong with this great nation of ours, democrats and republicans!

Not necessarily in that order.

Stating the obvious doesn't make you look smart...

__________________
So your logic is that if we are not there, the number will go down... That makes perfect sense... not.

When dealing with some you gotta kick it down a knotch or two! Simplistically speaking that is?

I guess I could have said, there are only two types of people, those who want more than they have, and those who want control of what you have too!

__________________
There are only two things wrong with this great nation of ours, democrats and republicans!

Not necessarily in that order.