Posted on 02/18/2004 5:12:57 AM PST by beaureguard
Jobs .. and the economy. Those seem to be the issues that are driving many, if not most, of those who are supporting the Kerry candidacy.
First of all ... I'm going to repeat this simply because it makes the whiners so unbelievably angry. Listen up. They're not your jobs! The jobs belong to the employers .. not to you! You have job skills and, presumably, a willingness to work. Your task in a free economy is to get out there and find some employer with a job who needs your skills ... and strike a deal.
If you do not have the particular set of job skills that an employer needs, of if you have priced your labor out of the marketplace, guess what? It's not the employer's fault. The fault lies with you. Either develop a new set of job skills that are actually in demand, or adjust your pricing. The employer knows what he's looking for you. If you're not it .. it's your problem, not his.
Now ... you say you're going to vote for a Democrat this year because of jobs? You mean to tell me that you're going to vote against George Bush this year because you don't have a set of job skills that are in demand in our free marketplace? Yeah .. that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
Tell me. Just what do you want the president to do? You information technology people out there .. just what are you demanding? Do you want companies to stop outsourcing IT jobs to India? OK ... tell me how to do that. These companies aren't shipping parts overseas and completed products back. All they do is ship information overseas by phone lines or the Internet. Then that information is modified and shipped back the same way. What do you want the government .. the president to do? Do you want some federal law that prohibits companies from transmitting information overseas by the Internet, having that information transformed or modified, and then shipped back? And tell me just how do you enforce that law? Does that law then apply to you also if you seek information from a company that is located overseas, thus depriving a domestic company of your business?
Ditto for manufacturing. I've already told you the story about the California company that makes computer mouses. (computer mice?) This company ships the components to China. The mouse is assembled in China and shipped back, then sold for around $40. Why? Because the assembly is cheaper in China than it would be in the US. So, you say you want the president to force this company to have that mouse assembled in the US? Fine .. then the price for the mouse goes up to about $70 a pop and sales drop. As the sales drop the jobs of the people in this country who manufacture the components for that mouse go away. Then the 100 marketing jobs this company supports in California also go away. You see, perhaps you can succeed in forcing this company to assemble these mouses in the US, but there just isn't any way you can force the American consumer to pay 80% more for the "made in America" version.
As Bruce Bartlett says in an article listed in my reading assignments, "No nation has ever gotten rich by forcing its citizens to pay more for domestic goods and services that could have been procured more cheaply abroad."
What we are seeing here is a demonstration of the "government owes me" mentality of far too many Americans. Every time you arrive at a speed bump in your life's journey you start screaming to the government for help. Sure, the speed bump is going to slow you down a bit ... but just keep moving forward and things inevitably pick up speed again. Americans are becoming helpless whiners. The more helpless you are, and the more you whine, the more likely it is you're going to vote for a Democrat. Democrats specialize in stroking the malcontent.
Congratulations, whiners. At a time when America if fighting World War IV, the war against Islamic terrorism ... you're going to vote for a candidate who wants to treat terrorism as a freaking law enforcement problem because you've made some pitiful jobs choices. Pitiful.
Sometimes the truth hurts.
Conservatives who plan to punish Bush with their votes are punishing the wrong person and for the wrong reasons. This article deals with the reasons and I will deal with the person.
Presidents should not and do not micro-manage the economy. They can only try to lead and point us in a direction.
The congress on the other hand, makes the laws and determinations. The congress is the entity for which voting will determine policy. Not the president, he deals with macro, not micro economics. He deals with the big picture, and cannot/should not be pegged for single issue mentality voting.
Although so many do.
Yup thats a good one. Things are so much cheaper now. /sarcasm
They're on their own!
If your stock ownership isn't benefiting you, then why do you still own the stock?
Before the present MTV and drugs-crazed era, however, we never let our poverty as a state affect our intellectual development.
To answer Gena directly, I had a consulting assignment in which 200 (!) young people were hired off the streets of a fair-sized town and invited to train for medium-tech factory work at $18/hr.(not exactly peanuts) After a three month training period, during which they were taught basic shop skills, arithmetic, safety, and were given physical training (work-hardening), they were to be placed on the assembly line, given $21/Hr + full benefits, and given the chance to move up to $30/hr within 18 months. There is also a $100 bonus for being on time to your shift for 30 days. (...and tuition help and daycare, etc.)
Within 6 months, only about half of these young folk were still at work. Now, a year later, only about 50 are still working. Many fell to random drug testing, many more to absence and lateness. The job was far too arduous for many, and many could not follow written instructions, although high school graduates. This experience of mine is not unique. It has happened frequently in the last decade. As the 50's crowd retires from their 40 years of manufacturing, there is no one local to reliably replace them. It is one reason that illegal aliens have done so well.
There is of course, no essential difference between people of one generation and another. If anyone is to blame for the cultural condition of many of your generation, it is mine. The collapse of public education, for example, cannot be blamed on the students!
IMNSHO, What has happened with the collapse of the schools (and parental authority) is that we have allowed your generation to be shamelessly manipulated into a commercial culture in which you are not given the finest traditions of Western Christian Civilization to carry forward as a duty, but a base,ugly, and fundamentally silly set of characters to use as role models.
Ask 10 of your friends who is in their state's congressional delegation, who is the Superintendent of Schools where you live, and to find Iraq on a map.
The Challenge: your generation (a marvelous and somewhat fatuous generalization, I admit) has been intellectually short-changed. That is the fault of my generation. But the repair of that great deficit will have to be solved on an individual basis by those who wish to do so.
Of course, you can truthfully point out that "mature" folks have always been "down" on the younger generation. But today, we actually can see the country slipping away from our progeny. Of course it's our own damn fault, which drives many of us nuts. However, neither does it seem reasonable to us that the younger generation can save it. In fact, it seems to us that they are rather enjoying the slide downhill!
Please tell me you really did forget the sarcasm tag on this one!
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