Posted on 04/09/2004 12:22:04 PM PDT by Havoc
Dear Mr. President,
You don't know me, nor do I expect you to. But I'm one of those voices out here in the ether that actually did vote for you. I'm not one of those seminar caller types nor a Democrat pretending at being a republican to subvert the party faithful in dishonest fashion because their ideas aren't popular enough to win them anything. No, I'm a life-long republican who cherishes the memory of Ronald Reagan and who thought highly of you right up to the time you sunk a knife in my back economically.
Sir I understand it's a hard job being president. I also understand that in IT my job causes me to have to think on my feet and respond to an everchanging environment just to keep it. And while I was busting my behind for a company I happened to love doing a job I happened to love, you decided it's a good thing to do an endrun around equal protection and hand my job to a Mexican worker at 1/3 of the rate I'm being paid. Sir, Retail employees get paid more than that Full time and they're earning below the poverty level. The Job I hold for the moment requires a lot of hard work and problem solving skills, it requires good customer care skills, and it requires a long knowledge of Computers and software I didn't get from a degree but from practical experience.
I worked long and hard for years looking for the break that would get me in the door with my current employer. And I currently have a carreer with them. Or had, rather. I've worked for EDS for nearly 4 years. I will lose my job just short of that anniversary or just after it depending on how the breakdown happens.
I have a handicap that keeps me from driving a car. Not an official handicap, because it's so rare a problem that 1/2 of 1% of Americans have the condition so it doesn't rate being called what it is. I'm a blip on the screen. But, it means I have to live close to my employer and sometimes rely on others to help me get things done. I've lost everything and put my life back together 3 times in 15 years sir. And having just accomplished it again after 4 years with my employer, your policy has killed any protection I might have otherwise enjoyed from having my job destroyed by foriegn competition. And it puts me right back on the brink again. Sir, if I don't stand a chance of winning, it isn't competition - it's fish in a barrel. Where is my equal protection under the law?
The "competition" didn't get hired because of race or creed; but, because of national origin. They got hired because their cost of living is low enough that they can be paid sub-poverty wages to do my job. They are taking my job because they aren't constrained by the laws we have in this country to protect us and preserve our liberties. Lower cost of living, and no laws to constrain them. See, we used to have what was called ANTI-DUMPING laws on the books before Nafta to prevent the subversion of our economy by those who would attempt to compete on an unfair basis and put American firms out of business. We aren't a global economy, the globe is not the United States of America. They don't respect our rights, our Constitution, our laws or ourselves. The average citizen of the world might; but, we aren't dealing with them, we're dealing with the leaders who have their boots on the neck of the citizen of the world.
It seems today that I have to be a Mexican to get a fair shake in America. There are some 8 million of them here illegally as a tax on our system and working here taking jobs that Americans can do; but, which apparently, nobody wants to offer a fair wage for as long as they can get slave labor off the books. That isn't enough though. We need to employ More workers from Mexico, India, China.. As long as we're doing it, sire, why not be obvious and lets put Sally Struthers on the TV to advertise IT Jobs for the people under repressive regimes in africa who can live on 52 cents a day, "the price of a cup of coffee." I don't care what color their skin is, No citizen of the United states could live on that and shouldn't be asked to compete with it. It's too blatently obvious that it's unfair. And that seems to be why it's "good for us all".
Your policy sir. It's you on the tube telling me it's good for me to lose my job to a Mexican worker outside of our system and in a manner with which I cannot compete. There isn't a job comparable to it here that I can take to make up the difference cause those are being outsourced too. Outsourced. How about endran. Because sir, that is what is happening - it's an end run around our system - around our rights, our laws, our constitutional provisions and protections. Your policy has relieved me of my job without due process. It tied my hands before I had a chance to respond. And so many businesses are being forced to do the same thing, that I don't stand a chance any more than those earning 3 times what I do in the same field who have lost their jobs already and have had to take 11k a year Retail jobs just to eat while their houses go up for sale.
I don't have a degree. I don't get retraining. I just get to lose my job at the whim of your policies and will likely lose more than that in the end. You see, I bought a new home too - a year ago. This job made it possible for me to do that. And as with my Job, I had to get a huge break to be able to pull it off. I've been behind you and a cheerleader of yours since I first heard you speak. I understand that the tanking economy isn't your fault. I understand it isn't your fault we were attacked. I understand and agree with pretty much everything you've done to date, sir. This however is in my mind beyond sickening. It is a betrayal of myself, my coworkers and every other hard working IT worker, Auto worker, etc that has lost their job due to this. It is a betrayal by their government and their employer. And it's a distrust you've earned by subverting them and me. For me, it's not just my Government, it's my own party.
Now I've heard all the arguments for outsourcing and all the copout phrases about what we do about companies that have outsourced to the US. Tell me, sir, how many of them outsourced to do an endrun around their system of government, their constitution, their laws and their workers. How many of them outsourced to us to produce goods for their home market. That isn't an argument that flies with me in the face of doing an endrun around us. They've built plants in our land and are working within our market, within it's rules, within our laws, within the constraints of our constitution and are paying a competative wage. Our companies are doing the opposite. And any way you cut it, it is economic and constitutional tyranny. I'm not a single issue voter sir, until that single issue is my life and livelihood.. until members of my own party call me a robber and a thief for expecting to keep my job when I've worked my behind off to do so.
I did it right. I've busted my backside under an ever increasing workload, kept my promise to my employer and my client. Never missed a metric, never dropped the ball for either of them and have always exceeded expectation as a member of one of the best teams on this planet in my humble opinion. My job is gone not because we didn't produce and not because either couldn't afford it; but, because Mexicans work cheaper and don't have our protections, laws, rights or constitution. I have a strong work ethic and a loyalty to my company that even now makes me shudder to say a bad word about them. I have no illusions; but, I was raised that if you do your best it pays off. I know now that if you do your best, you get kicked in the teeth just as hard, and if you get ahead a little bit, the government will be there to kick you back down. I appreciate how hard your job is. Mine is pretty dang hard too. But how about you and everyone in government work for $600 a month from now on like the Mexican workers replacing us. How about you all work for the income you're forcing me into. If it's good for us, it should be good for you too. You, and all the ivory tower types in our party that hiss at me for being upset over losing my job and wanting to defend myself. How would that be, sir? I'd just as soon see little Tommy Daschle and Ted Kennedy go fly a kite as hear them spout one more offensive evil lie about you. But I'd just as soon, too, see you join them holding the string if you're gonna ruin me and tell me it's good for me. How about if we just outsource your jobs too - oh, wait, that would be unconstitutional too, wouldn't it.
Lets get the numbers right. Our total imports are 9.5% of our GDP. Our total exports are 5.5% of our GDP. There is a 4% trade imbalance.
Changing the foreign exchange value of the Dollar affects, after the dust settles, that 4% imbalance. Drop the Dollar by 20%, and it impacts 20% of 4%, or a total of only .8% of our GDP.
Those are the relevant numbers and basic math. No need to argue about them, as they are just facts.
Considering the purchase of thousands upon thousands of robots, I rather doubt what you are saying, but I'll give you one chance to show a linkable source to prove that your claim is more than hot air. Next post, please.
Oh please. Senator and now Presidential candidate Kerry voted *YES* to ratify NAFTA.
How dim you are. That's the whole point. People who supported free trade a decade ago have abandoned it since. Kerry understands that with opposing free trade and outsourcing he has a weapon that can beat Bush much more effectively than running as the antiwar candidate. Didn't you grasp the meaning behind support for free trade among workers earning six figures HALVING over the past three years ?
To be precise a prophet by a definition has to be "before" his time. :) On the other hand their detractors are being proven to be the false prophets.
I stand corrected with wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Your own source contradicts your claim absolutely by revealing that China has LOST manufacturing jobs over the last decade. Here is what your own source from your link above said on Page 23:"Deindustrialization is not unique to the U.S.Economists at Alliance Capital Management estimate 31 million lost manufacturing jobs worldwide between 1995-2002Due to the contraction of China's State Owned Enterprises (SOE's), it is estimated to have lost as many as 25 million [Chinese] jobs in that span, almost ten times that of the U.S. and more than 20% of their total manufacturing employment.The primary reason for recent manufacturing losses is sluggish global demand, particularly the advanced economies of Japan and Western Europe."
What typical Democratic Party drivel. Senator Kerry voted *FOR* NAFTA back in 1993, and he has never once submitted so much as a single bill to repeal it since then.
Face it, your boy is a free trader, NAFTA and all to this very day.
OPEC has already adjusted to the falling Dollar (seen oil prices recently?!).
China and India both want the Dollar to be high, that's why they are hoarding Dollars. India alone holds more than $110 Billion in U.S. currency.
What you are failing to accept is that foreign governments such as China and India are intervening in the market; i.e. the market is no longer a free trading market. What we have going on is international currency manipulation on a large scale.
This manipulation makes the price of imports into the U.S. artificially low. It is a stealth subsidy of Indian and Chinese industry.
To counter this de facto subsidy, our Fed is letting the Dollar fall back towards what would normally be its true free market value. This will take some amount of time, and yes, the currency holdings of India and China will drop dramatically in value. They seem willing to risk such an investment strategy, however, probably in the hopes that the U.S. will change Administrations to someone who lets them play their currency manipulation game a little longer at the expense of American jobs in the meantime.
More partisan nonsense. Kerry is an active U.S. Senator. The U.S. Senate is in session right now.
Yet Kerry won't submit a bill, and hasn't submitted a bill, to repeal NAFTA. He likes NAFTA. His wife makes out like a bandit due to NAFTA, and you union rank and file don't care that he won't repeal NAFTA because you've been ordered by your betters to support Kerry no matter how much he likes NAFTA.
The Dollar would drop in value. The export based economies of China and India would collapse overnight (because everything they sold to their largest customer would skyrocket in cost).
U.S. exports would become radically cheaper and more competitive globally, and the U.S. economy would boom as it switched over to making the goods and services domestically that it was formerly importing before the collapse of the value of the Dollar.
What your own source said was that *every* industrialized economy in the world lost massive numbers of manufacturing jobs between 1995 and 2002.
So jobs didn't shift from the U.S,. to China. Jobs disappeared in the U.S., and jobs disappeared in China...per your source. 25 million jobs were lost in that time period in China. 2.5 million such manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S. Europe lost such jobs, and Japan lost such jobs, too.
Your source says that decreased demand caused those manufacturing job losses.
My own opinion is that new technology replaced those jobs (e.g. painting and welding robots replacing painters and welders on assembly lines).
That's not "disingenuous." That's black and white facts and straightforward extrapolations.
You are very kind to say that. Thank you.
I did have to read it twice, though...just to be sure it said what I thought it did. You definitely surprised me on that post!
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