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those 25000 GM workers who lose their auto jobs, they are going to be able to find other jobs at the same pay level. right? how about half their current pay level? or are they going to end up at walmart. and all those north carolina furniture workers going out, they are too, right? or are they going to end up at home depot.

the US used to be a place where even a high school graduate could get a job, skilled or semi-skilled, and afford the basics of a middle class life - including a wife who did not have to work, and children.

today, we have college graduates living with their parents into their 30s. and its not anecdotal, its becoming endemic.

believe what you want from the BLS, I know what I see.

those 25000 GM workers who lose their auto jobs, they are going to be able to find other jobs at the same pay level. right? how about half their current pay level? or are they going to end up at walmart. and all those north carolina furniture workers going out, they are too, right? or are they going to end up at home depot.

the US used to be a place where even a high school graduate could get a job, skilled or semi-skilled, and afford the basics of a middle class life - including a wife who did not have to work, and children.

today, we have college graduates living with their parents into their 30s. and its not anecdotal, its becoming endemic.

believe what you want from the BLS, I know what I see.

I'm with ya, buddy! I know I said that to you on another thread, but you did bring up the point that is seems like there is so much glee here from some Freepers when people lose their blue collar jobs, doubly so, if they are union. I can see how ON THIS ONE ISSUE on how the left does get mad at us conservatives, however, as we see here, conservatism is not a monolithic belief, nor is liberalism, but I digress. I'll jut add, that it makes us look bad because of the stance of some of us here on the economy and trade issue.

Unions are generally good, sometimes you do need collective bargaining, as the saying goes, "there are strength in numbers." Yes, they do sometimes do bum things like maybe at times demand a little too much during lean times and back the wrong candidates, I mean the Democrat of today is not the Democrat of 70 years ago. Yet, unions were needed at one time and needed now. I know in my family's history on my father's side, my grandmother is still a union member at the age of 90 for her life of work as a single mom raising four kids. She worked at the Clark Bar factory on Pittsburgh's North Side. Her family came over from Russia and her uncle was one of the big wheels in unionizing the coal mines of West Virgina to where he even lost his life over that.

Dang, running off again, I figure it is time to get back to brass tacks.

We need to be looking at ways to be able to have that type of life you have described where the middle class life can be obtained by someone out of high school. We have lost that and we are seeing the effects of that as we lose our moral soul and society. One we lose that, we are not worth defending anymore. I don't want that but I have to go on what I have seen and it doesn't look good.

We might not be able to go back to the exact same society we had 30, 40, 50+ years ago, but we can try to do that, yet we must look for new ways as well as try things that would even challenge the standard left/right economic paradigms we have always known. We know that pure socialism ain't the answer but I don't think capitalism, at least the way the free traders present it doesn't fill the bill either and I'm losing faith in that. Maybe we need some sort of "managed capitalism." I don't know all the answers, but we must have a meeting of minds on this and quit the closed minded thinking. It will be our downfall.

We are at a fork in the road. Either we do something for the good of our economy and her people, yes this means we might have to bite the bullet on some things, but we need to get back to a society where it is within the average person;s ability to get into the middle class. The other side of the road is that we will have to go to a Swedish or Dutch style welfare system to support a huge underclass that is out of work due to the free trader's policies. So we can pay a little now and get some of our dignity and economic strength and self sufficiency back or pay a lot later with a huge welfare system, the free traders have that choice.

There is also a possibility that if we continue the present course, we will have an Anakin Skywalker come up out of the woodwork promising this and that while establishing a dictatorship. I know my history. If we are lucky, he might only go as far as establish a Swedish welfare system but as history shows, it would be much worse than even that. I don't know where our Anakin is, he could be a baby or a snotty nosed kid in the ghettos or an up and coming 30+ year old in politics somewhere, but I think he or she is out there.

I'm sure there are some free traders where my words fall on deaf ears but I wanted to have my say. We are at the crossroads, which path should we take and what policies will we follow is anyone's guess. Lastly, I used to give credence to the free trade and Ayn Rand stuff when I was younger, but I have opened my eyes and have seen the destruction they can cause so I need to fight against that. We need to be strong again, in this dangerous world, it is much more dangerous than it was even during the Cold War.

those 25000 GM workers who lose their auto jobs, they are going to be able to find other jobs at the same pay level. right?

I don't know. Are they overpaid, undereducated union employees with bad attitudes? Then probably not. Maybe if the union hadn't hamstrung GM with ridiculous work rules it's possible the company wouldn't be circling the bowl.

the US used to be a place where even a high school graduate could get a job, skilled or semi-skilled, and afford the basics of a middle class life - including a wife who did not have to work, and children.

Yeah, after WW II destroyed the manufacturing capacity of every country from France in the west to Japan in the east. If only we could go back to those days every high school graduate could make $100,000 a year. Too bad we can't go back to those days.