A Bush Alarm: Urging U.S. to Shun Isolationism

NY Times ^

[NormB]

"We're seeing it in everything," said one of Mr. Bush's closest aides last week. "Iraq. The ferocity of an irrational argument over the ports. Guest workers. China and India."

[Sunnyflorida]

"your attitude is pure "let them eat cake"."

No my attitude is eat what you kill. If all you can kill is cake that is all you eat. People need to take personal responsibility. Why should a lazy American with little marketable skills get paid more than a hard working Chinese?

Plus you obviously can't read. My posts frequently point out thousands of very well paying ($100k or so) BLUE collar jobs.

I do not recommend financial services jobs. You need to read before posting.

[Sunnyflorida]

"Rather than call me a fool, you would be better served to take a look at the conditions that gave rise to Marxism. A wise man would know that there is a lesson to be learned from history and avoid making the same mistakes.

You don't own any stock"

LOL; I own plenty of stock. My best paid CEOs are frequently my best performing companies. Look not only when Marxism took hold but where. The best way to limit Marxism is to have more business owners.

Marxism is not letting owners make business decisions including how much of the corporate cash flow to give to management. If you do not like the way the management is getting paid you do not have to own the stock. That should be your only say-so. If you do not like the management and you work there then get a new job.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I agree with Sunnyflorida regarding outsourcing. Outsourcing is a part of free enterprise. It allows American corporations to be competitive and keeps cost down. Kia is a Korean auto firm that is going to open a new auto factory in Georgia. America can be competitive for such industry, but protectionism only rewards poorer performing industries. Sure, some industries are crucial to the industrial base of the US for national defense, but that is a very small number.

As for what employers should pay their employees, it should be based on the market. If a person has skills that are in demand, that person will be able to work at the market level. Artificial pay wages like minimum wages can harm the economy and cause unemployment. Case in point, look at the minimum wage of France and their unemployment, Our minimum wage is low, and is generally what teenagers get paid or entry level workers.

[Sunnyflorida]

And GoG you do not have to settle for low wages in these United States. There are plenty of high paying jobs that go begging all the time. We have horror stories down here finding good workers. Some of these jobs pay serious dollars. You do need a skill. You do need to be a self starter.

[Sunnyflorida]

"God did not give Americans some magical smarts that he did not give to any other nation on this planet. "

No God did not. But some of us do just fine. Why is that? There remain plenty of jobs for all kinds of people if they take the time and use their brain. Sorry you are so pessimistic. That, not globalism is your problem.

[nopardons]

Okay, I was pinged to this thread, I really do NOT have the time to reply, as I'm off on vacation and trying to pack, etc.; so this will be a hit and run pots....but one that very much needed to be made.

Yes, Old_Mil, you ARE a MARXIST.

NO, Old_Mil, you do NOT know nor understand economics, business, what "globalsim" is and is not, and the saddest part of all of this, is that you appear to know absolutely NO history at all. So, gratis ( that means for free, dear ), please read the following tutorial and then go and do even MORE research into American business history, because I'm just going to post a few highlights.

Due to the limited time I am granting myself here, I'm going to limit the review of business/wages from the late 19th century onwards.

It was not just the "Robber Barons" of yore, who grew very rich, whilst paying low wages. Men, such as Marshall Field ( the founder and owner of one of American's early premiere department stores ) made $600 an hour, while his shop girls made about $3.00 to $5.00 a week!

Wanna talk about "outsourcing"?

I bet that you didn't know that in 1900 only 3.5% of all employees were unionized. In that year, a New England shoe manufacturer fired ALL of his workers and replaced them with Chinese laborers, whom he brought from the West Coast, because they were willing to work for $26.00 a month. And no, he was hardly alone in doing this. Most companies hired and fired at will, replacing whole workforces, at the bat of the eye; replacing them with new immigrants and/or those willing to work at whatever wages were offered.

In the 1870s, A.T. Stewart's, one of New York's finest department stores, had over 2,000 employees. Those who came late, misdirected packages, and/or were found to in some other way stray from the rules, had their pay docked. Sewing girls made $3.00 a week and worked from 7:30 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. SIX DAYS A WEEK.

The middle class was NOT the MIDDLE CLASS you assume it was. There was NO "job security" whatsoever; NONE! Neither were there any benefits nor "safety nets" and no, families didn't take care of each other, because they couldn't. In 1877, for example, there was a BUM ARMY of at least 50,000 men, who roamed the countryside ( not the cities, though there were bums there too ), extorting and sending fear through all. That year (1877) America had 2 1/2 to 3 MILLION unemployed men. During the depression of 1893-96, there was four million unemployed men; almost one out five workers, out of work.

Between 1881 and 1900 there were 2378 strikes, involving SIX MILLION WORKERS. All but one of these strikes, were abject failures for the strikers.

Besides Pullman's UTOPIAN village, coal miners also had to put up with THE COMPANY STORE, which charged more for items sold elsewhere. While Pullman's village didn't last all that long, coal miners and their families had to put up with that kind of thing well into the 20th century.

And NO(!), what you claim "tells you everything", is just a spurious, fallacious, inaccurate squib you only imagine to be factual. It's way past time that you learn some hard, cold, FACTS!

And with that...I'll take my leave and go on vacation. :-)

[Nowhere Man]

Sleep well. Think of something cheerful. Have a little fun. I think it speaks well of people who at least think and talk about the problems even if they can't do much about it. So many don't seem to care.

Yeah, I know, it's a shame that there are some who still play this game of musical chairs and don't see the problems ahead, until it affects them. I've seen cartoons from Dr. Seuss just prior to World War II where it showed that so many were oblivious to what was going on in Europe in the 1939/41 era that he referred to those who cannot see as ostriches. From his cartoons, he was very tough on those who cannot see trouble coming down the road.

BTW, here is my cat, Pansy:



Pansy: b. 8-19-1987 -

She is very active, playful, loves to play fetch and play in paper bags. Many people think she is only 2 or 3 years old and she is small for a cat, 6 and a half pounds. She does have one medical issue though, a hyperactive thyroid where she got down to 4 lbs, 14 oz but we got her on meds for is so she is up to 6 lbs 7.5 oz, she'd gain a pound back in a month. As long as she is on her meds, she is the same Pansy we've always had.

[Nowhere Man]

Well, your attitudes are straight out of the 19th century. Your world view in action gave rise to Marx and the union movement. The old is new again.

Agreed, also, it seems like the very rich in the late 19th century were fodder for various cartoonists at the time and it seems like we are headed that way again. A side note, one of my favorite cartoonists of that time is R. F. Outcault who did "The Yellow Kid" and did various cartoons on tenement life, the very rich and so on. I also liked the comic strip from the 1910's and 1920's, "Jerry on the Job," but that's for another time. B-) However, with the attiudes like we are seeing, they are making themselves look like those old caractures and even worse.

[Sam the Sham]

People who live off of returns of capital and financial services benefit from the global marketplace and the opportunities for labor arbitrage it affords. People who live off of American paychecks do not.

Nowhere Man is right. You sound just like a Marxist caricature of a capitalist with no loyalty to anything but your own greed.

[Aliska]

I'm knockin' off early tonite but wanted to "pet" your adorable kitty. She's a purdy one. I'm glad she is getting such good care and love. I never knew the exact date mine was born, in this house, had to kind of extrapolate. I love that name, Pansy, good you know her exact birthday. Thanks so much for sharing her pic.

Well, we know something awful is going to happen. Why? Because it always does. Law of averages, ups and downs. I really don't know, and whatever it is will be different in some ways than anything before.

Son called today all gloom and doom, worried about the loss of jobs, was asking about move and 911. I said you mean MOVEON.ORG??? No, I didn't see it, but read a critique of it on the net; it has some truths in it but a lot of distortions. I don't know who he is talking to. Well, he was upset with Bush. I wonder WHY???? Had to fill him in on the port deal. Better not say too much more on that, now. Because. The darker side is watching and scarier lol.

So I had to tell him not to sink into despair; the American people are starting to rise up and hammer their congresspeople who fear losing their jobs, and so on.

So how was your day? Mine was unfrigginbelieveable. It's UGLY out there in cyberspace. Nobody picked on me too bad at all today here. So let's quit for tonight while we're ahead.

Nite and sweet dreams. Hug Pansy for me. I miss my Lucy still, but pet my Tasha. She is really devoted to me in her own way. I must not let her down.

I've been working hard installing two new software packages, actually three, no five counting upgrading a photoeditor, updating Windows, updating NAV, never ends. Several challenges lie ahead but I got my graphics tablet installed the hard way, had to wing it. So far so good. It's NICE to think about something technical for a change even though I'm not really cut out for it. I've had to overcome so many hurdles with all that. Oh, better backup my download folder, and now that's it. Gabbed enough.

[okie01]

GEICO. (General Electric Insurance Company)

GE was doing so well, they branched out into another area, insurance, greating a huge company...

Try another analogy. I believe GEICO stems from Government Employees Insurance Company and has no connection, past or present, to General Electric.

[1rudeboy]

I spend plenty of time on conservative sites, thanks.

If that is truly the case, then you should be ashamed of yourself. Institute for Policy Studies, indeed.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Exactly, my employer hired 200 or more industrial workers last year and had a difficult time recruiting trained workers. Further some workers were disqualified because of felony prison records. Welders in particular were hard to come by.

[kittymyrib]

Did either Pres. Bush #41 or #43 ask us if we wanted their "New World Order"? I don't recall voting for it. The brutal truth is that we don't share their One World vision. This president is wearing out his base with his grandiose plans to drag 7th century Muslims into 21st century democracies. Only the second coming of Jesus will bring peace on earth. We need to defend our own borders in the meantime.

[Old_Mil]

Yes, Old_Mil, you ARE a MARXIST.

1 vote for Mike Peroutka, 1 vote for Dubya, 1 vote for Ross Perot, straight ticket (R) for the rest of it. I must not be a very good Marxist. So lets get away from this pointless name calling and stick to debating the facts.

Nowhere in my posts have I used "the middle class" of late 1800s and early 1900s as a benchmark against which we are to measure success. So frankly, your entire post is meaningless. That economic benchmark would have to be set somewhere in the 1950s or 1960s, a period of time when a man with a high school education (that was equivalent to today's college education) could land a job, buy a home, and support a family on one paycheck. That represented a gold standard for family and social stability as attained by our nation. Since then, we have maintained that standard of living by shifting to a two-wage earner model, outsourcing the raising of children to day care centers, and introducing the massive use of consumer debt.

And NO(!), what you claim "tells you everything", is just a spurious, fallacious, inaccurate squib you only imagine to be factual. It's way past time that you learn some hard, cold, FACTS!

Once again, if you have alternative statistics to show that the multiple of CEO pay multiples have not skyrocketed over the past four decades, lets see them. In the meantime, I propose the following:

- Ban the use of stock options as compensation for all employees. The use of stock options creates far too great an incentive to sacrifice the long term viability of a corporation for short term appreciation in share price and corrupts their nature as shared ownership.

- In addition to fundamentally flawed trade policies, taxation has been a major problem for our economy. Cut the IRS down to size, eliminate the income tax, and replace it with a flat "fair tax" based on consumption.

- Cut down the size and cost of government by simultaneously eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, Public Broadcasting, and the Dept. of Education. In addition to saving a great deal of money, this enables us to "starve out" some of our political enemies.

- Institute a tariff on imported manufactured products based on a sliding scale. This scale could be tied to exchange rates; it could be tied to the ratio of foreign workers employed by a corporation to domestic workers, whatever. The details could be fine tuned. Invariably, someone is going to raise the issue of Smoot-Hawley setting off a global trade war. What of it? Have you looked at the trade deficits we are running these days? The story they tell is that for all intents and purposes, with most of our trading partners, we are importing infinity and exporting zero. Against that sort of a backdrop, if we decide to institute a 20% tariff on imported Chinese goods, what are they going to do to respond?

[Old_Mil]

And GoG you do not have to settle for low wages in these United States. There are plenty of high paying jobs that go begging all the time. We have horror stories down here finding good workers. Some of these jobs pay serious dollars. You do need a skill. You do need to be a self starter.

For example? In my experience, any employer who uses the term "motivated self starter" in identifying a job is trying to hire someone for straight commission, or is affiliated with Amway.

[Toddsterpatriot]

That economic benchmark would have to be set somewhere in the 1950s or 1960s, a period of time when a man with a high school education (that was equivalent to today's college education) could land a job, buy a home, and support a family on one paycheck.

All we need is another world war that destroys all the manufacturing capability in every other nation.

Have you looked at the trade deficits we are running these days? The story they tell is that for all intents and purposes, with most of our trading partners, we are importing infinity and exporting zero.

LOL!! We only exported something like $1.2 trillion in goods and services last year. Exporting zero? My tagline is demonstrated to be correct again.

Please explain why our trade deficit is bad.

[Sunnyflorida]

"For example? In my experience, any employer who uses the term "motivated self starter" in identifying a job is trying to hire someone for straight commission, or is affiliated with Amway."

1) what is wrong with jobs that pay based on productivity???
2) don't be cute. You know what I mean by motivated, self-starter?
3) If EVERYBODY in this country worried about how well they competed against the foreigners we as a nations would not have competitions problems. In other words we cannot have a competitive nation if the individuals do not compete.
4) You cannot compete if you want to rig the game.
5) Now I agree that playing field is not level, but it is not level for anyone. Sure some countries have tarriffs, but they also have rediculous hiring laws (France), require outrageous bribes (latin america and Miami), no access to capital. But we have an unfair advantage also. We cannot just sit around and whine about the rules. We need to work to change things (free markets all over) and we need to just compete. Period.

[Sunnyflorida]

Two examples of desperate need for skilled workers that can make big bucks if they hussle: anything to do with boat maintenance and anything to do with civil engineering.

A third; anyone that wants to be independent in the building trades. (I am going nuts trying to get some one to do basic minor remodeling; re-hang doors; re-do a retaining wall; put a scuttle in my addict; PAINT; yard electrical; dig up lawn and put down crushed rock; etc.)

[Old_Mil]

1) what is wrong with jobs that pay based on productivity???

You're confusing productivity-based incentives over and above a base salary with commission-only work.

Here's what is wrong: A person sets up a business, makes all the decisions regarding the business model, inventory, desired profit margins, and so on. Yet they expect to buy an employee's time for nothing, give that employee no say in all of the above, and pay the employee (a commission) only if a business model that the employee has had no say in creating is successful.

That's why most people avoid commssion only jobs are avoided by most people like the plague. Nobody wants to take a hit on their bottom line for decisions made by others.

As far as the trouble you are having hiring people to do work, I used to live in Florida and I know quite well that they have phone directories down there. Certainly, in those phone directories, there are contractors listed. Call one of them, pay the going rate, and get the work done. If necessary, incentivize them by offering a bonus for them to complete the work early.

The problem is not that the workers are not there, but an "entitlement" mindset on the part of certain capitalists that "I deserve to get this done now, and should only have to pay less than the market will demand."