Posted on 03/13/2006 6:35:44 AM PST by 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."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
From what I can tell, Isolationism in the sense that the gllobalists accuse some of is not possible in this day and age and just another attempt to use tired used cliche' just like with the ports mess, border disaster, etc.
They do not need to as their cost of living is much lower so they can spend less on labor.
But still in indirect ways they do protect and endorse their domestic production. Also different tax structure (like VAT) and government involvement in things like health care or education can substitute for tariffs.
We have gov't interference with health care as well.
It just seems all very unjust to me. If these people want free trade, then let it be free and mutual, not a shake down.
With our power and might, we should be doing the shaking down.
That's certainly part of the imbalance. The unions and non-union technology workers in the '90s got outrageous demands met. Governments did go overboard.
So, now you've got the consequence for the imbalance which, with globalism, is the obilteration of governments. This is leaving workers, communities, and nations at the mercy of corporate greed.
Don't know what the answer is. Just know the way we're going just might destroy civilization as we know it.
There is enough greed to go around from CEOs, whose pay and perks know no limits and are unrelated to performance (seems the most creative idea they've had in the last decade is shipping jobs to low wage, third world countries) to seeking and getting outright government subsidies and tax exemptions.
Its too bad that corporate behavior doesn't provide much evidence that left to self regulate they will operate with much integrity. Regulations generally come AFTER some egregious misbehavior is discovered.
Getting something for nothing seems to be an American value shared by those at the top with those all the way down to the bottom. We don't admire integrity, fair play, hard work, and honesty, we revere wealth and wealth becomes its own morality.
Or, you get a group of greedy lawyers and politicians who go after your profits based on junk science like many tobacco industries
Junk science? You're kidding, right?
No, they were profitable here, it's just that they'll be MORE profitable with a workforce that earns pennies a day! It's called GREED. Used to be a dirty word. Blackbird.
Late to the thread, I should've known someone like you would've caught that. Blackbird.
Hi, buddy, I don't talk but a little bit here and there.
My father has always telling me "that I will live to see the United States no longer existing it it's present form"
The last time my father and I talked politics before his death was when Pakistan got nukes. His main concern at the time was a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan which would spill over into something worse. He wasn't into prognistications of any kind, but shortly after he died, I had a dream where he was leaving and looked very sad. That was in late 1982 and the last of that. So many things on a personal, national and global level have happened since then.
You got to do what it takes to survive to see it to the other side.
So long as you don't break a major commandment in the process. I really can't console myself with the imminence of the Lord's return, because I believe things will have to get much, much worse before that happens.
If President Bush or Senator Kerry sees any of us starving in the street personally, I'm sure they will help as best as they can.
I wouldn't count on it unless it would make a good photo op and not alarm their guards. It doesn't matter what I think, but I'm a real cynic about Kerry. I think Bush has a good heart, but something is driving him I don't understand.
I think we need to get away from that Republican/Democrat (Donkey/Elephant) divide and sit down and come up with ideas that will benefit America and her people
I don't see a viable third party emerging, and if it does, it might be too radical. Don't you think any hope of the Democrats and Republicans working together in a manner we can count on is pretty hopeless?
I don't know this Jim Hightower guy, try not to get too far off in right field if you know what I mean, but there are some things that aren't adding up. I'm not really against globalism per se, just where I see their version of it going and what is happening to our country. It was kind of neat early on seeing products on the shelves from Canada, got a set of promotional cookware made in Portugal that I just love, pressure cooker and shoes from Argentina, few lovely items from England, Germany, affordable. Then Made in China, Singapore, Mexico (used to just be pretty stuff and beautiful silver jewelry people would bring back, I don't have any), Taiwan, Thailand, get a kick out of some Russian items. Don't have any particular ax to grind with any of those countries except loss of jobs and the too many immigrants at once problem.
I used to love meeting people from different countries, still do if I get a chance, but now it's a real novelty to meet a nice American who was born here and brought up in a similar fashion to the way I was. It's a cultural thing.
That's enough. I've yakked too much. I did talk to a person I talk to regularly, and she asks what's going to happen to people with an IQ of less than 100? They can't make it though college, and at one time could have made it in the economy. Now, they are either doomed to a life of minimum wage jobs or getting on the dole.
If I had my way, there would be a penalty for manufacturers to export their plants, labor or outsource to level the playing field for Americans. If that's protectionism, then I guess I'm for that.
There hasn't been true laissez faire capitalism for a long, long time now. It's become draconian dog eat dog, corporate buyouts and sellouts globally. Thank heaven some are able to make it domestically. Kudos to them!
My ancestor who came to America in 1635 was fined for price gouging in his blacksmith trade. Whether right or wrong, the early settlers had a sense of right and wrong beyond their immediate concerns. They intuited that what affected one group, affected all. Oh, and they soon threw out socialism because they found that people were more productive when they were allowed to own their own land and garden plots. Those old eastern towns had houses on plats consisting of several acres in a lot of places.
Please forgive my blathering. I'm trying to find something sensible to grab onto.
I'm the Official Welcoming Committee to the Dark Side. Come on in! The air is better. It's not real crowded yet, but that's changing. Blackbird.
Oh, pity the poor, poor corporations ! Just scraping by because those greedy Americans wanted to end the days of company towns, company police, sweatshops, emphysema, and company stores !
Hey, Red Boots ! Those corporations live in a world order that is guaranteed by American soldiers, American laws, American tax dollars, and the blood of American soldiers. So don't tell me they have no higher obligations than shareholder equity.
Capitalism won the cold war because it provided the people of the west with an obviously higher standard of living than communism could provide. Now with the end of the cold war the multinational corporation thinks it can revert to robber baron methods.
Bush and the globalists 'warn about retreat into isolationism'.
What bunk.
Most great power in history that collapsed did so not from 'isolationism' but because over ambitious rulers ignored the costs their people had to pay in their 'grand vision'. Brezhnev's overly ambitious military and foreign policies ran the Soviet Union straight into the ground. Napoleon III had French troops all over the globe when he should have been paying attention to Prussia. The German people were eating cat meat and turnips even as their generals dreamed of an OberOst empire in Poland and the Ukraine. And that is the problem here.
A nation who's standard of living is under siege due to job exporting free trade policies and illegal immigration will refuse to pay the costs for 'regime change' and 'spreading democracy'. A Bush speech of 'don't worry, some day those jobs will come back and the Iraqis will just love us' isn't going to cut it.
Manufacturing what ? TV, VCRs, DVD player, computers ? How many of these things are manufactured in America anymore ?
You forgot crystal meth. That for me is it in a nutshell. On these threads we tend to have hypercapitalist types who shrug about how 'losers' have only themselves to blame. In the world of free trade globalism anyone who isn't a genius is condemned to be a 'loser'.
A good army can win without having Napoleon level leadership. To get historical for a second Rome had a military system so good that with largely mediocre generals it beat one genius after another (Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Mithridates, Jugurtha). A good car should be easily maintained by the guys who spent high school smoking dope under the bleachers. And a good economic system should allow an honest, hard working person to be able to have a steady job and support a family. It has to work for people who aren't Bill Gates.
I also believe that. you see meth exploding in americas heartland - why? its because in these locales, people could once earn a living in agriculture, small busineeses providing agricultural services, and basic manufacturing jobsof various kinds. alot of that is gone now, replaced with walmart and generally empty "no future" service jobs. so many of them turn to meth.
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