Is Webb still writing about Filipino strippers cutting bananas into pieces with their......errr....
Posted on 01/24/2007 7:08:31 AM PST by .cnI redruM
Right after a year in which four million more jobs were created by Americans than lost, Jim Webb had the following commentary in his response to President Bush’s State of The Union Speech:
“The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.”
I’m left wondering at this. I make a whole lot more money now than I did when George W. Bush took office. Admittedly, by Donald Trump standards, I still don’t make Jack. You can point out people who make more money in five minutes than I take in all day. That’s humbling, but it raises an important question.
So what?
If I’m better off now, than I was back than, I could truly care less what “The Donald” does with whom on his yacht or on his Leer Jet. I’m pretty sure most people who have a life feel the same way. Donald Trump and Bill Gates both make 10,000 times what I do in a year; once you throw in their investments versus my TSP.
Does it really matter?
Not to me, nor my wife and certainly not to my 7-month old baby.
Therefore, is it an intelligent basis for myself or anyone else to judge the state of our nation, or more importantly, of our lives?
No way!
The 3rd Grade kickball game during recess was never really fair. That was a good thing. It taught us what to expect out of life. As long as your best efforts are rewarded and your prudent judgment is sufficient to provide for those you love and care about, screw class envy. It’s mindless brainwashing.
“Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them. “
So many falsehoods and misconceptions; constrained within such a well-constructed paragraph. Jim Webb earned his best-seller status as a fiction novelist. He truly has a way with slinging the hooey and making it smell like Rosewater.
Again, if a worker’s share of our nation’s wealth is larger and sustains him at a far higher standard of living now, than it did 20 years ago, why care how it looks on a pie graph?
Our manufacturing base is not being dismantled as a result of national policy. Certain American companies and some American labor unions have made disastrously bad and short-sighted decisions in the past. Economic stupidity has always led to disastrous professional and personal failure. That proves Charles Darwin was right; not that Adam Smith was wrong.
Companies such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, Saturn Automobiles and countless large home-building firms are putting hundreds and thousands of people to work. In some cases, these firms didn’t even exist one quarter century ago. Manufacturing and opportunity are not dying.
What we build and how we work has undergone profound and rapid change. An economy hell-bent on packing its productive capacity into boxes and freighting it over to Singapore, Korea and China, could never out-create the resulting job losses by 364,000 new employment positions a month; even if all the boats were loaded by the private sector.
As for good American jobs going overseas; I welcome Senator Webb to the real world. Science Fiction author Robert Heinlein did a former US Congress a major favor when he testified before them on the state of American science in technology. He told them “There is no such thing as American ingenuity.”
He didn’t mean that Americans were not smart or capable, but simply, that the entire rest of the world was both smart and capable as well. He was warning us that Americans were not the only people alive who could develop good ideas into new scientific discoveries.
Someone needs to play Senator Webb and his economic role-model Lou Dobbs, a copy of that testimony. By extension, there is no such thing as a good American job. There are good jobs, and capable Americans – and Mexicans, and Koreans, and Japanese, and etc….
The job gets done in America when the worker, the firm and the consumers of the good, service or product all find it in their best interest to have the work performed here. Our challenge is not to repeal the laws of economics and try to force workers, producers or consumers to accept less than the best, just so a job that’s done better elsewhere stays here.
Our challenge is to do it better, faster and cheaper in America. If we can’t figure out how, we royally deserve to get our butts whipped. It’s not about whether any of it is fair or unfair.
Which brings us to the reason why people, like Jim Webb, who rampantly conflate the fair with the just, so frequently rise to positions of power and address us with falsehoods on important occasions of state. Jim Webb is a true man of our times.
We don’t want the truth. The truth can hurt like a root canal. We want to be told that all of our shortcomings are the fault of George W. Bush. It beats the heck out admitting we’re stupid some days.
So tell us George W. Bush sold all our factories and jobs to the Chinese and subcontracted all our fun and enjoyment in life out to Halliburton. This beats examining why Japanese and Chinese managers and engineers understand and apply Deming to their work, while their American counterparts seem to think he’s geekier than Bobby Fischer on an anti-semantic rant.
We want a fictionalized version of reality. We, as a once great nation, now steeped in sclerotic decline; don’t want to hear the truth. Our senators really should treat us like mushrooms. They should keep us in the dark and keep on feeding us the fertilizer. Who better to do that than a best-selling novelist with a good turn of phrase and a sound ear for his market? Senator Jim Webb is a leader for our times.
Dems promote envy, one of the deadliest of sins.
I can almost hear the feint strains of "The Internationale" playing in the background as Webb spoke.
Thank you, and don't believe the lies!
Is Webb still writing about Filipino strippers cutting bananas into pieces with their......errr....
I'd like to see the data that shows the average "boss" makes 400x what the average worker makes. Source needed Jimbo.
bump!
What I heard in his response was, "If you've got it, we're going to take it away from you."
You and me both.
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/cni_redrum/2006/nov/16/virginias_new_pink_dog_democrat
I am convinced the Dems are using fear and doom and gloom as a manipulation tactic to make Americans believe they need more government in their lives. Fooling people into believing they need government to help manage their day-to-day lives is what they ultimately want.
Just like another Democratic Senator we could mention. (If doing so, didn't make us cringe)
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/cni_redrum/2007/jan/23/the_central_scrutinizer
I haven't heard about that. Is his nickname "Banana Split?"
Webb uses hate. He wants to play Robin Hood; only it never seems to quite make it back outside The Beltway to the poor.
Everything the democRats support will only penalize the middle class even more. The rich would not be supporting them if they weren't going to benefit.
Illegal amnesity and no borders equals lower wages for what used to be middle class jobs in construction and manufacturing.
Mandatory health insurance equals lower pay and higher taxes for workers.
etc etc.
Jim..I think you most have believed the Samuelson you read at USNA.
What socialist drivel! Do people even think about what these folks say?
How many workers receive their pay check and go home to "fairly share" it with their neighbors? Why do some believe that those who earn money are somehow required to "fairly share" it?
And the decision to share should be made by those who earn the money, shouldn't it? Mr. Webb implies that it's the government's job to make sure everyone "fairly shares" what they earn.
Next, "those benefits", meaning "the stock market" and "corporate profits", which are really the same thing, are equally ("fairly") available to everyone! Nobody is banned from investing in the stock market. Anyone with $1,000 can open an E*Trade account and partake in "those benefits".
But, like every socialist before him, Mr. Webb thinks wealth should just be divvied up between everyone, regardless of who actually earned it.
Webb is exactly right about the concerns of the middle class. Economic anxiety was a major reason the Democrats won both houses of Congress. Republicans can either address these concerns, or ignore them and keep losing.
socialism is alive and well and presented by an odd looking chap called Webb.
I'm still in shock Virginians pitched Allen overboard for this t*rd.
He's one more neurotic in a neurotic era.
Regards, Ivan
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