Posted on 01/01/2012 9:45:00 PM PST by blam
Ironic.
It’s more than that. Americans no longer want to be free to live their own lives as they see fit. All too often, when given a chance, Americans will immediately turn to the centralized, federal government... and literally beg for the ability to give up their freedoms in return for government chains.
Chains of regulations... chains of unneccessary, overreaching, overcomplicated laws... chains from the willing disregard of our constitutional rights.
All for a morsel of ‘government cheese’ (welfare) and a pat on the head (attention to interest groups).
Of course Ayn would not have approved...but that in no way vitiates her predictive powers of the devastation caused by socialism and crony capitalism. No-one ever thought that AS was in any way a prescription for actions that should be taken...but if one wanted to wreak economic and social havoc, her works would provide a blueprint for things to do to cause maximum damage.
How many of the worst cities are characterized by being run by corrupt Democrat machines?
Not in Atlas Shrugged.
It’s one of my favorite books. But I am deeply concerned at how Rand’s vision of an innovative, self-reliant American locale (the Gulch) has been twisted around and used to somehow be the Peoples Republic of China.
I see “free traders” use of Galts Gulch to justify offshoring and firing Americans - and giving those jobs to communists, as a corruption of that wonderful book.
Nothing could be further from Galts Gulch, than a massive communist nation.
Plenty of white lib cities that like it or not survive well enough
Lagos, Detroit, Port au Prince, Kingston, Jackson MS do not have democrats in common
“Bring back Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. They wouldn’t put up with our jobs being shipped to slave-wage countries.”
When we dismantle our labor unions, then we might have some standing to complain about China. But, for now, if China doesn’t provide our goods, no one will - simply because the unions will NOT permit us to make them here, at a reasonable price.
It also wouldn’t hurt to dial back the government a bit when it comes to environmental laws.
And speaking of Camden New Jersey, it looked very bad even 20-30 years ago.
Our country had been slowly robbed blind by corruption and cronyism. Obama is just pushing down on the accelerator.
The destruction of America’s cities is the legacy of President LBJ and all of the democrats and RINO appeasers who have followed in his footsteps.
Walmart stocks goods from everywhere, including America.
Today, people can barely afford their goods and, instead, turn to Dollar Store and the like. even though most items are just pennies cheaper in price.
Meanwhile, a German chain, Aldi’s, can sell canned and packaged food and produce, paper goods, soaps, etc. at considerable savings over Walmart, which is at least American-owned.
This past year, the good thrift and consignment shops have been busier than ever. My town has a flea market which is actually a huge building, full of second-hand goods. The owners buy up entire estate and rummage sales and it is a good place for pots and pans and small kitchen appliances.
The truth is Americans are being taxed to death. Health insurance has gone up, again. Energy costs are high, except for natural gas. So, folks look for low prices when something breaks or wears out. Non-union or second-hand is more affordable.
There used to be room in this economy for a lot of middle-of-the-road retailers. You could make a living producing the items or selling them. Walmart was just a choice for the things that are needed that don’t have to be quality. Now, there are high-end merchants and the Walmart-to-flea-market continuum.
In Britain, even the low-end shops are closing. This is a global situation.
Hubris. You can see this outside America too, where municipalities convinced themselves it was a sign of their greatness and largesse to support the most of those least likely to support themselves, never mind even if they hated those who kept them fed. Margaret Thatcher said something about the morality and the economic sense involved in this, as did others.
truth!
No doubt many Jihadis around the world will be salivating at a sentence like that.
Just sayin'
It's not just about wages...
Look at what you would face if you were to put a small $10million factory in a hellhole like, say, Hartford, Connecticut.
The first guy through the door would be the tax collector with a bill for over $600,000.00 - the mill rate in Hartford is over 60 mills. ($60 in taxes per yer for every $1000 of property that you are foolish enough to acquire in Hartford.)
I don't know about you, but I have to stay up pretty late at night to think of a way to make an EXTRA $600,000.00 per year just to hand it over to some idiot tax collector to squander on local welfare scum and overpaid, do-nothing municipal workers' salaries/benefits/payola.
Then of course, you need workers for your factory. Leroy in Hartford cannot read, does not know how to operate a ruler, never mind a micrometer and has no marketable job skills and is likely not even trainable.
Your parking lot will need razor wire and guards and you will still be robbed at some point.
Your workers will harassed, robbed at gunpoint, raped by the local feral population.
Then you have unions, OSHA, regulations, inspections and overpriced water and sewer fees which act as additional taxes. -------------------------------------
Now if you put your factory in China or Mexico, you have none of those issues. The only complication is perhaps an additional 30 days of lead time (shipping time) to get your goods to market.
When you think that an entire 40 foot container of blue jeans (Levis) is worth over $600,000.00, and it costs just about $1500 to ship it from China to the US West Coast, you can ship 400 containers (or $240 million worth of goods) to the USA just on the savings in property taxes. This is probably more than ten times the annual productive capacity of a $10million factory for most industries.
As a businessman, you are in business to make profits and money, not supply tax revenue to the local tax thieves so that may use your largesse to purchase votes from welfare scum, unions and other money-sucking social parasites. So you put your factory outside of the USA, and never in Hartford.
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My point is that the problem is deeper than merely a wage differential. There are so many impediments to rebuilding our country and nobody is making the moves that will reverse the decline... even Reagan only slowed it a bit. It has been going on since the 1960's.
Except for one year dimocrats have run CA via the state legislature for over 40 years. Yet these people can't figure out what the problem is?
Either way, His Justice will be done and Evil will be defeated by Him (not by us).
Protectionism makes no sense. It promotes over priced, low quality goods because it stifles competition.
Higher taxes and government control over what we purchase is not a path to prosperity.
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