[teflon9]

No, they’re gone because manufacturers would rather set up shop someplace where they can pay some 10 year old $1/hour and dump sludge into the nearest body of water. If the comments on this thread represent conservatism’s attitude toward the American worker, then we can expect many more 2012s. Sad.

[dragnet2]

Come now...There is no such thing as corporate greed...CEO's making millions while the slobs making the wheels turn watched their wages go stagnate for the past 10 plus years, as their benefits were reduced to worthlessness or just eliminated...All this while the cost of everything skyrocketed.

The employers had no choice to move to Communist China to escape these unreasonable high wages.

All this while big gov flooded the country with tens of millions of low wage illegals...

It's a win win...Just look at the economy!

[agere_contra]

Jobs are gone because manufacturers prefer to set up shop in foreign countries well away from:

* Massive corporate taxation
* Limitless legal vulnerability
* Crushing environmental regulation
* Pro-Union arbitrary Government
* Ludicrously high minimum wages
* And now: Obamacare

These are the reasons why industry chooses to locate away from the USA. But you choose to blame free trade - as if American manufacturers shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy the same freedom of association that you want for yourself.

Protectionism would be the final nail in America’s coffin. The last vestiges of American industry would be turned into feather-bedded welfare cases, and freeborn Americans would be forced to buy their stuff from the Government store.

Protectionism would also increase Government power. The Dems would gleefully collect all of that lovely tariff money and spend it on union pension bailouts or some damn thing.

America has tied its own hands behind its back with a ludicrous knot of EPA regulations, crushing taxation and arbitrary Government (just ask Gibsons guitars).

America needs to untie those knots - not wrap itself up in more of them in a fit of misplaced faux-patriotic anger.

[bitterohiogunclinger]

“manufacturers would rather set up shop someplace where they can pay some 10 year old $1/hour and dump sludge into the nearest body of water.”
Oh yes, those evil capitalists that gleefully off shore their exploitation of the working masses in order to feed their greed and blood lust for destroying the planet?
Next you're going to be telling everyone that they keep their obscene profits overseas to avoid redistributing to the collective?

[Iscool]

No, they’re gone because manufacturers would rather set up shop someplace where they can pay some 10 year old $1/hour and dump sludge into the nearest body of water. If the comments on this thread represent conservatism’s attitude toward the American worker, then we can expect many more 2012s. Sad.

Exactly...These people don't seem to realize that without good paying jobs for the masses, they would have sewers running thru their front yards...And what roads would they have to drive on???

And what one of these nuts would think they could take a plane flight to anywhere when the working people can no longer afford a plane ticket???

The unions created the wage and benefit structure that forced the non union companies to become competitive with their wages and benefits to find and keep employees, which ultimately became the American middle class...

As the American wages for the working middle class skyrockets, so does the 'educated' class of engineers and their like...In fact, there are so many 'educated' engineers working for McDonalds that these kinds of threads are getting funnier by the day...

[GeronL]

The US has the highest corporate taxes on Earth and the harshest regulations, do you think companies want to invest here?

[usconservative]

If the comments on this thread represent conservatism’s attitude toward the American worker, then we can expect many more 2012s. Sad.

Based on your posts, it certainly appears you voted for Obama. Looking at the date you joined and your posting history certainly validates that conclusion.

[nomad]

So I should pay 4 times the price for a “widget” made by some lazy imbecile just to keep that moron employed? Especially when, if made here, it could be made cheaper and BETTER on an automated line?