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Actually, I was just doing my imitation of the folks whose jobs are not yet on the offshoring track.

I guess to me it boils down to self sufficiency. Don't get yourself into stuff you can't get out of. I am sorry the guy bought more house than he could afford. I am sorry he didn't save enough money when he was making a good salary. I am sorry he didn't prepare himself to be able to make money on his own if he had to. That's all a shame and I wish him the best of luck. But whining doesn't do any good, and folks have made it through much worse. My grandma raised three kids by herself through the Depression. This guy shutting off lights in the house isn't going to make me shed any tears. It's called capitalism and the free market. If you can't stand the heat, become a socialist.

This guy shutting off lights in the house isn't going to make me shed any tears. It's called capitalism and the free market. If you can't stand the heat, become a socialist.

Yep. Capitalism and the free market gave us slavery. That is something to be proud of.

Sending a wake-up call to pig-headed quasi-conservatives is not whining. If you tell somebody it is bad to eat their seed corn, do you consider that whining.

I have no respect for people like you - you are in the "I got mine who gives a damn about the future of our country” crowd

HINT: it is not “conservative” to say “to hell with the future of my country”

You'll notice that you simply cannot do a lot of what people did during the Depression to get by. You can't send your kids out to work 8-hour days and confiscate their wages to pay the family's bills. You can't pull them out of school after the 8th grade and send them into a factory. You can't get a job bathing one day a week and not having a telephone. And the infrastructure simply is not there to do without electricity (no coal stoves to heat the water pipes, no ice men selling ice out on the street). And salaries, rents, and land prices were not as unbalanced as they are today.

I could equally argue that American's should just be able to go off into the woods, cut down some trees, and start to farm like some of their ancestors did, too. But the truth is that America today is not the same America it was 200, 100, or even 50 years ago.

”I guess to me it boils down to self sufficiency. Don't get yourself into stuff you can't get out of. I am sorry the guy bought more house than he could afford. I am sorry he didn't save enough money when he was making a good salary. I am sorry he didn't prepare himself to be able to make money on his own if he had to. That's all a shame and I wish him the best of luck. But whining doesn't do any good, and folks have made it through much worse.

I agree in principle that we are all responsible for our own decisions. At the same time, if you work in the IT market you come to an understanding that you might be facing a situation that was nearly impossible to plan for. My wife was making a good salary with a systems integration consulting company when we bought our modest home in NJ, we have car payments on two mid level cars (Taurus and Maxima), and the standard monthly bills. We were careful to put money away in case of emergency/unemployment. In my wildest dreams I did not imagine that she would wind up making $8.00 an hour at a local retail chain.

So if someone does want to complain about H-1’s, outsourcing, absurd property taxes, or immigration, don’t be too hard on them as these are valid complaints. Saying “It’s capitalism” sounds fine, but it is the Fed’s responsibility to govern international trade.

I guess to me it boils down to self sufficiency. ... It's called capitalism and the free market.

Self sufficiency is A Good Thing, free markets are A Good Thing. I think any conservative would agree. But you're talking about the individual - there are a couple of players here, and it's easy to get lost in the layers.

Individuals (with jobs)
Companys/Corps that hire people
Federal Government
Other Nations/Governments

Our gov't is responsible for maintaining a level playing field so that we can compete equally with other nations. THEY control the levers like tariffs & trade policy & trade agreements (Dept. of Commerce I think). If America is losing MILLIONS of jobs, good service sector jobs, something is wrong. And yea, we can all retool and become house painters. But I think the middle class needs a little (at least temporary) protection here.

I don't blame business - their main goal in life to make profits, bfd. I DO blame the gov't for letting this happen without a fight. Try to see a bigger picture. I think you're arguing from the pov of the individual, where others talk about what should be done by our gov't.