[lelio]

An economy without low and semi-skilled stable jobs is an economy in which it is not possible to work your way out of the ghetto.

Nail. Head. Hit. Bingo, I've been trying to say that myself and you so eloquently did it: we've had movement upwards in our society as we HAVE these jobs here.

If all those jobs move overseas, what is the young man in the hood supposed to do besides turn to selling drugs?

In fact, the poor have a harder chance of moving up today due to illegal immigratation. Driving down the wages of low skilled workers (and not everyone is the hyper-genius as us on FR so don't frown on the jobs) is bad for the US.

[harpseal]

ping

On or off this list let me know.

[Tokhtamish]

Lelio, you've heard the expression "chump change" ? It is how an underpaid person contemptuously describes his salary.

Do you know where it came from ? As deindustrialization hit urban America, legitamite job opportunities in the ghetto dried up. They seemed puny and next to the much larger sums that could be gotten dealing drugs. To a drug dealer, an honest salary was "chump change".

That is the kind of social demoralization that deindustrialization triggered, where honest labor was for underpaid "chumps" and law abiding people and values could not hold their own against hustling street culture.

I keep pointing out that consequence of deindustrialization to free traitor types but they never answer me. They don't because they can't.

[dogbyte12]

In fact, the poor have a harder chance of moving up today due to illegal immigratation. Driving down the wages of low skilled workers (and not everyone is the hyper-genius as us on FR so don't frown on the jobs) is bad for the US

Do you know there was a thriving black middle class in inner city Los Angeles before the manufacturing jobs first started leaving. Not every kid is mentally, emotionally, realistically ready for college. That is especially true in the inner city, or the rural areas.

Right now, with no manufacturing jobs in these areas, you can work at Wal-Mart, or McDonalds for near minimum wage, or deal drugs.

You tell a kid with no father, living in a blighted neighborhood filled with graffiti, chained up houses, that there are no jobs that will allow him to support himself or a family, but he can stay home with mom and work near minimum wage, or he can make more selling drugs in an hour than he can make during two weeks making fries at Burger King, and you get what we have in the inner cities.

We have to have these manufacturing jobs. They are what keeps lower middle class families together. If you tell a young man that his labor is worthless, he treats the system the same way. The fat cat who shipped the manufacturing jobs to Bangladesh in order to pocket a $10,000,000 bonus may think he is safe in his gated community, but for how long?