Posted on 02/18/2004 5:12:57 AM PST by beaureguard
Jobs .. and the economy. Those seem to be the issues that are driving many, if not most, of those who are supporting the Kerry candidacy.
First of all ... I'm going to repeat this simply because it makes the whiners so unbelievably angry. Listen up. They're not your jobs! The jobs belong to the employers .. not to you! You have job skills and, presumably, a willingness to work. Your task in a free economy is to get out there and find some employer with a job who needs your skills ... and strike a deal.
If you do not have the particular set of job skills that an employer needs, of if you have priced your labor out of the marketplace, guess what? It's not the employer's fault. The fault lies with you. Either develop a new set of job skills that are actually in demand, or adjust your pricing. The employer knows what he's looking for you. If you're not it .. it's your problem, not his.
Now ... you say you're going to vote for a Democrat this year because of jobs? You mean to tell me that you're going to vote against George Bush this year because you don't have a set of job skills that are in demand in our free marketplace? Yeah .. that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
Tell me. Just what do you want the president to do? You information technology people out there .. just what are you demanding? Do you want companies to stop outsourcing IT jobs to India? OK ... tell me how to do that. These companies aren't shipping parts overseas and completed products back. All they do is ship information overseas by phone lines or the Internet. Then that information is modified and shipped back the same way. What do you want the government .. the president to do? Do you want some federal law that prohibits companies from transmitting information overseas by the Internet, having that information transformed or modified, and then shipped back? And tell me just how do you enforce that law? Does that law then apply to you also if you seek information from a company that is located overseas, thus depriving a domestic company of your business?
Ditto for manufacturing. I've already told you the story about the California company that makes computer mouses. (computer mice?) This company ships the components to China. The mouse is assembled in China and shipped back, then sold for around $40. Why? Because the assembly is cheaper in China than it would be in the US. So, you say you want the president to force this company to have that mouse assembled in the US? Fine .. then the price for the mouse goes up to about $70 a pop and sales drop. As the sales drop the jobs of the people in this country who manufacture the components for that mouse go away. Then the 100 marketing jobs this company supports in California also go away. You see, perhaps you can succeed in forcing this company to assemble these mouses in the US, but there just isn't any way you can force the American consumer to pay 80% more for the "made in America" version.
As Bruce Bartlett says in an article listed in my reading assignments, "No nation has ever gotten rich by forcing its citizens to pay more for domestic goods and services that could have been procured more cheaply abroad."
What we are seeing here is a demonstration of the "government owes me" mentality of far too many Americans. Every time you arrive at a speed bump in your life's journey you start screaming to the government for help. Sure, the speed bump is going to slow you down a bit ... but just keep moving forward and things inevitably pick up speed again. Americans are becoming helpless whiners. The more helpless you are, and the more you whine, the more likely it is you're going to vote for a Democrat. Democrats specialize in stroking the malcontent.
Congratulations, whiners. At a time when America if fighting World War IV, the war against Islamic terrorism ... you're going to vote for a candidate who wants to treat terrorism as a freaking law enforcement problem because you've made some pitiful jobs choices. Pitiful.
Corporations did not exist in 1788.
They are creatures of United States law which can be changed at the will of the People. They have no natural rights which cannot be reached by legislation (although their owners do).
Gosh, you're right. Everyone who works for living is a lazy and incompetent slob. How come I didn't see that before?
This is a hallucination. Reality is the opposite of what your eyes see.
Corporations produce cheap "crap" because the "us" wants it.
Nobody said anything like "Everyone who works for living is a lazy and incompetent slob." Honestly. Read it again if that will help.
You missed the point. You fight for your country so that people here can hope to have a better way of life. Not so that corporations can export jobs to India so Indians can have a better life. Jobs are one of the measures of a better way of life they are the opportunity, that we have come to expect as part of the American way of life. They are part of the standard of living of this country.
I will say with what is happening here with Judical activism, Marriage under attack and the borders out of control. At what point is the USA still the USA that we love?
But I think you knew this already. You are just blindly holding on to a delusion that Free trade as we have it today is a good thing because Conservatives had hoped that it would be.
I guess my only problem with the "super-capitalists" as you call them, is the arrogance of expecting me to cheer them when they bring little or nothing to the table.
As I said, I cheer Gates because he can't get rich alone.. The fact that he can't means there's opportunitiy created through his business dealings.
If he could, I certainly have no reason to cheer, support or vote with him.
I mean, why would I? Why the hell should I care?
Maintaining the capability of building actual, physical things is important in many ways. probably the most important is the well-established synergy between manufacturing and R&D. This is because when you're the one actually making something, you have an incentive to find new and better ways to build it, plus an incentive to improve upon what you're building, plus an incentive to gain the knowledge that allows you to understand that what you're building may eventually be replaced, hopefully with something better, that hopefully you'll have learned how to design and make. When somebody else is doing the building, they have those incentives, and you probably don't.
The other reason is that we end up placing our fates in the hands of outsiders. And there may come a time when, for reasons other than those found in the marketplace, those outsiders may be less inclined to want to supply them to us, no matter what tribute we may be willing to pay them. (We had a taste of this relatively recently, in fact, if you're old enough to remember the OPEC embargo of the 1970s.) That may be okay as long as what you're lacking is not vital to maintaining or defending the country. But if it is, you're probably going to be in a world of $hit.
I fully support your right to stupid values, and will vote against anyone who wants to impose on you a symbiotic relationship you don't want.
I don't get this at all. An employer does not have a business, at least a large one, without employees. How can there not be an inherently sybiotic relationship? Neither can exist without the other. What makes the employer more important than the work that his employees do? How does the work get done if there are no employees?
Corporations produce cheap "crap" because the "us" wants it.
I disagree. This is what we have been told and now believe. Did people 40 years ago "want" cheap stuff. No. They were interested in quality. Now, we are told that poor quality is all we should accept. Not only that, we are expected to consume so that the stockholders will benefit. Look at Bush's tax rebate last year. When the checks were sent out we were told to spend it to keep the econmy afloat. We were not told to invest it or save it.
The author is a fool.
More often, it's all we can afford.
I would like to have an American Lathe and Mill in my garage.. There's a China made model out there now because it's that or nothing.
Unionized American machinists are expensive. Deleting the Wagner Act should be an integral part of any such conversation, imo.
Hey Neil, you rocket scientist:
As a libertarian you should know perfectly well that just the taxes paid, never mind the social security contributions, the medicare contributions, and the complex and seemingly infinite workplace regulations price an American worker out of the market even if he was willing to work for nothing.
That's right. Any one of us could accept a $0.00 per hour wage and after government interference in the free market it would still be cheaper to employ a foreigner!
What do I expect government to do? If we're going to be thrown to the lowest common denominator of global wages, at least help us help ourselves by making it even theoretically possible to compete.
But what happens instead? A multi-trillion dollar socialist prescription drug givaway, guaranteed to raise taxes and throw more fuel to the fire.
Free traders want the impossible - they want society to nourish and protect them without giving anything in return.
2. The "crap" is bought. Nobody is telling you poor quality is all you should accept. That is a hallucination.
3. Bush didn't force you spend your tax cut on anything.
That only works when there's jobs to be had.. When you think globally: Between outsourcing and the amnesty proposal, there's almost literally no job that can't be done more cheaply.
The question that goes unasked in these conversations is: "What skills, exactly, will provide this increase in our standard of living when everything can either be oursourced or bid down to nothingness through amnesty?"
The answer: "Run for elected office."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.