LET'S TALK ABOUT "YOUR" JOBS

Nealz Nuze ^ | Wednesday, February 18, 2004 | Neal Boortz

[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.

[Cold Heat]

Fastrack is unConstitutional,

A interesting argument that is posed often in Congress each year that it is debated.

I tend to agree that is is indeed, and the founders did not envision many of the things we call trade, both international and interstate.

On this subject we will have to agree.

A constitutional amendment should have been done prior to ALL of these things, but it was not. The argument continues but gains little traction on either side of the aisle depending on who is president. They have made it purely political.

Therefore, the public sees trade as too important to politicize and allows things like NAFTA and others to be decided by the admin.

[chimera]

(look at japan, no resources, but they produce so much)

They do, but they are very vulnerable. In socioeconomic terms, their system is somewhat brittle and inelastic. What would otherwise be minor interruptions for other countries assume larger proportions because of their lack of indigenous resources. If we hadn't a-bombed them into submission, there is a good chance they might have eventually collapsed because of the stranglehold the U.S. submarine force had put on their importation of outside resources. When a country becomes totally dependent on outsiders for important things, they lose a measure of national security and control of their own national destiny that it is almost impossible to put a price on in the marketplace.

Likewise, there are third-world countries with significant natural resources, but lack the infrastructure to fully exploit them for their own benefit. They need outside help, and without it, they struggle.

Then there are developed countries with reasonable levels of indigenous resources and infrastructure, but the declining powers of men have rendered them somewhat impotent as players on the world stage. England is a good example. It has gone from a world-girdling empire and "Britannia Rules The Waves", to a quaint, tourist-stop country of shopkeepers and sheepherders (no insult intended to our friend Tony Blair).

to gain wealth, but we can still research, develop, and sell our way to the top.

Not if you lack the intellectual capital to do that and the industrial might to exploit it. Time was that American innovators were the top of the line. Edison invented and developed many modern technologies. George Westinghouse took the ideas of Tesla and, using as a base a company that had before then been known for making air brakes for railcars, built the modern electrical distribution system. We built the modern communications system in this country largely from the work of two (American) men. Lee de Forest, who invented the "audion" vacuum tube, which made electronic amplification of signals possible, and Edwin Howard Armstrong, who figured out how to use it to do that, by invention of the regenerative, or feedback, receiver circuit. Armstrong also later invented the superheterodyne receiver circuit, and the wideband FM broadcasting system. Philo Farnsworth, Utah farm boy, conceived of and developed the system of electronic television we have today, and American companies like GE and RCA and Westinghouse built entire industries from these discoveries. And even the reason all of us are able to be here now and today doing what we are, using a personal computer, came of the invention of the methods of VLSI, which came from LSI, which came from a device that replaced the vacuum tube, the solid state semiconductor. This was invented by a team of physicists (Bardeen, Shockley, Brittain, et al.) working at a U.S. research lab (Bell Laboratories), which was a part of a U.S. manufacturing firm (Bell Telephone).

These things are all gone, now. Sold out, in large part, for thirty pieces of silver in the foreign marketplace. And the best and brightest students coming up today see this happening, and think, why should I bother being a scientist, engineer, or inventor? I can be a lawyer and make millions suing the pants off of these same companies, or I can be a businessman making millions in yearly bonuses because I saved the company money by offshoring all the jobs.

i believe we also produce something like 25% of the world's food, yet only have 1/5 farming land. thats innovation as well, and we are producing a good that will only grow in demand.

No question that the agriculture business is important. And these goods are a reasonable thing to offer for trade.

But there are any number of countries out there, some of whom do not wish us well, who would be very happy if we reverted to an agricultural nation, foreswearing any interest in being a technological or industrial power. They'd be happy to eat our food and smoke our cancer sticks and maybe now and then send us an outmoded computer or stripped-down Toyota, and have us be thankful for the deal. Because that kind of country isn't going to be a world-class military, technological, industrial, or innovative power on the world stage. And if we get out of line, they can send their advanced armored vehicles and aircraft and missiles in, secure in the knowledge that the best opposition we could offer is to send our farmers out with their pitchforks to joust with panzers.

[Dataman]

Before the present MTV and drugs-crazed era, however, we never let our poverty as a state affect our intellectual development.

Sadly, what you say is true. But to the dumbed down masses it doesn't matter that it's true. Reality is invented by the new dummies and if they think they are supermen, who can disagree? Modern education is no different than diet fads; easy ways to get smart quick that never work.

IMNSHO, What has happened with the collapse of the schools (and parental authority) is that we have allowed your generation to be shamelessly manipulated into a commercial culture in which you are not given the finest traditions of Western Christian Civilization to carry forward as a duty, but a base,ugly, and fundamentally silly set of characters to use as role models.

If we let Western Civ collapse, we will fall into a new dark age of oppression, slavery and mass extermination that will make the 200 million executions of last century look like a trial run.

[OrioleFan]

Kerry says he is going to fix this problem. He will probably set up some group in the Commerce department that will have to review any business information that is shipped overseas via computer/internet or electronic media. That will put a stop to the outsourcing.

[chimera]

That's the sheer, unadulterated, unmitigated hell of this current situation. Bush and the Republicans are handing this election to Kerry and the Rats on the basis of this issue alone. But Kerry and the Rats will only make the problem worse, not solve it. More taxes, more government programs for "retraining" (retrain for what?), oppressive regulations, more bureaucracy, are precisely the things the "free traders" hate. But they're gonna get it if they keep mouthing the same losing message that Bush and the Republicans keep trying to sell (losing your job is good for you and your family, offshoring is good for you, selling out the country is good, greed is good, shut up and take it, screw 'em, let 'em eat cake, etc.).

[valkyrieanne]

Free market disposable labor is cheaper. Slaves you need to feed well, house, make sure that they get enough rest, and care for them when they get sick. With commodity labor, burned out or disabled workers can be tossed out and replaced like a tire in a car.

I don't think the Chinese have the same attitudes toward their slaves that American chattel slave owners had in the 19th century. There's a never-ending supply, and they are neither fed nor housed well, nor cared for.

[valkyrieanne]

Re: your comments on borrowing against one's home equity: this is an interesting thread on foreclosure.

[chimera]

I agree with everything in Amos. American society does not.

Then don't buy into the bill of goods that you seem to be pushing. Stand with us against those who would sell out their brother for thirty pieces of silver, and ruin his neighbor to enrich himself. Don't betray the faith of the fathers for this false god of gold and silver.

[RaceBannon]

I hate it when arm chair economists who never worked in a factory in their life tell us who did work all our lives in a factory how good it is to see factory work disappear.


Make sure you keep repeating the mantra!

The problem is not jobs leaving the country, it is not capital equipment leaving the country, the problem is not intellectual property leaving the country, the problem is not contracts going to communistic/fascistic/socialistic government run countries that prop up their companies with government funds to defer losses that the US companies cannot compete against...

THE PROBLEM IS YOUR ATTITUDE ABOUT IT!! JUST KEEP TELLING YOURSELF THINGS WILL GET BETTER AND THEY WILL!


How can I stand on my feet when the government is allowing in material produced at rates that are slave labor devised that I cannot possibly compete against?

How can I stand on my feet when the industries that I and my family traditionally worked in are sent overseas: material,machines,knowledge; to be operated by Communistic/Fascistic/Socialistic Governments that prop up their industries with Government money all the while I am supposed to use my own money and compete with my own capital and if I fail use my own money to cover the loss?

I have a memory of 2nd grade. We were in a Social Studies class and a substitute teacher was leading the class, and we started talking about how American companies were setting up companies in foreign lands to allow the people of those countries to make their own clothes and goods. Until then, I assumed, these people either wore sandals or went barefoot, and we brought them clothes for the first time maybe, but they must have had their own methods of making clothes before we showed up!

As it turned out, as the lesson went on, we were told that these American Companies went to these foreign countries to set up complete companies to provide jobs, too, for these people, people who had a lower standard of living, but doing the same work in these new factories as people here in the US did.

It became obvious to me, that if these people lived a much lower standard of living, they needed lower pay, the companies would pay them lower wages, and still make the same product as good as ours made in the US were made.

It didn’t take a genius to make the next logical step here: If they were making the same product there cheaper, they were soon going to sell it back to us at a lower price that our own workers could not compete with, thereby putting us out of business, one company at a time. I asked her,” What will happen 20 years from now, though, when they will be making it cheaper then us, won’t they put us out of business?" She said I was a real John Bircher! And guess what?
Does anyone here know of any major textile industry in your neighborhood? I mean one that is still in operation. Does anyone here doubt that what I asked her 35 years ago is true and worsening? WE ARE GIVING AWAY TECHNOLOGY to 3rd world nations and we are making ourselves unemployed when we do it!

Either way, the recognition of the terror coming does not make the terror acceptable, it is still the terror, and the economic policies that feed the terror are what is the problem, not the desire to move when I hear the lions roar.

Our politicians are feeding us to the lions, and they are calling it rain on our crops. The passing of laws that allowed H1-B visas was supposed to allow only the highest educated people to work in this country to fill the place of someone who did not exist here before, not take the place of someone already employed here. It was not supposed to replace American Citizens with foreign nationals just to benefit the profit margins of companies in competition with foreign markets.

Since I stopped being a mechanic, and got my ASME in 93, I have had the same average wage for the last 10 years.

In fact, I used to have a steady job while I was a mechanic, but since I got an engineering job, learned 5 CAD languages, and 4 programming languages, I have had more than 30 jobs in the last 7 years.

Seen more than half the companies I worked for in the last 8 years go belly up. Not a joke. Even the steadiest job I had is almost closed, Kaman Aerospace. Got laid off from Colt when they had to hire a team of lawyers to defend themselves against the lawsuits. Video Terminal company I worked for is defunct.

The rest, except for one, is overseas. China. One company is a fastener company, another is a jet engine manufacturer, and another went to Mexico. All the small companies that made parts for these companies went out of business.

Thanks to NAFTA. GATT.

Someone asked me, "What I'd like to get is an explanation of why "entire technology groups" disappearing is bad".

This needed to be explained??

Where do certain materials come from? Isn’t it true that we cannot just mine a hole in the ground to get Bauxite? How about Copper? Aren’t we supposed to go to a particular spot where we know there is Copper? Now, if someone wanted to deny us Copper, they would be starting a war if they cut us off, or they would be causing undue influence on our way of life if they controlled it and raised its prices above that which we pay.

Now, that same logic applies to industry. Any industry. If we cannot make a bearing in a cost effective way in this world, where is the logic to send the means and knowledge to make bearings to another country where competition does not exist?

We are sending away the means to produce the most basic materials we use in industry! This is not about singular items like sneakers or IT programmers; it is about entire means of creating anything.

The machines we send over to these countries are used to create other machines. These new machines are going to, if not already, be used to create the competition for our remaining industrial goods, to be operated at slave wages by people who did not have to be trained in high tech skills to operate, but only told when to press a button, thanks to Computer Controlled Machining.

We are not sending over looms and combines to people to allow them to live better, we are sending over complex CNC machines and devices that are used in Aerospace, Automotive, and computer industries, and they are being setup by us, used by them, and they are not worried about profit in making their business run, they have governments run their businesses, and that means profit is not the motive! At least not where the operation of the company is concerned!

What product am I going to make that cannot be reverse engineered by a geek with a set of verniers and a tape measure and calipers and shadowgraph??

Even if I did design something unique, since we handed the technology of machine tools and the methods to produce to these slave labor countries, my new product will only exist in competitive form in this country for no more than 3 years. Once it makes it overseas, and is recognized as a commodity that greedy westerners will buy, it will be copied and mass produced for pennies on the dollar, and we GAVE THEM the means to do so!! They didn’t develop it!! They didn’t design it!! They didn’t spend the money necessary to finalize the design or methods; they just copied what they saw or outright bought the machines that the originating company used to make this product!!

Goodness! People are so stupid!! We are handing away the store on this stuff, the technology we are giving away is not just intellectual, it is a the physical machines we used to make widgets, buttons, fabrics, filters, oils, sheet metal, (did you know that? Even the simple sheet metal bending industries are losing work to China?? The simple press brake is going to disappear because a SLAVE can learn how to bend metal just as well!!)

A lack of profit from where we are concerned makes or breaks a company. Overseas, Profit is the long term goal only if it means they make enough machines to outsell us in the market. People are stupid, these technologies are not single use when taken in a whole, and they are entire industry wide! 5-Axis CNC machines, VTL's, borers, lathes, bridgeports, all CNC controlled, means that they now have the means to make high quality materials and devices at costs where the
US cannot help but fail in competition, and not one of these countries developed these technologies in order to compete in the open market, they either bought it from someone, or they bribed someone to bring it there! And now, there is so much over there, it is impossible for the US to ever recover with a living wage as we are used to.

Some fools try to claim that all it is going to take is some genius with a brainstorm to create a new device or technology and open up a factory and VIOLA! We all have jobs here! All that does is showing me that most people here never worked in a factory, or do they work in mechanical engineering. I can copy almost any device, and if I am paying people slave wages, and if I already have the machines in place to make things that I have a drawing for, I can reproduce any product in a similar fashion and maybe improve upon it and sell it for a cost that will immediately put that American genius out of business in his 2nd year.

We are not dealing with people who live in the Stone Age! We are not dealing with little Coolies pushing/pulling rickshaws! We are dealing with industrial giants who have purchased the most modern machines the world has to offer, and in case you didn’t know, American companies are
NOT buying new machines at any rate similar to China or India!

We are dealing with an industrial powerhouse that is using our hard earned gains and are turning it against us, and taking away the factories that we worked at and leaving us with no places to work at! The industrial skills that many of us trained for are no longer needed on the scale of the 1970's, and it is not because of a catastrophe, it is because our government allowed it to leave, and to make matters worse, we sent this technology to countries that are our sworn enemies and are using these machines operated by people who are working at slave labor wages, and in some cases in China, literal slaves or prison inmates!

And you cheer leaders of Free Trade say this is a good thing!

You are the traitors here.

This is what amazes me most about the free trade cheerleaders. None of them work in manufacturing, so all they do is quote some pundit or Limbaugh.

Limbaugh is an ignorant man on this. He thinks all this so-called Free Trade is going to be a boom for us! He shows he never worked in a machine shop or factory. It does not take a rocket scientist to see, you can copy a product. When you learn how to operate the machines, all you need is a monkey to press the buttons nowadays.

And if you have government sponsored purchasing of machines, and government sponsored operation of companies to cover losses, you have humans who are better educated than any generation and capable of following instructions...VIOLA! Any product can be made at a cheaper price when it is made by a slave!

That is NOT FREE TRADE!
That is NOT market competition!!
That is NOT capitalism!

These companies, in order to stay in business, moved to a socialist government run country that props up industry with government money, and that is not what Capitalist countries can compete with, especially when those socialist countries pay slave wages.

Plus, we are handing these economic competitors our technology which they did nothing to design, develop, or contribute to, and they are using it to take away our jobs and our job futures. And if you don’t see it coming, you need to drink some more coffee or something...

We all went to school; played the game, paid our dues, and then the people who had to power to make the decisions yanked the rug from under us!

We are NOT competing against capitalist countries on the whole, we are competing against socialist/Fascist countries that use government funding to support, create, and provide for the companies that they take from us. These are NOT private individuals starting up machine shops in China, it is the Chinese government!

These are not companies spending their own money to develop and design and trouble shoot the machines to make the product, these are countries that have purchased the materials and machines to make all products from scratch, run them by slaves, LITERALLY, and then have the government supply all monies to keep them from going under.

Good God!! That is NOT free market, that is NOT capitalism, that is NOT free Trade, it is
SOCIALISM!! It is a form of Fascism!! And we are not doing anything to stop it or defend our own countries ability to produce or provide for our own selves!! They are literally using slave labor to run the high tech machines and we cannot compete against that using our Free Market Capitalist ideals!

The cat is out of the bag. People are all human and all capable of thinking. Now that we gave away the technology to make these products, and educated their new leaders, and then gave them the machines to do it and through all this provided the profits to buy more machines and materials, we have signed the manufacturing death warrant for our nation!!

Why in God's name is this so hard to see for some people??

Let's see...
We design and build a machine capable of cutting steel, we design and build a product using that previous machine, and we mass produce it, make a profit from it, only to sell the metal cutting tools and production tools and the technologies necessary to repeat the previous processes to a country that does not engage in free market competition because the government props up the business and prevents it from operating at a loss...and you say we can compete against that?

Humans are human. They can be educated to run complex machines. If we design through our own efforts new technologies that give us great advances that cause our people to advance in technology and culture, what in the world are we doing giving away these technologies to other countries that are our ideological enemies?

WE spent the money to advance these technologies, to develop it, to debug it, using monies from profits, not government, losing our shirts in the process in a capitalist society where the fittest survive only to give it away to a communist nation that pays its workers of these new companies in rice bowls? And you say that is what we are able to compete against?

I got a news flash for you: My friend from High School runs a small machine shop; He just had a new machine put in. When the guy came to install it, he told him of his recent trip to China to install a new machine there. Once the machine was leveled and wired in, they brought down the worker for this machine...removed his shackles and handcuffs...did you get that? He was hand cuffed; he was shackled, barefoot, and brought out of is cell to run the new 4 axis miller.

We cannot compete against this type of manufacturing. This is not a backward country trying to use a crude lathe to make cheaper table leg. This is an industrial giant using computer controlled machines where all a person has to know is what button to push and when thanks to developments in CNC technology. And they pay them in rice bowls, and when he makes a mistake they make a new part until they fill the quota for good parts because they can afford the training curve to run the machine right to eliminate errors.

Socialist Countries propping up their companies is NOT FREE TRADE; neither is American Companies moving off shore, providing the means and personnel to run these companies that formerly employed Americans Capitalism, either!

Not one of these countries developed these technologies themselves, not one of them spent the money to do the research and development to achieve the high quality that these products are now, and not one of these countries started these companies with an individual who is competing solely on Free Market Capitalist Ideals!!

This isn't about whining, it is about giving away the company store to those who are trying to destroy us economically!! It is about giving away the means and technology to compete against ourselves!! That is not sane!!

We are not talking about an individual or group of individuals starting up their own little version of Microsoft in the open market, we are talking about Socialist Governments using Government funds to support all the waste and error that would bankrupt any other company by buying all the machinery from us, the instructions on how to use it coming from us, and then demanding that we use this new company to provide a product, thereby depriving an American competitor a chance to make the product at a cheaper price only they cant BECAUSE THESE FOREIGN COMPANIES ARE USING SLAVE LABOR!!

Capitalist companies cannot compete against that because we are liable for our losses in manufacturing through human error, we use our own money not the governments, and when we go under, it is our tough luck.

Not so in China or Malaysia or Thailand or India or Mexico....

Recently, Black and Decker announced they were moving operations overseas. Yes. Losing jobs in manufacturing is bad because entire technology groups are disappearing, and it is way more than Black and Decker. If you just aren’t in the field, maybe that’s why you don’t know.

Okay Cheerleaders, chime in and defend socialist countries supporting these companies with government funds, and let’s see what happens 5 years from now when the Black and Decker American people are thrown out on their ear and the technology they imported becomes property of the STATE!!

Lets see what went there: Mechanical knowledge, electrical motor technology, battery manufacture and power use technology, recharging technology, plastic manufacturing, molding technology, assembly jobs, electrical jobs, admin jobs....Well, since no IT went there, maybe it is ok??

Now, tell me, How is the identification of the loss of industrial technology a DIM Idea?

IT IS COMMON SENSE!! And BOTH parties are doing it! And NEITHER are stopping it! And that is why Conservatives were against GATT and NAFTA, and that is why we had State Department laws against the transfer of technology, and that is why we used to try to NOT let machines out of the country!

Goodness! One entire building of McDonnell Douglas went to China back in the 80's, and several employees were fired for trying to stop it or sabotage the machines because they saw the strategic threat of giving the Communists these complex machines!

[valkyrieanne]

But there are any number of countries out there, some of whom do not wish us well, who would be very happy if we reverted to an agricultural nation, foreswearing any interest in being a technological or industrial power. They'd be happy to eat our food and smoke our cancer sticks and maybe now and then send us an outmoded computer or stripped-down Toyota, and have us be thankful for the deal. Because that kind of country isn't going to be a world-class military, technological, industrial, or innovative power on the world stage. And if we get out of line, they can send their advanced armored vehicles and aircraft and missiles in, secure in the knowledge that the best opposition we could offer is to send our farmers out with their pitchforks to joust with panzers.

That's the bottom line, isn't it? The more we outsource; the more we depend on Communist China; the more we allow illegal immigrants into the country to take American jobs - the more vulnerable we ultimately make ourselves to foreign invasion.

Rome didn't fall all at once - it took several generations.

[valkyrieanne]

I got a news flash for you: My friend from High School runs a small machine shop; He just had a new machine put in. When the guy came to install it, he told him of his recent trip to China to install a new machine there. Once the machine was leveled and wired in, they brought down the worker for this machine...removed his shackles and handcuffs...did you get that? He was hand cuffed; he was shackled, barefoot, and brought out of is cell to run the new 4 axis miller.

Dear God in heaven. This fundamental evil has seeped into *every nook and cranny* of our society.

Going back to school days ... one sentiment I think we were raised with in the late 50s-early 60s was that more technological progress across the world automatically meant more freedom. China gives the lie to that.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

I agree with you completely.

Shame on the free traitors posting here and calling themselves Americans while cheering the gutting of American industry and sending it to China. I sincerely hope the Chinese army comes marching down their streets first.

You remember the Chinese army, don't you? They are the ones who ran over unarmed student protestors with tanks and turned them into reddish gelatin.

They are the ones relentlessly employing every American technology gained through ruse, deceit, theft and the treason of American politicians and executives. Pure capitalists will be responsible for the Chinese destroying the United States.

It's really not hard to understand the murdering dictators of China wanting to destroy America. What is hard to stomach are cheering Americans standing with them on the podium.

We should all remember that and the turncoats who worked so hard to achieve it.

America is so much more important than a few dollars in a wallet but these enemy collaborators would piss America away just to get a deal on a desk fan at Wal-Mart.

[KC_Conspirator]

He reminds me of the hollywood left in that they do not have real skills to do anything, make so much money as to lose touch with planet earth, and think they have an understanding of how the real world works.

That is exactly what I was thinking. He sounds like the Hollywood left that makes tons of money, yet craps all over regular Americans and his own country. I guess I should have expected this from a guy who wants to let terrorists into our country.

[The Mayor]

Home Depot use or contract out their own construction

I was running the At Home Services division for Home Depot, I built the Buffalo market.
In 5 months we sold and installed over a million in windows and siding.
The slow season came upon us and I was fired Nov 3rd.
They don't pay, I couldn't find enough contractors due to the low pay.
In plain english, they suck and rip off the customer and contractors.

[The Mayor]

I just heard on the news that corporate ceo now make 500% more than the workers.
10 years ago it was 40%. Imagine that..

[eleni121]

After looking around for a place that could sell me cabinets I chose the Depot because of their prices. I am not entirely satisfied with their service but their prices cannot be beat.

[The Mayor]

see that's one of the biggest problems, if you see it as a problem.
Right across the street from the Amherst H.D. there was a cabinet place called Weinheimers, do you remember that place?

They had all sorts of cabinets from low price to high end. All solid wood construction. They also gave contractor discounts, I bought many kitchens and bath vanities from them.

H.D. put them out of business, they were there for almost a hundred years. I agree with you that now you can't beat the prices, now. The service is terrible, I just had a customer buy $3000 worth of doors. All of them came out on the back of a pickup laying flat. I sent them back. 2 of the doors were damaged from the truck and covered with snow salt and road dirt, completly unprofessional. 2 old guys, subcontractors got paid $25 for the delivery.

Hate to say it but Lowes is gonna give them a run for their money.

[raybbr]

Wow, I kept waiting for the sarcasm tag. An economy grows by being innovative and thus creating new markets and new businesses, and thus, new jobs. There's no need to kill foreign competion if the government steps out of the way and allows those things to happen. Had GWB been more like Reagan, rather than Hoover and LBJ on economic issues, jobs wouldn't even be an issue.

How does being innovative create new jobs when the innovation and its resultant new industry is immediately shipped overseas?

[XBob]

1 - "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!"

What a pile of crap. As long as there is an Inc., behind the name of the employer, that means they are allowed to exist, with minimal liability on my behalf, one of the partners and owners of the country under whose laws they were created.

[scholar]

One can agree or argue this until they're blue in the face, but, as far as I'm concerned this issue's "Custom Made" for the lazy, lying, shiftless, opportunistic 'Rats -- & their lamestream media subsidiaries -- to demagog ad nauseum ad infinitum.

And if anyone thinks -- for one moment -- people will ask any one of the *reasoned* questions this author posits, while they & their neighbor's livlihoods are concurrently being eliminated & sent to 3rd world locations overseas?

...think again.

What, if anything, does the average RAT use for a brain? I hear this whine at work everyday from people who are too lazy to make an effort to secure their tenuous positions. Then I hear some RAT politician from Illinois blaming Bush for the loss of business and jobs in Illinois. The area in question is primarily Chicago/Cook County. That is a totally RAT dominated area where business and jobs are being driven out because of the exhorbitant taxation which is secondary to the RAT's outrageous spending!

I am not sure how I am going to survive listening to this BS until November--wake me when it's over!

Did you perchance hear about the $40 mil/year contract with independent trucking companies and the City of Chicago? The companies were getting paid for doing nothing! Coincidentally Richie's brother wrote all the insurance policies for those trucking companies. However, the RATS seem to forgive and forget those transgressions.