Posted on 09/18/2005 9:19:51 AM PDT by Willie Green
Angel Mills worked at GST AutoLeather in Williamsport, Md., most of her adult life. She cut, inspected, packed and shipped leather upholstery until she was laid off in June 2003 as the company scaled back local operations and shifted production to Mexico.
"It's sad. It's scary. I've been a factory worker all my life, and I didn't know what I wanted to do," said Ms. Mills, a 38-year-old Williamsport resident with a teenage son.
But by March 2004 she was taking a half-year course to become a state-licensed massage therapist. A federal program that helps workers who lose jobs owing to foreign competition paid for her training and offered extended unemployment benefits.
In July, she started working at Venetian Salon and Spa in Hagerstown, Md.
~~~SNIP~~~
Mr. Thomas said that for all trade adjustment program workers passing through the consortium, the average wage was $14.36 an hour before the layoffs, while after retraining it was $11.87 an hour, a decline that is common for factory workers who have to restart their lives.
U.S. Labor Department figures indicate that among the retrained, those that find new jobs end up making only 70 percent to 80 percent of their old wages on average.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
You'd be surprised at what relationships might exist.
I used to work for a well-known manufacturer of window air-conditioners.
Although we were not a direct military contractor, we routinely shipped a small (but lucrative) quantity of the crucial "guts" of the compressor we made to a smaller company that "refined" them to mil-spec standards for quality and reliablity. Because of our unique design, it became the preferred component for the air-conditioning in the cockpits of one of our jet fighters.
I would guess that some of the pumps that Maytag makes for their washers/dishwashers may have a similar application. But who knows? Domestic appliance manufacturers make a helluva lot of different components that could find use in military equipment. It's not exotic stuff, but the military needs it just the same.
And YOU don't get it.
Show me any data that would suggest that people who now pay $50 for a DVD player would be willing to pay LOTS MORE for a DVD player if it was made in Detroit, instead of India or China.
Economic freedom as a position has nothing to do with individual braggarts.
I'm certainly not required to be a braggart in order to believe in economic freedom.
So you see the poverty or especially persistent poverty as a fault of the poor. This is a form of contempt.
Seeing poor people as free actors who make choices isn't contemptuous. Seeing them as powerless drones devoid of free will is.
And, of course, in the 1st century Roman province of Palestina there wasn't much economic freedom for non-citizen subjects.
The state imposed strong and crippling excises and taxes on goods, the sale of farming land was subject to numerous restrictions and social standing was essential to economic success.
Today conditions, while not optimal, are much improved.
The Lord condemned the servant who hid the talent for a reason.
the usurious practices of credit card companies which charge interests of 30% and more
It's not usurious if the rate freely offered to the borrower is commensurate with the risk to the lender.
If the lender is intentionally deceiving the borrower about his level of risk, he's being usurious.
But this A. Pole habit of immediately convicting people of serious sins without proof is repulsive.
Maybe. But there is no relation between Maytag Aircraft and Maytag.
Now that that inconvenient fact is out of the way, you could just as easily argue that a manufacturer of ping-pong balls, through some special process it has developed, is also a national security concern. Where does it stop?
I wish all these free trade is so wonderful types could tell me how an economy of 40 year and interest only mortgages and 7 year car loans isn't dangerously over-leveraged. When debt levels are rising to such levels it obviously indicates a society in which more and more households are dangerously hand to mouth in their finances.
Funny thing about car loans. When you compare for inflation the price of a car today with 1970 it is about the same. But then a car loan was 3 years. Now it can be 7. What does that tell you ?
History tells us that this is simply not true. History tells us that there are nations that win and nations that lose. If England, for instance, had ditched free trade and gone to protectionism at the turn of the 20th century, it would have strenghtened its industrial base sufficiently to be able to fight two world wars without hocking itself to America.
Yes, Mase, the redistribution of wealth.
The West won the Cold War because it promised workers security and prosperity such that they rejected Marxism. The West addressed the grievances of disaffected classes and minorities to head off any kind of mass base for radical social upheaval.
Glad you asked me. Here are two examples
| I'm willing to make sacrifices to protect guys like these: |  |
| but these guys should grow up, stop trying to live off my taxes, and start protecting themselves. |  |
I believe that the difference the two groups is absolute.
Here's that canard again.
Gladly. They have nothing to do with trade.
A factor that free market fools fail to comprehend is that when you lose control of an industry, you also lose its future. When America lost TV manufacture, it also lost VCR manufacture, DVD player manufacture, and HDTV manufacture.
I may be wrong, but as long as the two of us are blowing smoke, England's economy at the turn of the 20th Century was mercantilist in nature. In other words, at the time, England was practising the sort of economics that gets Pat Buchanan all excited.
I was not refering to maytag. Get with the program.
Where did I ever say trade was bad? I'm all for it. I just think we are getting crapped upon by china.
Yes there is.
Maytag Aircraft was founded in 1948 by Lewis B. Maytag Jr., grandson of the founder of the Maytag appliance company. It was bought by its chief rival, Los Angeles-based Mercury Air Group Inc., in 1982.
So in other words, your comment was without context and senseless, and a particularly weak attempt to suggest that you care more about national security than your opponent. Thanks.
So let's continue to play with your misconceptions, shall we? Are you suggesting that a Chinese purchase of Maytag Corporation in 2005 will grant it access to Maytag Aircraft, which happens to have been founded by someone with that surname, and hasn't even been in the family since 1982?
Quote: Do you see any difference between WWII and the conflicts of today? How many Maytag plants were nationalized as a result of Iraq II, and what are they producing?
Whose to say our future wars will only be against half s**ed camel jockeys like what we faced in Afghanistan and Iraq??
Many said WWI was the "War to end all wars" and the League of Nations would ensure no future world wars after WWI.
Nobody. But it's not very likely that any future conflict will require the sort of private-to-public economic diversion on the scale of WWII.
Quote: Nobody. But it's not very likely that any future conflict will require the sort of private-to-public economic diversion on the scale of WWII.
Do a search under Pentagon war game scenarios. Look how major conflicts could erupt under such mundane topics as water rights or disease control. Who knows what future Hitlers are out there..and in what country.
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.