Posted on 08/29/2002 9:56:06 PM PDT by sixmil
Considering all they've done for the economy, and society, over the last 60 years, I'll have to concede that point.
Re the severe depression: I suspected we were headed that direction (by design) prior to the last election. That the GOP pretends all the pertinent factors are irrelevant, hardly absolves them of guilt. It's gonna be a mess.
From what I've heard, there was enough moral fiber and social cohesion to carry the country through the Great Depression. Imagine how the prevailing values today, and the diversity, will affect individual and group behavior in a prolonged slump.
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Great! I wish I had said that.
Chuck Harder has been preaching about this Free Trade fiasco since well before NAFTA(1993).
It's hard for me not to see it all as a deliberate maneuver to suck the equity out of America.
We're well along that road already. It began with things like affirmative action and diversity dependent hiring. Job candidates were no longer chosen because of their previously demonstrated abilities, but because of skin color, gender, handicap, sexual behavior or some other state-mandated trait. Competition in the marketplace was abandoned for centrally state-mandated hiring. Schools and universities stopped teaching skills because skills were no longer needed.
That's exactly what it is.
Brooks Brothers white, button-down, oxford cloth shirt made in Thailand $ 59.50
Paul Stuart white, button-down, oxford cloth shirt made in the USA $ 59.50.
I don't see much of a savings here.
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When the depression began, most of the American adult population was born in the 1800s and was accustomed to difficulty. Contempory people consider it an unendurable hardship if the bag in their instant microwave dinner breaks.
Instead of raising all boats around the world overall, they envision higher personal profits, by lowering the wealthy USA boat 15ft while lifting the 3rd World boat by 15 inches, all through the transfer of decent paying, living wage jobs in the U.S. to desperate 3rd World countries where slave/prison/child labor is not a problem.
The difference goes straight into their pockets.
The Free Trade scheme has always been the key!
This had to be initiated ever so carefully, to avoid early detection and overall disclosure to the lower class masses who have been the first to suffer during the initial stages.
Of course with the major media-whores under firm control, (they actually believe they're part of the Protected Class) the biggest concern are media wildcards like Buchanan, Nader ... the Chuck Harder types who of course can (and have been) successfully dealt with through constant demonization, vilification, name-calling in the press and/or IRS audits that go on and on for years.
Mr. Roberts forgot to mention India and Russia. The H1-B program is another assault on U.S. engineers and wages as our corrupt political class does the bidding of their corporate sponsors.
It is an amazing thing to hear a (former) government official speak the truth.
Hope Mr.Roberts has a hobby he enjoys, since I'm bettin he will find himself persona non grata on the cocktail circuit around D.C.
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