Replies

Oh that's right in your mind America is now 1789 France, filled with doom and gloom. To put it in your mindset, "We bourgoise [sic] pigs had food that should have been destined for peasants".

You know, this thread started because some folks around here think that this may be the defining issue in the next election and that President Bush better get his policies lined up. If it is then its political impact will be explosive.

But you and Agamemnon seem to think that you can blame the victims of this, or convince them that they are better off when they think they are worse off. You might win your arugment with Laz and me, but that is not going to get you our your candidate votes. I don't want to see Gephardt or Gephardt2 or Gephardt33 as the next president. But that conclusion is foregone if the the Republicans cave to Corporations American in Name Only.

Your smooth words might eventually winover me. Laz seems to be a harder case, however. I really think it will get you nowhere, however, with the guy who has a master's in computer science and a family and mortgage and whose job just moved to Hyderabad [where he cannot get a work permit]. You may be right that he needs to diversify his skill set (to what? for God's sake, I ask you to what?). You tell him that on the advertising Bill where you ask him to vote for Bush. It will be a winning campaign strategy - for the other guy.

But you and Agamemnon seem to think that you can blame the victims of this, or convince them that they are better off when they think they are worse off.

Much as I hate to say it, Agamemnon does have a point, in that bellyaching here on FR does not solve the problem. What will solve the problem is a greater reliance on the American culture of entrepreneurship. More of us need to figure out ways to start new ventures and sell new products.

What created the Reagan recovery in the 1980's were all the new startups that were taking advantage of the capital gains tax cuts, and what we need right now is to work on getting the barriers to entrepreneurship removed: regulatory burdens, complex tax laws, EEOC requirements, and states that are hostile to small business interests

It's just that Agamemnon has a way of expressing this in a sufficiently obnoxious way that you're too busy wanting to punch him out to examine what he's saying. This is also why I'm wondering if Agamemnon is really running his own company -- he doesn't display the charm and tact that an independent businessman tends to need to make habitual in order to manage his clients and workers, and to get his pitch across.