It was reported today that since the year 2000 the state of Ohio has lost
25% of it's manufacturing jobs. Workers said that they saw machinery in their factories unbolted from the floor and shipped directly to China. Job creation in Ohio has been in health care, restaurants, and other service areas. Is it any wonder why the middle class is hurting? High paying jobs are being replaced with low paying ones. Bush's trade policies are a key factor in the loss of manufacturing jobs. That makes me wonder how can middle class people continue voting for republican candidates when the policies they put in place directly cause measurable declines in their lives. Don't tell me Americans aren't stupid.
One other sign of the decline of America is the record number of automobile repossessions that is now taking place. So not only are record numbers of people losing their homes but record numbers of people are having their cars repossessed as well. The signs are all around that the country is in a decline. How could that be happening when we have had the best and brightest republicans running the economy for the last decade?
Hawke, Yes, I can state as an American that SOME Americans ARE stupid. Bush has nothing to do with the dilemma of job loss in Ohio. In fact, no democrat or republican can fix this. This is all about that chinaman just outside of Shanghais that is willing to do your job at 10% of your cost and the willingness of the world marketplace to accept his occasional poor quality over your excellence, because the cost differential is great enough to buy a replacement at failure time and still be ahead cost wise. It's called capitalism and I bet even you practice this evil way of life every time you go to your marketplace to buy anything. Yet here in your case, along with others like you, you blame this trade imbalance on the current administration because of your ignorance and thereby help propagate the fallacy, which ruins MY country. Please, help the few remaining literate Americans that may remain and find a course in International Economics, which actually may, in time, save our country, because this pollution you are spreading definitely hurts. Steve
Do I really need a course in International Economics to see that when I buy some POS from a foreign country, my neighbor looses his job? One of the problems is that college educated idiots run the accounting office and good sound management is out the window. It doesn't take a college education to see that buying foreign made goods hurts America. I buy what you make so you can buy what I make. I think you learn that in the 5th grade. The true problem is greed and only greed. You'll get a real education when you stand at the gate and shake everyone's hand and say Good Luck, the last day the plant is open. That is a true education in International Economics, not some overpriced college classroom. What so you do for a living Steve? Can I buy that from a foreign country instead of paying you a good salary?
====================== Why do you assume their objective coincide with your objectives or the objectives of the people, any more than the objectives of the corporate CEOs and Directors coincide with the objectives of their stockholders?
Why do you [appear to] assume that the "best and brightest" democrats will be any different? They all went to the same schools, they all belong to the same country clubs, they are all career politicians.
============== It does indeed "belong" to the share holders, but history [see the 1970s] shows that the stock holders will not get even a smell of these profits as dividends, and the money will evaporate and not be "reinvested" in anything except grossly excessive executive bonuses and racing elephant breeding farms with no prospect of success [Think Zilog and the same renewable energy scams that are now being re-run.]
I suggest a mandatory dividend payment of at least 75% of these excess profits to force this money out of the off-shore tax havens and into the pockets of the rightful owners [and into the American economy] and get it out of the hands of the oil-company executives before it disappears [again].
FWIW -- at least 20 billion of these wonderful "profits" are actually tax benefits [e.g. depletion allowances] and other subsidies such as below market or zero royalty payment oil pumped from public lands and costal areas.
I just get upset when people spew that rhetoric about excess profits, and they even use the word "confiscate". Yeah, confiscate it and do what with it?
Pass it out among special interest groups, and minority voters. Many of which are not even registered correctly, or can read English.
Translates to: middle class America takes it in the neck.
=============== Thats why I suggested a mandated dividend of at least 75% of the "profits" with a DRIP [dividend reinvestment program] option if you trust the management. No confiscation there except from the point of view of the CEO, just profits distributed to their rightful owners, i.e. the stockholders.
So the profits (after the pay and perks to the executives have been deducted, of course) will be distributed to shareholders by some rote formula rather than being re-invested in the business according to requirements. Doesn't sound very clever to me. Individual companies, of course, are free to come up with a dividend policy like that, but
You think the way you do because you are misinformed. You have been traumatized by the fear that all your hard earned money will be taken away from you and given to shiftless, lazy, drug-addicted minorities, illegal immigrants, and white trash in the name of wealth redistribution. But who told you this? Was it other blue collar or working class people or was it wealthy right wing business people and their well-known mouthpieces? I'll bet that you have "heard" from some people that the Democrats will take all you have and give it to the low class bums of the country. All you have to do is look at the historical facts and you will see that people like yourself have always benefited more when Democrats were running the country. Just look at the last eight years, I'll bet that last years have not been the best for you financially. When you look at the facts people just like you are better off under Democrats. If that is true, then you have to be pretty foolish to vote for republicans when you don't do as well when they are in charge. Get over your fears, caused by political propaganda, look at the facts and you can only see that the republicans have not delivered for middle class people. So quit supporting them. They're not doing people like you any good.
I assume that because that is their job. That is what they were sent to Washington to do. To see that the people's objectives are met not theirs or those of whoever pays for them to keep winning elections.
Well, because there is a philosophical difference between a business oriented right wing republican and a people oriented Democrat. I assume that plenty of people that were your cohorts think and act completely different than you do. Thus everyone that goes to Ivy league schools is not the same. FDR came from the highest economic class yet worked to help the middle class more than anyone. All of his cohorts hated him for this and thought he was a class traitor. I've seen what the republicans have done. If Obama gets in office I think there will be a lot of differences. I may be wrong though because it's impossible for me to know what Obama would be like once in the White House. Hillary is more predictable.
Is that right? Bush and the republican congress have nothing to do with trade policy and our trade policy has nothing to do with losing jobs? The fact of the matter is that trade and other policies of our government has a lot to do with job loss or gain. What they do in Washington has a big effect on the economy overall. You don't seem to know this so maybe you need some econ 101 remediation.
In fact, no democrat or republican can fix this.
So you think this is an insoluble problem? Why is it that every other manufacturing country is not losing it's best jobs to China? Could it have anything to do with their government's decisions?
This is all about that chinaman just outside of
I guess you only understand the simplest, old fashioned, basic, free market capitalism, because most of the world is practicing something different. For example, you might ask why it is that the US is filled with Japanese made cars but Europe isn't, or why Japan doesn't import a lot of rice when it can buy it a lot cheaper than it can produce domestically; think rice farmers. Hmmm, maybe some countries won't let that cheap Chinese labor ruin their domestic markets and make their own citizens poorer. That wouldn't happen in unfettered capitalism like the Bush administration wants for this country. It's your ignorance of the complexity of the modern free market that prevents you from understanding that it is the policies of the current administration that are making life so much harder for working class Americans. Notice I didn't say all Americans. That is because the current policies are good for the wealthy class. They're just bad for the rest of us. But you don't seem to understand how that works.
Please, help the few remaining literate
What is ruining the country is the free trade, global economics encouraged by the current administration. Believe me, if the next president reversed the course Bush has taken us on the result would be very different. All it would take for the manufacturing base to come back is for an administration to make that an important part of its agenda and implement policies to make that happen. What we have now is one where if the middle class is destroyed by free trade that is perfectly acceptable to Bush's way of doing things. Other countries would never allow that to happen in their country. You just can't put two and two together.
Please do not try to help me. If I do not like the way a business is being run, I can vote with my feet and sell the stock. Making dividend payments manditory means that I have to pay income tax every year on those dividends. If the company does not pay dividends, it gets to reinvest the money into the business and the stock price goes up. Pretty much like a drip, but without the government getting to tax the profits twice. Once when the company pays income tax and again when I pay income taxes.
I missed the Staff meeting, but the Memos showed that "Steve Lusardi" wrote on Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:33:01 +0100 in rec.crafts.metalworking :
Adding my caveat that the competition that Ohio faces is also in Iowa, Or Washington State. Or anyplace where American Companies can hire American workers to make the same stuff at a significant savings in cost. If it costs 800,000 to move operations, but the annual savings is
1,200,000 - how long does it take for the company to break even, and how long before the losing state(s) start demanding an industrial feudalism to prevent the movement of industries out of the high cost areas?
tschus pyotr
-- pyotr filipivich "I had just been through hell and must have looked like death warmed over walking into the saloon, because when I asked the bartender whether they served zombies he said, ?Sure, what'll you have?'" from I Hear America Swinging by Peter DeVries
Hawke, I truly feel sorry for our country because so many of our citizens feel like you. I cannot blame your lack of understanding on you alone. Our media is very much at fault as well. They earn their income by selling copy. They edit by omission and public ignorance becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I will say Hawke, that the USA is not the only country suffering these job losses. It is actually worse in Europe, it is happening in South America, Australia and Africa as well. Most Americans at home think the world revolves around the USA. Well it doesn't and occasionally we can exert some influence over world opinion, but actually not very often. We are not an island in either energy or ram materials. Isolationism is out of the question and our government is incapable of resolving this issue. Our country will remain a victim no matter who is elected. Your optimism is misguided with the left, they will remove even more of your income to support their social agenda. Steve
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