OT: The free-trader's agenda

I don't see either one of happening, only a continuing downward spiral in the ability of the average worker to actually buy the products that he produces, until it reaches the point beyond no return, and then mr.bigwig will see his own income starting to slide. The end result will be another company down the tubes, and fifty thousand appologists telling us this is "how it should be".

the next end result will be a general realization that the people in corporate boardrooms and those in legislative seats, have no business even knowing each other. The other thing that will cease is the existance of more lobbyists for some of the business groups than there are members of congress. Of course, this will all happen after it's too late, and we're asking some tiny small country somewhere else if we CAN do things. Then we can all learn the conservative crawl, done in lockstep to a tune that is foreign to us.

After all these years? Finally a rational sentence from Lennie the Loon...

We could start cutting costs in several ways. Stop illegal immigration, deport illegals, foriegn aid, ridiculous pensions for elected officials, and many, many more.

michael

No, not ignoring.

More like, cheering them on.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

The phrase you are searching for is "Ponzi Scheme."

Jim

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But - then there would be nobody to clean all the walmarts!!

I'm not gonna shop there if it's dirty.

Yuk.

Jim

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Even if the workers agreed to zero take home pay the cost would still be too high because of social security, health benefits, excess government, etc.

I think you should all buy American instead of Wallys Market---but then its to late for that now!! Ray Mueller

Hmm. Hold it. I missed that the first time around.

I think 2a) should be, retired folks should also have their retirement benfits cut at the same rate as the pay cut in (2) above! Sounds fair to me.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Thought you were staying away in droves? There's one of those Wally stores maybe a mile from me. Never been there, never will.

michael

Sort of rational. He doesn't understand the game. We all are the spectators at a tennis match. It does not matter to the players who wins the match, as long as the spectators keep watching the ball going back and forth, back and forth, back and fo..........So long as the spectators are watching the game and rooting for their chosen side, the fat cats get fatter and stay on top.

michael

while the ceo's are taking a pay cut then our congressmen and senators shouldn't be able to vote themselves a raise anymore. how about they go to their constituents and ask them everytime they need a raise. I myself haven't had a raise in two years and the last one was .50 still making less than 17.00 but did I vote myself a raise this year.....not me but they did.

That's not realistic. Why should I pay exorbitant prices for goods that are, in some cases, inferior, simply to support those that are, in part, the designers, of the problem? You ask the American worker to work for a more realistic wage, and improve quality, and I'd be more than pleased to support my fellow countryman. Mean time, I'll be damned if I'll do so at the price of lowering my standard of living, which is far from extravagant, all the while giving him a false sense that he can continue going on strike for yet higher wages while those of us that have no prospects of a greater income continue to watch our quality of life slip backwards as we pay the price for his unearned raises. To hell with that idea.

Harold

Grin!!

That's because your retirement is some ethereal date in the future. Come back and talk to me when you're filing for your SS after having contributed (at gun point) for all your working years. I'm sure you might not want to get back that which you were promised. :-)

Harold

You'll only find this in the business pages of your paper, but they already are starting to put pressures on CEO incomes, of which salaries are just the tip of the iceberg. Even Microsoft is dropping stock options as a major source of income.

There is a big change going on in the boardrooms. Whether it will last, I don't know.

Oh oh..your gonna get Lennie the Union guy all riled up with that scab talk.

:)

Gunner

"The British attitude is to treat society like a game preserve where a certain percentage of the 'antelope' are expected to be eaten by the "lions". Christopher Morton

The first. In the long run. But you know what they say about the long run.

More likely still is 3), that wage disparities will only approach some minimum, but will never be eliminated. I anticipate a period in which the other factors of trade will be manipulated and maneuvered to overwhelm the effects of wage differences.

The reason I anticipate that is that US voters won't allow wages to drop very far before they elect a bunch of legislators who win their elections by promising us a heavy-handed management of trade. That's another reason I don't believe the WTO is long for this world.

Ed Huntress

Excellent points. There will be drops in pay mean time, though. Can't see how there can't be. We all know how slowly the wheels of government turn. Still, long term, aren't we just trying to put up the walls, making ourselves an island once again? Seems we'd be pricing ourselves out of the world market with those tactics, and that spells nothing but trouble for us, especially when you consider that we have discharged pretty much all the steel and machine tool industry. We'd likely have to start over in that regard, unless we find ourselves importing only specific things at reasonable prices, which is likely not to be the case. The real hard part is how our educational system has dismissed the need, at least up through grade 12. Sort of a vicious cycle.

Harold

outsourcing

considering

I couldn't have said it any better! All of it, too!

I fully agree with "Gotta keep looking to be better than the other guy."

That was the basis by which my one man home shop competed with major industry (aero-space) and was a resounding success for 16 years, when I chose to close the doors. It certainly wasn't because I had to.

Harold