lincoln vs. miller

Hey Gary, define lower wages. The average monthly income of Chinese workers stands only at around 80 US dollars, even less than the minimum income of two days for an American worker. This has incurred a drain of working posts in the US manufacturing industry. In the latest twelve months, cheap labors had earned China a trade surplus of 123 billion dollars to the United States, five times the figure as seen over ten years ago. Gary, do you make more than $80. per month? if so, are you "living large?" It's an unfair playing field. walt

Reply to
wallster
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True, i agree, since i live in NY, my taxes are ridicules. But the lower paying jobs down south (like furniture mfg) are going to China, sooner or later we'll all have to provide local services, work retail selling goods made elsewhere, or be a government worker (number 1 employer where I live). Too crowded in China, I'm not moving. ; ) walt

Reply to
wallster

Right. When I was growing up, a man could support a family on $3,000 a year (my father did). When I went out on my own, $3500 a year would keep food on the table, afford a decent apartment, and buy you a car. Today, 10 times that much is required, and that's a struggle. In many cases a two income family is required just to get by.

We drove this inflation ourselves, by demanding ever higher wages, by demanding ever greater social services, by demanding ever tighter regulation, by allowing our government to consistently spend more than it takes in, etc.

That sort of worked when other nations were devastated by war and weren't effective competition for us. But those days are over. We're going to have to get back to reality if we're going to keep any jobs here.

Gary

Reply to
Gary Coffman

"Gary Coffman" wrote

Whaaaaa? LBJ started it off by continuing JFK's concepts of rewarding people who didn't want to work. Social programs had to be paid for in tax dollars. Were we to lop off the needless, excessive, frivolous, and unwarranted social spending programs, we would have a lot more money in our pockets each year. That is, the working taxpayer would have more money.

Politicians are not going to do that, because they pander to minorities and groups who rely on the social programs. And the fat cats have grown used to government grants and 501c3 NPO status to line their pockets, promote their agendas, AND deliver back voters to the politicians.

Please do not include ME in your "We" statements.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

Problem is, everyone has their thing that the Feds 'pander' to.

Me, it's Federal Highway money. As long as FHWA is well fed, I'm happy.

The farmers up a couple of miles don't give two shakes about FHWA, they are all about farm subsidies.

Maybe it's community colleges, maybe it's the pension insurance people, everyone's got something. You know that saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure"? Well, one man's "needless, excessive, frivolous, and unwarranted social spending programs" are another man's necessities.

Reply to
Rich Jones

I have no problems with the things you mentioned. My general statement of

was an unsuccessful attempt to describe those which reward bad behavior, laziness, dishonesty, and immoral behavior. Without getting into a theme lenghted essay, I tried to do it in a shorter way.

Government and people need money. I just have this aversion to giving it away to people who do not want to work.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

""

you talkin' up government/congress?

Reply to
dogalone

I would like to respond to your post, but need more in the form of cogent thought, complete sentences, punctuation, and capitalization.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

That's not true, not everyone.

JTMcC.

Reply to
JTMcC

But welfare programs (other than Social Security) are a mere drop in the bucket, totally insufficient to explain the escalation of costs in our economy. There's no use straining at gnats while swallowing camels.

Gary

Reply to
Gary Coffman

I believe it was Everett Dirksen who said, "A few billion here, and a few billion there, and pretty soon, we are talking about some money." (may be paraphrased)

Reply to
SteveB

One of the Government groups that gets lots of flak is the NEA. To be fair here, I think most of the 'art' they support is crap, but the bottom line is interesting:

2004 budget: $112.5 Million.

That's not a few billion here, there, or anywhere.

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Reply to
Rich Jones

Well, no, since a billion is one thousand million. I understand the decimal system. Are you saying that it is ONLY $112.5 million? As in, not enough money to worry about? I know if I had it, I wouldn't worry about it. I wouldn't worry about ANYTHING!

Reply to
SteveB

Yes, it's a lot of money compared to what someone makes. It's a pretty small number compared to what the government spends on the whole. With the US population at about 290 million, that works out to 39 cents per person, per year. Pretty small compared to all of the money coming out of our checks..

Reply to
Rich Jones

Thirty nine cents here, thirty nine cents there. It adds up. And I would rather have it in MY pocket than funding some gawd awful "art" exhibit of a crucifix in urine. (Or something as equally "artistic".)

Reply to
SteveB

Don't worry, your 39 cents paid for new structural steel for the Metropolitan opera. Very little of the NEA funds the extreme art. But since showing off new structural steel won't get the right wingers all worked into a frenzy, we only hear about the very rare extremes.

Reply to
Stuart Wheaton

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