Excellant Ltr-to-the-Editor

[stoney]

I loved this letter today in the O.D.; it was just dripping with the sarcasm I am so fond of...

Astute political observers helped set us straight
I want to thank the Tea Party folks who regularly write to this page for alerting me to the Obama/Reid/Pelosi socialist take over of our country. Since I had learned in economics that socialists typically redistributed wealth downward, I naively assumed we were safe from the red menace, as the last 30 years have seen a steady shift of wealth in America away from working and poor people to the richest few. That combined with historically low tax rates for the rich sure had me fooled.

I also want to thank them for informing me it’s high taxes that have driven our jobs overseas. I foolishly thought American corporations had moved their plants to where people were willing to work for seventy cents an hour and didn’t whine about safety, benefits, overtime pay and vacations like their wimpy American counterparts. And, I stupidly assumed that our industrialists were trying to avoid environmental protections and other weird stuff like our child-labor laws. Since our corporate taxes are at an historic low point, I never suspected the commies were forcing businesses to move.

Thanks to the Tea Party, it will be a hot day at the North Pole before those pinkos use their deceptive facts to fool me again with rubbish like their global-warming hoax. It’s amazing how they’ve managed to bribe just nearly every reputable scientist on earth to go along with them on that one, especially considering all that oil money on the other side. Makes you wonder.

ORIN DOMENICO
Utica

[Deleted]

Well at least President Obama is bringing thousands of jobs to America through India.

[Clipper]

That idea has me stumped. What kind of jobs? Seriously, most of our customer service call centers are over there. What sort of jobs are we going to gain through an agreement with India? Will APAC be answering customer service calls for an Indian curry powder manufacturer?

50,000 jobs seems like a rather large and optimistic figure. Hopefully it happens and the jobs are of a nature that the pay is decent and the jobs secure and long term. I will believe it when I see it.

[stoney]

I don't know what Alan means either.

If any jobs are outsourced, it's the company's decision (as the letter writer pointed out), not the president's.

[Clipper]

I listened to the president speak of those jobs and those numbers. I know we have outsourced so much of our customer service call center business to India and other places, I simply wonder what the heck they might have to actually outsource to the USA.

I am really ignorant of economics, but it seems to me that the answer to the outsourcing problem is to make it less desirable and more expensive to outsource to offshore places and more desirable and less expensive to keep the jobs here in the US.

If there is actually a product or service that India is in dire need of, that can be manufactured or performed here and that will create those numbers in increased jobs I would be thrilled. I will be interested to see what the real deal is with that agreement, what jobs will actually be created, and how the American people will benefit from the agreement.

As far as the editorial, I suppose that a liberal would find it quite witty and humorous. I guess I am not a liberal because I found it just politically slanted silliness similar to much of the teaparty rambling and other politically related crap that only the OD would even bother to print.
I guess that is what serves as entertainment in today's world.

[Clipper]

www.uticaod.com/opinions/letters/x412541597/Your-views-letters-to-the-editor

The comments on the editorial are as interesting as the editorial itself. Simply the normal left and the right duking it out in the press once again.

[clarencebunsen]

I've been the CEO of a US based manufacturing company. We didn't out source any jobs, we just died quietly and painfully through the entire decade of the 90's as our customer base(computer & telecommunicatiions manufacturing companies) went out of business and were replaced by Asian manufacturing companies.

Previous to that I was a design engineer for a US based company which among other things made heads for floppy disk drives. Our chief competito was a company named Tandon founded by an Indian-born American engineer. When he started his own company he set up his manufacturing plant at "home" and ate our lunch. I was esentially the last engineer standing in the floppy disk division when our company sold its technology to an Asian company and gave me the task of training their engineers.

A couple years later I left that company. By that time not just heads but the manufacture of complete drives had moved to off shore companies. (Did you know that there was a company in Rochester, Sykes Datatronics, which made disk drives? I made a sales call on them around 1980, my first visit to NY.)

What's the secret to manufacturing successfully in NY? I don't know. I've demonstrated that by twice going out of business here. (The second time took me almost 10 years to pay off the debts, there won't be a third attempt.) I'm pretty sure however that it doesn't involve calling people greedy.

I would ask that anyone who considers greed to be a factor to inventory their closets and report how many Red Wing shoes they own.

[clarencebunsen]

I believe Alan's reference was to a Presidential announcement of a purchase order by the Indian military for a quantity of Boeing jets.

[Clipper]

That's great CB. Maybe I read it wrong, but do ya think that the order for jets will create 50,000 new jobs? That figure seems a little optimistic, although I would be overjoyed if it were accurate.

I have to laugh at the question as to how many pairs of Red Wing shoes a person has in their closet. Surprisingly enough I have TWO pairs. One pair of black oxford style work shoes and one pair of ankle high work boots. I drove for Monson Brothers trucking out of Duluth MN for a short time and they had a yard in Red Wing. I actually bought the shoes at a factory store right there in Red Wing Mn. They are quality shoes, and the only reason they were not worn out years ago is that when I drove a truck I wore western boots most of the time and in later years I was in management and wore dress shoes to work. Over the years I still wear the red wing work boots now and again for such chores as tilling in the garden or working in the yard. They wear like iron and are still in great shape, haha.( the good condition might also be due to the fact that I SELDOM DO ANY WORK! ROFL)

[bobbbiez]

Yep, the latter seems more believable. ;D

[Clipper]

It's called RETIREMENT BZ, but I have to admit that sometimes find more work to do since I retired than I did when I worked a 40 hour week. LOL


Just a footnote for CB. I sympathize with you Clarence. When the base closed I started my own business which I was forced to shut down when I broke my back. I too know the heartache and disappointment as well as the hardship of paying for it. It took me eight years to pay everything off that I owed on the business, but at least I was not forced to declare bankruptcy or screw anyone out of their money. The last act in closing out that chapter of my life was when I sold approximately $28,000 worth of floor maintenance and carpet cleaning equipment for $5000 not long before we moved here.

[clarencebunsen]

I found a better listing of the announced trade deals.

blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/11/06/white-house-confirms-india-deals/

The one I had seen earlier was for the C-17s. Further down on the list is one for a factory in India to assemble Harleys from US made parts. That should get some riders talking.

I'm not sure what it means when it says that deal "A" will support x number of jobs.

[bobbbiez]

Nov 9, 2010 13:39:39 GMT -5 Clipper said:

It's called RETIREMENT BZ, but I have to admit that sometimes find more work to do since I retired than I did when I worked a 40 hour week. LOL

That's because everyone thinks since you're "retired" you have nothing to do. How well I know.

[dgriffin]

Nov 9, 2010 8:56:22 GMT -5 @stoney said:

I loved this letter today in the O.D.; it was just dripping with the sarcasm I am so fond of...

Astute political observers helped set us straight
I want to thank the Tea Party folks who regularly write to this page for alerting me to the Obama/Reid/Pelosi socialist take over of our country. Since I had learned ............

ORIN DOMENICO
Utica

Nothing against Orin, but I can say from personal experience that just because one can write doesn't mean he can think, too.

[stoney]

And vice versa, Dave..