Excellant Ltr-to-the-Editor

[dgriffin]

I was indeed referring to myself.

[bobbbiez]

Awwww Dave, don't be so hard on yourself.

Besides when someone writes as well as you do, one has to have a damn good idea of the thinking process.

[stoney]

I certainly was not referring to you, Dave.

[Ralph]

We’ve been shot in the foot, and if one revisits history for a while one will find the guilty party…..

…….us! We shot ourselves in the foot.

Now before you all poo-poo that statement, think about it for a bit…….

We all thought we were the greatest; we were the greatest, we got paid the most because we made the best, we had the biggest bestest unions that told us that was so.

So we charged more because we were so great. And because we were so great we could take more time doing it right, get more benefits, more vacation, more & better government.
So we charged MORE, taxed MORE, paid MORE, and had no regard to where we were going.

Guess what……………..we’re there now.

Sucks don’t it?

And since we are unwilling to back down....or in reality, unable to back down, others are willing to pick up the slack.
And business' are willing to capitalize on that by moving their operations/plants/facilities to where there are humbler and hungrier folks willing to do it for less.

The real thing that folks are mad about is that we built the very machine that is eating us alive.

[clarencebunsen]

Here is a sobering assessment.

A plan offered by the leaders of President Barack Obama’s commission to reduce the federal deficit might work. It just won’t happen.
www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-10/deficit-reduction-panel-s-plan-would-seek-to-cut-social-security-medicare.html

Deficit Panel's Leaders Push Cuts
Proposal to Save $3.8 Trillion Targets Medicare, Pentagon, Middle-Class Tax Breaks.
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703805004575606643067587042.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

[dgriffin]

Nov 11, 2010 3:10:06 GMT -5 Ralph said:

We’ve been shot in the foot, and if one revisits history for a while one will find the guilty party…..

…….us! We shot ourselves in the foot.


So we charged MORE, taxed MORE, paid MORE, and had no regard to where we were going.

Guess what……………..we’re there now.

Sucks don’t it?

And since we are unwilling to back down....or in reality, unable to back down, others are willing to pick up the slack.
And business' are willing to capitalize on that by moving their operations/plants/facilities to where there are humbler and hungrier folks willing to do it for less.

The real thing that folks are mad about is that we built the very machine that is eating us alive.

That's true, I suppose, but I also think that any system ... economic or otherwise ... eventually winds down, passes into history, etc.
After all, we needed more and more customers. So we helped the undeveloped world to develop. Our customers eventually became our competitors, but with their different political systems and attitudes. It's possible our competitors will become our owners (and to some extent they are now.)

Before the atomic age, we had a simple solution for the above problem. Bomb the p*ss out of 'em. Drive them back to the stone age and make 'em start all over again. But our rulers no longer will chance that. Thank God, I think. But others will say that lack of resolve will get us bombed out of existence.

So it goes. (Thanks, Kurt Vonnegut.)

[Swimmy]

Nov 9, 2010 11:04:23 GMT -5 @stoney said:

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.

Actually, it was the government's decision to encourage outsourcing of jobs in the 70s at the voters' request. The American public wanted a break from all the work available and asked Cognress to help send some of the work elsewhere. Congress obliged. Initially, corporations and business refused. But through lucrative tax incentives, businesses began to outsource some of the work. It took awhile, but eventually, businesses learned that it was far cheaper to pay foreigners in their native lands to do the work and import it back here for sale. And, oddly enough, no one has proposed tax incentives for corporations to return those jobs. I'm sure businesses are partly to blame, but there is also the other nations who have prospered from the move, and the notion that the jobs now outsourced are not the kinds of jobs Americans would be willing to do again (because they're considered below Americans).

[Clipper]

Wow Swimmy, it is great to see you back making a comment. Hope you find the time soon to join in more often as you used to do. We missed ya buddy.

[Swimmy]

Hey, clipper! Yeah, between work, my idiotic cats, and more work, I have had little time for much else. I find it easier to just sit in front of the idiot box and watch 24 reruns. Anywhooo, I figured I should check in here and see how things are. I missed you guys too

[Clipper]

Well, we are still here. Some of the names have changed and we have gained a lot of members in conjunction with the musicians thread, but many of the old members from the beginning of the forum are still here. Bobbbiez still busts my chops daily, and I still stir the pot and fire up the liberals when I get a chance. (I usually take a beating as a result), Frank is still out there, but busy like you are and reads now and again, but hasn't posted in a while. Dave, Ralph, Jon Hynes, Denise and others would love to see ya come back and contribute. Give us a shot now and then. The forum HAS to be better than reruns for God's sake. LOL

Be well my friend. God bless.

[stoney]

Thanks, Swimmy! Isn't it the company's decision now, though?

Now, let's get back to poking one another... ;D

[Ralph]

Dave and Swimmy are both right, it takes time for all this to happen and over the course of time everything we have all mentioned has happened………the world has moved on.

Other countries became developed and learned their respective worth. Companies here in the US learned it was cheaper and the “rules” that have been forced upon them here, don’t apply as stringently there (if at all).
And on and on and on ad nauseatum.

I suppose at some time we will truly become a “world economy”, but until then the growing pains will be long and substantial.

[Swimmy]

Nov 12, 2010 10:19:55 GMT -5 @stoney said:

Thanks, Swimmy! Isn't it the company's decision now, though?

Now, let's get back to poking one another... ;D

In the end, I think it was always the company's decision based on a cost-benefit analysis. Surely if Congress wanted to, they could give complete tax breaks to corporations and have them return jobs here.

Still waiting for you to poke me back

[stoney]

I'm poking, I'm poking!!!

~~Stoney, who practices Safe Poking.

[Clipper]

As long as your "poker" is sterile and clean Stoney, Poke away. Just make sure you have extra batteries so ya don't go dead "mid-poke".