worst place to be

[EZLivin]

The thing I disagree with is the tendency to chalk it all up to deliberate conspiracies. Yes, people do deliberately unethical things in the cause of their own advantage.

But human beings have a psychological bias towards trying to personalize forces. The more vague and unknowable, the more we try to put a face to it. IT's worth trying to be skeptical towards this bias.

Yes. You are right. On one hand there are foolish people who write off "conspiracies" as non-existent, yet human history is a drama of uncountable conspiracies. Yet on the other hand there are those who see conspiracies as the cause of everything; they don't see there are larger forces at work.

 

[Thebastidge]

Solving the Long-Term Jobs Problem — The American Magazine

 

[Gunner3456]

Solving the Long-Term Jobs Problem — The American Magazine

Interesting article. The problem with it is that the author doesn't discuss where wealth comes from. A nation can't afford education or healthcare (nor can individuals afford them) unless it first produces the money to pay for them.

Wealth is created by the harvesting of crops, the harvesting of forests, the drilling for oil, the mining for steel, removing coal from the ground and converting it to electricity, the harvesting and converting of minerals into cement, etc. etc., and value-added activities such a converting the raw steel into a new car or the standing tree into a new house.

The clear fact that we have lost 2/3 of our manufacturing jobs is there, but the author doesn't address how many of them have gone overseas, and what we should be doing about that, in his opinion. He blames it all on productivity of our US manufacturers and I hope we all know that's not the whole story.

We will never recover to what we were until we decide we must produce our own wealth. An example would be to drill for as much oil as we can and build some new refineries. That would keep a lot of our money which is now sent to other countries at home, and create a lot of really good blue collar and engineering, management etc. jobs. We could also go on a big push to use our natural gases which would create new wealth, keep our money home, and create jobs.

We don't have a level playing field with out "trading partners." China fills Walmart and makes most of our shoes and clothing etc., but they won't allow many of our products into their country. If they do, in many cases they charge a tariff. As a result we have GM and John Deere and even Caterpillar manufacturing in China. More than 1/2 of our prescription drugs are made in India. Go into a Harley Davidson dealership just for fun. You'll find that the expensive Harley boots are made in China and the expensive Harley jackets and vests are made in Pakistan.

Those are US jobs and wealth creation, gone for good. For good unless we wake up.

 

[Father of four]

Interesting article. The problem with it is that the author doesn't discuss where wealth comes from. A nation can't afford education or healthcare (nor can individuals afford them) unless it first produces the money to pay for them.

Wealth is created by the harvesting of crops, the harvesting of forests, the drilling for oil, the mining for steel, removing coal from the ground and converting it to electricity, the harvesting and converting of minerals into cement, etc. etc., and value-added activities such a converting the raw steel into a new car or the standing tree into a new house.

The clear fact that we have lost 2/3 of our manufacturing jobs is there, but the author doesn't address how many of them have gone overseas, and what we should be doing about that, in his opinion. He blames it all on productivity of our US manufacturers and I hope we all know that's not the whole story.

We will never recover to what we were until we decide we must produce our own wealth. An example would be to drill for as much oil as we can and build some new refineries. That would keep a lot of our money which is now sent to other countries at home, and create a lot of really good blue collar and engineering, management etc. jobs. We could also go on a big push to use our natural gases which would create new wealth, keep our money home, and create jobs.

We don't have a level playing field with out "trading partners." China fills Walmart and makes most of our shoes and clothing etc., but they won't allow many of our products into their country. If they do, in many cases they charge a tariff. As a result we have GM and John Deere and even Caterpillar manufacturing in China. More than 1/2 of our prescription drugs are made in India. Go into a Harley Davidson dealership just for fun. You'll find that the expensive Harley boots are made in China and the expensive Harley jackets and vests are made in Pakistan.

Those are US jobs and wealth creation, gone for good. For good unless we wake up.

Its the rules and regulations that are in place that hurts this great Country. Not all of them but many.

With the many rules and regulations in place here in Oregon a person like myself cannot legally do remodeling, construction or repair work for a customer/person/relative without a CCB #. In Oregon a person will be told to legally preform work for another person for a wage or fee has to go to school, or takes a class, pay a fee for the class, pay a fee for a test, register a business name, pay a fee for the business license, pay to become bonded and pay for business insurance. Then a person would have to do work with a customer in a certain way that is laid out in government outlines.

Some other States require a person to register a business name and then pay a small license fee. That's all.

A person would have to move from Oregon to a different State that wants less control.

Until the people who work in OUR government relax/remove/deregulate a bunch of the rules and regulations then things are not going to improve.

 

[Gunner3456]

Its the rules and regulations that are in place that hurts this great Country. Not all of them but many.

With the many rules and regulations in place here in Oregon a person like myself cannot legally do remodeling, construction or repair work for a customer/person/relative without a CCB #. In Oregon a person will be told to legally preform work for another person for a wage or fee has to go to school, or takes a class, pay a fee for the class, pay a fee for a test, register a business name, pay a fee for the business license, pay to become bonded and pay for business insurance. Then a person would have to do work with a customer in a certain way that is laid out in government outlines.

Some other States require a person to register a business name and then pay a small license fee. That's all.

A person would have to move from Oregon to a different State that wants less control.

Until the people who work in OUR government relax/remove/deregulate a bunch of the rules and regulations then things are not going to improve.

You are so right. Now, guess who sits on the Contractors' Board and makes these rules? Existing contractors who have established good business and who don't want you in. Guess who lobbies for these laws? Right again.

The same is true of the Real Estate Commission.

Please remember taxes. Businesses will move, taking jobs with them, either from state to state or from the US to other countries when taxes are too high.

Then there are unions. There are union states and "right to work" states. Look at where all of the foreign car manufacturers who have located plants in the US have chosen to locate? You guessed it. Toyota, Honda, Mercedes... In the meantime, Detroit is a ghost town while the big 3 keep opening new plants in foreign countries.

 

[Father of four]

The worst place to be could become America if we aren't careful.

Good post Gunner.

 

[Gunner3456]

The worst place to be could become America if we aren't careful.

I don't believe it will ever be the same again as what I grew up with.

 

[Father of four]

More jobs going...I wonder why? Cant they do business from separate countries?

<broken link removed>

 

[Father of four]

Reader comment.

migh wrote: This company made 5 billion dollars in the US and paid no taxes and still are moving to China.

The CEO of GE, Jeff Immelt is on Obama's economic team, maybe he should explain to the president why he's doing this, love to be a fly on the wall.

7/26/2011 6:39 AM EDT

 

[Equinox]

The place I would least want to be anywhere near is areas with large amounts of people on social assistance (welfare eg.). When the free ride suddenly stops for the people abusing the system it will be chaos. Drug dealers are more dependant than anyone on those checks coming in every month, when that money isn't coming in they will have to seek alternative ways of making money. The drug users will be just as dangerous, coming down off of drugs, and completely out of their mind willing to do anything to get another fix.

 

[Grunwald]

Interesting article. The problem with it is that the author doesn't discuss where wealth comes from. A nation can't afford education or healthcare (nor can individuals afford them) unless it first produces the money to pay for them.

Wealth is created by the harvesting of crops, the harvesting of forests, the drilling for oil, the mining for steel, removing coal from the ground and converting it to electricity, the harvesting and converting of minerals into cement, etc. etc., and value-added activities such a converting the raw steel into a new car or the standing tree into a new house.

The clear fact that we have lost 2/3 of our manufacturing jobs is there, but the author doesn't address how many of them have gone overseas, and what we should be doing about that, in his opinion. He blames it all on productivity of our US manufacturers and I hope we all know that's not the whole story.

We will never recover to what we were until we decide we must produce our own wealth. An example would be to drill for as much oil as we can and build some new refineries. That would keep a lot of our money which is now sent to other countries at home, and create a lot of really good blue collar and engineering, management etc. jobs. We could also go on a big push to use our natural gases which would create new wealth, keep our money home, and create jobs.

We don't have a level playing field with out "trading partners." China fills Walmart and makes most of our shoes and clothing etc., but they won't allow many of our products into their country. If they do, in many cases they charge a tariff. As a result we have GM and John Deere and even Caterpillar manufacturing in China. More than 1/2 of our prescription drugs are made in India. Go into a Harley Davidson dealership just for fun. You'll find that the expensive Harley boots are made in China and the expensive Harley jackets and vests are made in Pakistan.

Those are US jobs and wealth creation, gone for good. For good unless we wake up.

Some day in the future there will be books written about the fall of the US. The above will certainly be some of the prominent reasons given. I remember such discussions in my college history classes when covering Roman Empire, which at its zenith controlled most of Europe and seemed to be so undefeatable that it would last for eternity. Like the US, Rome too was a one point in time a republic

 

[MikeE]

Here is an excellent short article I took from John Robb's Global Guerrillas website.

JOURNAL: Central Planning and The Fall of the US Empire - Global Guerrillas

John Robb, if you don't know about him, is a former USAF pilot, counter terrorism expert, author of numerous articles on open source warfare. He has expanded his interests to the study of resilient systems, technology and community. An all-round genius type and well deserving a read. Here's his bio:

John Robb