Again, you're a complete fucking moron. But you already knew that, didn't you?houndawg wrote:AZGrizFan wrote:
You're a **** complete moron. ANYONE can turn a bolt 5000 times a day. It takes more than a brainstem to be banker.
Oh, and here's a newsflash: About 98% of bankers DO make less than 35-40k.
More than a brainstem to be a banker? Then why do 98% make less than factory workers?
Well maybe they don't make less if you figure in the 3 martini lunch and getting to the golf course by 14:30.
AZGrizFan wrote:Again, you're a complete **** moron. But you already knew that, didn't you?houndawg wrote:
More than a brainstem to be a banker? Then why do 98% make less than factory workers?
Well maybe they don't make less if you figure in the 3 martini lunch and getting to the golf course by 14:30.
You didn't answer my question. houndawg wrote:AZGrizFan wrote:
Again, you're a complete **** moron. But you already knew that, didn't you?
Which reason is that?AZGrizFan wrote:houndawg wrote:
Same reason we pay garbage men more than policemen.
Agreed AZAZGrizFan wrote:
An American textile worker wants $25 an hour (plus 401k, company-paid health plan, 12 days sick leave, 2-3 weeks vacation and automatic raises every year) to make blouses, but then wants to pay $6.99 for that blouse
Because nobody grows up wanting to be a garbage man or a factory worker. So we gotta pay the stupid ones a little more to do the grunt work.houndawg wrote:Which reason is that?AZGrizFan wrote:
Same reason we pay garbage men more than policemen.
AZGrizFan wrote:Because nobody grows up wanting to be a garbage man or a factory worker. So we gotta pay the stupid ones a little more to do the grunt work.houndawg wrote:
Which reason is that?
Damn, Z, with witty ripostes like that, you'll make head teller in no time.
GannonFan wrote:Again, bemoaning free trade as the source of all of our ills is just short sighted. Sure, we could've said no to free trade and instead keep trade barriers up, protecting domestic industry from foreign competition. However, that would ignore the fact that the rest of the world decided otherwise. So while we'd be fine for a little while, eventually we'd be in an even much worse position - cheap goods would still be being made all over the world, except that we wouldn't be part of that. We'd have businesses in America that would be unable to sell their goods elsewhere due to our high costs and we would be unable to buy any of those cheap goods because of our high trade barriers. So how would our manufacturing base be any more well off? Heck, you could make the argument that by delaying the day of reckoning (when we realize we need to be more efficient in terms of everything related to producing goods if we're going to continue) that it would be even more difficult to ultimately compete against the rest of the world.
When it comes down to it, we need to compete, not coddle. Ignoring the fact that free trade dominates the rest of the world would be like a football team, at the time the forward pass came into vogue, deciding that we're going to just stick with the single wing. We'd be alright for awhile, but eventually we would be archaic and unable to win against other teams that innovated and improved. Innovate or perish, that's the reality of the world. We need to do things that other countries can't do. Crying about it doesn't make that reality go away.
"Naivete?!???" They really can't be that stooooooooopid, can they?GannonFan wrote:Just thank John Nash. It's simple, classic game theory. If they don't, the competition will, and then they lose (i.e. go out of business). To think that wouldn't and hasn't happened already is just naivete on display. ...dbackjon wrote:...you DO WANT us to turn into a **** third world country ... It is sickening that companies, in the name of a few more dollars, shut down here, move overseas where they can kill workers, pollute, etc, and then have CHEERLEADERS here.
GannonFan wrote:Blaming free trade for the decline of manufacturing is just a defeatist approach. Logically, that approach would assume that all we had to do to increase manufacturing in the US is to dismantle free trade and become protectionistic, i.e. put up tarriffs, restrict incoming goods, etc. Of course, taking that tact would be most likely even more disastrous as there are things such as retaliatory trade barriers and all of a sudden we would find ourselves on an island with nowhere to sell our goods except internally (the world outside would still keep making things cheaper and faster than us so why would people pay a huge premium for our trade-protected goods?), and if you really think that is a growth-friendly idea then you really are lost.... it's a tough world - get out there and start competing rather than moaning about free trade like it's some bogeyman.
Exactly so! The answer is to compete! This where Z, kalm, Ursus et al really hit the nail on the head! It is not really free trade or fair trade unless the rules are the same for all the participants. Republican and Democrat administrations alike have sold us down the river by making unbalanced trade agreements. But the answere is still to compete, just as GF proposes.Ursus A. Horribilis wrote:... [Perot/Limbaugh] ... was very against it and was saying pretty much what has happened. He said that Clinton & congress should get the hell away from NAFTA because if we aren't gonna try and bring the standards up around the world to compete fairly with us then US companies would be moving this **** off shore to be able to compete on the level that the Global companies enjoyed...You can't very well expect Corporations to take it upon themselves to not try and maximize their potential and work on the same playing field that competitors and demonize them when Clinton held the door for them? That would be like blaming the rat for eating the cheese you threw in front of him.
Good points are being made by everyone. There are numerous factors as to why we have lost manufacturing. But to go back to a couple of Gannon's earlier points, would the WTO even have formed without us? Everyone the world over desires our markets, and we should have some say in how they are shaped.native wrote:"Naivete?!???" They really can't be that stooooooooopid, can they?GannonFan wrote:
Just thank John Nash. It's simple, classic game theory. If they don't, the competition will, and then they lose (i.e. go out of business). To think that wouldn't and hasn't happened already is just naivete on display. ...
GannonFan wrote:Blaming free trade for the decline of manufacturing is just a defeatist approach. Logically, that approach would assume that all we had to do to increase manufacturing in the US is to dismantle free trade and become protectionistic, i.e. put up tarriffs, restrict incoming goods, etc. Of course, taking that tact would be most likely even more disastrous as there are things such as retaliatory trade barriers and all of a sudden we would find ourselves on an island with nowhere to sell our goods except internally (the world outside would still keep making things cheaper and faster than us so why would people pay a huge premium for our trade-protected goods?), and if you really think that is a growth-friendly idea then you really are lost.... it's a tough world - get out there and start competing rather than moaning about free trade like it's some bogeyman.
Kalm's protectionist and interventionist solutions only kmake things worse. Union labor has benefitted the few and destroyed millions of American jobs and businesses by provoking unjustified increases in production costs. Cap's socialism (and Cleets' implied socialism) doesn't make anything better, it just lowers everyone to the lowest possible common denominator.
This where Z, kalm, Ursus et al really hit the nail on the head! It is not really free trade or fair trade unless the rules are the same for all the participants. Republican and Democrat administrations alike have sold us down the river by making unbalanced trade agreements. But the answere is still to compete, just as GF proposes.Ursus A. Horribilis wrote:... [Perot/Limbaugh] ... was very against it and was saying pretty much what has happened. He said that Clinton & congress should get the hell away from NAFTA because if we aren't gonna try and bring the standards up around the world to compete fairly with us then US companies would be moving this **** off shore to be able to compete on the level that the Global companies enjoyed...You can't very well expect Corporations to take it upon themselves to not try and maximize their potential and work on the same playing field that competitors and demonize them when Clinton held the door for them? That would be like blaming the rat for eating the cheese you threw in front of him.
kalm wrote:....Good points are being made by everyone. There are numerous factors as to why we have lost manufacturing. But to go back to a couple of Gannon's earlier points, would the WTO even have formed without us? Everyone the world over desires our markets, and we should have some say in how they are shaped.
And what about the values, or lack there of, in negotiating trade deals with a communist dictatorship or other totalitarian regimes that piss on their own people and screw the environment? Cheap foreign products we don't need are really that important? We're really that powerless at the hands of multinational corporations?
Why is it that when you agree with me I feel like I've said something wrong?native wrote:kalm wrote:....Good points are being made by everyone. There are numerous factors as to why we have lost manufacturing. But to go back to a couple of Gannon's earlier points, would the WTO even have formed without us? Everyone the world over desires our markets, and we should have some say in how they are shaped.
And what about the values, or lack there of, in negotiating trade deals with a communist dictatorship or other totalitarian regimes that piss on their own people and screw the environment? Cheap foreign products we don't need are really that important? We're really that powerless at the hands of multinational corporations?
It's because you lack conviction in what you believe and use what others believe to define your views.kalm wrote:Why is it that when you agree with me I feel like I've said something wrong?native wrote:
Why can't we all give credit where credit is due?kalm wrote: ... Why is it that when you agree with me I feel like I've said something wrong?
That was my little way of paying Native back for a compliment which also happens to be what I take your post as.Ursus A. Horribilis wrote:It's because you lack conviction in what you believe and use what others believe to define your views.kalm wrote:
Why is it that when you agree with me I feel like I've said something wrong?
Sorry Kalm, you left that one a little wide open brother.
Those are will hidden compliments on both of our parts.kalm wrote:That was my little way of paying Native back for a compliment which also happens to be what I take your post as.Ursus A. Horribilis wrote: It's because you lack conviction in what you believe and use what others believe to define your views.
Sorry Kalm, you left that one a little wide open brother.
kalm wrote:That was my little way of paying Native back for a compliment which also happens to be what I take your post as.Ursus A. Horribilis wrote: It's because you lack conviction in what you believe and use what others believe to define your views.
Sorry Kalm, you left that one a little wide open brother.
You and I have settled a bit into a style of bickering, hidden jabs and compliments reminiscent of an old married couple, kalm... You do realize that Ronald Reagan was pillored by left and right alike for his very same criticism of both Democrat and Republican Presidents? He was highly critical of both Nixon's and Ford's appeasement of the Soviets and refused to support Ford in 1976 for this very reason!kalm wrote: ...And what about the values, or lack there of, in negotiating trade deals with a communist dictatorship or other totalitarian regimes that piss on their own people and screw the environment? ...
native wrote:You do realize that Ronald Reagan was pillored by left and right alike for his very same criticism of both Democrat and Republican Presidents? He was highly critical of both Nixon's and Ford's appeasement of the Soviets and refused to support Ford in 1976 for this very reason!kalm wrote: ...And what about the values, or lack there of, in negotiating trade deals with a communist dictatorship or other totalitarian regimes that piss on their own people and screw the environment? ...
I don't know if the Conks can do anything to reverse to Clinton's work if that's where we're gonna go back to now that you joined the fray shit slinger.Cap'n Cat wrote:Read an article today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today. Minnesota has lost 87,000 manufacturing jobs since 2001. St. Paul Ford plant is closing for good in early 2011. Economics, they're not close to parts suppliers and they have no in-plant metal stamping. I can understand Ford's dilemma, it's all economics. 950 people (down from 2500) work there making good wages.
Conks, what are we gonna do about that?
Of course I realize that. Why else do you think I'd throw that bone?native wrote:You do realize that Ronald Reagan was pillored by left and right alike for his very same criticism of both Democrat and Republican Presidents? He was highly critical of both Nixon's and Ford's appeasement of the Soviets and refused to support Ford in 1976 for this very reason!kalm wrote: ...And what about the values, or lack there of, in negotiating trade deals with a communist dictatorship or other totalitarian regimes that piss on their own people and screw the environment? ...
