08-08-2008, 04:56 PM
Quote:Hi,
Man, I hate that site. I'm fully capable of clicking 'next' when I want to see the next page. I don't need some arrogant software to do it for me.
Hahaha, indeed, it was interesting though.
Quote:As to the story; yeah, so what? We've got leaders who think locally in a global economy. Is there any surprise we can't compete? And the average American drives a Toyota but gets a good feeling from his 'Buy American' bumper sticker. Patriotism is OK, as long as it doesn't cost anything.
We pissed away our heavy industries in the '60s and '70s. Didn't learn a damned thing from that. We lost our light industries gradually over the second half of the last century. Didn't learn anything from that, either. We've been shipping a lot of our commercial jobs overseas. Not learning much from that as far as I can tell.
As long as we have trade agreements in place that allows countries that rape the environment and exploit their workers to compete with the rules bound American industries, for that long we'll continue to lose jobs. But any politician that tries to fix the problem will get crucified because he'll cost us some of our precious money. And that, in the final analysis, appears to be all that matters to the average twenty-first century American.
--Pete
Well this is inherent to capitalism. There is no way you can get cheap things that are made at home in a rich nation. Rich nations that want to stay innovative need to invest a lot of money, and usually have a high tax rate (like in Sweden) or get money in another way (Switzerland). If you want to keep your big multinationals profitable you need to allow them to close their factories and let them reopen them in Asia or so.
I don't see who is there (personally) to blame for 'pissing away' your heavy industries.
Your comment about 'countries that rape the environment and exploit their workers' I don't really understand. First when countries (say china) gets richer they will change their workers and environment laws and second, the difference in salary is so huge that the don't have to put in effort to stay competitive.