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Ask someone German because I admit I don't know. As ridiculous as it sounds, however, forcing companies to pay people a mandated wage that may, in fact, be higher than other places in the world is exactly what must happen if America is to survive intact. I don't think the problem is in keeping the companies in America. They clearly like being here. The problem is they don't like paying Americans a living wage and why would they when they can pay Chinese workers wages that are acceptable in Chna (barely) but wouldn't even pay for the bus fare to get to the factory in the U.S. Also the problem is getting Americans to believe that the factory or company that cannot pay them the minimum wage in America can pay the CEO many millions (tens of millions) a year. If GM was leaving America and taking 100,000 jobs with them there would be reason to say good riddance: NEXT! That GM chooses to stay in America but move 100,000 jobs to China is a worse scenario and should make you mad as heck but you actually defend their right to do so and suggest that the U.S reward them for it by cutting their corporate tax rate to 0%. And you call us *******s... ...
H
Are you sure ? ask Warren Buffet (The left's favorite Billionaire) why his companies that used to build furniture in North Carolina but now buys furniture made in China but is moving to Vietnam because China is getting too expensive.The end result is American consumers cost of living is lowered by a third on said piece of furniture.
I have never owned a foreign rig, always supported a American made vehicles, but when I have to pay $1200 every time a buy a vehicle,to pay for a union members health care, when I cant afford it for my own family something is wrong! I would never own a *** bike, but when a Harley costs twice what a Honda does, there is something wrong. Look the bottom line is cost of doing business, and when there is such an extreme difference between here and else where, companies are going to move else where , we have miles of room to make this country much more friendly toward business without lowering our standard of living to that of China's, The real problem is those of you on the left who despise those who in your mind who are making too much, and the government is not getting enough of it. Your Greed and envy, blind you to the truth. Look we could spend days back forth , the bottom line is I am a free market Conservative who understands small business and the real working man. You are a big government liberal who has bought into the whole us vs them class warfare , divisive union bullsh*t . You have got to look around the world and look at these historically socialist countries and see they are moving away from it , our corporations are moving there, all the while you and your comrades seem to think that is the only solution for our country.
What you are is the entity known as silas777. I doubt you speak for a majority of Republicans. We have ample evidence to the contrary of your opinions and no way at all of verifying the veracity of your statements as to your personal color-blindness. You also disingenuously spin the prevailing wisdom of race playing a part in Obama hatred. I must insist again that you on the right read the leftist ravings that have appeared in this thread again with as much objectivity as you can muster. The Republican base was disaffected by the looming trainwreck of the 2008 election. The richest 1% had no complaints about how Cheney/Bush ran their administration. But it had run its course. A three year old could have told you that winds of change were set to blow. So the rich pulled out of the economy and hunkered down. What we are experiencing is America without the 1% on board and fully invested.
Not even the most rabidly far right Republican politician has been willing or able to completely eliminate any and all social welfare programs. An America bereft of Social Security, Term Limited Welfare, Food Stamps, WIC, HUD, Sallie Mae, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac... ... I didn't see that under Reagan or either Bush... why should Obama be forced to usher in a new age of austerity to appease middle class white Americans who ignorantly believe that social welfare programs only benefit racial minorities? And, you don't have to be Republican to hate government or taxes.
I don't know any Democrats/Liberals that actually like taxes or big government, but is it mature to expect everything to run somehow on nothing? Is it reasonable to imagine not paying ANY taxes at all and having NO government oversight, except to organize soldiers and give them targets? There have been governments of varying intrusiveness since there has been civilization. There is worse than the present administration. You aren't used to it yet? The fault then is not with government. A spoiled, wannabee subset of America AKA as Tea Bags need to grow up.
H
You are correct I may not speak for a majority of republicans, I am far to the right of most, as far as my color blindness I dont really give a rats ass what you THINK, like you said, I have thousands of posts that speak for themselves, you how ever, being one that sees color and race before anything else are incapable of understanding what colorblindness really means.
Are you sure ? ask Warren Buffet (The left's favorite Billionaire) why his companies that used to build furniture in North Carolina but now buys furniture made in China but is moving to Vietnam because China is getting too expensive.The end result is American consumers cost of living is lowered by a third on said piece of furniture.
I have never owned a foreign rig, always supported a American made vehicles, but when I have to pay $1200 every time a buy a vehicle,to pay for a union members health care, when I cant afford it for my own family something is wrong! I would never own a *** bike, but when a Harley costs twice what a Honda does, there is something wrong. Look the bottom line is cost of doing business, and when there is such an extreme difference between here and else where, companies are going to move else where , we have miles of room to make this country much more friendly toward business without lowering our standard of living to that of China's, The real problem is those of you on the left who despise those who in your mind who are making too much, and the government is not getting enough of it. Your Greed and envy, blind you to the truth. Look we could spend days back forth , the bottom line is I am a free market Conservative who understands small business and the real working man. You are a big government liberal who has bought into the whole us vs them class warfare , divisive union bullsh*t . You have got to look around the world and look at these historically socialist countries and see they are moving away from it , our corporations are moving there, all the while you and your comrades seem to think that is the only solution for our country.
What? Is there any cogence in that paragraph? Any coherence? What are you saying? Best I can deduce, with effort... too much effort, is you believe the system can work the way it is. Why isn't it then? You believe that American stuff costs too much because American Unions hold corporations feet to the fire and demand outrageous salaries. Of course they have no choice but to pass this on to the consumer... you. You say it doesn't have to be this way. American Unions can get lost and allow labor costs to fall to fair market value so you won't have any moral dilemma's when shopping for 'stuff'. Really? Is there any competition possible with slave labor? When young chinese girls are kidnapped and chained to textile milling machines with a potty next to them and forced to work in order to keep their parents from being executed is there any way that even 1/4 minimum wage can touch that?
Since you want your 'stuff cheap, you want American workers to bend over and allow themselves to be chained to their machines and paid whatever management deems fair. It doesn't bother you that company earnings are though the roof yet their prices keep rising. The problem is you. Half the 'stuff' you have you probably don't need. A laborer is worthy of his hire. The workers that started work at noon got the same wage as the workers that started at sunup. It was and is the landowners privilege to pay more than the going rate to some as long as none are paid less than what is fair. Once upon a time a company like Microsoft would have to pay higher salaries than some no name startup because they were Microsoft. Now they recruit abroad for H1B foreign talent and pit American engineers against Indian ones that paid 1/10th the cost for their education. A copy of Windows is going to set you back ~$200. Why? Because if you don't have Windows your computer is only good for running Linux... ...!
Where are we failing to connect, silas? Why is it so hard for you and other righties to get the essential wrongness of your belief? I need to know because I feel like I have failed somehow. How is it possible that we can both view the complete cut and run that the 1% are making from the rest of us but you see it as the middle class failing to follow reverently and we see it as time to drag them kicking and screaming back to the table for an accounting? You seem like a man with answers. Help me help you. This is important. Lives depend on it.
A last point to ponder:360 billionaires and a few hundred multi-multi-millionaires... a thousand people more or less have more wealth than the entire rest of the country combined. We're talking trillions here. What's it doing? Not much. Not for America anyway. Most of it is stashed or invested far from the greedy clutches of the IRS. How would you feel if you knew your parents had peeled the paint off the Powerball jackpot of the century? Pretty good right. Until you and your little brother wake up one morning at Uncle Floyd and Aunt Emma's. Across town. In the trailer park. Where's mom and dad??!! [shrug] Gone. Gone?? Just gone??!! Well did they leave any money??
You have got to look around the world and look at these historically socialist countries and see they are moving away from it , our corporations are moving there, all the while you and your comrades seem to think that is the only solution for our country.
Socialist countries? Where? Sweden? Denmark? Moving away from social welfare? Surely not! And no, U.S. corporations are definitely not moving manufacturing equipment to Scandinavian Socialist Utopias like Finland or Norway. The Fascist regimes of China, Vietnam and other emerging dictatorships are where peoples lives are worth 60 cents a day to an employer. Globalization only makes sense to the 1% of people who can straddle economic differentials and shift production to the low pressure economy and pay them with the proceeds of the high pressure economy. Nutz to that. In the immortal words of Spock: "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one". Words to inspire.
What? Is there any cogence in that paragraph? Any coherence? What are you saying? Best I can deduce, with effort... too much effort, is you believe the system can work the way it is. Why isn't it then? You believe that American stuff costs too much because American Unions hold corporations feet to the fire and demand outrageous salaries. Of course they have no choice but to pass this on to the consumer... you. You say it doesn't have to be this way. American Unions can get lost and allow labor costs to fall to fair market value so you won't have any moral dilemma's when shopping for 'stuff'. Really? Is there any competition possible with slave labor? When young chinese girls are kidnapped and chained to textile milling machines with a potty next to them and forced to work in order to keep their parents from being executed is there any way that even 1/4 minimum wage can touch that?
Since you want your 'stuff cheap, you want American workers to bend over and allow themselves to be chained to their machines and paid whatever management deems fair. It doesn't bother you that company earnings are though the roof yet their prices keep rising. The problem is you. Half the 'stuff' you have you probably don't need. A laborer is worthy of his hire. The workers that started work at noon got the same wage as the workers that started at sunup. It was and is the landowners privilege to pay more than the going rate to some as long as none are paid less than what is fair. Once upon a time a company like Microsoft would have to pay higher salaries than some no name startup because they were Microsoft. Now they recruit abroad for H1B foreign talent and pit American engineers against Indian ones that paid 1/10th the cost for their education. A copy of Windows is going to set you back ~$200. Why? Because if you don't have Windows your computer is only good for running Linux... ...!
Where are we failing to connect, silas? Why is it so hard for you and other righties to get the essential wrongness of your belief? I need to know because I feel like I have failed somehow. How is it possible that we can both view the complete cut and run that the 1% are making from the rest of us but you see it as the middle class failing to follow reverently and we see it as time to drag them kicking and screaming back to the table for an accounting? You seem like a man with answers. Help me help you. This is important. Lives depend on it.
A last point to ponder:360 billionaires and a few hundred multi-multi-millionaires... a thousand people more or less have more wealth than the entire rest of the country combined. We're talking trillions here. What's it doing? Not much. Not for America anyway. Most of it is stashed or invested far from the greedy clutches of the IRS. How would you feel if you knew your parents had peeled the paint off the Powerball jackpot of the century? Pretty good right. Until you and your little brother wake up one morning at Uncle Floyd and Aunt Emma's. Across town. In the trailer park. Where's mom and dad??!! [shrug] Gone. Gone?? Just gone??!! Well did they leave any money??
H
Wow! As much as I would like to address all your points I don't believe I have the energy or patience.......maybe I will come back , but really the bottom line is you are an extreme Leftist, I am on the extreme Right and while we may possibly find some goals we agree on, it is doubtful we will ever agree on how to get there. It is clear by your terminology and language that you are Union Proud,and I have been around long enough to know when some one is as entrenched or indoctrinated in their beliefs as you are ,that you can talk until you are blue in the face and get know where! Some times you just have to agree to disagree.
You mean xenophobia, right?
Well killa , here is where reality bites , you see I am the so called republican base, I am the guy that votes republican only because they are my only option, I am the guy that thinks taxes and spending should both be extremely low , I am the guy who thinks that in actuality the Government really only has one constitutional duty and that is the military! And I am the guy who couldn't care less what color you are or what your last name is when I vote, I care what your politics are!! I would vote for a Conservative Mustaffa Rodriguez ,over a liberal John Kerry ten times over! So you keep believing that the Republican base is obsessed with race, when in actuality, it is you and your ilk my friend, because that is the only way you can rationalize that most people don't believe in your cradle to grave leftist utopia. The Republican base wasdisaffected after 2 terms of Bush with control of congress, and they spent and grew government like Democrats and they did indeed lose, It had nothing to do with race, but you just keep telling yourself that, if that is what helps you look in the mirror, but you are not fooling any of us.
i too dont give a damn about the color of a person skin, but rather the content of their character. yes i do admire DR martin luther king, he was a man of vision who was cut down far too early in life. i dont like the direction that so called civil rights leaders like jessie jackson and al sharpton are pushing the black community, i would much rather mike meyers, the head of the new york civil right coalition, lead the black community.
i have worked with people from around the world, and i have found these people, regardless of race or country of origin, were wonderful people to work with, and they were good friends as well.
as i have said many times, if we in this country are going to eliminate racism, we have to start with the person in the mirror that looks at us every morning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KILLA-P
Its good cop bad cop from both parties. What do you think of Run-off voting. Public funded campaigns. Doing away with the electoral college. Do you believe corporations should have the rights of personhood. What should we do about the offshoring of jobs. Lets get on some issues.
I appreciate your honesty.
run off elections are needed in cases where there are more than two candidates. public funding for election campaigns is a two edged sword, in a way it is good because it opens up the field to good candidates that otherwise cannot afford to fund an election run. i dont agree with doing away with the electoral college. there was good reason to institute it, and good reason to keep it. if we did away with the electoral college, it would give great power to a few large cities. do you really want cities like new york, chicago, los angeles, san fransisco, seattle, st louis, miami, etc, to tell the rest of the country who will be president? personally i dont.
as for corporations, they have been treated like a person since the inception of the IRS. right or wrong, who knows.
as to what to do about jobs going over seas. the first thing we need to do is start eliminating excessive and overly burdensome regulations. now i am not talking about regulations that actually do something good, but many regulations just cost business money for no reason. second we can cut down on the number of regulatory agencies that basically do the same things, again cutting business costs.
third we need to change union contracts that tie the union scale to the minimum wage. that way when minimum wage does go up, union wages dont always follow. we also need to stop giving government workers lucrative retirement packages for a minimum investment.
and note i did not say anything about taxes yet. once business comes back to this country, and we get the economy going again, then taxes can be lowered, not a huge drop at once, but gradually. but at the same time interest rates need to go up. not a great deal, say to a prime rate of 6% or so. this will level off the money supply, and allow people to get a reasonable return on their savings accounts again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leisesturm
We've heard this before... the Dem's had control of Congress so therefore... well a Democrat has control of the White House AND we have Democratic control of Congress and... ... what? Didn't mean anything then, doesn't mean anything now. To imply that Republicans did not, cannot do anything to sway things the Republican way if they do not have a supermajority in Congress is pure TOS violation. FAIL.
H
the problem with the republicans during the bush years is that they became democrat lite. and like any party that holds the majority, it is tough to get things done when the minority party becomes quite vocal, and energizes their base to push the majority to bend to the will at least in part to the minority party. what usually happens is the party in power tends to fracture itself, and the infighting causes problems. it happened with the republicans, and it happened with the democrats.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leisesturm
What you are is the entity known as silas777. I doubt you speak for a majority of Republicans. We have ample evidence to the contrary of your opinions and no way at all of verifying the veracity of your statements as to your personal color-blindness. You also disingenuously spin the prevailing wisdom of race playing a part in Obama hatred. I must insist again that you on the right read the leftist ravings that have appeared in this thread again with as much objectivity as you can muster. The Republican base was disaffected by the looming trainwreck of the 2008 election. The richest 1% had no complaints about how Cheney/Bush ran their administration. But it had run its course. A three year old could have told you that winds of change were set to blow. So the rich pulled out of the economy and hunkered down. What we are experiencing is America without the 1% on board and fully invested.
good points here. especially about the top 1% taking their toys and going home. actually it is closer to the top 5%, but when you go after the rich and play class warfare, the rich dont complain, they go home.
Quote:
Not even the most rabidly far right Republican politician has been willing or able to completely eliminate any and all social welfare programs. An America bereft of Social Security, Term Limited Welfare, Food Stamps, WIC, HUD, Sallie Mae, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac... ... I didn't see that under Reagan or either Bush... why should Obama be forced to usher in a new age of austerity to appease middle class white Americans who ignorantly believe that social welfare programs only benefit racial minorities? And, you don't have to be Republican to hate government or taxes.
again you are right about conservatives not being able to get rid of many bloated social programs. when they tried to reform many programs, the democrats made a huge fuss about it thus preventing the work getting done as the republicans backed down.
Quote:
I don't know any Democrats/Liberals that actually like taxes or big government, but is it mature to expect everything to run somehow on nothing? Is it reasonable to imagine not paying ANY taxes at all and having NO government oversight, except to organize soldiers and give them targets? There have been governments of varying intrusiveness since there has been civilization. There is worse than the present administration. You aren't used to it yet? The fault then is not with government. A spoiled, wannabee subset of America AKA as Tea Bags need to grow up.
why is it then that the democrats are always the ones calling for tax increases, especially on the wealthy? and why is it the democrats that generally push for larger government? rinos also push for larger government no question, but conservatives generally push for smaller government. again paying taxes is necessary to the operation of government, but with all the taxes currently imposed, incomes, payroll, sales, property, excise, etc. all add up. and now the democrats want to add a vat tax? as for regulation, again yes some oversight is needed, but it needs to be balanced between protecting the people, and allowing business to work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leisesturm
Ask someone German because I admit I don't know. As ridiculous as it sounds, however, forcing companies to pay people a mandated wage that may, in fact, be higher than other places in the world is exactly what must happen if America is to survive intact. I don't think the problem is in keeping the companies in America. They clearly like being here. The problem is they don't like paying Americans a living wage and why would they when they can pay Chinese workers wages that are acceptable in Chna (barely) but wouldn't even pay for the bus fare to get to the factory in the U.S. Also the problem is getting Americans to believe that the factory or company that cannot pay them the minimum wage in America can pay the CEO many millions (tens of millions) a year. If GM was leaving America and taking 100,000 jobs with them there would be reason to say good riddance: NEXT! That GM chooses to stay in America but move 100,000 jobs to China is a worse scenario and should make you mad as heck but you actually defend their right to do so and suggest that the U.S reward them for it by cutting their corporate tax rate to 0%. And you call us *******s... ...
H
again i dont think tax rates should be zero, but remember that corporations DONT PAY TAXES. they pass those costs on to the consumer, and when you raise corporate taxes, you end up increasing prices.
as for the minimum wage, it was never designed to be a livable wage. it was for young people still in school to be able to get jobs at mcdonalds or someplace and make some money while they gain work experience. and when they graduate from school they go out and get a higher paying job. when you force higher minimum wages on business, business cuts those low end jobs, and it is the teens that get the short end of the stick.
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