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I dont think i understood your question. I'm not in debt to buy oil. Who is?
US -- yunno, "America." The USA. We have been running the whole country on debt since the rise of "Reaganomics." Carter told US we would have to grow up and get to work and get off Oil. America and the Boomers screamed and stomped their feet and decided to place the country into debt, instead.
Here. Take a look at the trade debt / deficit.
The problem is not China. It is US. We are junkies for imported Oil. It was the "why" of our home-invasion robbery of Iraq. Our corporations wanted access to the Oil to keep feeding our addiction.
That compounding trade debt is a major portion of what is driving the woes this thread is about. For the last 30 years we have been trying to cover these losses by more and more .gov debt, more personal debt, and more business debt. We have just about reached everyone's "credit limits." That is what the "crash" is about. Too much debt. And most of the money is going to buy imported Oil.
Wow, i thought the majority of our debt was for social programs and military spending. Nope, its on importing oil. Somehow i dont believe your correlation but just for fun what would your alternative be. Would it be for increased domestic oil? If not, then what?
I've been reading through some of the "unemployed vs the employed" threads here on City-Data, and while I see a great deal of stuff being said about pros and cons of UE payments, I see little in the way of discussion of how to LOWER the unemployment rate and get this economy back on track again.
The reason is because we cannot affect unemployment on a national level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthStarDelight
The unemployment rate in this country has been hovering at nearly 10% for for almost two years now
And that is meaningless if you do a comparative analysis with other countries. In the US 65%+ households have two wage earners. Is that the norm in other [developed] countries?
No, it is not.
In Iran which has had perennial 20% unemployment for years that is nearly equivalent to saying 20% of households have no income.
In the US, 10% unemployment is NOT the equivalent of 10% of households not have any income.
At most it would 4.5% of households have no income, but I suspect the reality is that the actual percentage is much less.
Another way to look at this would be is 10% unemployment bad if 95%+ households have at least one wage earner, and the answer is again, "no."
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthStarDelight
I have some great ideas I'd like to share to help bring down the UE rate to normal levels, and keep it there for the foreseeable future.
Define "normal."
Remember, it was just 35-40 years ago when only 13% of US households had two wage-earners, and unemployment was 5% so then if 65% of households have two-wage earners how can 10% unemployment be "abnormal?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthStarDelight
Idea No 1: Abolish all so-called "free trade" agreements which have done nothing but suck jobs right out of the economy just as Ross Perot predicted, remember that little fellow? I voted for him too, as I knew he was right. Anybody that tries to convince me that "free trade" is actually good for the economy, I don't even bother debating them, as they're so far off the track of logic it's not even worth my time to debate this issue. "Free trade" ONLY works when Country A has an even balance of trade with Country B, and even a 5th grader knows that we import far more than we export. That's not free trade at all, that's unbalanced trade, and unless this is corrected by our leaders, jobs will continue to vanish, never to return.
You have presented an excellent example of tautology (the proverbial circular argument).
Your economy revolves around consumption, and so in order to consume, you MUST import excess amounts.
In addition to being circular you could called it a "double-edged sword" or a "vicious cycle."
You must have a trade imbalance in order to consume and if you don't consume, then your economy will fall.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthStarDelight
Idea No 2: If all the job vacancies were filled tomorrow, the UE rate would drop by a breathtaking 20%, which may very well be just enough to put us on the road to solid recovery. How to make this happen? This is an easy one: Make it easier for people to get themselves hired back into the workforce. That means actually HIRING the unemployed, instead of being uber-picky and only selecting people who already have a job to fill a vacant position. I don't care if this is done by tax incentives or the mighty force of law - there needs to be a way to get the unemployed off the streets and into the workforce with the minimum of delay. This means no credit checks, no discrimination of "gapped" workers, or ageism, or any of myriad of ways that make it almost impossible for millions of *hard working, good work-ethic* people to be able to find work. If it means that the government has to take a hard line with businesses in order to do this, so be it. I'm a huge fan of Big Brother Government when it comes to appropriate business regulation - ever heard of the Clean Air / Water Act? Yep, that's the government for ya.
That's another circular argument. It is government regulation that functions as a bar to hiring. If you want to hire more people, then eliminate government regulations.
When you force businesses to spend money to hire people, then businesses choose not to spend money. Two primary issues right now that are a bar to hiring is uncertainty over the extension of the Bush Tax cuts and this idiot Obamacare nonsense.
It is far cheaper and costs significantly less to have 120 employees work 1 hour of over-time than it is is to hire 3 people.
Having 120 employees work 10 hours of over-time is cheaper and costs far less than hiring 30 people.
Whenever that is the case, then your Big Brother Government is way too intrusive and you need to get rid of it.
You have a government bureaucracy that oversees the nutritional value of school lunches. It's called the local school board.
You have a second layer of government bureaucracy that also oversees the nutritional value of school lunches and it is the called the State school board.
And now you have just added a 3rd unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and you're gong to take money from taxpayers, employers and businesses to fund this unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. Does that make any sense at all?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthStarDelight
Idea No 3: I know this is gonna rankle a lot of you; even I have problems with this idea, but with proper oversight and coordinated efforts by everyone involved, I think it could work very well for our country. I suggest that the government takes whatever action to ensure the formation of powerful national unions for service workers, and get virtually all service workers into them, even in "right to work" states.
That's a great way to ensure an even higher unemployment rate. What makes you think I even want to be a member of a union?
I'm a disabled veteran. Why would I want "health insurance" through a union?
If I decline the "health insurance" benefit (and I use the term "benefit" loosely) what alternative benefit would I get from the union? Tuition reimbursement? Tax reimbursement?
Even in a non-union work-place, other employees get an additional $165 to $400 per month in benefits that I wouldn't get. That is hardly fair.
And why should I accept the union rate of $10.50/hour when I can make $16.00/hour because I show up to work every day, on time, sober and do more in 8 hours than most people do in 40 hours (and I don't steal from my employer)?
[quote=NorthStarDelight;16959835]Like it or not, the low-paid service sector is a HUGE part of our economy, and even if we were to manufacture most of our own stuff again, the service sector will always been an integral part of our economy. The problem with this, of course, is the very low wages that the typical service worker makes. Just imagine if all cashiers and fast food workers in America had the same sort of unionized power that the auto workers gained in decades past, with vastly improved pay and working conditions. And guess what? These jobs can never be exported or outsourced. Think about that for a moment. If Wally World is forced to pay $20 an hour, they have no choice but to pay that - they could close the store, but it'd be bye-bye Wally World...LOL. Sure, prices would go up, but do we need so much crap from China anyhow? Personally, I'd be willing to pay more for stuff knowing that I was supporting a well-paid workforce, which will flow back to me in the form of a much improved economy. Presto, I'll be able to afford to actually pay the higher prices for stuff. Isn't that a neat idea? I think so anyhow. [/quote\
You're dreaming and obviously have no formal education or training in economics, nor have you ever run your own business.
Wages are determined by Supply & Demand. I can train a chimpanzee to work in a service job. There are 250 Million Americans qualified to take orders at Taco Hell, which is why it pays minimum wage or in some markets like the Cincinnati MSA it pays 25% over minimum wage.
You want to ram a union down my throat, fine I'll just automate the order process like Kroger's and Albertson's.
You step up to the kiosk, punch in your order, slide you money and put your change in the slots, and someone will present your order to you when it's complete.
That would allow me to fire the 12 employees who normally take orders.
Congratulations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthStarDelight
Idea No 4: An easy one, a no-brainer, really. Make it almost impossible for an employer to hire illegals. I don't care if we have to organize raiding parties all across the country - this is a problem that needs to be corrected immediately for the sake of our country. *Enforce* the laws already on the books, lower the boom and send the illegals home. Now, what's so hard about that?
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? It only takes one but the light bulb has to want to change.
How many federal agents does it take to arrest and deport an illegal immigrant?
It only takes one, but the federal agent has to want to arrest the illegal immigrant (and that is difficult because for the last 30 years they have been pressured by presidents not to arrest illegal immigrants).
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthStarDelight
Idea No 5: Another one I have mixed feelings about, but I'll toss it out there anyhow. Shorten the workweek to 35 or even 32 hours, in order to spread the employment load across more workers. The downside of this, of course, is that the former 40-hour workers will have to take a corresponding decrease in pay, which would be a bit unfair to them, IMO. But at least it'd get the unemployed off the streets and working again, which is far better than having millions of people sitting at home, their hard-earned skills eroding away from lack of use. Perhaps this could be a temporary measure, to be put into place to force the UE rate down, and then taken back off once the economy is able to sustain a fully-employed workforce at 40 hours a week or better. Have everyone sacrifice a little for the greater good of the country sort of thing. Yep, I think that might work.
You haven't demonstrated that people have a "right" to a job, and they don't. They only right people have is to pursue a particular job, which they might actually get if they are qualified.
Again, you might want to actually study the data, but I suspect you don't know how because you aren't trained to do so.
Ask yourself "why" it is necessary for 65% of households to have two-wage earners when only 35-40 years ago it was sufficient for 13% of households to have only a single income provider.
The typical knee-jerk response will be of course that wages have declined yada, yada, blah, blah, but the real answer is you are a nation of excess consumers and it costs money to consume, and even more money to consume to excessively.
People have offered ridiculous anecdotal arguments that "the Middle Class is being destroyed" and I have presented actual facts that show the Middle Class is destroying itself, because the present Middle Class is dumber than runny excrement.
It's been, I guess, 3 years now and not one single person has ever refuted the evidence I have presented.
Previous Middle Classes were ready, willing and able to make a short-term sacrifice for a long term gain and exercised at least some foresight.
The current Middle Class either does not know how to do that, or or it willingly makes a long term sacrifice for a short term gain and doesn't have a clue what foresight is.
A good example is McMansions. The current Middle Class will buy a $250,000 McMansion with no money down, then have the crass unmitigated gall to whine like a sissy for not having any money, when they quite clearly willingly and voluntarily handed over $250,000 in interest to a bank and even though the value of the property doubled, they still take a loss on the home when they sell it for $500,000.
Even that wouldn't be so bad except they come grovelling demanding that I bail them out and cover their mortgage even though I can't afford a home.
The previous Middle Classes had no problem living in an apartment for 5-7 years and not eating out 17 times a week at fast food restaurants in order to save money for a down payment, even though it might have been a little cramped in a 2-bedroom with two small children. They made a hefty down payment which significantly reduced their monthly payment (that's part of the "foresight" thing) and they ended up paying $150,00 or less in interest rates so they extra money they put into investments and parlayed that into $500,000 to $800,000 over 30 years and then when they sold the house they made $100,000 in profit.
I have a better idea, a federal law that says your credit card bill is due at the end of the month, and reduce the default time from 180 days to 120 days just like a mortgage or auto loan.
I bet it would take 30 days or less to find out what percentage of the economy is driven by consumer credit debt. Sure, unemployment would rise even higher and the solution to that is stop paying UE benefits after 26 weeks.
And yes it would probably push the percentage of two wage-earner households down to less than 15% almost over-night, but when you have less, you're forced to make choices and in most cases people would be forced to make better choices financially.
Idea No 5: Another one I have mixed feelings about, but I'll toss it out there anyhow. Shorten the workweek to 35 or even 32 hours, in order to spread the employment load across more workers. The downside of this, of course, is that the former 40-hour workers will have to take a corresponding decrease in pay, which would be a bit unfair to them, IMO. But at least it'd get the unemployed off the streets and working again, which is far better than having millions of people sitting at home, their hard-earned skills eroding away from lack of use. Perhaps this could be a temporary measure, to be put into place to force the UE rate down, and then taken back off once the economy is able to
Have everyone sacrifice a little for the greater good of the country sort of thing. Yep, I think that might work.
This is not a very well-thought-out paragraph.
First, presumably, the people who do have the jobs ARE the ones with the best hard-earned skills. Having them on the job and getting the most productivity out of them is better, in terms of output, than sending them home and having someone less skilled or less experienced relieve them.
Then, if you're going to cut the pay of all workers by reducing their hours, how is that different from keeping them at work and increasing their taxes, in order to provide for dignified unemployment benefits for those without a job? Either way, you are eroding the income of the more productive workers,, in order to provide a livelihood for the less productive..
If you reduce the work week to 30 hours, that will allow plenty of time for anyone to have a second job, maybe even a second full-time job, so you are again simply throwing us back into a situation where too few people are working too many hours, while other workers sit idle. Surely, we are all better off if the hourly wages are paid to the best workers.
And the most glaring defect in your thinking: If 100-million workers are capable of producing all the goods and services the consumers desire, why force 150-million people to go to work? It is fallacious to believe that the "job" is the basic unit of currency, irrespective of the quantity or the quality of the output. It is the output that should be the benchmark, with the objective of reaching maximum output with minimum input, not maximizing input, and then with a civilized method of distributing the output so that it benefits the nation as a whole, and not just the diminishing anointed who are woken up and sent to work every morning.
Before 1970, it took 40% of the nation's people to produce all that we could consume, with manual hands-on piece-work labor. Today it takes 51%, most of them simply tending automated or digital machines. Not surprisingly, 10% of those who want jobs have no work to watch. What point am I missing?
Please explain the value of "sustain a fully-employed workforce at 40 hours a week or better" if it erodes productivity and actually harms the prospects for pursuit of happiness.
Let me ask you this. Let's say there are 10-million people who don't want to work, resent being sent to work, and have no inclination to do a good job. Do you want one of those people answering the phone when you call the 800-number, or doing the brake job on your wife's car? Wouldn't you be willing to pay them to stay home? Yet, you want to force all those people to have those jobs, just to satisfy your rather sketchy ideal of " sustain a fully-employed workforce at 40 hours a week or better".
First, presumably, the people who do have the jobs ARE the ones with the best hard-earned skills. Having them on the job and getting the most productivity out of them is better, in terms of output, than sending them home and having someone less skilled or less experienced relieve them.
Then, if you're going to cut the pay of all workers by reducing their hours, how is that different from keeping them at work and increasing their taxes, in order to provide for dignified unemployment benefits for those without a job? Either way, you are eroding the income of the more productive workers,, in order to provide a livelihood for the less productive..
If you reduce the work week to 30 hours, that will allow plenty of time for anyone to have a second job, maybe even a second full-time job, so you are again simply throwing us back into a situation where too few people are working too many hours, while other workers sit idle. Surely, we are all better off if the hourly wages are paid to the best workers.
And the most glaring defect in your thinking: If 100-million workers are capable of producing all the goods and services the consumers desire, why force 150-million people to go to work? It is fallacious to believe that the "job" is the basic unit of currency, irrespective of the quantity or the quality of the output. It is the output that should be the benchmark, with the objective of reaching maximum output with minimum input, not maximizing input, and then with a civilized method of distributing the output so that it benefits the nation as a whole, and not just the diminishing anointed who are woken up and sent to work every morning.
Before 1970, it took 40% of the nation's people to produce all that we could consume, with manual hands-on piece-work labor. Today it takes 51%, most of them simply tending automated or digital machines. Not surprisingly, 10% of those who want jobs have no work to watch. What point am I missing?
Please explain the value of "sustain a fully-employed workforce at 40 hours a week or better" if it erodes productivity and actually harms the prospects for pursuit of happiness.
Let me ask you this. Let's say there are 10-million people who don't want to work, resent being sent to work, and have no inclination to do a good job. Do you want one of those people answering the phone when you call the 800-number, or doing the brake job on your wife's car? Wouldn't you be willing to pay them to stay home? Yet, you want to force all those people to have those jobs, just to satisfy your rather sketchy ideal of " sustain a fully-employed workforce at 40 hours a week or better".
The number who "don't want to work" is a lot less than ten million. There are more than that who are actively looking. If a way can be found to buy them out, perhaps with sweetened SS benefits, that may ease the jobs crisis. But for the time being the politico-economic system depends on just about everyone working, whether there is enough work or they "don't want" to work.
Oh, one more thing: Why does oil cost about three times the moral equivalent (to use Pres. Carter's words) of natural gas? How about tax credits to convert vehicles to natural gas?
Last edited by pvande55; 12-17-2010 at 07:32 PM..
Reason: Add energy note
That is the trade deficit, that is not "trade debt". Now running large trade deficits is usually going to require debt, but not necessarily.
No real point in playing silly word games, either way. For the folks that like to obscure it further, they call it the Current Account balance jargon, but no matter the semantics, in the end, running 30 years of chronic debt is ALWAYS going to wind up with a huge pile of debt on all levels and all places for any pack of idiots (US, for example) doing so.
I'm a disabled veteran. Why would I want "health insurance" through a union?
To save you from dealing with the VA?
Quote:
You want to ram a union down my throat, fine I'll just automate the order process like Kroger's and Albertson's.
You step up to the kiosk, punch in your order, slide you money and put your change in the slots, and someone will present your order to you when it's complete.
That would allow me to fire the 12 employees who normally take orders.
Congratulations.
hmmm, it is coming. We can do the details on a fresh thread if it is of interest.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,763,471 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by latetotheparty
re: your idea number 5 .... those 40-hour per week workers are actually working 50-55 hours per week.... cut them back to 40 and for every 2 "original" workers, you will now have a 3rd formerly unemployed worker.....
Actually you are right about that. The company I work for has really upped the "mandatory overtime" while laying off employees at the same time or not replacing ones who leave. They just announced another large layoff for January while this summer there was not a week I worked less than 50 hours and many I worked 60. Overtime is very cost effective to companies because they are, in effect, getting "extra" employees at half the cost. We get time and a half for 40 to 49 and double time there after so if you work 2 employees 20 extra hours, you are getting an "extra worker" without benefits, insurance, equipment, tools or training cost.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,763,471 times
Reputation: 3587
[quote=Mircea;17010962]The reason is because we cannot affect unemployment on a national level.
And that is meaningless if you do a comparative analysis with other countries. In the US 65%+ households have two wage earners. Is that the norm in other [developed] countries?
No, it is not.
In Iran which has had perennial 20% unemployment for years that is nearly equivalent to saying 20% of households have no income.
In the US, 10% unemployment is NOT the equivalent of 10% of households not have any income.
At most it would 4.5% of households have no income, but I suspect the reality is that the actual percentage is much less.
Another way to look at this would be is 10% unemployment bad if 95%+ households have at least one wage earner, and the answer is again, "no."
Define "normal."
Remember, it was just 35-40 years ago when only 13% of US households had two wage-earners, and unemployment was 5% so then if 65% of households have two-wage earners how can 10% unemployment be "abnormal?"
You have presented an excellent example of tautology (the proverbial circular argument).
Your economy revolves around consumption, and so in order to consume, you MUST import excess amounts.
In addition to being circular you could called it a "double-edged sword" or a "vicious cycle."
You must have a trade imbalance in order to consume and if you don't consume, then your economy will fall.
That's another circular argument. It is government regulation that functions as a bar to hiring. If you want to hire more people, then eliminate government regulations.
When you force businesses to spend money to hire people, then businesses choose not to spend money. Two primary issues right now that are a bar to hiring is uncertainty over the extension of the Bush Tax cuts and this idiot Obamacare nonsense.
It is far cheaper and costs significantly less to have 120 employees work 1 hour of over-time than it is is to hire 3 people.
Having 120 employees work 10 hours of over-time is cheaper and costs far less than hiring 30 people.
Whenever that is the case, then your Big Brother Government is way too intrusive and you need to get rid of it.
You have a government bureaucracy that oversees the nutritional value of school lunches. It's called the local school board.
You have a second layer of government bureaucracy that also oversees the nutritional value of school lunches and it is the called the State school board.
And now you have just added a 3rd unnecessary layer of bureaucracy and you're gong to take money from taxpayers, employers and businesses to fund this unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. Does that make any sense at all?
That's a great way to ensure an even higher unemployment rate. What makes you think I even want to be a member of a union?
I'm a disabled veteran. Why would I want "health insurance" through a union?
If I decline the "health insurance" benefit (and I use the term "benefit" loosely) what alternative benefit would I get from the union? Tuition reimbursement? Tax reimbursement?
Even in a non-union work-place, other employees get an additional $165 to $400 per month in benefits that I wouldn't get. That is hardly fair.
And why should I accept the union rate of $10.50/hour when I can make $16.00/hour because I show up to work every day, on time, sober and do more in 8 hours than most people do in 40 hours (and I don't steal from my employer)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthStarDelight
Like it or not, the low-paid service sector is a HUGE part of our economy, and even if we were to manufacture most of our own stuff again, the service sector will always been an integral part of our economy. The problem with this, of course, is the very low wages that the typical service worker makes. Just imagine if all cashiers and fast food workers in America had the same sort of unionized power that the auto workers gained in decades past, with vastly improved pay and working conditions. And guess what? These jobs can never be exported or outsourced. Think about that for a moment. If Wally World is forced to pay $20 an hour, they have no choice but to pay that - they could close the store, but it'd be bye-bye Wally World...LOL. Sure, prices would go up, but do we need so much crap from China anyhow? Personally, I'd be willing to pay more for stuff knowing that I was supporting a well-paid workforce, which will flow back to me in the form of a much improved economy. Presto, I'll be able to afford to actually pay the higher prices for stuff. Isn't that a neat idea? I think so anyhow. [/quote\
You're dreaming and obviously have no formal education or training in economics, nor have you ever run your own business.
Wages are determined by Supply & Demand. I can train a chimpanzee to work in a service job. There are 250 Million Americans qualified to take orders at Taco Hell, which is why it pays minimum wage or in some markets like the Cincinnati MSA it pays 25% over minimum wage.
You want to ram a union down my throat, fine I'll just automate the order process like Kroger's and Albertson's.
You step up to the kiosk, punch in your order, slide you money and put your change in the slots, and someone will present your order to you when it's complete.
That would allow me to fire the 12 employees who normally take orders.
Congratulations.
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? It only takes one but the light bulb has to want to change.
How many federal agents does it take to arrest and deport an illegal immigrant?
It only takes one, but the federal agent has to want to arrest the illegal immigrant (and that is difficult because for the last 30 years they have been pressured by presidents not to arrest illegal immigrants).
You haven't demonstrated that people have a "right" to a job, and they don't. They only right people have is to pursue a particular job, which they might actually get if they are qualified.
Again, you might want to actually study the data, but I suspect you don't know how because you aren't trained to do so.
Ask yourself "why" it is necessary for 65% of households to have two-wage earners when only 35-40 years ago it was sufficient for 13% of households to have only a single income provider.
The typical knee-jerk response will be of course that wages have declined yada, yada, blah, blah, but the real answer is you are a nation of excess consumers and it costs money to consume, and even more money to consume to excessively.
People have offered ridiculous anecdotal arguments that "the Middle Class is being destroyed" and I have presented actual facts that show the Middle Class is destroying itself, because the present Middle Class is dumber than runny excrement.
It's been, I guess, 3 years now and not one single person has ever refuted the evidence I have presented.
Previous Middle Classes were ready, willing and able to make a short-term sacrifice for a long term gain and exercised at least some foresight.
The current Middle Class either does not know how to do that, or or it willingly makes a long term sacrifice for a short term gain and doesn't have a clue what foresight is.
A good example is McMansions. The current Middle Class will buy a $250,000 McMansion with no money down, then have the crass unmitigated gall to whine like a sissy for not having any money, when they quite clearly willingly and voluntarily handed over $250,000 in interest to a bank and even though the value of the property doubled, they still take a loss on the home when they sell it for $500,000.
Even that wouldn't be so bad except they come grovelling demanding that I bail them out and cover their mortgage even though I can't afford a home.
The previous Middle Classes had no problem living in an apartment for 5-7 years and not eating out 17 times a week at fast food restaurants in order to save money for a down payment, even though it might have been a little cramped in a 2-bedroom with two small children. They made a hefty down payment which significantly reduced their monthly payment (that's part of the "foresight" thing) and they ended up paying $150,00 or less in interest rates so they extra money they put into investments and parlayed that into $500,000 to $800,000 over 30 years and then when they sold the house they made $100,000 in profit.
I have a better idea, a federal law that says your credit card bill is due at the end of the month, and reduce the default time from 180 days to 120 days just like a mortgage or auto loan.
I bet it would take 30 days or less to find out what percentage of the economy is driven by consumer credit debt. Sure, unemployment would rise even higher and the solution to that is stop paying UE benefits after 26 weeks.
And yes it would probably push the percentage of two wage-earner households down to less than 15% almost over-night, but when you have less, you're forced to make choices and in most cases people would be forced to make better choices financially.
If your company COULD automate a process and fire 12 employees, it would have done so by now- union or no union. Companies do not have employees because they want to be nice and give them jobs with lots of goodies. They have them because they have work to be done and no other way to accomplish it. If they find another way to accomplish it, the employees are out the door.
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Anybody that tries to convince me that "free trade" is actually good for the economy, I don't even bother debating them, as they're so far off the track of logic it's not even worth my time to debate this issue. "Free trade" ONLY works when Country A has an even balance of trade with Country B, and even a 5th grader knows that we import far more than we export. That's not free trade at all, that's unbalanced trade, and unless this is corrected by our leaders, jobs will continue to vanish, never to return.
Think about that for a moment. If Wally World is forced to pay $20 an hour, they have no choice but to pay that - they could close the store, but it'd be bye-bye Wally World...LOL. Sure, prices would go up, but do we need so much crap from China anyhow? Personally, I'd be willing to pay more for stuff knowing that I was supporting a well-paid workforce, which will flow back to me in the form of a much improved economy. Presto, I'll be able to afford to actually pay the higher prices for stuff. Isn't that a neat idea? I think so anyhow. [/quote\
