Ain't it the truth!!? (insurance, collection, millionaires, credit card)

[bentlebee]

AIN'T IT THE TRUTH!!?

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock for6
am.(MADE IN JAPAN )

While his coffeepot(MADE IN CHINA )was perking, he shaved with hiselectric razor(MADE IN HONG KONG ).

He put on adress shirt(MADE IN SRI LANKA ),designer
jeans(MADE IN SINGAPORE )and tennis shoes(MADE
IN KOREA )

After cooking his breakfast in his newelectric skillet(MADE IN INDIA )he sat down
with his calculator(MADE IN MEXICO )to see how
much he could spend today.

After setting hiswatch(MADE IN TAIWAN )

Listened to the
radio(MADE IN INDIA )he got in his car(MADE IN GERMANY )filled it with GAS(FROM
SAUDI ARABIA )and continued his searchfor a good
paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the endof yet another discouragingand fruitless daychecking his
Computer(MADE IN MALAYSIA ),Joe decided to relax
for a while.

He put on his sandals(MADE IN BRAZIL
)poured himself a glass of wine(MADE IN FRANCE
)and turned on hisTV(MADE IN
INDONESIA ),

and then wondered why he can't
find a good paying job in AMERICA ....

[Stac2007]

And when the collection services start calling him it will be from a man or women in India. The American dream lives and breaths in each and every man and woman who lives in India and China.

[baystater]

Look I'm going to stick to just one item on this subject. That is cars and why GM deserve to fail. BIG TIME!
During the 1990's we had the technology to fundamentally change our short range commuting needs. The EV-1 project was the beginning of the end of our dinosaur relic gas powered cars. And a good step toward the future of electric commuter cars. Now some of you my say. Who cares about the electric car? Well you should care. It more important than build solar arrays, windmills, nuclear power plants, and investment in clean coal technology. Why? Well considering about 65% or better of the oil used by the U.S. is used for transportation.

Demand

The use of petroleum products as vehicle fuels is classified as "transportation" use. In the United States, in contrast to other regions of the world, about 2/3 of all oil use is for transportation, as shown in the graph. (In most of the rest of the world, oil is more commonly used for space heating and power generation than for transportation.) Gasoline, in turn, accounts for about 2/3 of the total oil used for transportation in the United States. Other petroleum products commonly used for transportation include diesel fuel (used for trucks, buses, railroads, some vessels, and a few passenger autos), jet fuel, and residual fuel oil (used for tankers and other large vessels).

So you should Fooking care.......alot. That we ain't cranking out electric car out the whazoo and rebuilding the infrastructure to support these cars.
This would be a game-changer. I believe we would be free from intervening in a lot of the worlds problems and more importantly save a lot of our hard earn tax dollars that are used in our national security. In fact I would consider making these cars and rebuilding the infrastructure a national security priority.

Look I know I getting a bit off point. But here's the deal. The reason why we ain't making stuff anymore is because our large corporations (especially the sectors involved in transpiration, generally) and the people who run them are not patriotic toward this country. Granted Corporations are really only suppose to be loyal to there shareholders. But there comes time when when these entities are a hindrance to the point of danger rather than a help. And GM and the U.S. Auto makers are become a dangerous hindrance. In fact GM is threating our National Security at this point because they are trying to hide the EV-1 project. Even now with their slumping sales and need for a government bailout they still aren't willing to make electric cars. EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY IN HAND. This is insane. This is why they deserve to go under. I personally am going to love when they do finally fail because they are dangerously short sighted and as i stated above are a current threat to our nations safety.

Look overall if you want jobs in the U.S. and you want "Made in the U.S.A." labels all over the place. Then you have to come up with NEW technologies/products (as in the example above) that foreign countries can't easily reproduce and.............. Implement them into our society. Otherwise it all talk and no walk.

[Padgett2]

We're overlooking one big problem with making things in the USA. By the time a company got through paying the minimum wage, supplying medical coverage, retirement benefits, paid for their part of Social Security, Workman's compensation, Unemployment, 401k contributions, liability insurance (customers and employees sue, you know), they couldn't make anything cheap enough for us to buy.

The cost of doing business....including property taxes and utilities....gets worse each year. And yes, I agree that the BIG salaries that the head honchos knock down doesn't help a bit. But let's face it, they aren't about to give up all their perks just so we can buy something that's produced in the USA. We have to figure out another way.

What I think will eventually happen is that all those countries will gradually raise their standard of living, pay their employees more, and then it will be cheaper to make things in the USA again.

[Nor'Eastah]

Originally Posted by Padgett2

What I think will eventually happen is that all those countries will gradually raise their standard of living, pay their employees more, and then it will be cheaper to make things in the USA again.

Exactly. What goes around comes around.

Until it is economical to do so, it won't happen.

[Stephan_K]

Originally Posted by Padgett2

What I think will eventually happen is that all those countries will gradually raise their standard of living, pay their employees more, and then it will be cheaper to make things in the USA again.

Ya, most agree but the reality of this is that the US is NOT able to wait it out. By the time these other countries get to those stages of the game the US will have next to no foundation left to rebuild on. The separation of the rich and poor will be astronomical and the middle class will all be but extinct !

[Padgett2]

The history books follow the course of ups and downs for other countries for centuries. The USA is a recent addition to the collection of important countries. And just as England, and China and a host of other nations have seen their star rise and fall and rise again, we will probably do the same. 100 years is nothing in the course of development as far as History is concerned.

Thanks to some present day bunders, our star is probably already on it's way down. It won't be very long before we have to recognize that we aren't the most important, the most powerful, or the richest nation in the world. If we were, we wouldn't have to borrow money to keep going. It's as if we have a giant Credit Card and no clue at all as to what the interest rate means.

[Stephan_K]

Originally Posted by Padgett2

It's as if we have a giant Credit Card and no clue at all as to what the interest rate means.

Isn't that the American way ?????

[NJ Chutzpah]

why not just increase the tariffs to the point where our products even after all the perks will still be cheaper?

maybe people wont buy as much, but you do not have to worry about competition from abroad, only at home, but if your business goes under, you can get a job at your american competitors

the only real downside is that no one will be massively moneyed

wasnt there a time when we only had millionaires and not so many billionaires?

[eatfastnoodle]

Historically speaking, US is still a very very very young nation with a very very very young system. People in this country, either individually or collectively, have no experience or memory of how this world really worked before the rise of European civilization. In short, the entire life of United States of America is spent in a period in which most of the world was carved up by a few European nations and US itself had, relative to its population, almost limitless land, market and natural resources, as a result, United States as a nation, knows very little about the world at large and how other culture operates and competes, plus, the sheer volume of resources available to the US means that typically this nation, unlike other nations, can put off almost indefinitely making any kind of hard decision regarding pretty much all problems (the fact that United States is unique among all the major powers, all of them way older than the US, in its utter disdain for government intervention in social economical affairs speaks volume of both America's youth and how lucky America is so far, just like a middle or working class family needs tons of planning and budgeting to survive, older civilizations in Europe and Asia know the value and indispensability of overall planning, which always means more government intervention, America, on the other hand, acts and behaves like a Stanford graduate who hit the jackpot during dot-com bubble, for America, life is good, making money is easy, planning and self-discipline look and feel silly, until the bubble bursts.), immediately after WWII, much of the industrialized world was destroyed, while newly independent third world countries were still struggling to build a system based upon which they could compete, America emerged out of the war unscathed with all of its major economic competitors in ruins, of course, it's good old days for America and all of its citizens. But as Europe and Japan rebuilt, as Asian countries gradually built their economies up and as Arab nations learned the value of their resources, America would have to face more and more competition from people who are harder-working, from economies that are better planned, while at the same time, America has to deal with the fact that its resources aren't limitless after all and foreign nations demand fair price for their resources. That's when problems began to pile on America, like always, America's first reaction to problem was to put off making hard decisions in the hope that the problem will just disappear or America could just "innovate" out of it. I don't know how long America can keep doing it, but I do know sooner or later America needs to face up to reality and make MAJOR changes that will be hated by Americans. Maybe time for reckoning has already arrived, maybe we can enjoy easy life for a few more years or even a few more decades, but one thing I'm sure is eventually, America will need to grow up and learn the up and down of life, just like everybody else had to do, and America itself, will change in the process.