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Young Americans want to enrich their hobbies as higher education and still expect a decent middle-class job that comes with a good income. Students in emerging economies are working very diligently in acquiring marketable skills, particularly in many high-tech fields. We are recruiting more and more of these bright students to contribute to our economy, whereas young Americans have become a group of cynical, entitled, and even arrogant people who are giving up on competition.
More and more people in this country just want to be given things. When given those things they didn't work for, they still aren't happy. People won't be happy in that situation. The ideal state for many Americans seem to be the cultural need to self-criticize business/money and the economic desire to have money (so that the self-criticizing doesn't hurt but does satisfy psychologically). Americans want the best of both worlds. They want to live on first-world wealth that was built through colonialism and looting that they criticize. How nice of a plan!
What globalization has done is like a grand-scale global affirmative action, spreading wealth and opportunities from the first-world to the third-world. Now Americans are against it. If we are really critical and transformed and feel painful about our past, why are we so entitled to demand all things without hardwork? We are self-critical only when it's lip service that we give, not actual opportunities. We mock our conservative, xenophobic rural peasants. But exactly how cosmopolitan are we? We harbor the same hostility toward the developing world; we are just skilled at hiding that. We are also foolish enough to think the world buys that. Our media shows us images of Kenyans celebrating a U.S. president, despite widespread opposition to U.S. foreign policy in Africa and especially North Africa. We are fooled to believe that it's Bush who made us look bad, and we good liberals automatically correct that image. We are, as we pad on our shoulders, "compassionate," "tolerant," "open-minded," "alternative," and our best advantage is that we "cherish" those opinions that are the most different from ours. This education/media discourse propaganda is sweet enough to melt hearts, but it is ultimately a hilariously misconceived expression of narcissism. It proves that we as Americans are indeed, like those non-allies ("bad guys" lol) call us, forgettable, self-centered, and hypocritical. It's the same way when you look at our desire to be politically correct. We can't accept pure correctness, but we want to sound like it. So we pick political correctness, basically saying we want to be good but we aren't good enough. It's a high school teenager's desire to be cool than his/her peers. We as a culture has a short history, hasn't seen much of cultural transformation and historical ironies, thus we have the "luxury" to be so simple, black-and-white, and know nothing about humility.
We assume that money comes automatically, that someone does the production, that the economy works just like that. All we have to do is demand the redistribution of those opportunities and wealth (but apparently not offshoring to the people we oppressed). It makes sense since so many of us never learned math and economics. We know that it's terrible when people are unhappy. We help them by being generous with other people's money, and we then come back and ask where is more money? We don't support business activities because they are profit-driven, but we ask where jobs are.
See where I'm going with this? It goes back to that "best of both worlds" argument. We want jobs, good paying jobs. But we know that profit is a bad thing and working is boring. Just give us jobs so that we have the money to criticize jobs (but never lose it). We want to accommodate minorities, but we don't want too much competition and compromise. We want enough opportunities that make us secure and then we can go be good human beings; we hate to have to compete, which makes us look so uncaring and discriminatory. Our fragile image of a wonderful self depends primarily upon having extra room to make. Now, that room is gone.
This is the mentality of a terribly privileged population.
Americans thought the 1950's were the norm. When in reality it was when the rest of the developed world was rebuilding from War.
The 1950s was a unique period. The rest of the developed world was rebuilding from destruction. The rest of the third-world just gained independence; some of them were in communism, thus their labor and consumer markets were closed off. One doesn't have to be really good to be competitive in the 1950s. It was an usually easy time for the U.S.
Then Europe and Japan became economic powers, and later the opening of China and India. The U.S. has been funding its quality of life through debt for thirty years. First, it was other countries held back by destruction; then, it was debt and credit cards. Those systems no longer work in today's context.
But Americans got accustomed to having retirement pensions, 401Ks, social programs, that were the byproduct of prosperity. Today, Americans desperately want to hold onto those benefits, as human nature goes. While people from the developing world worked to improve their economic status, Americans stalled.
The discussion of economic inequality is extremely narrow-minded.
Excellent thread Costaexpress! I agree with everything with one exception relating to Globalization. I believe that all foreign products that are sold here should have to be made under the same laws that we impose on domestic manufacturers (such as environmental, labor, and tax laws). Once that is ensured, I will be in full support of Globalization. Until then, I think we are taking unfair advantage of other people.
Excellent thread Costaexpress! I agree with everything with one exception relating to Globalization. I believe that all foreign products that are sold here should have to be made under the same laws that we impose on domestic manufacturers (such as environmental, labor, and tax laws). Once that is ensured, I will be in full support of Globalization. Until then, I think we are taking unfair advantage of other people.
Your suggestion would largely diminish globalization. How exactly are you going to make that happen?
You don't have jurisdiction over other countries and their laws. You would be importing from only a handful of countries, most of which don't make anything either. Not to mention, that countries are in a competition, so if one country does what you say, everyone else will be happier as they have one fewer competitor. Globalization would go on as it is. Countries benchmark their policies against others.
Americans still don't get globalization. We think that democracy can change globalization, or that we can at least change our system. In reality, globalization is beyond the reach of any one democracy. Changing one's rules doesn't change the game. Then we say all countries should be like that! Yeah, right, count on it.
Additionally, not everyone thinks it's an "unfair advantage." If the Chinese can get opportunities because it's low cost, and you raise artificial rules, then you are diminishing their advantages. Yes, they get paid less, but things cost less in most of China. They are not necessarily living much worse than you are. In fact, their lower salary goes further, and they may afford homes better than yours.
The liberal hypocrisy is that liberals welcome undocumented immigrants to work the jobs, even though these immigrants are making extremely little yet living in the U.S. with its price tag. These immigrants don't make more than the Chinese "slavery" workers, yet the Chinese "slavery" workers face cheaper prices in China and they don't have to hide. Liberals are fine with undocumented immigrants and they avoid discussion of the slavery of these poor immigrants. These immigrants are the real slaves of the 21st century, and they are right here in the U.S. The NPR thinks we "need" these jobs. You see the hypocrisy?
Last edited by Costaexpress; 03-11-2014 at 11:57 AM..
They you truly have not studied what globalization has done and what it will do to the US.
It's not about globalization, globalization is only a fraction of the issue. The issue is that every 20 years when new generations enter the workforce, there's negative stereotypes about them based on a small sample-size that poisons the well and makes a s***storm in the media. Gen X had that, Millennials have it now, Gen Z will in 20 more years and even boomers faced that 40 years ago. Different things but, it's all the same.
Young Americans want to enrich their hobbies as higher education and still expect a decent middle-class job that comes with a good income. Students in emerging economies are working very diligently in acquiring marketable skills, particularly in many high-tech fields. We are recruiting more and more of these bright students to contribute to our economy, whereas young Americans have become a group of cynical, entitled, and even arrogant people who are giving up on competition.
More and more people in this country just want to be given things. When given those things they didn't work for, they still aren't happy. People won't be happy in that situation. The ideal state for many Americans seem to be the cultural need to self-criticize business/money and the economic desire to have money (so that the self-criticizing doesn't hurt but does satisfy psychologically). Americans want the best of both worlds. They want to live on first-world wealth that was built through colonialism and looting that they criticize. How nice of a plan!
What globalization has done is like a grand-scale global affirmative action, spreading wealth and opportunities from the first-world to the third-world. Now Americans are against it. If we are really critical and transformed and feel painful about our past, why are we so entitled to demand all things without hardwork? We are self-critical only when it's lip service that we give, not actual opportunities. We mock our conservative, xenophobic rural peasants. But exactly how cosmopolitan are we? We harbor the same hostility toward the developing world; we are just skilled at hiding that. We are also foolish enough to think the world buys that. Our media shows us images of Kenyans celebrating a U.S. president, despite widespread opposition to U.S. foreign policy in Africa and especially North Africa. We are fooled to believe that it's Bush who made us look bad, and we good liberals automatically correct that image. We are, as we pad on our shoulders, "compassionate," "tolerant," "open-minded," "alternative," and our best advantage is that we "cherish" those opinions that are the most different from ours. This education/media discourse propaganda is sweet enough to melt hearts, but it is ultimately a hilariously misconceived expression of narcissism. It proves that we as Americans are indeed, like those non-allies ("bad guys" lol) call us, forgettable, self-centered, and hypocritical. It's the same way when you look at our desire to be politically correct. We can't accept pure correctness, but we want to sound like it. So we pick political correctness, basically saying we want to be good but we aren't good enough. It's a high school teenager's desire to be cool than his/her peers. We as a culture has a short history, hasn't seen much of cultural transformation and historical ironies, thus we have the "luxury" to be so simple, black-and-white, and know nothing about humility.
We assume that money comes automatically, that someone does the production, that the economy works just like that. All we have to do is demand the redistribution of those opportunities and wealth (but apparently not offshoring to the people we oppressed). It makes sense since so many of us never learned math and economics. We know that it's terrible when people are unhappy. We help them by being generous with other people's money, and we then come back and ask where is more money? We don't support business activities because they are profit-driven, but we ask where jobs are.
See where I'm going with this? It goes back to that "best of both worlds" argument. We want jobs, good paying jobs. But we know that profit is a bad thing and working is boring. Just give us jobs so that we have the money to criticize jobs (but never lose it). We want to accommodate minorities, but we don't want too much competition and compromise. We want enough opportunities that make us secure and then we can go be good human beings; we hate to have to compete, which makes us look so uncaring and discriminatory. Our fragile image of a wonderful self depends primarily upon having extra room to make. Now, that room is gone.
This is the mentality of a terribly privileged population.
Perhaps you should blame "Corporate America" for this retarded thread. Now please tell where you "downloaded" this "drivel" from?
Perhaps you should blame "Corporate America" for this retarded thread. Now please tell where you "downloaded" this "drivel" from?
Corporate America does many things wrong. But they are not the only one to blame. The thing is humans must learn to adapt, while trying to create a better future. What many Americans are doing is to blame it completely on businesses and demand their good old days even though it won't return.
A sense of realism would help.
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