So you think that someone becoming rich makes someone else poor? Zero sum game? CEOs making big money leads to increased cost of goods and decreased wages for everyone else, is that correct?
Fast Food workers wanting 15.00 an hour..really..
- Thread starter HeavyChevy75
- Start date
So you think that someone becoming rich makes someone else poor? Zero sum game? CEOs making big money leads to increased cost of goods and decreased wages for everyone else, is that correct?
Larry Gude
Strung Out
If execs were creating jobs IN the US, that's one thing. They're not. Their job is to get costs down and to increase profits no matter what it takes. Buy Chinese? Sure. Shut down another factory in the US? Sure.
As per sams post, wealth is CREATED by making things. Our economy has become about making money off of money. Not making things. For ####s sake, there is a company in freaking Canada that IMPORTS tomatoes FROM Mexico and THEN ships them into the US!!! Things get made elsewhere. Wealth is being created elsewhere. And, here at home, people make BIG money off of creating wealth elsewhere.
Yet you admit that the illegal is working and contributing, while Johnny gets those same benefits of education, health, etc, AND he gets a free check from the government as well.
If it's a choice of feeding your family or starving, I'd think $10 would be fine. Illegal immigrants live here, too - they don't send ALL their money back home; they manage to feed, shelter, and clothe themselves and their family, AND they scratch out enough to send back to Mexico. So that $10 goes pretty far in Mexican hands, whereas with Johnny it becomes his next snootful of crack.
I'm not condoning illegal immigration, but I AM saying that they are not the cause of laziness and poverty in this country.
So corporate executives create no jobs in the US? Everything goes overseas? Their maids telecommute; the dealer they bought their Lexus from is in India; the caterer who does their parties flies in from Thailand? Nobody works on-site at his company?
I have a friend who is a groundskeeper for a local rich dude. This friend makes a pretty nice living at it - sure, his wife works too but they have a nice home, disposable income for travel and fun, they eat well, and have nice things. This rich dude, of course, has freaking money rolling out his ears and he lives a rather lavish lifestyle, but he also employs a number of people to take care of all that stuff, and they make a comfortable living.
You also know a rich dude who employs any number of people, in his home AND in his business. He spreads that wealth around big time and we've seen him do it any number of times first hand. So I don't know how you can say that rich people don't create US jobs when you've actually seen them do it.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Here it comes, the black/white, all/nothing line of argument.
Allow me to rephrase; we would be better off if more jobs were created here at home. We would be better off if we better controlled immigration. We would be better off if executives were MORE motivated by the health of the nation rather than their stock options.
Of course, if you are of the view that things are, basically, the same now as when we were kids, then, I am guilty of assuming you think things are pretty effed up these days, way more so than 40 years ago.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
And you also know how he did it; NOT by being motivated by stock prices. Right now his, and many other business's are under severe threat because their customers run business's that ARE motivated by stock prices.
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
And how do we do that? I don't know; I'm asking. How do we do that?
Worldwide, companies look for cheaper labor. As long as unskilled labor is in abundance AND cheaper overseas, I don't see an intelligent way out of it. If you make it so U.S. companies CANNOT use overseas labor - they will in all likelihood just pull up stakes all together. And they should.
We HAVE labor, here - but it ain't cheap. And it's looking to get more expensive. The way to compete - with labor here - is to automate and use much more skilled labor. That's oversimplifying a lot, but the only way to use the over-priced labor we have here is for their skills to exceed the ones overseas. They have to be more valuable, more productive workers. And they're just not.
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
I posted a link not long ago where it pointed to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' data showing that about half of all poor families have NO ONE working at all, so that minimum wage increases really wouldn't help them.
Now that itself is scary. Households of poor where NO ONE works. How is that happening? It ain't illegals - they at least know they're not getting handouts.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Let's start with what you don't do; you don't have run away illegal immigration. As I pointed out, between low wages for them and benefits for citizens, you pay a good wage anyway. Plus, the money stays here plus all the attendant pluses of a citizen holding a good job plus all the attendant pluses of him NOT sitting around.
Demographics were about to become a windfall for the American worker starting about 20 years ago. He was about to be able to command better wages simply due to supply and demand. Both parties short circuited that. Add it all up, cheap labor is NOT cheap.
Next up, if an exec is motivated by stock prices, a balance sheet approach, rather than income and expenses, a profit and loss approach, his focus is on making money with money, not making money with products and services and quality and innovation. This leads to consolidation, too much too big to fail. Big entities do NOT improve quality and service. They reduce competition and end up costing more because of their monopoly powers. So, chop down too big to fail. Fight monopolies. Nothing is less American.
As for creating jobs here, Toyota has done it. VW, Mercedes. We didn't force US companies to deal with their own messes so, we, like illegal immigration, make room for the new while salvaging the old and it ends up costing the same but, with none of the benefits and all of the down side.
We have borders. A nation MUST control what goes in and out of it or it is not a nation. It must control people, products, services, all of that. It HAS to. In pursuit of shareholder value, we sell out our nation. Remember GE boss Jeff Immelt saying not too long ago that American's should be proud of him for creating jobs over seas thus saving GE? He didn't get it, how hollow that rang.
If there is a first step, it MUST be border control and that not just people. I've illustrated why 'cheap' labor isn't. So, coming to grips with that would be good, too. Lotta folks don't realize how TARP was, in some ways, more about bailing out other nations than our own. That just compounds a bad idea and makes it worse never mind how revealing it is how deeply messed up we are.
Of course, all of this is predicated on a 'USA first' mindset that most people don't agree with for the sake of globalization.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
And why is that? Because of benefits. And why do we do that? Why not? How do we NOT bail out poor people if we bail out rich people AND in so doing we suck out much of the ability to go earn a living by supporting people who live off of making money with money?
Plus, people work for cash. People engage in the drug trade. People work in the black markets including the sex trade. People WILL choose that over making $8 an hour at McDonald's.
It is key to keep in mind that uncontrolled immigration labor, 'cheap' labor, is NOT cheap and that is because we WILL do something for the people illegal labor displaces and then they become dependent on it and the whole thing gets worse from there.
HeavyChevy75
Podunk FL
Wow I just came back online from being offline all weekend...
There are a lot of illegals here in Charleston. Many of them work on the large fruit/vegatable farms. They do the grunt work that no one else wants to do. In fact there are so many they have a program just for the migrant farm worker's kids. In my apartment complex there is a family of at least 9 living in a 3 bedroom apartment. They also work for the landscaping companies that are all over here, car washing places and the plantations.
There are a lot of illegals here in Charleston. Many of them work on the large fruit/vegatable farms. They do the grunt work that no one else wants to do. In fact there are so many they have a program just for the migrant farm worker's kids. In my apartment complex there is a family of at least 9 living in a 3 bedroom apartment. They also work for the landscaping companies that are all over here, car washing places and the plantations.
this should be self evident ..... but, are you discussing Manufacturing JOBS or Blue Collar work in general ...
Larry Gude
Strung Out
How so?
this was done in the 1990's
1900 House
Viewers time-travel vicariously in this four-part "docu-soap" that transplants a modern family from 1999 to 1900. The series clearly evinces the radical changes in domestic life wrought by the scientific and technological innovations of the last 100 years. The Bowler family are taken back in time to the spring of 1900 in Greenwich, a suburb of London, England. For 3 months, they live as a family in 1900 would have lived.
from a commenter:
The Bowlers, an everyday British family, were selected from 400 families who applied to star in what would become the most popular series on England's Channel 4 that season. The Bowlers agreed to spend three months living the life of a lower middle-class family of the late 19th century, without modern conveniences, in an authentically reconstructed Victorian house. In the premiere, we see the producers' search for an appropriate house, the hunt for authentic furnishing and housewares, and a construction crew's removal of electricity, central heat, indoor toilet, etc., as they turn a London row home of 1999 into The 1900 House. We also see various families' auditions. In episode 2, the Bowler family is outfitted with their 1900 clothing, and is greeted at their new home by the museum curator in charge of the house's restoration. We witness their first week in The 1900 House. By part 3, Victorian life is starting to wear down the family's composure -- especially the women's -- so the mother places an advert for a housemaid. The maid agrees to abide by the rules: cleaning will be done using late-19th-century technology. In need of a break, much of the family visits a public baths -- except the women, who are not welcome there. Part four presents the end of the Bowlers' stay in the house, and sums up. Utterly fascinating and always entertaining. It's sort of what you'd get if you crossed THE REAL WORLD with UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS. This American video release has an advantage over the video that was sold in the UK, in that the PBS video contains the complete four-hour series.
because the live 4 families to a single family home .
... I think the record was 25 latinos in a House in Fairfax
Yet no one will admit that with the demise of Unions also has come with the demise of the middle class .
I am sure if the UAW agreed to massive pay cuts, more cars would be made in the US otherwise it is cheaper to import parts