Posted on 02/18/2004 5:12:57 AM PST by beaureguard
Corporations did not exist in 1788.
They are creatures of United States law which can be changed at the will of the People. They have no natural rights which cannot be reached by legislation (although their owners do).
Gosh, you're right. Everyone who works for living is a lazy and incompetent slob. How come I didn't see that before?
This is a hallucination. Reality is the opposite of what your eyes see.
Corporations produce cheap "crap" because the "us" wants it.
Nobody said anything like "Everyone who works for living is a lazy and incompetent slob." Honestly. Read it again if that will help.
You missed the point. You fight for your country so that people here can hope to have a better way of life. Not so that corporations can export jobs to India so Indians can have a better life. Jobs are one of the measures of a better way of life they are the opportunity, that we have come to expect as part of the American way of life. They are part of the standard of living of this country.
I will say with what is happening here with Judical activism, Marriage under attack and the borders out of control. At what point is the USA still the USA that we love?
But I think you knew this already. You are just blindly holding on to a delusion that Free trade as we have it today is a good thing because Conservatives had hoped that it would be.
I guess my only problem with the "super-capitalists" as you call them, is the arrogance of expecting me to cheer them when they bring little or nothing to the table.
As I said, I cheer Gates because he can't get rich alone.. The fact that he can't means there's opportunitiy created through his business dealings.
If he could, I certainly have no reason to cheer, support or vote with him.
I mean, why would I? Why the hell should I care?
Maintaining the capability of building actual, physical things is important in many ways. probably the most important is the well-established synergy between manufacturing and R&D. This is because when you're the one actually making something, you have an incentive to find new and better ways to build it, plus an incentive to improve upon what you're building, plus an incentive to gain the knowledge that allows you to understand that what you're building may eventually be replaced, hopefully with something better, that hopefully you'll have learned how to design and make. When somebody else is doing the building, they have those incentives, and you probably don't.
The other reason is that we end up placing our fates in the hands of outsiders. And there may come a time when, for reasons other than those found in the marketplace, those outsiders may be less inclined to want to supply them to us, no matter what tribute we may be willing to pay them. (We had a taste of this relatively recently, in fact, if you're old enough to remember the OPEC embargo of the 1970s.) That may be okay as long as what you're lacking is not vital to maintaining or defending the country. But if it is, you're probably going to be in a world of $hit.
I fully support your right to stupid values, and will vote against anyone who wants to impose on you a symbiotic relationship you don't want.
I don't get this at all. An employer does not have a business, at least a large one, without employees. How can there not be an inherently sybiotic relationship? Neither can exist without the other. What makes the employer more important than the work that his employees do? How does the work get done if there are no employees?
Corporations produce cheap "crap" because the "us" wants it.
I disagree. This is what we have been told and now believe. Did people 40 years ago "want" cheap stuff. No. They were interested in quality. Now, we are told that poor quality is all we should accept. Not only that, we are expected to consume so that the stockholders will benefit. Look at Bush's tax rebate last year. When the checks were sent out we were told to spend it to keep the econmy afloat. We were not told to invest it or save it.
The author is a fool.
More often, it's all we can afford.
I would like to have an American Lathe and Mill in my garage.. There's a China made model out there now because it's that or nothing.
Unionized American machinists are expensive. Deleting the Wagner Act should be an integral part of any such conversation, imo.
Hey Neil, you rocket scientist:
As a libertarian you should know perfectly well that just the taxes paid, never mind the social security contributions, the medicare contributions, and the complex and seemingly infinite workplace regulations price an American worker out of the market even if he was willing to work for nothing.
That's right. Any one of us could accept a $0.00 per hour wage and after government interference in the free market it would still be cheaper to employ a foreigner!
What do I expect government to do? If we're going to be thrown to the lowest common denominator of global wages, at least help us help ourselves by making it even theoretically possible to compete.
But what happens instead? A multi-trillion dollar socialist prescription drug givaway, guaranteed to raise taxes and throw more fuel to the fire.
Free traders want the impossible - they want society to nourish and protect them without giving anything in return.
2. The "crap" is bought. Nobody is telling you poor quality is all you should accept. That is a hallucination.
3. Bush didn't force you spend your tax cut on anything.
That only works when there's jobs to be had.. When you think globally: Between outsourcing and the amnesty proposal, there's almost literally no job that can't be done more cheaply.
The question that goes unasked in these conversations is: "What skills, exactly, will provide this increase in our standard of living when everything can either be oursourced or bid down to nothingness through amnesty?"
The answer: "Run for elected office."
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