[applemac_g4]

This entire article is nothing but a rant. The one valid sentence it contains is the following:

"Either develop a new set of job skills that are actually in demand, or adjust your pricing."

That sentence distills the present problem down to its essence: American workers are unwilling to adjust the price of their labor to third world levels and suffer the hit in standard of living that this would bring about. This, however, is what Bush and the corporations would like to see happen.

And never the twain shall meet. Apparently, responsible capitalism is not a subset of compassionate conservatism.

[FITZ]

It's becoming Capitalism for the very few. What made America strong was that it was Capitalism for the many when it was about having a strong middle class. Everyone could be a Capitalist --- that's why we all believed in it.

[MEG33]

What government regulations on business do you think would solve this?What could a President REALLY do?

[MrB]

American workers are unwilling to adjust the price of their labor to third world levels and suffer the hit in standard of living that this would bring about.

To increase the standard of living of everyone, these American workers need to learn skill sets that are not able to be done for low wages.

In other words, our workers are "freed up" from doing more menial things to do more skilled work.

[Axenolith]

That sentence distills the present problem down to its essence: American workers are unwilling to adjust the price of their labor to third world levels and suffer the hit in standard of living that this would bring about. This, however, is what Bush and the corporations would like to see happen.

You come close to hitting the nail on the head here. If we weren't saddled with the responsibility to support a host of handouts across the board (personal and corporate welfare, unfunded mandates, etc...), we'd be able to take the paycheck hit and continue to enjoy the standard of living while being more competitive with the low cost countries.

Since we have this enormous handout system the only way to keep it running is to inflate the currency and deficit spend. The side effect of this is to enslave us to the resultant artificially inflated asset values (like real estate). It won't get better until it shakes out and the Feds do a LOT of cutting on the handout side and I'm not going to hold my breath for that...

[A. Pole]

American workers are unwilling to adjust the price of their labor to third world levels and suffer the hit in standard of living that this would bring about. This, however, is what Bush and the corporations would like to see happen.

The key problem is that even if American workers were humble and long-suferring enough to accept this - they CANNOT do it because the costs of living are too high.

Similar reason why Russia CANNOT become a banana republic - it is too cold for bananas.