Posted on 04/15/2008 12:52:19 PM PDT by neverdem
We’re in the middle of a series of historic economic transformations.
A string of technological revolutions have made American workers much more productive. Over the past 30 years, steel producers have reduced the number of hours it takes to produce a ton of steel by up to 90 percent.
A social revolution has radically increased the number of women in the work force and pushed down the wages of men.
A medical revolution has led to enhanced diagnosis and treatment but also rapid health care inflation that burdens American employers and eats into workers’ weekly paychecks.
An information revolution has increased the economic rewards of education and punished those who lack it.
A pedagogical revolution has led to ferocious competition to get into the top universities but a decline in quality at the primary and secondary levels. For the first time in the nation’s history, workers retiring from the labor force are better educated than the ones coming in.
All of these huge social forces have had profound effects on how Americans work and live. All of them have combined to create a mass upper class, but also a struggling working class. They have all contributed to rising living standards — and also to the feelings of anxiety that show up in poll after poll.
You would think that if you were a thoughtful presidential candidate, addressing voters in an economically complicated state like Pennsylvania, you would want to describe how these pervasive forces are shaping the lives of voters and how government should respond. But, then again, you are not trapped in a campaign bubble. You have not outsourced your brain to political tacticians.
Barack Obama delivered a speech in Pittsburgh on Monday on the economic stresses facing American workers. In the speech, he devoted one clause in one...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Another bitter American, clinging to something!!
Farm labor went from 30% in 1900 to less than 3% in 1999.
There has been a huge world wide decrease in manufacturing labor. The US has seen the least of it because we are so efficient already.
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DAVID PLOUFFE: See, this should be a campaign. This is the campaign.
BARAK OBAMA: What?
DAVID: This. Just talking.
OBAMA: (dismissing) Yeah, right.
DAVID: I'm really serious. I think that's a good idea.
OBAMA: Just talking? Well what's the campaign about?
DAVID: It's about nothing.
OBAMA: No point?
DAVID: No, forget the point.
OBAMA: You've got to have a point.
DAVID: Who says you gotta have a point? Remember when we were talking about change in that Chinese restaurant that time? That could be a TV campaign. OBAMA: And who is on the campaign? Who are my advisors?
DAVID: I could be an advisor.
OBAMA: You?
DAVID: Yeah. I could be an advisor for you.
OBAMA: So, on the campaign, there's a advisor named David Plouffe?
DAVID: Yeah. There's something wrong with that? I'm an advisor. People are always saying to me, "You know you're a quite a advisor."
OBAMA: And who else is on the campaign?
DAVID: Your wife could be an advisor. Richardson from New Mexico..
OBAMA: Now he's a advisor. (Pause) So everybody I know is a advisor on the campaign.
DAVID: Right.
OBAMA: And it's a campaign about nothing?
DAVID: Absolutely nothing.
OBAMA: So you're saying, I go to the DNC, and tell them I got this idea for a campaign about nothing.
DAVID: We go to the DNC.
OBAMA: You want to go with me before those people?
DAVID: Yeah. I think we really go something here.
OBAMA: What do we got?
DAVID: An idea.
OBAMA: What idea?
DAVID: An idea for the campaign.
OBAMA: I still don't know what the idea is.
DAVID: It's about nothing.
OBAMA: Right.
DAVID: Everybody's campaigning about something, we'll do nothing.
OBAMA: So, we go to the DNC, we tell them we've got an idea for a campaign about nothing.
DAVID: Exactly.
OBAMA: They say, "What's your campaign about?" I say, "Nothing."
DAVID: There you go.
(A moment passes)
OBAMA: (Nodding) I think you may have something there.
You are in charge of your own life. If your job has disappeared, you have two choices. Adapt to change and get on with your life or bemoan the unfairness of "the system" and vote Democratic. Like many others on FR, I've retooled myself several times to stay current and add value to my employers. If you don't learn this fundamental lesson, you won't be able to compete.
OMG - laugh of the day alert - The NYC/Washington Dems are loons but they are smarter then Obama to go to a church for twenty years with a man who says that 911 was our fault and ‘god damn America’. While most Dems knew he leaned far left, they are just becoming aware he is something way beyond far left and therefore dangerous. The NYT will be slamming Obama now and pushing the Hillary agenda.
McCain isn’t in for the cakewalk some media says he will have winning office. A lot of my irresponsible, upper middle class friends want bailouts on MY FRIGGIN taxpaying dime. The old geezers expect the same quality of life in America as they had even though we are competing globally and can no longer truly afford these lofty, ignorant promises made in the first place. These relatives seeing inflation and there nest eggs drying up all want a Dem also. 2/3rds of America demand the party continue and on the responsible 1/3rd taxpayers dime.
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