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'Made in America' must make a comeback
The Christian Science Monitor ^ | November 28, 2008 | Paul Sedan

Posted on 11/27/2008 6:51:36 PM PST by kellynla

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To: JasonC

Well you can continue to buy cheap junk from our enemies.

And when you grandchildren ask you why they can’t get good paying mfg jobs like your generation had; you can tell them “shut up and study their Chinese!”


61 posted on 11/27/2008 8:57:03 PM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: TheBattman
Made in America just doesn’t mean what it once did. Often now, it really means “Made in America.... by illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America”.

not necessarily and "if" the Feds would enforce the immigration and labor laws manufacturers would be forced to hire Americans
62 posted on 11/27/2008 9:02:23 PM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: kellynla

I agree... And with unemployment on the rise, there should be a loud cry for illegals to bet the boot in a big way. I am sick of paying taxes for Americans to sit on their tails while illegals come in and do the jobs that maybe some Americans feel are under their “pay grade”...


63 posted on 11/27/2008 9:21:44 PM PST by TheBattman (Pray for our country....)
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To: kellynla

Typical ignorant protectionist claptrap.

Americans used to be all farmers too, I suppose that at the height of the manufacturing sector the American economy must have been in the crapper, right? Because all of those farmers were unemployed for the rest of their lives?

I suppose once a factory shuts down then all of those employees might as well commit suicide because they will never have another good job again?

This is a very old, very debunked argument going back a long, long time.

For the past fifty years, the number of Americans employed in manufacturing has been between ten and fourteen million. It’s been remarkably stable, how many people in this country have been employed in manufacturing. And in fact, manufacturing output in America is far greater than it used to be (because of better machines).

All this means lower prices, a wider variety of goods, and a growing economy.

Protectionism (tariffs, bailouts, import restrictions, etc.) has been understood by ALL economists from laissez faire capitalists to revolutionary communists to be BAD for everybody. It is based on a flawed, one-dimensional piece of reasoning that looks ONLY at the first order effects these policies have on a single, small group of people, while ignoring the long-term effects it has on everybody.

As for unions and regulation-gone-too-far, yes, that’s sped up the process, but the process would have continued anyway.

We used to be a primarily agricultural economy, then an industrial manufacturing economy, now we are a service economy. In fifty years, we could be a space pirate economy, who knows? The point is that you shouldn’t panic when economies go through transition. You don’t need to “save” a particular industry. Nobody in Beverly Hills or Palm Beach rolls up their sleeves and actually manufactures something at a plant, and yet they are doing pretty well economically.

That you tell you something about assuming we NEED a particular industry or type of job to prosper.


64 posted on 11/27/2008 9:26:28 PM PST by LifeComesFirst (Until the unborn are free, nobody is free)
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To: LifeComesFirst
“All this means lower prices, a wider variety of goods, and a growing economy?”

talk about “claptrap!” LOL

and just what economy are you living in that is “growing”
trade deficits, increasing unemployment, lower wages, HUGE personal foreclosures & government deficit spending...and the feds are having to bail out your “growing economy”...

you might want to do a little research before you “break wind.”

65 posted on 11/27/2008 10:41:06 PM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: stboz
They go offshore because they can make goods using fifty cent an hour slave labor, that is why. The cost is relative, when we were manufacturing here goods may have cost more than WalMart, but the quality was better, they lasted longer and we all make decent wages and it allowed us to purchase the made in USA goods. That was our middle class.

In addition the CEO's didn't make millions to run the companies into the ground, they made a decent salary and lived in nice homes, not McMansions and they flew business class, not private jets... and you know what, those companies all ran pretty darned well, for the most part, people were happy and our country did pretty good overall (untill Jimmy Carter, but it got better again with Reagan)...

we are paying for greed right now and the desire to have it all at the cheapest price and that drove our jobs to China... you cannot support a country on service jobs and McWealthy CEO's..

66 posted on 11/27/2008 10:53:54 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
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To: chemengineer42
My favorite jeans are "Not My Daughters Jeans" and they are made in the USA and sold at Dillards and Nordstroms. I go out of my way to look for made in the USA, even if it did cost a little more, I will pay the price.

I read a while back that Thomasville Furniture is starting to move back to the USA from China. I googled and they are still making furniture in NC USA...

http://ncfurnitureonline.com/

67 posted on 11/27/2008 11:02:23 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
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To: Clintonfatigued

One way to dig out would be to stop buying our energy from the Middle East, etc... granted prices are down now but it is still a drain on our pocketbooks.


68 posted on 11/27/2008 11:06:10 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
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To: VOA

People laughed at Perot, but he was right about one thing: that giant sucking sound was louder than anyone even imagined at the time.


69 posted on 11/27/2008 11:07:43 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
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To: pnh102
"Financing a union is no different."

Except that the UAW, et al, don't use that financing to buy mortar rounds and torpedoes to shoot at our troops in the coming war. Not to mention that American food products haven't yet killed any babies because of melamine poisoning. Or killed any pets due to poisoned wheat gluten. Oh yeah, and toys made in the US aren't painted with lead paint.

We are absolutely f***ing stupid to buy thing 1 from the g**damned Chicoms. Americans companies (partly because of union labor, but not completely) have outsourced production of the rope we'll soon be hung by.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

70 posted on 11/27/2008 11:26:27 PM PST by wku man (Who says conservatives don't rock? Go to www.myspace.com/rockfromtheright)
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To: kellynla

So a recession, a short-term phenomenon, negates long-term growth? No, it doesn’t. And our current recession is due to a crisis in the financial sector, not the manufacturing sector. Somehow we got out of recessions in the past, in spite of outsourcing. And do not bring up the current troubles of “the Big Three” as an argument, because their troubles are related to unionization, and the enormous pensions and benefits they must pay to retired workers because of it.

Non-unionized car factories in right-to-work states are doing much better.

People are just using this recession as an excuse to blame whatever they don’t like. Imagined deregulation, lenders, borrowers, foreign countries, etc.


71 posted on 11/27/2008 11:44:33 PM PST by LifeComesFirst (Until the unborn are free, nobody is free)
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To: Cacique

Secularist philosophy has been directing America’s steady collapse. The people spend their time kicking and screaming about the discrepancy between those principles and their genuine way of life while at the same time playing catchup to those principles.


72 posted on 11/28/2008 1:01:09 AM PST by Mmmike
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To: pnh102

“All that money goes into organized crime as well as the Democrat party.”

-——What’s the difference here?

tehDeetz


73 posted on 11/28/2008 3:00:17 AM PST by ebiskit (South Park Republican ( I see Red People ))
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To: kellynla
Why do you think anyone needs lots of physical objects or that banging them together is the source of all value?
74 posted on 11/28/2008 4:57:28 AM PST by JasonC
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To: Hostage
I hold a doctorate in statistics from one of the top three departments in the world. My thesis was written under the supervision of a former chair of the University of Chicago department of statistics. I have hobnobbed with nobel laureates and assorted historical persons, some who are knighted MBE

Do you know how to frame a roof? Just kidding but not by much....I support the Fair Tax and can see a real chance for economic recovery if something like this ever passed.

I fear it won't because we have a couple of generations of managers who have spent their entire careers either totally ignoring or avoiding government tax policies by going as far off shore as possible or on the other hand fulfilling the reporting requirements imposed on them in triplicate.

Couple this with a bias against manual labor in this country and we find that eliminating the white collar bureaucrats in private and public sectors probably will put more people out of work than continuing to croak manufacturing.

75 posted on 11/28/2008 5:04:04 AM PST by ninonitti
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To: stboz
re: Why else would an American business man go offshore?

Taxes and regulations play a large part in helping business to the decision to go elsewhere.

76 posted on 11/28/2008 5:41:10 AM PST by jwparkerjr (God Bless America!)
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To: wku man

Thank you!


77 posted on 11/28/2008 6:48:13 AM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: ninonitti

Sorry for the boast. It was awful actually. I also built a house, took several years.

As for my background and any other like it, one thing that distinguishes them is that projects are looked at in years, sometimes decades. For example, the FairTax is a thesis in work. That means we don’t expect it to materialize immediately although it could happen sooner than expected. Rather, we expect it to take years more. Poetic justice would have it passed in 2013.

It took the Income tax 52 years (1861 - 1913) to become legal.

What the FairTax needs now is a training academy to generate cadres of Americans who understand it inside and out. I am working on it. And then such cadres need to fan out and get the public onboard.

Grassroots efforts to date have been effective as an average 800 people per day are joining AFFT. But many of these members are battered in debate by those skilled in obfuscatory tactics. Lobbyists will protect their kingdoms by sending out messengers skilled at causing confusion.

Palin is stupid doncha know? And the FairTax will never work. It is a scam.

The soldiers of the Income tax gaming industry comprise about 25,000 beltway lobbyists of former IRS and Congressional Officials, a revolving door between these firms and federal government is firmly established.

These 25,000 are up against 144,000,000 individual filers. It’s a battle of numbers between the castle guard and the serfs.


78 posted on 11/28/2008 6:53:08 AM PST by Hostage
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To: JasonC

“Why do you think anyone needs lots of physical objects or that banging them together is the source of all value?”

please tell me you’re “J/K”...

everyone NEEDS food, shelter, clothing, transportation & a military to protect them from their enemies...and we can either produce those items here or import them...and at present, we are importing much of our necessary needs from countries who are our enemies now or were our enemies within the last fifty years. And we are presently enriching countries that we are at war with every time we fill up our vehicles with gasoline or diesel! Paying for the WOT on BOTH ENDS which is pure insanity!

But then if you have to ask such an inane question,
you’re obviously unable to grasp that reality.

gezzzzzzzzzzzz...


79 posted on 11/28/2008 7:04:00 AM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: Redbob

#46.

Would someone explain this to me. “If it is primarily the “unions” that have caused the loss of American manufacturing to foreign countries, why was it that after NAFTA, the first jobs to go were located in rural America, notably shirt factories, textile mills, etc. that were NON UNION?. My town of 5,000, lost 1,000 shirt factory jobs to Mexico. These jobs were not much more than minimum wage, but they provided the 2nd income that helped sustain the family and the local economic base. I guess they were the type jobs that would be replaced by the “New Economy”. Only problem is, the “New Economy” seems to missing, or should I say, “Outsourced”?


80 posted on 11/28/2008 7:43:22 AM PST by Murp
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