[Alberta's Child]

I agree with a lot of what you've posted there, but there's another angle to this whole issue that doesn't get a lot of attention. I've long contended that the biggest factor in the loss of American jobs to foreign competition isn't "free trade," and it isn't "corporate greed." It's actually the spending habits of the U.S. consumer, who exerts tremendous downward pressure on prices of all kinds of products and services.

This became very clear to me a few years ago during a strike by workers at one of the major grocery store chains in California. I read an article about the strike in one of the national financial magazines, and was surprised at how candid the workers on the picket line were. The vast majority of them admitted that they do their grocery shopping at Wal-Mart ... a major retail chain that has taken a big chunk out of the market share of traditional retail chains and employs non-union labor to keep their costs low.

This goes back to a statement that I've made for a long time about most issues related to U.S. labor. The heart of the problem, as I see it, is that there is a huge gap between what a typical American charges for his labor and what he's willing to pay someone else to do the same job. Is there any less "greed" in that than you see in corporate boardrooms all across this country? I don't think so.

I don't know what the solution is, but it is critical for us to keep in mind that the problem isn't a simple one.

[dfwgator]

We have to understand how to make human nature work for us, and not try to change it, because that will never happen, outside of creating a police state like Stalin’s Russia.