Trading Seabiscuit for a Rabbit

WorldNet Daily ^ | 4 August 2003 | Patrick J Buchanan

[normy]

Why should I pay a union worker $26 an hour to turn a knob when I can pay one $3 an hour somewhere else. We recently had union dock workers dishonor their contract with a walk out during a war with Democrat backing. I guess an average of $100,000 a year is not good enough to live on.

[Texas_Dawg]

Perhaps "amnesty" will come in the second term you're forecasting, eh, vato?

Maybe so. John Cornyn, the Texas Senator who just one in a landslide, has already proposed a version of it. Hopefully he'll have some success getting that through.

[Texas_Dawg]

Why should I pay a union worker $26 an hour to turn a knob when I can pay one $3 an hour somewhere else. We recently had union dock workers dishonor their contract with a walk out during a war with Democrat backing. I guess an average of $100,000 a year is not good enough to live on.

You shouldn't have to. And unions are pure evil. Their individual members might not all be, but what they form as a collective are purely evil. Period.

[Cacophonous]

A far better approach would be to require that foreign markets open up to us in return for access to our markets. It's not free trade unless it goes both ways.

That's precisely what a tariff is intended to accomplish. It's the enforcement mechanism.

[Valin]

Trade war.

[Cacophonous]

We live in a free market capitalist system...

Yes, WE do; the Chinese do not. How there possibly be "free trade" between the US and China?

...where people lose jobs in cyclical economic downturns. It happens. That's life. You come up with a better system, and I'm all ears. But in the meantime, this is the best system man has ever known. And actually, Bush has bent over backwards to these AFL-CIO and Pat Buchanan cretans to try to prop up their jobs at everyone else's expense (especially the very poor). But even this can't save their dying industry. I can't speak for Bush (I'm sure he cares), but if ultra leftist unions lose their jobs, well, I can't think of a more deserving group.

You missed my point. That's 2.6 million people potentially voting against Bush. I hope he doesn't brush them off as glibly as you do.

[carton253]

I know someone who works at a major automobile manufacturer. Last year he brought home $100,000 gross. In the 8 hours he works, he works out at the employee gym, reads books, takes naps, works crossword puzzles. He is only allowed to produce so much. It takes him 2 hours to reach his quota. He is not allowed to go over his quota under any circumstance. So, in 2 hours he is done... after that his day belongs to him. He gets overtime whenever he wants.

[Cacophonous]

Please elaborate.

[Texas_Dawg]

You missed my point. That's 2.6 million people potentially voting against Bush. I hope he doesn't brush them off as glibly as you do.

They already do! And the unions they give all their money to, more importantly, bankroll the opposition to conservativism in America. Am I supposed to be crying that these people and the evil they bankroll are out of jobs? Look, I hope they get jobs somewhere else in non-union sectors as soon as possible.

[csvset]

Federal payroll taxes from guest workers will be transferred into individual investment accounts. The investment accounts will be the property of the guest worker and be invested in funds created and managed by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Lol, so will this Texas Senator propose a change to our Social Security Administration so Americans can get the same deal? Lol, this guy is rich. I think he's been smoking loco weed.

[Texas_Dawg]

I know someone who works at a major automobile manufacturer. Last year he brought home $100,000 gross. In the 8 hours he works, he works out at the employee gym, reads books, takes naps, works crossword puzzles. He is only allowed to produce so much. It takes him 2 hours to reach his quota. He is not allowed to go over his quota under any circumstance. So, in 2 hours he is done... after that his day belongs to him. He gets overtime whenever he wants.

Now is there any doubt in the world as to which political party this man most often supports in elections?

[Texas_Dawg]

Lol, so will this Texas Senator propose a change to our Social Security Administration so Americans can get the same deal? Lol, this guy is rich. I think he's been smoking loco weed.

Why would a Texas Senator propose something seeing as the overwhelming majority of his support came from white Texans and Texas is on the border with Mexico?

[carton253]

Actually, he is a republican because of the social implications...

But, he is the rarity.

[Texas_Dawg]

Shouldn't Pat be happy that the dollar is declining in value? A large part of the trade defecit was due to the high dollar to begin with.

Why would Pat Buchanan ever be happy? His entire reason for being is to rant, yell, and be angry. Oh, and to hate our current President with a passion.

[Texas_Dawg]

Actually, he is a republican because of the social implications...

Doesn't sound like he's much of one.

[csvset]

So this guy is working on setting up a retirement system for Mexico? Oh yeah, he's a winner.

[Texas_Dawg]

So this guy is working on setting up a retirement system for Mexico? Oh yeah, he's a winner.

That doesn't really answer the question, does it?

[Cacophonous]

I'm not sure I agree with you. Many, many of these workers were in the central and mid-west states (I forget whether they were red or blue on the famous map...), not on the east and west coasts.

Let's admit, the President won on a razor thin margin, and any of those states swinging could change the outcome. I think it is easier to lose one of those states, than to capture a New York or California.

The President's appeal as an honest straight shooter and as the anti-Clinton won many of those. Now that many of those people are unemployed, they may not be so willing to vote for him.

I know, the President looks pretty unbeatable now, but so did his father.

[Valin]

(snip)
It may seem strange to lump Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt together. The conventional wisdom is that Hoover was a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism whose inactivity let corrupt business practices drive the country into the Depression, while Roosevelt reformed the economy and therefore pulled the country out of the Depression. Neither impression is true. Hoover was a Teddy Roosevelt "Progressive" who believed in activist government. Federal spending increased faster during Hoover's four years than during the first seven years of the New Deal. Hoover promoted high wages for workers and high prices for farmers. Twice, in 1920 as chief of the wartime Food Relief Administration and then after he became President in 1929, Hoover wrecked the American agricultural export market by using the power of the federal government to drive up agricultural prices. That was supposed to be good for farmers, but it simply destroyed their foreign markets. Hoover then destroyed almost all export markets by signing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930, even though he was warned in a petition from 1000 economists not to do it. Within a year American trade had fallen more than 50% and unemployment had jumped from 6% to 17%. Later Roosevelt said that farmers didn't need an export market anyway! (For the details of this, see The Farm Fiasco, by James Bovard, ICS Press, San Francisco, 1991.)
http://www.friesian.com/sayslaw.htm