Bill Gertz & El Rushbo Talk "Breakdown"

OK, I stand corrected.

"little people"? Do you enjoy demeaning yourself?

If referring to myself as little people is demeaning, then yes. I am not a hottie-totsie type, I am not a media elite like Limbaugh has become. He has certainly gained an economic status that I am jealous of, he has a personal success that i am jealous of, but without the backing of Roger Ales (SP?), he would not have gotten the national audience he did, nor can we ignore the fact he came in the right place at the right time.

I met Mike Mamoine, his broadcast engineer, in 1989 in the American Museum of Natural History, and I am the guy who gave Mike Mamoine the phrase, "More Fun than a Human Being should be Allowed". Seriously. I made it up from a phrase a Canadian Girlfriend gave me, "That's more fun than I can handle". She was a Sunday School teacher, and her comment was meant to be a sarcastic statement to wild partying and her desire to avoid it. I thought it was funny, and after a year of reading the Bible through, realizing what sin was in God's eyes, I changed her phrase to what is now the famous phrase used by Limbaugh, but started by me.

Anyways, I met Mamoine in the hallway, he said "How ya doin" as we walked past each other, he was being polite to a stranger, and that was my reply. He stopped in his tracks, repeated what I said, then asked me if I ever heard of Rush. That was when he was on WABC then only. I said no, he told me he was a Conservative Talk show host, I repolied CONSERATIVE??? in a negative manner, mis-understanding what he meant, and Mamoine tried to slither away, because I was twice his size and getting angry! :-)

I apologized, said I mis-understood, then asked, "Conservative? You mean like Morton Downey?"

Remember the time period? Morton Downy was the example of Conservatism on tv, that or the obscure WFB shows on PBS.

I owe my conservative credentials to people like Limbaugh, but it was someone else I started to listen to first, Marlon Maddox, who I now dont hear, porobably dont want to, either, but it was Limbaugh that brought me up politically from the depths of ignorance and apathy of being a pseudo-Conservative.

My religious faith is what i use to guide my principles, though, and that means I do not follow the GOP hook, line, and sinker like he espouses (Because that woulld put Algore in office, wouldn't it?)

I have been listening to him since the year of the Gulf War buildup when he came on station WPOP in Connecticut, a small station that lost his show to WTIC. I know what he says, I know what he was like in the beginning of his national career, and he has changed dramitically from what he was. And, yes, his radio personna implies he is above us all regardless of his comments that he is just like us. He is fooling himself when he tries to tell us he is the most polite person in talk radio, That would be Gordon Liddy, followed by Ollie North.

But the other aspects of Rush, during the Clinton years, he was the loudest cheerleader against Clinton we knew of, and we all loved him for it. Where is the call for justice now that our boy is in office?

Where is the haranguing of the GOP for failing to close our borders?

Rush promoted GATT and NAFTA as means opening up Free Enterprise, Capitalism, throughout the world, without paying any attention to the efforts and labors of Americans that is being thrown out the window to these international corporations without them having to do any research and work to earn or learn these processes of manufaturing or making of a product through their own labors of the people who are going to be making these products in those dirt poor countries that then sell these things back to us at rates that bankrupt the remaing American companies.

I am working for a service industry now, a supply company that is working inside a conglomerate industry, and see for myself something: In Connecticut, there was an aviation industry that was second to none, run by pros, staffed with experts, and operated by dedicated people that lived their entire lives around these companies, raised their children to work at places like this, taught us all the bennies of this industry, saw their products on Television, on all the aircraft in the sky, in outer space, and in high tech industries around the globe.

Then, in the late 1980's, when the Berlin Wall came down, companies like this had to cut back due to the lack of military contracts. Then, recession hit after that. Then, Clinton cut backs.

Along this time is when competitors went overseas to foreign markets, to train dirt poor peasants to run a CNC machine, for pennies on the dollar. Companies in this state were forced to do the same or go out of business, and when asked what was going on, company presidents told the employees, "That's just the price of doing business".

Trade Agreements, and technology transfers these agreements include are killing us here in the Northeast. Manufacturing is at the lowest levelI have ever seen in my life. We all here were taught from birth that we were the Industrial Northeast, and we will have work becaue people need these things. Well, it wasnt a natural disaster that took us out, it was liberalism, it was greed, and it was governmental polies that have made moving west or south no longer just a vacation option.

This applies to Limbaugh because he supported these things, preached the benefits of these things, and then defended it all because after all, the CEO of a company has to provide for the stockholders, right? After all, that is why they are in business, right? To make a profit, right?

Yeah, we are all becoming unemployed, or underemployed at wages I made 10 years ago, and I have a college degree in mechanical engineering. The last 2 jobs I lost were both due to either Gun manufacturer lawsuit (I was at Colt Firearms), and then the TELECOM downsizing. I have been scraping for the last year, doing what ever I can to stay afloat, now working 6 days a week just so I can use the overtime to have an additional 100 dollars after paying all fees and taxes and rent.

Limbaugh's comments on the defense of industry's CEO and the stockholder fall on deaf ears here. Government policies that allow technology transfers to China or Malaysia or Poland are putting my state out of work in the manufacturing field, and even the Insurance industry is going overseas to find cheaper labor. Did you know that? The Hartford, AETNA, others here in Connecticut, they are leaving the state where they employed tens of thousands, several generations of people, all going due to trade agreements.

And where is the GOP in all this? Defending the corporate CEO, right? ...Who is sticking up for the little guy?

Oh, yeah, I forgot, I am supposed to start my own business. Rugged individualism. I would love to, but the insurance for two products I can design right now would bankrupt me, I need a government license to be a bodyguard, and I cant get the license until I graduate from some Govt school, and I only wanted that for a part itme job!

I have had my share of trying for the prize, I tried out for the olympics in 88, I went for my dream, and when I failed, I still saw a future here, a field I could grow in, now, though, it is bleak as the storm in this part of the country, and it is due to a combination of factors, most unavoidable, but some of the most serious ones all caused by government trade agreements and the transfer of technology, and the GOP applauded it, the democRATS endorsed it, and Clinton gave it away, all so CEO's could make a profit for the stockholders, while the people who spent their lives, 25-40 years of employment, on making those companies a success (and while the CEO's worked there only 10 years max), the people who built their homes and communities because of these industries being here, the smaller companies that made small parts for these big companies, the service industries that made food or dry cleaning, whatever, all the little support industries that existed and gave people work because of these corporations growing here in the state...all going to nowhere because of the lack of action of the GOP and the DEMS...and Limbaugh says the CEO's are right because they need to look after the stockholders...

And some people wonder why conservatives are split.

You do go on, don't you.

Wait a minute. Back in the 'honeymoon days' following 9/11, when NO ONE in the media would criticise Mr. Bush, Rush was constantly criticising the Bush administration for the Education Bill, the Campaign Finance Reform Bill, the Farm Bill, and for ignoring the Constitutional Rights of US citizens. He hasn't stopped. Now the Democrats are back to attacking Bush for anything and everything. Amidst the din of mindless mud-slinging it might sound as though Rush is shilling for the GOP. ... There is more original thought on Rush's show than anywhere in the media, either printed or broadcast.

That's Right! ... Now admittedly I havent listened to Rush in a few months, but when I did he was CRITICIZING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION for thier wrong-headed trade policy, ie, the steel tariffs. Rush speaks for Rush, and has done so for 15 years and counting. And if anything is "lame", "tired", "shilling" etc., it is the anti-Republican types who bash Rush and call him a shill and seem unhappy that his positions and views agree with the Conservative Republican viewpoint. I dont agree with him 100%, but he is a great asset to our country and to the Conservative cause. Freep on!

Trade Agreements, and technology transfers these agreements include are killing us here in the Northeast.

While I feel for your personal situation, and wish you the best, you are misplacing the blame for any employment problems on free trade. Free trade and trade agreements have been a huge benefit to American workers and consumers.

First, at least understand that in the last 2 decades, the US has done tremendously well ... compare our situation to Japan, which lacked the flexibility we have. Look at Europe, which grew hardly any jobs in 2 decade while we grew 30 million. We did better because we have a more OPEN economy. It is simply UNTRUE that trade agreement have caused lower levels of employment. .. In ANY dynamic economy employment shifts will happen, but closing our borders would only make goods more expensive, our standard of living lower, and our opportunity for high-paying EXPORT JOBS less. Consider the high-tech industry - Sun, Cisco, Microsoft - none of those companies even EXISTED in the 1970s, and now they export billions in goods. So while stell mills have closed, we have in effect saved US manufacturing of autos and appliances thanks to cheaper steel; while low-end textiles are hurt, US apparel makers now work closely with offshore makers and create high-value jobs here and leave the low-value jobs for Asia. Its trade agreements and free trade

You only describe perceived (and maybe not real) downside and not the upsides.

Manufacturing is at the lowest levelI have ever seen in my life. This is simply not true. We are still manufacturing hugely in the US. But it is becoming so productive, the jobs associated are not what they used to be - THIS IS A GOOD THING. " ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ForeignLabor/flsprodyt01.txt shows how manufacturing productivity has been going up in the last several decades. We are not all farmers anymore either, due to farming productivity advancing. Eventually, automation in manufacturing will be so great, manufacturing employment might even be as small a part of our economy as farming, yet still produce a huge amount of consumable and capital products.

We all here were taught from birth that we were the Industrial Northeast, Learn the new lesson: We are in a knowledge economy, knowledge-based skills and jobs are it. and we will have work becaue people need these things. In 10-20 years robotics and/or China can make anything that is a standard product. Key jobs will be in design, marketing, and organizing things. Most will be in service or knowledge work - if you want to be well-paid get a knowledge-based skill. As a mech eng, you are in better shape than those without such skills. Someone wants these skills

These jobs are open, offering from $50k/yr to over $100k/yr, not bad.

governmental polies that have made moving west or south no longer just a vacation option. That I dont disagree with. Free trade - in COMBINATION with productivity-killing regulation - will just kill off industries. Whether it is inefficiency based on union-featherbedding, excessive EPA regs, high taxes, or just plain anti-business attitudes from cities and states, jobs will LEAVE if the business cannot be operated efficiently. Fact of economic life.

Now I have seen and worked with technology transfer first-hand. I think there is a danger that we give away the goose that lays the golden eggs in some cases ... but there is also a simple cure: US corporations go where the best deal is. They need educated and productive workforces, and they need access to capital and markets. Global businesses locate globally to get that and do that. I know. I work for a Fortune 50 company, and work with people overseas on a regular basis. The US loses out when we fail to support businesses properly, with reasonable taxes, enough local highly productive talent, etc. It is lack of 'productive knowledge labor' that imho is the biggest danger, for which I blame the education system. most post-grad engineers are *imported* via H1B. Why cant we graduate enough eningeers?? The education system cannot teach kids well enough so that we can have large numbers stand up to the rigors of engineering degress. That is why a lot of high-tech hiring is H1B. US companies go offshore when they cant hire here.

But what's the alternative? Shut down our markets? That shoots Boeing and Cisco in the foot, damages export industries, all so we can save low-pay textile and low-skill manufacturing jobs??? What a waste! For me it is an easy call - we need free trade in *goods*. but we still have the problem, how to remain COMPETITIVE with OUR OWN RESOURCES and not watch key jobs go overseas .

The cause of laor surplus is NOT FREE TRADE IN GOODS, the problem wrt employment is the FREE TRADE IN PEOPLE, ie, immigration, combined with anti-competitivenss measures by Govt (ie Libearlism/Socialism). It creates more supply of labor while reducing the demand for labor. The benefit is that companies can keep more jobs here, the downside is the jobs get cheaper, and its newly minted residents/immigrants who get the jobs, not much help to citizens here and un(der)employed. Again, the ROOT problem is lousy education. Fix that and we can maintain competitiveness without having to import as many skilled people.

To restrict freedoms and economic free-enterprise by saying companies can operate as efficiently as possible will in the long-run hurt our economy the most. Far better for us to (a) fix our education problems, (b) fix our immigration laws, and (c) maintain our competitiveness. *Then* we can have an economic system that would work for workers, consumers and business alike. Bottom line irony: Rush has criticized Pres. Bush for not adhering to conversative free market principles.I agree with Rush. I think your criticism of trade agreements and free trade is misdirected. There is a better way. JMHO.

Come to the northeast. We are losing factores all the time.

Knowlege?? Knowlege gets you a job? Not in todays world. I know 5 different CAD languages...can't get a job in the last year.

If I went to a specialized degree program, may aeronautical engineering, maybe I could get a job with Pratt or Sikorsky, but that is part of my arguement.

Pratt & Whitney used to have 75,000 people employed in East Hartford alone, with thousands more throughout the state. Hamilton Standard in my home town had 20,000. Kaman Aerospace had a few thousand in Bloomfield.

Pratt is down to less than 5000. Hamilton is down to less than 2 Thousand. Kaman is down to less than a thousand, some told me less than 500 on site in Bloomfield.

As soon as I completed the dfegree, they would have hired all the engineers they needed. Plus, they are now farming their work out to INdia. Did you now that? Their design work is going to India!!

Since these are big industries, they need support products, and that meant work for hundreds of small machine shops in Connecticut and New England. Growing up, almost all we ever heard was you were going to work in the aviation industry somehow, or Insurance. To work anywhere else seemed almost unimaginable, and certainly lower paying, no overtime. In fact, to not work at any of those plants, meant you did not have a 'Good Job', you had lower pay, less benefits, and poor job satisfaction. All these plants were the cream of industry, the prestige of what came out the door, a new world dawning so to speak.

That's all gone. Corporate greed, Union Greed, Technology transfers to China, Poland and Malaysia have brought the level of manufaturing of these plants to 15% of what it was when I was growing up. And all those little companies? Who are they going to make parts for now?

I am not denying Limbaugh is correct that those who work the hardest generally succeed, but there are too many factors in government and industry that control our lives now. Can you make a homebuilt airplane? Can you make your own car? What product can you design and sell and market?

Horatio Alger stories are not the norm, they are the exception. Many of the old engine designers I work with now are horrified at what they see in manufacturing in this state, and they believe that almost all manufacturing in Connecticut of Jet Engines will be gone in 10 years. Period.

Sikorsky is crawling, begging for work, Hamilton cant make that many spacesuit backpacks to keep people busy, nor propellers, nor fuel controls if there arent any airplanes being made.

Entire communities were created, houses built for the workers of these plants, and now there is no work. I am making $1 more than I made 10 years ago. Job offers/interviews I have had offer me the same pay I am making now, and these are engineering jobs I am interviewing for, and I am a tool crib attendant!

CADKEY, Autocad, PRO-E, SOLIDWORKS, and people are willing to offer $15 an hour??

You can quote all the statistics you want from whatever government study you desire. I am out in the world, not in a book and behind a golden microphone. We have been getting the shaft due to treaties and technology transfers, and party hacks that defend all that and then say, "Just work harder" havent got a clue as to what is happening in the real world, at least up here.

Mot people move to get a better job. I may have to move to get a job. At either lower pay or equal pay.

You are being more than a little too harsh. Limbaugh follows the WSJ editorial page 80% of the time. He is Joe Sixpack's guide to the WSJ editorial page. So kicking him for following Micah Morrison's column that, finally, mainstreams a lot of the views Freepers have developed, is not really fair. He is on that part of the news flow and we are on the leading edge, and that is just the way it is.

As one of the surviviors in telecom, all I can say is that bad things happen to good industries, and that change is better than stagnation. The only way telecom will turn aorund is for it to get even cheaper and leaner than it is today. The standards, the equipment, the people costs in running a network, and the site rental costs are all still too expensive. Cut another 50% from everything and it will be profitable. That means me, or the guy next to me, will be out of telecom by next year, or the year after. What would change that? And would you even want to change that?

Geez... yea you're right. I liked Limbaugh but you opened my eyes.

He couldn't shine Clintons shoes. What an idiot!

Excuse me... my doctor's here with my prozac. ;^[]

I was at EBM for a year and a half. We made fan trays for servers and such: Nortel; G.E.; EMC; Teradyne, people like that.

I saw them start to go belly up in early 2000, I got worried, lasted until June 2001, been looking since then. Did get a couple of short temp jobs, but no perm bites at all.

You are in an industry with too few jobs to begin with. Odds are you will have to relocate and maybe change specialties. The Chinese have figured out how to do fairly complex design cheaply. So even really expensive equipment is going to be designed and manufactured there.

What used to require a $5M circuit switch is now built in to chat software for free, and databases that used to require a SAN is now fit in a cheap consumer hard disk. That trend is not going to stop anytime soon. Arrays of Linux boxen will eat Sun's lunch, and Microsoft is going shoot themselves in the foot with Palladium and do more to popularize desktop Linux than a million Richard Stallmans (heaven forefend) could.

Buy a book on Python coding. In a couple years things will get sorted out. Smart coders that know the latest stuff are always in demand.

;-)

In exactly which one of your five languages can you make sense? English does not appear to be one of them. Your attacks on Rush are ridiculous. He's an entertainer who has done far more good for the nation (he woke up a lot of sleepers), than you can hope to awaken.

In exactly which one of your five languages can you make sense?

If you had read the passage carefully, you would have read that those 5 languages were computer CAD languages, not spoken languages as you inferred.

I went through a phase of Rush bashing. I was frustrated that more wasn't coming out, the real bloody coverups. But Rush is vital for reaching out to pro-establishment
non-conservatives. There are a lot of them out there. Freegards....

Excellent post!!!!!!!!! This is what I've been trying to say for some time. I also live in CT. I also have seen literally thousands of good paying blue collar manufacturing jobs as well as hi paying M.E. jobs fly out of this state. The cheese heads that say this GATT crap is good for our country have their collective heads up their asses. Quite a few of my friends also worked in the Aerospace industry.....good jobs, talented people, people who worked with composites, lasers, highly skilled Engineers.

The dirtball polititians and slimey CEO's who pulled the rug out from under our feet here in the NE should be hung from lamp posts. Cutting deals for sending manufacturing jobs to some rat-hole turd world country is good for us?

How do you figure? Are trade deficits good for us? I thought not. Oh yea......we have to send these jobs overseas to "remain competitive". Sure.

My wife works for a small prototype shop here in CT. The company she works for makes prototype paper handling office equipment for some of the biggest names in the business. She helps design it, they produce a working prototype and hand it over to the big American conmpany. They in turn send it to China where the slave labor there attempts to reproduce it. All I have to say is "what a freakin' joke" My wifes co. just took delivery of 300 of these finished pieces, all manufactured and assembled in China. She furnished the Chicom company with complete CAD drawings, bill of materials, working prototype etc....What she got in return was 300 non-working, wrongly assembled, pieces of sh!t. Well folks, this is TYPICAL! This happens on a routine basis from suppliers across the globe. Built in the USA used to mean something. Built in China means it's a piece of SH!T. It's that simple. As I've stated before, I'm very fortunate to have found a way to make a living working in this state outside of the now gutted manuacturing / tech industry. A lot of my friends are not so fortunate. Nafta /Gatt crap is good for the CEO's and large stock holders, it sucks for us "regular people" though. Yea, stuff made in the USA was and is more expensive, but I, for one, am willing to pay for quality. Each day another manufacturing job goes offshore. Each day, the consumer loses the choice of buying a quality piece made here at home by (expensive) craftsmen, or purchasing a piece of SH!T made in some far off swill-hole of a country. I thought choice was what democracy was all about. Been to Home Depot lately? you can buy a piece of crap made in China, or a piece of crap made in Indonesia, nice choice. If any of you are looking for employment , there's plenty of $7.00 an hour jobs here in CT. You can cut lawns.....but watch out for the wetbacks, they'll under cut your price by $10.00 a lawn. You can frame houses.....oops, wait, the wetbacks will under cut your prices by $3.00 an hour.........Oh yea, I forgot, that's good for the consumer, right? You can get a few Mc-jobs here, maybe you can work 80-100 hours a week and get by, maybe not. $7.00 an hour car wash job anybody? I think I heard that CT now has the most Gub-mint debt, per capita.......No SH!T, you can't tax MC-jobs as much as you can tax an engineer making $80,000.00 a year. Glad to see this GATT crap finally hitting these leach polititians where it counts, in the wallet! Why are conservitives split? You tell me.

Buddy, no disrespect meant here, but you need to take a short trip in your space ship to a planet called Earth. Set your controls for a place called Connecticut. Avoid FFLD county as it is a suburb of NYC and not really part of our state. Take a stroll around and look at the thousands (not hundreds) of empty small manufacturing shops, cruise by the now defunct Avco company in Stratford....I could go on and on, but some say I have a tendency to rant. So be it.

Ciao.

Those were lost way before he came into office.

So true, so true.

What does that mean? He's no longer a man of the little people. I can't count the times Rush has blasted the Republicans for being to far moderate. If you want ranting and raving over Clinton's crimes listen to Bob Dornan. He bashes Sanchez at least every other day on his show. Rush stays with current events so his show is a little more informing than most.