Bigdog wrote:This says a good bit of the way the country feels....I don't agree that Hilary is center left....that " progressive" talk sounds too commie for me.... That is left left. Using the code word progressive for actually meaning communist.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/joe-li ... 4/?ref=yfp
Why can't we become a great heavy manufacturing country again....do you think we should be trading with communist China to begin with? Why should we contribute to their economy? Why can't we stop the corporate greed that started this whole mess in the first place... We need companies that test the workers as they should be with decent wages and benefits. I would never work for any non Union business....sure the unions are probably corrupt but not as corrupt as companies that are purely profit driven at the expense of the employees ability and right to earn a decent living.
Corporations need tax breaks.....you'll never get a good paying job from somebody on food stamps.... Rich people create jobs and hire people not poor people.... If companies can't make enough money to stay in business then there are no jobs.....but that shouldn't include corporate greed where the CEO gets millions while screwing the workers out of everything they can for the sake of the bottom line and share holders happiness .... Our entire economy is rigged against the working man. 401 K ponsi schemes are part of that because it forces the working man to root for corporate greed to build their retirement accounts..... Think about it....if you contribute to their ponsi scheme you're part of the problem. 401Ks were started by the government as a way to get more of your hard earned money... Just like the company stores.... We'll pay you and you can give the money back to us. One way or another.... If not in taxes we'll crash the stock market and take it back.... Keep putting in and we'll keep taking it back.... You'll be a millionaire trust us.... And since all the companies have forced their employees to have a 401K account you're trapped.... You're indirectly part of the corporate greed cycle.... No corporate greed your ponsi account stays low...
Andrew Carnegie and guys like him are the reason unions needed to be formed... He would have keep his workers as slaves working for peanuts, if not for the brave men that fought and died forming labor unions. Non Union workers benefit from labor unions fighting for better wages, benefits and working conditions. I considered my union dues as payment to keep my benefits which my company would have taken away from me in a heartbeat.
I don't know if we should be trading with Communist China or not? Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell think we should, so did Richard Nixon who resumed ties with Communist China, Ronald Regan, Bush I, and Bush II, all Republican pro business free trade Presidents? Leaders who presided over the years to the loss of our manufacturing base. Regan especially disliked unions, and saw the sending away of jobs as a way to weaken the unions you seem to be so fond of. I belonged to a union, so did my dad, my grandfather was a farmer so no union. You are right corporations should get tax breaks if they are making a product here and providing jobs. If they are moving out of the country and taking those jobs with them they should be made to pay the cost of the displaced workers, not have the taxpayers foot the bill. There is a glimmers of the truth here and there in your statements, 401 K's are scam designed to get workers off their defined pension plans. That is why Bush II wanted Social Security converted to 401 K's to get the government off the hook, if the stock market tanked like it did in 2008 what would have the retired citizens on Social Security have done? It would not take much to secure Social Security for future generations. Paul Ryan wants to move Medicare to a voucher system and convert Social Security to a 401K, instead of going to single payer covering every citizen's medical and saving a defined Social Security system. Andrew Carnegie did a lot of wicked things in his life time, in the end he only left his children a small part of his fortune, the rest he gave to charity and building Carnegie libraries and stocking them with books. There is still an old Carnegie library in downtown Riverside Ca. I guess he felt that made up for his many sins. Of course he did provide many jobs, sort of a mixed bag, like most business people.
P.S. Getting back to your main question why can't we get back to the way things were, simply because times have changed. The Industrial Revolution has given way to a Technological & Communications Revolution. We don't need the same huge populations we once needed and we will have fewer jobs going forward since computers and robots are replacing people. This is going to cause a mass social dislocation much like we have been experiencing for the last 40 years, that has accelerated over the last 16 years. Even in China where the jobs fled even the workers there are being replaced by machines, and they have a population that is 4 almost 5 times greater than ours. They will be having their own problems very soon. They are just one bad harvest away from social disorder, we are the store house of the world, but our emergency supply of grain is only 100 days. What happens after 3 months?