How the Crash Will Reshape America

[crinzema]

Education. Fix our pre college education.

More educated people= more ideas= better ideas= ability to compete.

Not to simplify the crisis, but we did not start having issues competing with the world until the world caught (and then) passed us in pre college education. Presently, they walk circles around us. Our colleges are the best in the world still to this day. And, they have a significant number of non-domestic students for a reason. But it is not because of some strange EO law; it is because kids from overseas are beating the pants off of our kids.

[tamias6]

Education. Fix our pre college education.

More educated people= more ideas= better ideas= ability to compete.

Not to simplify the crisis, but we did not start having issues competing with the world until the world caught (and then) passed us in pre college education. Presently, they walk circles around us. Our colleges are the best in the world still to this day. And, they have a significant number of non-domestic students for a reason. But it is not because of some strange EO law; it is because kids from overseas are beating the pants off of our kids.

[monsoon]

Interesting article about the United States manufacturing environment.

[tamias6]

It's not really that interesting as it uses 2 year old data that is also incorrect. The reason that we don't do battle of the links at UrbanPlanet is that in order to use someone else's opinion to argue your point, you subject yourself to the the credibility of that opinion. And it is an Associated Press article no less. lol Manning cites no sources and makes a number of inaccurate statements in that article. One for example is that he lists the manufacturing of IBM as a company but doesn't mention that IBM does most of that off shore now. Go look at an IBM laptop. It's made by Lenovo in China.

The points I made above are valid and I have yet to see that anyone has come up with any numbers or anything else to dispute it. On the commentary about education I totally agree. However close to 4 million jobs disappearing from the economy in the last few months didn't happen because of failures in education. It happened because of failed industrial policy in the United States.

If anyone tells you that it "doesn't matter" that Ipods are made in China then they have no idea what they are talking about. Every single time one of those things is sold here, then we have transferred value to the Chinese economy and taken it out of ours. It doesn't matter if we pay people here to to facilitate the transaction and do marketing for the process. Marketing means convincing someone to do something. It doesn't mean it is good or necessary or desired. If anything it makes the problem worse. If this wasn't an issue, Hillary Clinton would not be in China right now begging them to loan the USA more money because we can no longer run this economy without it. Manning and the people he cite, completely miss the issue and have no solutions for why this economy is dying even though if you listen to them, things should be fine.

It's a sad state that we have come to his. However the pain is starting to be felt and I predict once it gets worse there will be a tempering of the idea that sending millions of blue collar and middle class jobs to China, India, Mexico and South America is such a good idea.

[Ted]

Capitalism? Capitalism is not defined by an individual, Capitalism is an economic system.

I don't like singling out one person to blame. I normally believe that people are responsible for their fiscal condition. But when those individual's money is used irresponsible, not by them, but by their Democratic president, near super majority Dem congress and Dem senate through their taxes, I will call out the person leading the "CHANGE" to socialism. CHANGE HAS A NAME.

[monsoon]

The tossing around of the words "socialism" and "capitalism" are too often done without an understanding of what exactly those terms mean. No American would tolerate living in a modern economy based completely on capitalism as business regulation is needed to control it. This was true 100 years ago when Roosevelt spit out his breakfast sausages when he learned how they were produced in the horrible meat packing industry of the day to the recent closing down of the peanut plants for shipping salmonella infested peanut products that got into the food supply.

The most capitalist system in the world these days is in Communist China. It is a capitalist's perfect world there workers can be subjected to any abuse as they have no constitutional rights, any destruction can be brought onto the environment hence very cheap production, and there is no regulation of the final product so that lead paint can be used on toys, poison put into milk products, etc. Anything to improve profits. As long as the communist government gets it's cut of the profits to look the other way, then the average worker is forced into conditions that nobody should have to accept.

I happen to agree with what Rick Santelli said in the video posted above. However in listening to what he is saying, he is not arguing for capitalism because the capitalist solution would be to do nothing which he does not advocate.

[Mark Miller]

Santelli puts on a good show. Entertainment, just like all the mainstream media these days. He gets all the lumpenprole and nascar fans fired up for a few minutes and then they return to their complacency. It is about time we end all this blame talk. We no longer have the opportunity to act as red vs. blue or liberal vs. democrat or socialist vs. capitalist. Let

[AlexPKeaton]

Now flip the equation over, and cut imports to the U.S. in half somehow. The demand for those goods will rebound as the economy levels off, and those goods can be produced here, creating jobs here, which will create demand for more goods and services here.

[jwazzz]

Santelli puts on a good show. Entertainment, just like all the mainstream media these days. He gets all the lumpenprole and nascar fans fired up for a few minutes and then they return to their complacency. It is about time we end all this blame talk. We no longer have the opportunity to act as red vs. blue or liberal vs. democrat or socialist vs. capitalist. Let

[monsoon]

,,,,For example, if we produced clothes in this country and eliminated cheap foreign competitors prices would go through the roof. Great, we'd employ a few people, but so few people would be buying it would be a net loss......

[gvsusean]

There is no evidence of this. We made our own clothes in this nation for centuries and they were never priced through the roof. I can tell you that in many of the towns here in the Carolinas where the cotton mills were located, that tens of thousands have been put out of work. It's not just a few people. How much does that cost society? Where is the work for these people now? The standard answer to that question is to let them re-train for something else. Retrain for what?

I also want to know where one might go to find good quality cheap clothes. They don't exist.

[monsoon]

^I take note that you continue to avoid addressing any of the points made in this topic. You opinion that manufacturing workers amount to little more than monkeys demonstrates how little interest you have in engaging in an actual discussion, so I won't bother. Meanwhile, another 650,000 were laid off this week.

[jas49503]

there sure is.. look at rice in Japan, steel in the USA, or cotton in the south (If the mills could compete with other firms (by price) then they would have survived!

Why so much desire to give people jobs that a monkey could do? if these jobs were so elite then the people would be paid more to do it; as it stands ANYONE can do manufacturing jobs therefore paying them a high wage is foolish.

[gvsusean]

^I take note that you continue to avoid addressing any of the points made in this topic. You opinion that manufacturing workers amount to little more than monkeys demonstrates how little interest you have in engaging in an actual discussion, so I won't bother. Meanwhile, another 650,000 were laid off this week.

[tamias6]

Why so much desire to give people jobs that a monkey could do? if these jobs were so elite then the people would be paid more to do it; as it stands ANYONE can do manufacturing jobs therefore paying them a high wage is foolish.

[gvsusean]

We could retrain the entire US work force to be artists, engineers, scientists, designers, and what not. But there would still only be a limited number of jobs to compete for. So how do we take care of those that have been out competed for these dream jobs but are still ready and willing to work? The point is the "Monkey Jobs" may be menial, put workers under an A**hole managment, and have little fringe bennies. But in a pinch, these jobs can be had to float the boat until one can land the creative class dream job.

[NorthCoast]

probably because Obama is continuing to enable the poor decision making of the american public, thereby only prolonging the misery. just a guess though.

[monsoon]

I would agree that most manufacturing jobs require little education and even less skill....

[tamias6]

And you would be woefully uninformed on that matter as that absolutely isn't true. Boring repetitive work in factories has long been relegated to robots and machines. Human labor is reserved for the processes that can't be automated because it requires skill, knowledge and experience to execute.

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Even though someone above referred to textile workers as being of the same level as the monkey, that obviously comes from either complete ignorance of what goes on in the modern manufacturing plant or it was disingenuous. Anyone that has ever been in a knitting mill knows that in order to maintain and run one of those machines it takes a great deal of skill and experience. Turning cotton balls into high end fabric isn't a simple process. If anyone believes that, then come down to one of the few knitting mills still in this country and lets see how much better you do over the "monkeys" working in there.

There are 1000s of manufacturing jobs that fit this category. Sure they don't have college degrees but that doesn't mean they are uneducated dullards. And there are 1000s of other jobs in engineering, logistics, systems, etc that support these places. Send the plant to China and you put all these people out of work. It amazes me this simple concept escapes people who would rather refer to people as monkeys and the people who might pay them a living wage, fools.

To anyone that thinks this is a good idea, then explain why the economy has gone to hell and why another 650,000 people were laid off in the last week and millions in since the first of the year. If we believe your theory, then things should be good because we are getting goods made at rock bottom prices. Yet, millions are losing their jobs. It shouldn't be. Of course I don't expect an answer as there hasn't been an answer to that from the "sending jobs overseas is good" group since this topic started. All we have gotten is name calling and links to poorly written news paper articles.

The reason these jobs have been sent overseas is nothing more than corporate greed at the highest levels. Short term gain in stead of long term prosperity. Anyone that does not realize that now isn't paying attention.

The results speak for themselves.

[GRDadof3]

And you would be woefully uninformed on that matter as that absolutely isn't true. Boring repetitive work in factories has long been relegated to robots and machines. Human labor is reserved for the processes that can't be automated because it requires skill, knowledge and experience to execute.

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[AlexPKeaton]

We could retrain the entire US work force to be artists, engineers, scientists, designers, and what not. But there would still only be a limited number of jobs to compete for. So how do we take care of those that have been out competed for these dream jobs but are still ready and willing to work? The point is the "Monkey Jobs" may be menial, put workers under an A**hole managment, and have little fringe bennies. But in a pinch, these jobs can be had to float the boat until one can land the creative class dream job.

[monsoon]

The Lump of Labor fallacy is only about 100 years old and has nothing to do with the issue at hand. It says nothing about the elimination of industry in the United States to increase profits for the corporate owners. And when these companies are begging the government for bailouts due to their bad corporate decisions, it doesn't cover that either. Different subject entirely.

I want you to go to Kannapolis, NC and explain to the 6000 people there that got laid off when Cannon Mills was bought out and the work moved to Brazil on how it is OK.... we have an intellectual theory that says there is plenty of work to do. Explain that to the 4 million+ that have been laid off since October. Let us know how that turns out for you.

[gvsusean]

The Lump of Labor fallacy is only about 100 years old and has nothing to do with the issue at hand. It says nothing about the elimination of industry in the United States to increase profits for the corporate owners. And when these companies are begging the government for bailouts due to their bad corporate decisions, it doesn't cover that either. Different subject entirely.

I want you to go to Kannapolis, NC and explain to the 6000 people there that got laid off when Cannon Mills was bought out and the work moved to Brazil on how it is OK.... we have an intellectual theory that says there is plenty of work to do. Explain that to the 4 million+ that have been laid off since October. Let us know how that turns out for you.

[Mark Miller]

While it may be true that to churn out clothing and televisions or any other manufactured part is a low-skilled position, it is pure fallacy to believe that it is easy. It is not. There is probably not a single person on this thread who would have the first clue how to make clothing from raw materials.

How to get the cotton (or even how to grow it in the first place).

How to turn the cotton into fabric.

How to dye the fabric. How to source the dye.

How to turn the fabric into a shirt.

This mundane task that monkeys could supposedly do most likely can not be done by 98% of Americans. Even a single component of this task can not be done by most Americans. That knowledge is gone. The skill is gone. The craft is gone. The desire to actually do it is gone.

And what about building a TV? Or making a toy, or a toothbrush or a hammer.

And what happens when we don

[Yankee Fan]

This has really all come down to beating a dead horse. You either think one way or you think the other way and there is nothing wrong with having the opinion on either side, but how much are you willing to bet that you are right?

How much? Your profession? Your residence? Clean water? Availability of food? The surety that your kids (or grandkids) will have the same "standard of living" that you and your parents had? I am not willing to bet any of those things and I am certainly not willing to bet any of those things on what some professor who thinks that we should hang our hats on the creative class thinks.