"American workers got what they deserved"

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Skybird

It is also about egoism and short-sightedness. Just today or yesterday a major German newspaper published the findings of a study that revealed that although most Germans expressed stellar distrust into the euro and the EU and expect that their pensions will suffer dramatically and that before they reach that age their social security payments will explode - they refuse to see the link between that and the state'S debts and social payment burdens, and their own unlimited expectation that the state nevertheless should nruse and care for the citizen, almost without limits. The expectations towards thje state are still limitless, nbody thinks about consequences to be drawn, nobody sees the links between the higher outcome, and his individual demands - and his personal tolerance for any obviously malfunctioning system that additionally does its best to kill itself.

I agree. Americans are unhappy with the results of high taxes, over regulation and wasteful gov't spending, but many nevertheless vote for bigger gov't and more programs/spending. It seems an almost psychotic inability to correlate actions with their results.

I am frequently reminded of a quote these days by Arnold J. Toynbee (not exact words): great civilizations do not die by natural causes; they commit suicide.

[UnderseaLcpl]

First, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs went overseas while the politicians you elected did nothing to stop them. Yet you continue to elect leaders who offer nothing but tax cuts, as if that would stem the flow of disappearing jobs.

He didn't offend me by calling me stupid or lazy. I regularly indulge in being both stupid and lazy. They are pastimes I enjoy.

Similarly, I am not offended by his very correct assertion that we are reaping exactly what we have sown by placing our faith in politicians.

What does offend me is that this ignorant ****er presumes to school the laws of supply and demand. As if a wise choice of politicians would somehow affect them.

Let's just assume for a moment that the entirety of congress was staffed by angelic souls who only tried to protect and improve American jobs. The assumption does not require a stretch of the imagination, as this is largely what congress does anyway, albeit inefficiently.

So now we have all these protected American jobs and happy workers and all that fluffy-bunny ****. They're all making products and earning wages for doing so. But who the ******* is going to buy those products? Who is going to pay the price necessitated by the wage demanded by American manufacturers? Nobody.

Nobody wants our overpriced crap when they can easily purchase the same product elsewhere for less, which is precisely why we don't have a manufacturing industry anymore, comparatively speaking. Decades of political initiatives and billions of dollars haven't saved US industry, because they're all a joke. Wasted capital spent to buy votes. The economy is not a product of political policy, (save where it is impaired by it) and political policy can't control it, no matter how much we'd like to believe it.

And now this ass-backwards mother****** comes along and tries to blame the American populace for not fixing US industry by selecting proper politicians, claiming that he knows anything about economics to boot? And he advocates unions as a solution? What the bleeding hell?

Oh, wait, I forgot, there's plenty of wealth to go around for everyone. Why bother with trivialities like economics when we have such enlightened commentators to tell us how it should be? After all, they'd know, given their vast experience. Personally, I can't think of a better way to create good jobs than to listen to a guy who has never created one for anyone other than himself.

It's not all bad, though. Despite the incredibly ironic whining of idiots like this guy, who think that policy and politicians are somehow going to save us from the mess they made in the first place, the global economy marches on. Luckily, we're still an enormous country with vast economic potential and a commanding monopsony over the world market. If we'd just frakking realize that and take advantage of it, we'd be set. But instead, we have fools like this guy poisoning our economic reality with pipe-dreams of factory jobs and white picket fences and all that stupid BS. We're in a competitive global market now, and we do not have the luxury of entertaining these idiotic views. We're in the Red Queen's race, where we must run to stay in the same place, and run even faster if we want to get anywhere.