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#2
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![]() this should be fun. *cough*
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#3
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![]() What's happening in the real world is that poverty is increasing, and much of the middle class is losing ground, while almost all of the new wealth created by all workers is being hoarded by the people at the very top.
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"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." -- Adam Smith Last edited by TwinSwords; 10-25-2011 at 01:02 PM.. |
#4
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![]() Ahh, good old labor theory of value. Pretty sure this is the root of economic illiteracy.
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The mixing of populations lowers the cost of being unusual. |
#5
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![]() It is in close competition with the notion that there is no such thing as government failure.
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#6
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Like the belief that the market is always right and always produces the most desireable outcome isn't a complete inanity with the exact same structure as a false religious belief. |
#7
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![]() None of your graphs indicate poverty.
Do any of your graphs include wealth transfers from higher income groups to lower income groups via entitlements? |
#8
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![]() No, they don't, but this has been in the news recently.
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*I will note that when we talk about "Republicans" favoring the elimination of the social safety net, we should be clear that we are only talking about the tier of professional Republicans -- politicians, party leaders, pundits, the media arms at Fox News and in AM talk radio, conservative blogs, web sites, magazines, journals, the think tanks and policy planning institutions. One of the problems for the Republican base -- the actual rank and file membership -- is that the professional tier don't really represent them. The Kevin Williamsons and Glenn Becks are way, way, way to the right of the real GOP rank and file. Or, to get to the point, most Republican rank and file support the continuation of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, while the overwhelming majority of the professional tier favor their abolition (or reformulation into engines for siphoning wealth into the hands of investment bankers, as with schemes to privatize Social Security).
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"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." -- Adam Smith Last edited by TwinSwords; 10-25-2011 at 10:27 PM.. |
#9
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http://www.tnr.com/blog/timothy-noah...-message-again |
#10
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This fact -- the fact that the rank and file of the GOP is not represented by the leaders of the party -- is the reason that the politics of hate are sooooo important to the GOP. The reason they always cook up social issues -- ACORN, the Wise Latina, the New Black Panthers, black flash mobs, black on white crime, the Ground Zero Mosque, to name but a few -- is because they need to keep the base distracted from the issues of actual importance, and the population divided along various cultural and demographic lines. This is why the message of the left has always been about the commonality and of all humanity -- black, brown, red, white, yellow, citizen, immigrant, atheist, believer, gay, straight, and so on -- while the messages of the right has always been designed to divide and sow hatred.
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"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." -- Adam Smith |
#11
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"By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." Adam Smith |
#12
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![]() Your side seems to do that a lot. |
#13
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Of course, I agree that there's a lot of truth to that view. But c'mon. This is America. (Which I hear is being overrun by goblins.) |
#14
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I think because you like the politics of the left, you're more generous to them. Quote:
I don't think I've ever seen a liberal admit that there is a real cost to any liberal policy proposal. I don't mean price tag, I mean something that is lost by doing it. Liberals are even loathe to admit the cost of social changes, like the consequences of sexual revolution. Quote:
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#15
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#16
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![]() @SullaTheDictator: Your response to me could use a full counter-response, but suddenly I'm just sort of overwhelmed by sadness. I'm just the kind of liberal you say you've never talked to, who readily admits that liberal policies have opportunity costs attached. I'm always telling my friends that their pat answers aren't good enough. I don't get particularly wet for The Black Panthers. I'd actually be kind of eager to talk to you for real, so that when you laughingly imply that I don't particularly value America, I can say "wait, wait, wait, what?" And then when I say you're defending This Bigoted Power Structure and you need to check yourself, and you get huffy, I can explain what I mean; it's complicated! Unfortunately, whenever someone actually tries to figure out how that is, right wingers jump on anything they can to shut them down, saying it's not really that complicated. I had a big realization recently that it's probably *great fun* to be a movement conservative. You've got tremendous home field advantage. You get to have the juice of being a radical, with the surety that you're defending things "as they obviously really are, just look around you," so to speak. It makes me sad this morning. So, that's it. After my initial response, I knew my rhetoric wasn't good enough. I guess you beat me.
edit: I apologize for implying that you yourself are a bigot. We all defend This Bigoted Power Structure sometimes. It's important to prioritize checking ourselves in that regard. I probably have a lot less faith than you do that it will work itself out for the better without deliberate action. Also, and I'm sure you agree wholeheartedly here, I believe that general material progress is one of the very prime movers in improving how we treat each other. So I support conservative progressive economic policies. That's a big part of why I like the current president. I almost never listen to the teevee personalities you mention. They're not that great. And even compared to MSNBC, don't you think FoxNews has an over-the-top siege mentality? Last edited by shimmy; 10-27-2011 at 11:19 AM.. |
#17
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![]() shimmy, don't apologize to him. He will only start jumping up and down and cackle madly about the cowardice of liberals. There is no point in reasoning with trolls like him, and your BHTV experience will be much more positive if you limit yourself to conversing with people who don't live inside Sean Hannity's bowels. Trust me.
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mrwhitby.blogspot.com |
#18
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I just received the second raise to my shitty health care policy.The reason... the Affordable Care Act. I can't tell you how overjoyed I am that this crappy piece of legislation is now going to cost me over $1200 a year with no added benefit to me or anyone else, so it seems. I guess this is what hope and change is all about. So I don't think that your typical right winger doesn't think things aren't complicated. They would just like people to quit the incessant fixing and fiddling because it usually doesn't do anything but make things worse. And as far as the guy you support because he's a conservative progressive...I want him to go down. I don't care who the opponent is. I can't stand Obama's smarmy 'I'm so wise and I'm here to help you and make things better' routine. He is the most self involved, hypocritical, lying person who has ever been in the office. He's worse than Bill Clinton. I think it's fair to say we're, all of us, sad. I'll go now. Nice chatting with/to you.
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"By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." Adam Smith Last edited by badhatharry; 10-27-2011 at 11:38 PM.. |
#19
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Is your raise in premiums directly attributable to the ACA? Mine is what it historically has been (premiums for my policy have been raising 15-20% a year every year), and like I said, this is without ACA. I know that ACA will have a huge credit for my employer to have a plan for me, and my employer intends to pass a great deal of the savings on to us, but expanading the proportion of our policies they pay for. |
#20
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Last year, when coverage was extended to adult children regardless of student status and to the age of 26, during a meeting set up to discuss increases in health insurance premiums, the HR person presenting the information said that there have been an increase of covered family members of 500 due to that extension of coverage. She only mentioned this as the reason for the increase. Making some simple math with a calculator during the meeting, it was obvious that adding 500 lives, considering the total number of employees, wouldn't justify the increase at all. So when called on it, the HR person admitted that there were other reasons for the increase. Had she not been called to clarify, people would have left the meeting believing that this ACA provision was the reason for the increased premium. This year, the State of NJ stopped/limited (I don't know the exact details) providing certain subsidies to patients who have Medicare. These subsidies assisted patients with their prescription copays. So many people come in stating that they have to pay more or can no longer afford their prescriptions because of ACA. How to explain that it is the new governor's policies and not ACA? Similarly, the state of NJ has privatized the administration of Medicaid services. Now we have managed care companies doing the job. As a result, patients now have limited prescription coverage, many of their regular medications are no longer covered and they have copays for prescriptions which range from very reasonable to very expensive. This has nothing to do with ACA, but rather with the State's decision to privatize. So a portion of Medicaid dollars is now going to stockholders instead of going to Medicaid recipients. But many people don't realize that this has nothing to do with ACA. Furthermore, because private managed care is outsourced, the company that manages medical care subcontracts the prescription management. The prescription company, in turn, finds ways to get larger profits by limiting medications even if this means that patients will decompensate and end up in the hospital. Of course, in the end, this will cost more, but, the prescription company doesn't care about that. And so it goes. And people are led to believe that all this is due to ACA, when in fact, it is due to the free market/privatization policies of the current Republican state administration. |
#21
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![]() I think the poverty discussion is a different one. The graph does refute Williamson's claim that this is some sort of 'statistical anomaly' as he seems to argue here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...n-d-williamson If the share of wealth or income going to the top x% is increasing: http://depts.washington.edu/wcpc/sit...ntile_2009.JPG http://gregonpolitics.files.wordpres...-1922-2007.jpg It's hard to argue that this some numbers game. Yes there is some economic mobility here in America, but do we really believe that because the top 1% changes every year that this somehow means that it is not a small group of people that are seeing all the gains? Even using Williamson's own citation (http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...3-08revise.pdf) we see that if you are in the top 1% you have an 2 in 5 chance over a decade to still be there, if you're in the bottom 25%, you have a 50% of still being there after a decade (table 2), and although incomes did decrease in absolute terms (as he claims in his article), their total share increased over the population average (table 4). In fact, all his article proves is that if you're in the top 0.01% there's a good chance you won't be there after a decade--you might be in the top 1%, and you better believe you'll still be in the top 5% (73% chance). What this all comes down to is: of the other '99%ers' you run into over your lifetime--the thousands and thousands of people you meet--there is basically no chance that they'll ever make it into the top 1% in their lifetimes, and this is the point I think Williamson misses. But one thing we do know: as bad as all those 'socialist' countries are with all their problem, we do know they do something a little better: In spite of this 'economic mobility' counterargument, we know that those who are rich largely stay rich, and those that are poor largely stay poor (Well at least compared to the 'socialist' countries ![]() http://www.centrist.org.uk/blog/wp-c...ty_figures.jpg |
#22
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![]() Kevin D. Williamson tells us more than once how he's living in the Bronx. It'd be interesting to know if Williamson was born and raised in the Bronx (in which case his down with the people, I'll tell you what my neighbors in the South Bronx would think about student loans is merely misguided and not ludicrous hipster affectation as well) or if he's currently living in the Bronx because Wall Street has made Manhattan unaffordable. An irony he might want to address.
Schmitt briefly touches on vocational schools, but is too kind to plunge the knife in. I'll refrain from evoking the huddled masses I live among (a la the rough & tumble Mott Haven Kid Williamson!), but, you know, the Mott Haven Kid might want to check out how the DeVry and University of Phoenix chains are currently ripping off poor people across America, encouraging them to take out sizable loans for often worthless degrees. And the students there (many vets) don't think they're going to vocational schools, much less being conned. Touchingly, they think they're getting degrees which will lead to middle-class jobs and lives. Both Phoenix and DeVry are backed by Wall Street. A disgrace. Williamson might find there are exponentially more people at any branch of either institution than, oh say, the feminist film program at Smith. (Nice stereotype, btw! The 1980s really do live at National Review!) Somewhat off topic: a discussion of these schools might make for a fantastic BHTV episode. Then, of course, there's the actual cost of higher education throughout the U.S. (even for "real", i.e., non rip-off, schools) and the very lucky position the loaners are in: government guaranteed, but the tremendous profits are all theirs. Kind of like Wall Street in 2008, come to think of it! Finally, while we're giving the Mott Haven Kid things to do, he might want to check his smugness a bit. I'm sure he didn't mean to seem condescending to the always gracious Schmitt. Last edited by Rathertired; 10-25-2011 at 01:46 PM.. |
#23
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![]() Eliminating the ad hominems we have:
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To the extent it exists, this problem would not exist without the loans. The government has subsidized such loans (in part with guarantees) and then, to limit the cost of the program, made them non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. Kids who heavily discount the future payment obligations are left holding the bag years later. If you eliminated the non-dischargeability in bankruptcy going forward, I think you would see this problem disappear. The government would no longer guaranty nearly so many loans (because of the high default risk). Students sacrificing their own savings would be much more discriminating about what institutions they went to. In short the phenomenon of schools created to scoop up government loans would disappear almost overnight. |
#24
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One of my older cousins was suckered into taking classes with them, and she called me up for help with her math class, basic algebra. She should never have been allowed into that class, she is totally unqualified, she can barely do basic math let alone basic algebra. They seem to have no way of checking whether she is doing all the work on her own or gets assistance from a cousin that is too charitable/cowardly to tell her this entire project is a complete waste. The sad truth is that there are people like that that are just not college material. Period. And now she is pissing her or others money down the drain by chasing that fantasy. But what is she supposed to do? We heard echoes of this issue discussed here and elsewhere, there is a premium put on higher skilled workers, and the great sea of people who were never in that boat because of circumstance or cruel aptitude deficits, are left with ever lower prospects in the future. And I've still heard nothing from anyone that is even attempting to crack that issue. That chart twin keeps posting gives no solution to this problem, that certain kinds of labor that was a staple industry for lower skilled people to live decently and well may be faltering. What replaces it? Everyone can't be a financial analyst or doctor or software engineer or nurse etc etc. some people are just not that technical, and those non technical positions are the most under threat, wealth transfers to increase the level of subsistence does not solve that structural issue. I am not sure about the university of phoenix as a whole, but it seems like the educational equivalent of a timeshare in ripoff potential. |
#25
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(Note: I'm not implying your're satisfied with the course we're on; the fact that you have raised and re-raised these questions implies to me that you're not satisfied with it.) Quote:
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Because someone is going to do those jobs - one way or another. You know, at least she's trying something. People can get pretty far in life on hard work and determination even if they lack a great degree. Maybe the Phoenix degree can get her a foot in the door at a low level at some company and she can demonstrate competence, intelligence, and determination, and then on the basis of that she can succeed. It's probably better than nothing.
__________________
"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." -- Adam Smith Last edited by TwinSwords; 10-27-2011 at 07:16 PM.. |
#26
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Really not a fan of forcing employers to pay people more money than the market does. Ideally a persons wage increases because their skills are so desirable to an employer that they see it as a net plus to pay them more money to keep them happy and satisfied and to prevent them from jumping ship. In that scenario both parties gain, forcing an employer to pay more just cuts into their bottom line, and many businesses are already operating on razor thin margins or losing money. You can't just dictate "fair" wages to a business because they have to deal with a thing called solvency. If we are going to try to increase the income of people why not just directly augment their incomes? Apply a program like social security across the board starting at age 18 until death where all citizens get a check each month, then even if a persons skills relegate them to lower end employment options and pay, there would be a financial boost that kicks in to smooth out the inadequate income. Doing this would cost a great deal, so there would need to be radical shifts and this would probably need to replace everything, including medicare. But if we are going to be spending massive chunks on direct payments to older (and wealthier btw) people and medical costs, why not just cover everyone and be done with it. Then you would not have to force employers into pretending a janitors work is worth 30 dollars an hour in the market. |
#27
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In any case, it doesn't seem like a workable solution to me on such a scale, but damned if I know what the solution is. It's depressing. |
#28
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![]() I support this idea wholeheartedly. As stephanie said, it seems unworkable: but anything that would help anyone avoid starving in the street seems unworkable with the Congress we have.
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mrwhitby.blogspot.com |
#29
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I don't know how to solve this, but I think as a starting point we need to decide whether or not mass poverty is acceptable. Quote:
If a company can pay $10 / hr instead of $20 / hr, they will. But that's not the same as saying they would not pay $20 / hr if they had to. There are a lot of companies that paid $20 / hr and still made massive profits, and only starting paying much less when foreign labor markets were opened up. In other words, it's often a myth that companies can't afford to pay more. Just look at the profits these companies are making and the wealth they are hoarding. Quote:
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"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." -- Adam Smith |
#30
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Of course, the problem for high school grads today is that many employers use college to figure out who actually has the skills that high school grads should have but often don't, so maybe for some even for-profit degrees work for that purpose. I don't know. I think people are far, far better off going to a much cheaper community college or the like, however. |
#31
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So, yeah. Jon: Tell your cousin to drop Phoenix and to start taking classes at a local community college. I know it sounds like a cliche, but there are some really good community colleges. Actually, Stephanie, I'm glad you said this. Part of my reasoning for my "cheer up" type comment that you responded to is that at Megacorp Intl., we do hire a fair number of people from a couple of the nearby community colleges, and (this is really what I was thinking above) once they are in the workforce, they have as much of a chance to prove themselves as anyone else. I can't say I've ever seen this with Phoenix, however. There's one other big advantage to community college: It gets the student out of the house and into an educational setting with other students and teachers. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't think the ideal education is going to be self-directed from behind the computer in the living room. I'm not saying self-directed education can't work, or that Khan Academy (and the like) aren't doing great things, of course.
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"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." -- Adam Smith |
#32
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![]() Kevin: The protesters are socialists and ignorant, aimless riffraff.
Right, but so is the Tea Party. Let's not forget that these idiots nearly forced House Republicans to not raise the debt limit. |
#33
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![]() I am at the 9 minute mark, and I just listened to Mr. Williamson's hypothesis about the depression. He says we are spending more money than we have, which is true. He does not say that we are spending trillions of those dollars on self destructive wars.
chamblee54
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Chamblee54 |
#34
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![]() Kevin's obnoxious know-it-all act is particularly irritating when he's not responding to Mark's arguments. Take this exchange, for example.
Mark begins by arguing that the way in which corporations divide up profits between executives and workers is a big driver of inequality, and that in this case the problem is a straightforward case of the same profit being divided differently than it would have been in 1960. Kevin responds by first throwing out a non sequitur accusation that Mark doesn't care about Chinese peasants escaping rural poverty, then argues that greater global competition means that firms have to keep labor costs low and that the relative value of CEO's is higher in a world full of larger, more competitive firms. But the first half of that is completely unresponsive to Mark's point, and the second half doesn't stand up to the most cursory scrutiny. After all, the paychecks for a CEO and a greeter at Wal-Mart are both part of "labor costs" for a firm. If foreign competition means that firms can't afford to be generous to their employees, that should hurt upper management as much as anyone else unless there's some other reason for them to be paid more. Now Kevin thinks that greater competition means that CEO's are more important now than in the past, but the evidence that this is anything but a myth is awfully thin. The CEO's of foreign firms make far, far less than US firms, but there's basically zero evidence that this has made US companies more efficient. In practice, there is voluminous evidence that CEO pay is both a massive market failure and an extremely corrupt practice. So here we have a clear example of inequality driving wage stagnation. In the 1960's, upper management had a relatively weak bargaining position when it asked for higher shares of profits, and labor had a relatively strong position. Since then labor unions have disappeared and corporate boardrooms have become far more incestuous and irrational, and lo and behold we have stagnant or falling median income and skyrocketing CEO pay. |
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#37
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Last edited by Mike; 10-26-2011 at 02:00 AM.. |
#38
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In a great many cases -- a majority in my own experience -- the quality of the labor is lower. This is not intended to be a slam on the individuals who work in India or China. Obviously Indians and Chinese have the same capacity to do good work as anyone else. But there are practical obstacles when working with employees who don't speak your language and who live 12 time zones away. It's not that under identical conditions they could not do identical quality work. It's that conditions are not identical, and the differences tend to mean a reduction in quality. So, contrary to your assertion, more often than not the labor is not equivalent, it's substandard* -- but corporations are willing to accept the tradeoff because the savings are so great. We often pay foreign labor 3%-5% of what employees make in countries where workers have secured their rights -- i.e. labor rights, workplace safety, child labor laws, and on and on and on. *I'll add that of course it had a lot to do with the type of work. When it comes to manufacturing, there are fewer obstacles of the kind I'm describing. When it comes to anything collaborative, there are significantly more obstacles. I have the greatest personal exposure to software development done in India and China, and infrastructure support services in India (not call centers). These roles all require a great deal of interaction, communication, and collaboration, and because of the obstacles I described, are harder to perform from India or China, and the work suffers as a result. Exactly. Corporations found that they could not roll back the social achievements made by the American people during the past 100 years at the ballot box, despite all their funding of libertarian think tanks, so instead they wrote "free trade agreements," handed them to conservatives in Congress, and found a way around American law and a way to usurp the American standard of living.
__________________
"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." -- Adam Smith |
#39
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#40
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Free trade assumes an enthusiastically capitalist regime though; and we haven't had that for about 20 years. So it is more like a hole in the bucket covered with the tape of cheaper consumer goods. As we see, that doesn't last forever. Quote:
The proper way to conduct free trade is to do so after the ladder has been kicked away. Of course, the reason we don't do that is because of the incessant moralizing of cosmopolitans. |
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