PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

pj67coll · #14 05-16-2009, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

Thats exactly what I'm saying. It only benifits a small group of people, everyone else is going to get screwed.

We can't compete with their labor, but if we add some taxes or tariffs we can level the playing field a bit.

Globalization is a playing field leveler in and of itself. That doesn't just mean that everybody else rises up to the first worlds standard of living. It also means that many in the first world sink down towards the third worlds standard of living.

It means that if you are an uneducated line worker in Detroit earning 25 an hour in a union protected job your compettition is no longer some guy in Flint earning 23 an hour but someone in Guangdong earning 50 cents an hour. You are finished. As some of the unions around this country might possibly be beginning to understand.

As a theory Globalisation works fine "in theory". But in practice requires that most illusive of conditions. A level playing field. That's not something that has ever existed, and nor will it in all likelyhood in the future

I think the damage to the US manufacturing base is already so far advanced I really don't see any way for it to recover under the current conditions. I was in Home Depot looking for a drill the other day. I wanted to try and buy an American made product. I spent about a quarter of an hour looking thru every product they had. Not a single one was made in the US. Not one! Didn't matter what the name was. Skill, Makita, Black and Decker, Bosch, Milwaukee, Rigid, Ryobi, etc. Every one of them without exception was made in China or Mexico, and there was only a couple of Mexican ones. It's pathetic.

I was prepared to pay more for an American product. There just wasn't one available. Bought a Ryobi in the end.

What Hatteras observed about the phantom economy in Florida is even more the case here in Arizona. Phoenix in particular. The last decade has essentially been based on the property pyramid scheme fueled by illegals, californians and idiots. No "meaningful" jobs rooted in reality. Just converting vast swaths of desert and farmland into matchstick subdivisions for snow-birds, californians and others living on money from the past.

- Peter.