Interesting Poll picture

[TheProfessor]

well i live in the blue lol

[evilmiata]

We haven't been closing factories for hundreds of years.

Yes, we have. Now, they may not be factories like we know now, but during their time, they were leading places of industry. Eli Whitney used interchangable parts to eliminate craftsmen and gunsmith jobs in New Haven. Steam power reduced jobs and eliminated water wheel mills. Woodworkers closed shop as steel became the manufacturing material of choice. Ice factories closed down as refrigerators became popular. Nothing is new. History repeats itself. Don't act so naive. Do you think that this is still open?

And heres an idea to keep those plants open: stop rewarding companies for sending jobs over seas. Or how about stopping unfair trade practices? Or putting presure on third world contries to improve their labor laws, thats if they have any? I'll bet if there was a 500% tax on a pair of Nikes, or your "all American" Levi's because they were made with slave labor, Nike would be making sneakers here, and Levi's would have never left!

The problem with trade embargoes is that any country we impose a 500% tax on will do the same. It hurt us not too long ago. Plus, it doesn't affect trade between other countries. No amount of taxes will do any good if the rest of the world buys steel from China instead of us.

Don't feel left out that steel mills are closing down. We Floridians have our own set of problems with foreign agriculture threatening our citrus and tomato crop. However, a company local to me (PGT Industries) is working 1500 people overtime manufacturing windows. My point is that no matter how bad someone makes the job market sound, there are others making it much better.

One more thing: Most of the companies receiving outsourcing overseas are American companies. Sure, the labor is an expense, but all profits return to the US and American companies. That means more taxes, higher stocks, and a better American economy. However, I'll understand if this statement of the facts simply pisses you off.

[firechiken]

If you think the mechanization of industry caused the actual loss of jobs, your the naive one. If anything, it created more jobs by helping more factories to be built. Who was making the interchangable parts? Who was making the refrigeration parts? Steam power also created the railroad, which helped industry to grow, hence even more factories. And so on and so on. The problem we have here is the migration of manufacturing jobs to other countries. The trade deficit we have now is 16 times what it was 20 years ago. It's up to 1.2 billion dollars a day. I'm not at all trying to blame bush or republicans for this, it was happening on Slick Willy's watch too, and your not pissing me off. It is apparent, however, that this is going to keep going around and around and neither one of us is going to win, so I'm done here. Thank you for the stimulating conversation!