What jobs?

[Ron]

Oh, you are SO wrong.

Where the profits go is VERY important.

[Vic Smith]

True enough. BTW, the reason foreign auto plants began being built in the U.S. is because the Reagan administration threatened tariffs. Balance of trade was getting bad and the owners and unions were squealing. Since then the solution with other industries has been let the balance go crazy, but print money, encourage debt, and stick your head in the sand. Here we are.

The Wall Streeters working for Obama are real dopes. Since he hired them, that makes him a dope. I see the Dow is up because Bernacke printed $600 billion. That'll create jobs. Right. Lower interest rates. Right. They're already nothing. Why loan for no return? Only place to put your money is Wall Street. They skim their vigorish, then invest the rest overseas. And you're gambling with that money. Las Vegas, with financial houses in place of the mob. It's nuts to me. Recipe for disaster. But I'm no economist. Just somebody who worked, saved, and avoided debt. Problem I have now is Bernacke making my savings worthless. Others have bigger problems. That gives me no pleasure. I like the rising tide theory - when it works.

--Vic

[me]

AMEN!

[me]

Same for John Boehner who has THE MOST socialized healthcare in the world for LIFE.... yet thinks that it is a BAD thing huh

he should IMMEDIATLELY drop his government coverage and get his own personal health insurance policy

Maybe he will have diabetes and get denied?

[Kurt Ullman]

His government coverage in the House is the same as any other governmental employee. It is the same kinds of policies as any other big group, some BC/BS, some other carriers. The reason it is so good is that the government pays such a high percentage of the premium and requires relatively low co-pays. Now, the better question is should the Fed government act more like businesses and the states and start requiring higher co-pays or subsidize a smaller amount of the premiums for EVERYONE.

Nope. You never see that in the big groups. Be they Fed, UAW, etc.

[gfretwell]

The only way this could be true is if Obama is taking a billion dollar aid package along with him to bribe the Indians.

[gfretwell]

I agree. If you are a lawyer, an undertaker or in some kind of service business, you have a marketable skill. If you worked in a factory "putting wheels on Cadillacs" for 20 years, you might be able to get a job at a tire store but you won't be making UAW money.

[me]

wrong

Bohener healthcare is for LIFE... not during his terms only

[gfretwell]

It is still a regular commercial policy. Elizabeth Edwards was talking about it in reference to her cancer. She had United Health Care. The reason they get it for life is they consider a kicked out congressman "retired". The real question is when congress starts treating their retirees as shabby as business does. My "free health insurance for life" now costs me $1000 a month.

[Kurt Ullman]

Which has nothing to do with main statement, that the coverage is nothing out of ordinary in design. It also looks like he gets to pay for the coverage.

[The Daring Dufas]

I thought maybe manufacturing robot repairman would be a good gig but with the factories closing, perhaps not. 8-)

TDD

[The Daring Dufas]

Maybe BeeHO is trying to get the Indian government to outsource tech support to The United States? :-)

TDD

[Charley Nukin]

The bottom line is, you must use common sense. If you want to believe the trip is costing more than the war effort in Afghanistan per day because Drudge or Rush "reported" it, it's up to you. Maybe you read it in an email sent to you, but I find FactCheck more reliable than those sources.

I don't let my hate for anything, get in the way of common sense. You may want to try that shoe on.

[Vic Smith]

Got news for you. The 7,000,000 lost mfg jobs weren't UAW. Don't know where you got that idea, And the undertaking and lawyer businesses are down.

can google unemployed lawyers yourself.

So there goes your "marketable skill" idea. Can't market your "marketable skill" when the market dries ups. Of course maybe those aren't the ideal marketable skills. Probably various contractors here finding their marketable skills aren't much in demand. I've seen figures of architect unemployment over 13% and similar for various engineers. Guess those aren't "marketable skills" any more. A bad economy mostly gets the business of bankruptcy lawyers and liquidation specialists booming. So specialization is important. I've always found the best marketable skill for finding a job is good connections and a good line of bullshit. Works every time, even if your connection is in the push cart hot dog business. Your bullshit can both talk and walk.

--Vic

[gfretwell]

I suppose a huge number in that 7 million were construction workers but I was in that business. A large number of them USED to be auto workers. The housing boom really just delayed the recession we were supposed to have at the end of the 90s. We put millions of people to work building houses nobody needed. (you have to include the people in the supply chain, the real estate people, the financing people, down to the girl driving the roach coach) That also impacted the engineers we don't need anymore because we are not drawing house plans.

I can tell you about one industry that is booming, the security gate business. The guy who used to work for my wife as a $30k a year handyman is now a gate tech and he is on the way to making $80,000 this year from a base salary of around $45-50k. They are busy as hell and his boss is afraid to hire anyone else so he works all the overtime he can stand.

[gfretwell]

That was Randy, not Lou. Four if us left in 96 and nobody got a package.

Where did you work?

[krw]

P'ok until '93 and then BTV.

[gfretwell]

Field here DC and SW Florida but I did some temp assignments in Endicott, Tucson and education when I was trying to find a safe place to land.

[Robert Green]

Union heads, lawyers and CEO's, you mean. They take obscene salaries instead of plowing that money back into their companies. You almost never see original founders of companies doing that, just the yahoos that get hired when the founders die or are bought out. Then the great equity "suck out" begins. That's US capitalism. It's not a knock against it, it's just the way it works. Producing cheap and selling dear means always looking for ways to cut costs.

As soon as it becomes cheaper to build cars or PCs or TV's elsewhere and ship them than it does to build them here, that's what happens. It's why I don't believe in "trickle down" or tax breaks for the ultra-rich. The ultra-rich are the ones spearheading the exodus of jobs from America, where labor costs are high, to much cheaper countries like Vietnam. The Chinese just floated the world's largest IPO. Much of that money came from the US wealthy class because they own the corporations that are investing in the PacRim like there's no tomorrow. I think Carly F. lost her race simply because it was clear that when she ran HP, she transferred thousands of US jobs offshore. Doing that makes it hard for people to believe that you will bring jobs to their state. It is nice that she pumped over $100M of her job-cutting bonuses back into the US economy, though. Every cloud has a silver lining. All of this job exportation is happening because it makes economic sense to producers. I am sorry to say that even buyers have bought into that model.

People buy from Wal-mart and Kia because they have to stretch their dollars further as wages decline and unemployment stays stuck on high. They barely think about how they are supporting the export of US jobs by doing so. It's a concept just too remote from the need to save enough money to pay the rent and get by. Besides, just try to live buying only US-made goods. Hardly possible.

Obama screwed the pooch by not doing everything he could to rebuild our manufacturing muscle and restarting the economy. I don't mind paying out-of-work people to clean highways, paint bridges and clean up foreclosed properties. Instead, we let them sit on their butts, getting more and more used to not working. Studies show the longer you don't get up and go to work each day, the harder it is to get into the mode again. Paying them to scrape rust off bridges would give them money to put right back into the economy. It wouldn't steal many existing jobs because it's clear very few states are doing a good job on infrastructure maintenance.

But instead of concentrating on jobs and recovery, he's got a huge bug up his butt to be the president that got health care reform passed. Maybe it was the then impending death of Ted Kennedy that got him all fired up, but whatever pushed him, it's been a dreadful mistake. The new health care law satisfies no one and may even see repeal as its more idiotic provisions begin to take effect. I believe it will be found unconstitutional to force people to buy private healthcare. But you never know. It seems if it's good for business (and forcing customers to buy your product or face punishment has got to be the dream of many corporations) the current SCOTUS will endorse it heartily. We'll see.

Now Obama's off to India to try to make his "bones" as a foreign policy expert. I dunno about that. I suspect he's playing to the history books instead of trying to solve the gnarly problems facing us at home. He won't be the first "lamed by the mid-terms" president to take that route. I just hope his escapades don't cost us another trillion dollars or so to fight nit-wit wars with ambiguous goals and hard to quantify results.

If the Sovs want to play footsie with the Iranians and help them get the bomb all I can hope is that the Sovs take the first hit when the Iranians turn on them after getting what they want. Europe seems awfully indifferent to Iran, at least compared to us, which makes little sense since they are going to be the ones that are first "in range." If they can't be bothered to lock down the problem in their own backyard, why should we? I suspect the answer is that they know we'll do it for them, so why should they bother? I'm sure at least a few of them think: "Let those sucker Americans waste their blood and treasure defending us." Well, I'm tired of being a sucker. When Europeans find themselves in the path of a skyload of radioactive fallout, maybe they'll reconsider their positions.

-- Bobby G. (a registered Republican who votes as an independent and who voted for Obama because Palin was not a person I could see in the job should McCain, who's had cancer problems, become ill or die. Plagiarist Joe Biden didn't warm my heart, either, but I thought Obama far less likely to die in the saddle than McCain, making Biden largely irrelevant.)

[HeyBub]

Bobby G. (a registered Republican who votes as an independent and who voted for Obama because Palin was not a person I could see in the job should McCain, who's had cancer problems, become ill or die. Plagiarist Joe Biden didn't warm my heart, either, but I thought Obama far less likely to die in the saddle than McCain, making Biden largely irrelevant.)