Interesting to see 'conservatives' who hate government intervention in so many areas but want the Gubmint who can't get anything right to step in and run the private sector economy and it just isn't Healthcare but major sectors of what is left of our industries. Throw free market and the invisible hand under the bus. Cast aside the Captains of Industry- our semi-sacred Job Creators (hallowed be thy name)
Cursing Unions for making US workers cost 'too much',(never mind Unions are so small a part of our workforce), then cursing the Chinee for working for 20 some cents an hour.
Why does it always have to be one extreme or the other? Never a compromise, never a blend. We seem locked into a system where we vote and run to one side of the boat and then frantically to the otherside. We can't set a middle course bearing because if we were paying attention it is the straight line and far more efficient than building and then tearing down one economic/political house of cards and then another.
China, India and whoever else gets their economic act together will rise, there is nothing to say their rate of growth has to be as fast as possible( Ummmm didn't we learn anything by our cycles of boom and bust? Can't an aircraft stall if it's angle of attack to too great?)
Labor intensive industry is best suited for nations where labor is cheap, but when it comes to call centers and outsourcing some of the more technical side of industry not every US company is happy with India. My wife is starting a 5 year project because an insurance company isn't happy with the product coming from an Indian based company. Some folks learn the stove is hot if you tell them and some have to touch the stove a few times...
Perhaps the much maligned Gubmint can help tamp down the economic upheaval as our nation stops being a industry heavy one to a service and financial one.
It is very interesting a protected service as our energy system has finally felt a bit of the pain the private sector, to include Union staffed ones, have for years. I guess the water is getting high enough to touch some more nuts! It's viva the free market until the pink slips start flowing at MY place of emplyment! :roll:
My cousin works for a semi major electric provider in Northern Oklahoma, he often tells his co-workers they should thank the Gods their industry is so regulated, heaven help them if it wasn't, they don't know what hard work is, but they just might find out! :shock:
I remember when railroad train crews went from 4 men to 3 and then down to 2. The George Jetson progress we thought would be so wonderful has an ugly side, we don't need so many people in the workforce. Where will they work? Just what 'industry' will the Gubmint create to absorb the surplus workers? Spoons for everyone?
We laughed long and hard at the 'make work' factories of the old Soviet Union, but it seems that is just what some would have us do, seal ourselves off behind an Iron Curtain with a closed economic loop. It didn't work for them and it won't work for us.
OIL- drill baby drill wouldn't create an extra day's worth. The much scoffed at solar and wind power?
We import wheat, lumber, aluminum, canola oil, and electricity from Canada alone!
Somewhere there is a balance between the 'hard working Americans' you know personally and those overpaid lazy bastards you don't.
Between a healthy economy and one that makes work even if ineffective.
Between a Gubmint/industry coop and a cabal...