do righites geddit?

[skweet]

"?? ... Ships, trains, etc. Government was not involved in any of those things? Cars are the only transportation system to ever exist? "
Better yet, American Citizens (investors) are extracting resources from other countries, using non-US citizen laborers, without government sponsored transportation selling products to US entities and are making more money than they would using US Labor, US funded transportation and extracting US resources. Point is, we are not cost effective producers even when heavily subsidized.

[Deleted]

You do some research.

For instance, please point out one train system that developed without government assistance.. thanks.

[Deleted]

Do Lefties Get It???

www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/05/55_of_americans_prove_failure.html

55% of Americans Prove Failure of Education
Kerem Oner

Last Friday, a new CNN survey showed that 80% of Americans believe the economy is in poor shape. Who could argue with them? With unemployment ticking back up to 9%, home values still sliding, surging gas prices, lackluster confidence on the part of consumers as well as business leaders, and an apparently out-of-control national debt with no visible signs of solutions that are agreeable to both sides, we seem to be stuck in doldrums for the long run.

Here is the shocker in the same survey: 55% of Americans blame former President Bush and the Republicans for the mess we are in!

For better part of three years, Democrats (with the help of the ever-willing media) have stayed on the message that this is a mess they inherited and it is apparently paying off. Never mind that they controlled all branches of the government for the past two and a half years and the Congress for five! Never mind the fact that real estate bubble which caused the crisis is a product of not only overzealous Fed meddling in the economy with their easy credit policies but decade-long stiff congressional Democrat opposition to answer the alarm bells rung by Bush, Treasury Secretary Snow, Senator McCain, and others primarily on the Republican side! Never mind the fact that what exacerbates the crisis is trillion plus dollar annual deficits thanks to Democrat spending (yes, Bush spent too much also but his deficits averaged a little over $200 billion per year over his eight years -- with the lion share attributable to his last two years when Democrats controlled the Congress and economy went in to recession affecting the revenues)! Never mind the fact that corporations of all sizes are making big profits but no one is willing to invest -- as business confidence surveys and interviews with CEOs indicate because of fiscal uncertainties, ill-advised anti-business laws under the guise of financial and healthcare reforms, and a nightmarish regulatory environment under Democrat rule that has added more job killing regulations over the past two and a half years than any other previous Administration!

So, what are we to take away from this survey? Democrats and their allies in the complicit media and academia have succeeded in dumbing down the public in general so that they are brain-washed by empty rhetoric. When public schools purposefully abdicate their responsibility to properly educate the students under their charge, outcome is predictable.

Under classic education, there are three phases to the academic development of any individual: the learning phase, the logic phase, and the rhetoric phase.

The first phase takes place in elementary level where students are taught to simply take in (learn) facts. Public schools do a pretty good job with this phase -- except it is not always necessarily facts but politically correct made-up facts that they teach young students who do not know any better! We have early to mid 20th century cultural Marxism that has thoroughly infiltrated our schools via the Marxist sympathizing teacher unions to thank for that.

That is where the educational process pretty much ends for most public school students who do not either excel by their own capabilities or have actively interested parents. The logic phase when students are supposed to be taught critical thinking skills and to question facts before accepting them as truths, and the rhetoric phase when they are supposed to learn to polish their arguments do not get the attention they are supposed to. This academic unpreparedness is then carried on to the college level where further indoctrination takes place.

The reason for this shameful failure is as simple as recognizing the dynamics involved in being indoctrinated by Marxist ideology. Critical thought process is the natural enemy of any system based on collectivism.

Is it any wonder when you consider that old dogs have been up to new tricks for better part of a century? Likes of Gramsci, Cloward, Piven, and Alinsky figured out decades ago that their Marxist ideals could only be realized by the educational process over a long period rather than at the point of a bayonet. It is the ones on the side of free minds and free societies that have been asleep at the switch.

[txbo]

Assume all of this is true which it is not, how many times Bush vetoed any of the so-called spending by the democrats. He had the power and responsibility if he did not want this spending. Instead, he created a seven trillion deficit. Why did the republicans lose the election not only the presidency but also both houses? Hind it was not because they did a fantastic job.

[floridayankee]

May 9, 2011 15:33:33 GMT -5 oped said:

You do some research.

For instance, please point out one train system that developed without government assistance.. thanks.

Quit beating around the bush, oped. Since Energy, transportation and/or communication are not free, what's your point?

[txbo]

Sorry fyankee, you are on the wrong track, the train will not stop here.

[ungenteel]

too bad this got lost .. to me ... it is the real point to ponder

<<the only way to retire debt is with new wealth creation ... the only way to create new wealth is with value added activities ... manufacturing, agriculture, construction, mining etc.>>




<<Labor (and labor unions) do not create wealth any more than a doctor does.>>

seriously .. don't you get it??wealth is created by adding value .. not by making a a good income ... income does not equal wealth "creation'

[skweet]

seriously .. don't you get it??wealth is created by adding value .. not by making a a good income ... income does not equal wealth "creation'
Yes, adding value. The day that a laborer, or labor union extracts a raw good and converts it to a usable product, for the benefit of the consumer is the day I will agree. Currently a laborer doesn't extract or convert squat without the promise of being paid by the investor. They are not creating wealth they are just making a good income. The fact that they are making that good income from an investor that is extracting, and processing wealth is inconsequential, as it is simply a job choice. A mechanic doesn't fix the machine that the laborer uses in his process without a promise of being paid, and the doctor does not cast the broken laboring arm of the laborer without a promise of being paid. They are all cogs in the system, but do not create wealth. The investor funds the extraction of the wealth that is encased in our environment. The investor must bring that product to market at the least cost possible for the benefit of the consumer. The investor has found that other countries' resources with other countries' laborers is the least costly way to bring wealth to the US consumer.

[shelby]

skweet I cannot seem to follow your logic here if a laborer or investor extract a resource and turn it into a usable product and get paid they are NOT creating wealth? But if they are adding value by extracting and creating a usable product and not getting paid they ARE creating welath? So our problem is income?

[shelby]

Please clarify because the way you are stating this makes no sense to me.

[skweet]

OP thinks that a doctor does not create wealth, a labor union does.
False, neither creates wealth. Wealth is a tree and wealth is a board. We have trees in the US and we use boards in the US. A labor union charges a fee to an investor for labor, the investor uses the labor provided to harvest a tree and turn it into a board convert wealth to wealth that has higher demand. The investor adds value by paying for labor, machinery and energy, but the wealth is the actual resource and usable product.
The second part of the OP argument is that the US is better served extracting and processing it’s own wealth to exchange with other countries for their processed wealth. I would argue that our costs are so high that we would not be competitive with most other markets. This is due to many factors including labor costs and regulation, but not greed, as our investors can satiate their “greed” (or better, their profit motive), by extracting wealth from foreign soil, using foreign labor. This does not satiate the labor forces “profit motive” (or greed), but that really isn’t the investors’ problem, and not the US problem generally. Since we are not competitive producers, and foreign sellers will accept our financial structure (non-wealth) instruments in exchange for actual wealth, I think we are truly the beneficiary of not adding value.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

May 7, 2011 22:59:01 GMT -5 @lakhota said:

Righties do get it...we're waiting for the left to realize it's unions, regulations and anti-business policies that are keeping /driving businesses away from the US.

Then why did we flourish under President Clinton? Including a balanced budget?

ALL SPENDING bills MUST originate in the House of Representatives, and that in 1995, a conservative group- you could call them "righties"-- of Republicans under the leadership of Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, gained control of the purse strings for the first time in 42 years.

REPUBLICANS balanced the budget. They forced Clinton into welfare reform and key tax cuts like the capital gains tax cut; they reduced regulations, and set the country on a course for prosperity.

Fortunately, Clinton was more of a politician who liked the job vs. an ideologue. He read the tea leaves pretty quick and declared, "The era of big government is over".

Obama, though he did extend the Bush tax cuts, is a bit more obstinate. He will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to a balanced budget, a rolling back of regulation, meaningful tax reform, and a prosperous future.

[shelby]

"Since we are not competitive producers, and foreign sellers will accept our financial structure (non-wealth) instruments in exchange for actual wealth, I think we are truly the beneficiary of not adding value."

Who are the "we" who are benefitting? I think most people who have lost jobs due to global competition would not say so The fact that we most likely will have high 9-10% unempoyment for probably ever, is no benefit. The fact that we will all have to adjust our standards down lower our wages and deal with higher inflation is not a benefit. We became a large economy based on adding value and producing things for consumption. The service sector economy is much like a pyramaid scheme it could crumble at anytime, if we have no tangibles to trade and sell we have no cometetive edge in the end.

[skweet]

Ok, let's assume that the 10% unemployed moved from the UE or welfare lines to the minimum wage lines, and everyone took a similar step up in pay. Minimum wage is something like a 20% increase from entitlemen income, so everyone's income increases by 20%. No assume that we get this benefit in exchange for zero foreign trade, now the cost of general goods goes up by 50%. We all have a 50% cost increase for a 20% revenue increase, how does that benefit anybody? I don't know the exact difference between costs and revenues, I only know that the costs will increase faster than the revenues. How do I know this? Because the market always finds equilibrium, and if the truth were reversed, then we would be making low cost goods for the rest of the world's rich.

[shelby]

Well if we did have zero foreign trade we would find equalibrium within our market borders just like we always did. You have to have a market to market your goods too. The problem I have with what you said earlier is that we are benefitting from this new global market but the "we" is not so much inclusive of most americans. Not saying I have the answer but I will not agree we are benefitting either.

[skweet]

Bottom line, welfare recipients and the unemployed have more stuff (wealth), than they would if we produced it in the US and they had a job. I see this as benefitting them. Maybe less stuff is benefit, but I will not agree with that.

[shelby]

"Bottom line, welfare recipients and the unemployed have more stuff (wealth), than they would if we produced it in the US and they had a job."

This makes no sense

[ungenteel]

<<OP thinks that a doctor does not create wealth, a labor union does.>>

Excuse me .. since I was the OP ... I'm trying to decide if you don't know how to read or if you are pushing some agenda. I said nothing about unions. I was speaking of value added activities ... I don't attribute value added activities only to those who supply direct labor ... it's the difference between enterprises that engage in value added activities and service enterprises. We cannot repay debt, both private and public because we are not creating enough new wealth to retire debt.

Again, to use the doctor analogy, doctors do not create wealth, they just participate in a wealth transfer .. the same applies to all services.

The US is struggling because so much of our value added (wealth creating activities) have been transferred offshore. In essence, corporate America has sent a message to the middle class ... your jobs are gone until you are willing to work for Asian wages. the other attendant problem is that service enterprises will not have someone to serve

One more time .. value added activities are the totality of the enterprise's work force .. the laborers, the supervisors, the accountants, the engineers, the investors. The distinction is .. does the enterprise, as a whole, add value (create wealth) or does it just participate in a wealth transfer. Services are needed and valuable .. they just don't create new wealth