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puff: got a source for that to share?

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/20/politics/main601336.shtml
www.house.gov/apps/list/press/mi14_conyers/ 108_02_20_04.html
www.outsourcecongress.org/frrbotto.html

These are a few. Let me assure you that if a Dem Administration were doing this I'd feel just as strongly about it. Hell, Bill Clinton signed NAFTA. I tell you it is un-American.

Puff Get a CLUE!!

It is not the Bush administration or even one of the lowley Democratic ones we had in the past. If you worked in manufacturing you'd know this.

The fact of the matter is the workers in the U.S. make too damn much money as compared to the R.O.W.

My company is moving manufacturing to China as are most electronic manufacturing companies. WHY? Because labor is CHEAP!!!!!!! Those people work for next to nothing.

With stock holders concerned about the bottom line, companies have to stay competive and labor adds a lot to the final sale price of something. If you could reduce your labor costs by 98% wouldn't you?!?!

I detest the thought of jobs leaving the U.S. too, but Ross Perot was right, this country is becoming more and more dependant on foreign manufacturing. Yes it is hurting the job rate here, but unless you have a better idea don't Bush bash or bash any administration until you come up with a solution. If you can come up with something you'll be the richest man in the world.

Compared to a typical schoolkid's lunch of Snickers and Coke, ketchup is a pretty good vegetable. In the same sense that a tomato, which is actually a fruit, is a vegetable, that is. Ketchup is a good source of lycopene, which has more or less proven anti-cancer properties.

I only like Heinz ketchup, even though I realize that John Kerry's wife is a Heinz heiress and that Heinz has 57 factories outside the U.S. I have no problem with that. If you do, don't vote for Kerry.

Puff,

"Millions of manufacturing jobs are fixing to be created in the US thanks to the Bush Administration. The are proposing that we reclassifying fast food worker jobs as manufacturing jobs."

...Perhaps a little over alarmist or just misrepresenting things a bit?

As taken from the CBS article you cited as your source:

"The report does not recommend that burger-flippers be counted alongside factory workers.

Instead, it concludes that the fuzziness of the manufacturing definition is problematic, because policies — like, for example, a tax credit for manufacturers — may miss their target if the definition is overly broad or narrow."

Your own source would seem to contradict your claims.
This just in from the news desk....The sky is not falling.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say something about manufacturing that I've been thinking about for a long time.

At the beginning of the 20th century local economies thrived. By local I mean that almost every small town had a functioning micro economy. A bank, grocery, livery or gas station, hardware store, funeral parlor, doctor, dentist, lawyer, barber, etc. People had to do business locally because transportation cost a fortune and took forever.

By the end of the 20th century the local and even regional economies were dead. Why? Transportation technology.

Lets use CigarBid as our example. I, for one, have not been in a cigar store in about 6 months because I have been ordering my supplies from right here. Why? Because its cheaper. Even the shipping is cheaper than what I would spend in fuel and time to drive to a local tobaccanist and walk the aisles.

If I apply the same time and money factors to the rest of my life, and millions of other Americans do the same thing as I do, you get the death of local and regional economies.

The next step is the death of national manufacturing ecnomies. Why? Transporation technology. When I'm in the grocery store I don't care if the asparagus came from Michigan or Mexico just so there's some on the shelf and the price is okay. The grocer, however, does care. If Mexican asparagus is cheaper and the supply is just as reliable then the grocer will order from Mexican farmers. The same thing is true of manufacturing. The DVD player is the same whether it comes from Beijing or Boston.

The death of U.S. manufacturing is not necessarily a bad thing, either. Sure, millions of workers will be displaced, but many of them could take early retirement and live comfortably working part-time jobs in the service sector. I know, I know, some of you are already steaming that "service sector" means Wal-Mart greeter or fast food, but that's not true. The business I co-own is in the "service sector." CigarBid is in the "service sector."

Sure, the next generation will need to look to another way of life just like the manufacturing generation was doing when it left the farm.

Fewer manufacturing jobs means that the average worker will face far less chance of injury or death on the job and will be able to retire healthier and enjoy retirement more than the average factory worker does today.

Fewer manufacturing jobs means a cleaner environment in the U.S. Less smokestack industry here means that cities will be cleaner than ever before, reducing the overall cost of healthcare for everybody here.

A final example and I'll stop. Fifteen or 20 years ago the military was keen on closing or downsizing many bases. Local communities were horrified and lobbied Congress to stop the process. Fifteen or 20 years later many of those once fearful local officials will tell you that losing the military base was the best thing that ever happend in their community because their local ecnonomy became more diversified and more healthy as a result.

Think of this as the end of the industrial revolution and the beginning of the service revolution.

JonR

you know something about algebra?

Well I think there's a lot of generalization in this arguement that clouds the issue. Sure you could say that a burgers flipper manufactures a Big Mac just like a pig farmer manufactures bacon. But c'mon, thats just the same Orwellian wordplay and double talks that gave you "No Child Left Behind", the current health plan for seniors and others.

The economics of outsourcing has some components of inevitiblility to it. To say it is all inevitable is is like telling Picasso to try to paint with a roller. It just doesn't illustrate the issue very well. And the way this issue hits in an election year shows me that it really requires a lot more atention than it is getting. Quite frankly, I think it's a key Bush strategy to distract us all from thinking about our economy because has done little right to benefit anyone but those in the top 2 percent and the Corporations which fuel millions of dollars into his campaign. And the right wingers bring up Kerry's $680,000 over 20 years... yeah cut me a break.

There are jobs getting shipped overseas that are no longer just basic brainless manufacturing jobs. Technical jobs especially in engineering, software and IT are going to countries who have minimal work standards and very little respect for copyrights, intellectual property, quality control or many other standards we in the US take for granted.

What scares me the most is that in some cases, the export of many of these IT and engineering type jobs may have long term adverse impact to our national security. We risk giving away more and more of our technical edge to make next quarter's financials look good. Indirectly, by letting the market rule in all this job export, we allow market pressures to also downgrade US worker's quality of life to compete against international labor markets. Are we finding enough new cutting edge jobs to compensate? Is demand for these new jobs growing? This is very questionable.

By implementing greater amounts of corporate welfare and other forms of tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy how much of this extra cash pays for jobs? How much flow to the salaries, expenses of top executives and profits?

Give this administration another 4 years and we'll all be flipping burgers as someone in Asia takes over my job and the tens of thousands I pay in taxes for 10% of what I make.

Guess I better buy good cigars while I can.

well we can bitch about it or make a difference..

I hope I made a difference today...
http://www.atr.org/

As Congress gets to set to debate international tax law, I urge you take advantage of this historic situation and pass the "Invest in the USA Act."

As you know, America's tax laws punishes companies if they reinvest their profits back into America's economy and create American jobs. The Invest in the USA proposal will reduce for one year the current 35 percent tax on foreign earnings to 5.25 percent, which will lead to an influx of hundreds of billions of capital into the U.S. in 2004. With the new money entering America's economy, more jobs can be created.

While there are encouraging signs that our economy is gaining momentum, Congress must not rest until everyone who wants a job can find one. The "Invest in U.S.A. Act" will build on the previous Bush tax cuts by injecting billions of dollars of capital into the U.S. economy so that businesses, both large and small, can generate more jobs for the American
people.

Thank you for you consideration on this very important proposal.

Sincerely,


Hog