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in the last few months i have developed a bad case of acid reflux. my doctor has done some tests and tried some different treatments, all to no avail.

he suggested that toby keep a log of when it happens, ie: when did i last eat, what am i doing at the time it strikes, if i'm watching television, what am i watching.

after two weeks we have discovered it does not relate to what i have eaten or when. it traces down to only when i am watching television.

it seems that if toby switches channels the moment bush appears on the screen and before we hear him speak, i do not get that burning sensation in my stomach.

i ama healed.

"Why can't these jobs go to Appalachia, the rural red zones, or some of the inner cities? "

The reason is as simple as it is complex. The simple answer is that people in Appalachia or in inner cities won't work for less money. Its easier to stay home and collect an unemployment benefit and an AFDC / food stamp card. If those programs didn't exist then the so-called poor whites in Appalachia an the so-called poor blacks in the inner cities would gladly take the jobs offered by TI and Dell.

The complex answer is that the Indians are better educated, have been taught to be polite, and speak better English than their American counterparts.

it is so easy to point to the welfare mother, the poor and uneducated who are barely kept alive by
what little they get from food stamps, and government assistance.

in the meantime, ken lay has stolen enough money to buy a $6,000.00 shower curtain. and buy a
7 million dollar mansion in the only state in the union that allows one to keep a personal home of
any value, from the bankruptcy courts. imagine a state designed for the big crooks. the mafia
didn't even have it that good.

as long as you fools keep your focus where the media, as directed by the administrations, note
the plural want you to, on the people at the bottom of the economic ladder, the mental cases that
reagan threw out of hospitals to wander the streets unable to care for themselves, while he ran up
the biggest national debt this country has ever had, and decontrolled the savings and loans
allowing them open season on the public, as long as you keep yourself wearing blinders, the
corporate welfare will go along with no notice.

it's like taxes. everyone cheats a litle and thinks they are getting away with something . let some
smart tax account come up with some legal sceme that many people can use, and the
government clamps down. if you keep people isolated from one another, you can have and keep
the keys to the treasury.

as long as the people that are really in command of this country can use as front men, charmers
like reagan, the regular guy who turned in some of his friends during the macarthy hearingsm and
bush, "i wouldn't mind having a beer with him," the country will continue to sink under the weight of
all those national geographic magazine that everyone saves.

soon you all will be investing in the stock market as part of your social security and when you turn
78, the new retirement age, you will find you don't have enough money to live on for more then 3
months.

but, hey, F**K Y*U, i got mine. you'll have to look out for yourselves.

maybe move to poland where there are pockets of americans living quite well on their social
security because rent and food is cheaper there. or baja, ca, for the same reason and dope is
cheap.

i pose a question. why are cigarettes, known to cause cancer legal, and marihuana, known to
ease pain in patients that have cancer illegal.

why do people that work for the fda get lucrative jobs with the pharmaceutical industry when they
retire?
hmm, is that a different question or simply a continuum of the first one.

enough for one session. just because i'm on a roll, doesn't mean i should butter it, unless of
course it is a hawaiian sweet roll, manna from the heavens.



Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (Larry W. Jones)

In a little Kamehameha school
Down by the peaceful sea
They paid no attention to the rules
Their little romance was plain to see

She was a cute little brown eyed rose
And he had puppy love in his eyes
The teacher pretended not to know
In the little school house in paradise

They shared Hawaiian sweet rolls every day
Down by the peaceful bay
Now they're twenty some years old
Sharing Hawaiian sweet rolls to this day

She was a cute little brown eyed rose
And he had puppy love in his eyes
Now they're married and so it goes
Sending off children in paradise
To a little Kamehameha school
Down by the peaceful sea

aloha pablo.

^Thank you, Don Ho.
Now for my next request, I would like to hear "Wakahili Ugo Wapu Brignoni" or "Why are there so many Eyetalians in Wahini".

I find it hard to believe that the poor, particularly in rural America, would not have the pride to get a hard-earned paycheck vs. a handout. These are usually proud, intelligent people.

Be that as it may, it is my understanding that welfare expires after a certain amount of time. What are the recipients going to do afterwards- "You want fries with that?".

I would gladly pay more if I knew that corporations were keeping the jobs here, and would not line their executives' pockets with excess profits. Have them implement training programs and job fairs as they do in the Developing World. Then,take away their corporate welfare (loopholes w/incentives for outsourcing)!

Anyone who has had the "pleasure" of speaking to an Indian customer service rep, knows that they may be better educated, but they are not necessarily more polite or better at speaking the language. More than one has been condescending to me when explaining the "rules" for their product's customer support. I have also run into quite a few who have stretched out my phone call due to their inability to fully understand my question OR my frustration in understanding their answers which are administered with thick accents.

Besides, manners and correct use of the english language can be taught to poor Americans as part of their job training.

blood

PS: Don Ho, it was the liberal Democrats who were primarily responsible for "freeing" the mental patients who then went on to productive lives of panhandling, sleeping on grates, and defecating on sidewalks. After all, they were being deprived of their individual rights...

Most of the jobs that have been outsourced to India and other countries are not "well-paying" at all, but are, in fact, very low paying ...

And to be fair in discussing this subject, although I know that being fair isn't your intention, you need to talk about the INsourcing of jobs TO the US ... the vast majority of those ARE well-paying ...

Fact is, if we were to eliminate both insourced and outsourced jobs, we'd be net losers ... we gain FAR more than we lose in this process ...

Stev--Thank you for telling me that my intentions are not fair. Always nice to hear from a psychic.

Pray tell, what high paying jobs are being "in sourced" to us and from where? If there are some- can't be many.

The outsourced jobs are low paying, eh?
Maybe you should tell that to the MANY customer service, programming, and miscelaneous engineers who are looking for any comparable work or who have to settle... Over 17% of the American programmers (50 & over) are UNEMPLOYED thanks to outsourcing.

The official unemployment rates do not reflect our societal employment breakdown because many of these professionals lose their jobs, become janitors, and thus are still considered employed.

Yeah, Bush is a job creator alright, a job creator for the Third World. That's what makes him happy.

Here's an article that ran in a Bay Area newspaper recently that speaks to the subject of insourcing/outsourcing ...

======================================================

While U.S. companies including Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's second- largest computer maker, and AIG Life Insurance Co., the world's largest insurer, have transferred white-collar work to low-wage countries such as India and China, more jobs are coming the other way, according to government estimates and trade analysts.

"Any way you slice it, the world is creating or transferring more jobs to the U.S. than we are doing to the rest of the world," said Daniel T. Griswold, a trade specialist at the Cato Institute, a research organization in Washington.

India's Essel Propack Ltd., Taiwan's Teco Electric & Machinery Co. and Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems A/S all have built plants in the United States in the last year and a half.

Other non-U.S. companies announced plans to increase hiring in the United States last year including Japan's Nissan Motor Co., with 3,350 jobs in Canton, Miss.; DaimlerChrysler AG of Germany, with 2,000 at a new Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Ala.; German appliance distributor BSH Bosch and Siemens Hausergate GmbH, with 1,300 in New Bern, N.C.; and Magna International Inc. of Canada, with as many as 800 in Bowling Green, Ky.

The movement of U.S. jobs abroad "has been blown out of proportion" mainly because domestic companies in the United States have been slow to increase hiring, said Martin Baily, chairman of former President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. "There was lots of offshoring going on in the 1990s, but job growth was so strong in the U.S. that nobody really took much notice."

While reliable figures aren't available for the last two years, the Commerce Department estimated on March 18 that the number of Americans employed by U.S. affiliates of majority non-U.S. companies grew by 4.7 million from 1997 through 2001. In the same period, the number of non-Americans working at affiliates of majority-U.S. companies abroad rose by 2.8 million.

The creation of jobs outside the United States by American companies hasn't played a significant role in the current "jobless recovery," said Baily, now a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan research group in Washington

And another ...
========================

Ten Myths about Jobs and Outsourcing
by Tim Kane, Brett D. Schaefer, and Alison Fraser

The American economy never rests—at this moment, in fact, economic growth is vigorous. Yet every time there is a slight dip in the acceleration of output, jobs, or incomes, the undying myths of a sputtering, backfiring economy rise again. Today, many of those myths concern the ills of outsourcing.

The plain facts, however, lay all of today’s myths about outsourcing to rest. But there is still a real danger that politicians working with incomplete or incorrect information will hobble American competitiveness. Scapegoating poor Third World countries, “Benedict Arnold CEOs,” and free trade will not improve the U.S. economy or labor market, but would likely cause great harm. Robert McTeer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas summed up the promise of government action on outsourcing well: “If we are lucky, we can get through the year without doing something really, really stupid.”[1]


Myth #1: America is losing jobs.
Fact: More Americans are employed than ever before.
The household employment survey of Americans indicates that there are 1.9 million more Americans employed since the recession ended in November 2001. There are 138.3 million workers in the U.S. economy today—more than ever before.[2]

Myth #2: The low unemployment rate excludes many discouraged workers.
Fact: Unemployment is dropping, despite a surging labor force.
Not only is the unemployment rate low in historical terms at 5.6 percent, but the workforce has been growing—there are now 2.03 million more people in the labor force than in late 2001. Without a higher rate of unemployment or a shrinking workforce, there is no evidence of growing discouragement.[3]

Myth #3: Outsourcing will cause a net loss of 3.3 million jobs.
Fact: Outsourcing has little net impact, and represents less than 1 percent of gross job turnover.
Over the past decade, America has lost an average of 7.71 million jobs every quarter.[4] The most alarmist prediction of jobs lost to outsourcing, by Forrester Research, estimates that 3.3 million service jobs will be outsourced between 2000 and 2015—an average of 55,000 jobs outsourced per quarter, or only 0.71 percent of all jobs lost per quarter.

Myth #4: Free trade, free labor, and free capital harm the U.S. economy.
Fact: Economic freedom is necessary for economic growth, new jobs, and higher living standards.
A study conducted for the 2004 Index of Economic Freedom confirms a strong, positive relationship between economic freedom and per capita GDP. Countries that adopt policies antithetical to economic freedom, including trying to protect jobs of a few from outsourcing, tend to retard economic growth, which leads to fewer jobs.

Myth #5: A job outsourced is a job lost.
Fact: Outsourcing means efficiency.
Outsourcing is a means of getting more final output with lower cost inputs, which leads to lower prices for all U.S. firms and families. Lower prices lead directly to higher standards of living and more jobs in a growing economy.

Myth #6: Outsourcing is a one-way street.
Fact: Outsourcing works both ways.
The number of jobs coming from other countries to the U.S. (jobs “insourced”) is growing at a faster rate than jobs lost overseas. According to the Organization for International Investment, the numbers of manufacturing jobs insourced to the United States grew by 82 percent, while the number outsourced overseas grew by only 23 percent.[5] Moreover, these insourced jobs are often higher-paying than those outsourced.[6]

Myth #7: American manufacturing jobs are moving to poor nations, especially China.
Fact: Nations are losing manufacturing jobs worldwide, even China.
America is not alone in experiencing declines in manufacturing jobs. U.S. manufacturing employment declined 11 percent between 1995 and 2002, which is identical to the average world decline.[7] China has seen a sharper decline, losing 15 percent of its industrial jobs over the same period.

Myth #8: Only greedy corporations benefit from outsourcing.
Fact: Everyone benefits from outsourcing.
Outsourcing is about efficiency. As costs decline, every consumer benefits, including those who lose their jobs to outsourcing. A 2003 study by Michael W. Klein, Scott Schuh, and Robert K. Triest, which includes dislocation costs in its calculations, shows the benefits of trade outweighing its costs by 100 percent.[8]

Myth #9: The government can protect American workers from outsourcing.
Fact: Protectionism is isolationism and has a history of failure.
Proposals to punish businesses that outsource jobs, institute tariffs, or change tax rules will carry unintended consequences if enacted. Such measures would injure U.S. firms that export goods and services and erode U.S. competitiveness, often in unexpected ways. Recent steel tariffs, for example, cost jobs in dozens of industries while raising prices for consumers.[9]

Myth #10: Unemployment benefits should be extended beyond 26 weeks.
Fact: Jobless benefits are already working
The median duration of unemployment is now 10.9 weeks; most workers are covered by existing benefits, which last for 26 weeks. Extending today’s coverage to 39 weeks would cost billions of dollars and have little impact.

Conclusion
America's workers deserve a more informative, less partisan debate on outsourcing. The negative impact of outsourcing on the economy and American employment has been greatly exaggerated, and the benefits of outsourcing almost entirely ignored.

Oh, and if it's any consolation to you, coporate wonks agree with you.

These same wonks are the ones who excuse or disavow the stealing of over 40% of the small business set-asides by their Corporations (see the current issue of Forbes).

All of this flack because some "old paranoid fool" developed acid reflux! LMAO

This is a tounge in cheek remark, so don't come back with all kinds of crap!

Charlie

EI

twisted way. how do you come up with crap like that and who the hell said you were able to decide what is twisted and what is no more then a disagreement.

name calling and stupid remarks like that mark you as whatever one is marked as who persists in nonsensical responses.

Bloody, why are SteveS' wonks wrong, and your wonks right?
You asked him to support his assertions. He has certainly done so. Then you disparage his assertions as "cut and paste." I suspect if he had summarized or put those articles into his own words you may have demanded a source. Yet you have done nothing to bulwark your own position, save heckling. I contend that the "anti-administration" emotional position that you have assumed has clouded your powers of reason.
Yea verily I have spoken (written) thusly. Be it so known.

And by the powers vested in me, as an impartial, cigar smoking, buttinski, I hereby do declare SteveS the winner of this meeting of the minds. The decision of the judge is final, unless my wife says differently.

Oh Rick, you may be able to "think for yourself" and wax eloborate about a subject, but you are still the most guilty cut and paste (or as you call it "copy and paste") person on this board! What will you do when Moveon.org and other left wing sites die a natural death?

Charlie

I have not read through this thread completely.. is there a need to?? LOL

I opened this one up this morning two posts... Ricks and Bloods... I then did not have a case of acid reflux, but a massive case of the cr@ps... almost like I had drank a bottle of draino and my pipes come unclogged... after cleaning myself up and doing daily chores I'm back to a reply status on this one ;0)

Outsourcing Jobs isn't anything NEW from the Bush Administration but Hell lets blame this Administration... and while we're at it!!!! It's GWB's Fault for 911 and it's his fault for partial birth abortions and I'm digging deep here to pull this rabbit out my @SS!!!!!! it's his damn fault my ex wife was a floozy who while I was deployed on trips (Because OF BUSH SENIOR?JUNIOR AND BARBRA TOOO!!! a Hell Throw JEB in there also) SPent money off credit cards on her flings with God Knows how many men.. and then stuck me with the bills at the time I'd had enough of paying for her Sexcapades.... yea and it's Bush's fault I smoke Cigarettes and drink about a pound of coffee a day... and it's his fault my car insurance premium went up because I added another vehicle onto it!!!! and it's his fault my step daughter has to pay for her own cheerleading uniform and equipment... Oh Yea... I had to install a new furnace before winter time here and it was Bush's fault for that TOoooooo!!! because of the ahhh Ohhhhh Hmmmm Natural Gas prices yea thats it.. thats why....

for cripes sake folks... the reason for all the outsourcing is simply because the American worker who DEMANDS compensated for every frickin thing and then there are those that think these poor lazy Bastages who don't want to work should be given a roof over their heads and food in their belly's while they smoke their crack and drink their brains out while collecting SSI and cutting short the folks who really need the assistance... and then there is OSHA, EPA, and many other Goverment programs who go out and find a minor error in the way a business does business and not up to the 300,000 page inspection sheet on how to operate a screwdriver wasn't applied correctly to the proper slot given on the foreign Outsourced Screw that runs the Generator made in Hong Kong so the company is taken all the way through Federal Court and loses to and been fined $250,000 for slip shodding the work... thus the union man who was operating the screwdriver has the union back up his actions and after arbitration is completed he also walks away with a hefty settlement for mishandling his job placement while this investigation was going on from an outside agency whiched charged $350,000 for their services... so now the this part of the company is back up and in operation, and after one week the rest of the workers walk out on strike because plany production had to be increased which meant manditory overtime until further notice, workers are disgruntled and pickiting, the company hires attorney's to settle the disputes, and to keep plant operations going opens up for non-union help... the non-union employee's are threatened to crossing the picket lines so then the police are called in... thus all the striking union employee's who have been out for a month or so are lined up at the unemployment lines and bread lines and picket lines...

in the meantime, mom and pops who's trying to raise a family and both working hard to do so.. smile, kiss each other each morning as they head out the door to their plush job's working for the Lawyers/union office or management positions of these above places.. as they walk out their front door to get in their leased vehicles they see their neigbors who haven't held a job in the past 15 yrs sitting on their porch drinking beer still from the party the night before.. smile and waive knowing that 70% + 70% = 140% of their sweat and labor is coming off the top of their checks to help support their neigbors wanted desires...

Thus you have outsourcing and any way you want to slice it or point the finger... every damn one of us is to blame... Welcome to America!!!!!!!!

Smile and waive as you come home from a hard days work of dealing with people who are out to get their's first and screw the other guy!!!! and then one day you wake up and the company you've been elbows and A$$Holes for for 20 years hands you a pink slip because they no longer can maintain here in America!!!!!!

Just my Taxed Buck Two Fifty and some change!!!!

Hog

Charlie

what's with you. i liked your post, and felt nothing mean about it. i knew it was a joke.

i just wished you a merry christmas.

Mr. Maven said: "i stopped at "I am merely saying that there's more to the man than meets the eye."

Yeah, and unfortunately, it's mostly bad.


Now for a Guiness (extra stout) & whatever crawls out of any one of my seven humidors. LOL
Good night, folks.

^Hope the bubbles didn't make you dizzy, Dan.:-)


Are we still playing "cut n' paste ping-pong" regarding outsourcing? Well, if we are, here's my serve.

He's not a self-made businessman, but he IS a renowned, CONSERVATIVE economist/columnist--Paul Craig Roberts:

"The jobs front is like the Iraqi front. The worse the situation, the better the news. As jobs for college graduates disappear from the U.S. economy, pundits tell us how great the jobs outlook is.
The 248,000 new jobs in May looks good as an aggregate number, which is the only number the public got. The components of the figure reveal a scary situation.
American job growth is concentrated in low-paid domestic services, such as restaurants and bars, temporary help, and health care and social assistance. Of the 248,000 new jobs, 213,000 are in domestic services and construction. These are not jobs that can help reduce the massive U.S. trade deficit by producing tradable goods and services.
The good news is 32,000 manufacturing jobs were created in May. If this manufacturing jobs growth continues for the next 84 months, by June 2011 the U.S. economy will have regained the June 2001 level of manufacturing employment.
The bad news about the new manufacturing jobs is that only 13,000 are in products of the global high tech economy — computer and electronic products, semiconductors, and electronic instruments. The rest are scattered among food manufactured products, wood products, and roofing metal for the domestic housing boom.
Something is WRONG. We are told we live in a global economy, but the jobs growing in the United States are not part of the global economy. Advanced technology products are touted as America's manufacturing advantage. However, the U.S. suffered its first-ever trade deficit in advanced technology products in 2002. The deficit grew significantly in 2003 and is growing this year. Charles McMillion at MBG Information Services in Washington D.C. forecasts the U.S. 2004 deficit in advanced technology products to be $35 billion.
U.S. manufacturing employment peaked in June 1979 at 19,553,000. In May 2004 U.S. manufacturing employment stands at 14,405,000, a decline of 26 percent.
We are told not to worry, that this only means U.S. manufacturing has become more productive. A large percentage of the population once worked in agriculture, but today, thanks to productivity, a tiny percentage of the work force provides our food.
It is true manufacturing has become more productive. But it is also true U.S. manufacturers are increasingly assemblers of foreign-made parts. More and more U.S. brands are made abroad. Unlike manufacturing, U.S. agricultural employment did not decline historically because of outsourced food production.
Our export future was to be in services. We would be the world's supplier of high-tech services and earn foreign exchange from service exports to pay for our imports of manufactured goods.
The problem with these assurances is the U.S. trade surplus in services peaked at $91.1 billion in 1997. It has since fallen to $59.2 billion, a drop of 35 percent. Our surplus in services is only about 10 percent of our trade deficit in goods.
Because the U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency, we can get away with this extraordinary imbalance long enough to dig ourselves into a deep hole.
Perhaps U.S. employers have been saving up high value-added jobs for June graduates and we will get good news the first Friday in July when the June jobs numbers are announced.
But don't hold your breath. In the past 40 months (three previous graduating classes), the U.S. economy lost 376,000 jobs in professional and business services and 220,000 jobs in professional and technical services.
Since January 2001, the U.S. has 64,000 fewer accounting and bookkeeping jobs, 16,000 fewer architectural and engineering jobs, 223,000 fewer computer systems design and related jobs, 123,000 fewer management jobs, 532,000 fewer information jobs (including telecommunications, ISPs, search portals, data processing), 117,000 fewer jobs in air transportation, 80,000 fewer jobs in chemicals, 122,000 fewer jobs in plastics and rubber products, 178,000 fewer jobs in apparel, 128,000 fewer jobs in textile mills, 523,000 fewer jobs making computer and electronic products, 297,000 fewer jobs making machinery, 134,000 fewer jobs making electrical equipment and appliances, and 209,000 fewer jobs making transportation equipment.
If job disappearance of this magnitude continues, textile engineers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, electrical engineers and computer engineers will disappear as American occupations.
Few trends, including decline, move in a straight line. However, with massive trade deficits in manufactured goods including advanced technology products, with shrinking trade surpluses in services, with U.S. job growth concentrated in low-pay domestic services, and with the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting most U.S. job growth over the next decade in low-skilled domestic services, the U.S. work force is taking on a Third World complexion.
That is the truth about jobs.

(Paul Craig Roberts is a columnist for The Washington Times and is nationally syndicated.)


IMHO, this cut n' paste carries more weight than some rag from San Francisco, or some political hacks with an ax to grind or who are living off the Government teat.


I voted for dubya the first time as did Mr. Roberts.
He may regret it as much as I.

blood

^Are you doing your Larry the "Lizard King" again?!
LOL

^Not unless it's based on the prune with suspenders from CNN...LOL!

Thank you, Your Hoenor!

Now if you can just officially declare Rick insane & have him committed...
LOL

JonR

be wary of a doctor who gives you a prostate examination without a glove and who manages to kep one hand on each shoulder during the exam. e