LWC Wrote:I agree with what you are saying, but what you are referring to is a Utopia. We will never have a perfect economy. 100% of the country will never have a job. There are disabled people, injured workers, home-makers, etc...
Agreed, but with our current system we have one political party who is benefiting politically by having millions of able-body workers on the public payroll either working as bureaucrats or drawing checks for bogus claims. The fewer people who are gainfully employed, the further we will drift from an ideal economy. Compromises between Republicans and Democrats that do nothing but delay an economic collapse are not in anybody's best interest except the politicians who are cutting the deals.
LWC Wrote:Also, as much as I want to believe that if all government regulations were taken off of owners/business, they would be fair, I just can't. Even if geography has nothing to do with it, greed plays a large part. There are too many employers today that take factories away from skilled workers and ship them overseas to .25 cents per hour workers, make an inferior product and pocket the rest. Why would they employ U.S. citizens that want $12 per hour, medical care and vacation days?
I have never advocated, nor will I ever advocate removing all government regulations on business. Employers are moving factories overseas and they are doing so for many reasons, not the least of which is over regulation and high corporate tax rates in this country. Americans' image of factory workers in China, India, and other developing countries as low paid, unskilled, ignorant peasants is in most cases wildly inaccurate. For example, the two top programmers in my office were both trained in India (and are the two most talented programmers with whom I have ever worked). However, there are thousands of Indians with similar backgrounds performing the same type of jobs remotely in India. On my project team alone, there are 3 Indians, one South Korean, and two Americans. As much as I like and enjoy working with my foreign colleagues, I believe that if the American public education system was doing its job, those four jobs would be filled by American workers. However, my friends do not have those jobs because they work for low wages. They are smart, very well trained, they have a great work ethic, and they are paid at least as much as I am, and in some cases more.
Japanese factory workers' wages rose steadily until they reached the point that Japanese companies began building factories elsewhere, including here in the United States. At one time, Japanese companies paid low wages and their workers worked in less than pleasant environments but that has not been true for many years. When innovative electronic devices are developed, they are almost always released in Japan before they reach our market because Japanese workers are among the most technologically savvy in the world and they carry even more gadgets with them than we do.
Global trade is a positive thing, IMO, but this country's politicians (mostly liberal Democrats) are working very hard to make American companies less competitive with other countries. They are putting all of us into a deep hole by saddling future generations with a massive public debt, a deteriorating public education system, and mountains of
new federal regulations every year.
LWC Wrote:As I mentioned in my post, I do not think the entire burden of government income should rest on the filthy rich and I do not think people that CAN work should sit on their behinds.
The burden on the "filthy rich" grew under George W. Bush's watch. See the information that I posted above.
The problem is that when people are dependent on the government, they vote in great majorities for liberal Democratic politicians. There is no incentive for the national Democratic Party to pursue economic policies that lead to full employment at high wages. Federal spending has sharply increased 24 under Barack Obama and any spending cuts that he proposes will be little more than smoke and mirrors, with the exception of national defense, space exploration, and a few other traditional targets of the liberals.
LWC Wrote:So much can get done when compromise happens, not when two sides cross their arms and ignore each other. Even Baptists and Methodists can agree on KFC after church, lol. The US government should not cut off nose, despite the face.
This is where we have a strong disagreement. Nothing good will come of a compromise that includes increasing taxes in a sluggish economy. Democrats are insistent on raising taxes, which will further cripple the economy and do little or nothing to cut the deficit, because a huge number of House Republicans have pledged to their constituents to oppose any new taxes proposed by Democrats. Democrats are salivating at the prospect of running liberals against opponents who have reneged on a "read my lips" no new tax pledge.
Until the 2010 elections, Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. The question that everybody needs to be asking is where was the concern about budget deficits and taxes when the Democrats had the votes to take action themselves?
The only compromises that Republicans should consider involve the specific areas and the timing of spending cuts. If Democrats want to raise taxes, then let them peel off enough Republican votes to get it done but stop portraying fiscally conservative Republicans who were elected in large part for their stance on taxes and spending as being unreasonable in this stand-off. They are the only ones who are behaving rationally, IMO.
), someone help me understand exactly what is going on with the debt ceiling, tax increase/cuts, cut/raise spending, etc... ![[Image: toptaxes.jpg]](http://cdn.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/toptaxes.jpg){kind=link}