Another reason for the cod fisheries demise is the lack of a proper seal hunt. As anyone who lives there can attest the seal population has exploded to 6 million new animals a year 3x the level it was the last time Bridget Bardot could legitimately call her self a star. They are a nuisance and pollute the harbours where they collect when not eating----Since 1987 they have decimated the cod on the Grand Banks and continue to do so along with several nations who continue to fish outside our official borders.
Oh please - these people have literally had thousands of centuries to dig themselves out of their rubbish pits yet suddenly it's all the fault of the big bad USA that they're still poor. I'm not buying it and you can't make me. Sorry. I'm still on the "seal up the borders and make our own stuff" page.
Over 6 billion people in the world and only 300 million in the US. Seal the borders? Not when China owns over 20% of the US Treasury bills. Not while the US is hemoraging money. With the current state of US education and debts, the US will be a third world country within a century. At least with your ideas, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.
Labour is cheaper because cost of living is cheaper because nothing is overvalued as it is in N. America.
When my DH was injured at work he was making $27 an hour due to his union----No one is worth that much an hour and the guys and gals in his line of work are the first to admit that. But who else are the customers to go to for that service---All the chemical water blasting companies are paying $27/hr for senior men, and some without unions pay their water rats more.
We have priced ourselves out of the global market and are where England was 100 years ago, at war with everyone, forcing beliefs and lifestyles on people who do not want or need them, spread too thin, and on the brink of losing world dominance. World powers come and go, Its just time for the US to wane, it will survive of course but with a smaller part to play. Possibly that is what you mean by sealing up the borders and regressing.
If you look at world history this could be possible. The above statement also does not address the need for raw materials produced out side N. America.....or the fact that the citizens will have to curb their 'Wants" which is not likely to happen---If the US border ever gets sealed up I am in the prefect place for a lucrative black market-----Heck I could toss the stuff across to the US citizens like we did during the 20's and prohibition. World powers come and go.....Maybe this is the decline of the US in that position. Most of the countries in Europe have held similar positions, no country can maintain it forever. Once a country gets to fighting religious wars on foreign soil, it seems that takes over and the actual home country begins to fail as the need to go further afield takes over. I do not assume to have any solutions, but from what I see with my relatives in the US as compared to the ones here, if they do not stop the money drain they are going to be living like a third world family.
You said what I have been trying to tell my husband for the last year or so (but he won't listen to me). What I can't understand is why our own government is the agent for such a change. Duh.
Karen Maslowski wrote in news:410ca$442fdc48$42a1c868$ snipped-for-privacy@FUSE.NET:
because the President is a fruitcake that believes God has called on him personally to bring about Armageddon? it *does not matter* to him if our economy is tanking, that his tax cuts & spending increases are not sustainable or that our educational system is completely useless... because the world is going to end and none of that is important. we will be declaring war on Iran in a year, i bet... not that we can deal with Iraq & Afghanistan as it is... but it'll happen. (possibly war with Syria too, but that's a bit less clear cut) i hate politics & this administration embarrasses & infuriates me... but the complacency of the populace is so much worse. that is terrifying. lee
On Sun, 02 Apr 2006 09:36:29 -0400, Hanna's Mum wrote:
Could be that it's a risky job. That'd make the difference.
You make me want to cry, because you are that rare person who stands in the crux of a problem where people have benefited from a false position, and you have the integrity to speak out. We needed unions when they came along. It is true that there was terrible exploitation by business owners and managers. My grandfather was a coal miner, and he near worshipped John L. Lewis. DGF had seen many men die in terrible accidents in unsafe mines, leaving widows and orphans behind penniless. Unions were a blessing. Let's face it - there are very few businesses like Maldin Mills who kept on employees when their mill burned down and had to be rebuilt, taking quite a long time. Workers did and do need leverage against such inhumane exploitation.
But then the crime families got into the unions, plundering. And then the lawyers got on board in the unions. After the organizations became successful in getting decent wages for the workers, the greedy union professionals had to keep on pushing businesses for more and more, so they could justify their overlarge salaries. As communications shrunk the world and a global, competitive market evolved, manufacturers were trying to pay laborers union scale and still be competitive with emerging industries in third worlds. They had two choices, move their production to the third world, or kiss the business goodby, because the union professionals were ever demanding higher wages. Well, we now know what they decided to do. We are sitting in the position of wiping the grease off our faces after we killed the goose that laid the golden egg and ate the goose. People are deserving of a given wage based on two principles - how much responsibility to they have (i.e., will they be fired if their project/department doesn't meet their goals? Are theylegally liable for anything and will they be personally sued?) What talents/skills they do they offer their employer? And at what risk do they do their job? When they were in school, were they willing to delay gratification and instead work hard at their studies to further themselves? (Once the USA was first in the world at graduating scientists and engineers, now we're somewhere around 17th. It's just too damned hard to study that stuff and Junior only wants to play sports.) Do they come home after work, put their feet up, and not have another worry about it until they go back the next morrning? Because in spite of what people say about management, they may leave the office but they take the job home with them and wake up in the middle of the night trying to resolve their problems. I know this because I was an administrative assistant. Being a link between the two sides, I could see the attitudes and misconceptions on both sides. Once I worked for the state government and got fed up with the union employees I worked with there. They were represented by that most scurilous union - AFSCME. It was tiresome hearing people who were sitting around doing nothing complain when they were asked to do something that -"Hey, that's not in my job description and I'm not doing it." Their bosses couldn't do anything about such a rotten attitude because they would run to their union steward. And guess who's really paying for them to sit around doing nothing? Sure, you and me - the taxpayers. We also paid when the unions featherbedded (have work slow-downs and make management hire more people than necessary so they could get the job done.)
Then I worked at Lucent where there was another union. I had the job of taking the complaints off the hotline when people complained about the silliest, pettiest things such as the workers in the "clean room" had bottled water and that wasn't fair - everyone should get bottled water. So no, I don't have any respect for union employees. They brought it upon themselves. And I live with my husband, who is an engineer. I know that it's a rare night that he gets a full night's sleep.
I think you are a gem to have been in a position to have benefited by union membership, and have the honor to speak truthfully about it. Sharon
$27/hr at full time = $54,000 per year. It seems to me a person ought to be worth that. Consider that an executive with a compensation package equal to $7 million is paid over 120 times that much. How much ought a person working full time be worth?
Well as long as you understand that this is part of the reason gasoline is so high. For the most part these guys stand around waiting for the oil companies to tell them to do the job. Often it takes only minutes but they book an 8 to 12 hour day for that, then go to another job for and hour or so and book another 8-12 hour day. I have seen pay checks were is looks like my DH worked 36 or more hours in one day, and he is home at 2 PM having been to 3-4 different plants. $54,000? not for the past 15 years it is always more or less. This is NOT a 40 hour a week job. Some weeks there is no work, others are as described. It is the workers who say they are not worth that amount....no they do not refuse the pay, but it is getting so they are pricing themselves out of the market too, but the union presses on for more. This year they are asking for $1.80 pay raise for senior men and a jump from minimum wage of $8.50 for labourers to $11.00 as a starting wage.
I like the way that Whole Foods has structured their compensation programs. They have a "shared fate" initiative, where the CEO is only allowed to make a certain percentage amount over the lowest paid worker there. Plus, their stock options were granted to all employees, making everybody in the company an owner who shared directly in the success.
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