Buchanan's thoughts on the death of manufacturing

[MKSheppard]

and find that
all the jobs are being outsourced to Electrical Engineering Degree holding
students from India

Simply because they can hire an Indian with an EE degree in india for
about 30k as opposed to 50-60k for a homegrown American EE degree holder

[MKSheppard]

For those interested in how the white collar eggheads are getting FUCKED UP THE ASS, go google "H-1B Visa"

[Xenophobe3691]

For those interested in how the white collar eggheads are getting FUCKED UP THE ASS, go google "H-1B Visa"

I, for one, support this visa. If they have a better education, more of a work ethic, and are willing to work in the boondocks of this country just to live here, then all power to them.

[MKSheppard]

I, for one, support this visa. If they have a better education, more of a work ethic, and are willing to work in the boondocks of this country just to live here, then all power to them.

Yeah yeah Japan has that program except it MANDATES that all the
imported engineers etc must be paid TWICE as much as homegrown
engineers to prevent Japanese businesses from getting dependent on
them and pushing out their own people.

The United States is not a fucking free lunch for the entire
world. You want a good job, stay the fuck in your own country.

[Xenophobe3691]

Oh, and I did Google it.

[Wicked Pilot]

This is the U.S. If you want a good paying job, then you'd had better go out and make yourself competitive. If not, well then there's always still McDonalds.

[Darth Wong]

I'm surprised that no one has seen fit to comment on the rich irony of an arch-conservative like Buchanan essentially suggesting that we should move to an entitlement-based economy.

PS. For Gil Hamilton, I am no conservative, but the idea of paying high wages to unskilled labourers in order to keep their jobs in the country is idiotic. A leading nation must lead in all respects, and one of those aspects is the skill level of its workforce. If you intend to lead the world in standard of living, you must also lead the world in the quality of your workforce, otherwise you don't deserve it and you will inevitably have to use some kind of force in order to maintain your position as the leading economy without a leading workforce. It's that simple; the top dog can maintain his position by either being the best or by trying to crush/suppress everyone else, and the latter option (while obviously palatable to people like Shep and Buchanan) is not acceptable to most civilized people.

[RedImperator]

Yeah yeah Japan has that program except it MANDATES that all the
imported engineers etc must be paid TWICE as much as homegrown
engineers to prevent Japanese businesses from getting dependent on
them and pushing out their own people.

Yeah, and we all know how great the protectionist Japanese economy is doing today, right? How long has their recession been going on, now? Ten years, if I recall correctly.

[Joe]

I'm surprised that no one has seen fit to comment on the rich irony of an arch-conservative like Buchanan essentially suggesting that we should move to an entitlement-based economy.

Some quotes from him on the economy:

"the burden of corporate taxation should be shifted off family businesses and farms onto the larger corporations. As Ronald Reagan used to say, corporations don?t pay taxes, people do. Corporations only collect taxes. Let the Fortune 500 do the collecting."

Here he suggests we completely revise the tax code and the Civil Rights Act:

"to allow employers to pay higher wages to parents than to single people.... This should apply to single dads and moms.... Employers should be given tax incentives to pay higher wages to parents."

"If new revenue is needed to pay for these family tax cuts, it can be obtained through taxes on consumption and duties on imports."

Good ol' days fallacy at its finest:

"When the income tax rate for the wealthiest was above 90 percent in the 1950s, America, by every moral and social indicator, was a better country"

Another disastrous trend:

"young people are not concerned about their souls; they're worried about the Nasdaq."

Channeling his inner Nader:

"The transnational corporation is a natural antagonist of tradition. With its adaptability and amorality, it has no roots; it can operate in any system. With efficiency its ruling principle, it has no loyalty to workers and no allegiance to any nation. With share price and stock options its reasons for being, it will sacrifice everything and everyone on the altar of profit. The global capitalist and the true conservative are Cain and Abel."

Completely rejecting conservative free-market ideology:

"Many conservatives have succumbed to the heresy of Economism, a mirror-Marxism that holds that man is an economic animal, that free trade and free markets are the path to peace, prosperity, and happiness...."

[Stormbringer]

I'm surprised that no one has seen fit to comment on the rich irony of an arch-conservative like Buchanan essentially suggesting that we should move to an entitlement-based economy.

Why? Buchanan is a nasty little facists who has an nasty, superiority complex along with a racist streak. He's not been a conservative of the same stripe as say Dubya.

He's an All-American Facist. When you understand what his views really are it shouldn't suprise you. He truly does believe those people deserve the jobs because otherwise they'd be going to goddamned foriegners, who might well be non-white foriegners.

There's a reason Pat Buchanan has been banished to the lunatic fringe of American politics.

[Gil Hamilton]

Stormbringer, you talk like President Bush didn't push that large steel tariff designed to protect American jobs from getting their asses kicked by foriegn steel mills (rather than the sensible option of putting money into modernizing the American steel industry, making it capable of competing with Europe). Or the large softwood lumber tariff that was leveled at Canada.

[RedImperator]

I'm surprised that no one has seen fit to comment on the rich irony of an arch-conservative like Buchanan essentially suggesting that we should move to an entitlement-based economy.

He's the worst possible combination of social conservative and economic leftist. Though I think Stormbringer is right to say his protectionism is informed by revulsion at the thought of all those damned dark-skinned foreigners taking American jobs, not altruistic concern over the plight of the working man.

[Stormbringer]

Stormbringer, you talk like President Bush didn't push that large steel tariff designed to protect American jobs from getting their asses kicked by foriegn steel mills (rather than the sensible option of putting money into modernizing the American steel industry, making it capable of competing with Europe). Or the large softwood lumber tariff that was leveled at Canada.

But there's still a hell of a lot of a difference between a protective tariff and the complete isolationism that Buchanan advocates.

[Joe]

Stormbringer, you talk like President Bush didn't push that large steel tariff designed to protect American jobs from getting their asses kicked by foriegn steel mills (rather than the sensible option of putting money into modernizing the American steel industry, making it capable of competing with Europe). Or the large softwood lumber tariff that was leveled at Canada.

Please, you know that a couple tariffs do not compare with Pat Buchanan's desired wall of protectionism.

And throwing money at American steel is a dumbass idea, that will just divert investment and resources away from productive industries elsewhere to one that can't stand on its own without government support.

In any case, American steel is now suffering from excess capacity now, thanks to the incredible short-sightedness of Shrubby, labor unions, and the steel business.

[Gil Hamilton]

PS. For Gil Hamilton, I am no conservative, but the idea of paying high wages to unskilled labourers in order to keep their jobs in the country is idiotic. A leading nation must lead in all respects, and one of those aspects is the skill level of its workforce. If you intend to lead the world in standard of living, you must also lead the world in the quality of your workforce, otherwise you don't deserve it and you will inevitably have to use some kind of force in order to maintain your position as the leading economy without a leading workforce. It's that simple; the top dog can maintain his position by either being the best or by trying to crush/suppress everyone else, and the latter option (while obviously palatable to people like Shep and Buchanan) is not acceptable to most civilized people.

That's the thing. The problem is that rather than make the American industry the best in the world, businesses have decided to go overseas and use slave labor because it gives them a greater profit margin in the short term. This can be readily shown in the steel industry. Recently President Bush put up a very large tariff on imported steel, to try to protect the American steel industry, because manufactures are going to Europe for their steel because the steel is cheaper and, admittedly, of higher quality. This is because during World War 2, the European steel industry was destroyed and they had a chance to rebuild it with more modern equipment, while Americas steel industry was largely untouched, but was still pre-WW2. Needless to say, the steel industry in America collapsed, as the rusting hulks along the rivers here in Pittsburgh can attest to. Now, if money was put into the steel industry with the goal to modernize it, in ten years, the American steel industry could crush Europe and take it's place back at the head of the world market. I doubt Pittsburgh would become the steel capital of the world again, since our industry was gone and has been replaced by trendy mini-malls, but I'm sure Bethelhem Steel would be very happy.

[Gil Hamilton]

Please, you know that a couple tariffs do not compare with Pat Buchanan's desired wall of protectionism.

And throwing money at American steel is a dumbass idea, that will just divert investment and resources away from productive industries elsewhere to one that can't stand on its own without government support.

In any case, American steel is now suffering from excess capacity now, thanks to the incredible short-sightedness of Shrubby, labor unions, and the steel business.

The American Steel Industry can stand on it's own feet, but the problem lies squarely on the fact that it's antiquated. If it was modernized, America would destroy Europe in the steel market and be very profitable indeed.

[Joe]

Encourage outright economic warfare with the EU to save a failed industry? To the tune of billions of dollars of corporate welfare? Brilliant.

[Darth Wong]

I don't know how we got from Buchanan's nonsensical diatribes to the steel industry, but the steel industry dug its own grave. It was not the government's fault that it was run by MBA idiots who couldn't think beyond the next quarterly returns.

It's a classic story: engineer says "we need to modernize". MBA says "you're just a tech wanker". 10 years later, MBA says "why didn't you warn me?"

[Sea Skimmer]

Unions and poor management have kill manufacturing and above all shipping in the US more so the overseas competition.

[Wicked Pilot]

I have a college degree and I make about $20 an hour. If somebody thinks they should make $25 for simply turning a screw on an assembly line, well think again.

[MKSheppard]

or by trying to crush/suppress everyone else, and the latter option (while obviously palatable to people like Shep and Buchanan) is not acceptable to most civilized people.

Hahahahah that's precisely what the Chinese are doing, forcing Western
companies who want to set up shop in China to do - to give away literally
the farm, their manufacturing methods, and their designs, ther intellectual
and economic properties, if they ever want to access that mythical billion-chinaman market.

And once the companies have done exactly that, to gain access to the
multi-billion chinaman market for toilet paper or widgets, a state run
chinese company starts up using the materiel and information that
the foreign company gave away and uses slave labor from chinese
prisons to force said company out of the market.

[MKSheppard]

Encourage outright economic warfare with the EU to save a failed industry? To the tune of billions of dollars of corporate welfare? Brilliant.

Why not? The Chinese have been doing that for the last 30 years and have
been laughing all the way to the bank as they slap tariffs on american made
goods coming into china, and demand free unfettered market access for their
slave labor made goods.

[Glocksman]

It was tariffs that helped give US industry room to develop. One of the main causes of the Civil War was the tariff issue.

The South wanted no tariffs so that manufactured goods from Britain could be imported cheaper than the same goods made in the North.

Naturally those in the North disagreed.

Tariffs also helped build up Canadian industry. Witness the success of MacDonald's 'National Policy'.

Some of you may think that the hollowing out of the US industrial base is a good thing. It's not.

and demand free unfettered market access for their
slave labor made goods.

You know, whenever I see that damned Land's End commercial pushing those 'hand-sewn mocs', I think to myself: 'Hand sewn by either 12 year old girls in Vietnam or political prisoners in China.'

No thanks.
I'll continue to buy my union made Rocky service shoes.

[Stormbringer]

Some of you may think that the hollowing out of the US industrial base is a good thing. It's not.

Neither is protecting it at all costs. Industry that's inefficient and bloated is a waste. Reasonable competition is healthy.

[Glocksman]

Reasonable competition is healthy.

Competitng with the EU or other First world countries is one thing.

Competiting with countries where the average wage is less than a dollar a day and there are no environmental or labor laws is something else.