[TriLUG] OT: PT One tech issue from tonight's debate

matt at noway2.thruhere.net matt at noway2.thruhere.net
Wed Oct 17 12:03:26 EDT 2012


I agree. The problem is that a certain small segment of the population
want cheap labor.  There is also the problem that the people of the US can
not live on 3rd world wages, which is what they are having to directly
compete against.  In this regard, as painful as it has been, this is one
positive aspect of the inflation and currency devaluation we've been
experiencing: outsourced goods become more expensive.

I also read an interesting report a few weeks ago that since the
recession, the US executives are no longer receiving the level of respect
that they once were, in part because the foreign companies are no longer
just interested in manufacturing the products, they are venturing into the
design and engineering.  This could makes off shoring jobs a serious risk
to the US work force, even those who have tried to stay ahead of the game.

I think that most people would agree that the immigration system in the
USA is pretty well messed up.  The current policies and practices are such
that it seems to encourage the parasitic type of immigrant while making
the process near impossible for those who really would make a solid
contribution.

There was also R's comment in the debate last night about wanting more
free trade agreements, and my first thought was NAFTA; pass it and that
sucking sound you will hear will be the jobs going to Mexico, which they
promptly did.

There is also the real problem of rewarding companies who outsource jobs. 
This is countered with talk about (the need to) lower tax rates and
regulation to encourage them to return.  I think that this is backwards
and that they should be punished for shipping jobs overseas and rewarded
only after they have brought or maintained jobs here, not as an incentive
for them to bring them back.

I also noticed R's comment about wanting to eliminate taxes on interest,
dividends, and capital gains.  Of course it was trumped up about being to
the benefit of the middle class .... but looking at my own tax returns, I
get a relative pittance in dividends and interest with the lions share
coming from direct wages.  Now, someone like himself and his cronies,
whose income is almost entirely interest and dividends would now have next
to no tax liability.  Of course we're supposed to believe that this would
be reinvested and they would magically create jobs.....

One thing that did catch my attention was the comment about the top 25%
performing students in MA get a college scholarship.  Is this true?  Of
course there was no mention that this would be considered for national
expansion.  Personally, I think that this is an area where the US is
falling behind other countries that are investing in providing advanced
education for those who can and will make use of it.

> On Wed, 17 Oct 2012, Scott Chilcote wrote:
>
>> On 10/17/2012 09:14 AM, William Sutton wrote:
>>> Ugh, politics.
>
> the companies who want foreign workers, are not doing so to
> make the country stronger, as other people have suggested.
>
> They just want cheap labor. They are not hiring the best and
> the brightest. They are hiring regular people to do the
> grunt work. Alan Greenspan was one of the originators of
> this process. He declared that salaries for US IT workers
> were too high and it would cause social disruption in the US
> for such a large slice of the workforce to be seen having
> such large salaries. (As well all know, the high salaries of
> financial people don't cause social disruption.) The cure
> was cheap foreign labor.
>
> Joe




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