Let's Fix America Together On One Issue We Both Agree With!

Ethics aside, Lincoln was a Republican who sought above all else to keep the nation as one at all costs. He waged a political and actual war to defeat the south, who wanted to start their own nation with slaves and succeeded in keeping America as one. He also freed the slaves, which was inevitable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

At that point in time, the south was the bread basket of America with its slavery-made crops, which were sent up to the north for consumption. The north in turn, paid the south to keep making slavery-made products, turning a blind eye to slavery, and claiming to have its gloves still white.

Kind of sounds like our relationship today between the USA and China. They work for 14 cents an hour so it's as cheap as possible, so America can consume it. American consumer demand fuels it and China allows it.

In other words, we are turning a blind eye to their working conditions to save a buck. That didn't turn out well in American history, neither did it in India.

I think China needs a revolution and their people need to stand up and demand Democracy. That almost happened in Tieneman Square but China stepped in and killed everyone once the cameras were turned off- no wonder no one knows who that guy who stood up to a tank was. And I think it's in America's interests to do it.

Do we all agree that we need to make a radical change? Why should banana farmers in Mexico make a pittance for their labor- bananas should cost $1.99 a pound, shouldn't they? That farmer should be paid enough to feed his family, shouldn't he??

And shouldn't we be paying more for Chinese imports? And let's not even talk overseas pollution making stuff for the USA...

Where is the US Government in all of this? Totally complicit.

We admire Lincoln for freeing the slaves because it was the ethical thing to do. Well it's the ethical thing to do today to start an import tax on all goods and services from slave labor, and the tax should be close to what it would cost for it to be made in America... in some cases, it's a 100% tax or more- like all that plastic junk everywhere.

What makes it ethical is that all the monies collected will go to small to mid-size businesses in America, to make new business and hire new employees and make our own stuff here.

This is something both Liberals and Conservatives should agree on, shouldn't it? Who could possibly be against it? Do you all support it?

 

The overwhelming silent agreement is overwhelming.

 

No, this is a horrible idea. Getting more things that people want is the definition of prosperity, you are arguing we should be poorer.

Wherever free trade goes, freedom comes within time. China is opening up, and will continue to do so as long as we engage them, it will take time. When they do, they will be the world superpower - no contest. Until then we can enjoy our time at the top until it happens.

 

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So you're advocating a World Government enforced minimum wage?

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No- we should say "ENOUGH". Isn't it enough?

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Not a bad idea. You do realize there's no such thing as free labor.

 

Why? Why do people need to be poorer. Go throw out your computer, smash your A/C, but I like mine, and I don't mind if that means I have to work for it. I am OK with that, because I decided to trade my time and effort for the things I want in life. Who are you to tell me I should have less? What if that means I will stop fishing, should the people who want to eat fish have to go out to sea and get it themselves? Why should they be allowed a boat? etc...

Another horrible idea. Are you going to pay a person in a poor third world country working with no capital, education or special job skills the same as an American with an education the best equipment available and special knowledge? No? Then why won't your minimum wage just make half the world unemployed?

Don't say prices would just be higher, that is not how it works. If businesses could make more gross profit on their items they would just raise their prices now. Markets are not as price loose as everyone seems to think they are.

 

I wish the Chinese people well, but it is their business, not ours, to improve labor conditions in their country.

 

Nice try. But this way to much to ask..especially from educated grownups.
We worked so hard to get our heads stuck up there, now you expect us to just pull them out?

 

What's wrong with us helping third world nations by paying more for their items?

 

Why, so they can have 30% unemployment like us?

 

Total crap. Free trade usually only works for the few capitalists who have the money to establish facilities on either end of the exchange. Great for Nike, bad for American or Chinese cobblers.

Free trade is too subject to abuse without the hand of government waiting to slap down a ruthless entrepreneur or a corrupt trading partner.

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If that is the trade-off, then their economy is based on crap to begin with.

 

And we do not have to tolerate American entrepreneurs who help lock them into wage slavery so that they can under-cut American workers and entrepreneurs who want to employ them.

Time for a new round of staggering tariffs on the job-exporters.

 

China starved literally under Mao Xen Xaiong opened it up a little to free trade market reforms and look at them now. If they went all free trade they would be like Hong Kong per capita today That would make them richer the the is and Europe combined.

In any event good for the cobbler and good for freedom. Otherwise name one country, just one ole lefty, that hasn't become freer within 20 years of becoming a free market or even a much freer market.

 

Because paying more for third world items will simply empower the very governments that are already oppressing those people. One of the reasons the third world is the third world is the thuggish governments that run a most of it.

 

If the Chinese people don't rise up, why should we care?

For most Chinese, a Nike sweatshop is better than the rice paddies.

 

It's in America's and the world's best interest to have democracy and freedom for all people, unfortunately it isn't in the interest of the international banking system or the major corporations interest. Maximizing profits requires the exploitation of certain groups and individuals. The last thing these entities want is stability in the world. The fact is rich/elitists need slave labor, and the communist dictators who supply it for them. They also need the best governments corporate money can buy to maintain monopolized industries by manipulating national economies, and keeping them non competitive in nature for the selective few to rise to the top. The only option is stable economies with competitive markets, which provides and can allow the lowest prices and pay the best competitive wages. IAW capitalism.

Cronyism capitalism, sock puppet politicians, and communist dictators is the dominating force on the planet today, and the only thing that will change it is to stop funding communism, and eliminate the rich/elites two party scam that currently has a choke hold on any chance of competitive capitalism to flourish in this or any nation once again. The key is to break up the best government corporate money can buy, and reestablish a government that is actually by and for the people, if there ever was such a thing in the first place, since the government of the USA has been a property of rich/elites ever since the whiskey rebellions.

 

So, because you couldn't get the kind of traction you'd hoped for with the, "Let's all of us pay higher taxes" call to bleeding heart action you've decided to apply your do-goodery to helping create international economic instability by raising the wage of Sum Yung Gy in China whose government can't wait for a sign of US weakness to declare us irrelevant in the world wide industrio/economic/military hierarchical structure.

Here's an idea.

Go volunteer in an inner city soup kitchen and get your noblesse oblige rocks off there.

 

Have you ever considered I ask to agrue against or reinforce pre-concieved notions, not say "I am right and you are all wrong and lemmie tell you why..." like all the threads here are. This is an open talk- there's no agenda- it's the flowing of ideas.

 

Consumers are greedy too. What ever they make, it beats the alternative. I cant fix the Chinese social structure. I'm not Chinese.

 

Tiananmen Square has been forgotten by most Americans, especially those suggesting to the Chinese people that revolt is an idea worth considering.

Besides, the Chinese have an ideal worker/business relationship, one that conservatives and neo-conservatives have been fighting to establish here in the U.S.

Right-wingers demand that businesses operate free of any government interference, and that workers receive whatever wage (or benefits, if any) employers deem fair. Union leaders and members that fight against this conservative agenda will receive their own Tiananmen Square treatment.

It will teach workers here in the U.S. how to appreciate all of the bounty bestowed upon them by the corporate fat cats.

 

What I'm saying is that the American consumer has an insatiable greed for cheep items the Chinese are are willing to make for a few bucks a day.

How do you fix that?

 

tariffs on goods from any country that doesn't pay an American living wage.

 

Then the cost of goods we buy will go up.

 

The "insatiable greed for cheap products" as you call it, has been forced upon most Americans due to low wages. When a person can buy a pair of pants for $10 instead of $100 it makes the already strained family budget go a little further. Especially families with children that outgrow clothing as fast or faster than they wear it out. Although, the $10 pants only last about 1/10 the time of the $100 pair, $10 isn't the massive cash hit that $100 dollars is.

Additionally, the quality of goods produced by U.S. corporations in Asia today is nothing compared to the quality of these same products when they were made in the USA, but the profit for these inferior goods is greater. The average Americans suffer as both workers and consumers because of this.

The situation in which the American people now find themselves has been decades in the making. The economic crash of 2008 happened, not because of the greed of the masses, no, it was their cultivated ignorance of what was going on around them in the business world.

Millions of U.S. workers viewed themselves as untouchable by an economic crisis, but in 2008 many of these “untouchables” suddenly found themselves victims of joblessness. This self-proclaimed invulnerability to recession was extremely prevalent among conservatives and neo-conservatives who were quick to blame the poor, disabled, elderly, and liberals for their own newly acquired poverty.

Right-wingers still believe conservative policies of manipulated supply unable to keep up with consumer demand has nothing to do with the ever rising prices of all goods, low wages, and the greatly increased difficulty average workers now have finding, and keeping jobs. Even though Big Oil’s planned limiting of supplies of gasoline every summer always keeps the price at the pump high during vacation season, and is a perfect example of the collusion among the corporate giants, conservatives and neo-conservatives nationwide still admire and defend these unethical corporate practices.

Big Business and the one percent have owned the U.S. government since the Reagan administration. They will continue to loot it as long as it is capable of borrowing money to operate, and right-wingers will continue to defend it as the American Dream of capitalism.

 

That's so untrue. Even the rich are looking for a deal. That's why goods are produced over there.

nice try.