Politics & Economy

[catlover]

I agree with everything said here. I think most Americans want quality but most Americans can no longer buy quality at an affordable cost. I've been looking at furniture for about 2 years. My budget is $4300. I'm looking for a leather reclining sofa and two leather recliners. So, in order to get QUALITY leather furniture I have to spent upwards of $8,000-10,000.

Like someone else said..."The cost of American made furniture is just not something that most of us are able to pay. Businesses are going under because the average American cannot afford to purchase quality and are forced to purchase junk from China. Few rich cats will not be able to keep this going in the long run."

I took a tour thru the Ford Motor Factory in 2005...at that time line workers were making over $50-60 an hour. We wonder why Americans have resorted to cheap imports??!! We've run out manufacturing in this country because of wages like this. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm all for workers making as much as they can, but there has to be some sense about it. No wonder the automobile industry was failing...they're paying fat cat salaries and pensions and their cars were junk. Think the same applies to the furniture industry? It's a sad day in America when our manufacturing has virtually "left the building" and we've come to rely on crap from imports.

[needstuff]

We've run out manufacturing in this country because of wages like this. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm all for workers making as much as they can, but there has to be some sense about it. No wonder the automobile industry was failing...they're paying fat cat salaries and pensions and their cars were junk.

I think it's a little more complicated than that. Most american workers are not getting "fat cat" salaries, just enough to live decently, support a family, and eventually retire, all while living here in the US. With the cost of living here in the US.

At some point the floodgates opened, and US workers found themselves in direct competition with workers from around the world, who do not have to earn enough to live in the US. A friend's kid has been working in China for a few years, she said the cost of living there is like pennies on the dollar compared to over here. There is basically no salary you can pay a worker here, "fat cat" or otherwise, that can compete with that.

How things were allowed to open up so competely without some reasonable protectionism tarrif or limitations on opening of foreign factories to protect our way of life here; how we were able to avoid this for so long before they opened up; all this is a bit murky to me and something I would like to fully understand someday. My knee jerk reaction is that the American worker was sold out by the multi-national corporations looking to maximize profit. After years of trying, they finally got the politicians to bend to their will. The US does not control multi-national corporations. Whereas China has a controlling interest in the corporations they partially privatize, as I understand it.

As I said my understanding is incomplete, but I don't think the rank and file workers are to blame for trying to get paid enough to have a decent life here. But I think they've been betrayed, and I don't know where it goes from here. No place good, it would seem.

In the theoretical "world economy" model, those displaced auto workers should move to China and work there, at their lower cost of living. But in actuality they wouldn't really be welcomed there, would they.

[catlover]

Excellent reply. I think you are right in that it is the corporations and politicians. We can thank Mr. Clinton for NAFTA...my understanding is that paved the way for broader trade.

No, I think like North and South Korea...I would not want to be an ex-pat living in China when all hell breaks lose there. As bad as things may be in the US, I'll take it any day BUT...we, the people better stay awake and involved because we are losing freedoms too.

[needstuff]

If Clinton lost, Bush was going to do the exact same thing.

In that election, it was Perot who said, in the debates, "if you let these guys ratify this treaty, that sucking sound you'll hear is the sound of jobs funneled out of this country like a vacuum cleaner"...Or something to that effect. Perot was not an idiot . At all. (IMO).

I'm not saying those guys were necessariy wrong in doing what they did, either. It may well have been inevitable and unavoidable. But the impact is certainly being felt, avoidable or not.

But all this will not get me a sofa, so back to furniture..

[catlover]

Sometimes, we let the good candidates get away. We never seem to elect a person with business experience. So, what was the question?...LOL I think I wanted to know about Palliser and is it any good?

[Dgw9]

"I took a tour thru the Ford Motor Factory in 2005...at that time line workers were making over $50-60 an hour."

Line workers were never making 50 to 60 dollars an hour. Period. The number you are referring to is a total cost per hour/per employee that the auto companies like to throw around when contract talks begin. Then the Rush Limbaughs of the world start preaching it as gospel to their sheep. If you are in the market for a soul-crushing job, go work in an auto factory. They can switch you from 8 hour shifts to 12 hour shifts in a heartbeat. Do you like weekends? The auto-companies can make you work seven days a week almost indefinitely. If you are working on hot product, it always happens. Does that mess up your plans, weekend getaways, college classes, child-care situation? Too bad. The new starting wage is 15 dollars an hour--half the prevailing wage before the last contract. Those autoworkers aren't any more greedy, stupid, lazy or uncaring about their work product than you or I. But sometimes it is convenient or expedient to portray them that way.

The first time GM slipped back into the black, and way before they ever thought about paying the U.S. Taxpayers back, they bought all their white-collar workforce new cell phones with unlimited phone and internet. For some odd reason, they did it very quietly. It didn't even make the newspapers.

NAFTA failed us because we assumed it would bring the rest of the world up to our standard of basic living. Instead, we have been pulled down to theirs. If I can sell my 90 cent American-Made widget for 1 dollar, I have made ten cents. If I make it in China for 20 cents and sell it for 80 cents, I have made 60 cents. And the U.S. Government gets to pay years of unemployment and supplemental assistance for each American I put out of a job.

[needstuff]

NAFTA failed us because we assumed it would bring the rest of the world up to our standard of basic living.

Who's "we".

I'm part of "we", and my gut impression is that could happen, but by the time it does, there might be nothing left made in America for anyone over there to buy. Not to mention, their government will actually protect their workers and restrict what can be sold there. I wouldn't think it would ever be a fully two way street.

And I'm hardly the sharpest stick in the box of the greater "we".

Anybody who ever truly took what might be written in some theoretical economic text, "assuming perfect competition", yadda yadda yadda, as necessarily closely reflecting actual reality would have to be an idiot.

IMO.

[drcollie]

These are emotional topics - please be sure to keep comments civil and respectful. No name calling.

[catlover]

I didn't hear the "$50-60 per hour" from Rush Limbaugh. Never even knew anything about autoworkers and their salaries until I went on the factory tour. So, I couldn't say where I got that information. I'm sure that amount was not for starting lineworkers but for workers who had been with the Big 3 for 25-30 years. I'm certainly not bad-mouthing the American worker, but I do think Americans have become "entitled" and won't do the work that "Americans" used to do. I heard on the news the other day about an owner who produces strawberries and they are rotting in the field because he can't find workers to pick them. We have 40 million people out of work but not enough workers to work in the fields. Why??

Manufacturing has pretty much left this country. When that happens a country cannot take care of its own needs. We have to rely on imports and that is exactly what is happening in this country. I never was a supporter of NAFTA. We all want fairness but fairness doesn't exist--and whose idea of fairness should we follow? The one where we all make the same amount of money, live in the same type of housing, drive one car, etc. etc....and that's about what is going to happen in this country if we don't wake-up and smell the coffee. It's been brewing for a long, long time.

[needstuff]

These are emotional topics - please be sure to keep comments civil and respectful. No name calling.

y'know I thought I was addressing a theoretical "we" as opposed to actual "we". But upon re-reading, based on your post, I did not craft my post properly and it could be subject to misinterpretation vs. what I actually meant.

Sorry about my careless posting. No disrespect intended to anyone here, certainly. Or any policy makers either. I expect ,or at least hope, that there were other levels of analysis beyond that, that they were privy to at the time they steered us in this direction, that I was and am not educated about.

One really does have to be careful about how words are crafted on an internet forum. Without the face to face, and the real time ability to massage your message in reponse to feedback, this mode of communication is particularly susceptible to misinterpretation of intent, and ruffled feathers.