tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352933834294220227.post6454847598503960537..comments2023-08-21T03:52:53.156-06:00Comments on This Little Blog: A Place to Respond: WE'RE NUMBER ONE!!! (um....in childhood poverty)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352933834294220227.post-5973540060961379072008-01-29T13:39:00.000-07:002008-01-29T13:39:00.000-07:00Tauna, thanks for the nice blog post. The message ...Tauna, thanks for the nice blog post. The message being peddle by ED in '08 is simply the latest in a long line of scare tactics employed to justify why corporations are sending jobs overseas. <BR/><BR/>I would respect flat world apologists a lot more if they would just say, "We got ours, the rest of you workers can just go to hell" rather than having to sit through their convoluted arguments on why we are better off as a whole when we have to compete for a lot fewer high paying jobs, both blue-collar and white-collar.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3352933834294220227.post-84076400710023698862008-01-28T12:10:00.000-07:002008-01-28T12:10:00.000-07:00Nice writing! I agree it's ludicrous to blame chil...Nice writing! I agree it's ludicrous to blame childhood poverty on schools and teachers. Schools are a tool whereby families educate their children, and teachers are hired to facilitate part of a child's education. If families and parents aren't invested, the results will be poor, regardless of the teachers or the schools. <BR/><BR/>Schools are full of so-called "students" who will never get a decent education, no matter what is offered. I personally believe teachers should be paid a lot more and held to higher and stricter standards of excellence. I believe kids who will not cooperate in their own education should be placed into an alternative environment where they can at least learn some service or labor skills. <BR/><BR/>However, just as you object to blaming teachers and schools for society's ills, I object to your blaming "corporate America". I sense your irritation at those who, not understanding schools or teachers or their roles in society, blame them unfairly and in ignorance. I know, then, that you will sense my irritation at those who, not understanding business, globalization, or global labor markets, blame "corporate America" for everything, including so-called childhood poverty. <BR/><BR/>Corporations in America don't decide to send jobs overseas out of some greedy, heartless, unpatriotic zeal to maximize their profits at the expense of America. I know people believe that, but trust me, it is ludicrous. Imagine a company, based in California, that manufactures automobile wheels. Its competitors are in France, Japan and Italy. Its customers do not care which of the companies they buy from. Wheels are wheels. Each competitor moves its manufacturing operations to the Czech Republic, or to Mexico, or to China, and they do it in order to remain in business and in competition with one another. If the California company, out of a commitment to "keep those jobs in America" does not immediately set up operations in a low-cost labor market, in a very few short months it will be completely out of business, and there will be ZERO jobs in the U.S. As it is, many headquarters and home office jobs, and a fair number of R&D and manufacturing-related jobs, are still in the U.S., because having opted to stay in existence and compete, the American company has in fact continued to employ Americans in America.<BR/><BR/>Bottom line: low-level manufacturing jobs (and, increasingly, higher level management jobs)are now a matter of global labor markets. It is no longer useful to speak of "American" business as though it was a self-contained entity. This is not going to reverse, no matter how many social ills are blamed on it. Those nasty corporations do not conspire to beef up their profits at the expense of poor American children - that has nothing to do with it, and to continuously harp on the false idea that it does not only undernmines our moral and spreads false gossip, but it does precisely what you accuse others of doing in the area of education -it prevents us from moving on to reality and solutions.<BR/><BR/>Children in America today have a some choices - they can get a good education and move into new job sectors, including the exploding international business and international relations sectors - or they can relocate to countries where those coveted factory jobs are going (none will do that, because poverty there is REAL poverty - poverty here is high living in comparison), or they can take service and low-paying labor jobs here and live - by global standards - pretty well.<BR/><BR/>If they opt instead to stand in place, whining and moaning about how they got screwed out of those factory jobs their dads spent 35 years in then retired from with a pension, and how those lousy corporations ruined their lives, they will be standing there a long long time. Victimhood and entitlement thinking will not solve their problem. Rendering America's businesses non-competitive through socialistic and populous measures will cause even worse problems. America's globally competing businesses are already taxed higher than most of their competitors around the world, and the continuous harping on so-called "corporate tax loopholes" is nonsense. I am a corporate tax specialist, and there really aren't any of those to speak of. Ever heard anyone explain any of them? They can't, except in broad, false, stereotyped generalities that lack truth or substance.<BR/><BR/>By the way, we need a living minimum wage. We also need parents and familiues to pull their heads out of their collective backsides and quit finding every way possible to be victims, blaming evil corporations and "the wealthy" for their problems. We need to embrace sacrifice, personal responsibility, and initiative.<BR/><BR/>The so-called progressives spend every day lately harping on the need for "change". It's time Americans embrace the fact that the world changes at an increasing rate, and their personal strategies and plans must change as well, or they will fall behind and stay there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com