"And most of us are complicit because we would rather pay two dollars less for a shirt made overseas than if it were made in the U.S."
FWIW, it was a whole lot more than two dollars. At least by now it is.
Case in point; I recently bought a lathe. New Chinese lathe of the size I got with some QC issues, 3000$. New Taiwanese lathe of comparable size, 6000$. Used Japanese lathe of comparable size, $10000. Heavily used US-made lathe of comparable size still in working condition, $12000. New production Japanese lathe of comparable size (CNC, since no manuals are still made), $25000. New production Haas TL-1 (a bit larger) $30000.
And we wonder why nothing gets made in developed countries any more. It is simply impossible for many consumers or customers to even entertain engaging an American supplier for business, and that's assuming one still persists in the market. Quality may best quantity, but accessibility beats both every time in the end. The only way a machine shop can even afford new, quality equipment
anywhere is to make overpriced widgets for customers spending other peoples' money, it seems. I don't even know if it's possible to source steel that is guaranteed to be US produced to quality standards.
"Funny how those who have come here illegally with nothing have managed to make that move, find a place to live (albeit usually overcrowded) and have made something for themselves."
I once spoke with a former African refugee, who stated matter-of-fact-ly "the rebels were getting closer and I didn't want to joint them, so I just walked 500 miles to the next safe place" like it was the most common thing in the world. He was seeking a safer place of employment for his brick-making skills, as I recall. Like I said before, the luxury of stability we enjoy in America is rapidly becoming a ball and chain for many people, causing them to miss out on opportunities they won't even consider. Had this guy not left because the rebels offered free food in exchange for service, he'd never have hooked up with a mission group, risen in its ranks, and scored a plane trip into the States. FWIW, he's now doing work far more productive than brick-making, and getting paid for it.
Which dovetails back to the original point. If minimum wage burger-job afforded a set lifestyle in the '50's (the 'good ol days'), then a manual machine-shop gig should afford something greater than that, obviously. But once the machines are automated and the operator must also perform setups and inspection, requiring a broader skillset, should ne not be paid even more than before? And what of the jobs invented entirely since then, like the IT administrator responsible for not only ensuring multi-million dollar systems carrying billions of dollars of business remain in operation, but must also remain informed of the cutting edge developments of his field? Should he not be paid even more than the CNC machinist?
There's been an enormous inflation of wealth that a given job can generate due to technology in the past several decades, but the market/government/union/society we live in has not tolerated wage growth in accordance, since that would mean that the legacy ditch-digging jobs at the bottom rung which have
not progressed as far as return on wages retain the same pay scale. And that's just not fair. People like to bemoan the growing 'inequality' as though it is not fully justified --in fact it is
suppressed in all but the most influential cases-- and forget that we have individual human beings who are directly responsible for managing
billions of dollars existing alongside street sweepers, burger flippers, and other jobs that haven't changed at all in a century, to say nothing of folks who aren't even doing that much. In light of these developments, it is nothing short of astounding to me that socialism is still as popular as it is; considering the accelerating disparity between 'producers' and 'consumers' it's amazing even socialists still buy into it.
You can give people at the bottom enough to keep them alive so they can find a better life, but you can't square the circle much farther than that. $25,000 a year for sitting on your butt and staying out of trouble. I only get paid 2.8 times that doing cutting edge aerospace engineering design work (alright, that might be a bit charitable, but it's what my company calls it
). Tell me to my face my efforts are worth less than those of three vagrants, and I will be strongly inclined to take my efforts where they are more appreciated (at least with respect to vagrants, if not objectively
)
TCB
*As far as 'evul' corporations and their 'evul' profits; this destructive impulse was not nearly so present until the '80's when foreign agents (people, not KGB) began buying their way onto corporate boards. That's when all this 'globalist' tripe took off, and companies pretended they could operate globally while still keeping their American interests at heart. In truth, we simply decoupled these profit-seeking machines from their only grounding in reality, and now have monsters whose motives lie more in the ether than in anything fundamental.
A lot of it is not even intentional at this point. The American aluminum industry (and I assume other metal-foundering industries as well) was essentially destroyed in the '90's by Enron's fixing of electricity prices. It became more cost effective to sell power than metal, and plants were closed. Now aluminum is made in Russia, where price fixing of the opposite sort keeps them artificially competitive. All thanks to a few criminals, a lot of gullible investors, inattentive regulators, and a comedy of errors.
