New Jobs in America – No Time Soon

My life work was in manufacturing businesses. As a consequence I still receive newsletters and magazines from manufacturing websites. This item says it all. Headline is Foxconn’s New China Plant to Produce 200k Phones/Day, Mostly iPhones. That company will employ 200,000 people at the new facility. The problem is we love iPhones but we don’t manufacture them in the United States. The reason is those workers in China will be earning 1/5 or less the pay we want in the USA. (The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports assembler average annual pay in the United States is $26,820.00 per year.) Technicolor moved its three manufacturing facilities to Mexico. Those facilities each employed at least 1,000 people. Care to guess why they would do that?

Today I received another on-line newsletter from asiaone business. The headline reads Foxconn to raise wages again at China plant. The item says that employees at their facility at its Shenzhen factory will be increased by two-thirds. That will bring the pay up to $392.00 per month. Businessweek (September 13, 2010 edition) reports that there are 470,000 employees at that facility.

Back in the United States: Where are the ideas from either the GOP or the Democrats for bringing jobs back to America? There are no sensible ideas. The GOP want to give more tax breaks to the corporations that are sitting on almost $2 Trillion in earnings that are being held for some future projects. The Democrats just want to enlarge government to take up the slack but have no idea how to create private sector jobs.

The political parties just hope that the public won’t notice that neither of them has even one worthwhile idea.

Quit Whining, Buck Up!

A testy U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry [Friday] blamed clueless voters with short attention spans for the uphill battle beleaguered Democrats are facing against Republicans across the nation.

“We have an electorate that doesn’t always pay that much attention to what’s going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what’s happening,” Kerry told reporters after touring the Boston Medical Center this past Friday.

No doubt about it. Americans do not want to be called whiners. However, that is precisely the word used by Vice President Joe Biden in his commentary about voters. He said that in a campaign speech yesterday and followed up today by saying that voters “needed to buck up.”

The Democratic administration has failed to deliver what Americans want most. That would be help for the average man on the street. Most working people feel neglected and believe the wealthy were rescued while they were left to fend for themselves. I am including those who still have their jobs.

Most of us are watching CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. Those networks are all telling the same story. The CEOs and other corporate managers are earning 200 to 300 times our pay and we are barely getting along. The banks won’t help us re-finance our home loans and health care costs are going up this year (an average of 20% in California). The country is in serious debt with no end in sight and wars that appear to be never ending.

You want us to support your political party? No way!

The Tea Party Marching to its Own Drummer

The Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation. Who in America doesn’t have a representative?

The Tea Party of 2010 has been that it is all about Federal government interference in everyone’s life and the national debt. Just this past week Dick Armey, a former U.S. Representative from Texas, was interviewed on television and said that members of the movement had many different views about social issues. He insisted that social issues are not part of the Tea Party agenda.

Now we have the Values Voters Summit. Who attends their event? Of course Christine O’Donnell was there along with a list of the usual GOP leadership group. This is a group that opposes abortion in all circumstances including rape and incest. They oppose gay marriage.

They, of course, support your right to buy as many guns as you can afford. They are lead by the conservative evangelical Christians.

What is Mitt Romney doing in their midsts? I thought he was a Mormon.

How many Independents and Democrats will follow this agenda? Did these people ever hear about Barry Goldwater or George McGovern? Their movements took over their parties but soundly lost in the general elections.

U.S. Federal Government in Disarray

Peter Morici, a professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland School and occasional guest on CNN posted an article on the Logisticstoday website starting with the following words:

The Tea Party is winning big, because the U.S. economy is failing. Voters are disgusted with a mess instigated by Washington spoiling Wall Street and kowtowing to China, and leaders of both major parties appear clueless.

Mr. Morici goes on to point out that the departure of industry and R&D to China and other Asian nations has resulted in the export of all the jobs that those industries provided American workers. He sees no events that will change this course of events. He further argues that disputes over income tax rates is just a diversion from the real issues surrounding the economic well being of America. He argues that the United States is following the path of the U.K. that has resulted in an economy that never recovered from “excessive state intrusion in the private economy.”

AOL’s Senior Correspondent, Joseph Schuman, says that Barack Obama’s pitch for relecting Democrats this Fall will be 1. The Economy Is Better Than It Was When We Found It. 2. Tax Cuts for the Middle Class, Not the Wealthy. 3. 3. Republicans Are Playing Election-Year Games.

I wonder if the Barack Obama has read this piece in the New York Times?

While all the fighting over the economy is going on there is a fierce battle over social issues from mosques to immigration reform, and rights for homosexuals.

My question is who will be the presidential candidates in 2012?

America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution

A worthwhile read by Angelo M. Codevilla from the July 2010 – August 2010 American Spectator.

As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors’ “toxic assets” was the only alternative to the U.S. economy’s “systemic collapse.” In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets’ nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term “political class” came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public’s understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the “ruling class.” And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.

545 vs. 300,000,000

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be – read it!!

The article below is completely neutral, not anti republican or democrat.

Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day.

It’s a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!

545 vs. 300,000,000

EVERY CITIZEN NEEDS TO READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS JOURNALIST HAS SCRIPTED IN THIS MESSAGE. READ IT AND THEN REALLY THINK ABOUT OUR CURRENT POLITICAL DEBACLE.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.545 PEOPLE–By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them..

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits….. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red….

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it’s because they want them in IRAQ

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power..

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees…

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it……… Is up to you.
This might be funny if it weren’t so darned true.

This might be funny if it weren’t so darned true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.
Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts
Anyway!
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.
Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.
Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.
Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won’t be done
Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He’s good and sore.
Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he’s laid…
Put these words
Upon his tomb,
Taxes drove me
to my doom…’
When he’s gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax..
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Sales Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What in the hell happened? Can you spell ‘politicians?’

Election 2010: California Governor

California Governor: Whitman (R) 48%, Brown (D) 40%

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in California finds Meg Whitman earning 48% support, while Democrat Jerry Brown picks up 40% of the vote. Six percent (6%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

It is meaningless information. The reason is that Billionaire Meg Whitman has spent over $104 Million of her own money on the campaign. Jerry Brown obviously doesn’t have that amount of money. He will undoubtedly begin campaigning after the Labor Day weekend.

It really doesn’t matter who wins the election because the state legislature faces a requirement of a 2/3 vote to approve a budget. This requirement is in the state’s constitution.

Arnold Schwarzenegger proved the weakness of the California governor. Most of his ideas were never implemented.

A Season of Fear

Howard Fineman is a regular contributor to Newsweek. This is an interesting read. It is a bit sarcastic.

—

The GOP’s shortsighted immigration play.

If we had any sense, the fall elections would be about just one thing: the economy. But we do not have any sense. We are facing what Wall Street would call the triple witching hour. Republicans have their finger on three social-demographic hot buttons. The first is illegal immigration (in proposing a review of the 14th Amendment), and the second is Islam in America (in objecting to the mosque at ground zero). They won’t be able to avoid pushing the third, race, even if they wanted to, given that the two leading congressional Democrats facing ethics charges are African-American. The Democrats, in response, label the GOP xenophobic and intolerant and those are the nice words. If Barack Obama’s inauguration could it have been only 19 months ago was a moment of proud, blessed calm, we are now looking at a nasty, community-shredding season of fear.

Given where Republicans and come November, maybe the country are headed, I wanted to interview a well-known Republican of color. Rep. John Boehner was out of town, so I called former representative J. C. Watts of Oklahoma. He’d risen from rural poverty to the starring role on the Sooners football team and served in Congress from 1995 to 2003. He supported Sen. John McCain, but he was a proud witness at Obama’s swearing in. Unlike me, he had no illusions about what it meant. I’d lived too much history, and had seen too much discrimination, to see that day as a new world, he says. Events have validated his skepticism. We have a political and media culture, based in Washington, in which no one wants to study things peel the onion before they speak. Instead, they just play to the base to get them worked up. That’s what’s happening on all these issues.

The foremost example is immigration. No longer content merely to advocate for the arrest and deportation of illeglas(see: Arizona), conservative cooks in the constitutional meth lab have concocted a much stronger intoxicant: rewriting the 14th Amendment to get rid of birthright citizenship (never mind that enacting the 14th Amendment during Reconstruction is something the GOP brags about on its Web site). The plan feeds straight into the cortex of Tea Party constituents: amending the amendment would end a supposed wave of anchor babies born to mothers who fly to the U.S. like malevolent storks to inject aliens into our bloodstream.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to have hearings. He regards himself as a cautious constitutionalist, but he can’t resist a red-hot hot button when he sees one, especially if it might help protect the Senate candidate in his home state of Kentucky, Tea Partier Rand Paul. Republicans focus on Chinese anchor-baby cases, but the larger message isn’t lost on tens of millions of Hispanic voters. So whatever gains this issue helps the GOP make today and they might not be insignificant could cost the party tomorrow, Watts says. I was just with some Republican Hispanic leaders in many ways, the future of our party and they told me they were heartbroken. They think we’re taking the legs right out from under them.

Fears of the other not to mention media concentration in New York City provide staying power to the GOP’s focus on the Islamic community center planned for a site near ground zero. Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich continue to push the issue; most Democrats continue to avoid it. And while Republicans are careful to avoid any hint of racial language about the ethics cases, the GOP machinery churns out compendiums of coverage of Reps. Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters, whose congressional trials, inconveniently for the Democrats, are scheduled for this fall. Rush Limbaugh taunts Rangel by noting that the president has wished aloud that the congressman would retire. Limbaugh also said that Maxine Waters is just Charlie Rangel in a skirt, meaning well, who knows, but it wasn’t supposed to be nice.

Will all of this work for the Republicans? In spite of the sound and fury or, perhaps, because of it maybe not. With the economy sliding into a potential double-dip recession, the GOP would be better off focusing on the administration’s economic track record, or lack thereof. Republicans also risk backing themselves into a demographic corner. They can’t afford to be the party of white people who fear everyone else (nor can the Democrats be the party who calls everyone who disagrees with it racist). We’ve all got to take our time and think clearly before we speak on these matters, says Watts. Now that would make sense.

Howard Fineman is also the author of The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country.