"Mark Browne" wrote in message
. net...

"Calif Bill" wrote in message
ink.net...
snip

Your reply shows how much out of touch with reality you are. Explain
how
we
are to compete in the world market, given our labor costs.

Tell me again how much we are supposed to make to be competitive with
$2.00/hour labor?

We simply are not going to be able to reduce wages enough to be
competitive
with the third world. Now that the Pandora's box of free-trade is open,
our
standard of living will be under fire until the standard of living in the
USA is equal to the standards of living in the poorest country in the
world.

End of story.

Mark Browne



Free trade has been around for a long time. Isolationism did not work in
the 30's, won't work now. The last 25 years of excess government spending
has screwed us. 1980 $23K was a good white collar salary. Now this is at
least $2k into the poverty level. People were doing well in this country on
$14k / year. the rest of the industialized world was not that far from us
in wages. Now we can not compete in the labor intensive jobs. Maybe if
China floats their currency, things would be better, but they are not about
to float it. We had the same problem with Japan. For years, the Yen, was
artificially held low. Japan would not allow the yen to be used for
international debt currency clearing. Only accepted $$$$ or related
European money. Made Japan an economic powerhouse. Now Japan is in a funk
economically as their labor costs are higher then mainland Asia. Maybe the
only cure is Deflation. This administration is adding to the debt, but no
more than the last bunch of administrations in relation to GDP. Deficit
spending has been about 3% / year for years. Unfortunately 3% compounded
doubles cost in about 24 years.