Zogby poll: Americans fed up on illegal aliens Majority against Bush plan for workers... 98

On Tue, 10 May 2005 08:56:09 -0600, "Iconoclast"

In the 50s and 60s, the vast majority of the items sold by our salesman was US made. In fact, there was no compebreastion. Europe was still largely in ruins through the 50s, and was just starting to become compebreastive in the 60s. The 60s was when the Japanese first really started producing decent "durable goods", which started spelling the end to American "durable goods" manufacturers. Motorcycles, machine tools, ships, and the like.

Today, in an effort to remain compebreastive with stores that can sell imported goods cheap (cause they buy them cheap), our salesman gets paid less in an effort to keep the costs of doing business down.

It is indeed a race to the bottom, with the American consumer the winner, at least at the checkout stand. The only problem is...is that our consumer is our salesman...and his buying power is getting lower as well..so he can only afford the cheap stuff. Hence the huge number of US manufactures that have vanished, with even the brand name companies having their products manufactured overseas in an effort to race to the bottom as well.

Gunner

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stewart Mill