Tough call on your first statement because the Iraqis that may have helped us the most felt betrayed after we didn't help them as a follow up to the Kuwaiti war. Saddam slaughtered them by the thousands as soon as he realized no-one would help them. Now it appears the moon-god grovelers are going to take over the country whether we're there or not, so I'm coming into agreement with you and it's time to say goodbye.

I don't think our enemy will be China, but we should never take our eye off them. The old Chinese communist guard is dying out and becoming irrelevant. Odd that as America becomes more socialist/communist and serf like, China is becoming more capitalist and free. With a trend like that it will become eventually inevitable that they could kick our butts if they chose to.

Hi Hiraghm, I don't know what deals were made behind the scenes during the Kuwaiti war, so maybe a constitutional government was or was not on the table. I just found it disgusting our military was bleeding for a bunch of Kuwaiti royals of military age that were partying it up in various cities in the world. If it wasn't for all the Islamic crazies, an American protectorate may have worked, too, instead of a monarchy.

Dehumanizing is the act of waiting for a handout check from government masters. The idea you are "owed" the check that is paid for by a person who choses to work at a job, earning their pay by their skill and incidentally, paying taxes that pay for your "check".

Please explain why you feel you are owed a check for not producing? That's what I don't get.

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Exactly my first thought Square.

My company recently built a new campus in the US and was "simultaneously" building one in India. I think they intended to have the opening staggered by about 3 months. However we have been in the new office in the US for a year and a bit and the other office in India isn't completed. When we discuss why a lot of what we heard is what you have just said. It's a whole lot of people trying to do things that a machine would assist with here in the US.

Walmart started the outsourcing to China. I believe in fair trade but many mix up fair trade with free trade. China subsidizes its industries in many ways with currency manipulation being the biggest. They under value their currency to get an unfair trade advantage. Our government let them get away with violating the trade agreements. Now China has amassed enough dollars that they now own us and we can not force them to abide by the agreements they made. Our government seems to do everything but their main purpose -protect the US against foreign interests.
I groan every time I hear "where have all the jobs gone". My answer is --to China stupid.

ok..not a blanket statement...But mass production in general has higher cost in material than labor

I'm not too certain that a blanket statement like that can be justified. Some industries are horrifically labor intensive, yet material costs are very minimal. The industry I operated for several years was one such, I'm a potter. My material cost were around 12% with a 15% firing cost per item, business overhead accounted for around 12% and the remaining 61% was labor.

I was OK with booting Saddam. As soon as we saw the Iraqi people weren't going to lift a finger we should have left.
Make no mistake, If China wanted/needed to, they would bring the Hammer down on its people (not that were too far from that).
But, yes, it's being manipulated and we're OK with it. In the mean time, China now has an Aircraft killer missile, but, we're all best bud's.
I do my level best to buy American made/sourced when I can. Even if it's Union labor (mainly because there isn't much choice there.)

Something to consider, if it were not for government created inflation, maybe there would not be a wage disparity between counties. I have not studied the inflation effect in other countries so I am not positive about this theory and would be interested to hear from someone who has.

What in the world does that mean? Spending less money on the same product...