Out of touch

[Uben]

Seems there are some good rants on the board lately. Here's mine-

Jobs....we need jobs. Not the low-paying, part-time, no benefits having service jobs they are so quick to count towards their unemployment numbers, but the good-paying manufacturing jobs they were so quick to outsource when some greedy-assed accountant figured out they could save another 5% on the bottom line!

No one seems to care that the American dream went overseas with our jobs. With those jobs went our insurance, our savings, and our kids education, and our retirement. Why the hell aren't our congressmen fighting tooth and nail to bring these jobs home? Why aren't they giving incentives to corporations to manufacture here in America and taxing those who were so quick to save a buck or two to ship them overseas? Whose damn side are they on?

When I graduated from high school, I went on to college to better myself and maybe get my slice of American Pie. After one year, I landed a local manufacturing job in the steel industry, one of the best paying jobs in town, with excellent benefits, and a thirty-year-and-out dream of retirement. Damn, life was great! I had just secured my family's future and security. That was about the time we started importing steel from Japan and the American steel companies started their decline. The job lasted four years before the plant closed down and we were all put on the street in a town that had little to offer because of the decline of the steel and oil industry. Twelve hundred workers, in a town of 13,000, whose wages supported just about every other business in the community, were dumped.

Needless to say, the area stayed depressed for 20 years. People moved away in search of gainful employment, small businesses closed, and the city struggled to find ways to replace the revenue lost from those good paying jobs and oil revenue. We did recover, but not even close to the status we were at in the sixties and seventies.

Thirty years later, with the population showing no growth, we are still endeavoring to persevere. Still waiting for some corporation to move in and provide those good paying jobs we had lost. Instead, we get a casino. That casino did provide much needed jobs, and boosted the economy, but those jobs just provide enough to survive. Those workers do not make enough to save for retirement or our kids education.

So now, it seems we have acquiesced to accepting the fact that this is as good as it is going to get. Where the hell are our leaders? Why the hell did they ever let corporations do this to our country? We both know the reason....greed. Our government is for sale to the highest bidder. Both parties are complicit, both take bribes in the form of campaign cash and lavish trips and parties, and both repay these corporations with tax breaks and incentives to move our good jobs out of the country.

We have to ask, "Who is on our side?" Anyone? Hello?

[parkerll]

1. Yes, Way out of Touch

I know what you mean. There seems to be a distinct generational divide in awareness as well.

My dad is in his 70s and had a successful career in the Air Force. He retired and went to work for the defense industry so he has always had plenty of money. My younger brother has Asperger's Syndrome and is struggling in a warehouse job. Dad is helping him out and set down to create a budget for him. Dad was appalled to find out how little is left of a salary of $9.10 per hour after everything comes out. He was surprised to find that groceries cost so much. I'm betting my dad never has to do the grocery shopping.

People who are in their 60s and 70s grew up in a completely different country. There was opportunity and hard work was rewarded. The United States is not that country any longer. That generation truly does not realize that and base their opinions (and their politics) on a nation that no longer exists.

[mmonk]

2. The non-corporate candidates are on your side.

[nightrider767]

3. Good jobs lead to strong economies

Look at what's going on now. The economy is getting ready for recession and the dollar is falling in value.

Since we manufacture very little, we can't take advantage of the weak dollar to beef up exports and try to stage a recovery.

All we've got now is the Fed pumping billions of dollars of more fake dollars into this mess.....