In article , Larry Jaques
says...
On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 18:11:17 -0600, Tom Watson wrote:

Today I was making up Purchase Orders for fabricated steel parts to go
into a store fixture project that I'm working on.
-snip-
Lest you think that the guy in China is a stinkpot operation that
cranks out easy to do stuff with slave labor - all the complicated
stuff was similarly below the nearest 'Murrican bidder and the guys
quotes came in on the best looking computerized format of any of the
bidders, quoting weights, volumes and shipping costs and quoting a
firm leadtime (to the day) as opposed to the "three to six weeks" of
the 'Murricans.

Guess who I was writing out the Purchase Order to?

Yeah, it's bidness but it's damned sad.

One of the RCMheads recently posted www.eMachineShop.com
where you download a CAD program, design your part, send
the specs off, and they shoot back a quote. Judging by the
prices, it was all offshore, too.


It seems to me that the guys we've come to let be in charge of this
country have decided that we will be a nation of managers, paper
pushers and the kind of professionals who support bidness type stuff.

What are we going to do with all of our guys who work in factories, if
this continues?

Will economics drive them into an underclass that we will pay, through
welfare, to keep them from revolting - for a while?

What will we do when we have to manufacture defense items but no
longer have the ability?

Somebody done gave away the store.

Ayup. Damnable.


I'm paying careful attention to this election. I don't see much in
the way of raw talent that will make for much of a change.

Same guys. Same attitudes. Same relation to money.

That's why I cannot, in good conscience, ever again vote for a
Republican or Democrat. Some day, when the rest of the sheeple
wake up and vote with their conscience (instead of the paid
whisper in their ears) we'll have more integrity in office.
Until then I'm beginning to think "****, why even vote?"



Well, if someone would put up a viable alternate candidate, that could
happen. The current alternates like Nader are even worse statists than
the regular crop. If a viable third party is going to start though, it
needs to start at the local levels and move up, not start at the top
office and expect to win. Start with local and state government
offices, then start running for federal offices at the congressional
level.