"D Murphy" wrote in message
...
"John R. Carroll" wrote in
m:


"D Murphy" wrote in message
...
jim rozen wrote in
:

In article , Gunner
says...

So because the price of oil has been raised by those willing to bid
it up..its the fault of Bush?

So, folks had to wait in line to buy gas, on even/odd days?

Was that Carter's fault?

Electorate said, "yep."


People have short memories. Oil was higher under Carter than it is
today. In todays (2005) dollars oil was 86 dollars per barrel in
1980. In the
70's
oil rose the equivelant of 71 (2005) dollars per barrel. Not even
close to the piddly couple of bucks that oil has gone up recently.

People spend less of their income on energy today than they did then
as well. Even with the recent increases taken into account.

GWB won't be running for re-election anyhow.

Dan,
I would like you to consider this, It's worth a moment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/op...26krugman.html
snip the op ed piece

Far more interesting IMO is the national poll and studies the New York
Times did earlier this year. It covers everything that was in that
editorial and so much more. Start he

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/index.html?
excamp=GGGNaverageincome

Mouse over the box on top of the page an click on the "American Attitudes"
one. This nationwide poll doesn't really support the editorial position.

People that work in manufacturing are probably a little more prone to
feeling left behind. Because they are.

After WWII all of the major industrialized nations were left in ruins
except for the U.S. We enjoyed a couple of decades of being the worlds
largest supplier of just about everything with almost no competition. As
the other mnations rebuilt they needed us less and less, and eventually
reached a point in the 1970's where they could hold their own competing
with us. Since then, third world countries have become a factor as they
have abundant, cheap labor.

Look at this:

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515
_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_02.html

Pick "production" from the pull down menu and you can see that there is
not
a lot of money to be made working in a factory. If you compare that to
"installation, maintenance and repair" you can see that you're probably
better off installing CNC machines than you are running them.

A person can make more money programming computers than they can
programming CNC's. The skill set required is about the same.

In any case education is the best path to higher income. One of the great
things about living here is that you can go to school at night, no matter
your age.



Good links Dan, and I have seen that material but thanks. I am going to save
them.
I thought Krugman's piece was more of a spot check than a real analysis. The
polling data he uses is very current and the real in depth studies you
pointed out were comprehensive and therefore somewhat dated. They would have
to be by their very nature.

Krugman's stuff is what I call pulse taking. The big studies are autopsies.
As such they tend to be good reference works but I prefer my patient's
alive. This introduces a measure of the erratic and unreliable but that's OK
by me. I enjoy reading tea leaves and am ignored in any event. Nobody dies
and few listen.

I watched an interview last week with one of Cross's new hires ( 6 months I
think) and it was interesting. Anecdotal stuff, but significant as far as I
am concerned. It certainly wouldn't pass the smell test as research.
Cross is hiring programmers and system analysts from large metropolitan
areas at half their former rate and moving them to small communities in the
middle of nowhere to telecommute. Before they hire in they are familiarized
with the significantly lower cost of living and home ownership, shown what
they will save by not commuting, you know - a sales pitch about how much
better their lives will be and the cut in pay will be offset by reduced
costs. You know - blah, blah, blah - and largely true as far as it goes. How
far it actually goes is the key of course.

Several things caught my attention. The guy was definitely not very buoyant
or exuberant. OK, he's nervous, although he didn't appear to be. To me he
looked a little shell shocked but regaining his footing. He made scant
mention of the joy of living in a community of 2500 and had a lot to say
about things they used to do in the evenings that they couldn't do in their
new community. He also pointed out, right at that end of the interview, that
he had been out of work for the three previous years. My impression overall
was that it's his feeling that nearly anything was a blessing after what he
had been through but his current situation was something less than an
unalloyed delight. Life's a bitch but it could be ( and had been in his
case ) much worse.

Then they interviewed the project manager at Cross. He talked about the
investment the company was making to get this system lashed together and
working properly and the benefit to stock holders. More blah blah and blah.
I am sure you have heard this before as well. He's right as far as I know. I
noticed that he was pretty steely eyed and his whole posture was pretty
aggressive.

His answer to the last question - "Are you concerned that having made this
investment these new people will move on once the settle in" - caused my jaw
to drop, literally drop, and then I laughed off and on for the rest of the
evening. He was absolutely spot on but I couldn't believe he was stupid
enough to say what he did on national television. His entire answer was that
he wasn't concerned in the least - "where are they going to go" he said "
the nearest place of employment of any type is over 250 miles away". The
smug, self satisfied look on his face said a lot.

I don't know how alike or different you and I are Dan but when we discuss
the well being and health of our country we are talking about two entirely
different things from very different perspectives.
You argue, intelligently as a rule, that all is well and while the economy
could be better it's doing pretty good. Dislocation is both normal and
inevitable. The current positive trends will continue and over the long haul
we'll do just fine. Politics is politics and don't really make much of a
difference as politicians are all alike regardless of party affiliation. If
that isn't about right please correct me.

This is a sliver of my thinking.
None of what you point out as important or revealing telltales matter much
in the long run. They are all symptoms if you will.
The economy of the United States is successful and has been competitive
because of the financial, legal, transportation, energy and commercial
underpinnings from which it flows. It is also not successful due to some
special and uniquely American quality commonly known as the "can do spirit"
of Americans. There is plenty of "can do spirit" all over the world. What we
have in this country is a system, let me repeat that - it's important - WE
HAVE A SYSTEM, that turns "can do" into "been there done that". That's the
huge difference.

You are looking at symptoms and ignoring the underlying condition. An
analogy that you will be able to relate to is making a sale to an
unqualified customer. I do not necessarily mean financially unqualified
although there are those as well. I mean the one sale in 50 ( or less
really) that you make by bulldogging a sale to a guy that isn't really a
customer. It's an old school sales philosophy that I am positive you have
seen close up. You may even employ it yourself.
These types of deals are the crack cocaine of sales in any industry. They
keep you tied up chasing marginal deals because of the rare sale that
closes. You are always chasing that high. You also forgo 5 qualified deals
that you didn't have the time to follow up on because you won't let any
prospect go. Know what I mean? It's not a personal slam by any means. Don't
take it as such - I don't know either you or your work and absent such
knowledge wouldn't draw any inferences at all. I am trying to make a point.

The United States of America has been on a 30 year quest to close every
single unqualified customer we can find. In the process we have, and
continue too, neglect the underlying fundaments that really did make things
go. I can provide you with any number of instances where this is the case.
Really, name a number if you can't think of a million or so examples on your
own.

Let's take gun control legislation just for the hell of it.

Start with the premise that some rules are necessary and good. I do not know
a single person that would argue that the truly insane should be able to own
or even possess firearms. These unfortunates are a danger to themselves and
society even without a gun.

OK, now let's see what we have done legislatively.

What we have now is the looniest collection of municipal, city, state and
federal laws and regulation imaginable.Thousands of statutes, fully 80
percent of which are either not enforced or are practically unenforceable
for one reason or another. All of this and the number of laws is only
increasing. This especially happens when one or two nut cases misbehaves and
kills people. Suddenly we have more laws.
Since we agreed that rules are necessary, what should we do? How about this.
Have a group sit down and write a statute. There will be _fill in the blank
with a SMALL number_ of articles and conditions and these will be clear and
concise. When it's finished the states vote it up or down. Eventually
something will pass. When it does, throw out every single frigging gun law
in the country and REALLY ENFORCE the new set. This, or something like it,
needs to be accomplished across the board with both civil and criminal
statutes. I would start with the civil stuff because the situation is
desperate and the survival of this country in the long run depends to a much
larger extent on a good clean and understandable civil code that can be
STRICTLY adhered to and EVENLY applied.

Rinse and repeat for the tax code, infrastructure legislation/planning
apparatus and so on.
We also need to resurrect the classless citizen model. In the eyes of the
law all citizens need equality, justice must be blind. The USA Patriot act
has created two classes of American citizens. We now have the class with
constitutionally protected rights as well as a class whose rights can be
pretty capriciously ignored at the convenience or whim of the Federal
government. Not only did I not think I would live to see such a thing, I
didn't think any American would. These are the freedoms Americans have
fought and died for since before there was an America. Some of them were
friends of mine.
Some were probably your friends, neighbors or family members as well. I can
hardly believe it Dan but I am glad my father, a man who fought in two wars
for this country, died before he could see this. I mourned his passing and I
miss him so saying that means a great deal but it is no less true for that.


--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com