This Flickr set of World War II style propaganda posters with a modern twist courtesy of the Chamomile Tea Party is making the rounds today. I particularly liked this one:
The poster seems to get to the heart of the matter, doesn’t it? In the United States today, there are cities that are turning off thousands of street lights, laying off cops, even returning streets to gravel because they have no money for maintenance. Meanwhile over in China, they’re building sleek 200+ mph high speed train systems, and constructing a clean energy industry that will employ millions.
Why are we stuck in this morass?
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Each side blaming the other for the break down.
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
But I digress!
Unions!
Love these, thanks for the link.
Partisan politics!
Unions for sure.
Ditto.
What about you?
How so?
Thirty years of failed conservative policies.
It’s got to be bad when Reagan’s own budget director and creator of Reaganomics, David Stockman, says that GOP policies “have crippled our economy.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?_r=2
China has it’s own problems. People actually live in the factories they work in. They don’t go home to their families for more than a few weeks out of the year during Chinese New Year. Some women work assembly lines with their babies strapped to their backs. I’m not making this up.
But at least they have a high speed train, right?
I also have to agree that Unions are a problem. I work in the private sector and deal with unions on a regular basis. They are a budget busting pain in my a$$! And these aren’t even the powerful unions that represent our public workers.
agree with the Chinese factories, unless you “own” the factory, you are second class, sleep in a dorm (maybe 10 cots to a room), one bathroom (no toilets)
no benefits, nothing. If we wanted to cut China out of the picture and bring the jobs back to the US, costs would sky rocket, remember corporate America will not lower their bottom line
Unions, I guess if you work for the union, you are happy (although they are not as good as they use to be), if you work for the private sector (as I do), well
different perspective
Is the problem with unions that they pay a fair wage?
I personally have always like the union (but I have always been private industry, which is my oxymoron). I think they look out for the person, vs private industry, where Corporate America looks out for the Exec. Of course this depends on the union you belong too. I don’t think it’s the little guy in the union who has been the problem, it is the big wigs. California does not have a budget, where are the decision makers, are they getting paid for doing nothing, let’s start with them, cut their perks (state cars, chauffers, first class rides on planes, etc etc). They wanted the jobs, let them use their own money to get to work etc like the rest of us
Agreed. I think taxpayer funded (police, fire, teachers etc.) unions are a problem. Private industry unions fund themselves, and no tenyear (sp?), right?
It’s not always about wages, but yes they do pay UNFAIR, high wages to unskilled and uneducated workers. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. But I can’t stand how inefficient unionized organizations can be. They also monopolize job markets. And my biggest issue with them is the fact that they make empty promises to their employees, while taking extremely high dues from them and caving to the corporations they work for.
Maybe there was a day when monoplized the job market, but where now? What is an unfair high wage?
A perfect example of this is the film production industry in Hollywood, Try getting a job as a studio grip. You have to know someone to get in.
I would say high wages would be the gardeners at schools that are making comparable salaries to the educated teachers. I know it’s hard work, but that money could be better spent elsewhere.
Gardeners getting teachers pay?
Only the CEO.
I’ll be curious to see when Chinese workers finally rise up to unionize and rally against their treatment by their employers as Americans did 100 years ago. This isn’t a leftist rant, but a century ago the unskilled American worker was exploited with low (unfairly low) wages, horrible safety conditions, long work hours, etc., just as the Chinese are experiencing now. Despite their perceived uselessness now, the unions helped to establish safety standards, fair pay scales, the right to collective bargaining, and for quite a while, helped raise the American standard of living.
Perhaps American unions they have outlived their usefulness (or at least effectiveness) in light of government safety standards and a set minimum wage, but I wonder how much longer the Chinese workers will put up with their own treatment?
as long as it’s communist China, they have little say. There are many rules and regulations out now since 9/11 such as CTPAT that are making even more restrictions on the vendors out there. The factory workers are scared to death that they will be fired, and are afraid to even look at you or “boss man” supervisor will fire or fine them. However, within the last 5 years, many of the younger people are gravating towards the McDonalds etc, they get more money and are treated better, but this is not union, it is Corporate, so they are still not much better off. Because of this “flee” of workers in the factory, product is delayed in being made, and costs are going up. Also, your corporations stateside are demanding a good profit margin, thus, your mfg here and in China are cutting corners (so you get deficient product, high lead content etc etc), as no one here wants to pay for the extras, they want to take a chance that all will pass
Let’s hope this is the start of a major trend of American businesses doing the right thing.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-08-06-manufacturing04_CV_N.htm