BS: What's wrong in the USA

Subject: What's wrong in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 09:27 PM

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6 a.m. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA). After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB. At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in.....AMERICA.....

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 09:30 PM

Then, he sat at his computer, made in China, in his new office chair, made in Canada, and complained that Dexter shoes, and Hathaway shirts are going out of business. Pretty soon, Maine will revert to being a place that only exports people, and ballast stones!

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: toadfrog
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 09:34 PM

Well, them foreigners have to earn the money somehow to buy our wheat, patronize McDonalds, watch Disney films and buy Microsoft software. And as for me, I'll take California wines any day. If Joe Smith wants to drink that foreign horse-piss, so much the worse for him!

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 09:45 PM

Well...I am currently boycotting all products made in Thailand as a protest against the tourism/child prostitution that has become a staple of its economy. If there were a way to identify and boycott individuals or companies participating in this perversity, I would.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Amos
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 10:25 PM

Good on ya, Mz Sinsull. The boorish split-mindedness of executives from places like Germany and the States who vist the red ligft centers in Bangkok and Ohom Peng,m and take these desperate practices as a peculiar carny show to be enjoyed while visiting exotic ports is just mind boggling to me!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 02:32 AM

If you want to work for an American company, you have to move out of the country.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 03:22 AM

Looks like this site might be appropriate for this thread. People who want to make socially and environmentally responsible decisions with regard to how they use their money might want to check it out...

Co-op America

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 07:09 AM

Boycott Wal-Mart while you are at it. They are the anti-christ as far as I'm concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: gnu
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 07:30 AM

I look at the label on everything I buy. I buy as close to home as possible and, not only do I not mind paying "extra" for something made here, I take pride in it. I know not everyone can afford such a policy, but if you can, it will help in the long run.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 08:22 AM

Irish priests - cheap Canadian labor - shoddy Chinese chairs.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 09:39 AM

Kendall: You make some valid points but can you explain why Wal-mart is the anti Christ? Kindest regards, Neil

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Alice
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 10:39 AM

And some of the chocolate we eat comes from cocoa harvested by child slave labor in the Ivory Coast:

"According to Knight Ridder and other investigative pieces, these young children are lied to about jobs and wages and suffer through beatings, insufficient meals, lock ups at night, and workdays of more than 12 hours without breaks. They are separated from their families and live in fear."

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Peg
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 10:55 AM

Anyone ever seen Michael Moore's film THE BIG ONE? Very enlightening.

His website may be of interest: www.michaelmoore.com.

Personally I see no need to give up French wine or Italian shoes (yeah like I can afford 'em!) or Swedish cars (one of which I used to own)..the probelm seems to me to be the way that American businesses get sucked inthe corporate vortex of bigger, faster, cheaper. The evil Walmart Kendall speaks of, and other places like it, is the new anti-Christ, no question. Think about it: how many people will go to the local hardware store to buy tools, their local paint store to buy brushes and paint, their local garden shop to buy plants and gardening tools, their local feed supply store to buy bird seed, and their local camping supplier to buy propane, when they can get it all at HOME DEPOT, and faster and cheaper too?

same with Walmart: milk, cookies, nail polish remover, dish towels, guns and ammo, electronics, brassieres, shoes, CDs, fabric and sewing notions, etc. etc. all UNDER ONE ROOF! And at prices that NO MOM AND POP STORE CAN HOPE TO COMPETE WITH?

Soon we will have no choices at all, and our towns will have only CVS, big grocery chains, Walmart, Home Depot, Petco, and the multiplex cinema to patronize...what happened to all our choices? They went away when WE made the choice to sacrifice them: for the sake of convenience, saving a bit of money, and blind allegiance to the bigger-is-better mentality.

God bless America. We are surely screwed.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 10:57 AM

There is another side to this, too. I find it difficult to impossible, to find the goods I wish to purchase, here in Wyoming, so I rarely buy local. When I do buy, I have gotten to the point where I look for a foreign label, for cotton clothes, becasue as near as I can tell, most affordable American-made clothing is polyester/nylon, etc.

I do buy only from companies which I know support their workers, such as Marketplace India, which markets goods from women's work collectives, with the better share of the profit going right back to the women business owners. Also, from DEVA which is in N. Dakota and is a green company; makes beautiful cotton clothes. There are a couple of hemp clothing manufacturer's whom I've purchsed from, also.

If we want to spend it here, they've got to make it here. I am sorry to hear about Dexter!

Carol and Alice, thanks for the links!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: GUEST,Chip A.
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 11:38 AM

I have an old vinyl of Heddy West singing "Babies in the Mill". Our laws and the sensibilities of our people have made it more difficult for big money interests to behave as they once did. What difference? Now the babies work in third world countries under EVEN WORSE conditions so that we can continue to live high on the hog. In truth, it's the job of a pretty big chunk of humanity to carry me and my lifestyle around on their sweating backs.

Chip A.:(

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: C-flat
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 11:54 AM

It's an issue here in the U.K. too. There doesn't seem to be any products that are clearly labelled as British-made. Our car industry has gone, what was once a stalwart of all things British.."Marks and Spencer" has most of its clothing made abroad. A great success story of recent times was the innovative Dyson vaccuum company who has recently announced the transfer of manufacture to parts abroad. These foreign factories must be temporary constructions to allow the manufacturers to move quickly as once- weak economies become strong again so they can bail out and shift production to the latest economic casualty. It won't be long before it all comes back, because our own economy will make us the poor relation of Europe and the cycle continues. I've always been under the impression, from my visits to the U.S.A., that Americans were a patriotic lot and I'm suprised at the amount of foreign merchandise available.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 12:02 PM

WalMart is indeed the Antichrist...I do not shop there. Ditto for Blockbuster Video, the WalMart of video stores. These outfits have no loyalty to any nation or any human philosophy except naked greed, and they are living proof that Orwell and Huxley were only slightly off the mark in their assumptions that faceless socialism would ruin the world...it turns out that faceless corporatism is an even deadlier beast, but similar in its unremitting zeal to make everything everywhere look exactly the same.

Dylan did a song once around the theme of this thread, way back in the mid-80's...it's called "Union Sundown".

If you have any unique Mom & Pop businesses in your town...SUPPORT THEM!...you will miss them when they're gone.

Here's another thing to support: fair and equivalent pay for workers in the Third World. A worldwide Bill of Rights enforced by a worldwide coalition of nations! If Third World people weren't being used by the big corporations as virtual slaves, our North American jobs would not be going overseas, would they?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: gnu
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 12:05 PM

Right on LH.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 12:56 PM

Survival of the fiuttest works just as well in economics as itdoes in nature...

I shop at walmart, home depot and chapters because local, quait, 'mom & pop' stores suck...

America created this 'naked greed' and now yer afraid because it works better than you thought it would...

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Peg
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 01:03 PM

Would you say that if all the pubs you play in were suddenly bought out by one big "Paddy McMaster's" chain that decided to only serve pissy Budweiser and microwave nachos, and decided to never hire any Canadian folksingers but instead chose to do away with live entertainment altogether? I wonder. And if you think this is beyond to the realm of the possible, think again.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: SharonA
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 01:55 PM

Peg: Not only is it not beyond the realm of the possible, it's already happening. I refer to the Bennigan's chain, with "slainte" as its slogan. Ugh.

Let's not forget, too, that Wal-Mart purports itself to be just a big mom-and-pop store with "greeters" supposedly supplying a homey atmosphere. Ugh again.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Gareth
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 02:04 PM

Peg - Ever hear of "Watneys" ?

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: gnu
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 02:44 PM

Yup. And the greed isn't just from chains. There's a pub here in town that is actually a Mom and Pop operation. However, they are so popular and so busy that they treat the musicians like crap, because they can. They pay less than the smaller pubs and pull real crappy tricks, like advertising on the radio that the entertainment starts earlier, forcing the musicians to take the heat if they can't make the appointed hour. They suck in some less experienced by saying their gig is from 4PM to 7PM and then another group is on, when there is no other group. And you know what happens at 7PM, just as the supper crowd is getting into the music after imbibing. There's at least another hour of playing.... without any extra pay. So, a three hour gig turns into a five or six hour gig with little, or no, extra bucks... which is their niche, because the dance clubs start up around nine or ten PM. They fill in the rest of the night with ameteurs on open mic.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Big Tim
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 04:20 PM

LH beat me to it (again - ya bass!): from the same Dylan song; "democracy don't rule the world, you'd better get that in your head, this world is ruled by violence, but I guess that's better left unsaid!". "Infidels" album (1983).

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Peg
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 04:23 PM

There is a company here in Boston that owns six or seven pubs, all with different names, but each one has the same "formula." Homey Irish atmosphere (ya know, Guinness advertising posters, Gaelic road signs, etc.), pseudo-Irish pub food, basic selection of stouts, etc. But because everyone seems to think they are all sepaartely-owned pubs (because of the different names, Kitty O'Shea's, the Purple Shamrock, the Black Rose, the Green Briar, etc.) they are now setting the standard for what a pub "should" be. And these places are pretty lame as far as authentic pub atmosphere goes.

Gareth; the only Watney's I know is the beer? I see the sign in pubs in England a lot...

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 04:24 PM

Whenever I need something in the hardware line, I go first to my local store. It is seldom that I dont find what I need there. Plus, they dont assault me with that hideous pounding and screeching that passes for music these days. I went to Home Depot to price new counter tops, and that racket was so loud and annoying I left without buying anything. Get someone to turn it down? sure, try and find someone. I gladly pay a few bucks more to support the locally owned store. My bank is also one of the few that is not owned by out of state mega corporations.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: gnu
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 05:01 PM

Several businesses owned by the same person is an old trick to thwart competition. For years and years there were four "dress shops" on the corners of one intersection here in town. All were owned by the same family. New stock was in the "first" one, at a high price. By the time the stock got to the fourth one, selection was poor and so were people who shopped there... imagine the snobbery. But, they made the bucks and they kept the competition down. Now, they are closed, because people shop at Wal-whatsit.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 05:12 PM

Here's another thing to support: fair and equivalent pay for workers in the Third World. A worldwide Bill of Rights enforced by a worldwide coalition of nations! If Third World people weren't being used by the big corporations as virtual slaves, our North American jobs would not be going overseas, would they? LH

My take, exactly. It is not greedy, per se, to want to make a living. It is the exorbitant profits that some pursue that is the problem. And sometimes even that goal doesn't stem from greed, imo. I know a woman who supports her grown sons in expensive trades- one has a helicopter sightseeing business in the Virgin Islands, the other has an automotive shop and garage in Oklahoma. Neither has yet been in the black. The woman finances these things with apartment houses and other real estate, which she is unwilling, or unable, to keep in good repair. She is simply trying to support too many on too little. It is stupidity, maybe, but not greed, necessarily.

The big corporations with their hungry shareholders are doing somewhat the same thing.

I'm one of those who believes that the less time and effort I need to spend just on daily living, whether it's on a job or buying food or tools, the more time and energy I have to spend on my real life. So, no. I don't want to go to the grocers, the produce dealer, the meat market, the t-shirt shop, the - you get the idea. I don't want to get in long lines and spend hours of my day just gathering food and other necessities, or wait three weeks for a small shop to get something into stock that I need NOW. I'm the kind of person for whom super markets were made.

I'm exaggerating a little here, but not by too much.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 05:52 PM

Yeah, there are some "Mom & Pop" stores that are crummy outfits...no doubt. There always were. That doesn't change my main point any. And I appreciate the convenience of, for example, big grocery chains...but I've found some excellent small grocery stores too. I don't have to have it all one way.

Clinton - you wrote: America created this 'naked greed' and now yer afraid because it works better than you thought it would...

Yup. I'm afraid all right. You will presently be afraid too, I can just about guarantee it. No one here has yet seen how far naked greed can push the balloon before it bursts entirely. People are afraid in Argentina and they will be afraid here too.

"Survival of the fittest" is a concept admirably suited to animals, but entirely unfitting for human beings if they mean to build anything worth being called an advanced civilization. I recall kids in my school who believed in survival of the fittest....they were the playground bullies. They were either quite emotionally disturbed or they were scum, and their means of "survival" turned out in the long run to have only the briefest of short-term rewards.

Those who believed in cooperating with others and making a valuable contribution to the whole have done far, far better in life, and it is upon them that the strength of society rests.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: leprechaun
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 06:21 PM

The reason WalMart is the anti-christ is this - If you record an important football game because you have to work and you can't be there, then you go into the Walmart to get doritos so you can watch the game at home, then some snot-nosed cheesy girl announces over the loud-speaker, "Attention Walmart shoppers, The Ducks won, beating California in the last quarter by..."

No time to cover your ears, no time to run out screaming.

Bunch of incompetant non-union bastards! I'll never shop there again.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 06:24 PM

There's a basic disconnect out there. Those of us that are members of the consumer society (and how many of you are reading this on the free PC at your public library?) want as much as we can get, as cheaply as it can be had. At the same time, workers in the States have resisted any efforts by manufacturers to modernize and automate our manufacturing system. And, yes, I realize that modernization would result in the loss of jobs, and life is like that. So our choices are to (1) buy stuff made in the USA that is not competitively priced (even if it were available); (2) buy high quality manufactured goods from a country like Japan that has modern factories (and don't give me that line about how we paid for those plants...the ones built in the 1940s have been replaced at least once since); or (3) buy material made by what amounts to slave labor. Guess you have to take your choice...and keep your eyes open for alternatives.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 06:48 PM

It's called "capitalism".

Time to try something different.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 06:52 PM

Just because the lady Ebbie mentioned is spending the money she steals from her tenants on her sons instead of directly on herself doesn't stop it being greed.

The important thing is that the people producing the stuff you buy are not being exploited, and as kat pointed out, it is possible to do that. Whether they are in the same country as you are is much less important, they are all members of our family wherever they live. Within the Mudcat I don't feel closer or more distant to particular people because of the country in which they happen to live.

That's at the national level. At a local level other factors come in, because I have a direct interest in what happens in my locality. I do have a special link with other people who play music who live in my area, because we play together, and we need each other. Essentially the same applies to other types of economic and social activity.

As the saying goes, think globally, act locally.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 07:09 PM

Well, that's sure a reasonable attitude, McGrath. Sounds good to me.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 07:23 PM

things are like they are because of the "Golden Rule"...that is, "He who has the gold, makes the rules"

A combination of sophisticated advertising techniques, "free market economies", corrupt and/or inept politicans, greedy corporations, rampant technology, globalization of corporate entities, and several other trends-- have made it inevitable that shoes from Malaysia will be cheaper than shoes from Tennessee.

Since J.C Penny and Sears-Roebuck and McDonalds etc., have shown that carefully manipulated chains can drive Mom & Pop out of business, those with access to power have slowly manipulated the system until it is almost impossible to have anything else!...People now start small companies IN ORDER to be bought out by the mega-corps! I had one bank change hands 3 times as it moved from one merger to another!

Sure there are a few alternatives to some of these bandits, but it is practically a full-time job keeping track of who the good guys are! Tobacco companies own bread companies and toothpaste manufacturers...etc...

And BECAUSE it is so hard to follow, and generally costs more to be conscientious, most people simply buy what is cheapest and shoved under their noses.

I don't see any sigh of change soon, I'm sorry to say.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 07:28 PM

Richard Bridge said it. The problem is capitalism. You've got to admit there's something risible about people in the land of the free trying to buy American only. Capitalism depends on competition in the labour market, yet as soon as it finds the cheapest labour (which is going to be almost anywhere but the USA) you all cry "foul."

We all know the Japanese economy is a colossal illusion. We all know the US economy is a huge debt-driven bubble waiting to burst. We know the world economy - being so dependent on the USA economy - is a conjuring trick. And it is on this flimsy basis that capitalism is deemed to have triumphed over socialism and co-operation.

We don't need to change the system. It's going to change anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 07:46 PM

Fionn - Exactly. It's a bubble. And behind the bubble stands a nuclear arsenal and the world's biggest waste of money in history on high tech weaponry.

Our money isn't actually worth anything, but we all agree to pretend it is while the bubble grows larger and larger. That could change in just one day.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: leprechaun
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 12:16 AM

I have wonderful idea. We can solve all the world's economic problems if we just disband every company that grosses more than $100,000 a year. That way, nobody gets rich enough to do any exploiting.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 02:04 AM

Interesting notion, but I think $100,000 isn't a small enough ceiling. Actually, huge companies wouldn't be such a problem if there were a consistent set of rules around the world to regulate their behaviour, but there are not. So they have found a way to simply circumvent national governments, and move the money wherever they want to...that is the problem. The world is in a state of societal anarchy, much like the Wild West was before statehood. He with the most guns runs the show. That situation could be changed, but not without genuine community action between nations, a desire to seek equality, and a sense of one world, not many. In other words...run the world the way a single democratic nation is now run...with a consistent set of laws and structures to implement those laws.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" Practice what your founding fathers preached and much can be done. Those who are "created equal" deserve an equal start in life and an equal chance, no matter where they are born.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: leprechaun
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 03:27 PM

Ok then, if anybody accumulates more than fifty dollars more than anybody else, they have to burn the money, or give it away.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 05:12 PM

This is a bizarre thread.

Didn't Marx and Engels put forward a similar arguement nearly 100 years ago?

I thought we'd 'thrashed' that out of the system?

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 06:41 PM

Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic. - Dan Rather -

Posted, NOT because of any respect or liking I have for the man, just thought it was an interesting observation in light of what we've been discussing.

IMO, he's talking about the race consciousness of Americans. I certainly would hope there are a lot more of us who care a lot more than he seems to imply. Although, in the current situation, one never knows! Do you suppose he's one of Dumbya's advisors?

Just one more thing to pitch into this *bee-zar* thread.:-) Some of you may this interesting; it is already in its 15th printing, in just this year, "they" tried to keep it from being published, and it's the national best seller, at the moment: Michael Moore's Stupid White Men. Looks like a hell of a ride!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: pattyClink
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 09:41 AM

Have been enjoying this thread. Coincides with what-I-did-yesterday, which was walk out of two grocery stores because they don't have the fantastic strawberries which are being harvested 100 miles down the road. (they also were filled with screaming idiots, were out of lettuce, and were using deceptive ads on the meat prices) Apparently big chains won't sell local produce because they can't do national buys and national ads until they have enough California styrofoam to go in EVERY store.

So, today we go out of our way to go the farmer's market and we'll get the strawberries and some other things. We'll pay cash and it will go into a local family's account. Weekend, we'll drive out of our way to a great local butcher's shop/mini-grocery and we'll stock up on fresh stuff that costs less than it does at the megamart. Packaged goods we'll get from a little cash dollar chain where at least the money goes to a neighboring state and at least we aren't subsidizing bad-check passers. (sometimes these little buys can be squeezed into a lunch break) Next week we'll pop into the organic co-op for spices, flours, etc. and the money goes to keep that alternative food and knowledge source going.

Sure, I'll go back in to the big chain store (never the Wal-Mart). It'll be a targeted raid to get weird stuff I can only get there, in and out. We'll probably just keep buying milk from a gas station/convenience store, at least some of the money goes to a small businessman.

Point being, alternative sources you haven't really noticed may be out there.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Wolfgang
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 10:02 AM

While I am very much in favour of buying locally what bothers me is that the intro from Kendall is extremely close in tone and content (with local adaptations of course) to a similar piece of prose in Germany coming from the extreme political Right. I know Kendall has not the slightest leanings to such positions but nevertheless a German translation could only come from the Right.

What we do in Germany as an antidote if we see this bit of right wing propaganda is to add (ironically) "And before going to bed he prays to his Saviour (BORN IN ISRAEL)". (Palestine, actually, I know, but 'Israel' is better for the sake of the argument)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 11:08 AM

Good point, Wolfgang. It is entirely desirable that we should buy things from all over the world and trade with other nations...as well as support our local businesses.

What is not desirable is that people in those other nations should be working for a pitifully low wage and be serving essentially as impoverished slaves in order to maintain our bloated and ridiculous North American or Western European lifestyle.

Extreme hierarchically perpetuated inequality is extreme and deliberate injustice...for the benefit of the privileged few.

Leprechaun - Actually, a genuinely sane and rational society could function absolutely fine with NO MONEY AT ALL....but...given the fact that we have all grown up in an insane and irrational society that gets down on its collective knees and prays to money every day of its silly life...most people cannot even imagine what I am proposing.

They WILL, however, find it easier to imagine when something happens that renders their money totally useless.

When the Titanic was sinking, no amount of money would buy you a spot on one of the lifeboats. Remember that. But common humanity would still make you grab an oar and help paddle the boat...without pay. If I see someone drowning in the river, I pull him out. I do not ask him to give me some money first!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: GUEST,Chip A.
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 12:00 PM

Little Hawk,

Good Post!

Impoverished slaves working to maintain our ridiculous and bloated lifestyle......This is the literal truth.

Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I must hurry and put my head back in the sand.

Chip A.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: kendall
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 12:22 PM

I think it would be great if every worker in the world was paid the same wages for the same work; but, because of human greed, it will never happen.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 01:29 PM

I'm not even sure it's greed that ties is into this way of running things. I think it's fear. Fear to throw the crutch that it seemed we couldn't get along without for a particular period of human history.

There was a time before money, and there will be a time after it, and I think we're getting into a time when only increasingly bizarre ways of manipulating our affairs manages to keep the money system from toppling over.

It's a bit like the increasingly complicated set of adjustments they had to build into the model of cosmology they had before Copernicus. Then the penny dropped - stand it on it's head, and the system just didn't need them to work, and it was all so much simpler.

As for what was erroneously called "Communism" - though a more accurate term for it was State Capitalism - that is something totally different. And, as is being demonstrated in China at present, not all that far distant from the other form of big capitalism.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 01:56 PM

Right on, McGrath. You're right...it is fear that maintains the system, not greed. Greed is just one of the unfortunate byproducts of fear.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 02:18 PM

I think greed is sometimes a byproduct of fear. But I also think it's sometimes a byproduct of adrenalin addiction (which, incidently, is something that I think drives many of the decisions made daily by people in the US, at least). Now, whether or not adrenalin addiction is a byproduct of fear is another question, and one for which I don't have an answer.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Kim C
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 02:38 PM

Do some of the poorly-paid workers in other countries not also work to support the bloated lifestyles of their own government officials and other like figures?

The latest National Geographic had an interesting article about the diamond trade. Not only do the diamond brokers get rich, so do the local warlords. Also it talks about the expert diamond-cutters in India, who can facet a diamond as tiny as the seed on a strawberry - highly skilled work, for which they make very little money.

I used to get a catalog of pricey South American imports, mostly knitted goods. A sidebar in the catalog said that some of the sweaters took about four months for an expert knitter to complete. They were selling these things for $400, and I know very well the people who made them were probably not even getting half of that for their trouble.

I forget who it was that mentioned the Deva catalog - their goods are fabulous, at a fair price. I am still wearing a dress I bought from them a good 5 years ago.

Something else I've noticed, is that goods are just not as good as they once were. When I was in junior high, in 1980, I had a pair of Adidas. That was the big thing then. I wore those shoes for a good 8-10 years before they finally gave out. I bought a new pair of Adidas, and within a year they were toast, and it wasn't because they were subjected to any hard wear or adverse conditions.

I bought an expensive Denman (Made in England) hair brush several years back. I loved it. The rubber on it started to deteriorate, so I went to the salon and bought a new one. The new brushes have a skimpier handle - one of the things I really like about the old brush was the weight and shape of the handle. Same price, less brush. Hmpf.

I been saying for years that Wal-Mart was the anti-christ, and everyone laughed at me...

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: GUEST,Chip A.
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 03:13 PM

The Geographic article made the rounds at our house last week. Having that story fresh in my mind is what caused me to respond to this thread in the first place.

It's true, of course, that these people also carry their own government officials on their backs. Them and hordes of middle men lined up between their hard working hands and our illusory little islands of plenty.

I don't believe it's necessary that there be "have nots" in order for there to be "haves". I believe it's possible for there to be a world of "haves". At least insofar as the earth is able to support us all very well. But boys will be boys, you know, and the boys all want to make a profit. Then, in order to keep the profit coming in the boys all want to have a little control.........banana republics anyone?

I think the best we can do is to live with our neighbors as well as we can, practice a little tolerance with one another and make MUSIC! Remember, it takes a string band to raise a child.

Okay, putting my head back in the sand now.

Chip A.

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: GUEST,DC
Date: 30 Mar 02 - 01:52 AM

Nothing is wrong. It is as near perfection in government as man will ever achieve.

A the Joe Clone that removes this is?

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Escamillo
Date: 31 Mar 02 - 01:25 AM

Leprechaun, your phrase has enlighted me to understand why it is called the Anti-Christ:

"then you go into the Walmart to get doritos so you can watch the game at home, then some snot-nosed cheesy girl announces over the loud-speaker, "Attention Walmart shoppers, The Ducks won, beating California in the last quarter by..."

This is unheard of in Argentina, and, fortunately, it will not happen because WalMart is now departing, as Home Depot, Wendy's, Gillette, and many others did.

May God want that the Argentina disaster (see the thread "Still alive in Argentina") serves as an escape valve to globalization. Some symptoms are already noticeable: Mom&Pop stores are recovering from a 30% share to 45%, local manufacturers are trying to raise their heads (including myself as software developer), some absurd products are disappearing (French carrots, Danish cheese, Israeli peaches, U.S. candy, Italian coats, etc.) and 1.5 million tourists arrived in the last two weeks are frantically buying everything by the dozen. Soon I could export CDs with my voice !! (no, we better take care of that market)

Will we see again those golden days when you could buy a genuine locally made pair of leather shoes ? Buy an excellent guitar not made in Japan ? See our workers out of the streets, busy at their workshops ? Eat something tasteful ?

Wolfgang, sometimes we have some coincidence with the right wing. As a scientist, you may agree that the value of truth is independent of the source where the information comes from. :)

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 12:36 AM

We are lucky, here in New Haven, Missouri. We still have local markets. On my street almost all those who are working, work for Chrysler. No one buys a "foreign" car. Of course many of the components they attach to those American made cars are from off-shore vendors! Still our local wineries produce excellent products, our four or five local meat processors sell only local farm raised (no feed lots here) beef and pork and I buy my huge, lovely brown eggs from a lady down the road who has dozens and dozens of free ranging chickens. I shop locally. I can get it for less at Wally world. but I won't drive the 12 miles to do so. I figure I can't ever save enough money to justify our local stores going out of business.

Washington, the next town to the East of us is gleefully surrendering to the strip-mall mentality and becoming a bedroom community for St Louisans frightened that the black and poor will eat them for breakfast.

CB

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 12:59 AM

I love old-fashioned stores, and I go into big malls as seldom as is absolutely necessary. Sounds like Argentina may be discovering its own identity again, as Cuba already has done. The price: you don't get Walmart, Blockbuster Video & McDonalds, etc. Halleluya! I loved it there.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What's wrong in the USA
From: Escamillo
Date: 01 Apr 02 - 02:13 AM

Beware of the industry or service that is especially made and marketed for foreign and tourist buyers. For example, those sweaters mentioned by Kim:

"I used to get a catalog of pricey South American imports, mostly knitted goods. A sidebar in the catalog said that some of the sweaters took about four months for an expert knitter to complete. They were selling these things for $400, and I know very well the people who made them were probably not even getting half of that for their trouble."

No, they will receive only 5 to 6 % of that price. Fortunately we in Argentina have never seen (until now) a level of exploitation similar to the South East Asia or Africa, but we do have child exploiters. Curiously, most of them are oriental immigrants who exploit Andean immigrants in a kind of sub-sub-world under the complicity of local authorities who take a good share of the earnings. Don't buy from them, please. Just choose a South American product when it fits your needs and competes well in price and quality without damage to local jobs or environment. Or, come here and eat Kilograms of REAL BEEF ! :)

Un abrazo - Andrés