Yo, Dickey...

I'm sure you could fill a couple screens with plants that have been built or updated... That is not at issue here... What is at issue is that the US economy is not creating manufacturing jobs at the rate to keep up with it's labor pool.... What that means is more unemplyement and, just as cruel, *under*employment.... Underemployment is a large factor in why kids in the inner city loose hope that finishing high school will make their lives any better... The jobs they can get with a high school diploma are about the same jobs they can get with an 8th grade education... This is a majoe piece of the puzzle...

No matter how many decent paying jobs the Dickey's of America ***think*** are being created, they arern't in comparision to the potential workforce...

That is why I support a ***guarenteed and subsidized national minimum income*** for anyone who wants to work... And an income that exceeds the poverty level... Then maybe we could start to talk about ***no*** subsidized housing and social workers being told to snoop on boyfriends... It's not American to be snooping into people personal lives...

But it's not just subsidized housing but Food Stamps and Medicare and, and, and the list goes on of programs that could be elliminated if every one who wanted to work was paid a ***living wage***...

The system we have now is very colonial and is based on the premise that folks can't be trusted to make correct decisions... Well, okay, I have argued that we need to restore programs but if folks knew they would paid a living wage then it is my porsition that these programs coule be phased out as people became ***empowered***... A guarenteed income for everyone who works will go along way toward that...

BTW, in my last post I left out an all im portent word in talking about small businesses and that is that a guarenteed income would ***help*** them as well as their workers...

BObert