DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... 80% of U.S. Adults Face Near-Poverty, Unemployment: Survey

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/28/poverty-unemployment-rates_n_3666594.html

WASHINGTON — Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.

The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality.

As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused – on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.

Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy "poor."

"I think it's going to get worse," said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend but it doesn't generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks.

"If you do try to go apply for a job, they're not hiring people, and they're not paying that much to even go to work," she said. Children, she said, have "nothing better to do than to get on drugs."

While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government's poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.

The gauge defines "economic insecurity" as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent.




Marriage rates are in decline across all races, and the number of white mother-headed households living in poverty has risen to the level of black ones.

"It's time that America comes to understand that many of the nation's biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position," said William Julius Wilson, a Harvard professor who specializes in race and poverty. He noted that despite continuing economic difficulties, minorities have more optimism about the future after Obama's election, while struggling whites do not.

"There is the real possibility that white alienation will increase if steps are not taken to highlight and address inequality on a broad front," Wilson said.

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Nationwide, the count of America's poor remains stuck at a record number: 46.2 million, or 15 percent of the population, due in part to lingering high unemployment following the recession. While poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics are nearly three times higher, by absolute numbers the predominant face of the poor is white.

More than 19 million whites fall below the poverty line of $23,021 for a family of four, accounting for more than 41 percent of the nation's destitute, nearly double the number of poor blacks.

Sometimes termed "the invisible poor" by demographers, lower-income whites generally are dispersed in suburbs as well as small rural towns, where more than 60 percent of the poor are white. Concentrated in Appalachia in the East, they are numerous in the industrial Midwest and spread across America's heartland, from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma up through the Great Plains.

Buchanan County, in southwest Virginia, is among the nation's most destitute based on median income, with poverty hovering at 24 percent. The county is mostly white, as are 99 percent of its poor.

More than 90 percent of Buchanan County's inhabitants are working-class whites who lack a college degree. Higher education long has been seen there as nonessential to land a job because well-paying mining and related jobs were once in plentiful supply. These days many residents get by on odd jobs and government checks.

Salyers' daughter, Renee Adams, 28, who grew up in the region, has two children. A jobless single mother, she relies on her live-in boyfriend's disability checks to get by. Salyers says it was tough raising her own children as it is for her daughter now, and doesn't even try to speculate what awaits her grandchildren, ages 4 and 5.

Smoking a cigarette in front of the produce stand, Adams later expresses a wish that employers will look past her conviction a few years ago for distributing prescription painkillers, so she can get a job and have money to "buy the kids everything they need."

"It's pretty hard," she said. "Once the bills are paid, we might have $10 to our name."

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Census figures provide an official measure of poverty, but they're only a temporary snapshot that doesn't capture the makeup of those who cycle in and out of poverty at different points in their lives. They may be suburbanites, for example, or the working poor or the laid off.

In 2011 that snapshot showed 12.6 percent of adults in their prime working-age years of 25-60 lived in poverty. But measured in terms of a person's lifetime risk, a much higher number – 4 in 10 adults – falls into poverty for at least a year of their lives.

The risks of poverty also have been increasing in recent decades, particularly among people ages 35-55, coinciding with widening income inequality. For instance, people ages 35-45 had a 17 percent risk of encountering poverty during the 1969-1989 time period; that risk increased to 23 percent during the 1989-2009 period. For those ages 45-55, the risk of poverty jumped from 11.8 percent to 17.7 percent.

Higher recent rates of unemployment mean the lifetime risk of experiencing economic insecurity now runs even higher: 79 percent, or 4 in 5 adults, by the time they turn 60.

By race, nonwhites still have a higher risk of being economically insecure, at 90 percent. But compared with the official poverty rate, some of the biggest jumps under the newer measure are among whites, with more than 76 percent enduring periods of joblessness, life on welfare or near-poverty.

By 2030, based on the current trend of widening income inequality, close to 85 percent of all working-age adults in the U.S. will experience bouts of economic insecurity.

"Poverty is no longer an issue of `them', it's an issue of `us'," says Mark Rank, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis who calculated the numbers. "Only when poverty is thought of as a mainstream event, rather than a fringe experience that just affects blacks and Hispanics, can we really begin to build broader support for programs that lift people in need."

The numbers come from Rank's analysis being published by the Oxford University Press. They are supplemented with interviews and figures provided to the AP by Tom Hirschl, a professor at Cornell University; John Iceland, a sociology professor at Penn State University; the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute; the Census Bureau; and the Population Reference Bureau.

Among the findings:

_For the first time since 1975, the number of white single-mother households living in poverty with children surpassed or equaled black ones in the past decade, spurred by job losses and faster rates of out-of-wedlock births among whites. White single-mother families in poverty stood at nearly 1.5 million in 2011, comparable to the number for blacks. Hispanic single-mother families in poverty trailed at 1.2 million.

_Since 2000, the poverty rate among working-class whites has grown faster than among working-class nonwhites, rising 3 percentage points to 11 percent as the recession took a bigger toll among lower-wage workers. Still, poverty among working-class nonwhites remains higher, at 23 percent.

_The share of children living in high-poverty neighborhoods – those with poverty rates of 30 percent or more – has increased to 1 in 10, putting them at higher risk of teenage pregnancy or dropping out of school. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 17 percent of the child population in such neighborhoods, compared with 13 percent in 2000, even though the overall proportion of white children in the U.S. has been declining.

The share of black children in high-poverty neighborhoods dropped from 43 percent to 37 percent, while the share of Latino children went from 38 percent to 39 percent.

_Race disparities in health and education have narrowed generally since the 1960s. While residential segregation remains high, a typical black person now lives in a nonmajority black neighborhood for the first time. Previous studies have shown that wealth is a greater predictor of standardized test scores than race; the test-score gap between rich and low-income students is now nearly double the gap between blacks and whites.

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Going back to the 1980s, never have whites been so pessimistic about their futures, according to the General Social Survey, a biannual survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Just 45 percent say their family will have a good chance of improving their economic position based on the way things are in America.

The divide is especially evident among those whites who self-identify as working class. Forty-nine percent say they think their children will do better than them, compared with 67 percent of nonwhites who consider themselves working class, even though the economic plight of minorities tends to be worse.

Although they are a shrinking group, working-class whites – defined as those lacking a college degree – remain the biggest demographic bloc of the working-age population. In 2012, Election Day exit polls conducted for the AP and the television networks showed working-class whites made up 36 percent of the electorate, even with a notable drop in white voter turnout.

Last November, Obama won the votes of just 36 percent of those noncollege whites, the worst performance of any Democratic nominee among that group since Republican Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide victory over Walter Mondale.

Some Democratic analysts have urged renewed efforts to bring working-class whites into the political fold, calling them a potential "decisive swing voter group" if minority and youth turnout level off in future elections. "In 2016 GOP messaging will be far more focused on expressing concern for `the middle class' and `average Americans,'" Andrew Levison and Ruy Teixeira wrote recently in The New Republic.

"They don't trust big government, but it doesn't mean they want no government," says Republican pollster Ed Goeas, who agrees that working-class whites will remain an important electoral group. His research found that many of them would support anti-poverty programs if focused broadly on job training and infrastructure investment. This past week, Obama pledged anew to help manufacturers bring jobs back to America and to create jobs in the energy sectors of wind, solar and natural gas.

"They feel that politicians are giving attention to other people and not them," Goeas said.

I don't follow or even think about stuff like this much. But if I were forced to define the reason for the increase in poverty I'd say it's because of greed. The rich just keep getting richer by sending jobs overseas saving a ton employee costs.

It doesn't matter that profits roll in at record rates and the top executives have incomes in the hundreds of thousands per year, they will still divert jobs and cut people's income opportunity because it makes good business sense.

Once they have that certain level of income personal wealth no longer drives them. At that point the love of the game is their passion and keeping all the money possible is the goal regardless who gets hurt by it.

White collar crime as witnessed though the Wall Street debacle and the resulting bailouts should be enough to tell anyone that not only is greed condoned but it's also protected by the government.

Anyone who'd like to argue that would have to find someone else to argue with. I've long since lost my passion to save the world from greed.

That's all I've got to say about that.

The problem is overpopulation.....nobody talks about that.

There are more people then there are decent jobs. Until we look for ways to curb population and get it back towards 200 million people, we are on a road that looks a lot like India.


The "greenest" thing we could do it trim the population.

JMO

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The problem is overpopulation

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You write this frequently. I haven't read or thought much about it to produce a counter-argument, but I am wondering which book you read that so thoroughly convinced you that overpopulation is such a major problem? Or is it simply your "common sense" opinion?

Just my opinion.

I don't claim to know the number, but there are more people than decent jobs. I do know that.

I do know that a smaller population would have a much smaller carbon footprint if you buy in to all of that...I buy in to some of it.


All one has to do is look at nature and see how overpopulation impacts a species. Much of that overpopulation is caused by loss of habitat, but it ends up overpopulation none the less.

At what point will we no longer be able to produce enough food to feed the population? At this point we don't have that problem, but you can probably name 5 countries right now that can't produce enough food to maintain it's people.


I don't know if I buy the 80% figure in the article, but it is higher than it was 15 years ago, which was higher then it was 40 years ago.

China and India have had to address population growth. I think we better before we are a large 3rd world country.

If we are talking about total resources on Earth, and we are assuming those resources are finite, then I guess it stands to reason that, at some point, overpopulation will become a problem. So, on this point, it seems we agree. And when the human population passes the point of sustainability, we will naturally turn on each other to sort it out. Now, I don't think we are at that point yet; I don't even think we are close. I suppose the only thing that can settle how close we are to insustainability would be empirical research, but who wants to do that on a Sunday afternoon? Anyway, on the general principle, though, regarding resources and population, I agree with you.

Now, what I have a harder time accepting is your more specific claim about this article, that unemployment and poverty are symptoms of overpopulation. You appear to be assuming that there is a fixed number of jobs that can be done, that number of jobs cannot fluctuate relative to population. I don't see why this should be. As population increases, so to does the number of consumers that can be served. And unless we are at the point where resources can no longer support production or service, it would seem that we have to look elsewhere for an explanation of high unemployment and poverty.

I'm not an economist, though. That's just my opinion. Thoughts?

I understand that jobs aren't fixed. No doubt the number of jobs would also rise with population, but IMO the vast majority jobs wouldn't be sustaining jobs, they would be mostly service type jobs at the beginning, then no jobs at all.


Look, if you don't have people paying taxes, you aren't going to have building projects to support the population growth, thus, traditionally good paying construction jobs won't be there.

Add in that robotics now competes with people for jobs, and it is only going to get bigger. Sure, you will need engineers and designers of sorts to build and program the things, but the numbers will be 1/10 against the welders and workers once needed to produce a product. We are eliminating jobs daily in favor of a robot and a program.




I am not saying that's bad. I am simply saying that is the way it is.


As for turning on each other, it seems we already have. We have had issues with other nations, but now we have issues inside the nation.

I am not talking the normal political disagreements....I am talking it getting personal and questioning a persons loyality to nation and countrymen.


We are living a interesting period of American history.....it may not be fun, but it is interesting and we can say we lived it.....if we could somehow come back in 150 years.

I often wonder that the framers of our country and Constitution would think if they could come back today?


I spent a great deal of time on the Federalist Papers when I was younger. I always admired the thoughts and writings of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay....smart people even by todays standard.

I wonder what they would think if they could come back for a few days or weeks.

??

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I wonder what they would think if they could come back for a few days or weeks.

??

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How interesting. I've been reading Tocqueville's Democracy in America, and in various parts, I've thought to myself, "I wish he could see where we've ended up." I have yet to do an indepth study of the Federalist Papers, but I'm getting interested in the political philosophy of 19th century America, so that will probably happen very soon.

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We are living a interesting period of American history.....it may not be fun, but it is interesting and we can say we lived it.....if we could somehow come back in 150 years.

I often wonder that the framers of our country and Constitution would think if they could come back today?

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For some reason, I've always tried to look at current events through the lens of historical impact. I dunno why- maybe it's because my professional discipline forced me to learn the societal histories of the composers whose music I've been performing for 4/5ths of my life. Maybe I had good History teachers who taught me that "history is the study of both Man's triumphs and tragedies." (Wayne Brown, 10th Grade American History) Maybe I'm just hardwired to be more attracted to times other than My Own. Who knows?



'Peen: in your scenario, The Founding Fathers return to their visit progeny for a look-see. In my scenario, we are being viewed by Americans from as far into the future as the Fathers are in our past. Somthing tells me that they just might be equally appalled... and for many of the same reasons.

That's just how far advanced I believe the Fathers were, how advanced we'll eventually become- and how much we have to fix, right now.

One of the first sociopolitical disagreements I ever had with my best friend revolved around the subject of Capital punishment. At the time, my pov was this:

"What a man does to put himself in prison is a direct reflection of his actions and choices. How society treats its prisoners is a direct reflection of society itself. I don't want my fellow Americans to look back on My Society's choices and say: WFT were they thinking?"

Now, granted- my POV on that subject is still in a state of evolution... but I'm still convinced that the death penalty is relied upon too much. But I digress... as that wasn't my main point.

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In terms of public policy- be it business, law, social issues or personal choice, I believe that mankind as a whole, is simply too short-sighted to make good long-term decisions. The pace of societal progress runs at a glacial pace because we refuse to see beyond the ends of our noses. And to support Held's assertion.... nothing blinds quite like greed. There's a reason it's one of "The Seven Deadlies"... but it's not alone in that list.

Sloth: Remember the story of the ant & the grasshopper? 'Hopper didtart looking down the road, as our forbears did. As a country/society, I'm not sure we can ever get back to that mindset.


I fear that this Grand American Experiment is going to become yet another failed version of previous Great Societies... not because it was poorly conceived or constructed... but rather, because it was poorly protected- against Mankind's basest impulses.

We each are Our Own worst enemy. One by one. We each are The Chain's Weakest Link, when we willingly choose to be... for whatever reason. we each are victims. We each are responsible.

I'm thinking in almost Geological timeframes here. We look back on the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, The Ottoman Empire, The British Dominance of recent History, and see (easily) where each went wrong. And yet, we still allow ourselves to make the same mistakes, thinking: "That was them. We're different. We're somehow- 'special'.."

We aren't. We're just newer chunks of 98.6, fighting against the same failings and demons that plagued us in Biblical Times- and before. THOUSANDS of years, yo.

We were given the chance to become special... and for a few generations here and there, we rose to that bar. But in the end, I'm afraid we really aren't as special as we could have been.... as special as we might have been. Pity, too- because we were given better tools than any previous World Leaders were ever privy to.

[shrugs]

Time will tell.

I guess My Only Personal Choice is to live life as I was taught, and by what I've learned through personal experience. I've spent a scant half-century on the planet, and Greed isn't one of 'The Seven Deadlies' that ever bit be. I've been ambitious about maximizing my passion, and have been able to pay my bills upon the hard work I dedicated to My Dream... but "more" has never really been an addiction for me.

I confess I don't have all the answers... I don't even know all the questions. But- based upon what I've seen (filtered through my own life's experiences), it's awful hard for me to argue with ddub's original premise.

I always enjoy your posts Clem, they are well thought out, intelligently conveyed, and never result to personal attack, insults or off-the-cuff emotional response..

I have rethought my position on some subjects based on your intuitive and honest posts.

Thank you for what you bring to this board.

I agree with FloridaFan, who agrees with Clemdawg, who agrees with ddubia.

Our government serves those who have the money to pay for it.

As for overpopulation, that will be a global problem with concern to available food, not jobs. Our country has the ability to feed much of the world, but even that is limited and industrial farming and chemicals may cause our ability to grow food diminish quickly.

Industrial farms are pumping water from a large aquifer that is depleting quicker than figured.

As the world grows smaller with technology we can only hope that capitalistic/corporate morals will prevail. Greed is not an aspect of capitalism. Profit is, but maintaining a population that can afford to contribute to the market place and reinvesting in that business and market place is the real morality of capitalism.

Taking profit and storing it off shore IMO is about as close to stealing as you can get and I realize there are many who disagree with me. If our corporations had continued to reinvest and pay a reasonable tax rate instead of no taxes AND receiving subsidies our standard of living would have kept pace with the standard of living of CEOs and owners.

I'm not saying we would be equal, I'm saying the percent of wage increase would be equal, which IMO is what capitalism is about.

I agree with rockdogg, who agrees with FloridaFan, who agrees with Clemdawg, who agrees with ddubia.

It has been said, and largely accepted, that a well fed population will not revolt..... I believe that theory is going to be tested in this county in the not-too-distant future as more and more people struggle to make ends meet.

I think that is the most amount of people we have gotten to agree on anything on this board.

Mark this date down.

I agree that people usually can't make good solid decisions that will have long lasting impact but rather opt for the easy, short term fix...as is popular to say these days....it's easier to simply kick that can down the road.


As for greed, no doubt that comes in to play. It's been that was since some tribe of cavemen decided they didn't want to share their fire with the clan a few caves over.

The thing about greed....it is a two edged sword. It's easy to say business became overly greedy, but I look at it from another angle.

It is my opinion that business reacts to consumer wants and demands. Their goal is to sell their product or service at a profit. That's pretty much it. I think it can be said that the consumer is greedy as well. They don't want to pay $20 for a shirt when they can buy the off brand for $12, so American business had to react....that or go out of business. So while it is easy to say that business shipped off the jobs to increase profits, I believe they shipped off the jobs because the consumer wouldn't buy their product made domestically. You have people driving all over town to save a few cents on a gallon of gas.

That goes back to our belief that most people can't make good long term decisions.


Now, I understand some or many people are forced in to buying the cheaper shirt as I mentioned earlier, but as I see it, the quest to save a few bucks started before the wholesale shipment of jobs to far away places.

Consumers wanted to hold on to more of their money.....greed. Business had to react and cut costs.

As for CEO's and their pay. No doubt they make a lot of money because profits have gone up as a result of producing overseas, but we could cut their pay in half or more and that wouldn't do a damn thing to impact a companies ability to bring jobs back to the USA. They aren't heading back any time soon, thus, we need fewer people in this country so everybody as a fair shot at a fair paying job.

That is if we want to maintain a lifestyle more in lines with the traditional "American Dream" and not one on a level with Cuba.

I am not being defensive. I clearly said I welcomed your views as long as you weren't making it sound like I was proposing shooting people, etc.

I have addressed to some degree both how to deal with overpopulation...I mentioned rewarding people for having only one child. A few generations of two turning in to one reduces the population over a 50 year period.

I also believe I touched on some of the reasons why there aren't as many jobs...cheaper labor, technology.

It's only going to get worse. Take it as far down and dirty as garbage collection. When we were kids....heck, even up to maybe 15 years ago it was a truck and driver with 2 guys standing on the back to collect garbage. Now it is a truck with a driver and a automatic arm to collect the garbage. Those two jobs down at the Public Works dept. aren't headed back. At the grocery store you have more and more scan yourself lanes and fewer cashiers and bagboys. I don't think it will be all that far in the future that if you want the cashier and bagboy to ring up and bag your goods, you will have to pay extra.

Fewer and fewer people are need to serve customers and build products.

Sure, you will have designers and engineers to build these things, but their 1 job might mean a net loss of 100 others. Maybe thousands of others. Look back at my garbage collection example. Maybe you have a team of 20 to design the collection arm, and maybe a factory with 100 workers that build the things. How many thousands of sanatation workers around the country lost their jobs or were never replaced when those people retired?

Look at the medical profession, which is booming right now. As you, I, and millions of other boomers start kicking the bucket in a big way over the next 20-30 years, the industry is going to hit a downturn.

That won't really help with the population numbers because we are already leaving the workforce. The reduction needs to be across the board which includes 20-50 year olds, not just us old geezers....the ones most in need of decent paying jobs on which they can raise their families..

Good post Jake. You are right, we are nowhere near to being a Republic as intended.

You are still a republic to some extent....popular vote doesn't always get it's way as an example.

The founding faters as an example didn't intend for everybody to get a vote. They wanted people who voted to be qualified to some extent.

I am not going to debate if that is good or bad as that is a whole topic by itself, but it does lend to your point.

The only real issue I have with your post is you seem to indicate that it is Obama alone who helped create the mess we're in and he alone is wanting a one world government.

This problem/problems have taken a very long time to build. I believe if you actually count the years since 1960, you'll see that the GOP has controlled the White House the vast majority of the time.

I don't mind Obama getting grief as I feel he should get. But this entire premise of trying to paint our current position on one president I find to be very short sighted at best.

Neither party has put this nations best interest as a whole as their top priority. If they truly believe they have, we need much better candidates from both parties.

I get your point now.. thank you,.,

Just a general thought...

Having spoken with several individuals in charge of hiring at their places of business I have heard that there are some other factors that may be in play here. Seldom can a complex issue like poverty or economy in general be solved with a simple solution like "depopulation."

Those who have the responsibility of hiring, firing, and supervising employees have said...

1. many of the people who apply fail the drug tests. Without scientific datta conjecture has said half of the applicants fail the drug test or walk away when a drug test is in play.

2. Another large percentage of new employees miss work consistently.

3. Many quit after a short time of employment.

4. Many are horrible employees...lazy and grumblers sound like the 2 biggest complaints from these employers.

It seems that a lot of people just don't want to work, or don't know what work really entails. They just want a pay check for nothing.

The good news is that if you are a hard worker...you have little competition. The bad news is you will spend most of your paycheck supporting others in the form of taxes.

As to the overpopulation theory...
The thing that gets me is it seems like those that are having more than one (or two) kids are often the ones that can least afford it. I try to maintain an open mind but a while back while in line at the grocery the girl in front of me was holding a toddler on her hip, while pushing a stroller, and very obviously again pregnant, and was paying with food stamps... There in lies the problem. If you can't afford them don't have them.
My guess is this young lady could work a job that would support herself and maybe even one child, in a modest lifestyle. Instead she overbread and now has to have her hand out.

I wish people looked at breeding as a priveledge, not a right. If you can't afford them don't have them.

I see it in my family too. My older sister, and a nephew. It's frustrating to watch them both financially struggle to support their respective families knowing it didn't have to be that way if they'd just used some forethought... and protection.

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I believe if you actually count the years since 1960, you'll see that the GOP has controlled the White House the vast majority of the time.

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By my count it has been 54 years since 1960 (depending on exactly when in 1960 you start counting) and the Rs have been in the White House for 28 (Nixon/Ford 8, Reagan 8, Bush I 4, Bush II 8) and the Dems for 25 (Eisenhower 1, Kennedy/Johnson 8, Carter 4, Clinton 8, Obama 4 with 4 remaining)... so I don't think it's a vast majority.

On the other hand, the democrats have controlled congress for almost 40 of those years...

Make of it what you will...

Owning a Temp service, I can tell you for sure, all of those things come into play..

j/c

I don't know about any of you other Dawgs, but I've been truly enjoying this discussion.

One of the better 'open talks' we've had, of late.

Very good points and opinion as always Clem, but as far as new technology and doing it domestically, there are some issues (which I presume would be defined by what the technology is), and that is turn around time.


The Chinese can literally design, build, employ factories in weeks/months, where in the US we have so many hurdles to jump through and red tape, that sometimes retooling alone takes months.

Our own bureaucracy stifles innovation.

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I'd like to see a new commitment from The Detroit Three to sourcing parts from domestic shops, as well. Here in NW Ohio, a good many small to midsized suppliers made component parts for The 3, and kept a lot of local folks employed in good solid jobs for many decades. When the 70's crunch hit, many of those jobs simply dried up- a real shame. One by one, these shops closed their doors, precisely because of what's already been discussed in this thread. A change in attitude at the top of corps like these could revitalize regional infrastructures that existed before... only slimmer, smarter, better.

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Part of the problem is cost, and then all those newly employed people turn around and by the competitors models because they produce them cheaper.


A lot of our problem is mindset of the best deal is the cheapest deal. The best deal is the one your willing to pay for the service/product you are trying to acquire.

I have personally seen people pit companies against each other to get down to the absolute lowest price. When in reality they were willing to pay one of the earlier offered prices.

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A lot of our problem is mindset of the best deal is the cheapest deal. The best deal is the one your willing to pay for the service/product you are trying to acquire.

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I find sad humor in the "They took our jobs!" crowd shopping for cheap Chinese goods at Walmart. No idiot. Your desire for a cheap Sanyo TV outsourced your job.