After reading most of the posts, one thing is clear. Most of the posters are not manufacturers or retailers. The minute I hear terms like "fair" or "good living" wage and "reasonable" profit, I'm turned off because this is the thinking of the left. Unless interfered with by the government, the market will set the value of everything. People espousing "Buy American" have no problem with us exporting to other countries, thereby taking jobs (existing or potential) from their citizens. We have never lost any jobs to another country, we simply gave them away by being noncompetitive for what ever reason. The reasons we are noncompetitive are too many to argue hear, so I'm going to talk China. The United States has a long history of discrimination to and distrust of Asians in general. Again, too much to discuss here. The basic reason for China's success is the work ethic of the Chinese people. You can find Chinese immigrants in every corner of the world, and weather brought there as "cheap" labor or got there on their own, as a group they became successful productive members of society. As a group, nobody works harder than the Chinese. Just read about the building of the transcontinental railroad. Weather in an ISO 9001 factory in China or a "sweat shop" in "China Town", you won't see workers just standing around. How many Chinese do you see on welfare? The only reason Chinese drop out of school is to GET A JOB. And when they get that job or start a business, they will work as many hours as necessary. I say China is succeeding because of their "Gung Ho" attitude. They are not doing well because they are a Communist Dictatorship, they are doing well inspite of it. God help us if the Chinese ever become a true capitalist nation. Nobody can out produce the United States when we put our backs into it. Our production and will won WWII. We did what ever it took to win because failure wasn't an option. We must apply that same WWII will to win to our economic problems. Until we get off our lazy asses and get back to a pro-business government government, we will continue our decline. We must quit blaming others for our problems and solve them ourselves. We sacrificing our long term well being for temporary comfort, just as all the great societies before us did.
Last edited by timbo762; 10/20/12.
