Originally Posted by
curious
You can thank your Congress critters for doing this to us. Here is how they did:
1. ZERO financial responsibility. Overall tax rates higher than the economy can support + budget deficits that cannot be supported + monetizing the debt (that means printing every larger amounts of money without anything to back it up).
2. Creating a business climate which makes it far more profitable for manufacturers to ship manufacturing jobs overseas. This destroyed the urban manufacturing base and the manufacturing base in the rural south. Go to any downtown area in the rural south and you will see shuttered mills.
3. Creating a permanent destitute class which relies on government assistance from cradle to grave. This class was created on purpose by the DemoCong's social engineering programs. The destruction of the urban manufacturing base went a long way to creating this class.
4. The misuse of H1 and H2 visas to bring almost 1 million professional workers to the United States to take jobs that Americans could be filling. These workers come from India and Pakistan mostly. H1 and H2 visas are supposed to be used only when Americans cannot be found to do the same work. The large corporations who abuse these visas don't even have to pretend anymore to be looking for Americans. Most of these jobs are not that "technical", 6 months to 1 year of technical school training would qualify someone for a majority of these jobs. The reason that big corporations do this is these Indians and Pakistanis are willing to work for wages that are ridiculously low.
5. Energy policy - refusal to create one. The DemoCong's energy policy is "punish the oil companies so that they cannot supply oil to America". The United States has massive untapped oil reserves. The DemoCong every year renew a moratorium on exploration or drilling within federal land or anywhere offshore. They are purposely keeping the supply of oil down.
The corn to ethanol "energy program" is a total disaster. It takes far more energy to produce ethanol from corn that you get in return using ethanol to fuel an internal destruction engine. This program only exists due to subsidies and mandates that all gasoline use 10% ethanol. This program is a financial disaster because 1) drives up the cost of corn, 2) higher feed prices drive up the cost of meat and dairy products, 3) ethanol costs more than gasoline so adding 10% ethanol to gasoline drives up the cost of the gasoline, 4) adding ethanol to gasoline reqjuires the refineries to add a new very expensive process to their process of making gasoline, this makes gasoline cost more, 5) corn based ethanol is a MPG disaster, so gasoline with ethanol added to it gets lower gas mileage meaning the consumer has to fillup more often.
In other words the corn to ethanol program is a subsidy for 3 giant agribusinesses. The argument that this program "Helps" the farmers is nonsense because these 3 companies get 90% of the subsidies.
Brazil converted their economy to ethanol, and the DemoCong propagandists use this story. What they don't tell you is that Brazil makes ethanol from SUGAR CANE, not corn. Ethanol made from Sugar Cane is 10 times more effecient in terms of the number of BTUh you get at the vehicle's engine for each BTUh of energy put in to create the ethanol. What you probably don't know is that growing sugar cane in this country without a permit from the federal government is a FELONY. Guess how you get the permit? You give campaign contributions to two powerful senators who sit on the committee that allocate the permits. No, I am not making this up. Importation of ethanol made from sugar cane is a FELONY. This could easily be changed, the US could switch to a sugar cane based ethanol energy policy in a few months. That will never happen.
6. Giving most favored nation status to countries which are known to use slave labor like China. China got a lot for the cash they gave to Clinton when he was in office.
7. Allowing companies like Walmart to force US manufacturers t move overseas or be put out of business. When old man Walton was alive "Made in America" was Walmart's slogan. Not anymore. Personally I think the board of directors of Walmart should be tried for treason.
8. Setting up this inhumane system where a person can be an "illegal" due to his national origin. The problem with immigration isn't the immigrants. It is the fact that they are branded as "illegal" and then become part of an underground which can easily be exploited by employers. This depresses wages. The DemoCong like to say "but they do jobs Americans won't do". What they don't tell you is that because of their illegal status they are forced to do jobs for such low wages that Americans cannot do those jobs. What the DemoCong should say is that "they do jobs that Americans won't do for those wages". This could easily be fixed two ways. Give anyone who lives in the United States who does not have proper documentation a special legal status, but make it clear that they are not on path to citizenship and never can be as long as they stay here on this special legal status. This will eliminate the underground which can be exploited, because with legal rights these people will be able to work and if an employer tries to exploit them they will be able to seek redress of grievances from the federal labor department and other agencies. This special legal status would solve a whole host of problems.
The second thing that needs to be done is to build a Hadrian's wall on the Mexico-United States border and completely eliminate ILLEGAL traffic across the border while making LEGAL traffic across the border easier.
These two things could easily be done, but won't be because the DemoCong have no desire to fix this problem. They are purposely creating a new permanently destitute class because they believe that permanently destitute people will always vote the DemoCong ticket.
Another thing that the DemoCong allow big corporations like Walmart to get away with is the hiring of illegal workers through "contractors". The big corporations know this is being done but when the "contractors" get caught hiring illegals the big corporation says "we didn't know the contractor was doing that". Nonsense. They should be punished just the same. And the punishment shouldn't be a slap on the wrist. First offense should be a huge fine, second offense should be slapping the CEO and the board of directors in jail. Not a white collar country club. A real hell hole. Third offense should be the forfeiture of all stock owned by the CEO and board of directors. Fourth offense should be the seizure of the company by the federal government and selling it to the employees. Or execution by firing squad, I can't decide which.
All the root causes of the current economic crisis could be fixed but the Congress critters have zero incentive to fix them.
The voters in this country need to institute term limits at the ballot box.