[pianotech] [Released] Re: O.T.- H1B Visas?

[Encore Pianos]

Sorry for being such a stickler for language.  I just think one should use
language meticulously.   If that makes me sleazy in your eyes, so be it.  

You wrote: "Anybody that wants the ease of government protection has to
embrace either socialism or communism".  When you say " has to embrace" that
can only mean that you are "marrying them" (to use your term), as your
statement leaves no room for exceptions.  You are saying the two go
inextricably together.  Given your limiting terms, where is there room for
me to read that statement any other way?
	
". But, if you want government to be responsible for protecting your ability
to charge more than people that are not under that government who are doing
the same thing, you have no use for the  "free market"."  The latter does
not inevitably follow from the former, as you would have us believe, and you
still have not made the case that it does.  Nor will I allow to frame this
debate in such absurdly narrow and simplistic terms.  The free market may be
the only operative value here for you, but it is far from that for me and
many others.  There are many values beyond that properly should be
considered, including passing protectionist laws and regulations that
protect American jobs.  You ignore the fact that virtually every other
nation in the world constantly engages in regulated protectionism as a means
of competing in the world economy against other nations.  They do so to
serve their economies, citizens, and their industries as well.   You act as
if all this takes place in a vacuum, but the reality is that we live in a
highly interdependent economy where the effects of one action can
reverberate throughout the entire economy.  If 10,000 people in a major city
are laid off, others will lose their jobs too.  That's the way it works,
whether it is school teachers and policemen getting laid off, or workers at
General Motors.   

I believe unabashedly in Capitalism, but a regulated capitalism that can
only be administered by government.  An unregulated Laissez-Faire Capitalism
leads inevitably to monopolies that serve only themselves and prey upon most
everyone else.  We went there, did that a hundred years ago, and laws were
passed regulating monopolies.   The modern variant on that is the Oligopoly
Crony Capitalism that exist in our country today.   The hypocrisy here is
that these conservatives speak reverently of laissez-faire capitalism, while
at the same time passing laws that stack the deck and serve the large
corporations.   Ask the American people about that.  Recent polling has
consistently shown that 80 % of Americans believe that corporate money is
corrupting our politics.  That's 4 out of 5 people, liberal, centrist, and
conservative.  

Let me state the obvious.

Competition still exists and thrives in a wisely regulated economy.  The
staggering  success of American capitalism has taken place over the last
hundred years or so within a regulated economy.  How much or how little may
vary, but that is an undeniable fact.  

You said "Pro Business means that the bottom line is paramount.  The
American way is capitalism as measured by profits.  If an Indian firm can do
what we do for less, that is where the business will go. "  Presumably the
human cost is never tallied on your abacus.   It's economic Darwinism, which
is about survival of the fittest, eat or be eaten, etc.  - yes, winners and
losers.  

"The human cost is a sum total zero, because every lost job here is a gained
job somewhere else"

That statement made me think of Apple, the wealthiest corporation in the
world and it's Chinese factories where the following occurs:


"However, the workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices often
labor in harsh conditions, according to employees inside those plants,
worker advocates and documents published by companies themselves. Problems
are as varied as onerous work environments and serious - sometimes deadly -
safety problems.

Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live
in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until
they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple's products,
and the company's suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and
falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that,
within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.

More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers' disregard for workers'
health. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China
were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean
iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad
factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before
those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the
Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning.

"If Apple was warned, and didn't act, that's reprehensible," said Nicholas
Ashford, a former chairman of the National Advisory Committee on
Occupational Safety and Health, a group that advises the United States Labor
Department. "But what's morally repugnant in one country is accepted
business practices in another, and companies take advantage of that."

And how can we forget the factory with the famous suicide nets outside the
dorm windows.  So much for the sum total zero for the human cost.  That is
your abstracted Ayn Rand capitalist fantasy, the reality of human suffering
is far different.  

Will Truitt


  





-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ed Foote
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2012 1:16 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] [Released] Re: O.T.- H1B Visas?


Greetings,
   I wrote: "Anybody that wants the ease of government protection has to
embrace either socialism or communism".

Will writes:

>>You have made a blanket statement here, Ed, which, like a neo-con's
welfare queen, has no visible means of support.  That statement has no basis
in fact, even. <<

   I think you are dead wrong.   I didn't say marry them, geez. But, if 
you want government to be responsible for protecting your ability to charge
more than people that are not under that government who are doing the same
thing, you have no use for the  "free market".  Call protectionism anything
you want it, it is still a socialistic direction.


>.WHY must I embrace either socialism or communism if I believe in
SOMEgovernment protections?   Are you saying that IF I believe in ANY 
governmentprotectionism (great or small), THEN it follows that I am  a
rotten doctorcommie rat?  "the EASE  of government protection".  Are we
talking about a  bunch ofLiberal Slackers here?I always thought of myself as
a capitalist.
When we formed this more perfect union that is the United States, it wasn't
done solely to serve the corporations.  Ed has made no mention of the human
cost of the unbridled free market that he appears to be promoting here.  As
Duane and his wife can tell you, those costs are real.  Or do they not
matter to Ed, whose world seems to be madeup only of Winners and Losers?
Will Truitt <<

      You have, in a most sleazy way, reduced the debate to an absurd level.
Running to put things in extremes is a cheap way for straw men to avoid the
more difficult decisions.  The human cost is a sum total zero, because every
lost job here is a gained job somewhere else.
     And why you would be so presumptive to describe my world as made of
winners or losers? My world is made of winners, but you haven't any idea of
what matters to me. I think the American way is to compete, not to rely on
the government to suppress whatever competition we may have to confront.  If
someone is willing to outwork you, then you will suffer, but don't blame my
government for your shortcomings.

Ed Foote RPT