"Going back to the midwest where people live in the past"

[SoCalDem]

Some idiot named Challenger from Boeing, just suggested that (MSNBC).,,. for people who can "get out of their houses" & relocate..
'
Yep.. that;s the ticket..

The house, is their only ":asset", even though it;s lost value..so they should take a big hit on the house & load up their stuff to go to Nebraska, or Texas & work for $14 an hour in an at-will state?

He said it was a "normal" migration during "hard times"..

[Broderick]

1. You're in a country that puts Bankers before people losing homes

And says renting is better than owning, and if foreclosed on - maybe the government will get into the rental business. Seems like times are a changing.

[RKP5637]

5. Yep, changing right into serfdom and conversion to the worlds' cheapest

labor market and a third world country. Company stores and company housing, mostly all serfs. I'm waiting for the next brilliant plan to be to confiscate all peoples assets if over 65 to fund SS and Medicare, and send them to tent cities. Those with over $1M in holdings exempted.

[Broderick]

8. We have allowed our manufacturing base to leave

The last pair of New Balance went out the door, made in the USA, recently. My wife has the last shoe offering that was USA made. It's a combination of global multinational corporations, tax laws, and our own penchant for the good things in life. Our value for a Ipad is far greater than our love of family and country I do believe. Meanwhile, even President Obama's jobs guy (also the CEO of GE) is sending thousands of jobs in X-ray equipment manufacturing to China while his company paid ZERO, let me repeat that, ZERO corporate income taxes.


We are being bilked by the left and the right, eventually into third world serfdom as you say.

[Brickbat]

9. Wait, NB has stopped their US manufacturing? All of it?

[Broderick]

11. yep

[Brickbat]

12. When was this? I can't find a link.

I know they've said the new FTAs will hurt them and they threaten they'll have to shut down, but that's the most I've seen. Can you tell me more?

[Broderick]

16. I am getting clarification from my wife because she brought home the shoes the other day

and said she bought them because New Balance is moving manufacturing overseas to compete and it was one of the last shoes made in the USA. She is looking for the articles, but I might be mistaken because on their website they have some shoes listed as made in the USA and a bunch listed as "assembled" in the United States.

I might have taken her word for it, (good word to trust), and just assumed it was correct.

She is looking for the articles for me. I can't find anything on Google news about 100% manufacturing stoppage in the US, ect.

[Brickbat]

21. Thanks. Like I said, they are threatening it, but I'd be surprised if they've done it already.

[Broderick]

22. I probably jumped the gun from an off hand conversation

with her that made me shake my head.

[RKP5637]

14. It's amazing. That's why I get really torqued when politicians talk about

how they're creating jobs in America. It's mostly all BS. This country is its own worst enemy, forget terrorists, any of them, it's this country that is destroying itself all by itself.

I worked in R&D, for example, and most of our jobs went to India, China and Ireland. I asked senior mgmt. when this started happening about 10 years ago what we were supposed to do ... their answer, oh, not to worry, we will manage them. I thought that was a BS answer back then and now the company is gone.

Somehow, there is this ridiculous belief in this country that we are the only ones that can do anything. Many of the ignorant in this country just don't get it that people in other countries are brilliant. The US could go away and the rest of the world would do just fine, but many just don't get it... And I dare say the majority don't get how "We are being bilked by the left and the right, eventually into third world serfdom ..."

Also, manufacturing was the glue that helped hold this country together, there are all types of jobs in manufacturing and feeder industries. We are positioning ourselves to have no value added on earth and are falling behind in almost every measurable category compared to industrialized nations.

We are in a major crisis, but I don't see any politicians, for the most part, treating it as such.

[Broderick]

17. Great post.

[RKP5637]

20. Thanks! n/t

[Ikonoklast]

34. Manufacturing is becoming a dead-end street.

See: Farming, before and after the invention of mechanical planting and threshing equipment, and the numbers of people employed in that enterprise, before and after.


Manufacturing is soon to follow that model, millions of cheap laborers, no matter what country they live in, cannot compete with a robot.

[RKP5637]

36. Yep, and why we need to rethink how an economy works in the 21st century. There are,

of course, jobs in a robotized industry for those with the right skill levels. When we converted our electronics company (where I worked) several decades ago to robotized assembly, auto-insertion, etc., wave soldering, etc., automated test equipment, etc. there were many jobs available for those with the right skill sets to program them, repair them, and there was a fair amount of manufacturing R&D work associated with the equipment.

Now, all of those jobs have moved to China, Singapore and Taiwan. Also, that took with it a lot of marketing and sales jobs for the equipment in the states, as well as the feeder industries.

[Odin2005]

24. NB don't make their shoes in the US anymore? NOOOOOOO!!!

I love their shoes and they are the only ones I buy because they work well with my arch support inserts. :cry:

[Broderick]

25. Not all. I jumped the gun from a conversation with my wife

and her new shoes. I will get clarification, but she brought home the shoes saying it was one of the last pairs of American made shoes because New Balance was moving manufacturing overseas. She had read some things, and she is finding it for me - but I think I took too much of what she said as 100 certainty. Sorry about that.

[Odin2005]

30. You almost gave me a heart attack, LOL!

I love their shoes, I swear they are indestructible.

[Brigid]

39. OMG!

You should delete this immediately, before those RW clowns see it and get ideas! :scared:

[SoCalDem]

43. They already have that plan in motion..n/t

[RKP5637]

44. Yeah, I know, I thought of that sometime after I posted it. I'm surprised

one of them hasn't dreamed that solution up.

[madrchsod]

2. well i guess time must run a lot slower .....

out here between the mountains.

:rofl:

[BOG PERSON]

3. I am a force of the past.

Tradition is my only love.
I come from the ruins, and churches,
and altarpieces, the abandoned
villages...

[Odin2005]

26. I love history, and I love old stuff period.

I work at a thrift store and I love the old stuff that comes in. The oldest thing we have gotten is a college textbook for Ancient Greek from 1909, I bought it for $15.

[leveymg]

4. Perhaps they can migrate next door to Mr. Challenger in East Hampton, Aspen or Park Avenue.

There are people who think that The Dust Bowl era was "normal" and a little cruise back there is perfectly A-OK.

[pipi_k]

6. And is there something wrong

with leaving everything behind, moving to the prairies, building a home from sod and bison shit, and trying to raise a few miserable vegetables on land even the devil wouldn't want?

[Cleita]

7. Not to mention destroying the bison and the indigenous

people who relied on the bison for their survival.

[TwilightGardener]

13. Midwest/plains are awesome. A great place to live.

[SoCalDem]

15. My husband is going to his 50Th class reunion in Fredonia, Kansas

He was surprised to find out they have 2 motels now:)..and the house he grew up in is still there:)

[pipi_k]

27. They probably are...

My preference is for lots and lots of trees, but anyway...

My point was that many Repubs would probably love nothing better than to relegate people to the same sort of habitat as our government "set aside" for the use of Native American tribes so the "real" people (i.e. whites) could take over the rest of the country.

[Odin2005]

28. I grew up in Tallgrass Prairie country in western Minnesota.

It's mostly farmland now, but there are still lots of areas, mostly abandoned fields, where the stems of the seed-heads of some grasses comes up over my head. It's incredible. And the wildflowers are incredible at this time of year.

[TwilightGardener]

32. It's a quiet and subtle beauty, but beautiful all the same. I went to Kansas

specifically to see some of the last original tallgrass prairie. In eastern Nebraska, we had some small preserved stands as well. But even the farmland can be beautiful--driving to work on rural roads at dawn, seeing the vapor rising over the cornfields. Or the wheat and sunflower fields in South Dakota.

[kctim]

10. We don't want them.

[RKP5637]

18. +1000 +++, n/t

[Withywindle]

19. Wow. No wonder NASA is being starved.

Wasn't there a time when, as a country, we were fairly enthusiastic about the FUTURE?

[Odin2005]

23. Wow, I grew up in a town of 500 people in NW Minnesota. That is deeply offensive.

I live in the past according to this idiot?

[Frustratedlady]

29. I am also offended by that remark. I hardly live in the past, but it might be a good idea.

The present/future aren't looking too favorable. At least our unemployment is around 6% and we don't have smog, kids are allowed to be kids and families enjoy spending time together. Nothing wrong with that.

I hope he doesn't move to Iowa. We don't need his attitude.

[sufrommich]

31. Could someone from outside the midwest explain to us how

we "live in the past"? I don't get it.

[whathehell]

35. Me either...I live in Chicago. That's the midwest...Gee, am I "living in the past"

without knowing it?:eyes:

Challenger is an asshat..In the present, past and future.

[WildEyedLiberal]

41. Me either

:shrug:

[Little Star]

33. Why is this a all or nothing proposition about so-called..

living in the past and living in the future.

Personally, I think if you don't remember both the good & bad from the past you will never advance. There are many things in the past that we can learn from and not all of them were awful. Many of the good ones could be expanded upon.

Blindly looking to the future with out the benefit of the past is counter-productive, imho.

Our past in this country has many good things that could be built upon.

Don't throw out the baby with the bath water!

That doesn't deny that we need to also learn from our many horrific short-comings. The past matters.

[Warpy]

37. I hope he takes his own advice

takes a hit on selling his house, and ends up in Ohio. Or Michigan.

I'd love to have him see first hand what the people he's been voting for all these years have done to the heartland, his "past."

[closeupready]

38. Well, as a born and raised Midwesterner, I agree with him

that much of the Midwest DOES live in the 1950's. And after many years on the East Cost, I don't think I could ever live there again. JM$0.02.

[hfojvt]

40. it depends if it has really lost value, or not

It would be nice to sift through the housing statistics some. If a person buys a house for $90,000 and it's value appreciates to $400,000 in a decade and then suddenly plunges down to $150,000 a person may feel like they have lost $250,000 in wealth (and in some sense they have) but they are also really still ahead $60,000 plus whatever equity they have in the original $90,000.

Back in the days of the real estate boom, that seemed like a decent option. If you bought a house for $100,000 (say) and it suddenly appreciated to $300,000 in a fairly short time (like 5 years or so) then sell the darn thing and take you $200,000 profit to Lawrence, Kansas where you can buy a decent house for $80,000 and still have a $120,000 nest egg. I'd certainly do that in a heartbeat, but I am also the guy who withdrew his name from a job I wanted (statistician for the USDA), because they threatened to move me to California in a year.

[SoCalDem]

42. We turned down a "promotion" to San Mateo CA

There was no wage increase (then $24K).. My cousin was happy to think we might move there & sent me some real estate ads.. the smallest crappiest houses there started at $500K & only went up.. She & her husband are rich rich rich, so housing prices there were no problem for them.. They spent $60 K to redecorate their 13 yr old's bedroom :)