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Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter

Dave, I recognize you have good intentions in your oft repeated refrain about the evils of "us vs. them", but consider this.........................there would be no United States of America were it not for "us vs. them".

True. But I hate to see people get so hung up in the blame game they don't take any further action then a bit of finger pointing. By us vs them, I'm referring to the political parties, not warring factions....

And if those who fought the original us vs them game back in Colonial America days so how things were going now, betcha they'd be for starting another war!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just think it's time we stopped trying to decide which party is responsible, and all took on a bit more personal responsibility, like in the voting booth, to get things going in the right direction again!!!!

Originally Posted by 53 Willys

I don't think anyone here is saying that profit is bad, just that greed is. My son was laid off almost 2 years ago along with 20 others. His job is now in China. The place that he worked had a local profit of around $80,000,000, This move was to increase the local profit by $3 million- 20 jobs lost overseas for 3 million additional profit, My job was lost 16 years ago "Job elimination for payroll reduction" and I was lucky. I was one of the early to go and got severance pay . They soon learned how to get around that. 6 years later the company no longer existed, however the CEO and his buddies got 2 to 5 mill bonuses each of those years and even made our pension fund almost worthless. I have no problem with profits but not at any cost.

I would propose that you're in more of a minority than you think when it comes to your statement about disdain, or lack of, for profit. Just by posting on this thread you're showing your comparative uniqueness. I doubt there are very many people on this forum who even read this thread after maybe looking at it once, much less put their oar in the water. Many, if they think about this stuff at all, which in the entirety of the population is a sadly small number (Leno doesn't make up those vacuous Jay Walking segments)don't believe it's worth bothering with because they don't believe they can change anyone's mind or they may feel insecure about their position. Personally I don't think that should be the point, it's more important to challenge some folks to think outside their presets, and reinforce beliefs some already hold that they worry others don't share. And then there's the kiss of death: they might get a "like" hit as you (Edit: and I ) did from Alan!

Part of the problem is that the examples from your own family can't be addressed in a quick, pithy response......................certainly not in a 30 second commercial or on a bumper sticker. It's like trying to desribe to a newb how a carburetor works. They need a lot of additional understanding of a broad range of information in order for the explanation of the carb itself to be intelligible and accurate. Sure, you could say "it mixes air and fuel which makes the car go". Which is fine as far as it goes, but is pactically useless for trouble shooting a problem or explaining how to improve it. And we have many examples of that in our daily discourse.

The "Occupy" group is an example of what happens when people learn from bumper stickers without benefit of knowing anything. Many of them claim to be college educated, but maybe all they did was attend school for a goodly number of years. In parts it's because they've bought into the propaganda. "Get a degree and you've got it made". Work is about doing something of value to your fellow man that he in turn exchanges mutually agreed value for. If someone believes that having a degree, any degree, is all that's necessary, they will be disappointed when nobody else appreciates their knowledge of Advanced Underwater Basket Weaving enough to pay them.

You'll see these Occupiers holding up signs like "End Money". They obviously have no idea of what money is. It's merely an IOU or voucher that represents value exchanged with someone else, not some item that has intrinsic value unto itself.

All of the above is a very tiny iceburgh tip in considering what would be necessary to have a meaningful discussion about jobs in an economy..............and already anyone who's read this far is bored to tears unless they have learned to learn and want to learn.

That's why the demonization of others works; be it corporations, competing political groups, those perceived to be wealthier, fat cats, and on and on. It appeals to basic instincts that don't require thought, only emotion. A politician who sells "I'll give you more stuff that we take away from the evil guy......" has a much easier time of it than the guy saying something like "We're going to have to work hard over a long period of time to solve this problem. Here are the 100 thing we need to do to just get started (or perhaps back on track)......."

Back to your personal example. There are likely many reasons why that whole thing turned out the way it did. It might have been incompetence on the part of management, or an outmoded technology/service/product, or too much government meddling that twisted the market out of shape, or dozens of other factors. Most likely some lethal combination of things. Blaming it on so called greed is quick and easy to say, but may not be accurate. And if we don't have an accurate diagnosis of the cause of a problem it's almost impossible to affect a proper cure.

Again I'll return to the Occupy crowd. One way to distill their mantra is that "We need to take from the 1% and give to the 99%!" This is one of those "Be careful what you wish for" moments. They're thinking within what they think they know about our country. If you expand the field of play to include the entire population of the planet, the top 1% would be just about the entire population of this country. We're that well off in, not just money, but in availability of food, clothing, shelter, clean water, sewage handling, and on and on. I'd bet theat most Occupy whiners would change their tune if it was THEY who had to be taken from......................just sayin'.

I am self employed , I am not saying I don't like a profit, A profit is important to survival, There comes a point where the method for getting and amount of additional profit is just wrong,

Originally Posted by Evolvo

34_40, your correct, the politicians greased the skids, but who greased the politicians (this is getting weird) and got them to make it easier to take our jobs overseas. IMO it was professional lobbyists working for the Plutocracy. OCCUPY CHR

But which group of constituants elected these people to protect and serve them? As I said. The Politicians only want money to spend, it's the easiest thing for them to do and makes them feel some self worth I think...

And if you want to use history and the unions, it was the unions who had to fight greedy corporations/owners and crooked politicians to make a better life for all!

Henry Ford first gave 5 dollar workdays and a scant couple years later, he's hired thugs to beat down a labor effort... what does it mean today? Not much as Detroit is a vacuum!

Like I said earlier, the only think I can control is my vote! It'll never go for an incumbent!

Seems to be the only thing we have any control over anymore is the vote!!!! Think as voters we'd better spend some serious time finding which candidates actually want to do something for their constituents and which one's need to go find a new job with the company who owns them.......

Originally Posted by Evolvo

I hope we're allowed to carry on this exchange, it's fun.

As long as you keep it civil and I see no links to "waywardly political web sites" this thread will allowed to be open. If I see anything amiss, this thread and all future political discussion will be persona non grata on this forum.


Enough said.

Bill S.

Originally Posted by mrmustang

As long as you keep it civil and I see no links to "waywardly political web sites" this thread will allowed to be open. If I see anything amiss, this thread and all future political discussion will be persona non grata on this forum.

Enough said.

Bill S.

Well Bill it does seem some old coot asked you to do something about that very topic.

Originally Posted by mrmustang

As long as you keep it civil and I see no links to "waywardly political web sites" this thread will allowed to be open. If I see anything amiss, this thread and all future political discussion will be persona non grata on this forum.

Enough said.

Bill S.

I doubt any of us will ever change someone else's opinion, but with this being an election year I know it will at least help to keep an awareness in peoples' brain when it's time to pull the curtain and do the deed on election day next November!!!!! A lot of politicians would like to extend that government control to include our Hot Rods and race cars, too. At the very least, reading someone else's opinion on an issue leads us to more thought and hopefully more research on that issue.... Learning is never a bad deal, and a modicum of respect for conflicting opinions is part of that learning deal too.... (Now who was it that just reminded me of that not so long ago??????)

Originally Posted by 1gary

Well Bill it does seem some old coot asked you to do something about that very topic.

Yes, but you are neither owner of the site, nor it's only moderator

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

I doubt any of us will ever change someone else's opinion, but with this being an election year I know it will at least help to keep an awareness in peoples' brain when it's time to pull the curtain and do the deed on election day next November!!!!! A lot of politicians would like to extend that government control to include our Hot Rods and race cars, too. At the very least, reading someone else's opinion on an issue leads us to more thought and hopefully more research on that issue.... Learning is never a bad deal, and a modicum of respect for conflicting opinions is part of that learning deal too.... (Now who was it that just reminded me of that not so long ago??????)

Indeed, but as we have seen in the past (and the reason why we rarely allow threads like this to exist here), cars and politics do not mix. Feelings get hurt, noses get pushed out of joint, and people leave the forum in a huff. Not only is the counter productive, but it brings the whole forum down to a "us vs them" mentality. When that happens, and people start taking sides in a heated disagreement, nobody wins. Again, so far, this thread has remained mild, as long as it stays this way, it will be allowed to progress. If not, it gets shut down and archived.

All I (and Brent) ask is for people to not embarrass themselves and act like the responsible adults that I know you are in real life.


Bill S.

Originally Posted by mrmustang

Yes, but you are neither owner of the site, nor it's only moderator





Indeed, but as we have seen in the past (and the reason why we rarely allow threads like this to exist here), cars and politics do not mix. Feelings get hurt, noses get pushed out of joint, and people leave the forum in a huff. Not only is the counter productive, but it brings the whole forum down to a "us vs them" mentality. When that happens, and people start taking sides in a heated disagreement, nobody wins. Again, so far, this thread has remained mild, as long as it stays this way, it will be allowed to progress. If not, it gets shut down and archived.

All I (and Brent) ask is for people to not embarrass themselves and act like the responsible adults that I know you are in real life.


Bill S.

Whoa Bill I never make claims to either of those titles.Simply put I mistakenly started this mess and asked to be respected to put a end to it projecting what you just posted above.To be blunt,it has no place on a forum like this one in my opinion.

Originally Posted by 1gary

Whoa Bill I never make claims to either of those titles.Simply put I mistakenly started this mess and asked to be respected to put a end to it projecting what you just posted above.To be blunt,it has no place on a forum like this one in my opinion.

"Started this mess", yes, while you did start the topic, you later admittedly realized you could've read your own link! And saved yourself a headache??

Actually, I thank you for creating an opportunity for us to have a respectable exchange of viewpoints and ideas! While this isn't really auto related, out choices in the near future will certainly have an impact on us and our cars!

Originally Posted by 1gary

Whoa Bill I never make claims to either of those titles.Simply put I mistakenly started this mess and asked to be respected to put a end to it projecting what you just posted above.To be blunt,it has no place on a forum like this one in my opinion.

And thankfully this is not a forum of one opinion being oppressive to the whole, and we generally show respect in what we post. We likely have some members (or guests) who either 1) don't open this thread and don't care to read the dialog, or perhaps expand their understanding of whichever side they take; or 2) open the thread, scan the latest entry shaking their heads in dismay. Uncle Bob mentioned earlier that a lot of people had probably quit reading part way through his dialog, and in another place mentioned "Roger gets it" (thank you, Bob). For me, Bob very definitely "gets it", and he is very talented in his expression of his viewpoint. I read every word of every post on this thread, and I look forward to Bob's latest insights. I find that as I read Bob's posts, my head is generally nodding vertically, even for those places where I have to go back and re-read parts to understanding the reasoning. For some others my head tends to shake side to side as I wonder at the inequity of the statements, but I still read every word.

Neither side is perfect (it is not a perfect world), but as we look back at history there have been many, many of the highest respected leaders who have addressed similar situations. Today, in this election year rhetoric, we seem to have shifted from "Let's lift up the poor." to "Let's pound down the rich." Winston Churchill once said, "I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." Another popular target, which I tire of hearing about, is "...the 1%" and the need for them to "...pay their share", to be "redistributed" to the lower/middle income classes. I heard it said on a national commentary that if our collective leaders were truly concerned this would be a world view, as we are indeed in a shrinking world of technology, and they would assess that we are the richest major country in the world, and if you compare average household incomes on a world basis then the "1%" cuts deep into the US population, down to those who are bringing home incomes well below the national median of ~$28,000. Are we all ready to accept a, say 30% reduction in our taxable income in order to "share the wealth"? I believe this falls into the "Be careful what you ask for" category.

Those "Five Great Sentences" pretty much boil down to a simple mathmatical fact - Sharing of the wealth means that in each successive round of sharing there will be less to share, until there is eventually nothing left to share. I've been exposed to some of the writings of C.S. Lewis recently, and I note a quote that he made long ago, which to me shows that history tends to repeat, or perhaps that we humans seem to have a hard time learning from our mistakes.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C. S. Lewis

This thread has been good, It has been allowing us to share our opinions ,both right and wrong, without disrespect for each other and hopefully it will continue on this path of mutual respect, I know that those of us that are right will still allow those that are wrong to voice their incorrect opinions and they will do likewise.
My opinion may or may not get changed, but both sides must be heard so we can meet at a middle ground that makes all unhappy

The State of the Nation speech was all about re-election, just as everyone expected it to be....But---the one thing President Obama said that really made sense was in regards to shipping jobs overseas, don't have the exact quote but it was to the effect that given a level playing field, US businesses can produce a higher quality product and sell it on the world market at a competitive price.

Now, if some REAL leaders would step forward and pass some legislation to level out that playing field, this country would outproduce and outperform any other country in the world, the workers would have a decent wage, the company would make a respectable profit, and unemployment would go down to an acceptable level..... If those people would step forward with a workable plan to get us there, they'd sure as heck get my vote come November!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by 53 Willys

This thread has been good, It has been allowing us to share our opinions ,both right and wrong, without disrespect for each other and hopefully it will continue on this path of mutual respect, I know that those of us that are right will still allow those that are wrong to voice their incorrect opinions and they will do likewise.
My opinion may or may not get changed, but both sides must be heard so we can meet at a middle ground that makes all unhappy

The only part of this statement above that I can agree with is the last sentence. I'll contend there is no right or wrong! It's all opinion or belief on which path to take, or, only a "road" to a hopefully better place of existance.

Roger, I loved the Winston Churchill quote! As you can see!