We who live Billy Joel's song, know that living here, and visiting here, are two different things. Obama's visit here yesterday cast Allentown in a favorable light. Mayor Ed Pawlowski did a good job representing the city, especially the previous evening on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews. Obama's charisma heartened his supporters and students at the local community college.
As a person of the fifties, especially from Allentown, I was disappointed at his resigned surrender of our manufacturing future. In a town where Western Electric, General Electric and Black and Decker manufactured products, it's hard to get excited about caulking rowhouses. No tangible plan was presented to encourage loans to remaining manufactures. I know he came to listen, I assume he heard what they said, but did he understand what they meant?
photocredit:Don Fisher/The Morning Call
I feel Obama is clueless and is lead by a has been economic team from the 90's.
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America's economic problems are structural. It would be instructive to see what has happened in Europe and apply the lessons learned to here. While one hears about Europe's wonderful socialist system, one never hears about the ever increasing difficultly in financing it. Germany has pretty much admitted the grand socialist party is over and has started making adjustments in it's welfare and tax policies. The rest of the world simply doesn't want to finance their lifestyle and buying German for it's cache value has only limited sales appeal. Europe as a whole has pretty much taxed it's domestic market into oblivion and has few viable alternatives to retrenching.
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Let's state the obvious, Americans decided they like $19.99 for a coffee maker made in China versus a $89.99 coffee maker made in the USA. WalMart saw the writing on the wall and adjusted accordingly. America can only go 2 routes: Lower wages to compete, or produce high tech or extremely high value products that cause customers to think the premium is worth it. There's little in between.
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Couple this with a rampant environmentalism that has walled off trillions in resources that could have been tapped and money kept here instead of being sent overseas. For the elite, this is all well and nice but for the American of average education, this means job opportunities lost. Do you think a college professor or a Wall Street broker really cares?. Their lives are not directly affected by oil never drilled for or hard wood never logged.
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The people of the United States seem to be in a fog. The world is rapidly changing and the change is not going to be in their favor (Obama's recent trip to China should be seen as warning shot over the bow). 40 years ago the United States was the only game in town, now the world has investment options and countries that actively seek and welcome it. The money is going to these areas and will be soon followed by the talent.
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Americans will have to get over the flower power hangover from the 60's and start realizing hard choices are going to have to be made in their lifestyles and attitudes. There is no doubt, The Democrats are not up to the job, but I can't say the Republicans have the political mojo to make the case the world has changed and Americans must change with it.
submitted by BRING ON THE LIFE STYLE CHANGE
ReplyDeleteEdited by blog administrator
bring on the Life Style change has left a new comment on your post "Obama Here In Allentown":
I'm blue as blue coller working class as can be. Not a collage person let alone an elite. It's the rich and elites who benefit from exploting the environment. Look at the big coal co.'s vs the coal miners. Lets make quality stuff here again. To "looking to escape"
-- sorry you didn't enjoy the 60ies. The Dems may not know what they are doing: the Republicans just left this country in shambles after running it for 8 years. FXXk them, and as we non-elites,working class people say, fXXk you
Looking To Escape 12/5 (11:48 AM) said... "Let's state the obvious, Americans decided they like $19.99 for a coffee maker made in China versus a $89.99 coffee maker made in the USA."
ReplyDeleteI would agree with everything you say 100% except the finger pointing who done it parts.
Nothing gets by Congress w/o Presidential approval. The same can be said nothing the President wants can happen w/o Congress's approval either.
Greed crosses party lines at all levels.
Either party doesn't hold the record on stupidity. The consumers who aided and abetted cheap foreign goods carry a goodly portion of that stupidity as well.
What enabled consumers to sell out their American manufacture workers were the deviously conceived trade laws. I'd be more then willing to wager super sized American manufactures greased a lot of palms (both Rep and Demo) to make that happen.
We see how tough it is to get any bill through what-so-ever w/o the 'other' party's support.
That didn't mean that American consumers need to jump on the bandwagon!
I absolutely rock solidly believe 100% that if we don't get our blue collar sector back to work we're screwed. Only 20% of this nation hold college degrees.
The blue collar sectors provide service, labor and the very much needed skilled crafts.
College graduates supposedly provide support services and manage blue collar workers to enable them to do their jobs. Unfortunately there are little to no blue collar workers left to manage!
That's why even college graduates can't even find work.
“I know he came to listen”
ReplyDeleteMike do you really believe this?
Scott Armstrong
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI believe it is the liberal intellectual elite that is presently driving up both the national debt and unemployment while driving the economy into the ground. They are doing it as advisers of the president and he is, of course, an elitist himself. These people have never worked in the private sector and don’t have a clue about such important facets of business as meeting payrolls, customer relations, and account balances. The economy to them is a theory drawn from three centuries of intellectual ponderings. They seem incredibly ignorant of the fact that millions of people have died at the hands of the acolytes of these well-intentioned collectivist theorists.
I think when you know the facts it is clear who presents the real danger to the average American worker. It isn’t the business person.
Scott Armstrong
scott, allentown had an enormous amount of manufacturing; steel and metal products, clothing and even the first transistors. the loss of these industries and jobs continued through both political parties.
ReplyDeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteAn extreme element of the Democrat party is now controlling the US government. This isn't Bill Clinton's White House, we are far to the left of that now.
One more thought, Mike. The Republicans are too often guilty of not living up to their principles, conversely the Democrats are now guilty of just the opposite.
One would be wise to be alarmed by the direction of the current Democrat leadership.
Scott Armstrong
Scott Armstrong
Its hilarious to me that while universally ALL liberal democrats are crying themselves to sleep over how centrist Obama is, Scott Armstrong is trying to paint him as a radical.
ReplyDeleteAll liberal Democrats are wailing Obama is a centrist because all liberal Democrats are on the extreme, extreme, extreme left.
ReplyDeleteRedistribute that.
the extreme left of what? Ronald Reagan?
ReplyDelete"the Republicans just left this country in shambles after running it for 8 years."
ReplyDeleteFunny how it all seemed to go to hell after the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006.
I don't hold the Republicans blameless. They (including President Bush) were too often willing to go along with the liberal wing of the Democrats in the name of "bipartisanship".
The solution: Get rid of the liberal democrats in Congress and the White House, and elect conservatives (from either party) who will not compromise their beliefs - or on what is right for this country.