Author: photog
Tom’s World – 14DEC2024 – Capital vs Labor vs Deep State
Stalin (I think) made the statement that capitalists would sell him the rope that he would use to hang them.
Before manufacturing can return en masse to the US, somebody(s) is going to have to go through the 1.75 x 10^9th onerous regulations and delete most. It’s too expensive to manufacture here and because of the lawyers and bureaucrats, too risky too.
How many landmines are there in the mass of employment laws? Family leave, wrongful termination lawsuits, handicap regs, discrimination lawsuits, DEI, Unions, dockworkers perfectly willing and happy to paralyze the nation or to destroy their employer.
There’s a radio station that I listen to down here that has ads for HR services providers. The ad starts with a (supposed) business owner moaning, “I’ve got an employee who never shows up when he is supposed to, What can I do” I almost jump into the radio yelling, “Fire the SOB, you idiot!” But apparently these days, things are so warped by the lawyers and legal environment that the obvious answer isn’t the correct answer any more. And, in that environment, US employment will be restricted.
Bring Back Our Jobs
In the 1990’s America began off-shoring almost our entire industrial footprint. I saw some of that migration first hand. China hired American engineering companies with the technology and experience to build petrochemical synthesis plants. And they built them in pieces, shipped them to remote sites in China and then assembled and even started them up for the Chinese. On their own it would have taken the Chinese generations to learn all the particular technologies and avoid all the hazards in running plants that produce all the myriads of organic materials that the US chemical engineering companies like Dupont pioneered in the early twentieth century.
And we did it on purpose.
Now multiply that by the number of other products that we used to make in America and you have an inkling of the betrayal that Wall Street has wreaked on us. And the result is the wreckage that we call the Rust Belt. But it’s not just the Midwest. Every area of the country has been hollowed out. Even the most cutting-edge manufacturing, the most valuable computer chips are made in Taiwan. And it’s even worse than that. Even our food is now imported from Asia and South America. That is how much American businesses hate us. So, if I want to sum the whole thing up, the boardrooms of American business eliminated the American middle class to globalize their operations and minimize their labor costs.
And reversing this project is what I think is the highest priority of anyone who loves this country and the people who call themselves Americans. It really doesn’t matter to me if the people who work to fix this call themselves Republicans or Democrats. Populist might be the closest thing to a label for the project. Obviously, anyone who is getting most of his income from Wall Street lobbyists and insider trading tips is not on this team. It’s not Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi or the Bushes. Maybe it’s Donald Trump. He sounds like he understands some of what’s going on. He talks about tariffs and that’s part of what needs to be looked at. But where I see the tariffs helping is putting them on American companies who try to sell cars and other products made in Mexico and Cananda and elsewhere as if they were “Made in America.”
We’re missing about a hundred million good manufacturing jobs in this country. That’s about what it would take to restore the middle class in this country. Of course that will do a lot of damage to China, India, Southeast Asia and parts of Latin America. Well, that’s too bad. Charity begins at home.
On-shoring American manufacturing will take decades. Of course it will. It took forty years to off-shore it. But every step the government takes to worsen the economics of off-shore manufacturing will work to improve the job prospects for our grandchildren. And now is the time for legislation. The Republicans have (slim) majorities in both houses of Congress and a sympathetic president. All that is needed is for Trump to co-opt a few Democrat votes. Who knows, he might even get someone like Bernie Sanders to sign on for some of the votes.
But the important thing is to prevent this country from turning into a feudal system with the super-rich lording it over a peasant class hanging on by the skin of their teeth. There is still a chance to turn this around. Come on Mr. Trump, to make America great again, you have to resurrect the middle class. Bring back our jobs.
14DEC2024 – Quote of the Day
The doctrine of equality! … But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice … “Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal” — that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, “never make the unequal equal”.
Friedrich Nietzsche
14DEC2024 – Photo of the Day
The Mass of Men
Henry David Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”
Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m the quietest (or the loudest) of individuals. And as for desperation and resignation that seems a bit much. For most people work can be a rat race but, is what we do just resignation? I hope not. Now, sure, we all have to reach that endpoint and when that gets a lot closer, desperation and resignation start to sound more fitting, more apt. But Thoreau said the mass of men. Well, most men aren’t about to face death. We get a decent shot at a pretty decent span; “three score and ten” the Bible says.
And even when the end is in sight isn’t there any consolation in reflecting on the fact that you spent your life doing what you thought was best? Maybe it’s a matter of temperament. I guess Thoreau was a product of Yankee New England upbringing. And those people have always seemed a little cold and humorless for my taste. Maybe it’s a combination of puritanism and bad weather but they always seemed like they just bit into something that tasted bad (or maybe it was their reaction at seeing me). Maybe I’m just naturally cheerful. Call it my Mediterranean predisposition but I just think that every story has a happy ending. And this even though I look around me in every direction and I see wrack and ruin out to the horizon. And sure, when it’s time to start hauling away the wreckage I’ll swear and grumble and complain. But I’ll still look forward to a lunch break and quitting time. And then there has to be some human joy somewhere in that mess.
I know some people who live the other way. And they are quite a bit better off than I am. That grim determination has its advantages. You can stuff a 401k plan with quite a lot of money if you’re grimly determined. And maybe they will have an easier time of it at that last stand knowing that everything is paid for. I guess it’s kind of the Cheops or Ozymandias option. But it still feels kind of grim to me.
So, I like to think that most of us try to live lives of quiet or not so quiet inspiration mixed with perspiration. I think the guy who said, “Where there’s life there’s hope” had it right. While there’s still blood pumping through your veins and air being sucked into your lungs there’s hope and more than hope. There’s at least a little excitement. Even if you’re a hundred there’s still the challenge of trying to get on your feet and remembering what it is you have to do to keep breathing that day. And until that gets to be too much for your spirit you have a reason to greet the day.
And if you still have anyone in your life who cares whether you live or die you’ve got a world outside yourself to think about. Maybe people call that quiet desperation. Or maybe I’m the exception. Maybe I’ve just been blessed with much more than the mass of men have. But I kind of doubt it. I’m just an average guy with the average life. Well, except for Camera Girl. She’s pretty great. But don’t tell her. She might demand a better contract.
13DEC2024 – Quote of the Day
How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which must be overcome, by the effort it costs to remain on top. The highest type of free men should be sought where the highest resistance is constantly overcome: five steps from tyranny, close to the threshold of the danger of servitude. This is true psychologically if by “tyrants” are meant inexorable and dreadful instincts that provoke the maximum of authority and discipline against themselves — most beautiful type: Julius Caesar — ; this is true politically too; one need only go through history. The nations which were worth something, became worth something, never became so under liberal institutions: it was great danger that made something of them that merits respect. Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources, our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit — and forces us to be strong …
Friedrich Nietzsche
13DEC2024 – Photo of the Day
A Million Miles Away
In the last week or so there have been a number of reports about large drones flying over New Jersey and New York City. When reporters have asked the Department of Defense and the FBI about this they were that the drones are unidentified. But at the same time there was no sense of urgency by these agencies to calm the civilian population by assuring them that an investigation is in effect. It was more or less a shrug of the shoulders and the comment that local law enforcement would handle these mysterious craft.
A congressman from New Jersey posited that there was a rumor that the drones were Iranian and that they were associated with a “mothership” based off the east coast in the Atlantic. The Pentagon spokesman denied this and said there was no indication that the drones were foreign or controlled by adversaries of the United States. But at the same time there was no indication how this could be known if the drones were unidentified.
So, then what is going on?
Well, of course I can’t prove anything. But it occurs to me that Iran makes a lot of military drones and Russia uses an enormous number of military drones in the Ukraine war. And both those countries are looking to make trouble for the United States because of military actions we have currently going on in their neighborhoods, in other words Syria and Ukraine.
Maybe they’re sending a message that they can retaliate for the attacks going on in their world. Or maybe they’re scouting around to find the easiest or the most valuable targets to hit. Well, isn’t that something!
And, of course, all of this is in response to US initiatives that were activated after the Democrats lost the November election. After November 5th the United States gave Ukraine permission to use long range missiles in the Russian homeland. And of course the toppling of the Assad regime by American proxies just occurred in the last week. So, the State Department and the Department of Defense unleash chaos around the world and the blowback from it will hit home about the time President Trump is inaugurated. Isn’t that something!
For me this just reinforces what kind of psychopaths we have running our foreign policy. Antony Blinken and Victoria Nuland play their color revolution games with foreign countries and the blowback will be felt by innocent Americans and especially by our military that shouldn’t be put in harm’s way for egregious adventures that only alienate the rest of the world and benefit no one except the military contractors that feed off of the arms buildup that follows after these obscene plans are put in action.
Well, there’s basically nothing that can be done until that undead creature is finally packed into his mummy case and carted away from the White House. Maybe we’ll get lucky and the other shoe doesn’t drop before January 20th and Donald Trump can inform our adversaries that sanity has reasserted itself over US foreign policy and that all ticking time bombs will be deactivated and we can start from a simple position of mutual hatred but without the added factor of sociopaths with delusions of grandeur running foreign policy for the world’s deadliest weapons stockpile.
Well, anyway, I’ve got my fingers crossed and I’m usually a pretty lucky guy. It’s less than 40 days but why does it seem like a million miles away?
12DEC2024 – Photo of the Day
