If Liberals are so empathetic...

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Did they voluntarily purchase those products? Or did Al Bundy put a gun to their head and force them to buy those shoes?

In the case of unsafe working conditions, cuts in wages and benefits and so on, they do have the option to quit, nobody is holding a gun to their head forcing them to work under such conditions.



The funny thing about the whole "trickle down" concept is that its based on free flowing capital. If you have lets say 1.000.000, you can either create a new business, expand your current one, or keep the business the same size and pay each employee more. In the two former cases, you create more jobs, in the latter you destroy your margins and do not create more jobs. Expansion and job creation has tended to be the elected method for utilizing this capital in the manner that benefits society and the capital owner the most.

There is also a discussion to be had about what actually constitutes a "good" standard of living,

The reason why I asked you to define the expression is that the left has its own dictionary where "voluntarily taking a job for a low wage" = exploitation. Where "hurt" is defined as buying bad products due to being a moron. Finally where "share in the wealth" has been defined as "getting way more than they put in".

If most of the labor market had salaries that were similar to how Wall Street salaries work, where each individual got a base salary then based on their individual merits and performance could earn a bonus, a "fair share of the wealth" could be easily accomplished. It also doesn't help that most workers overestimate the value of their work.

The reason for flagging out to China isn't just "they can pay workers less" its "workers work harder in China", "Worker effort is of a higher quality in China", "Workers are better educated in China", and so on.

I have a lot to say on this topic and I can't hit it all, but ...

Either those people are not what I would consider "typical" liberals, or you aren't understanding them.

I can see your position, but one reason the constitutional argument rings hallow for me politically, when it comes from a conservative as v. a Libertarian, is that the mandate idea was developed by a conservative think tank as solution for the real problem of people being consumers of health care whether they thought they would be or not, because we are a country that will allow anyone and everyone to access care in an emergency situation. To get to people dying into the streets from not having the mandate you have to back into assuming we also change our ethics on treatment, and while I have heard some tea party supporters say we should do just that, I know it isn't the prevalent opinion.

The empathy that I frequently hear missing from the right on all this is that they over-assume access to free healthcare. When I talk about how constrained our family has felt because of health insurance issues, they shoot back that everyone can get free healthcare in a county hospital, as if it really is that easy. It isn't. First, my county does not have a county non-profit hospital. Second, that answer is inefficient cost wise - waiting for emergency care is more expensive than preventative care, and if there is a free county hospital, that costs more in tax dollars than government health insurance would; it makes no fiscal sense as a policy, to rely on "free" emergency care. And so on ... To me, it all comes back to refusing to see what they don't want to see because, yes, they are worried that what it all really means is someone trying to take dollars from their pocket and put it into someone else's.

My mom debates these issues constantly with her good friend, Sarah Palin groupie, who is living on a government pension, very nicely, all the healthcare funded by taxpayers. The irony is amazing.

It's not a matter of Al Bundy holding a gun to someone's head. Rather, consumers expect to deal with companies on good faith. Corporations have the definite advantage here through deceptive advertising, selling shoddy, if not dangerous products. You just can't say it's a matter of buyer beware.
As for paying on merit of productivity of individual workers - a worker can be as productive as he wants, but I seriously doubt a company is going to realistically pay him for his trouble. The right is just as guilty of utopian nonsense as the left - it's just a matter of thinking in this case that the "free market" is some sort of all benign, all knowing deity.
And regarding paying a good wage to workers - I will repeat, it's in business' best long term interest to build up a healthy consumer base by allowing workers to attain middle class status. This is the heart of redistribution of wealth and fairness. And as I have already stated, decades ago, when American big business was alone at the top of the world, most Americans had also attained middle class standing. Big business in those days were in fact doing fantastic, despite paying good wages and benefits - because labor and government made them do it.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

You missed the point. 1964 was the Civil Rights Act. The Democrats who voted against it were of the southern racist variety. Liberals supported it. When Johnson (D) signed it he is rumored to have said, "We just lost the south for a generation", and he was right. Many racist southern dems switched parties to the GOP. The Republicans then spent years consolidating those former dems by using the Southern Strategy, which pandered to white resentment over civil rights. RNC chairman Ken Mehlman apologized for it a few years ago.

It's not an accident that more blacks went to the Dems after civil rights passed.

It is a matter of buyer beware, corporations that engage in such behavior would ultimately be punished in a pure capitalistic system because they would lose customers due to said shoddy products.

The worker wage issue is interesting, because there is a curve of worker productivity/quality with the other axis being wage cost of said worker. You have to keep in mind that in the 1950s and 60s there was hardly any foreign competition, now you have a global labor and goods market. So, a US company, paying high wages, giving great benefits, while suffering under more regulations, a much more heavy to maneuver bureaucracy and a lower supply of workers, would be competing against a Chinese company that produces at the same or higher quality, at a lower cost with less staff requirements. You'd murder off US industry in a very very short time due to imports from China.

What happened decades ago, with most of European industry in ruins, no foreign outsourcing targets, and so on is completely irrelevant to todays situation.

As for customers leaving for more reputable companies due to shoddy or dangerous products or services - after how many sick or dead consumers? After how many people have been cheated out of their money for being misled by spurious claims?
And yes, I am aware the global market has increased the cost of doing business. But it's also true that many of our competitors enforce tariffs on the goods of foreign competitors. That might be something Americans ought to be looking into.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I guess you and I differ in the first matter, I happen to think that if someone lets themselves be mislead by questionable claims, either being cheated out of their money, their health or their life, that's evolution at work weeding out the weak and stupid. I do however agree that the US should look into not only tariffs but increased subsidies (since the Chinese government subsidizes Chinese business quite a lot) and the tax laws which do not charge taxes on profits so long as those profits are not "taken home" to the US thus giving incentive to invest them offshore.

Glad we agree on something.
But as far as buyer beware being dependent on the trust of the consumer, it should be remembered that many of us Aspies are the most likely to be taken by fraudulent claims. Something about us that leads us to believe that everyone else are as honest as us.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Then perhaps many aspies are an evolutionary dead end.

I sincerely hope not.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Its one of those strange things, sociopaths are in many ways nature's ultimate survivors, normals are the workers bees and aspies are hard to classify. Many make amazing contributions to their fields due to hyper-focus and special interests but ultimately are less equipped for pure survival than the previous two groups.

Is it 'nature weeding out the sick and the weak' when an unscrupulous doctor bamboozeles a non-medically-minded patient into believing, for example, that he needs a cardiac bypass when he does not actually need anything of the sort?
http://www.theheart.org/article/244417.do
How is it any different when a mortgage broker (for example) takes advantage of someone who is naive about how mortgages work? We cannot all be specialists, or even familiar, with every transaction we take part in; we have to trust the people who know what they're doing to not take advantage of us too terribly.

You'd have to be a moron to have major surgery without getting a second opinion or at least reading up on treatment options. Damn, I get second opinions before I have a haircut or get my pubes done. Never trust ANYONE, always assume that you're dealing with an incompetent moron (but don't show them that you think that) and consider what angles another person has in the interaction.

If a respected cardiac surgeon, to whom you'd been referred by your PCP, told you, 'You need to be cathed RIGHT NOW OR YOU'RE GOING TO DIE,' (which is basically what Dr. Moon was doing), would you get a second opinion?
Would you get a second opinion if, as in Dr. Moon's case, similarly qualified cardiac surgeons were relatively thin on the ground because you lived in a fairly rural area, and said second opinion might take a week or more to get?
If you're actually admitted into the hospital, and the hospitalist says that you need some x course of therapy, are you really going to call in another hospitalist? Would you call in the second opinion if x was a new drug? What if x was insulin? What if x was exploratory abdominal surgery? What if the hospitalist was a good salesperson, and was convincing that x drug was really very good for your condition, and had few side-effects?

If the average person spends weeks with a mortgage broker working out a deal, and has to pay $300 or more in fees to work out said deal, can Mr. Average legitimately think that said $300 in fees is enough to mean that /he/ is paying the broker, and the broker should be working for /him,/ and not the bank?

I do not have time to be an expert in everything. I do not have the money to get second opinions on every service that I need.
I do not think that it is unreasonable to ask that the people who provide services to me not lie or work against my best interests; if they do, I think that they should be convicted of malpractice or fraud. In return, I work as best I can for the best interests of my patients, and I don't lie to them.
That's civilization, not gullibility. People who deliberately lie to those who are paying for their services, and take advantage of them, are parasites and should be treated as such.

Like the Dixiecrats were ever "left". Another thing where I notice the right failing to understand the left, they think we all swear our allegiance to the Democratic party and watch MSNBC and other "lamestream media". That's a pretty good indication that they are quite far out of the loop.

It's funny that none of that is actually true. The productivity of Chinese workers is actually less than that of American workers. Efficient management and automation are what increase productivity, not whipping the peasants to "work harder". There's a hard upper limit to what a menial assembly line or sweat-shop worker can accomplish per hour. The Chinese are simply paid less for longer hours, require less health standards, and receive no benefits.