Opportunity in America: Life Goes On!

I am sick to my stonmach. I lost alot in my 401K, I lost my job several months ago and I can't find work anywhere. Trying hard, but unsuccessful. I have worked in IT throughout my career, but who wants to hire a 59 year old. Now I am looking at driving a truck for employment. Thanks WallStreet. MORONS...

To bad Liz you did not come from down the road in Gods country La Jolla. You could have seen some changes not the same old town.

Life outside BIG mega transnational central over leveraged investor class in cahoots with BIG government clas -- THAT is what we need but I fear that is not what we are going to get .. at least from Washington and Wall Street. Flyover America is doing better than most people think . .because the DOW is not in hyperventilated territory forever does not mean the economic fortunes of the US are terminal. They might be if we depend on DC or Wall Street or central bankers in the major financials, Davos, London, New York et al to 'help' us survive. Forget them . .time to go back to basics and not depend on the latest over leveraged financial scam to become prosperous rather than super rich or dependent on credit and consumerism for healthy long term ecnoomic growth. Out in America, like Georgia, through boom and bust, life goes on pretty well. There are reasons for that - economic diversity not dependent on financials of the UBER class, small banks and regional banks that still lend and have not lost their minds, and a system that evolved over the years wherein states and local areas plus actions by RONALD REAGAN created the condition for optimal long term growth, steady growth, come boom or bust... life and economy goes on. America does not need another stimulus package and certainly no stinking bailouts. Maybe what America needs is a new or improved business model not based on Anglo-American casino capitalism…..like how’s about we MAKE stuff again rather than create yet one more phony financial instrument that blows up in our face. The way Anglo-American capitalism evolved .. indicates that a perfect free market will never exist as long as human nature is what it is. We should also learn our national interest, and good outcomes for the investor class, businessman, AND the US worker and taxpayer are important to the entire long term growth of the economy — particularly when it is the AMERICAN worker and taxpayer that ends up paying for the mistakes of the ’smarter than the rest of us’ financial class in cahoots with the BIG government inside the Beltway Iron Triangle!!! There maybe something we can learn from other economic models including the Japanese. While the pundtiry never ceases to whine about how AWFUL the Japanese investment picture is, how terrible their stock market has done, underneath the Japanese have a pretty strong economy that benefits the most number of people .. not just the short term hyper investor. Fox Business had Lockhart on one of the money shows this AM. He discussed how the Atlanta and Georgia areas would weather bad economic times better than most. There are reason for it that he didn’t go into but I will. Wonder why Atlanta and Georgia will weather downturns better than most????. A series of fortunate circumstances PLUS a mixed economy of MANUFACTURING [mostly Japanese companies] and service not totally dependent on retail, plus a good climate, no unions, conservative attitudes, work ethic, Coca Cola, Delta, CNN, lower living costs, drawing people from the North and Midwest through the years because of the living style in rural towns, simpler living, human attitudes towards people and communities, beautiful natural areas, and outside Atlanta - uncrowded conditions — AND a responsive state legislature that helped create conditions attractive to the Japanese and other foreign investors. BUT the Japanese arrived not so much because they wanted it but because Reagan demanded it. A confluence of events in the 70s and 80s allowed Atlanta and Georgia to do better consistently economically than most other US areas of boom and bust. But suffice to say — several events and actions by RONALD REAGAN helped to take Georgia’s positives and make them uber positives for foreign companies. Georgia is a right to work state. In the 70s and 80s Georgia’s rural towns south of Atlanta created tax free industrial zones wherein the counties and state developed industrial parks and promised companies which settled extra perks that would last for a number of years - including utilties. RONALD REAGAN played hardball with the Japanese when they were dumping product or ‘trading’ in a mercantalist fashion in the US - mostly cars and electronics, but Reagan said --enough!!! He IMPOSED SECTIONS 201 AND 301 OF THE 1979 TRADE ACT ON THE JAPANESE!!!!!!!! So what did the intelligent Japanese do? They didn’t go to Detroit or Massachusetts or Ohio for sure - labor costs too high but also a terrible ‘us agin them’ attitude between labor and management existed because of historical circumstances. None of that was present in the South. Unlike the last THREE presidents, Reagan was bright enough to be master of the DEAL in OUR favor!!! Although CATO pitched a fit…oh well..when nations do not play fair it is an intelligent leadership that plays hardball and screw ideology when only ONE side is playing by the ideological rules!!!!! In the small towns south of Atlanta, Japanese managers took youngsters out of the local high school’s vocational tech programs, particularly machine shops and TRAINED them in high tech CNC programming techniques. This production type requires advanced skills and the Japanese took the time to develop those skills which also require advanced math skills applied to production. WHAT the high schools could not do, the Japanese did do and the results were amazing. The fact that the Japanese do NOT have an adversarial business model that looks at employees as the enemy of profit - helped a great deal. The Japanese mantra of ‘continuous improvement’ is an attitude that enhanced the prospects of the company and the workers who were encouraged to advance their skills. Pay was higher than most other pay for manufacturing jobs in the area and benefits - to this day - were absolutely the best around. The Japanese did not lay people off at the first sign of trouble, they held meetings to explain what was going on and asked for suggestions from the workers, management, and regular folks on how to keep going. They were rewarded with loyalty and creative input from their people. Having spoken to the normally reticent Japanese on their business model, they have a way of poor mouthing their efforts that irks, but in any event, the business attitude and model — works for everyone concerned. THANKS to Reagan’s guts which ran against the powers that be in BIG business - the Japanese built plants in the US. South of Atlanta, they include Yamaha and Nissan, and other Japanese companies that make product for oil and water facilities, now there also exist the attendant vendor sets that industry needs as well as all the other businesses that come when an area prospers. The Japanese are far better employers than most American employers because they do not look at employees like some lesser human being waiting to drain them dry. They look at employees as part of the company and hope that they stay and keep the proprietary KNOWLEDGE they acquire with the company. A few months ago, the CEO of a high tech Japanese manufacturing company came to a plant south of Atlanta recently to check things out. The American managers were proudly showing him the landscaping and new offices they had built. The CEO was quiet for awhile and then said - ‘that is all very nice but that is not what makes us money. It is what happens on the plant floor that makes us money, it is what your craftsmen produce that makes us money. Any further investment must go to improve what is produced on the plant floor including better more advanced machinery and better conditions that encourage good attitude among workers.’ “OH MY GOD!!! A CEO who gets it. What a shock! Too bad that attitude has been lost in American business which went abroad in search of ever cheaper labor and ever short term higher profit which included stagnant wages here, and little INPUT into improving capitol plant. Does it NOT seem strange to you, the Russians now own 10% of the US steel business and have managed to turn around a ’sunset industry’ through use of niche manufacturing????? No - the American model became about making profit by leveraging and buying businesses, selling off the lucrative parts and driving the rest into the ground. But that is why we are in the economic pickle we are in - American companies and Anglo-American business model lost its edge, can not see past the Dow and mega profits in the short term. You can not maintain a long term productive economy on credit based activities - Americans have to have good paying jobs where they feel they won’t be dumped when the company finds yet another cheap nation in which to produce. We dont need unions but we surely DO need a new attitude among the American capitalists. By the way - no country in the G-8, with the exception of Britain has gutted its manufacturing the way the US has. Diversity? You can not base an economy totally on consumerism or credit - and if we haven’t learned that from this latest debacle - we never will. Diane Alden Carrollton, Georgia

Many of us know that that America was a wonderful place-notice how I said, "was". It is still a great place for those of priviledge and enourmous wealth. The "Left-wing", headed by George Soros(Greek trillionaire, European Socialist and anti-everything American), Warren Buffet(would sell his mother if he could make a penny), and BO (Barrack Obama the insignificant prop/henchman for the "Global Rich"). They never did, or never will alow anyone to truely earn an honest buck and the "American Dream". Every single one of you represent simply, no more, or no less, than a small $ sign. If you somehow achieve a degree of success, you are a threat and you are eliminated and knocked down. You all are like me, "small potatoes" to them. These "Rich Globalists" have "NO ALLEGIENCE" to you or The United States of America. No matter what religious background you are, remember that the only support you have is Jesus, hopefully your family plus pets and possilby some close friends you can trust.