Are the American people obsolete?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/07/27/american_people_obsolete

by auxbuss • 16 years ago

74 117 16 years ago

J3L24045• 16 years ago

'Of course there are alternative options, which would not require the departure of most Americans from America for new lives on distant shores. One would be a new social contract, in which the American people, through representatives whom they actually control, would ordain that American corporations are chartered to create jobs in the U.S. for American workers, and if that does not interest their shareholders and managers then they can do without legal privileges granted by the sovereign people, like limited liability.'

yequalsx9• 16 years ago

I think too, in addition to what you suggest here, is that the size and scope of corporations needs to be limited. A company like Citi is too big to control. It is so big that its collapse would cause problems for the country even if the source of the collapse comes from its dealing in other countries.

We need a new system but it appears to me that what we have in the U.S. and elsewhere is regulatory capture. I don't see anything changing in the near term.

eru7• 16 years ago

How about breaking the country up into smaller pieces? Citi can only be too big to fail, if there's a big country behind for the guarantee. Small countries would also ease regulatory capture, since all those small regulatory regimes would have to compete with each other.

eru7• 16 years ago

Sounds like: Those evil foreigners are taking our jobs.

exit• 16 years ago

when actually it's: evil corporations are creating a class of disenfranchised workers.

the essential evil is this notion of nationality.

for most of history people had the ability to vote with their feet. nationality is essentially undemocratic in that respect.

tomjen3• 16 years ago

Wtf is wrong with this board? This is the place for getting shit done, and all I find are a bunch of whiney people, with the same complaints you would find on the democratic underground or counterpunch.

matwood• 16 years ago

While we're at it we should throw out foreign companies who create jobs here. Toyota, Honda, and BMW all have plants in the US...oh wait

nhangen2• 16 years ago

Are you suggesting socialism as the answer to the issue?

I don't understand how in a place where we talk about building fortunes via startups and innovation, we also talk about stifling the very motivation for these companies to exist.

You do this, and suddenly every company moves overseas and chooses to pay taxes in another country, at which point we lose the possibility of jobs and the tax money that these companies provide.

yequalsx9• 16 years ago

Not every company has moved out of socialist-like Sweden. There are motivations beyond just profit and profit isn't always the best form of motivation.

jkeel• 16 years ago

What this article describes is what I've been noticing but I've tried to focus on my startup. Although, that said I worry that there are big shifts occurring that people are not paying attention to. While we are are trying to create our business we need to remember that we are part of a community. Whether it be our country, state, county, city, district or neighborhood we need to ensure that those communities stay functional by participating as a citizen in this country.

I fear that some (not all) of the mega corporations are so motivated by profits that they forget any duties to their country. Although, why should they as many are now multi-national and stock holders consist of many rich foreigners that do not live here.

If we want to be able to do business here and be successful we need to make sure that the country continues to be a high quality place to live (and work) for the average US citizen.

Just my 2 cents.

yequalsx9• 16 years ago

Before globalization and free trade it was roughly true that what was good for American industry was good for the American people. Now that money can be transferred from country to country easily, that factories can be transferred easily, etc. it is no longer true, necessarily, that what is good for American industry is good for the American people.

The economic and political beliefs of the masses have not caught up to this new reality. They still think in terms of Ford being an American company rather than a company whose headquarters are in America. The interests of a corporation are to its shareholders and not to any particular country.

Mega corporations like Shell transcend the nation state. They are able to influence the national policies of multiple countries at once. Unfortunately politics is local and the big picture is lost on the majority of people. People are largely stuck in the paradigm of my country versus your country. This is allowing corporations to commit morally dubious acts on a grand scale.

yummyfajitas13• 16 years ago

Why do you feel it is bad for the American people to have our computers and televisions made in China? Are consumers enjoying cheaper goods not also Americans?

(Note: Ford is a silly example. Many of our cars are already made in the US by machines owned by domestic subsidiaries of foreign corporations. The machines are operated by a small number of non-union laborers earning high wages.)

jimbokun3• 16 years ago

"Why do you feel it is bad for the American people to have our computers and televisions made in China?"

I do not see this claim in the comment you are replying to.

yequalsx9• 16 years ago

I was trying to think of an example of a multinational company that many Americans think of as an American company. I believe Ford fits the bill.

Kaizyn2• 16 years ago

The problem is that it costs money to buy those inexpensive computers and TVs. If there aren't the jobs in the US to make these things, then there aren't the wages necessary to buy them. For a while, this wasn't a problem but as time goes on the lack of production in the US is hurting the public more and more.

yesno2• 16 years ago

Last night I told my wife that the future seems scary with all these rich multi-international companies starting to stick their legs deeper in foreign countries infrastructure.

Oils, Natural Gas, Minings, Banks.

I can only pray that these giants won't create a huge ticking time-bomb such that governments all over the world had to bail them out in the future in case something bad happened.

(The conversation happened when I saw HSBC advertisement saying that they are the "local bank everywhere you go").

artmageddon• 16 years ago

It's an interesting point to make. There was a particular cable from Wikileaks that talked about how Shell had infiltrated a large portion of the Nigerian government. Who knows what else is in the works?

ovi256• 16 years ago

"the only thing missing is a non-voting immigrant mercenary army, whose legions can be deployed in foreign wars without creating grieving parents, widows and children who vote in American elections."

That is already well under way, the Marine Corp in particular recruits heavily amongst immigrants without asking many questions about their legal status and promising (and delivering) citizenship afterwards.

SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP. WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE ?

arethuza4• 16 years ago

Other approaches that have worked pretty well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha

sudont2• 16 years ago

Also, the effects of French vs British Colonialism: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/16/how_helpful_w...

J3L24045• 16 years ago

Want to stop war. Bring back the draft.

randallsquared• 16 years ago

This is equivalent to killing people until they agree with you, which is basically just making war on a different group of people in the name of "stopping war". And as the Vietnam era shows, it's not even immediately effective, nor a lasting effect.

notahacker• 16 years ago

Virtually every warmongering nation in history has deployed conscripts. What makes you think it'll be different this time around?

nickpinkston2• 16 years ago

Instead - let's vastly decrease our standing army, and focus more on quick reaction elite troop and ask for volunteers when we have a big war worth fighting. In WWI&II, the military was far out-gunned and under-manned compared to Germans in the beginning, but the threat was very real - so we mobilized a massive force.

If we did this - we'd never end up in wars like Iraq / Afghanistan - imagine trying to raise the volunteers. Maybe the Republicans would go, but then again at least they could vote with their feet - where it counts.

falsestprophet• 16 years ago

The US military does not enlist illegal immigrants.

What is more, the military does not enlist non-English speakers. The US military does however enlist English speaking permanent resident immigrants and offers them a quicker path to citizenship. That isn't much of a scandal.

eru7• 16 years ago

So much whining. Just have a look at how, say, Germany copes with globalization. It's a rich country that exports to China.

J3L24045• 16 years ago

And how they cope with immigration.

German law states that people who help, instigate, prolong or support the stay of an illegal immigrant can be penalized. That means that doctors, nurses and other hospital staff is required to report people to the authorities when the illegal status of an immigrant seeking medical help. The medical profession opposes this rule that is a lot stricter than in many other european countries, where help can be given to aliens without revealing their identity.

yequalsx9• 16 years ago

There, precisely, is the problem. Not every nation can be like Germany. It's not possible for every nation to have an overall trade surplus. Being like Germany is not a solution.

cdavid4• 16 years ago

germany had an anemic gdp growth in the last two decades, significantly worse than most countries of comparitive size (population and gdp-wise). Look at gdp growth of other big european countries, or worse USA, it is quite striking

arethuza4• 16 years ago

Which just goes to show that GDP growth rate taken in isolation might not be such a great measure of the overall health of an economy.

jwh• 16 years ago

Part of that slow GDP growth can be attributed to having to absorb an entire communist country (East Germany) into a capitalistic society (West Germany).

eru7• 16 years ago

You might be right. But keep in mind that the US population has been growing. Do you have data on the GDP per capita?

elai• 16 years ago

Germany is also a one citizenship state, which provides a disinsentive to immigration.

eru7• 16 years ago

Perhaps a one-and-a-half citizenship state. There are ways to keep your old citizenship. But I don't see how that matters too much?

kmfrk2• 16 years ago

Has yellow journalism destroyed good reporting?

Also, the internet is dead.

jimbokun3• 16 years ago

I thought the "recommendations" for action at the end were a bit superfluous.

Besides that, what parts of the analysis in the article do you find inaccurate, specifically?

kmfrk2• 16 years ago

I just hate the kind of title the article uses. Don't write a question in the title, especially while making such a big prediction like that.

It's very Wired-esque.

pbhjpbhj3• 16 years ago

From the article

>They [Wall Street traders] can flourish even if the U.S. declines, as long as they can tap into growth in other regions of the world.

They can flourish by forcing US decline. This is part of the problem.

rbanffy• 16 years ago

> They can flourish by forcing US decline

I'm not sure how that would work out. US is a huge consumer pool and forcing its decline would damage everyone.

pbhjpbhj3• 16 years ago

Short-termism.

I wasn't suggesting that as a "species" they could flourish and continue to do so (though that's possible) but that just as one can profit by driving a company into the ground (remember naked short selling) one can profit by destabilising a whole economy and destroying entire industries. Generally speaking if you've made billions of dollars you don't care that you can't earn any more the same way.

Indeed if I can destroy US car manufacture and have stakes in Japanese car manufacture then it's a plus for me.

If you make money destroying society then you switch to selling anti-depressants, DIY divorce kits, handguns, etc. and make more money. It's the capitalist way. Ain't it fine.

pbhjpbhj3• 16 years ago

I don't think it's that the American people in particular are obsolete I think that we have over-population and that a proportion of the worlds population are not required for industry, food production. That the rich elite would choose to pay as little as possible in wages is simple capitalism enabled by a global market; it's basically a war for survival. Those in power offer barely enough to work yourself to survival and we get to battle amongst ourselves to see who gets those scraps - my view of the next few decades is pretty bleak.

jscore• 16 years ago

While labor is shifting overseas, consumers are not.

America is the most consumer driven economy in the world and should remain so for a bit even given the recession (thank quantitive easing and low interest rates for that). All those trade surplus countries like Germany, China most sell to someone when their domestic consumers are not buying.

China will probably catchup at some point (in consumer demand) but that won't be for another generation or more.

jimbokun3• 16 years ago

"New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently revealed the plutocratic perspective on immigration when he defended illegal immigration by asking, "Who takes care of the greens and the fairways in your golf course?""

Any ambitions Bloomberg may have had to run for President, are pretty much put to rest by this quotation.

krschultz3• 16 years ago

He is not partisan enough to get through a President primary anyway. Republicans hate his gun laws and Democrats hate his support of charter schools, to name just two things he has done that piss off either side.

stevenbedrick2• 16 years ago

Indeed, but it's still a fair question, just framed badly. What he should have said was "who works in every kitchen in every diner, and who maintains every public green space, and who builds every house?"

J3L24045• 16 years ago

Not every house. There are still lots of small companies that play by the rules - Of course they are at a disadvantage for that integrity, but when a company takes shortcuts in one area they are likely taking shortcuts in other areas, ultimately producing inferior products. You get what you pay for.

hugh3• 16 years ago

Whoever is willing to do the job for least?

Other first-world countries get by just fine without an illegal-immigrant underclass to do the menial jobs. In Australia, building houses is a respectable and well-paid trade. Kitchens in fast-food restaurants are worked by high school students with part-time jobs. And public green spaces are maintained by... well I dunno, some low-skilled worker making a decent wage.

We also have a 5.2% unemployment rate, and no real social underclass the way there is in America.

anamax• 16 years ago

> Indeed, but it's still a fair question, just framed badly. What he should have said was "who works in every kitchen in every diner, and who maintains every public green space, and who builds every house?"

I've done farm labor. My father did the "follow the harvest" thing for years.

I completely reject the idea that there are jobs that "Americans" won't do.

Maybe you won't do them, but if you won't, why should anyone be taxed to support your choice?

stevenbedrick2• 16 years ago

Based on some of the replies to my comment, I think people might have misunderstood what I was getting at. The main purpose of my comment was to say simply that Bloomberg could have made an equivalent rhetorical point in a way that didn't make him sound like a plutocrat arguing that he needed illegal immigrants in order to keep his golf club maintenance fees low.

Also, there's an important difference (to me, anyway) between 1) a descriptive statement about who does certain kinds of work in today's US, and 2) a prescriptive statement about who I think ought to be doing those kinds of work, and under what conditions they ought to be doing so.

jdietrich• 16 years ago

It is worth remembering that the average American consumes an exceptional amount of resources. Compared even to the relatively profligate Europeans, the average American consumes twice as much energy, twice as much water and lives on more than twice as much land. The disparity with even wealthy urban Chinese or Indians is greater still.

This lifestyle has in part been justified by the very high historical levels of American productivity, but it is clear that American productivity is not increasing at nearly the rate of that in emerging markets.

We are left with an obvious conclusion - as a factor of production, American citizens continue to be very resource-intensive, but are becoming comparatively less productive.

It seems to me that America is unique in a culture that sees consumption of scarce resources as tantamount to a human right. Much of the cultural divide in the US seems to rest on this basic notion. Many political issues in the US are really debates about resources that no-one seems prepared to engage with - the US healthcare debate ought to be a debate about why Americans spend such incredible sums on medicine, but is instead primarily a debate about what kind of accounting we use to pay those incredible sums.

The idea of what it means to be American is obsolete. The sprawling suburb, the hour-long commute, the SUV, the McMansion, all artifacts of an empire in terminal decline. American citizens simply cannot consume such vast resources if they do not have the productivity to match. I see every reason why Chinese and Indian productivity will continue to rise, but little reason why American productivity would suddenly rally. The American people are left with an obvious choice - produce more or consume less.

allenp• 16 years ago

I don't really see why the rate of productivity should matter as much as the absolute value of productivity in regards to distribution of wealth.

I agree the American suburban lifestyle is and will continue to decline as it just simply is not sustainable. These will be the new ghettos as more and more poor are pushed out of the cities into the now decaying suburbs.

As to why American productivity would rally, I can only imagine vast advances from nano and bio-tech and machines that build other machines.

jordan0day• 16 years ago

As long as it's the rich who have the money to pay for increasingly expensive resources like gas, what's their motivation for moving away from the suburbs?

nickpinkston2• 16 years ago

Well, to your first point, I'd say that productivity in relative terms is a more useful measure in this case because that's generally where the best investments are to made - if we're sticking with the "investors don't need america" part.

The issue with using absolute productivity in a global world is that comparative advantage in production (i.e. higher productivity growth, and with it higher real incomes in the developing world) are the driver for lifestyle.

Think of it this way: if others are wealthier, they'll put upward price pressure on supply side of goods that American's buy (look at copper for example) - while at the same time American productivity (vis-a-vis real income) decreases (or at least remains flat) make these goods less affordable from the demand side.

This means lifestyle, even with a fixed absolute productiviy, will decrease.

rshigeta• 16 years ago

I sadly have to agree with jd. Another way of seeing the article is that americans no longer contribute enough skills effort,value to the new economy to justify their lifestyle and that they should leverage taxes on the wealthy to compensate for that. I'm not rich, but I can see why this is not a winning proposition long term.

Kaizyn2• 16 years ago

All it would take to 'fix' our economic woes would be to reindustrialize. Coupled with high import tarrifs - in the range of 30-60% as was set historically during the periods of growth in the US, it wouldn't take long to restore the US 'productivity' and industrial output. It would mean that the large profit-seeking organizations in the US would make less money over time, but it would be better for the average American workers.

sudont2• 16 years ago

"Have you no shame?" I bet you do, and everyone else here too.

The problem is that American executives don't.

Look at the pay gap between American and European or Japanese executives: 2x European executives, 4x for the Japanese and Koreans. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/world/americas/18iht-lette...

While there's some fiscal rules in place to benefit society in those countries, the main cause of this disparity is purely greed in American executives. With the way that the current top players are willing to sit on production startups, there's no way to reindustrialize without complete societal change. Namely, reducing everyone's consumption and increasing the uptake of domestically produced, high-quality and long-lasting goods.

Since the current system favors shameless outsourcing and cheap goods, your simple, effective plan is completely stonewalled.

yummyfajitas13• 16 years ago

Unless you are referring to the recent recession (from which the graphs indicate we are recovering), we never de-industrialized. Our industrial output is higher than ever before.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/IPMAN

civilian• 16 years ago

If we passed high import tariffs then other nations would pass reactionary import tariffs and make it harder for our goods to be sold overseas. In general, it would lower trade. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act

india• 16 years ago

Robots.

(Seriously, that productivity multiplier is not more than a decade away. Humanoid and mostly remotely controlled. Americans will put these to a far greater effect than Indians or Chinese.)

known5• 16 years ago

Free market economy in globalization == Race to the bottom

DanielBMarkham• 16 years ago

If most Americans are no longer needed by the American rich, then perhaps the United States should consider a policy adopted by the aristocracies and oligarchies of many countries with surplus populations in the past: the promotion of emigration. The rich might consent to a one-time tax to bribe middle-class and working-class Americans into departing the U.S. for other lands, and bribing foreign countries to accept them, in order to be alleviated from a high tax burden in the long run.

This is an amazing bit of backwards reasoning. The rich, who don't need the rest of us, will pay us to leave? In what kind of sense, even if the author is correct on all other counts, would this work? Why pay a thousand people to leave when you can just leave yourself?

I liked this article because it spotted a lot of trends, but to me it looked at them all backwards. The rich have a lot more and are a very small minority that no longer depend on us. But heck, that was true 100 years ago. I'm not aware of any rich people that stayed in the United States because of the military or the market here. Yes, if you go back to the robber barons they needed to be near the workforce, but that's assuming that we have two states, robber barron and the currently rich. The word "rich" covers a helluva lot more ground than that.

In my opinion, the wheels are coming off the wagon, for whatever reasons. This means that everybody will pull out their pet theories and causes and try to nail them on to reality, as this author is doing.

The upside to this is that it doesn't matter which theory you choose: things aren't working and folks are looking for people to blame for it. Emigration might be a wise choice not for the poor and unwashed, but for most people, middle-class and rich alike, leaving the truly poor helpless people the only ones left. (along with the folks who prey on them, which, like the robber barons, can't be very far from their "market")

I consulted with a startup 8 years ago that was doing just this: finding and disseminating information about cheap foreign locations for middle-class Americans to retire to. Looks like this is going to be a really good growth industry.

bhousel• 16 years ago

The article seemed an obvious satire to me. You read it literally?

colomon• 16 years ago

Apparently a lot of people here did, as did I. But now that you mention it, it did seem completely freaking insane to me...

rdtsc• 16 years ago

> The rich, who don't need the rest of us, will pay us to leave? In what kind of sense, even if the author is correct on all other counts, would this work? Why pay a thousand people to leave when you can just leave yourself

This doesn't happen directly in a naive way, but indirectly through various pressures and constraints. For example when IBM is offshoring its jobs, it is basically providing an incentive for its workers to just move to another country. It is not a direct bribe but is a presented as an alternative to losing their job.

> Why pay a thousand people to leave when you can just leave yourself?

Again I think this is highly allegorical and we should differentiate between "rich individuals" and "rich corporations". "Rich individuals" already can move freely, they are sort of trans-national. They move from one metropolis to the next without much regard to what country it is located in. But it seems that the article talks more about "the rich" as the "rich corporate entities". These are also becoming transnational, but it is a little harder for them to move. They are not controlled by 1 or 2. Individuals there could be a small upper managerial class on top that would be required to relocate. Those people cannot all pay for a private bodyguard, lots of maids, large walled-off estates, and they cannot all afford private airplanes, they still need the protection and peace offered by America. So instead they just outsource their labor requirements to other countries.

> But heck, that was true 100 years ago.

That's true, but it wasn't as true 40 or 50 years ago. A middle class American family had a higher real wage income. Factories were still open, and both American consumer market and labor market looked pretty good. Yes, in effect we are reverting back to older times. As the article points out, there might soon be just the super-rich and armies of hired illegal immigrant labor serving them.

> Emigration might be a wise choice not for the poor and unwashed, but for most people ...

Exactly. The problem with the globalization (and its proponents that hail it as simple and obvious market liberalization) is that only large corporate entities and rich individuals can engage in it. The other 99.99% cannot simply pack up and leave.

This has been exacerbated by large amounts of debts that Americans have been accumulating in the last 10-20 years. These are student loans, mortgages, health related expenses and also plain old credit-card dept. What this means is that a lot workers are effectively slaves to whomever they owe the money. If they lose their job they could lose their house, might not be able to treat their illnessm, and feed their children.

Those are the just indirect contraints. Add to that the existence of national borders. The immigration procedures in some countries are highly restrictive for an "average Joe". For example, there is simply no way for a regular person to just get on a plane and choose to move to America. It is either a work visa, a marriage visa, a rich investor visa and so on.

Then of course, comes the politics. And there nobody in power really discusses any alternatives or ways out. The parties might as well just form a single party and stop pretending there is any form of debate or disagreement. They are effectively discussing what color the bicycle should be painted, instead of maybe discussing if we need a truck or an airplane instead of a bicycle.

known5• 16 years ago

    Why pay a thousand people to leave when you can just leave yourself?

Why don't gazzilionaires start their own countries? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1947106

giardini• 16 years ago

Satire? Anyone remember the term "satire"? Please remain calm and use your dictionary. The author is making fun of a particular type of individual.

daniel-cussen• 16 years ago

There are so many reasons manufacturing in US is declining.

It used to be the US was one of the few places you could set up a factory without it getting bombed or confiscated. It then had a monopoly on manufacturing and the rest of the world competed to produce commodities to trade for the finished products. With protracted peacetime came establishment of factories elsewhere and competition for manufacturing without a corresponding increase in commodity production. So now an American worker has to compete with a Chinese or Hindu worker, and if he's more expensive, he'll lose and the Asian will win.

An American worker is more expensive than his Chinese counterpart at any exchange rate because of the prices of commodities they consume. A worker can't work without a car in most US cities, but in China he sure can. Beside commutes, housing is expensive (for whatever reasons). Then you have healthcare costs that are globally superlative and that the employer has to pay for, and taxes that are by no means small.

Then you have the legal system, which themselves are a huge burden. Court awards and consequently settlements are very large by global standards. This also costs a business more than money; it costs it time and requires the bureaucratic complexity to deal effectively with liability. Then there's Sarbanes-Oxley and lobbying. On top of that there's IP law: if part of a product is patented in the US, that product can't be imported by foreign companies, but it can be sold outside the country. But an American company can't sell it in US or export it. And on and on.

Under such conditions, who would want to build a factory here?

fredBuddemeyer2• 16 years ago

no but marxism is. the author's classification of people into these sets of workers and owners is a product of his imagination; pension funds made them the same people a long time ago to say nothing of entrepreneurs, professionals and folks like us that old karl couldn't have imagined. this thinking shows even more disregard for people than the author's facetious proposals.

wazoox• 16 years ago

> They can flourish even if the U.S. declines, as long as they can tap into growth in other regions of the world.

Except that other regions of the world may not accept them so easily... Who need rich parasites?

fredBuddemeyer2• 16 years ago

no but marxism is

muhfuhkuh• 16 years ago

Let's get down to brass tacks. It's not the American people who are obsolete, it's the notion that corporations are something more significant to us than a place to temporarily lay down our investment bet for a brief while. Anything more is asking for heartbreak. Just because the government personifies a corporation doesn't mean we have to as individuals.

Hows about this for a radical idea: We don't NEED our corporations, or our rich. No, seriously, we don't.

"But who will make our products," you ask. Well, who does that now? Not us, not anymore. Does it matter? Consumer products will always be relatively easily manufactured, and why would we focus on making easy stuff?

Look at the Germans: They have trade surpluses not because they make the latest Christmas toy craze or plates and sporks, but because they make precision tools, gauges, and other engineered products for industry. Their concept of manufacturing, called Mittelstand, sees small and mid-size companies -- over 90% of German companies are that size and they employ over 70% of the German population -- doing the lion's share of manufacturing, much of it for export to other countries.

Germans are, as a people, self-reliant to the detriment of their corporations; we in the US are the opposite. But, if this article is true in any measure, that will have to change.

It's unfortunate that Obama and others in our government don't place enough emphasis on things like YC and the SBA. We need _everyone else_ to see that there is an alternative to becoming a 99er and/or relying on either Big Government or Big Corporate (BG/C) to save us. BG/C will always stand together, whether through regulatory capture, (de)regulation that only serves to curtail competition from upstarts, or blatant TBTF corporate welfare.

I know, Germans and Chinese small business ownership is a very cultural thing, and I can't pretend that it takes a certain mentality to start and run a business. But, that's the excitement of risk. I think everyone can agree that we're at a really low point in American morale. That "can do" spirit that used to pervade our psyche is replaced with rage and finger-pointing. What we need to do is learn to bootstrap again. I want people who have been or know someone who has been affected by this corporate "pivot" away from America to ask them what do they have to lose by starting their own business. The hustle atmosphere is what causes job growth in the first place. If ideas are too expensive to bootstrap, join or start an incubator. I see life science and biotech incubators in every r&d park in every major city in the US, more so than other technologies. Why? Pooling of resources, and volume discounts on lab and materials.

It's all in how you look at things: It may be a lot harder to start a business than to work for a corporation, but what if it's impossible to find a job at one now? What is the possible alternative? Becoming a 99er, then switiching straight over to welfare? Is that really what people are resigning themselves to when the corporations won't hire them?

Trite but apropos movie quote conclusion? "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

known5• 16 years ago

Refugees viz Albert Einstein & H1Bs viz Linus Torvalds contributed to the prosperity of America. Talented Americans should now migrate and contribute to the rest of the world.

known5• 16 years ago

American people are obsolete only when American rich are willing to pay the $200 trillion debt. http://goo.gl/3fleL

known5• 16 years ago

American people and not obsolete. I think Adam Smith's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_motive concept is obsolete.

Are the American people obsolete?

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