How dumb are the Democrats?

The reason companies are moving jobs overseas is because we all insist on it. Think about it honestly for a moment. 

Everyone wants more, more, more.  The unions want more pay, more benefits, etc...  This costs money.  If you insist on being paid $60,000 per year, and requiring your employer to pay for your families health care, and fund your retirement accounts, and you want "Big Industry" to pay more in taxes, and you want to regulate them for the highest safety standards in the world, and make them comply with the strictest environmental laws in the world, and etc... then you have to be productive enough to overcome the added burden on the companies. 

The stock holders also want a better return on their investments so they can retire at some point and not count on the broken social security system.  The stock holders insist that companies provide a decent return on investment or they seek other companies that will provide a better return.  This drives companies to produce more and reduce costs. 

We all want the best deals for our hard earned dollars (those of us that earned them anyway). So we drive our Japanese cars down to BP (British Petroleum) to get gas, while sipping our Columbian coffee, and wearing our Korean shoes, we go to Wal-Mart to buy the Chinese made toys for our kids. 

If you want jobs to stay in America we have to be productive enough to compete in the global market.  We have to make it more profitable for companies to do business here.  We have to be more productive, provide better infrastructure, more stability, better technology, etc…

And if you weren’t actually read that article rather than looking for justification for your position, you would have seen the opening sentence “There is no doubt most of oil's huge price leap -- up 40% in the past year, to $45 a barrel -- is grounded in fundamental supply-and-demand issues.”  The speculators are speculating on what future oil prices are going to be.  They have no way to distribute oil and no way to store oil.  As the article clearly stated "If [speculators] do a bad job of predicting the markets, they will lose money. If they do a good job of predicting the markets, they make money." 

Good point coach.  I didn't speak to trade agreements because most people don't understand them, how they impact our economy, or which party or individual was for or against and particular trade agreement.  Bill Clinton pushed for NAFTA but apparently Hillary doesn't like it.  I personally haven't read it completely so I can't speak to it intelligently. 

In general, our trade agreements need to be fair to both parties.  This would mean that we insist free-trade is only given to countries that respect the environment and enforce regulations that protect it.  We should also require that countries respect and enforce copyright laws and intellectual property rights.  We need to consider the workers and working conditions.  While it's not our place to attempt to intervene or impose our standards on other country's, it is our place to restrict trade with countries that use slave labor (children & prisoners).  We should also insist on tariffs or import taxes to cover the cost of inspecting cargo ships and other imports for national security purposes.  Most countries (including the US) subsidize various goods and services which lead to artificially deflated prices and unfair trade advantages.  All of these things and many others need to be considered by those negotiating our trade deals.  Free trade, when done correctly, should benefit all of the parties involved.   

The sound bites we get from both parties and all of the candidates are not sufficient to make an intelligent comparison between positions on trade.  It is clear that Obama isn't telling the truth when he talks about trade.  He says he is against NAFTA, and then sends top aids to tell Canada not to worry, it's "pollitical posturing".  It's also clear that Hillary has faulty memory here since her and Bill pushed hard for NAFTA and now she's against it and thinks that she always was against it.  I'm sure if you look deep enough you can also find where McCain has been less than honest about trade or has changed his position too. 

UK Blue, as far as I am concerned you are making an a$$ of yourself and not really contributing any thing to an otherwise intelligent conversation.   You keep making your stereotypically leftist remarks without any thought to the reality of what you are saying.