flyer, have you seen any of the recent videos put out by the MSM showing the sheer desolation of “rust belt cities” such as in OH and MI and interviewing its (now chronically-unemployed) inhabitants?
The “desperation” you describe isn’t about race. It’s about families which have, for generations, been able to support themselves with union factory jobs with full benefits and now find themselves permanently out of work and their long-owned homes worth nearly nothing, due to lack of living-wage jobs in the area. They can’t even sell their homes and transfer out of the region for a better job and likely can’t find good renters because there aren’t any living-wage jobs in the region. I can see why these people feel that they’re “stuck” and frustrated with NAFTA, etc.
You see, flyer, you and I ALREADY GOT OURS and GOT OUT of the “rat race” with our union-negotiated pensions and benefits for life! But how would you like to be a ~40-year-old lifetime union member with 3 kids in school and told your lifetime job will be ending because the factory in which you are employed is moving its operations to MX in a few months? Um …. the “seniority” you have acquired over the years won’t do you any good in this instance.
For example, Lorrain, OH (where Trump and Sanders have set up campaign offices) has been a literal ghost town for years due to its longtime steel factories “outsourcing” of ALL their (former) living-wage jobs to China. Two more steel factories are set to close at the end of this month:
Three Ford plants in this part of OH were closed about five years ago. The following (2011) video states that their factories will be renovated into other factories or warehouses in the next four years (ostensibly to create “replacement jobs”) but of course, NOTHING has been done with any of them as of today:
I think more than a few Piggs currently sitting in their Sorrento Valley (SD) offices (with carefully-placed SD indigenous plants out their professionally-landscaped office windows situated on a modern “company campus” with a running track/obstacle course and cafeteria with CA farm-fresh “organic” food for their employees’ lunchtime enjoyment) are a little happier with their lives and thus, much happier with the “status quo” than they would be if they were longtime “rust-belt dwellers” who now have genuinely hardscrabble lives.
Our “representative Pigg group” is undoubtedly ALSO happier than they would be than if they were longtime (LEGAL-resident) Otay Mesa (SD) dwellers (with multiple family members as neighbors) who now have the US Homeland Security Dept’s bright lights on high-beam shining through their windows all night while desperate illegal immigrants are constantly attempting to jump their backyard fences to temporarily “hide” in their backyards from the border patrol’s jeeps and helicopters.
NONE of this “discontent” with the status quo today is about race, people. It’s primarily about our porous borders, lack of employment opportunities and often being “forced” into “welfare programs” due to having no other choice (college degree or not). And those “welfare programs” INCLUDE Obamacare and all the rules and regs that go along with accepting a “subsidy” to help pay its exorbitant premiums, however “paltry” that subsidy may be.
We all need to be able to put ourselves into other Americans’ shoes (who don’t live and work in a SD, CA area of $700K+ homes) to understand exactly what is going on here with Election ’16. Having regularly traveled by road to 17+ states (some dozens of times) all of my life, I’ve seen things that a good portion of the rest of you likely never come into contact with and can’t possibly envision in your wildest dreams. Remaining in your bubbles whilst taking personally all this “campaign rhetoric” and believing it is all about YOU (are you listening, flu?) and stating that the pure “campaign rhetoric” we’re hearing is an intentional overt put-down of all races except “white” is skirting the real issues.
What US-citizen parents of minor kids on this forum SHOULD be worried about, IMO, is IF there will be any slots left for their UC/CSU-bound kid when the time comes after each campus admits their “fair share” of students with a CA HS diploma who are suspected NOT to be US citizens. This is so because the law forbids the admission boards to ask each applicant’s citizenship on their applications! And you parents should be concerned as to whether that “Dream Act” student will be eligible for a Pell grant as well to comfortably get them thru all four years. The “Dream Act” applicant may have only spent 3-4 years in attendance at a CA public HS (the rest of their schooling was in MX) in order to produce the records necessary to “vet” their UC/CSU applications. Practically speaking, just because a college applicant proves they earned a CA public HS diploma with 3 or more years in attendance in no way proves they ever resided in the US to do so! They could have easily simply crossed the border every morning to attend a US school by using a friend or relative’s US address to prove a US residence for “enrollment purposes.” This happens every . single . school day in SD County with the respective District Administrators turning the other cheek with a “wink and a nod” whilst their area school parking lots are lined up with hundreds of motorists at each school site sporting Baja, CA license plates dropping off and picking up students. This has been going on for decades. In area HS’s, these “foreign-plated” vehicles overtly fill up the HS parking lots in broad daylight cuz the MX students (residing in MX? YES!) can drive themselves to school every morning with their newly-issued CA Driver Licenses, no less :=0
I think a lot of people are getting upset for the wrong reasons by the tactics employed by Election 2016 candidates. Especially SoCal residents.
I don’t see most of the “campaign promises” made by any candidate in Election ’16 as “empty.” I believe that a lot of them are actually doable given the “right” cabinet members placed in the “right” posts and the “right” mix in Congress.
And all of the above conditions don’t have to be present all at once to be successful in delivering ONE campaign promise.
And for the record, I am still registered as an “Independent.”[/quote]
Wow, hell must be freezing over as I think I actually agree with bg for once…
At the end of the day, it’s about jobs and people working and making a decent’s day pay and raising a family. That’s really not possible now and as most studies have concluded, apparently it’s actually not possible to get ahead anymore for most people even with hard work.
All that said, as someone who used to work in the tech industry making good money (100-200k) way back, I do agree that a lot of well to do people are pretty tone deaf on this topic. As someone who has also taken less paying jobs and seeing how other people work with less job security and dull work, the tech life and SV life (which tons of people are complaining about now like VCs on new people up there), that place is pretty crazy I think.
I think until it all implodes, nothing with change much though.
This will possibly lead to major problems maybe in 20-30 years when a lot of males are unemployed (like some places in Europe now) and it could get messy.
Also, what some people don’t like currently is there are plenty of abuses in tech from all the large firms with taxes (8k in taxes from Facebook in all of the UK?) At the end of the day, all the wage slaves and “regular” small businesses (me) have to cover all that. There are so many legal ways not just in tech, but with gov subsidies, energy credits/kick backs/laws, you name it.
I actually don’t agree with Sanders on the whole immigration thing. I probably support NO benefits to make it so people actually don’t want to come here illegally (and forcing everyone else to pay).
At this point, I only want someone who will try to dismantle and hopefully take all the pork and special backside door deals, etc…out and simplify things.
Healthcare for all, make it like every other country (yes, I am ok with NOT treating certain things (and we just die)) and save millions for every company out there and one less headache for companies to deal with. It will cost a lot of money, but companies don’t have to pay for it anymore (directly).
