When will we learn not to send jobs overseas?

If those guys in Mount Airy were willing to work for $1 a day and sleep in cardboard shanties without healthcare or even decent food and clothing, they'd be perfectly capable of competing with stone cutters in Africa. You see, dear friend, the world we live in puts money above all else. It's the free-market way. Hagan, Burr and Perdue don't have anything to say about it. They're just cogs in the machine.

The people taking the propaganda seriously never think that THEY would have to work for 3 cents an hour. As long as it's someone else's job, that's OK.

how the whole 9-11 memorial has been from day one. I think the terrorists have won.

America first in the race to the moon.
America first in the race to atomic bomb.
America first in the race to the bottom.

to that very granite quarry in Mt. Airy, and have been back to it once or twice since. It is one of Mt. Airy's few claims to fame (if you check out the wikipedia page for Mt. Airy you'll even see that it has the "world's largest open faced granite quarry"). I know about half the bell tower at NCSU where I'm attending grad school was built out of Mt. Airy granite.

I didn't recognize the guy interviewed in the video, but with his last name being Goad and being a Mt. Airy story... I've got to be related to him on some level.

Mt. Airy could have certainly used the extra jobs. Jobs were disappearing there the whole time I was growing up and more and more of those who were employed were driving to Winston to work. Not that Winston has an abundance of jobs these days (thanks Dell).

There are times when free trade, free market stuff makes sense. But to outsource work on an American memorial when we have a large natural resource that can't be outsourced, it seems that in this weighing of values & economics, not to make sense to not use what we have.

Just the way they like it.

Indeed, as another blogger put it, virtually every policy position from conservatives can be reduced to two words: cheap labor. It's like trying to teach children not to touch a hot stove. Conservative policymakers won't learn until they get burned themselves.

An activist from Yancey noted how the percentage for Democrats (Obama) went up dramatically in 2008 over 2004 (Kerry). She attributed it to people figuring out that the propaganda from the right was propaganda.

Asheville just lost the Volvo plant. Scratch 228 more jobs.

Will Somebody Please Revive WNC’s Manufacturing Economy?

I'm not unsympathetic, and obviously it's true that this kind of thing happens because of poor labor standards in other countries. But either way, someone's going to miss out on a job that they wanted. Maybe it's the guy in Africa, or the guy in Italy, or the guy in Mt. Airy. Who's to say that guy in Italy didn't need the job more than the guy in Mt. Airy?

The global economy isn't zero-sum. I don't have any evidence one way or another that wages were the only factor involved in this decision. A lot of things go into these kinds of bids.

On the surface level, it might seem to be nice if no one ever "lost" a job overseas. But that's just not the way things work. Every day, money and jobs go across borders - in and out of the U.S. All we can do is make sure our public sector is there for people when they hit the mat.

Can I ask what this quote means?:

Every day, money and jobs go across borders - in and out of the U.S. All we can do is make sure our public sector is there for people when they hit the mat.

Thanks

in our local newspapers(Mt Airy), but maybe I missed it. One point that strikes me as a past active member of a national union, is if the local Carpenter's union has made any inquiries of the national union to find out why the Memorial Commission set up in NY has chose to look overseas for their granite work. I know the construction trade unions of NYC are pretty influential when they need to be, and might want to exert some pressure on this. As has been mentioned, sometimes bribes and favors become the controlling factor in these processes, and unless people inquire, nothing will happen.

I guess you can look at this story from many different angles (as seen here on BlueNC). It brings up the "global economy" issue and it brings up the "graft and corruption" issue and it brings up the corporatist "greed" issue and, of course, the issue of whether or not America needs to get back to doing what it can to help its own citizens be prosperous and indeed be able to realize the opportunity to "persue happiness".

To me, it's not a "well, that's just the way it is" kind of thing. And, to me, without a vibrant economy with good jobs and the opportunity to succeed in the U.S., our country will just go further downhill economically and that only hampers our ability to be good global citizens in the first place.

I'm not an isolationist and I'm not saying that we shouldn't be involved in world trade and so forth. However, we're headed toward record deficits and our unemployment in this country is higher than it has been in decades with little signs of improvement so to me, our first order of business is making America strong for it's citizens.

Call me old fashioned.