Monday, March 06, 2006

Andy Rooney's Take On Dubai World Ports

What does Andy Rooney think about the plan to outsource six of our biggest seaports to Dubai World Ports? He thinks the idea is nuts and we should consider outsourcing the White House and Congress instead. Sounds like a plan to me.
A lot of Americans have complained because they think that having another country run our ports in New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami could be a security risk.

Well, security isn't what bothers me. What I don't understand is why the hell can't we run our ports ourselves? Is it too hard for us? Aren't we smart enough? Sometimes it seems as if we aren't doing any real work ourselves in this Country.

Most of our clothes are made in China. More and more of the cars we drive are built overseas. About all we make in the United States these days is money.

The credit card companies are using people in India to do their customer service business. If you call them with a problem, you get someone who speaks English, sort of, but she's sitting in New Delhi.

Too much of our work is being what they call "outsourced." "Outsourcing" means having it made in another country. What's the matter with doing it in our own country?

Have we lost our ability to do anything for ourselves?

Why don't they outsource The White House, or outsource Congress. Get some really smart people from other countries to run our country for us. A congressman gets $162,000 a year and all he can eat. I'll bet we could get some natives of Dubai to do the same work twice as well for half the price.
Andy, I bet we could find quite a few unemployed Americans willing to do the job too.

4 comments:

Yukkione said...

Well put Kathy... let me add "under employed" to that. btw I grew up in SE michigan.

Ken-the-Troll said...

Every time the Rethugs talk about that outsourcing and worker retraining, what they are realling saying is they want to destroy organized labor and force wages down. Betsey DeVos' comment last year when Electrolux announced they were closing the Greenville, Michigan plant that the real problem is that Michigan workers were being paid too much. The owner of Perigo, a maker of store brand health and beauty aids in Allegan, Michigan is opposing the Gun Lake Tribe of Potowattomi Indian opening a Casino here in Bradley. He claims that he is morally opposed, but if it opens and offers the people here in Allegan jobs that are nearly $20 an hour and have full health, vision, dental, and retirement benefits it will mean that he will have to raise his sub $10 wages and actually provide his workers with living wages. All these people forget that if the products that they are importing are going to sell the people buying the products need to make enough money to buy these products. We have two rules, we "buy American made" products if they are available, evem of they cost a little more, and we don't buy anything at Walmart, because of its policies of keeping its workers "part time" so they qualify for Medicaid (which means my taxes must go up to pay for this while the Waltons become richer) and its policy of demanding its suppliers lower their prices 5% a year to keep the contract with Walmart. The only way to do this is to have the products manufactured in China or some other sweat shop country. Everytime a factory closes here because of Walmart's demands for lower prices more people are forced to take the Walmart poverty wages and shop at Walmart, getting shoddy goods from foreign companies. We have to stop this by not giving them our money. Shop at union stores, like Meijer and Target.

Kathy said...

Left of Center, thanks for pointing out the under employed. They struggle just as much as the unemployed. What area of SE Michigan did you grow up in?

Ken-the-Troll, I agree with you that we need to spend our money here as much as possible. I've done several posts on Wal-Mart and the damage they do to local economies. We refuse to shop at the store and the same with Sam's Club.

We try to buy at local mom and pop stores as much as possible. Studies have shown that when you spend $1 dollar locally, 40 cents stays in your community. If you spend $1 dollar with a national chain like Wal-Mart, only 11 cents stays in your community. We may spend a little more to buy with smaller stores, but the benefit to our local communities and neighbors far exceeds the additional expense. Call it protectionism or whatever you want, but if we don't protect our livelihoods where we live, who will?

Thanks to you both for stopping by and commenting.

Lew Scannon said...

Sorry, but Meijer's gives me a headache, I prefer the smaller local chain Family Fare, for groceries. I will not do Target and I will not do Wal-mart. And I will not buy anything unless I absolutely need it.