Re: [SLUG-POL] U.S. no longer top tech nation

From: Steven Buehler (swbuehler@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 10 2005 - 20:41:49 EST


On Mar 10, 2005, at 8:22 PM, Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> Not! That hasn't been true since the late '80s.
> The average American worker works longer hours and produces more than
> the average Japanese or German worker.

And the American family is paying a heavy price in the form of
workaholics and busted families and a significantly diminished sense of
community than there was just 15-20 years ago. I don't even know the
people who live next door to me. Americans get an average of 18 days
of vacation per year, compared to an average of 25 days in Europe.
Americans, in general, might be working longer hours and being more
productive, but they are burning themselves out in the process compared
to our Asian and European counterparts.

>> but the original ideas are usually from us.
>
> Not really.

Actually, the reason "made in Japan" has not been as much of a
laughingstock as it used to be was because of an American, I believe it
was Peter Drucker. His ideas about quality control were not accepted
in the U.S., so he took them to Japan, and they were all ears. They
even have an award every year in his name.

I was just looking at Consumer Reports...their top rated car in terms
of reliability was a Korean car (the Hyundai Sonata). While the U.S.
makes are improving, they're nowhere near the top yet. Chrysler uses
Hyundai engines in at least one of their vehicle lines.

> Actually, socialism in the US is implemented far worse than most
> European nations.
> People have gone from expecting companies to take care of them to
> believing the US government is an endless pool of money from "the
> rich."
> At least socialist nations realize that the government only has so
> much.

Companies really don't take care of you anymore. It used to be that
you could spend your entire career (30-40 years) at a single company,
retire, and live off your pension for what life you had left. That
doesn't happen anymore. A statistic put out a couple of years ago
suggests that the typical individual will change careers five times
during their working years. Not jobs, *CAREERS*. Delphi, the auto
parts and systems maker, just announced that they were terminating
company-paid health and welfare benefits for future retirees as a
cost-saving measure (something like $500 million).

Steven W. Buehler | steven@sanctuaryweb.org/swbuehler@yahoo.com
Web Page: http://www.sanctuaryweb.org | http://renaitre.iuma.com
Instant Messengers: stevenbuehlerfl (AIM) | swbuehler (Yahoo!/.Mac
iChat/Skype) | stevenwbuehler@msn.com (MSN Msgr.)



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 20:00:06 EDT