I'm at a Home Depot, remembering the first LTE that started this conversation and follow up LTE's, look at the vehicles with bumper stickers.

7 had OBAMA 08. 2 had expired tags (SEP and JUL), 1 had a well worn doughnut on the rear passenger side.

8 had McCAIN/PALIN. 2 had military ball caps in the back, 3 had fishing/hunting stickers also on the vehicles.

Costco was an example of a well run company that both pays well, treats employees well and the executive suite doesn't milk the shareholders.
"Who pay's for the employees benefits when the money quits coming due to lack of trade?" Well, since they are no longer employed, they have to buy their own insurance. "Why be in business if you are mired in a socialist task which requires even more time for the owner to participate in paperwork to satisfy the goverment?" Ira, what are you talking about?
"How do you motivate a workforce by cutting checks for doing nothing?" Same here, what are you talking about? If this is a problem in your business, I have some advice: fire them. The average citizen has a great chance for education is just about every industrialized country, and they don't need charity, athletic prowess or crushing debt loads to get it. Cutting funding to schools is our modus operandi in this country. Dumb cost savings because that gets very expensive in the future. So your lament about tuition rising is well placed and bolsters my point about more emphasis on education.

"We are on a downhill track now and negative, uncreative thinking will just grease the skids some more."

So you are not going to address the questions I posed for you?

As for Costco...what is it that Costco does? Oh yeah, they are a service industry. They make nothing. They also depend heavily on foreign products.

The cost of doing business must become profitable on an international scale. As for your work force that needs to be educated, nowhere on earth does the average citizen have better chances of attending school. Our citizens abuse their advantage. In addition, while I hate the partisan slant, kaine just reduced funding to universities. Do you know what that is? A hidden tax on education. Tuition will rise.

First of all I have owned my own business for over 30 years, with payroll, so I know full well the value of a good employee in both how they are treated and paid. Costco is a great example of a company that treats employees well, pays them well, caps executive pay and makes a lot of money.
You see very little turnover at that business. Essentially what you are doing is throwing in the towel on America. "Except for service business' we are being beat on every front globally". So we hire only dishwashers, send everything else overseas and call anyone who dares offer up ideas to foster a stronger more prosperous working class, a socialist? You are right, we cannot compete with China in making many products, but we can upgrade our workers to more high technology, energy products for export. But, that takes education. And not scattershot for those who can afford it, but a grasp that our system is in dire straits and we will lose in that field while we call each other names. We are on a downhill track now and negative, uncreative thinking will just grease the skids some more.

Len, your speeches sound good, like Obama's. However, they do not work within realtiy. Exceot for service business' we are being beat on everyfront globally. The question is simple:

Who pay's for the employees benefits when the money quits coming due to lack of trade?

Why be in business if you are mired in a socialist task which requires even more time for the owner to participate in paperwork to satisfy the goverment?

Sir, you do not appear to have ever owned or operated a succesful business. You expect a great deal from many small business owners who do not have it to give. I see 4 employee companies easily exceeding 250K w/ their hands. Your rhetoric is simply not based in reality. It is a speech for those who do not understand how it works. Your pulling a the heart strings of the uninformed. How do you motivate a workforce by cutting checks for doing nothing?

The reason Karl shows up is when their is a great disparity in wealth. You just don't seem to grasp the idea that the middle class is the strength of any free economy. They have enough to be comfortable, but not enough to stop hustling for work. The poor have little to lose and the very wealthy can go anywhere. Those in the middle will fight to protect the life they have built so long as they have assets to protect.
They are your well educated, skilled workers who will make the entrepreneurs the successful folks they want to be. They will work hard as long as they feel that their efforts are being rewarded and respected.
The boss can collect all the money he wants and deserves, so long as he ensures fair treatment for those who show their loyalty in return for a modicum of security and a better life for their children.

Karl Marx is a zombie.

Keeps rising up, but is none-the-less dead.

Why don't those of w/ a little money just give the Obama supporters some money to go away? After reading the comments about last nights debate it is clear none of them are concerned w/ the issues, only what they want for themselves. It may be cheaper just to pay them off.

is bad, but not because the top is necessarily so wealthy, but that the middle class is losing ground. If this doesn't have the appearance of zero sum economics, it sure is the cousin to it. In the real world of today's capitalism, money is often made from mergers and acquisitions, the companies are stripped of assets, the investors leave and repeat the process. We have airlines that are running at full capacity, but cannot make a profit. Management stays after the bankruptcies, collect huge pre-contracted bonuses for coming out of bankruptcy, and workers get dumped. Meanwhile, service is worse because there are not enough people to run the company. Again, money shifts to the top at the expense of those actually doing the work. No, Don, our discussion of the weavers and looms is based on our differences of social philosophy in a fantasy world. The real world has evolved into a system of investment that has little to do with trade, competition or free markets. It has all to do with accumulation of wealth through buying and selling of paper, exotic investment vehicles and monopolies. Adam Smith is dead.

Len "And is that a serious social and economic issue?"

As Charles pointed out, industry is moving to greater automation and efficiency, favoring machinery over human labor. That means we need a LOT of investment if everyone is to have a good job.

Going back to your weavers, assume that to remain competitive, automated looms are necessary. Of 1000 weavers, only 400 will remain employed, but will each make more $ as operators of automated looms. But, if the new looms are not purchased, all will lose their jobs to China.

So, none of those weavers has the money to buy the loom, and they aren't going to pool their resources to buy them to put 600 of their number out of work. So, they need investors to buy the new looms, and to start up new businesses to employ the 600 former weavers. Every dollar taken from investors means fewer good jobs in today's capital intensive market.