The anything-goes boys gave us The Great Recession.
King, by "anything goes boys" do you mean Bill Clinton and Co. and their insane policy of making the banking industry give mortgages to people who could not afford to repay them?
I doubt it, since you can't be honest about anything that implicates your fellow Liberal Left Socialists.
Mike, I hadn't checked recently and was a bit surprised that Chinese average wages have surpassed Mexico, but then I also would assume that productivity per man hour is much higher there too. When I worked for GM, they were already looking at Africa as a source for cheaper labor costs than China and some of the other low wage nations. The GM Bankruptcy affected only the U.S. operations even though GM spent over 30 years moving assets out of the country before crying Poor Mouth and filing Bankruptcy... only a few short years after posting all time record profits. The foreign assets were exempt from the Bankruptcy, and U.S. stockholders lost everything while the taxpayers bailed out a crooked company that wasn't near bankrupt.
While employed there, I saw robotics and automation replace thousands of good paying jobs. More automation won't help the lowly production worker, because they were also exporting automation technology and had engineers working in China setting up and training the Chinese to do work that had been too complex for them. I do OK for myself because I saw the writing on the wall years ago, and I work on automation technology and robots. I did not rely on government grants or handouts to retrain myself for what was inevitable. The push for Globalization only accelerated it, and Liberal Socialists can't bring themselves to admit that Democrat Bill Clinton's signing of NAFTA opened the floodgates. Republicans are just as guilty in advancing something that has obviously lowered the standard of living for average Americans. The lesson should have been learned, but Barack Obama is still pushing trade deals that will make it even worse.
I have no doubt the Unions screwed up, mostly due to greed and corruption at the top. Workers couldn't really be faulted for wanting and accepting wage and bonus packages that seem very fat. But in reality, wages and benefits did not keep up with inflation, especially during the Jimmy Carter years... and ... absolutely when productivity gains are factored in. When the Executive Vice President of steel company I worked for was hitting us up for more wage and benefit concessions, I pointed out to him what our annual labor cost was for wages and benefits, and told him that if we worked for free, we would still be losing millions of dollars per month. My company had the lowest labor cost per ton in the world at that time, but mismanagement and corruption led to an eventual Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. Massive Corporate Welfare intended to create and maintain jobs had no means of insuring repayment or punitive action if those promises weren't kept and the jobs outsourced later anyway.
Half of the population did move out of Detroit to get away from the crime, high taxes, and to seek new employment. Those remaining are content to stay because many receive the equivalent of a decent middle class wage by exploiting and gaming the Welfare System and engaging in crime as an income tax-free bonus. Many refuse to pay their property taxes. They have no incentive to buy a loaf of bread and a package of bologna and hitch hike to where the jobs are. I would have considered bologna a luxury when I was seeking my first job after I graduated from college in the midst of a severe recession. That's why I don't care to hear King Brown's crap about the poor unfortunates who don't stand a chance to pull themselves up.
