Wire and Cable Technology Blog

Wow. Where to start?

You wrote, "But since these companies have forced wages so low, with there endless moaning about the cost of labour and how cheap it is abroad."

This is not companies forcing wages. This has to do with how countries manage their currency and the exchange rates between them.

You wrote, "Just so they can line they're pockets with big profits."

What, in your mind, do you think companies are supposed to do? Free enterprise is a state where people do things for something called profit.

Another myth that is propagating the world is that these big companies are making so much money that it is obscene!

Again, this is anti-capitalism preying on ignorance. The big companies are publicly traded and as such must have open books for stockholders to see. Any company that makes obscene profits would become an investor gold mine where people buy stock like crazy. Very few companies do this and they don't do this very long. Look at Google for an example of this.

You wrote, "This has created a huge wealth gap and, unfortunately the balance is falling on the unwealthy side."

Again, ignorance prevails. You need only to look at history to see what is really happening. If you look at populations 500 years ago, the gap was relatively narrow, but in the grand scheme of things, everyone was poor! Yes, there were super rich barons and kings, but not very many. The quality of life was very poor and it stayed that way for another 300 years. Economic growth was mainly non-existent, so families had nothing better to look forward to generation after generation.

For most everybody it boiled down to this; either you had a job that was horrible or you had no job at all. If you had a job you most likely had no luxuries and you did not need them because you spent all your waking hours working for survival.

After the 1800's things began to pick up due to industrialization. There was time to actually enjoy luxury and everyone saw an increase in standards of living in the developing countries.

Now here we are today and the rhetoric is that the gap between rich and poor is widening. Well, duh! However, let's look at the poor in the US. How many poor people in undeveloped nations have cars, high definition TVs, MP3 players, cable, internet, cell phones, food, and leisure time? Okay, so it's a used car and the TV might not be 80", but the point is, that the threshold for poor in the US is equivalent to living like kings 500 years ago.

Yes, the rich are getting richer, but the poor are not getting poorer, they are getting richer, too, and at a pretty good clip. So, why is that bad?

If you think that living 500 years ago is better because of a narrower gap, have at it. There are places on this planet that still exist there and it might help put things in context if you really lived in abject poverty.

You wrote, "By this I mean there are alot more poor people in the world than rich."

When in the history of Earth has that been any different?

You wrote, "But they have no money to spend and with energy cost sky rocketing (they're going in for the kill)"

Show me the data for that one. You have evidence that corporations are trying to make people poor? Do you believe the mission of utility companies is to bankrupt their customers, too?

Yes, we have a downturn economy and the government seems to have made some bad choices on how to help us out of it (but then again, they did a good job helping us into it), but such is the nature of life and economy.

You wrote, "There is too much emphasis on the stock market, where people expect to make lots of easy money."

Wow! You got that right. I agree with you there.

Be careful what you read. Most of it is propaganda.

Propaganda is the art of taking a few kernels of truth, rolling them into a turd, and serving it to the world as a brownie.

GA Hero!

People forget that the purpose of business is to make money. They do that by supplying a product that people want at a price that is affordable and of good value to those same people.

Those "filthy rich" (whom this present administration, and many other entitlement- minded people, wants to castigate) have, for the most part, worked hard for their money and are the ones who have taken the risk of time, effort and money to build businesses that hire people and manufacture goods or provide services.

As far as whether companies should hire now; there are soooo many unknown factors that impact their ability to make good economic decisions. If you don't know; what the tax rates will be, what kind of requirements (being rammed down our throats) there will be for health care for employees, extreme environmental guidelines etc. ad infinitum; you would be stupid to expand in most markets. There are segments that are growing but overall the business base is backwardly moving or stagnant at best because of governmental uncertainty.

The term "double-dip recession" probably isn't correct because that means that there was an end to the first recession. That isn't so. We haven't had a recovery yet, and pouring hundreds of billions of non-existent dollars down a hole hasn't helped but has greatly hurt our country's economic ability to correct itself.

The gap between the "rich" and the "poor" is mostly a result of choices people make. The poor typically, not all, have a "I want it now" mentality and consequently get bogged down with consumer credit. Albert Einstein calls the power of compounding "the eighth wonder of the world", and he is correct. People don't have long-term vision of what they want to accomplish, the sense of delayed gratification to make it happen or understand the power of compounding, either with credit interest working against you, or saving/investment interest working for you. You also have the factor of what people do with oppurtunity that presents itself. Most people are too lazy to do whatever it takes to succeed financially. "The TV is so loud they don't hear oppurtunity knock". It really is a problem with the information that people choose to take in; does it promote personal growth and motivation or does it entrap them in entitlement mentality and personal, immediate gratification.

This "I want it now" mentality also shows up in government welfare programs, union mentality of "I deserve this", regardless of whether I have worked hard enough to deserve it. The entitlement mentality.

Once people realize that "life isn't fair" and that the only way for them to succeed financially is to work hard, with financial disciplines in place, over a period of time, with the type of vehicle/industry that can provide the finances that will help them accomplish great things, they will be well on their way.