Electrical Components

Let's put aside what we might consider as right or wrong for our country's best interest.

Both candidates and their advisers will be talking about what they believe are the hot buttons for the majority of the voting public.

If you haven't realized it, this is nothing more than two of the most massively expensive marketing campaigns ever performed on this planet.

If the voting public is concerned about technology, then rest assured the candidates will be talking about it. If there is an uncanny quiet on the technological front, it is probably fair to assume that technology is the not the thing that is foremost on the minds of the public.

Do you think someone holding back and controling new technology would hurt the economy?

Well that is mostly what politicans do.

Many of the laws passed in recent years have only served to be BARRIERS to entry that protcet old established businesses from other who could improve and take away the old businesses profits.

Try and compete with any of them they are grandfathered in but you would have to install all the enviormental stuff they don't. Why do you think big corporations are the biggest enbiormental supporters. It protects them !!!!!!!!

An interesting argument. Can you cite some specific examples to support it?

It has nothing to do with technology but money. Yep. Plain old greed and lust for power. That is why we are not world leaders in electric cars, which were produced by the Saturn div. of GM in 1999 & 2000 for South California to meet a 0 emissions mandate. As soon as GM bought the chairmanship of the Air Control Board, 0 emissions became history and all the leased electric cars were destroyed. See or search on "who killed the electric car". It was big oil and the greedy three US automakers. The status Quo had to be preserved. The same thing is applied but in reverse for computers. Microsoft drives the market with a monopoly on operating system software, which in my opinion is lousy and designed just to make money. Nobody I know is enthused about Vista but do we have a choice? No. The computer Mfgrs are bound to M.S. and chip speed and ram have to increase to make the bloated software functional time wise. Do I need it? No. M.S. needs sales revenue. How could I use all the features that took 100+ man years to develop?

President Jimmy Carter, ( a nuclear engineer) chose to turn the thermostat down and wear a sweater over building nuclear plants? go figure?

I think Obama completely gets technology (aka The Internet), which is why he opted-out of the public funding system. He's funding his campaign via small contributions taken over the web, and is using social networking to push his message. However, whether this translates to votes at the polls is something to be proven: web support fell apart for Dean back in '04.

On the other hand, McCain has admitted he has others do his computer work for him, but spent years as a ranking member of a powerful committee in the senate charged with nuturing technology in the US, and so he's familiar with the ground rules.

The fact that Obama is Internet savvy does NOT mean he is technically astute. The fact that McCain pays others to do his grunt computer work does NOT mean he is technically challenged. Can either one of them read and understand, say a paper published by PNAS, for example?

Politics is about control. Technology is about enabling. If the politicians are interested in a technology, it is most likely because they see another possible source of tax revenue, or another venue ripe to be controlled. Beware the politician that talks "technology"- since they do not generally teach science in Law School, he most likely has learned his science from the likes of "National Enquirer"...

McCain has said that he barely uses the internet. Technology, such as the web, has revolutionized industry. Ignorance of it & its impact causes politicians to make promises that are unreasonable, such as stating that they can bring jobs back. Globalization will continue to move MFG jobs to other countries, they will not come back until we are poorer than they are. The political agenda needs to redirect America's focus to innovation and design, and to achieve that the primary focus must be on education. It says a lot about a society that will spend more on its youth to incarcerate them and/or turn them into soldiers, than to aid them in finding ways to contribute to the sustenance and growth of our country.

the truth is neither candidate will have a smoking bullet for the economy. and most likely tax and slow the growth areas of the economy to take credit and do the greater good

these are the same politicians that have subsidized ethanol and placed high tariiffs on cheap sugar from Haiti. ( both represent energy)

the current $ decline and contraction of debt show markets work... with the new UAW contract companies are moving jobs back to the industrial north as fuel and freight become a significant cost model driver .... capital equipment will follow and the US is now a low cost equipment producer with the low US$ -

that is real change.. not just feel good rhetoric

How has the UAW brought jobs back into the industrial north?

The UAW (and other unions) have historically done just the opposite. Case in point would be the US steel industry, which collapsed due to union demands. Then there is the US textile industry - gone. Now the UAW has pushed the American auto industry into the jaws of extinction. Yes, the Big Three management has equal blame, but the current pay package the unions have brokered make the US autoworker the highest compensated worker on the planet. That makes it next to impossible to compete with the Japanese and other automakers over seas because the unions act as an anchor around the legs of industry. No wonder why Toyota is not just breathing down the neck of GM, it is surpassing GM now.

If that claim (unions bringing jobs back) was true you would expect a rise in union membership in the US. Not so. I have data from 1948 through 2004 that shows the opposite. Or this data, although not as comprehensive, shows data through 2007, which point to a continued loss of union members year after year.

If anything, the low US Dollar is more responsible for any US trade increase. I would love to see any data you have that shows a comeback of industry to the Rust Belt, but everything I have heard shows a continued drain as the only change. Which is about all the working man has left in his pocket is real pocket change.

There used to be a very valid purpose for unions in our past, but that day is gone. Now they act more like the arm of socialism.

your point is well taken... maybe i was not clear

under the new contract labor rates are 14$/ hr to start.. significantly more competitive than 24.. the price of shipping goods has gone in many cases to less than one percent to almost as large of a percentage as the profit

our company will open 1 if not 2 plants in the rust belt , i know of one Company moving back from the south and another under consideration, one under construction and another to be built in the south

landed piece price is the new model -- depreciated capital and high union rates = new capital and the new union rates..... so capacity if in the wrong location is no longer considered relavent...

i agree with you, it is not the union but the fact they have lost leverage and the econimics have changed that creates hope and change ;-) .

it will take time but i already see at least in the NA automotive industry the calculators are clicking even with contracting markets

You can say what you want about unions. I'm sort of sure that at one time they were useful. My union engages in secret contract talks that we the union body are completely excluded from but expected to trust. (Ignore the man behind the curtain.) We are told to accept a crappy contract and the sheeple accept it blindly. I am constantly told using my forced union dues that I have to vote democrat although I can't think of anything they have done in the last 40 years that benefited me even remotely. We (of course) have to pay union dues even if we don't belong. Like I couldn't negotiate my own contract. I am called while working incessantly and told to vote for Carbomba. I won't. He is just a union punk bending over for them. The unions just don't represent us, if they ever did.

How did the unions get into this any way? Politics like the unions have been hijacked by the right wing, all are plugged into the capitalist media barrons. Are politicians technicaly savy? some are, some are not. Does it matter? not really, as as the political parties are only different on the extreme fringes and people have been made so complacent, they don't even notice the majority of their representives are as useful as an electric fire on a tropical desert island mid summer

"Politics like the unions have been hijacked by the right wing, all are plugged into the capitalist media barrons."

Do you seriously believe that? I would love to know where or who is feeding you that information. Someone has kidnapped your mind and I hope you can afford the ransom.

Seriously, I would love to know where you got that information.