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• Wednesday, April 16, 2008 11:59 AM

  On the "bitter" voters

  This is how it is. This is the "truth" for all "bitter" working-class whites who have lost their jobs:

  Whoever wins -- Democrat or Republican -- your jobs are not coming back. Your prosperity is not coming back. You will be lucky if you ever have another full-time job again in this lifetime. Your children will be lucky if they ever reach even half the prosperity their grandparents had. And since you cannot afford to give them a college education they will be even less qualified to compete in the new globalized economy.

  The largest share of production cost for practically all manufactured products nowadays is labor. For the USA to generate manufacturing jobs again the US Dollar will have to fall in value against the chinese Renminbi and the Indian Rupee to a point where a company here can compete against the labor costs of those countries. US companies have an advantage in technology, which allows those companies with operations here to still pay a higher wage in comparison -- for the present. But that advantage makes up for only so much. And technology is very easy to transfer.

  Can the fall in the relative value of the US Dollar happen? Will it even be allowed to happen? It is already happening, which is why a barrel of oil is now $114. Yet, if it were to fall to the point where general manufacturing in this country is once again competitive in the global economy the corresponding fall in the quality of life for the country as a whole will be immense. I do not think americans are prepared for that. The social fabric would be in real danger of tearing apart.

  Not to mention the fact that -- unless the whole free-market, individualistic system in this country is upended (which will not happen) -- the rich will still remain very rich and the rest (middle-class and poor) will bear the brunt of the economic suffering.

  Withdrawal from Iraq is a distraction. NAFTA is a distraction. "Elitist" arguments are a distraction. The truth is that the USA has frittered away the economic advantages it inherited from the Second World War -- when the rest of the world's industries were in ruins. Everyone else has caught up -- and some have surpassed us. But we refuse to acknowledge it.

  This is the truth that Obama -- if he really were the "agent of change" he wants people to believe he is -- should tell. Yet he does not. Because he knows that it will not get him elected. And probably also because he knows that he cannot do anything about it.

  This country has been mortgaging its future since the 70's. It's time to pay the piper. Obama will not save you -- because he cannot. Yet he will not admit to it. He is just another politician.

  —red_gti2000 Read red_gti2000's other letters
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