Going back to the manufacturing - large-scale manufacturing will absolutely not be returning to the US in the near future, and it only has to do with the costs of line employees very indirectly at best.  The reality is that the world's big manufacturing plants in China, India, Singapore, Indonesia - especially the tech plants, which are the most profitable - employ literally thousands to tens of thousands of engineers.  In the United States, it's difficult to impossible to rapidly assemble thousands of engineers in one place to start your new plant.  In China, it's easy, and if you don't get them in no time you go to the government and they find them for you.  Everything you guys are talking about - can we bring the cost of American labor and general cost of doing business down low enough to where the difference is covered by shipping costs - is almost irrelevant in light of the difficulty finding the skillled work force in the United States.  I'm constantly shocked by the sheer number of people who are totally unaware of this barrier to modern manufacturing in the developed world.

Posted by moy23 on 2/4/2015 10:21:00 PM (view original):
a jordanian pilot gets burned to death alive and the jordanian king angrily vows to pursue ISIS until his military runs 'out of fuel and bullets' then backs that up by hanging two terrorists - but an american gets beheaded by 'the JV team' and our president goes golfing. he is such a horrible president.

If they had just beheaded him, the rhetoric from Jordan would most likely have not been so fierce. What do you expect us to do in Syria or to Isis? Just make glass?

GET SOME MARINES SLAUGHTERED, THEN CUT AND RUN. OR TRADE SOME MISSILES FOR HOSTAGES WITH  EVIL IRAN, OR SUPPLY SADDAAM WITH CHEMICAL WEAPONS LIKE REPUG HERO SAINT RONNY RAYGUN

NETANYAHOO IS A WAR CRIMINAL, BONER SHOULD BE TRIED FOR TREASON

Posted by dahsdebater on 2/5/2015 12:06:00 AM (view original):
Going back to the manufacturing - large-scale manufacturing will absolutely not be returning to the US in the near future, and it only has to do with the costs of line employees very indirectly at best.  The reality is that the world's big manufacturing plants in China, India, Singapore, Indonesia - especially the tech plants, which are the most profitable - employ literally thousands to tens of thousands of engineers.  In the United States, it's difficult to impossible to rapidly assemble thousands of engineers in one place to start your new plant.  In China, it's easy, and if you don't get them in no time you go to the government and they find them for you.  Everything you guys are talking about - can we bring the cost of American labor and general cost of doing business down low enough to where the difference is covered by shipping costs - is almost irrelevant in light of the difficulty finding the skillled work force in the United States.  I'm constantly shocked by the sheer number of people who are totally unaware of this barrier to modern manufacturing in the developed world.

When you say "engineers", you make it sound like college degrees are required to work an assembly line.  Using moy's example of Boeing or Ford, I don't think they employed thousands of college educated people to man those positions.    Both facilities employ roughly 6,000 people.   Not tens of thousands.    Say 1/5th are college educated, you're still speaking of 1,200 not "literally thousands". 

Posted by dahsdebater on 2/5/2015 12:06:00 AM (view original):
Going back to the manufacturing - large-scale manufacturing will absolutely not be returning to the US in the near future, and it only has to do with the costs of line employees very indirectly at best.  The reality is that the world's big manufacturing plants in China, India, Singapore, Indonesia - especially the tech plants, which are the most profitable - employ literally thousands to tens of thousands of engineers.  In the United States, it's difficult to impossible to rapidly assemble thousands of engineers in one place to start your new plant.  In China, it's easy, and if you don't get them in no time you go to the government and they find them for you.  Everything you guys are talking about - can we bring the cost of American labor and general cost of doing business down low enough to where the difference is covered by shipping costs - is almost irrelevant in light of the difficulty finding the skillled work force in the United States.  I'm constantly shocked by the sheer number of people who are totally unaware of this barrier to modern manufacturing in the developed world.

I think the strength/weakness of the dollar is also a huge factor.

Posted by moy23 on 2/5/2015 1:36:00 AM (view original):

Posted by The Taint on 2/5/2015 12:20:00 AM (view original):

Posted by moy23 on 2/4/2015 10:21:00 PM (view original):
a jordanian pilot gets burned to death alive and the jordanian king angrily vows to pursue ISIS until his military runs 'out of fuel and bullets' then backs that up by hanging two terrorists - but an american gets beheaded by 'the JV team' and our president goes golfing. he is such a horrible president.

If they had just beheaded him, the rhetoric from Jordan would most likely have not been so fierce. What do you expect us to do in Syria or to Isis? Just make glass?

I expect if you draw a red line in the sand you hold up your end of the threat. I expect you listen to your military advisers when they say do not withdraw from Iraq until their army is ready for us to do so. I expect you take this Islamic uprising seriously and not treat them like the JV team. I expect you retaliate when a US ambassador is killed in Benghazi. Ukraine? Great - now we need to supply them with weapons.... why the F have we not been doing that already? Hell, line up our army on their border and see if Putin advances further. The answer is no. Instead this clown in office is all talk, or golf. Spy on Germany and Spain - BUSTED! Iranian Nukes... no big deal. **** off Netanyahu - yep - did that - last I heard dems will boycott listening to our ally's congressional visit. Working with the Yemen gov't - right up until they resigned to terrorist threats last week. UAE - our ally in these Iraq bombings - until December 2014 when they withdrew from the attacks and our white house acted as if they hadn't - which just came out today. And I thought Bush walked us into a quagmire... its nothing compared to Obama.

Why do we care if Russia invades Ukraine? We are not the world police.

We kind of are the world police. A lot of people don't necessarily like that, but I think that mentality has more good than bad for the world.

I don't know a ton about the subject, but from what I understand, Russia's argument for annexing Crimea was that the population there identify themselves more as "Russian" than "Ukrainian", so Russia argues that they're just protecting their own people from the issues Ukraine is having. I imagine that if the US was in a similar situation with, let's say, Mexico, we would probably have the same reaction Russia did.

In many situations, there are ramifications for killing the bunny.

I agree that Obama's foreign policy overall has been kind of ****** overall, although there is some that he's done that I agree with. My biggest issue was that he absolutely should have kept troops in Iraq until their government was sustainable. And you can still "blame Bush" for it as you do it.

Anyone who thinks we aren't the "world police" hasn't been paying attention for quite some time.   I don't think we HAD to be involved in the Korean War.  So, what, since the 50's?     We sort of pick which areas we will police but we've been doing it for a very long time.   

Posted by burnsy483 on 2/5/2015 2:01:00 PM (view original):
We kind of are the world police. A lot of people don't necessarily like that, but I think that mentality has more good than bad for the world.

I don't know a ton about the subject, but from what I understand, Russia's argument for annexing Crimea was that the population there identify themselves more as "Russian" than "Ukrainian", so Russia argues that they're just protecting their own people from the issues Ukraine is having. I imagine that if the US was in a similar situation with, let's say, Mexico, we would probably have the same reaction Russia did.

We police the world when it's in our interest to do so. We aren't required to, though. I'm not sure what interest we have in protecting Ukraine.