Flu pandemic...probable chaos?

[Guest beana51]

Well said Don! Cheers again! :+

[Guest Charlie]

"Whats this BLAA,BLAAA,BLAAA, got to do with things aviation or simming?"Hey Vin, are trying out for Flightsim.com moderator? ;) It

[Guest beana51]

Yes CHARLIE,And I agree with you very much. The air here is so free and fresh,and an OLE pot stirrer like me loves it.Sometimes however I kinda get off base, and so do we all.BUT,the lads fix it right away.Can't get away with anything! Justlike some kind of a team.There are no moderators over there,just "SUPPRESSORS"and "ENFORCERS" I have learned a lot on here,there are many very bright people to listen too. THANX VIN "I DISAGREE WITH EVERY THING YOU SAY ,BUT WILL DEFEND TO THE DEATH FOR THE RIGHT FOR YOU TO SAY IT" (wish i said that):-wave

[Guest Charlie]

> Yes CHARLIE,And I agree with you very much. I knew you did, Vin. That's why I couldn't resist a little ribbing about that one line. But then, you pretty much always keep us guessing and entertained. Keep 'em comin'! :-beerchug

[Guest]

In your scenario that regulation would have the result of the government running all businesses. They might not hold the shares but they would be the ones dictating company policies across the board from production numbers to salaries to the colour of the carpet in the hallway.That's the same thing as complete nationalisation of production assets, except that the risk of running the company is not for the government.That's the last step towards a communist society where Big Brother is watching you, because why should you stop at just controlling companies? Far easier to control the people as well, tell them where to live, what job to learn, and what to buy, so you can ensure that your companies always have the correct people to work for them close at hand and those people will buy just as much as you produce.Bye bye freedom of choice, welcome KGB.

[Donmo 6]

LOL! Businesses ARE regulated in many areas by government right now!! BTW....In the U.S., where you are not living, Big Brother IS watching! They DO tell you what to learn. They DO tell you where to live (to a point), and they DO tell you what to buy. (Chinese - by not balancing trade) I think you have a little bit to learn about the U.S.! Don

[Guest Philip Olson]

I know I am getting in here late but I would like to put forward something for all of you to think about, especially you Don. :-) If anyone wants to know who is at fault for companies sending jobs out of the country to someplace cheaper it is you and I. We are foolish people, I am mainly talking about Americans now but this applies to most everyone else as well. We as consumers want to pay as little as possible for our products while we demand higher salaries and more benefits and that equation can not work. Take Germany for an example, the average auto worker over there makes something like $47.00 an hour with a ton of government mandated benefits. BMW, Mercedes and most other big companies are moving the jobs to countries like Turkey because they simply can not afford to give so much to the employees and still sell their cars at prices where people will buy them. The equation has broken down and the whole economy is suffering greatly, people's pensions from the government are being cut again and again because there is no money to pay them. In Germany the economy is simply failing because too much goes to the employee. The only way for an economy, large or small to work is balance. In a company you have to try and maintain a profit for investors so people will keep investing in your company to pay for improvements, research, etc. Here quite often people say "why should the investors be given profits when people are being laid off, the investors are rich anyway", but remember that a large portion of investors are peoples 401K's, people's retirement funds. If a company does not make a profit that is paid to the investors you may not have anything to retire on, it is you and me who are the investors. Back to balance, the company has to balance what the consumer is willing to pay for a product and what it costs to make the product, so if the American public will not pay enough to cover costs and some profits the company has to cut production costs. Often that includes moving production facilities out of country where the workers do not deamnd such a high wage. I do not like this anymore than you do but if you can not sell your product due to the high price what choice do they have? Granted there are many people that are willing to spend more for products made in their country but they are outnumbered by those that want the cheapest product they can get. Here in the US we are doing what Germany did, the workers are trying to get more and more for themselves (nothing wrong with that in some respects) but they do not consider what it will do to the company and eventually the economy in general. The system is not perfect but unless all sides really consider the balance issue it is doomed to failure. A company is very much like a person, they will fight for survival even if it means making choices that they do not like and I can promise you that very few companies enjoy sending jobs over seas. I don't have the answer but just remember this, when you go into a store and buy the cheap product instead of the more expensive one that your spending habits can cause the losses of jobs that we see everyday. We can not have it all, it is not possible, but if we seek balance then everyone will benefit. Just something for you all to think over. It is easy to say a corporation is evil and they are only motivated by profit, it is much harder to find and face the truth, we drive the corporations to desire a profit, we drive job losses and gains, we drive product costs, we drive everything. Remember how many "little people" lost so much or everything with Enron, the same would happen if a drug company goes under. Some rich people would suffer but more regular people will lose much more than they can afford. It is not nice to think about but it is absolutely true.Take care you all! Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

[Guest Shalomar]

Donny AKA ShalomarFly 2 ROCKS!!!I highly suggest the reading of Richard J. Barnett's tome, "The Lean Years, Politics in the age of Scarcity". It goes into the interdependant systems of energy, minerals, water, food and labor on a global scale.A company may build a new factory employing 600 people. If 6,000 people who hear about it come to the city, has employment there gone up or down? Substenance farmers get hassled and priced off their land to make way for large cash crop farms or cattle for export, and the price of the local staples of their diet increases. The whole world simply can not expend 40 calories of energy to get one calorie of food. One of IMHO best suggestions, that oil companies be prohibited from participating (read "interfering") in the development of alternative forms of energy, has sadly not been implemented.Ever heard of the Dynacam engine? Developed in WWII for possible use in torpedoes- internal combustion!!! The challenges forced a clean slate aproach, and the resulting engine acted as its own supercharger, is incredibly smooth, light, and not only more fuel efficient but produces more useful torque and its high compression rating lets it run on almost anything that will burn. Rockefeller, as in Standard Oil, grabbed the patent, and J.P. Getty an even more promising design in the 70s. Now they want to do the same thing with alternative energy? Here we go...About the possible pandemic: The absolute best suggestion I have heard is that the U.S. government should strive to vacinate every citizen against the common flu. That is the best way to practice making vaccines in large quantities on short notice, and of course if a pandemic occurs elsewhere I suppose a bunch of vaccine could be sent overseas as well. The vaccines against the common types of flu won't help if the bird variant mutates, I'm not even trying to suggest that. But if we take the common flu seriously, we can gain valuable experience in overcoming the logistics and production problems we will face should a pandemic occur. It won't totally be money out the window, how much does the common flu cost in lost productivity, medical bills etc every year?Best Regards, Donny:-wave

[Guest]

Education in the US is definitely NOT controlled by the government.While public schools are run by government agencies, homeschooling and private schools are not and are free to set their own curiculum.Noone in Washington forces you to buy Chinese goods. It was by your own choice that you created a situation where those are now in some cases the only ones available.It was the American consumer that chose to buy Chinese shoes because they're $5 cheaper than American ones. That forced US shoemakers to leave the country or shut down.Same with many other industries.But a hardline central planning advocate like you will never understand such things as they don't fit into your brain.

[dmaher 0]

I think I

[Guest]

Such a country exists, it's North Korea.There a few have all the power, both political and economic. Those same few also have all the money, all the food, and the police and armed forces.It's paradise there, noone ever complains so things must be good.People are also very healthy, no disabled person is ever seen in any of the cities.

[Donmo 6]

Jerome, I can't carry on this argument with you any longer. You are not informed as well as you need to be about the U.S. Yes, schools ARE governed by government rules and regulations. Yes, homeschooler MUST be able to pass college entrance exams which are based on what everyone at that grade level should know. Those standards are set by the government. You must remember, when the big rush of foreign stuff came in, it was junk. Then Japanese, (mostly then) learned from us how to mass-produce quality better than we could. WE taught them how to make their stuff better! That gained more sales for them. Things were still fine. Where it all falls apart in this and any country, is when the levels of trade lean away from yours and my economy, and favors the exporting country. Government CAN stop that. THAT is what is killing ALL countries that have a trade deficit, and NONE have it as bad as the U.S. That would boost the economy by putting people back to work to make things to sell to the exporting company. As long as foreign trade isn't fair and BALANCED, we can not maintain the levels of power we are at. I was listening to a report last night about this. By 2020, China will be more powerful, economicaly and militarily than the U.S., and will replace us as the number one super-power. That isn't too far away. We'll also lose our current place to borrow money. Where will our money come from then? We will have to fight to survive, and another industial revolution will occur. Stick around, and you'll see a change in how things are done. It won't be pretty.Don

[Donmo 6]

I agree with that Philip. There should be a balance between company and worker. There is in the Kaisen theory, a three-sided balance to have a sucessful company. It is balanced and running efficently when these three things are level. They are worker's satisfaction, stockholders satisfaction, and company satisfaction. IF it leans more into ANY one of those and leaves being a flat plane, the company is in trouble. Is it easy to keep it level? Hel l no it isn't easy! But here in the U.S. and abroad, the triangle has been replaced by the see-saw. The workers are out on the street. What happens to an entire countryful of workers who are being replaced on a daily basis by cheap, foreign labor? The ability for them to purchase gets smaller, as most of them are pushed into lower wage jobs, with little or no benefits. It also weakens the strength of the country by having its manufactoring abilities moved away from itself.It is the proverbial dog chasing its tail. It has to stop. There is more to it than free-market business as Jerome suggests, and more to it than greedy companies. It has to do with national strength and survival. If all our main manufacturing is being done by a communist country (remember them, we as a nation HATE communists) how are we really gaining? While it still supplies us with product, it makes the companies richer because of cost cuts which are not passed down to the consumer, and it makes purchasers race to the bottom, because some (read many) cannot afford to buy these products due to new, lower paying jobs. I guess my point is this. We cannot maintain being a superpower when we grow more and more dependent on foreign manufacturing to survive. We cannot maintain a superpower status, when we borrow money from the communists to survive. We cannot maintain superpower status when manufacturing is removed from OUR industrial base, and given to a potential enemy. All this is being done with the blessings of our government, and it has been in the last five years that it has achieved the level it is at today. If we the people don't do something about it, we'll be eating Peking duck in the future, and a lot of rice too. Trade MUST BE balanced. When it is, OUR economy will pick up, and the welfare of OUR PEOPLE will be better.Don

[KevinAu 441]

What you all have completely forgotten about is that the reduction in work is not because of manufacturing going overseas. It is because of advancing technology. People are mostly being replaced by robots...not Chinese workers. It's the robots you have to watch out for....I see a lot of complaints, laments, and predictions of gloom here. But strangely, I find no solutions being even vaguely proposed here. I agree the trade deficit is not in America's favor. My question to you is "What do you propose to do to about it? And what do you propose to do about the advancement of technology making manufacturing more efficient and less manpower intensive?"

[Donmo 6]

While what you say is true in some cases, it is not the majority of manufacturing that is upgrading to robotix. Robotix are very expensive, and the majority of jobs lost in America were not lost to robotix. Besides, after many switch to robotix, the robots head overseas to China, and they run them. Then the Chinese copy the products and ignore patents and copywrites, and make their own version. They also copy our robots!The fix? I thought that was why we elected people who have departments to figure out fixes for problems. We just heard recently that our Commander in Chief is a problem solver! LOL! With a deficit in trade, which is growing by the second, the government COULD step in and try to balance the trade problem The REAL problem is the people in power favor the business end of the equation, so nothing is really being done. Their hands are tied too. For example, they cannot do anything negative to China. Afterall, who would we borrow money from?What to do about technology advancing? I know throwing people out into the streets is not the solution, and placing skilled workers into service industry jobs also isn't the answer. To educate them and to expand business is the fix. I'd rather see MY tax $$ being spent to train and educate American workers, than for it to go for the education and training of other countries occupants. We are so far down the list around the word in education, it is almost scarey!Don