It's a great ad if you're not interested in facts:

http://factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-outsourcer-overreach/

You might also want to consider President Obamas outsourcing record:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obamas-record-on-outsourcing-draws-criticism-from-the-left/2012/07/09/gJQAljJCZW_story.html

I cannot help myself. Time for a rambling rant...

Why would a society that is so capitalistic in nature look to the government for job creation? What happened to the invisible hand of the market? (These are sarcastic and rhetorical questions btw)

There are fewer jobs for so many reasons that have nothing to do with government inaction.
eg: HP to layoff up to 30,000 staff

These layoffs are proposed because the company profit to employee ratio is less than Apple or Google. This is a crazy reason to layoff people. Wouldn't it be better to try and drive up revenue rather than cut jobs? What would you like the government to do about something like this?

Personally I think that exporting of raw materials and outsourcing of manufacturing and services should be made illegal! However that would mean that we would be paying a lot more for those goods and services that we enjoy at child labour prices today. That would turn that little WalMart smile upside down.

It is certainly true that through civil projects the government could create jobs but that would increase either taxes or the deficit (or both). Alternatively they could reduce taxes for all, giving people and businesses more to spend (oooh, probably not a good idea with that multi trillion dollar deficit sitting there and that massive military machine that needs constant feeding).

I agree with GenjiKilpatrick, if you want to spur the economy and see an increase in the number of jobs look to yourself; inovate, create, sell, expand, hire. Don't sit back waiting for someone to open a door for you.


>> ^bobknight33:

Nice graph. I'd would not call it a MILESTONE. But it does not do enough. What about all those who stopped looking? Those people are not counted and unemployed. They still need jobs.
You must live in a glass bubble. There are less and less jobs to be had.
I drive all around the western half of North Carolina - Every month I see another shop close here and there. It has not stopped. It is sad to see.

I feel for you that you don't understand reality but just what the Party puts out as "truth"


>> ^NetRunner:
@bobknight33: http://www.barackobama.com/jobsrecord

The fact is that the rich do provide the capitol to create jobs for products that consumers demand.
That's not the problem.

If companies would jut pay all a fair salary instead of the near zero increases every year for the last 20 years, as the one graph indicates, we would not be having this discussion.

Those above get payed very well and those on the bottom get jack.



But one could argue that the reason for stagnant wages are 2 fold.
1. Woman's rights. Women entering the workforce since the 70's causing more people fighting for the same job. ( I'm not complaining about this, just saying it)
2. Global manufacturing and outsourcing and such causing jobs to move overseas.

Because I am a nerd, the subtitles:

Lunar Materials Fluidification and Firing
Feldspar Extraction Technique and Belt-Driven Flame Kiln are proprietary to Aperture Science. Do not describe the events depicted in this scene.

Ballistic Turing Test
"Polylunarcarbonate ballistic redisintermediation" is a registered trademark of Aperture Science.

Diamond-Assisted Panel Abridgement
In the event of a clogged diamond disposal chute, DO NOT attempt to clear diamond hole.

Packing Simulation Trial
Please note: these panels are intended for simulated transportation environments only, and should not be used in an actual packaging event.

Completed Test Chamber
This test chamber was constructed for promotional purposes only, and may not accurately reflect the actual panel distribution cost of an official Enrichment Center activity.

Extra-Earth Outsourcing Initiative
Disclaimer: Any resemblance to Earths not residing in the public domain is guaranteed by the physical laws of multiverse theory, and therefore not actionable.

How It Works
This is not a dramatization. An Earth where sea mollusks have created an advanced land-based society with wholly inappropriate bipedal keyboards is guaranteed to exist.

The Multiverse and You
A Note About Getting Back to Work: In the event that you are reading this, get back to work.

(Throughout)
This Aperture Science Extra-Earth Outsourcing and Perpetual Testing Initiative Employee Orientation Video is for internal use only. Do not distribute to other Earths.

Thought they'd be karate chopping them and stuff, Americans could do this job faster...they should outsource it.

Looks like they outsourced development of the game.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

The second one. Standard VideoSift rules apply on self-linking. If we're suspending the rules we'll spell it out - as that would be a big deal. BTW I love my VideoSift mug. I can confirm it works beautifully with an Aeropress.
>> ^BoneRemake:

.. Or is this just a contest for outsourced links with a coffee focus, regular day but at the end of it you get a prize ? ?
You can understand my confusion.

.. Or is this just a contest for outsourced links with a coffee focus, regular day but at the end of it you get a prize ? ?

You can understand my confusion.

The problem is also that we as humans believe in a moral code that doesn't conform to natural law. With our moral code, only good people should get sick or hurt. People who work hard, regardless of who their parents are, etc., should have an equal chance of success. Etc.

But natural law and the social structures we institute don't enforce moral law, and often fly in the face of it. People don't need welfare just because they're lazy. They often need it because the system did screw them even though they did what they were supposed to.

I was on unemployment for three months back in 2004. Why? I was a public school teacher, and my wife got sick. We couldn't pay the medical bills and went into massive debt. So I busted by butt getting into IT for a few years while refusing to let my quality of work as a teacher suffer. After a few years of getting certifications and side work on top of teaching, in 2004 I got my first full time IT job at Microsoft Premier Product Support for Exchange. After being there for 2.5 months, MS axed every contractor support professional in that call center as they outsourced many of these support jobs overseas. I don't see how that's karma to me. I had no savings because I was in debt paying for medical bills for my wife, who certainly didn't deserve the medical problems she had.

This kind of thing happens frequently. To ignore that the system we've fashioned, or natural law for that matter, flies in the face of our moral code, is a selective view of reality. No one could possibly deserve being born with a genetic disorder - they hadn't done anything yet to deserve it!

That's the problem I have with honestly both harcore liberals and conservatives - neither side is right 100% of the time, so being ideologically rigid is insane. People do game for example welfare; others truly need more assistance than welfare currently provides, too. The answer isn't to infinitely expand welfare benefits nor to abolish it completely. We should improve on it. Same for other similar programs. The sooner people would accept that, the sooner we can actually accomplish something instead of having insane conversations that lead nowhere.

>> ^quantumushroom:

JONATHAN HAIDT: So karma, karma's a Sanskrit word, for, literally for work, or fruit. That is, if you do some work, you should get the fruit of it. If I help you, I will eventually get the fruit of it. Even if you don't help me, something will happen. It's just a law of the universe. So, Hindus traditionally believed it's, that the universe will balance itself, right itself. It's like gravity. If I am lazy, good-for-nothing lying scoundrel, the universe will right that and I will suffer. But then along comes liberal do-gooders and the federal government to bail them out.
So I think the conservative view, for social conservatives this is, is that basically liberals are trying to revoke the law of karma. Almost as though, imagine somebody trying to revoke the law of gravity, and everything's going to float away into chaos.

@MilkmanDan I'm just gonna outsource this to a post that I think nails the point I'm making home rather solidly.

The key graf is this:

Got it?
- So the statement they checked is factual.
- Politifact can't find a statement where the President takes credit, which is what they really want to fact check.
- So instead of fact-checking the fact, they instead fact check what they think the fact was meant to suggest.
- And for good measure, their argument is oil dependence went down because of the economic recovery and it would be unfair for Obama to claim any credit for the recovery.

Politifact's insane new standard seems to be:

There are no facts that a Democratic President can cite about the economy if they are good news. Once the President cites a fact, it ceases to be a fact... because facts might lead people to give the President credit, even if he didn't claim credit, and we can't have that.

Therefore, whether something is a fact or not a fact depends entirely on who says it, not on whether it's, you know, true.

Nothing you've said even seems to address this line of reasoning. The closest you come to it is by saying that you don't think there is really any difference between "half-true", "mostly true", and "true". Keep in mind that the other three ratings on their "meter" are "mostly false", "false", and "pants on fire". Clearly this is a spectrum that goes from truthfulness towards telling a lie that has no basis in reality whatsoever.

I'd be okay with a full truth rating that in the fuller text points out that Obama was implying some causation between his policies and the recovery, and try to weigh in on the state of expert opinion on whether his policies have helped or harmed the economy. But I think if their goal is to be fact checkers who rate statements with hard & fast true/false ratings, then they should stick to the clear cut and verifiable, rather than try to answer questions for which there are no objectively right or wrong answers.

I've got two more points to make.

1) I just explained above how the capital tax rate was lowered in steps starting in 1997. Conservatives always like to say that reducing taxes helps the economy. Well, we have had a 15 year test bed for this theory. Has the result been what conservatives have promised? Where are all the jobs that were to be created? It seems to me that given more of their money back, the rich just invest it overseas or in investment vehicles that do little to help ordinary working americans.

2) Let's talk about how Mitt earned his wealth and money. He earned it by effectively weakening american industry and promoting outsourcing via his vulture capital operation. His taxes should be double the 35% rate for the damage he did to earn his wealth, IMO. If you want to defend rich peoples' lower tax rates, Mitt is the wrong poster child.

>> ^renatojj:

@.


Np, glad you liked them. I'm not saying there is only one account of what went down, I'm saying that it is fact that America was most prosperous when taxes were the highest. You don't need to be a historian or theorizer to use Google and check that for yourself.

Your quick Google search brung up an article that deals only in theory, and the argument they use is that people that are taxed 0% are more motivated than people that are taxed 100% - so that the imperitive becomes to cover Govt. expenses while keeping the taxes as low as possible to maintain motivation. That makes perfect logical sense and doesn't disagree with the facts I bought to the table, that America has been most prosperous during periods of high taxation, it simply proves that low is subjective. Taxing someone who earns $10,000 50% of their income means they take home a tiny amount of money, the same tax rate on a billionaire means they still take home five hundred million dollars, more than enough don't you think? If all income was related to productivity then my argument would be different, but quite simply it's not. Look at derivatives trading or inheritence funds as a couple of examples.

Fixing tax rates is also just the beginning, there needs to be a complete overhaul of your taxation system, there is plenty of information out there that details how dozens of your fortune 500 companies are paying no tax at all (e.g. GE and Boeing), Pepco Holdings Inc had a negative 57.6% tax rate for 2010 according to this article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-usa-tax-corporate-idUSTRE7A261C20111103

So not only are the tax rates poorly thought out, the tax system allows companies that rake in billions in profits ways by which to avoid paying any tax at all (and even get refunds).

The same goes for individuals as well, Mitt Romney, who made over twenty million in 2010, and has at least thirty million stashed in over 138 investment funds in the Caimans paid close to 15% tax in that same year. That's the same tax rate that someone earning $10,000 would have to pay.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney-parks-millions-offshore-tax-haven/story?id=15378566#.Tx-lKm_9PUd

Is he using this additional money he's making from not paying his taxes for productive purposes? It would appear not... His motive is profit, and to that end he's closed plants, cut employee wages, laid off American workers and outsourced their jobs to other countries, all while he and his partners have made tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, while the companies he's invested in have often ended up going bankrupt:
http://www.romneygekko.com/mitt/

So my point is that it's a pipedream to think that lower taxes on the rich has only one effect, to make them more productive, it also carries with it a myriad of negative consequences as I've illustrated, the worst one being lobbying, which is rampant in your country. In terms of Chile, you say that all education there is state funded? Have a look at this report and you will see that the total investment in tertiary education Chile makes is probably close to about half a percent of their GDP, which is indeed lower than any other country surveyed, they are also at the very bottom of the list when it comes to actual dollars invested in public education. Meanwhile the cost of education for students is the highest of any OECD country.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/48/37864432.pdf

The reasons for that come full circle back to your economic theories. Have you heard of Augusto Pinochet? America installed him as the dictator of Chile after the CIA organised a successful air strike on the palace of the existing democratically elected leader - Allende, which resulted in his death. It's well known that Pinochet relied on the Chicago boys for economic policy, who in turn were trained by Milton Friedman. Friedman was ... the major free-market economist of his time, and it's these exact same policies that still linger around today in the education system thanks to Patricio Aylwin and others. It's clear evidence that your model has flaws, and it's also clear who benefits the most from it.

>> ^marinara:

tanks (err apc's and armored tanker trucks) are the one thing we haven't outsourced to china.


Yet.

tanks (err apc's and armored tanker trucks) are the one thing we haven't outsourced to china.