A hypothetical question about a 2nd-World Country

As I've stated below numerous times, I'm swamped at work.  We are busy, busy, busy.  We are so far behind that we occasionally look behind ourselves and think that we're in first place. 
I haven't had much time to write lately. 
However, after reading libertarian-ish stuff about economics, globalization, free trade, and economic development for the last ten years, I can see how my work stuff and my political stuff sometimes intersect quite nicely.  Theories and reality sometimes do come together! 

What follows is an email that I got from my friend and co-worker Darrell (one of our salesmen/project managers) about some display fixtures we're doing for grocery stores in Panama. 
Yeah.  
A Fort Worth TX company is doing display fixtures for stores near the Panama Canal.   
(As an FYI, there is a suburb of Panama City called San Francisco, not to be confused with Nancy Pelosi's fiefdom in California.)
Please enjoy Darrell's underlining, exclamation points!!, emoticons :)  and bold text.  Darrell types like he speaks.  Read his email, and I'll try to make my points later.... 

Greetings from Panama! It is after 2100 hours on Friday night and Edgar and I are getting ready for a good night’s rest here in the hotel.  A very brief report as we get ready to hit the hay and hit it hard again tomorrow.  

1.       The first container arrived today at 0900 at the San Francisco store – and it worked out perfectly that it was the La Cresta (what we thought would be the first store) container with all that we needed for the first install. The stores are not – as we were led to think – anywhere near ready to be open. We will have everything set up in all of the stores before they are ready to earn dollar one!

2.       The Solid Surfaces were ALL intact and unbroken. Kudos to the Jamie and the other guys at Infiniti (under the direction of Dan and Angel) for an excellent packaging job!

 

3.       The fixtures were completely intact and undamaged with the exception of one pretty big scratch (might have been done by one of the workers while cutting the foam and wrap away) on the a metal cabinet and one little bend in one of the pieces on the Checkout Counter. Extreme Kudos to one Clinton for his assistance in leading me in the packaging of all of the fixtures. It was excellence in every way possible! It is  very difficult to explain how significant Clint’s contribution was to this project!

4.       It is extremely “primitive” here in Panama City with no forklift and not even an available pallet jack to use in unloading the containers. Edgar and I worked and supervised a group of young men workers in unloading it “piece of piece by piece of piece.” It took 22 minutes to load by Mikey at Metal Shipping (In Texas) – and 2 hours and 15 minutes to unload (In Panama) – basically by hand. I have a short video of Edgar wringing out his shirt at the mid-point of the process that is priceless. He is now asleep already and snoring loudly. J

5.       Oh – the most important part…The clients ABSOLUTLEY LOVE the look of the fixtures. We are really close to getting the commitment on the next 6 of their stores. And (censored) was talking us up today about the prospects of the remodeling the rest of the 40+ (censored, not any of your damn business) stores in Panama and the 32 stores in Costa Rica. And – in the interest of a true long-term partnership with the parent company – remodeling a few dozen (censored) pharmacies and even more of (censored again; you're on a need-to-know basis) in Central America.

6.       It will be a long few days here – but the prospects are bright!

7.       Lastly, I have copied but a fraction of the Marco and Infiniti people that have contributed to this effort…and there were 19 names in either the To: or the CC: lines above (when I first tried to send this last night)!  And THAT is source of great pride for me. It should be to you all, also.  I am filled with gratitude for your help in this true TEAM effort.

Darrell (Last Name Censored)
Project Manager
The Marco Company

Ok, let's begin the economic and political and Libertarian analysis of each bullet-point in this email....

1) Shipping Containers.  These ugly metal boxes are so significant to our lives, so vital to the global economy, and so wonderful for trade, but most of us have little or no idea how much they have enriched our existence.  Prior to the invention of containers, manufacturers and shippers had to "break bulk" every time a shipment moved from truck to boat to rail to truck.  Theft was rampant.  20% losses were common. 
Back in the late 1950's a genius entrepreneur named Malcom McLean invented a metal box that could travel by truck, rail, or boat.  (Think about how many nations have different standards for their roads, their truckbeds, their railcars, and their harbors, and you'll understand the magnitude of his task.  Mr. McLean really, really, really wanted this system to work.) 
Unless you are a Luddite, a Nationalist, or a racist of some sort, you understand that Free Trade is the greatest economic concept ever devised.   Politicians rant against Free Trade, corporate lobbyists try to protect their industries from it, and government munchkins love being photographed rushing to the aid of those whose lives have been disrupted by globalization.  This makes as much sense as rushing to the aid of Blockbuster employees whose lives have been disrupted by Netflix. 
Thank you, Mr. McLean for increasing global trade by inventing the shipping container.  Because of this glorious metal box, one million people per month are leaving poverty in China alone!     

2) "The Solid Surfaces were all intact and unbroken..."  The unions hated McLean's shipping containers.  They hated the concept.  They still wanted to unload each container onto a boat when it entered each harbor, and then reload it when it went onto the rail.  And then unload the container and reload it when it went from the rail to a truck.  I swear to God, that's what they wanted to do.  You can read stories about it here.
But it's hard for The Teamsters and union dockworkers to steal from your shipment when the factory in China (or Fort Worth) puts a seal on the door and all container movement comes to a shrieking halt if the seal is broken. 
Thank you again, Mr. McLean, for inventing a shipping device that allows the Free Market to function smoothly.  Readers, unless you're in Asia, the device you're using to read this rant arrived in your nation via Shipping Container. 

3)  I'm not going to go off into who is at fault for the damage (that probably happened in the store, caused by store employees, and not by us). 
But had the display fixtures in question needed repair, the nation of Panama would've allowed Darrell to do the work. 
Contrast Panama's approach with that of The Peoples' Republic Of Canada, where a foreigner can't even carry his toolbox across the Canadian border because the Canadian government is afraid that doing so will destroy Canadian jobs.  Seriously.  Texans can't carry their own toolboxes into Canada without special permits, or paperwork explaining that it's for "warranty repair". 
Making foreign labor illegal is as harmful to your well-being as making foreign products illegal.
If you disagree, spend a few minutes questioning why we've had an embargo with Cuba since the JFK era. 

4) Point number 4 is interesting.  A guy named David Mason and I once loaded a 53-foot Wal-Mart trailer in 18 minutes.  There were about 25 skids and 30 boxes, and we did it in 18 minutes.  I repeat, and I might want this included in my obituary, we loaded that trailer in 18 minutes.  Mikey got this shipment done in 22 minutes.  And it took more than two hours to unload in Panama because they don't have forklifts!

So here's the economics question....  Which process "saved or created" the most jobs?  Loading in 22 minutes or unloading for two hours without a forklift or a pallet jack? 

Well, working without the modern tools created the most work and the most jobs.  But creating jobs is not the purpose of work.  The purpose of jobs is to produce something.  Something that people want.  Here's a famous Milton Friedman anecdote that might make the point more clearly....

The story goes that Milton Friedman was once taken to see a massive government project somewhere in Asia. Thousands of workers using shovels were building a canal. Friedman was puzzled. Why weren’t there any excavators or any mechanized earth-moving equipment? A government official explained that using shovels created more jobs. Friedman’s response: “Then why not use spoons instead of shovels?”
That story came to mind last week when President Obama linked technology to job losses. “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers,” he said. “You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”
The president calls this a structural issue—we usually call it progress.

The writer goes on to dissect a few more paragraphs of Barackaganda.  Hit the link up top to read it all, and for a more thorough explanation of the difference between jobs and production.   250 years ago, 98% of us were farmers.  That's what it took to keep us alive.  Anybody want to turn back the clock? 

5)  Regarding how much the customer loves the displays, and how we've got the potential to do a lot more stores for (censored) in Panama and Costa Rica, and elsewhere in Latin America....
I was born in 1961, on a farm between Merigold and Drew Mississippi.  If you had told me as a teenager that U.S. companies would be exporting fruitstands, bakery racks, and other display fixtures into Latin America, I would've said that you were insane. 
Don't they have trees for wood in Panama?  Don't they have metal shops in Costa Rica?  They produce lots of oil in South America, so they make their own plastic? 
Yeah, they have all the raw materials down there, but they also have a choice....
Leave them alone, and they choose to buy their freakin' fruitstands from a U.S. company.  Could they make 'em cheaper in Latin America? 
Definitely. 
But Latin America is best at growing bananas and fruit and cattle.  West Fort Worth is best at making display fixtures.  It's called "comparative advantage", and with the exception of Ron Paul, I don't think any major American politician has ever understood it.
We really would be better off if without laws stating that Olympic and Army and Navy uniforms have to be made in the USA.  For the love of God, let everyone, everywhere, do what they're best at doing.  

6)  "It will be a long few days here - but the prospects are bright!"  Compare that sentence to the current Keynesian mess that our political system encourages. 
Presidents want the economy to improve now, so they mortgage our children's' future. 
Keynesian economists want to create full employment now, so they borrow from the next generation.
Going through a recession?  Create a "stimulus", using borrowed money via loans cosigned by infants. 

But in the private sector, Darrell works hard now so that in the future we might have brighter prospects. 

7)  Darrell makes a slight mistake in that last bullet-point.  He thanked everybody for the "team" effort. 
Most of us had little or no idea of the bigger picture.  Some of us were making metal brackets, some were cutting laminated sheets, others were painting parts. 
Very few people involved in the project were aware of the big picture.  The teamwork in the process was a matter of passing each part along to the next stage, in shops located miles apart. 
If one master craftsman had tried to do it all, it would've taken years to finish.  Nobody is good enough in all areas to do something like this. 

This guy has a good explanation of why that is the case:

In the first chapter of  “The Wealth of Nations”, Adam Smith, explains the optimum organization of a pin factory. Traditional pin makers could produce only a few dozen pins a day. However, when organized in a factory with each worker performing a limited operation, they could produce tens of thousands a day. This was the reason why Smith favored division of labor.

Karl Marx believed that this "Division Of Labor" would create a "loss of self" in workers.  Karl Marx was usually full of crap. 

So here's a hypothetical question about Panama....
Are Panamanians better off or worse off because of buying display fixtures from Fort Worth, Texas?

That's all I have to say about this email. 
It's been a long, long day. 

The Tax Implications Of The X-Men Being Human Or Not Human

The X-Men are not human.  The courts have said so. 

Why would the courts care?

To enjoy this particular situation, one must be aware of the following:

1) Politicians are elected by selling exemptions to the tax code.  Sometimes these exemptions are in the form of exceptions to tariff and quota rules.  Sometimes a rule is put in place to punish a competitor.  

2) This is why our tax code is four million words long, and growing by the day.    

3) Efficiency is good.  Inefficiency is bad.  If all merchandise came into the United States at the same tax/tariff rate, we could eliminate tens of thousands of government jobs and the godawful pensions that go with them. 

4) These wasteful "jobs" will never be eliminated.  There will always be an organized groups for exemptions in their medical device / green energy / children with cooties / American flag / Bibles For The Troops / javelin / coffin handle / Scrabble tile-manufacturing industries.  These groups are more organized than you.  They'll get their exemption, and you'll be taxed to supply enough bureaucrats, lawyers and courts to keep the rules sorted out. 

Now that my preliminary throat-clearing is out of the way, here goes:  

 Toy Biz v. United States was a 2003 decision in the United States Court of International Trade that determined that for purposes of tariffs, Toy Biz's action figures were toys, not dolls, because they represented "nonhuman creatures." This decision effectively reduced the tariff rate by a factor of two.


U.S. law distinguishes between two types of action figures for determining tariffs: dolls, which are defined to include human figures, and toys, which include "nonhuman creatures". Because duties on dolls were higher than on toys, Marvel Comics subsidiary Toy Biz argued before the U.S. Court of International Trade, that their action figures (including the X-Men and Fantastic Four) represented "nonhuman creatures" and were subject to the lower tariff rates for toys instead of the higher ones for dolls. On January 3, 2003, after examining more than 60 action figures, Judge Judith Barzilay ruled in their favor, granting Toy Biz reimbursement for import taxes on previous toys.

To summarize, the taxes on imported (human) dolls are lower than the taxes on imported (non-human) toys.  There's no reason for this distinction, and it would take a dozen Library Of Congress employees to figure out which politician put the distinction in place.  The donor he did it for is probably long-dead. 

It took almost ten years and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars in expenses to make this toy vs. doll distinction.

Here's just part of one logic behind one of the official rulings.  Go here for the whole thing.  If you can read this without praying for a nuclear strike on D.C., you're not part of the 49% who pay taxes.  

It is Customs position that the intent of the committees in reaching this conclusion is to deny the doll classification to those figures which possess non-human characteristics that are immediately apparent to the casual observer. Where the non-human feature(s) can only be discovered by close examination, the doll classification may be appropriate. The phrase "close examination" may encompass the need to look closely, the need to remove the clothes of the figure, or perhaps even the need of the observer to guess as to whether a feature that appears to be non-human is, in actuality, such a feature. Most angels and devils possess readily apparent non-human features, i.e., halos, large wings, visible horns, pointed tails, etc. -6-


However, if a figure is marketed as an angel or devil, and yet appears human to the casual observer, then, again, the doll classification may be appropriate.

In HRLs 081201 and 089895, issued October 3, 1988 and November 4, 1991, respectively, we classified certain troll figures that were described, in pertinent part, as being pot- bellied, flesh-colored, erect-standing figures, having flat heads with virtually no foreheads, pointed ears, and large, upturned snouts. We noted the guidance provided by the EN, that dolls should "represent" human beings, and cited Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961), which defines "represent" as meaning "to portray by pictorial, plastic, or musical art: delineate, depict...to serve as the counterpart or image of: typify." In each case, we held that, while certain troll figures may have "resembled" human beings to some extent, it was immediately apparent to the casual observer that the subject figures did not "represent" humans, but rather represented widely recognized non-human creatures, i.e., trolls.

In HRL 085855, issued August 9, 1990, this office affirmed the doll classification of a "Beetlejuice" figure, which represented the ghost character from a popular movie and television show. The doll featured characteristics claimed to be non-human, but which could only be discovered by close examination. We stated that "[i]n order not to be classified as dolls, figures representing...other creatures, must possess appendages and features which immediately, at first glance, identify them as non-human."

Looking to the figures that have been classified as dolls in this case, we note that in most instances, the patent distortions essentially consist of such features as odd skin color, intricate headgear, capes which bear resemblance to wings, weaponry that is uniquely attached to, but is not an integral part of, the body, etc. As noted above, when a figure's non-human features can only be discovered by close examination, the doll classification may be appropriate.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.  Come quickly. 

This brings us to the related case of Kamar Int’l v. United States, 10 C.I.T. 658 (Ct. Int’l Trade 1986).

That case dealt with whether E.T. the Extraterrestrial dolls represented an “animate” object, which would result in a lower tax rate than for toys in general (the customs classifications have changed a lot over the years, apparently). The Court of International Trade agreed with the plaintiff, despite the United States’ arguments that E.T. was a fictional alien and thus not an animate object. The Court cited as precedent the classification of Star Wars toys as toy figures of animate objects because “as depicted in the movie Star Wars they are living beings endowed with animal life.” Kamar, 10 C.I.T. at 661.

I don't believe that the E.T. case should have been argued as Dolls vs. Toys. 
Dolls vs. some other type of toy woulda been the appropriate discussion. 

Globalization - Whose Wife Will She Be In The Resurrection?

This is from the Gospel Of Luke, Chapter 20:27 

Now some Sadducees, who claim there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no child, the man should marry the widow and have children for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died childless.  Then the second.  And the third married her. In the same way, all seven died and left no children.  Finally, the woman died, too.  Now in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be, since the seven had married her?”

It was during moments like these that Jesus would freak out and start throwing things and calling people "Sons Of Vipers" and "Whited Sepulchres".  He supposedly wanted to worry about the big questions.

Fast forward 2,000 years.   

If you are a U.S. citizen, you pay people to walk around the countryside, into our ports, ships, warehouses and trucks, and ask the following questions.....

Who made this?
Where was it made?
Who paid for it to be made? 
Did it ship assembled or unassembled?
What is it made of ?
For what purpose?

Billions of dollars are paid, or not paid, based on the answers to these questions.  There are tens of thousands of different import rates for different products and purposes.  It all depends on which lawmakers have been paid off, and if they've remained paid off.  (I'm working on an epic post about the tariff implications of X-Men Action Figures representing humans or non-humans.  True story.  It made hundreds of thousands of dollars' difference in the taxes/tariffs. Stay tuned....) 

Anyway, I work for a Texas company that hired a Cambodian to design this clothing fixture that was prototyped by a Serbian for an Italian clothing company and made in China under the oversight of a French manager for use in stores in Japan and Russia. 

It's called "Globalization".  I hope that you all are adjusting to it nicely.  Whatever you're using to read this rant, that device is affordable because of Globalization. 

When goods and services can cross national boundaries as easily as they currently cross zip codes, you will be able to knock another 10% off the price you pay for just about everything. 

So.... If you had to put a nationality on this clothing rack, what would it be?  Whose wife will it be in the Resurrection?  How long is a string?  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  And why does it still matter? 

On getting work done at the lowest possible price

Wal-Mart used to have a "Made In The USA" campaign.  They tried to fill their stores with nothing but U.S. manufactured products. 

The campaign folded. 

Why? 

Because you won't support it.  If you can save .75 cents on a water hose made in Taiwan instead of Tennessee, you're going to purchase the one in Taiwan.  I've sat back and watched you do it. 

But doesn't that hurt America? 

Here's a helpful chart showing the possessions of those living in poverty.  It's from the noted right-wing, conservative periodical The Atlantic Monthly:

And how long have the poor amongst us owned these riches that would make a Roman Emperor turn green with envy? 

Here's something from The Austrian Economists.  I never tire of posting this chart, mostly because I'm old enough to remember most people doing without a lot of the following:

% Households with:	Poor 1984	Poor  1994	Poor 2003	Poor 2005	All 1971	All 2005
Washing machine	58.2	71.7	67.0	68.7	71.3	84.0
Clothes dryer	35.6	50.2	58.5	61.2	44.5	81.2
Dishwasher	13.6	19.6	33.9	36.7	18.8	64.0
Refrigerator	95.8	97.9	98.2	98.5	83.3	99.3
Freezer	29.2	28.6	25.4	25.1	32.2	36.6
Stove	95.2	97.7	97.1	97.0	87.0	98.8
Microwave	12.5	60.0	88.7	91.2	1.0	96.4
Color TV	70.3	92.5	96.8	97.4	43.3	98.9
VCR	3.4	59.7	75.4	83.6	0.0	92.2
Personal computer	2.9	7.4	36.0	42.4	0.0	67.1
Telephone	71.0	76.7	87.3	79.8	93.0	90.6
Air conditioner	42.5	49.6	77.7	78.8	31.8	85.7
Cellular Telephone			34.7	48.3	0.0	71.3
One or more cars	64.1	71.8	72.8 (2001)		79.5
source: http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/extended-05.html and prior years

So tell me this....  Do you look back fondly on the pre-globalization era? 

I don't. 

My employer, Jukt Micronics, had something like 300 employees in the U.S. before we started outsourcing like mad.  We now get something like 45% of our products from China, Taiwan and Japan. 

Now that we've sent all those jobs oversease, we have 500 employees in the U.S.  Go figure.  We do the hard stuff, China does the easy stuff. 

Here's something by Erika Johnsen that I wish was tattooed on the forearms of every racist, anti-globalization idjit on the planet:

....if everybody on planet earth could just get the following through their heads so we can all move on and lead more productive lives, that would be great: When businesses find ways to do business less expensively, consumers win. Whether the business can offer their product more cheaply and consumers can then stretch their dollars further, or if the business is able to then hire more workers and grow their operation — the economy is going to grow. Which, in turn, means that everybody wins. That’s the great thing about free trade: all transactions are voluntary and mutually beneficial. When businesses outsource, they cut costs, and people in other, poorer countries with fewer opportunities are able to find jobs and income.


Everything related to this whole “Buy America” fallacy is just awful — barring even greater costs such as threats to national security, why on earth would you do something more expensively than necessary? That’s not the way to help people — buying goods from where they are most cheaply and efficiently produced is the best way to make everyone wealthier. Prosperity is not a zero-sum game, and a busy, bustling global economic village is probably just about the only true route to world peace in existence.

This sort of populist rhetoric that perpetuates these types of economic myths sorely needs to end.

Amen. 

A rant

If I have to hear one more politician talking about how their spending bill will create jobs, I'm going to go stark raving mad.  I think that in the last week, I've heard it on NPR, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

Jobs aren't created by forcing people to surrender their money so it can be used by some other favored group.  Jobs are created by trade.  People trade their skills, their time, their expertise, or their bodies for money.  If someone values your skills, time, expertise, or body more than they value their money, they'll offer a swap.  I'll give you x amount of dollars in exchange for x amount of your time. 

Unless government intervenes, these trades only happen when both parties believe they're getting the best end of the deal. 

The only way to increase these trades, their frequency, and the number of parties involved, is to lower and/or eliminate barriers to these trades.  Stop punishing people who succeed via trade.  Stop government munchkins from injecting themselves into these trades as middlemen.  Allow people to trade all over the world without penalities. 

Some employers take huge risks when they try to create something.  They sometimes lose everything that they've invested, unless, of course, the government steps in and covers their losses (type "bailout" into the top left corner of this site). 
I repeat, entrepreneurs can lose everything if when they aren't successful.   At what confiscation rate should government punish their occasional successes?

End of rant.  Thanks for listening. 

Government Motors vs Toyotas that discriminate against the elderly

You may have witnessed the Government Motors Board of Directors grilling the upper management of Toyota a few days ago.   

Here's Theodore Frank, writing in The Washington Examiner.  It seems that the Toyotas with the accelaration problems tend to discriminate against the elderly. 

In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89—and I’m leaving out the son whose age wasn’t identified, but whose 94-year-old father died as a passenger.

These “electronic defects” apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them. (If computers are going to discriminate against anyone, they should be picking on the young, who are more likely to take up arms against the rise of the machines and future Terminators).
But Toyota is being mau-maued by Democratic regulators and legislators in the pockets of trial lawyers—who, according to the Associated Press, stand to make a billion dollars from blaming Toyota for driver error.
And that is before hundreds of past run-of-the-mill Toyota accidents that killed or injured people are re-classified in future lawsuits as an electronics failure in an attempt to win settlements against the company.

So why are G.M.'s owners so enthusiastic about orchestrating a full-blown witch hunt against Toyota?  Well, after saving G.M. and Chrysler from bankruptcy, and taking a bazillion dollars in donations from the UAW, it probably seemed like the most logical step.   

American Jobs Threatened by Cheap Chinese Condoms

This is from Fox News.

In a move that will cost around 300 American jobs, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has decided to purchase condoms from foreign companies — in countries like South Korea and China — because they cost less than American-made prophylactics, the Star reported.
The agency distributes billions of condoms to poor countries around the world, but has previously used only American-made condoms because of "Buy American" regulations, the Star reported. The stimulus bill that recently passed in Congress, however, does not include that provision for condoms.

I can't imagine how much fun I would've had with a condoms provision in the umm...Stimulus...bill.

A USAID official told the Star that the agency considered the jobs that would be lost, but that the foreign condoms cost about 2 cents. American ones cost about 5 cents.
Alatech, an Alabama company that had been USAID's previous sole supplier, protested the contract's move, but the Government Accountability Office rejected the compliant saying the company had no standing, the Star reported.
Condom factory workers are unhappy about the move.
“We pay taxes down here, too, and with all this stimulus money going to save jobs, it seems to me like they should share this contract so they can save jobs here in America,” Fannie Thomas, who has worked at Alatech for 40 years, told the Star.

Ok, seriously....How much would you as a taxpayer be willing to overpay for condoms for someone else to use? What percentage? Is it equal to the percentage you'd be willing to overpay for an AIG exec to get a really nice bonus? How much more would you be willing to pay for an iPod made in your hometown? Or does it only make sense to spend the taxpayers' money in the most efficient way possible?

“I’ve made condoms here for 20 years,” Cindy Robinson, a $9.50-an-hour employee at Alatech, told the Star. “I understand why they bid the contract overseas, but they should buy American first, and I feel they are going back on their word.”

Cheap f***ers.

Brown Eyed Girl, American Soldier, Afghanistan

I went to Fred's Cafe tonight with some friends (see previous post about Fredburgers, especially the comments at the bottom).
The band was playing Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl".
I mentioned this video, no one had seen it, I said I'd post it.
This is what could be so great about globalization if only the nutcases among us would let it happen. Here you have an American kid singing something by an Irish musician accompanied by a roomful of Afghan soldiers.
The circumstances of everyones' being together aren't the best, but at least it looks like they're having a good time.