Cynical Nation

Something else we can agree on. That is seriously fucked up.

What's even more fucked up is that Target lets its pharmacists refuse to prescribe the morning-after pill, but they sell this.

Mother! Oh God, mother! Blood! Blood!

A hundred and forty BUCKS for a 10" toy!

Now that's REALLY obscene!!!

Come on! This cheesy toy's worth maybe $40, if that.

I bet Janet Leigh and Alfred Hitchcock are both spinning in their graves...no royalties.

The customer is king, so the free market will sort all of this out, no need to scream for Religious Right legislation.

The market WILL sort this out Barely. You have that part right.

If enough people think this toy is worth the $140, it'll be a huge money-maker, if their target consumers feel the way I do, that it's waaaay over-priced, it'll fail.

The market does the very same thing with wage rates. When a skill is high demand, more workers are drawn to that field.

Some GREEDY workers, who got in early, hold these "newcomers" in disdain and try to bar them through any number of artifical barriers.

Sometimes government must step in as a referee, for the sake of the economy, of course, to ensure there is as close to a free and unfettered access to the labor field as is possible.

In some fields thuggish Unions keep prospective employees out, the Teamsters, the AMA and ABA have all successfully done that, while some fields are completely controlled by the employer - Municipal Police, Firefighters and Public School Teachers are hired by Municipalities, usualy based on competitive entrance exams and hired as needed by the Municipality.

The market-based sytem ONLY works IF the customer is KING!

Is that really a toy? That's, that's...I have no words.

There are a lot more 'offensive' things sold than this. I think this is pretty funny myself.

Hey JMK, why isn't the government importing Oil & Gas companies for the sake of the economy? I bet the Chinese and Russians could deliver it cheaper than our bloated American corporations.

Why is it OK for rampant protectionism to interfere with American consumers getting the best deal? Why did the government step in to stop Japanese companies from giving us great deals on computer memory, selling it below cost?

Why does your wonderful Big Government only righteously step in to stop Americans who educated themselves from capitalizing on their hard work and good choices by flooding the labor market with cheap and often illegal foreigners?

Your one-sided tale of fairness is bullshit. Either you believe in free markets, or you don't. You believe in Corporate Welfare and Big Government.

Liberal.

Actually Lukoil (a Russian Company) IS delivering oil & gasoline to the United States, so, for that matter is Citgo, a company owned by Venezuela.

It's actually U.S. oil that's cheaper!

Energy companies based here acknowledge that it costs only about $20/barrel to bring U.S. oil from ground to market, BUT the world price of oil is over $70/barrel, so that determines the cost.

That's where I disagree with Bill O'Reilly (generally a very smart guy), who believes that "during war time," our government shouldn't allow companies that take oil from the ground here to charge the market price...in effect espousing price controls for oil.

Wage & Price controls were imposed by Nixon in 1973 and had disastrous effects for many years afterwards.

No, the WORLD price of oil is what it is and that MUST determine cost in any market-based economy.

How can Exxon-Mobil, for instance, justify to its investor/shareholders, selling oil for $20/barrell that they could sell anywhere else in the world for $70/barrell?

They can't!

Foreign (cheaper) competition has been good for America's auto industry, improving quality and pricing and yes, sadly forcing many U.S. auto-makers to re-define their employee benefits plans.

When the cost of employee pensions and health insurance exceeds $5,000 per vehicle, that company can't compete in a global market with that kind of albatross around its neck.

So, yes, we DO HAVE foreign oil companies selling oil and gasoline here in the U.S., foreign auto-makers competing within the U.S. auto-market and yes H-1B visas bring in a little extra labor to reduce the costs created by certain labor shortages - ALL of that benefits the American consumer greatly.

You make the mistake of thinking everyone works for a living, when in fact, we live in a nation where only 51% of the people pay an income tax!

Sure, many of those people earn less than $36,000/year and pay no income taxes, after the (EITC) Earned Income Tax Credit is factored in, others, like many former NYC cops and firemen get 3/4s of their salaries tax-free on disablity retirments and others earn their money solely from investments (like one brother and two of my cousins and many, many of their associates do).

It's a whole different world today than it was just forty years ago.

Nearly half the population has absolutely no stake whatsoever in either Income Tax rates OR such things as H-1B visas and foreign competition.

In FACT, those in the "Investor Clsss," especially those that earn their entire livings from investments, tend to see foreign competition, free trade and the lower consumer prices they bring, as very good things.

After all, lower prices usualy means higher volume sales and higher volume sales means more profits and more opportunities for investors.

My cousin John would quickly point out, "Hey! Nearly every worker today is also an investor, so they should begin thinking more like investors too."

For the life of me, I can't fathom what you can possibly disagree with in this very simple and direct statement;

The market also controls wage rates. When a skill is in high demand, more workers are drawn to that field.

Some GREEDY workers, who got in early, hold these "newcomers" in disdain and try to bar them through any number of artificial barriers.

Sometimes government must step in as a referee, for the sake of the economy, of course, to ensure there is as close to a free and unfettered access to the labor field as is possible.

In some fields thuggish Unions keep prospective employees out, the Teamsters, the AMA and ABA have all successfully done that, while some fields are completely controlled by the employer - Municipal Police, Firefighters and Public School Teachers are hired by Municipalities, usually based on competitive entrance exams and hired as needed by the Municipality.

Creating barriers to a given field of endeavor/employment serves to create an artificial labor shortage in that area. Now, if you believe that the current workers in that field OWN that field, then there’s nothing wrong with that particular act of unmitigated greed, but they DON’T own the fields they work in and so we can’t allow them to control access into various labor fields.

It's bad for other workers, it's bad for employers (Companies) and its really bad for investors.

You creeps took a perfectly good post about toys and wrecked it. Congratulations.

(Even I think $150 is too much for that but I'm not a doll fan.)

"The market also controls wage rates. When a skill is in high demand, more workers are drawn to that field." -- JMK

Exactly JMK. We agree. If Big Government, the Nanny, hadn't stepped in and flooded the IT market with over a MILLION foreigners, our country would have produced an incredible bounty of highly educated and highly skilled computer experts. In fact, they were in college, fighting for their Computer Science degrees.

But no, the market was NOT ALLOWED to work. The corrupt, bribed Corporate Welfare gang jumped in and gave this incredible high tech advantage to INDIA. I watched as they came over here with only book learning, and left with real experience ... well, a few of them left.

So, due to this corrupt interference, what happened? Computer Science was quickly abandoned. Who in the hell would go through that torture for no reward? Soon the MBA programs were bulging with more and more parasite wanna-be investment bankers.

Your corrupt heroes gave away the future. Where is the "innovation"? It's in INDIA now, morons.

Think about all the work that went into building our IT/software/internet dominance ... and we just gave it away. Trillions and trillions of dollars, all in exchange for short-term cheap labor to benefit the bloated few.

Unlike the Japanese, who fought hard to beat the American automakers with superior products over decades, India was simply handed the entire computer industry on a platter, in a matter of a few years.

Rush's lies won't change reality, no matter how many times your repeat them.

The government, ours, as well as any other, has the right and duty to control the parameters of immigration.

There is no Bill and has been no Bill to eradicate the H-1B Visa program because it is wildly popular with BOTH Parties.

As that great graphic you posted showed, the number of H-1B Visas rose from under 50,000 in 1992 to over 900,000 by 2001.

The current occupant of the WH actually lowered the limit from a high of 195,000/year down to its original 65,000/year when they were last up for review back in 2004.

Not even Maxine Waters...not even Cynthia McKinney espouse eradicating the H-1B Visa program and they're currently the two of the more radical members of the House.

I agree with McCain who said something along the lines of "If we're not producing ENOUGH IT professionals then it stand to reason we're not producing the BEST either and we need to import those who'll strengthen our workforce."

I disagree with him over cheap migrant workers, his view that "No American would, or even COULD pick produce even for $50/hour," is wrong.

And with the current state of our educational system - we made NEED those jobs!