Socialist Progressives

Have you (or anyone else here, pls chime in) been to the places in the world where workers take those 50 cent/hour jobs?

I have. I used to inspect CE factories in Asia & I had experiences in China I'll never forget. After an 8 hr boat ride up a river from Hong Kong I took a 10-hr bumpy ride on dirt roads into the heart of China. I didn't see another vehicle the whole way & I realized if we crashed we probably wouldn't be found for days. What was most profound, & what I'll never forget, is what I saw out the window for much of the ride: Thousands of people living in "lean-to" "shacks" made from scrap lumber & whatever else they could find, like corrugated metal, plywood, & cardboard. None of them had electricity, running water, sewer service or gas. But what still haunts me to this day is the children. Households threw their garbage out front (no garbage pickup here) so every "house" (aka shack made from trash) had a big garbage pile in front. And on that pile the naked toddlers (children) competed with the dogs & the pigs & the rats to pick out scraps of food to eat.

Yes. Seriously. Literally. Imagine looking out the window & watching THAT go by for 6-7 hours. I'll never forget it.

And guess what? These people were HAPPY AS HELL when a factory was built out in their corner of the jungle & they could WORK for 50 cents/hour because there were literally no other jobs available. And I bought a delicious breakfast for 2 for 58 cents US (all the dim sum you could eat plus tea) so that wage wasn't bad at all given their situation & local prices. Plus, when factories are built in these remote areas it means things like electricity, water, sewer lines, gas, & phone lines (& cell towers) come to those areas too, & dirt roads get paved, which benefits all the residents.

Now, NONE of that is Hillary's "fault." It's not Bernie's "fault." It's not the "fault" of anyone in America. It's REALITY. Go there & see for yourself. It will happen no matter what we do. The question is, what do we do in response? You imply it's bad for American workers to compete for those jobs. So you're basically saying we should allow jobs to pour overseas (to places where these conditions exist) without trying to compete for them?

How is that a position that supports the American worker? These jobs will exist no matter what we do, the question is, do we compete for them or not?