Rick's Cafe Americain

In his attempt to come from way back and upset John Kerry for the Democratic nomination, John Edwards is focusing on two disctinctions.  First he claims he has a better chance to beat Bush than Kerry does.  Second, Edwards draws disctinctions on their approach to trade.

Edwards beats the anti-NAFTA, anti-free trade, anti-jobs going overseas drum.  That drum does not resonate with me.  While I am not in favor of any policies that would give companies an artificial incentive to move jobs overseas, I am in favor of free trade and also view the shift of manufacturing jobs overseas as an inevitiability.

How would you identify the best and brightest? I bet the rich folks will pay tutors to get little Timmy to score well on any standardized test…

Also, I understand that ‘protectionism’ is not good, but companies getting away with paying people a third of the salary, with no benefits simply because they are in China, smacks of exploitation and I don’t think the government should be wishing them a cheery bon voyage on the way out.

I am not suggesting that we support such companies’ motives and much should be done to try and help third world countries’ working standards rise quickly.

As for best and brightest, I am not advocating some harshly tiered system, but if you compare what the average European is taught by the age of 18 or 19 compared to what the average American, they are about two years ahead of us.  I am sure that there are some elite East Coast prep schools (which was the point of the reference) that offer amazing educations, but their is usually a ceiling, that I think is too low, on how much one is generally taught by the 12th grade.  Just think about how many times we re-learned the same American history every year, or how slowly math was taught.

I think math felt like it was being taught slowly because it’s boring and horrible. Like Physics or Chemistry. They should give it all to us in one painful week in 10th grade and be done with it.

Exploitation is in the eye of the beholder.  Attorneys get more in New York than they do for the same work in Indianapolis.  The Indiana lawyers are not “exploited” - if anything the New York lawyers are (more expensive city, higher expected workload).

Exploitation in the third world does not come in the form of salary differentials; it typically comes from dangerous working conditions or coercive government.

That’s a good point Ugarte. I certainly am in favor of New York lawyers making more than lawyer’s in every other jurisdiction.