posted 11-05-98 05:38 PM ET            

In a country where Ronald Reagan can be elected president, I fail to see why people are perplexed about Ventura's winning the election?

posted 11-05-98 06:12 PM ET            

Now that I know his stance I can attack it. Thanks, Aga1!

"keep us jobs in the united states" is the platform of the Reform party? Please, find me a high tariff economist somewhere. Yes, the low paying industrial jobs are moving out of the united states due to the slave labor wages available elsewhere. But our economy is growing other types of jobs to replace them, so it's not really such a big loss. We're merely advancing our economy to a high technology and service one.

"I admire him he didnt use one negative ad." He didn't need to, the Dems were wailing on the Republicans and the Republicans were smashing the Dems. Both their names were thoroughly trashed both from their opponent's ads and the stink of using the negative ads themselves. The voters end up disliking both of them, and instead of taking the lesser of two evils, they take the guy who was nice. If Ventura had run through one of the parties in a 1 on 1 match then he surely would have lost, he's a minority governor.

"Insted of talking about the topics that all the others were talking about he olny talked about what really matters." In other words he ignored the issues and said soundbytes like "we need to stop crime" and "I care about the family." Well, we all agree on that. We want to know the plan you have. "What really matters" always has a huge stink to it.

posted 11-05-98 07:51 PM ET            

He started swearing at the journalists and ran out of the room yelling and swearing.

For some reason, I don't think this makes him anything like Ronald Reagan. Sorry, but the analogy just doesn't hold.

In addition, the most interesting speculation conscerning Ventura is how he's going to govern the state on the Reform Party platform of anti-immigrants, anti-foreigners, anti-NAFTA, anti-trade in any form, and ANTI-POLITICS when he has. . .NO MEMBERS OF HIS PARTY IN THE LEGISLATURE.

You want to know what I think?

I think the Dems and Reps are going to be forced to work with one another to build a large enough coalition to just outvote his veto power all the time. Otherwise, his pressence will make the state ungovernable. The man barely has a high school education, has no understanding of politics, and can't control himself in public (anyone read my post about politicians who win votes on "emotional appeal" and make HIDEOUS politicians?).

posted 11-05-98 11:32 PM ET            

I agree that the Reps and Dems in the Legislature will make life difficult on Ventura. There's always a silver lining in the clouds...

By the way, since Ventura's at a state level, how can he hope to institure Reform's policies? They're mostly at a national level, and states are forbidden to create tarrifs themselves.

posted 11-05-98 11:50 PM ET            

The Steel Industry died for nearly the same reason the Big 3 automakers nearly did. They were uncompetative. Japan started this amazing new concept called the micro-mill that would simply melt down and recast existing steal. It was cheaper and easier. American steel chose to go about business as usual until the market for their expensive product went away.

posted 11-06-98 12:08 AM ET            

I am willing to bet that the half of your family are also members of the union. You don't find a lot of union members voting republican. (oil and water )

The bottom line was that US Steel (the company and the industry) died because they as companies as a whole were fat, dumb and inefficient (same problem with American public education-except they don't have any real competition). The market changed and poof they were in trouble.

posted 11-06-98 12:29 AM ET            

Anyway, my two cents, not counting the two I put in earlier. I was just watching the pols fighting it out on CNN a few minutes ago, and they talked a bit about Ventura. Everybody agreed that he did what no other candidate, certainly in Minnesota, perhaps all over the country managed to to. That is, he actually talked about issues in a way that you could believe that he really cared about them, and he wasn't just saying what he thought others wanted to hear.

Now I had to sit here in Virginia and watch the Republican Party shoot itself in the foot (or was that the head?) yet another time by focusing on one sigle issue to the detriment of getting things done. Are they ever going to learn that they will never be able to out-talk Democrats, particularly with someone as slick as Clinton at the helm?

posted 11-06-98 07:15 AM ET            

My father grew up in the Youngstown, Ohio area. His childhood house is right on the Ohio river across from a series of steel mills (along with the MANY of them just up river). There's also a coal plant just down river from his small town. Many of the members of my family still live there (although it's now virtually a ghost town, the only "industry" left in Wellsville, OH is the china industry, they make dinner plates. I've been to a whole lot of restaurants recently where I saw Wellsville, OH on the back of the plate), so don't get the impression that I don't care about the region when I tell you all this.

When my father was a kid, the region was rich, prosperous and doing very well. Over half of his high school class dropped out of school by age 16 to work in the steel mills with no education for rediculous salaries like $15 an hour or more. The steel industry was surviving off of the tariff system and the steel unions had spent decades and decades trying to get all that fat wealth passed on to the employees. The entire upper Ohio River Valley region survived on steel and coal power plants. The cost of steel for American consumers was QUITE HIGH because of the artificially inflated prices that the steel industry was charging (since the tariff allowed them to do so). Other economic areas, such as American farmers (always the first to get hit by international trade problems, like NOW) were doing rather poorly because other nations raised agrigultural tariffs against American agricultural products (our largest export here in the U.S. by the way).

That's when we finally decided that free trade would be a better idea. Free trade brought about INOVATION AND COMPETITION. The steel industry in the U.S. had to suddenly ACTUALLY COMPETE, they no longer held a MONOPOLY on steel production and sale within the United States (talk about a trust. . .). The U.S. Steel Industry, having layed dormant and lazy on their artificial monopoly for so long was unable to compete against imported steel from Europe and Japan.

Meanwhile. . .(good for America) our chief exports, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS and technology soared. This spawned a major growth in the U.S. technological industry that, more than any other factor, is what has reduced U.S. unemployment to the lowest level in decades. So while we lost a bloated and inefficient industry that was overpricing American comsumers (the steel industry) on one hand, we boosted a troubled industry (agriculture) that forms our NUMBER ONE EXPORT and helped boost inovation in our market to adapt to the changing international market, the technological industries, particularly the tellecommunications industry.

Free trade DOES cause many to loose their jobs, YES. It ALSO creates enormous job opportunities in areas that one country's industries are more competitive than other countries' industries. Thus every economy becomes more specialized and more efficient and international competition spurs lower prices for consumers throughout the free trade zone. So while Americans may produce the largest supply and cheapest agricultural products and many technological items, other countries like Japan may produce cheaper and more efficient cars and other forms of technological equipment. Companies from multiple countries all enter the market, increasing competition and helping the consumer by maximizing innovation and minimizing costs to the consumer. This is often referred to as the "international liberal economic system."

So, although my father's hometown may have lost many jobs due to the closure of the steel plants, people in that community either found new industries in the region (china plates for instance) or migrated to other areas in search of industries for employment (and found it, most abundantly in the computer industry). Since establishing more free trade agreements, our economy is STRONGER, not weaker. We have MORE innovation and competition and it has fostered prosperity here in the United States. This is equaly true for areas doing poorly economically (like the rest of the world right now), because their products will then be cheaper to buy and there will be greater demand for innovation, boosting their economies by selling things to us. We are able to buy them out of their turmoil, because our success has given us the financial resources to do so, making us the consumers that their economies need. The same process can work for us when our economy fails and other economies are stronger (a visable U.S.-Japan dynamic).

So while you can blame free trade as the direct cause for the loss of jobs in the steel industry, this is in fact NOT the route cause. The route cause was an industry that had fallen behind the times and an economy that had fallen behind the international market in competitive ability. Now that we have recovered and new industries have grown to take the place of the steel industry, free trade is working FOR US. The food shortages around the world have demanded U.S. food exports (we ARE, after all, BY FAR, the world's largest food exporter as well as it being our number one export. It could be argued and demonstrated using the Great Depresssion as the example, that the U.S. economy lives and dies by our agricultural industry's strength on the international market). The reason stell failed was that it was an industry that had fallen behind the times and steel industries in Europe and Japan had far surpased it in innovation and efficiency. That is not the fault of free trade. It is the fault of the lack of vision in those that ran the steel industry.

posted 11-06-98 08:33 AM ET            

Heckler

posted 11-06-98 09:11 AM ET            

Perhaps. But this is in fact not the case in an ECONOMIC sense (you're thinking culturally, where such a statement, such as Friedman's, may be valid). ECONOMICALLY, U.S. exports go in the followin oder (from what I remember, so bear with me):

posted 11-06-98 09:51 AM ET            

Heckler

posted 11-06-98 12:58 PM ET            

Thanks for the additional info on the steel industry. I went to school in Bethlehem, Pa right up th hill from the Steel Mill (now closed) and the coke works (closed last year).

Consequently, most of my dealings with the Steel Industry was through Bethlehem Steel and focused primarily on technological issues (i.e. the efficiencies of micro-mills versus steel from base materials)

posted 11-06-98 06:24 PM ET            

I must dissagree with Aga1. Jesse's political bacground is mayor of Brooklyn Park where he was not more than a glorified council member. He had no veto power and no responcibilites that it takes to govern the state. I too watched him in the debates and Yes he sounded great, He told you exactly what you wanted to hear. Low taxes, Better schools, better roads. But he has absolutly no clue how to get it done. He would not pledge to lower taxes EVEN AFTER he was elected! He simply said "I promise to do the best job I am capible of doing" He refused to make ANY other promises because he didn't want to break his word. He had some great sound bytes and the people fell for it. I'm Sorry Ventura you can't spend more money on your programs and lower taxes at the same time.

The fact is the same guy who ran the adds for Welstone ran the catchy adds for Ventura and they worked, My god the people in this state are gullable.

posted 11-06-98 06:29 PM ET            

All of my grandparents lived in the Washington area, so I'm well versed in Barry's fiasco of a government. But who was his succesor that came in a few years ago? I forget.

posted 11-06-98 08:15 PM ET            

To check out the full story, check out:
www.washingtonpost.com

The new mayor was the financial director the DC control board brought in to fix the financial crisis. He DID fix a great deal of the problem (and was a little unpopular in just how much crap he went through to get it done. Barry was, at best, a puppet during this process). He worked in cooperation with my rep, Tom Davis (R-VA 11th), chairman of the House DC control board, to fix the district's financial problems.