Matt75

Are Subsistence Wages Killing the US?

Well, when a person in one of these 3rd world countries makes $5 per week at a normal job in his country and then an American Company comes in and offers him $35 per week, the guy acts like he just hit the jackpot...

So basically that company has paid for an entire week's worth of work in India or China that would have gotten him 2 hours of work in the US.

That is why companies go to foreign countries for labor.

Housing Affordability Proves Elusive

Well, it all depends where you live. For instance, here in the Western New York area, there was no boom to speak of, so now there has been no bust....just slow and steady growth, which earned this area 3 of the top 10 rankings for best real estate markets(Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse). Our housing prices are among the most affordable in the nation, with many nice houses available for under $125,000. I cannot for the life of me understand why people decide its better for them to move elsewhere so they can earn an extra $1000 per month, only to pay that much or more back out of their pocket due to the higher cost of living in a lot of places, which in some places borders on the absurd.

Are Subsistence Wages Killing the US?

Here is a question I'd like to know your answer to. Exactly how do unskilled, uneducated laborers who do a job that a monkey could be trained to do on an assembly line all day deserve to be paid $28/hr while educated, skilled managerial workers get paid about $15-16/hr?

If anything is ruining the country its the fact that people who do unskilled work get paid lots of money while skilled workers get less, due to unions that somehow convince companies simple jobs are worth $28/hr.

Unfortunately what these workers are now realizing is that companies are growing tired of paying these kinds of workers a lot of money, when any other non-union company would be paying the same workers $10-12/hr or less to do the same job.

Sorry, I don't see anything wrong with paying people a fair price for the job they do. Apparently you have a problem that these companies refuse to pay 2-3 times more than what a worker is worth.