Rage's Tom Morello leads protest at NAMM Show

[milod]

Jax.... Yeah... And even in the US there are very, very different marketplaces and regional economies.

 

Also, in this area both Republican and Democrat delegations in Congress have been pressing for enforcement of country of origin meat labeling laws already on the books. You can tell where your shirt comes from, but your beef may come from anywhere in the world and you have no idea. I'd add that the same is true of fresh fruits and vegetables.

 

A lot of people don't realize how Canada, btw, probably still has laws requiring Canadian content in media. It's kinda hard for me to find out how local rodeo folks did, btw, on the Canadian circuit and I'll wager the reverse is true. And those folks travel back and forth all the time. One of our top barrel racers is a good example.

 

I'm not complaining about the above, although it was a problem when I ran a small magazine. But I think that as the world shrinks, I would not be surprised to see some increasing consideration of "local content" in various goods and services being required to be from the nation of the "customer."

 

That latter ensures a greater degree of corporate nexus for tax purposes and is kinda a backdoor into a degree of protectionism which one may, or may not, agree with. Bottom line is that it's an awfully complex issue.

 

Right now North America is more of an open market than many realize, too. Again, there may be political and economic arguments for and against that are pretty complex.

 

As for those Korean workers... Frankly I feel for skilled craftsmen everywhere whose jobs disappear to lower wages or places where government subsidies make labor much less expensive. But again, look at jobs in North America - including Spanish-speaking North America - lost already to offshore makers with little or no comment.

 

m

[NeoConMan]

Anytime I hear the phrase "For the workers" or "workers rights" I immediately think Communism.

Upon closer examination of the statements made during protests or testimony, I find I'm usually

accurate in my assumption. As Cruzn said, you rarely have to dig very deep to find hypocrisy.

 

Morello is a smart guy, but he tends to wander toward the PollyAnna Idealism.

Of course, the lemmings will follow because he's a celebrity.

That's what happens when you have enough money that you can afford to sit on your *** and hang out

with all kinds of bleeding-heart idealists who want to change the world with Other People's Money.

 

Morello could put his money where his mouth is, and encourage some of his affluent friends to do the same.

Maybe they should BUY Cort, put the factory where they want it, and pay the workers what they think is fair.

Then they could put their product on the market and see how it sells, using the Worker's Lament for marketing.

Money is what it's all about, and all the "rights" and "protests" in the world will NEVER change that.

 

:)

 

I saw a news piece a few weeks ago where Mexican workers are suffering so badly now because

their jobs are disappearing at an astounding rate, for two reasons.

 

1. The soft American economy means fewer goods exported here for purchase - nobody is buying.

 

2. Big American companies (so evil!) are moving production out of Mexico to cheaper Pacific countries.

 

 

I don't have a problem with stuff made in China as long as

(a) I know it was made there and

( it is priced accordingly.

 

Right on Jax.

I know this is a crazy fxcking idea, but maybe more of us should try a little harder to buy American, eh?

I look at the country of origin on everything I buy, no matter how cheap, and it is always a factor in my decision.

 

Back to the guitar world, the only guitar I'm gonna buy from the East will be from Japan - if at all.

I already own an old cheap-*** Danelectro reissue made in Korea, but I bought it used - and CHEAP.

Nobody got rich from that purchase.

 

One of these days I'll buy a vintage original or a Jerry Jones to replace it, and sell it.

CHEAP.

 

Keep *****ing about American guitars and their prices, keep buying imported sh!t of dubious origin/quality,

keep supporting trade with governments who would cut our throat in a second, keep buying on price alone.

 

Sooner or later, there will no longer be any American guitar companies.

With their recent troubles, Gibson may have already begun that slide down the slippery slope...

Look at the car industry here if you don't believe me.

 

And don't think for a second that Gibson or any of the other fine builders here will get a government bailout...

[Murph]

+1 Neo.

[Mr. Natural]

I'm a Tony Lama man myself. Tom Morello may or may not wear Nike or New Balance, but if he's playing at NAMM, he's not raging against the machine; he's part of the machine.

[Murph]

I'm a Tony Lama man myself. Tom Morello may or may not wear Nike or New Balance' date=' but if he's playing at NAMM, he's not raging against the machine; he's part of the machine.[/quote']

 

+1.....

 

Wisdom......

[milod]

Yeah....

 

I think here we're talking economics and in ways "culture" more that "politics."

 

I fear losing Gibson, Martin, etc.

 

But I don't really feel I have answers given what I've seen happen to the American (I include Canada and Mexico) marketplace overseas on agricultural products. The fall of the so-called "Iron Curtain" gave eastern European countries an advantage dollarwise in Western Europe. But few folks realize that, or what's happened.

 

It seems increasingly that you don't miss your water until the well runs dry.

 

Guitars are a huge "North American Thing" it seems to me. We have a huge marketplace here. I've played some Mexican "small shop" guitars and worry a bit about construction and wood quality in my part of the world with a far different climate, but Mexico doesn't seem to export guitars under their own names, at least not where I could see it excluding Fender. Mexico, the US, Canada... we all seem to love guitar music.

 

Mexican veggies supply much of the market in North America, but face it, those are low wage jobs for relatively uneducated workers and high wage jobs for corporate folks who couldn't plant a seed if their lives depended on it.

 

It seems from here that the world has shrunk and nobody has thought how to cope with that very well except the Chinese. India has some advantages in a North American marketplace for workers because of widespread knowledge of the English language. But that's in the "services" sector like banking, software, etc.

 

Again, corporately the Chinese seem to be doing rather well. But Neo, I've always considered "communism" there far less Marxist and far more an extension of the thousands of years old "bureaucracy" that always held sway there under a different "emperor" and perhaps a stronger ongoing system called "the party" instead of inherited crowns.

 

BTW, I'm wearing mostly Tonys too.

 

m

[NeoConMan]

But Neo' date=' I've always considered "communism" there far less Marxist and far more an

extension of the thousands of years old "bureaucracy" that always held sway there under a

different "emperor" and perhaps a stronger ongoing system called "the party" instead of inherited crowns.[/quote']

Yeah....

I can't disagree with you at all on China in that regard.

I was painting with an admittedly broad brush to expedite the point in a post bordering on the verbose.

 

In the end, it's ALWAYS the money.

The power, the advantages of this or that, who's right or wrong...

Give me about three steps and I can usually turn it around to money, or the pursuit of wealth.

 

 

 

Before guitar manufacturing came to Korea, what were those "workers" doing for a living?

For many, it was subsistence, at a 'hand to mouth' level somewhat akin to what we call gardening.

Back up one generation, and you'll see for sure that currency often did not change hands in trading.

Not for the common folk anyway...

 

The Evil Capitalist in me says pull all the guitar manufacturing out of the country and let 'em grow vegetables.

That'll show the ungrateful bastards.

 

Maybe then the Big Picture will show Morello and his Minions to be the single-issue/narrow-minded clueless

buffoons that they are in most cases - incapable of managing their own finances, let alone a corporation.

 

Harsh, I know, but true.

[jaxson50]

The thing that worry's me is that we will lose the ability to make things, grow thing's etc. That is the only thing that saved us during WWII, for every man carrying a weapon there were twenty people building weapons, mining the ore that all our allies used, growing the food to feed the warriors and our allies.

I try to buy American, we haven't built a TV, or a washing machine, or a radio, in years. If God forbid we ever found ourselves in another world conflict like WWII, would we have the knowledge and the skills to do what we need to survive?

Trading jobs for low priced good's isn't a good deal for "the workers" it is also a bad deal for our national security. We need to be self sufficient. Then there is the question of where do we stop? What jobs can not be done in India? China?

They have CEO's there too you know, and they earn about 15% of what our CEO's earn here. I think we should fire all of our CEO's and hire CEO's from India and China, they could run us into the ground as well as these losers we have running Chrysler and GMC. Think of how much more return on investment stock holders would earn if we didn't have to pay those big salaries that American CEO's are paid?

What's good for the Goose?