Infoworld: Kerry decries outsourcing, speaks of health care, tech

[Renew Deal]

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry covered a range of issues in his Thursday night speech at the Democratic National Convention

By Nancy Weil, IDG News Service July 29, 2004

The U.S. should close tax loopholes that provide incentives to companies that want to ship jobs to other countries, provide its military with the most advanced technology, while also focusing on security and improving the health-care system, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said Thursday night in a wide-ranging speech accepting his party's nomination.

Kerry opened his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston with an appeal to "family values," a theme that Republicans trumpet and are sure to make a big part of their national convention next month. The Massachusetts senator, whose daughters spoke before he did, talked about his family, his upbringing and invoked the name of John F. Kennedy, the former Democratic president whose initials are the same as Kerry's.

The Nov. 2 presidential election, which pits Kerry against President Bush, is the first since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. that killed nearly 3,000 people, leading to the military campaign in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and changes in U.S. public policy and law, as well as reshaping the tenor of relations with other nations. Many Democrats and civil liberties groups have argued that U.S. rights have been severely eroded under the Bush administration, which contends that it is doing what it must to keep terrorists at bay and protect the nation.

"My fellow Americans, this is the most important election of our lifetime," Kerry said. "The stakes are high. We are a nation at war -- a global war on terror against an enemy unlike any we have ever known before. And here at home, wages are falling, health care costs are rising, and our great middle class is shrinking. People are working weekends, two jobs, three jobs, and they're still not getting ahead."
<snip>

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/07/29/HNkerry_1.html

This is the tech industry perspective.

[lanparty]

1. Tech industry is the SAME as the garment industry ...

They follow the cheapest labor pools that will get the job done.

It is a racist notion that brown people in 3rd world nations aren't as smart as we are. These countries are picking are pockets by highly educating their workforce and then aggresively exporting their labor at minisule rates.

Keep in mind that these countries don't seem NEARLY as interested in serving their OWN nation with products and services as they do serving AMERICANS. Instead, these countries should focus on building robust middle classes and social welfare in their own nations instead of picking the pockets of the American middle class.

I'm glad that Kerry will be pushing for NAFTA/WTO reform. I'm glad that they are AT LEAST changing the language AWAY from FREE trade and onto FAIR trade. What they'll find is that these nations will balk and that Kerry will have to THREATEN TO CANCEL NAFTA/WTO in order to get any real reform that protects the middle class.