Jesse Jackson, Jr. Pins US Job Losses On iPad

theodp writes "Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. went on an anti-technology rant on Friday on the floor of Congress, blaming the iPad for eliminating thousands of American jobs. 'Why do you need to go to Borders anymore?' asked Jackson. 'Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad, download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine.' Jackson continued: 'What becomes of publishing companies and publishing company jobs? And what becomes of bookstores and librarians and all of the jobs associated with paper? Well, in the not too distant future, such jobs simply will not exist. Steve Jobs is doing pretty well. He's created the iPad. Certainly, it has made life more efficient for Americans, but the iPad is produced in China. It is not produced here in the United States."

I'm sorry Mr. Jackson

[Cryacin]

But are you for real?

Talk about a load of xenophobe/technophobe nonsense! The trouble is not the technology, but rather that the good old US of A loves importing deflation and writing bad checks. Much easier to have a dumb populace of consumers who spend money they don't have, and then import deflation to counter it and blame a random fad technology than get to the actual issue.

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[account_deleted]

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Even more strange

[alvinrod]

Even more strange. Just last month he wanted to amend the constitution and give an iPad or similar device to every kid in school in the country [thehill.com]. Wonder what made him change his mind.

It's not an anti tech rant! Watch the f'in video!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not anti technology! The guy loves the iPad! He's just upset that the US is losing jobs to creative destruction and outsourcing and the GOP is worried about debt!!

He's bang freaking on.

Re:US has a space industry, for now ...

[Temkin]

200,000. They have artificially low property taxes, so the state appraises the houses at 5x their value to make up for the lost revenue (at the expense of people like me not ever being able to move there and the expense of companies not being able to hire people so they move to places like Austin).

It's actually worse than that... They don't "assess" 5x their value, they force high valuation by limiting development. It goes back to prop 13 in the late 1970's. California real estate was exploding, and little old ladies on fixed incomes were being priced out of their homes by year over year property tax increases. People rebelled at the ballot box and forced prop 13 on an unwilling political class. This froze property tax valuations at the time of sale. My parents still pay property taxes at rates set in 1978.

This sets up a kind of enmity between local government and housing. They know they won't get to raise their tax assessment but once every 30 years. So they have to pre-load development to cover the expansion of services, everything from sanitation to schools. They do this with very very steep permit and planning fees. There are cities in the SF Bay Area that used to charge upwards of $70,000 in planing and permit fee's to build a single family home. This then implies that every existing house with a valid occupancy permit, even a "tear down", is worth a minimum of $70k in that city.

You can then extend these tricks up and down the whole economy. Higher than average fuel excise taxes are applied before exceptionally high sales tax. Special California-only fuel blends... Electricity prices are insane ($0.249/kwh vs. ~$0.104 here in Texas), and getting worse. Those high fuel & energy costs then result in high prices for goods and services... Which again pads the bottom line on sales taxes. Lather, rinse, repeat... They've been building a closed market on the left coast for 35+ years.

I can't shed so much as a tear for them. I'm a 5th generation Californian. In 2004 I packed up and moved to Texas, and I brought my job with me. Oddly enough, my property taxes are about the same. But I got a 10% raise by loosing the income tax. Virtually all goods & services are much cheaper.

"White man's burden"

[Kupfernigk]

No, it wasn't meant as racist. Kipling was an Imperialist - it is true - but an Imperialist who believed that the only superiority of the white man lay in his technical knowledge and organisational ability (such as was taught to the ICS). He believed that the British had a duty to improve India by bringing in railways, safe transport, education and an end to backward practices like Suttee. The "White man's burden" is a verse about this - suggesting that the very best of the British should be sent out to spread enlightenment, and that this should continue even when "heathen waste and folly" brought it to nothing.

Kipling believed this, not because he saw Hindus, Moslems and Buddhists as inferior, but because he saw them as equals who had lacked opportunity. (This comes out very strongly in his book for adolescents, Kim, which as intended in part to excite schoolboys with the prospects of a career in India.) You may think this was paternalistic, but from the perspective of the time, he was pretty enlightened, and extremely pro-Indian. (G K Chesterton thought that Kipling should be buried, not in Westminster Abbey, but in a Hindu temple.)