Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << It's easy to complain about jobs, but what do you do when someone somewhere else will do the same thing for a fraction of the cost? >> That's an interesting argument, but not 100% true. Certainly, corporation go overseas to get slave labor for their products, but that doesn't mean American consumers get a bargain as part of the process. An example: Nike manufactures all of their tennis shoes, cloting, etc. overseas. Presumably, that would make Nike the low cost option for consumers when it comes to sporting goods and apparel. Instead, Nike takes the hundreds of millions of dollars it saves in manufacturing and dumps it into a bloated martketing budget to pay athletes for endorsements and create a brand image that allows them to inflate their prices well above the cost of manufacturing along with a hefty margin for the corporate executives. In contrast, a company like New Balance is committed to maintaining a domestic manufacturing presence. By any number of metrics (materials used, patented technologies, and different sizes of product offered to name a few), New Balance gives consumers a better product than Nike and keeps American manufacturing jobs. The price points are similar, but New Balance doesn't pay for multi-million dollar product endorsements from athletes. This is probably one of the clearest examples, but it's one of many. Corporations have been pulling the wool over the eyes of the American consumer for decades with slick advertising and cheap made in China products. They say that domestic prouducts are "too expensive," but neglect the fact that they are spending more on marketing than manufacturing to sell their second-rate goods.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <You can't stop companies from moving overseas but we can make it a hell of a lot harder to do it...why do companies shipping jobs to other countries get huge tax breaks for doing so?> Because they've paid off enough Congressmen in one form or another to get them to vote for that, and not to repeal it. If the Democrats want a winning issue in November, let them point out Republicans blocking a proposal to rescind those tax breaks (tax breaks!!) for companies offshoring jobs. <I say if an American company wants to go overseas we eliminate every tax break they get and add a couple more taxes so that the cheap labor overseas really doesn't save them a whole lot of money. Maybe then they will stick around.> Amen.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >> Our only real solution will be to come up with jobs and industries that are uniquely American, and require American workers to make<< There is no such thing. As we speak many of the so called "green jobs" are already being offshored. And yes, other countries do import stuff, even from China. But no has thrown the doors as wide open as we have. Soon it won't matter as we will no longer be able to borrow money from foreigners to buy the stuff they make.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "Yes, the sock puppets always call me out and get upset about it. lmao." She could have 50 accounts. Who cares? You are caring way too much about what other people are doing.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer The biggest political story of the past 50 years has been the way that the wealthy have made themselves wealthier by shipping manufacturing and labor overseas at the same time that they have made the government look like the bad guys. People in Dismal Seepage, Wyoming are angry as hell at Washington, DC while they keep paying 18% interest to a bank on Wall Street on the Chinese-made TV they bought at Walmart. This country used to build things. It was unmatched in industrial and agricultural might. Our cities are filled with the shells of factories that gave people work, that made them feel like contributing members of society and helped to stabilize our country in the difficult years leading up to and following the War. Now the children of those who came to great industrial centers for a better life find no jobs for them, no opportunity and no hope. Government can't solve the problem because they are a wholly-owned subsidiary of of the businesses they are supposed to be regulating. The people won't solve the problem because they are blaming the government for daring to charge taxes to pay for schools and police departments while their banks and credit card companies treat them like the hillbilly treated Ned Beatty in Deliverance. Big business is a far greater threat to our nation than the government ever could be. They have one hand around the shoulder of the Red State resident pointing out the latest outrage from Washington at the same time they are reaching into his wallet and helping themselves. All you have to do is to look at the amount of money that these titans of industry have made in the past twenty years while our wages have been stagnant or declining to see where the real problem lies.
Originally Posted By Hooper42 Mr X, I know you have at least 4 sock puppets. I don't post much, but I read a LOT. You've blundered many times, but then again, you said it, "who cares?"
Originally Posted By Mr X ***but then again, you said it, "who cares?"*** Oh, I see what you did there. I'm SpokkerJones, apparently. And to answer your question Spokker (assuming I'm not just arguing with myself lol), I call it out because I find it childish and annoying.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo I actually blame the public a lot too. If people were willing to buy quality, or environmentally responsibly by buying locally sourced products, then this would not be as big an issue either. But people want to buy cheap commodities. Over the years on LP, I have read this more and more when people kvech about prices. We cannot have it all ways sadly. And the likes of Walmart have escalated the issue further. What is scary is I went to an international conference on best business practice in Amsterdam a few years ago, where each major PLC seemed to send their top 3 candidates that were likely to become CEOs, and we were taught that Walmart was the model to emulate (and many are doing so). I did not agree, and I have moved away from that type of life a few years ago. I can't do it. And yet the right wing in particular, think that businesses are good and government are bad? Talk about priorities being out of shape.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "And to answer your question Spokker (assuming I'm not just arguing with myself lol), I call it out because I find it childish and annoying." We are all posting anonymously here. What matters is not the name next to the post, but the post itself. Also, no issues are decided based on anything that happens here. Let the person make 50 accounts that all agree with their posts. It really doesn't matter at all.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "All you have to do is to look at the amount of money that these titans of industry have made in the past twenty years while our wages have been stagnant or declining to see where the real problem lies." Bingo. Real wages have been stagnant or worse for Americans for a long time now, with one exception--the upper tier. Especially the upper-upper tier. Yet, because people are kept distracted by social issues (gay people might get MARRIED!!) and told that government--the one possible effective counterweight--is the problem, this obvious and hugely important point gets lost.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Bingo. Real wages have been stagnant or worse for Americans for a long time now, with one exception--the upper tier.<< It's even worse now. Everyone I talk to who lost a job during the past few years tells me the same thing: it took a very long time to find another job and that when they did that they had to take a large pay cut. My advice to anyone who is struggling with debt and feels they can't pay it back on their newly reduced wages: Go see a bankruptcy attorney. I say do it now because I would not be one bit surprised if BK laws were to change in the near future, and not the debtor's favor.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf American labor is very expensive because much of it is/was unionized. If American business did not move toward cheaper sources of labor, we would all be paying much higher prices for everything. This would mean people would buy fewer things, businesses would make less money and would further curb hiring. Does that really sound like a good solution? Forcing American companies to stay domestic will hurt employment, not help it. If you want jobs to stay in the U.S., go after organized labor. They are driving American companies away.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 When the highest percentage of the US workforce was organized, we had our best period of consumer buying power, and US businesses did just fine too. Consumer demand drives the US economy and always have. When you have well-paid workers, you have people who can buy things. When you squeeze wages as has happened over the past generation (and de-unionization has added to this), you have people who can't afford as much. Too many were led to believe in the past decade that their houses would always appreciate and they could essentially use them as an ATM, leading to a false sense of buying power. But that was a house of cards and when it collapsed, you have what we were left with: millions of people with depressed wages who can't buy much, many of whom are deep in debt. Depressing wages further so that we're even more like a third-world country? Not the solution.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>If you want jobs to stay in the U.S., go after organized labor. They are driving American companies away.<< Oh please. They're offshoring $10/hr jobs. And they are doing this not become profitable, but to become even MORE profitable. Prices have not come down because of offshoring. Are cars that are assembled in Mexico cheaper than cars built here? No, they are not.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>But that was a house of cards and when it collapsed, you have what we were left with: millions of people with depressed wages who can't buy much, many of whom are deep in debt.<< Witness how car sales have fallen off a cliff. They aren't even at replacement levels and I doubt there will be any significant sales growth. If anything car sales are going to crash again as we enter the "double dip" of the current depression.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<If you want jobs to stay in the U.S., go after organized labor. They are driving American companies away.>> What percentage of private sector American labor is still unionized? I know what the percentage is, but I want you, EighthDwarf, to tell me what it is. It's obvious from your statement that you have no clue what percentage of the private sector American workforce is still unionized. If you did, you wouldn't be making illogical statements such as this one. Mindlessly parroting the conservative pro-corporate talking points about "going after" organized labor is what people do who are ignorant about what little if any influence unions actually have on American businesses today. Go ahead and find the statistic. I'll wait for your response.
Originally Posted By fkurucz Other than a few cops and firefighters I don't know anyone who belongs to a union. Even our grocery stores here are non union (and they are paid a whopping $9/hr)
