Posted on 01/02/2014 7:05:10 AM PST by SeekAndFind
A friend recently got stuck when he tried to explain to his son, who was struggling to find a job, how our economy got to be the way it is. He asked my help since I am a well-known crank on the matter. I offered him three short anecdotes:
Last summer I was in a Home Depot standing in front of a veritable mountain of new air conditioners. They were all from China, which was no surprise. But to be annoying I asked a passing clerk where they were made. He was a young man, hired more for the spring in his step than his knowledge of international sourcing. We both looked at the boxes, piled in a pyramid, eight levels high. The boxes didn't say anything about China. But they did say "Made in PRC."
"Are these from China?" I asked.
He paused a moment. "No, they're from Puerto Rico."
Or consider this example from last month: A textile factory in Italy caught fire and seven workers were killed. They were all imported Chinese nationals working for Chinese companies operating in Italy so they could put a "Made in Italy" label on their cloth.
A third example: The city of New York decreed a few years ago that each bedroom in the city must have a carbon monoxide detector. There are roughly 11 million bedrooms in New York City, so the law created a huge market.
Further, the devices have a life of five years, after which they must be replaced, so the continuing market was also guaranteed. A manufacturing enterprise could hardly find a surer customer base.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
And concentration camps for those that can’t cut it, those with limited IQ’s, those that would normally be perfect for filling manufacturing jobs?
I lived and worked in Nevada,Utah, and Arizona during half the 80’s and all of the 90’s.
The building boom was a direct result of illegal labor. Every residential building, and most of the commercial building was overflowing with cheap labor.
On commercial jobs in the 90’s, I watched starting wages for a journeyman metal framer go from 26 dollars an hour to 14 dollars an hour. The illegals learned the trade and were willing to work for 10 dollars an hour.
You could not find a supervisor or management job if you weren’t bi-lingual.
From a builder’s point of view. Illegal help is almost free. No insurance, no workman’s comp, no union headaches. Somebody gets hurt, they disappear because they have no papers. Somebody complains, ICE gets a phone call and the worker is rousted at his home in the middle of the night.
And it’s not just building. Look at the factory farms, and the meat packing business. Now that the latinos have moved up, most are now being taken over by africans and middle easterners.
My brother is a small business owner & I used to be his office manager so I know the struggles of trying to keep a business afloat in these troubled times. Heap Obamacare on top of all the other rules, regs, and confiscation of profit via every method Congress can think up and you have the reason why China, etc. are doing all the manufacturing ... it just doesn’t pay to do it here in the US. Get government OUT of business as much as possible ... free market, free enterprise. The “will” is still there & America has lots of entrepreneurs with ideas, but the “way” has been taken away by an overbearing, intrusive, confiscatory, Big Brother/Nanny of a government. For jobs to COME BACK to America, Big Government needs to GO.
Of course not. They can continue to do what they've always done: become journalists.
That's the constant refrain of a singular Freeper (who shall remain nameless).
I've talked to him until I'm blue in the face about HOW to bring jobs back to America, but he has little interest in effective solutions. He prefers to spam every job related thread with his slogans.
I hear your frustration and share it. “Bring the jobs back” is ‘moron-mantra’.
I get really, really frustrated hearing Lars Larson’s diatribe against tariffs to level the playing field, “free trade” & all and that it will all even out.
‘Splain that one to me...
Educate ourselves. Here’s a place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
Study Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Learn about wine-and-cloth until you can explain to others why it has always made sense and created greater wealth for a country, city, region, company, or individual to specialize in the good where it has comparative advantage, and trading that good for the other things that are needed. This is all that’s going on between the US and China at it’s heart.
An intelligent person will instantly see the oppportunity. Rather than bemoan the shifting of production to lower-cost regions, find ways to take advantage of it. Research the value chain to understand where the profit zones are, and talk with users and customers to understand what they need that is not being provided - that is where opportunity lies.
Examples are all around us. Take the iPhone for example. One option would be to bring iPhone production to the US where it would raise the manufacturing cost to the point where only an elite few could afford to buy one, and Apple could not sell enough to stay in business. Until the inevitable failure happened, it might create a few hundred or even a few thousand jobs.
Or, do what Apple did and take advantage of low-cost manufacturing in PRC and elsewhere to produce the best product at the lowest possible cost. Sell millions of them, and enable others to use their intellectual assets to create software and accessory products. How many jobs have been created as a result of the iPhone? How much wealth exists within the Apple ecosystem?
Comparative advantage is an integral part of free enterprise economies. It’s only when gov’t gets involved with its misguided and always failed attempts to “create jobs” that economies collapse and unemployment results.
Capitalism, works every time it’s tried.
Some guy who makes surfboards in California wants to sell them in Taiwan. Cool. Comes up with order, but then problem. Taiwan has a tariff on imported surfboards. However, surfboards come in duty free. Now, not only can he not export his surfboards overseas to Taiwan, but a Taiwanese surfboard company can export them into the US duty free.
This happens all the time to our companies. Many other countries protect their industries while we favor let everything in approach. I don't know what the 'correct' approach is.
But, 'we' are more productive and innovative than ever before here. We are so productive we destroy jobs here.
Globalization has been great for countries that built up after WWII and other less developed ones. US, not so much.
The middle class was a fluke here, created by the destruction of Europe and Asia.
You forgot to post the actual solution to bringing back American jobs. Care to tell us how it can be accomplished?
I actually wrote this a few weeks back, but I’d like to repost it in this thread:
-
If I were to be made King and Dictator for a day, here’s what I would do the following to fix the situation:
1) APPROVE KEYSTONE PIPELINE
2) LOWER CORPORATE TAXES TO CANADA’s LEVEL (15%).
3) REPEAL OBAMACARE.
4) KILL THE ESTATE TAX ( AKA DEATH TAX )
5) DO NOT TAX ANY REPATRIATION OF CORPORATE PROFITS THAT COME BACK TO THE USA. ALSO, MAKE TAXATION OF PROFITS AND INCOME TERRITORIAL.
6) MAKE EVERY STATES RIGHT TO WORK STATES.
7) MAKE EVERY MUNICIPAL, STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR PENSION AND HEALTHCARE THE SAME WAY MOST PRIVATE COMPANIES DO.
8) IMPLEMENT THE PENNY PLAN IMMEDIATELY TO SOLVE OUR BUDGET AND DEBT PROBLEMS:
http://www.conniemack.com/issues/penny-plan/
9) OPEN UP MORE OF OUR FEDERAL LANDS TO DRILLING.
10) IMPLEMENT THE CHILEAN MODEL FOR SOCIAL SECURITY.
Well, that’s a lot for one day.... but you want the economy to boom and create jobs ( and prevent them from going overseas)? Let’s start with these...
The only problem with this is, both of our political parties are in bed with China, as well as all the funding - but China’s system is very strongly based on a system of bias toward Chinese.
Americans cannot live in China permanently, unless they are of the Chinese race.
Americans cannot own Chinese manufacturing. Not in the majority. American companies operate in China as minority “owners”.
All manufacturing in China, is majority owned by Chinese. All manufacturing in China is likewise done, by Chinese nationals.
Every time you buy something imported from China, you have eliminated an America worker, in part. Do that with 60% of everything sold in America (or whatever is the current rate) and you are eliminating a significant portion of America’s working class.
There are five times as many Chinese, as Americans.
China could absorb every single job in America.
FIVE TIMES OVER.
America needs to start playing defense, now.
Do not interpret my opinions as those of someone who is against China.
I am not.
I am however (strongly) against the willy-nilly way in which America’s future is currently being sold to Chinese production lines.
America needs protection. America needs to produce things, and support our own nation in the world.
Stop selling out America.
Now.
The unnoticed and unmentioned 9000 pound gorilla in the room.
Automation is in the process worldwide of eliminating jobs that are suitable for lower-IQ people.
They won’t ever disappear entirely, but they will become a smaller and smaller part of the job market. This is a worldwide process, it is simply more obvious and farther along in higher-wage societies.
This was predicted in considerable detail 15 years ago in The Bell Curve. Every one of their predictions has come true and accelerated.
They wrote the book to encourage society to have a debate about what to do with those people for whom there is no real economic demand. IOW, those for whom there aren’t and won’t be any decent jobs.
IMO, another IQ point falls out the bottom of the economy every two or three years, and it is probable the process is speeding up.
Since you are asking the serious questions that much be asked, I’ll take the liberty of reposting the following link:
http://www.bcg.com/media/pressreleasedetails.aspx?id=tcm:12-144944
Boston Consulting Group has been leading the effort to educate businesspeople on the return of US Manufacturing and “reshoring” for the past two years or so. Their research reports with specific details as to why this is happening, which regions will benefit most, and which industries will be most affected can be obtained from their website (registration may be required but it’s painless). BCG is one of the top consulting firms and they have received accolades for their work in this area, despite skepticism from some quarters who just demand “bring back US jobs” :-)
The bottom line is BCG echoes the point I made - it’s all about comparative advantage, which includes much more than just the cost of labor. Read the reports. It’s the best stuff out there that addresses the question you ask.
Thanks for the link. I have bookmarked it for reading.
Reduce Corporate taxation. Also, simplify taxation. Tax fulfillment costs have become a significant burden on smaller businesses.
Reduce the vast panoply of EPA and other environmental regulations. Companies aren't going to relocate to a country where wood stoves can be declared illegal.
Remove arbitrary, vindictive Government (we all remember Gibson's guitars, I hope).
Get rid of Obamacare. America isn't France. Companies need employees to work more than 29 hours a week, and that's only a small piece of the anti-competitive madness pouring out from Obamacare.
Well, hope this was helpful.
Not to mention Mexico. Called AT&T customer service and it was in Mexico.
There are two huge problems with this.
A very large percentage of the underclass is not capable of being significantly productive. Their IQ is too low. There is no real demand for anything they're capable of doing, and this will only get worse.
Even for those in the underclass who are intellectually capable of contributing to society in a significant way, many if not most have learned attitudes, habits and ways of thinking that will prevent them from succeeding, even if they have a desire to do so.
WE DO NOT KNOW how to change such attitudes, and if we did, attempting it without the consent of those involved would be an egregious violation of their rights.
Here's my proposal: First, we bring American jobs back. Then, we profit.
That would result in a Chinese company being established in the US, which would import the circuit board, casing, and box from China, have illegals stick the board into the case, and the case into the box, which would be labeled "Made in USA".
It's not a solution. The solution involves radically gutting the EPA, Dpt of Labor, and OSHA regs so it stops being unworkable to operate in the US.
As stated by Professor Henry Higgins: "By Jove, I believe he's got it!"
All the posters above you with their comments on regulation, taxes, etc. - they were merely dancing around your well-made and central point. OTOH, US manufacturers can be rightly and properly accused of failing to account for the full cost of doing business in overseas locations. Taking manufacturing overseas has become the panacea response to the overreach of government in all the ways pointed out by others here. That's poor management, IMO.
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