[lainde]

bttt

[bmwcyle]

Thomas is a jewel of common sense in this world.

[Taliesan]

Even when a given job carries the same title, often you cannot hold that job while continuing to do things the way they were done 20 years ago -- or, in the case of Icomputers, 5 years ago.

Let me get in one comment before the usual fists start flying...

I think the real new thing here is the increasing velocity of job dislocation as technology marches on.

So the effect is a compression of what used to happen over 100 years into 5 years' time.

Which means that a generation ago, you held one job for 40 years -- not because the process we are observing now was not happening then, but because it was happening at a glacial pace. So most people wouldn't be touched by it in their working life.

It's not that anything new is happening in the American economy. It's just happening much quicker, so we feel it now. And the velocity will only increase.

[Last Dakotan]

Maybe, but he is wrong. The workers assembling Toyotas are gaining market share against Chrysler, Ford and GM workers who are losing their jobs. Most foreign (and now sadly US plants) are simply assembling foreign made parts too. Seimens growth likewise has been from acquiring former US companies like Westinghouse. When the dollars do come home it usually consists of foreigners buying up US assets, not goods.

You can't have a $500 billion trade deficit am tell us we are gaining jobs - not gonna drink that Kool-aid.

[Xthe17th]

Manufacturing Engineer BTTT

[theFIRMbss]

>This means that resources -- human resources as well as natural resources and other inputs -- are constantly being sent off in new directions as things are being produced in new ways.

So, just as prairies
get strip-mined, populations
get cut up and used...

[no_problema]

this just makes too much sense!

why, just what will those eeconomics people come up with next? (/s)

[lelio]

Search for manufacturing and you find Save Manufacturing Jobs which is the same article.

[sixmil]

Apparently facts do not matter to those who are manufacturing confusion about manufacturing jobs.

Wow, I was just about to say the same thing. It is an interesting stretch that farmers put out of work due to technological advance is equated with factory workers put out of work due to low wage outsourcing. Where is the technological advance?

[Willie Green]

Drucker points out. "We are exporting low-skill, low-paying jobs but are importing high-skill, high-paying jobs."

Wake up, Pete.
"High-skill, high-paying jobs" are also being exported.
And the only reason transnational corporation import high-skill labor is to undermine the livelihoods of similarly skilled Americans.

[ex-snook]

"Every modern economy is constantly changing in technology and organization. "

So how come in the 90's we added 20 million jobs. It's been downhill since China was made a favored trading partner.

Patriotism needed in the war on America's jobs.

JOB - IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER.

[dennisw]

In Drucker's words, "Nobody seems to realize that we import twice or three times as many jobs as we export. I'm talking about the jobs created by foreign companies coming into the U.S.," such as Japanese automobile plants making Toyotas and Hondas on American soil.

"Siemens alone has 60,000 employees in the United States," Drucker points out. "We are exporting low-skill, low-paying jobs but are importing high-skill, high-paying jobs."

 

And the profits go to Japanese and Europeans. Not too clever Professor Sowell. In his two scenarios we are "importing jobs" in foreign corporations where profits are repatriated to Japanese and European investors who don't have America's best interests in mind. Not that our American investors do these days. American working class and middle class who serve in our armed forces are the America lovers these days. They show it by their actions while our "investor class" cares only about profits even if they come at the expense of the America he lives in.

GWBush's scheme to legalize illegal alien lawbreakers is a grossly unpatriotic insult to our working class and middle class. The same pool that our fighting forces are drawn from

 

[Gritty]

For a less cheerful (but morbidly entertaining) look at what is going on in economic America, see Borrowing to Stand Still -- Economic Commentary by the Mogambo Guru.

[holdmuhbeer]

as usual sowell hits it right on the money

[Straight Vermonter]

I like Sowell but he is being deceptive about the jobs in India when he states that "By and large, however, the average productivity of Indian workers is about 15 percent of that of American workers". I suspect this is a statement which applies to all manufacturing in India and not a statement about programmers.

Just because much of India's manufacturing is low tech labor intensive and inefficient does not mean that their programmers work at 15% of the efficiency of their American counterparts.