Posted on 12/12/2010 3:55:10 AM PST by Scanian
Edited on 12/12/2010 4:06:21 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Among the number of plant closings announced in the United States this week: A printing plant in Greenburg, Ind., costing 220 jobs; a tomato processing plant in Westover, Md., with 103 people fired; an office-supply facility in Mattoon, Ill., with 129 jobs lost.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
De-development of America is their vision and a positive thing and to them.
Also sad, I saw cowboy boots are made in China.
Car made in Coventry? That’ll be a rare commodity in the future.
It’s all a bit odd, isn’t it? In the UK, we looked at the French way of doing things, thought, “bunch of left wing idiots”, and let Thatcher emulate America.
Within a decade our steel industry had been decimated, our coal mining industry had been decimated, car manufacturing had been decimated, clothing manufacturing had been offshored.
In the 90s we had the Tiger economies invest heavily in the UK. Fujitsu built an £800 million DRAM manufacturing plant in the North. No union, but excellent working conditions, and productivity was off the charts and another plant was going to be built next to it, so good was the output.
Plant was mothballed within ten years.
Same happened with LG Semicon in Wales, and another company up in Newcastle.
So, up sprang low pay, “dead mans shoes” call centers, to fill the labor market. Which didn’t last long once Mumbai and Bangalore offered the same service for a tenth of the price.
Our tradesmen have been priced out of the work market, by (admittedly far more dedicated and no less qualified) tradesmen from Eastern Europe who can earn in a day here, what they’d earn in a week back home. Can’t stop them coming; they’re from EU member states. It’d be like stopping people from Alabama seeking work in California...
The main product I work with is American and I’ve recently found out that WiPro (one of the biggest Indian outsourcers) is training up a whole team of guys to compete on consultancy for that product. With the blessing of the company HQ in the States.
(Of course, as soon as those trained consultants are offering to take on work from the continental USA as well as Asia and Europe, and are undercutting the VENDOR, the management in that company will cry foul and whine - but it’ll be too late; they’ll have sacrificed their own profit margin in the name of promoting the “global channel” model. Been there, done that, seen it time and time again).
Let’s get this straight: the free market works as long as it’s a level playing field.
When you have a situation like we have in the UK where ten non-unionized workers in the UK are more expensive to hire than fifty unionized workers in Bangalore, then the Thatcherite/Reaganite model falls flat on its ass.
“If we sack those five consultants, we’ll make another hundred thousand dollars over the next financial year.” We’ve all heard it.
Trouble is, this isn’t the 1980s.
Do that TODAY, and your five ex-workers will be competing against you on your own product, from the ranks of a rival in three months, they’ll be running a team of consultants in Bangalore who can undercut you on supporting your own product within a year (so you lose contracted renewals), and you’ll be out of business in five years... you short-sighted doofuses.
Free trade isn’t the problem. Priorities are the issue. It pains me to say this but the French have got one thing right: there are things that are far more important to the survival of a business, than the Quarterly Sales Target and the P&L.
Making sure you don’t go bust because a services company in Bangalore can deliver the same service with your product, TO YOUR OWN CUSTOMERS, at a fifth of the price, is just one example.
American Philo Farnsworth invented the first fully functional television in 1927, transmitting his first image from his lab in San Francisco. A television hasn’t been made in America since 2004.According to PCWorld, December 10, 2008:
Sony has named its Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, plant as the second factory of a planned 5 or 6 that will be shut down as part of a global restructuring. The factory is Sony's last remaining TV manufacturing facility in the U.S. and the closure will see 560 people lose their jobs.Now, I think Sony's plant was the last to close in the United States, but I don't keep that sort of information at my fingertips. But I will say it took me longer to compose this reply than to prove the bozos at BusinessInsider incorrect. I'm still outraged, but not like one would expect a protectionist to be outraged. They are the ones who can't see straight.
How much of the "Service Industry" hype came from politicians, and how much from MBAs?
My company decided if we eliminated New Product Development, we could save (make) Millions.
Of course, in five years, we had nothing to sell. But many quarters looked really good, so the bonuses flowed for the Chosen.
What we have now unsustainable. Tariffs would reduce the individual tax burden, maybe even eliminate it.
Do the other nations get to put on tariffs too? Like on our Jet engines, chemicals, aircraft, wheat, corn, cotton?
They do anyway, that's the point, less demand overseas creates opportunity here.
My New Balance Running shoes are made in the USA....but it’s tough finding socks or good running shorts made in the USA.
I do what I can to buy USA products..
I found some Gold Toe socks not too long ago that were Made in the U.S.A.
How many aircraft engines are you good for, a month? How about bulldozers?
I’d by products that said “Made in the USA - by non-union workers”
Incredible story.
We tie our own hands, over regulate, then bitch about a level playing field.
If we’d dump half the EPA regs and become energy independent much of our trouble from economic to security would go away.
Look if we are going to retrench, we have to stop the bleeding. The union workers are the blame for the high costs. If we are going to kill industry, lets kill it right. Sustaining the status quo is a slow death. Maybe Caterpillars business model is wrong. Maybe they should move their factory to a right to work state? But due to corruption in government that can't happen. The country ran on tariffs for over 80 years before the income tax. So get over it.
As for as heavy machinery goes, if tariff cause more caterpillars to be sold domestically I'm for it. I am tired of seeing Hitachi and other foreign brands on construction sites anyway.
I had a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw Nixon drinking with the Chicoms in ‘72. I just knew we’d end up getting screwed.
that’s fascinating and i appreciate the details. thanks for taking the time to relate this.
Exactly. That is why Obama reneged on allowing oil exploration in the Gulf and throwing Louisiana, Texas and the surrounding states into further recession. He cares not at all for American businesses, but wants to eliminate "American Colonialism" (Think "Dreams of My Father").
I have nothing to "get over," but note that advocates of tariffs as industrial policy tend to shift back and forth between that and advocating tariffs as revenue policy. Yet when advocating tariffs as revenue (or tax) policy, those proponents never take the next step--as if to claim, "let's just raise tariffs now, and deal with all the other taxes later." How retarded is that?
Not all of the New Balance shoes are made in the USA - check the labels, many are being made elsewhere, especially their sub-lines. Also, some of the labeled USA shoes are just over 70% made in USA...there’s been lawsuits.
http://classactionblog.mdpcelaw.com/articles/deceptive-marketing/
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