“His options: pay Americans less, hire illegals, or go out of business.”
Let’s look at US business. Their options are pay Americans less, offshore the jobs or hire illegals, or go out of business which many have.
Do you think GM and Ford can compete with Hyundai and Toyota with US workers and regulations ? Well they can’t so they offshore parts of their production just like toyota and honda do.
The real problem is after wwII the USA had the only surviving infrastructure and manufacturing base in the entire world because the rest of the world got destroyed in the war.
The USA has been living off that legacy for a long time and the legacy advantages are now running out.
Amen!!
Preach it brother~
The future depends on action on the thoughts you have noted
To live looking into a mirror reflecting the past is doom
You’re absolutely right. Many businesses can’t relocate. A concrete company, for example, is pretty much stuck where it works. However, manufacturing companies can pretty much go anywhere, and they do. As the article notes, that’s why America has lost so many manufacturing jobs. We’ve made the price of legally doing business in the US too high, and I don’t think immigration amnesty is going to fix it.
While working for as a time study analyst for a steel mill in the mid 1960s, I was surprised management allowed Japanese engineers to tour our cutting edge computer controlled rolling mill and take photos. We gave away our technology and, through the Marshall Plan, built the economies of our former enemies gratis long ago. That steel mill went broke not long thereafter. The mindboggling labor costs their management agreed to in "negotiations" with the USW union priced them out of the market too.
A lot of people (stateside) who grew up during the 50's, 60's and early 70's were born on third base, and think they hit a triple. Much of gnashing of teeth about the rich screwing the poor out of their rightful wages comes from the psychological denial of worldwide wage arbitrage and eventual parity. Unfortunately, while this denial is coursing through the nation's political culture, the GOP may take hits for a couple of decades, perhaps to the point that the nation goes full-out Chavez.
And then WE re-built the world!
But; that was what, 70 years ago!
EVERY manufacturing plant in the USA has been built and rebuilt since then.
Look around folks. We ain't in Kansas any more.
Money is like water: it seeks to move to the lowest level.
If you want to keep it in a reservoir; you'd best keep the spillways closed!