Posted on 08/18/2003 7:18:15 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
“Our trading partners treat us much, much worse than we treat them.”
— Allen E. Gant Jr., CEO of Glen Raven Inc. in Burlington, N.C.
What are people supposed to think when they see their communities lose jobs by the thousands while attracting new jobs by the dozens?
It´s easy to say we´re living in a time of economic transformation and that people have to be trained to work 21st century jobs. But those 20th century jobs have a good track record of paying the mortgage — and it makes little sense to cheerfully say goodbye to existing industries while waiting for new jobs to be created.
Recently, textile industry executives gathered for a meeting in Greensboro, N.C., to lend their support to additional quotas on Chinese textile products — the so-called “China Safeguards” that would restrict the importation of Chinese knit fabrics, dressing gowns, brassieres and cotton gloves.
If the China Safeguards are imposed, the textile industry would buy a year, with the possibility of two more one-year extensions.
“Washington can´t save the textile industry, but they can destroy it with this flood of Chinese textiles,” American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition spokesman Lloyd Wood said. “If they don´t stop that surge soon, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs.”
The larger issue is the security and salvation of American jobs — and it´s not just about the textile industry. Job security is a big issue between Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and its union, and outsourcing to foreign countries is even affecting technology workers. Recent reports from CNN.com and Time magazine detail American high-tech workers training their foreign replacements.
Those stories highlight an important truth about today´s global economy: Lots of different kinds of jobs can be shipped overseas.
Is that a good thing?
Dan River Inc. chairman and CEO Joseph Lanier, who attended the Greensboro meeting, argued this country has to produce tangible products to create real wealth. “We all can´t make a living cutting each other´s hair,” Lanier said.
What happens in 2005, when all the quotas disappear? Even with extensions, the handwriting is on the proverbial wall if our industries are forced to compete with countries that have subsidized manufacturing, lower wages, lax labor laws and environmental regulations and even slave and prison labor. While competition generally makes businesses and industries better, too much unfair competition quickly creates an unfair situation that can destroy the economies of communities like this one.
While we understand the importance of training American workers for new jobs — and new kinds of jobs — we also don´t want to lose the jobs we have today. How many more American communities will lose jobs by the thousands and attract new ones by the dozens? The question — and it outlasts the current recession — is what are we going to do about the loss of American jobs?
Body Snatcher?
Wrong.
Wealth is also created by creating organization. Although we create "tangible products", we also create efficient distribution systems, effective legal systems, software, music, businesses and educational institutions. All that is wealth creation. That's why we don't need 70% of the population in agriculture or 40% as factory drones to float our society. That's why a skilled and organized hospital staff's worth more than a cell of Gitmo prisoners.
Wealth is created only by engaging in value-added activities. By the same token, Service sector activities do not create wealth, they merely transfer, redistribute and eventually dissipate wealth as consumption. Thus, as value-added activities move offshore and the U.S. labor force shifts to the Service Sector, wealth is dissipated, not created. And the U.S. standard of living declines as a result.WEALTH: The net ownership of material possessions and productive resources. In other words, the difference between physical and financial assets that you own and the liabilities that you owe. Wealth includes all of the tangible consumer stuff that you possess, like cars, houses, clothes, jewelry, etc.; any financial assets, like stocks, bonds, bank accounts, that you lay claim to; and your ownership of resources, including labor, capital, and natural resources. Of course, you must deduct any debts you owe.
VALUE ADDED: The increase in the value of a good at each stage of the production process. The value that's being increased is specifically the ability of a good to satisfy wants and needs either directly as a consumption good or indirectly as a capital good. A good that provides greater satisfaction has greater value. In essence, the whole purpose of production is to transform raw materials and natural resources that have relatively little value into goods and services that have greater value.
SERVICE: An activity that provides direct satisfaction of wants and needs without the production of a tangible product or good. Examples include information, entertainment, and education. This term good should be contrasted with the term good, which involves the satisfaction of wants and needs with tangible items. You're likely to see the plural combination of these two into a single phrase, "goods and services," to indicate the wide assortment of economic production from the economy's scarce resources.
You think so? Don't count on that!
http://www.watermanaspen.co.uk/index.htm
http://www.samsungsdsa.com/product/bi/engineer.html
http://www.questinc.com/ito_network_eng.html
http://www.fc-tec.co.jp/english/vision/vision.html
There are hundreds more of these engineering outsourcing service companies. Why hire an American engineer when you can outsource the engineering project for considerably less? India, China, Korea and Japan have lots of engineers that are more than happy to take jobs away from Americans - but what the heck.... its “free trade”.
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