Posted on 08/19/2003 10:13:15 AM PDT by luckydevi
Exporting Jobs by Walter Williams (August 19, 2003)
Summary: It'd make far more sense for Americans to start attacking the real sources that have contributed to making foreign operations more attractive to those at home. It's more effective than caving to the rhetoric of leftist and rightist interventionists who mislead us with slogans like, "How can any American worker compete with workers paid one and two dollars an hour?" when in reality our real competition is mostly with European workers earning a lot more.
[www.CapitalismMagazine.com]
Among George Orwell's insightful observations, there's one very worthy of attention: "But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." Let's look at a few examples of corrupted language, thought and information.
Pretend you're a customs inspection agent. There's a cargo container awaiting a ship bound for foreign shores. You ask the shipper, who works for a big corporation, what's in the container. He answers, "It's a couple of thousand jobs that we're exporting overseas to a low-wage country."
What questions might you ask? How about, "What kind of jobs are in the container?" or, "Are they America's high-paying jobs?" Most people would probably say: "You're an idiot! You can't bundle up jobs and ship them overseas!"
A job is not a good or service; it can't be imported or exported. A job is an action, an act of doing a task. The next time a right- or left-wing politician or union leader talks about exporting jobs overseas, maybe we should ask him whether he thinks Congress should enact a law mandating U.S. Customs Service seizure of shipping containers filled with American jobs.
Let's turn to the next part of the exporting jobs nonsense, namely that corporations are driven solely by the prospect of low wages. Let's begin with a question: Is the bulk of U.S. corporation overseas investment, and hence employment of foreigners, in high-wage countries, or is it in low-wage countries?
The statistics for 1996 are: Out of total direct U.S. overseas investment of $796 billion, nearly $400 billion was made in Europe (England received 18 percent of it), next was Canada ($91 billion), then Asia ($140 billion), Middle East ($9 billion) and Africa ($7.6 billion). Foreign employment by U.S. corporations exhibited a similar pattern, with most workers hired in high-wage countries such as England, Germany and the Netherlands. Far fewer workers were hired in low-wage countries such as Thailand, Colombia and Philippines, the exception being Mexico.
The facts give a different story from the one we hear from the left-wing and right-wing anti-free trade movement. These demagogues would have us believe that U.S. corporations are rushing to exploit the cheap labor in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Surely with average wages in these countries as low as $10 per month, it would be a darn sight cheaper than locating in England, Germany and Canada, where average wages respectively are: $12, $17 and $16 an hour.
Let's look at a few of the reasons why some U.S. corporations choose to carry their operations overseas. Much of it can be summed up in a phrase: less predatory government and the absence of tort-lawyer extortion. While foreign governments can't be held guiltless of predation, their forms of predation might be cheaper to deal with than those of our EEOC, OSHA, EPA and IRS. Plus, tort lawyer extortion and harassment in foreign countries is a tiny fraction of ours. With each tort lawyer extortion and expansion of predatory regulations at federal, state or local levels of government, foreign operations become more attractive to U.S. corporations. Free trade helps make those costs explicit. American workers are just about the most productive in the world -- however, our government and legal establishment have reduced that productive advantage.
It'd make far more sense for Americans to start attacking the real sources that have contributed to making foreign operations more attractive to those at home. It's more effective than caving to the rhetoric of leftist and rightist interventionists who mislead us with slogans like, "How can any American worker compete with workers paid one and two dollars an hour?" when in reality our real competition is mostly with European workers earning a lot more.
This is really not very hard to understand. Families that can not afford to stay together split apart. Children are then mostly raised by a mother that mostly gets her money from men that mostly want to screw her. Mostly there is no Dad around cause if Dad is around then Uncle Suger Daddy (Uncle Sam) will not give she goodies like food stamps, welfare checks, eraned income tax credits, etc. Plus Dad is pretty much useless cause there ain't no jobs. And why are there no Jobs cause yall free traders sent them all over seas.
Hope this helps to explain things.
Jobs/work are a vital part of keeping a cmmunity moral and together. Without jobs, in one or two generations you have rampit drugs/prostitution/crime.
I know I live there.
There is a funy twist to things that I haven't figured out. These societies turn matrearcial (females lead) and men of means are reguarded the same as men of no means, which is to say not highly reguearded at all. The women develop characterists that are decidely male. Fighting, drinking, gambeling, chasing younger men. All very sad.
So if "free trade" is what caused the moral collapse, why was there no moral collapse in the poorer communities in the 1930s (as you claim)?
To a degree there most definitely was. "Dead End Kids" hinted at the problem, gangs and delinquency rising as the family structure breaks down. Remember the scene in "Gold Diggers of 1936" where Joan Blondell pleads that if Dick Powell backs out of financing the Broadway show they desparately need a lot of the chorus girls are going to be hooking ?
By 1940 things were sorting themselves out. In the booming wartime economy the damage was healed. It takes more than 10 years for a working class to sink to underclass level. But then again, that was in the context of the more Christian culture of pre-1965 America. Things move quicker now.
So which is it? Yesterday you were saying it was one of the most moral and church-going times in our nation. What was different about that period of extreme poverty than now (even though we really are much wealthier)?
Great. Even if this is true, where are we without jobs? The unemployment rate, a lagging indicator, is 6.2%. Do you realize the rest of the world, including Europe, would love to have 6.2% unemployment right now?
I don't blame crime on poverty. That's what Democrats and Leftists do.
"A job is not a good or service; it can't be imported or exported."
Then he writes " Let's look at a few of the reasons why some U.S. corporations choose to carry their operations overseas.
Hey Walter 'operations' is what 'jobs' is.
Sounds like they should move to another town.
You need to remember that unemployment rate is counted differently in different countries. Also the safety net in Europe is different.
Comparing unemployment rate in US with that of France or Sweden is like comparing federal income tax with the total tax in those other countries. Makes you feel good.
Different meaning better?
I guess I don't.
FR gives me great pride in my country though. Where else can people that are unemployed sit around and hang out on the internet all day and talk about jobs that they are above doing, yet complain about there being no jobs? Now that is one wealthy country. God bless America!
You forgot to mention we're all doomed.
Such comparizons are very tricky. I know something about this 20% in Poland, but I will make no comment.
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