The Jobs Problem

Newsmax ^ | Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2004 | Paul Craig Roberts

[Diddle E. Squat]

It is 5 am and still completely dark outside. It has been dark for 11 hours now, and is not getting any brighter. Clearly this is going to be a jobless sunless recovery morning.

[looscnnn]

But as more people work low income jobs or are unemployed, your buddies will get less work. How will the people be able to afford to get things fixed or built if they can bearly afford to make ends meet?

[null and void]

They ended up creating false impressions of their economy until the crap hit the fan, the truth emerged and they folded.

Good thing that would never happen here...

[null and void]

Are you wearing your Nomex suit, you're liable to get flamed for that comment.

No, but I do have asbestos underwear.

[looscnnn]

Consider that if we don't do something (keep the jobs here) that it could happen. We have no proof either way, because this type of situation has never happened. Ever hear of the saying "look to the past to see the future" (or something like that)? We really can't compare what is going on now to what was happening in the 70s & 80s or any time before that, because of the technology that we have today to move a majority of jobs to countries where wages are less and the effiency & productivity is kept intact.

[EGPWS]

The Jobs Problem

Working too many hours because of a lack of available people to keep up with demand.

For some strange reason however we have been able to pick up a few out of work union workers.

I wonder why?

Must be corporate greed induced. /sarcasm

[RiflemanSharpe]

Obviously, U.S. job growth is far from enough to absorb the monthly inflow of immigrants
And yet we're going to grant another amnesty?

I'm going to have a very hard time voting next November.

You are not only one. My father in law told me over Christmas that he was beginning to think that and I quote, "Voting republican is getting to expensive for me."

[looscnnn]

What happened to the Soviet Union, not Russia, has nothing to do with "from agriculture to space age in one leap". It is possible to do that, just steal technology from a country that has what you want. Just look at Soviet Union, China and Russia. Japan still use tariffs, see http://www.japantoday.com/gidx/news215257.html and http://www.abc.net.au/businessbreakfast/content/2003/s914919.htm If I recall, tariffs are considered protectionist.

[looscnnn]

All those are valid points, but they do not explain why companies like IBM is moving jobs overseas. See my post 37 about this case. They still need to hire and train the new employees and find office space, all the points you made. Your right that the economy does not create jobs itself, but it does drive companies to create jobs.

[looscnnn]

Well that is a possiblity if nothing happens.

[WI Conservative 4 Bush]

Excellent post. We've discussed this before. That's why my company hires temps, then transitions the good ones into permanent hires.

Secondly, the best thing we can do as a country is reduce the barriers to job creation here in the U.S. We will never be able to 'level the playing field' when Chinese manufacturers pay 29 cents an hour with no unions and little safety enforcement.

We need tort reform (would help drive down health care costs, and allow creative people to more easily start businesses), we need looser regulation of business, and we need smaller government/entitlements. BTW, I wouldn't want to be the employee of an actual union. The writing is on the wall, so to speak.

[looscnnn]

Count yourself as one of the lucky ones, could have been like the IBM programmers. Your job for today is to train your foreign replacement.

[easytree]

Your 100k gain makes sense when you look at unemployment in Jan 2001 at @ 4% versus Dec 2004 at 5.7% unemployment. Economists have said that 4% is full employment because of job movement within the country.
Where do workers go? They do what I have had to do. Be flexible, continue to get more education and experience and look for opportunities. Our market economy is tough on folks who only want to do one job for x dollars, when the market leaves them.
Your Japan analogy is tough to follow. Japan has been in a slump for 10 years because they can copy and make products cheaper, but they are not good at innovation and small businesses. The situation is compounded by woman entering the work force and very monolithic culture. Manufacturing decisions are based on cost, and customer location in most cases. If shipping is too high then best to locate your factory close to the customer. Wages represent a smaller % of total cost due to productivity gains due to technology.
US workers now work more hours than even the Japanese. I am not sure that is good long term, but it makes the US very competitive.

[EGPWS]

Count yourself as one of the lucky ones, could have been like the IBM programmers. Your job for today is to train your foreign replacement.

Yea, a sad scenario.

I went through the same thing when working for the railroad. My job eventually evolved to training my replacement...from scratch, because union rule dictated seniority prevailed over capabilities so they informed me that I needed to train a person outside of my field so I could be laid off for costs saving to the company.

Needless to say, I quit and found a new profession before I let the hammer of unemployment hit me.

[looscnnn]

"they are not good at innovation and small businesses."

Ummm, what about Aibo and Asimov (I think that is what it is called) those are real inovations. Sony, Toshiba, etc. were once small businesses and look at were they are now.

I agree about economy being hard on people that will only work for x amount, it has for a number of years.

"Manufacturing decisions are based on cost, and customer location in most cases. If shipping is too high then best to locate your factory close to the customer."

Someone should tell Kia that. If wages are cheap enough, the cost of shipping is a "necessary evil".

"Wages represent a smaller % of total cost due to productivity gains due to technology."

Problem is that the ability to easily move the technology to other locations levels the playing field as far as productivity and effiency. Wages become the determining factor.

[Alberta's Child]

Americans who are having their jobs replaced are required to train their replacements off shore.

This is the one big problem I have with Post #37. Americans who are having their jobs replaced aren't required to do a damned thing -- they can walk away tomorrow, and leave their employer in a bind. In fact, someone with that kind of initiative might end up doing very well for themselves. Someone who is paid $80,000 per year is earning about $40 per hour. If this person walked away from his job tomorrow and his employer still needed to get those Indians trained, he could probably go back as a consultant and charge the same employer about $150 per hour for the same damned work.

I think it's about time we stopped looking at the U.S. work force as a bunch of people sitting around in an orchard waiting for apples (jobs) to fall out of the trees. They may have to wait a long time for those apples, because the ones who bring a ladder and pick their own apples aren't going to leave much behind.

I also think a lot of these complaints about "First World jobs going to Third World countries" is a lot of nonsense. If someone in China or India is just as capable of doing a certain job as someone here in the U.S., then either China and India are no longer Third World countries, or the U.S. is no longer a First World country. For that specific job this is the case, at least.

[pissant]

There is a reason why Home Depot & Lowe's are making a killing selling home improvemenmt materials. There is a reason why construction spending TODAY is the highest in 20 years. There is a reason why Manufacturing in the US is experiencing the great productivity and highest output in 18 years. That reason: The US economy is growing at a healthy clip. It's as simple as that. So if the economy grows, that means someone is creating that wealth and jobs. Just because your particular industry/location may not see it, does not mean that applies to the entire country. Even with the NE and NW and California in fairly rough shape, the 4th Q is expected to grow at 5% or more.

That's how my buddies will continue to prosper: by building homes in a growing economy.

[RLK]

If all the jobs are going overseas, how come the Mexicans aren't following them?

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It's hard to swim across the Pacific ocean and other nations are not so lax on immigration.

[B4Ranch]

___________________SITUATION REPORT______________________

Twenty years ago a high school drop out could get a job in construction, trucking, or manufacturing, and still do pretty well for himself. Well enough to own a car and afford some type of housing, by the age of twenty.

One by one these jobs have been outsourced, or filled by a wage suppressing immigrant, lowering the expectation and living standard of many Americans. Such is not suppose to be the case. In raising the boat of third world nations we have sunk the boats of many average Americans. Meanwhile those that stick it out through college are finding their jobs outsourced and their options limited.

Why do you think so many people my age are enraged, we know what has happened, we know America is being stripmined, and youth who has never known anything else, raised in the fed propaganda camps, have no clue of how badly they have been robbed.

You are merely parroting the propaganda of the enemy like a good little public school student. There are not that many white collar jobs and in fact all jobs have been artificially manipulated out of the country, or by immigrants in country all due to deadly socialist government policies and freedom robbing Free Trade.

52 posted on 01/14/2004 5:15:38 AM PST by MissAmericanPie

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[looscnnn]

Um, your comment about this?