LET'S TALK ABOUT "YOUR" JOBS

Nealz Nuze ^ | Wednesday, February 18, 2004 | Neal Boortz

[beaureguard]

Jobs .. and the economy. Those seem to be the issues that are driving many, if not most, of those who are supporting the Kerry candidacy.

First of all ... I'm going to repeat this simply because it makes the whiners so unbelievably angry. Listen up. They're not your jobs! The jobs belong to the employers .. not to you! You have job skills and, presumably, a willingness to work. Your task in a free economy is to get out there and find some employer with a job who needs your skills ... and strike a deal.

If you do not have the particular set of job skills that an employer needs, of if you have priced your labor out of the marketplace, guess what? It's not the employer's fault. The fault lies with you. Either develop a new set of job skills that are actually in demand, or adjust your pricing. The employer knows what he's looking for you. If you're not it .. it's your problem, not his.

Now ... you say you're going to vote for a Democrat this year because of jobs? You mean to tell me that you're going to vote against George Bush this year because you don't have a set of job skills that are in demand in our free marketplace? Yeah .. that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Tell me. Just what do you want the president to do? You information technology people out there .. just what are you demanding? Do you want companies to stop outsourcing IT jobs to India? OK ... tell me how to do that. These companies aren't shipping parts overseas and completed products back. All they do is ship information overseas by phone lines or the Internet. Then that information is modified and shipped back the same way. What do you want the government .. the president to do? Do you want some federal law that prohibits companies from transmitting information overseas by the Internet, having that information transformed or modified, and then shipped back? And tell me just how do you enforce that law? Does that law then apply to you also if you seek information from a company that is located overseas, thus depriving a domestic company of your business?

Ditto for manufacturing. I've already told you the story about the California company that makes computer mouses. (computer mice?) This company ships the components to China. The mouse is assembled in China and shipped back, then sold for around $40. Why? Because the assembly is cheaper in China than it would be in the US. So, you say you want the president to force this company to have that mouse assembled in the US? Fine .. then the price for the mouse goes up to about $70 a pop and sales drop. As the sales drop the jobs of the people in this country who manufacture the components for that mouse go away. Then the 100 marketing jobs this company supports in California also go away. You see, perhaps you can succeed in forcing this company to assemble these mouses in the US, but there just isn't any way you can force the American consumer to pay 80% more for the "made in America" version.

As Bruce Bartlett says in an article listed in my reading assignments, "No nation has ever gotten rich by forcing its citizens to pay more for domestic goods and services that could have been procured more cheaply abroad."

What we are seeing here is a demonstration of the "government owes me" mentality of far too many Americans. Every time you arrive at a speed bump in your life's journey you start screaming to the government for help. Sure, the speed bump is going to slow you down a bit ... but just keep moving forward and things inevitably pick up speed again. Americans are becoming helpless whiners. The more helpless you are, and the more you whine, the more likely it is you're going to vote for a Democrat. Democrats specialize in stroking the malcontent.

Congratulations, whiners. At a time when America if fighting World War IV, the war against Islamic terrorism ... you're going to vote for a candidate who wants to treat terrorism as a freaking law enforcement problem because you've made some pitiful jobs choices. Pitiful.

[valkyrieanne]

When NAFTA was passed, many companies couldn't wait to ship jobs to Mexico. For most, after dealing with poor quality in the products sent to Mexico for manufacture or assembly, the jobs were quietly returned to the US after a couple of years on average.

Actually, jobs outsourced to Mexico through NAFTA are now being sent to China - which underbids the Mexicans in the cheap labor department.

The best labor rate for corporations: slave labor.

[MEG33]

What ever happened to the belief in creating new companies,innovation? Small businesses keep this nation working.
I think this dot com bubble and the unrealistic stock prices,salaries,have made a group of bitter ex employees..they blame the Bush economy,not the Clinton economy and the "gamblers" who fueled the companies with their exuberant buying of stock.

We have been losing manufacturing for decades.We have recessions ever so often and the chicken littles act like it'll never end.(Yes ,my husband did not have a job and we had two kids in college once so I know the pain)

[Wolfie]

If you have a job that "Americans won't do" it means the wages you are offering are too meager.

That's the old paradigm. The new paradigm is "I don't care about your job, as long as you vote for my candidate".

[Taliesan]

We can trade conspiracy theories later, but first we were talking about why soldiers fight. You were worrying that they wouldn't fight for bad companies. I'm arguing they won't fight for any companies.

Nobody died in France to protect the loans of the bankers.

[Taliesan]

We've been losing farmers for longer than decades.

We will all starve.

[Doodle]

Haven't you heard the saying "Freedom isn't free"?

I have never heard that phrase used as a rationale for protectionism.

[Poohbah]

Well, navyblue was proposing allowing every nation in the world to nationalize American property, secure in the knowledge that America wouldn't do anything to them.

It's a pretty stupid idea.

[Taliesan]

I have never heard that phrase used as a rationale for protectionism.

Now you have. It used to mean "People died so you could be free."

Now it means something like "If you want to make a profit you must employ me at a living wage."

Doesn't quite mist my eye like the old one, but to each his own.

[valkyrieanne]

What if we added Mexican states to the US and harnessed that lower cost labour to be in direct competition with China's lower costs?

Good luck - because you simply cannot compete with Chinese prison and slave labor.

It's amazing how many of these "free trade" arguments sound like the arguments made by slaveowners prior to the Civil War. Both the antebellum South, and multinational corporations today, owe their profits to *someone else being enslaved.*

[A. Pole]

The best labor rate for corporations: slave labor.

Free market disposable labor is cheaper. Slaves you need to feed well, house, make sure that they get enough rest, and care for them when they get sick. With commodity labor, burned out or disabled workers can be tossed out and replaced like a tire in a car.

[Taliesan]

What percentage of the profits of multinational corporations are derived from slave labor?

[hedgetrimmer]

Sorry, the corporate officers do not have individual liability in lawsuits against corporations.

[Taliesan]

What should American companies be forced to do for burned out or disabled workers?

[valkyrieanne]

I'm still waiting for someone to open up that nationwide chain of stores that sell only "Made in America" goods.

Check out Hot Topic: last time I was in their store I checked labels, and a good 80-90% of the products were "made in USA." In my city there is also a good resale market for Hot Topic / Torrid (sister company for plus sizes) clothes. The resale shops won't touch the made-in-China crap but will buy and resell these clothes.

[Sloth]

You have job skills and, presumably, a willingness to work. Your task in a free economy is to get out there and find some employer with a job who needs your skills ... and strike a deal. If you do not have the particular set of job skills that an employer needs, of if you have priced your labor out of the marketplace, guess what? It's not the employer's fault. The fault lies with you. Either develop a new set of job skills that are actually in demand, or adjust your pricing. The employer knows what he's looking for you. If you're not it .. it's your problem, not his.

It's really both, since neither of us is getting what we want. And if I *do* possess the skills that the employer needs, but the employer's policies obstruct 'striking a deal', then it's their problem. Many companies (large organizations in general, actually) have come to resemble corrupt, bureaucratic socialist governments more than capitalistic enterprises, with an apparent desire to protect their status quo instead of maximizing profits.

What we are seeing here is a demonstration of the "government owes me" mentality of far too many Americans... The more helpless you are, and the more you whine, the more likely it is you're going to vote for a Democrat. Democrats specialize in stroking the malcontent.

Government *does* owe me. For one thing, I pay taxes & am owed on account of that, but let's set that aside for the moment. Government owes me because it kidnapped me as a child via the mechanism of compulsory education and taught me that certain things were true, when they weren't. This "education" included what was ostensibly job training. Since I now know that the government fraudulently misrepresented what it was offering & wasted years of my life in the process, you'd better BET they owe me.

As for voting for Democrats, that would simply be stupid and/or evil. Doesn't change the fact that our government defrauded me when I was too young to even realize it.

[Nazgul]

You ask who the jobs belong to. At one time they belonged to the employer. These days, we have affirmative action, various government rules, regulations, and restrictions, a variety of subsidies, and a variety of tax rules.

The employer lost - and, in many cases, exchanged for subsidies - the autonomy that is claimed in this article.

The powers that be ignore motivated voters at their peril.

[navyblue]

What do you propose to do to fix the crisis you created with this policy?

That I created? I'm not the corporation that decides to abandon America for the cheap labor market. When they decide to abandon the U.S. that's the chance they take. It's called cost benefit analysis. They stand the risk of being nationalized.

I'll agree with you on your other matters of tort reform, regulation and taxation though.

But as for your scenario of people eating dog food, I see the same kind of a situation if people are not able to find a job in our own country that would pay them at least a livable wage. And such would be the case if our labor pool is drawn from all of the Americas as is the plan under CAFTA and FTAA. Match any willing employer with and willing worker! Those were the words and as we have been told before, our president says what he means and means what he says.

So address that please.

BTW! I voted for Bush!

[the OlLine Rebel]

Bravo to you! :D

[hedgetrimmer]

Among the goods produced by Chinese Christians imprisoned in the laogai are the Christmas decorations sold by many American retail stores every Christmas season. "Let there be no mistake about it — China persecutes Christians," Wu declared. "Yet it is the largest manufacturer and exporter of Christmas products to the United States."

But the export of laogai goods is hardly a seasonal enterprise. "According to the Chinese government itself, 200 different kinds of laogai products are exported to the international market," stated Wu. Describing the laogai system as "an integral part of the national economy," Wu has documented that "one third of China’s tea is produced in laogai camps; sixty percent of China’s rubber vulcanizing chemicals are produced in a single laogai camp in Shenyang; the first and second chain hoists to receive direct export authority are laogai camps in Zhijiang Province; one of the largest and earliest exporters of hand tools is a camp in Shanghai; an unknown but significant pipe works in the country is a laogai camp...." Another illustration of the economic role played by the laogai system is found in the recent discovery that "auto components from the Beijing laogai were being used at the Beijing Jeep joint venture involving Chrysler."

From 1998

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a400387.htm


A prisoner's food rations are determined by how much he or she works.


Juvenile prisoners are forced to labor

[navyblue]

We can trade conspiracy theories later,

I don't deal in conspiracy theories. It was taught in a "Recent Britain" History class. Britain, from 1871-1918.

It was in fact the real reason for the U.S. entering the war. And you certainly can't deny that many died in France.