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To: CSM
Let me ask you this, is it more acceptable for me to automate a mfg. facility and eliminate jobs or is more acceptable to move jobs to lower cost regions of the world?

It wasn't me you asked, but I'll answer.

Innovation is good economics. Slave labor and low cost labor stifle innovation, whether the cheaper labor is in the next state or in a foreign country.

However, there is a huge economic difference between moving a factory from one state to another, and moving a factory from the US economy to a foreign economy.

When a textile mill moved from a northern state (i.e. PA) to a lower-wage southern state (i.e. NC), the PA local economy suffered some readjustment, while the NC local economy improved, allowing more of NC consumers to purchase automobiles, washers, dryers, refrigerators, etc. that were being manufactured up north, which in turn provided additional jobs in PA manufacturing to re-employ the former PA textile workers.

This worked economically because, and only because, PA and NC belong to the same United States and play by the same rules. This does not work economically when factories are packed up and shipped to foreign low-wage countries, especially countries that impose punitive tariffs and quotas on imports from the US (such as China and India).

186 posted on 04/18/2005 2:10:31 PM PDT by meadsjn
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To: meadsjn
This worked economically because, and only because, PA and NC belong to the same United States and play by the same rules.

This is not true at all. The reason those industrial jobs left Pennsylvania for North Carolina was that PA and NC were not playing by the same rules. Industrial jobs left the Northeast for other parts of the U.S. precisely because people living in those other parts of the U.S. had a lower standard of living (and therefore were willing to work for less money and/or worse working conditions than their counterparts in the Northeast).

The primary force behind the movement of jobs overseas has not been "cheap" competition from overseas, but the elimination of socio-economic variations right here in the U.S. between different geographic regions. The demise of the U.S. as an industrial power began once these variations in economics and working conditions were gradually smoothed out by Federal legislation/regulations like OSHA, Social Security, minimum wage laws, labor laws, etc.

209 posted on 04/18/2005 4:58:12 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (I ain't got a dime, but what I got is mine. I ain't rich, but lord I'm free.)
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