Posted on 09/18/2005 9:19:51 AM PDT by Willie Green
Angel Mills worked at GST AutoLeather in Williamsport, Md., most of her adult life. She cut, inspected, packed and shipped leather upholstery until she was laid off in June 2003 as the company scaled back local operations and shifted production to Mexico.
"It's sad. It's scary. I've been a factory worker all my life, and I didn't know what I wanted to do," said Ms. Mills, a 38-year-old Williamsport resident with a teenage son.
But by March 2004 she was taking a half-year course to become a state-licensed massage therapist. A federal program that helps workers who lose jobs owing to foreign competition paid for her training and offered extended unemployment benefits.
In July, she started working at Venetian Salon and Spa in Hagerstown, Md.
~~~SNIP~~~
Mr. Thomas said that for all trade adjustment program workers passing through the consortium, the average wage was $14.36 an hour before the layoffs, while after retraining it was $11.87 an hour, a decline that is common for factory workers who have to restart their lives.
U.S. Labor Department figures indicate that among the retrained, those that find new jobs end up making only 70 percent to 80 percent of their old wages on average.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
What, no picture?
Quote: But, of course, if you are the small business owner that files on a Schedule C, while pocketing all the profits for yourself instead of running a payroll - no, you don't qualify for state unemployment benefits.
LOL I helped finance my wife when she started her new practice. We drove around in 10 year old cars and never went out let alone for a vacation. Have you ever had to meet payroll?? We have. I also remember having to take money out of my savings to loan my wife so she could meet payroll. It was 4-5 years after my wife started to even take out a decent income
BTW: I pay myself a regular paycheck ( I W-2 myself) and I don't think I'm eligiable to lay myself off when it gets slow for unemployment. I think the state worker in charge of that would really get a kick out of that if I tried.
Over 300 people lose their jobs so that buying power is lost and the "cost" of unemployment and retraining programs is added to the unemployment cost creating a large negative to the economy. Is it really made up by the surplus money by being able to buy cheaper leather goods? I don't see it. Perhaps it's a wash but I don't see a gain.
What a load. Do you think everyone of those 500 was capable of getting a college degree. Consider yourself blessed. I know that where I work less than 50% could get a degree. In anything. Some are functionally illiterate and many have a hard time even speaking English. They are factory workers, a lot of good people, but they are not business owner material. I feel bad saying that but it's the truth.
As someone said "Higher education is by definition only for some people." Actually increasing the enrollment at the colleges/universities lowers the level of "higher" education for everyone.
And ended up being slow to adapt and technologically primitive in comparison to up-and-comers such as Japan. It's not sustainable but for a generation or two of workers able to get those choice jobs. I've lived in closed-shop states and right-to-work states. Union jobs are miserable in my experience. You hate who you work for and your job. Security isn't everything.
That's reasonable. In other words, even if I like import tax-cuts, it's wrong if it causes a greater loss elsewhere. I was convinced of the big net gain by seeing the lists of jobs that were created, the increases in pay, and amount that the economy expanded every time these taxes were cut. Please tell us what you'd be willing to accept as proof.
But you did not address my question about gains from trade. I ask, because it seems there is a common loose confusion on the subject, that the trade deficit tracks some net "score" of whether we are making money in foreign trade or losing money in foreign trade.
It simply doesn't. The trade deficit has nothing to do with whether we make money by trade of lose money by trade.
In fact, we make money by trade. When a given trader doesn't, he stops what he is doing because he has no reason to throw his money away. Nobody ever enters a trade saying "gee, here is a swell way to give away $500 billion for nothing". The myth apparently stems from one entry accounting or a fixation on the money side of any trade.
When you go to a GM dealer and drive away an SUV, you don't think you lost money on the deal because he has the cash from your auto loan and all you have is an automobile. If the automobile was a good buy for you, a transaction you entered voluntarily and happily, you are happy about it precisely because the SUV is worth more to you than the money in the auto loan.
The gains from trade mean, the fact that the money is worth more to the dealer and the SUV less, and the SUV more to you and the money less. That's why you are both happier with the corresponding item in the other guy's hand. The car dealer isn't sitting there thinking, "gosh darn it, that customer just stole one of my SUVs! Sure, he paid for it. But now he has that SUV and I don't! I've lost a whole car!"
Gains from trade exist whether money changes hands net, or not. If you did the GM dealer's showroom as a contracter, and he paid you $20K, and you bought an SUV from him and paid him $20K, there are still gains from trade - twice. Because the showroom is worth more to him than its labor cost to you. And the SUV is worth more to you than its (equal) money cost. Those two differences are the gains from the trades. If the showroom cost $25K, the dealer paid you $5K and an SUV. But was still happy about it or he wouldn't have bought it from you. That he has a $5K "deficit" with you is not something he bothers his head about.
So, again, why does this work for ordinary domestic trade, but not international - in your opinion?
You're right. Government unemployment paychecks and retraining programs probably eat up part or all of the efficiency gain here due to government's inefficiency. I noticed the federal government's "help" when I originally read the post but I decided not to mention it since it only complicates a picture that is difficult enough to comprehend for some folks.
Not to mention that a significant factor making American business costly and inefficient in the first place is excessive government regulation.
It's an unorthodox equation but many here seem to work their math in this way. It would interest me to know just how socialism will help workers and taxpayers (how are they different?) when all the evidence proves the contrary.
Believing that the employer, employee (worker) and taxpayer cannot all benefit in their relationship is usually reserved for union types and others caught up in class envy and class warfare. These same folks will argue all day long that the government has a responsibility to ensure equal opportunity and equal outcome.
"Most people are not ambitious. You need higher paying jobs for these people or else they will be on the gov't dole and on crytal meth."
I REITERATE - Plenty of my friends had the exact same opportunities (and even started school with me), but squandered the opportunity to make something else of their lives. It was the difference in goals and outlooks of life that did it. I wasn't happy living in sub-standard poverty and was willing to do whatever it took to lift myself out of it. The others..... well, they gave up and, once the unemployment benefits dried up, they were back where they started with no one to blame but themselves.
Don't give me the crap that I have to feel sorry for anyone who refuses the 2nd chance the've been given at a trade school, job retraining or college!
I did not say that socialism will help workers or not. What I said us that the dislocation and suffering caused by policy favoring the wealthiest might result in a socialist reaction.
If the rich in Russia were more willing to support the land reform ie redistribution of property directed at creating the independent and prosperous farmers, very likely the Bolsheviks would not win, tens of millions of lives would be saved and the former wealthy would not have to work as waiters in Paris.
Don't you remember that successful minority of peasants (kulaks) were seen as the key threat to the Soviet regime? Don't you remember the policy of land grants in XIX USA which created the foundation of future middle class? Don't you remember how the greed of Latin American elites concentrated the land and other wealth wealth in the hands of the few, creating mass poverty, corruption and military dictatorships?
I read Milton Freedman - I find him a moron and an intellectual fraud.
"Your so funny clock puncher.
Try the other side of the window. Just fore once try to be the guy trying to keep the ball rolling. What profit?"
Yeah - I'm sure the "clock puncher" comment is supposed to be a put-down, right? Well, the least you can do is spell "You're" properly when you try to insult someone.
No, I never have tried to start up a business of my own - simply because I know how difficult it is. I admire everyone who does it.
I've worked at a couple of CPA firms where MY JOB WAS TO HELP PEOPLE START UP THEIR BUSINESSES. I advised them of all the laws, requirements, filings, taxes, etc & got them going with their accounting. I know full well how difficult it is.
Forgive me if I sounded like I was saying that you're rolling in the dough. I know that no business owner ever rolls in the dough the first 3-5 years of any business. If you don't show a profit by then - it's time to re-evaluate your situation.
I simply would just like to say - from someone's point of view who has been on the bottom & is now out of trouble - it took a certain mindset and a determination NOT to be another victim or statistic to get out of that situation.
I REFUSE to feel guilty for those that get left behind, because they had the SAME OPPORTUNITES that I had, but didn't have the reponsibility or goals. SOCIALISM CREATES VICTIMHOOD & DEPENDENCY from which there is no way out for those types of people (because you have to WANT to get out).
It's weird how the Washington Times has been coming up with op-ed's like these. For a while they seemed to be limited to some Bush-bashing hit piece by Patty Hill, but I honestly don't remember this Jeffrey Sparshott guy. The Washtimes may be trying to 'broaden its base' by appealling to protectionists, but IMHO that's crazy. Larry Kudlow runs the place and he should know better.
OF course we could...
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