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 ...
Thanks for the tip.
It's like a line from Atlas Shrugged..from one of the villains of course, arguing through some sort of perverse logic that inefficency is actually a good thing.
No one has asked the million dollar question...what kind of masseuse?
....or going in the reverse direction some poor blacksmith is out of work.
I think we need more work on this.
cap•i•tal•ism
Pronunciation: (kap'i-tl-iz"um), [key]
—n.
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
In the future, let's try not to have any more confusion as to who controls the markets and what system has the government controlling prices.
....Free trade is not free.....
The marginal costs noted are insignificant when balanced against the benefits.
Free trade is not what gets people riled, change is what riles. The inability to accept change is a mortal disease
Nonsense?
....We must maintain some kind of low income job market for those who will never "rise to the occasion".....
We have the job market, but the jobs are taken by Mexicans who don't do drugs and who come to work every day.
Dang! we do have a lot in common, besides both being guitar-playing Texan construction workers. I have got to tell you about Panamanian construction. I've got the time sheets that prove that it costs the same per square foot to pay an American $25/hr as to have the work done by a Panamanian for $1/hr.
You are spot on by saying it's the government, not the foreign worker that we're fighting.
I don't know the specifics of why a leather factory in Mexico is cheaper than the same one in Maryland, however, I suspect you are correct that the cost of labor is a significant factor. Regulationary onus is probably another one.
Why it's more efficient in Mexico is not my argument. It's indisputed that it's more efficient (meaning less expensive) there by virtue of the leather factory being located there by those folks whose money and capital is being risked. My argument is simply that allowing this to take place through a laissez-faire free market is the best outcome and will result in a net gain of wealth for Americans. The cost of leather products to Americans is less, and they spend the surplus money to employ other Americans to meet their other demands -- including, in the end, those laid off by the Maryland leather factory. Mexicans also benefit from this. A Mexican will take a labor job at the factor in Mexico precisely because it is the best available option (to his knowledge) for employment. The wage may be miserly, and by American standards it is, but if he elects to take that wage, then it logically must be better than what his alternatives are.
Trade is win-win, that's why free people do it, and do so much of it.
hmm..pretty vague.
Um, maybe that's because they're *starting* rather than *continuing* or *finishing* in their chosen profession? Wait a few years; wanna bet their wages go up?
"I think we need more work on this"
I think we need more cowbell.
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