We used to make TVs in America. We used to make shoes. Now we don’t. There is some truth to the “myth”.
ok, so when a furniture manufacturer closes their American operations and sets up shop in China, it’s not to avoid taxes or to find cheap labor?
ping
This is not to say that there are no instances of communities suffering due to a company picking up stakes and moving out of the country; it happens all the time. But in the aggregate, it appears to be a non issue. Doesn't make it any easier on someone who lost a job, of course.
The next step is to move the corporate headquarters out of the US. Then the US operations will gradually become a small part of the business, and eventually will be sold off as too much trouble.
So, if they try to tax those multinational companies for the “profits” they make “overseas” in other countries, then those companies will pull out of here completely and then the Amerikan consumer (Clueless at best) will REALLY pay through the nose.
This hopelessly Socialist government will also start charging huge protectionist tariffs like FDR tried to do. But there will be no World War to force industrial expansion. Instead, places like China, India, Pakistan, etc, will shift the economic flow into their treasuries. We will then see the greatest depression known to the Universe........At least here on this continent.
“In fact, American companies have quite valid reasons beyond any tax advantage to establish overseas affiliates: That’s how they reach foreign customers with US-branded goods and services.”
This doesn’t explain why I can’t find American made goods on the shelves at my local stores.
It’s not jobs so much as entire industries that have moved overseas. Taxes as well as the regulatory environment are the underlying reasons. Those are the jobs that you find moving to China & ‘underdeveloped countries’.
A corporate exec is looking at his bottom line. He can either:
A. Automate to increase productivity, or
B. Move offshore to find cheaper (less productive) labor.
Neither is ‘cheap’ or cost-free in the short-term.
So outsourcing and our massive trade deficit are “myths”.
M’kay...
The company I work for has outsourced a crapload of jobs to India. The quality sucks, the timetables aren’t met, and much of the work has to be redone by someone who knows what the heck they are doing. It has also contributed greatly to the turnover of the knowledgeable few who remain here. Unfortunately, the CEO has hitched his horse to his wagon, and refuses to admit it was stupid and short-sighted.
At a street fair recently, a local bank was giving away pencils and drink coasters. I picked up two of the latter, took them home, turned one around to see a printed recycling sign, a note that it was 100% recyclable, and that it was made in China. Now imagine, if you will, a cargo ship from Shanghai filled with containers containing nothing but recyclable cardboard drink coasters. Don’t it make you feel warm and fuzzy that these drink coasters are recyclable and save the earth’s environment? Never mind the environmental damage caused by the transport, by the manufacture in god knows what conditions in China, outta sight, outta mind.