Posted on 02/09/2011 11:32:17 PM PST by iowamark
bump
“German companies somehow manage to compete and pay very good wages.”
One of the reasons might be that they still enjoy the perception by consumers that ;German made’ = high quality. The US used to enjoy that perception, but this has been eroded over the past couple of decades. Deserved or not, it is a problem. Consumers will pay more for a product that they believe is truly better, but not if they think there are less expensive alternatives that are just as good, or better.
It’s not just the economics of building here, it’s that no one knows what Congress will next. It only takes one bill or ruling to make a billion dollar factory idle.
Oh, and I forgot about the legal climate. Every employee is a potential lawsuit.
Look at that inflation = 23% from 2000-2008.
He never said jobs are not going overseas, he just said that we are still a producer. Our manuafturing sector is not employing as many as many as it once did but is still producing products.
“We’re not nearly as absent manufacturing jobs as people think. Now, we might have lost sectors. I’m having a mental block. Textiles, we mighta lost a lot of the textile industry and we probably don’t make many sewing machines anymore. But there are other things that have replaced them on the manufacturing scale, and we’re not a totally manufacturing-free economy. It’s just one of the many myths that are out there.”
Of course, the workers have obsolete skills.
The total dollar value v. jobs is a serious concern, but it actually reflects incredible productivity gains.
Those gains are in large part driven by liberal efforts to make labor more expensive. That effort simply compounds the bureaucratic (Federal, state and local) effects of taxation and regulation.
Liberals have increased the cost of labor beyond its marginal value.
Hence, high productivity, high value products and high profits to a smaller group (owners/capitalists) at the expense of labor.
Exactly what all Leftist programs do...the opposite of their stated intent.
Unskilled labor is cheap and that is why jobs went overseas. You can’t build a product here and pay employees $30 per hour when the same task can be accomplished for a dollar an hour in Asia. I know that much of our remaining manufacturing is done on high tech equipment but the older, more dangerous equipment we used 25+ years ago is likely being used today in Asia.
Instead of a tariff we could impose a regulation tax. Tax imports to compensate for ridiculous Liberal Anti-Market regulations.
Maybe so BUT he sure can regurgitate 'research' information just fine!
BS. Rush deliberately "couldn't find the WSJ" article that supported his claim. It's about dollars. The whole article was based on the value of manufactured goods in the U.S. vs the rest of the world.
When China makes coffee pots for $5 and the U.S. makes them for $20 that means, in his eyes, we make more.
‘When China makes coffee pots for $5 and the U.S. makes them for $20 that means, in his eyes, we make more.’
Actually if China made coffee pots for $5 and it would cost $10 here, we would make none at all, since nobody would pay $10 for a $5 coffee pot.
BUT, those Asian manufacturers are now taking their profits (off that old 'dangerous' equipment) and investing in competing manufacturing technologies and, MORE IMPORTANTLY, improving their labor force with skills to run and maintain those new manufacturing technologies.
These moves are something that goes crosswise with the our country's union mentality.
then I guess the job would have STAYED IN AMERICA, wouldn’t it?
AMERICANS would be making it, and AMERICANS can MOVE to where the JOBS ARE, couldn’t they??
Did AMERICAN COMMUNIST GOVERNMENTS build up AMERICAN manufacturing bases?
NO! Capitalists did, using their OWN money!
Name ONE foreign company that uses it’s OWN money, until you can name where all our products come from, and which are made on PRIVATE money that invested their OWN money in R&D and development and production, All Rush’s words are just NUMBERS GAMES!
The truth is found in the Bell Curve. It is a statistical fact that one-half of the population is below average in intelligence. Since the industrial revolution, workers in the west have been conditioned to believe that they should work 40 hours per week — no more, no less — for their wages.
The average factory worker is capable of working with physical objects in a repetitive task. This person does not think abstractly or learn new things easily. I’m not knocking them, just stating facts.
You say that the market will not support paying Americans $ 30 per hour for the same job that can be done by an asian coolie at 25 cents per hour, and that is true. But the people on the “wrong end” of the Bell Curve don’t just disappear.
OK, I’ve come across as elitist, now I’m going to go whole hog and say someting that sounds Marxist: somebody is making big bucks off the labor arbitrage, so those somebodys need to pay up to fund the welfare needed to support our jobless citizens.
The Market would say, “Let them starve”, but that’s too Dickensian for me. Also, I don’t want to have to have to build a security wall around my house like they do in South America.
“Of course, the workers have obsolete skills.”
___________
Obsolete skills that are now being employed by many thousands of workers across the globe for pennies. Using machines that used to be manufactured in this country for good wages but have now gone to countries overseas. I don’t know why so many try so hard to defend companies that have screwed over the American manufacturing base.
I do drafting on the side for a company that makes beer taps, they design it here, theyhave parts made in China for pennies on the dollar, shipped here for partial assembly, then ship the parts back to China for final assy, which are then shipped back here and sold...all cheaper than can be done here in total.
Some stuff we made goes in refridgerators, too. designed here, made there, assembled here, shipped back, final assembly there, shipped back, sold here
for half the price after all that.
race to the bottom? You mean race for greater and great efficiency. Thats exactly how we want business to be run, to allocate global resources efficiently in the most profitable manner. This signals to the rest of the market, that this business is doing the right thing and that consumers are rewarding this business with more profit, thus encouraging more investment and competition.
Well, yes Apple could build it in the US, but then go bankrupt if one of their product don’t turn out well. Way too risky. Plus not every company is like Apple that can sell their product at such huge mark up based on their brand name. Majority of business out there have very low mark up
As well as an unfunded persion liability. Look at GM and Chrysler with liabilities in the billions and the US Govt with pension liabilities in the tens of TRILLIONS. No wonder firms look elsewhere for labor savings.
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