Whirlpool Unveils Plans to Slash Workforce by 10% (another company closing an American plant)

Fox News ^ | 10/28/2011 | Reuters

[tobyhill]

Whirlpool Corp , the world's largest appliance maker, slashed its full-year profit forecast and said it would cut about 10 percent of its workforce in North America and Europe, to protect margins in a weak economic environment.

The maker of Maytag and KitchenAid appliances will cut more than 5,000 positions and said it would close down its plant in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and reduce its overall manufacturing capacity by about 6 million units.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

We really need to get beyond these parlor games, and start looking out for our country before we lose it.

[Wolfie]

How does shipping jobs overseas add up as a plus for America? Sooner or later, the stuff coming back isn’t going to be cheap enough for an unemployed person to buy.

[padre35]

-would also provide incentives for internal US industries to lower prices, more market share available

-could pay down deficit

-no rule would prevent foreign companies from locating, you know, inside the US to avoid the tariff.

At what point do fleece traders concede their ideas have failed?

[agere_contra]

Once again you can’t answer my points: instead you focus on the fact that I’m not American.

Apparently it’s not just foreign trade that you want to erect barriers against.

You also want to block out those pesky foreign voices that warn of the disasters that occur whenever protectionism has been tried abroad.

Well, you’d better stick your fingers in your ears while I mention “British Leyland” to the rest of the thread.

Google it guys. Check out the UK’s answer to General Motors. We protected BL and our other star industries like crazy and *you will never guess what happened*. Our industry became less competitive, Government got bigger and we all got to pay the tab.

When Argentinean or Bosnian bloggers write about their experiences of societal breakdown, FR listens to them. Likewise: we in the UK have some useful experience of how protectionism increases dependency, increases socialism and suppresses competition. You get to gain by our experience, or not as you see fit.

You’re welcome.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Clearly, you are abundantly qualified to speak on British economic issues.

[GrannyK]

They closed in Evansville, IN a couple of years ago. The facility is huge and sits there unoccupied. Unions ran it out of town with their strikes and demands. Right to Mexico they went.

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/aug/28/whirlpool-set-close-evansville-plant-2010/

[Eric in the Ozarks]

That 1982 Zenith was probably made in Springfield, MO.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Welcome to the US.
Not all of us are cheeky...

[Cringing Negativism Network]

So unions moved American production to China??

Oh really?

At what point does this “blame the victim” for outsourcing become like flea-baggers insisting it’s banksters fault they don’t shower, and all live like gypsies?

American CEOs moved American production to China.

Stop making excuses for them.

[bksanders]

In 2010 I bought SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of WhirlFool appliances expecting a generous "rebate". I should have known it was a scam when they made it nearly impossible to apply for and that application handled by a third party company. I did forget to sign my name in black and print in red using only a Parker Fine Point pen.

I took my case to all active WhirlFool board members and got this for an "answer":

"Since you did not purchase the appliances at an authorized retailer (read Lowes or Home Despot) blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

Yeah, right. I took my hard earned money to my local home-owned appliance dealer who has, despite the economy, remained in business for thirty years.

NO MORE WHIRLFOOL FOR ME

I hate it for the employees but… It couldn't Happen to a Better Company!

Rant Off!

[Cringing Negativism Network]

You should perhaps do some world traveling.

I’m series.

Sometimes really seeing how other places actually are, can exponentially increase one’s appreciation for America.

[Jane Long]

There are two major impediments to American competitiveness with durable goods:
1) The highest corporate tax rate in the world

2) The most destructive, constricting set of EPA regulations in the world

3) A minor impediment is the union costs and restrictions but these can be overcome by moving to a right to work state {unless you are Boeing}.

Spot on.

[agere_contra]

Kudos for raising actual points to discuss.

1. Tariffs do not incentivise domestic industries to lower prices. They provide a captive market which has reduced choice (and which has no increase in buying power). The net effect is that domestic industries can raise their prices with impunity.
2. Tariffs are a tax on consumers. This moves capital from the private to the Government sector and lowers 'real' GDP. The only way that increasing taxes would reduce the deficit would be if Governments spent money more efficiently than private industries. I think we all know the answer to that.
3. Companies (foreign or domestic) increasingly won't locate inside the US because of America's enormous barriers to wealth production. These are: massive corporate taxes, unlimited legal vulnerabilities, ludicrous environmental overheads, an arbitrary, confiscatory government and an increasingly dumbed-down, litigious workforce. Capital goes where it is treated best. If the US starts treating capital as a welcome guest - and not as a stranger to be robbed - then everything will fall into place.

Hope this was helpful.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Been all over.
Thanks !

[radioone]

You can bet Obamacare figured into the decision. More announcements like this, from other companies, should be forthcoming.

[algernonpj]

... Tariffs are a socialist's wet-dream: a stealth-consumption tax that also increases the pool of voters dependent on Government. ...

I guess you label Adam Smith a socialist and Wealth of Nations a manual for socialism.

In 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations', Adam Smith envisioned a world of small local businesses run by the owner, and the employees of these businesses.

Adam Smith listed the following conditions to impose tariffs:

Book IV, Chapter II, 'Of Restraints Upon Importation From Foreign Countries of Such Goods as Can Be Prpoduced at Home':
"As there are two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry, so there are two others in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation, in the one, how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods; and, in the other, how far, or in what manner, it may be proper to restore that free importation, after it has been for some time interrupted.

1.When the industry is necessary for national defense. Smith uses the example of the navy and shipping.
"The first is, when some particular sort of industry is necessary for the defence of the country. The defence of Great Britain, for example, depends very much upon the number of its sailors and shipping."

2. When domestic production is subject to an internal tax which makes it more difficult to sell domestic products compared to foreign products.
"The second case, in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry, is when some tax is imposed at home upon the produce of the latter. In this case, it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed upon the like produce of the former".

3. When a nation to whom one exports, imposes a tariff on one’s exports.
"The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods, is when some foreign nation restrains, by high duties or prohibitions, the importation of some of our manufactures into their country. Revenge, in this case, naturally dictates retaliation, and that we should impose the like duties and prohibitions upon the importation of some or all of their manufactures into ours. Nations, accordingly, seldom fail to retaliate in this manner
. . .
The short term increase cost of goods, will be offset by long term advantages. There may be good policy in retaliations of this kind, when there is a probability that they will procure the repeal of the high duties or prohibitions complained of. The recovery of a great foreign market will generally more than compensate the transitory inconveniency of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods."

3.Smith also argued that when tariffs are repealed, it should be done slowly.
"Humanity may in this case require that the freedom of trade should be restored only by slow gradations, and with a good deal of reserve and circumspection. Were those high duties and prohibitions taken away all at once, cheaper foreign goods of the same kind might be poured so fast into the home market, as to deprive all at once many thousands of our people of their ordinary employment and means of subsistence. The disorder which this would occasion might no doubt be very considerable."

[mewzilla]

I’ve done some world travelling. And I agree with the other guys.

[stuartcr]

Why does that suck? Don’t you want to buy the one on top/ Seems like it’s the best buy for your money.

[stuartcr]

What’s better, making the individuals pay more taxes, or the companies?

[algernonpj]

Yeah, because forcing American companies to stay here will always work out great. How about we fix what makes us uncompetitive instead of punishing Americans. ...

Try selling 'free trade' and 'comparative advantage' to China, Korea, Taiwan, or Japan. They'll laugh in your face.