Posted on 12/14/2002 10:22:42 AM PST by arete
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Charles Seitz remembers when Rochester was a bustling manufacturing town. Now, all the 58-year-old unemployed engineer sees is a landscape of empty buildings.
''There's nothing made here anymore,'' the former Eastman Kodak employee says, his eyes welling with tears as he talks about his struggle to find a new job. ''Wealth is really created by making things. I still adhere to that.''
It's a situation that's been playing out across the country for decades but has received increased attention in recent years.
Fifty years ago, a third of U.S. employees worked in factories, making everything from clothing to lipstick to cars. Today, a little more than one-tenth of the nation's 131 million workers are employed by manufacturing firms. Four-fifths are in services.
The decline in manufacturing jobs has swiftly accelerated since the beginning of 2000. Since then, more than 1.9 million factory jobs have been cut -- about 10% of the sector's workforce. During the same period, the number of jobs outside manufacturing has risen close to 2%.
Many of the factory jobs are being cut as companies respond to a sharp rise in global competition. Unable to raise prices -- and often forced to cut them -- companies must find any way they can to reduce costs and hang onto profits.
Jobs are increasingly being moved abroad as companies take advantage of lower labor costs and position themselves to sell products to a growing -- and promising -- market abroad. Economy.com, an economic consulting firm in West Chester, Pa., estimates 1.3 million manufacturing jobs have been moved abroad since the beginning of 1992 -- the bulk coming in the last three years. Most of those jobs have gone to Mexico and East Asia.
Last month, film giant Eastman Kodak -- the largest employer in Rochester and the central focus of the community since the company was founded by George Eastman in 1888 -- announced it was shutting down an area plant and laying off the 500 employees who make single-use, sometimes called ''throw-away,'' cameras. The work will now be done in China or Mexico, two countries where the company already has operations.
The movement of jobs to other countries angers Seitz the most.
''The United States got to where it is today by making things,'' he says. ''People are suffering, and communities are suffering.''
This country was built on tariffs and do not forget it
"This is socialism?"
When the govt tells my trucking co. that I have to have permission and authority to carry any goods out of the state,, that goes beyond regulation, and into socialism.
When the largest portion of my tax dollar goes for various welfare programs That is socialism.
When the govt controls how my children are educated, when the govt wants to and for the most part controls how I utilize my health care dollars, that's socialism.
I think that it is a miracle that the capitalist system performs as well as it does under the current onslaught of this govt. But, sooner or later some major force, domestic or foreign is gonna make even this house of cards fall. I don't think we have, today, the type of capitalist-free market system we think we do. Just my observation.
As to running for the hills, if you read my prior posts, I stated that that is exactly what I won't do. I'm too old and too ornery to run from a bunch of govt weenies. I'm gonna stand my ground and fight for what I know is right. I'm suggesting that everyone else prepare to do the same. After all, there's nowhere to run to. If there's going to be a fight, I'm gonna fight on my turf.
India doesn't pose as big of a risk as China..
Microsoft says to invest $750 million in China
If repeating the same empty argument over and over is the best you can do, then I'd pack it in if I were you.
Richard W.
While it is true you can get some cheap knick knacks for the most part the goods are not cheaper. The cost of living is not cheaper.
Also your conclusion doesnt not describe what is going on in China today. It is pretty hard to argue with China's progress when they can now point a nuclear warhead at you.
Yep, that's me alright -- a muscle-headed thug. Like I said, anyone who doesn't agree with you and your single minded simplistic ideas must be discredited with adolescent name calling. Always attack the person. That's chapter one in your party playbook. If you happen to ever stumble on to a thought of your very own, let us know. Until then, stay in the sandbox.
Richard W.
For starters, companies overseas are not faced with onerous OSHA regulations - 80 percent of all OSHA fines are issued for paperwork-only violations, not actual workplace safety infractions.
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Frankly, neither you or your so-called facts aren't even worth that.
The laws of equilbrium do not fit your anaylsis but I agree that a complete fallacy applies to the globalization trade agreements. I have read portions of NAFTA and GATT they are filled with legalese that protects the intrests of traders while selling the average Amercian down the river. The empty brick buildings and people carrying their belongings in brown paper bags are evidence enough.
Wealth is distributed after it is created. Most communists and socialists miss this point. The raw materials be they seed, metal ore, or fuel increase in value after they are processed. It requires intelligence and effort to cause this increase in value, or creation of wealth. Then the profits are distributed.
Everybody in the supply chain is not cut out for MBA's and PHD's and those others lose in America. For the ones that supply the effort the future under international trade is bleak.
Capitalism is brutal at weeding out inefficiency. It is so brutal that most people of the world have opted to have governments to control commerce. Condemming large segments of the population to a life of being criminals should be criminal. It is not so for the globalists.
Republicans, Democrats, Unions, are all guilty, and they are for sale to the highest bidder. The founding fathers would crap in their pants to see the way the people of property have sold out on their own countrymen.
When the rise of the industrial age raised the standard of living for the human race, it also produced an unequal distribution of political power to busineess monopolists that undermined constitutional liberties of workers. Government intervened to preserve the constitution. Today government has become the problem and 60% of eligble voters have abandoned the process.
The laws of equilbrium do not fit your anaylsis but I agree that a complete fallacy applies to the globalization trade agreements. I have read portions of NAFTA and GATT they are filled with legalese that protects the intrests of traders while selling the average Amercian down the river. The empty brick buildings and people carrying their belongings in brown paper bags are evidence enough.
Wealth is distributed after it is created. Most communists and socialists miss this point. The raw materials be they seed, metal ore, or fuel increase in value after they are processed. It requires intelligence and effort to cause this increase in value, or creation of wealth. Then the profits are distributed.
Everybody in the supply chain is not cut out for MBA's and PHD's and those others lose in America. For the ones that supply the effort the future under international trade is bleak.
Capitalism is brutal at weeding out inefficiency. It is so brutal that most people of the world have opted to have governments to control commerce. Condemming large segments of the population to a life of being criminals should be criminal. It is not so for the globalists.
Republicans, Democrats, Unions, are all guilty, and they are for sale to the highest bidder. The founding fathers would crap in their pants to see the way the people of property have sold out on their own countrymen.
When the rise of the industrial age raised the standard of living for the human race, it also produced an unequal distribution of political power to busineess monopolists that undermined constitutional liberties of workers. Government intervened to preserve the constitution. Today government has become the problem and 60% of eligble voters have abandoned the process.
Does any one posting here have an idea of what their idea is going to solve. I see minutia trumping minutia is all.
What if the USA takes over the world?
"You want more jobs, push for the repeal of the 16th amendment and all other federal tax[es]. Replace it [the income tax] with a simple [National Retail] sales tax. You will have companies fighting to get here."
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” [Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800.]
We will never be a truly FRee people so long as we have the income tax and the IRS.
Click here to help us scrap the Code, scrap the IRS and abolish the VLWC!
We will never be a truly FRee people so long as we have the income tax and the IRS.
You can also click here to sign a petition to support of Replacing the income tax.
We will never be a truly FRee people so long as we have the income tax and the IRS.
You see, they pay taxes in the community, therefore, they are keeping my tax burden down.
They buy directly from people in the community to a small degree - but some.
They help support charities in this community.
They provide jobs for people in this community - so those people can buy my products, services, etc., and so they can contribute to the economy.
Much of the money they make stays in the community through jobs, etc.
Now how is that an overall deficit?
My daughter who was employed by one of those dot.com companies, making great money was laid off. She decided to come home to live and complete her degree. That supermarket provides a part time job for her to help her pay for her education. You see they pay her much more than I spend a that same supermaket.
In short, they are part of this community, part of what makes it work, part of what supports it and makes it a good place to live.
We surely have the same beliefs on this subject.
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