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.''
Yes, yes, but has anyone told Red China about it?
Free trade is one thing - what we have is a diaster.
What happens when more of our manufacturing goes to Red China - more esstential manufacturing. China then decides to just 'take' those factories? Will we go to war to protect those 'free traders' or will we beg China to please sell us the things we need? What will we do when China decides to attack Taiwan?
This is just not good.
Remember there was a time, it would have been inconceivable to believe that China, Malaysia, or any third world country could produce goods as well as America. Possibly, they never could have without the aid and financing of the American government. What are you going to do when the government decides it will finance someone to do what you are doing in a third world country and undercut your price.
I truly do wish your continued success, but to say that what you are doing can't and never will be done as well as you are doing it is just folly. And as has been shown in the manufacture of some of the cheap (poor quality) goods that we get from foreign countries - they may not have to do it as well - just do it cheaper.
Of course you know we are importing third world people to do that kind of stuff. It is one of those jobs 'no one else wants to do'. But are you going to be willing to pay that person enough so he can buy your software?
Now how is that an overall deficit?
You give them money, they give you groceries. You aren't trading with them, just buying their stuff with your money. That's a deficit, and any other factors are irrelevant. You're also running a trade deficit with your car dealer, your plumber, your telephone company, and a whole bunch of other companies that don't employ your daughter. The fact that they give that money to other people after they've extracted it from you doesn't change the fact that you run a deficit with them.
But that's not a bad thing. You undoubtedly find it cheaper and easier to let one of the Bells handle the mechanics of your phone service, rather than trying to do it yourself from the ground up. In the same way, we as a nation find it cheaper and easier to have our shirts made in Guatemala. We are good at other things, so we do that instead.
That is just plain wrong! If you think CPU's are made here then it just shows you have not checked the facts. Do you think that because these items are made by American company's that they are made in the USA ? That is just wrong. American companys may have offices here in the US. They may even have some engineers here in the US. But most of them do there manufacturing over seas. That includes INTEL and AMD. Even Microsoft and Logitec and on and on. Don't take my word for it. Pay a visit to your local walmart. Go to the computer section. Pick up the boxes of Keyboards, mice, optical mice,...ect.. Microsoft-Made in China. Logitech-Made in Mexico. They may have a US company address, but they clearly state on the box that they were made overseas. That includes CPU's.
When I sell to someone, they are running a deficit with me - but you see they, in turn, buy from someone else in this country and eventally it comes back to me in some form.
No it sounds good - but what you say is not quite the same and you know it.
Bottom line, when we send our money to China, Mexico, or any other country -w e are building their country - not ours - that is a deficit - trade or otherwise.
Whether anyone wants to admit it or not - we are not one great big world full of people of similar ideals and consciences. When we send money to people who would like to detroy us, that is insanity. But hey, you can buy cheap geegaws, TV's and such - just hope you can defend yourself with them.
One only needs to look around there own communitys to see that much of it is gone. But Hey don't take my word for it. The US government just admitted that it had a net loss of 40,000 jobs. Mostly manufacturing.
Unless that money comes right back into your personal pocket, yes you most certainly are. You happen to like what the companies you deal with do with the money you give them, and so you rationalize that deficit as a good thing, but it's still a trade deficit no matter how you slice it.
When I sell to someone, they are running a deficit with me - but you see they, in turn, buy from someone else in this country and eventally it comes back to me in some form.
LOL. And what do you think those foreign folks do with all those dollars we give them? Hold big dollar-burning parties? Bury them? Eat them?
Of course not. They spend them, and they spend them in the place where dollars are spendable - here in the US. That money you spent on a Guatemalan shirt is going to find its way back to the US eventually, whether it's when the Guatemalans hire AT&T to build them a phone system worth having, IBM to create a computer system that's not an embarassment, General Atomics to design them a nuclear plant so that they can have lights, Microsoft to supply them with software for their computers, Citibank to give them a safe place for their money, General Reinsurance to cover their losses when the manure hits the oscillating wind device, and so forth and so on. Those companies that I just listed - that's your service economy for the next century. We buy shirts from them, they buy insurance from us. Services are where the money is, frankly, and you couldn't plan it to work out any better for them or us.
But hey, you can buy cheap geegaws, TV's and such - just hope you can defend yourself with them.
Actually, what I think I'll do is buy the cheap geegaws overseas, and use the money I saved by not buying overpriced American geegaws to build the world's most powerful military. Win-win.
Ah, but I have. Take a look at this article from a couple of months ago, just for an example. Here's the lead-in:
RIO RANCHO, N.M. - Intel Corp. yesterday said it started production at its $2 billion expansion of its semiconductor manufacturing plant in New Mexico, part of the chipmaker's long-term modernization effort.
Well, my granddad had a job not easily exportable at the time - he was a double-E way back in the day - and my job isn't easily exportable either. If my grandchildren have any sense, they won't try to compete with $2 an hour shirtmakers, but rather they will find something where they have a competitive advantage over foreigners, as I did, and as my grandfather did. He made a good living, I make a good living, and they'll be just fine too.
This country was founded on free trade within its borders, we were and should not be expected to compete with $2.00 an hour labor.
You're absolutely right. We shouldn't even try to compete with $2 an hour labor. We should find something else to do instead, something that adds more value than being $2 an hour manual laborers....
Clip and save.
Priceless.
A nation of effing insurance salesmen.
Let me guess, Yale or Harvard?
"Intel has a dozen semiconductor manufacturing plants across the globe."
That argument cuts just as well the other way: We can easily survive without importing single-use cameras.
"1. National inflation-adjusted income continues to climb."
And median real household income has declined.
"2. Unemployment has gone down dramatically since introduction of NAFTA and GATT, despite the recent downturn."
On the contrary, unemployment merely continued the decline from the 1992 peak that was already underway -- the Bush I recession ended two years before NAFTA, and the Reagan expansion resumed.
"3. A global economy improves standard of living both here and in other countries,"
mean or median? The blue collar aristocrat seems to have all but disappeared.
"making war less likely,"
That's the theory, but the causality is really the other way. Countries that like each other are more likely to trade freely. And countries that feel really exuberant (or bullish), like late imperial England or post WWII America, tend to trade reasonably freely even with countries that don't reciprocate.
"and making it more likely they will stay home instead of coming here as a penniless immigrant."
If free trade helps both economies, then less-than-free trade hurts both, yes? Which should make our economy less attractive. Should be a wash -- UNLESS free trade helps other countries more than it helps us.
"We have the most powerful, most productive economy ever seen on the planet, and it shows no signs of serious decline."
On the contrary, every stock market decline of the degree of the past 2 years has been followed by severe contraction.
Now, I don't myself advocate protectionist tariffs. But I would much prefer high revenue tariffs over our onerous income tax. Imports are no more sacred than my personal income.
Who makes more, the insurance salesman or the shirtmaker? The programmer or the shirtmaker? The engineer or the shirtmaker?
You have to get past this notion that it's not "real work" if it doesn't involve a bunch of sweaty guys doing it. It's about creating value, and the architect creates more value than the guy who builds the building, even if he is wearing a tie and working in the service sector.
Your grandfather was a wise man, what happened to you?
I made more money in the last three years than he did in his entire life. Even if you adjust for inflation. I think he'd tell you I'm doing just fine.
Correction: government. Unions are not a bad thing per se. It is the privileges and protections the government provides them that muck things up.
Pentium 4 1.6GHz CPU, 128MB RAM, DFI Mainboard
Back in 1999, Wen Chi Chen boasted that VIA would occupy 50% of the global chipset market within 2 years. There would only be 2 to 3 chipset companies left in the future. At time, the media and industry leaders were skeptical. In the second half of 2000, his prediction was fulfilled.
During 2000, Wen Chi Chen declared that he wanted to have 10% of the microprocessor market share and become the “Asian Intel” over rival AMD. This time the industrial colleagues treated it seriously. They no long think that it is an unreachable goal. Many industry leaders wanted to find out how its directors can accomplish this goal.
CEO, Wen Chi Chen said, “The future of PC is no longer computations but connections.”
After winning the last battle on chipset from Intel’s dominance, now VIA has set the goal to seriously compete on CPU. It bought Cyrix and the CPU division of IDT two years ago. Last year, it introduced the first CPU code named Joshua. At the Germany Cebit Computer Show this year, Mr. Wen Chi Chan surprisingly showed up for a press conference. He handed in the 2nd report card, VIA C3 (code name Samuel II).
At this press conference for Taiwanese manufacturers, Mr. Chen enthusiastically talked about the naming of this new microprocessor and its functions. This event had outlined the future direction of VIA."
http://www.simmtester.com/page/news/showpubnews.asp?num=77
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Give it back. Personally, I don't want the world and its problems. I want the rest of the world and its problems kept seperate from any hold upon my life.
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