8 replies to this topic

[scb]

-Guys

Here's what I think is a good - albeit not necessarily positive - read on why jobs are going (and staying) overseas. Mostly an Apple case study, it's "How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work" at...

http://www.nytimes.c...er=yahoofinance

-scb-

[xg22]

So the question is; Should American Taxpayers be expected to subsidize Corporations the way the Communist/Oligarch Chinese do?

And it's not just Apple but all of their Industries are Taxpayer subsidized and they block/slow imports by putting Chinese Protectionist tariffs in place.

So if America want's to compete with Communist China, it's got to spend American Taxpayers money to subsidize those jobs............



The Chinese govt agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available free to Apple. The owners had made engineers available at almost no cost.



And what standard of living do we expect Americans to maintain? I guess if America went this way the food stamp program would have to be increased.


Many of Foxconns workers earn less than $17.00 a day.


"What USA plant can find 3,000 workers and convince then to live in Company Dorms"?


http://www.nytimes.c...er=yahoofinance


Kotaku is reporting that on January 2, over 300 employees at a Foxconn plant in Wuhan, China threatened to throw themselves off the roof of the building in a mass suicide. The workers manufacture the Xbox 360 console.

According to the Chinese anti-government Web site China Jasmine Revolution, the workers were denied compensation they were promised.

http://www.webpronew...suicide-2012-01

[inthegame]

Headline...-scb- threatens to throw himself off the roof of T-Net if we don't agree with him. More news at ten.

[scb]

-xg-

I may be alone in this, but I maintain that ANY reasonable standard of living is better than essentially none at all. I.e. - with all the talk about "the race to the bottom", the fact is that, the last chair left when the music stops playing in "Musical Chairs" is an infinitely better position to have than not being able to occupy a chair at all.

The fundamental (lead, primary, or whatever you want to call it) reason jobs have gone overseas is because American labor - as opposed to American management and American capital - was no longer competitive on the world stage. That started the move; now the infrastructure build-up abroad is going to make it even harder to bring those jobs back.

Now people may not want to hear this...but even "$17.00 a day" is better than nothing at all. And, in truth, talk of reaching that level would never even have entered the picture if American labor had had reasonable expectations to begin with. Unfortunately, it seemed to have made the decision that the world had a responsibility to subsidize it, and that it didn't have to be the most efficient, the most cost-effective labor alternative to succeed. Guess where that type of thinking led.

In the end the "standard of living do we expect Americans to maintain" - at least in term so American labor - is what they, themselves are WILLING to maintain; they can't expect anymore for the rest of the world to maintain it for them. Right now, they're not doing a very good job of it. Call it reactionary or whatever...but there's a REASON jobs are going elsewhere, and it's NOT because American labor is the most cost-effective.

Until American labor is ready and willing to address that issue, their situation is only going to get worse. In the long run, labor can't force capital to hire them. Nor can it even force capital to stay on our shores.

That said, I don't look forward to the day when the workers of this country envy what their Chinese counterpars are making....but it's not something as difficult to visualize now as it would have been 30 or 40 years ago.

-scb-

[Farley]

scabby...it sats it in the bible about slaves being happy with their masters...eh scabby? that is the goBPer mantra to America's workers...be happy...we can make it worse...eh scabby?

[scb]

-Farley-

That's their "mantra", is it? Would you care to reference just when and where the "GoBPer's" have been repeating that "mantra'? I'm mean they ARE actually repeating it, aren't they? After all, I'm sure you wouldn't be trying to "Farley" us again, now would ya'? [smile]

You are what are, "Farley"....illusionary "mantras" and all. Deal with it.

-scb-

P.S. - Of course, all bets are off if that's what "sats" in "the bible".

[xg22]

I don't know if it's Biblically motivated or not but we must ask why do American companies embrace the scourge of 'the american way' and do it the Chinese way?

I think these american corporate leaders are done with the American Consumer and are focusing on Chinese and India's potential to buy their stuff.

Mind you these same corporates love the american taxpayer for the freebies they get from them, but the silence from the GOP when Obama spoke about cracking down on China if they 'aren't playing on a balanced platform' so that American workers can compete, was typical.


That was the detail that struck me most from a New York Times article about why Apple can’t make products in the United States.


Would we accept the idea of a plant where people are packed into barracks and can be roused in the middle of the night, given a biscuit, and sent to work for 12 hours? Where workers have no right to complain?


We would not accept this in the United States because, quite simply, it’s barbaric.

Not “breathtaking.” Barbaric.

But we go along with it happening in China, and have turned a blind eye to it, because we want our gadgets and we don’t want to pay fair prices for them.
http://www.thedailyb...-the-devil.html



If an iPad on every American school desk, shouldn't they be Made in America?

http://www.thedailyb...n-the-ipad.html

[egghead]

What is barbaric in one country is country club living in others--Ever been to China XG--Care to guess what life is like for the typical 242 million rural workers-Well to give you a little hint they get by on about 60 to 100 yuan a month -The average worker in urban areas make around 2,687 yuan a month

Not to give you a history lesson--but the migration of the rural population to urban centers has swamped the cities--and just to give you one small example of the impact-- The number of cities increased more than three times from 191 in 1978 to 661 in 2005--Now these cities to create housing cities created “urban villages” or in our tems slums-and to complicate matters 152 million of these workers have family that live somewhere else-

So companies invested in Dorms--It was better for the worker who didn't have to live in "urban Villages" reduced the cost for living expenses and allowed them to send more money home to the family (plus the cafeterias give everyone three squares a day)--

Now to the typical American this is Barbaric--To the typical rural worker in China--Life is much better--and China is creating an enormous number of new middle class if you read the world wide economic stats-Life will continue to improve but it will take time--Over time those workers will demand more rights better working conditions and look for better places to live--and one day they will be bitching about the next China taking their jobs and those barbaric working conditions evil corporations make them work under

and "I think these american corporate leaders are done with the American Consumer and are focusing on Chinese and India's potential to buy their stuff" C'mon you gotta put your big boy pants on--Of course American companies are salivating about India's and China's growing middle class--"It's the economy stupid"

I think you perhaps missed the major point of this article--We have a competitive gap-We aren't educated enough nimble enough hungry enough or unregulated enough--to create these manufacturing facilities--Now we can of course complain about how unfair and barbaric these facilities are and those evil corporations exploiting them (the theme of the equalists)--but that won't change our competitiveness--We don't have to compete by trashing our standard of living--But we better start understanding what all those barriers we have put in place mean and start making some changes--or we can continue down this path of "entitlement" "elitist" "equalism" and "fairness" the left has hitched its post to

[scb]

-xg-

Reagarding your comment of...

"...but the silence from the GOP when Obama spoke about cracking down on China if they 'aren't playing on a balanced platform' so that American workers can compete, was typical"

....why shouldn't such a remark have been met with silence? After all, it's not a closely-held secret that the LAST thing organized American labor wants is a "balanced platform", or a "level playing field". Heck, organized American labor knows that it CAN'T (or, more truthfully, "won't) compete against much of the world's labor - including that of China - on anything like a "balanced platform" basis. American capital? Sure,.it competes...and much of the time wins. American management? Same thing; they'll take the playing field and run the ball. But organized American labor? Nope...unless the field is overwhelmingly tilted in their favor, they won't even TRY to "compete"; rather, they'll sit around and demand that those who CAN and DO compete in this nation subsidize them.

In that sense, this isn't a "race to the bottom" for the organized American labor; instead, it's a flight BELOW the bottom, when jobs of any kind won't be available. Doesn't take a genius to see what's going on.

Unions have been pissing away American jobs for decades.....and now, all of a sudden, they wonder why they're gone. It's as if they're ignorant of the fact that they DROVE them out. Perhaps they are...but no organization that is THAT ignorant should be granted the legal favor it's given in this country today.

The organized American worker shouldn't blame the Chinese (or the Japanese, or the Koreans, or the Taiwanese, etc, etc.) for being competitive; rather, he should look in the mirror (and in his heart) and ask the question as to why he HIMSELF is UNCOMPETITIVE.

I got a kick out of the responses I read about in Indiana yesterday and today; the unions are crying bloody murder because they can no longer FORCE workers to be "members" and FORCE them to pay fees. That's pretty much representative of the state of unions today; they don't seem to think they have the ability to exist as VOLUNTARY organizations. And, given their history of costing jobs over the last few decades, perhaps they can't. So what's their answer to that problem? Dealing with it by making themselves more EFFECTIVE entities and making sure that those they represent are the most cost-efficient labor alternative available to employers? Nope....the response is to yell "gimme, gimme" even louder, and demand that the rest of us - those of us who ARE willing to compete - subsidize their existence.

Real bright future there for 'em, isn't there?

-scb-