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Outsourcing is happening all over but not just to Mexico. If it was just to one place you could blame it on NAFTA, but what can you blame when it's off to India or Bangladesh or Malaysia?
NAFTA isnt completely to blame for outsourcing, most of that is the fact that Mexican labor is cheaper. What NAFTA did was to remove most of the barriers from US factories going to Mexico, as well as, in some cases, even provide incentive for them to relocate to Mexico.
*Disclaimer* I am just presenting the hard truth. Do I think corporations are soul-less entities who are destroying the very country that birthed their success? Absolutely. Do I think that the US government is now bought and sold by corporate interests? No doubt. Do I know the answer(s) to the monumental problems facing our country? No, but I do know that a good first step would be to clean house in CONgress.
Bottom line is corporations are in business to provide a return to their shareholders and that means driving costs down. Corporations have no obligation to employ Americans. Now that India and other countries are producing highly educated workers who will work for a fraction of the cost of an American, the choice is a no-brainer. All kinds of white collar jobs can now be handled overseas via the internet. A law firm can have an Indian paralegal working remotely, in the same way an accounting firm can have numbers crunched and e-mailed back and forth.
Almost none of the old manufacturing jobs will come back to the US. Those jobs are gone for good. Now we hear about worker retraining and I ask "retraining for WHAT?" Some low wage "service" job? A "green" job? Who is going to pay for all of these green initiatives that should have been started a long time ago? Our government is broke (and broken).
The future for America is bleak. We are all going to have to learn to make due with a fraction of the lifestyle we now enjoy. Wages will fall to the lowest common denominator. Large McMansions and big screen TVs will not be the norm 20 years from now.
Just about our only growth industry now is defense (and government) and how long can that last? Do we really want defense contractors selling their high tech wares to anyone who wants them?
Healthcare is one industry that can provide jobs for now, but there will come a time when funds just aren't there to pay for healthcare. Wages earners won't be able to afford most heathcare treatments, employers won't offer plans (they won't have to worry about attracting workers anyway) and the government won't be able to pay for it either.
As dismal as this is to digest, the cold reality is the good old days are behind us. I can only hope that we will somehow find a way to reinvent ourselves but I don't see very many encouraging signs.
*Disclaimer* I am just presenting the hard truth. Do I think corporations are soul-less entities who are destroying the very country that birthed their success? Absolutely. Do I think that the US government is now bought and sold by corporate interests? No doubt. Do I know the answer(s) to the monumental problems facing our country? No, but I do know that a good first step would be to clean house in CONgress.
your scenario is more bleak than it needs to be. america still has skilled workers and plenty of natural resources. we also don't have a bad population ratio compared to other countries. we have oil, coal, and natural gas reserves.
what we need is a government that gets out of the way of manufacturing and stops placing so many restrictions on business. the best way to have this is through smaller government, increased competition, and voting the bums out next election. we are letting these big corporations bully america with their threats. let them go, and see how their profits dry up. after all the emerging countries are just emerging and have their own problems. we could cut our costs by reducing / restricting the illegal immigration population. we could ban work visas until the country is back on its feet again.
anyone who voted for the bailout, NAFTA, or cap and trade needs to go, and i don't care what party they belong to.
The recession has proven to be a convenient excuse for many corporations to lay off American Workers and ship their jobs overseas. Ross Perot tried then to warn the people of what he knew was going to happen with the implementation of NAFTA, for which he was ridiculed at the time. I do not hear many people laughing now.
"1,100 FULL TIME JOBS LOST TO MEXICO, WHIRLPOOL LEAVING EVANSVILLE"
"LAKE MILLS, Iowa — Cummins Filtration in Lake Mills, Iowa, announced plans to cut about 400 jobs at the Lake Mills plant and shift them to San Luis Potosi, Mexico."
"On July 1, Electrolux opened its new plant in Juarez, Mexico. It is one of two plants expected to take over production when the company closes the world's largest refrigerator factory in Greenville early next year. The other is in Anderson, S.C.
Electrolux's shutdown of the Greenville plant at 635 W. Charles St. will leave more than 2,700 people without jobs."
"Eyewitness News is investigating vanishing jobs in the Triangle area. We've discovered 2007 is shaping up to be a bad year for people in the Triangle. By analyzing a state employment database, we've discovered that nearly a thousand people are losing their jobs to Mexico."
"As part of the restructuring, Avon has apparently decided that moving jobs to Mexico will save them a ton of money. Avon Products will eliminate 1,200 positions — 2.8 percent of its overall work force — by 2013 as part of a reorganization."
"Hershey to Cut 1,500 Jobs, Open Mexico Facility"
"On Tuesday, United Auto Workers (UAW) officials announced that auto parts-maker American Axle will close its Detroit-Hamtramck factory—the largest of its US facilities—and lay off between 500 and 600 workers. UAW officials claim these jobs are being moved to Mexico."
"Honeywell International Inc. is planning to move 5,000 aerospace division jobs offshore over the next five years, according to internal documents that outline the company’s global development strategy."
"Trade hawks hunting for the corporate villains behind the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico might find General Electric a handy target.
In the 14 years since the North American Free Trade Agreement dismantled most barriers to trade and investment between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, GE has sent thousands of U.S. jobs making everything from refrigerators to electric meters to Mexico."
So are you saying we should move to mexico?Otherwise they are just companies that were failing in the US before anyhting happened.NAFTA had nothing to do with it;they could move anyway.
your scenario is more bleak than it needs to be. america still has skilled workers and plenty of natural resources. we also don't have a bad population ratio compared to other countries. we have oil, coal, and natural gas reserves.
what we need is a government that gets out of the way of manufacturing and stops placing so many restrictions on business. the best way to have this is through smaller government, increased competition, and voting the bums out next election. we are letting these big corporations bully america with their threats. let them go, and see how their profits dry up. after all the emerging countries are just emerging and have their own problems. we could cut our costs by reducing / restricting the illegal immigration population. we could ban work visas until the country is back on its feet again.
anyone who voted for the bailout, NAFTA, or cap and trade needs to go, and i don't care what party they belong to.
But this smaller government isn't going to happen anytime soon. If anything, the private sector jobs are being moved to government/civil service jobs. Lots of jobs in defense contracting are being lost and moved to straight goverment jobs---I think the administration's goal is 38%. At some point, the government will be the only game in town, and how does that work?
Has anyone noticed Mexico is fast devolving into Pancho Villa style chaos?Long term they're not going to be anything other than a basket case.Corporations are not planning long term on them,despite the occasional headline.Erecting any tariffs as a way of keeping jobs "in house".Please google "Smoot-Hawley Tariff",it should sober you up.Our trade deficit would go to almost nil if we stoped importing energy.Also,by far we manufacture more goods than any other country,with Germany and Japan a distant second and third.
We're getting blamed for Mexico's problems, too. Our buying drugs fuels the violence. Our guns cause the deaths( proven untrue). We have to aid them to stabilize their economy and we don't dare build a wall to keep their illegals and criminals out.
It's just sheer idiocy.
I voted for Ross Perot. He got 11% of the vote in my county. Ross Perot and Ron Paul. How come nobody ever elects the smart guys and only elect the imbeciles?
ross still has a website and publishes charts, at Perot Charts » Charting Government Fiscal Irresponsibility. there is also an interesting site regarding free trade by pat buchanan. yes, there are fiscal conservatives who do not believe that free trade agreements are benefiting the united states! in 2000, he was warning about the effects of these false "free trade" agreements and all of this has come to pass.
who can deny that our country is between a rock and a hard place now? we borrow from china, who told us to stop printing money recently. how does the USA plan to continue this spending path? moody's has the greatest effect of our stimulus is to be felt in the 3rd quarter of 2009. it is available for viewing at chris martenson, with an explanation attached. http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/s...k/25946?page=1
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