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A few of the foreign companies like Honda and BMW produce their cars here in the US. And I just read an article about a Chinese factory opening up a factory in SC. Land and electricity is much cheaper here than over there right now, and it offsets the higher US labor rates.
American's would have to severely cut back on the stuff in their home if they bought only American made products/clothing/electronics. The answer would be to find out exactly how much will they be willing to do without in order to give other Americans jobs.
If people go to a department store to buy anything and the product made in America is 3 times more....will they choose that one? We SHOULD....but we probably WON'T. This is the core of the problem.
Glory, when feasible, Americans should buy American, but paying $30.00 instead of $10.00 for a T-shirt just doesn't make sense to most people.
If we got rid of everything in our house, that was made elsewhere, I'd be sitting on a concrete floor, with no drywall or electrical wiring, and no appliances, etc. I buy American whenever possible. If I'm shopping with the Mrs. and she looks at something, I grab it and the one next to it, and if one is made here, and is nominally more, we'll buy that, regardless of the color of the kitchen lol.
We should be protecting American corporations and labor by instituting countervailing tariffs to eliminate the price advantage created by unfair labor practices and government subsidies. BMW makes cars in the US using mechanical made in Germany. The engine manufacture is protected by Euro taxes that are not called tariffs but effectively are. The Chinese manufactures are protected from US products with an tariff that is actually called a tariff.
I have read “the Economic Hit Man” book and am appalled at the absurdities the IMF and World Bank pull off. They actually destroyed an American businessman that dared to keep paying his workers after a disastrous fire. Eventually the man had his company taken from him even though the company survived. So much for private property when the international financial wizards want to teach you a lesson. They also forced Ecuador to privatize its federally owned electrical system and the privatized company started charging natural gas based prices in a country where electricity production is based on existing hydroelectric power plants. After a few years of this abuse by the IMF the people of Ecuador renationalized their power system and eliminated the thievery.
In my opinion we have created an actual New World Order of multinational financial centers and multinational industries run out of a few international centers that are not subject to any control by the any country or group of countries. The New World Order has been created by the financiers without any governmental supervision by the countries of the people involved. We have created a capitalist utopia and they are using it to concentrate the wealth created by all of us without any compensation or explanation. These are the reason we need a real world government with real power to regulate these financial entities to prevent the financial abuse of everyone on the planet.
Well I apologize if we are essentially in agreement. It just sounded like you were implying that GOVERNMENT were making decisions and not the global free market.
Its also worth noting the role of the IMF and World Bank. Preconditions of their loans often DO impose what direction economies of devoloping nations should embark upon. One of the preconditions is making public all nationalized resources and focusing economic development in the areas were they have economic comparitive advantage.....which are few besides banna production. These countries rarely ever develope as a consquencem, because the loans and preconditions are designed to promote the growth of Western Multination Corporate interest....and not that of the developing nation. I don't know if you ever read "confessions of an economic hit man".....but its a very revealing read.
No, I haven't, but perhaps I will. I received most of my economics at Ujniversity where I have a BS in Business Admin. Plus decades of real-world experience in International Trade-related employment.
American's would have to severely cut back on the stuff in their home if they bought only American made products/clothing/electronics. The answer would be to find out exactly how much will they be willing to do without in order to give other Americans jobs.
If people go to a department store to buy anything and the product made in America is 3 times more....will they choose that one? We SHOULD....but we probably WON'T. This is the core of the problem.
There are countries that do give their own people a competitive advantage through high tariffs on imported goods and a maze of red tape for foreigners to get through.
Japan comes to mind.
Nothing wrong in trying to protect your own. I don't blame them. Maybe we should do the same with China. Oh, but we made sure that wouldn't happen because they bought so much of our debt.
Japan got one shipment of tainted dumplings from China and banned all Chinese imports into the country.
We are STILL getting crap from China and inspecting very little of it. Just recently I heard of many homes in Florida having to be 'deconstructed' because of tainted dry wall from China. I could not find out what it was tainted with and how dangerous it was. Oh well, rebuilding those walls will make some nice jobs for illegals.
How can we 'buy America' when goods stamped made in the U.S.A. are made with imported parts - and vice versa?
People say our government is too big - well, the only countries that have kept some jobs for their own people have regulated like heck to do so.
Both parties are betraying us and the libertarians, if you actually look at their beliefs, would place even more power in the hands of corporations and the uber-wealthy. They believe in NO government regulation, which means companies can legally run rough shod over us. The only recourse Libertarianism leaves us with is the courts - to sue. That means that to sue you need to be able to fund appeal after appeal and be fighting against the battery of lawyers employed by these firms - and if you live, especially in New Jersey, you'd have to have equal influence with the justices. Money, money, money.
With Libertarianism your freedom is in direct proportion to your wealth.
What we need to do is to prevent Congress from kissing the hindquarters of big business. A big reason why this is happening now is Congress people want to keep their jobs and to do so they MUST raise heaps of money for their re-election campaigns. Much of that money comes from the mega corporations.
We need serious campaign financing reform with NO money coming from second and third parties on behalf of corporations. The entire campaigns must be publicly financed. This is do-able. The media is owned by the public. One of the stipulations for renewing licensing would be to donate time to election campaigns free, in the public interest. Most of our campaigning could then be done over the media.
John Perkins(confessions of an economic hit man), in his latest book, Hoodwinked : an economic hit man reveals why the world financial markets imploded--and what we need to do to remake them has supposedly offered solutions to this disaster. Has anyone read his ideas on this?
In a globalized free market in which captilism, in many forms, dominates the world......you cannot sustain a high wage nation and also sustain historical levels of produciton. Hence, if you want increased production you will have to sacrafice high wages.
That said, contrary to popular belief, most of the production jobs lost in America have been lost to AUTOMATION and not offshoring. However, even automation can be done cheaper in low wage nation because the overhead cost are cheaper......except for the cost of getting the finished or value added goods back to the US.
Until the foriegn nation that you built your plant in nationalizes it and you loose all you invested lol. The reason we are a high wage nation is because every engineering and scientific advance ment was made in europe/russia or the US. Look up the plant that boeing built in china that was nationalized, oops. Or oil refinerys built in venisula. These companies are rolling the dice with american/european inventions and scientific break throughs because of the cheap labor, we did it the right way in the rail road days, we brought the cheap chineese labor here and kept the technology thats how all great nations do it. It should be high treason to take technology to a forigen nation, corporations have way to much power, who cares if a scientist works for company X if he is an american scientist then thats an american discovery and that company has no right to export it else where just becuase the CEO has a MBA from joe blow university.
Ultimatly when the crap hits the fan the smart people will take it back or we will go into the dark ages like when rome fell. With china owning most of the US debt but being completely incompetent technologecly they will ultimatly loose. Debt is a shell game and at the end of the day its who can build a better air craft carrier or bomb to impose there will and protect there way of life. The fact that everyone has nuclear weapons now is a sign that the end times are near because inept nations that should be enslaved can threaten nuclear war.
Greed ? I don't know. I can't speak for manufacturing since I'm not directly a part of it. Although it does make me wonder how it can be feasiblly a cost save when you have to build a plant in another country, provided food, living, doctors and transportation for your workers, and the transportation of the products back to the states. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Now engineering and design I am a part of and from where I sit the only reason for offshoreing is to make the shareholders happy... even though this doesn't always mean more money. For the past 7 years I've seen a lot of people lose their jobs to offshoring. Now the way I see this being feasible in my profession is the fact that upper managment never really know's the truth. They don't know that the work that comes back usually has to be completely redone at a higher US designer OT rate. Or the tooling that made 100 parts and broke beyond repair was due to inferior building practices or that some of the work was just sent offshore to make managment happy while it was completly done here because the offshored work wouldn't make the customer's timing. Middle managment won't pass this stuff along, for fear of losing their jobs. I've been in meetings where I've heard "you will make this work, I don't care how but you will. we are a global company now. " It really is baffeling. If all this offshoreing was working , why are companies still doing poorly ? Why are profits going down, losses per quarter going up ?
The latest one I heard last week, the tooling for the program I'm working on is to be built in China. Not because it is less expensive, it was proven not to be BUT because they are in need of work, there have been layoffs there, and again the "you must think globally" What a bunch of BS.
This cycle cannot keep going.. it will eventually break down to the point of companies no longer able to produce a product. Maybe then they will see the light.
This is the simple answer, yes, but its a lot more complicated than just that.
American workers expect to much money, because of inflated Union wages from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. There are guys at Delphi in Detroit making over 75 dollars an hour, with benefits and everything included, for assembly line work. Thats just to much money. (Its also one reason why auto work in the southern states is growing, lower wage expectations).
There are also the working conditions and regulations that we have here in the states. While no one can say that a safe work environment is important, and should be done, China doesn't do that with their workers (yet). As of now, you don't have to do all the safety measures we have in place over there, or in Mexico.
Also, you have to blame the automakers themselves. They didn't innovate enough, keeping gas mileage low, betting the bank on big pick up trucks, and not worrying about cars. Now they are starting to turn that around, but its going to be a while.
Lots of other reasons, but those are the big three, in my opinion.
What are we making?
Google, Amazon, Wal-Mart, FOOD and everything involved in farming, and military supplies. Lots of other things.
And, you might be worried about the truckers now, just wait 10 to 15 years. Cars are already starting to drive themselves with active cruise control, parking assist, etc. We are starting to make drone aircraft that are fully autonomous.
Why wouldn't we start allowing trucks to drive themselves across country? Also, high speed rail is starting to tickle some peoples fancy.
Those are the things coming. If you're a trucker, I'd start looking for employment elsewhere. On a bright note, imagine how much cheaper goods could be, with a decreased transportation cost.
Food my neighbors are working their tails off to fill produce Contracts with Walmart,thing is its just filling the void left after Cargill and Tysons give them the Shaft.
Military Supplies! My wife was working for Haliburton for $8 an hour no benifits.Outsourced to another country.
High Speed Rail! I remember when I drove OTR the RR was the enemy,then all of a sudden they closed shop and the rail network was shutdown converted to hiking trails.
Unions I figured when I worked Union Shop I earned every penny I made because no one else would ever do my Job.Yes I get a good Pension and not ashamed.
brushrunner
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