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I didn't ask a question, and I'm fully aware the jobs are going overseas.
I don't know what to say about protectionism other than we should look out for our own best interests as much as other countries do. You can't refer to the current mess we have as "free trade" when damn near every country we "free trade" with has restrictions set up to encourage companies to manufacture within their borders, or to protect their domestic manufacturers. China and Japan are both excellent examples of countries that do both.
Take a better look at where drugs are manufactured. Not too long ago I got a very bad cut across my foot in a very dirty environment, so I was prescribed antibiotics. The name "INDIA" was stamped on one side of these pills. When the pharmaceutical companies were pressuring the Bush Administration to do something about Americans ordering prescription drugs from overseas pharmacies, the pharmaceutical companies attempted to make the same claim (that the drugs were manufacture in the US). One of our senators burned the executives by noting that the information provided for over 100 different drugs noted that the drugs may be made overseas.
So, where this, my post, and other posts fits in is that we have a shortage of worthwhile jobs. In fact, we have a shortage of mediocre jobs at that. We have a system in place which aids big business in undercutting Americans by assisting outsourcing and increasing the number of H1B visas, minority-owned benefits given to foreign competition which is hell-bent on doing business in the US, but not with American workers. These companies have become H1B visa mills to aid bringing citizens from their respective countries to work here. All in the name of "free trade." At the same time India doesn't want Americans working there unless they are there to assist them with competing with the US or other Western economies. We also have domestic companies lobbying to legislate double standards in "free trade." The pharmaceutical companies are among the best examples of this. They have flat out made it clear that they feel they have the right to have drugs manufacture overseas, but Americans shouldn't have the right to buy their products directly from overseas pharmacies. The textbook companies are starting to do the same thing. They are having books printed in China, Indonesia and India, charging $20 in those markets, but they don't want Americans to have the ability to buy the same book from India because they feel Americans should pay $100 for the same book.
And while the US has Hollywood, those DVDs sold overseas are not manufactured in the US. And really, nobody in the US benefits by how much Brittany Spears makes unless they own stock in the entertainment industry or they are selling $6000 shoes in some upscale shoe store.
It also doesn't matter how well American companies are doing if Americans are unemployed. If I don't have a job, I don't have money to buy their junk.
So, now that the unskilled, and skilled jobs are outsourced overseas, and foreigners have been insourced with H1B visas, where do you suggest all of us find employment?
Companies price discriminate in the US. If you buy a movie at a matinee its cheaper than if you see it at night. If you buy a plane ticket a month in advance you will pay less than the person who bought the seat next yours the day before the flight. If you go to a Kings game, you will pay more for a ticket near closer to the floor than further away and you will pay a lot more for a box ticket. Levi jeans cost more in Europe than in the US. Companies offer senior discount and student fares because if they charged everyone the student fare they wouldn't make as much money. They offer coupons, so they can charge more for people are less price conscious and still sell to the people who are very price sensitive.
Companies are going try to maximize revenues by selling goods for as much as they can. If they can use government to enforce price discrimination (by banning the importation of drugs from Canada or how universities got the government to force you to disclose on financial aid forms how much you can earn so they can charge you more for tuition) they will do so.
My own feeling is that you do what you can do, to prevent the corporations from legally preventing consumers from buying stuff cheaper from abroad and try to game the system so it works for you. I pay my credit cars in full every month. But I put everything on my credit cards to maximize my rebate back from the bank.
Generic drugs are made overseas, some ingredients in drugs are made overseas. In order to get a patent, the law requires that drug companies publish the ingredients with the USP (United States Pharmacopeia). Once the patent expires, the USP lets anyone in the world know how to make the drug. This is why generic drugs are so cheap.
But it also brings up a bigger point. With protectionism who are we protecting? If we wanted to, we could ban the importation of any drug not manufactured in the US, we could also ban the importation of any auto not made in the US.
US based corporations certainly would benefit. Some employees working for these companies would also benefit. But as consumers we would all be harmed.
If the only DVD players in the US were those that were built in the US exclusively by Americans, how much do you think they would cost? Would any US government regulation have improved the quality of US cars as much as the threat of cars imported from Japan? If US firms know that they have a captive market, what prevents them from making crappy goods and raising prices?
Think about how much the defense department pays for US made toilet seats in defense contracts. This is the type of pricing we would be paying for everything. So while wages might be going up nominally for some, the overall increase in the cost of living might mean that our standard of living is actually falling for a lot of others.
Right now Avatar is the number 1 movie in China. Movies don't just employ stars and directors, they employ people building sets, camera men, people doing make up, people designing special effects. The entertainment industry is huge in Southern California. Then there are all the supporting industries. The people selling food to the people on location, the hotels, the people working for all the news and gossip companies that hype people up and create starts. As incomes rise in China, it creates tremendous demand for goods and services made everywhere including here.
With global supply chains, generally we are outsourcing the crappy jobs abroad. Making textiles really is mind numbingly tedious work. How many of the jobs done in China would really qualify as interesting work?
Rather than protecting this type of work, I would rather see investments in skills so that people have better employment choices, put the money into skills and education so that people can do something more interesting and more fulfilling.
I realize that not everyone is college material. But not all skills require 4 year college degrees. In Germany for people that aren't going to college the government puts money into educating the people in the trades. This is where the owner of the Freeport Bakery learned how to bake. He had a level of skills that the average person working at Denny's doesn't have and his skills provided with the tools to support himself with his baking in the way the average employee at Denny's lacks. There is going to be a need for electricians, auto mechanics and plumbers too.
At the high school level we have programs like ROP and auto shop, but there isn't the same level of commitment here to ensure that when people leave high school that they are either prepared for college or prepared to have some sort of life skill that they can support themselves with.
I'm really starting to think you are talking around in circles in an effort not to acknowledge the real issues here.
Anyway, many of us have taken the time to explain all this to you in multiple ways. If you still have trouble understanding what this is all about I don't think you ever will.
As I was reading all of these posts, I was really thinking the same thing about KC6ZLV.
I really don't think he gets it at all.
I get it.
What I don't get is the mentality that we should have unrestricted imports from countries that severely curtail imports of US products. China is the best example of this.
I didn't ask a question, and I'm fully aware the jobs are going overseas.
I don't know what to say about protectionism other than we should look out for our own best interests as much as other countries do. You can't refer to the current mess we have as "free trade" when damn near every country we "free trade" with has restrictions set up to encourage companies to manufacture within their borders, or to protect their domestic manufacturers. China and Japan are both excellent examples of countries that do both.
Take a better look at where drugs are manufactured. Not too long ago I got a very bad cut across my foot in a very dirty environment, so I was prescribed antibiotics. The name "INDIA" was stamped on one side of these pills. When the pharmaceutical companies were pressuring the Bush Administration to do something about Americans ordering prescription drugs from overseas pharmacies, the pharmaceutical companies attempted to make the same claim (that the drugs were manufacture in the US). One of our senators burned the executives by noting that the information provided for over 100 different drugs noted that the drugs may be made overseas.
So, where this, my post, and other posts fits in is that we have a shortage of worthwhile jobs. In fact, we have a shortage of mediocre jobs at that. We have a system in place which aids big business in undercutting Americans by assisting outsourcing and increasing the number of H1B visas, minority-owned benefits given to foreign competition which is hell-bent on doing business in the US, but not with American workers. These companies have become H1B visa mills to aid bringing citizens from their respective countries to work here. All in the name of "free trade." At the same time India doesn't want Americans working there unless they are there to assist them with competing with the US or other Western economies. We also have domestic companies lobbying to legislate double standards in "free trade." The pharmaceutical companies are among the best examples of this. They have flat out made it clear that they feel they have the right to have drugs manufacture overseas, but Americans shouldn't have the right to buy their products directly from overseas pharmacies. The textbook companies are starting to do the same thing. They are having books printed in China, Indonesia and India, charging $20 in those markets, but they don't want Americans to have the ability to buy the same book from India because they feel Americans should pay $100 for the same book.
And while the US has Hollywood, those DVDs sold overseas are not manufactured in the US. And really, nobody in the US benefits by how much Brittany Spears makes unless they own stock in the entertainment industry or they are selling $6000 shoes in some upscale shoe store.
It also doesn't matter how well American companies are doing if Americans are unemployed. If I don't have a job, I don't have money to buy their junk.
So, now that the unskilled, and skilled jobs are outsourced overseas, and foreigners have been insourced with H1B visas, where do you suggest all of us find employment?
I think Jimbo was pointing out that pop culture tends to be an industry in itself, and that everyone who works in that industry directly, or indirectly, benefits when people like Brittany Spears do well. Magazines sell, clothing sells, commercials and promotions are created, among other things - it's not just CD's. It employs writers, editors, printing staff, retailers, designers, etc. It's not just those who own stock in the entertainment industry that make money, as you've oversimplified. The industry branches out and employs plenty of people.
For as much importance as you put on manufacturing, you tend to disregard how much of an impact other industries have on jobs.
In any event, I stand by the points I've made. I don't think we can live in the past. We have to learn from the past and try to apply "some" of the same principles that worked. I think we have to rely on our innovative spirit and not just go back to relying on manufacturing alone. That article I linked to touched on that. Manufacturing is one industry, and it will be extremely difficult to compete against nations that have dirt cheap labor. We can find ways to help several industries get us back to where we once were. Just my opinion.
What I don't get is the mentality that we should have unrestricted imports from countries that severely curtail imports of US products. China is the best example of this.
That is not free trade.
Though I agree that needs to be addressed, I think you believe manufacturing is the only solution and the only thing that will save us if we just focused on protectionism. While others see that we might do just as well by focusing on improving the skills of many Americans so they can better adapt to new economies, instead of simply trying to bring back more manufacturing/factory jobs. That's where some of us disagree with you. We don't see a manufacturing reemergence alone as the answer to our nation's success.
Though I agree that needs to be addressed, I think you believe manufacturing is the only solution and the only thing that will save us if we just focused on protectionism. While others see that we might do just as well by focusing on improving the skills of many Americans so they can better adapt to new economies, instead of simply trying to bring back more manufacturing/factory jobs. That's where some of us disagree with you. We don't see a manufacturing reemergence alone as the answer to our nation's success.
No, we need jobs to fit a larger cross-section of the population. I mentioned manufacturing because Jimbo thinks they are crappy jobs, and it appears to me that what Jimbo thinks is a crappy job isn't worth keeping in this country.
I trained employees at several different computer assembly plants. Yes, the jobs appear boring and pointless to me, and probably to you, Jimbo, and many other people here. However, many of the people working there didn't think so. The type of people doing the work ranged from unmotivated people who are happy to make just enough to pay their rent, college students, people using the job as work experience for better jobs in the future, and many other types of people. We are always going to have the first group of people. They were productive members of society when they were assembling computers. The scale tips to the other side when they end up working at Walmart, can't make enough to pay rent, and go to the emergency room at the expense of the taxpayers because they no longer have the medical benefits they had when they were assembling computers. Trust me. Most of that type of person can't be retrained to do much more.
Then there is the problem of retraining to do what? Jimbo doesn't want to acknowledge that skilled jobs are leaving the country too. Should they go to college and get a teaching credential? There are school districts around the country making an attempt to hire foreigners as teachers. We always here of various positions in the medical field. Guess what? Some of these fields now have too many people looking for jobs because a lot of people ran to get their certificates thinking they were guaranteed a job. And if what I'm seeing at the local hospitals here is any indication of what is going on in the rest of the country, expect hospitals to seek out foreign work visas like the IT industry has. If it is done on a computer, expect a good portion of it to be outsourced. The media is already outsourcing some of their audio and video production overseas.
So, when these jobs are outsourced, and companies bring foreign workers on work visas, where to people find jobs which will allow them to maintain a reasonable standard of living?
And no, I'm not a protectionist, but I do think we need to maintain a balance. Allowing imports from a country which restricts the import of American products, or Americans working in their country isn't benefiting us.
This country just doesn't have a good track record with protectionism/industrial policy. In 1987, industry and the government got together to form Sematech in order reverse the decline of the US memory chip industry which was shifting from the US to Japan. The feds subsidized the memory chip industry from 87 to 96. They pulled the plug when despite all of the money flowing into "saving" the industry, the new memory chip jobs instead of being shipped back from Japan to the US went instead to S. Korea and Taiwan instead.
Once federal funding was pulled from Sematech, Sematech let in other industry players from abroad and became the lobbying arm of the semiconductor industry in the US. But the policy of saving the industry a complete failure. The reason we have a semiconductor industry in this country at all was that Intel figured out that rapid innovation of new lines of processing chips was the way to stay ahead of foreign competition.
After the Korean War, in order to ensure that the US would always have a supply of US flagged boats in time of war, the US reserved the right to ship goods between US ports to US flagged ships. The primary consequence of this regulation was the demise of the tramp ships as the cargo got shifted to truck and trains instead of the protected US flagged ships.
The US spends billions of dollars on price supports for the ag industry in theory to protect family farms, but in practice the primary beneficiaries are ADM and Cargil and the large corporate farms like JG Boswell.
The reason I don't favor protectionism is that I see no evidence of it actually ever working here. Even abroad industrial policy has a really bad record. In Japan the Mininistry of Trade and Ministry of Finance both tried to prevent Honda from selling cars in the US. They thought there was no way that Honda could ever succeed in selling cars in the US.
In order to stimulate the creation of domestic computer industry, the Brazilian government banned the importation of foreign made computers. The protected Brazilian computer industry was making a fortune in Brazil but poorly made Brazilian computers found no market abroad so Brazilian computer makers retreated to the domestic market where they were still quite profitable. Because the domestic computer industry was using a software standard no in use anywhere else in the world, that held back the development of a Brazilian software industry. Because the hardware and software was so behind in Brazil, Brazilian multinationals started moving information processing to offices outside of Brazil. To stop the loss of those jobs, the Brazilian government finally let in the importation of international hardware and software brands which rapidly destroyed the remains of the Brazilian hardware and software industry.
Now compare that with the experience of Ireland. In the past 25 years, its difficult to find a country that has raised incomes faster than Ireland. Because it had no domestic computer industry to protect, Ireland set itself up as the place for US firms to set up operations in Europe. Even though wages were and are much higher than in Brazil the industry relocated to Ireland and not Brazil because Ireland didn't try to protect a domestic industry and because Ireland did a much better job on educating it students.
What I don't get is the mentality that we should have unrestricted imports from countries that severely curtail imports of US products. China is the best example of this.
That is not free trade.
What US products are banned from China?
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