reducing the cost of labor

Union greed is always bad for everyone other than those at the top level of their Ponzi Scheme. You're too ignorant to realize this, of course. If EVERY worker in the US was in a union, things would be even worse, because every one of you inbred losers think you're worth more than anyone else and inflation would be in a race to infinity.

That's it, keep changing the subject, because you're too stopid to see the truth in what was said. Now, how many times a month do you buy a new truck?

Unions are only about 10 percent of the work force. So why do you blame them? Besides your poor opinion of people that are Union. The real enemy is greed

It is not how much it costs the manufacturers or what the laborers get paid. . It is about GREED, GREED of the CEO's, GREED of US POLITICIANS

snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Ed I hate to say I agree with you on this one....but you are right. Millwright Ron

=========== Indeed, and be reminded that the Recardo grift of "comparative advantage" posited that capital, including intellectual capital [i.e. technology] is "fixed" within a country. As soon as capital is free to relocate, "comparative advantage" disappears leaving only "absolute advantage." The continued assumption (or at least propagandizing] of "comparative advantage" with mobile capital appears to account for the large number of problematic, economic crisis [and paupers] being generated.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

And the consumers have the drugs at affordable prices...

Indeed we do, but the top paying jobs are for the book cooking, asset stripping CEOs and MBA types. The actual research and production are rapidly being offshored, mainly to China and India.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Production, but not much of the research. They can do the big-cohort studies cheaper there but not many of them. Most are done here in the US.

I've done work for Pfizer, sanofi-aventis, Bayer, Merck, and a half-dozen others. Since I was editing the research studies (and writing some of the conclusions and physician-education materials), I'm familiar with the research itself.

-- Ed Huntress

It's not that simple, George. The 30-second version is that the "small-molecule" drug business, on which those big pharma companies were built, is on its last legs. You could say they've picked all the low-hanging fruit and there aren't many new small-molecule drugs in the pipeline -- which lasts 10 years or so, from discovery to marketing.

The future looks like a big-molecule business, which means biologicals. Those aren't well suited to big corporation research. Small, innovative companies come up with them -- and drop like flies when they run out of money. When they come up with something that looks hot, the big pharma companies buy them out. That makes them both happy.

Meantime, as you say, survival requires "innovation" in patent-fighting and DTC (direct-to-consumer) advertising. Enter Huntress...

-- Ed Huntress

This looks like a good spot to post this little morale builder from the Financial Times [UK]

"Suppose, then, that Prof Roubini were right. Losses of $2,000bn-$3,000bn {2 to 3 trillion in American-speak} would decapitalise the financial system. The government would have to mount a rescue. The most plausible means of doing so would be via nationalisation of all losses. While the US government could afford to raise its debt by up to 20 per cent of GDP, in order to do this, that decision would have huge ramifications. We would have more than the biggest US financial crisis since the 1930s. It would be an epochal political event." =========== FWIW -- it appears the "money" being created and pumped into the financial markets by the fed is *NOT* being used for the needed liquidity in bond/credit markets but rather to fuel commodity speculation, i.e. 110$/bbl oil, 12$ wheat, 20$ silver, etc.

The pyromaniacs are burning the house down [again].

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

You really don't get it. American made DOES NOT MEAN UNION MADE.

There are damn few local mom and pop businesses left around here, unless you count flea markets. Even then, they have no investment in the community. They show up for a while, then disappear.

I did support local businesses, till they disappeared. Owners retire, buildings get sold, property taxes go up, and other pressures build till they can't keep the doors open.

The local hardware stores almost never has what I need, and don't want to special order it. Local computer stores refuse to sell parts, because they are afraid of any imagined competition. ai always bought the best quality I could find, for whatever I needed. Rarely was it union made. In fact, most of the things I've seen with a union label were of unacceptable quality, even if they were free. Why do you thing buying online is so popular? You can drive around town, visit a hundred stores, while spending a couple hundred dollars on gasoline. You still don't find what you need, and end up buying from a big box store, or online. This isn't 1800, when crackers were shipped in barrels, and the local blacksmith made almost any hardware you needed. It is a new world, with a global economy. You damn Wal-Mart, but I can't remember the last thing I bought there that was imported. I look at the label of everything I buy to see where it was made, but Union made doesn't impress me, at all.

This whole discussion sounds like a bunch of buggy whip makers in 1903

Buy from the largest retailer in the world WalMart?

Bruce-in-Bangkok (correct email address for reply)

And don't forget all the greedy people that buy from WalMart, Harbor Freight and the other resellers of foreign made goods. They are greedy too, trying to keep some of their hard earned capital instead of spending it for high priced, and frequently poorly made, US made goods.

.

Bruce-in-Bangkok (correct email address for reply)

Nope. They aren't competing at all. What it takes is government price controls on drugs. Everyone has them but us. That's why most drugs are developed in the US. Our prices reflect all of the development costs. To make money in Europe, they use a different accounting -- one in which all of the development costs are sunk (in the US).

What it says is that we're paying for the world's drugs. When you sort out the arguments over this, you wind up with an accounting debate over whether we're making it up in pharma jobs and corporate taxes. I've tried to sort it out but it looks hopeless.

-- Ed Huntress

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

This thread is going off at a tangent. I responded to Hawke's statement that "In fact, they are kicking our asses", by stated that the U.S. has priced themselves out of the world market and gave the example of the cost of Zestril in Thailand vis-a-vis the U.S.

You respond that "it isn't relevant to the situation in manufacturing", and then go on to explain that your salary in the medical business was higher then in the manufacturing business.

My point is that costs in the U.S. are higher then in much of the rest of the world and that is basic problem. It costs more to do something in the U.S. then it does in other countries, whether it is building something or doing something -- even answering the telephone has moved offshore -- and as a result we have the situation that exists in the U.S. today.

Now, this is not a simple problem and there are a host of underlying reasons for the situation as it exists today. frankly I feel that they are unsurmountable.

It is easy to blame it on the notion that the cause is the greedy unions with their insatiable demands for pay increases. Or the greed of CEO's ,which probably, is not that far out of line in reality -- Exxon, the largest company in the world? How much should we pay for the guy that runs that company? But trying to assign blame to a single entity, or cause, is an over simplistic point of view.

The root cause is that developed countries, simply by the nature of the beasts, increase the standard of living of the population and the demand for bigger, better, more, and as a result costs of doing business in the country increases. So, as long as there are less developed areas business will move to the cheaper, less developed areas.

This happened, in the U.S., after WW II with industry leaving the N.E. states (with the result of lost jobs and failing economies) and moving to the South. It is now happening again, except industry is now moving outside the U.S. because there is no longer undeveloped areas within the country.

Bruce-in-Bangkok (correct email address for reply)

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Kinda makes you wonder if this "experiment in self government" is actually working?

Richard

For this post you can call me Hawke-in-California, which ought to tell you that yes I do know exactly what CALPERS is. But that has little to do with what I said. Apparently you don't know much about American history and especially the economic history of America. We've been through swings of power between business and unions over the years and it's as I said, when unions were the most powerful and had the highest membership the US was at its best. This was in the late 50s and early 60s. That was also the time when corporate taxes were the highest too. The total government revenue in taxes at the time was 39% from corporations. It's nothing like that now and the ordinary citizen now pays what the corporations used to. No wonder their finances are in a decline.

And if you look at the income distribution gap between workers and owners or between rich and poor or between high and low income workers it's the highest right now it's ever been. So my point about a rich aristocracy and a poor public is the fact not my opinion. The 1/10 of 1% has more wealth than ever. That group is our aristocracy. The fact that state employees have a big pension fund is really irrelevant to what I was talking about. What I find surprising is that so many people like you think that everything is so simple that basic business or econ 101 can explain the situation the country now is facing.

Hawke

It's more complicated than that. The same company that makes that drug probably sells it across the Canadian border for a lot less too. Our pharmaceutical companies have the government by the balls and get sweetheart deals you wouldn't believe. If they had to really compete we'd be paying the same, or nearly the same as you are. Another example, Bill Clinton was in Africa promoting anti AIDS programs. They had one where drugs were being supplied from Europe and it cost about 200.00 a year to keep someone alive who had AIDS. The same medication in the US was 10,000. There is something horribly wrong when you see that kind of a difference in costs of medication. It's all about the government and business and the deals they pull off. There is no free market anywhere in the modern world. It's all under government control. Some care a lot more about their own people than others do. Just look at Japan vs. China. China doesn't care much about its people but Japan does. Japan cares more about the Japanese than America does about Americans. It all boils down to policy. In my view our policies suck and is why things are as bad as they are here. We could make things a lot better for the people here if we were willing to take control of the corporations. We lost control of the corporations when we got a right wing administration. If it changes to a Democratic one you will see changes that improve the lot of regular Americans. How much is the question.

Hawke

That the economic trade theory under which we're operating is an underlying problem, I agree. I think most of the propagandizing about "comparative advantage" is being done by people who misunderstand the term, or who think that the people they're talking to misunderstand it.

In any case, it remains, AFAIC, a joke that is a profound theory on paper, but which I don't believe has ever worked in practice. I can't imagine how it could unless consumers said to themselves, "I could buy an identical TV made in my own country for less, but I'll buy this more expensive one from France because it will help my country's overall trade volume." Huh?

Have you ever heard of a case where it works?

-- Ed Huntress