No. Honestly your point is just flat-out wrong in this case, because GM is taking advantage of a TWENTY TO ONE reduction in labor costs when they manufacture in china.
There is simply no way that anyone can work for GM in the US at that rate. So the result is that the company will send the work overseas.
It doesn't matter how many times the UAW president gets down on his knees and kisses GM's president's shoes. It doesn't matter how upstanding and hardworking and willing to do give-backs the auto workers might be. It doesn't matter if they all sold their snowmobiles and lived on dog food in cardboard boxes in the street.
Those jobs are gonna go away, and they won't come back.
That's what worries me, frankly. Assuming it does happen, even if the workers were to show good faith and voluntarily take reductions, I wouldn't be the happiest guy in town to see them continue the course and eliminate their plants here. In the long haul, it could end up biting them on the ass. As Ed said, the wages in China and other countries won't always be low, and we don't have to drop to their current level----just compromise, leaving the US corporations a little wiggle room----maybe making different decisions. Dunno.
I can't help but think that had we been more level headed, years ago, when Japan started kicking our butts with higher quality and better autos, you'd think the American worker would have made a decision to keep their jobs secure by giving a little more, including having more pride in doing a good job. Industry wide it was a problem. I remember all too well the drive from the production industries to improve quality---even in the aero-space industries, which affected me.
As I see it, we've lost something here in the States since WWII. Too bad we, as a nation, don't pull together to salvage what's left instead of encourage the hemorrhaging. I don't see how we can recover once all the steel mills are gone, along with related industries. We'll be at the mercy of foreign countries for almost everything. They won't have to defeat us in battle, all they have to do is cut us off from supplies.
I'm not arguing with you, Jim. Really, I'm not. I'm just damned frustrated at how I'm seeing everything that made this country great go down the tubes, mostly at our own hand, thanks to greed at all levels. Wish to hell I had a solution, but I do well just to run my own affairs. Can't imagine knowing how to solve these problems.
What the unions need to give up to keep jobs here is OHSA, IRS and all the other alphabet agencies as well as liberal socialist democrats (and republicans). Won't happen without a bloody revolution, which will only happen when we have nothing left to lose.
Well, look at where ford and GM were making all their money until recently - the SUV and truck market. There recent run-up in gas prices was a big trigger for their woes I think. They just never learned their lesson.
Honestly I think our politicians are letting us down on this. There has to be some way to provide financial incentives for companies to keep jobs and manufacturing in the US, and penalties for those who offshore jobs and import the goods - and boost their profits. Is this a call for import tarrifs? I don't know, because they're not really imports if it's an american company....
How about Ed's example of import offsets? For every dollar of goods we import, china has to import a dollar of ours. Or even, a dime's worth.
Times change Harold. The companies that offshore are doing what they have to do, based on the regulatory and financial situation at hand. The workers are doing what they think, overall, is best for them in the short term. I would like to think that a *long*-term economic policy, at the national level, could help to tip the balance even a little bit, and slow down the bleed-out.
We'd both be better off if you'd be charitable with YOUR OWN resources, and allow me to do the same with mine. But obviously, you don't trust me to be charitable, so you subscribe to the notion that I should be FORCED to be charitable according to YOUR wishes. That, sir, is the very definition of slavery.
Why is that MY problem?
Again, why is that MY problem?
Then why are you here?
So when does "minor" become "major"? A penny isn't worth much these days, but a thousand pennies is ten dollars, a million pennies is ten thousand dollars, a billion pennies is ten million dollars, ..... But no merchant should take umbrage if you "short" him a penny or two, right? No employee of yours should complain if, having earned (say) $100.00, you pay him only $99.95, right? "After all, it's only a nickel." How many nickels does it take before "you're talking real money"?
You are perfectly free to accept for yourself less than the value you have earned. You are NOT free to FORCE me to accept for myself less than the value I have earned.
How many are "have nots" because they cannot? How many are "have nots" because they WILL NOT?
Good example, and not only for the manufacturers. They build what we demand. How about us? The buying public? How much did we learn? Higher wages demanded and bigger autos. It's as if we think there's no bottom to the well. That's the point I've been discussing right along----and it is pointed at us as a nation------not just the unions----not top management----we all share the same philosophy, at least from all appearances. No one is willing to bite the bullet, but we're quickly running out of ways to avoid doing so. I rember the air traffic controllers demanding more----and I also remember they lost their ticket when they refused to bend. As it should have been.
I still can't help but think that had the workers taken a good look at this long ago and realized what was in store, they could have prevented a lot of the job losses. That, of course, depended on the corporations doing the right thing, too. Given recent history, I realize that I'm dreaming. All they'd have done is line their pockets and shipped the work to other countries, anyway.
Is this
I realize that shipping both directions somewhat equally would be the solution----but do you think that's going to happen? As quickly as they can tool up, they start building what ever they import now. I don't see that changing any time soon. Don't you wonder how long it will be before they start building serious aircraft, which they now import?
I can't see that happening without wages being a serious part of the equation. Seems that's the main attraction----they can get it cheaper over
*there*. Surely our workers wouldn't be willing to sustain a cut of several hundred percentage points, but I also understand that we can't just keep doing business as usual. A concerted effort on the part of the worker to put in a serious day, and to do it for smaller pay might beat the alternative of being out of a job and having no source of income, with no hopes of having one. It would also requite that corporations be willing to compromise somewhat, perhaps settling for smaller profits, and CEO's taking home less pay as well. Failing to do so, in a sense, they're shooting themselves in the foot, especially if they're producing consumer items. Who in hell will buy them when everyone is broke? Must this entire mess undergo a complete collapse before it can stand up again?
We're living in tough times, Jim. Keep a good thought, we may be in for some rough times in the near future.
Your context suggests that by "SS" you mean "social security". I proceed based on that assumption.
In essence, you performed "involuntary servitude", as prohibited by USConst. Amdt. XIII.
My opinion of you is neither increased nor decreased. Like most of us, you were probably deluded into believing that you were "contributing" to "your own" account, from which you eventually would be allowed to withdraw portions periodically. But in fact there is no "account" with your name on it; you have NO balance identifiable as "yours", and never had. When you die, your heirs will receive nothing from "your balance" because there is none. ALL of the money you "contributed" over the years was paid out in the same fiscal period to persons you never knew existed. ALL of the money you might now receive was and is taken by (threat of) force from persons you have not, and likely never will, meet. In short, you have transitioned from "slave" to "slave-holder".
I beg to differ: You are no more "entitled" to any portion of the fruits of my labor than I am of yours. To put it bluntly, I do not OWE you so much as the time of day; nor you, me. That said, if I reach the "magic age" I fully intend to avail myself of whatever forcibly exacted fruits of the labor of others the government then in power deems "appropriate" for me.
We're saying the same thing, but you're more eloquent with the words you choose. I'm in total sympathy. I wanted to opt out of SS, but I wasn't offered that option, unlike many that were. Government employees, for example. I worked for Sam for two months (military base as a tool maker), and didn't have SS deducted from my pay. I hated that damned job and left as quickly as possible. Back to having my wages stolen. Like you, I gladly accept what they deem to be my share now. I'd have made other arrangements given the opportunity. Big brother didn't allow that. I had no choice but to pay SS taxes, and I paid all of it (15%) when I was self employed.
I understand all too well that the money taken from me didn't go into an account that bore my name, although they know all too well what I made, and what I paid. Still do, for that matter.
The system is broken, and has been since Roosevelt. That doesn't mean I don't want my share now that I've been victimized.
This is the *biggest* line of horseshit propogated here in recent times.
Unless you are willing to say that paying *any* income tax is likewise the same involuntary servitude.
Social security is a tax to fund an entitlement program. It takes money from those with money, and gives that money to somebody else. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not an investment. It's not a savings plan. It's not an account. There's no ROI. It's a tax, you have to pay it. The gummint is simply, flat out, taking your money and giving to somebody else. Full stop.
One of the biggest problems is that investors and corporate board are driven to show constant growth as opposed to the stability and consistent profits of the old days.
Constant growth is simply not sustainable, there is a relatively finite market for any given product. Corporations found out some years back that they had reached market saturation on many products.
Lately all this "growth" that they show in the bottom line profit numbers is not driven by increased sales and market share, but rather by false profits from outsourcing and layoffs. The very outsourcing and layoffs they are using to try to fudge the bottom line is also causing a shrinkage in the market as people who are out of work are buying fewer products.
When they have outsourced and laid off all they can in a few years there will be nowhere else for them to create the phony growth from and this will likely trigger a giant stock market crash when the bottom line profits go flat on nearly every company.
=============== It is an unfortunate truth that government in some form is required to "provide for the common defence, insure domestic tranquility, etc." Unfortunatly this provides the "government" (or more exactly the people in government) with the pretexts to expand indefinatly with logical sounding rationales such as "its only for the duration of the emergency," "it's for the children," and "its a mater of national secutiry."
It is equally true that before an 'intervention' can be done with a person they must be at or near 'bottom.' It is seldom noted that many people die at the bottom because of an OD, cirrosis of the liver, etc, and never 'recover.'
History shows us that even when a 'government' is reformed [always imposed from the outside] the cure is frequently worse than the disease, at least in the short term. Examples are the French and Russian 'corrections' that were hijacked by the most radical elements and National Socialist Germany where the 'intervention' was stage managed by the NSDAP.
This reminds me of the old joke, "They told me to cheer up, things could be worse. So I cheered up, and sure enough things got worse."
When the debt and immigration 'bombs' detonate here, we all will wish it was 'only' terrorist nukes.
It can be worse, or it can be better. Do you think modern day Germany and Japan are better or worse then before the opening days of WW2?
I think we can safely say there was some outside intervention with both those countries.......
Gunner
"The importance of morality is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching. There are not enough cops and laws to replace personal morality as a means to produce a civilized society. Indeed, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Unfortunately, too many of us see police, laws and the criminal justice system as society's first line of defense." --Walter Williams
Well I'm happy to see that somebody agrees with me about at least *one* aspect of this issue, namely the fact that if it (offshoring) goes on long enough, the market for all the imported goods will be just gone because nobody will have any money to buy any of them, no matter how cheap or tasty they are.
And there seems to be some resonance likewise, about the issue of short-term ROI by these companies. Seems like the most often-heard justification for shutting down manufacturing in the US is "but if we don't do it, then our competitors will, and they'll take all our profits then."
The giant stock market crash may well be preceeded by a giant real estate crash.
Possibly, but real estate has "real" value vs. amorphous inflated stock prices. Of course those that purchased real estate in trendy areas at grossly inflated prices will be screwed, but the rest of us who purchased modest houses in modest areas should be ok.
These were more of involuntary commitments to a mental institution and forced EC [shock] therapy and/or prefrontal lobotomy by threatened neighbors than self-correction.
When I referred to outside intervention I meant outside the government but still from within the state.
Governments are in the position of a junky with all the blow they could ever snort. They have no see no reason to reform and when they do [for example when their nose falls off] it is too late.
You and I can be shoveling "stuff" against the tide, in that the "state" as we knew it is "withering away" in the "brave new world order," just as the medieval baronies, dukedoms, etc. did with the introduction of the new systems of societal organization such as mercantealism and then capitalism.
I don't think this is the case, but rather the mover and shakers selling what they don't own for an immediate and personal profit.
We just didn't know what the consequences were going to be...
Back in 1982, when I got out of business school as a newly minted MBA, it was very clear to me that making textiles and shoes in lower cost countries was the right thing to do for all kinds of reasons. Now, 23 years later, having spent all that time in the software industry, I have fallen victim to the same process.
I have been out of work for nearly two years. The software industry is virtually dead in this country, unless you work for Microsoft. Just spoke with a partner in a law firm that has started sending all of their para-legal work to India as well. Tax returns are being processed there, and insurance forms. I recently posted what to me is an amazing fact - there are more English speakers in India than there are in the U.S., and many of them are quite skilled in coding, tax, and legal work. There is a zero incremental communications cost, and the time difference actually adds to efficiencies, as the work is being done while we are sleeping, i.e. a day faster than it could be done in the U.S., never mind the incredible cost savings.
I am stuck. I have spent most of my savings from the good years, I am in the process of selling my house, and I am searching for something else to do for the next 16 years, (I am 51), until I can collect all that Social Security that is waiting for me ...
I am a smart guy, but I see no way out for myself, nor for the country as a whole... We are the next England... I certainly don't see any role for the government in changing any of this, other than making things worse...
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