[t3dwb]

Why is everyone asking such dumb questions? What has happend to our job market and how can we fix it?...I HAVE THE ANSWER

The answers is: We need to do one of two things ...either re-legalize and reinstitute slavery, or, outlaw the importation of products from foreign countries and companies that use slave labor and child labor.

about 150yrs ago, we Americans finally woke up and realized just how wrong the practice of slavery was, and we outlawed it....sort of! but I'm here to tell you that we Americans still own slaves. that goes for all of us, black and white, hispanic and asian. now we just house and work them outside of our countries borders where we dont see them.

American workers and the companies that they work for can not compete with slave labor. We cry about how our govt. is not fixing our problems here in america while we just keep buying foreign crap. which means that the money we need to fix those things is being sent over seas to feed and clothe our slaves.

case in point: A few years ago I baught a Jay Turser JT 50 custom. Thats a chineese made copy of the Gibson SG. At the time the SG had a sales price of about $1250 and I paid $266 for the Jay Turser. The turser in an awesome guitar and I'd stand it up against any other guitar on the market and it would hold its own. I wondered why it was so inexpensive. then I found out why. Gibson Guitars pays their employees a reasonable wage of about $12 to $15 per hour. Jay Turser on the other hand pays their workers about $10 to $12 dollars a week.Thats when I realized that I had Purchsed a slave and why American companies like Levi Strauss closed all of their American manufacturing facilities and moved to asia.

First, we sent all of our money to asia, then our companies decided to go after it!
You can call it what you want, do we own foreign slaves or are we just supporting those over seas that do? either way, we're killing our own economy, and the giant importers of cheap plastic crap like Wal mart are getting rich because of it!!

Wal-mart...always low wages!


Question: I have a lot to say about a lot of things...should I start a lournal?

[mulletman]

No, but you should start a journal.

And hey, if you people want capitalism, that is it in all of it's glory....

[bobthecockroach]

I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say...

[Hopeful]

Well, one reason why things are affordable in the global market is that costs to produce are lower. And that's why WalMart is the largest retailer in the U.S. The typical American consumer is very cost conscious as is the rest of the world, especially in countries where the people have little to spend. If American companies are to compete in the global economy, they must be able to match the lower prices elsewhere. You can bet China sells its goods all over the world at cheaper prices than U.S. made goods. Using guitars as an example, the evolution is slow, but there is benefit to all those countries that are being used to manufacture the guitars we buy now. One of the very first countries to benefit is Japan. At one time, their quality was considered the equivalent of what China and Indonesia produce today. But look how far they have come. Korea is now following the footsteps of Japan, that's why your JT was made in China; otherwise you would have paid more for it. That's the only way some of us can afford some products like guitars. However, as we've recently seen, there is no quality control, safety standards or product watchdog agencies in China that can guarantee product safety. Good luck trying to sue in China...

[Chrysostom]

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say...

IOW, he's saying that international outsourcing is functional slavery because unemployed people in other countries are willing to work for fewer dollars than Americans would be paid for comparable jobs in the States.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by Chrysostom

IOW, he's saying that international outsourcing is functional slavery because unemployed people in other countries are willing to work for fewer dollars than Americans would be paid for comparable jobs in the States.

The word "willing" seems to be a fatal flaw in the argument.

[jthomas1600]

Originally Posted by Nate

The word "willing" seems to be a fatal flaw in the argument.

Agreed. in fact some (not all, maybe not even most), but some of the people working for a dollar a day or whatever are living well in comparison to their neighbors. In fact China has a fairly rapidly growing middle class--I would guess this is in part due to jobs that have been shiped to China. That being sai, I hate to see our jobs going overseas.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by jthomas1600

Agreed. in fact some (not all, maybe not even most), but some of the people working for a dollar a day or whatever are living well in comparison to their neighbors. In fact China has a fairly rapidly growing middle class--I would guess this is in part due to jobs that have been shiped to China. That being sai, I hate to see our jobs going overseas.

You can't "ship" a job. Even if you could, you can't (or usually don't) "ship" the worker with the job. He'll find something else to do. Look at these unemployment rates. Are we really losing jobs, or are we losing something else? What's really going overseas?

[jthomas1600]

Originally Posted by Nate

You can't "ship" a job. Even if you could, you can't (or usually don't) "ship" the worker with the job. He'll find something else to do. Look at these unemployment rates. Are we really losing jobs, or are we losing something else? What's really going overseas?

I'm not sure exactly what you're pointing to--if it's that the unemployment rate is realy low I would agree, but I'm not sure the jobs are all that good, I see less manufacturing/skilled labor jobs and more fast food/customer service minimum wage jobs. I don't know what the answers are but am curious as to your thoghts. I have seen reports that put the average household incomes as stagnant for the last decade or so.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by jthomas1600

I'm not sure exactly what you're pointing to--if it's that the unemployment rate is realy low I would agree

No, it's not that it's low. It's that it doesn't change much. Between 8% and 3%, so what? If "jobs" were really "going overseas", we'd see exponential growth in unemployment (since the importance of outsourced employment has grown roughly exponentially). We just don't. People shift. They find new jobs. We don't "lose" jobs. If we did, unemployment would constantly be rising.

, but I'm not sure the jobs are all that good, I see less manufacturing/skilled labor jobs and more fast food/customer service minimum wage jobs. I don't know what the answers are but am curious as to your thoghts. I have seen reports that put the average household incomes as stagnant for the last decade or so.

Here's a graph of median incomes, adjusted for inflation so as not to include the effects of natural growth.



Here's an interesting graph comparing employment and wages a decade or so ago and now. Jobs haven't shifted around much at all in the service industries, although the wages have risen in all of them.



Here's a few more interesting graphs, showing the ridiculously low percentage of workers that actually make minimum wage. The vast majority of American workers make more than minimum wage, probably considerably more.





(And these graphs only include workers paid on an hourly basis! Obviously all salaried workers make more than minimum wage.)

Here's an interesting graph just comparing two sectors of industry. (Although it's admittedly a bit deceptive due to the different scales on the two Y axes.)



Here's another interesting one on a similar topic, only without the distorted / mismatched scales. Certainly you can't complain about education and healthcare.



Here's another graph showing that manufacturing job loss isn't only due to increased Chinese competition. We simply don't need as many workers to do the same work.



These are all from just a cursory Google image search. Certainly more detailed economic analysis would present an even fuller and richer story. Suffice to say that "We're losing jobs due to outsourcing to overseas' manufacturers and Americans are paying the price in lower wages and worse jobs!" just doesn't cut it as an explanation at all.

[TunerSteve]

This thread hits me really close to home.

I've recently become unemployed (along with 300 other co-workers) as our plant shut down and moved to Mexico (1000 employees). The explaination was cheaper labor allowed them to continue to do business with Wal-Mart, our largest customer. I've also become un-unemployed according to statistics, because I've entered school and no longer count as unemployed, although I still don't have a job. Those former co-workers that have exhausted their unemployment benefits are also no longer counted in those statistics. While I don't consider these actions 'slavery' I don't hesitate to say it surely has an impact on our overall economy. Even after I learn new skills, in all likelihood I will have to accept a much lower income. Less income with also mean I pay less income taxes in the years ahead, which will mean more budget deficits for the government (considering that since NAFTA over 4 million Americans have had their jobs effected by outsourcing).

I don't know where it will end. White collar jobs are also seeing increase of outsourcing. Mircosoft now hires many of thier software engineers from India, at one-third the rate of American college graduates.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by TunerSteve

I've recently become unemployed (along with 300 other co-workers) as our plant shut down and moved to Mexico (1000 employees). The explaination was cheaper labor allowed them to continue to do business with Wal-Mart, our largest customer. I've also become un-unemployed according to statistics, because I've entered school and no longer count as unemployed, although I still don't have a job. Those former co-workers that have exhausted their unemployment benefits are also no longer counted in those statistics. While I don't consider these actions 'slavery' I don't hesitate to say it surely has an impact on our overall economy. Even after I learn new skills, in all likelihood I will have to accept a much lower income. Less income with also mean I pay less income taxes in the years ahead, which will mean more budget deficits for the government (considering that since NAFTA over 4 million Americans have had their jobs effected by outsourcing).

This is a much more useful story than the above "We're shipping all of our jobs overseas" analysis. Thank you.

I don't know where it will end. White collar jobs are also seeing increase of outsourcing. Mircosoft now hires many of thier software engineers from India, at one-third the rate of American college graduates.

It will end when Americans find what it is that they have a competitive advantage for in the global market for labor. The fact of the matter is that, as you say, manufacturing isn't the only industry where America is "losing" jobs. At least a third of the students at my university come from outside the country, and many of those will probably go back to their home countries after their education is finished. It's the same story for almost every other institution of learning in the country, not to mention the fact that overseas higher education is blossoming.

It used to be that workers overseas were at a competitive disadvantage because they were less skilled, less educated, and less intelligent than Americans. Not at all the case anymore. If anything, Americans are the ones behind the curve in the education and skill-set race. We don't outsource jobs to India and China simply because they're cheaper, but because India and China are legitimately better at these jobs. That doesn't mean a "higher quality" product necessarily. It means a higher quality product at the same price or a lower price for the same quality, in short a better value and capitalism seeks to maximize exactly this type of value. India and China can do things more effectively and more efficiently than we can because we've lost our edge in many of these industries. Because they're better at these things, businesses shift production or service to their labor rather than ours.

The fact that our businesses are moving in droves to outsource as much as possible to take advantage of better labor overseas shows that our economic system is starting to work exactly as it was designed to. In the long run, this will maximize the benefit to all countries involved. This doesn't mean that one country might be worse off than before and another better off than before, only that, taken as a global whole, the world will be better off. The underlying current that essentially says "It sucks that the Chinese and the Indians are getting ahead while Americans suffer" is pretty sickening to my economic sensibilities. We have long been enjoying wealth that wasn't ours and inflicting poverty on the rest of the world because our tribal nationalistic thinking was oppressing outsourcers and preventing profiteers from taking advantage of business overseas. Now that international trade is more open, things are starting to settle to where they should have been all along.

If the status quo had been "right," nothing would have changed when global economies were opened up, and the economic forces underlying the movement of labor and production would simply have tacked on the overseas capacity onto our own capacity rather than led to mass outsourcing as we have seen. The only way to stop it is to return to our nationalistic way of thinking and say "To hell with the rest of the world so long as we make enough money to continue our standard of living," and the only way to do that is to, as the original poster suggested, close off international trade through tariffs, quotas, embargos, and the like. Personally, I find it a ridiculously short-sighted and bigoted solution. If they can do something better than we can, why in the world (literally, why in the world?) shouldn't we let them?

Sure, it sucks that we may have lower wages for a time while we find a new labor distribution that takes advantage of the things we do best now that India and China can top us in manufacturing and engineering, but that's part of life. It's similar to the "OMG! A RECESSION!" thing that's going on in the truly domestic economy. Recessions will always happen so long as people live beyond their means. We've been living beyond our means, domestically and internationally, for a long time now. Our balance of trade, which you also mentioned, shows this very clearly, as does the recent ARM and overall credit bust(s). We've been trained to think that growth is necessary to the point that we can't handle the thought of having lower wages or lower living standards for awhile while the economy reacts to our past bad decision-making. We cry out "But I'll have to take a lower paying job" and ask the Fed to bail us out by artificially stimulating our economy with "job creation" and "economic stimuli" and "tax holidays" and the like. It's insane.

As long as we continue not to allow the economic forces to move in both directions (up and down), we'll be in this mess. Let it crash, I say (and it's unlikely it will be so severe that people won't be able to afford the basic amenities; likely, they'll just have to cut down on slightly higher amenities [and, no, I don't just mean fancy cars and fancy houses; many will probably have to suffer real and important losses, but we'll all survive]) . It's the only surefire way to recovery. When people are desperate, they'll naturally find the solution... it's part of human nature and solid economic thinking.

[jthomas1600]

Nate, some of the info that you are presenting is thought provoking, some of it does not seem very relevant though. For instance the % of the population making minimum wage. $8 an hour is above minimum wage but still is not a good job. If my wife and I both made $10 an hour and worked 40 hours a week we would make slightly less than $40,000 before taxes--the U S dept of education qualifies a family of 5 (my family) as being "low income" at $37,200. Based on these numbes I would say any thing less than $10 an hour is not a good job. Statemaster.com lists each state and the % of the population below the poverty level, Mississippi leads wth 21.6% the average is 12.8. We could talk all day about the caouse might be this or might be that--what are your thoghts on how to improve things?

[Nate]

Originally Posted by jthomas1600

Nate, some of the info that you are presenting is thought provoking, some of it does not seem very relevant though. For instance the % of the population making minimum wage. $8 an hour is above minimum wage but still is not a good job. If my wife and I both made $10 an hour and worked 40 hours a week we would make slightly less than $40,000 before taxes--the U S dept of education qualifies a family of 5 (my family) as being "low income" at $37,200. Based on these numbes I would say any thing less than $10 an hour is not a good job. Statemaster.com lists each state and the % of the population below the poverty level, Mississippi leads wth 21.6% the average is 12.8. We could talk all day about the caouse might be this or might be that--what are your thoghts on how to improve things?

Poverty in America is a totally different thing than poverty anywhere else in the world. One of my favorite songs has the line "TVs glowing in the projects behind the greasy windowpanes," and I think it's a really good, though simplistic, view of American poverty. Even our poorest people usually enjoy cable TV! How poor can we really be if this is the case? Compare it to global poverty where people live in grass huts and bake their own bread for necessity's rather than gourmet's sake.

If your wife and you both worked? Heaven forbid, but consider what we've been discussing in this thread, the global labor conditions where families often send their children to work 40 hours a week or more in factories, not because they're "slaves" to some imperialistic system we've set up but because they want to get out of true poverty as quickly as possible. Imagine your whole family of 5 working 40 hours a week each to make a tenth as much and live a tenth as well.

My thoughts on how to improve things are to improve things globally. Basic economic principles that anyone would learn on their very first day of a college Economics 101 course explain how maximization of the whole system rather than maximization of the benefit to any single party actually makes every single individual better off than they could ever have been before. The only real solution is to continue to "ship jobs" to China and the like and to search for what it is we do better.

$8 / hour may not be a "good job" to a person used to living under your present conditions, but it would be equivalent to you taking over Bill Gates' position to a person used to living in squalor. It's natural to want the best for you and your own, but it's not always helpful when that excludes the possibility of mutual benefit in trade with others. All things considered, I would rather have my children, which I don't have yet, live in a better world than live better than anyone else in the world.

[BillSPrestonEsq]

Originally Posted by jthomas1600

Nate, some of the info that you are presenting is thought provoking, some of it does not seem very relevant though. For instance the % of the population making minimum wage. $8 an hour is above minimum wage but still is not a good job. If my wife and I both made $10 an hour and worked 40 hours a week we would make slightly less than $40,000 before taxes--the U S dept of education qualifies a family of 5 (my family) as being "low income" at $37,200. Based on these numbes I would say any thing less than $10 an hour is not a good job. Statemaster.com lists each state and the % of the population below the poverty level, Mississippi leads wth 21.6% the average is 12.8. We could talk all day about the caouse might be this or might be that--what are your thoghts on how to improve things?

2 years ago, my wife and I lived okay on a single sub 20k income in san diego. I was working 40 hrs a week at $10/hr. San Diego is one of the most expensive areas of the country to live. We did so without debt and without too severe cuts or such. I believe we were below the poverty level, however, a poverty level and poverty are not synonymous.

I grew up in a family in poverty. That was a different ballgame altogether.

I think to improve things, the key is to live within your means and to be content with what you have. As such, you can live well below the poverty level.