# How was the rest of the world "ripping us off"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 7, 2025, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757 "2025-04-07T20:28:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/101 "2025-04-12T17:23:07Z")
You sound like the kind of guy who wants to cut the IT department because it’s not a profit center. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/102 "2025-04-12T17:26:30Z")
No, and that’s a ridiculous and personal response. I am the kind of guy who ACTUALLY WORKS IN THIS BUSINESS AND KNOWS THE NUMBERS. I am the guy acknowledging that employees must often be retained even when they don’t make a profit. Geez, man, read what I actually wrote. This is reality. There is a shortage of employees. I am correct. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/103 "2025-04-12T17:29:38Z")
I was in the business too. > [@RickJay](#): > > n manufacturing, the margins on labor on the floor are already pretty thin and many are carrying employees who are pretty much just break even, because it gets the jobs done and they make money thanks to more productive employees. The plain meaning of what you wrote is that employees who don’t directly generate revenue are being carried. If you meant something different than what you said, you should have written more clearly. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/104 "2025-04-12T17:37:16Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > The plain meaning of what you wrote is that employees who don’t directly generate revenue are being carried. What I wrote was that production employees sometimes don’t make as much money as they are being paid. The reality is, though, that it’s better to get the products out the door than not, even at break even. And jeez, of COURSE sometimes you carry employees. I mean, you know that. Employees in training don’t make you money. Apprentices need time to learn. Trainees need time. Employees need to be given leave for many reasons - you can’t fire someone because their kid is sick, come on. (I live in Canada and we’re more humane here than most of the USA, to my eternal relief.) Sometimes there’s just a downturn but you can’t lay off skilled employees all that easily because if you do they’re gone and you won’t have them when things turn around. Support functions aren’t the same thing; it’s much harder to figure the ROI. I’ll tell ya what though - most companies I work with could use more people in MOST functions but it’s so damned hard to find them. Or has been. As Trump crashes the world economy, they’ll be more plentiful. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/105 "2025-04-12T20:46:29Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Just imagine rich people today are dumber than Henry Ford. Even Henry Ford anti-semite that he was, wanted his Model Ts to be affordable by the guys who were making them. > The Model T was the first mass-produced car that was affordable enough for a wide audience. In 1909 a new Model T cost $850, but by 1924 the price had gone down to only $260. The average assembly line worker could purchase one with four months’ pay in 1914 > **[Model T](https://www.detroithistorical.org/learn/online-research/encyclopedia-of-detroit/model-t)** ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2025, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/106 "2025-04-12T22:33:01Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Even Henry Ford anti-semite that he was, wanted his Model Ts to be affordable by the guys who were making them. Exactly what I meant: today’s billionaires are dumber than making their privilege sustainable. And even an idiot savant like Ford (savant like: knowing a lot of a very small slice of the world, in his case making and selling cars. Until Edsel, much later, granted. Apart from that, he was a very ignorant person, the butt of jokes) knew better than them in this respect. Build a middle class. If there is a middle class already, don’t make them reach for the pitchforks. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2025, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/107 "2025-04-13T17:19:38Z")
> [@Frilly\_Heck](#): > > Personally, I’d call that a higher standard of living. American car culture is ridiculous and very expensive. I meant that in a financial expenditure way, not quality of life way. > [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > The plain meaning of what you wrote is that employees who don’t directly generate revenue are being carried. No, the plain meaning is that some workers don’t carry their full load, while others do extra. Or maybe “plain meaning” is a subjective thing. I just got a promotion, and my boss was explaining that while we have a number of problems right now that I have to go in and fix, I can’t just start firing everybody because then we wouldn’t have anybody to do any of the work. At least now _some_ of it is getting done. He talked to me a long time about trying to get the most out of the people you have. If some need to go, we can do that, but it needs to be a light touch combined with a lot of teaching and guidance before that step. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/108 "2025-04-13T18:25:16Z")
Yes, very subjective. Whenever management says that a certain group or department is being carried, what they are saying is they don’t understand why they need to pay for the service that group or department provides. I don’t think we are really talking about poor performers. HR can take care of those relatively easily. It’s not really hard to fire someone you don’t want any more. And most of those “poor performers” are people who are being managed poorly, all the people I worked with wanted to do the work. Due to poor and inconsistent management, they sometimes got confused about what the work was. It’s a common problem in every corporation I have worked for or with. The C suite keeps a close eye on the bottom line, while having no idea about all the line items that go into it. I am reluctant to go into too many details about people I have worked with, but one example that comes to mind is the CEO who called into a zoom meeting from his house in the Hamptons to tell us raises were frozen, and he was cutting the R&D budget. He flat out said that R&D weren’t contributing enough to corporate profits, and must be cut. It didn’t do good things for employee morale. I left that meeting and sold all my company stock. And that was a good thing, as that company is no longer in business. The CEO still has his house in the Hamptons though. To bring this back to the subject of this thread, that CEO was of the opinion that anyone who wasn’t making him money directly, was ripping him off. We never discussed it, but I bet that guy was a Trump voter. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2025, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/109 "2025-04-13T18:34:03Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > Whenever management says that a certain group or department is being carried, what they are saying is they don’t understand why they need to pay for the service that group or department provides. I have never heard the people running the company say a _department or function_ was being “Carried” in this sense. Literally not once in 25 years or working with them. I’ve never met someone that stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2025, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/110 "2025-04-13T20:27:58Z")
I have. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/111 "2025-04-14T01:22:40Z")
RickJay has already discussed the basic reasons why trade is good for both poor and wealthy countries. Trump grossly overestimates the benefits to making everything in the United States and seems unaware of the many downsides to his tariff policy. I’m not sure what American place Trump has in mind to set up nationalized coffee plantations. But I’m pretty sure I would prefer the coffee grown in Colombia, Jamaica and other traditional sources to that grown in Pittsburgh. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/112 "2025-04-14T03:07:11Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I find it helpful to recall that Trump gained his fortune in real estate, which is in large part an endless series of zero-sum transactions that are exercises in extracting concessions from the other party, in pretending you’re being cheated so that you can cheat the other party. Actually, Trump gained his fortune by having a rich father, and by being egotistical enough to sell his likeness. If he were that good in real estate, banks would be more eager to lend to him. But I agree with you on the lessons he learned. As for carrying people, I don’t know about the places where other people work, but in the very large companies I worked for firing people was very difficult. If you had a poor performer, you tried to help them, but sometimes you waited for a layoff where getting rid of them was relatively easy. Otherwise it was meeting, meeting, meeting, document, document, document. And don’t forget, some managers get carried also. Not just workers. Probably a higher percentage of managers thanks to the Peter Principle and that incompetence is not so obvious. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/113 "2025-04-14T11:32:34Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Actually, Trump gained his fortune by having a rich father, and by being egotistical enough to sell his likeness. If he were that good in real estate, banks would be more eager to lend to him. But I agree with you on the lessons he learned. I think it’s clear Trump inherited some money and then made more money out of it. I draw no conclusions as to whether a competent entrepreneur would’ve done better, because I don’t really know. I’m just observing that this is the only job he’s ever had, and real estate deals are a zero-sum game, so this informs a lot of his style. Or perhaps it’s the other way around, perhaps the one-and-done nature of real-estate deals attracts chiselers and fraudsters. Either way - that’s all he knows. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/114 "2025-04-14T13:17:26Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > Whenever management says that a certain group or department is being carried, what they are saying is they don’t understand why they need to pay for the service that group or department provides. I agree here. If a manger is writing off a whole group or job description, that reflects the manager’s ignorance. That wasn’t what @RickJay was discussing. But it is a real issue in corporations. They have mistaken impressions about the value of certain employees, or that am experienced person can make better decisions and do it faster because they have seen the problems before directly. They think a brand new hire is just a effective as a 10 year vet, or at least that existence isn’t worth the pay. > [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > HR can take care of those relatively easily. It’s not really hard to fire someone you don’t want any more. Depends. Some have it easy to fire for specific causes, and some states don’t require cause. But that doesn’t necessarily mean a big corporation can just do anything. A lot of them have corporate policies to prevent getting sued, or hoops for collective bargaining agreements, or government contracts that mean government rules. Effectively, there are a lot of people that skate by on bare functionality or not screwing up too much. It also depends on job level. Working retail is a largely entry level, non-skilled job. Some people are pursuing those jobs because they are unable to hold jobs very long. Some are young and don’t have a work ethic. > [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > And most of those “poor performers” are people who are being managed poorly, all the people I worked with wanted to do the work. Due to poor and inconsistent management, they sometimes got confused about what the work was. I have seen management driven issues, but I’ve also seen incompetents kept on because of union seniority and time wasters skate by on selective performance. But I do agree there is a real experience of corporate big shots not knowing the reality of work at the functional level and making decisions by armchair reasoning without reflecting the actual work needs. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/115 "2025-04-14T14:49:11Z")
> [@Tatterdemalion](#): > > HR can take care of those relatively easily. It’s not really hard to fire someone you don’t want any more. That’s very not true here. Canada has reasonable labor laws that are very far from the weird “at will” work laws in some US states. A fundamental principle of quality management, which is my field, is that **people want to do a good job**. It’s a rudimentary assumption you have to make in order to make real progress in a business. I’m not saying slackers don’t exist somewhere, but “worker sucks” is a lazy shortcut in identifying process and product issues that prevents real root cause analysis. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/116 "2025-04-14T16:52:09Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > RickJay has already discussed the basic reasons why trade is good for both poor and wealthy countries. Trump grossly overestimates the benefits to making everything in the United States and seems unaware of the many downsides to his tariff policy It’s also worth realising that much of the rules of trade and the dollar-backed trading system were written by the US and have benefited America tremendously. The fact that America is such an unequal country, with a dirt poor middle of people working two jobs and still needing food stamps is not the fault of China. Talk of getting back outsourced jobs is great for presidential campaigns, but it’s nonsense on multiple levels; you’re not supposed to actually “remedy” this “injustice”. ---
**Author:** ![Tatterdemalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/43a26b/32.png) [@Tatterdemalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatterdemalion)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/117 "2025-04-14T16:53:36Z")
I was speaking of the USofA. I understand that labor laws are different in other places. That was kind of my point. Entirely too many people, too many of them Republican, will just assume that everyone else is trying to rip them off by freeloading. It seems to me that there was a hint of that in the post I originally replied to. Apologies if I misread your intent. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2025, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/118 "2025-04-14T18:04:13Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > The fact that America is such an unequal country, with a dirt poor middle of people working two jobs and still needing food stamps is not the fault of China. I can understand people wanting to blame someone for inequality latching onto “the foreigners.” But yeah, it’s wrong - as evidenced by the fact that rich countries with less inequality and more social services ALSO embrace free trade. The analogy I try with everyone is “look, suppose your state/province suddenly decided every person and business in your state/province had to pay a 25% tax on everything they bought from any other state/province. Do you think that would make things better or worse?” The response, sadly, is usually a refusal to address the question at all, but sometimes the point gets through. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/119 "2025-04-30T21:33:06Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The analogy I try with everyone is “look, suppose your state/province suddenly decided every person and business in your state/province had to pay a 25% tax on everything they bought from any other state/province. Do you think that would make things better or worse?” The response, sadly, is usually a refusal to address the question at all, but sometimes the point gets through. I keep making the same analogy with regard to immigration (which is essentially just a subset of international trade), and I keep getting the same non-answers. Free trade isn’t free trade without free migration too. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757/120 "2025-04-30T22:10:27Z")
Are we trying to figure out what trump means to do when he does stuff? Because that way lies madness. Step back from the void. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-was-the-rest-of-the-world-ripping-us-off/1016757.md?page=7)