I’ve also got lots of niggling little problems with things like way the tax system actively encourages abuses, or the dubious proposition that economic engagement with more odius regimes encourages improvement in areas like human rights or democracy. But I’m willing to bet that those will go away if my Big Two are met.
Maybe you should look at from the perspective that we understand what you’re saying, we just disagree with the premise of your worldview.
“I think that species differentiate through evolution.”
“Oh. That’s because you don’t understand the Bible.”
black455: I don’t think I understand your proposed solutions. If I read your post correctly, you seem to be expecting some sort of globally coopterative effort. How does one make that happen? And what does “universal healthcare” have to do with the ability to freely participate in global markets?
I’ve been trying not to post in this thread, but I can’t help it.
After an Indian company took over functions of my department, half of us (and half the staff of other departments as well) lost our jobs.
The Right say, ‘No worries! Just get retrained and get a better job!’
Okay, that sounds good to me. Please tell The Government to give me, an over-40 guy, money so that I can go to school and get retrained for a new career. Oh, and being ensured a place in the college would be good. And don’t forget that while I’m being retrained, the mortgage has to be paid, groceries must be bought, utility bills must be paid…
It’s all very well to say, ‘Just go get retrained for a new and better career!’ But not when you’re no longer 20 years old and have expenses. Maybe the people who are not rich enough to go to school for retraining can be euthanised? People are expendable after all.
Fortunately, my hobby may actually pay off. I made little films after high school, and have ‘kept my hand in’ over the years. Very fortunately I have run into a guy who has a studio and wants a partner. My investment will be the equipment I already have, and my ability and knowledge of composing a shot. It still may not happen. I’m not going to count any chickens until we’re set up in the new studio. But it looks promising. I would venture to guess that most people aren’t as lucky as I might be.
Let me see if I can put things in a more rigorous format for you.
Friedman’s thesis is that the various trends, business practices and international trade agreements that come under the aegis of “globalization” has made it very much easier for capital to flow across regional and national boundaries. As has been pointed out, you can buy raw materials wherever they’re cheapest, have them shipped to wherever automation is most advanced and have the raw materials processed into parts there, then ship the parts wherever labor is cheapest and have the parts assembled into your product there, and sell them wherever you caN get the best prices and the highest volumes for them, and none of these countries need to be the one you or your company resides in.
So, as a person with a big pile o’ cash (a capitalist) you are in a position to hire anyone on the planet to do what you like. Huge advantage for you.
Working folk, i.e., people who work for salaries, are not so fortunate. Many of them cannot migrate to wherever the work is. For many of those who can migrate, doing so represents a great personal wrenching of their lives, and very possibly a vastly lowered standard of living.
Plus, it’s much easier to invest your money into whatever’s hot and making bucks than it is to retrain yourself and migrate to whatever job opportunities are hot and making bucks.
The advantage here are ALL on the capitalist’s side, Rjung, as Friedman specifically said in several interviews I watched and read.
Yup. Isn’t that the whole point? And before you counter that individual corporations are competitors among themselves, please note that when it comes time to get a bit of legislation changed or something, groups of corporations can be perfectly cooperative, so long as their interests coincide.
I’m coming at this from the perspective of a Social Democrat. I’ve got no problem with transnational capitalism, so long as human rights, sustainable environmental policies, and equality of opportunity are respected. In my opinion, the current system does none of these, or only pays them lip service.
If I knew that, I wouldn’t be telling Bosda to bend over and lube up.
Actually, I think it is possible with the right combination of laws and international agreements, I just don’t see it happening in the next few decades, given the political since at least the Johnson administration.
Most individuals can’t fully and freely participate in the market if they’re burdened by poor health or lack of education. Among other issues that cry out for a massive redistributions of wealth.
Whats the alternative Johnny L.A.? Force your company to keep the jobs in the US? And if your company fails because they can’t compete then what? Have the government prop it up? And all the other companies who are in lines of work that lend themselves to outsourcing, or streamlining or automation? Prop those up too? Force companies to keep staff they don’t need…even if at a loss? Subsidize them? Where does it end…and how will this help you in the long run? And if your company sells on the world market and can no longer compete should the US just keep proping up your company forever…because you need a job and can’t or won’t change to do something else?
Half the work force lost their jobs you say. If the company fails, doesn’t that mean everyone loses their job? I’m sure it would be cold comfort to you to get to work for another half a year and then lose your job if the rest of your company employees also lose their job, yes?
The funny thing is it looks like you are doing exactly the right thing. You can’t (appearently) find work in your old field so you are looking at something else. Thats pretty much the path most folks take. Its certainly the path I chose when I lost my job when my own company went out of business.
Thing is…these appeals to emotion are all well and good. I DO sympathize with you, and with others that are dislocated by events. Their company goes tits up, their company switches to automation, their company outsources, their company streamlines its operations, etc. I’ve been there myself. Problem is…whats the alternative to this? Stop progress? Stagnate? How do we force the rest of the world to stop also? And if we could…would that be a good thing?
Again…if you want to talk about social programs to help out the dispossessed or the dislocated, then thats fine with me. We can talk about better programs to re-train and to help folks over the hump while they look for something new. We already have programs of course, but I think all will say that they aren’t exactly the best or most efficient programs they COULD be. Why those programs are partial failures and where to set the bar would probably be a debate, but I don’t think anyone in this thread is saying no to a safety net. However…a lot of folks DO seem to be talking about trade/jobs protectionism, and thats another kettle of fish. Especially since no one on that side is really giving any solid (and debatable) alternatives. Just a lot of hand waving and appeals to emotion without any substance.
True, within a nation. But it’s not in their interest to lobby for the kind of multinational political change you suggest.
I woudn’t count on it ever happening. I don’t mean this as a jab at you or your argument, per se, but getting all the nations to sing “Joy to the World” together is very unlikely.
What % of “displaced” individuals are beset with health problems? I just see the issue of health care as a completely separate matter. And I didn’t mention education, so no need to bring that up. In the US, education is primarily a local matter (or state matter, at the best). Changing that is, again, something that just isn’t going to happen.
The company didn’t outsource because it was in financial trouble. The company isn’t going anywhere. As a major credit reporting corporation, the information it provides is vital to business. No, the reason they outsourced was to increase profits for the shareholders. I could provide more information about how much money that company wastes by pouring funds into projects and then going back to the old way of doing things, but I won’t.
And I know that I’m doing the right thing. If this works out, then I’ll be doing my second-favourite thing. B ut I don’t think many people have that option. The only reason I can do it is because my mother died. Without a (rather small) inheritance, I’d be up the proverbial creek.
From my perspective, ‘your’ side is not coming up with anything solid and is just waving its hands. The ‘Get Retrained And Get A Better Job’ mantra doesn’t hold water if there are no solid programmes to provide that training.
Friedman’s solution is a New Deal for the working man, a series of changes to the welfare and workplace rules as extensive as the ones that were put in place in the 1930s, this time designed to help working folk cope with the wrenching effect of globalizations.
We’ve discussed my ideas for helping people dislocated by the gross imperfections of the free market economy before, John. They boil down to:
Recognizing that it’s an essential and important part of the government’s job to prevent the rise of capitalist oligarchies created by the tendency of people who have gotten wealthy through the free market to try and retain that wealth by influencing government to write laws that give them a permanent economic advantage over the rest of us.
Use government funds to set up a hopefully self-sustaining program whereby unemployed people can form corporations during times of recession and build or make new products and services to revitalize the economy, shortening the effects of recession and employing the unemployed.
Develop a self-sustaining social safety net that will give everybody a place to sleep, food to eat and medical care even in times of unemployment.
Recognize that a jobless recovery is not a recovery for most folks and start calling it what it is: class warfare.
All the interviews I’ve seen of Friedman indicates that he’s got a strong intellectual interest in globalization, but that his “New Deal” deal is just some handwaving he does to seem caring when people bring up the topic of folks being hurt by globalization. I found it particularly telling when in one interview he used the term “these people” to describe the folks who are hurt by globalization. “These people” are almost never people you care about, in the context he used it in.
Let me try an analogy. (Please let’s not get into a gun debate. I’m just going to use guns as an example because I think it’s something that I and the ‘other side’ have in common.)
I have some Evil Black Guns. They’re all perfectly legal, but some people think they’re scary. They want to pass laws to get rid of them. ‘Society will benefit,’ they say. But it’s very one-sided. They want to take away Evil Black Guns, but they want to give nothing in return except the promise that Society Will Benefit.
As the owner of Evil Black Guns, I find this unfair. If ‘they’ want to take something away with one hand, they must give something solid with the other. I don’t want a promise of a ‘better society’. If they want what’s mine, they have to pay. Now, let’s say that ‘they’ institute a ban. How do they make it a fair bargain? The obvious way is to offer the current fair market value for the guns. They get their ban, and the owners are justly compensated.
But outsourcing jobs without providing… really providing… job retraining is like the gunn banners banning guns and not giving any compensation to the owners.
Businesses will say, ‘But if we have to pay to retrain people, then why should we lay them off in the first place?’ Well, because it will Benefit Society, of course! But they seem to be focused on immediate gains instead of the ‘future promises’ they offer. What they fail to see is that people who don’t have money will not be able to buy their products.
No, what they see is the fact that it doesn’t matter if the consumers who want their product live in China, India, America or anywhere else. So if Bob Bigbucks, owner of Bolt and Lightning Thigamabobs, outsources to India and shuts down his Massaquippa, Rhode Island plant, everyone there goes broke, but Bob Bigbucks is still making tons of money selling his Thigamabobs in Europe and Asia, so to hell with the locals. In fact, if all the Bob Bigbucks in the U.S. do this, they gain a personal advantage, as their money spent locally goes further in the depressed U.S. economy. It’s all good! In fact, if the economy gets depressed enough, they’ll bring the factory back to Massaquippa, and hire back the children of all their now penuried or deceased worker at a fraction of what they paid Mom and Dad!
Why should the Govt. give you money to re-train yourself? Haven’t you saved any over the past 20-odd years? These are the kind of times when your savings come into play. I empathize with your general point but you are expecting too much from the government.
Secondly, this is exactly why you learn multiple skills, even if within one broad area. That’s the only way we can survive… talent is a commodity.
You’re requiring too little from Business and Government.
What about the textile worker who has barely made enough to live on, and whose job is outsourced? Do you say, ‘Gee, you should have made more money!’? Or perhaps, ‘Gosh, why didn’t you get born rich?’?
It is callous to take away a person’s livelihood, and then tell them they should have planned ahead 20, 30 or 40 years ago.
As I said, I do have skills that are marketable besides the ones I’d used for 18 years prior to losing that job. But consider that many of the people who are most seriously affected by the loss of their jobs are the ones who may not have multiple marketable skills. Again, you are either telling people they should have foreseen the future better, or they should go get retrained – without having resources to do so.
Hell, I should be flying for a living. Unfortunately, training takes money. Even when I was working in a very nice job, I had to spend most of the money on rent and utilities. It’s easy to tell people they should be trained in other professions. It makes no sense though, if you don’t offer them the means to do it.
Seeing that as a separate matter is wrong, one of the reasons why jobs are going overseas is that healtcare costs will not trouble the outsoursing companies. Health care and education for the workers being outsourced, is only a fair deal in exchange for the protectionist alternative that would be more expensive in the long run.
Healthcare costs are huge. Its one of the primary reasons that companies find it cheaper to outsource to Canada. Brainiac4’s company pulled back some of their outsourcing from India and sent it to “only slightly more expensive per hour, but we get higher quality so its a wash” Canada.
Canada! Why they have a similar standard of living to us. Burdensome taxes. How can it possibly be cheaper in Canada! Because in Canada health care is not provided by the employer. So they can pay first world wages and still save money.
The problem with a lot of outsourcing is cultural. Companies who outsource to Mexico find that Mexicans don’t have the same culture of work that we have (that is, at least currently, a comparative advantage for us, but other places CAN and DO learn a culture of work, and Americans may be getting progressively lazier). To make outsourcing cheaper, you not only need to be able to pay someone less, you need to have reasonable assurance they will show up on time and do their job for the time you have alloted.
This may be one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. Deliciously ironic, too, considering that xtisme was questioning others’ knowledge of economics upthread. Wow.
Er…right. :rolleyes: You say so Gadarene. I guess ‘motivated self interest’ just shows how little I know about economics (vaguely…somehow. I’m sure it made sense to you at the time, ehe?). Do you read tea leaves as well?
I think people are more adaptable than you are giving them credit for…especially American’s ( ). After all, this nation has been through this several times before with industries becoming obsolete, or with labor costs driving manufacturing away…or even with the displacement of the US farmer. And folks (as an agragate) have always managed somehow to find a way through. For those who don’t…well, thats what your social safety net is for after all. Granted I think we could be doing more, and more efficiently (and I think we could do more for less money as well, but thats another issue).
As I said earlier, I was 40 something when I lost my job, and this was when the whole dot com bubble was crashing around our ears and tech companies were RIFing like crazy. Yet, I managed to muddle through and today I own my own business (and without the benifit of any kind of inheritance). Am I special too? Many of my friends lost their jobs and are our age as well…and today they are working, some in their original fields, many in related tech fields. Are they all special? Supposedly millions of American’s were displaced by the dot com bubble bursting, and by the recession after 9/11…yet our unemployment is between 5-6%.
Ok…whats the alternative then? You say its hand waving to encourage folks to obtain and maintain critical skill sets in a work place environment that is increasingly transient. Sounds like common sense to me but if its hand waving lets hear the alternative. Should we freeze jobs and business in place and not allow future innovation? Turn our backs on the world completely and only sell to ourselves, or perhaps heavily protect our trade and not allow US companies to ever outsource?
Hi, have we met? The definition of rationality in an economic and political context is acting according to one’s self-interest. Jonathan Chance is perfectly right that people tend not to act rationally – that is, according to their self-interest – and there are variousreasons for this (many explored in the field of behavioral law and economics), but that’s neither here nor there when addressing your jaw-droppingly inane (and inappropriately condescending and dismissive) remark.
(I happen to think that rationality as treated in most economic theory is essentially tautological, but that’s also beside the point.)
In any economic shift there are going to be winners and losers. Overall there should be a net benefit. Increased standard of living in developing countries and less restrictive trade will open markets to companies both domestically and overseas. This will create jobs. The price of goods should also drop as manufacturing costs lower.
But people are going to need to be more flexible and have a broader skill set. Maybe the government should have a role in helping people to retrain. Regardless, if you are the type of person who expects a job to last 20 years without having to learn anything new, you are probably going to have a hard time.
Fact is that globalization, in the short term at least, may not have a happy ending for everyone. If you are in a small community who’s factory goes out of business, it can be very distruptive. You might find a job eventually, but I think it’s naive to assume that there aren’t people who never recover from an economic setback.
