Free trade does help large Corporations, and share holders with
greater profits,and cheaper products for the consumer’s. Just
walk into a store, and try to find something made in America.
A couple of year’s ago I bought a new Ford F-250, wanting to
buy American, only to find out later it was made in Mexico!
Manufacturing in this country is rapidly being moved out of this
country to Mexico and China. In Mexico, the average hourly pay
is 1.46. In China the average hourly pay is 0.46. How can
American worker’s compete against Communist labor? I know
China is not part of NAFTA, but we have granted the most
favored trade status. I went to China a couple of year’s ago,
and was astonished at all the worlds large corporations there.
The large corporations bring in a few experts and the latest
high tech. equiptment, and show them how to do the job. They
also do this in Mexico. American Engineer’s who make 60.000
a year are losing thier jobs to Engineer's in India who make
6.000 a year, via the internet. From 2000 to the present,
America has lost over 3,000,000 jobs, never to return.
Where are the jobs that our political leaders promised these
trade agreements would create for Americans? Jobs that you
can raise a family on, not jobs flipping burgers. I’ve seen my
standard of living go down, way down. How about yours?
Have we been sold out in favor of large corproations, who
move out of the country for cheap labor, but still get the
tax breaks?
Franko
Obisouly I blabed to much on my first thread.
I shall add this to my bell-curve of knowage. I shall embrace the
" kiss " method, keep it simple stupid . America has a serious
oil leak when it comes to jobs. Do you give a shit or not?
Franko
Do you like buying inexpensive stuff? Do you think that you could if everything was manufactured by unionized workers making $50,000 a year instead of Mexican children making $0.30 a day?
If I invented a black box that could create cars at 1/3 the price of an American factory would that be a good thing? How about if that black box was “Japan”?
What I’m a little unclear about is why it’s bad for Mexicans and Indians to have jobs.
Doesn’t that mean they’ll have more money to buy the stuff made in the USA?
Moving manufacturing to low cost countries has been going on since manufacturing was first invented. It is an unavoidable fact of the world we live in. Short of mandating a world-wide uniform wage structure, there really isn’t anything that can be done. Stop US auto companies from manufacturing in Mexico, and European and Japanese companies will have a competitive edge.
Moral of the story: make sure your skills are worth your US salary.
Does that mean to imply that people having those skill but not working in the US for US companies, but ouside the US in their homeland yet also for US companies, aren’t worth a US salary?
Salaam. A
I served ( 2 ) four year apprenticeships,and went to night school
for seven years, to get my Journeyman cards in the forging industry. Now we drop the trade barriers with other countries
and setup shop there,solely for the cheap labor, now they are
eating our lunch. It’s like importing millions of labors to America,
who will work for next to nothing. My advise to the young, stay
out of manifacturing! Find a profession they can’t export, like
a plummer,fireman,policeman. I went back to school to upgrade
my skills,and was the oldest in my class, in the school for that
matter. I’m near retirement now and it pains me to think of
so many true craftmen who used to be the backbone of American
industry being lost forever here.
Franko
I think they are worth whatever salary they can negotiate with their employers.
Through greater efficiency, both of the individual worker, and of the overall ‘system’. How much a person makes per hour is only part of the overall cost of delivering a product or service.
**
I am a bit skeptical that this trend will continue. The company I contract to recently closed its India operation. It was just a pilot program, granted, but the costs involved kept climbing (the cost of so much bandwidth, hardware, and English speaking techs, from my understanding) to the point it was approaching that of just using domestic labor. But that might be an anomaly.
Regardless, moving skilled labor jobs overseas just frees up skilled labor here. Someone will make use of it; That is a beauty of the capitalist system, someone is always waiting in the wings to exploit the latest opportunity.
Our (very large) company’s experience in outsourcing to India has been a very mixed bag. I believe the trend will reverse itself, at least to some degree.
If they aren’t earning the same salary, yes. Why? Well, because they are farther away from the market. Because their governments aren’t as stable, increasing business risk. Because language and geographical barriers make management more difficult. Because their country’s infrastructure isn’t as well developed, meaning it’s more expensive to build high-tech factories and run them.
There are many reasons why people in 3rd world countries tend to make less than Americans. None of them are because “Evil rapacious businesses are exploiting them”. It’s just reality. They earn what they do because that’s what they are worth, given the overall cost of their labor.
If you want that to change, free trade is the best way to make it happen. We’re already seeing that. Remember when South Korea was a third world country? Remember when people would avoid “Made in Korea” in favor of, “Made in Japan”? For that matter, remember when “made in Japan” meant the product was generally inferior to American-made?
South Korea now has a 1st world economy and standard of living. So now THEY are losing jobs to lower-cost labor in places like Vietnam and Indonesia. Eventually, the standard of living there will rise as well.
If you really believe in helping the poor of the world, you should support free trade.
Greater efficency?
China’s enviromental laws, pension plans, health coverage etc are so laughable that they will always have an advantage over us, our standard of living is too high.
In terms of our trade policy being good for America, I’ll say it isn’t. Though we talk about free trade, we tend to ignore when another country is taking advantage of us (esp through currency manipulation).
Check out this Press Release and the mentioned letter. I’d rant if I restated its points, I’ve come to see those numbers in my sleep.
Through better tech,more eductated work force, we can do fairly well on a truly level playing field, but we don’t seem to have one.
You know, Telcontar, people in other countries say exactly the same thing about the United States.
Well, duh. I would have said the same thing to anyone interested in farming 200 years ago. The US is becoming a service economy. That seems to be a natural trend as a nation’s economy evolves. Your manufacturing job could just as easily have been replaced by a robotic arm instead of some guy from Taiwan. The more mundane and repetitive a persons job, the greater the chances that it will be replaced by an automated machine (or if it’s cheaper, a machine called ‘China’ or ‘Taiwan’).
My advice is to go to school and learn something that can be applied accross multiple industries. If you can’t go to school, then as you say, learn a service job that can’t be exported.
You are worth whatever someone is willing to pay you to do. Try and look at the big picture. No one ever said that the world owes you a high salary just because you have the good fortune to be born American.
Are you kidding? Can you name 5 quality products that came out of any communist countries other than Cuban cigars or vodkas?
American workers aren’t competing against communism, they are competing against the cheap labor that comes from having a population of 2 billion people, most of whom are not educated.
And they said the same thing about Japan in the 80’s.
In the end, trade barriers only serve to hurt consumers who are forced to pay a higher price then they have to.
the OP asked what was good for the US, of course we also have some unfair practices, that wasn’t the question. When our policies violate WTO rules, we get hit. When other countries violate them, we often don’t hit back. The countries that object to our polices are generally European, the ones getting the free ride are East Asian (Japan, China, India) so we can’t even say it evens out.
The Japan analogy doesn’t hold true, we can’t compete against countries that are willing to wreck their enviroments and citizens to make a cheaper product. We also can’t compete well against countries engaged in currency manipulation, which is illegal under WTO rules. Our government has chosen to ignore this problem, that is stupid as our manufacturing and textile industries are feeling pain. Goods may be availible more cheaply with no trade barriers, but it would be nice if the people had money to buy them.
Someone previously mentioned out-sourcing and said that they believed the process was slowing. I have seen nothing to indicate that. We are losing white collar and service sector jobs at alarmign rates. Busniess Week did a series on this in early March but their archives are pay. If you have lexis nexus, do a search on “Is Your Job Next”. We also need some jobs for the lower middle class, particularly if we’d like them to move up from that bracket. Historically, manufacturing has provided that step.
Oh, side notes:
china’s population is 1.3 Billion not 2
soviet style communism’s desregard for safety and the enviroment are part of the problem so China being communist is relevant.
I think somebody is forgetting about the Yugo…