Other nations must stay desperately poor in order for offshoring to work.
And here’s a solid example that is absolutely undeniable.
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
Robert Johnson | Jun. 3, 2011, 2:49 PM
A Wikileaks post published on The Nation shows that the Obama Administration fought
to keep Haitian wages at 31 cents an hour.
…
Thanks to U.S. intervention, the minimum was raised only to 31 cents.
I don’t see your premise supported. Transportation of goods to market costs money so in order to compete offshore companies must either have a more efficient means of production or cheaper labor compared with its competitors, but ‘must stay desperately poor’ is a huge stretch.
But if you’re shocked a large company used its influence to affect laws in a government…I don’t know what to tell you.
Logic fail.
Then again, my theory that the current capitalist regime requires offshored labor to be paid in odd numbers, is upheld.
You have proven yourself to be an idiot. Again.
First of all, there is no evidence that the claim made in the article is true. No sources are quoted, and no direct evidence is given.
Secondly, even if this were true it does not prove anything other than that corporations have pull over what governments do. I’m shocked.
Desperately poor? No. But willing to work at a much lower wage? Absolutely.
It may offend you that these people aren’t making a lot of money (compared to you or me), but there are three factors in play here:
I didn’t read Le Jacquelope’s other threads, but if his theory is that offshoring relies on the marxist definitions of oppression (Keeping a population desperately poor) and exploitation (using the fact that a population is desperately poor to get their labor dirt cheap), I can’t see why that would be that controversial. I mean the oppression is probably unproven, but a lot of these counter arguements seem to amount to “it’s just exploitation.”
and they are willing to work at a much lower wage why? Is it because they are desperately poor?
1 & 3 seems to imply that people are willing to work at rock bottom prices because the population is poor. You can argue that marxist exploitation isn’t a bad thing, and it looks like that’s what you’re doing, but I would say that exploitation gives companies a motivation for oppression. There are enough poor countries to exploit that oppression seems unnecessary, but it does seem that companies are willing to engage in a little messing with local politics to avoid switching which population to exploit, if the OP’s link is credible.
Actually, strategically, raising the minimum wage a little is probably a good thing. If it is raised too much, the companies will relocate to some other exploitable population, so a little raise is probably all they can do without effectively outlawing jobs.
There is no doubt that the OP is an idiot. He’s proved that time and time again.
Still, here is some of the background to the story, and when The Nation re-posts the story about the minimum wage, will you be really surprised to learn that it’s true? I certainly wouldn’t.
And, if true, i think it’s pretty fucking disgraceful. Yes, i recognize that the American government has, for decades, put pressure on foreign government to accord with the interests of US corporations. Hell, at times they even helped invade countries and overthrow governments in the service of US corporate interests (Guatemala in 1954, among others). But the US government shouldn’t, in my opinion, be bringing pressure like this to bear on poverty-stricken countries like Haiti simply to serve the interests of Levis and Hanes.
Do you really think that “desperately poor” is an inaccurate description of Haiti?
As for your three points:
is probably true.
is completely beside the point. I’m not arguing, and nor did the OP argue, that these companies have an “obligation to provide jobs because people are poor.” Had the minimum wage gone up to 61c an hour, the American companies then would have had to evaluate whether staying in Haiti was going to be financially viable.
I’m not even especially upset, really, at the companies themselves for trying to keep the wages down. Corporations are amoral entities, seeking nothing but their own profit, so the companies’ actions are perfectly consistent. Who i’m annoyed at here, if the story turns out to be true, is the government. Yes, the American government has a certain responsibility to look out for American interests, but it should not do so in ways like this, and should not pressure small and essentially powerless countries to rescind or bury legislation that, according to the story, had virtually unanimous support among the country’s people and politicians.
As for 3), i eagerly await your considered analysis of the Haitian economy, demonstrating the comparative lifestyles available to workers on 24c, 31c, and 61c an hour.
The problem with LJ and his threads is that he reduces complex topics into cartoonish comic book heroes and villains. Not even the Scholastic comic book version with primary colours and a modicum of thought, but an ill-drawn grotesque image scrawled out on construction paper with oversized special crayons and cut apart with safety scissors–leaving no room for anything more than trite sloganeering (and a bit of froth).
Good luck with any attempt at engagement.
There’s no need to engage. He’s quite capable of keeping this thread going on his own, popping back every three days to resurrect it and crow about how much he’s winning, and gloating about how scared we all are of him. Watch.
Ain’t that the truth.
When The Nation re-posts the article on Wednesday, maybe i’ll start a new thread where the grown-ups can discuss this issue.
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/06/04/236440/wikileaks-haiti-oil/
Wikileaks also showed how we interfered with the Haitan government aligning with Venezuela and Cuba in oil production. It would have made them a 100 million year. We acted in behalf of big oil at the expense of the desperately poor .
What I’ve proved is that you are a waste of oxygen and you know about as much about economics as Rush Limbaugh knows about “till death do us part”.
Have you ever wondered why economists are now turning against your rabidly insane viewpoints and most of the COUNTRY despises retards like you?
Then why don’t you just run off and make up the excuse that you ran away from me because you “won”? It is really the only thing that you can do.
Your attempts at engagement break down to little more than duck, dodge, delude, deny, drivel, distort, deceive, deflect, and finally default.
Any adults-only thread about offshoring requires the exclusion of head cases like you.
And grown-ups are already discussing the issue.
You’ve never lived in or visited Haiti, have you? I have. They are quite desperately poor. You spend just an hour there and you’ll understand what desperately poor really means. Their infrastructure, resource security, child mortality, etc., everything is the pits there, and it was that way before the hurricanes and quakes.
Seriously, for a bunch of people who trash talk so much, I am surprised at how little you know.
Haiti, not desperately poor, woah. The Straight Dope just got 200 IQ points stupider while I was gone.
Plagiarizing my insults, eh? Well, of course, you are incapable of generating any original thought.
You are a parody of the concept of the thinking man. A peddler of one-dimensional drivel and quarter-truths. You can’t even muster half-truths. You’re about as complex an organism as a monochrome stick figure drawing. Your two-bit arguments can’t even stand one bit of scrutiny.
Offshoring relies on keeping other nations desperately poor. The moment their standards of living increase, free trade collapses under the weight of its own stupidity.
You know what’s really hilarious?
I’m not actually an unequivocal supporter of free trade; far from it. I think NAFTA has had some very problematic consequences, and i think that, while there are times when free trade serves everyone’s interests, there are also many instances in which it serves some nations better than others, and some socio-economic classes better than others.
As i’ve also made clear in this thread, assuming the Wikileaks/Nation story turns out to be true, i’m strongly opposed to the American government’s actions in this case. And i actually do think that this particular incident serves as a salutary lesson in some of the problems associated with certain aspects of offshoring.
These are important and serious issues, and they deserve to be discussed and debated among people of all political persuasions.
The problem is that you, by your mere presence, completely fuck up just about any conversation you’re a part of. Your ability to understand evidence, to synthesize ideas, and to draw logical conclusions, is so backward and undeveloped that every contribution you make sounds like the dribbling idiocy of the terminally insane. You would actually make a far more meaningful contribution to this message board if you simply provided a link to a news story, and then sat back and let the non-retarded have a discussion about it.
You mean aside from the way your knuckles drag behind you while you walk?
How so? By bringing out your reading comprehension problems, monochrome thinking, simple minded imbecilic view of economics, wildly meandering arguments and senseless incoherent babbling, all of which stem from your severely stunted mental development?
It’s as if the words that you post are the result of your endless drool hitting your keyboard.
The problem here is not whether I contribute anything to this message board. The problem is that people like you have little to contribute to anyone who has made it out of preschool. This forum is little more than a den of ideological inbreeding. And you embody all the mental problems that this entails.
The best thing you can do is give your computer to charity and find a spot as far away from the human race as possible just in case whatever you have is contagious.
You know damned well I routinely think circles around you. What makes you go off at me so much is that there are so few of your kind left in the world. Your numbers grow smaller and so you get more abusive and derisive.
OK, you’re clearly trolling. I should have realized that before. My bad. It’s a mistake i won’t make again.
Aw, poor baby. You tried to start a flame war with me and got barbecued. Now you want to accuse me of trolling.
Uh, yeah. Run away, accuse me of trolling, and declare victory. You win a free drool bucket.