“Do you understand why most people who have run businesses look at you union loving protectionist yahoos as “useful idiots” for furthering the leftist/progressive cause?”
Name calling is an immature response, particularly when you don’t know anything about the person you are addressing. Sorry to bust your bubble but I was a Fortune 500 corporate executive who ran large corporate divisions and was highly involved in outsourcing and offshoring in the 1990’s. For me it wasn’t academic theories and free trader talking points.
I worked in an industry targeted by the Chinese government. Government controlled banks loaned the money at zero interest for 20 years to build the factories in China. The Chinese government paid the factories 15% of the value of goods shipped for export. The work day for labor was 10 hours at $1.00 per day. Effluent was pumped into the streams outside the factories, including heavy metals and toxic chemicals. Once our proprietary manufacturing processes were put into our “partner” factories, they suddenly appeared in the factories of our competitors because there is no respect for intellectual property.
There are always two sides to every story. Have you ever been to a Chinese factory? Have you ever pulled a Chinese worker from the production line who looks like a 10 year old child and then reviewed the government identity information that says the child is 19 years old? Have you ever stood outside a Chinese factory and smelled the raw sewage in the river behind the factory or looked at red color of the water because the dye house next door is dumping its untreated chemicals into the water? Have you ever made the decision to close a factory? Ever sat in a boardroom with consultants from McKinsey and young Harvard MBA’s from Goldman Sachs telling the board of directors they can pop the stock price immediately when they announce a major offshoring no matter what the economics? Have you stood in front of a board of directors and showed them their US factories could be competitive if given the same capital investment dollars as Goldman Sachs proposed putting into China and then seen the board vote to go to China because the announcemnt would pop the stock price? Have you ever stood in front of 2000 nonunion, highly productive, factory workers in a small southern US town and told them their jobs are going offshore, knowing the entire economy of the town will be destroyed? Have you ever introduced a proprietary new product, produced in a Chinese factory, and had your competition ship a knock-off within weeks knowing the only way the competition would have gotten to market so quickly is to obtain the specs from your Chinese factory?
When you’ve actually done all of the above you are not a “union loving protectionist yahoo.” My real experience came from actually overseeing manufacturing operations around the world and being responsible for delivering P&L’s. Now, tell me about your real life experience that makes you an authority on this issue.
Ahh I see so your one of the nimrods who made fat stacks offshoring good for you but now since you are retired its all "we need to stop not what made me a nice living..."
"Have you ever (fill in lengthy blather about the horrors Soul of the South witnessed, engaged in and profited from.)
I can honestly say I haven't and it because I was taught to never participate in such a thing that would stain my soul. Apparently you missed the part of your upbringing.
See I've been in business since I was 17. The First large ticket Item I bought wasn't a car or a motorcycle it was Music Equipment to open a traveling disc jockey service. In my first year I paid off everything including the car and van I bought after I got rolling. I was making more on 2 and 3 day weekends then My Mom and Dad were making combined at their jobs. I run that business 8 years and check a large sum of cash away. And went into sales I went from a entry level salesman to store manager to part owner in 7 years. We came up with a several electronics gadgets that we could market to the people we were selling home entertainment systems to. But when we started to look for places to set up manufacturing we would run into environmental roadblocks some of which required site studies that we had to pay for. We could buy the building cheap but to actually manufacture anything in it to do with electronics there were pages and pages of environmental rules that had to be adhered to and if you violate just one and are caught the fines could knock you out of business. Further one of the Buildings had at one time asbestos in it. Now it had been removed according to regs and there was even documentation BUT the people we were talking to involved with the State said if they do an inspection and found any trace we would be shut down and we would have to hire another certified asbestos removal team to come in and remove the asbestos that the government already certified was removed properly.
Needless to say we gave up because every time we would take one step forward the Gub'ment would shove us back three with regulations and threats of fines. The business would have probably added about 50-100 jobs to the local community (We had interest in our prototypes from several large distributors) and that would have been welcome in our town but it just was not worth the risk the government put on the deal.
After that I joined my Dad's business. He is in his 57th year of running a Flooring Operation He ran it for many years while he worked at a local plant and got injured and still worked his Flooring biz with a cast on his leg. Decided he had enough of plant work and opened up in our downtown business section.
I immediately went to work on our Commerical part of the Business and started to streamline the bidding process we did especially with Gub'ment contracts. I did this 5 years and was astonished at the waste and contract padding tactics in the system. Kickbacks and bribes (we never were involved in such because we were subcontractors) by the Job Contractors were standard.
I kept telling Dad that I hated it because it was wrong we were involved in wasting taxpayer money and he said its just the way it is. Finally we had a job at a University airport we had to put in tile on the floors and in the bathrooms on the walls as well in a new annex that was being added to the main building.
We had all the materials delivered to the site, tens of thousands of dollars of tile and grout and mortar and schluter bar. Before we were to start on the project we got called down to the job site. The Government stooge and the Contractor was there and the people who poured the concrete in the new annex. Apparently the concrete guys and poured the floor about an inch too low and thus the thresholds were uneven. Dad spoke up and said its not a problem we could feather the mortar out from the doors and do so in about 10 feet and you wouldn't even notice it. All the doors were in 6 foot hallways so it would be easy.
The government stooge told us nope it had to be replaced and the job would have to be rebid. We told him it wasn't necessary for us to rebid since we hadn't even started yet and he said yes it was and we would be paid for whatever we had already done including materials. Apparently a relative of his who worked at an insurance company had done the policy for the contractor and they had worked up a scheme to double charge the job but only work once. The Contractor told us we could keep 50% of the price we rebid the materials at but we had to remove the materials we had from the site and take them away and bring them back later with a new bill of lading.
I told Dad we weren't doing it and he agreed it was wrong We did not re-bill or rebid and we told the Government stooge that we would do our job and be done with it. We told the Contractor we were done with him as well and we never bid another Government job again. I contacted the State AG's office but nothing ever came of it.
See I've been there and done that. Recently I tried to help a friend get a Custom Guitar Amp manufacturing business underway but the Government Roadblocks i experienced in the 90s are now nothing compared to what is currently underway.
See the reason manufacturing is not happening much in the USA is because the Government is doing everything it can to stop it. There was a move to build high priced SUVs in our area and the only thing stopping the deal was a need for Heavy Duty Electric in the plant (3 and 4 phase wiring) Well some trees and a few wetlands (literally 3 wet areas smaller than the average swimming pool) and they couldn't get the State and the Fed Gov to let them go ahead telling them they had to buy out some homeowners to run the lines. They gave up and moved elsewhere.
Corporations had nothing to do with it. The government is the culprit they created this anti-business landscape and then everyone is surprised when the businesses leave our shores. I'm not and I don't fault a single one of them. Why beg and plead to do business in the USA when you are called evil by every Gub'ment lackey that sucks off the Taxpayer Funded Gub'ment tit?