Where the jobs are: There's an explanation for why the U.S. is choking on the dust of China & India

Los Angeles Times ^ | 01/02/2013 | Jeff Danziger

[SeekAndFind]

A friend recently got stuck when he tried to explain to his son, who was struggling to find a job, how our economy got to be the way it is. He asked my help since I am a well-known crank on the matter. I offered him three short anecdotes:

Last summer I was in a Home Depot standing in front of a veritable mountain of new air conditioners. They were all from China, which was no surprise. But to be annoying I asked a passing clerk where they were made. He was a young man, hired more for the spring in his step than his knowledge of international sourcing. We both looked at the boxes, piled in a pyramid, eight levels high. The boxes didn't say anything about China. But they did say "Made in PRC."

"Are these from China?" I asked.

He paused a moment. "No, they're from Puerto Rico."

Or consider this example from last month: A textile factory in Italy caught fire and seven workers were killed. They were all imported Chinese nationals working for Chinese companies operating in Italy so they could put a "Made in Italy" label on their cloth.

A third example: The city of New York decreed a few years ago that each bedroom in the city must have a carbon monoxide detector. There are roughly 11 million bedrooms in New York City, so the law created a huge market.

Further, the devices have a life of five years, after which they must be replaced, so the continuing market was also guaranteed. A manufacturing enterprise could hardly find a surer customer base.

[Fledermaus]

Steve Jobs explained why he had the IPhone made in China...the US regulations were so intrusive that he couldn’t make changes timely enough to get them manufactured.

Especially the gorilla glass.

[central_va]

Cue the “tariffs, tariffs, tariffs” crowd. Won’t work.

Ok here is the tariff crowd for you:

[central_va]

The posted linked article is irrelevant to manufacturing. Tariffs have no effect on hamburgers and fries as we do not import them (yet).

[Fledermaus]

It is not irrelevant to manufacturing. The underlying problem of over regulation, etc. in the article effects all industry.

[Organic Panic]

How is complicated. First off the USA would have to figure out a way to take over Chinese ownership of the mining trade. The Chinese own the vast majority of rare earth resources. The EPA would have to be eliminated. OSHA would need to be eliminated. Local zoning laws would have to be eliminated. We don’t have the infrastructure to build gigantic factories and move 200,000 people per shift. Could we do it? Yes. Will we? Doubtful.

[BwanaNdege]

FEDERAL Tax!

You want to push all social programs to the States but the taxes go to the Federal government. Will you also limit the Federal government to Defense, and a few other Constitutional responsibilities?

[PapaBear3625]

All of which gets back to the fact that it is likely none of the options that could get us out of this mess are politically feasible. Which, unfortunately, means things will have to get a LOT worse, and possibly all the way to catastrophic before necessary actions are possible. And, of course, by that point the earlier range of effective policy options will have diminished greatly.

I don't see a political solution before we reach the point where things are so bad that the underclass are converted into stew.

[PapaBear3625]

You want to push all social programs to the States but the taxes go to the Federal government. Will you also limit the Federal government to Defense, and a few other Constitutional responsibilities?

Pushing all welfare programs to the states would solve a few things. States compete with each other. A state which raises taxes too much loses business to lower-tax states.

States would have incentives to go after fraud and waste. They would have incentives to limit benefits so that, while people don't starve in the street, finding work becomes more attractive.

[PapaBear3625]

OK, that would work. Not politically feasible, unfortunately, due to cries of genocide.

And middle-class women would be hysterically opposed to it.

One unspoken thing about welfare: no matter how unintelligent a young woman is, there is ONE service she can provide that she can make enough to survive on, if she is moderately attractive. Without welfare, you would have young underclass women willing to do whatever it took to get a middle-class sugar daddy. Middle class women would not tolerate underclass women trying to poach their men.

[Nuc 1.1]

And people, even Americans, aren't going to invest capital in a country that insists on paying its workers well above what they are worth, if they have a choice.

Tarrifs have worked before to protect our industries. But your statement is the rub. Either way, so called free trade or protectionist, there will be deflationary periods associated with them. I believe protectionist is the better choice because it will make us self sufficient. If the choice is free trade then we must insist on fair trade. No more double standards. No more subsidized foreign business being allowed to destroy our industry. No more copy right infringement. We opened our economy to raise the standard of living in the world. And to make a buck. Instead we have been cheated and looted. Fixing these and other issues will put us in the protectionist region of the curve. As to wealth generation, creating something desirable from earth, air, fire or water is creating wealth. Creating money does not equate to wealth. Money is simply a tool to transfer wealth. This is why a government worker is a parasite when spending salary while a manufacturing work spending their salary is not. The manufacturing worker generates wealth. The government worker does not. I know you know this. Hopefully it will stimulate thought in others. Especially our conservative talkers.

[BwanaNdege]

I completely agree with you that welfare needs to go back to the States or local communities for administration.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

“Not only is Chinese manufacturing owned by China, the PLA owns most of the companies and there isn’t even an attempt toward copy or trade rights enforcement. Every company who offshores to China has effectively given up all rights to their products.”

(bump)

[MoochPooch]

American workers found themselves trying to compete with workers who had the same skills they did but who worked for maybe twenty percent of American wages.

Countries like India & China can get away with lower wages because in those countries human life is cheap. These are societies with caste systems, where lower classes are no better than dogs, or hyper-patriarchal, where girl babies are killed. Do you think they have any mercy? Why would any American want to do backbreaking work for $10 a day? And what if he gets sick or injured? Do you think these employers care?

Ironically, this is part of the reason that I feel, in the end, these nations won't last. Any society built on cruelty destroys itself.

[khelus]

Has anyone seen the movie Death By China?

It just became available on multiple venues - Netflix Streaming, Amazon Prime, iTunes (though I am sure Apple would be relieved if you ignored it).

Here’s the website: http://deathbychina.com/

The movie immediately and permanently changed my mind. Turns out the Chinese Govt. declared war on us the same year Al Qaeda declared war on us – this has all happened since year 2001! But our attention went to the Middle East. The Chinese had the willing/fawning assistance of Democrat President Clinton and Tom Delay’s Pubbie controlled House. And now the Chinese have the assistance of our entire population because we no longer have much choice but to buy Chinese and help fund our own demise.

We need trade reform, obviously. I remember Mitt Romney several times talking about putting a halt to China’s currency manipulation and trade violations... China has never for a milli-second abided by the rules, or ever intended to.

What can I do personally? Big gulp. We’ve stopped shopping at WalMart which hurts. We canceled a planned purchase of $3,000+ from Apple computer, and I declined the gift of an iPad mini retina from my husband. That really hurt, I am so spoiled and such an Apple fan girl. We are determined to reduce our Chinese addiction to as close to zero as possible.

The two things that most compel me: 1. the grotesque human rights violations against vast numbers of blameless, suffering Chinese people and 2. the sudden realization that my dollars are financing China’s military buildup. We are at war, and my new mindset is to think about my consuming habits as if we are in combat, and products made in China might as well be bullets aimed at U.S. soldiers and U.S. citizens.

Another thing I can do is talk to people and post the info as I am doing here. The issue goes far, far beyond anything partisan or ideological. Matter of fact, I think the China Onslaught and Obamacare might be the two issues which could unite a majority of Americans, since we are all being universally and equally deceived and directly imperiled on both counts.

So please watch the movie and spread the word if you agree that it’s a powerful, quick (80 minutes long) and stunningly effective education. Then do whatever you can in your own household to repel the invaders and apply pressure to elected officials to enact immediate reforms.

Thank you for your post. Very few are aware that Red China and Socialist India have both declared economic war on the US. India wants to get theirs before Red China takes over.

Red China's so called competitive advantage is absolute gross pollution, a disposable neo-slave workforce, and complete lack of judeo christian ethics.

Red China has indeed declared economic war on the US and our politicians, corporations, are too greedy or uninformed to realize it.

It seems it is very easy to buy the lie of jobs Americans can't / won't do when that lie is wrapped up in big bucks.

A favorite lie is that unions have made the US uncompeitiive. "In 2012, the union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union--was 11.3 percent, down from 11.8 percent in 2011,"

Another favorite red herring to point to the decline of the US educational system and work ethic. This does nothing to explain the tens of thousand of older, experienced, proven unemployed / underemployed people.

Regulation are cited as another cause of industry from leaving the US. People forget that regulation is a great way for large corporate to suppress competition from small business and start ups. Large corporate has always been willing to supply 'experts' to help draft new regulation.

How many purchasers of apple products know that the factory where the products are produced has a suicide net.

I have spoken with people who are shocked when they see the factory they are visiting guarded by the Red Chinese army who are there to make certain the workers are 'happy'.

Sadly both those with D's and R's after their name have been complicit in selling out the US economy and middle class to Red China and other sources of neo-slave labor.

[khelus]

Re: And people, even Americans, aren't going to invest capital in a country that insists on paying its workers well above what they are worth, if they have a choice.

Tarrifs have worked before to protect our industries. But your statement is the rub. Either way, so called free trade or protectionist, there will be deflationary periods associated with them. I believe protectionist is the better choice because it will make us self sufficient. If the choice is free trade then we must insist on fair trade. No more double standards. No more subsidized foreign business being allowed to destroy our industry. No more copy right infringement. We opened our economy to raise the standard of living in the world. And to make a buck. Instead we have been cheated and looted. Fixing these and other issues will put us in the protectionist region of the curve. As to wealth generation, creating something desirable from earth, air, fire or water is creating wealth. Creating money does not equate to wealth. Money is simply a tool to transfer wealth. This is why a government worker is a parasite when spending salary while a manufacturing work spending their salary is not. The manufacturing worker generates wealth. The government worker does not. I know you know this. Hopefully it will stimulate thought in others. Especially our conservative talkers.

Good Post !

[Nuc 1.1]

:D)

[Mr. Jeeves]

Your ten items are all necessary - and all highly vulnerable to the "That's Not Fair!" card that progressives play every time their Grand Fabian Socialist Plan is threatened.

Unfortunately, even clear, lucid explanations of why these ten things are vital will go right over the heads of voters suffering from the after-effects of government education.

[khelus]

What other choice is there? Otherwise our workers are going to be paid the prevailing international wage. If that is say five dollars per day then that is what American workers will be paid. Shanty towns will be the norm not the exception and a two-hundred fifty foot apartment will be a palace for the average worker. Is that what we want? I don’t think so. Besides, there is really no free trade. China and Japan for example don’t allow our products in unfettered. However they get their stuff into our country freely and our workers suffer. Heck their dumping and government support for their industries have put whole sections of our nation out of business. I used to be an avid free trader but not any more. We don’t have free trade we have looter trade

Yup.

Phyllis Schlafly
Free Trade, Protectionism, NAFTA, and GATT
"Absolute free trade between countries does not exist. While some pay lip service to free trade, all countries (except perhaps the United States) manage their trade to serve their own national interests.

Free trade does exist among the 50 states of the United States"

[factoryrat]

Eliminate the minimum wage, and you take us straight back to the 19th century and before. If the idea of having your 10 year old children compete with for your job, or working in the most horrific working conditions known to man, then by all means abolish all labor laws. Dog eat dog you know, and if I can make you, or your children my slaves, I will, and there wouldn’t be a single thing you could do about it, because I would have the authority of the government you elected to back me up.

This scenario has been playing itself out since the beginning of time, the predator vs. the prey, master vs. slave, king vs. serf, ruler vs. subjects, etc.

Be careful of what you ask for, because you just might get it.

[khelus]

Eliminate the minimum wage, and you take us straight back to the 19th century and before. If the idea of having your 10 year old children compete with for your job, or working in the most horrific working conditions known to man, then by all means abolish all labor laws. Dog eat dog you know, and if I can make you, or your children my slaves, I will, and there wouldn’t be a single thing you could do about it, because I would have the authority of the government you elected to back me up.

This scenario has been playing itself out since the beginning of time, the predator vs. the prey, master vs. slave, king vs. serf, ruler vs. subjects, etc.

Be careful of what you ask for, because you just might get it.

There are some who deny the dark side of human nature or what Bastiat in The Law refers to as the ‘common tendency’ of ‘mankind’ ‘when they can’ to ‘live and prosper at the expense of others’.