Posted on 09/20/2004 1:45:17 PM PDT by Willie Green
"Maybe it's older, retired Americans who are willing to perform these jobs while the youth aims a little higher by acquiring some human capital - stuff that will pay off for society down the road (as long as we don't remain so shortsighted)."
If these older folks are in Bangladesh, I fail to see how it helps America.
Because when you import labor (illegal and visas) and outsource manufacturing to China and other skills to India you have increased the labor pool, thus avoiding having to raise the wages to attact local talent.
The jobs numbers are s-o-o-o cooked by the Democrats. First they tell you there's been a net loss of jobs when the population increased by 6% over the 4 Bush II years. Then they tell you that in addition to the 6% job-age growth, families are sending more and more members into the job market.. If this is al true, the unemployment rate should be at 12%!!!
Wait. I thought that it was the youth that held their noses up to these bottom-rung jobs. Can you at least keep your arguments straight or at least concede that maybe you were speaking from your arse.
And in response to what you wrote above...it frees up American labor to produce other goods and services that we hold an advantage in producing (some of which haven't even been created yet). This doesn't necessarily happen over night but it does happen and we are all better off for it. Haven't you been observing the standard of living increases over the past two decades?
Also, what do you know about trade deficits? How are the balance of payments squared away, do you know? What happens to those American dollars once the foreign banks have collected them - you know, once they (the foreign banks) have given some American the other currency in exchange for the dollars?
Do you even know what happens when foreigners start buying more from us then what we export? What happens when the capital starts flowing the other way and Americans are holding foreign currencies and assets? Strangely, it starts looking a lot like outsourcing.
See, if you had any clue about the accounting identity which states that NET CAPITAL OUTFLOW is equal to NET EXPORTS, you'd then be able to wrap your simpleton brain around the fact that you cannot retain your country's capital and also run a simultaneous trade surplus (be a net exporter). Look it up sometime!
I may not know about "about the accounting identity which states that NET CAPITAL OUTFLOW is equal to NET EXPORTS," but I do know that when we buy more of their stuff than they buy of ours, the rationale for free trade evaporates.
27 - "cannot retain your country's capital and also run a simultaneous trade surplus (be a net exporter). Look it up sometime!"
LOL - you've got it BASS ACWARDS !!!
That's exactly what made this country great, and now China is doing just that, and we are losing our shrts.
When are we going to stop using payroll as our means of determining employment? There's got to be a better way. Tax returns, maybe? I don't know, I'm not an economist. Any FReeper suggestions out there?
That's exactly what made this country great, and now China is doing just that, and we are losing our shrts.
You have it backward. I can't say that this really surprises me though. Do look it up and then learn a little something about it.
Really, I would have never guessed it. But you write so matter-of-factly when you discuss (and whine about) trade deficits and outsourcing at the same time, seemingly unaware that the two of them - through the cause and effects of the accounting identity - cannot possibly happen through the same transaction. What do you expect, a foreign country to send us their goods and for us to lay claim to their assets as well. Or, put another way, but in reverse, for us to send our exports to foreign countries but still have them purchase our debt instruments and lay claim to our assets. Boy, I'd like to have those kind of trading partners in hat first example.
Spoke like a true super-capitalist who would rather see Americans out of work and suffering rather than lose a couple of pennies out of his stock dividend.
Perhaps you could post some links for statistics on how rotten these newly created jobs are. Anecdotally, in the past year, I have hired 5 people at my company, all of whom are highly paid with great benefits. These were new jobs, not replacement hires.
While we are on the subject of how rotten Bush is, perhaps you could give me some potential names of the 3 or 4 Supreme Court Justices that John Kerry might nominate as President. Lawrence Tribe, maybe? No, not good enough. I'm sure that John Kerry, with the help of his crack staff, could find a far more bitter opponent of property rights and deregulation.
If you are going to post whiny articles from John Podesta's think tank, you should expect to take some heat on FR, and do more than cast aspersions when you are losing the argument.
If someone is "out of work and suffering", what portion of it is that person's responsibility, and what portion of it is the shareholders' responsibility?
Wrong! I'd prefer to see all Americans working and for no one to experience any discomfort but that would be utopia. I'd prefer to see the children of current Americans to grow up doing even better, less tedious jobs than there parents did but unfortunately that requires change. I'd prefer to see the goods and services that we consume become less costly (in relation to our budget constraints) and more improved on there own but without competition that would be an unlikely scenario. I'd prefer to allow someone to be a drain on federal resources long enough to be fully retrained to do any job that they like and to have never had their real income fall while they went through the process but then then the incentives would be too attractive and would invite other consequences. I'd prefer to visit a conservative message board and see that everyone had the same fundamental belief in limited government and individual freedoms but sometimes the overly emotional nature of some people stands as a barrier to ideas that make sense. I'd prefer that everyone owned some stock of publicly traded companies as well as other types of securities but, sadly, many Americans do not set enough pre-consumtion budget aside so that they can participate in delayed gratification as to enjoy future consumption - sometimes the "non-squirrel" people have envy toward the "squirrel" people and attack them with cheesy class warfare rhetoric on the blogosphere. I'd prefer that I didn't feel compelled to write the same stuff over and over again but, unfortunately, those who I think need to hear it most, never seem to be around at the same time...and even when they are, they rarely seem to get it after just one or two tries.
I've read the Hawkins pieces for quite a while and I don't see as much partisanship as you do--
Rather than being "democrats," I suspect they are old-style conservatives. Were the Dems, they'd be yapping about how wonderful Kerry is--which they are NOT doing at all.
Instead, they have proposed a comprehensive trade policy which recognizes that the WHOLE manufacturing sector is important to the US--not only in creating jobs which pay well, but in the country's capacity to produce weapons, and other goods which are necessary.
The 'non-Democrat' philosophy is exposed in their disapproval of the apparent need for women to be working; this is far more a 'traditionalist conservative' than 'Democrat' position.
By the way, in the First World, the average manufacturing % of GDP is well over 25%; here in the US it is only about 13%. Are you prepared to argue that all those other guys are wrong?
What "current campaign?"
The one to preserve the US' predominance in the economic world, or the one which Kerry has already lost?
Believe it or not, Sink, not all of us are concerned with the 4-year cycle to the exclusion of greater goods.
Nicely argued.
Correct. They provided the 'trainee' with a very good overview of the Company's sales, customer base, and operational style, allowing an individual to make informed and intelligent contributions to any of those areas after a while.
Moving these opportunities to foreign countries (or making them dead-end) does not produce useful and productive US workers.
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