Posted on 04/17/2010 10:37:26 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
That’s not true, though - they’ll slide into Chinese cars tomorrow just as easily as they did into Japanese ones 40 years ago.
Yeah, I was thinking about that, in terms of rmh47's about his old manufacturing plant becoming more of an assembly plant -- we do turn raw materials into finished products, but our industrial base seems like maybe it's not as diversified as it used to be (like I said, Oil and Computers are half the list and more than half the revenue, amongst the top 20 manufacturers), and we don't do as much primary production of raw materials (save for agriculture, where we remain "king of the world, ma!").
In 1960 the "silent generation" was 15 to 35, think about those cars and stereos being bought by the 20 year olds, 25 year olds, and 30 year olds, not by the one year olds, and the five and ten year olds.
So now you have the dirty repetitive labor done for a lower cost in Mexico, leaving the relatively better assembly work for a smaller number of American workers. But the question is, what happened to the American workers who were laid off as a result? Were they hired to do assembly work at other companies that were started because inexpensive Mexican labor made such companies possible? Or did they become burger flippers?
That’s the crux of it IMO. I don’t see a problem with sending dirty/boring/repetitive/polluting/dangerous manufacturing jobs overseas as long as there are better jobs being created over here. And I don’t see a reason why that can’t be the case. Sending a manufacturing job overseas creates an opportunity for a foreign worker and frees up an American to do something better. But we gotta make sure the better exists.
In 1960, the first baby boomers were just about ready for their driver’s licenses and when they started buying their own new cars in the late 60s and early 70s, they were foreign made particularly Japanese. I should have clarified that the countdown beginning in ‘60 referred to TV companies about 40 then down to 0 by 1999.
In 1960 boomers were still years away from driver’s licenses, much less purchasing brand new cars, the very oldest boomer in 1960 was 14, even though he was the old man of a generation that were all younger than him and would not even be born for years to come, he would not even cast his first vote until 1968, 4 years after his boomer sister Sarah Palin was born.
Why are you so motivated to ignore the generation that was 15 and 20, and 25 years old in 1960?
I didn’t read your comments up the thread. Are you on the side that things are cool with practically nothing that people ordinarily use made in the USA or it bothers you? YOu like funding the ChiComs or you don’t like funding the ChiComs? Just so I understand.
I have been accused of being a “protectionist” many times on FR; I’ve always tried to avoid Chinese, German, Korean, and Japanese.
Thank you for your answer. I’ve been in and out today and I should have read the whole thread before piping up.
Not all of the jobs that left were "dirty repetitive labor." My company was on the list someone posted and - where I worked - made one of the groups of products listed for that company. The company is, according to the list, the fourth largest manufacturer in the country today (ranked by revenue), but as I pointed out, most of the actual manufacturing is actually done by other companies, many of them in foreign countries.
In the 1970s and through much of the 1980s, all of the metal parts were stamped in house. Lots of employees put metal blanks in presses and took parts out of them after stamping. "Dirty repetitive labor?" Perhaps, but it paid well for unskilled labor. (Those jobs actually paid more than assembly line work. The work was physically harder.) And there were 350 tool and die makers - I was one - who worked at the plant, not to mention a large number of skilled maintenance and setup workers to keep all of those presses and related equipment running.
Today there are exactly ZERO tool and die makers working at that plant. The last ones were let go on March 1 of this year. Sad.
And so what happened to the workers who were laid off? Are they flipping burgers now or did they move on to other, possibly better jobs?
Here is the ideal scenario:
Let’s say an American company has 90 workers who do sweat labor and 10 who do assembly work.
And lets say you have 1000 Mexicans in Mexico who would jump at the opportunity to do sweat labor. So the American company — let’s call it company A — outsources its sweat labor to the first 100 Mexicans and just keeps the 10 American assemblers on the payroll. There are now 900 Mexicans and 90 Americans who need work.
And lets say that an entrepreneur wants to start company — company B — but can’t be viable if he uses expensive American labor. But then he hears about the 900 Mexicans who will work for peanuts. So he hires 100 of them to do his sweat labor and hires 10 Americans to do the assembly. Now there are 800 Mexicans and 80 Americans who need work.
Word gets out about the cheap Mexican labor so companies C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J start up and hire the remaining 800 Mexicans and 80 Americans.
We now have 100 Americans employed — same as before the outsourcing — plus 1000 Mexicans employed. The Mexicans are glad to have the opportunity to do sweat labor and the Americans are glad to be doing the more pleasant assembly work. There are now 10 companies creating wealth versus just 1 before. Consumers are glad because the products are less expensive. It’s a win-win for all and the world is a better place.
To me this seems like an achievable outcome. The key is not to get spooked by the initial dislocations but instead to see the opportunity that exists and to rise to the occasion.
I hope yours are not like the tool and die makers at our place - real prima donnas.
Your whole scenario is in a dream world.
NEWSFLASH...
We've been importing FOOD since the Founders Signed The Declaration of Independence (and before even)
OMG! Profits? We ought to do something about that. Maybe the government should take over? We'd never have to worry about profits again.
Enlighten me.
How so?
Appliance Park? Are you sure it wasn't the unions?
Hey I didn’t say profits were bad. I was just stating the facts. Business wants to reduce costs, hence, export jobs. What’s bad is - more unemployment, more reliance on government, more socialism, and more Democrats elected. These are just the costs of doing business elsewhere.
And Business moving manufacturing offshore are the logical results of excessive taxation and regulation by the Government and the corruption of the labor unions.
But no one wants to talk about those issues.
Try starting a manufacturing business in the USA. I've a friend who is trying to startup a real Tube Guitar Amplifier manufacturing business (small scale) he's been told that locally it will take nearly a quarter of a million dollars and two years of haggling with the local state and fed government before he can mass produce the first Amp.
We have an old textile building sitting empty in our town that would be perfect. It hasn't had a steady business in it for over 20 years. Before he could start to use the building the EPA sez it needs decontaminated which will cost in excess of 100k. (It was a textile mill what the hell is so dangerous about a textile mill?)
OSHA sez it needs all sorts of safety improvements that are going to cost thousands. Its a building with a good roof, what the hell would you need to spend that much money on to make it safer. Its basically a big huge empty building with a few offices. I've been in it with local contractors and none of them can make sense of these safety issues that OSHA has come up with.
Now take the same business to Mexico and he could buy the building for pennies on the dollar of what even this place would cost in Southern Ohio where real estate prices are so depressed you can by a home for less than you would pay for a new SUV.
And we wonder why lots of jobs are going out of country? Maybe its because we let the F###ing Bureaucrats in the government chase them out.
But lets all blame it on greed, because it gives the Democrats another talking point to buy votes with.
When are these BUY AMERICA goobers going to realize that Government is doing everything it can to make it impossible to do so, that is until they can take over those American Businesses in the name of keeping our jobs from going overseas.
Hmmmm almost seems like they are doing it on purpose now doesn't it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.