Posted on 06/28/2011 1:07:36 AM PDT by T.L.Sink
Goldman Sachs plans major job cuts in the United States while planning a major hiring spree in Singapore. With profits coming under major pressure in the U.S., Goldman appears to be launching possibly the most aggressive effort among big banks to expand overseas where the business climate is more favorable. A major source of trouble for banks and investment firms is the new regulatory environment. Those regulations, found primarily in the Dodd/Frank financial reform bill sponsored by Senator Chris Dodd and his counterpart in the House, Congressman Barney Frank, have forced banks to hold higher capital reserves and also forced them to exit some lucrative businesses like proprietary trading.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
NAFTA strikes again.
The real economic growth is happening in Asia. So that makes good strategy on part of GS.
Goldman still has jobs in the US? The movement of these jobs away from our shores (especially from NYC’s financial district) has sped up the death spiral of the northeast; soon they’ll be putting an arena or some other bread-and-circuses venue on Wall Street.
A friend who was laid off describes a scenario where you got your severance package only if you stayed to train your Philippino replacements; the jobs were going to Manila. While he was fortunate enough to find another job, he says there is a lot less people on the train in the morning; this was a big reason why Governor Christie stopped the construction of an additional tunnel between NJ & NYC.
Unintended consequences of publicly bashing bankers and sending your goons to their houses to protest. That will never happen in Singapore and, other than the heat, it’s a lot nicer than Manhattan anyway. GS can transfer their favorites to Singapore. That’s thinking ahead, Obama.
That was probably what the meeting at the Whitehouse was for; how to spin this.
Goldman probably got tax dollars to move those jobs.
Does Goldman also plan to move the US Secretary of the Treasury job to Singapore, or maybe they’ll leave that revolving door job in the US.
The story doesn’t make clear just what customers will be served from Singapore. But if companies think they can continue to move jobs out of the US which serve the US market, someday they’ll realize that strategy can’t go on forever, no matter what the law might allow them to do.
The story leaves out some details.
Calculating growth percentages is a real con game at times. The actual story is better told if they inform us of the dollar value of their US business and the dollar value of their Asian business. But they don't see fit to provide that information in their public relations releases.
Actually the dollar values of GDP in Asian countries is understated. This is due to lower costs of labor and services. For example a computer repair tech in US charges 5 times higher than similar tech in India stated in US dollars.
So, there is still nothing stated in terms of how much of a US firm's business is done in the US and how much elsewhere.
And those GDP dollar values you're concerned about used to be referred to as the high American standard of living. and the lower Asian standard of living. Would you like to see all compensation in the US brought down to Asian levels?
The reality is America is no longer an island of manufacturing hegemony. We had that power after WWII since the other prominent manufacturing giants of that era (Japan, Germany, UK & Italy) had their factories leveled.
There is just no way we can continue to have a standard of living head and shoulders above others any more. We can quadruple our wages and then the price of goods & services will also quadruple. And then our exports of finished goods will nosedive.
So yes, the reality is that all industrialized countries will level out at similar standards of living. Like it or not.
These changes have been the result of political decisions, always accompanied by a set of standard lies and deceptions: that American workers would be retrained for the "high tech, high paying jobs of the future, and that more jobs would be created in the US.
More and more people are on to the lies and political decisions can be reversed, like it or not.
The US exported much of its manufacturing to cheap labor nations. These nations did not develope their own manufacturing industries and become competitive internationally. They 'traded' cheap labor and lax regulation for jobs and manufacturing facilities.
And, all those 'savings' from supposed lower cost consumer goods are being paid for in the form of higher unemployment, and ever increasing welfare, medicaid, food stamps, EITC and other support programs for non-working and low income Americans. This year the cost of such is about $950 billion, being paid for by present and future taxpayers.
Idiotic policies.
No surprise in that we have ever growing distance between the successful class and the welfare class.
There is no solution to that in a world economy where countries EIGHT times larger than ours (China+India) can manufacture any item we can. They are turning out many times more engineers and scientists than US, since they have larger populations. Manufacturing most products does not require a rocket scientist. Making cars, appliances, clothes, shoes, food items, pharmaceuticals, electricity, etc are all easy technologies to master. All it takes is a few good engineers. China and India have a ton of those people.
However I would like to hear how exactly you would change our policies to make everyone here have a high standard of living.
Yeah, it is called TARP
ping...tarp gravytrain leaving the station...
Jim Rogers left NYC two years ago and took his family to Singapore.
It's not just that voters demand endless handouts and benefits from employers, but the boomers are retiring meaning a huge savings wave is coming(already starting). Saving means less consuming, less consumer spending more entitement spending. The expanding markets are over there. Those Trump fans that think a Berlin trade wall will protect us are insane.
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