How Capital Crushed Labor

Townhall ^ | 9/6/2011 | Pat Buchanan

[Bratch]

Agree? Disagree?

[businessprofessor]

Tariffs are not the answer. The answer is to get rid of labor cartels, excessive requlations, taxation, and government control. Tariffs will just increase prices, give labor cartels more power, and trigger a global trade war reducting economic activity world wide.

[re_nortex]

Unions and the minimum wage continue to impede America’s rightful place as the world’s supreme economic power.

[Pining_4_TX]

Disagree.

http://cafehayek.com/2011/08/quotation-of-the-day-40.html

There is much more about free trade vs protectionism at the Cafe Hayek blog.

The only thing that forced American auto companies to improve their product was competition from abroad. Competition did not hurt the auto industry; unions did.

[Myrddin]

There is a big omission here. We were number one where there was nobody else producing anything. It's easy for the one-eyed man to be king among a world of blind people. It isn't that way anymore. Others are capable of producing products. Our "standards" and regulations have disadvantaged manufacturing in the U.S. compared to other places. It is too expensive and too over regulated to be attractive. Not to mention heavily taxed. The big government socialist safety demands too much. The days of blue collar manufacturing all essentially over for the U.S. Unions, government and anti-capitalist environmentalists have poisoned the well.

[DB]

All I’ll say is if import tariffs are raised drastically you will soon have a global depression that will make today look like the good old days.

[nwrep]

Industrialization and low skilled manufacturing labor is an outdated concept. The currency of tomorrow is software. It is software that rules the world and runs the world. Software runs banks, airplanes, the military, the stock market, and consumers. And in this new frontier of global economy, America is by far number 1. No one else is even close.

Apple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Facebook are all software companies, and employ hundreds of thousands of American software engineers. Intel is trying hard to become a software company.

Tell Americans jocks to put down their wrenches and shovels, and toss away outdated visions of muscle-fueled manufacturing greatness. Ask them to sit in front of a keyboard and learn OOP and C++. The future is theirs.

[Eldon Tyrell]

Very Buchananish - but he has some core concepts about right.

The goals of corporate America are not in line with those of blue collar America.

As a general principle for recovery - would be a good baseline to start with - aligning the goals of citizens.

Of course - he described conditions which ARE constitutional, and ARE NOT under the control of the government - while ignoring the insanely large growth of the Gov - Fed and State - that is largely un-constitutional, and IS the responsibility of the government.

I would bet - if we went back to core concepts of Constitution, we would magically find out that in the process, labor and capital also came back into line.

For example - if we reduce all of the red tape and confusion the gov is responsible for - a lot of business starts to look good in the US. Look at Boeing and South Carolina issue - perfect example (if easy).

In other words - he is addressing priority 2.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

People exist to serve the economy. The economy exists to provide shareholder value.

Remember: anytime you hear someone use the phrase "shareholder value" positively in a sentence then you know that you are listening to an oracle of wisdom and intelligence.

Please hush up and listen further to tips on how you can properly invest your 401-k funds for retirement.

Oh yes...

... and they're not building any more land!

[DB]

There is also another inconvenient fact to those who say we don't manufacturing anything anymore.

We are still the number one manufacturer in the world. That's not to say there aren't serious problems but facts are facts.

[Strk321]

Oh boy, here we go.

“Industrialization and low skilled manufacturing labor is an outdated concept.”

Guess no one ever told the Chinese that. When are boneheads ever going to realize that there are just some people who can’t do anything except dig ditches and tighten bolts on an assembly line?

[rawhide]

I doubt the ‘Bill of Rights’ would ever pass in this day and age. The communists RATS would never allow it.

[TwoSwords]

Buchanan is correct in most things, just not the religion that is at fault. Self-deception is his fault.

[dragnet2]

Clearly, dirt cheap low wage foreign labor won out....

But it wasn't enough for the fatcorps and big biz owners, so they bribed and bankrolled the politicians to flood America with tens of millions of low wage illegal aliens.

All this while the American private sector workers twist in the winds.

Profits, regardless of consequences.

[Sherman Logan]

U.S. wages are higher than they are almost anywhere else.

Direct comparison are tough, but US wages aren't ridiculously high compared to many other countries.

http://www.worldsalaries.org/manufacturing.shtml

[Sherman Logan]

U.S. wages are higher than they are almost anywhere else.

Direct comparison are tough, but US wages aren't ridiculously high compared to many other countries.

http://www.worldsalaries.org/manufacturing.shtml

[re_nortex]

...learn OOP and C++

Bjarne Stroustrup (inventor of C++) is an Aggie, BTW. To be fair to tu, they had another notable name on their roster. Yes, the late Edsger Dijkstra (goto is evil) was a teasip. :-)

[dr_lew]

These are the good old days! Believe it, my friend.

[dennisw]

lol thanks for the laugh. Let me guess. You are in the software biz?

[Sherman Logan]

Corporate America could there produce for a fraction of what it cost to produce here. Then these same corporations could ship their foreign-made products back to the USA and pocket the difference in the cost of production.

This article is definitely a target-rich environment, so I'm going to pack it in for the night with one final comment.

Pat's idea here works if one company does this and thereby gains a competitive advantage. It doesn't work if all companies do it, continue to compete with each other and none has a competitive advantage. Any company that artificially inflates its managerial salaries and dividends will be crushed by competitors who don't and can therefore undercut its price.

If fact, most companies that shift production overseas are forced to do so by competitive pressures and don't necessarily make more money by doing so. Their cost of production may be lower, but then so is their sales price.