Posted on 08/25/2003 2:05:47 PM PDT by snopercod
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- This year's highly publicized job losses in North Carolina manufacturing, including the Pillowtex bankruptcy, could mean trouble next year for President Bush in a region that was a stronghold in 2000.
Bush won more than 56 percent of the vote in both North Carolina and South Carolina in 2000. But his strong support of free trade has turned some against him in the South, where U.S. trade policies are blamed for the loss of jobs in textiles and other manufacturing sectors.
Andy Warlick, chief executive officer of Parkdale Mills in Gaston County, said he doubts he will repeat his 2000 vote for Bush next year.
"He made a lot of promises and he hasn't delivered on any of them," Warlick said. "I've had some firsthand experience of him sending down trade and commerce officials, but they're just photo ops. It's empty rhetoric."
Fred Reese, the president of Western N.C. Industries, an employers' association, said executives are beginning to raise their voices against Bush and are planning education and voter drives.
"We're seeing a new dynamic where the executives and employees are both beginning to see a real threat to their interests. You're going to see people who traditionally voted Republican switch over," Reese predicted.
The hard feelings were on display days after Pillowtex's July 30 bankruptcy filing, when Republican U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes walked into a Kannapolis auditorium to meet with former workers.
"Thanks for sending the jobs overseas, Robin!" shouted Brenda Miller, a longtime worker at the textile giant's Salisbury plant.
In December 2001 Hayes -- who is an heir to the Cannon family textile fortune -- cast the tie-breaking vote to give Bush the authority to negotiate "fast-track" trade agreements, trade treaties that Congress must vote up or down with no amendments.
At the time, Hayes said he won promises from the Bush administration that it would more strictly enforce existing trade agreements and pressure foreign countries to open their markets to U.S. textiles.
"Are we pleased with the way they responded? Absolutely," Hayes said. "Are we satisfied with where we are? Absolutely not."
Jobs in many industries have fled overseas since 1993, when Congress passed the Clinton-backed North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. About half the textile and apparel jobs that existed in 1994 are gone.
Since Bush took office in January 2001, it is estimated North Carolina and South Carolina have lost more than 180,000 manufacturing jobs.
And even more textile jobs could be out the door once quotas on Chinese imports expire at the end of next year.
Republican U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger voted for NAFTA and fast-track, and has seen his 10th District lose nearly 40,000 jobs, primarily in the textile and furniture industries.
"Certainly, there's a political cost to any controversial vote no matter which side you take," he said. "People are casting stones, but we're trying to pick them up and build something."
Democratic U.S. Sen. John Edwards voted against fast-track in 2002 after voting for an earlier version. In 2000 he voted for permanent normal trade relations with China.
Recently, though, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Edwards has attacked Bush's trade policies and called for fairer trade measures.
Robert Neal, vice president of the local chapter of the Pillowtex workers' union, said Hayes has worked to try to ease the impact of job losses in his district.
"Though he (Hayes) voted for fast-track, he is really concerned about the workers and their conditions in the state of North Carolina," Neal said.
Not everyone feels that way.
Reese is organizing 1,500 manufacturing companies across North Carolina in an effort to leverage what he calls a new voting bloc.
In South Carolina, voter drives are planned for the first time at Milliken & Co., which has about 30 plants in the state. Mount Vernon Mills of Greenville, S.C., is forming a political action committee.
The company's president Roger Chastain, a one-time Bush voter, doesn't expect to support the president or Jim DeMint, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Ernest Hollings.
"We're basically liquidating our whole middle class, polarizing people on the two extremes, have and have-nots," Chastain said of the manufacturing job losses. "We'll be a Third World country."
China is developing the technological and industrial base to take the US on in an arms race 10-20 years from now and win. Equal or greater population. High tech. Resource base. World class industrial exporter. Every previous adversary we faced had only two of these attributes. Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union. China already has three of the above. In 10 years it will have all of the above.
Then you also know that they get something like two months vacation and generally work 9-5. It is true that their prices are higher but they have a much easier quality of life than we do. So it's a cultural choice.
It's more of a law then a choice (at least in France, and to a lesser extent, in Germany). In US you always have a chance to work less (and earn less money). This would effectively make everything more expensive - just like in Europe.
Gee, I always figured that in democracies laws reflected cultural choices. The Europeans chose the easy life by taking themselves out of the great power business. Their costs are greater but they have chosen cradle to grave security as their priority.
Let's do an experiment - let's make a list of computer companies. Other then Sony, most people would be hard pressed to name any non-US companies.
Is there such a thing as a US multinational ? Do you think such institutions think in terms of national economies ? Again, you are stuck in the past. Already China is exporting computers. Given the massive transfers of technology and personnel base they are creating it is only a matter of time.
It has been just about 10 years since NAFTA was ratified; 20 years since US initiated serious attempts at trade liberalization. We are now at, what I believe is, an end of a recession (when unemployment rates tend to be the highest), yet we have, about, 6% unemployment. This number compares very favorably with lowest unemployment rates in the 70s and 80s. (Any one knows what unemployment was liked in the 60s?)
If you check www.bls.gov you will see that when discouraged workers are counted in it comes to 10.2% which is what it was in 1940. And that counts people who are vastly underemployed as employed.
Ha! You are the one that should be happy with it with all these tariffs and subsidies coming from Bush. Hell yes, I want to change the status quo and we can start by ending this stupid steel tariffs program in September. (But it won't happen because Bush knows most Americans don't understand economics very well (as FR demonstrates ABUNDANTLY) and can be demagogued on the issue very easily).
As a response noted, however, alot of hese 'American' companies are really taiwan-sourced. Look at Dell! It's not a weakness for American companies to globally source, it is a STRENGTH of competitiveness.
This is why excessive tariffs and quotas may be counterproductive, ironically. American companies that go *anywhere in the world* to get the lowest cost and best quality can beat out the Japanese at their own game. We can beat European companies, tied down by rigid govt policies.
And in the process it keeps and saves US jobs. Btw, Motorola makes cell phones in Asia and the US. and companies like Solectron have US manufacturing but are moving more and more to China. Yet a lot of hig-paid wages are still out of the US for them.
More scary: China is now making .18um semiconductors. ... the technology gap is shrinking. So this is the irony: We can keep our lead and our American company competitiveness, but NOT if we raise walls that stop our global US-led companies from competing as best-in-class around the world. Trying to "save" American industry with trade walls will actually *destroy* (think of Dell again) what we hope to save.
First observation is that you seem to hate the Founding Father's wise design to fund the Federal Government. You lie by pretending that tariffs would be an additional tax rather than a replacement tax. Domestic taxes could dramatically fall if replaced by tariffs. Also, since you dislike tariffs as a tax, I would assume that you also dislike the National Retail Sales Tax since it is based on the same grounds with the exception that the NRST penalizes domestic purchases as well as foreign.
Your words are deceptive since you compare the worst American product with the best Japanese product. Of course the 'K' car was far roomier and would make for a better transport for groups of people. Also employed locals who would turn around and spend their money on more locals.
You say that you trade "value for value" but I could say the same thing for those who bring food and drink to the ballpark. The food is cheaper and probably better than what one would get at the stadium, the thing is, the food purchased at the ballpark subsidizes the operating cost of the stadium and the entertainment. When you bring outside food to the game, the revenue per ticket holder is much less than the average, in effect you are having others subsidize your entertainment. Same thing when you import that Datsun, you are having others subsidize the benefits of living here in this country.
You listed a number of things that you have no appreciation for, and I assume that you dislike the medical and retirement provisions, but are ignorant of how the medical and retirement infrastructure actually benefits you. That's OK, because you also express an interest of abandoning this country at the first sign of trouble. Clearly you would be worthless to General George Washington, and would rather go hide in the woods while others made the sacrifice.
I thank you for being honest in your expression of utter selfishness and parasite attitude towards this country and the people who made and still make sacrifices to make this country the best there is. I guess like the locust, as soon as you and your ilk have decimated this country, you will "move south" and continue your enterprise there.
I just wish you would take you anti-American self there now and quit being baggage to the rest of us.
Yeah, there are enough politicians who will cheerfully promise you a domestic tax cut Tuesday in return for a new tax on imports today.
The problem is that they will say, "I didn't mean THIS Tuesday. Or the next one...or the one after that..."
Domestic taxes could dramatically fall if replaced by tariffs.
And they could dramatically fall if the American public went cold turkey on womb-to-tomb nanny-statism, too, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen--asphyxiation is reputed to be an unpleasant way to die.
I hereby nominate this enitre post (#896) as Post of the year!
Many on this site are beyond help.
Harley cruises toward 100
BY RICK POPELY
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO--Harley-Davidson is cruising in the fast lane as it celebrates its 100th birthday, an easy rider in a bumpy economy filled with potholes.
In the midst of a recession, Harley's motorcycle sales and revenue rose to record levels in 2002, continuing a 17-year string of record growth.
This year, demand for 2003 models decked out with 100th anniversary trim is such that dealers can charge more than suggested retail price for the bikes.
Harley is an American success story in an industry dominated by Japanese brands. The company, with help from timely tariffs, resurrected itself from the manufacturing junk pile 20 years ago and captured the hearts and dollars of Baby Boomers, a generation that rejected American automobiles in favor of imports.
And they could dramatically fall if the American public went cold turkey on womb-to-tomb nanny-statism, too, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to happen--asphyxiation is reputed to be an unpleasant way to die.
Poohbah! You go girlfriend!
Tell him also that monkeys could dramtically fly out my butt! Further, I believe the monkeys have a greater chance of exiting my rosie red rear than of us ever getting a "DRAMATIC" tax cut out of present day Washington DC!
We are becoming increasingly dependent on the PRC and other anti Western nations for our manufactured goods. Increasingly, "ODM" companies (an advanced form of contract manufacturer) are being asked to not only build but design our products. These are not US companies but mostly Taiwanese and increasingly Chinese. All of them have their manufacturing sites in the PRC. The products are sufficiently complex to make, test and debug that the PRC engineers who work on them known their designs inside out. Sadly, I personally participated in the education of some of them prior to my own awakening. As also noted herein above in the thread the PRC are now making chips below 0.18 uM and shrinking - using IC they got by having some of their high tech people come here on H1Bs they've now done RISC chips and are poised for multicore chips. Meanwhile we've gone headlong into Russia and trusted without verifying a number of "former state enterprises" who "were previously" involved in nuclear weapons systems and their computer models, and have shared our Western technology with them. This started even before the "official" demise of the USSR. Golitsyn predicted it, we failed to heed the warning, and now we are living it.
OK, so if the free market game led to the victory of one of few giant corporation and the competition would end like in Monoply game this would be fine for you? But how the one big corporation owning everything would differ from socialism? I guess it would differ that it would serve the interests of the few owners while the disposessed majority would meekly accepted its destitution in the name of private property god.
You are a dreamer Mr. Poohbah
When you're over budget, and succeeding iterations of development are only getting worse...
You fire the whole damn team and either abandon the project or start over.
That is to throw away the money that was spent already.
To do otherwise frequently means throwing good money after bad.
If they don't pull the plug entirely, they will simply can the original programming team and start over.
So assuming that outsourcing is somehow "self correcting" is wishful thinking.
Actually, it is. You see, unlike how you portray yourself, most people figure out that they screwed the pooch on Project A, and that using the same approach on Project B will merely take sloppy seconds on that same pooch.
Most people out there are smarter than that. Assumptions to the contrary are usually a product of actually being as stupid as one imagines others to be.
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