What is costing Americans jobs?

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Happy_Jack
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What is costing Americans jobs?

Post by Happy_Jack »

Kerry says W cost Americans millions of jobs. So what did W do or not do that cost all the jobs? So lets hear why you think jobs are leaving the US.
plowboy
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Post by plowboy »

NAFTA - Bill Clinton.
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Post by Blue_coyote »

Outsourcing of manufacturing, mostly to China (the next world superpower.....and that scares me...)

NAFTA (to a lesser degree) Yeah, a lot of us Canucks ain't fond of that piece of trash, either!

the EEC. By combining, the economic power in Europe has had repercussions world-wide.
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Post by Happy_Jack »

So why out source? Why move jobs to other North American company's?
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Post by Blue_coyote »

Happy_Jack wrote:So why out source? Why move jobs to other North American company's?
Its called economics. If it costs you $10 to make a part in the US, $7 to make it in Mexico (including freight), or $5.75 to make it in China (including freight), then who are you going to get to make it for you? (anyone remember the flak Nike took a few years back over who was making their shoes?-I'll give you one clue...they were NOT being made in the USA....)
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Post by plowboy »

That's right Blue, but personally I think that the bottom line is greed. We (Americans, and I am one and proud of it) want better paying jobs, so we can afford nicer things. Better paying jobs costs employers more money. To stay afloat they find cheaper ways of doing business. After all the guy at the top doesn't want anything cutting into his profit margine.
To do things cheaper, companies take manufacturing to other countries where people will work cheap and be thankful they have a job. I don't agree with so many jobs going to other countries, just to increase their profit margine when so many people here are out of work.

I am in favor of companies starting up manufacturing in other countries and providing jobs for people much less fortunate that us, but not at the expense of our own people.
Last edited by plowboy on Wed Oct 27, 2004 7:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Happy_Jack
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Post by Happy_Jack »

So what did W do to make parts more expensive to make in the US? Or what didn't he do that would have made company's stay in the US?
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Post by plowboy »

I'm not sure that W did anything to send jobs out of country. When I lived in Springfield MO about 10 years ago, Zenith closed down a picture tube plant that employed 3000 people and moved it to Mexico. All this started after Clinton signed NAFA. I wish I could remember all the details. Guess I'll have to re-educate myself. I know NAFTA isn't soley to blame, I just think it made it easier for companies to do it.
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Post by Blue_coyote »

Greed and economics are two words that equal the same thing. Greed is the vice...economics is the means of feeding that vice
I don't think there's really much that either Bush OR Kerry could do to prevent foreign outsourcing, short of slapping import duties on everything, but with too many import duties, suddenly nobody wants to trade and so the cycle continues (that's drastically oversimplified but you get the idea)
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Post by Happy_Jack »

Ok. As I understand it Nafta removed the penalities on an American company leaving the US to do business in the countries in Nafta. The reason company's and the jobs are going else where is the US is not a friendly place to run a business. Labor cost and social security cost are high. Then there is unemployment insurance. Law suits, OSHA, and the enviro nazis. Unions demanding benifits, health care, and low production levels don't help. America is way over priced on the world labor market. That's why a part can be built in china and shipped all the way over here for less than it cost to make the part in country. Now W's tax cut is working to get some of the jobs back. Course Kerry says he wants to cut the part for people who make over 200,000 a year. So more jobs will leave the US as high taxes will drive more business out.

The jobs will not return untill we become more competive in the word labor market. Japan has been taking our tech jobs and Europe has been taking our skilled labor jobs.
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Post by n9emz »

That's half the problem with NAFTA. In theory it's a good thing but, if other parties to the agreement don't buy American goods it doesn't work as intended. We're suffering a serious trade imbalance because of that which has driven the GNP in a downward spiral.

The economy experiences cycles of growth and recession on the order of every 9 years or so, and whomever is in office at the time generally reaps the credit or blame for it. It's up to them to assist in sustaining the economy in prosperous times, or effectively react and stimulate the economy in lean times.

Bush rode into office on the coattails of the internet implosion, the market collapse, then there was 9/11, air transportation failures to the extent of billions of dollars per day, Enron, eversagging Yen and Euro, the increasing trade deficit.....all cost jobs. No matter who had been President, other than manipulate the Fed/interest rates and lessen tax burdens to soften the bump at the end of the slide, not a lot could be done until the economy bottomed.

Here's the real deal: The economy is now on the upswing in one of its normal cycles. Regardless of who's in the White House next term, they will try and capitalize on the glory of its recovery. If it's Bush, the naysayers will still blame him for the past recession; if it's Kerry, everyone will say he turned everything around and pulled off a miracle.

The truth is that the American entrepreneurial spirit and opportunity for small business start-ups and expansion are what most drastically and quickly affect the unemployment stats. I'm of the opinion that Bush did his part, but most of the credit rightfully belongs to his Cabinet and outside economic advisors.
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Post by Happy_Jack »

So to make my point then it seems Kerry is blowing a lot of hot air by attacking W on the loss of jobs. ??
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Post by plowboy »

Kerry is blowing a lot of hot air. So much so that the EPA ought to slap a polution fine on him. Look at where all of his wife's manufacturing plants are located(Mexico, China, India, etc.). Not one in the U.S. If he gets elected do you think he is going to move those plants back to the U.S. Heck no!

Sam is right about the economic cycle. It just seems to work that way.

I think that it is tough on American companies to manufacture in the U.S. My personal opinion is that by taking jobs away from us and outsourcing, it hurts our country as a whole. I wish owners of companies would look past high salry top executive jobs and see what it does to the real people who made their company that big. Look at the bigger picture and see how it affects a town, state, and a nation. On a national level one company my not even seem like a drop in the bucket, but take one drop of water out of a glass and over a period of time the glass will be empty.

[/quote]Then there is unemployment insurance. Law suits, OSHA, and the enviro nazis. Unions demanding benifits, health care,

Back to my greed theory. Some of this would not be as necessary or as high if people weren't so lawsuit happy. I know that there is a purpose for it, but too many exploit it just because they can. I think that the unions sometimes add to the problems. I am not against unions, I think they have their place, but they also drive up the cost of product, which ultimately you and I the consumer have to pay.

I should have taken more economics in school than electronics. Mabey I could talk more intelligently on the subject. I also tend to have an oversimplified view.
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Post by Blue_coyote »

Actually, plowboy, you seem to have a decent grasp on how it works.

This helps show part of why many large corporations are so much pushing for a "world economy". If its all one big labour pool and one big market, then it simplifies things at the corporate level. It also makes it easier for corporations to not only maximize the profit margin, but to start dictating policy to governments ("do it our way or we'll just move to another area where they WILL do it our way, and we'll take our $$$ with us")
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Post by Happy_Jack »

And all this time time I thought CEO's were just suppose to make a company as much money as possible. Guess I'm all messed up because I thought the large corporations were a big part of the world economy. I thought the stock holders (folks like you and me) demanded that CEO's maximize profits.

I'm not blaming everything on the American workers wages. Far from it. Do you think Earth First has been blocking construction in China to protect micro biotic life? I received info that Kerry and Edwards personel wealth was far greater than Bush and Chaney's. Kerry of coures married Teresa Heinze. Edwards made his buckets of $$$'s winning lawsuits. So who thinks if Edwards and Kerry get in that we will have tort reform. Not.
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