What is costing Americans jobs?

plowboy · Post by **plowboy** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:22 am

Some of you guys that grew up through the 50's and early 60's (Pre vietnam). Did the world seem this complicated or is it just my age (33) that these things effect me more, so I am more aware of them.

Large corporations dictate government policey to some degree with lobbiests and special interest groups. Bottom line is, it is a huge complex issue of which there are many factors. For a canidate to stand up in front of a nation and proclaim that it is this person's or that person's "fault" I think is nuts. I have really never liked politics and I can't stand it at election time. All you hear are adds blaming each other for this or that. Personally I get tired of listening to the bull#$@!.

Hey Sambo here is my soap box. I do my best to live a life of honesty and integrity. The thought of people like John Kerry, or anyone else for that matter, who would lie and give false accusations just to get elected to an office that governs our nation turns my stomach. Unfortunately there will always be people in this world like that. I wish that everyone could be taken at face value. When you see me, you get what you see. By no means am I perfect or better than anyone else. I think that personal integrity is a lost concept in my gereration. I think God for my heritage as an American, a farmer, and a christian. I am thankful that I have had good roll models in my life to show me how to live. Hopefully by the grace of God I can pass those values on to my kids and make the world a better place. Don't know how I got off on that, sorry.

marinebroncoii · Post by **marinebroncoii** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 2:41 am

Mostof the reason so many jobs are going over seas is just our culture in general. If we want a raise we go on stike and work less, until the employer gives in because they are loosing production and money. In asia if someone wants a raise they work three times as hard as before until they shame their employer into paying them more. America as a whole is lazy anyways and will never work as hard as people over here (I'm in the Marines deployed to Japan), especially for as low of a price.
As far as trying to say it is Bush's fault, their is no way to prove that and itis just political bullshit to try to get elected. The economy takes so long to change that you never see the effects of a presidents changes until the end of his term or the beginning of the next term. Seems to me the Dems always take 4 years to mess things up, then the Reps take 4 years to fix it how the last one tried to, then the dems blame the bad economy that the Rep started with and slowly changed on the Rep. I'm not strictly Rep or Dem and actually think that they could both fix the economy given time, but since they have different approaches they end up undermining the previous presidents work, and it is justa vicous cycle.
For my job it is better to have a Rep in office-I get a yearly raise to make up for inflation. With Dems in office I get no raises and we get budget cuts, making it harder to get supplies we need.

Happy_Jack · Post by **Happy_Jack** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 6:50 am

Well work ethic and Labor unions are part of it. Thing is a business has to make money. Factory's in the US face more problems than just Labor costs. There are law suits. Enviromental issues. Taxes. Social Security. Unemployment insurance. OSHA.

The US is just plain unfriendly to manufacturing. Point was, and picked up by most, that the Democrats platform has caused a lot of the lost lost jobs. Then they turn around and blamed job losses on W.

NAFTA removed the sanctions on companies moving out of the US. Keary said there were violations of NAFTA and GAF (?). I was hoping someone would come up with some info on that. Not just the violations. But what countries or businesses were commiting the violations? And the important thing what, if any, recourse do we have? So was/is there anything W can do?

DZK007 · Post by **DZK007** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:35 pm

Happy_Jack wrote:Well work ethic and Labor unions are part of it. Thing is a business has to make money. Factory's in the US face more problems than just Labor costs. There are law suits. Enviromental issues. Taxes. Social Security. Unemployment insurance. OSHA.

The US is just plain unfriendly to manufacturing. Point was, and picked up by most, that the Democrats platform has caused a lot of the lost lost jobs. Then they turn around and blamed job losses on W.

NAFTA removed the sanctions on companies moving out of the US. Keary said there were violations of NAFTA and GAF (?). I was hoping someone would come up with some info on that. Not just the violations. But what countries or businesses were commiting the violations? And the important thing what, if any, recourse do we have? So was/is there anything W can do?

Happy_jack got the first 2 paragraphs right. As to NAFTA; What NAFTA basically did was level the playing field by making tarrifs and duties on goods from member nations go away. As discussed earlier, this levels the playing field of competition but in an unequal way for the USA. Since our standard of living is much nicer than many of the other nations, our cost of production is also higher. This makes companies look for cheaper costs of producing thier product so they can improve thier bottom line profits. It does nothing to bussinesses that move out of the country

I'm personally involved in the manufacturing end of things (I'm a Machinist/ foreman) and the president has done a good bit to give the american companies a leg up. One of the things he did was to restructure the write off on new equipment purchases thus making it advantageous for companies to modernise thier production methods. The problem with this is that it will take less people to make the same number of goods. The advantage is that it keeps the capabilities here in the USA and the technology gap stays put.
Point to ponder is this; We shipped our manufacturing of toys to Japan, china, taiwan, korea, etc.... how much difference do you think there is between making toys and weapons? If the USA keeps shedding manufacturing capability then who will arm us when we need to defend ourselves??

Unfortunately I don't think the powers that be really have a good grasp of where the treaty is going to put this country when the dust settles.

Happy_Jack · Post by **Happy_Jack** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:53 pm

Well my memory isn't good anymore but I thought before NAFTA that a US company who moved a plant out of the US could not bring anything that was produced in that plant to the US for a year or so. Then it would have "extra" (in addition to the regular ones) duties or taxes when it could bring the items to the US. Thought this was only on American Companys who closed plants in the US then open the same plant elsewhere. Could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. I thought NAFTA not only did away with the regular duties and taxes on imports but it did away with this.

So what was Keary talking about when he blamed W for costing American jobs? All I heard was he said there were violations of NAFTA and GAF (?). He said he would take action to right these violations to bring jobs back to the US. So who is violating NAFTA or GAF and what action can be taken against those violaters? Could it be that other countries are not importing enough stuff from the US? Does NAFTA even have any recourse written in for violations? Or is the only action we can take is to drop out of the agreement?

DZK007 · Post by **DZK007** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 7:23 pm

The one year clause was for plants that were moved after they were built with tax advantaged status. In other words if xerox built a plant in Tennessee and got big tax incentives to do it and then moved the plant to mexico 8 years later (long before the contracted deal ran out) they would incure the 1 year goods and extra tarriffs penalties. i'm not sure if NAFTA did away with this but I believe that law expired before being made permanent.
Kerry was just blowing hot air trying to make it W's fault for jobs leaving this country. Nafta isn't the only reason companies are leaving. The pacific rim countries (japan, china, korea, etc) are the neighborhood of true hi-tech manufacturing. If you want to build anything with a computer in it then this is where you want it produced for a reasonable price. Companies have been moving out of the USA as well as being bought and moved.
As far as violations go - it seems to me that the rules are stacked against the USA in the trade agreement as well as enforcement. We have cried foul when china dumped products on our continent for far cheaper than they could be manufactured. This is a practice of cutting throats and the company with the deepest pockets will walk away with all the bussiness in the end. China was never sanctioned.

Just recently the USA was sanctioned for steel and other industries that have had a hard time getting up to competetive speed with third world countries. W had the nerve to keep the "illegal" kickback system in place too long and the affected industries are now being hit with an import tarrif by all the other nations..... When we protested the price of Chinese steel because they paid thier employees dirt wages and the raw materials were "provided" by the goverment, we were laughed at and told our industry would have to tighten its belt

plowboy · Post by **plowboy** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 5:20 am

DZK007 wrote: When we protested the price of Chinese steel because they paid thier employees dirt wages and the raw materials were "provided" by the goverment, we were laughed at and told our industry would have to tighten its belt

madmark · Post by **madmark** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 8:39 pm

Back in 1992 I used to shoot NRA highpower with a guy that was a comptroller at Ford,he told me that ford was getting so fast at making cars and trucks that they needed to raise the standard of living in other countries so that more people around the world could buy these cars and trucks.Well boys and girls the only way to raise the standard of living in other countries is to lower ours,thats the reason so many manufacuring jobs are going overseas.