A great many people have begun raising hell about "our" jobs being sent off-shore to "cheap labour" countries. While this is certainly happening and has had a serious effect on our way of life, I wonder if perhaps we need to examine this a bit closer.
We seem to be forgetting one wee thing here. We, in the west, are actually victims of our own success. All this blather about "cheap labour" elsewhere - which won't be cheap for long; already jobs in such places as China that once paid 75 cents per day, are up to $2 to $3 per hour. Keep in mind that present day China began in 1950. They have over 300 years of western development to catch up to. When we compare our way of life of only 100 years ago, including wages and working/living conditions, to the Chinese way of life now, I don't think we look too awfully good.
Consider too that what we could buy for $1.oo in 1955 now costs us, on average, $13.50 and you can see that anyone here who makes less than $26.oo an hour is actually making comparatively less than a Chinese worker! Throw in free education as far as your ability will carry you, free housing, extremely cheap transportation (except private cars - of which there are tens of millions - do 'slave' labourers buy cars?!!), free medical care, cheap foods of all kinds, free work clothing and shoes, free universal day-care for kids, etc., etc., and you can see that to compare a Chinese worker's "income" to an American worker's "income" gives a false picture. False because 'out-go' is not being compared also.
But the real problem is hardly even recognized by most of us. It is automation. It eliminates, and will continue to eliminate more jobs than off-shoring does. A few months back I read in a business magazine (while waiting in a doctor's office) about an American company that makes plastic "things". They bid on job lots. They might be making a million dolls heads one month and styrofoam cups the next. Their factory had grown old and outdated so they bought land next to it and built a new, state-of-the-art, fully automated factory.
The old factory employed 1,380 workers spread over two shifts per day. The new factory operated 24/7/356. Its output was 17 times that of the former factory. It cut prices drastically without messing with profit and forced some of its competitors out of business. Total employees in the new fully automated factory? - 153. So that company alone dumped 12oo workers onto unemployment. Then, of course there were all the workers, who'd worked for the now defunct competition, who were also thrown out of work.
So keep your eyes peeled folks; while you're looking outward at jobs that are going overseas, the real enemy is creeping up behind you.
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Spike The Chicken
older/exasperated
hyblaean- Julie
Poor Woman
CynMaRose
SpiritManSF
Salon.com
Comments
A point of correction: Par 5: "It's output was 17 times that of the former ."
R♥
Yes, you're right.
Great idea - bad idea. Who would decide who can procreate and how much? Do you REALLY want to leave such decisions in the hands of our present crop of politicians??!!!! Yet no other organization is powerful enough to enforce it. Another "rock & hard place" situation.
Fusun,
Yoiks! Thank you for finding that apostrophe for me. I need it elsewhere and I've been going nuts trying to find it!
froggy,
I've seen that happen all too many times. Always something is blamed that sounds almost plausible if one doesn't THINK about it, as you have. Actually, I don't think automation is necessarily a bad thing at all. BUT.....if we are going to dis-employ massive numbers of people then we need a whole different internal economic system. Income cannot be tied to employment in a society that is drastically reducing that same employment! We need an economy that is based upon a completely different economic model.
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Foreign trade policies and such trade treaties as NAFTA are red herrings being blamed for all sorts of economic woes. The facts are somewhat different than as stated by those who advance these ideas. Neither India nor China (nor Canada) hindered the import and sale of US goods in any way not agreed to in the treaties signed by them.
The problem was that the US was convinced that their "superior" goods and salesmanship would let them sell American made goods at a profit in countries where similar quality goods were available from local manufacturers at one tenth the price. American "know-how" was supposed to come to the fore and capture the local markets for things made in America. I mean, everybody know that the whole world wants American made goods above all others, right? So they got their asses kicked from one end of the trade treaty business to the other. Other countries sought to export, to the US, goods that they had a genuine market for. Often really cheap goods (textile goods come to mind re India and China) or top quality goods (cars and electronics from Japan). Stupidly the US sought to export the SAME items that it was importing, at US prices. Pfffffffffft!
Tarifs aren't the answer to the problem. Having a lick of good sense, instead of carrying the ridiculous much vaunted American Exceptionalism philosophy into negotiations, would do theUS a word of good.
So the US does indeed have a problem with the reduction of trade barriers. NOT because treaty partners "changed the game" after signing the treaties - they didn't - but because it doesn't "know itself" and what it can do well enough that others will treasure an opportunity to buy it from them.
Access to foreign markets is there for the US to take advantage of as it wishes. But what kind of an idiot tries to sell silk to China or brass items to India? There are things we do very well indeed. One of those things is grow food. We probably have one of the most advanced agricultural set-ups in the whole world. Rich countries like India, China and Japan have huge populations for their size. They cannot provide food enough, on their own, for those populations. Would it not make sense for the US to seize that opportunity and establish itself as the "breadbasket of the world"?
scanner,
That's "Sir" to you, garçon.......;-)
(*Hey man, if you leave me an opening that big......*)
Tr ig,
Don't be silly - they have robots for that........;-)
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There are any number of ways of doing it. Once again, "Who writes the laws and sets the rules and who enforces them?"
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Rated!
This IS about ideas. Yours is an old one. It got old because nobody knows how to implement it in a fair and equitable manner - a manner that the elite couldn't circumvent to their own advantage. Unless you have some thoughts on that then you're just repeating another non-solution.
Nobody expects you to come up with solutions to all the questions that get raise when this idea is mentioned, but if you can figure out some of those difficulties and propose a solution to just one of them, then we'll be one question/solution closer to an answer, thanks to you!
Tink,
Maybe if you stopped using it as a sex surrogate........?
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Why there you go then! You've found the perfect solution!! All you need to do is convince the other 312,000,000 Americans and ta-da! Problem solved!
Well, there IS one wee, tiny hitch. The American birth rate is already one of the lowest in the world. The population would be very nearly stagnant if it weren't for immigration.
So we have to impose your plan on all "them others" in the world who are having too many babies. I guess we can build up our military to do that pretty easy. Of course it means re-instituting the draft so that ALL of OUR kids can get to go and kill "those others" who just get all contrary and willfully resist your plan. Serve them foreign rascals right! They've gotta learn to obey us when we tell them things for their own good!
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You commented:
"""" I wonder if the day will come when a large segment of the population simply will not be able to find jobs,...."
Surely you jest, sir. Do you have any idea what the unemployment rate is?!!
Is the, admitted by government, rate of about 9% not a "large segment of the population"?! And that's not to mention the "real" rate that is estimated to be from 18% to 33% unemployed!!!
Here are some more not-so-small segments of the population that the government, in its wisdom, doesn't count as unemployed.
1- Those who have stopped looking for work.
Now just how in hell does the government know who has, or has not, "stopped looking for work"? It seems that anytime the numbers of unemployed gets embarrassingly high, the government just dumps a few million more people into this hand-dandy category.
2- Young people looking for their first job. Nope. Not unemployed.
3- Seniors looking for an after-a-forced-retirement job.
4- Women looking for work after their kids have grown and flown the coop.
5- Women looking for work, after leaving a job that didn't have maternity leave, to have a baby.
6- Anyone who has emerged from a mental or correctional institution.
7- Anyone who has been out of work for medical reasons.
8- Anyone whose unemployment insurance has run out. (Yeah! Watch THIS number grow!)
9- People emerging from military service.
10- (This one will kill ya) Everybody who is on welfare!!!
I don't know how you define a "large segment" but to me, that list above contains TEN such large segments. And I didn't even mention all those former small business owner/operators who couldn't make a go of it in these hard times and are now seeking employment.
I respectfully suggest,my friend, that "the day" has already come!!!
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For that to happen the cost of human labour would need to be below subsistence levels. I rather think the world we know would explode in bloody revolution some time before that happened.
I think that one of the best things that ever happened FOR the power/economic elite is the Occupy movement. If they didn't cause it to be created - something I suspect - they ought to have done so. It will bleed off a great deal of the hostility to that elite that is emerging as people find that there just simply are not, cannot ever again be, sufficient "jobs" that pay a decent wage to the workers.
It is axiomatic that the elite will not agree to an equitable sharing of the wealth of any society with other members of that society. This means that they will insist that income be tied to making them even richer - or at the least far, far richer than the average person, by means of "work" (working for them, of course).
One cannot even suggest to them that everyone is entitled to a fair share of the wealth of any society to which they belong. Fairness is the ultimate enemy of the greedy elite.
If our population was independent-minded enough we could just walk away from the elite. Not work for them; not sell to them. Have nothing to do with them. Set up our own economy, run by us - for us. Ignore them. Let's see them eat their damned wealth!
But we won't do that. We'll go on being good little sheep until the day when we explode and string them all up. Then we'll need to start all over again and in time - a very short time - we'll have another elite to contend with.
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Other countries, e.g., Germany and Japan, have been impacted by automation just as much as the U.S. Even so, unlike the U.S., they have retained a robust manufacturing base.
"Access to foreign markets is there for the US to take advantage of as it wishes."
In countries such as Japan, some U.S. products have been virtually banned. This wasn't because the Japanese didn't want to buy them, nor was it because American products were too expensive. It was because of Japanese trade strategies and overt cooperation between the Japanese government and Japanese companies.
"What we have now is a system in which U.S. markets remain relatively open to imports and foreign investment while many major foreign markets, like those of China and Japan, remain relatively restricted and controlled. [Prestowitz, Clyde (2010-04-24). The Betrayal of American Prosperity (p. 3). Free Press. Kindle Edition.]
You are correct. But this has nothing to do with the list of products allowed into and out of each signatory of the various "free trade" agreements with many other nations.
One of the major errors that has showed up is exemplified by the auto industry. In the agreement with Japan (and others) the US insisted that it could impose as much as a 100% duty on vehicle imports, at this end, so as to keep American auto makers competitive. Needless to say, other nations are allowed to do the same thing with regard to US goods.
The difference is that the US being a very rich "successful" nation, its people could still afford those vehicles and with - especially re Japanese goods - the quality being so much better than US products, the Japanese are easily able to sell large quantities of vehicles in the US.
However, when the Japanese do the same thing to American vehicles sold there - as they, of course do - that kicks the price of US goods - lesser quality goods in most cases - so much higher than Japanese made goods in Japan that it becomes, in effect, almost a "ban" on US goods.
But this is NOT a matter of Japan - or other countries - "cheating". This is allowed under those treaties. The US has, for decades, tried to force the Japanese (and others) to allow American goods into their country WITHOUT the imposition of the same tariffs the US imposes. Needless to say the US has been largely unsuccessful at this.
The US has also just blatantly imposed tariffs and duties on goods that are exempt from such whenever it feels like doing so. The soft-wood limber exported from Canada was supposed to be exempt from such duties according to the NAFTA agreement. The US imposed such duties anyway. This matter went to the tribunal that decides who is right in such disputes and the US lost - repeatedly. They refused to return the money illegally collected from Canadian suppliers of that lumber. Instead they quietly worked behind the scenes to pack that tribunal with supporters whom they control. On the 4th or 5th hearing - over a period of more than 30 years - the US got a favourable decision. They got it over the issue of some Canadian lumber that came from trees that had been damaged by a Japanese Beatle infestation and whose lumber was being sold as low grade due to that damage. The US insisted that it was not low grade even though damaged.
I have not read the particular book you mention but I have read many articles intended to serve the purpose of saying that the US is being cheated whenever a trade agreement doesn't work out so as to give Americans a huge advantage. Face it. Free trade was, and is, intended to provide a level playing field in the areas it covers - NOT an "advantage" for one country or another. (Well, that's the theory anyway.) Negotiators for nations entering into such agreements always try to gain whatever edge they can for their own nation; only to be expected. When the US gets an edge, they proudly boast of how smart they are; when they lose one they whine about being cheated and their lap-dogs write books and articles to support those ridiculous claims.
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Automation has been accused of eliminating jobs for eons, but it has little to do with long-term unemployment. Many third-world countries have the most unemployment and they have the smallest amount of unemployment. Political and economic conditions are the cause, and no one fully understands how it works.
So far automation isn't the reason for lack of enough jobs.
While it is true that one can say that. "So far automation isn't the reason for lack of enough jobs." That is only so because of the use of the word "the" instead of "a" in that statement. "The" implies that there is only one cause of our massive unemployment. That is not so. Even the off-shoring of jobs it not "the" cause of our present massive unemployment. No one thing is.
But it definitely is "a" cause of some of our unemployment. How much unemployment is difficult to determine. Sometimes just what constitutes automation is itself hard to determine. Do we call it automation when it is part of a production system that still employs 99% of its workers? How about when it still employs 50%? How about when it only employs 1%? Where do we draw the line between a well equipped, modern production line and employment eating automation.
I see no means of making fine distinctions in these areas. If only one job was lost due to the company installing a machine, and that job was mine, what would my opinion be then? If ten thousand jobs were lost due to machines, but I kept mine, then what?
I think we are going to have to find a way to un-hook income from employment. I also think this can be done without creating a cradle-to-grave nanny state. I think all citizens ought to own shares in all the nation's corporations. Why should "the rich" be the only ones who benefit from owning shares? Let's ALL own shares! And when we die let's pass those shares on to the next generation as a guaranteed birthright for every child born - no matter who their parents were - rich or poor.
If all the wealth that can be created by a few workers and a huge pile of automated factories could be shared amongst the population, I'd bet that we'd all live fairly decent lives. ALL of us - not just an elite few. I have no interest in "tearing down" the wealthy corporations or the people who own shares in them. I want them to prosper! I want them to make zillions of dollars every day. But I also want that created wealth to be shared among the citizens who built the society and the means by which that wealth is created.
I have no hatred of the rich. I would like to see ALL of us "rich". Let's be honest. If we tear down the rich, and destroy their wealth, we get nothing out of that but an unhealthy sort of vengeance on them for getting rich. If we re-design our economic and social systems so that we all share equitably in the wealth of our nation, THEN we have advanced our position. I don't want us to tear down the rich - I want us to BE them!!
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Saw a segment on CBS Sunday Morning today on the factory in China that builds iPhones and iPads. They do it by hand. Tiny, tiny little parts assembled by mostly young people, as young as 12. The concern is the conditions in which these workers work. IF they were built in the US no one could afford them but the 1%. I believe if the technology was there to automate they would be using it. I know I kind of went off on a little bit of a tangent here, but it just made me think.
Yes! Nice to see you here. Your comment is fine. Do try to keep in mind that we cannot apply today's North American standards to China, which is where we were 100 years ago, in it's development. We too used child labour and payed people very low wages in those days. Chinese people have, for thousands of years, started working at a young age. In fact this was and is so for Asia, Africa, South America, and some parts of all the other continents. Safety rules that we've developed over the last fifty years will also not likely come into being in China and other places for some time to come. Heck, they might even go out here just as they come in over there!
Don't feel sorry for Chinese workers only making $2.00 or $3.00 an hour. When I started my first job here in Canada in 1956, (age 15) I was paid 60 cents an hour. In 1961 I was all the way up to $1.25. In 1965 when I got married for the first time, I was earning $2.25 - and I supported the two of us on that income! Any comparison with the Chinese pay must also take into account their cost of living. I think that when you work it all out and include cradle to grave medical care free, free education as far as your ability will take you (once you cannot handle it they take you out of school - what purpose does it serve to try to educate further those who cannot absorb that education?), free trade and/or occupational training, free work clothing, extremely cheap transportation, etc., etc., you will find that their income actually equals an American income of about $26.00 or $27.00 per hour in purchasing power for necessities!! True, luxury items are horribly expensive. But starting from scratch in 1950 hasn't given them time to really get into the "luxury" end of living yet. Remember Mao Tse Tung built a revolution on the slogan, "A bowl of rice a day". Obviously things weren't going so well before the revolution if that, as it did, attracted millions of followers ready to die to get it.
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Be afraid, be very afraid.
"Press send FRed(tm) and NO we won't mention how the Bank of China owns just enough of each major stock so that it doesnt have to declare an interest. Nope that's a secret."