Can Trump really bring jobs back?

[moneymaker]

I have my doubts but I haven’t heard Hillary say she can. At first I was thinking this was OT but in reality jobs directly influence whether people can buy a house, add onto their current house, or move up. Not sure how many San Diego jobs have been lost to China, but the country as a whole has lost a lot of jobs to exportation of labor. Many people say that these are the sweat shop jobs that suck which may be true, but I know I’m sick and tired of buying crap made outside the USA.

[Coronita]

And yet, no one is complaining that they only have to pay $500 for a complete computer system from Walmart, as opposed to $4000-5000, back in 1980’s, which was the cost of my first Mac.

Nor is anyone complaining that they can buy a Samsung 4K TV for $1000 tops, as opposed to the first plasmas that were around $3000-4000.

Also, how do you “bring back manufacturing jobs” that were replaced by automation and robotics, which is a significant chunk of the job losses?

Should we discourage people from using eMail and instead insist people send more snail mail, so that we can increase the volume of snail mail so that we can maintain the level of employment in the USPS as we have in the past?

[no_such_reality]

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2016/08/01/hillary-clintons-100-day-jobs-plan/

[quote]That’s why, in her first 100 days in office, Hillary will break through Washington gridlock to make the biggest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II, putting us on a path to a stronger future for our children and grandchildren.[/quote]

Bold is their emphasis, not mine.

The PC is steadily dying. My phone is getting more expensive.

Neither here nor there.

People like their cheap stuff, including 99 cents per pound grapes. They just don’t like the collateral costs that they all want to pretend don’t exist.

[Coronita]

[quote=no_such_reality]https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2016/08/01/hillary-clintons-100-day-jobs-plan/

[quote]That’s why, in her first 100 days in office, Hillary will break through Washington gridlock to make the biggest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II, putting us on a path to a stronger future for our children and grandchildren.[/quote]

Bold is their emphasis, not mine.[/quote]

No political candidate is going to “fix” the job loss problem due to being obsolete and outdated skill set. No one can stop progress, and if there is a financial benefit to making something faster, cheaper, it will be done…If not by U.S. companies, by some other company or someone else somewhere else. China’s labor cost are already existing those of other nations in the eastern european block and Vietnam, which is why for some time you see factories and corporations setting up shop there now.

If people in this country do not want to accept the fact that those jobs aren’t coming back and they have no choice but to retrain and retool on the “next thing”, there is no politician that can fix this problem. Anyone who claims they can, is lying and simply underestimates the nature of technological advances.

Just look at your local home depot or ralph’s/vons. Instead of hiring 4 cashiers, you now have 4 self checkout stands and 1 person to manage all 4 machines. And personally, I like the self checkout because I can get out of the store a lot quicker than some cashier that wants to make conversation with their customers while checking out.

[FlyerInHi]

Why would you want old jobs back? We should create new jobs.

Also why is imported stuff crap? A useful product is useful no matter where it’s made.
I think we have so much more choices now. Good design, good quality at near disposable prices.

I bought a bunch of cheap dishes at Marukai and my friends think they’re so fancy. Made in Japan. You can also buy bone china at Ikea. Many fine restaurants or hotels don’t even use the same quality.

One reason inflation is low is because China invested so much in manufacturing that there’s overcapacity. Good for consumers.

[Escoguy]

Tariffs could be calculated based on differential fringe benefits.
I.e. if a plant in china has 5% direct labor costs but 2% fringe as there is less insurance, social security/medicaid, days off etc, but a US factory has the same direct labor cost and another 5% for fringe as a percentage of the final product price, a tariff could be imposed that offsets that difference.

It would remove the incentive for Chinese employers to screw their employees by making the total compensation comparable even if the absolute level is lower.

I.e. you impose your social policies on your trading partners. not sure if WTO rules allow that.

But if so, it would put pressure on Chinese employers to raise benefits.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=no_such_reality]https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/factsheets/2016/08/01/hillary-clintons-100-day-jobs-plan/

[quote]That’s why, in her first 100 days in office, Hillary will break through Washington gridlock to make the biggest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II, putting us on a path to a stronger future for our children and grandchildren.[/quote]

Bold is their emphasis, not mine.

The PC is steadily dying. My phone is getting more expensive.

Neither here nor there.

People like their cheap stuff, including 99 cents per pound grapes. They just don’t like the collateral costs that they all want to pretend don’t exist.[/quote]

Hillary is proposing investments in infrastructure which will enhance transportation and productivity. Unlike Trump she’s not proposing to slap tariffs on China to bring jobs back. Jobs cannot be brought back. Tariffs will just make things more expensive.

[Coronita]

[quote=Escoguy]Tariffs could be calculated based on differential fringe benefits.
I.e. if a plant in china has 5% direct labor costs but 2% fringe as there is less insurance, social security/medicaid, days off etc, but a US factory has the same direct labor cost and another 5% for fringe as a percentage of the final product price, a tariff could be imposed that offsets that difference.

It would remove the incentive for Chinese employers to screw their employees by making the total compensation comparable even if the absolute level is lower.

I.e. you impose your social policies on your trading partners. not sure if WTO rules allow that.

But if so, it would put pressure on Chinese employers to raise benefits.[/quote]

Those rules would only apply if the company that owns the factory is American. Those rules would not apply to companies that reside outside of the U.S. and given that especially in technology, a bulk of the business is not in the U.S., there’s not much the U.S government could do short of bringing their grievances to the WTO.

That’s why you have a company like Huawei, that does not do a lot a business in the U.S., but pretty much kicking everyone one else’s butt in telecom and networking infrastructure, both U.S. and European companies to the point that they ended up putting most of the European and U.S. companies under (with the exception of Cisco Systems). A customer, like a South American telco company is not going to care the details of “how much better it treats its workers” say Cisco Systems, versus say Huawei (for argument say, let’s assume that’s the case). That south american telco company is only going to care about which system is better an which one is cheaper. (Side note: Huawei has been paying well to poach talent too, also a fair game).

And since most U.S. companies these day derive a significant amount of their business overseas, the rules are often tied to how things are in that country. GM for instance sold more cars in China then they do in the U.S. It’s been like this for some time now.

This is actually one of the problems that companies like Qualcomm has to deal with all the time, though to a lesser extent because of it’s revenue from it’s patent portfolio and licensing. If it were to compete on chip manufacturing itself, it probably wouldn’t last very long without bringing out the cutting edge design, especially since most of the connectivity stuff is quickly getting commoditized.

American companies can afford to pay for a lot more for skills that a lot better than what they can get elsewhere, whether that skill brings in new technology or makes significant improvements over everyone else. But if american companies had to compete on cost and cost alone, they would never win if they could only employ u.s. workers, if the workers have like equal productivity as everyone else in the world.

[no_such_reality]

The same argument can be made about clean air, clean water and everything else that is an input.

Many countries have lower costs of doing business. From a regulatory environment to labor to actual resource inputs.

Those countries are choosing economic growth over externalized costs.

Kind of like the Hoover Dam, I really doubt we could get it built today. The laws were different then, employment expectations (and employee safety) were different then.

IMHO, the G8 need to do a much better job at pushing the developing world into uplifting it’s standard of living.

[Coronita]

[quote=no_such_reality]The same argument can be made about clean air, clean water and everything else that is an input.

Many countries have lower costs of doing business. From a regulatory environment to labor to actual resource inputs.

Those countries are choosing economic growth over externalized costs.

Kind of like the Hoover Dam, I really doubt we could get it built today. The laws were different then, employment expectations (and employee safety) were different then.

IMHO, the G8 need to do a much better job at pushing the developing world into uplifting it’s standard of living.[/quote]

You wouldn’t need as many people to build hover dam today, because you would have technological advances for which machines did some of the work that labor use to do..

Also, you would have fewer U.S. workers making the components of that dam, because some of those components could be built more efficiently elsewhere since the manufacturing line was already setup elsewhere, when in the U.S. no company invested the time, resources, over decades to create that know-how here (bad analogy, since with damn building, there probably isn’t some special factory line that is needed, but for some industries, technology to be specific, you need Fab, and not many companies have the knowhow. How many companies will be able to Fab at 10nm and 7nm in the U.S? Maybe intel, and that’s big if. Samsung and TSM, are expected to in 2016….Should all chips made in the U.S. be restricted to being only made in the U.S. and not be able to access 10nm and 7nm that will be first available in Korea and Taiwan respectively? If so, wouldn’t this put U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage versus your OEM from China that can use 10nm and 7nm at TSM and Samsung?

I suppose you could mandate that we should use fewer machines and more people, but it would take longer and cost more, which would be something that the taxpayer would end up paying for.

A lot of people think that going overseas is simply about being cost. In many cases, that’s not true. Especially in technology, some of this stuff is no longer done here and to bring it back will take a unsurmountable amount of time and resources, and may not even yield results from companies doing this for some time elsewhere with the expertise. There is a reason why most chip companies are Fab-less and do the bulk of the Fab work to companies like TSM and Samsung. Because they wouldn’t be able to do it better, and they definitely wouldn’t be able to get to the market quicker if they did.

[no_such_reality]

LOL flu, the challenge for Hoover Dam isn’t capabilities (although at this point, capabilities are probably a problem too, particularly in many manufacturing segments), it’s all the other stuff from changed expectations, to worker rights, environmental restrictions, etc.

I’d make a joke about the Jungle and Chicago, but I’m not sure the pork operations today in North Carolina with their steady stream of recruited labor from newspaper ads in foreign countries with a wink and nod from governments are any better.

Skills sets are progressive. You can’t have an economy that just has top level skills and jobs.

Well, you can, but that only works for a generation.

Sending jobs overseas started out about being cheap. Then it became about skill, because surprise, when you stop doing something, you stop being good at it.

[FlyerInHi]

It’s very interesting that Trump has turned the Republican Party anti-trade. Historically, free trade has been associated with the right of center.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/31/republicans-especially-trump-supporters-see-free-trade-deals-as-bad-for-u-s/

My bet is that if Hillary is elected, the lame duck Republican congress will pass TPP at the behest of the business community. That will be the last chance to get it passed.

[Coronita]

[quote=no_such_reality]
Skills sets are progressive. You can’t have an economy that just has top level skills and jobs.

Well, you can, but that only works for a generation.
[/quote]

Well, you don’t need everyone to have the top skills. You just need enough people in your country to have the top skill to justify having a presence here at all, so the rest of the people who aren’t top level skills can be supported locally with local wages.

Building a damn is also slightly different. The work literally has to be done here, unlike building a portable product or service. Different set of rules.

[scaredyclassic]

The DUDE was unemployed.

[no_such_reality]

[quote=flu][quote=no_such_reality]
Skills sets are progressive. You can’t have an economy that just has top level skills and jobs.

Well, you can, but that only works for a generation.
[/quote]

Well, you don’t need everyone to have the top skills. You just need enough people in your country to have the top skill to justify having a presence here at all, so the rest of the people who aren’t top level skills can be supported locally with local wages.

Building a damn is also slightly different. The work literally has to be done here, unlike building a portable product or service. Different set of rules.[/quote]

flu you’re being very literal.

not sure what local wages are when the global environment is dictating what wages are. Top talent only justifies local presence if there shortage of that talent outside of the area or you’re required to have local presence for other reasons.

When today’s local top talent retires who will replace them?

hint: the guys off shore that already replaced the mid-level talent.

[Author]

Posts