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May 17, 2009 at 5:18 PM #401460May 17, 2009 at 6:26 PM #400777
Rt.66
Participant[quote=flu] Yawn, this wasn’t personal but since you decided to take it to that level…
I’ll tell you what I think the problem with America is. There are too many damn hypocrits like you that bark about patriotism on one hand and who’s actions going completely contradictory to what you preach [/quote]
Again way, way off. How can you make such an outragious statement when you don’t know the first thing about me? I have sought out US made goods (or as close as I can get for my needs)whenever I can, all my life.
I’ve endured a gazzilion arguments with people like you trying to convince them that jobs are good, jobs are worth fighting for.
Your post was personal, just a continuation from one of your anti-American job threads. This is what pisses me off about you, is that you lie, make up stupid shit with absolutely no historical foundation for your drivel.
It makes your lame arguement look better to try and paint a picture of me driving around in some Honda while claiming to support US jobs. It simply is not true.
[quote]Folks like you complain about losing jobs, complain about getting outsourced, complain about how opportunities escape you…How foreign competition is killing the U.S. And folks like you suggest to regulate the hell out of imports, remove “choices” that american consumers make everyday on what they want and what they don’t want (the fabric of this country), and instead install a totalitarian system of “trade” for which the government has tremendous oversight in what citizens can buy/can’t buy and whether they have to buy or not.[/quote]
Or we can hope the Gov. looks out for our good jobs and keeps trade fair? NAFTA worked out real good huh, I guess you missed the sucking sound. You still don’t get it, the Gov. does not care about our jobs and they let dummies like you hang all of us with your own rope.
Fair trade is cool, but what has happened is not fair trade, its trade charity. We give away our good jobs and they happily take them. Nothing whatsoever fair happening.
[quote]….But at the same time, folks like you, aren’t willing to give up any of the modern day advances for which the majority is made by everyone in world.
….You’re not willing to give up your TV, your computer (which you conveniently are using to blog your patriotism hypocracy), your cell phones, pdas, almost all of which are made in China/Taiwan/Japan.[/quote]
WTF?
[quote]….You drive a cars from a US company that where made by overseas imported into the U.S. and didn’t contribute 1 iota to the “U.S. assembly line workforce”, and yet you shun those that purchase an import Honda/Toyotas made and assembled in Ohio. You still shop at Walmart for cheap clothes, cheap crap, all made overseas, you buy your food from discounters that import things from overseas rather than spending “more” on organic grown locally because “it’s too expensive”[/quote]
One of my US cars was assembeled in Mexico, (my bad, at least I tried), the other was made in Michigan. My household has bought two USA built motorcycles, and I’ve bought ten other American cars. I even bought an American bicycle. I search out US companies even if the product was not made here. I try and if others did the same we would not be in this mess, or at least it would not be near as bad.
I’ll conceed that Japanese vehicles assembled in the US are a good, somewhat distant second choice. I really have a problem with 100% imports at this stage of the game. We simply can’t afford the job charity and need to pull back and save ourselves. When we are healthy then sure lets help others and buy there shit again.
Think of this in a personal sense. If you Flu, had the ability to make your own things but were doing well and decided to buy other people’s stuff; would you continue to keep buying their stuff when you hit a trillion dollar defict and lost your job? Or would you decide its a good idea to start making your own stuff again?
[quote]….You want most of the modern day conveniences but don’t want to pay nominal dollars for it….You want to pay less than $800 for a computer that is 100 times more powerful than a computer from 14 years ago that I paid $3000 for, and then you wonder why companies keep trying to move assembly/manufacturing to places that can pay people $.10/hr to assemble these things.[/quote]
Uhhhh, huh? If I had a choice I’d go for a US built model.
[quote]….You grip about how your skills/labor/expertise is gradually eroding because the economy/industry has changed but you don’t do anything about it to keep up with the way the world is turning…You don’t send your kids to get technical degree (you look down on people who decided to invest in their brain in meaningful technical way by calling these folks “nerd” whatever). [/quote]
There are plenty of people smart enough and educated enough to do the job here. Yet the jobs keep going over-seas. Must be something else going on here, ya think?
[quote]You’d rather tell your kids it’s ok to pursue things like Shakespearian History in college or some other bullshit major… or you conveniently tell them why even bother going to get a technical degree or learn… just go to work and be an assembly line worker , and after 10 years you can expect the company and the government to take care of you without any active management on your part to keep up with the world is going, keep up with where the opportunities are,etc.[/quote]
Newsflash. Trained, skilled positions are going over-seas right with those assembly line jobs. There is no filter setup at the border to keep the educated jobs and only allow the non-skilled stuff to head to Japan, China or India.
[quote]Meanwhile, you can’t understand why those people put their mind and effort into continuously self-improving can’t relate to you and why they aren’t afraid of being completely outsourced…Because you haven’t figured out that all your learning/knowledge/etc/opportunities [/quote]
Again, you don’t seem to grasp that ALL manner of jobs are going bye-bye. Perhaps we have hit on a common theme with your flawed thinking? YOu think the job losses are restricted to “others” or the current culling will stop at your skill/training/education level?
[quote]Folks like you focus on a day to day “job” rather than building a “career” (possibly not even knowing the difference), and as long as you get a paycheck and can pay the bills in the short term, that’s all that matters.[/quote]
Let’s say I start out as an assembly line worker. I go to school and get a degree and start working as an engineer at the plant. I go to school regularly to keep up. The plant closes down because no one cares about US jobs, US manufacturing or the economics of only buying stuff from others and not producing.
I’m just as unemployed as the assmbly line worker, right? And I still need to get paid 5 times what someone with similar education gets in India or China. If free trade is allowed to continue as trade charity then I’ll never be competitive in a global work force no matter how hard I worked before I became jobless.
[quote]..Gradually as the world around you changes and internationalizes, your world gets smaller. It’s harder for you to relate, it’s harder for you to provide what everyone else needs, and pretty soon you find your no longer in tune with the rest of the global economy. Your quality of living deterrioates because suddenly there are others than can do what you can do for a lot less, you are no longer bringing anything else new to the table that someone else can’t do…[/quote]
Dumb. I relate just fine and I’m a lot more in tune than you, living in your fantasy land of Flu worked hard so Flu is different and some invisible force will realize that Flu is special and Flu will get to keep his job.
Others being able to do what US workers can do is not a new phenom, nor is thier ability to do it for a lot less. Where have you been? The only thing “new” the Chinese are bringing to the table is a all the new jobs they are recieving during our mishandling of this crisis. We are looking at depression level job losses and what do we do? Bailout GM and allow them to ship the jobs to China and Mexico. While Flu screams good riddence you lazy fuckers!
[quote]If you were one of those smarter people, you would have mastered your finances all during this time so that when this day of reckoning came, you wouldn’t be screwed. But a majority of folks don’t, after you pissed away your finances on all that bullshit you bought from overseas.[/quote]
What made you think I have financial problems. Is compassion for the well being and needs of others a completely foriegn concept to you? Some folks don’t have the luxury of living in a state where wild RE swings can help you build a good cushion. No, most of real world USA has to work for a living and they need jobs and even if they have been frugal, how long should they be expected to live off savings while the Gov. ships jobs to China?
[quote]…Then it hits….Your up a shits creek…But it’s not your fault. It’s the government, it’s the foreign companies, it’s Americans who are traitors that don’t buy the products you need them to buy for your own well being. It’s all the H1-B people how can do the work that you didn’t want to do that you didn’t want to go to college for because it “didn’t pay enough.” It’s employer’s fault for not hiring you. It’s rich people’s fault for not paying for more taxes. It’s the government’s fault for not bailing out your company. It’s everyone’s fault and responsibility for taking care of you except yourself.[/quote]
What of your shits creek moment? Or do you think your impervious. I’d say you are a karma magnet. Again, the college jobs are going bye-bye right along with the loathed UAW worker’s job.
So when your boss comes and tells you they have to let you go because the new India branch can do things so much cheaper, who’s fault will it be? Will it be your fault because you were lazy? How will you feel about trade charity then? Do you suppose when it happens to Flu, maybe, just maybe, you might get up from your crumbled pillar and start to look at the bigger picture?
Will you hope others have compassion for you after you showed so little for others?
May 17, 2009 at 6:26 PM #401031Participant[quote=flu] Yawn, this wasn’t personal but since you decided to take it to that level…
I’ll tell you what I think the problem with America is. There are too many damn hypocrits like you that bark about patriotism on one hand and who’s actions going completely contradictory to what you preach [/quote]
Again way, way off. How can you make such an outragious statement when you don’t know the first thing about me? I have sought out US made goods (or as close as I can get for my needs)whenever I can, all my life.
I’ve endured a gazzilion arguments with people like you trying to convince them that jobs are good, jobs are worth fighting for.
Your post was personal, just a continuation from one of your anti-American job threads. This is what pisses me off about you, is that you lie, make up stupid shit with absolutely no historical foundation for your drivel.
It makes your lame arguement look better to try and paint a picture of me driving around in some Honda while claiming to support US jobs. It simply is not true.
[quote]Folks like you complain about losing jobs, complain about getting outsourced, complain about how opportunities escape you…How foreign competition is killing the U.S. And folks like you suggest to regulate the hell out of imports, remove “choices” that american consumers make everyday on what they want and what they don’t want (the fabric of this country), and instead install a totalitarian system of “trade” for which the government has tremendous oversight in what citizens can buy/can’t buy and whether they have to buy or not.[/quote]
Or we can hope the Gov. looks out for our good jobs and keeps trade fair? NAFTA worked out real good huh, I guess you missed the sucking sound. You still don’t get it, the Gov. does not care about our jobs and they let dummies like you hang all of us with your own rope.
Fair trade is cool, but what has happened is not fair trade, its trade charity. We give away our good jobs and they happily take them. Nothing whatsoever fair happening.
[quote]….But at the same time, folks like you, aren’t willing to give up any of the modern day advances for which the majority is made by everyone in world.
….You’re not willing to give up your TV, your computer (which you conveniently are using to blog your patriotism hypocracy), your cell phones, pdas, almost all of which are made in China/Taiwan/Japan.[/quote]
WTF?
[quote]….You drive a cars from a US company that where made by overseas imported into the U.S. and didn’t contribute 1 iota to the “U.S. assembly line workforce”, and yet you shun those that purchase an import Honda/Toyotas made and assembled in Ohio. You still shop at Walmart for cheap clothes, cheap crap, all made overseas, you buy your food from discounters that import things from overseas rather than spending “more” on organic grown locally because “it’s too expensive”[/quote]
One of my US cars was assembeled in Mexico, (my bad, at least I tried), the other was made in Michigan. My household has bought two USA built motorcycles, and I’ve bought ten other American cars. I even bought an American bicycle. I search out US companies even if the product was not made here. I try and if others did the same we would not be in this mess, or at least it would not be near as bad.
I’ll conceed that Japanese vehicles assembled in the US are a good, somewhat distant second choice. I really have a problem with 100% imports at this stage of the game. We simply can’t afford the job charity and need to pull back and save ourselves. When we are healthy then sure lets help others and buy there shit again.
Think of this in a personal sense. If you Flu, had the ability to make your own things but were doing well and decided to buy other people’s stuff; would you continue to keep buying their stuff when you hit a trillion dollar defict and lost your job? Or would you decide its a good idea to start making your own stuff again?
[quote]….You want most of the modern day conveniences but don’t want to pay nominal dollars for it….You want to pay less than $800 for a computer that is 100 times more powerful than a computer from 14 years ago that I paid $3000 for, and then you wonder why companies keep trying to move assembly/manufacturing to places that can pay people $.10/hr to assemble these things.[/quote]
Uhhhh, huh? If I had a choice I’d go for a US built model.
[quote]….You grip about how your skills/labor/expertise is gradually eroding because the economy/industry has changed but you don’t do anything about it to keep up with the way the world is turning…You don’t send your kids to get technical degree (you look down on people who decided to invest in their brain in meaningful technical way by calling these folks “nerd” whatever). [/quote]
There are plenty of people smart enough and educated enough to do the job here. Yet the jobs keep going over-seas. Must be something else going on here, ya think?
[quote]You’d rather tell your kids it’s ok to pursue things like Shakespearian History in college or some other bullshit major… or you conveniently tell them why even bother going to get a technical degree or learn… just go to work and be an assembly line worker , and after 10 years you can expect the company and the government to take care of you without any active management on your part to keep up with the world is going, keep up with where the opportunities are,etc.[/quote]
Newsflash. Trained, skilled positions are going over-seas right with those assembly line jobs. There is no filter setup at the border to keep the educated jobs and only allow the non-skilled stuff to head to Japan, China or India.
[quote]Meanwhile, you can’t understand why those people put their mind and effort into continuously self-improving can’t relate to you and why they aren’t afraid of being completely outsourced…Because you haven’t figured out that all your learning/knowledge/etc/opportunities [/quote]
Again, you don’t seem to grasp that ALL manner of jobs are going bye-bye. Perhaps we have hit on a common theme with your flawed thinking? YOu think the job losses are restricted to “others” or the current culling will stop at your skill/training/education level?
[quote]Folks like you focus on a day to day “job” rather than building a “career” (possibly not even knowing the difference), and as long as you get a paycheck and can pay the bills in the short term, that’s all that matters.[/quote]
Let’s say I start out as an assembly line worker. I go to school and get a degree and start working as an engineer at the plant. I go to school regularly to keep up. The plant closes down because no one cares about US jobs, US manufacturing or the economics of only buying stuff from others and not producing.
I’m just as unemployed as the assmbly line worker, right? And I still need to get paid 5 times what someone with similar education gets in India or China. If free trade is allowed to continue as trade charity then I’ll never be competitive in a global work force no matter how hard I worked before I became jobless.
[quote]..Gradually as the world around you changes and internationalizes, your world gets smaller. It’s harder for you to relate, it’s harder for you to provide what everyone else needs, and pretty soon you find your no longer in tune with the rest of the global economy. Your quality of living deterrioates because suddenly there are others than can do what you can do for a lot less, you are no longer bringing anything else new to the table that someone else can’t do…[/quote]
Dumb. I relate just fine and I’m a lot more in tune than you, living in your fantasy land of Flu worked hard so Flu is different and some invisible force will realize that Flu is special and Flu will get to keep his job.
Others being able to do what US workers can do is not a new phenom, nor is thier ability to do it for a lot less. Where have you been? The only thing “new” the Chinese are bringing to the table is a all the new jobs they are recieving during our mishandling of this crisis. We are looking at depression level job losses and what do we do? Bailout GM and allow them to ship the jobs to China and Mexico. While Flu screams good riddence you lazy fuckers!
[quote]If you were one of those smarter people, you would have mastered your finances all during this time so that when this day of reckoning came, you wouldn’t be screwed. But a majority of folks don’t, after you pissed away your finances on all that bullshit you bought from overseas.[/quote]
What made you think I have financial problems. Is compassion for the well being and needs of others a completely foriegn concept to you? Some folks don’t have the luxury of living in a state where wild RE swings can help you build a good cushion. No, most of real world USA has to work for a living and they need jobs and even if they have been frugal, how long should they be expected to live off savings while the Gov. ships jobs to China?
[quote]…Then it hits….Your up a shits creek…But it’s not your fault. It’s the government, it’s the foreign companies, it’s Americans who are traitors that don’t buy the products you need them to buy for your own well being. It’s all the H1-B people how can do the work that you didn’t want to do that you didn’t want to go to college for because it “didn’t pay enough.” It’s employer’s fault for not hiring you. It’s rich people’s fault for not paying for more taxes. It’s the government’s fault for not bailing out your company. It’s everyone’s fault and responsibility for taking care of you except yourself.[/quote]
What of your shits creek moment? Or do you think your impervious. I’d say you are a karma magnet. Again, the college jobs are going bye-bye right along with the loathed UAW worker’s job.
So when your boss comes and tells you they have to let you go because the new India branch can do things so much cheaper, who’s fault will it be? Will it be your fault because you were lazy? How will you feel about trade charity then? Do you suppose when it happens to Flu, maybe, just maybe, you might get up from your crumbled pillar and start to look at the bigger picture?
Will you hope others have compassion for you after you showed so little for others?
May 17, 2009 at 6:26 PM #401266Participant[quote=flu] Yawn, this wasn’t personal but since you decided to take it to that level…
I’ll tell you what I think the problem with America is. There are too many damn hypocrits like you that bark about patriotism on one hand and who’s actions going completely contradictory to what you preach [/quote]
Again way, way off. How can you make such an outragious statement when you don’t know the first thing about me? I have sought out US made goods (or as close as I can get for my needs)whenever I can, all my life.
I’ve endured a gazzilion arguments with people like you trying to convince them that jobs are good, jobs are worth fighting for.
Your post was personal, just a continuation from one of your anti-American job threads. This is what pisses me off about you, is that you lie, make up stupid shit with absolutely no historical foundation for your drivel.
It makes your lame arguement look better to try and paint a picture of me driving around in some Honda while claiming to support US jobs. It simply is not true.
[quote]Folks like you complain about losing jobs, complain about getting outsourced, complain about how opportunities escape you…How foreign competition is killing the U.S. And folks like you suggest to regulate the hell out of imports, remove “choices” that american consumers make everyday on what they want and what they don’t want (the fabric of this country), and instead install a totalitarian system of “trade” for which the government has tremendous oversight in what citizens can buy/can’t buy and whether they have to buy or not.[/quote]
Or we can hope the Gov. looks out for our good jobs and keeps trade fair? NAFTA worked out real good huh, I guess you missed the sucking sound. You still don’t get it, the Gov. does not care about our jobs and they let dummies like you hang all of us with your own rope.
Fair trade is cool, but what has happened is not fair trade, its trade charity. We give away our good jobs and they happily take them. Nothing whatsoever fair happening.
[quote]….But at the same time, folks like you, aren’t willing to give up any of the modern day advances for which the majority is made by everyone in world.
….You’re not willing to give up your TV, your computer (which you conveniently are using to blog your patriotism hypocracy), your cell phones, pdas, almost all of which are made in China/Taiwan/Japan.[/quote]
WTF?
[quote]….You drive a cars from a US company that where made by overseas imported into the U.S. and didn’t contribute 1 iota to the “U.S. assembly line workforce”, and yet you shun those that purchase an import Honda/Toyotas made and assembled in Ohio. You still shop at Walmart for cheap clothes, cheap crap, all made overseas, you buy your food from discounters that import things from overseas rather than spending “more” on organic grown locally because “it’s too expensive”[/quote]
One of my US cars was assembeled in Mexico, (my bad, at least I tried), the other was made in Michigan. My household has bought two USA built motorcycles, and I’ve bought ten other American cars. I even bought an American bicycle. I search out US companies even if the product was not made here. I try and if others did the same we would not be in this mess, or at least it would not be near as bad.
I’ll conceed that Japanese vehicles assembled in the US are a good, somewhat distant second choice. I really have a problem with 100% imports at this stage of the game. We simply can’t afford the job charity and need to pull back and save ourselves. When we are healthy then sure lets help others and buy there shit again.
Think of this in a personal sense. If you Flu, had the ability to make your own things but were doing well and decided to buy other people’s stuff; would you continue to keep buying their stuff when you hit a trillion dollar defict and lost your job? Or would you decide its a good idea to start making your own stuff again?
[quote]….You want most of the modern day conveniences but don’t want to pay nominal dollars for it….You want to pay less than $800 for a computer that is 100 times more powerful than a computer from 14 years ago that I paid $3000 for, and then you wonder why companies keep trying to move assembly/manufacturing to places that can pay people $.10/hr to assemble these things.[/quote]
Uhhhh, huh? If I had a choice I’d go for a US built model.
[quote]….You grip about how your skills/labor/expertise is gradually eroding because the economy/industry has changed but you don’t do anything about it to keep up with the way the world is turning…You don’t send your kids to get technical degree (you look down on people who decided to invest in their brain in meaningful technical way by calling these folks “nerd” whatever). [/quote]
There are plenty of people smart enough and educated enough to do the job here. Yet the jobs keep going over-seas. Must be something else going on here, ya think?
[quote]You’d rather tell your kids it’s ok to pursue things like Shakespearian History in college or some other bullshit major… or you conveniently tell them why even bother going to get a technical degree or learn… just go to work and be an assembly line worker , and after 10 years you can expect the company and the government to take care of you without any active management on your part to keep up with the world is going, keep up with where the opportunities are,etc.[/quote]
Newsflash. Trained, skilled positions are going over-seas right with those assembly line jobs. There is no filter setup at the border to keep the educated jobs and only allow the non-skilled stuff to head to Japan, China or India.
[quote]Meanwhile, you can’t understand why those people put their mind and effort into continuously self-improving can’t relate to you and why they aren’t afraid of being completely outsourced…Because you haven’t figured out that all your learning/knowledge/etc/opportunities [/quote]
Again, you don’t seem to grasp that ALL manner of jobs are going bye-bye. Perhaps we have hit on a common theme with your flawed thinking? YOu think the job losses are restricted to “others” or the current culling will stop at your skill/training/education level?
[quote]Folks like you focus on a day to day “job” rather than building a “career” (possibly not even knowing the difference), and as long as you get a paycheck and can pay the bills in the short term, that’s all that matters.[/quote]
Let’s say I start out as an assembly line worker. I go to school and get a degree and start working as an engineer at the plant. I go to school regularly to keep up. The plant closes down because no one cares about US jobs, US manufacturing or the economics of only buying stuff from others and not producing.
I’m just as unemployed as the assmbly line worker, right? And I still need to get paid 5 times what someone with similar education gets in India or China. If free trade is allowed to continue as trade charity then I’ll never be competitive in a global work force no matter how hard I worked before I became jobless.
[quote]..Gradually as the world around you changes and internationalizes, your world gets smaller. It’s harder for you to relate, it’s harder for you to provide what everyone else needs, and pretty soon you find your no longer in tune with the rest of the global economy. Your quality of living deterrioates because suddenly there are others than can do what you can do for a lot less, you are no longer bringing anything else new to the table that someone else can’t do…[/quote]
Dumb. I relate just fine and I’m a lot more in tune than you, living in your fantasy land of Flu worked hard so Flu is different and some invisible force will realize that Flu is special and Flu will get to keep his job.
Others being able to do what US workers can do is not a new phenom, nor is thier ability to do it for a lot less. Where have you been? The only thing “new” the Chinese are bringing to the table is a all the new jobs they are recieving during our mishandling of this crisis. We are looking at depression level job losses and what do we do? Bailout GM and allow them to ship the jobs to China and Mexico. While Flu screams good riddence you lazy fuckers!
[quote]If you were one of those smarter people, you would have mastered your finances all during this time so that when this day of reckoning came, you wouldn’t be screwed. But a majority of folks don’t, after you pissed away your finances on all that bullshit you bought from overseas.[/quote]
What made you think I have financial problems. Is compassion for the well being and needs of others a completely foriegn concept to you? Some folks don’t have the luxury of living in a state where wild RE swings can help you build a good cushion. No, most of real world USA has to work for a living and they need jobs and even if they have been frugal, how long should they be expected to live off savings while the Gov. ships jobs to China?
[quote]…Then it hits….Your up a shits creek…But it’s not your fault. It’s the government, it’s the foreign companies, it’s Americans who are traitors that don’t buy the products you need them to buy for your own well being. It’s all the H1-B people how can do the work that you didn’t want to do that you didn’t want to go to college for because it “didn’t pay enough.” It’s employer’s fault for not hiring you. It’s rich people’s fault for not paying for more taxes. It’s the government’s fault for not bailing out your company. It’s everyone’s fault and responsibility for taking care of you except yourself.[/quote]
What of your shits creek moment? Or do you think your impervious. I’d say you are a karma magnet. Again, the college jobs are going bye-bye right along with the loathed UAW worker’s job.
So when your boss comes and tells you they have to let you go because the new India branch can do things so much cheaper, who’s fault will it be? Will it be your fault because you were lazy? How will you feel about trade charity then? Do you suppose when it happens to Flu, maybe, just maybe, you might get up from your crumbled pillar and start to look at the bigger picture?
Will you hope others have compassion for you after you showed so little for others?
May 17, 2009 at 6:26 PM #401322Participant[quote=flu] Yawn, this wasn’t personal but since you decided to take it to that level…
I’ll tell you what I think the problem with America is. There are too many damn hypocrits like you that bark about patriotism on one hand and who’s actions going completely contradictory to what you preach [/quote]
Again way, way off. How can you make such an outragious statement when you don’t know the first thing about me? I have sought out US made goods (or as close as I can get for my needs)whenever I can, all my life.
I’ve endured a gazzilion arguments with people like you trying to convince them that jobs are good, jobs are worth fighting for.
Your post was personal, just a continuation from one of your anti-American job threads. This is what pisses me off about you, is that you lie, make up stupid shit with absolutely no historical foundation for your drivel.
It makes your lame arguement look better to try and paint a picture of me driving around in some Honda while claiming to support US jobs. It simply is not true.
[quote]Folks like you complain about losing jobs, complain about getting outsourced, complain about how opportunities escape you…How foreign competition is killing the U.S. And folks like you suggest to regulate the hell out of imports, remove “choices” that american consumers make everyday on what they want and what they don’t want (the fabric of this country), and instead install a totalitarian system of “trade” for which the government has tremendous oversight in what citizens can buy/can’t buy and whether they have to buy or not.[/quote]
Or we can hope the Gov. looks out for our good jobs and keeps trade fair? NAFTA worked out real good huh, I guess you missed the sucking sound. You still don’t get it, the Gov. does not care about our jobs and they let dummies like you hang all of us with your own rope.
Fair trade is cool, but what has happened is not fair trade, its trade charity. We give away our good jobs and they happily take them. Nothing whatsoever fair happening.
[quote]….But at the same time, folks like you, aren’t willing to give up any of the modern day advances for which the majority is made by everyone in world.
….You’re not willing to give up your TV, your computer (which you conveniently are using to blog your patriotism hypocracy), your cell phones, pdas, almost all of which are made in China/Taiwan/Japan.[/quote]
WTF?
[quote]….You drive a cars from a US company that where made by overseas imported into the U.S. and didn’t contribute 1 iota to the “U.S. assembly line workforce”, and yet you shun those that purchase an import Honda/Toyotas made and assembled in Ohio. You still shop at Walmart for cheap clothes, cheap crap, all made overseas, you buy your food from discounters that import things from overseas rather than spending “more” on organic grown locally because “it’s too expensive”[/quote]
One of my US cars was assembeled in Mexico, (my bad, at least I tried), the other was made in Michigan. My household has bought two USA built motorcycles, and I’ve bought ten other American cars. I even bought an American bicycle. I search out US companies even if the product was not made here. I try and if others did the same we would not be in this mess, or at least it would not be near as bad.
I’ll conceed that Japanese vehicles assembled in the US are a good, somewhat distant second choice. I really have a problem with 100% imports at this stage of the game. We simply can’t afford the job charity and need to pull back and save ourselves. When we are healthy then sure lets help others and buy there shit again.
Think of this in a personal sense. If you Flu, had the ability to make your own things but were doing well and decided to buy other people’s stuff; would you continue to keep buying their stuff when you hit a trillion dollar defict and lost your job? Or would you decide its a good idea to start making your own stuff again?
[quote]….You want most of the modern day conveniences but don’t want to pay nominal dollars for it….You want to pay less than $800 for a computer that is 100 times more powerful than a computer from 14 years ago that I paid $3000 for, and then you wonder why companies keep trying to move assembly/manufacturing to places that can pay people $.10/hr to assemble these things.[/quote]
Uhhhh, huh? If I had a choice I’d go for a US built model.
[quote]….You grip about how your skills/labor/expertise is gradually eroding because the economy/industry has changed but you don’t do anything about it to keep up with the way the world is turning…You don’t send your kids to get technical degree (you look down on people who decided to invest in their brain in meaningful technical way by calling these folks “nerd” whatever). [/quote]
There are plenty of people smart enough and educated enough to do the job here. Yet the jobs keep going over-seas. Must be something else going on here, ya think?
[quote]You’d rather tell your kids it’s ok to pursue things like Shakespearian History in college or some other bullshit major… or you conveniently tell them why even bother going to get a technical degree or learn… just go to work and be an assembly line worker , and after 10 years you can expect the company and the government to take care of you without any active management on your part to keep up with the world is going, keep up with where the opportunities are,etc.[/quote]
Newsflash. Trained, skilled positions are going over-seas right with those assembly line jobs. There is no filter setup at the border to keep the educated jobs and only allow the non-skilled stuff to head to Japan, China or India.
[quote]Meanwhile, you can’t understand why those people put their mind and effort into continuously self-improving can’t relate to you and why they aren’t afraid of being completely outsourced…Because you haven’t figured out that all your learning/knowledge/etc/opportunities [/quote]
Again, you don’t seem to grasp that ALL manner of jobs are going bye-bye. Perhaps we have hit on a common theme with your flawed thinking? YOu think the job losses are restricted to “others” or the current culling will stop at your skill/training/education level?
[quote]Folks like you focus on a day to day “job” rather than building a “career” (possibly not even knowing the difference), and as long as you get a paycheck and can pay the bills in the short term, that’s all that matters.[/quote]
Let’s say I start out as an assembly line worker. I go to school and get a degree and start working as an engineer at the plant. I go to school regularly to keep up. The plant closes down because no one cares about US jobs, US manufacturing or the economics of only buying stuff from others and not producing.
I’m just as unemployed as the assmbly line worker, right? And I still need to get paid 5 times what someone with similar education gets in India or China. If free trade is allowed to continue as trade charity then I’ll never be competitive in a global work force no matter how hard I worked before I became jobless.
[quote]..Gradually as the world around you changes and internationalizes, your world gets smaller. It’s harder for you to relate, it’s harder for you to provide what everyone else needs, and pretty soon you find your no longer in tune with the rest of the global economy. Your quality of living deterrioates because suddenly there are others than can do what you can do for a lot less, you are no longer bringing anything else new to the table that someone else can’t do…[/quote]
Dumb. I relate just fine and I’m a lot more in tune than you, living in your fantasy land of Flu worked hard so Flu is different and some invisible force will realize that Flu is special and Flu will get to keep his job.
Others being able to do what US workers can do is not a new phenom, nor is thier ability to do it for a lot less. Where have you been? The only thing “new” the Chinese are bringing to the table is a all the new jobs they are recieving during our mishandling of this crisis. We are looking at depression level job losses and what do we do? Bailout GM and allow them to ship the jobs to China and Mexico. While Flu screams good riddence you lazy fuckers!
[quote]If you were one of those smarter people, you would have mastered your finances all during this time so that when this day of reckoning came, you wouldn’t be screwed. But a majority of folks don’t, after you pissed away your finances on all that bullshit you bought from overseas.[/quote]
What made you think I have financial problems. Is compassion for the well being and needs of others a completely foriegn concept to you? Some folks don’t have the luxury of living in a state where wild RE swings can help you build a good cushion. No, most of real world USA has to work for a living and they need jobs and even if they have been frugal, how long should they be expected to live off savings while the Gov. ships jobs to China?
[quote]…Then it hits….Your up a shits creek…But it’s not your fault. It’s the government, it’s the foreign companies, it’s Americans who are traitors that don’t buy the products you need them to buy for your own well being. It’s all the H1-B people how can do the work that you didn’t want to do that you didn’t want to go to college for because it “didn’t pay enough.” It’s employer’s fault for not hiring you. It’s rich people’s fault for not paying for more taxes. It’s the government’s fault for not bailing out your company. It’s everyone’s fault and responsibility for taking care of you except yourself.[/quote]
What of your shits creek moment? Or do you think your impervious. I’d say you are a karma magnet. Again, the college jobs are going bye-bye right along with the loathed UAW worker’s job.
So when your boss comes and tells you they have to let you go because the new India branch can do things so much cheaper, who’s fault will it be? Will it be your fault because you were lazy? How will you feel about trade charity then? Do you suppose when it happens to Flu, maybe, just maybe, you might get up from your crumbled pillar and start to look at the bigger picture?
Will you hope others have compassion for you after you showed so little for others?
May 17, 2009 at 6:26 PM #401470Participant[quote=flu] Yawn, this wasn’t personal but since you decided to take it to that level…
I’ll tell you what I think the problem with America is. There are too many damn hypocrits like you that bark about patriotism on one hand and who’s actions going completely contradictory to what you preach [/quote]
Again way, way off. How can you make such an outragious statement when you don’t know the first thing about me? I have sought out US made goods (or as close as I can get for my needs)whenever I can, all my life.
I’ve endured a gazzilion arguments with people like you trying to convince them that jobs are good, jobs are worth fighting for.
Your post was personal, just a continuation from one of your anti-American job threads. This is what pisses me off about you, is that you lie, make up stupid shit with absolutely no historical foundation for your drivel.
It makes your lame arguement look better to try and paint a picture of me driving around in some Honda while claiming to support US jobs. It simply is not true.
[quote]Folks like you complain about losing jobs, complain about getting outsourced, complain about how opportunities escape you…How foreign competition is killing the U.S. And folks like you suggest to regulate the hell out of imports, remove “choices” that american consumers make everyday on what they want and what they don’t want (the fabric of this country), and instead install a totalitarian system of “trade” for which the government has tremendous oversight in what citizens can buy/can’t buy and whether they have to buy or not.[/quote]
Or we can hope the Gov. looks out for our good jobs and keeps trade fair? NAFTA worked out real good huh, I guess you missed the sucking sound. You still don’t get it, the Gov. does not care about our jobs and they let dummies like you hang all of us with your own rope.
Fair trade is cool, but what has happened is not fair trade, its trade charity. We give away our good jobs and they happily take them. Nothing whatsoever fair happening.
[quote]….But at the same time, folks like you, aren’t willing to give up any of the modern day advances for which the majority is made by everyone in world.
….You’re not willing to give up your TV, your computer (which you conveniently are using to blog your patriotism hypocracy), your cell phones, pdas, almost all of which are made in China/Taiwan/Japan.[/quote]
WTF?
[quote]….You drive a cars from a US company that where made by overseas imported into the U.S. and didn’t contribute 1 iota to the “U.S. assembly line workforce”, and yet you shun those that purchase an import Honda/Toyotas made and assembled in Ohio. You still shop at Walmart for cheap clothes, cheap crap, all made overseas, you buy your food from discounters that import things from overseas rather than spending “more” on organic grown locally because “it’s too expensive”[/quote]
One of my US cars was assembeled in Mexico, (my bad, at least I tried), the other was made in Michigan. My household has bought two USA built motorcycles, and I’ve bought ten other American cars. I even bought an American bicycle. I search out US companies even if the product was not made here. I try and if others did the same we would not be in this mess, or at least it would not be near as bad.
I’ll conceed that Japanese vehicles assembled in the US are a good, somewhat distant second choice. I really have a problem with 100% imports at this stage of the game. We simply can’t afford the job charity and need to pull back and save ourselves. When we are healthy then sure lets help others and buy there shit again.
Think of this in a personal sense. If you Flu, had the ability to make your own things but were doing well and decided to buy other people’s stuff; would you continue to keep buying their stuff when you hit a trillion dollar defict and lost your job? Or would you decide its a good idea to start making your own stuff again?
[quote]….You want most of the modern day conveniences but don’t want to pay nominal dollars for it….You want to pay less than $800 for a computer that is 100 times more powerful than a computer from 14 years ago that I paid $3000 for, and then you wonder why companies keep trying to move assembly/manufacturing to places that can pay people $.10/hr to assemble these things.[/quote]
Uhhhh, huh? If I had a choice I’d go for a US built model.
[quote]….You grip about how your skills/labor/expertise is gradually eroding because the economy/industry has changed but you don’t do anything about it to keep up with the way the world is turning…You don’t send your kids to get technical degree (you look down on people who decided to invest in their brain in meaningful technical way by calling these folks “nerd” whatever). [/quote]
There are plenty of people smart enough and educated enough to do the job here. Yet the jobs keep going over-seas. Must be something else going on here, ya think?
[quote]You’d rather tell your kids it’s ok to pursue things like Shakespearian History in college or some other bullshit major… or you conveniently tell them why even bother going to get a technical degree or learn… just go to work and be an assembly line worker , and after 10 years you can expect the company and the government to take care of you without any active management on your part to keep up with the world is going, keep up with where the opportunities are,etc.[/quote]
Newsflash. Trained, skilled positions are going over-seas right with those assembly line jobs. There is no filter setup at the border to keep the educated jobs and only allow the non-skilled stuff to head to Japan, China or India.
[quote]Meanwhile, you can’t understand why those people put their mind and effort into continuously self-improving can’t relate to you and why they aren’t afraid of being completely outsourced…Because you haven’t figured out that all your learning/knowledge/etc/opportunities [/quote]
Again, you don’t seem to grasp that ALL manner of jobs are going bye-bye. Perhaps we have hit on a common theme with your flawed thinking? YOu think the job losses are restricted to “others” or the current culling will stop at your skill/training/education level?
[quote]Folks like you focus on a day to day “job” rather than building a “career” (possibly not even knowing the difference), and as long as you get a paycheck and can pay the bills in the short term, that’s all that matters.[/quote]
Let’s say I start out as an assembly line worker. I go to school and get a degree and start working as an engineer at the plant. I go to school regularly to keep up. The plant closes down because no one cares about US jobs, US manufacturing or the economics of only buying stuff from others and not producing.
I’m just as unemployed as the assmbly line worker, right? And I still need to get paid 5 times what someone with similar education gets in India or China. If free trade is allowed to continue as trade charity then I’ll never be competitive in a global work force no matter how hard I worked before I became jobless.
[quote]..Gradually as the world around you changes and internationalizes, your world gets smaller. It’s harder for you to relate, it’s harder for you to provide what everyone else needs, and pretty soon you find your no longer in tune with the rest of the global economy. Your quality of living deterrioates because suddenly there are others than can do what you can do for a lot less, you are no longer bringing anything else new to the table that someone else can’t do…[/quote]
Dumb. I relate just fine and I’m a lot more in tune than you, living in your fantasy land of Flu worked hard so Flu is different and some invisible force will realize that Flu is special and Flu will get to keep his job.
Others being able to do what US workers can do is not a new phenom, nor is thier ability to do it for a lot less. Where have you been? The only thing “new” the Chinese are bringing to the table is a all the new jobs they are recieving during our mishandling of this crisis. We are looking at depression level job losses and what do we do? Bailout GM and allow them to ship the jobs to China and Mexico. While Flu screams good riddence you lazy fuckers!
[quote]If you were one of those smarter people, you would have mastered your finances all during this time so that when this day of reckoning came, you wouldn’t be screwed. But a majority of folks don’t, after you pissed away your finances on all that bullshit you bought from overseas.[/quote]
What made you think I have financial problems. Is compassion for the well being and needs of others a completely foriegn concept to you? Some folks don’t have the luxury of living in a state where wild RE swings can help you build a good cushion. No, most of real world USA has to work for a living and they need jobs and even if they have been frugal, how long should they be expected to live off savings while the Gov. ships jobs to China?
[quote]…Then it hits….Your up a shits creek…But it’s not your fault. It’s the government, it’s the foreign companies, it’s Americans who are traitors that don’t buy the products you need them to buy for your own well being. It’s all the H1-B people how can do the work that you didn’t want to do that you didn’t want to go to college for because it “didn’t pay enough.” It’s employer’s fault for not hiring you. It’s rich people’s fault for not paying for more taxes. It’s the government’s fault for not bailing out your company. It’s everyone’s fault and responsibility for taking care of you except yourself.[/quote]
What of your shits creek moment? Or do you think your impervious. I’d say you are a karma magnet. Again, the college jobs are going bye-bye right along with the loathed UAW worker’s job.
So when your boss comes and tells you they have to let you go because the new India branch can do things so much cheaper, who’s fault will it be? Will it be your fault because you were lazy? How will you feel about trade charity then? Do you suppose when it happens to Flu, maybe, just maybe, you might get up from your crumbled pillar and start to look at the bigger picture?
Will you hope others have compassion for you after you showed so little for others?
May 17, 2009 at 6:52 PM #400794CricketOnTheHearth
ParticipantHey, Flu and Rt.66:
Just a few cents’ worth of my own…
1) I do try to buy made-in-USA… but ever try to do that? Especially in a Wal-Mart, Target, etc. It is HARD to find a USA-made version of things; virtually impossible in the case of some items. For example, our electronics industry got bomb-cratered in the 70’s and it is ALL Japan/Korea/China now.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I DO find a Made in USA item, and I happily buy it, even if my wallet winces a little. I notice such items tend to be better-built than their overseas counterparts, too. Something about not being made with Chinese slave labor, I guess.
I have to say I was quite impressed by the Ford Focus I rented a couple of years ago– solid little car, and got pretty darn good mileage. And I say that as a diehard riceburner-driver (Toyotas). The Ford is something I will keep in mind at such time as when I get in the market for a new car (but that’s not for a while yet). As you point out, the where-was-it-made factor will be more important than the home site of the nameplate. There are a buttload of Toyotas that are built in the USA nowadays, for example.
And I read somewhere recently that US-made steel is the “gourmet” steel of the world. If people want just any old crap they buy from China, but if they want the best steel they can get, they buy from the USA. There are survivors of the US’ Rust Belt crash, and they are doing all right.
2) We here in the USA are caught at the top of what I call a “gravitational wage slope”, aggravated not the least by our higher cost of living, especially housing. Sure, we can all afford to downsize some, there is a lot of ‘krap’ in Americans’ lives and households we don’t really need. But when we have to turn and face the fact that an engineer in India can live in a Temecula-style house for like $50,000 where it costs like $150,000 here, well… you can see our dilemma.
To Rt.66’s point, my coworker was telling me a year or two ago about a noted economist who made up a list of all American jobs and occupations that could reasonably be outsourced overseas. The economist discovered to his chagrin that one of these jobs was his own.
But, there is a phenomenon that when a country overseas industrializes, their wages go up. That is why the cheapy-imports countries have changed from being Japan (60’s) to Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan (70’s) to Korea (80’s) now to China and Malaysia and India.
And, cost of living in the middle of America is much less than on the coasts. I just saw somebody else comment about a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan that sold for $65,000. There is a grand swathe ranging from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, and down to Alabama to Texas, that has very low housing etc prices and costs compared to the coasts.
What I am driving at is, I wonder when middle American workers will become wage-competitive with the overseas ones, taking into account the costs to ship things across the Pacific, unseen costs due to language barriers, etc. I think that day is coming. To a small extent, it is already in process– tech support call centers are starting to relocate back into the US, including my own company, which is starting up two sites in New Mexico and another US state.
At that point we will see a wave of “insourcing” into Middle America, and then the renaissance begins.
May 17, 2009 at 6:52 PM #401047ParticipantHey, Flu and Rt.66:
Just a few cents’ worth of my own…
1) I do try to buy made-in-USA… but ever try to do that? Especially in a Wal-Mart, Target, etc. It is HARD to find a USA-made version of things; virtually impossible in the case of some items. For example, our electronics industry got bomb-cratered in the 70’s and it is ALL Japan/Korea/China now.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I DO find a Made in USA item, and I happily buy it, even if my wallet winces a little. I notice such items tend to be better-built than their overseas counterparts, too. Something about not being made with Chinese slave labor, I guess.
I have to say I was quite impressed by the Ford Focus I rented a couple of years ago– solid little car, and got pretty darn good mileage. And I say that as a diehard riceburner-driver (Toyotas). The Ford is something I will keep in mind at such time as when I get in the market for a new car (but that’s not for a while yet). As you point out, the where-was-it-made factor will be more important than the home site of the nameplate. There are a buttload of Toyotas that are built in the USA nowadays, for example.
And I read somewhere recently that US-made steel is the “gourmet” steel of the world. If people want just any old crap they buy from China, but if they want the best steel they can get, they buy from the USA. There are survivors of the US’ Rust Belt crash, and they are doing all right.
2) We here in the USA are caught at the top of what I call a “gravitational wage slope”, aggravated not the least by our higher cost of living, especially housing. Sure, we can all afford to downsize some, there is a lot of ‘krap’ in Americans’ lives and households we don’t really need. But when we have to turn and face the fact that an engineer in India can live in a Temecula-style house for like $50,000 where it costs like $150,000 here, well… you can see our dilemma.
To Rt.66’s point, my coworker was telling me a year or two ago about a noted economist who made up a list of all American jobs and occupations that could reasonably be outsourced overseas. The economist discovered to his chagrin that one of these jobs was his own.
But, there is a phenomenon that when a country overseas industrializes, their wages go up. That is why the cheapy-imports countries have changed from being Japan (60’s) to Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan (70’s) to Korea (80’s) now to China and Malaysia and India.
And, cost of living in the middle of America is much less than on the coasts. I just saw somebody else comment about a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan that sold for $65,000. There is a grand swathe ranging from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, and down to Alabama to Texas, that has very low housing etc prices and costs compared to the coasts.
What I am driving at is, I wonder when middle American workers will become wage-competitive with the overseas ones, taking into account the costs to ship things across the Pacific, unseen costs due to language barriers, etc. I think that day is coming. To a small extent, it is already in process– tech support call centers are starting to relocate back into the US, including my own company, which is starting up two sites in New Mexico and another US state.
At that point we will see a wave of “insourcing” into Middle America, and then the renaissance begins.
May 17, 2009 at 6:52 PM #401281ParticipantHey, Flu and Rt.66:
Just a few cents’ worth of my own…
1) I do try to buy made-in-USA… but ever try to do that? Especially in a Wal-Mart, Target, etc. It is HARD to find a USA-made version of things; virtually impossible in the case of some items. For example, our electronics industry got bomb-cratered in the 70’s and it is ALL Japan/Korea/China now.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I DO find a Made in USA item, and I happily buy it, even if my wallet winces a little. I notice such items tend to be better-built than their overseas counterparts, too. Something about not being made with Chinese slave labor, I guess.
I have to say I was quite impressed by the Ford Focus I rented a couple of years ago– solid little car, and got pretty darn good mileage. And I say that as a diehard riceburner-driver (Toyotas). The Ford is something I will keep in mind at such time as when I get in the market for a new car (but that’s not for a while yet). As you point out, the where-was-it-made factor will be more important than the home site of the nameplate. There are a buttload of Toyotas that are built in the USA nowadays, for example.
And I read somewhere recently that US-made steel is the “gourmet” steel of the world. If people want just any old crap they buy from China, but if they want the best steel they can get, they buy from the USA. There are survivors of the US’ Rust Belt crash, and they are doing all right.
2) We here in the USA are caught at the top of what I call a “gravitational wage slope”, aggravated not the least by our higher cost of living, especially housing. Sure, we can all afford to downsize some, there is a lot of ‘krap’ in Americans’ lives and households we don’t really need. But when we have to turn and face the fact that an engineer in India can live in a Temecula-style house for like $50,000 where it costs like $150,000 here, well… you can see our dilemma.
To Rt.66’s point, my coworker was telling me a year or two ago about a noted economist who made up a list of all American jobs and occupations that could reasonably be outsourced overseas. The economist discovered to his chagrin that one of these jobs was his own.
But, there is a phenomenon that when a country overseas industrializes, their wages go up. That is why the cheapy-imports countries have changed from being Japan (60’s) to Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan (70’s) to Korea (80’s) now to China and Malaysia and India.
And, cost of living in the middle of America is much less than on the coasts. I just saw somebody else comment about a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan that sold for $65,000. There is a grand swathe ranging from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, and down to Alabama to Texas, that has very low housing etc prices and costs compared to the coasts.
What I am driving at is, I wonder when middle American workers will become wage-competitive with the overseas ones, taking into account the costs to ship things across the Pacific, unseen costs due to language barriers, etc. I think that day is coming. To a small extent, it is already in process– tech support call centers are starting to relocate back into the US, including my own company, which is starting up two sites in New Mexico and another US state.
At that point we will see a wave of “insourcing” into Middle America, and then the renaissance begins.
May 17, 2009 at 6:52 PM #401337ParticipantHey, Flu and Rt.66:
Just a few cents’ worth of my own…
1) I do try to buy made-in-USA… but ever try to do that? Especially in a Wal-Mart, Target, etc. It is HARD to find a USA-made version of things; virtually impossible in the case of some items. For example, our electronics industry got bomb-cratered in the 70’s and it is ALL Japan/Korea/China now.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I DO find a Made in USA item, and I happily buy it, even if my wallet winces a little. I notice such items tend to be better-built than their overseas counterparts, too. Something about not being made with Chinese slave labor, I guess.
I have to say I was quite impressed by the Ford Focus I rented a couple of years ago– solid little car, and got pretty darn good mileage. And I say that as a diehard riceburner-driver (Toyotas). The Ford is something I will keep in mind at such time as when I get in the market for a new car (but that’s not for a while yet). As you point out, the where-was-it-made factor will be more important than the home site of the nameplate. There are a buttload of Toyotas that are built in the USA nowadays, for example.
And I read somewhere recently that US-made steel is the “gourmet” steel of the world. If people want just any old crap they buy from China, but if they want the best steel they can get, they buy from the USA. There are survivors of the US’ Rust Belt crash, and they are doing all right.
2) We here in the USA are caught at the top of what I call a “gravitational wage slope”, aggravated not the least by our higher cost of living, especially housing. Sure, we can all afford to downsize some, there is a lot of ‘krap’ in Americans’ lives and households we don’t really need. But when we have to turn and face the fact that an engineer in India can live in a Temecula-style house for like $50,000 where it costs like $150,000 here, well… you can see our dilemma.
To Rt.66’s point, my coworker was telling me a year or two ago about a noted economist who made up a list of all American jobs and occupations that could reasonably be outsourced overseas. The economist discovered to his chagrin that one of these jobs was his own.
But, there is a phenomenon that when a country overseas industrializes, their wages go up. That is why the cheapy-imports countries have changed from being Japan (60’s) to Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan (70’s) to Korea (80’s) now to China and Malaysia and India.
And, cost of living in the middle of America is much less than on the coasts. I just saw somebody else comment about a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan that sold for $65,000. There is a grand swathe ranging from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, and down to Alabama to Texas, that has very low housing etc prices and costs compared to the coasts.
What I am driving at is, I wonder when middle American workers will become wage-competitive with the overseas ones, taking into account the costs to ship things across the Pacific, unseen costs due to language barriers, etc. I think that day is coming. To a small extent, it is already in process– tech support call centers are starting to relocate back into the US, including my own company, which is starting up two sites in New Mexico and another US state.
At that point we will see a wave of “insourcing” into Middle America, and then the renaissance begins.
May 17, 2009 at 6:52 PM #401485ParticipantHey, Flu and Rt.66:
Just a few cents’ worth of my own…
1) I do try to buy made-in-USA… but ever try to do that? Especially in a Wal-Mart, Target, etc. It is HARD to find a USA-made version of things; virtually impossible in the case of some items. For example, our electronics industry got bomb-cratered in the 70’s and it is ALL Japan/Korea/China now.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I DO find a Made in USA item, and I happily buy it, even if my wallet winces a little. I notice such items tend to be better-built than their overseas counterparts, too. Something about not being made with Chinese slave labor, I guess.
I have to say I was quite impressed by the Ford Focus I rented a couple of years ago– solid little car, and got pretty darn good mileage. And I say that as a diehard riceburner-driver (Toyotas). The Ford is something I will keep in mind at such time as when I get in the market for a new car (but that’s not for a while yet). As you point out, the where-was-it-made factor will be more important than the home site of the nameplate. There are a buttload of Toyotas that are built in the USA nowadays, for example.
And I read somewhere recently that US-made steel is the “gourmet” steel of the world. If people want just any old crap they buy from China, but if they want the best steel they can get, they buy from the USA. There are survivors of the US’ Rust Belt crash, and they are doing all right.
2) We here in the USA are caught at the top of what I call a “gravitational wage slope”, aggravated not the least by our higher cost of living, especially housing. Sure, we can all afford to downsize some, there is a lot of ‘krap’ in Americans’ lives and households we don’t really need. But when we have to turn and face the fact that an engineer in India can live in a Temecula-style house for like $50,000 where it costs like $150,000 here, well… you can see our dilemma.
To Rt.66’s point, my coworker was telling me a year or two ago about a noted economist who made up a list of all American jobs and occupations that could reasonably be outsourced overseas. The economist discovered to his chagrin that one of these jobs was his own.
But, there is a phenomenon that when a country overseas industrializes, their wages go up. That is why the cheapy-imports countries have changed from being Japan (60’s) to Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan (70’s) to Korea (80’s) now to China and Malaysia and India.
And, cost of living in the middle of America is much less than on the coasts. I just saw somebody else comment about a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan that sold for $65,000. There is a grand swathe ranging from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, and down to Alabama to Texas, that has very low housing etc prices and costs compared to the coasts.
What I am driving at is, I wonder when middle American workers will become wage-competitive with the overseas ones, taking into account the costs to ship things across the Pacific, unseen costs due to language barriers, etc. I think that day is coming. To a small extent, it is already in process– tech support call centers are starting to relocate back into the US, including my own company, which is starting up two sites in New Mexico and another US state.
At that point we will see a wave of “insourcing” into Middle America, and then the renaissance begins.
May 17, 2009 at 7:11 PM #400803ParticipantNice read, thanks for taking the time, dig your screen name.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I hear someone say positive encouraging things about the quality of US goods.
I too have noticed a distinct quality difference, odd that so many seem to believe the opposite is true.
I hope we see that insourcing wave soon 🙂
May 17, 2009 at 7:11 PM #401057ParticipantNice read, thanks for taking the time, dig your screen name.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I hear someone say positive encouraging things about the quality of US goods.
I too have noticed a distinct quality difference, odd that so many seem to believe the opposite is true.
I hope we see that insourcing wave soon 🙂
May 17, 2009 at 7:11 PM #401291ParticipantNice read, thanks for taking the time, dig your screen name.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I hear someone say positive encouraging things about the quality of US goods.
I too have noticed a distinct quality difference, odd that so many seem to believe the opposite is true.
I hope we see that insourcing wave soon 🙂
May 17, 2009 at 7:11 PM #401347ParticipantNice read, thanks for taking the time, dig your screen name.
A smile comes onto my face whenever I hear someone say positive encouraging things about the quality of US goods.
I too have noticed a distinct quality difference, odd that so many seem to believe the opposite is true.
I hope we see that insourcing wave soon 🙂
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