Actually a lot of jobs are going to India and a lot of employers are using "labor on demand", temps in other words, so it may be a mixed thing, a slow recovery that could add some jobs later on.
that is a sad commentary on our state of affairs.... globalization is one thing, not honoring the home team is another, and then expecting that things remain the same is the falicy with all this bleeding of industries, which began with Steel, Manufacturing and others inbetween, and now with Software.... 7 lean years....
Chao was on a bus trip with the other secretaries, Snow and Regan, earlier in the week in Wisconsin. The trio visited an ice cream place, and Chao sat down at one of the tables with a couple of kids with their parents. The first thing she did was look at the kids and ask them if they were "playing hooky". 'Nuff said.
After flipping through the channels, I caught Chao with the Commerce and Treasury Sec on a Wisconsin bus tour on CSPAN. I turned the channel after she was asked about the economy. She said it was "turbulant",...but things were basically ok. She emphasized all the jobs lost after 9/11, blaming the economy on that. Ummm.....earth to Elaine Chao....the recession started before 9/11....way back in march!! We've had virtually no growth for 2 years. 500,000 people just gave up on searching for jobs last month.
oh brother. here we go. cheaper labor makes products more affordable, leading to a higher standard of living...FOR EVERYONE. you'd rather have people on computer assembly lines making $25 because their union blackmailed the company, leading to a computer costing $5,000 and unaffordable to the majority of the population? at a minimum, your policy would set countries' economic growth back by decades. then you'd talk about how you should tax the wealthy at 70% to give computers to the poor. how about this, instead of demanding $25 an hour for sewing clothes, go develop a skill that is need and really earn your $25/hour. you're the same type of person who supports the position of the longshoremen, who are in a huge battle because companies want them to use scanners on the docks, but they won't because it would eliminate unneeded jobs. very efficient again, leading to every single bit of merchandise being priced higher than it should, hence pricing out more and more people with each increment of wasted cost. by the way, a long shoreman's average salary is 75k a year, with low level management earning around 125k. the longshoreman situation, is similar to a story in borselino's book, where he talks about a visit to russia. it was snowing, and there was a group of men working for the city shoveling the roads with shovels. lewis asked why aren't they using snow plows. 'because then they wouldn't have jobs.' great f'ing philosphy. look where it got them. you want to do to this on a different level, but the effect is the same. wasteful, overpaid labor. let the free market dictate. again, they should get off their ass and go develop a skill and make a contribution to society, rather than looking for handouts. if people are being underpaid, and the companies are earning excess profits, then other companies will soon enter the markets, raise wages, and soon an equillibrium is reached. that's the beauty of a free market. we shouldn't have to pay 5 times the price of something, just because people are too lazy to go to college or learn a skill that's in demand.
You can lower your wages to $1/hour, but in China you've got 1 billion people willing to work really hard for $1/day under the worst circumstances. It's only a matter of time before the shift of the use of labor resources to Asia, that has only just started, can no longer be denied in the face of the public. I count my blessings for being an independent trader and not having to deal with the problems that will arise from this.
We're dealing with basic economic principles here. 1. Even if EVERYBODY in the US "honored the home team", foreign competition would shift to the lowest cost producer and US made goods would be priced out of the market place. 2. The US Gummint and Fed have been inflating our currency and lifestyle since the end of WWII... the primary reason that relatively unskilled union labor can earn $75K/yr. But now that there is instant communication and technology to ship overseas + 2 billion people who will WILLINGLY work for $1/day or so, jobs MUST flow that direction for companies to remain viable. It has turned out to be one of the "unintended consequences" of globalization. [SERVICE jobs are shifting overseas too. Analysts at BDs can command $250K/yr to start. Analysts in India, trained in the US, will work for $20K/yr. I had a nasty computer problem a few months back where I talked on the phone for 2 hours with a Dell tech rep... she was in the PHILIPPINES!] 3. MUCH of the American middle class will disappear over the next generation or two.... adding immensely to the demographic firestorm about to smash the US. Have a nice day!
What really got me was that its ok to export jobs but bad to reimport cheaper drugs. US citizens shouldn't have to shoulder all the R&D cost associated with new drugs. All together the Drug sector will spend $26 billion in R&D. MSFT will spend $5 billion and other companies like CSCO or GM will spend large amounts on R&D. Its part of business. So raise prices in other nations and stop giving them a free ride on usa citizens shoulders. Mexico is already raising a ruckus due to the fact many companies are already moving companies to china instead of mexico. Yes its true china has a population exceeding one billion and soon india will also reach a billion so these individuals do need jobs for social stability and income but there will be consequences of moving factories to these locations. SARS cost china plenty and usa as well when they weren't able to keep production up and the shipping port closures also hit companies like WMT right in the pocket book. A good point was made if you lose your $25 pr hr job just go back to university and get another skill many are, many in the steel industry are going into nursing where there is a huge demand and you can with a RN license make $41 pr hour.
Ditto on all. The only jobs that will be safe are service jobs which are location specific.... and F*king Gummint jobs, of course.