I kinda covered the rest in my previous reply. CEOs only care about their pay package and bonus. Whatever the image and reasons they need to paint to get approval, they will do. If they actually cared about the company and shareholders, they would maybe skim off a few mil from their bonus and use it effectively. That is what TRUE CEOs (I hate to even call them that, they are basically the founders/owners still work truly hard for the company) do in the very few honest small caps still left. Also, CEOs DO NOT get paid in any reasonable relation to the companies true profits or true returns to the shareholders (dividends?? wow those are rare while the CEO gets his 5-10mil bonus). Regarding Maytag. This is a good example of the Japan situation. Maytag simply cannot compete with its current costs. Well have they even tried to work within the actual company? I dunno, maybe try to fix the cost structure at home, speak to the employees, look at the long term effects? Maybe say, screw the foreign competition let's reinvent outselves. That is what happened in the 1980s and new industries spurred. How can you expect to continue making profits in the US, when money & jobs are leaving this country. It's great that companies like Maytag can save on costs by outsourcing but how do they expect to keep selling in the US? The debt trap can only go on for so long. USA's own companies are taking money out of US without sucking any foreign capital in. These revenues are from consumer debt. They are not real. It's just inflows and outflows of money. Look back at history and whenever a situation like that happens and persevers, very bad things happen.
Mark did talk a bit on the fast side. I just enjoyed watching Lou get fustrated. Lou bashes companies for outsourcing overseas on his television show then recomends some of those same companies in his investment newsletter service.
if you think everone is supposed to be an inventor/scientist to get high wages your high. my sister works with PHD scientist (with years of experience) who look thru a microscope and count cromosones (for amniocentesis tests). they get paid in the 40s to low 50s. they do this becuase it pays more than they the research jobs. yes there are some high paying research jobs - just not many - now you're saying that competition for those jobs needs to go up. h1b visas need to go away completely - time limit the ones that are here for 1 year and then they go tariffs on imports need to go up - force the price of imports to be competitive to american products - take the proceeds and invest it in research (no not schools they already get enough - that system needs an overhaul) borders to mexico need to be sealed - becuase US citizens will do the jobs if they dont have to compete with illegals goverment contracts go only to companies whos headquarters are in the US and work must be by US citizens only - no subcontracting to companies outside the US - cost overruns not allowed work must be at price and time specified thats what a quote is
The situation is not one that can be "controlled". You raise two incredible (meaning really superb) points. The US spent years seeding this splendid upheaval for the benfit of mankind. We are going through it. Grrenspan a few years back on the third Friday of January, finally saw that ..."we are no longer and island in a sea of turmoil. The concept of the corporation has been seeded universally by the US balance of payments. The businesses of the world are electrononically global and we are on the way now. The US, magically, has not positioned itself as a nation to lead. Too bad. Let us share in our families how to participate, however. All who wish can participate in the global groundswell that is beginning. University is for different purposes nowadays. The time of careers has finished for all. No one expects to plan with lifetime horizons as far as careers is concerned. There are no specific careers that last that long now. Franco Modigliani introduced the Life-Cycle Hypothesis in 1985 Nobel Prize he won. With it asset allocation planning died. He determined (actually it was determined thoroughly later) that 70% of families suffer disruption and their quality of life drops 40%. Enter today's situation, conditions and circumstances. We do not need to strive for a full employment economy. No career lasts a lifetime. The corporation concept has been seeded by the US balance of payments to seed the world's business comunity to enable it. Electronic communication has replaced every past form of interaction on a global basis. War cannot surpass global electronics. The cell phone and scheduled delivery of jet fuel alone cancelled government interaction and diplomacy. Now all children need to know how to live a life-cycle in their choice of family format (See marriage forms and stem cells). I had dinner last night with a guy who supports children being capable of living well. He gives 10M a year to UA where we dined on campus. The money all goes to informal ed on how to do credit cards, how to budget, how to be safe in the future financially. My partner (Liz) and I are judges of the finalists in TCA's, "Duel in the Desert", 12 university financial competition being held this week. Liz contributes the "state of the art" info on one financial sector of the problem for the judges to use. He (Mke Hall) did the keynote address to kick it off. We spent time in the hallway discussing getting education to deal with family financial planning. UA will introduce a Gen ED class on this next fall for all students. I am one of the curriculum planners for that and we are going to work our asses off this summer to be on the ball. All three of us are committed to preventing disruption by having young people know how to invest wisely for their families. A job doesn't cut it for taking the family through it's life cycle. Working, alone, in a corporation or enterprize is not where it is at. What is required it to be "an owner" of pieces of the upcoming global expansion. The US defaulted on leadership. China makes 20 times the steel the US does. Owning pieces of the economic growth of this universe is now an electronic thing. The simple unrelenting fact is that the universe has never seen, as yet, the magnitue of what is going to unfold. Other nations have learned the power of educating childrem. They now are taking their places in the corporations of the world that the US seeded and did not, govermentally speaking, practice supporting helping out in trouble spots where poor distraught people have chosen to "get even" with the US. Being able to participate as "an owner" og the impending global economic blossoming can be done by all families in the US. More wealth will be created in a shorter time than ever before. I am spending my philanthropic time left in directly, daily, supporting the processes that will prepare children (college students). ET is a place that demonstrates how destitute most people are vis a vis getting their children and grandchildren equipped in the right ways. Learning a profession in college is zip compared to learning how to be an owner of the global economic expansion now under way and sitting there before us all.
I don't think I said anything like that. Tariifs don't seem to be an answer unless you are somehow able to have those we impose tariffs on not retaliate. See : http://www.ncpa.org/iss/tra/2002/pd053102b.html (for how well it worked for steel) Or: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2424284 for how tax breaks helped some US companies. As far as h1b's go, you may have missed the fact that Congress sharply cut the number allowed, maybe to the point where the domestic supply of talent will not be able to keep up with the rising demand forecast over the next decade. I'm not sure what point you were trying to make when you said your sister makes $50k looking through a microscope, that is a pretty good income. DS DS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- if you think everone is supposed to be an inventor/scientist to get high wages your high. my sister works with PHD scientist (with years of experience) who look thru a microscope and count cromosones (for amniocentesis tests). they get paid in the 40s to low 50s. they do this becuase it pays more than they the research jobs. yes there are some high paying research jobs - just not many - now you're saying that competition for those jobs needs to go up. h1b visas need to go away completely - time limit the ones that are here for 1 year and then they go tariffs on imports need to go up - force the price of imports to be competitive to american products - take the proceeds and invest it in research (no not schools they already get enough - that system needs an overhaul) borders to mexico need to be sealed - becuase US citizens will do the jobs if they dont have to compete with illegals goverment contracts go only to companies whos headquarters are in the US and work must be by US citizens only - no subcontracting to companies outside the US - cost overruns not allowed work must be at price and time specified thats what a quote is ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just a few counter points and comments: 1) No everyone should not be a sceintist or researcher, not everyone is cut out for it personality wise. Plus PhDs often do not make as much as people think and they are limited to a narrow field of expertise. 2) h1b visas are here for a reason the american population has gotten used to living nice nad has gotten lazy. In my graduate classes the majority of the students are either Asian or Middle Eastern. Very few if any Americans are taking engineering type graduate class work. In a class of 30 there may be 3-4 Americans, the rest are foreighners. In my undergrad work in Physics I was more worried about my class not making it due to insuffecient enrollment unlike everone else not being able to get into there marketing class because it was already full. The American children are not taught the value of an education and working hard for it. 3) The public school system needs a serious overhaul. It is non-competitive to other countries. More money will not solve the problem, it will just allow for more administrators who add zero education value to our children. Schools needs to become more competitive and do away with teh touchy feely feel good everyone is equal don't reward excellence because it may offend those who do not keep up crap. All the schools do is encourage and create mediocraty (did I spell that right?). 4) I do not know to many Americans who will mow yards, bus tables, or be a day laborer for a living like the mexican will. Do you? But then again if that is all Americans could do then they might start to see the need for an education again. 5) Most government work should be on a fixed cost basis, however the R&D work and other leading edge development of uniaque projects cann not be constrained to a fixed cost if they are to succeed. We are an messed up nation that is on the downfall. I just hope that it is not too severe. I would hate to see America go the way of the Romans.
Burtakus:"3) The public school system needs a serious overhaul. It is non-competitive to other countries. More money will not solve the problem, it will just allow for more administrators who add zero education value to our children. Schools needs to become more competitive and do away with teh touchy feely feel good everyone is equal don't reward excellence because it may offend those who do not keep up crap. All the schools do is encourage and create mediocraty (did I spell that right?)." Ding ding ding...we have a winner! The touchy feely PC crap is KILLING us and driving out competition from our youth., Ever read about how Bill Gates was raised? EVERYTHING was a competitive game with his family. People need to learn to COMPETE, learn to lose, learn what DRIVE is all about, learn never to give up, go go goooo.... This "its ok johnny, there are no losers" mentality is BULLSHIT and very dangerous. Schools suck because there is no competition. Make them follow a business model where they compete with measurable objective results for students/funds and see how quickly they turn around. peace axeman
My 2 cents: 1. Outsourcing jobs to Inida makes US companies more competitive than Japan and European counterparts, who can not do the same due to language barrier. 2. Due to lower cost, the same dollars could buy more goods. 3. The retirement of baby boomers may leave more positions open in the coming years, thus lowering unemployment. 4. Do we any statistics that how many unemployed people are married woman? If outsourcing jobs only creates more housewives, the situation is not too bad.
I was just speaking with my Dad last night. He has been a programmer for years and got laid off a year ago. He recently found another job after a year of looking. However he was recently speaking with friends at his previous employer. The old firm he worked for are going to have layoffs again although they are in a much better financial position then when he was there. However the real kicker is that the layoffs will happen after the remaining employees train their replacements from India. So do you stay where you are at because at least you have a job but suck up your pride to teach your replacements or do you just take off in search for a new job in an industry with little job opportunities at the moment?
Did anyone catch this in last month's Wired: "What makes this latest upheaval so disorienting for Americans is its speed. Agriculture jobs provided decent livelihoods for at least 80 years before the rules changed and working in the factory became the norm. Those industrial jobs endured for some 40 years before the twin pressures of cheap competition overseas and labor-saving automation at home rewrote the rules again. IT jobs - the kind of high-skill knowledge work that was supposed to be our future - are facing the same sort of realignment after only 20 years or so. The upheaval is occurring not across generations, but within individual careers. The rules are being rewritten while people are still playing the game. And that seems unjust." http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/india.html Great read, although I'm not sure I understand his conclusion.... "And therein lies the opportunity for Americans. It's inevitable that certain things - fabrication, maintenance, testing, upgrades, and other routine knowledge work - will be done overseas. But that leaves plenty for us to do. After all, before these Indian programmers have something to fabricate, maintain, test, or upgrade, that something first must be imagined and invented. And these creations must be explained to customers and marketed to suppliers and entered into the swirl of commerce in a fashion that people notice, all of which require aptitudes that are more difficult to outsource - imagination, empathy, and the ability to forge relationships. After a week in India, it seems clear that the white-collar jobs with any lasting potential in the US won't be classically high tech. Instead, they'll be high concept and high touch."