Thanks for the compliments.... I've actually had others say that engaging in these discussions was not trades related. Actually these discussions could not be more trades related as they show which sub-industries might lead, lag or otherwise be trading opportunities as we continue to churn through current economic issues. We are really distunguishing these boards (namely ET) from the other seemingly content poor or content biased boards. ET continues to be the forum that others outside of the trading arena are using the take a more intelligent, accurate pulse of just how wise and aware the US public really is on these matters. Solutions, well they will be forth coming through the deliberative electoral and legislative processes that are already well under way. Mark Andresson trying to put a favorable spin on his new venture as being positive for the American working educated white collar class, in past years would be branded a traitor and run out of town. The fact that we allow CEO's, citizens and other influential corporate people to disavoy their fellow citizenry under a cloud of: 1) if you oppose me then you're a Protectionist and Anti-Globalizationalist 2) this outsourcing is a good thing, excuse me while I step over these bums in front of my office building 3) not continuing to contribute to the very same system that gave them their multi-millions can continue without retribution; the fact that we allow these persons to do this without retribution is what is causing this furvor. The shareholders of the US are uniting in a rare no-confidence vote of the environment, administration, federal and state laws, federal and state tax incentives that allow these conditions to continue to destroy the base of jobs and our industries. Self Interest is what it is, not Protectionism. I can only hope that those who use blinders to not see things so clearly are amassing sufficient monies that they never need earn another honest dollar again. On teaching competition at home, I applaud those comments from all the other participants on this thread.
There was a quick commentary this morning on CNBC about reducing tax funded job outsourcing incentives to major corporations. Sooo let me get this straight: My tax dollars are subsidizing companies so they can move American jobs overeseas, and increase the number of jobless here. Something is definitely wrong with this picture.... Congress is surprisingly working on eliminating such a loophole for most of the companies now enjoying the subsidies.... But they will leave it open for defense and national security companies.... Sure...
In my opinin what is happening is that we are teetering and could fall either way. While I see the jobs numbers as being bad I also see how I am working from home, instead of a trading office, talking to traders in 3 differnent countries for free on computer through www.skype.com, which use to cost a bundle in long distance, and using sophisticated products that are available completely over the web and cost me very little. Innovation is booming. Nevertheless I have tons of friends who are knee deep in credit card debt and don't want to drive because of increase in gas prices. The battle goes on. Just like the PC did in the early nineties something new and cool can be around the corner that will sway the balance to the forces of good. I think that is what the Feb is hoping for. The only thing that is scary is that in this game of Texas Holdem the US is all in. So lets see what up the river and then showdown baby! My 2 cents.
Exporting jobs over seas is a result of a generation of hard working parents that want to keep up with the Jones and so don't have time to raise their kids properly. So now the next generation is refusing to get a hier education and yet still want to have everything that their parents used to have. How many countries that have the welfare system where the majority of the receipents have no plans to getting off? And yet we are not putting a stop to it the hard way because of groups like the ACL that will be suing at every opportunities. Wake up people. It's all about jobs supply and demand, we are not qualify to do the jobs and refuse to take other low paying jobs and yet demand that it's our rights to have the best of everything. I am sorry, unless the attitude in our citizens is changing for the better, I am afraid that the good times are over.
I am not against outsourcing when it makes good busines sense, however when the government gives tax breaks and basically subsidizes companies for outsourcing, that is akin to selling out the American people and they should be labeled as traitors if this is the case.
First I wouldn't worry about the number of jobs, most of the media/political talk is the usual doomsday scenarios that sell newspapers. Like the jobs thing.. "we lost 2 MILLION!! jobs.." but then they fail to mention that we are employing a higher percentage of people than our average the last 30 years. It is just they are comparing to the bubble years around 1999. Just imagine if you compared your investment performance in the same way: "well in 1999 QQQ was up about 90% or so, and it is 2003 today and I am only up 50%! That is practically a loss of 40%, I should quit! This is horrible!" It's just a matter of where to pick your start and end dates.. same in stocks.. same in employment # / % same flawed analysis. But it does sell papers and get votes to some degree so in that sense it has some use I guess That said, the *quality* of jobs is another matter. It is true that real wages, especially for the poorest 25% of the US population have not done well at all the last 30 years or so. The higher end on average is doing quite well despite some sectors such as programmers who have taken losses. But again people like to focus on the bad 20 cases and ignore the good 200 cases If you look at the trend in wages for the top 25% highest paid US families the last 30 years it is pretty nice. But back to the quality, where there is some squeeze in certain sectors. The main problem here is education (in my opinion our low-performance public schools are the center of the problem-- privatization and/or vouchers would help). China + India are getting more educated and we are getting less educated. We still on average are more educated and have better infrustructure + property rights that is why we still make on average over 10 x their salary. As the gap narrows (ie as we get more socialist and they get more capitalist) then the wage gap will continue to narrow as well. This is not a bad thing as long as both of our wages are moving up and theirs is simply moving up faster-- which should be expected considering how poor they are now. The other fallacy I'd like to point out is the common knowledge that in China they make less money then us, therefore companies want to hire them more. This is only partially true; you have to compare *productivity* as well. So if Chinese programmers on average are 10 x cheaper than US, and they are half as productive, then it makes sense to hire them more. On the other hand, in many industires, the Chinese are paid 20 times less than us, but they are 100 times less productive. In other words a company who employs Chinese in those industries would have to increase their wage expensive by 5x. And if you study economics you will know it is proven beyond any doubt that even if a single country has uniformly *lower* wages across everything, and they are also *more* productive in everything, they still will *not* take all the jobs, they only will take the jobs that they have the biggest relative advantage in and they will lose a roughly comparable dollar/salary amount of jobs that they have the worst advantage in. China + India have pretty good advantages in programming, so we are trading them some jobs in that area, and we have some great advantages in things like entertainment and microprocessor + aerospace design so we are taking jobs away from them in those areas if you want to put it that way. People seem so sensative to the China/India jobs issue, but the same thing has gone on for a long time both between countries and within states / cities. If these people get scared about a few 100,000 programmer jobs going from one country to another, they will *really* be scared if they look at the millions of jobs that are constantly in transition between US cities and within them! But people ignore those mostly, I guess because if the process happens within our own country it is ok! Even though it is the same exact thing, and it is *good* in exactly the same way. Just imagine a bill that passed that said California companies can no longer move jobs to Nevada. This is bad economics locally, and it is *just* as bad if we did that between the US and China. The bottom line, I'm not too worried about the # of jobs per say, and to increase the quality/pay will require improving our education system or other things that directly lead to higher productivity. If tarrifs and trade barriers were the solution, they would of made the world a rich place in the 1930s! Instead they helped fuel the Great Depression. So that isn't the route to go (not to mention the countries with the highest standards of living like Hong Kong generally have *unilaterrally* lowered trade barriers even when other countries have kept them higher). In addition, our savings rate of 2% (the lowest in US history!) is reducing the quality of jobs. Hopefully people will one day save and invest more and live within their means. It's all tied in with long-term standard of living. The Chinese save 40%. No wonder their economy has been on fire the last 2 decades! -Taric
If you believe that IBM laid off 5K IT employees (college-educated with years of experience) and hired 15K people in India because Indians were better educated, I'd like to know what you're smoking. And IBM is just one example of what's happening all over the country.
sorry thought i recoginized the orginial link as something else. i dont care if other countries raise tariffs on our exports - its about protecting US jobs and its citizens income. yes some jobs may be lost to lower production needs but also more would be created. it would come down to each country producing only what it needs and exporting very few products or only products that it can produce do to intelectual property rights - something these other countries do not honor as much anyways. international trade would go away - ie. Ford would build a plant in Japan to sell cars in japan, Honda would build plants in the US to sell cars in the US - no tariffs this way. if Honda ships a car to the US from Japan, import tariffs would bring the price into competive levels versus US car makers - quality, asthetics would win - not price. as it is import tariffs going into japan price US products out of competive levels.
"If you believe that IBM laid off 5K IT employees (college-educated with years of experience) and hired 15K people in India because Indians were better educated, I'd like to know what you're smoking. And IBM is just one example of what's happening all over the country." Would these IT emplyees take $3/ hr working in the US ? That's my point of supply and demand.