‘Cheap manufacturing be damned’: Sentiment builds for moving U.S. companies out of China

[Andylusion]

and cheap labor from anywhere too

showing that, once again, Trump was correct

we need to make our own stuff and never be reliant on ANY other country for the things we need

that includes oil from the ME as well

LINK

American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

“We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner. “Cheap labor or cheap manufacturing be damned if you are reliant on them for your life and livelihood.”

Gardner’s warning was spurred by the shortage of hospital masks in the United States, a dearth driven by Beijing’s refusal to allow American companies that make the products in China to ship them out of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, raising the possibility that anger over China’s self-interested response to the coronavirus outbreak could produce one of the most dramatic alterations of global economics in decades.

“Because of the coronavirus problem, people are recognizing that any supply chain that has single points of failure is incredibly vulnerable,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “China is going to be very concerned about decoupling, offshoring, [or any] redirection of investments out of China.”

I thought it was stupid and shortsighted when they did it initially. I watched as our semiconductor industry moved everything out of silicon valley where it came about and off chasing cheap labor all over the globe till it came to rest in mainland China today. But you just can't tell our idiotic governments or the MBA fools in industry anything. They have all the answers to see all the way forward through the next 90 whole days.

Ok, so I'll ask the same question I did last time this came up.

I worked at a company that was offered a contract to produce a specific product, for a specific price. We ran the numbers, and ran the numbers again, and each assessment resulted that producing the product in our own facilities would result in a loss of money of about 15%. Meaning we would be spending $1 Million, to earn $850 thousand.

Now at this time, the company was already in a financial crunch. To be blunt, we needed the contract, but we also needed a profitable contract. We contracted the customer, explained our price point, and the customer turned it down. No deal. Not interested.

So told them to give us another month.

Now what would you have done? Made the product here, with US labor, and just lost money, possibly losing your entire business? And by the way, your home and your retirement, and end up with debt?

Or would you do what our company did, which was we outsourced to China, and made the product profitably?

What would have told those MBA fools? That if they produced the product here, and end up losing their entire careers, and their companies, that this was good for America? And how would that have been good?

Sounds like American labor can't compete with Third World labor on a level playing field.

Compare the US economy to any third world economy. By what economic measure would you say we can't compete?

Compare unemployment. Compare median income. Compared level of productivity.

We have competed, and very successfully so. Yes there are many things manufactured outside the US, that are imported here, because they can't be produced profitably here.

Again, back to my example above. Let's say that you banned imported products from China, or you imposed protectionist tariffs on imports from China.

How would that allow us to compete with Third World labor?
.....

Interesting. I pointed out that from your story it seems that American LABOR, can't compete on a level playing field with Third World labor, and you ignored that, to address a question I did not ask.


To your question. It would allow US labor to compete with Third World labor, at least here in the US.


It is a start.

You missed it.
Again... it would not.

Math does not change.

Let me put it in simpler terms.

If the customer is only willing to pay me $25 to mow their lawn, or they will simply mow their lawn themselves, and the cheapest US labor I can get is $30 to mow their lawn.... how does preventing imported labor help?

Whether we have imports or not have imports.... if the customer is only willing to pay $25, then I need labor that is less than $25, or I do not do the job.

Similarly, say the customer is only willing to pay me $50 per widget, or they will simply make do without the widget.

If it costs me $60 in American labor to produce a $50 widget.... how does tariffs or protectionism, or even banning imports, going to change that math?

It is not. With zero imports from China.... the customer is still only willing to pay $50 a widget, and US labor is still $60. If we can't outsource... then we simply wouldn't build the product at all.

If that continues too long, then you are going to lose jobs from protectionism. Because now if we are not building the product, then I don't need sales staff to sell it, and I don't need engineers to design it, and I don't need truck drivers to deliver it.

So protectionism will create almost no jobs, and protectionism will destroy thousands of jobs.

There is no protectionism that results in customers willing to pay high prices for low value productions, and no protectionism, changes the math if the product isn't profitable to produce in the US. Again, hasn't worked in Russia. Didn't work in Japan. Didn't work in India. Didn't work in US history. It's never worked that way. Never.

 

[Andylusion]

and cheap labor from anywhere too

showing that, once again, Trump was correct

we need to make our own stuff and never be reliant on ANY other country for the things we need

that includes oild from the ME as well

LINK

American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

“We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner. “Cheap labor or cheap manufacturing be damned if you are reliant on them for your life and livelihood.”

Gardner’s warning was spurred by the shortage of hospital masks in the United States, a dearth driven by Beijing’s refusal to allow American companies that make the products in China to ship them out of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, raising the possibility that anger over China’s self-interested response to the coronavirus outbreak could produce one of the most dramatic alterations of global economics in decades.

“Because of the coronavirus problem, people are recognizing that any supply chain that has single points of failure is incredibly vulnerable,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “China is going to be very concerned about decoupling, offshoring, [or any] redirection of investments out of China.”

Big business isn't going to move their manufacturing back here on their own.

Tax cuts didn't do it. Removing regulation didn't do it. Not raising the minimum wage didn't do it. Giving them tax breaks on revenues generated outside the US didn't do it.

The only thing that will get big business to return to America is to force them by making it too expensive to manufacture overseas.

The only way to do that is with taxes. Impose massive taxes on those who move to make it too expensive to be overseas.

Only then will we see manufacturing return to America.

If you were alive before Reagan, that's what our government did. Imposed high taxes on high wage and salaries, high taxes on unearned income and high taxes on big business. The manufacturing stayed in America. Reagan slashed taxes on business. That's when our jobs started leaving. In those years it was to Japan.

So return to high taxes on high wages, unearned income, big business and impose high taxes on those who don't manufacture here, only then you will see manufacturing return.

Here's a radical idea.

How about not taxing corporations that don't go overseas.

Making the corporate tax $0 would bring businesses back, and keep American businesses from leaving.

Corporate taxes are a tarrif on American companies.

While that will most certainly be helpful... we need to lower the cost of operations. Lower regulations. Lower benefit costs. Lower payroll taxes. That will ultimately increase US domestic production by a ton.

 

[Correll]

and cheap labor from anywhere too

showing that, once again, Trump was correct

we need to make our own stuff and never be reliant on ANY other country for the things we need

that includes oil from the ME as well

LINK

American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

“We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner. “Cheap labor or cheap manufacturing be damned if you are reliant on them for your life and livelihood.”

Gardner’s warning was spurred by the shortage of hospital masks in the United States, a dearth driven by Beijing’s refusal to allow American companies that make the products in China to ship them out of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, raising the possibility that anger over China’s self-interested response to the coronavirus outbreak could produce one of the most dramatic alterations of global economics in decades.

“Because of the coronavirus problem, people are recognizing that any supply chain that has single points of failure is incredibly vulnerable,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “China is going to be very concerned about decoupling, offshoring, [or any] redirection of investments out of China.”

I thought it was stupid and shortsighted when they did it initially. I watched as our semiconductor industry moved everything out of silicon valley where it came about and off chasing cheap labor all over the globe till it came to rest in mainland China today. But you just can't tell our idiotic governments or the MBA fools in industry anything. They have all the answers to see all the way forward through the next 90 whole days.

Ok, so I'll ask the same question I did last time this came up.

I worked at a company that was offered a contract to produce a specific product, for a specific price. We ran the numbers, and ran the numbers again, and each assessment resulted that producing the product in our own facilities would result in a loss of money of about 15%. Meaning we would be spending $1 Million, to earn $850 thousand.

Now at this time, the company was already in a financial crunch. To be blunt, we needed the contract, but we also needed a profitable contract. We contracted the customer, explained our price point, and the customer turned it down. No deal. Not interested.

So told them to give us another month.

Now what would you have done? Made the product here, with US labor, and just lost money, possibly losing your entire business? And by the way, your home and your retirement, and end up with debt?

Or would you do what our company did, which was we outsourced to China, and made the product profitably?

What would have told those MBA fools? That if they produced the product here, and end up losing their entire careers, and their companies, that this was good for America? And how would that have been good?

Sounds like American labor can't compete with Third World labor on a level playing field.

Compare the US economy to any third world economy. By what economic measure would you say we can't compete?

Compare unemployment. Compare median income. Compared level of productivity.

We have competed, and very successfully so. Yes there are many things manufactured outside the US, that are imported here, because they can't be produced profitably here.

Again, back to my example above. Let's say that you banned imported products from China, or you imposed protectionist tariffs on imports from China.

How would that allow us to compete with Third World labor?
.....

Interesting. I pointed out that from your story it seems that American LABOR, can't compete on a level playing field with Third World labor, and you ignored that, to address a question I did not ask.


To your question. It would allow US labor to compete with Third World labor, at least here in the US.


It is a start.

You missed it.
Again... it would not.

Math does not change.

Let me put it in simpler terms.

If the customer is only willing to pay me $25 to mow their lawn, or they will simply mow their lawn themselves, and the cheapest US labor I can get is $30 to mow their lawn.... how does preventing imported labor help?
.....

The cost of of the service rises. THe people I pay to mow my law, are native born whites, and I pay more than that, and I'm happy to.

I don't need to pay shit wages to people, to maintain my lifestyle.

If you do, maybe you need to make some changes somewhere else.

 

[Brain357]

I'm 100% for it. Regardless we have to continue exports to maintain our status as world power, otherwise we'd give that status to China. If countries were to become isolated, then yes, no country would complete with the USA, we'd be set.

I think we should also end foreigners owning U.S. real estate. That said millennial's already screwed the pooch on that one. Many figured they were above property ownership. They didn't take into account they'll be paying the Chinese rent in the form of 5Kish by their 60th B-days.

Isolated countries fail economically.

To be fair, there has never been an isolated country on a scale of the US.

AND, as we seen to be destined to be fucked by any trading partner, isolation could be a competitive policy.


THe choice seems to be either be the world's bitch, or take our ball and go home.

How do you mean? The USSR failed miserably. Pretty big country.

Failed because they tried to have a big empire AND we fought them.

Not because they were isolated.

Being isolated is bad for capitalism. Very bad .

Being the world's bitch on trade, hasn't been that great either.

If only there was a third option. But there does not seem to be one.

We have the biggest economy in the world with the most wealth and we’ve had super low unemployment. Seems to be fine.

No, we're not. Our middle class wages have stagnated and our middle class and lower class have lost faith in the future.

People are dying from this shit. To the point that our life expectancy is actually FALLING.


Good macro economic numbers have been hiding generations of pain.


Try to change policy.

That is an internal problem . We have the wealth and jobs. That wouldn’t change if we were isolated.

It is not an internal problem. It is a problem caused by external trade and the inflow of labor.


Time to change policy.

What do you base that on. Again, tons of wealth and jobs. That’s the formula for good wages. If we had too much inflow we’d have high unemployment and certainly wouldn’t have labor shortages. Your claim is baseless. Learn some economics.

Because we have NOT had rising wages for the middle class and working poor.

If it is the formula for "good wages" something went wrong.

Yes something is wrong. Has nothing to do with trade. We have near monopolies, wage collusion, government corruption... internal problems have hurt the market.

How do you know which factors are causing the issue? Cause the reduction of demand, by losing so many manufacturing jobs, while flooding the labor market, seems, like two factors that could have quite an impact.

Good question. I would say you want to first start by following the money. The wealth is here, we have plenty of jobs, where is the money going? I think we know the answer to that. So then why are markets so broken? Here is a good article I mostly agree with you should read.

Wage stagnation: economists look to new explanations | Harvard Magazine

Economists look to new explanations for wage stagnation.

harvardmagazine.com

MARKET CONCENTRATION, the economist’s term for how much an industry is dominated by one or a few firms, touches ever more aspects of American life. From the obvious (the Amazons and Walmarts of the retail economy) to the obscure (the beer industry, which may appear diverse, is dominated by two firms), market concentration has increased in three-quarters of U.S. industries during the twenty-first century. This has had wide-ranging effects not only on consumers, but also, economists increasingly believe, on labor. “Fewer firms in a given industry makes it easier for them to have more bargaining power [over employees], and harder for workers to switch to another employer,” says Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Today’s labor markets increasingly look like a monopsony: a market in which there is only one buyer—the inverse of a monopoly, in which there is only one seller. The more an industry is dominated by a small number of corporations, the more those companies can control the cost of labor. Traditionally, Furman says, economists have relied on a supply-and-demand story about the labor market: “There’s a supply of workers and demand for workers, and the wage is what clears the market, just like the price of wheat is what clears the market for wheat. That explains a lot about wages, but it probably doesn’t explain everything…[T]hat research program went as far as it could.”

In the last three years, Furman explains, economists have looked to monopsony and other factors beyond market competition to explain the stagnation of Americans’ wages during the last few decades. Fewer companies in a given industry make it easier for those companies to coordinate, either indirectly or through overt collusion, to keep wages low. Think of a town with two big-box retail stores: each store knows what the other pays its cashiers, and neither wants to raise wages. Firms can also use noncompete agreements, which ban employees from taking jobs at rival companies, to prevent workers from finding new jobs elsewhere. About 24.5 percent of the American work force has signed a noncompete, according to one Brookings Institution analysis, and this number is not much lower (about 21 percent) for workers earning less than the median salary.

 

[Brain357]

Good luck with that.

Agreed. That "anger" over the Chinese wanting to use Chinese production to save chines lives?

That will fade. The money to be mad by cheap labor will be just a glittering, in a year or two, as it was, ten or twenty or thirty years ago when we decided to start fucking over the American worked in favor of the chinese worker.

Well again, if you can't make it profitably with US labor, then it simply won't be made with US labor.

It doesn't matter if there is a virus in China, or whatever. Math doesn't magically change, because you don't like China.

If China is too risky to invest in, that still doesn't mean it will be built in the US, if the math doesn't work. They'll simply make it elsewhere.

You can't hiring people that are too expensive, to make products. Until that changes, nothing else in the world matters.

What if there is a nice sized, tariff on imports into the US? So that the profit margin from the cheap labor is all eaten up by the Evul Government?

Well first, that has never worked in all human history. Cuba tried that. Venezuela tried that. Jamacia tried that. Even look at Russia today. The sanctions imposed by the US and western countries, is basically the most effective tariff in the world.

So why hasn't the economy of Russia been booming? By your logic, preventing cheap imported goods, should have been a big win for Russia. Instead their economy is crap.

There is no country, nor at any time in history, where preventing imported goods has resulted in an economic benefit. Never in US history, nor any other country.

Some classic counter examples would be Japan and India. Both had massive protectionist policies against trade, and both were devastating to their respective countries.

And the reason is pretty simple.

The support for the concept is that it will boost workers wages. Which is true, it will boost workers wages.... but not all workers, only those workers in that specific group of people behind the tariff. For everyone else, it just means higher prices.

My company isn't going to benefit from any tariff. So my wages won't go up at all. So I'll see higher prices for everything I buy, and I won't have a higher wage to match.

What does that mean for me? I'll be poorer, and live a lower standard of living.

Additionally it doesn't even help ALL workers behind the tariff either. Only those that keep their jobs, while many will lose their jobs.

Why will many lose their jobs? Because higher prices, mean lower buying.

Example... let's say the government passed a law that increased the cost of an oil change by 4X. That would be a huge benefit to oil change workers.... right? Or would it?

At four times the price, would it be worth it to have a $25 oil change done for $100? I could buy all the tools and supplies I need to change my oil myself, for a year, for less than $100.

No, I'll just change my own oil. Now some people will still get a professional oil change for $100. But most will start doing it themselves, or using black market backyard mechanics that will do it off the books for 1/4th the price.

Most of the oil change guys will go out of business.

This is why economies behind protectionism, always fail.

Worked for the US in the late 1800s, and earlier 1900s.

No it didn't. Not even close. We had no protectionism in the 1900s. And while we had a few very isolated examples of protectionism in the 1800s, they were terrible, and had bad results. That's why we eliminated them.

Many have suggested protectionism may have led to the great depression...

 

[Brain357]

and cheap labor from anywhere too

showing that, once again, Trump was correct

we need to make our own stuff and never be reliant on ANY other country for the things we need

that includes oild from the ME as well

LINK

American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

“We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner. “Cheap labor or cheap manufacturing be damned if you are reliant on them for your life and livelihood.”

Gardner’s warning was spurred by the shortage of hospital masks in the United States, a dearth driven by Beijing’s refusal to allow American companies that make the products in China to ship them out of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, raising the possibility that anger over China’s self-interested response to the coronavirus outbreak could produce one of the most dramatic alterations of global economics in decades.

“Because of the coronavirus problem, people are recognizing that any supply chain that has single points of failure is incredibly vulnerable,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “China is going to be very concerned about decoupling, offshoring, [or any] redirection of investments out of China.”

Big business isn't going to move their manufacturing back here on their own.

Tax cuts didn't do it. Removing regulation didn't do it. Not raising the minimum wage didn't do it. Giving them tax breaks on revenues generated outside the US didn't do it.

The only thing that will get big business to return to America is to force them by making it too expensive to manufacture overseas.

The only way to do that is with taxes. Impose massive taxes on those who move to make it too expensive to be overseas.

Only then will we see manufacturing return to America.

If you were alive before Reagan, that's what our government did. Imposed high taxes on high wage and salaries, high taxes on unearned income and high taxes on big business. The manufacturing stayed in America. Reagan slashed taxes on business. That's when our jobs started leaving. In those years it was to Japan.

So return to high taxes on high wages, unearned income, big business and impose high taxes on those who don't manufacture here, only then you will see manufacturing return.

Here's a radical idea.

How about not taxing corporations that don't go overseas.

Making the corporate tax $0 would bring businesses back, and keep American businesses from leaving.

Corporate taxes are a tarrif on American companies.

You realize the big corporate tax cut did almost none of that right?

 

[Bo Didleysquat]

and cheap labor from anywhere too

showing that, once again, Trump was correct

we need to make our own stuff and never be reliant on ANY other country for the things we need

that includes oil from the ME as well

LINK

American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

“We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner. “Cheap labor or cheap manufacturing be damned if you are reliant on them for your life and livelihood.”

Gardner’s warning was spurred by the shortage of hospital masks in the United States, a dearth driven by Beijing’s refusal to allow American companies that make the products in China to ship them out of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, raising the possibility that anger over China’s self-interested response to the coronavirus outbreak could produce one of the most dramatic alterations of global economics in decades.

“Because of the coronavirus problem, people are recognizing that any supply chain that has single points of failure is incredibly vulnerable,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “China is going to be very concerned about decoupling, offshoring, [or any] redirection of investments out of China.”

a) too late
b) capital says no

 

[Bo Didleysquat]

and cheap labor from anywhere too

showing that, once again, Trump was correct

we need to make our own stuff and never be reliant on ANY other country for the things we need

that includes oild from the ME as well

LINK

American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

“We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner. “Cheap labor or cheap manufacturing be damned if you are reliant on them for your life and livelihood.”

Gardner’s warning was spurred by the shortage of hospital masks in the United States, a dearth driven by Beijing’s refusal to allow American companies that make the products in China to ship them out of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, raising the possibility that anger over China’s self-interested response to the coronavirus outbreak could produce one of the most dramatic alterations of global economics in decades.

“Because of the coronavirus problem, people are recognizing that any supply chain that has single points of failure is incredibly vulnerable,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “China is going to be very concerned about decoupling, offshoring, [or any] redirection of investments out of China.”

Big business isn't going to move their manufacturing back here on their own.

Tax cuts didn't do it. Removing regulation didn't do it. Not raising the minimum wage didn't do it. Giving them tax breaks on revenues generated outside the US didn't do it.

The only thing that will get big business to return to America is to force them by making it too expensive to manufacture overseas.

The only way to do that is with taxes. Impose massive taxes on those who move to make it too expensive to be overseas.

Only then will we see manufacturing return to America.

If you were alive before Reagan, that's what our government did. Imposed high taxes on high wage and salaries, high taxes on unearned income and high taxes on big business. The manufacturing stayed in America. Reagan slashed taxes on business. That's when our jobs started leaving. In those years it was to Japan.

So return to high taxes on high wages, unearned income, big business and impose high taxes on those who don't manufacture here, only then you will see manufacturing return.

Here's a radical idea.

How about not taxing corporations that don't go overseas.

Making the corporate tax $0 would bring businesses back, and keep American businesses from leaving.

Corporate taxes are a tarrif on American companies.

You realize the big corporate tax cut did almost none of that right?

Socialism for the aristocracy, the "deserving" people.

 

[Correll]

I'm 100% for it. Regardless we have to continue exports to maintain our status as world power, otherwise we'd give that status to China. If countries were to become isolated, then yes, no country would complete with the USA, we'd be set.

I think we should also end foreigners owning U.S. real estate. That said millennial's already screwed the pooch on that one. Many figured they were above property ownership. They didn't take into account they'll be paying the Chinese rent in the form of 5Kish by their 60th B-days.

Isolated countries fail economically.

To be fair, there has never been an isolated country on a scale of the US.

AND, as we seen to be destined to be fucked by any trading partner, isolation could be a competitive policy.


THe choice seems to be either be the world's bitch, or take our ball and go home.

How do you mean? The USSR failed miserably. Pretty big country.

Failed because they tried to have a big empire AND we fought them.

Not because they were isolated.

Being isolated is bad for capitalism. Very bad .

Being the world's bitch on trade, hasn't been that great either.

If only there was a third option. But there does not seem to be one.

We have the biggest economy in the world with the most wealth and we’ve had super low unemployment. Seems to be fine.

No, we're not. Our middle class wages have stagnated and our middle class and lower class have lost faith in the future.

People are dying from this shit. To the point that our life expectancy is actually FALLING.


Good macro economic numbers have been hiding generations of pain.


Try to change policy.

That is an internal problem . We have the wealth and jobs. That wouldn’t change if we were isolated.

It is not an internal problem. It is a problem caused by external trade and the inflow of labor.


Time to change policy.

What do you base that on. Again, tons of wealth and jobs. That’s the formula for good wages. If we had too much inflow we’d have high unemployment and certainly wouldn’t have labor shortages. Your claim is baseless. Learn some economics.

Because we have NOT had rising wages for the middle class and working poor.

If it is the formula for "good wages" something went wrong.

Yes something is wrong. Has nothing to do with trade. We have near monopolies, wage collusion, government corruption... internal problems have hurt the market.

How do you know which factors are causing the issue? Cause the reduction of demand, by losing so many manufacturing jobs, while flooding the labor market, seems, like two factors that could have quite an impact.

Good question. I would say you want to first start by following the money. The wealth is here, we have plenty of jobs, where is the money going? I think we know the answer to that. So then why are markets so broken? Here is a good article I mostly agree with you should read.

Wage stagnation: economists look to new explanations | Harvard Magazine

Economists look to new explanations for wage stagnation.

harvardmagazine.com

MARKET CONCENTRATION, the economist’s term for how much an industry is dominated by one or a few firms, touches ever more aspects of American life. From the obvious (the Amazons and Walmarts of the retail economy) to the obscure (the beer industry, which may appear diverse, is dominated by two firms), market concentration has increased in three-quarters of U.S. industries during the twenty-first century. This has had wide-ranging effects not only on consumers, but also, economists increasingly believe, on labor. “Fewer firms in a given industry makes it easier for them to have more bargaining power [over employees], and harder for workers to switch to another employer,” says Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Today’s labor markets increasingly look like a monopsony: a market in which there is only one buyer—the inverse of a monopoly, in which there is only one seller. The more an industry is dominated by a small number of corporations, the more those companies can control the cost of labor. Traditionally, Furman says, economists have relied on a supply-and-demand story about the labor market: “There’s a supply of workers and demand for workers, and the wage is what clears the market, just like the price of wheat is what clears the market for wheat. That explains a lot about wages, but it probably doesn’t explain everything…[T]hat research program went as far as it could.”

In the last three years, Furman explains, economists have looked to monopsony and other factors beyond market competition to explain the stagnation of Americans’ wages during the last few decades. Fewer companies in a given industry make it easier for those companies to coordinate, either indirectly or through overt collusion, to keep wages low. Think of a town with two big-box retail stores: each store knows what the other pays its cashiers, and neither wants to raise wages. Firms can also use noncompete agreements, which ban employees from taking jobs at rival companies, to prevent workers from finding new jobs elsewhere. About 24.5 percent of the American work force has signed a noncompete, according to one Brookings Institution analysis, and this number is not much lower (about 21 percent) for workers earning less than the median salary.

But wages stagnation is across the board, not limited to "given industries".

 

[wamose]

Get the fuck out of Communist China. Absolutely and totally. Red China sucks.

 

[eagle1462010]

and cheap labor from anywhere too

showing that, once again, Trump was correct

we need to make our own stuff and never be reliant on ANY other country for the things we need

that includes oil from the ME as well

LINK

American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

“We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner. “Cheap labor or cheap manufacturing be damned if you are reliant on them for your life and livelihood.”

Gardner’s warning was spurred by the shortage of hospital masks in the United States, a dearth driven by Beijing’s refusal to allow American companies that make the products in China to ship them out of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, raising the possibility that anger over China’s self-interested response to the coronavirus outbreak could produce one of the most dramatic alterations of global economics in decades.

“Because of the coronavirus problem, people are recognizing that any supply chain that has single points of failure is incredibly vulnerable,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “China is going to be very concerned about decoupling, offshoring, [or any] redirection of investments out of China.”

I thought it was stupid and shortsighted when they did it initially. I watched as our semiconductor industry moved everything out of silicon valley where it came about and off chasing cheap labor all over the globe till it came to rest in mainland China today. But you just can't tell our idiotic governments or the MBA fools in industry anything. They have all the answers to see all the way forward through the next 90 whole days.

Ok, so I'll ask the same question I did last time this came up.

I worked at a company that was offered a contract to produce a specific product, for a specific price. We ran the numbers, and ran the numbers again, and each assessment resulted that producing the product in our own facilities would result in a loss of money of about 15%. Meaning we would be spending $1 Million, to earn $850 thousand.

Now at this time, the company was already in a financial crunch. To be blunt, we needed the contract, but we also needed a profitable contract. We contracted the customer, explained our price point, and the customer turned it down. No deal. Not interested.

So told them to give us another month.

Now what would you have done? Made the product here, with US labor, and just lost money, possibly losing your entire business? And by the way, your home and your retirement, and end up with debt?

Or would you do what our company did, which was we outsourced to China, and made the product profitably?

What would have told those MBA fools? That if they produced the product here, and end up losing their entire careers, and their companies, that this was good for America? And how would that have been good?

For almost 200 years we used tariffs for that equation.............costs more here.......if you are trying to sell THERE......meaning not in the U.S. .....then you can't compete.........

Other option is quotas...........used in the auto wars with Japan.......only so many foreign cars were allowed here.........so they moved there production here.........Just not in Detroit and other places with higher labor costs..........We NOW manufacture Toyota......Nissan......etc. in this country because of it.

 

[Brain357]

and cheap labor from anywhere too

showing that, once again, Trump was correct

we need to make our own stuff and never be reliant on ANY other country for the things we need

that includes oil from the ME as well

LINK

American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

“We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner. “Cheap labor or cheap manufacturing be damned if you are reliant on them for your life and livelihood.”

Gardner’s warning was spurred by the shortage of hospital masks in the United States, a dearth driven by Beijing’s refusal to allow American companies that make the products in China to ship them out of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, raising the possibility that anger over China’s self-interested response to the coronavirus outbreak could produce one of the most dramatic alterations of global economics in decades.

“Because of the coronavirus problem, people are recognizing that any supply chain that has single points of failure is incredibly vulnerable,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “China is going to be very concerned about decoupling, offshoring, [or any] redirection of investments out of China.”

I thought it was stupid and shortsighted when they did it initially. I watched as our semiconductor industry moved everything out of silicon valley where it came about and off chasing cheap labor all over the globe till it came to rest in mainland China today. But you just can't tell our idiotic governments or the MBA fools in industry anything. They have all the answers to see all the way forward through the next 90 whole days.

Ok, so I'll ask the same question I did last time this came up.

I worked at a company that was offered a contract to produce a specific product, for a specific price. We ran the numbers, and ran the numbers again, and each assessment resulted that producing the product in our own facilities would result in a loss of money of about 15%. Meaning we would be spending $1 Million, to earn $850 thousand.

Now at this time, the company was already in a financial crunch. To be blunt, we needed the contract, but we also needed a profitable contract. We contracted the customer, explained our price point, and the customer turned it down. No deal. Not interested.

So told them to give us another month.

Now what would you have done? Made the product here, with US labor, and just lost money, possibly losing your entire business? And by the way, your home and your retirement, and end up with debt?

Or would you do what our company did, which was we outsourced to China, and made the product profitably?

What would have told those MBA fools? That if they produced the product here, and end up losing their entire careers, and their companies, that this was good for America? And how would that have been good?

For almost 200 years we used tariffs for that equation.............costs more here.......if you are trying to sell THERE......meaning not in the U.S. .....then you can't compete.........

Other option is quotas...........used in the auto wars with Japan.......only so many foreign cars were allowed here.........so they moved there production here.........Just not in Detroit and other places with higher labor costs..........We NOW manufacture Toyota......Nissan......etc. in this country because of it.

We have used tariffs as a tax. They have never been effective at saving industries or any of the protectionism garbage.

 

[Brain357]

I'm 100% for it. Regardless we have to continue exports to maintain our status as world power, otherwise we'd give that status to China. If countries were to become isolated, then yes, no country would complete with the USA, we'd be set.

I think we should also end foreigners owning U.S. real estate. That said millennial's already screwed the pooch on that one. Many figured they were above property ownership. They didn't take into account they'll be paying the Chinese rent in the form of 5Kish by their 60th B-days.

Isolated countries fail economically.

To be fair, there has never been an isolated country on a scale of the US.

AND, as we seen to be destined to be fucked by any trading partner, isolation could be a competitive policy.


THe choice seems to be either be the world's bitch, or take our ball and go home.

How do you mean? The USSR failed miserably. Pretty big country.

Failed because they tried to have a big empire AND we fought them.

Not because they were isolated.

Being isolated is bad for capitalism. Very bad .

Being the world's bitch on trade, hasn't been that great either.

If only there was a third option. But there does not seem to be one.

We have the biggest economy in the world with the most wealth and we’ve had super low unemployment. Seems to be fine.

No, we're not. Our middle class wages have stagnated and our middle class and lower class have lost faith in the future.

People are dying from this shit. To the point that our life expectancy is actually FALLING.


Good macro economic numbers have been hiding generations of pain.


Try to change policy.

That is an internal problem . We have the wealth and jobs. That wouldn’t change if we were isolated.

It is not an internal problem. It is a problem caused by external trade and the inflow of labor.


Time to change policy.

What do you base that on. Again, tons of wealth and jobs. That’s the formula for good wages. If we had too much inflow we’d have high unemployment and certainly wouldn’t have labor shortages. Your claim is baseless. Learn some economics.

Because we have NOT had rising wages for the middle class and working poor.

If it is the formula for "good wages" something went wrong.

Yes something is wrong. Has nothing to do with trade. We have near monopolies, wage collusion, government corruption... internal problems have hurt the market.

How do you know which factors are causing the issue? Cause the reduction of demand, by losing so many manufacturing jobs, while flooding the labor market, seems, like two factors that could have quite an impact.

Good question. I would say you want to first start by following the money. The wealth is here, we have plenty of jobs, where is the money going? I think we know the answer to that. So then why are markets so broken? Here is a good article I mostly agree with you should read.

Wage stagnation: economists look to new explanations | Harvard Magazine

Economists look to new explanations for wage stagnation.

harvardmagazine.com

MARKET CONCENTRATION, the economist’s term for how much an industry is dominated by one or a few firms, touches ever more aspects of American life. From the obvious (the Amazons and Walmarts of the retail economy) to the obscure (the beer industry, which may appear diverse, is dominated by two firms), market concentration has increased in three-quarters of U.S. industries during the twenty-first century. This has had wide-ranging effects not only on consumers, but also, economists increasingly believe, on labor. “Fewer firms in a given industry makes it easier for them to have more bargaining power [over employees], and harder for workers to switch to another employer,” says Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Today’s labor markets increasingly look like a monopsony: a market in which there is only one buyer—the inverse of a monopoly, in which there is only one seller. The more an industry is dominated by a small number of corporations, the more those companies can control the cost of labor. Traditionally, Furman says, economists have relied on a supply-and-demand story about the labor market: “There’s a supply of workers and demand for workers, and the wage is what clears the market, just like the price of wheat is what clears the market for wheat. That explains a lot about wages, but it probably doesn’t explain everything…[T]hat research program went as far as it could.”

In the last three years, Furman explains, economists have looked to monopsony and other factors beyond market competition to explain the stagnation of Americans’ wages during the last few decades. Fewer companies in a given industry make it easier for those companies to coordinate, either indirectly or through overt collusion, to keep wages low. Think of a town with two big-box retail stores: each store knows what the other pays its cashiers, and neither wants to raise wages. Firms can also use noncompete agreements, which ban employees from taking jobs at rival companies, to prevent workers from finding new jobs elsewhere. About 24.5 percent of the American work force has signed a noncompete, according to one Brookings Institution analysis, and this number is not much lower (about 21 percent) for workers earning less than the median salary.

But wages stagnation is across the board, not limited to "given industries".

There are few industries I can think of that don't have some form of this. The use of noncompete agreements is all over.

 

[Correll]

I'm 100% for it. Regardless we have to continue exports to maintain our status as world power, otherwise we'd give that status to China. If countries were to become isolated, then yes, no country would complete with the USA, we'd be set.

I think we should also end foreigners owning U.S. real estate. That said millennial's already screwed the pooch on that one. Many figured they were above property ownership. They didn't take into account they'll be paying the Chinese rent in the form of 5Kish by their 60th B-days.

Isolated countries fail economically.

To be fair, there has never been an isolated country on a scale of the US.

AND, as we seen to be destined to be fucked by any trading partner, isolation could be a competitive policy.


THe choice seems to be either be the world's bitch, or take our ball and go home.

How do you mean? The USSR failed miserably. Pretty big country.

Failed because they tried to have a big empire AND we fought them.

Not because they were isolated.

Being isolated is bad for capitalism. Very bad .

Being the world's bitch on trade, hasn't been that great either.

If only there was a third option. But there does not seem to be one.

We have the biggest economy in the world with the most wealth and we’ve had super low unemployment. Seems to be fine.

No, we're not. Our middle class wages have stagnated and our middle class and lower class have lost faith in the future.

People are dying from this shit. To the point that our life expectancy is actually FALLING.


Good macro economic numbers have been hiding generations of pain.


Try to change policy.

That is an internal problem . We have the wealth and jobs. That wouldn’t change if we were isolated.

It is not an internal problem. It is a problem caused by external trade and the inflow of labor.


Time to change policy.

What do you base that on. Again, tons of wealth and jobs. That’s the formula for good wages. If we had too much inflow we’d have high unemployment and certainly wouldn’t have labor shortages. Your claim is baseless. Learn some economics.

Because we have NOT had rising wages for the middle class and working poor.

If it is the formula for "good wages" something went wrong.

Yes something is wrong. Has nothing to do with trade. We have near monopolies, wage collusion, government corruption... internal problems have hurt the market.

How do you know which factors are causing the issue? Cause the reduction of demand, by losing so many manufacturing jobs, while flooding the labor market, seems, like two factors that could have quite an impact.

Good question. I would say you want to first start by following the money. The wealth is here, we have plenty of jobs, where is the money going? I think we know the answer to that. So then why are markets so broken? Here is a good article I mostly agree with you should read.

Wage stagnation: economists look to new explanations | Harvard Magazine

Economists look to new explanations for wage stagnation.

harvardmagazine.com

MARKET CONCENTRATION, the economist’s term for how much an industry is dominated by one or a few firms, touches ever more aspects of American life. From the obvious (the Amazons and Walmarts of the retail economy) to the obscure (the beer industry, which may appear diverse, is dominated by two firms), market concentration has increased in three-quarters of U.S. industries during the twenty-first century. This has had wide-ranging effects not only on consumers, but also, economists increasingly believe, on labor. “Fewer firms in a given industry makes it easier for them to have more bargaining power [over employees], and harder for workers to switch to another employer,” says Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Today’s labor markets increasingly look like a monopsony: a market in which there is only one buyer—the inverse of a monopoly, in which there is only one seller. The more an industry is dominated by a small number of corporations, the more those companies can control the cost of labor. Traditionally, Furman says, economists have relied on a supply-and-demand story about the labor market: “There’s a supply of workers and demand for workers, and the wage is what clears the market, just like the price of wheat is what clears the market for wheat. That explains a lot about wages, but it probably doesn’t explain everything…[T]hat research program went as far as it could.”

In the last three years, Furman explains, economists have looked to monopsony and other factors beyond market competition to explain the stagnation of Americans’ wages during the last few decades. Fewer companies in a given industry make it easier for those companies to coordinate, either indirectly or through overt collusion, to keep wages low. Think of a town with two big-box retail stores: each store knows what the other pays its cashiers, and neither wants to raise wages. Firms can also use noncompete agreements, which ban employees from taking jobs at rival companies, to prevent workers from finding new jobs elsewhere. About 24.5 percent of the American work force has signed a noncompete, according to one Brookings Institution analysis, and this number is not much lower (about 21 percent) for workers earning less than the median salary.

But wages stagnation is across the board, not limited to "given industries".

There are few industries I can think of that don't have some form of this. The use of noncompete agreements is all over.

Why are you limiting the discussion to industries? Nothing prevents labor from moving from industry to service jobs.

 

[Brain357]

I'm 100% for it. Regardless we have to continue exports to maintain our status as world power, otherwise we'd give that status to China. If countries were to become isolated, then yes, no country would complete with the USA, we'd be set.

I think we should also end foreigners owning U.S. real estate. That said millennial's already screwed the pooch on that one. Many figured they were above property ownership. They didn't take into account they'll be paying the Chinese rent in the form of 5Kish by their 60th B-days.

Isolated countries fail economically.

To be fair, there has never been an isolated country on a scale of the US.

AND, as we seen to be destined to be fucked by any trading partner, isolation could be a competitive policy.


THe choice seems to be either be the world's bitch, or take our ball and go home.

How do you mean? The USSR failed miserably. Pretty big country.

Failed because they tried to have a big empire AND we fought them.

Not because they were isolated.

Being isolated is bad for capitalism. Very bad .

Being the world's bitch on trade, hasn't been that great either.

If only there was a third option. But there does not seem to be one.

We have the biggest economy in the world with the most wealth and we’ve had super low unemployment. Seems to be fine.

No, we're not. Our middle class wages have stagnated and our middle class and lower class have lost faith in the future.

People are dying from this shit. To the point that our life expectancy is actually FALLING.


Good macro economic numbers have been hiding generations of pain.


Try to change policy.

That is an internal problem . We have the wealth and jobs. That wouldn’t change if we were isolated.

It is not an internal problem. It is a problem caused by external trade and the inflow of labor.


Time to change policy.

What do you base that on. Again, tons of wealth and jobs. That’s the formula for good wages. If we had too much inflow we’d have high unemployment and certainly wouldn’t have labor shortages. Your claim is baseless. Learn some economics.

Because we have NOT had rising wages for the middle class and working poor.

If it is the formula for "good wages" something went wrong.

Yes something is wrong. Has nothing to do with trade. We have near monopolies, wage collusion, government corruption... internal problems have hurt the market.

How do you know which factors are causing the issue? Cause the reduction of demand, by losing so many manufacturing jobs, while flooding the labor market, seems, like two factors that could have quite an impact.

Good question. I would say you want to first start by following the money. The wealth is here, we have plenty of jobs, where is the money going? I think we know the answer to that. So then why are markets so broken? Here is a good article I mostly agree with you should read.

Wage stagnation: economists look to new explanations | Harvard Magazine

Economists look to new explanations for wage stagnation.

harvardmagazine.com

MARKET CONCENTRATION, the economist’s term for how much an industry is dominated by one or a few firms, touches ever more aspects of American life. From the obvious (the Amazons and Walmarts of the retail economy) to the obscure (the beer industry, which may appear diverse, is dominated by two firms), market concentration has increased in three-quarters of U.S. industries during the twenty-first century. This has had wide-ranging effects not only on consumers, but also, economists increasingly believe, on labor. “Fewer firms in a given industry makes it easier for them to have more bargaining power [over employees], and harder for workers to switch to another employer,” says Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Today’s labor markets increasingly look like a monopsony: a market in which there is only one buyer—the inverse of a monopoly, in which there is only one seller. The more an industry is dominated by a small number of corporations, the more those companies can control the cost of labor. Traditionally, Furman says, economists have relied on a supply-and-demand story about the labor market: “There’s a supply of workers and demand for workers, and the wage is what clears the market, just like the price of wheat is what clears the market for wheat. That explains a lot about wages, but it probably doesn’t explain everything…[T]hat research program went as far as it could.”

In the last three years, Furman explains, economists have looked to monopsony and other factors beyond market competition to explain the stagnation of Americans’ wages during the last few decades. Fewer companies in a given industry make it easier for those companies to coordinate, either indirectly or through overt collusion, to keep wages low. Think of a town with two big-box retail stores: each store knows what the other pays its cashiers, and neither wants to raise wages. Firms can also use noncompete agreements, which ban employees from taking jobs at rival companies, to prevent workers from finding new jobs elsewhere. About 24.5 percent of the American work force has signed a noncompete, according to one Brookings Institution analysis, and this number is not much lower (about 21 percent) for workers earning less than the median salary.

But wages stagnation is across the board, not limited to "given industries".

There are few industries I can think of that don't have some form of this. The use of noncompete agreements is all over.

Why are you limiting the discussion to industries? Nothing prevents labor from moving from industry to service jobs.

What service jobs aren't tied to some industry?

 

[Correll]

I'm 100% for it. Regardless we have to continue exports to maintain our status as world power, otherwise we'd give that status to China. If countries were to become isolated, then yes, no country would complete with the USA, we'd be set.

I think we should also end foreigners owning U.S. real estate. That said millennial's already screwed the pooch on that one. Many figured they were above property ownership. They didn't take into account they'll be paying the Chinese rent in the form of 5Kish by their 60th B-days.

Isolated countries fail economically.

To be fair, there has never been an isolated country on a scale of the US.

AND, as we seen to be destined to be fucked by any trading partner, isolation could be a competitive policy.


THe choice seems to be either be the world's bitch, or take our ball and go home.

How do you mean? The USSR failed miserably. Pretty big country.

Failed because they tried to have a big empire AND we fought them.

Not because they were isolated.

Being isolated is bad for capitalism. Very bad .

Being the world's bitch on trade, hasn't been that great either.

If only there was a third option. But there does not seem to be one.

We have the biggest economy in the world with the most wealth and we’ve had super low unemployment. Seems to be fine.

No, we're not. Our middle class wages have stagnated and our middle class and lower class have lost faith in the future.

People are dying from this shit. To the point that our life expectancy is actually FALLING.


Good macro economic numbers have been hiding generations of pain.


Try to change policy.

That is an internal problem . We have the wealth and jobs. That wouldn’t change if we were isolated.

It is not an internal problem. It is a problem caused by external trade and the inflow of labor.


Time to change policy.

What do you base that on. Again, tons of wealth and jobs. That’s the formula for good wages. If we had too much inflow we’d have high unemployment and certainly wouldn’t have labor shortages. Your claim is baseless. Learn some economics.

Because we have NOT had rising wages for the middle class and working poor.

If it is the formula for "good wages" something went wrong.

Yes something is wrong. Has nothing to do with trade. We have near monopolies, wage collusion, government corruption... internal problems have hurt the market.

How do you know which factors are causing the issue? Cause the reduction of demand, by losing so many manufacturing jobs, while flooding the labor market, seems, like two factors that could have quite an impact.

Good question. I would say you want to first start by following the money. The wealth is here, we have plenty of jobs, where is the money going? I think we know the answer to that. So then why are markets so broken? Here is a good article I mostly agree with you should read.

Wage stagnation: economists look to new explanations | Harvard Magazine

Economists look to new explanations for wage stagnation.

harvardmagazine.com

MARKET CONCENTRATION, the economist’s term for how much an industry is dominated by one or a few firms, touches ever more aspects of American life. From the obvious (the Amazons and Walmarts of the retail economy) to the obscure (the beer industry, which may appear diverse, is dominated by two firms), market concentration has increased in three-quarters of U.S. industries during the twenty-first century. This has had wide-ranging effects not only on consumers, but also, economists increasingly believe, on labor. “Fewer firms in a given industry makes it easier for them to have more bargaining power [over employees], and harder for workers to switch to another employer,” says Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Today’s labor markets increasingly look like a monopsony: a market in which there is only one buyer—the inverse of a monopoly, in which there is only one seller. The more an industry is dominated by a small number of corporations, the more those companies can control the cost of labor. Traditionally, Furman says, economists have relied on a supply-and-demand story about the labor market: “There’s a supply of workers and demand for workers, and the wage is what clears the market, just like the price of wheat is what clears the market for wheat. That explains a lot about wages, but it probably doesn’t explain everything…[T]hat research program went as far as it could.”

In the last three years, Furman explains, economists have looked to monopsony and other factors beyond market competition to explain the stagnation of Americans’ wages during the last few decades. Fewer companies in a given industry make it easier for those companies to coordinate, either indirectly or through overt collusion, to keep wages low. Think of a town with two big-box retail stores: each store knows what the other pays its cashiers, and neither wants to raise wages. Firms can also use noncompete agreements, which ban employees from taking jobs at rival companies, to prevent workers from finding new jobs elsewhere. About 24.5 percent of the American work force has signed a noncompete, according to one Brookings Institution analysis, and this number is not much lower (about 21 percent) for workers earning less than the median salary.

But wages stagnation is across the board, not limited to "given industries".

There are few industries I can think of that don't have some form of this. The use of noncompete agreements is all over.

Why are you limiting the discussion to industries? Nothing prevents labor from moving from industry to service jobs.

What service jobs aren't tied to some industry?

Financial, Medical, Food, Bars, off the top of my head.

 

[Andylusion]

and cheap labor from anywhere too

showing that, once again, Trump was correct

we need to make our own stuff and never be reliant on ANY other country for the things we need

that includes oil from the ME as well

LINK

American companies that produce essential goods in China should plan to shift their operations back to the United States or other Western countries, according to a senior Republican lawmaker.

“We're staring into a significant, significant crisis of supply chain,” Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner told the Washington Examiner. “Cheap labor or cheap manufacturing be damned if you are reliant on them for your life and livelihood.”

Gardner’s warning was spurred by the shortage of hospital masks in the United States, a dearth driven by Beijing’s refusal to allow American companies that make the products in China to ship them out of the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. And he’s not alone in that sentiment, raising the possibility that anger over China’s self-interested response to the coronavirus outbreak could produce one of the most dramatic alterations of global economics in decades.

“Because of the coronavirus problem, people are recognizing that any supply chain that has single points of failure is incredibly vulnerable,” the Heritage Foundation’s Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow in the organization’s Asian Studies Center, told the Washington Examiner. “China is going to be very concerned about decoupling, offshoring, [or any] redirection of investments out of China.”

I thought it was stupid and shortsighted when they did it initially. I watched as our semiconductor industry moved everything out of silicon valley where it came about and off chasing cheap labor all over the globe till it came to rest in mainland China today. But you just can't tell our idiotic governments or the MBA fools in industry anything. They have all the answers to see all the way forward through the next 90 whole days.

Ok, so I'll ask the same question I did last time this came up.

I worked at a company that was offered a contract to produce a specific product, for a specific price. We ran the numbers, and ran the numbers again, and each assessment resulted that producing the product in our own facilities would result in a loss of money of about 15%. Meaning we would be spending $1 Million, to earn $850 thousand.

Now at this time, the company was already in a financial crunch. To be blunt, we needed the contract, but we also needed a profitable contract. We contracted the customer, explained our price point, and the customer turned it down. No deal. Not interested.

So told them to give us another month.

Now what would you have done? Made the product here, with US labor, and just lost money, possibly losing your entire business? And by the way, your home and your retirement, and end up with debt?

Or would you do what our company did, which was we outsourced to China, and made the product profitably?

What would have told those MBA fools? That if they produced the product here, and end up losing their entire careers, and their companies, that this was good for America? And how would that have been good?

For almost 200 years we used tariffs for that equation.............costs more here.......if you are trying to sell THERE......meaning not in the U.S. .....then you can't compete.........

Other option is quotas...........used in the auto wars with Japan.......only so many foreign cars were allowed here.........so they moved there production here.........Just not in Detroit and other places with higher labor costs..........We NOW manufacture Toyota......Nissan......etc. in this country because of it.

That is not true. The US has been generally free-trade since the country was founded. From about 1947 to the present, we've had largely free trade with everywhere.

The peak of protectionism was the 1930s. Which also unsurprisingly to people who understand economics like me, was the worst time in US economic history.
Equally the reduction of tariffs, to the lowest levels in US history in 1947, ushered in the longest period of over all economic growth.

The Truth about Trade in History

www.cato.org

Historically, in the 1800s, we had special interest groups pushing tariffs on their specific trade of interest. However, contrary to the claim, these protectionist policies never resulted in real economic growth. Infant industries that were unable to compete without trade barriers, never ended up learning how to compete, resulting in static lack of growth.

The only saving grace that prevented the US from economic decline, as the fact we had millions on millions of immigrants flooding into the country, in what was the largest free-trade zone in the world at that time.

The united states is roughly the size equivalent of a free-trade zone from Moscow to Madrid. And if you need a comparison, why hasn't the Euro-zone created devastation in their respective countries? After all, there are places in Europe where labor is cheap, and others where it is expensive. So why haven't countries with cheap labor benefited at the expense of countries with expensive labor?

 

[Brain357]

I'm 100% for it. Regardless we have to continue exports to maintain our status as world power, otherwise we'd give that status to China. If countries were to become isolated, then yes, no country would complete with the USA, we'd be set.

I think we should also end foreigners owning U.S. real estate. That said millennial's already screwed the pooch on that one. Many figured they were above property ownership. They didn't take into account they'll be paying the Chinese rent in the form of 5Kish by their 60th B-days.

Isolated countries fail economically.

To be fair, there has never been an isolated country on a scale of the US.

AND, as we seen to be destined to be fucked by any trading partner, isolation could be a competitive policy.


THe choice seems to be either be the world's bitch, or take our ball and go home.

How do you mean? The USSR failed miserably. Pretty big country.

Failed because they tried to have a big empire AND we fought them.

Not because they were isolated.

Being isolated is bad for capitalism. Very bad .

Being the world's bitch on trade, hasn't been that great either.

If only there was a third option. But there does not seem to be one.

We have the biggest economy in the world with the most wealth and we’ve had super low unemployment. Seems to be fine.

No, we're not. Our middle class wages have stagnated and our middle class and lower class have lost faith in the future.

People are dying from this shit. To the point that our life expectancy is actually FALLING.


Good macro economic numbers have been hiding generations of pain.


Try to change policy.

That is an internal problem . We have the wealth and jobs. That wouldn’t change if we were isolated.

It is not an internal problem. It is a problem caused by external trade and the inflow of labor.


Time to change policy.

What do you base that on. Again, tons of wealth and jobs. That’s the formula for good wages. If we had too much inflow we’d have high unemployment and certainly wouldn’t have labor shortages. Your claim is baseless. Learn some economics.

Because we have NOT had rising wages for the middle class and working poor.

If it is the formula for "good wages" something went wrong.

Yes something is wrong. Has nothing to do with trade. We have near monopolies, wage collusion, government corruption... internal problems have hurt the market.

How do you know which factors are causing the issue? Cause the reduction of demand, by losing so many manufacturing jobs, while flooding the labor market, seems, like two factors that could have quite an impact.

Good question. I would say you want to first start by following the money. The wealth is here, we have plenty of jobs, where is the money going? I think we know the answer to that. So then why are markets so broken? Here is a good article I mostly agree with you should read.

Wage stagnation: economists look to new explanations | Harvard Magazine

Economists look to new explanations for wage stagnation.

harvardmagazine.com

MARKET CONCENTRATION, the economist’s term for how much an industry is dominated by one or a few firms, touches ever more aspects of American life. From the obvious (the Amazons and Walmarts of the retail economy) to the obscure (the beer industry, which may appear diverse, is dominated by two firms), market concentration has increased in three-quarters of U.S. industries during the twenty-first century. This has had wide-ranging effects not only on consumers, but also, economists increasingly believe, on labor. “Fewer firms in a given industry makes it easier for them to have more bargaining power [over employees], and harder for workers to switch to another employer,” says Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Today’s labor markets increasingly look like a monopsony: a market in which there is only one buyer—the inverse of a monopoly, in which there is only one seller. The more an industry is dominated by a small number of corporations, the more those companies can control the cost of labor. Traditionally, Furman says, economists have relied on a supply-and-demand story about the labor market: “There’s a supply of workers and demand for workers, and the wage is what clears the market, just like the price of wheat is what clears the market for wheat. That explains a lot about wages, but it probably doesn’t explain everything…[T]hat research program went as far as it could.”

In the last three years, Furman explains, economists have looked to monopsony and other factors beyond market competition to explain the stagnation of Americans’ wages during the last few decades. Fewer companies in a given industry make it easier for those companies to coordinate, either indirectly or through overt collusion, to keep wages low. Think of a town with two big-box retail stores: each store knows what the other pays its cashiers, and neither wants to raise wages. Firms can also use noncompete agreements, which ban employees from taking jobs at rival companies, to prevent workers from finding new jobs elsewhere. About 24.5 percent of the American work force has signed a noncompete, according to one Brookings Institution analysis, and this number is not much lower (about 21 percent) for workers earning less than the median salary.

But wages stagnation is across the board, not limited to "given industries".

There are few industries I can think of that don't have some form of this. The use of noncompete agreements is all over.

Why are you limiting the discussion to industries? Nothing prevents labor from moving from industry to service jobs.

What service jobs aren't tied to some industry?

Financial, Medical, Food, Bars, off the top of my head.

Aren't many finance jobs for companies that might have a near monopoly in their industry? What type of medical? It certainly exists in food with huge companies like Mcdonalds. Bars? Is that a big employer?

 

[Brain357]

I'm 100% for it. Regardless we have to continue exports to maintain our status as world power, otherwise we'd give that status to China. If countries were to become isolated, then yes, no country would complete with the USA, we'd be set.

I think we should also end foreigners owning U.S. real estate. That said millennial's already screwed the pooch on that one. Many figured they were above property ownership. They didn't take into account they'll be paying the Chinese rent in the form of 5Kish by their 60th B-days.

Isolated countries fail economically.

To be fair, there has never been an isolated country on a scale of the US.

AND, as we seen to be destined to be fucked by any trading partner, isolation could be a competitive policy.


THe choice seems to be either be the world's bitch, or take our ball and go home.

How do you mean? The USSR failed miserably. Pretty big country.

Failed because they tried to have a big empire AND we fought them.

Not because they were isolated.

Being isolated is bad for capitalism. Very bad .

Being the world's bitch on trade, hasn't been that great either.

If only there was a third option. But there does not seem to be one.

We have the biggest economy in the world with the most wealth and we’ve had super low unemployment. Seems to be fine.

No, we're not. Our middle class wages have stagnated and our middle class and lower class have lost faith in the future.

People are dying from this shit. To the point that our life expectancy is actually FALLING.


Good macro economic numbers have been hiding generations of pain.


Try to change policy.

That is an internal problem . We have the wealth and jobs. That wouldn’t change if we were isolated.

It is not an internal problem. It is a problem caused by external trade and the inflow of labor.


Time to change policy.

What do you base that on. Again, tons of wealth and jobs. That’s the formula for good wages. If we had too much inflow we’d have high unemployment and certainly wouldn’t have labor shortages. Your claim is baseless. Learn some economics.

Because we have NOT had rising wages for the middle class and working poor.

If it is the formula for "good wages" something went wrong.

Yes something is wrong. Has nothing to do with trade. We have near monopolies, wage collusion, government corruption... internal problems have hurt the market.

How do you know which factors are causing the issue? Cause the reduction of demand, by losing so many manufacturing jobs, while flooding the labor market, seems, like two factors that could have quite an impact.

Good question. I would say you want to first start by following the money. The wealth is here, we have plenty of jobs, where is the money going? I think we know the answer to that. So then why are markets so broken? Here is a good article I mostly agree with you should read.

Wage stagnation: economists look to new explanations | Harvard Magazine

Economists look to new explanations for wage stagnation.

harvardmagazine.com

MARKET CONCENTRATION, the economist’s term for how much an industry is dominated by one or a few firms, touches ever more aspects of American life. From the obvious (the Amazons and Walmarts of the retail economy) to the obscure (the beer industry, which may appear diverse, is dominated by two firms), market concentration has increased in three-quarters of U.S. industries during the twenty-first century. This has had wide-ranging effects not only on consumers, but also, economists increasingly believe, on labor. “Fewer firms in a given industry makes it easier for them to have more bargaining power [over employees], and harder for workers to switch to another employer,” says Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Today’s labor markets increasingly look like a monopsony: a market in which there is only one buyer—the inverse of a monopoly, in which there is only one seller. The more an industry is dominated by a small number of corporations, the more those companies can control the cost of labor. Traditionally, Furman says, economists have relied on a supply-and-demand story about the labor market: “There’s a supply of workers and demand for workers, and the wage is what clears the market, just like the price of wheat is what clears the market for wheat. That explains a lot about wages, but it probably doesn’t explain everything…[T]hat research program went as far as it could.”

In the last three years, Furman explains, economists have looked to monopsony and other factors beyond market competition to explain the stagnation of Americans’ wages during the last few decades. Fewer companies in a given industry make it easier for those companies to coordinate, either indirectly or through overt collusion, to keep wages low. Think of a town with two big-box retail stores: each store knows what the other pays its cashiers, and neither wants to raise wages. Firms can also use noncompete agreements, which ban employees from taking jobs at rival companies, to prevent workers from finding new jobs elsewhere. About 24.5 percent of the American work force has signed a noncompete, according to one Brookings Institution analysis, and this number is not much lower (about 21 percent) for workers earning less than the median salary.

But wages stagnation is across the board, not limited to "given industries".

There are few industries I can think of that don't have some form of this. The use of noncompete agreements is all over.

Why are you limiting the discussion to industries? Nothing prevents labor from moving from industry to service jobs.

What service jobs aren't tied to some industry?

Financial, Medical, Food, Bars, off the top of my head.

From dialysis to hospitals, U.S. health care is full of monopolies

Markets are consolidating out in the open and behind the scenes.

www.axios.com

 

[Andylusion]

I'm 100% for it. Regardless we have to continue exports to maintain our status as world power, otherwise we'd give that status to China. If countries were to become isolated, then yes, no country would complete with the USA, we'd be set.

I think we should also end foreigners owning U.S. real estate. That said millennial's already screwed the pooch on that one. Many figured they were above property ownership. They didn't take into account they'll be paying the Chinese rent in the form of 5Kish by their 60th B-days.

Isolated countries fail economically.

To be fair, there has never been an isolated country on a scale of the US.

AND, as we seen to be destined to be fucked by any trading partner, isolation could be a competitive policy.


THe choice seems to be either be the world's bitch, or take our ball and go home.

How do you mean? The USSR failed miserably. Pretty big country.

Failed because they tried to have a big empire AND we fought them.

Not because they were isolated.

Being isolated is bad for capitalism. Very bad .

Being the world's bitch on trade, hasn't been that great either.

If only there was a third option. But there does not seem to be one.

We have the biggest economy in the world with the most wealth and we’ve had super low unemployment. Seems to be fine.

No, we're not. Our middle class wages have stagnated and our middle class and lower class have lost faith in the future.

People are dying from this shit. To the point that our life expectancy is actually FALLING.


Good macro economic numbers have been hiding generations of pain.


Try to change policy.

That is an internal problem . We have the wealth and jobs. That wouldn’t change if we were isolated.

It is not an internal problem. It is a problem caused by external trade and the inflow of labor.


Time to change policy.

What do you base that on. Again, tons of wealth and jobs. That’s the formula for good wages. If we had too much inflow we’d have high unemployment and certainly wouldn’t have labor shortages. Your claim is baseless. Learn some economics.

Because we have NOT had rising wages for the middle class and working poor.

If it is the formula for "good wages" something went wrong.

Yes something is wrong. Has nothing to do with trade. We have near monopolies, wage collusion, government corruption... internal problems have hurt the market.

How do you know which factors are causing the issue? Cause the reduction of demand, by losing so many manufacturing jobs, while flooding the labor market, seems, like two factors that could have quite an impact.

Good question. I would say you want to first start by following the money. The wealth is here, we have plenty of jobs, where is the money going? I think we know the answer to that. So then why are markets so broken? Here is a good article I mostly agree with you should read.

Wage stagnation: economists look to new explanations | Harvard Magazine

Economists look to new explanations for wage stagnation.

harvardmagazine.com

MARKET CONCENTRATION, the economist’s term for how much an industry is dominated by one or a few firms, touches ever more aspects of American life. From the obvious (the Amazons and Walmarts of the retail economy) to the obscure (the beer industry, which may appear diverse, is dominated by two firms), market concentration has increased in three-quarters of U.S. industries during the twenty-first century. This has had wide-ranging effects not only on consumers, but also, economists increasingly believe, on labor. “Fewer firms in a given industry makes it easier for them to have more bargaining power [over employees], and harder for workers to switch to another employer,” says Jason Furman, professor of the practice of economic policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former chair of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Today’s labor markets increasingly look like a monopsony: a market in which there is only one buyer—the inverse of a monopoly, in which there is only one seller. The more an industry is dominated by a small number of corporations, the more those companies can control the cost of labor. Traditionally, Furman says, economists have relied on a supply-and-demand story about the labor market: “There’s a supply of workers and demand for workers, and the wage is what clears the market, just like the price of wheat is what clears the market for wheat. That explains a lot about wages, but it probably doesn’t explain everything…[T]hat research program went as far as it could.”

In the last three years, Furman explains, economists have looked to monopsony and other factors beyond market competition to explain the stagnation of Americans’ wages during the last few decades. Fewer companies in a given industry make it easier for those companies to coordinate, either indirectly or through overt collusion, to keep wages low. Think of a town with two big-box retail stores: each store knows what the other pays its cashiers, and neither wants to raise wages. Firms can also use noncompete agreements, which ban employees from taking jobs at rival companies, to prevent workers from finding new jobs elsewhere. About 24.5 percent of the American work force has signed a noncompete, according to one Brookings Institution analysis, and this number is not much lower (about 21 percent) for workers earning less than the median salary.

But wages stagnation is across the board, not limited to "given industries".

There are few industries I can think of that don't have some form of this. The use of noncompete agreements is all over.

Why are you limiting the discussion to industries? Nothing prevents labor from moving from industry to service jobs.

What service jobs aren't tied to some industry?

Financial, Medical, Food, Bars, off the top of my head.

Aren't many finance jobs for companies that might have a near monopoly in their industry? What type of medical? It certainly exists in food with huge companies like Mcdonalds. Bars? Is that a big employer?

All industry is interconnected.

Everything is interconnected to everything.