It was GOP tax breaks and subsidies that moved millions of jobs to China. Not trade agreements.

[flacaltenn]

The cost of labor isn't something the federal government has any control over, especially in foreign countries, so why is it even mentioned in this debate?

That right. Assholes like you think it is all taxes as the motivator for companies moving out of country.

When in fact it is the HUUUGE reduction in labor cost that make the move so.profitable.

So asshole, which does a large corporation pay more of; taxes or labor.

Simple question asshole. See if you can answer it honestly.

No one denied that. You can't point to a single post on here by anyone on the right which says "Taxes are the only reason companies move". You just made that up.

Is that how we debate now? Make up what the other person didn't say, and call them an asshole for what they didn't say? Because I can make tons of crap you didn't say, and spit insults at you for it. Just let me know.

Read what he wrote.... "The cost of labor isn't something the federal government has any control over, especially in foreign countries". He never said it wasn't a factor in companies moving out of the country. He said it's not a factor that can be controlled, so why talk about it?

Especially in other countries. People scream about China all the time, and yet, what exactly do you think the government should do? Ask China to put in place a $15/hr minimum wage? Not going to happen. Simply not going to happen.

Now one think I disagree with bripat9643 on, is that there is something we can do about the cost of labor, but it's everything that you people on the left will hate, and refuse to accept, which is why those jobs are NEVER coming back.

Ban Unions. Unions drive up costs. Always have, always will.

Eliminate the minimum wage. Let the employer and employee determine the price.

Eliminate employer side taxes. We can cut labor costs in the US by 7.5% instantly by repealing the FICA tax.

Eliminate unemployment compensation.

Eliminate health care mandates.

You do those things, and America will create jobs by the millions, and in months.

But of course the left refuses to accept this, and like Atlas Shrugged, "I demand you make OUR plan work"... can't. You can't tax, mandate, and regulate companies into creating jobs. Which is exactly what we've been doing, and exactly why companies are leaving.

Your fault. Not ours.

Generally --- you got it.. And we agree a whole lot. But I've pondered the "union" issue a while and come to a different conclusion.. The unions are irrelevant today because their vision of "a job" is prehistoric. They spend all their time LIMITING a job definition and they dont GiveaF about CAREER or CONTRIBUTION to the overall effort. I think unions have one play left. And that is to become more aware of CAREER and FLEXIBLE job descriptions.

I also the Min Wage ought to apply ONLY to retirees and students. You should either be out of the main workforce by age or TRAINING for a career.. Let the employers subsidize 2 yr Community college as a requirement to pay min wage and allow min wage to include subsidies for career training.

Well we had on this exact forum, a guy who claimed to be part of the Union which destroyed hostess, and he at least seemed knowledgeable enough to comment.

They openly voted to destroy the company. He even said as much, which jives with what we know happened.

Now regardless of reason, how does that look to investors?

View attachment 66874

The difference in labor costs between the Unionized companies, verses non-union companies is huge. Which is exactly why GM and Chrysler went bust, while Honda Toyota, and Nissan did not.

The only reason Ford didn't, is because the Unions made concession in 2006, with Ford. They agreed to cut Union wages, which allowed Ford to sneak past the 2009 crash, without bankruptcy.

I think Unions are still a factor, and one that causes lots of jobs to leave the country.

Let employers subsidize college? Are you crazy? So I'm the employer. I hire on some teenager. He goes to college on my dime, and then quits. Either he fails out, or he gets a degree and disappears.

Either way, the cost of funding college, will exceed the value that he brings into my company. Resulting on me losing money on every teenager I hire.

What am I going to do? Never hire a teenager again. Terrible idea.

I have no problem with Unions negotiating for and getting better wages than average if

1) The membership is voluntary by all reasonable standards.
2) The unions represent the best interests of the employees' CAREERS and not just their current job,.
3) The recognize that 21st labor MUST become flexible and multi-skilled and that folks will hired to perform a MYRIAD of tasks in the workplace setting. No more demands for a totally limited job description.

What I just described is more like a professional org than the archaic concept of a union. And that's what 21st labor is gonna resemble. When I worked at Kennedy Space Center, my office mate with 25 years experience was ON FOOD STAMPS.. This happened because of NASA's "lowest bidder" concepts (and the fact that he had 5 kids ). If you wanted to KEEP you job, you would sign on with WHOEVER low-balled bid the contract and won that year. That experience stung me so badly -- that I worked for the next 5 years with IEEE and a consort of other prof orgs to END that practice. Proving that -- government ITSELF is not immune from driving wages to a minimum -- even for highly skilled and critical jobs. That's why I HOPE that unions will shape up and recognize how irrelevant they are.. To prevent that bottom feeding from happening.

The concept of MANDATED min wage is interesting to me as a free market type. My feeling is that if you HAVE a min wage at all -- it should NOT be nationalized to one size fits all. AND the objective should NEVER BE to make people "comfortable" in underperforming, endangered, dead end jobs.

So if the object is to keep min wage labor a brief TRANSIENT part of anyones' work history, you have to formulate it to incentivize career mobility and skill flexibility. The idea of placing a requirement on employers to subsidize any type of legitimate career training is ENTIRELY workable. Instead of setting a HARD min wage, you set a wage limit so that if you pay UNDER that wage -- the employees MUST be students in training and you need to SUBSIDIZE their training and education up to the "min wage" plus a bit. What's YOUR benefit? They are gonna NATURALLY max out of "min wage" in a short time. And most LIKELY -- you will still have them as employees.. IN FACT, it's almost inevitable that folks who are pushing their skills and education are gonna be your better workers. Also -- you are supporting the local open market education community.

Watch the remedial education, vocational training, and associate degree market head straight upwards. Employers get folks who can be tutored to fill in gaps in their skills. Whether it be GED tutoring, or retail skills, or landscaping knowledge or whatever direction they are headed.

 

[Andylusion]

The cost of labor isn't something the federal government has any control over, especially in foreign countries, so why is it even mentioned in this debate?

That right. Assholes like you think it is all taxes as the motivator for companies moving out of country.

When in fact it is the HUUUGE reduction in labor cost that make the move so.profitable.

So asshole, which does a large corporation pay more of; taxes or labor.

Simple question asshole. See if you can answer it honestly.

No one denied that. You can't point to a single post on here by anyone on the right which says "Taxes are the only reason companies move". You just made that up.

Is that how we debate now? Make up what the other person didn't say, and call them an asshole for what they didn't say? Because I can make tons of crap you didn't say, and spit insults at you for it. Just let me know.

Read what he wrote.... "The cost of labor isn't something the federal government has any control over, especially in foreign countries". He never said it wasn't a factor in companies moving out of the country. He said it's not a factor that can be controlled, so why talk about it?

Especially in other countries. People scream about China all the time, and yet, what exactly do you think the government should do? Ask China to put in place a $15/hr minimum wage? Not going to happen. Simply not going to happen.

Now one think I disagree with bripat9643 on, is that there is something we can do about the cost of labor, but it's everything that you people on the left will hate, and refuse to accept, which is why those jobs are NEVER coming back.

Ban Unions. Unions drive up costs. Always have, always will.

Eliminate the minimum wage. Let the employer and employee determine the price.

Eliminate employer side taxes. We can cut labor costs in the US by 7.5% instantly by repealing the FICA tax.

Eliminate unemployment compensation.

Eliminate health care mandates.

You do those things, and America will create jobs by the millions, and in months.

But of course the left refuses to accept this, and like Atlas Shrugged, "I demand you make OUR plan work"... can't. You can't tax, mandate, and regulate companies into creating jobs. Which is exactly what we've been doing, and exactly why companies are leaving.

Your fault. Not ours.

Generally --- you got it.. And we agree a whole lot. But I've pondered the "union" issue a while and come to a different conclusion.. The unions are irrelevant today because their vision of "a job" is prehistoric. They spend all their time LIMITING a job definition and they dont GiveaF about CAREER or CONTRIBUTION to the overall effort. I think unions have one play left. And that is to become more aware of CAREER and FLEXIBLE job descriptions.

I also the Min Wage ought to apply ONLY to retirees and students. You should either be out of the main workforce by age or TRAINING for a career.. Let the employers subsidize 2 yr Community college as a requirement to pay min wage and allow min wage to include subsidies for career training.

Well we had on this exact forum, a guy who claimed to be part of the Union which destroyed hostess, and he at least seemed knowledgeable enough to comment.

They openly voted to destroy the company. He even said as much, which jives with what we know happened.

Now regardless of reason, how does that look to investors?

View attachment 66874

The difference in labor costs between the Unionized companies, verses non-union companies is huge. Which is exactly why GM and Chrysler went bust, while Honda Toyota, and Nissan did not.

The only reason Ford didn't, is because the Unions made concession in 2006, with Ford. They agreed to cut Union wages, which allowed Ford to sneak past the 2009 crash, without bankruptcy.

I think Unions are still a factor, and one that causes lots of jobs to leave the country.

Let employers subsidize college? Are you crazy? So I'm the employer. I hire on some teenager. He goes to college on my dime, and then quits. Either he fails out, or he gets a degree and disappears.

Either way, the cost of funding college, will exceed the value that he brings into my company. Resulting on me losing money on every teenager I hire.

What am I going to do? Never hire a teenager again. Terrible idea.

I have no problem with Unions negotiating for and getting better wages than average if

1) The membership is voluntary by all reasonable standards.
2) The unions represent the best interests of the employees' CAREERS and not just their current job,.
3) The recognize that 21st labor MUST become flexible and multi-skilled and that folks will hired to perform a MYRIAD of tasks in the workplace setting. No more demands for a totally limited job description.

What I just described is more like a professional org than the archaic concept of a union. And that's what 21st labor is gonna resemble. When I worked at Kennedy Space Center, my office mate with 25 years experience was ON FOOD STAMPS.. This happened because of NASA's "lowest bidder" concepts (and the fact that he had 5 kids ). If you wanted to KEEP you job, you would sign on with WHOEVER low-balled bid the contract and won that year. That experience stung me so badly -- that I worked for the next 5 years with IEEE and a consort of other prof orgs to END that practice. Proving that -- government ITSELF is not immune from driving wages to a minimum -- even for highly skilled and critical jobs. That's why I HOPE that unions will shape up and recognize how irrelevant they are.. To prevent that bottom feeding from happening.

The concept of MANDATED min wage is interesting to me as a free market type. My feeling is that if you HAVE a min wage at all -- it should NOT be nationalized to one size fits all. AND the objective should NEVER BE to make people "comfortable" in underperforming, endangered, dead end jobs.

So if the object is to keep min wage labor a brief TRANSIENT part of anyones' work history, you have to formulate it to incentivize career mobility and skill flexibility. The idea of placing a requirement on employers to subsidize any type of legitimate career training is ENTIRELY workable. Instead of setting a HARD min wage, you set a wage limit so that if you pay UNDER that wage -- the employees MUST be students in training and you need to SUBSIDIZE their training and education up to the "min wage" plus a bit. What's YOUR benefit? They are gonna NATURALLY max out of "min wage" in a short time. And most LIKELY -- you will still have them as employees.. IN FACT, it's almost inevitable that folks who are pushing their skills and education are gonna be your better workers. Also -- you are supporting the local open market education community.

Watch the remedial education, vocational training, and associate degree market head straight upwards. Employers get folks who can be tutored to fill in gaps in their skills. Whether it be GED tutoring, or retail skills, or landscaping knowledge or whatever direction they are headed.

I have no problem with Unions negotiating for and getting better wages than average if

Even if the unions met all of those criteria, it would still cause massive problems. Even if Unions were perfect altruistic professional blaw blaw blaw. It would still drive out jobs.

When Steve Jobs responded to Obama about why building Iphones wasn't coming to America, the key word, you can look it up, was "flexibility".

By definition, signing a union contract, of any kind with any stipulations.... reduces flexibility. If you can explain to me how any union contract, could possibly not reduce flexibility, you let me know.

The market is not a static thing. What people want to buy, changes constantly. The ability of companies to be completely flexible, is how they survive in a dynamic always changing market.

You say you have no problem with Unions negotiating a higher pay wage, but that limits flexibility. The market is in a constant state of flux. You don't know, I don't know, the Unions don't know, not even the company knows, what the price of products will be next month.

Remember how just a few years ago, everyone was screaming how the oil companies were driving up the price? Remember how we were told $2/gallon would never be seen again? And the wages of employees working in oil was sky rocketing in ND? Now what is happen? The price fell, and wages are slowly coming down.

How would that happen if there was a union contract? Well it wouldn't... and a bunch of companies would be forced into bankruptcy, and thousands would earn less than a lower wage, they would earn zero. Which is what we saw with GM and Chrysler.

Now the good news is, oil doesn't move out of the country. Manufacturing does.

When I worked at Kennedy Space Center, my office mate with 25 years experience was ON FOOD STAMPS.. This happened because of NASA's "lowest bidder"

If NASA didn't go to the lowest bidder, we'd end up with super phat cats making hundreds of billions, to provide weather balloons. You are BEGGING for corruption if you do away with that.

Moreover, I am constantly baffled by people trying to blame the employer, for the loose controls on government hand outs.

Government makes it so half the country qualifies for food stamps, and you say "It's because of the employer".

That's like my broke brother-in-law becoming an alcoholic, and drinking away his mortgage payment, me covering that mortgage payment, and saying "it's because he job doesn't pay for both, that I have to cover his mortgage".

You can earn $60,000 a year, and still qualify for food stamps. Quite frankly if you earn over $30,000 a year, you ought to be able to pay for your own food. I don't care how many kids you have. They really don't eat that much, and half the time, you have to fight with them to get them to eat what you give them.

The problem is not the wages you are earning. Two people working at Wendy's for minimum wage, places them in the top 1% of wage earners on the face of the planet. The reason they qualify for food stamps, isn't because their wages are too low. It's because the government's requirements are too law.

Cut your cable TV, and buy food. Cut your cell phone and internet, and buy food. Ditch that car you can't afford, and buy a beater you can, and buy food. Stop going to Starbucks, and buy real food. Stop going to the fast food joint, and buy real food, and here's a crazy thought.... get off your butt, and cook it yourself.

The objective should NEVER BE to make people "comfortable" in underperforming, endangered, dead end jobs.
So if the object is to keep min wage labor a brief TRANSIENT part of anyones' work history, you have to formulate it to incentivize career mobility and skill flexibility.

But you are making some drastic assumptions about individual people, that I can tell you from first hand experience, and from dozens of examples, it isn't true. You are assuming that people want to better themselves, and you are assuming they can. Again, neither of which is automatically true.

Examples:
When I was in high school, I worked at a McDonalds. My shift manager at the McDonalds had a degree in Architecture. She worked for about $6/hr at McDonald, while holding a 4-year degree from OSU, in Architecture.

As you might expect, I was baffled, and asking why? She said she wanted a job that was close to home, flexible hours, and she could spend time with her kids. She liked the dead end, low wage, 'underperforming' job. That's what she wanted.

Another example in the same vain, a lady at another employer, had a degree in manufacturing, production and management. But at this company, she was.... a tech writer. She made the PDF booklets showing how to screw parts together. And of course she was paid like a tech writer, making $35K to $40K a year.

Well she quit, and got a job at a major company, NetJets if you know of them. And doubled her pay. She was gone for 11 months, and we got a call, she'd like to come back. When she came back, again..... I'm like "wassup??". Same deal. Low stress, lower expectations, more relaxed, flexible hours, more time with the family, closer to home.

I was working at another company, where we were earning under minimum wage as a sub contractor. After operating there for most of a year, I started asking the other people why they worked there (as I quit shortly thereafter), and the responses were basically the same. "Well I like the freedom, I like being my own boss, I like the flexibility, yeah I don't earn much, but I get to do what I want". Now they could earn MORE working minimum wage at Wendy's, but they liked this job.

You are assuming people want to better themselves. And most do. And most do. We're not talking about those people, because they don't stay in those jobs, regardless of your incentives. The people we ARE talking about, are in those jobs, because that's what they want. They want to work low-stress, low-skill, easy jobs. Now of course they want to be paid more. I'd like to earn $100 an hour, to type these posts.

But your incentives are not going to move these people out of these jobs, because these jobs are what they are willing to do. Yes, they'd like a better job, but they don't want to do what is required to get a better job. So these jobs, are the jobs they get. I met a guy who had a 4-year degree in electrical engineering. He was working at a manufacturing plant, putting together power supplies for $9/hr. I said you know you could earn triple your income..... "well yeah, but here I can put on my head phones, and it pays the rent, and take a day off whatever I want...." That's fairly close to verbatim.

Then of course there is me. I went to college three times. I failed out of college, three times. Now I don't mean dropped out.... Steve Jobs was a college drop out, but that's because he dropped into something better. No no, I failed out. I have a college record of "F"s. What incentive do you think is going to cause me to magically do better than the low wage crap jobs I do? Nothing. No amount of subsidizing is going to get me anywhere.

The idea of placing a requirement on employers to subsidize any type of legitimate career training is ENTIRELY workable.

I would highly doubt it. The average college tuition, is around $10,000 a year. Ohio minimum wage is $8.10 or just under $17,000.

In order to get an employer to agree to do this, the total cost of employing the individual, and paying for college, would have to be lower than simply paying minimum wage.

Are you telling me, that you would have a wage of under $7,000 a year ($3.36/hr)?

And then, if you do allow the employer to pay $3.00/hr, and subsidize college... why would the employee take this deal? Why not just earn minimum wage, and pay for college out of the much higher earnings?

The only way that subsidizing college works, is if the company has an invested interest. And with those companies... they already do. McDonald has management classes. Walmart has college reimbursement. Many of the major companies have college promotion programs, provided you are getting a degree they care about. The current CEO of Walmart, started off working at a Walmart distribution center.

And again, even if you come up with some weird scheme that does work, some people will get the degree, and stay at McDonalds. You can't force people to improve their lives. Which is why we should just let the free market work.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Another clueless OP by a guy who never seems to do any balanced reading before he runs with these liberal myths.

There is no specific tax deduction for companies that move overseas. It's the same tax deduction that a family gets when they move or that a small business gets when it moves inside the U.S. It's just the standard moving-expense deduction.

Trade deals are in fact a large part of the reason that American jobs have gone overseas. Another big part of the reason is our insanely high corporate tax rate, which is about double that corporate tax rate in many other countries.

 

[flacaltenn]

That right. Assholes like you think it is all taxes as the motivator for companies moving out of country.

When in fact it is the HUUUGE reduction in labor cost that make the move so.profitable.

So asshole, which does a large corporation pay more of; taxes or labor.

Simple question asshole. See if you can answer it honestly.

No one denied that. You can't point to a single post on here by anyone on the right which says "Taxes are the only reason companies move". You just made that up.

Is that how we debate now? Make up what the other person didn't say, and call them an asshole for what they didn't say? Because I can make tons of crap you didn't say, and spit insults at you for it. Just let me know.

Read what he wrote.... "The cost of labor isn't something the federal government has any control over, especially in foreign countries". He never said it wasn't a factor in companies moving out of the country. He said it's not a factor that can be controlled, so why talk about it?

Especially in other countries. People scream about China all the time, and yet, what exactly do you think the government should do? Ask China to put in place a $15/hr minimum wage? Not going to happen. Simply not going to happen.

Now one think I disagree with bripat9643 on, is that there is something we can do about the cost of labor, but it's everything that you people on the left will hate, and refuse to accept, which is why those jobs are NEVER coming back.

Ban Unions. Unions drive up costs. Always have, always will.

Eliminate the minimum wage. Let the employer and employee determine the price.

Eliminate employer side taxes. We can cut labor costs in the US by 7.5% instantly by repealing the FICA tax.

Eliminate unemployment compensation.

Eliminate health care mandates.

You do those things, and America will create jobs by the millions, and in months.

But of course the left refuses to accept this, and like Atlas Shrugged, "I demand you make OUR plan work"... can't. You can't tax, mandate, and regulate companies into creating jobs. Which is exactly what we've been doing, and exactly why companies are leaving.

Your fault. Not ours.

Generally --- you got it.. And we agree a whole lot. But I've pondered the "union" issue a while and come to a different conclusion.. The unions are irrelevant today because their vision of "a job" is prehistoric. They spend all their time LIMITING a job definition and they dont GiveaF about CAREER or CONTRIBUTION to the overall effort. I think unions have one play left. And that is to become more aware of CAREER and FLEXIBLE job descriptions.

I also the Min Wage ought to apply ONLY to retirees and students. You should either be out of the main workforce by age or TRAINING for a career.. Let the employers subsidize 2 yr Community college as a requirement to pay min wage and allow min wage to include subsidies for career training.

Well we had on this exact forum, a guy who claimed to be part of the Union which destroyed hostess, and he at least seemed knowledgeable enough to comment.

They openly voted to destroy the company. He even said as much, which jives with what we know happened.

Now regardless of reason, how does that look to investors?

View attachment 66874

The difference in labor costs between the Unionized companies, verses non-union companies is huge. Which is exactly why GM and Chrysler went bust, while Honda Toyota, and Nissan did not.

The only reason Ford didn't, is because the Unions made concession in 2006, with Ford. They agreed to cut Union wages, which allowed Ford to sneak past the 2009 crash, without bankruptcy.

I think Unions are still a factor, and one that causes lots of jobs to leave the country.

Let employers subsidize college? Are you crazy? So I'm the employer. I hire on some teenager. He goes to college on my dime, and then quits. Either he fails out, or he gets a degree and disappears.

Either way, the cost of funding college, will exceed the value that he brings into my company. Resulting on me losing money on every teenager I hire.

What am I going to do? Never hire a teenager again. Terrible idea.

I have no problem with Unions negotiating for and getting better wages than average if

1) The membership is voluntary by all reasonable standards.
2) The unions represent the best interests of the employees' CAREERS and not just their current job,.
3) The recognize that 21st labor MUST become flexible and multi-skilled and that folks will hired to perform a MYRIAD of tasks in the workplace setting. No more demands for a totally limited job description.

What I just described is more like a professional org than the archaic concept of a union. And that's what 21st labor is gonna resemble. When I worked at Kennedy Space Center, my office mate with 25 years experience was ON FOOD STAMPS.. This happened because of NASA's "lowest bidder" concepts (and the fact that he had 5 kids ). If you wanted to KEEP you job, you would sign on with WHOEVER low-balled bid the contract and won that year. That experience stung me so badly -- that I worked for the next 5 years with IEEE and a consort of other prof orgs to END that practice. Proving that -- government ITSELF is not immune from driving wages to a minimum -- even for highly skilled and critical jobs. That's why I HOPE that unions will shape up and recognize how irrelevant they are.. To prevent that bottom feeding from happening.

The concept of MANDATED min wage is interesting to me as a free market type. My feeling is that if you HAVE a min wage at all -- it should NOT be nationalized to one size fits all. AND the objective should NEVER BE to make people "comfortable" in underperforming, endangered, dead end jobs.

So if the object is to keep min wage labor a brief TRANSIENT part of anyones' work history, you have to formulate it to incentivize career mobility and skill flexibility. The idea of placing a requirement on employers to subsidize any type of legitimate career training is ENTIRELY workable. Instead of setting a HARD min wage, you set a wage limit so that if you pay UNDER that wage -- the employees MUST be students in training and you need to SUBSIDIZE their training and education up to the "min wage" plus a bit. What's YOUR benefit? They are gonna NATURALLY max out of "min wage" in a short time. And most LIKELY -- you will still have them as employees.. IN FACT, it's almost inevitable that folks who are pushing their skills and education are gonna be your better workers. Also -- you are supporting the local open market education community.

Watch the remedial education, vocational training, and associate degree market head straight upwards. Employers get folks who can be tutored to fill in gaps in their skills. Whether it be GED tutoring, or retail skills, or landscaping knowledge or whatever direction they are headed.

I have no problem with Unions negotiating for and getting better wages than average if

Even if the unions met all of those criteria, it would still cause massive problems. Even if Unions were perfect altruistic professional blaw blaw blaw. It would still drive out jobs.

When Steve Jobs responded to Obama about why building Iphones wasn't coming to America, the key word, you can look it up, was "flexibility".

By definition, signing a union contract, of any kind with any stipulations.... reduces flexibility. If you can explain to me how any union contract, could possibly not reduce flexibility, you let me know.

The market is not a static thing. What people want to buy, changes constantly. The ability of companies to be completely flexible, is how they survive in a dynamic always changing market.

You say you have no problem with Unions negotiating a higher pay wage, but that limits flexibility. The market is in a constant state of flux. You don't know, I don't know, the Unions don't know, not even the company knows, what the price of products will be next month.

Remember how just a few years ago, everyone was screaming how the oil companies were driving up the price? Remember how we were told $2/gallon would never be seen again? And the wages of employees working in oil was sky rocketing in ND? Now what is happen? The price fell, and wages are slowly coming down.

How would that happen if there was a union contract? Well it wouldn't... and a bunch of companies would be forced into bankruptcy, and thousands would earn less than a lower wage, they would earn zero. Which is what we saw with GM and Chrysler.

Now the good news is, oil doesn't move out of the country. Manufacturing does.

When I worked at Kennedy Space Center, my office mate with 25 years experience was ON FOOD STAMPS.. This happened because of NASA's "lowest bidder"

If NASA didn't go to the lowest bidder, we'd end up with super phat cats making hundreds of billions, to provide weather balloons. You are BEGGING for corruption if you do away with that.

Moreover, I am constantly baffled by people trying to blame the employer, for the loose controls on government hand outs.

Government makes it so half the country qualifies for food stamps, and you say "It's because of the employer".

That's like my broke brother-in-law becoming an alcoholic, and drinking away his mortgage payment, me covering that mortgage payment, and saying "it's because he job doesn't pay for both, that I have to cover his mortgage".

You can earn $60,000 a year, and still qualify for food stamps. Quite frankly if you earn over $30,000 a year, you ought to be able to pay for your own food. I don't care how many kids you have. They really don't eat that much, and half the time, you have to fight with them to get them to eat what you give them.

The problem is not the wages you are earning. Two people working at Wendy's for minimum wage, places them in the top 1% of wage earners on the face of the planet. The reason they qualify for food stamps, isn't because their wages are too low. It's because the government's requirements are too law.

Cut your cable TV, and buy food. Cut your cell phone and internet, and buy food. Ditch that car you can't afford, and buy a beater you can, and buy food. Stop going to Starbucks, and buy real food. Stop going to the fast food joint, and buy real food, and here's a crazy thought.... get off your butt, and cook it yourself.

The objective should NEVER BE to make people "comfortable" in underperforming, endangered, dead end jobs.
So if the object is to keep min wage labor a brief TRANSIENT part of anyones' work history, you have to formulate it to incentivize career mobility and skill flexibility.

But you are making some drastic assumptions about individual people, that I can tell you from first hand experience, and from dozens of examples, it isn't true. You are assuming that people want to better themselves, and you are assuming they can. Again, neither of which is automatically true.

Examples:
When I was in high school, I worked at a McDonalds. My shift manager at the McDonalds had a degree in Architecture. She worked for about $6/hr at McDonald, while holding a 4-year degree from OSU, in Architecture.

As you might expect, I was baffled, and asking why? She said she wanted a job that was close to home, flexible hours, and she could spend time with her kids. She liked the dead end, low wage, 'underperforming' job. That's what she wanted.

Another example in the same vain, a lady at another employer, had a degree in manufacturing, production and management. But at this company, she was.... a tech writer. She made the PDF booklets showing how to screw parts together. And of course she was paid like a tech writer, making $35K to $40K a year.

Well she quit, and got a job at a major company, NetJets if you know of them. And doubled her pay. She was gone for 11 months, and we got a call, she'd like to come back. When she came back, again..... I'm like "wassup??". Same deal. Low stress, lower expectations, more relaxed, flexible hours, more time with the family, closer to home.

I was working at another company, where we were earning under minimum wage as a sub contractor. After operating there for most of a year, I started asking the other people why they worked there (as I quit shortly thereafter), and the responses were basically the same. "Well I like the freedom, I like being my own boss, I like the flexibility, yeah I don't earn much, but I get to do what I want". Now they could earn MORE working minimum wage at Wendy's, but they liked this job.

You are assuming people want to better themselves. And most do. And most do. We're not talking about those people, because they don't stay in those jobs, regardless of your incentives. The people we ARE talking about, are in those jobs, because that's what they want. They want to work low-stress, low-skill, easy jobs. Now of course they want to be paid more. I'd like to earn $100 an hour, to type these posts.

But your incentives are not going to move these people out of these jobs, because these jobs are what they are willing to do. Yes, they'd like a better job, but they don't want to do what is required to get a better job. So these jobs, are the jobs they get. I met a guy who had a 4-year degree in electrical engineering. He was working at a manufacturing plant, putting together power supplies for $9/hr. I said you know you could earn triple your income..... "well yeah, but here I can put on my head phones, and it pays the rent, and take a day off whatever I want...." That's fairly close to verbatim.

Then of course there is me. I went to college three times. I failed out of college, three times. Now I don't mean dropped out.... Steve Jobs was a college drop out, but that's because he dropped into something better. No no, I failed out. I have a college record of "F"s. What incentive do you think is going to cause me to magically do better than the low wage crap jobs I do? Nothing. No amount of subsidizing is going to get me anywhere.

The idea of placing a requirement on employers to subsidize any type of legitimate career training is ENTIRELY workable.

I would highly doubt it. The average college tuition, is around $10,000 a year. Ohio minimum wage is $8.10 or just under $17,000.

In order to get an employer to agree to do this, the total cost of employing the individual, and paying for college, would have to be lower than simply paying minimum wage.

Are you telling me, that you would have a wage of under $7,000 a year ($3.36/hr)?

And then, if you do allow the employer to pay $3.00/hr, and subsidize college... why would the employee take this deal? Why not just earn minimum wage, and pay for college out of the much higher earnings?

The only way that subsidizing college works, is if the company has an invested interest. And with those companies... they already do. McDonald has management classes. Walmart has college reimbursement. Many of the major companies have college promotion programs, provided you are getting a degree they care about. The current CEO of Walmart, started off working at a Walmart distribution center.

And again, even if you come up with some weird scheme that does work, some people will get the degree, and stay at McDonalds. You can't force people to improve their lives. Which is why we should just let the free market work.

The lowest bidder phenom at KSCenter DID NOT decrease the price of getting into space. It made it more dangerous,. Because these vultures had a CAPTIVE labor force. Namely 90% of the Research and Launch Team at KSC.. They hired me in as my 2nd ever job outside of academia.. That's the only place they could go for warm bodies at those discount prices. And the companies were RAKING in the dough. We were all HOUSED by NASA, fed by NASA, Secured by NASA. The phones, the labs, the electricity bill -- paid by NASA. They had NOTHING to contribute. Essentially these support companies were making pure profit..

And the cost of the stuff we designed in was STILL astronomically marked up because of the number of hands on each issue.. Government created that problem by brain-dead mismanagement of the contracts.

Your shift supervisor at McD's is a perfect example of WHY we should banish the min wage jobs all together. Wasn't a good plan to junk an architect degree for convenience. But that was her parents nightmare. If she felt her husband was a perfect provider for life --- then that's a plan. But if she were SINGLE and a mother -- it might not be a viable plan. All those jerks marching for "living wage" made the decision to STRAND themselves in a not so mobile career. Can't fix stupid. BUT -- you can help those who have aspirations and plans..

If Unions brought the top-notch, most flexible, most multi-talented professional folks to the table -- it would be worth the extra negotiated benefit. ESPECIALLY if those people were to migrate from hourly to salaried in your operation later in their careers. Right now -- the union mind set would see that as HERESY.. It's actually career advancement and mobility for those who want it.

No 2 ways about it. If you are not FLEXIBLE, not multi-skilled and not career mobile -- you are DOOMED in the 21st century job market. Just the way it's gonna be..

 

[Andylusion]

No one denied that. You can't point to a single post on here by anyone on the right which says "Taxes are the only reason companies move". You just made that up.

Is that how we debate now? Make up what the other person didn't say, and call them an asshole for what they didn't say? Because I can make tons of crap you didn't say, and spit insults at you for it. Just let me know.

Read what he wrote.... "The cost of labor isn't something the federal government has any control over, especially in foreign countries". He never said it wasn't a factor in companies moving out of the country. He said it's not a factor that can be controlled, so why talk about it?

Especially in other countries. People scream about China all the time, and yet, what exactly do you think the government should do? Ask China to put in place a $15/hr minimum wage? Not going to happen. Simply not going to happen.

Now one think I disagree with bripat9643 on, is that there is something we can do about the cost of labor, but it's everything that you people on the left will hate, and refuse to accept, which is why those jobs are NEVER coming back.

Ban Unions. Unions drive up costs. Always have, always will.

Eliminate the minimum wage. Let the employer and employee determine the price.

Eliminate employer side taxes. We can cut labor costs in the US by 7.5% instantly by repealing the FICA tax.

Eliminate unemployment compensation.

Eliminate health care mandates.

You do those things, and America will create jobs by the millions, and in months.

But of course the left refuses to accept this, and like Atlas Shrugged, "I demand you make OUR plan work"... can't. You can't tax, mandate, and regulate companies into creating jobs. Which is exactly what we've been doing, and exactly why companies are leaving.

Your fault. Not ours.

Generally --- you got it.. And we agree a whole lot. But I've pondered the "union" issue a while and come to a different conclusion.. The unions are irrelevant today because their vision of "a job" is prehistoric. They spend all their time LIMITING a job definition and they dont GiveaF about CAREER or CONTRIBUTION to the overall effort. I think unions have one play left. And that is to become more aware of CAREER and FLEXIBLE job descriptions.

I also the Min Wage ought to apply ONLY to retirees and students. You should either be out of the main workforce by age or TRAINING for a career.. Let the employers subsidize 2 yr Community college as a requirement to pay min wage and allow min wage to include subsidies for career training.

Well we had on this exact forum, a guy who claimed to be part of the Union which destroyed hostess, and he at least seemed knowledgeable enough to comment.

They openly voted to destroy the company. He even said as much, which jives with what we know happened.

Now regardless of reason, how does that look to investors?

View attachment 66874

The difference in labor costs between the Unionized companies, verses non-union companies is huge. Which is exactly why GM and Chrysler went bust, while Honda Toyota, and Nissan did not.

The only reason Ford didn't, is because the Unions made concession in 2006, with Ford. They agreed to cut Union wages, which allowed Ford to sneak past the 2009 crash, without bankruptcy.

I think Unions are still a factor, and one that causes lots of jobs to leave the country.

Let employers subsidize college? Are you crazy? So I'm the employer. I hire on some teenager. He goes to college on my dime, and then quits. Either he fails out, or he gets a degree and disappears.

Either way, the cost of funding college, will exceed the value that he brings into my company. Resulting on me losing money on every teenager I hire.

What am I going to do? Never hire a teenager again. Terrible idea.

I have no problem with Unions negotiating for and getting better wages than average if

1) The membership is voluntary by all reasonable standards.
2) The unions represent the best interests of the employees' CAREERS and not just their current job,.
3) The recognize that 21st labor MUST become flexible and multi-skilled and that folks will hired to perform a MYRIAD of tasks in the workplace setting. No more demands for a totally limited job description.

What I just described is more like a professional org than the archaic concept of a union. And that's what 21st labor is gonna resemble. When I worked at Kennedy Space Center, my office mate with 25 years experience was ON FOOD STAMPS.. This happened because of NASA's "lowest bidder" concepts (and the fact that he had 5 kids ). If you wanted to KEEP you job, you would sign on with WHOEVER low-balled bid the contract and won that year. That experience stung me so badly -- that I worked for the next 5 years with IEEE and a consort of other prof orgs to END that practice. Proving that -- government ITSELF is not immune from driving wages to a minimum -- even for highly skilled and critical jobs. That's why I HOPE that unions will shape up and recognize how irrelevant they are.. To prevent that bottom feeding from happening.

The concept of MANDATED min wage is interesting to me as a free market type. My feeling is that if you HAVE a min wage at all -- it should NOT be nationalized to one size fits all. AND the objective should NEVER BE to make people "comfortable" in underperforming, endangered, dead end jobs.

So if the object is to keep min wage labor a brief TRANSIENT part of anyones' work history, you have to formulate it to incentivize career mobility and skill flexibility. The idea of placing a requirement on employers to subsidize any type of legitimate career training is ENTIRELY workable. Instead of setting a HARD min wage, you set a wage limit so that if you pay UNDER that wage -- the employees MUST be students in training and you need to SUBSIDIZE their training and education up to the "min wage" plus a bit. What's YOUR benefit? They are gonna NATURALLY max out of "min wage" in a short time. And most LIKELY -- you will still have them as employees.. IN FACT, it's almost inevitable that folks who are pushing their skills and education are gonna be your better workers. Also -- you are supporting the local open market education community.

Watch the remedial education, vocational training, and associate degree market head straight upwards. Employers get folks who can be tutored to fill in gaps in their skills. Whether it be GED tutoring, or retail skills, or landscaping knowledge or whatever direction they are headed.

I have no problem with Unions negotiating for and getting better wages than average if

Even if the unions met all of those criteria, it would still cause massive problems. Even if Unions were perfect altruistic professional blaw blaw blaw. It would still drive out jobs.

When Steve Jobs responded to Obama about why building Iphones wasn't coming to America, the key word, you can look it up, was "flexibility".

By definition, signing a union contract, of any kind with any stipulations.... reduces flexibility. If you can explain to me how any union contract, could possibly not reduce flexibility, you let me know.

The market is not a static thing. What people want to buy, changes constantly. The ability of companies to be completely flexible, is how they survive in a dynamic always changing market.

You say you have no problem with Unions negotiating a higher pay wage, but that limits flexibility. The market is in a constant state of flux. You don't know, I don't know, the Unions don't know, not even the company knows, what the price of products will be next month.

Remember how just a few years ago, everyone was screaming how the oil companies were driving up the price? Remember how we were told $2/gallon would never be seen again? And the wages of employees working in oil was sky rocketing in ND? Now what is happen? The price fell, and wages are slowly coming down.

How would that happen if there was a union contract? Well it wouldn't... and a bunch of companies would be forced into bankruptcy, and thousands would earn less than a lower wage, they would earn zero. Which is what we saw with GM and Chrysler.

Now the good news is, oil doesn't move out of the country. Manufacturing does.

When I worked at Kennedy Space Center, my office mate with 25 years experience was ON FOOD STAMPS.. This happened because of NASA's "lowest bidder"

If NASA didn't go to the lowest bidder, we'd end up with super phat cats making hundreds of billions, to provide weather balloons. You are BEGGING for corruption if you do away with that.

Moreover, I am constantly baffled by people trying to blame the employer, for the loose controls on government hand outs.

Government makes it so half the country qualifies for food stamps, and you say "It's because of the employer".

That's like my broke brother-in-law becoming an alcoholic, and drinking away his mortgage payment, me covering that mortgage payment, and saying "it's because he job doesn't pay for both, that I have to cover his mortgage".

You can earn $60,000 a year, and still qualify for food stamps. Quite frankly if you earn over $30,000 a year, you ought to be able to pay for your own food. I don't care how many kids you have. They really don't eat that much, and half the time, you have to fight with them to get them to eat what you give them.

The problem is not the wages you are earning. Two people working at Wendy's for minimum wage, places them in the top 1% of wage earners on the face of the planet. The reason they qualify for food stamps, isn't because their wages are too low. It's because the government's requirements are too law.

Cut your cable TV, and buy food. Cut your cell phone and internet, and buy food. Ditch that car you can't afford, and buy a beater you can, and buy food. Stop going to Starbucks, and buy real food. Stop going to the fast food joint, and buy real food, and here's a crazy thought.... get off your butt, and cook it yourself.

The objective should NEVER BE to make people "comfortable" in underperforming, endangered, dead end jobs.
So if the object is to keep min wage labor a brief TRANSIENT part of anyones' work history, you have to formulate it to incentivize career mobility and skill flexibility.

But you are making some drastic assumptions about individual people, that I can tell you from first hand experience, and from dozens of examples, it isn't true. You are assuming that people want to better themselves, and you are assuming they can. Again, neither of which is automatically true.

Examples:
When I was in high school, I worked at a McDonalds. My shift manager at the McDonalds had a degree in Architecture. She worked for about $6/hr at McDonald, while holding a 4-year degree from OSU, in Architecture.

As you might expect, I was baffled, and asking why? She said she wanted a job that was close to home, flexible hours, and she could spend time with her kids. She liked the dead end, low wage, 'underperforming' job. That's what she wanted.

Another example in the same vain, a lady at another employer, had a degree in manufacturing, production and management. But at this company, she was.... a tech writer. She made the PDF booklets showing how to screw parts together. And of course she was paid like a tech writer, making $35K to $40K a year.

Well she quit, and got a job at a major company, NetJets if you know of them. And doubled her pay. She was gone for 11 months, and we got a call, she'd like to come back. When she came back, again..... I'm like "wassup??". Same deal. Low stress, lower expectations, more relaxed, flexible hours, more time with the family, closer to home.

I was working at another company, where we were earning under minimum wage as a sub contractor. After operating there for most of a year, I started asking the other people why they worked there (as I quit shortly thereafter), and the responses were basically the same. "Well I like the freedom, I like being my own boss, I like the flexibility, yeah I don't earn much, but I get to do what I want". Now they could earn MORE working minimum wage at Wendy's, but they liked this job.

You are assuming people want to better themselves. And most do. And most do. We're not talking about those people, because they don't stay in those jobs, regardless of your incentives. The people we ARE talking about, are in those jobs, because that's what they want. They want to work low-stress, low-skill, easy jobs. Now of course they want to be paid more. I'd like to earn $100 an hour, to type these posts.

But your incentives are not going to move these people out of these jobs, because these jobs are what they are willing to do. Yes, they'd like a better job, but they don't want to do what is required to get a better job. So these jobs, are the jobs they get. I met a guy who had a 4-year degree in electrical engineering. He was working at a manufacturing plant, putting together power supplies for $9/hr. I said you know you could earn triple your income..... "well yeah, but here I can put on my head phones, and it pays the rent, and take a day off whatever I want...." That's fairly close to verbatim.

Then of course there is me. I went to college three times. I failed out of college, three times. Now I don't mean dropped out.... Steve Jobs was a college drop out, but that's because he dropped into something better. No no, I failed out. I have a college record of "F"s. What incentive do you think is going to cause me to magically do better than the low wage crap jobs I do? Nothing. No amount of subsidizing is going to get me anywhere.

The idea of placing a requirement on employers to subsidize any type of legitimate career training is ENTIRELY workable.

I would highly doubt it. The average college tuition, is around $10,000 a year. Ohio minimum wage is $8.10 or just under $17,000.

In order to get an employer to agree to do this, the total cost of employing the individual, and paying for college, would have to be lower than simply paying minimum wage.

Are you telling me, that you would have a wage of under $7,000 a year ($3.36/hr)?

And then, if you do allow the employer to pay $3.00/hr, and subsidize college... why would the employee take this deal? Why not just earn minimum wage, and pay for college out of the much higher earnings?

The only way that subsidizing college works, is if the company has an invested interest. And with those companies... they already do. McDonald has management classes. Walmart has college reimbursement. Many of the major companies have college promotion programs, provided you are getting a degree they care about. The current CEO of Walmart, started off working at a Walmart distribution center.

And again, even if you come up with some weird scheme that does work, some people will get the degree, and stay at McDonalds. You can't force people to improve their lives. Which is why we should just let the free market work.

The lowest bidder phenom at KSCenter DID NOT decrease the price of getting into space. It made it more dangerous,. Because these vultures had a CAPTIVE labor force. Namely 90% of the Research and Launch Team at KSC.. They hired me in as my 2nd ever job outside of academia.. That's the only place they could go for warm bodies at those discount prices. And the companies were RAKING in the dough. We were all HOUSED by NASA, fed by NASA, Secured by NASA. The phones, the labs, the electricity bill -- paid by NASA. They had NOTHING to contribute. Essentially these support companies were making pure profit..

And the cost of the stuff we designed in was STILL astronomically marked up because of the number of hands on each issue.. Government created that problem by brain-dead mismanagement of the contracts.

Your shift supervisor at McD's is a perfect example of WHY we should banish the min wage jobs all together. Wasn't a good plan to junk an architect degree for convenience. But that was her parents nightmare. If she felt her husband was a perfect provider for life --- then that's a plan. But if she were SINGLE and a mother -- it might not be a viable plan. All those jerks marching for "living wage" made the decision to STRAND themselves in a not so mobile career. Can't fix stupid. BUT -- you can help those who have aspirations and plans..

If Unions brought the top-notch, most flexible, most multi-talented professional folks to the table -- it would be worth the extra negotiated benefit. ESPECIALLY if those people were to migrate from hourly to salaried in your operation later in their careers. Right now -- the union mind set would see that as HERESY.. It's actually career advancement and mobility for those who want it.

No 2 ways about it. If you are not FLEXIBLE, not multi-skilled and not career mobile -- you are DOOMED in the 21st century job market. Just the way it's gonna be..

Welcome to government. Waste in government? Shocking. This is how government has always worked. It's either blowing money out the windows, or blowing money into some government contract. Nothing new.

How exactly would you banish minimum wage jobs?

Again, you are trying to help those who don't need help. The people with aspirations and plans, don't need a government program, a subsidy, or anything. Those that do need your help, are the people you can't help.

What's her name, from Canada that won $10 million dollars, and in just 5 to 10 years, was broke, didn't even own a car, and was taking the bus to a part time job, living on government subsidies.

I don't think you are doomed, or have to be. We can just allow people to do menial jobs, for menial wages. If that's their choice, why not?

I earned just $12,000 in taxable income, in 2012. Why should I be doomed?