We must cut jobs at all cost!

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/28/BUGP11VLK81.DTL

I say work is a thing of the past here in America. If we simply colonize the rest of the world's workers to do our labor, that frees us up to volunteer as firemen and police officers. With no discernable way of raising revenue from their citizens, municipal governments will be grateful that we're all there to help.

...

I mean, really. How can a corporation justify employing American workers at all? Where's the upside? They're always whining about working overtime and paying for health care and all these other incidentals.

It's like buying your produce at the local farmer's market. You pay more just so some local yokel can keep playing in the dirt in Sonoma County.

Dig this. Give me the cheapest labor at the cheapest price and I'll show you capitalism. Show me capitalism and I'll show you health.

Let us not confuse jobs with recovery, my friends. For America's economy to recover, we must cut jobs at all cost.

[bryant69]

1. Hmmm

I wonder if there is a downside to this argument. Hey, where'd all my customers go?

[Brian Sweat]

2. Exactly

We are headed for a permanent global economic meltdown.

[Warpy]

4. Yes and no

As the dollar continues to slide on currency markets, those foreign folks begin to look less attractive. After all, when you can employ the guy down the block for as much as you're paying that boiler room guy in India or the line worker in Brazil, the pain in the butt of supervising long distance becomes apparent. Shipping costs also become more of a factor, especially if you're keeping such a low inventory that you're shipping stuff in daily by air.

In the short term, the slide in the dollar will mean everything from gas for that SUV to the Chinese junk in Walmart will become more expensive. In the long term, it will work better than the abandonment of the free trade doctrine and enactment of protective tariffs will. Imported goods and services should always be more expensive. Only the exalted position of the almighty dollar on currency exchange markets has made them seem cheaper.

While the dollar remains strong, and that subsistence wage overseas translates into nearly nothing in dollars, the US worker has litle hope of staying employed.

Nixon had the right idea, folks. DEVALUE THAT DAMN DOLLAR.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

5. when US workers are cheaper than third world workers

unemployment will be the least of your problems! No one will be able to run a business because of the looting, er, "extreme shopping".

:)

[Art_from_Ark]

7. A few things to consider

1) Nixon's devaluation of the dollar helped exacerbate a decade of severe inflation.

2) Even if the dollar goes down by 20%, that Chinese junk at Wal-Mart will probably not be affected much, since the wages in China (when there are wages) are SO much lower than in the US.

3) Much of that Chinese junk at Wal-Mart has no American-made equivalent anyway.

[Warpy]

8. You're forgetting a few things here

1) That inflation was caused by OPEC's control of oil prices, not by the devaluation of the almighty dollar, which was done very timidly and resulted in only a tiny increase in the cost of foreign goods and services. Repeat after me, it was the oil shock.

2) As currency exchange rates normalize, that subsistence pay in China will look an awful lot like subsistence pay in the US. It takes the same amount of calories to feed a person, you know, no matter where that person might hang his hat.

3) With that Chinese worker getting paid nearly as much as a US worker, and with expensive shipping costs (which will be more expensive as the US starts paying what the rest of the world does for fuel in real terms), reopening US plants will occur.

The short term will be inflationary, yes, as everything produced offshore becomes more expensive. Everything imported SHOULD be more expensive. Only the ridiculously high rate of exchange the dollar has enjoyed has made these things seem cheaper.

Free trade has benefited everybody except the US worker. If you can come up with a better explanation of why this is so, take your best shot. Just leave out the unions, friend, since more nonunion jobs than union jobs have been exported at this point.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

9. you mean "when a US worker is getting paid as little as a Chinese worker"

isn't that what you meant?

"just leave out the unions, friend, since more nonunion jobs than union jobs have been exported at this point."

I wonder why that is?

[Art_from_Ark]

12. Reread Number 1

My statement comes with a qualifier: I said "helped" exacerbate. OPEC alone did not create inflation in the 1970s. Prices were rising in 1969, 70, 71, 72 before any oil shock. There were several factors involved in inflation at that time, including, among other factors, the devaluation of the dollar, the complete withdrawal from the gold standard and removal of the last bit of silver from coinage (creating a fiat currency), rising wages, and, later, the oil shocks.

It will take a long time for subsistence pay in China to equal subsistence pay in the US. No one in the US can live on $80/month, which I am told by Chinese scholars here in Japan is subsistence pay for Chinese on the mainland. A well-paid worker in China makes $200, maybe $300/month.

[Brian Sweat]

10. U.S. wages will have to drop significantly before

U.S. workers can compete with third world workers. U.S. workers will effectively become third world workers and global underconsumption will result. This will depress wages further resulting in a global economic death spiral.

[Warpy]

13. Nope.

If a dollar goes for, say, 30 yuan, we have a problem.

If the dollar slides and begins to go to 3 yuan, then the US worker becomes competitive.

It doesn't matter what that Chinese fellow is getting in his own currency. It matters what it translates into in dollars, especially when you add shipping costs.

[Art_from_Ark]

15. Dream on

There's no way the yuan, currently at 8.3/dollar, is suddenly going to rise to 3/dollar. It would have to practically triple in value. The only currency that I know of that has tripled in value against the dollar in modern times is the Japanese yen, which began its rise from 360/dollar in 1971 to its current 111/dollar today (although at one brief point in 1994 it rose, quite artificially, to 78/dollar).

[Warpy]

16. As the dollar falls

..other currencies rise. Get it yet?

[Art_from_Ark]

17. I've spent the last 20+ years living with a fluctuating yen/dollar rate

I am well aware of exchange rates, thank you. I am also well aware that a tripling in value of one nation's currency against the dollar is almost unheard of in modern times, and is certainly unheard of in the short time frame that you seem to be talking about.

[TioDiego]

11. Not if we can get those cheap-labor bastridges out of office.

[JanMichael]

3. But there isn't! You heard the CEO, We GOTS BrANeS!!

Dividends, we'll all live off of dividends. Those who can't will be drafted into the military to defend our foreign operations.

We gots the braens.

[Chef]

6. Brave new world

I agree. For some time I have thought that only those jobs which require some sort of human contact will be left here: Police, fire dept., prostitutes, health care (except durgs), UPS, Wal-Mart, McDonalds, etc. would be left. We will spend our days driving between our jobs at Wal-Mart or K-Mart to eating at McDonalds. All of our goods and most of our services will come from overseas. The only problem is that those jobs won't pay enough to afford the stuff we buy at Wal-Mart or on line. This will cause a drop in demand, forcing down the wages of the sweat shop workers overseas. Therefore, we will have to move those jobs off-off-shore to countries of even lower wages, causing a shift of the same job loss problems we have to occur there. In anticipation of this we need to reduce the minimum wage. This will widen the gap between the most wealthy and the poor, but as long those employed can pay their FICA, the government will have money to borrow to run on rather than raise taxes. Where is the silver lining?

[pbeal]

14. in the future you can be a Thug or a Lackey for the top 1%

This is my meme for the day

"Cheap Labor capitalists want you to be their thugs or lackeys but not their equals"

Its clumsy I know