Does adherence to strict environmental policies causes jobs outsourcing.

[.... callchet ....]

Do our environmental laws add a cost to our labor that other countries don't have? Will we be prohibited from competing on the world market because our laws make our cost of labor higher than other countries? Is there a solution ? What can make our labor compete ? Or is that not the reason for our jobs leaving the country ?

[glowing]

1. I would say, since the environment affects more than our pocket books,

its our health and our future, that our trade policies must state that any incoming trade adheres to the strong environmental policies like our own.

[enki23]

2. not if we enforce those same environmental policies in our trade agreements

.

[hippywife]

3. It may or may not. It doesn't matter.

The goal is to get everyone observing the same labor and environmental standards around the world so there is an even playing field for everyone, not toss out the baby with the bathwater and go back to the way we used to pollute.

[Gman]

4. Not anymore than raising the minimum wage causes layoffs

it's all RW scare myths.

[BlueGADawg]

5. This is such a huge republicon corporate myth

Sure, it costs a more to comply with environmental regulations, which probably does make domestic products and services cost more than foreign made goods, or reducing labor costs(by outsourcing) to keep prices down. What we never hear is the huge costs of cleaning up the mess left behind from companies that pollute. We all pay for that in the form of higher taxes. It's a lot cheaper in the long run to pay a little more up front, than pay a lot more in cleanup cost in the end. But in the US, the short term corporate profits is all that matters. When a company gets nailed for pollution, they declare bankruptcy and walk away, leaving us to foot the bill for cleanup.

[stillcool]

6. This might help...

http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/decline.htm

In the 1970s and 1980s, many of the industrial giants in the United States, Europe, and Japan became global companies; they no longer wanted to claim allegiance to any country in the world. By becoming global companies they could force nations to compete with each other to attract their companies to build factories in their countries. By the 1980s, these global companies, now often called Transnational corporations (TNCs) were aggressively using this strategy of globalization to blackmail countries into reducing their costs and increasing their profits. I believe that President Reagan's economic program, which Phillips and others have called Reaganomics, reflect the increasing reality of the global industrial economy and the power of TNCs to blackmail even the biggest and strongest countries and force them to create economic, political, and social conditions that will reduce their companies' costs and increase their profits. Let's now look at some of the major demands these TNCs imposed on industrial countries in the 1980s and 1990s:

Demands Made by Transnational Corporations to do Business in a
Country under the Global Economy

1. Greatly reduce Corporate taxes and taxes on the rich.

2. Greatly reduce government spending in order to cut taxes.

3. Increase taxes on the middle-class and poor to pay for the necessary government services, such as support for TNCs.

4. Reduce environmental, work-safety, and product-safety regulations.

5. Provide millions and millions of dollars in tax incentives and subsidies to TNCs in order to convince them to locate in your country.

6. Build and support modern industrial factories for TNCs to use rent-free.

7. Create tax-free export processing zones so that TNCs can produce products without paying any taxes at all.

8. Reduce and lower worker's wages by keeping the minimum wage low or eliminating the minimum wage altogether.

9. Reduce the costs of hiring workers by reducing or eliminating workers' compensation taxes, social security taxes,and health insurance taxes.

10. Allow child-labor at almost any age and under any conditions.

11. Do not enforce maximum work-day hours, such as the eight hour day or the 40 hour week.

12. Use government power to crush and weaken labor unions. Allow companies to hire security firms to harass and intimidate workers and unions.

13. Allow TNCs to freely take their money and profits out of your country.

14. Reduce government support for health-care, education, and anti-poverty and anti-hunger programs, forcing workers to work for any wage just to take care of and feed their families.

15. Support global free trade and work to prevent countries from denying companies the right to sell their products despite the brutal conditions, environmental destruction, and exploitation of their workers.

16. Don't restrict or limit immigration and encourage high levels of unemployment in order to force workers to compete by working for lower and lower wages.

17. Limit and restrict local and national government control over their economies. Encourage global bodies to set economic standards that will benefit TNCs.

18. Limit the ability of workers and citizens to challenge the TNCs and their own government's economic programs which help the TNCs at their expense.

19. Create massive national debts in order to bankrupt governments and force them to be even more at the mercy of the TNCs. Governments can thus say they have no choice but to accept these conditions.

20. Force your citizens to accept lower standards of living and quality of life in order to guarantee higher profits for TNCs.

[.... callchet ....]

8. I have been reading about the TNC's. How do

we deal with them. They have no respect for human life or the environment. LIke the previous comment. They make a mess, dissolve the company and walk away scott free.

[stillcool]

9. I don't know....I think it's a global problem..

and it needs a global solution.

Top 200: The Rise of Global Corporate Power
By Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh
Corporate Watch
2000
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/tncs/top200.htm

Summary of Findings
1. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are now global corporations; only 49 are countries.
2. The combined sales of the world's Top 200 corporations are far greater than a quarter of the world's economic activity.
3. The Top 200 corporations' combined sales are bigger than the combined economies of all countries minus the biggest 9; that is they surpass the combined economies of 182 countries.
4. The Top 200 have almost twice the economic clout of the poorest four-fifths of humanity.
5. The Top 200 have been net job destroyers in recent years. Their combined global employment is only 18.8 million, which is less than a third of one one-hundredth of one percent of the world's people.
6. Not only are the world's largest corporations cutting workers, their CEOs often benefit financially from the job cuts.
7. Japanese corporations have surpassed U.S. corporations in the ranking of the Top 200.
8. Over half of the sales of the Top 200 are in just 5 economic sectors; and corporate concentration in these sectors is high.
9. When General Motors trades with itself, is that free trade?: One-third of world trade is simply transactions among various units of the same corporation.
10. The Top 200 are creating a global economic apartheid, not a global village. The top eight telecommunications firms, for example, have been expanding global sales rapidly, yet over nine-tenths of humanity remains without phones.

[.... callchet ....]

7. How would we propose a solution ?

Subsidize our own labor ? Temporarily suspend regulations until we reach a unilateral world standard on the environment. What is the Presidential solution ? We need to put people to work here. Is there a solution ?

[bhikkhu]

10. Here's an obvious solution:

Require US companies to follow US laws in whatever company they might operate in. Why have laws if we don't think they are worth following?

Second, require any foreign company that sells products here to demonstrate that they follow sound environmental practices. It is sad that this should seem so impossible, or that something that might restrain commerce is seen as worse than unrestrained commerce that destroys lives, land, and sea.

[.... callchet ....]

11. Ban all private air traffic and private ownership of airplanes

and helicopters. Don't hang up, think about it. How about this. Ban all private air traffic and private ownership of airplanes. We don't need to be on a fast track to disaster. If they ban all private air traffic, then maybe everybody could concentrate on their own countries. The purpose of flying I guess is to get things done sooner. If the things to get done are based on human rights instead of balance sheets, then the world would have goals to save the world.

[.... callchet ....]

12. Ban all private air traffic and private ownership of airplanes

Don't hang up, think about it. How about this. Ban all private air traffic and private ownership of airplanes. We don't need to be on a fast track to disaster. If they ban all private air traffic, then maybe everybody could concentrate on their own countries. The purpose of flying I guess is to get things done sooner. If the things to get done are based on human rights instead of balance sheets, then the world would have goals to save the world.

[Nihil]

13. That's an interesting thought and worthy of an OP itself.

Don't clutter up this (not particularly related) thread of yours with
a different (but equally interesting) sub-thread.
:thumbsup:

There again, you could always try posting it in GD - they're always
receptive to suggestions of energy conservation over there ...
:evilgrin: