On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 13:25:07 GMT, Carl Byrns
wrote something
.......and in reply I say!:

I am Australian, I assume you are American. We face similar problems.
In addition I might say, many small countries such as ourselves see
most of our money going overseas even if the US _could_ hold on to its
jobs.

I disagree. If anything kills manufacturing in the US, it will be
union workers pricing themselves out of the market. Locally, we had a
very established business where the rank and file struck for higher
wages, despite knowing the employer was already fighting off a
diminshing market and offshore competition. You already know the
results- the business folded and the tooling went to- China.

You are adopting a completely one-sided stance, and seem not to
realise the inevitable consequence of what you are saying, under
globalisation in particular.

Union workers are "pricing themselves out of the market" at least in
part because they need the wages to buy the products they make, to
support the industries that employ them and make huge profits doing
so. These same industries spend billions of dollars anually trying to
encourage the overpriced workers to keep buying more and more. I am
not aware how many of the US cars, for a big instance, go overseas,
but I bet it's a small percentage. This would have been very much so
until quite recently, I would think.


Just last week, a large factory announced that it was closing- idling
1200 workers. The jobs are going not to China, but to Singapore.
It's hard to feel sorry for these workers- they were getting big bucks
and bennies for assembly line work and they wouldn't consider even a
small pay cut to stay employed.

But the lower paid workers in Singapore will not be able to buy the
very products they make. Singapore will probably export huge portions
of whatever it makes.

The workers would have accepted a "small pay cut" until the next one,
and so on. Even given that this particular factory was altruistic
enough to keep trying, in the end competition would have resulted in
the closing of that factory.


GM is setting up car factories in China. GM says they are building for
the Chinese market only, but I wonder...

And again, the Chinese workers are so underpaid that they will not buy
the cars.........unless (and surely they would not do this!) GM sells
them very cheaply, thereby starting the cycle of expectation again,
making profits, driving up wages, then moving on when it starts to
look more attractive elsewhere. And of course they would _never_ then
export those same cars back to the US at a greatly inflated price
would they? (it's all that damned polution and compliance stuff that
made us quadruple the price yer honour!)

Those guys are not working for peanuts because they _want_ to. They
are doing it because they have nothing else.

I hope you are adopting the stance that you are only for the sake of
argument. As with many people who espouse extreme conditions as the
answer to some situation, you seem to feel that in the world order
that equalled China's, you yourself would be very comfortable. If you
are a business owner, then that _may_ be financially true.

But if you could live with the mass of US, European, South African,
New Zealand and Australian citizens backing down until they were
living at Chinese economic and safety levels, to line your pockets,
and _still_ be comfortable, well....

That is where it would end, because as long as there is more profit to
be made, and profit is the overwhelming motive of industry, if
somebody offers cheaper costs per product, the job will go there.

There was a time, I think, when the memories of world war, less
communication and transport ability, and national pride prevented
this, because an American company was an American company and proud of
being able to support the country's economy. But this is no longer so.
"American" (and the others as well) companies are now simply
international, with proft, or even worse "return to the shareholder"
(most of whom have absolutely no knowledge of or interest in what the
company actually _does_), being the _only_ motive.
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Nick White --- HEAD:Hertz Music
Please remove ns from my header address to reply via email
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