how to compete?
 

I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can touch
that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if it's
substandard.

ben carter wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can
touch that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
it's substandard.


isnt it more of a per unit cost? why figure it by the hour?

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:39:50 -0500, ben carter
wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:
To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.
The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...
The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can touch
that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if it's
substandard.
================================================== ==========
Underlying problem is that the US economy has become so baroque,
arcane and complex that the true life-cycle cost of anything is
almost impossible to calculate. The $1.60 v. $21.00 per hour
labor cost is only part of the up-front surface cost.

Productivity, or what you get per hour is an important factor,
but on a macro economic basis, consider that if the product is
manufactured overseas, the wages paid do not circulate in the
local (US) economy, US sales and income taxes are not paid by the
worker, US social security taxes are not paid by the worker and
employer, and the employer/factory does not pay US property taxes
which are the main revenue sources for el-hi education and local
social service such as police & fire. This leads directly to
governmental revenue shortfalls at all levels.

Because the goods are imported rather than domestically
manufactured from domestically produced materials, the current
account trade deficit is increased.

The affects/effects are even more serious in the longer term.
The informal US manufacturing infrastructure, consisting of
mutually supporting companies and individuals is destroyed, as is
the knowledge base and talent pool. This has serious national
security implications. Any economy, which can no longer make
simple mechanical devices such as washing machine timers and
alarm clocks, can't domestically produce BLU-3, proximity or
mortar fuses.

What is good for the individual in the short term may well be
disastrous for the community in the long term. One way or the
other, the full cost for all goods and services is always paid.
The only question is who is to make the payment and how much the
late fee will be.

GmcD

Just as water will naturally find its own level, so do economics. Imagine
that we , in America ( small volume) are fortunate to live at a very high
economic level while most of the rest of the world ( large volume) live at a
low level held down by pressure. ( represented by totalitarian regimes,
primitive living conditions, religious practices etc.) If you open a hole
between them, the large volume will begin to flow up rapidly while the small
volume will drop slowly until they equalize. The real question is a moral
one- do we have some divine right to stay at the top and keep the rest of
the world on the bottom.
Of course some will jump in and say we are on top because we practice
capitalism. However if you subscribe to this, then you cannot fault someone
else for practicing it better than we.

"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:39:50 -0500, ben carter
wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:
To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.
The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade
math...
The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can touch
that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if it's
substandard.
================================================== ==========
Underlying problem is that the US economy has become so baroque,
arcane and complex that the true life-cycle cost of anything is
almost impossible to calculate. The $1.60 v. $21.00 per hour
labor cost is only part of the up-front surface cost.

Productivity, or what you get per hour is an important factor,
but on a macro economic basis, consider that if the product is
manufactured overseas, the wages paid do not circulate in the
local (US) economy, US sales and income taxes are not paid by the
worker, US social security taxes are not paid by the worker and
employer, and the employer/factory does not pay US property taxes
which are the main revenue sources for el-hi education and local
social service such as police & fire. This leads directly to
governmental revenue shortfalls at all levels.

Because the goods are imported rather than domestically
manufactured from domestically produced materials, the current
account trade deficit is increased.

The affects/effects are even more serious in the longer term.
The informal US manufacturing infrastructure, consisting of
mutually supporting companies and individuals is destroyed, as is
the knowledge base and talent pool. This has serious national
security implications. Any economy, which can no longer make
simple mechanical devices such as washing machine timers and
alarm clocks, can't domestically produce BLU-3, proximity or
mortar fuses.

What is good for the individual in the short term may well be
disastrous for the community in the long term. One way or the
other, the full cost for all goods and services is always paid.
The only question is who is to make the payment and how much the
late fee will be.

GmcD

ben carter wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can
touch that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
it's substandard.

what's the per unit cost? [as mentioned above]
even more relevant, what is the effect on your profit margin?
If you buy at $1.00 and sell at $30, it is only your personal greed that
drives you to go offshore. If it is a commodity item, and you are
selling at 1.80, then it is necessity that drives you offshore.


What about lead time shipping cost and quality? Have you investigated
many US manufacturers or just ones you know?

EdFielder wrote:

Just as water will naturally find its own level, so do economics. Imagine
that we , in America ( small volume) are fortunate to live at a very high
economic level while most of the rest of the world ( large volume) live at
a low level held down by pressure. ( represented by totalitarian regimes,
primitive living conditions, religious practices etc.)

Don't forget war.... Irak war
Don't forget corruption from oil compagnies

--

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

Did you figure in shipping your product from China to the US? Unless you
are talking ship-bound container service or an extremely expensive part,
it's a huge part of the cost to consider.

....If someone finds a cheap shipping method for 200# boxes or crates from
China, Tiawan, Vietnam, etc. that gets here in 2 weeks time or less, I'd
like to know about it. My unit's internal components could also be made
there but the overall cost is much higher!

I'll stick to US made products until the cost savings would simply mean bad
stewardship of my resources... And then I'd only consider something from
overseas if I thought I could somehow benefit the US by offering a good
product for significantly less so that those who get worse jobs here would
live better because of a cheaper product. ...Not likely, but always keep an
open mind, right?
--


Regards,
Joe Agro, Jr.
(800) 871-5022
http://www.autodrill.com
http://www.multi-spindle-heads.com

V8013

One caveat - get the Chinese producer to make a prototype run and see if
they can hold to specs. Company I'm with recently got a bunch of small
parts made in India and they came covered with burrs and with slightly
undersized holes (don't know how they did that, it's a standard metric
size). The rework has long since eaten up the initial price differential.

Mac

ben carter wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can
touch that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
it's substandard.

First of all, I suspect this is a troll. *Everyone*
knows that virtually all of our small consumer goods
have been made in 3rd world countries for at least the
last 20 years. Now most of the large durable goods
and a fair amount of the parts that go into our cars
are being made there. It's a done deal and there
is no use whining about it.

Try building a VCR for $50. Try building a VCR for
$1000. The only company in the US that even tried
was Cartravision, but that's another story.

So there should be no surprise that your part would
cost 1/10 to make in China. What you left out is that
if you make it in China, you'll have a ton of issues to
deal with such as tooling, quality, shipping, customs
documents, design theft, minmum quantities, letters of
credit, etc, etc. So if you're doing 100 pieces, that
$21.00/hr starts to look pretty cheap. And if you're doing
100k pieces, you wouldn't be posting on this newsgroup.

If you're going to build something to sell, don't waste
your time on a mass market. It's not worth it. Build
something that will save a few people time and money.
Or build something so well that people will happily pay
a premium for it.

There's still plenty of opportunity for manufacturing
things in the US. But it's all in specialty work, not
commodity.

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:39:50 -0500, ben carter
wrote:

I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

$1.60? You are talking shop rate, right? Most labor in China make
much less than that per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can touch
that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if it's
substandard.

Ayup, though to be fair..the Chinese are producing less and less
substandard work.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child -
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

In article , F. George McDuffee
says...

Underlying problem is that the US economy has become so baroque,
arcane and complex

This is patently untrue.

Economics has been a complicated subject for many many years.

I'm sure that the roman economics textbooks were just as thick
and dense as our modern ones. :^)

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

Another "fact" that most people don't [want to] recognize.

Through a combination of luck and very hard work for a long
period of time by a large number of people, the United States is
blessed with an extremely high, although falling, standard of
living.

Water can be made to run up hill and a much higher standard of
living than the majority/average can be maintained, but only if
energy, time and money are continually pumped into the system.

There are have always been and always be no-loads in every
system/culture [I am not talking about the famous welfare mom
driving the Cadillac, who is simply responding to a system she
didn't create and doesn't like, rather the corporations and
organizations that take far more out of the system than they
create as a mater of policy and planning].

The problem is this has become the norm. Given this is the case,
the only rational course of action is to try to get yours while
there is still something to get.

GmcD
=====================================
On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 16:54:53 GMT, "EdFielder"
wrote:

Just as water will naturally find its own level, so do economics. Imagine
that we , in America ( small volume) are fortunate to live at a very high
economic level while most of the rest of the world ( large volume) live at a
low level held down by pressure. ( represented by totalitarian regimes,
primitive living conditions, religious practices etc.) If you open a hole
between them, the large volume will begin to flow up rapidly while the small
volume will drop slowly until they equalize. The real question is a moral
one- do we have some divine right to stay at the top and keep the rest of
the world on the bottom.
Of course some will jump in and say we are on top because we practice
capitalism. However if you subscribe to this, then you cannot fault someone
else for practicing it better than we.

"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:39:50 -0500, ben carter
wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:
To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.
The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade
math...
The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can touch
that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if it's
substandard.
================================================== ==========
Underlying problem is that the US economy has become so baroque,
arcane and complex that the true life-cycle cost of anything is
almost impossible to calculate. The $1.60 v. $21.00 per hour
labor cost is only part of the up-front surface cost.

Productivity, or what you get per hour is an important factor,
but on a macro economic basis, consider that if the product is
manufactured overseas, the wages paid do not circulate in the
local (US) economy, US sales and income taxes are not paid by the
worker, US social security taxes are not paid by the worker and
employer, and the employer/factory does not pay US property taxes
which are the main revenue sources for el-hi education and local
social service such as police & fire. This leads directly to
governmental revenue shortfalls at all levels.

Because the goods are imported rather than domestically
manufactured from domestically produced materials, the current
account trade deficit is increased.

The affects/effects are even more serious in the longer term.
The informal US manufacturing infrastructure, consisting of
mutually supporting companies and individuals is destroyed, as is
the knowledge base and talent pool. This has serious national
security implications. Any economy, which can no longer make
simple mechanical devices such as washing machine timers and
alarm clocks, can't domestically produce BLU-3, proximity or
mortar fuses.

What is good for the individual in the short term may well be
disastrous for the community in the long term. One way or the
other, the full cost for all goods and services is always paid.
The only question is who is to make the payment and how much the
late fee will be.

GmcD

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:07:54 +0100, Philippe
wrote:

EdFielder wrote:

Just as water will naturally find its own level, so do economics. Imagine
that we , in America ( small volume) are fortunate to live at a very high
economic level while most of the rest of the world ( large volume) live at
a low level held down by pressure. ( represented by totalitarian regimes,
primitive living conditions, religious practices etc.)

Don't forget war.... Irak war
Don't forget corruption from oil compagnies

Leftism was well represented by the totalitarian regimes portion of
the post.

Have you no shame?

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child -
miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied,
demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless.
Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Oui- aussi n'oubliez pas " Huil pour nouriture!!"



"Philippe" wrote in message
Don't forget war.... Irak war
Don't forget corruption from oil compagnies

--

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 16:03:28 GMT, Erik Litchy
wrote:

ben carter wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can
touch that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
it's substandard.


isnt it more of a per unit cost? why figure it by the hour?

Exactly. This is an excellent argument against using American
semi-skilled labor, but that doesn't necessarily translate into not
making it in the United States.

There's more to successful manufacturing than sending a prototype
around to a lot of job shops and getting bids.

--RC

"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 16:54:53 GMT, "EdFielder"
wrote:

Just as water will naturally find its own level, so do economics. Imagine
that we , in America ( small volume) are fortunate to live at a very high
economic level while most of the rest of the world ( large volume) live at a
low level held down by pressure. ( represented by totalitarian regimes,
primitive living conditions, religious practices etc.) If you open a hole
between them, the large volume will begin to flow up rapidly while the small
volume will drop slowly until they equalize. The real question is a moral
one- do we have some divine right to stay at the top and keep the rest of
the world on the bottom.

Obviously not. We've got to earn our value. But there are ways of
doing that -- at least in most cases. We just have to be smart enough,
quick enough and flexible enough to find them.

This applies to individuals as well as economies.

--RC



"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.

On 18 Jan 2005 10:06:35 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:

In article , F. George McDuffee
says...

Underlying problem is that the US economy has become so baroque,
arcane and complex

This is patently untrue.

Economics has been a complicated subject for many many years.

I'm sure that the roman economics textbooks were just as thick
and dense as our modern ones. :^)

Jim

He's talking about the economy, not economics. And our economy has
become baroque, arcane and complex.

(To carry your distinction back to the Roman Empire -- you'd lose.
Roman economics texts simply didn't exist because there was virtually
no formalized body of knowledge at the time.

Now if you want to compare a book about how to run a business in the
Roman Empire with a similarly complete text for our own time -- you'd
still lose. The Roman book would have been many times as thick as
ours, in part because their system was even more baroque, arcane and
complex than ours.)

--RC

"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:20:24 -0800, Jim Stewart
wrote:

ben carter wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can
touch that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
it's substandard.

First of all, I suspect this is a troll. *Everyone*
knows that virtually all of our small consumer goods
have been made in 3rd world countries for at least the
last 20 years. Now most of the large durable goods
and a fair amount of the parts that go into our cars
are being made there. It's a done deal and there
is no use whining about it.

It sounds to me like an inventor trying to bring a new product to
market. Unsophisticated, yes, but legitimate nonetheless.

--RC


"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.

ben carter wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of
mine manufactured. Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was
$1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do
the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford
the things I own then they have to be made elsewhere.
Period. No US manufacturer can touch that. Most
everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
it's substandard.


I don't see why the Chinese can't also replace the US engineers and
middle management and save even more money.

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:20:24 -0800, Jim Stewart
wrote:

ben carter wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can
touch that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
it's substandard.

First of all, I suspect this is a troll. *Everyone*
knows that virtually all of our small consumer goods
have been made in 3rd world countries for at least the
last 20 years. Now most of the large durable goods
and a fair amount of the parts that go into our cars
are being made there. It's a done deal and there
is no use whining about it.

Try building a VCR for $50. Try building a VCR for
$1000. The only company in the US that even tried
was Cartravision, but that's another story.

So there should be no surprise that your part would
cost 1/10 to make in China. What you left out is that
if you make it in China, you'll have a ton of issues to
deal with such as tooling, quality, shipping, customs
documents, design theft, minmum quantities, letters of
credit, etc, etc. So if you're doing 100 pieces, that
$21.00/hr starts to look pretty cheap. And if you're doing
100k pieces, you wouldn't be posting on this newsgroup.

If you're going to build something to sell, don't waste
your time on a mass market. It's not worth it. Build
something that will save a few people time and money.
Or build something so well that people will happily pay
a premium for it.

There's still plenty of opportunity for manufacturing
things in the US. But it's all in specialty work, not
commodity.
What Jim says is right on the money. Labor costs are so cheap in other
parts of the world that large production runs made in the USA are
rare. As to precision, these people in third world countries are just
as talented and smart as anyone in the USA. If they are making cruddy
parts most the time it's because that's what was ordered. Hard drives
and microchips (for example) are produced in China and these items are
very precise and require all sorts of precision in the process. My
shop does small runs of stuff that can't be made cheap enough and fast
enough if not produced locally. I also make scuba stuff that is
non-life supporting that sells all over the USA and Canada. But the
quantities are too small and the quality too high for someone to copy
and sell. So far. I will keep trying to come up with more products to
sell to niche markets that are too small for foriegn competition. My
biggest worry about industries moving away from the USA is military.
Too much of our military is supplied by single source overseas
companies. This puts us at risk if these companies are prevented, or
decide, to stop supplying us. A case in point: I just bought a used
USA Army surplus backpack. It is known as an "Alice" pack. It has
definitely seen plenty of use. But it's well made and still in pretty
good condition. And some of the parts have tags with the part number
and "MADE IN INDIA" printed on them. I think this is a bad idea. What
else do we have made in countries that may decide to be hostile to us?
China supplies lots of computers to the USA. Do any of these wind up
at your local Army base?
ERS

"Erik Litchy" wrote in message
news:kraHd.12748$EG1.3635@attbi_s53...
| ben carter wrote:
| I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
| Reality check:
|
| To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.
|
| The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade
math...
|
| The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
| then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can
| touch that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
| it's substandard.
|
|
| isnt it more of a per unit cost? why figure it by the hour?

The cost in time is the first figure to start with. Once you know what
it costs labor wise to manufacture an item, you then figure in the material
and other stuff. Then the economics of scale and quantity start figuring
in.

"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message
...
SNIP
| ================================================== ==========
| Underlying problem is that the US economy has become so baroque,
| arcane and complex that the true life-cycle cost of anything is
| almost impossible to calculate. The $1.60 v. $21.00 per hour
| labor cost is only part of the up-front surface cost.

Now you see why states that have high minimum wage laws have the highest
unemployment. The folks in those states that want something made in the US
outsource it to less expensive states. Hmmmm.... Did I say outsource?
Unless you made your bed from scratch, poured the iron to make your own
engine block and welded your own car together, you outsourced. When I go to
the corner market and buy corn grown in the next town over I'm still
outsourcing. Anything you can't do for less or better than someone else you
outsource, whether you think of it that way or not.

|
| Productivity, or what you get per hour is an important factor,
| but on a macro economic basis, consider that if the product is
| manufactured overseas, the wages paid do not circulate in the
| local (US) economy, US sales and income taxes are not paid by the
| worker, US social security taxes are not paid by the worker and
| employer, and the employer/factory does not pay US property taxes
| which are the main revenue sources for el-hi education and local
| social service such as police & fire. This leads directly to
| governmental revenue shortfalls at all levels.

Government has created their own shortfalls through well meaning but
improperly thought out policies. My boots, which used to be made in the US,
got shipped to China because nobody was willing to pay a whole lot of money
for boots made in the US with environmentally unacceptable chemicals and
labor conditions. Lovely. So the laws that were meant to protect the
people wound up costing them jobs. I think about that when I vote.


| The affects/effects are even more serious in the longer term.
| The informal US manufacturing infrastructure, consisting of
| mutually supporting companies and individuals is destroyed, as is
| the knowledge base and talent pool. This has serious national
| security implications. Any economy, which can no longer make
| simple mechanical devices such as washing machine timers and
| alarm clocks, can't domestically produce BLU-3, proximity or
| mortar fuses.
|
| What is good for the individual in the short term may well be
| disastrous for the community in the long term. One way or the
| other, the full cost for all goods and services is always paid.
| The only question is who is to make the payment and how much the
| late fee will be.
|
| GmcD

_You_ pay the price, in the long run, with your own job. Higher
unemployment means higher unemployment taxes. Higher unemployment taxes
mean less employees, which drives up the cost of unemployment taxes. Now if
the !@#$%^ politicians would quit making it so damn hard to have employees
and manufacture goods in the US this ugly cycle could come to a smooth and
happy stop!

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 02:47:07 GMT, "carl mciver"
wrote:

"Erik Litchy" wrote in message
news:kraHd.12748$EG1.3635@attbi_s53...
| ben carter wrote:
| I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
| Reality check:
|
| To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.
|
| The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade
math...
|
| The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
| then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can
| touch that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
| it's substandard.
|
|
| isnt it more of a per unit cost? why figure it by the hour?

The cost in time is the first figure to start with. Once you know what
it costs labor wise to manufacture an item, you then figure in the material
and other stuff. Then the economics of scale and quantity start figuring
in.

You're right that cost of labor is a place to start. But you can't
stop there, even if you want to compare unit cost of production for
identical runs.

--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:44:34 -0600, F. George McDuffee
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email


Underlying problem is that the US economy has become so baroque,

Productivity, or what you get per hour is an important factor,
but on a macro economic basis, consider that if the product is
manufactured overseas, the wages paid do not circulate in the

Because the goods are imported rather than domestically

The affects/effects are even more serious in the longer term.

And in the mantime the guy has gone broke by not selling any of his
product.

Tell the _buyers_ your theories?

I do not support overseas outsourcing. But if everybody's doin it doin
it doin it.....

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 02:57:09 GMT, "carl mciver"
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

So you are against the Govt because it has tried to protect you
against working as they do in Many Asian countries?

Think me out the policies that will let you keep working when those
guys will work for a tenth of your wage (and less!) under appalling
conditions. The people who employed you would willingly use you in the
same way, if workers' unions and Govt did not stop them.

Unions are often WAY OTT, but let employers go and many of them would
take everything they could get. Why do you think we _have_ unions and
Govt?

I watched a few stories on great modern engineering marvels of the
world. They took place in USA, Australia, Europe, and Britain. They
all succeeded over the graves of many workers, and the backs, legs and
lungs of many others. many of them were imported Asians. Payback time?
G

The Asians are not somehow "different" when it comes to greed and
being able to abuse people.

Government has created their own shortfalls through well meaning but
improperly thought out policies. My boots, which used to be made in the US,
got shipped to China because nobody was willing to pay a whole lot of money
for boots made in the US with environmentally unacceptable chemicals and
labor conditions. Lovely. So the laws that were meant to protect the
people wound up costing them jobs. I think about that when I vote.

On 18 Jan 2005 16:36:43 -0800, "Dave"
wrote:
huge snip
I don't see why the Chinese can't also replace the US engineers and
middle management and save even more money.
The chinese government has sent large numbers of their best
students to our colleges and universities to learn how to do
exactly this. India is another major player. this is true for
not only manufacturing/goods but also services, esp. in the
financial field.

I look forward to the screams when our over paid CEOs discover
they no longer have a job because all of the activities they used
to oversee have been outsourced, and the companies involved have
decided to go for the "long dollar" by eliminating their
"services" and selling direct.

GmcD

Now you see why states that have high minimum wage laws have the highest
unemployment.

I don't see the unemployment i n mass as being high, think you are wrong
here

Oh, and few older than high school work for minimum





Government has created their own shortfalls through well meaning but
improperly thought out policies. My boots, which used to be made in the US,
got shipped to China because nobody was willing to pay a whole lot of money
for boots made in the US with environmentally unacceptable chemicals and
labor conditions. Lovely. So the laws that were meant to protect the
people wound up costing them jobs. I think about that when I vote.

Yeah, but do you want to live in China, next to that leather tanning plant.



|

_You_ pay the price, in the long run, with your own job. Higher
unemployment means higher unemployment taxes. Higher unemployment taxes
mean less employees, which drives up the cost of unemployment taxes. Now if
the !@#$%^ politicians would quit making it so damn hard to have employees
and manufacture goods in the US this ugly cycle could come to a smooth and
happy stop!


Unemployment taxes in the peoples republic of mass run around 3 percent
of the first 12k. Not in the top 5 of expenses. Only McDonalds et al
care about such things, since they employ masses of cheap help.

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 02:57:09 GMT, "carl mciver"
wrote:
snip
Now you see why states that have high minimum wage laws have the highest
unemployment.
snip
Problem is that while this conjecture is plausible it is by no
means proven.

For anyone that is interested in this conjecture, one of the ways
to examine the relationship is to gather state unemployment rates
and minimum wages across several years and perform what is called
an analysis of variance or f-ratio test. This will show both the
probability of a relationship and estimate the size of the affect
of the relationship.

There are several possible outcomes.

(1) There is no statistically significant relationship at which
point you can move on to something else.

(2) There is a statistically significant relationship but the
practical effect is not significant. To use made up numbers for
an example, it can be that increasing the minimum wage does
indeed increase the unemployment rate compared to other states,
but that a $1.00 increase increases the unemployment rate by
0.001%, which is not practically significant, at which point you
can move on to something else.

(3) The third possibility is that there are both significant and
practical correlations. The problem here is that high
correlation does *NOT* prove causality. For example, North
Dakota with the federal minimum wage may indeed have a lower
unemployment rate than California with a state minimum wage $1.50
higher than the federal minimum, but only because all the
unemployed people in North Dakota moved to California.
Disentangling cause and effect, confounding and mediating
variables is frequently the hardest part of any real statistical
analysis.

This particular branch of statistics and economics is called
econometrics if you are interested and want to do a Google
search.

You can include the political party of the president and
composition of the houses of congress if you desire. The
analysis is then called political econometrics. By "shifting"
the data forward and backward in time compared to the variables
your are interested in, such as unemployment rate, inflation
rate, current accounts balance of payments deficit, etc. you can
determine if political parties make any difference, or if
unemployment rates, etc. affect election outcomes.

I have generally found then the affect of time is included in the
analysis, such as using the year as a variable, it generally
"swamps" everything else, leaving no variance to be explained by
any of the other variables, including political party control.

This indicates most of the current discussions and political
activity are simply "Punch and Judy" shows, with no real effect
on the results or outcomes, although these may be highly
entertaining to the participants and spectators.

GmcD