[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
Economy Title: The Decline of Manufacturing in America: A Case Study One frequent and frustrating line that often crops up in the comments section of this blog is that American labor has no hope, it should just accept Chinese wages, since price is all that matters. That line of thinking is wrongheaded on multiple levels. It assumes direct factory labor is the most important cost driver, when for most manufactured goods, it is 11% to 15% of total product cost (and increased coordination costs of much more expensive managers are a significant offset to any cost savings achieved by using cheaper factory workers in faraway locations). It also assumes cost is the only way to compete, when that is naive on an input as well as a product level. How do these “labor cost is destiny” advocates explain the continued success of export powerhouse Germany? Finally, the offshoring,/outsourcing vogue ignores the riskiness and lower flexibility of extended supply chains. This argument is sorely misguided because it serves to exculpate diseased, greedy, and incompetent American managers and executives. In the overwhelming majority of places where I lived in my childhood, a manufacturing plant was the biggest employer in the community. And when I went to business school, manufacturing was still seen as important. Indeed, the rise of Germany and Japan was then seen as a due to sclerotic American management not being able to keep up with their innovations in product design and factory management. But if you were to ask most people, they’d now blame the fall of American manufacturing on our workers, which serves to shift focus from the top of the food chain at a time when they’ve managed to greatly widen the gap between their pay and that of the folks reporting to them. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 26. Repeal NAFTA, GATT and other such agreemtments. Thell the WTO to go to hell. Tell the UN to go to hell. Put high tariffs on Chinese goods. Put tariffs on all other imports too. Stop foreign aid. Kick the foreigners out of our colleges.
#3. To: A K A Stone (#2) Repeal NAFTA, GATT and other such agreemtments. Thell the WTO to go to hell. Tell the UN to go to hell. Put high tariffs on Chinese goods. Put tariffs on all other imports too. Stop foreign aid. Kick the foreigners out of our colleges. And that would mean the End of the USSA Empire. Isolation would also eliminate the Federal Reserve and the $ as World Reserve Currency. The Top 50 000 would look like a satellite on re entry... I'm all for it....;}
#4. To: mcgowanjm (#3) And that would mean the End of the USSA Empire. It would make our people better off. As the jobs return they could phase out welfare or reform it.
#14. To: A K A Stone (#4) As the jobs return The jobs will never return. Lose the idea of 'jobs'. This neglect of a gigantic fall in the price of corporate Europe’s assets and earnings power is a bit scary. If there is any wonder as to why the alternative blogosphere is gaining readers by leaps and bounds, today’s Bloomberg shows why. The mass media in the U. S. decidedly accentuates the positive. We're in a Command Economy now.
#19. To: mcgowanjm (#14) As the jobs return I understand your pessimism. But if the country wakes up and we elect more tea party people in 12 we can change. There is more then one branch of the tea party. Lets call it the Rubio and the Rand Paul wings. I'm in the Rand Paul wing of the tea party. I do like Rubio though but not on everything.
#24. To: A K A Stone (#19) I understand your pessimism. I don't think you do, A K. And I'm not pessimistic. I'm realistic. Very different...;} Our problems far exceed anything resolvable with a "class war" mindset, but it is nonetheless instructive that a recent study found wealthy people tend to be very self-satisfied with their own merit while lacking empathy for those without their connections:The wealthy lack empathy, are self-centered: Because the rich gloss over the ways family connections, money and education helped, they come to denigrate the role of government and vigorously oppose taxes to fund it. As I have made clear here many times, Plan A--millions of jobs appearing out of thin air, magically called into existence by the incantations of cargo-cult Keynesians and their Wall Street banker brethren who think all our structural unemployment will go away if only the Federal Reserve shoves another couple trillion dollars into the banks and speculators' hands every year--has failed. We need a Plan B, and we have no models for Plan B.
#26. To: mcgowanjm, A K A Stone (#24) ...a recent study found wealthy people tend to be very self-satisfied with their own merit while lacking empathy for those without their connections:The wealthy lack empathy, are self-centered: Because the rich gloss over the ways family connections, money and education helped, they come to denigrate the role of government and vigorously oppose taxes to fund it. The truth of that statement is on display in the Man [24 y-o] Dies From Toothache, Couldn't Afford Meds thread. That is not to say those of the "to dumb to live" ilk are wealthy, I doubt they are. Like some death camp inmates, they've identified themselves with their masters and abuse their fellow inmates.
Replies to Comment # 26. There are no replies to Comment # 26.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 26. Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest |
|
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|