Wages in America

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

No, you’re not an economist “or nothing”. Globalization also makes things cheaper, so US workers can get more for their money - in effect it is a raise (a rising standard of living).

US workers get paid more than others around the world because we are more productive.

When payroll taxes are added, liabilities to be sued if someone is gay/black/cripled and feels discriminated against, health care costs, dealing with unions, complying with government regulations, etc. the cost to hire American workers is just too high. That is why there is high unemployment.

Plus faggy, black, crippled assholes like yourself wont take $8/hr because you can milk WORKERS while you stay home playing x-box.

22

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
I am not unemployed , but under employed , If you think you will get sympathy fro the circle jerk society you need your head examined . I wish you luck , I am presently changing careers my self. Good luck, [/quote]

No such thing as under employed.

23

Job market globalization DOES NOT make things cheaper, all it does is it increases profits for big businesses, nothing wrong with that, of course, unless it’s yer job that gets outsourced or a pay cut you have to take.
In some (rather rare) cases globalization does help “economy” in general - for example cost cutting that domestic auto companies had to implement to basically stay afloat would be extremely difficult to achieve w/out outsourcing. But that’s an exception.
More often than not it’s just another profit-making technique.
I bought a Nike sweatshirt about 10 years ago. Made in USA (probably one of the last ones) - paid $30 for it.
Saw exact same shirt in the store the other day - $35. Made in Pakistan (I think) - guess which shirt Nike makes more money off of.

24

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
Job market globalization DOES NOT make things cheaper, all it does is it increases profits for big businesses, nothing wrong with that, of course, unless it’s yer job that gets outsourced or a pay cut you have to take.
In some (rather rare) cases globalization does help “economy” in general - for example cost cutting that domestic auto companies had to implement to basically stay afloat would be extremely difficult to achieve w/out outsourcing. But that’s an exception.
More often than not it’s just another profit-making technique.
I bought a Nike sweatshirt about 10 years ago. Made in USA (probably one of the last ones) - paid $30 for it.
Saw exact same shirt in the store the other day - $35. Made in Pakistan (I think) - guess which shirt Nike makes more money off of.
[/quote]

Your argument is flawed, let me point out two things. You bought a high demand product, something that has a Nike logo on it, and you also looked at two products ten years apart. Saying that because after ten years has passed the product is more expensive, so globalization does not work is not objective at all.

Have you ever been to a Nike outlet when they have a sale, big crowds, even if they have a 20% discounts. I don’t think Nike’s turn-over is fast enough with the high demand for its products. I am sure they lowered the price when they went overseas, but after awhile to keep turnover regular they had to raise the price. Basic business practices.

25

I’m not saying Nike will make more because the shirt is more expensive, taking inflation etc into consideration $35 now is probably roughly the same or even slightly less then $30 ten years ago. That’s not the point. The point is - by outsourcing Nike is increasing their profit margin, not lowering the prices.

Another example - I know of quite a few IT companies that outsource their development to India and China.
Do they charge their customers less because of that? Nope. Do they make more money? You bet.

Yes, there are examples when outsourcing is basically the only way for companies to avoid going belly up if the demand drops drastically or their competitors start the price war. But the mere fact of outsourcing does not lead to lower prices.

26

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
I’m not saying Nike will make more because the shirt is more expensive, taking inflation etc into consideration $35 now is probably roughly the same or even slightly less then $30 ten years ago. That’s not the point. The point is - by outsourcing Nike is increasing their profit margin, not lowering the prices.

Another example - I know of quite a few IT companies that outsource their development to India and China.
Do they charge their customers less because of that? Nope. Do they make more money? You bet.

Yes, there are examples when outsourcing is basically the only way for companies to avoid going belly up if the demand drops drastically or their competitors start the price war. But the mere fact of outsourcing does not lead to lower prices.
[/quote]

I think you just ignored my entire post.

I gave a partner of mine a phone call, mostly because of your claims. He relayed to me that he has worked with Nike for about a decade and a half. He also relayed to me that Nike, after outsourcing a product, lowers the wholesale price and the retail price. However, when turnover is too quick and shelf space is not optimize (in its customers stores), Nike will raise the retail price to slow the turnover of product.

Nike mostly wholesales their products. The price you pay in stores is set by Nike, because their prices are part of their image. Nike’s profit margin does increase when they outsource, as does the stores profit margin. The customer also benefits, as usual the retail price drops as Nike has the resources now to make more product.

On your note of inflation, inflation has been hirer that 16% over the last decade. In actuality, Nike’s prices are lower than they were ten years ago.

27

Brother Chris - you’re just proving my point, whatever the driver behind the pricing is - profit, turnover, retail price wars, etc etc - the prices don’t just drop because the company for some inexplicable reason just wants to drop the price on the product that is selling well.

When retail is not a factor (such as in IT which I mentioned in the previous post) - those factors aren’t at play, companies just pocket the difference.

Another example - automotive industry. Some “domestic” cars are assembled in Mexico. Does MSRP go down when a model gets “outsourced”? Nope. I’ve seen cases where due to delays in plant re-tooling some models were assembled both in the US and in Mexico for a short period of time. Sold at the same price of course, which did not drop when the outsourcing was 100% complete.
All of the “big 3” also outsource their IT development and support to various degrees. Does this have any effect on the final price of the vehicle? Nope.
More money is spent internally on R&D, Engineering (which also is being slowly outsourced), etc.

The only immediate benefactors from outsourcing are the companies getting higher profit, becoming more competitive (for example by pumping more money into R&D) etc etc - which there’s nothing wrong with to a certain point. Outsourcing isn’t always “bad”.
That said though - saying that Americans benefit from outsourcing because prices automatically go down just because of outsourcing is a false statement.

28

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
Job market globalization DOES NOT make things cheaper, all it does is it increases profits for big businesses, nothing wrong with that, of course, unless it’s yer job that gets outsourced or a pay cut you have to take.
In some (rather rare) cases globalization does help “economy” in general - for example cost cutting that domestic auto companies had to implement to basically stay afloat would be extremely difficult to achieve w/out outsourcing. But that’s an exception.
More often than not it’s just another profit-making technique.
I bought a Nike sweatshirt about 10 years ago. Made in USA (probably one of the last ones) - paid $30 for it.
Saw exact same shirt in the store the other day - $35. Made in Pakistan (I think) - guess which shirt Nike makes more money off of.
[/quote]

One word:

Walmart

29

Mexico is a sore spot for me. My last job we had a town hall meeting and the big boss showed a flow chart showing how much a spring costs to make here and in Mexico. It was something like $2 in mexico and Ontario was $24. We all looked at each other and knew the clock was ticking. The lay-offs went twenty years seniority deep. Maybe it was long overdue, who knows.

How can you turn that down if your a company, moveing to mexico is the smart move.

Here’s the rub. The company who was our biggest customer refused to buy parts made in mexico because they were inferior, period. So to get around it they would make the “easy” part of the spring in mexico then they would ship it up here so we could finish the “hard” part. Then we would paint over the made in mexico stamp and sell it to the customer without them knowing a fucking thing. That’s greed to me and unethical. We are talking millions of dollars and I thought it was risky as fuck. No way they passed those savings on to the customer.

Making good bank in maufacturing is pretty much dead in Ontario now.

30

[quote]Otep wrote:

[quote]apbt55 wrote:
Your statements are only true if the markets being globalized to are also free markets, but they are not.

so it is not the same.

The only way you can open up a free market and the outcome not be disasterous to that marketis to open it to other free markets where goods and services have “real” values that are similar or can be standardized.

By opening to markets that are not free such as ones from more socialist or communist based societies, you lose actual value of goods and services and these become arbitrary values which are neither similar nor can they be properly standardizable. This creates a vastly disproportionate flow of goods and services eventually devaluing the free market and cusing it to crash as we are seeing. [/quote]

Huh?

How does a product made in China lose value the moment it leaves communist soil? If anything, it gains value, eg an iphone that sells for around 120 USD can cross the continent and be sold for twice that amount.

I see the vastly disproportionate flow of goods… commonly referred to as a trade imbalance. You know this happens with non-communist nations too… right? Like between America and Japan? Or between America and Canada. I see it, I really do, but it doesn’t mean everything Sifu or you seem to believe it does.

Also, you’re not seeing the free-market crash. [/quote]

So when the jobs go over to these countries, people in the free market are no longer making the money to buy these cheaper products, all the businesses associated with the product can suffer and even more jobs lost, then you end up with a country in huge debt, no longer produces anything of value, and very few jobs. Sound familiar.

That is why it is bad to open a free market to a market that is not. not necessarily the value of products. But in our market people and their time have a set value, in a country that does not, they technically have no value adding no value.

If you look at books that try to argue economics from a socialist perspectvei they will even admit, we need a free market from which to assign value to goods and services. Because innatley the idea of socialism completely devalues, goods, sevices, people, time, family, everything. But in a corrupt world there is aristocracy and they have value greater then the sum of all others, thus the reason in its pure form it cannot work.

The same can be said with business, that is why we laws and regulations. But the two (gov’t and business) should never be congealed.

31

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

[quote]apbt55 wrote:
Your statements are only true if the markets being globalized to are also free markets, but they are not.

so it is not the same.

The only way you can open up a free market and the outcome not be disasterous to that marketis to open it to other free markets where goods and services have “real” values that are similar or can be standardized.

By opening to markets that are not free such as ones from more socialist or communist based societies, you lose actual value of goods and services and these become arbitrary values which are neither similar nor can they be properly standardizable. This creates a vastly disproportionate flow of goods and services eventually devaluing the free market and cusing it to crash as we are seeing. [/quote]

Huh?

How does a product made in China lose value the moment it leaves communist soil? If anything, it gains value, eg an iphone that sells for around 120 USD can cross the continent and be sold for twice that amount.

I see the vastly disproportionate flow of goods… commonly referred to as a trade imbalance. You know this happens with non-communist nations too… right? Like between America and Japan? Or between America and Canada. I see it, I really do, but it doesn’t mean everything Sifu or you seem to believe it does.

Also, you’re not seeing the free-market crash. [/quote]

So when the jobs go over to these countries, people in the free market are no longer making the money to buy these cheaper products, all the businesses associated with the product can suffer and even more jobs lost, then you end up with a country in huge debt, no longer produces anything of value, and very few jobs. Sound familiar.

That is why it is bad to open a free market to a market that is not. not necessarily the value of products. But in our market people and their time have a set value, in a country that does not, they technically have no value adding no value.

If you look at books that try to argue economics from a socialist perspectvei they will even admit, we need a free market from which to assign value to goods and services. Because innatley the idea of socialism completely devalues, goods, sevices, people, time, family, everything. But in a corrupt world there is aristocracy and they have value greater then the sum of all others, thus the reason in its pure form it cannot work.

The same can be said with business, that is why we laws and regulations. But the two (gov’t and business) should never be congealed. [/quote]

No.

No matter how they produce it your heavily regulated market ascribes value to them.

It is also not their fault that you have regulated and taxed your industry in a way that makes production in the US economic suicide.

If they outcompete you it is because you shackled yourself and about the one good thing for the American poor is that what they need gets produced cheaply in China.

32

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

[quote]apbt55 wrote:
Your statements are only true if the markets being globalized to are also free markets, but they are not.

so it is not the same.

The only way you can open up a free market and the outcome not be disasterous to that marketis to open it to other free markets where goods and services have “real” values that are similar or can be standardized.

By opening to markets that are not free such as ones from more socialist or communist based societies, you lose actual value of goods and services and these become arbitrary values which are neither similar nor can they be properly standardizable. This creates a vastly disproportionate flow of goods and services eventually devaluing the free market and cusing it to crash as we are seeing. [/quote]

Huh?

How does a product made in China lose value the moment it leaves communist soil? If anything, it gains value, eg an iphone that sells for around 120 USD can cross the continent and be sold for twice that amount.

I see the vastly disproportionate flow of goods… commonly referred to as a trade imbalance. You know this happens with non-communist nations too… right? Like between America and Japan? Or between America and Canada. I see it, I really do, but it doesn’t mean everything Sifu or you seem to believe it does.

Also, you’re not seeing the free-market crash. [/quote]

So when the jobs go over to these countries, people in the free market are no longer making the money to buy these cheaper products, all the businesses associated with the product can suffer and even more jobs lost, then you end up with a country in huge debt, no longer produces anything of value, and very few jobs. Sound familiar.

That is why it is bad to open a free market to a market that is not. not necessarily the value of products. But in our market people and their time have a set value, in a country that does not, they technically have no value adding no value.

If you look at books that try to argue economics from a socialist perspectvei they will even admit, we need a free market from which to assign value to goods and services. Because innatley the idea of socialism completely devalues, goods, sevices, people, time, family, everything. But in a corrupt world there is aristocracy and they have value greater then the sum of all others, thus the reason in its pure form it cannot work.

The same can be said with business, that is why we laws and regulations. But the two (gov’t and business) should never be congealed. [/quote]

No.

No matter how they produce it your heavily regulated market ascribes value to them.

It is also not their fault that you have regulated and taxed your industry in a way that makes production in the US economic suicide.

If they outcompete you it is because you shackled yourself and about the one good thing for the American poor is that what they need gets produced cheaply in China.

[/quote]

No, we have regulations for a reason, and they do need to be there. Yeah thanks china for putting harmful metals in our jewelery, harmful paints on toys and harmful polypeptides in our dog food and who knows what else.

And by removing jobs from an open market to a market where things have no assignable value makes it easy to put companies out of business. And to be able to sell the crap that comes from these companies on the same level is absolutely absurd.

Maybe if you want america to fail, or like the idea of one world government, one world economy you think it would be a good idea, but any rational american should be able to see that opening it up to a non free market has dire consequences which are already showing themselves.

33

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]apbt55 wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

[quote]apbt55 wrote:
Your statements are only true if the markets being globalized to are also free markets, but they are not.

so it is not the same.

The only way you can open up a free market and the outcome not be disasterous to that marketis to open it to other free markets where goods and services have “real” values that are similar or can be standardized.

By opening to markets that are not free such as ones from more socialist or communist based societies, you lose actual value of goods and services and these become arbitrary values which are neither similar nor can they be properly standardizable. This creates a vastly disproportionate flow of goods and services eventually devaluing the free market and cusing it to crash as we are seeing. [/quote]

Huh?

How does a product made in China lose value the moment it leaves communist soil? If anything, it gains value, eg an iphone that sells for around 120 USD can cross the continent and be sold for twice that amount.

I see the vastly disproportionate flow of goods… commonly referred to as a trade imbalance. You know this happens with non-communist nations too… right? Like between America and Japan? Or between America and Canada. I see it, I really do, but it doesn’t mean everything Sifu or you seem to believe it does.

Also, you’re not seeing the free-market crash. [/quote]

So when the jobs go over to these countries, people in the free market are no longer making the money to buy these cheaper products, all the businesses associated with the product can suffer and even more jobs lost, then you end up with a country in huge debt, no longer produces anything of value, and very few jobs. Sound familiar.

That is why it is bad to open a free market to a market that is not. not necessarily the value of products. But in our market people and their time have a set value, in a country that does not, they technically have no value adding no value.

If you look at books that try to argue economics from a socialist perspectvei they will even admit, we need a free market from which to assign value to goods and services. Because innatley the idea of socialism completely devalues, goods, sevices, people, time, family, everything. But in a corrupt world there is aristocracy and they have value greater then the sum of all others, thus the reason in its pure form it cannot work.

The same can be said with business, that is why we laws and regulations. But the two (gov’t and business) should never be congealed. [/quote]

No.

No matter how they produce it your heavily regulated market ascribes value to them.

It is also not their fault that you have regulated and taxed your industry in a way that makes production in the US economic suicide.

If they outcompete you it is because you shackled yourself and about the one good thing for the American poor is that what they need gets produced cheaply in China.

[/quote]

No, we have regulations for a reason, and they do need to be there. Yeah thanks china for putting harmful metals in our jewelery, harmful paints on toys and harmful polypeptides in our dog food and who knows what else.

And by removing jobs from an open market to a market where things have no assignable value makes it easy to put companies out of business. And to be able to sell the crap that comes from these companies on the same level is absolutely absurd.

Maybe if you want america to fail, or like the idea of one world government, one world economy you think it would be a good idea, but any rational american should be able to see that opening it up to a non free market has dire consequences which are already showing themselves. [/quote]

No, they have not.

First, you do not understand Mises calculation problem.

Second, it does not arise in China, because they have free enough markets.

Third, even if it arose, it would be irrelevant as long as American consumers can choose whether they buy it at the price that is advertised or not. Even if those goods fell from the sky you would have no calculation problem as long as people could choose.

Fourth:

All the red tape and regulations need to be there?

Mwuahahahaha!

So why do the Chinese outcompete you then?

34

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
Job market globalization DOES NOT make things cheaper, all it does is it increases profits for big businesses, nothing wrong with that, of course, unless it’s yer job that gets outsourced or a pay cut you have to take.
In some (rather rare) cases globalization does help “economy” in general - for example cost cutting that domestic auto companies had to implement to basically stay afloat would be extremely difficult to achieve w/out outsourcing. But that’s an exception.
More often than not it’s just another profit-making technique.
I bought a Nike sweatshirt about 10 years ago. Made in USA (probably one of the last ones) - paid $30 for it.
Saw exact same shirt in the store the other day - $35. Made in Pakistan (I think) - guess which shirt Nike makes more money off of.
[/quote]

One word:

Walmart

[/quote]

their prices are a prime example of a retail price “war” which I mentioned above. has nothing to do with outsourcing per se.

As for the Chinese “outcompeting” US workers - their standards of living are way lower so they are willing to do the same work for less. Nothing complicated.
Now when it comes to say Japanese - that’s a different story that’s a little more tricky, but that goes beyond the outsourcing discussion.

35

[quote]ReignIB wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
Job market globalization DOES NOT make things cheaper, all it does is it increases profits for big businesses, nothing wrong with that, of course, unless it’s yer job that gets outsourced or a pay cut you have to take.
In some (rather rare) cases globalization does help “economy” in general - for example cost cutting that domestic auto companies had to implement to basically stay afloat would be extremely difficult to achieve w/out outsourcing. But that’s an exception.
More often than not it’s just another profit-making technique.
I bought a Nike sweatshirt about 10 years ago. Made in USA (probably one of the last ones) - paid $30 for it.
Saw exact same shirt in the store the other day - $35. Made in Pakistan (I think) - guess which shirt Nike makes more money off of.
[/quote]

One word:

Walmart

[/quote]

their prices are a prime example of a retail price “war” which I mentioned above. has nothing to do with outsourcing per se.

As for the Chinese “outcompeting” US workers - their standards of living are way lower so they are willing to do the same work for less. Nothing complicated.
Now when it comes to say Japanese - that’s a different story that’s a little more tricky, but that goes beyond the outsourcing discussion.
[/quote]

Your idea of a “retail price war” is just an example of a general concept, namely competition.

Prices tend to drop because companies compete.

36

correct, price war is one of the forms of competition in the free market (it’s not “my idea” - feel free to google it), it can happen with or without outsourcing in the picture.
case in point - just bought some .40 ammo @ walmart (which is pretty much all I buy there) - made in the USA, cheaper than their competition sells it for (Meijer, Dunhams, etc) but no outsourcing to speak of in that case.

37

[quote]ReignIB wrote:
Brother Chris - you’re just proving my point, whatever the driver behind the pricing is - profit, turnover, retail price wars, etc etc - the prices don’t just drop because the company for some inexplicable reason just wants to drop the price on the product that is selling well.
[/quote]

No I am not, you are missing my point. I just told you that prices do change, when Nike shirts and jersey’s were outsourced the prices on them dropped 15%. I remember seven years ago when Nike sandals went from a $99 to $84 a pair. The prices do drop, however after Nike figures out what the correct price is so that shelves are not empty (it is one of Nike’s rules to never let shelves become empty except on Christmas Eve and Black Friday) and turnover is correct they do not go up much except with inflation.

Of course they do not drop prices for no inexplicable reason, they drop prices because they are capable themselves of supplying a better turnover in the stores. You have tunnel vision.

Yeah, and prices go down on their end product, usually. What is your point?

First of do you even know what outsourced means? You do understand that cars usually sell for a loss in America’s “domestic” automotive industry? They are trying to slowly get their profit margin back, why do you think the car manufactures are having a terrible time with avoiding bankruptcy? You are comparing two different things, the “big 3” are very inefficient, losing money every car they sell. So what if they do not lower the price in they outsource their vehicles, they are still losing money.

Of course it is being outsourced, there are better firms that can do the job. That is called competition.

Lol @ automotive companies making higher profits, are you a hermit? Just curious, as your knowledge of the past half-decade is embarrassing. All three almost went bankrupt, GM did go bankrupt, Mopar did go bankrupt, and Ford saved itself. No one said outsourcing makes prices go down immediately, obvious from these companies. They were in the red, they were outsourcing to get into the black. Americans do benefit from outsourcing, yes some people may feel immediate loss, but in the long run it helps. The fact that you also picked oligarchy, basically, as your example shows your lack of logic. Those industry is highly regulated, makes it hard for competition. If there was more competition I am sure the prices would be forced down after outsourcing.

38

Wow, a lot of the logic in here is bad. I am done.

39

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
Wow, a lot of the logic in here is bad. I am done.[/quote]

I know, you have no examples of drastically lower prices on anything that is being outsourced, yet you insist that outsourcing is “good, because it brings the prices down”.
It doesn’t.

As for the automotive - outsourcing there started WAY before they got into trouble recently, so your rant about them “losing money on every vehicle” is completely irrelevant.
What’s interesting is some of the highest profit margin vehicles were/are actually built in Mexico.

40

That’s why you try to maximize your tax revenue collection off of foreign made goods, while trying to keep the domestic tax burden as low as possible. Someone is getting taxed.