The Job Market

Watching this discussion with great interest.

Oh, I don't think it's wrong, it's primordial. After all I care more about my kid brother than I care about you. It's not nice, it's not fair, it's life.

Competition is not nice and it's not fair. And to be honest there are quite a few sectors whose current woes I lament.

But the manufacturing sector is not one of them.

Thing is, I'm not saying it's wrong to care more about American jobs than that of others. I care more about American jobs than that of others right now too (because I'm in America right now).

What I think is wrong is the lobby that seeks to "right" this in certain sectors. I think they are not being objective.

Capitalism and free trade are competition, a competition we happen to be very good at. Other nations have tried other ideologies and we have gone and killed some of them to "contain" the other ideologies.

In the last 5 years we have exerted tremendous pressure on many nations to adopt free markets and to open their markets up to us.

When we do so we usually have an emphasis on sectors we excell in, like IT and other high tech sectors.

It is the nature of the market that we cannot compete in some sectors. Like textiles and some agricultural sectors. It's simply not possible to do so and maintain our quality of life and our salaries.

Yet I see people clamouring for protectionism and it's reckless. Some of these industries are simply going to move. We can't save our textile industry.

Manufacturing is another sector that is hard for us to compete with.

So it's not just an appeal to pity I am making here. My earlier mention of the misery is to counter the notion that callousness about these dying sectors is.. well callous. (note: I made a mistake in my earlier stats. Brazil raised their minimum wage to 71 dollars a month* in April).

Competition is ugly. In Capitalism there has to be losers. And in teh overall race we are the winners. Being teh winners means having high salaries and a quality of life that other peoples can't comprehend (just as it's difficult for Americans to comprehend their quality of life).

So, if being teh winners means we have high wages it also means some of our low tech inductries will suffer.

So in a way, complaining about our weaker industries woes is complaining about being teh winners. And THAT is my point. Not that there are some poor losers in the capitalist game.

Now let me clarify that I am not talking about the economic downturn. That hurts everyone, the winners and even more so the losers.

But even in that we ahve it good. I will use the next "winner" in this example. Japan is coming to terms with their inability to get out of their HUGE slump. They are putting mirrors in the subways to stop people from commiting suicide (if they have to look at themselves it stops some of them).

Other first world nations have had some very severe hardship.

So in short, we have it good. And complaints about our non-competitive industries and their situation is really also a complaint against our competitive sectors.

I lament the IT woes. I do not lament the textile industry. The lobbying to save these noncompetitive industries is a complaint against our high wages or a complaint against our policy of open markets and free trade.

We can't have our cake and eat it.

I think I wrote a lot of words and said little. Let me say this: I don't think it's wrong to complain about our economic woes, even if we are the richest.

I do think it wrong to try to prop up our noncompetitive industries because they are not competitive because of our high wages. Which is a result of our success. So in some cases I think the complaint is, in a round about way, a complaint about our higher wages i.e. our success.

That is what I said. I have lamented the fact that our manufacturing jobs are fast disappearing and see nothing in the wind to replace them. The IT jobs which were to been the savior are now also being sent off shore. IMO this nation is in for a long period of unemployment and economic hardship. The fact that it's far worse in the third world countries does not salve the wounds we will suffer in the states.

au, All those items made in other countries are in your home, because that's the only way you could afford to buy them. As for jobs, you can pick from Joe's list to see what industry he wish to work in, then move there. This is not a joke. c.i.

C.I
Say what?

au, Sorry. Mixed up kid, me! It all applies to Joe.

au,

Pick your poison. High salaries and noncompetitive industry or low salaries and competitive industry.

Craven
My choice would be to hit the Lotto. We could never compete in wages with the third world countries. However, that is what globalization will soon be forcing on us. It does not present a pretty picture of the economic future.

I like globalization. Contagion brings us together and we might actually start caring about others more.

craven
So does small pox.

Yeah, I'm with Craven on this one. Equality in the production and consumption of goods and services in this world sounds pretty good to me! c.i.

C.I.
You want to compete against that 8 year old boy weaving rugs in India for a few cents a day? Or the sweat shops of malaysia or well you get the picture. Than one of two things must occur. Either they rework the work rules or we do.

Bull. Both do.

au, That's not it at all. If his/her parents had sufficient income, that child will not need to work. c.i.

White-collar jobs moving abroad

A spate of new studies points to an exodus of skilled labor, from high-tech to financial services.

By Stacy A. Teicher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

For decades, Americans watched as manufacturing plants set up shop overseas to capitalize on cheap labor. Ross Perot immortalized the anger many workers felt, vividly terming the potential exodus of jobs to Mexico that "giant sucking sound." Now a growing number of US firms are sending coveted high-tech and service jobs "offshore" in a move that's reviving a debate about the future of the American workforce.No longer is it just Disney toys and Nike shoes made in Haiti and Indonesia. It's software engineering, accounting, and product development being "outsourced" to India, the Philippines, Russia, and China.
The result is a growing backlash from unionists, contract workers, and erstwhile techies with time on their hands. More broadly, the trend raises a pointed question in an age of globalization: Is sending certain jobs offshore - even high-tech ones - better for the US economy, or does it just amount to more pink slips for American workers?
"Manufacturing is a small slice of the economy, and when people saw globalization creating instability there, a lot said, 'It's not my problem,' " says Josh Bivens, an economist at Washington's Economic Policy Institute. "Now white-collar workers are feeling it."
Continued at:
http://csmonitor.com/2003/0729/p01s03-usgn.html

au, Do you understand anything about "comparative advantage?" c.i.

I understand that globalization is being sold as a panacea. IMO it is far from that. There is a long mile between theory and reality. I understand the theory I just don't buy it.

In other words, you never buy anything that is manufactured outside the USA? c.i.

c.i.


I don't know how you got that from what I have been saying. We are apparently not on the same wave length.