American Facts - The Eleventh Commandment

[Quantum Windbag]

Can we please get this thread moved to Rubber Room so I can treat the OP with the contempt he obviously deserves for refusing to deal with facts?

 

[Wiseacre]

Another Fact category?

Watching Jack Welch last week, and 60 Minutes Sunday created a kind of whacked out epiphany, Jack the outsourcer in chief is arguing the employment figures are fudged, and 60 minutes is primarily about socialist and communist countries and their massive manufacturing industries. Add the ads for luxury foreign cars, mostly from Japan, and any normal American should wonder. Friends tell me your couch is foreign made too. The Chinese, French, Japanese, Swiss, and Italians are monopolizing technologies America created - but to add insult to injury I find out the American made sunglasses I've bought many times, were crushed by the French who now own much of America's eye glass industry on all levels. Oakley is the brand. So think of this, the cars are mostly foreign made (not ours), the glasses are foreign made, the advanced telecommunications equipment is foreign made and anyone who thinks they can drown their sorrow in an American owned beer company better look for a micro brewery. It would seem the massive taxes of the European socialists, and the communist government must know a thing about markets and manufacturing Americans don't. Anyone know. Look up keiretsu sometime. Jobs anyone, jobs.....

Having watched Johnny Unitas play I forgot about that record till this week. Given the Saints playbook Sunday, Brees was a sure thing. Thankfully Football is not outsourced...yet...

'Hell no I ain't driving to no micro brewery this rot gut from walmart were cheap... drink up.'


Huawei probed for security, espionage risk - CBS News

Sticker shock: Why are glasses so expensive? - CBS News

Didn't Jeffrey Immelt outsource a few jobs? Dunno, I didn't look it up. No doubt not as much as Welch, but he hasn't been in charge as long either.

Anyway, the rest of your post seems to be dealing with the rise of foreign competition relative to our own domestic industries. Not many communist countries are doing that well these days except for China, who has embraced capitalistic concepts and thereby allowed their economy to soar. But look at their labor costs relative to ours, is it any wonder they can provide products at a lower cost, even after including shipping expenses?

Then there are the European socialist democratic countries, one reason why their products sell here is the lower value of the Euro. I have no numbers to support my contention, but I suspect most of their stuff is targeted to the high end spenders - BMWs, etc. I don't think you'll find many European products in Walmart, could be wrong though. Many of those countries have lowered their corporate tax rates, and some are reworking their labor structures to be more competitive. IOW, supply side economics. LOL, thought I'd sneak that one in. But if we can't compete by lowering costs and thereby prices, then our balance of payments will continue to be negative and growing.

 

[midcan5]

Wiseacre, You seem to be fudging quite a bit there. And yes, German made autos are at the high end of the luxury status province. Last summer someone told me an acquaintance had two Mercedes as if I was supposed to be impressed. We have two Buicks made here. Take that. Guess which purchases helped the American worker. But my points seem to be floating above the conversation. I know GE was an early and large outsourcer, I read about that many years ago when the topic came up more often than just election time. (I have worked in corporate America for forty years.) But as Americans castigate government, cry over taxes, and blame Obama for everything, work is changing while the jargon of total BS fills the air with no connection to the ground game. The book quoted below explains much of the change in dialogue.

PS The credentials of the bloggers is on a par with almost any journalist. Shooting the messenger of bad news is as old as time.

"A great transformation of American politics began during the years that Ronald Reagan was in the White House. This might not, at first, have appeared the likely outcome of his two administrations. Conservative activists (the same ones who would in later years celebrate Reagan as a saint) struggled during the 1980s with various disappointments: as president, Reagan did not end abortion, he met with Soviet leader Mikhail Corbachev, and he failed to eliminate the welfare state or even notably shrink government bureaucracies. And the enthusiasm within the business community that followed his election did not last long, as the economy sank into a deep recession, with unemployment rising to nearly 10 percent in 1982. As the manufacturing belt began to rust over, political conflicts between industrial companies desperately seeking subsidies and protection and those businesses that were able to thrive in global free markets grew more heated and intense. Tensions erupted between the owners of stock - newly confident and aggressive about using their financial power to compel management to do anything to raise returns - and career corporate executives. Today, the economic changes that began during the 1980s have an air of inevitability about them - the advent of globalization, the shift to a service economy. But at the time these transformations proved devastating to many of the manufacturing companies that had once most vociferously protested the New Deal." Kim Phillips-Fein ('Invisible Hands')

 

[Wiseacre]

Wiseacre, You seem to be fudging quite a bit there. And yes, German made autos are at the high end of the luxury status province. Last summer someone told me an acquaintance had two Mercedes as if I was supposed to be impressed. We have two Buicks made here. Take that. Guess which purchases helped the American worker. But my points seem to be floating above the conversation. I know GE was an early and large outsourcer, I read about that many years ago when the topic came up more often than just election time. (I have worked in corporate America for forty years.) But as Americans castigate government, cry over taxes, and blame Obama for everything, work is changing while the jargon of total BS fills the air with no connection to the ground game. The book quoted below explains much of the change in dialogue.


I probably am missing your points, no doubt my failure to connect your dots.


PS The credentials of the bloggers is on a par with almost any journalist. Shooting the messenger of bad news is as old as time.

"A great transformation of American politics began during the years that Ronald Reagan was in the White House. This might not, at first, have appeared the likely outcome of his two administrations. Conservative activists (the same ones who would in later years celebrate Reagan as a saint) struggled during the 1980s with various disappointments: as president, Reagan did not end abortion, he met with Soviet leader Mikhail Corbachev, and he failed to eliminate the welfare state or even notably shrink government bureaucracies. And the enthusiasm within the business community that followed his election did not last long, as the economy sank into a deep recession, with unemployment rising to nearly 10 percent in 1982. As the manufacturing belt began to rust over, political conflicts between industrial companies desperately seeking subsidies and protection and those businesses that were able to thrive in global free markets grew more heated and intense. Tensions erupted between the owners of stock - newly confident and aggressive about using their financial power to compel management to do anything to raise returns - and career corporate executives. Today, the economic changes that began during the 1980s have an air of inevitability about them - the advent of globalization, the shift to a service economy. But at the time these transformations proved devastating to many of the manufacturing companies that had once most vociferously protested the New Deal." Kim Phillips-Fein ('Invisible Hands')

Special interest groups and specific industries and companies have lobbied in Washington from the very beginning, trying to gain some advantage or tax break over the competition, including tariffs and excise taxes. Since we went off the gold standard the amount of money to be made out there has increased exponentially, it's no surprise everyone wants a bigger share of it. And to be honest, I think both parties have tried to get those advantages for their particular constituents at the expense of the rest of us. We started out being opposed to that sort of thing, but now it's commonplace and no one wants to give up their advantages. You can lay a little more blame at the feet of the conservatives/ repubs, no doubt they deserve it in some respects. But - I don't remember the last time they had the WH, a filibuster proof Senate, and control of the House. Whatever they've done had to have some complicity from the dems, which really is the way it should be.

About Reagan, he had to deal with Tip O'Neill and a democratic House, a problem that Barack Obama is no doubt familiar with. I think he did try to reduce the size of gov't, but they wouldn't do it; if I'm not mistaken didn't he make a deal to raise taxes if they would reduce spending? He did, they didn't. Which is one reason why many people today are wary of a similar deal.

We have had quite a few economic changes, and the rest of the world has caught up and in some cases surpassed us in some areas at least. IMHO we have not done well in reacting to and dealing with those changes, in part because both major parties seem to be far apart in their economic viewpoints. Not sure however, that the dialogue is all that different from what it once was, prior to Reagan. Not the point maybe, but it's worth noting that we've always had deep and diverse contentions about the way forward.