Outsourcing the Outsourced!

[Navy1960]

In the past decade, Mexico has become an important exporting nation, thanks, in part, to the so-called maquiladora sector. Maquiladoras are factories, where products are partly assembled, and then trucked over the border to the United States. But this unique economic border arrangement is suffering, as many of these factories move to other low-wage nations like China.

The way it was supposed to work held great promise for both Mexico and the United States. Under special rules established for maquiladoras, products could be partly assembled in Mexico, and then shipped duty-free over the border for completion in U.S. plants. This system created thousands of relatively good-paying jobs for Mexicans and drew billions of dollars of foreign investment. But now, the growth has slowed, and even reversed.

Over the past few years there has been an alarming exodus of factories and jobs to China and other low-cost countries. Mexico's electronics industry is down by more than eight percent. Several high-profile operations, such as one factory owned by the Netherlands-based Philips Electronics, have gone to China. More than 170 factories have closed in Mexico and moved to China in recent years, and some remaining factories have moved part of their operations across the Pacific.
Jobs - Mexico's Border Factories Lose Jobs to Lower-Wage Countries


From, the US, to Mexico, to China, makes you wonder where they go after that. IT does appear that the jobs that have been outsourced to Mexico and other nations are now being outsourced from there in the every increasing search for the cheapest place to make products.

 

[Samson]

Obsentiously, the Maquilladoras were supposed to be cheaply producing goods for the USA market.

I didn't read the article, but if I had, I'd wonder if it accounts not only for the possibility of cheaper labor costs, but also for the closer proximity to the quickly growing MARKET for manufactured goods that China is becomming.

On a minor note, you know those red and white mints that restaurants give away?

They're made by a Jew from New York that runs a factory in Juarez.

 

[uscitizen]

The race to the bottom.

 

[antagon]

the article did not make mention of the bush admin's total abandonment of NAFTA by extending some of the same tax benefits to companies sourcing in asia. having been in the corporate infrastructure biz in san diego in 2000, i attest to that policy being a disaster. american and mexican jobs vanished overseas, and san diego lost its grip on high paying tech sectors as a result.

 

[Navy1960]

Obsentiously, the Maquilladoras were supposed to be cheaply producing goods for the USA market.

I didn't read the article, but if I had, I'd wonder if it accounts not only for the possibility of cheaper labor costs, but also for the closer proximity to the quickly growing MARKET for manufactured goods that China is becomming.

On a minor note, you know those red and white mints that restaurants give away?

They're made by a Jew from New York that runs a factory in Juarez.

Samson, I imagine a lot of it has to do with cheaper labor, and some of it has to do with being closer to growing markets in China. Interesting though that in order to undercut labor costs if you factor in the difference in shipping, producing goods in China must hold much more appeal. There is a lot to be said though for being able to produce a product that you can also sell in the same market you produce it in.

 

[Samson]

The race to the bottom.

huh?

Have another beer.

 

[antagon]

Obsentiously, the Maquilladoras were supposed to be cheaply producing goods for the USA market.

I didn't read the article, but if I had, I'd wonder if it accounts not only for the possibility of cheaper labor costs, but also for the closer proximity to the quickly growing MARKET for manufactured goods that China is becomming.

On a minor note, you know those red and white mints that restaurants give away?

They're made by a Jew from New York that runs a factory in Juarez.

Samson, I imagine a lot of it has to do with cheaper labor, and some of it has to do with being closer to growing markets in China. Interesting though that in order to undercut labor costs if you factor in the difference in shipping, producing goods in China must hold much more appeal. There is a lot to be said though for being able to produce a product that you can also sell in the same market you produce it in.

when you consider that mexico imports significantly more from the US than china, is right next door, and adversely effects our employment market when theirs is shitty, it makes ya wonder why we're so up on china's nuts.

oh, their dollar leverage. forgot to consider that.

 

[Toronado3800]

I suppose in an ideal world we could redistribute enough of our income to China to make peaceful capitalists out of them one DVD player at a time while sending enough money down to Mexico to make the drug trade seem like a worse idea one whatever at a time.

 

[Toro]

The race to the bottom.

huh?

Have another beer.

Race to the top.

 

[Bill O'Olberman]

Isnt outsourcing an extension of free market capitalism? Jobs that require little education are outsourced to countries with a relatively abundant source of unskilled to moderately skilled labor. As long as we can find or create new industries for our labor force is there really a problem?

 

[antagon]

Isnt outsourcing an extension of free market capitalism? Jobs that require little education are outsourced to countries with a relatively abundant source of unskilled to moderately skilled labor. As long as we can find or create new industries for our labor force is there really a problem?

yes. somewhere in the 'as long as we can find' part.

 

[Bill O'Olberman]

Isnt outsourcing an extension of free market capitalism? Jobs that require little education are outsourced to countries with a relatively abundant source of unskilled to moderately skilled labor. As long as we can find or create new industries for our labor force is there really a problem?

yes. somewhere in the 'as long as we can find' part.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/current-events/100281-us-number-1-a.html The USA is the most innovative country on this planet hands down. There is no shortage of innovation, ideas and potential in the USA. Seriously if you look at the factor endowments of say the US and Japan which country is better suited for producing cheap electronic shit and which country is better suited for agricultural products... same with some manufacuring shit between US and Mexico. Plus the US is still a huge manufacturer of stuff on top of all the service industries.

 

[Toronado3800]

As long as we can find or create new industries for our labor force is there really a problem?

I agree almost entirely and probably entirely since I assume you agree we need to keep enough internal industrial capacity to be capable of building our own military equipment for reasons of national security.

Trick is finding them new jobs. I don't think McService jobs are the 2009 equal to 1959 manufacturing jobs.

 

[antagon]

Isnt outsourcing an extension of free market capitalism? Jobs that require little education are outsourced to countries with a relatively abundant source of unskilled to moderately skilled labor. As long as we can find or create new industries for our labor force is there really a problem?

yes. somewhere in the 'as long as we can find' part.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/current-events/100281-us-number-1-a.html The USA is the most innovative country on this planet hands down. There is no shortage of innovation, ideas and potential in the USA. Seriously if you look at the factor endowments of say the US and Japan which country is better suited for producing cheap electronic shit and which country is better suited for agricultural products... same with some manufacuring shit between US and Mexico. Plus the US is still a huge manufacturer of stuff on top of all the service industries.

the US is the #1 manufacturer, too, bud. the service sector and financial sector wont hold our economy up alone. not at this juncture. we should take care to transition our economy more wisely than the plunge the UK took into finance. theyre still gripping with recession with nowhere to turn or hedge their economy.

japan has no factor endowments for anything on the scale with the US or china, however, an emphasis on manufacturing has maintained a well-balanced economy there. i dont see the value in relinquishing our grip on manufacture. if we all had one international economy and a bunch of other utopian fantasies became real, we could all marvel at free market trends. until then..

 

[uscitizen]

The race to the bottom.

huh?

Have another beer.

The corps keeping going for the lowest wages and least restrictions.

 

[Shogun]

The race to the bottom.

huh?

Have another beer.

Race to the top.

yea... nothing says TOP quite like our normalized standard of living with that of mexico.. which, it seems, is ironically discovering the rotten pulp hidden inside the putrid skin of your dangled banana.

 

[Shogun]

As long as we can find or create new industries for our labor force is there really a problem?

I agree almost entirely and probably entirely since I assume you agree we need to keep enough internal industrial capacity to be capable of building our own military equipment for reasons of national security.

Trick is finding them new jobs. I don't think McService jobs are the 2009 equal to 1959 manufacturing jobs.

no, they are not. In fact, the racist xenophobia of the 1950s resulted in the benefit of our greatest generation.


anyone care to take bets on how the census is going to paint American's personal income index?

 

[uscitizen]

The top few percents income rising and the rest dropping.

 

[Samson]

huh?

Have another beer.

Race to the top.

yea... nothing says TOP quite like our normalized standard of living with that of mexico.. which, it seems, is ironically discovering the rotten pulp hidden inside the putrid skin of your dangled banana.

The retard has entered the thread.

As long as we can find or create new industries for our labor force is there really a problem?

I agree almost entirely and probably entirely since I assume you agree we need to keep enough internal industrial capacity to be capable of building our own military equipment for reasons of national security.

Trick is finding them new jobs. I don't think McService jobs are the 2009 equal to 1959 manufacturing jobs.

no, they are not. In fact, the racist xenophobia of the 1950s resulted in the benefit of our greatest generation.


anyone care to take bets on how the census is going to paint American's personal income index?

Racist Xenophobia of the 1950's? I guess the fact that American Industry was untouched by WWII had nothing to do with "benefiting our greatest generation?"

The top few percents income rising and the rest dropping.

And you think this fantacy is ONLY a function of outsourcing?

It might also have something to do with overregulating American Industry making it impossible to pay any less than $7.50/hr, or make deisel with anything less than 15 ppb sulfur, making employers pay manditory workman's comp/SSI for a guy who says he "hurt his Back."

 

[antagon]

The top few percents income rising and the rest dropping.

And you think this fantacy is ONLY a function of outsourcing?

It might also have something to do with overregulating American Industry making it impossible to pay any less than $7.50/hr, or make deisel with anything less than 15 ppb sulfur, making employers pay manditory workman's comp/SSI for a guy who says he "hurt his Back."

capitalization, deindustrialization and outsourcing top my list for reasons why. derregulation and flatter, bushonomic taxes, land on the second rung.

as for overregging, the min wage, etc, most of those policies you mentioned, samson, narrow the earnings gap, not the other way around. how does environmental policy play into the earnings gap? how'd u figure?