expat_panama
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- Apr 12, 2011
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from: The Social Machine
Kevin D. Williamson March 21, 2017 4:00 AM
Yeah, this thread will most probably bring out that old tired rant about "people need a living wage", "demand is what makes production", and "people live on Main St., not Wall St.". We've heard it a lot in today's discourse and it usually ends w/ investors throwing up their hands and saying "aw hell, if building factories can't make products I'll just give to charity and go home." Let's face it, high wages sound good to the worker but a factory sees wages as a cost, not an income.
Kevin D. Williamson March 21, 2017 4:00 AM
Jobs are a means, not an end.
Funny thing about American manufacturing: The good news about what’s happening at American factories often sounds like bad news to politicians.
American factories are one of the wonders of the world, and, in spite of what President Donald Trump, Senator Bernie Sanders, and other lightly informed populists claim, they are humming. U.S. manufacturing output is about 68 percent higher today in real terms (meaning inflation-adjusted terms) than it was before NAFTA was enacted; manufacturing output is about double in real terms what it was in the 1980s and more than three times what it was in the 1950s. As our factories grow more efficient, output per man-hour has grown, too, which is what troubles the populists and demagogues: Our factories employ a much smaller share of the U.S. work force than they once did
...The purpose of an automobile factory is not to “create jobs,” as the politicians like to say. Its function is not to add to the employment rolls with good wages and UAW benefits, adding to the local tax base and helping to sustain the community — as desirable as all those things are. The purpose of an automobile factory is not to create jobs — it is to create automobiles...
...people who have an explicit legal obligation to work not on our behalf but on behalf of their shareholders do a pretty good job of giving us what we want; the people who vow to work on our behalf do not. That is a paradox only if you do not think about it too much, and not thinking about it too much is the business that politicians are in...
Funny thing about American manufacturing: The good news about what’s happening at American factories often sounds like bad news to politicians.
American factories are one of the wonders of the world, and, in spite of what President Donald Trump, Senator Bernie Sanders, and other lightly informed populists claim, they are humming. U.S. manufacturing output is about 68 percent higher today in real terms (meaning inflation-adjusted terms) than it was before NAFTA was enacted; manufacturing output is about double in real terms what it was in the 1980s and more than three times what it was in the 1950s. As our factories grow more efficient, output per man-hour has grown, too, which is what troubles the populists and demagogues: Our factories employ a much smaller share of the U.S. work force than they once did
...The purpose of an automobile factory is not to “create jobs,” as the politicians like to say. Its function is not to add to the employment rolls with good wages and UAW benefits, adding to the local tax base and helping to sustain the community — as desirable as all those things are. The purpose of an automobile factory is not to create jobs — it is to create automobiles...
...people who have an explicit legal obligation to work not on our behalf but on behalf of their shareholders do a pretty good job of giving us what we want; the people who vow to work on our behalf do not. That is a paradox only if you do not think about it too much, and not thinking about it too much is the business that politicians are in...
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This is why the rhetoric about 'we need more high paying manufacturing jobs' is so dumb. Yeah, this thread will most probably bring out that old tired rant about "people need a living wage", "demand is what makes production", and "people live on Main St., not Wall St.". We've heard it a lot in today's discourse and it usually ends w/ investors throwing up their hands and saying "aw hell, if building factories can't make products I'll just give to charity and go home." Let's face it, high wages sound good to the worker but a factory sees wages as a cost, not an income.
