Why I love America

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

Even if I offered you the job, you would refuse
No health-care, no pension, a salary of $1 an hour, no safely, 10 hour work day

Even being a paper boy is better

$1 an hour! Man you'd have a queue of willing workers longer than the Great Wall, paying those rates.


Try between $0.28 and $0.63 per hour for the minimum wage in China. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...8/b4011001.htm And that's if your employer is paying the "official" minimum wage set by local authorities. Good luck with that if you're working on the black.

And that's if it isn't fined away from you for various infractions, like taking too long in the bathroom: http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_40/b3701119.htm

[Ducimus]

^
How executives get their huge salaries and bonuses: Outsource the jobs, and get these poor schmucks to do the same for pennies.

The original job holder ends up as a walmart greeter, in a McJob, or in an unemployment line. Dreams of retirement and the American dream gone up in a blaze. The new job holder overseas, gets to live as the next best thing to slave labor in a sweatshop somewhere. The executive, enjoys life on his yacht when he's not cutting you off on the freeway with his mercedes or jaguar, while laughing at everyone all the way to the bank.

[tater]

What country is the biggest manufacturer on earth?

[tater]

Take a RL example. ANyone here ever buy a die-cast model? I have some 1:72 scale WW2 aircraft. F4Fs, Zeros, etc. They were ~$25.

$25.

I used to make models for a living—not "build" models, but actually manufacture anatomical models (for biological supply companies, etc). $25 retail would mean I'd have to wholesale for $12.50. As my accountant kept telling me, that meant that my direct cost to make the product would need to be $6.25.

Those models are PAINTED, plus decals. You have to cast the metal, injection mold the plastic (canopies, control surfaces, etc), then clean/deburr the casts, assemble, paint, decals, then package it for $6.25. Labor is gonna be over 50% of your cost. That means the metal/plastic needs to cost you ~$3 a pop (packaging alone is probably $0.50+), leaving ~$3 in labor. What's a decent, skilled wage? I used to pay people ~$10-$15 an hour for the most part (~20-30k a year). Most were 20-somethings, many were students. In the middle, at $12/hr, that means <15 minutes total labor to build a nice, 1:72 scale model and package it for sale. The more you think these workers should be paid, the faster they need to crank them out to keep our $25 price point. Even at $25, it's not like Dragon Models sells millions of these (maybe thousands), it's a niche, and they are "expensive" as toys go.

You simply cannot make something like that in the US for $25 retail. It's impossible unless you think there is a mass market for $50+ die cast models.

So, this is a case of outsourcing production or not having the product available at a cost regular people can afford.

I think in general, the relationship between what gets made abroad, and standard of living at home is pretty complex. It's not a simple"outsourcing is bad, m'kay." Nor is it "outsourcing is great!"

Looking at how people live now, vs when I was a kid, I think people have more "stuff" now—and better stuff—than we did growing up, and we were absolutely "upper middle class." Still, my parents didn't spend like people do now. Probably because decent stuff cost more.

[Platapus]

Always interesting to see the real numbers. Thanks for posting them

[tater]

I investigated hiring a company here in town that does finishing for various tourist items do some painting for me on some fossil replicas. They would generate a mask that they would then spray paint over. It was a charge per step, and it was some fraction of a buck per paint pass. Their QC was not meant for fine detail like the airplane models you can buy, but was suitable for "random" patterned fossil replicas (we ended up doing it ourselves).

That said, with 5-6 colors per model on a few sides, having that painting done here in ABQ (*assuming that outfit could make tight masks to do it right) would eat up the bulk of that $3 budget for labor, if not all of it.

I actually do this in my head constantly. I see cool stuff at the museum gift shop, etc, then think how the HELL can they sell that so cheap! I was looking to buy a ship model a year or so ago—a sailing vessel, a 5th or 6th rate. I was stunned how cheap they were. You can get a 3 ft long model of a real frigate, or the HMS Surprise from O'Brian's books for ~$400. $400. Those models, even built from kits must take 10s of hours to build—very skilled labor. Blows me away. They must be making those in china or india, etc. A model that takes 20 hours of labor or more in the US? Call it $30/hr. 60k a year. There would be $600 just in labor. Assume $100 in materials, and the thing would wholesale for $1400, retail for $2800. If they only sell online and avoid wholesale, it would be closer to the $1400. Still...

There's a guy in Seattle making perfect replica WW2 A-2 flight jackets. They are over a grand each, based on the current wait time for a jacket, he has to crank out a jacket (it's just him) every 3 days or so (the leather and proper parts he buys are rare and quite expensive, so there is a few hundred in cost right there). When I buy an A-2, it's gonna be from him though, I like the idea of supporting a local (to the US) craftsman who is compulsive about accuracy.

[Ducimus]

Part of the reason why labor is more expensive here, is because the cost of living keeps going up. A great example is renting an apartment in California. IT GOES UP EVERY YEAR. And keeps going up, never relenting. Rent does not stay the same, it does not go down. It ONLY GOES UP. 1100 to 1200 dollars a month for a 1 bedroom apartment is a deal. Sometimes they go for 1400 or more.

Another part of the reason why labor is more expensive here, is because theirs alot of self important asshats with a sense of entitlement in our society. I don't know how it occured, I just know it has.

Suffice to say though, the cost of living must be lowered if the cost of labor is to be lowered.

Despite that, i categorically refuse to believe that outsourcing our JOBS AND INDUSTRY is a good thing. Maybe short term, which seems to be the norm way of thinking these days. Exeuctives going for high profits and short term gain. In the LONG term, it screws us over. The upper 1% profit, while selling the country out from under us. Theres a reason why the middle class is shrinking, and the class gap is widening.

We need to start building things HERE again, and stop buying everything from China. How things SHOULD be, is products Made in the USA are wanted by the world over. Known for craftsmanship, quality, and built to last. We need to get that back, and stop selling the country out from under us to god damn china.

[the_tyrant]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Part of the reason why labor is more expensive here, is because the cost of living keeps going up. A great example is renting an apartment in California. IT GOES UP EVERY YEAR. And keeps going up, never relenting. Rent does not stay the same, it does not go down. It ONLY GOES UP. 1100 to 1200 dollars a month for a 1 bedroom apartment is a deal. Sometimes they go for 1400 or more.

Another part of the reason why labor is more expensive here, is because theirs alot of self important asshats with a sense of entitlement in our society. I don't know how it occured, I just know it has.

Suffice to say though, the cost of living must be lowered if the cost of labor is to be lowered.

Despite that, i categorically refuse to believe that outsourcing our JOBS AND INDUSTRY is a good thing. Maybe short term, which seems to be the norm way of thinking these days. Exeuctives going for high profits and short term gain. In the LONG term, it screws us over. The upper 1% profit, while selling the country out from under us. Theres a reason why the middle class is shrinking, and the class gap is widening.

We need to start building things HERE again, and stop buying everything from China. How things SHOULD be, is products Made in the USA are wanted by the world over. Known for craftsmanship, quality, and built to last. We need to get that back, and stop selling the country out from under us to god damn china.

Well the only reason that stuff made in China is so cheap is that the labor costs are low, and that they have low environmental standards.
And most of the manufacturing is made by robots anyways, so quality is not an issue.

My lifestyle back in china:
I went to the best middle school(people are willing to pay 1 million rmb just to get in)
My family lived in a 160 square meter apartment (20000 RMB per square meter)
My dad drove a Nissan X-trail and my mom drove a Hyundai(the two cars costs around 700000 rmb)
food in china is around the same price as it is in the US (good pork is around 20 rmb per 500g)
without any mortgage, my family spends 30000rmb in china per month + 200000 rmb per year for one time purchases)

oh, in china a young university graduate is lucky to have an job that pays 3000 rmb a month
And if you want to be married, most decent girls have the following criteria:
at least an undergrad degree
at least a 20000 rmb car
at least a 100 square feet apartment


so come on, average Chinese employees get payed low wages not because their cost of living is low, its because their quality of life is S**t

[tater]

No reason for rent to increase in CA when the housing market is in freefall. (not saying it isn't, I believe you, but that it's really weird)

BTW, the answer to my question above is "the USA." We are the biggest manufacturer on earth.

That said, manufacturing jobs are not great jobs unless they are artificially high in pay. The height of this would be unionized American auto workers. Which car you want, the chevy, or the toyota (both made in the US)? It's not like paying auto-workers almost as much as family practice docs has resulted in world-winning craftsmanship. In fact, exactly the opposite.

Im not exactly sure what would magically improve if we had more cheap consumer goods made here. The choice is to charge WAY more (then the goods are no longer cheap), or to pay WAY less. Which do you prefer? Those are the only two choices. Strike that, a 3d choice. Manufacturing so automated, it employs almost no one. That doesn't create any jobs, obviously.

If we pay the US factory workers the good wage you'd presumably like, which is some multiple of the labor costs in china (tyrant has a university grad making $450/month ($2.81/hr)), then the goods become more expensive. Say a factory worker makes $1/hr in china (guess), we'd say a minimum of $20/hr? 20X labor cost. That makes wholesale 40X, and retail 80X. So the $20 thing at walmart from china has $1 in labor in is now almost $100. Too bad, even lower income people used to buy the $20 product... not so much at $100, they do without.

It's not simple. Really. Making stuff here paying what we'd like to pay—heck, even a small amount above min wage—grossly increases the price of consumer goods. Having a few more not so great factory jobs isn't really gonna help people afford this.

The better type of mfg for the US, is low volume, high-quality. Still like the leather jackets. A luxury market, but a nice income for a family, even on an expensive coast.

Bottom line is that the only people who ever did really well with manufacturing in the US were those running the business. The jobs have always been marginal, or unionized to absurdity, and then the only choice is to move offshore or die.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Can we put this in big honkin font that flashes red?

Yes, you may.

I always shake my head ruefully when I hear that China is "taking" jobs.

I wish I could be so tactful. I usually launch into a tirade like the one I posted above when the subject comes up.

This whole thing started post WWII when the American people made a choice:

Made in America for X price
Made in Japan for Y price

Americans, being good capitalists, chose the option that gave them the mostest for the leastest.

I see your point, but that isn't exactly how it works. We'd all love to believe that there is some kind of logical course of action we can take to strengthen our nation. It is that very desire that interested parties love to prey upon, particularly when their jobs are at stake.

In reality, there is no easy way out. Buying American does nothing to perpetuate the US economy. No amount of national pride will ever rebuild the manufacturing sector because you cannot override the inviolable law that people will always end up purchasing whatever is the most economical. Societal visions mean little or nothing to a family that is simply trying to make its wat in the world. They will always opt for the most economical product, to the best of their ability.

No one stole any jobs, no one took any jobs. The customers (us) chose.

And we always choose what is most efficient. Well, most of the time, anyway.

Don't blame the government, don't blame "big business", blame the customers for choosing to buy foreign goods.

Oh, but I do blame the government. In fact, I blame the government for at least 37% of the failure of US industry, which is equal to the corporate tax rate; read 37% increase in the prices of goods. I also blame it for additional increases in the prices of goods through tariffs, superfluous licensures, and the ridiculously expensive legal fees that must be paid just to buy or sell something in this damn place.

There is no point in blaming US customers, or any customers for that matter. They are a known factor. They will always buy the mostest for the leastest. Even if they didn't, they could not support the US economy on their own. You must either be competitive or innovative to be prosperous. The world does not pay for mediocrity.

You've been suckered into believing something that isn't true by people who don't give a rat's ass about you or anyone else. They simply proffer the argument that buying American is better because they want to keep their jobs and charge you extra for their own gain. You would not believe the lengths they will go to achieve their goal, either. Read ten pages of US trade law and you will see the ludicrous lengths people will go to to preserve their jobs at the expense of prosperity for everyone else.

As with most things in life, you have to earn prosperity, which means that you have to be competitive. Being competitive in a capitalist society means giving people things they actually want and not manipulating them, or worse, forcing them into paying more.

Well, now it is probably too late. America can't rebuild our manufacturing factories and even if we did, the price of the goods would not be attractive to the customer.

You are correct. The American manufacturing industry is dead, more or less. Nobody is going to pay the wages we demand.

But who cares? Our economy is not a modern manufacturing economy anymore, just as it wasn't a sweatshop economy 150 years ago, or an agrarian economy before that. Thank God we didn't listen to the whining of people who wanted to keep their jobs then. Whay should we do so now?

I believe you will find few American customers willing to pay American wages, to buy at American prices, what can be obtained from overseas.

Correct. But you will find more than enough investors willing to pay poor overseas wages for cheap goods. That's the wave of the future, and most American companies have already realized this.

Sure Americans "care" about the lost jobs... but do Americans care enough to pay much more for the same product? Probably not.

Does anyone care enough to pay more - no matter where their loyalty lies?

Most Americans seem satisfied buying a smarmy magnet from a Chinese company that states "buy American products"

And you judge them for this?

No one took anything. We choose to give it away.

Indeed, but not in the way you imagine.

As Porky Pig would say "We buttered our bridges, now we can sleep on it

Bbde bde bbde- that's all, folks

[Ducimus]

BTW, the answer to my question above is "the USA." We are the biggest manufacturer on earth.

Do you know how incredibly hard that is to believe when everything you run across in day to day life is made in China?

I think there are two items in my life that i'm pretty sure were made here.. actually.... 3.

1.) The Ford ranger i have the title to.
2.) My dogs collar ( I s**t you not, i actually saw made in the USA on the packaging when i bought it, which floored me)
3.) Mr Mossberg 500.

Everything else in my possession, is made in China or elsewhere. If we really are the worlds biggest manufacturer, surely there would be more items that say Made in USa - but they're aren't. I know, at least i think i would, because i look for domestically made items and buy them specifically over chinese made items when i can.

edit:
My bottom line is this: I love my country. I HATE .. yes.. HATE, with a fervent passion seeing jobs being lossed, and our industry being exported overseas. I DO NOT CARE about ANY foreign country. Not china, not india, certainly not Korea, nobody. They can all go to hell for all i care. I only care, about my country. If we do not take care of ourselves first, then NOBODY will.

[Ducimus]

See, this is the type of crap that ROYALLY pisses me off.


( Also the only poltiical attack ad that has ever worked to sway my opinion

IMO, People like Fiona, are nothing short of traitors to our country and our people. I sincerely mean that. That is how strongly i feel about this subject. ( Edit: Also my only political hot button now that i think of it)

[tater]

Again, what's the big picture. Certain jobs end up overseas. In return, the consumer gets more for less. What of all that chinese stuff are you willing to part with? The choice is to pay more for everything and pay high wages (ie: you taking a hit so that some guy can have a marginal factory job—or a GREAT factory job and you take a bigger hit), or perhaps automated production that keeps the factory in the US, but hires almost no one. The latter also more than China because of US regulations.

The US Corp. tax rate is certainly an issue, but no one pays the full %. It would make far more sense to have a far lower rate with no loopholes. Encourage business to move here instead of encouraging it to leave (what our high Corp rate does).

The US is <5% of world population, and we do ~36% of manufacturing.

How much more do you demand? We used to do ~50%. Do you think the US doing 50% is sustainable forever? We'd literally have to bomb China and India out of the industrial age. Nothing else we would do would stop it.

[kiwi_2005]

Just curious how much does meat go for in the USA. Over here I remeber and not long ago 8-9 years a leg of mutton cost $8, a leg of lamb $12. Now its $33 and $40. A leg of lamb $40! Pork is cheaper a good fat roast pork is around $18-25. Still I reckon meat is overpriced here.

[tater]

That ad is pretty dumb, IMO. What business has Boxer run?

The ad falsely makes it look like there was a choice. HP needed to evolve, or DIE.

Pick one.

Better for HP to have a pyrrhic victory and die, but keep 30k people employed for some indeterminate time before everyone at HP is pounding the pavement?

That's the choice that had to be made. An intact business, with part in China, or no business (in which case the jobs STILL move to China, but with no US part at all).

Or you can believe Boxer. Presumably her opponent planned her entire life to send jobs overseas. that was her real goal, after all. Right? What did Boxer do to change the rules of the game? A business can lobby to change the way things are in the future, but right now, they have to play with what they are given rules wise. HP, Dell, etc, are competing with companies from all over the world (mostly China). That's reality. Fail to keep up on price, etc, and that's it, you're toast.