For manufacturing districts, the wave is red

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sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,231
5,806
126
Is that an increase in real or nominal wages? If I remember correctly, wages in OECD member countries have barely kept up with inflation

Don't know the answer to that, but should add that a few Provinces have been aggressively increasing the Minimum Wage. So that likely has a lot to do with it.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
27,653
26,753
136
LOL. More of that hate.

Not hate, a statement of fact. If you are a factory worker and think Trump's economic policies are going to help you then you are an idiot.

Trump so far has shown no plan and taken no actions that would build long term sustainable economic and wage growth.

The GOP has also waged a decades long war on unions and won. This along with tax policy has pretty much ensured that the benefits of increased productivity have only gone one place and it wasn't to the workers.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
Not hate, a statement of fact. If you are a factory worker and think Trump's economic policies are going to help you then you are an idiot.

Trump so far has shown no plan and taken no actions that would build long term sustainable economic and wage growth.

The GOP has also waged a decades long war on unions and won. This along with tax policy has pretty much ensured that the benefits of increased productivity have only gone one place and it wasn't to the workers.
Trump seized on their frustrations but never had a plan to solve the underlying issues. The frustrations of the working class are legitimate.

What have the Democrats truly done for labor since the New Deal?

From the perspective of labor, they have to choose between the socially conservative globalist free trade whores and the socially progressive globalist free trade whores.

The only idiots I see are the ones who refuse to acknowledge this.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
27,653
26,753
136
Trump seized on their frustrations but never had a plan to solve the underlying issues. The frustrations of the working class are legitimate.

What have the Democrats truly done for labor since the New Deal?

From the perspective of labor, they have to choose between the socially conservative globalist free trade whores and the socially progressive globalist free trade whores.

The only idiots I see are the ones who refuse to acknowledge this.

Free trade is not evil and has been pointed out in several threads the bulk of job losses have come from automation. Even economic nationalism won't solve that problem.
 

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
126
Plus there are a lot of very high paying jobs created to facilitate automation. Especially in AI and robotics. But because those jobs mainly go to the educated coastal "elites" and not flyover country biorobots, somehow that's considered bad.
 
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Engineer

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
39,230
701
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Plus there are a lot of very high paying jobs created to facilitate automation. Especially in AI and robotics. But because those jobs mainly go to the educated coastal "elites" and not flyover country biorobots, somehow that's considered bad.

You would be surprised how many of us work in automation in flyover country! :D

(One of the most in demand engineering jobs around any manufacturing area right now).
 
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pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
21,632
4,685
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You would be surprised how many of us work in automation in flyover country! :D

(One of the most in demand engineering jobs around any manufacturing area right now).


The same with us in the Southeastern US...
 

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
126
You would be surprised how many of us work in automation in flyover country! :D

(One of the most in demand engineering jobs around any manufacturing area right now).
Good job! Stick in there and automate away :) Every time I watch one of those production line videos, I am always wondering why some people are still there. Hopefully we can help resolve some of the remaining issues with machine learning.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
Free trade is not evil and has been pointed out in several threads the bulk of job losses have come from automation. Even economic nationalism won't solve that problem.
So what will? The driving motivation of automation is to increase shareholder value at the expense of workers, a dynamic accelerated by free trade and globalization.

At what point do the displaced workers take priority?
 

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
126
So what will? The driving motivation of automation is to increase shareholder value at the expense of workers, a dynamic accelerated by free trade and globalization. At what point do the displaced workers take priority?
How about never? If someone has figured out how to do their jobs with a robot, why shouldn't they?
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
How about never? If someone has figured out how to do their jobs with a robot, why shouldn't they?
Never thought I would see the day when liberals would abandon labor. The tech oligarchs are no different than their industrialist capitalists predecessors.
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
34,007
8,041
136
At what point do the displaced workers take priority?

Workers are paid for their productivity. If the same productivity can exist without workers, how do you think we resolve that?
Through taxation to fund Basic Income. Which will have a similar effect on productivity as if it had paid them as workers.

Economy, in simple terms, is the flow of monetary value. Restoring that flow to a healthy balance is a necessity.
 

1prophet

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
5,313
534
126
Free trade is not evil and has been pointed out in several threads the bulk of job losses have come from automation. Even economic nationalism won't solve that problem.

Free trade is a bullshit term right up there with right to work,

both sound good on the surface but once you dig deeper you realize what it's all about, right to work means employers don't have to deal with things like unions and it's for their benefit not the employees

Free trade, more like freedom from living wages, EPA, OSHA, labor rights, etc.

As for the bullshit of automation, sorry that is another false flag bogeyman corporate America likes you to parrot and blame while you drink the corporate Koolaid, so you won't sober up and realize the American lifestyle is subsidized on the backs of others under conditions and wages Americans would refuse to work under, but as long as the corporate dogs shit in foreign yards and don't shit in yours you give them a free pass in exchange for your low prices.

http://theweek.com/articles/486362/where-americas-jobs-went


When did offshoring become so prevalent?
The trend began in earnest in the late 1970s at large manufacturers such as General Electric. GE’s then CEO, Jack Welch, who was widely respected by other corporate chieftains, argued that public corporations owe their primary allegiance to stockholders, not employees. Therefore, Welch said, companies should seek to lower costs and maximize profits by moving operations wherever is cheapest. “Ideally,” Welch said, “you’d have every plant you own on a barge to move with currencies and changes in the economy.” Not only did GE offshore much of its manufacturing, so did its parts suppliers, which were instructed at GE-orchestrated “supplier migration seminars” to “migrate or be out of business.”

Is offshoring limited to manufacturing?
It used to be, until the Internet boom of the 1990s made it a white-collar phenomenon, too. As economic globalization gathers speed and technology erases geographic boundaries, firms now have instant access to educated workers all over the planet, allowing enormous service companies and small businesses alike to hire Web designers in Thailand, graphics specialists in India, and seismologists in Pakistan. White-collar workers who once seemed immune to offshoring—lawyers, financial analysts, even local newspaper reporters—are now in peril of seeing their jobs shifted to India, Eastern Europe, or China. In recent years, 13 of every 100 U.S. computer-programming jobs shifted overseas, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, making it the most at-risk occupation in America. “Any job you can think of now can be done by someone on the other side of the world for less cost,” said Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelance.com, which matches employers and freelancers around the world.

Are labor costs the driving factor?
Yes, but they’re only one reason companies prefer to hire foreign workers. By offshoring, firms can also sidestep more-stringent U.S. workplace and environmental regulations, and take advantage of foreign government subsidies designed to lure foreign investment. They can also tap a labor pool that in many cases is better versed in math and science than the U.S. workforce is. Thus, offshoring has evolved from a simple matter of cutting labor costs to “a multidimensional value proposition,” as the Conference Board’s Ton Heijmen puts it. Part of the value is that foreign workers can be required to work under conditions that would be illegal in the U.S. In Shenzhen, China, for example, Foxconn, the subsidiary of a Taiwanese company, employs 250,000 people to assemble iPods and iPhones for Apple, working long, monotonous days with a handful of timed bathroom breaks. Foxconn workers earn an average wage of $292 a month. Last year 18 Foxconn employees at the Shenzhen complex attempted suicide, 14 successfully.

Is the offshoring strategy working?
For employers, absolutely. In the third quarter of 2010, U.S. corporate profits hit an all-time high of $1.659 trillion, despite a U.S. unemployment rate hovering above 9 percent. By no coincidence, in 2009, nearly half—47 percent—of the revenues of the 500 largest U.S. public companies came from outside the U.S. And economic growth rates are much stronger overseas. From 1995 through 2008, the U.S. gross domestic product grew at an annual average of 2.9 percent—a crawl, compared with average annual growth of 9.6 percent in China and 6.9 percent in India. Businesses go where the growth is. “For a lot of American companies, their actual and psychic energy is focused abroad,” said Matthew Slaughter of Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business.

Is more offshoring inevitable?
Yes, unless the federal government decides to discourage it. Currently, the U.S. levies no tax on U.S. firms’ overseas earnings as long as those profits remain overseas. That policy essentially encourages companies to reinvest their profits outside the U.S. And to give companies even more incentive to hire overseas, the Internal Revenue Service allows companies that move factories abroad to deduct from their taxable income the cost of closing their U.S. plants. Democrats in the Senate attempted last autumn to close those loopholes and create incentives to repatriate profits and jobs, but pro-business Republicans blocked their proposal. “The whole concept of offshoring,” said Mark Toon of offshoring advisory firm EquaTerra, “is here to stay.”


Training your own replacement
“I’d like my new team to meet my old team,” Myra Bronstein’s boss said, by way of opening the meeting at WatchMark, a Bellevue, Wash., developer of software for cell phone companies. Bronstein and 17 other U.S.-based software testers were meeting the 20 engineers, fresh off the plane from India, who had been hired to replace them. Bronstein and her colleagues were expected to spend the final two months of their WatchMark careers training them. If they refused, WatchMark would withhold their severance payments. “It totally knocked the wind out of me,” Bronstein said. “It was the most difficult situation in the world.” WatchMark managers said they had little choice but to export the jobs. Salaries for U.S.-based software engineers start at $75,000 a year; India-based engineers start at $15,000. Bronstein was left feeling like a sucker. “I never would have gone into the technology field in the first place if I had a crystal ball and knew the bottom was going to drop out. Now they want much more from you for much less.” A lot of Americans know exactly how she feels.


 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
Bohoohoo, what are you going to do? Vote to give me a capital gains tax cut on my restricted stock?
Displaced workers will outnumber the automaters, and will eventually consolidate their political power to claim a dedistribution of the automation spoils.
 

Bitek

Lifer
Aug 2, 2001
10,676
5,238
136
I think the OP should read through the entire article and reconsider it's meaning.

Given that the Republican party does Jack Shit for these workers other than play to social issues, this could become a big vulnerability to the party if Democrats modernize their message and address the looking challenges that these workers will face from automation, globalization and the ongoing era of falling real wages.

The Republican Party didn’t have a grand strategy to capture manufacturing. It happened over time as the economy and party changed.

“Manufacturing moved to where the Republican party has been building strength,” says Jonathan Rodden, a Stanford University political scientist, who studies the geography of political change
 

Bitek

Lifer
Aug 2, 2001
10,676
5,238
136
Displaced workers will outnumber the automaters, and will eventually consolidate their political power to claim a dedistribution of the automation spoils.

I don't see how this doesn't happen unless some alternative is found. Will be a bloody fight tho.

I don't think you can mandate manual labor. We have to find a way to manage the consequence of automation.
 

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
126
Displaced workers will outnumber the automaters, and will eventually consolidate their political power to claim a dedistribution of the automation spoils.
By voting Republican to give the corporations shitcanning them a tax cut on the extra profit they make by shitcanning them? Good luck with that.
 
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IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
70,211
28,916
136
Displaced workers will outnumber the automaters, and will eventually consolidate their political power to claim a dedistribution of the automation spoils.
Sweet Baby Jesus and people think I have delusional leftist dreams. Displaced workers have consistently voted against their self interests for decades. That isn't changing.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,094
37,297
136
Displaced workers will outnumber the automaters, and will eventually consolidate their political power to claim a dedistribution of the automation spoils.

In any rational country I'd agree. The US isn't that place. We'll just pick someone else to blame and not do anything.

This country would vote to let itself drown if it was on the ballot provided you could own the other cultural tribe on the way down.
 

vi edit

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 28, 1999
62,483
8,344
126
By voting Republican to give the corporations shitcanning them a tax cut on the extra profit they make by shitcanning them? Good luck with that.

Not to mention voting Republican also allows conservative leaning court appointments that work against unions and worker sided cases further eroding the power of the general working class stiff.