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NAFTA, bashing BUSH, jobs

N

Neos

Senior member
It is neat to watch the various posts about fantastic buys - along with 'DEVIL & ANGEL' policies being implemented by Best Buy. Tie this in with the political talk about NAFTA - jobs going out of the country - the bashing of the current occupant of the White House ..etc, and you would seem to have a real paradox.

Why ?? do we think as a nation that we should always get the lowest pricing when shopping & there should never be any jobs lost overseas or south of the border ??

Trust me - I want the best deal too. I just think there is way too much of wanting our bread buttered on both sides. Someone please tell me how we can always demand the best pricing - which makes it nigh impossible to have a US workforce manufacture this stuff.

Am I way off in left field? Maybe I am. Comments?
 
It's because people have no understanding of economics.

By shipping manufacturing jobs overseas (which will pretty much stop if Fair Tax is enacted) companies are able to lower costs and lower the cost of products generating more revenue ... which leads to more higher paying engineering, marketing, etc. jobs here in the states. 🙂

we lose low paying manufacturing, we gain higher paying R&D, engineering, sales type jobs.
 
Originally posted by: JDub02
It's because people have no understanding of economics.

By shipping manufacturing jobs overseas (which will pretty much stop if Fair Tax is enacted) companies are able to lower costs and lower the cost of products generating more revenue ... which leads to more higher paying engineering, marketing, etc. jobs here in the states. 🙂

we lose low paying manufacturing, we gain higher paying R&D, engineering, sales type jobs.
Click to expand...

The problem is we have a bunch of high school dropouts with bad socials skills that can never meet the criteria of those positions.

Solution: ship the low-wage laborers overseas too. 😀
 
we're going to wal-mart ourselves into oblivion.

did anyone else watch the 2 hour walmart expose on cnbc? That company has forced manufacturing to go overseas so that we can consume mass quantities of cheap landfill-bound crap as cheaply and efficiently as possible. It's quantity over quality, which like it or not is a major part of the american way (it helped us win WWII after all). Now Sears=Kmart. It's depressing.

Of course, I'm wearing a RL Polo shirt i got at an unbelievably cheap price at Sam's club as I type this. ugh.
 
Originally posted by: Stark


Of course, I'm wearing a RL Polo shirt i got at an unbelievably cheap price at Sam's club as I type this. ugh.
Click to expand...

Weird. So am I. MSRP said $65. Checkout said $5.58. 🙂

I love Sam's Club.

OK, now back to the original topic.
 
I remember reading a thread here about a package of men's underwear on sale at Wal-Mart for $7.50 and all the replies saying what a great deal that was and how so many ppl were gonna rush out and buy some.

And I thought... how many of these people will come here to cry the blue if they get laid off, or to b!tch about outsourcing.

And as a general statement, I will offer this.... Many Americans feel that they should walk into a job at top salary, without starting at the bottom, doing the hump work and working their way up. Many Americans expect to earn high $$$ per hour, yet pay low $$$ for stuff they want to buy and dont see that it means that the stuff they buy is from somewhere else... made by someone who now has a formerly American job.

🙂

 
Because both liberal and conservative protectionists are blithering hypocrits.

In fact, it was knee-jerk protectionism that made the great depression so great.
 
You're right on the money, Andrew. Can't have your cake and eat it, too. There is going to be pain for the guys on top, in a global economy. The leveling out of incomes is going to be hard medicine to swallow for people who have been riding the gravy train for decades.

I'll take the lower prices, thank you. That's going to mean I have to find a job that can't be exported. So be it. I'm not afraid to roll up my sleeves and do some real work. Too bad about our lazy fellow citizens.
 
Originally posted by: JDub02
Originally posted by: Stark


Of course, I'm wearing a RL Polo shirt i got at an unbelievably cheap price at Sam's club as I type this. ugh.
Click to expand...

Weird. So am I. MSRP said $65. Checkout said $5.58. 🙂

I love Sam's Club.

OK, now back to the original topic.
Click to expand...

Costco > Sams . < -- note the period
 
Originally posted by: her209
Well, if things cost less, then you don't need a higher paying job, right?
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Years back when I worked retail selling appliances - the salesforce would always hate to get folk from 'over the mountain' ...the people with money. Many would 'expect' the lowest price to the point of being obnoxious. Many (not all) were doctors, lawyers, educators..etc.

They would give off this air of superiority - like deep discounts were due thier class of people.

Thing is - we worked on commissions - so when the discounts went deep, we made less money.
 
"...we worked on commissions..."

This might just be the answer for many people, whose jobs are being outsourced. Sales. There's a lot of money to be made in sales, and I don't see how Mexicans, Indians or Chinese workers can take that job away. It's not for me, but many folks can thrive on making sales. It really is what our economy is based on. Honestly, how much of what is consumed in this country is necessities? Just a fraction of most people's income, no? The rest is squandered on frivilous crap . Why not snag some of that disposable income for the frivilous crap you're selling? Soon, you'll be swimming in disposable income to spend on your own choice of frivilous crap and hobbies!
 
I don't have a problem with jobs being shipped out of the country.

Those countries that have higher wages often have a more skilled workforce and that workforce needs to employ their skills to fullest and therefore will often be forced to change the type of work they do to more complex manufacturing.

You can't deny the rest of the world progress.

People just resist change.



Eventually those underdeveloped countries that are getting the jobs now will, once they have a foothold, have their wages rise to the level of developed countries.

Everything is cyclical.



BTW-I am an autoworker and my industry has obviously had foreign pressures and those pressures were good for the American consumer.

 
Unfortunately, the US economy has evolved (devolved?) into a service and information based economy. The volume of actual hard goods made here has been shrinking for decades.

My fear isn't that jobs are going offshore. It's that there may come a point where hard goods are the ONLY way for an economy to survive. As the cost of information gets closer and closer to zero, the profits available from that information also gets closer and closer to zero. And information has a really low entry cost to developing economies. So we're constantly being chased by other countries.

For example, Israel has been quietly creeping up on us in the information and tech services sector. The problems with the Palestinians have been all that keeps that economy from becoming huge and really taking a bite out of the US. India is doing the same thing. China is focussing on manufacturing but is currently only a threat on volume. Until there's a regime change there (or at least a fundamental shift in government and industry attitudes regarding workers), they will stay just a threat. But their tech sector is growing by leaps and bounds and will possibly reach the level of 80's Japan by 2015 if Beijing can recognize the power of the tech sector.

This is kind of an aside, but there's a truly scary symptom of our economy's focus on service and information: The schools. Per capita spending in schools, even adjusted for inflation, keeps rising. Yet that money gets spent on technology. While I believe computer skills are possibly the most important trade skill a person can learn, it should NOT become the "be-all, end-all" of education. Yet schools around the nation are dropping trades such as woodshop, drafting, welding, autoshop, carpentry, construction, etc, as well as music classes and advanced art classes. Turning a wrench or swinging a hammer is at least as important to our soceity as being able to create pretty Power Point presentations.
 
Originally posted by: DurocShark
While I believe computer skills are possibly the most important trade skill a person can learn, it should NOT become the "be-all, end-all" of education. Yet schools around the nation are dropping trades such as woodshop, drafting, welding, autoshop, carpentry, construction, etc, as well as music classes and advanced art classes. Turning a wrench or swinging a hammer is at least as important to our soceity as being able to create pretty Power Point presentations.
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Agree.

I think it's weird how basic computer maintenance/usage is a requirement of high schools and colleges, but not once has it ever been required of me to learn anything about my car, besides how to not hit people and other cars on the road. Maybe this is why it's so expensive to get an oil change or even the simplest of break work done. Nobody knows how to do this stuff for themselves. How much is new real wood furniture today? The only "wooden" furniture I've seen that hasn't been from a yard sale or estate sale has been that damn veneer/particle board stuff you get in kits. (which is probably shipped in from some other country)

I remember in junior high when they wanted to take out the wood and metal shops.(to put in *more* computer labs) They said too many kids were getting hurt in those shops, blabla... this gets me into another rant about safety and responsibility, where I wont' go right now.

that's all.
 
Originally posted by: Stark
we're going to wal-mart ourselves into oblivion.

did anyone else watch the 2 hour walmart expose on cnbc? That company has forced manufacturing to go overseas so that we can consume mass quantities of cheap landfill-bound crap as cheaply and efficiently as possible. It's quantity over quality, which like it or not is a major part of the american way (it helped us win WWII after all). Now Sears=Kmart. It's depressing.

Of course, I'm wearing a RL Polo shirt i got at an unbelievably cheap price at Sam's club as I type this. ugh.
Click to expand...

KMart is a different animal than what it once was. It was bought out by an individual that cleaned house when it came to the upper management. He looked at their ridiculous business practices, which he described as the equivalent of using a free four hundred dollar television to lure people in to buy an eighty-nine cent mop, and changed it. He shut down many stores, forced those remaining to become more specialized instead of trying to be another WalMart, and as a result KMart stock has skyrocketed since he took over. Sears had been looking stagnant to me for some time, and I honestly wondered if the chain wasn't going to be the next news story about stores that were going under. Kmart is doing quite well now, and I am curious to see what he will do with Sears.
 
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