Wild Bill Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 Well its our policies that increased the pool of labour competing for these jobs. The west still accounts for a huge percentage of global consumption, so we could make our own stuff if we wanted to. It would just cost a little more, but it would drive up our wages. Sorry, Dre. That's just not true. My career was spent supplying manufacturers so I did earn some perspective. You're right that we COULD "make our own stuff" but it would cost a LOT more! Much more than people would be willing to pay. Worse yet, very few people ever make the connection as to the benefits of buying local or domestic anyway. They all head for WalMart and then are totally surprised when they lose their jobs. Anyhow, the reason pricing would be so much higher is that manufacturing today is designed around high volumes. Once you've made the capital investment into what's required to produce at those volumes you're costs are then low enough to be a global competitor. If you only invest enough to produce at a low volume then your costs are FAR higher! How much is low volume and how much is high? Easy. Supplying only Canada is low volume. Competing for sales globally is middle to high. So a pair of shoes that now costs $20 at "Shoe World" would not cost "a little more", like maybe $25. It would be perhaps $35, $45 or even over $50! A box of nails we buy for $2 would cost $8. My career was electronic manufacturing. I would estimate that if we followed YOUR suggestion the price of a $800 laptop computer could be as much as $3-$4 THOUSAND dollars! The Russians found that out the hard way back in the days of the Cold War. High tech electronic computer chips were illegal to sell to Iron Curtain countries so they scrounged what they could on the black market. They produced a few copies of some on their own but they spent literally millions of dollars to produce a handful of devices at a time, with a very high scrap rate. That's because electronic parts are the worst case example of volume pricing. The very nature of the materials and the necessary machines is such that you produce integrated circuits by the bucketful or you can't make them at all! The world goes the way the world goes and we can't stop it, Dre. Being a rock against the waves only gets you ground down. Much better to try to find a way to be a surfboard! Quote "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." -- George Bernard Shaw "There is no point in being difficult when, with a little extra effort, you can be completely impossible."
Battletoads Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 Well, the Cons must be happy to hear this. Quote "You can lead a Conservative to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
MiddleClassCentrist Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 CEO pay is linked to performance. You want the same for workers? The CEO BONUS is tied to performance. Not their salary. Sure, all employees should have a bonus tied to performance! Afterall, the performance of the company comes from the collective effort of the company's workforce. Quote Ideology does not make good policy. Good policy comes from an analysis of options, comparison of options and selection of one option that works best in the current situation. This option is often a compromise between ideologies.
Remiel Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 CEO pay is linked to performance. It may be linked to performance, but the measurement of that performance is not linked to good sense. Quote
Battletoads Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 (edited) Well its our policies that increased the pool of labour competing for these jobs. The west still accounts for a huge percentage of global consumption, so we could make our own stuff if we wanted to. It would just cost a little more, but it would drive up our wages. But the billion and a half people in the first world would no longer be able to buy low quality sweat shop goods! Oh wait, that doesn't sound so bad... Edited June 14, 2011 by Battletoads Quote "You can lead a Conservative to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
CPCFTW Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 (edited) But the billion and a half people in the first world would no longer be able to buy low quality sweat shop goods! Oh wait, that doesn't sound so bad... And 5 billion people would be in even more abject poverty. Free market capitalism created first world living standards for 100 million people in Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. What were we thinking!?! The good thing about multinationals is they aren't very discriminatory on who gets the right to work and improve their living standard, unlike you. Edited June 14, 2011 by CPCFTW Quote
Battletoads Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 The good thing about multinationals is they aren't very discriminatory on who gets the right to work and improve their living standard, unlike you. Yep we should reform Canadian labour laws to match those of the 3rd world. Whether you be a child, and adult, or the elderly you ought to be able to work a needlessly dangerous job! /sarcasm Quote "You can lead a Conservative to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
MiddleClassCentrist Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 (edited) Yep we should reform Canadian labour laws to match those of the 3rd world. Whether you be a child, and adult, or the elderly you ought to be able to work a needlessly dangerous job! /sarcasm CPCFTW just wants working class Canadians to live in mud huts and straw shacks so the top 1% are able to buy another solid gold fountain for their mansion foyer. The free market capitalists' dream indeed. Edited June 14, 2011 by MiddleClassCentrist Quote Ideology does not make good policy. Good policy comes from an analysis of options, comparison of options and selection of one option that works best in the current situation. This option is often a compromise between ideologies.
GostHacked Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 In abstract I agree. The trouble with airlines is the price of fuel. This means that there is no guarantee that the current profits will continue. A suitable compromise would be a bonus system that is connected to profitability. Airlines made record profits this year based on extra fees. Fuel goes up, so does everything else. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/06/13/travel.airline.fees/ (CNN) -- U.S. airlines accumulated nearly $5.7 billion in fees in 2010, according to a financial report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Transportation.Airlines collected $3.4 billion from baggage fees and $2.3 billion in reservation change fees, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics report. Other fees paid by passengers are included in larger categories with other types of revenue for the report. "Without sustained profitability, airlines cannot add routes, add workers or buy new airplanes, all in the interest of airline customers and the global economy," Air Transport Association spokeswoman Jean Medina said in a statement Monday. Quote
Shwa Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 (edited) Just for fun CPCFTW, just for fun... Poverty Facts and Stats And 5 billion people would be in even more abject poverty. Almost half the world over three billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. So what is "abject" poverty? $1.99? Free market capitalism created first world living standards for 100 million people in Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. What were we thinking!?! At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. But I suppose those 100 million or so in the Orient need not worry about the other few billions. After all, they are making their bread. Except in Hong Kong the poverty rate is rising; South Korea too; Taiwan is doing OK. Poverty in Signapore is harder to source out. Probably considered rude to talk about such things. However, this little report seems to indicate that the Singaporians themselves are the reason for their success, not any massively benevolent multi-national spreading their altruistic joy around. This outstanding financial growth, aided by Singapores proven ability to reinvent its economy according to changing global conditions, is rooted in the citys substantial investments in educating its own citizenry. The good thing about multinationals is they aren't very discriminatory on who gets the right to work and improve their living standard, unlike you. Back to the facts and stats for this one: The poorest 40 percent of the worlds population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income. No, the multinationals don't discriminate at all. Edited June 14, 2011 by Shwa Quote
WIP Posted June 14, 2011 Author Report Posted June 14, 2011 For the last 60 years the rich world has lived in a fantasy land where the benefits of modern life were largely confined to a small number of rich countries while the rest of the world lived in squalor. International trade has brought the developing countries into the rich world's club and lifted billions of people out of poverty. Those people that claim to care about social justice should be celebrating this. Unfortunately, the rise of the developing world has dramatically increased the pool of labour competing for jobs which means that wages for many sectors in the rich world must go down in response. This is inevitable. Nothing can be done to stop this at this point. The days where 90% of population could be kept in squalor while the few rich countries enjoyed all the benefits are gone. The massive deficits that burden the rich world economies are nothing but misguided attempts to forestall the inevitable. This is one of the fallback arguments by the globalists...since I don't recall hearing much about the need to improve life in the Third World back in the 70's, when the big full court press was launched by business, media and politicians to promote "free trade." Now, even though many people have lost good-paying jobs to have to work in McDonalds or Walmart, and the middle class has shrunk to insignificance as a political force - we are instead being told we need to support globalization for altruistic reasons. Two problems with this argument: 1. Over here, NAFTA led to cheap agribusiness imports into Mexico, and the collapse of small family farms.....which in turn, led to the mass migration across the border looking for jobs. What did the Mexicans get in turn? Well, off the top, I found an excellent little article from a college newspaper in California: Teenagers are the main source of profit for many popular clothing stores, and the mindset that one person cannot make a difference is exactly what the companies want to hear. For instance, the Gap, a main beneficiary of sweatshop labor, urges teenagers to buy its clothing, omitting from their cheery advertisements that a Global Exchange investigation revealed that workers in Mexico for the Gap earn as little as 28 cents per hour making jeans that later sell for over $100. http://voice.paly.net/node/15396 Got that? 28 cents per hour! That's the race to the bottom that wage-earners have been on since globalization started. It's a fake, disingenuous argument for corporatists here to imply that an unwillingness to outsource manufacturing is demonstrating a lack of charity to the third world. The reality is that this kind of development has made life worse for both, the people living in both the developed world and undeveloped nations...we're all on a race to the bottom, and the only beneficiaries are the small, wealthy elites who have the capital to outsource their business to the places that can produce products or provide their services at the cheapest costs! 2. The ecological and resource bottlenecks. In brief, since we've covered this subject many times before -- the American way of life depends on dirt cheap energy and cheap resources, and both are becoming more expensive because many of them are running out, and demand presented from rapidly developing nations like China and India is outstripping supply. Ten years ago biologist/ecologist James Lovelock estimated that the present human population at the time would need three planet earths to provide an American style of living for the entire world....who knows how many planets it would take now that we have further overshot the carrying capacity of the planet! Except for a wealthy few, the vast majority of people everywhere, are going to have to live frugally, and focus on real quality of life, instead of the extremely wasteful consumer capitalism that drives world economies today. Unions like Air Canada and Canada Post are dinosaurs that don't understand how the world has changed. The Air Canada union rep made me laugh when he said that workers are entitled to raises because they have gone 10 years without any. Complete crap. They are entitled to raises when productivity goes up. Not as some reward for long service. And, productivity went up, but all they got was more cutbacks, while executives increased their bonus pays....but, that's okay with you, as long as the executives get rewarded for all of their fine efforts! Quote Anybody who believers exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist. -- Kenneth Boulding, 1973
Michael Hardner Posted June 14, 2011 Report Posted June 14, 2011 Although there is greed at work, and terrible environmental practices - overall it does bring poor people into a better circumstance financially, and - importantly - it gives them the power to demand change. Hong Kong just instituted its first minimum wage. Quote Looks like someone has a new patronizing catch phrase ! Michael Hardner
dre Posted June 15, 2011 Report Posted June 15, 2011 Sorry, Dre. That's just not true. My career was spent supplying manufacturers so I did earn some perspective. You're right that we COULD "make our own stuff" but it would cost a LOT more! Much more than people would be willing to pay. Worse yet, very few people ever make the connection as to the benefits of buying local or domestic anyway. They all head for WalMart and then are totally surprised when they lose their jobs. Anyhow, the reason pricing would be so much higher is that manufacturing today is designed around high volumes. Once you've made the capital investment into what's required to produce at those volumes you're costs are then low enough to be a global competitor. If you only invest enough to produce at a low volume then your costs are FAR higher! How much is low volume and how much is high? Easy. Supplying only Canada is low volume. Competing for sales globally is middle to high. So a pair of shoes that now costs $20 at "Shoe World" would not cost "a little more", like maybe $25. It would be perhaps $35, $45 or even over $50! A box of nails we buy for $2 would cost $8. My career was electronic manufacturing. I would estimate that if we followed YOUR suggestion the price of a $800 laptop computer could be as much as $3-$4 THOUSAND dollars! The Russians found that out the hard way back in the days of the Cold War. High tech electronic computer chips were illegal to sell to Iron Curtain countries so they scrounged what they could on the black market. They produced a few copies of some on their own but they spent literally millions of dollars to produce a handful of devices at a time, with a very high scrap rate. That's because electronic parts are the worst case example of volume pricing. The very nature of the materials and the necessary machines is such that you produce integrated circuits by the bucketful or you can't make them at all! The world goes the way the world goes and we can't stop it, Dre. Being a rock against the waves only gets you ground down. Much better to try to find a way to be a surfboard! You're right that we COULD "make our own stuff" but it would cost a LOT more! Much more than people would be willing to pay. Worse yet, very few people ever make the connection as to the benefits of buying local or domestic anyway. They all head for WalMart and then are totally surprised when they lose their jobs. They WOULD pay more. I didnt see people walking around barefoot when shoes cost $90. Yeah... stuff would cost more, in some cases much more, but wages would be hire and our money would be worth more. But regardless of how well that model served us, the idea that we can maintain a good standard of life doing nothing besides front desk work, and selling imports to each other is gonna cause a lot of problems, and was already a big factor in the financial crisis we just went through. Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
RNG Posted June 15, 2011 Report Posted June 15, 2011 Didn't you, your parents or your grandparents go through the great depression? Didn't they teach you anything. My parents were on a farm. We had tons of food. Way more than we needed. But no one to sell our products to. Therefore no money. So, start a barter system you say. Fine. But damn, coffee is hard to grow in central Saskatchewan. And I don't think sugar beets were invented then. And so many other things. Without international trade our quality of life would suffer terribly, something all the anti free trade types conveniently ignore. Quote The government can't give anything to anyone without having first taken it from someone else.
Battletoads Posted June 15, 2011 Report Posted June 15, 2011 Without international trade our quality of life would suffer terribly, something all the anti free trade types conveniently ignore. Last I checked "anti free trade" and "anti trade" were two different things. Quote "You can lead a Conservative to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
RNG Posted June 15, 2011 Report Posted June 15, 2011 Last I checked "anti free trade" and "anti trade" were two different things. So you mandate that computers must be manufactured in Canada. But you don't close the border to $600.00 computers made in China being imported. Sure, all good Canadians will buy the $5,000.00 Canadian made computers. Really? Quote The government can't give anything to anyone without having first taken it from someone else.
GostHacked Posted June 16, 2011 Report Posted June 16, 2011 So you mandate that computers must be manufactured in Canada. But you don't close the border to $600.00 computers made in China being imported. Sure, all good Canadians will buy the $5,000.00 Canadian made computers. Really? It's corporations who were inticed by cheap foreign labour that end setting up shop in places like China. Its the same company that closed shop aside from a head office in canada, and moved overseas and set up there. Then they sell you the product and make a bigger profit than if it were built here. Quote
cybercoma Posted June 16, 2011 Report Posted June 16, 2011 Without even reading the replies in this thread, this entire debate is going to revolve around two camps: the game is fair if the rules are equal or the game is fair if the outcome is equal. Quote
RNG Posted June 16, 2011 Report Posted June 16, 2011 It's corporations who were inticed by cheap foreign labour that end setting up shop in places like China. Its the same company that closed shop aside from a head office in canada, and moved overseas and set up there. Then they sell you the product and make a bigger profit than if it were built here. As true as your reply may be, it doesn't answer my question. Who will buy the high cost Canadian made computer? Quote The government can't give anything to anyone without having first taken it from someone else.
eyeball Posted June 16, 2011 Report Posted June 16, 2011 As true as your reply may be, it doesn't answer my question. Who will buy the high cost Canadian made computer? I will so long as it lasts longer. Quote I said now watch what you say they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal, oh fanatical criminal
RNG Posted June 16, 2011 Report Posted June 16, 2011 I will so long as it lasts longer. Odds are it will be of inferior quality. But even so, with the advances in technology these days, it gets antiquated even if it still works fine. Quote The government can't give anything to anyone without having first taken it from someone else.
Shwa Posted June 16, 2011 Report Posted June 16, 2011 So you mandate that computers must be manufactured in Canada. But you don't close the border to $600.00 computers made in China being imported. Sure, all good Canadians will buy the $5,000.00 Canadian made computers. Really? No, the Canadian computer will cost $550.00. How do I know this? Because I can make shit up too. Seriously, "the $5,000.00 Canadian made computers?" LOFL! Let's review: hyperbole (hy·per·bo·le) extravagant exaggeration. Quote
RNG Posted June 16, 2011 Report Posted June 16, 2011 No, the Canadian computer will cost $550.00. How do I know this? Because I can make shit up too. Seriously, "the $5,000.00 Canadian made computers?" LOFL! Let's review: hyperbole (hy·per·bo·le) extravagant exaggeration. Yes, the $5,000.00 was hyperbole, but do you really believe the $550.00? If you do, I have a deed to a bridge I'd like to show you. Quote The government can't give anything to anyone without having first taken it from someone else.
RNG Posted June 16, 2011 Report Posted June 16, 2011 (edited) Double post for some reason. Edited June 16, 2011 by RNG Quote The government can't give anything to anyone without having first taken it from someone else.
Bonam Posted June 16, 2011 Report Posted June 16, 2011 The first computer my family bought, when we came to Canada in 1993, was a 486 that cost just under $6000.00. Quote
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