Goldman Sachs Is Firing Employees In The US So It Can Hire 1,000 In Si

[Topaz]

Nope....I was just wondering why exporting American jobs to Canada is/was not considered a "race to the bottom". What makes Canada better than Mexico in that regard (NAFTA)? Or any other nation with cheaper labor?

I'll tell you why Canada's is better than Mexico. The work force and the quality of it. There's a US company that laid-off Canadian workers, hasn't shut the plant down, its still thinking about that, went to Mexico, built a new plant and after the product is made, its shipped to Texas where workers correct anything that's needs correcting. This company didn't need to do that at the Canadian plant, never a recall, in the years in was in operation. As a matter of fact, vendors wanted Canadians made product. The US has a plant in the US and they also does good work. The problem is the change at the top. New CEO's come across as anti-Canadian, remarks have been made and they seem not to care so much about the workers as the old executives did.

[Topaz]

I agree also, that this global economy thing is ONLY good for shareholders and the CEOs of the companies and all this "free-trade" that Canada is doing, can only be good for the government more than the Canadian workers. I have noticed that US companies are coming into Canada more lately because of the down turn of the US. These companies will setup shop here and some will stay but others will leave when times get better in the US and sending workers to the EI line. That's the only down thing about foreign companies, setting up shop in any country, they leave.

[Shwa]

The simple fact of the matter is that to increase our standard of living, we must do more with less.

If you don't believe me, would you like to return to a 19th century world where people travelled by horse, imports from China were rare and candles provided light when it wasn't sunny?

Well, according to your logic: yes?

Edited July 4, 2011 by Shwa

[Jack Weber]

Well, according to your logic: yes?

Yeah...I did'nt get that "extrapolation of logic" either....

[Michael Hardner]

I agree also, that this global economy thing is ONLY good for shareholders and the CEOs of the companies and all this "free-trade" that Canada is doing, can only be good for the government more than the Canadian workers.

Not true - the costs of goods go down, meaning there's more money to spend on other things.

[Jack Weber]

Not true - the costs of goods go down, meaning there's more money to spend on other things.

That's assuming people are still employed in well paying areas of the economy...

I don't see how replacing well paying manufacturing jobs with near minimum wage service sector jobs achieves that goal?

[August1991]

Well, according to your logic: yes?

By saying that we must produce more with less, I mean that we must find ways to have more goods and services while using fewer resources.

The way that WIP, Jack and BM present this it would be bad for Canada (the world) if someone invented an automobile that used salt water for fuel. WIP, Jack and BM would bemoan all the jobs that we would lose in the oil sector.

If you find a better, faster way to make your daily commute and as a result save time and fuel, then you are better off and the Canadian economy is better off. If Goldman-Sachs finds a better way to organize its affairs, then it (and the US economy) are better off.

----

When I think back at the 19th century, I think of the jobs of drudgery that we have now out-sourced/eliminated through technology or trade. Just think of the time required to prepare a meal or wash clothes in 1850.

If WIP, Jack and BM had lived 50 years ago, they would have criticized the loss of Canada's television manufacturing industry. But then, if WIP, Jack and BM were around in 1960, we never would have had a TV industry to offshore because we never would have had electricity. WIP, Jack and BM would have wanted to protect the jobs of candle makers in the 1920s.

[August1991]

I don't see how replacing well paying manufacturing jobs with near minimum wage service sector jobs achieves that goal?

How about well paying agricultural jobs?

In 1911, very roughly, it took about 33 Canadians to feed about 100 Canadians. That is, about 1/3 of Canada's labour force worked in agriculture and food production.

In 2011, that number has fallen to about 2 Canadians to feed 100 Canadians. IOW, about 31 Canadians (or their descendants) of every 100 have had to change professions.

And that's a good thing, Jack!

Canadians get fed (as they did in 1911) but we only require 2 people in 100 to feed us. The other 31 people can do something else with their time.

How did this happen? Well, we use better technology and we trade. Consider the Goldman-Sachs workers and the bank tellers to be similar to the 31 farmers (out of 100 workers) who lost their jobs in the past century.

[Oleg Bach]

From a laymens point of you and being a Nationalist of sorts - It would be nice if Mutli-national companies at least tried to be slightly loyal to their nation of origin. It seems that once a company finishes pilaging their national family - and it is easy to take advantage of family cos they love you....they expand and continue to pillage...but it will come back to haunt them - Conrad Black abandoned his national family thinking he would never need them again - it was his grand error.

[dre]

Not true - the costs of goods go down, meaning there's more money to spend on other things.

This was the chief selling point ya, but its highly arguable. The problem is that while the cost of SOME goods HAS come down, its put downward pressure on wages, and the price of most import things is going up (food, gas, oil, electricity). So we have scads of dirt cheap non-durables that we know replace every year, but overall if you look at essential services and items we have LESS purchasing power than we did before.

[Michael Hardner]

That's assuming people are still employed in well paying areas of the economy...

I don't see how replacing well paying manufacturing jobs with near minimum wage service sector jobs achieves that goal?

There are other economic benefits: more money to the owners, less cost to the consumer.

[Michael Hardner]

This was the chief selling point ya, but its highly arguable. The problem is that while the cost of SOME goods HAS come down, its put downward pressure on wages, and the price of most import things is going up (food, gas, oil, electricity). So we have scads of dirt cheap non-durables that we know replace every year, but overall if you look at essential services and items we have LESS purchasing power than we did before.

The things you listed aren't all imported things.

We have more purchasing power over the long term, and many things continue to go down in price. There are other local factors, of course, so that costs don't go down across the board.

[WIP]

You got that right...

And these Goldman Sachs employees are being free marketeered in the system they doubtlessly champion (ed)...

I guess they just are'nt "competative" or "productive" enough?

That's why this story strikes me as something similar to an arsonist accidentally setting himself on fire. There seem to be a lot of people further up the income and management ladder that were okay with globalization until they discovered that their ox was being gored also!

These global free marketeers will not happy until they have made what's left of the middle class disappear and return things to a sort of European mercantilism but on a global scale..

It's as if they are trying to rebalance things (at least in their minds) they feel were unfairly lost from the post war generation...As if they are getting back at the unworthy ingrates whoi demanded a better economic standing...

The sad thing is that these greedy people never learn from history...This very attitude brought on some very horrible ideas to counterbalance the harshness these global mercantilists advocate for...

What I find especially scary, after contemplating the reckless attitude - taking shortcuts which led to the BP Gulf Disaster, is that these greed-driven megalomaniacs are willing to roll the dice on ventures that can destroy entire ecosystems and kill and sicken entire populations living in the affected areas. We can see this in the energy-funded campaigns stalling efforts to move out of fossil fuels, and the reckless disregard of safety procedures by the operators of nuclear power stations -- just recently we learned that the operator of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant has been fighting against an NRC official who refused to back down from demands that they build higher flood protection barriers....if the plant operators had got their way, the flooding which almost breached flood containment would have left the U.S. with its own Fukashima Disaster to manage.

Again and again, we see the same pattern -- the captains of industry, and their lackeys in government have no regard for the wider implications of their actions. One of the assumptions held by many climate activists is that our leaders will reign in their short term interests when they realize the disaster we are heading into over the coming decades. But this is not the case if we are ruled by psychopaths! There are a few psychologists and neurologists who study abnormal psychology, and make the point that the majority of antisocial types categorized as psychopathic or sociopathic are not serial killers or prison inmates! Prisons have the highest percentage of these misfits of course, but the majority of psychopaths are out there walking among us. And the more intelligent ones, who are immune to the restrictions of personal sentiment like loyalty, empathy etc. are free to slash and burn their ways to the top of the political and corporate ladders.

The misfits who are leading the modern world are going to do more than destroy the middle class I'm afraid -- if there's no way for a democratic majority to reign in the rich and well connected, they are going to destroy life on Earth before they are done.

[M.Dancer]

Interesting....where was the outrage when such jobs were exported to Canada from the United States....and still are?

I bought a new phone yesterday....had to phone the CSR rep....what an accent he had....thought I was in the Alamo....where ya at I asked?

Kentucky...

[WIP]

Mis read WIP's opinion? "Methods and parameters"?

It seems simple to me: is it good or bad that many bank tellers lost their jobs to ATMs? And whether someone loses their job to a computer or to someone in India, theys till lose their job.

Heck, think of how many jobs have been lost in Canada over the past century or two! Horse traders, candle-makers, television tube manufacturing, vinyl discs. Canadians once worked in all these fields. Now, the jobs are gone.

WIP calls it a race to the bottom when we compete with low wage countries like India. Well WIP (and BM), computers are even cheaper! They work 24/7 for a few pennies in electricity. Oh the irony. You guys use computers to post messages that implicitly are anti-technology!

----

Read this text, and then get back to me.

One difference between our society today and back in 1845, when luddites were fighting new technology, was that there was no social safety net back then...of course you libertarians are hard at work trying to destroy what we've got now...anyway, with nothing to fall back on, someone like a candle-maker was literally imperiled by a new technological development, just as much as outsourcing his job...which wasn't practical yet in 1845 before the era of mass production.

If you want a world where money and production can move freely across borders, protected by the wide array of international trade and banking organizations, then another world body has to have the ability to protect what's not mobile and free to move -- the people working for the capitalist in search of cheaper production! So, both the workers in China, Malaysia or Bangladesh need a world body enforcing rules protecting the new factory workers, giving them the right to collective bargaining, health and safety protections, and fundamental protections against excessive labour abuses...such as Chinese factory workers forced to work more than 100 hours per week. And, over here...where the plants are closing...the people left behind in the rust belts need compensation for what's been taken away from them, in lost wages and the opportunities if they are young enough for retraining for decent careers that will provide a decent standard of living equivalent to what they've lost.

[Bonam]

And, over here...where the plants are closing...the people left behind in the rust belts need compensation for what's been taken away from them, in lost wages and the opportunities if they are young enough for retraining for decent careers that will provide a decent standard of living equivalent to what they've lost.

Why do they need "compensation"? Why can't they just use their own resources and abilities to adapt to changing economic conditions as best they can? You know, the way everyone else does?

So, both the workers in China, Malaysia or Bangladesh need a world body enforcing rules protecting the new factory workers, giving them the right to collective bargaining, health and safety protections, and fundamental protections against excessive labour abuses...such as Chinese factory workers forced to work more than 100 hours per week.

Many of these factory workers are making more and providing better lives for their families than they could otherwise. They are slowly but surely working their way out of poverty. Hundreds of millions have been raised out of poverty in the developing world precisely in this way over the past couple of decades. The last thing they need is unions to tell them they can't work and drive companies to invest in other countries instead.

These Chinese workers are doing precisely what they have to do, adapting to economic conditions, taking these manufacturing jobs, and seeing their lives improve as a result. As China goes from developing to developed, their quality of life will improve as well. Meanwhile, people like yourself will still be whining instead of working, wondering why all the jobs went overseas.

[bush_cheney2004]

One difference between our society today and back in 1845, when luddites were fighting new technology, was that there was no social safety net back then...of course you libertarians are hard at work trying to destroy what we've got now...anyway, with nothing to fall back on, someone like a candle-maker was literally imperiled by a new technological development, just as much as outsourcing his job...which wasn't practical yet in 1845 before the era of mass production.

Have no fear...candles and matches are still readily available and still in demand. The problem with the constant droning of Chicken Little scenarios is the very comparison to "what we have now", as if the present standard of living exists through benign and holistic means. You can't have it both ways, hoping to preserve "ill gotten gains" while denying the same opportunities to other labor and capital markets.

[dre]

The things you listed aren't all imported things.

We have more purchasing power over the long term, and many things continue to go down in price. There are other local factors, of course, so that costs don't go down across the board.

It doesnt matter if those things are imported or not. The downward pressure put on wages has made it harder for people to purchase those staples. And based on all the information Iv seen real purchasing power has NOT increased. Purchasing power is measured based on baskets of common goods and services. We have less real purchasing power now than we did 20 years ago, because inflation adjusted wages have been relatively stagnant while the costs of most staples have increased. Its nice having a flatscreen TV, but not so nice having to choose between paying your mortgage and purchasing heating oil during the winter.

[bloodyminded]

Do you really "get" all this?

Yes, august. I get that you don't generally wish to debate what people write; you wish to discuss matters with the phantom debaters that aren't before you, but are products of cavorting angels and demons within your own unique, albeit intelligent and good-hearted imagination.

BM, you then posted:

Well, what do you mean by "methods and parameters"? Does it matter if the computer inside the ATM runs on Linux or Windows?

??? No. I was referring to the methods and paramters by which the globalized economy is run--philosophically and practically; including but not limited to fucking over poor people for the benefit of rich people.

Now, this is not to argue that point, which is a separate argument--this is just to explain that, no, WIP does not "forbid trade with India." His problem is with how things are done economically.

The simple fact of the matter is that to increase our standard of living, we must do more with less. When someone figures out a way to accomplish the job of three people with only two, one person loses a job. This has been going on for a long, long time. Even before Bush Jnr and Obama!

Just so. Sitting Presidents are always blamed for everything.

You talk of trade, BM. When you choose to eat a Big Mac, do you think of the Burger King employees who will lose their jobs because of your choice?

Again, I'm talking policy, not inevitability. And I know some people think we have a "capitalist" system--innate to Nature--built on measures of "free Trade"--also innate to Nature; and that everything chugs along thanks to "Natural Law," and that people are rich, poor, or in between precisely because they deserve it, since all is ultimately fair, or at any rate totally out of people's hands. (Well, except for the very poor...they alone have "personal choice," though evidently no one else does, certainly not Economic advisors, corporate shareholders, the parasites known euphemistically as "speculators," and the IMF...all of whom are working passively within a Darwinian universe determined by Natural Law. )

I'm saying a large part of financial reality--good parts, yes, but also terrible parts--are the direct result of intentional choices made by a minority of wealthy people and their ideological servants...including political leaders, whose primary purpose is to serve the elites.

Edited July 6, 2011 by bloodyminded

[GostHacked]

Have no fear...candles and matches are still readily available and still in demand. The problem with the constant droning of Chicken Little scenarios is the very comparison to "what we have now", as if the present standard of living exists through benign and holistic means. You can't have it both ways, hoping to preserve "ill gotten gains" while denying the same opportunities to other labor and capital markets.

So, what does decades of outsourcing do for a nation?

Cheap foreign labout where the money goes out of country, you now have unemployed looking for new work. Money that newly unemployed person is not putting back into their own economy, and when they cheaply buy the product they used to make, the money goes out of country again. No money is coming back into the country to pay the taxes needed to balance the governments books.

This is just one small aspect of it. But in the end, outsourcing kills your economy.

Would you like fries with that?

[Bonam]

It doesnt matter if those things are imported or not. The downward pressure put on wages has made it harder for people to purchase those staples. And based on all the information Iv seen real purchasing power has NOT increased. Purchasing power is measured based on baskets of common goods and services. We have less real purchasing power now than we did 20 years ago, because inflation adjusted wages have been relatively stagnant while the costs of most staples have increased. Its nice having a flatscreen TV, but not so nice having to choose between paying your mortgage and purchasing heating oil during the winter.

Got some data to cite? My guess is if you exclude housing from the mix, purchasing power has grown rapidly throughout the last century, including the last 20 years.

Housing skews everything though, because for the past several decades it has seen a ridiculous inflationary bubble, and the recent pop barely put a dent in it. Houses keep increasing in price because it doesn't matter how much they cost once you're already in the market, even if prices make it all but impossible for first time buyers.

Honestly, now that I'm no longer a student and have a real job, everything seems super cheap and affordable, everything except purchasing a house that is.

The issue of exponentially exploding housing prices is kind of separate from the debate on globalism and outsourcing, except insofar as that some of the increase in housing prices is driven by foreign investment which would not be possible had we not lifted these foreign countries out of poverty by doing business with them.

[Michael Hardner]

It doesnt matter if those things are imported or not. The downward pressure put on wages has made it harder for people to purchase those staples. And based on all the information Iv seen real purchasing power has NOT increased. Purchasing power is measured based on baskets of common goods and services. We have less real purchasing power now than we did 20 years ago, because inflation adjusted wages have been relatively stagnant while the costs of most staples have increased. Its nice having a flatscreen TV, but not so nice having to choose between paying your mortgage and purchasing heating oil during the winter.

Would the prices of staples have not increased without globalized trade ?

I concur that real wage increases are stagnant, and that this is a problem. But I don't see protectionism (or vague alternatives that resemble protectionism) make sense either. Manufacturing jobs are gone and the adjustment is underway. There is more money in the system, and to my mind the question is how to make the new economy work for us.

[bush_cheney2004]

.... Its nice having a flatscreen TV, but not so nice having to choose between paying your mortgage and purchasing heating oil during the winter.

This is a subjective value judgement....GDP statistics for Canada clearly demonstrate rising purchasing power for consumers over the past 25 years. Consumers are purchasing more products and services in addition to "staples". Why just the other day in Toronto, I saw a man standing in the bread line while watching a movie on his iPad 2.

[GostHacked]

This is a subjective value judgement....GDP statistics for Canada clearly demonstrate rising purchasing power for consumers over the past 25 years. Consumers are purchasing more products and services in addition to "staples". Why just the other day in Toronto, I saw a man standing in the bread line while watching a movie on his iPad 2.

Most of these are buying it on credit, not knowing when or how they are going to pay off the item.

[dre]

Would the prices of staples have not increased without globalized trade ?

I concur that real wage increases are stagnant, and that this is a problem. But I don't see protectionism (or vague alternatives that resemble protectionism) make sense either. Manufacturing jobs are gone and the adjustment is underway. There is more money in the system, and to my mind the question is how to make the new economy work for us.

Yes prices would have increased but our ability to pay would have increased faster as well. Even among free trade advocates theres very little diagreement that globalization with put severe downward pressure on wages in the developed world. The argument though was that it would still be good for us because goods would be much cheaper. Im just pointing out that arguments fails in part because the most IMPORTANT things to us have increased in price, and one could argue that we would have been better off not losing all that production even if it meant certain consumer goods were much more expensive.

I concur that real wage increases are stagnant, and that this is a problem. But I don't see protectionism (or vague alternatives that resemble protectionism) make sense either. Manufacturing jobs are gone and the adjustment is underway. There is more money in the system, and to my mind the question is how to make the new economy work for us.

The problem is our niche will get smaller and smaller, and it will take a long long time for us to reach wage parity with the rest of the world, and when wages eventually do equalize they will be EXTREMELY low. Theres just sooooooo much dirt cheap labor to exploit. Once labor costs in places like India and China go up, then corporations will abandon them as well.

So our niche is shrinking. If we follow this to its inevitable conclusion we could be in some real trouble. For almost every job Canadians do theres someone else in the world willing to do it for next to nothing... pennies per hour in many cases. First it was factory jobs, now pretty much everything is on the block.

Our niche.... is basically going to be products and services that are IMPOSSIBLE to offshore... sales, automechanics, and frontend services, some medical procedures. We might not even have the privilege of growing our own food for long.

Now... Im not an anti-globalist. I think eventually things were going to go in this direction, and that eventually the standard of life was going to equalize somewhat between the developed and developing worlds. I just think we did it in a pretty wreckless way and that workers in the west were not told the truth about what exactly it was they were buying into. I probably would have tried to do it more gradually and with more of a long term vision.

Ironically... those factory and production workers were were so quick to throw under the bus? Theyre jobs will come back. We are on the precipice not only of a global energy crisis that will make local production viable again, and probably save our agricultural sector from being wiped out by foreign imports (like the west has done to much of the world by dumping cheap subsidized food into various markets). But the bean-counters and administrators that made the origional decisions to terminate all those people? Their jobs will be gone for good because it costs next nothing to "transport" those decisions.

If you work at the job though that produces a very portable work product though, you are going to look back and wish you had been an employed steel worker in 2011 instead of a programmer, or an accountant!

I see a lot of potential for irony as this all unfolds.