Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Urchin on November 10, 2003, 07:06:09 AM
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I understand that they are great for the corporations. They can move their factories out of the country, get foreigners to do the work Americans had been doing and pay them in pennies and nickels instead of dollars, and then sell the finished product back in the U.S. and make an even larger profit then they had been.
What I don't understand is why do Americans think this is a good thing? I guess in four or five centuries, after the corporations decide they can move back to America and pay the starving people there less than the greedy sons of *****es in Somalia, we might actually see some real job growth here.
I think it is time for this whole "globalization" kick to end. Yea, it is hell on wheels for greedy corporate *****uckers, but for your everyday average worker it leads to unemployment, underemployment, and the finished product doesn't cost any less than it would if it were made in the U.S.
Or maybe I'm just not seeing the whole picture, one of you wiser folks enlighten me please.
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Are you still going to school?
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If people were to boycott goods made in sweatshops (noteably textiles and electronics), then undoubteldly the corporations who make those goods would do something about it - but that might make the goods more expensive.
Sadly, most people either don't know or don't care where and by whom the stuff they buy is made and what their working conditions are like - as long as the goods are cheap.
Potentially, global markets offer great benefits to everyone, but at present the markets are being managed by mulit-national corperations (of the top 100 economies on the planet, 51 are corporations) who have very few, if any, national loyalties at all.
These corporations are able to field powerful lobby groups which effectively make politicians their puppets.
Cheers
Ravs
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You can't build a wall around an economy. "Greedy" corporations wouldn't have to move overseas if "greedy" consumers didn't prefer cheaper products.
Free trade is a good thing in the long term because it allows more efficient use of resources. In the short term it can cause all sorts of grief as it displaces workers.
There are two reasons we are taking such a big hit now: 1) the cold war kept a billion people out of the global job market. Now that it is over, those people are available to work for western corporations at very low wages. 2) telecommunications improvements make it easier than ever to do business internationally, bringing probably another billion low-wage workers into the global job market.
Both of these changes were pretty sudden, so the economic impact is sudden, too.
Eventually the production and consumption of these 2 billion new workers will benefit us all, but until then we get to watch the value of our own labor pushed down by global market forces, and entire professions may become nearly extinct in the west.
ra
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Its the EVIL corporations fault, because they are EVIL.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Its the EVIL corporations fault, because they are EVIL.
Maybe not, but greedy would be a good term.
Tell me Grun, have you traveled to where these companies operate?
I was in the process of writing a long post on the subject, but I just scratched everything because it is frustrating.
I'll just leave it at this: once you witness first hand the complete lack of ethics some of these companies operate with your opinion will change.
This is coming from someone who was very surprised to see how the awesome corporation daddy worked for "employed" 11 year olds for 9 hours a day harvesting peanuts in a sunny field for maybe a quarter a day. The way this company operates is no different from a cartel, except for their product.
GO PLANTERS!!!
(http://www.suffolkfest.org/peanut/graphics/sponsor_logos/planters.gif)
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And by the way, I disagree with Urchin, I believe in a global economy, but there should be some international standards on how to treat workers, no matter what their stupid third world governments allow.
But that will come. The age of slave labour has to end sooner or later.
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The 4 loaves of bread per week we paid workers in Puerto Rico is much better than the 1 loaf of bread national average.
MiniD
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International Minimum Wage
Thank You
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Animal, the "age of slave labor" will end when the corporations run out of people to exploit. That could take a while, given the rate of growth in some "third-world" countries.
And yea Grun... I'm still in school... the problem is my professors are all dirty communists like me. Nobody's changed my mind yet. I say we either go for a true "global economy" with international standards for wages, benefits, and other stuff, or go strictly national economies and tariff the **** out of the companies that choose to relocate "off-shore" to save money on labor costs.
Either way would work pretty well I think.
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most are duped into thinking it's a good deal. I only see it as good if you already have money or you get your money through investments.
for the american worker there is no good deal. most of hte countrys our jobs get sent off to don't have the cash to buy many products made here.
I see no benifit tho the american worker. not only is there a loss of work now but it will lead to the deteriation of working conditions for those who still find a job here.
you're already hearing the effects now with the push to do away with over-time pay for many americans. also many of the work place safety standards where scrapped when bush came to office(mainly ergonomic work regulations designed to reduce repetitive stress injuries).
and even people not in the workforce get screwed. many times the jobs aren't just sent to other countries because of lower wages. there is also weaker environmental protection regulations in most countries.
why would an employer set up on the texas side and have to deal with our polution regs when they could build their shop accross the river and dump the waste right in the river.
is see nothing wrong with protectionist tariffs (most countrys have some sort), not just as a way to promote suporting your own economy.
but if they truly want a fair global economy we should regulate working conditions and environmental standards not by where the factory is but where the products are sold.
if you treat your workers as slaves (or use slave labor), then you can't sell your products here. if you don't control your emissions then you cant sell here.
this not only would be good for the rest of the planet it would also allow us to restrict emissions to reasonable levels without having to worry about competing with countys who aren't playing by the same rules.
also if you build a product here, a car for instance, we collect quite a bit of tax by the time that car is sold. taxes on the companys proffit, taxes on the wages of the men building that car, wages and proffits from vendors who supply parts and equipment. all the way down to taxes on the wages of the waitress who serves lunch to the guy building the car.
if you truly leveled the playing feild an import tax equal to the taxes that would have been generated by building that car here would be levied on all imports.
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Originally posted by Urchin
Animal, the "age of slave labor" will end when the corporations run out of people to exploit. That could take a while, given the rate of growth in some "third-world" countries.
And yea Grun... I'm still in school... the problem is my professors are all dirty communists like me. Nobody's changed my mind yet. I say we either go for a true "global economy" with international standards for wages, benefits, and other stuff, or go strictly national economies and tariff the **** out of the companies that choose to relocate "off-shore" to save money on labor costs.
Either way would work pretty well I think.
A corporation is merely a form of organisation, any greed or corruption they exhibit goes with any human organisation. Your communist professors have done a good job of teaching you that corporations are the greediest forms of human organisation, as though other organisations have a higher form of humainity. Nobody complains when corrupt, inefficient governments ruin a country's economy and cause it's people to live in poverty.
The way a corporation does business in a small country with a corrupt, unstable government will be different from the way it does business in Switzerland. Most of Latin America is corrupt, with resources controlled by a few rich families, or by government. Either way, the poor are screwed. Some corporations may be guilty of preserving the status quo for their own interests, but for the most part those countries have always been messed up, even after revolutions which were supposed to improve the conditions of the poor.
Poor countries which corporations have no interest in, like most of Africa, are more messed up than those countries which corporations do business in.
As far as international trade goes, corporations often have little direct involvement with the conditions unskilled workers face. If a large western corporation decides to import bolts from China to save costs, it will be Chinese companies and governments who decide how to pay and treat the workers. The western corporation just offloads the bolts from the dock without knowing or caring how the conditions are at the Chinese factory. If the bolts are being made by 8 year old kids working 14 hour days is it the corporation's fault or the communist government's fault? Ask your professor.
ra
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As far as international trade goes, corporations often have little direct involvement with the conditions unskilled workers face. If a large western corporation decides to import bolts from China to save costs, it will be Chinese companies and governments who decide how to pay and treat the workers. The western corporation just offloads the bolts from the dock without knowing or caring how the conditions are at the Chinese factory. If the bolts are being made by 8 year old kids working 14 hour days is it the corporation's fault or the communist government's fault?
no it's our fault for not protecting our bolt manufacturers( or those in other countries who also use humane work practices)
corperations are not inherantly evil but they have no soul. there is no person at the top who says "the buck stops here. I'm responsable for what my company does and the decissions it makes"
in the corperate world the owners of the company (share holders), say "I just own a small peice, I don't run this company or have any real say in it's operation" and the ceo says "I can't let my personal views interfere, I have a duty to my share holders to provide them with a maximum return. as long as what I'm doing isn't illeagal I have no right to let my personal morals get in the way of them getting a good return on their investment).
since nobody will take responsability we need to regulate the situation, either by out-right bans on imports from countrys that don't have some sort of reasonable protection for workers and the environment. the other option would be tariffs equal to or exceding the cost of implementing these regulations, making it more proffitable to treat their people and the planet well.
we don't have a right to tell other countrys what laws to pass but we do have a right to say they can't do bussiness here if they won't at least meet our minimum standards.
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I worked for the biggest company in the world at one point, i think wal mart replaced them recently.
The stuff I saw that went on in meetings at the company made me ill. I thought crap like that was made up and was only in the movies.
Covering up OSHA incidents to lower your numbers and appear safe. Busting bureau of land management regulations. Knowing your busting lease lines and fudging the reporting. Asking doctors to not prescribe medicine to injured workers so it wouldnt have to be reported to OSHA. These werent 1 time incidents, pretty much a common occurance.
Yes the job paid a ton but I hated selling my soul to make it.
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Originally posted by Urchin
Animal, the "age of slave labor" will end when the corporations run out of people to exploit. That could take a while, given the rate of growth in some "third-world" countries.
And yea Grun... I'm still in school... the problem is my professors are all dirty communists like me. Nobody's changed my mind yet. I say we either go for a true "global economy" with international standards for wages, benefits, and other stuff, or go strictly national economies and tariff the **** out of the companies that choose to relocate "off-shore" to save money on labor costs.
Either way would work pretty well I think.
No it wouldnt work well, for example tarrifs would simply destroy the US economy as other nations would simply deploy counter tarrifs to protect their workers. In fact protectionist tarrifs and retalitory prptectionist tarrifs were enourmously responsible for the Great Depression of the 1930s getting as bad as it did - and the motive was the same - to protect domestic jobs.
And it's really a bad idea to learn your economics from english proffesors...
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In the history of the planet can you identify two countries with free trade between them that went to war against each other?
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It seems to me that if the US and Europe want to maintain their current standards of living, then they will have no choice but to continue down the consumerist road they set out on.
Like it or not, we have our lovely lifestyles in no small part because others are earning a pittance by growing cash crops to fill our supermarkets or working in sweatshops making the the clothing we wear. It means that we can buy more things more cheaply.
There has been a steady shift of manufacturing jobs (and more recently service oriented jobs) to the 'third world' for a number of years now. As Ra rightly points out, this has been accellerated by a hitherto unavailable labour market and an improvment in communications technology.
The response in the west has been for for people to take up employment in the service sector, but this sector is not large enough to accomodate all (particularly those who are too old to learn new skills) so we end up with a growing underclass in the west many of whom are employed in 'dead end' jobs, flipping burgers or working as sales assistants in supermarkets.
Set against this, is the constant bombardment that we receive through every possible form of media to buy things we don't really need and to consume for the sake of consumption. In order to do so, we need to make our money stretch further so that takes us back to cheap imports again.
I think that Ra is a little naive if he believes that the CEOs of companies which subcontract the production of their goods to third world countries have in every case, no idea about labour conditions in the factories that those goods are being produced in. Very often, the capital that has gone into building those factories are from the corporation itself which will also be closely involved in quality control of the goods produced.
Nor do I agree with the inference that Ra may have intended (if not, then I apologise) that outsourcing production to third world countries does the poor in those countries a great deal of good. Many of these countries are up to their necks in debt to the world bank and 'strings' that come with the loans given to those countries are that they produce cash crops and mass produced goods for the benefit of western consumers. As a result, people who were previously self sufficient to a greater degree are no longer so. Wouldn't it be more sensible if they were growing food from themselves, rather than cheap coffee for us? To add insult to injury, companies like Monsanto have used their muscle to ensure that farmers (for example in India, and I would guess in the US although I don't know this for sure) grow crops with a 'terminator' gene spliced into it, so that they have to keep going back to Monsanto to buy more seed rather than being able to produce new seed themselves.
Nowadays, if the workers in an 'enterprise zone' (for which read 'sweatshop') agitate for better rights, the corporation simply threatens to up sticks and move its production to another state - there are lots to choose from. For a good discussion about this, read a book called 'No Logo' by Naomi Klien.
Abuse of workers rights is also alive and well in the USA, as Dnil said. The meat packing industry is a terrible culprit in this area and the Republican party has actively assisted it. Why? Because the meat packing industry is one of the biggest doners to the Republican party's coffers.
It's all twisted, and it all stinks, but that's just the way it is.
Ravs
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Urchin: I understand that they are great for the corporations. They can move their factories out of the country, get foreigners to do the work Americans had been doing and pay them in pennies and nickels instead of dollars, and then sell the finished product back in the U.S. and make an even larger profit then they had been.
First, most of the corporations are publicly owned. Our savings, pensions, etc. are invested in those corporations, so any increase in profit is good for us.
Second, as the unusually high profits attract more companies, the competition between them drives the prices down. That means that the real wages for all US consumers increase. Such increase in real wages allows employers to cut or not raise nominal wages and still leaves the employees better off. With lower nominal wages the price of the US products can be lowered.
With prices, US products become more competitive abroad.
More foreign demand due to lower prices and more domestic demand due to surplus of money in the consumer's hands cause domestic production to increase and absorb workers who's jobs were lost to foreign labor.
As a result. total level of production and consumption in US uncreases.
Ain't it great?
ravells: If people were to boycott goods made in sweatshops...
Then the workers of those sweatshops would retire to life or leisure and luxury or most likely starve. I am not sure which... :rolleyes:
ra: There are two reasons we are taking such a big hit now: 1) the cold war kept a billion people out of the global job market. Now that it is over, those people are available to work for western corporations at very low wages. 2) telecommunications improvements make it easier than ever to do business internationally, bringing probably another billion low-wage workers into the global job market.
Those are not the real reasons. The real reason is that Federal Reserve keeps priniting dollars and foreign governments keep buying them. That prevents market adjustments to the purchasing power that would balance the trade and investment. As money leaves the country and does not come back, it should appreciate in value in this country and drop in value outside - thus making US products and labor more attractive to foreigners and foreign products less attractive to US consumers.
Animal: he awesome corporation daddy worked for "employed" 11 year olds for 9 hours a day harvesting peanuts in a sunny field for maybe a quarter a day.
Those 11 year olds must be living in pretty terrible conditions if such job was the best option available to them.
miko
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Free Trade=more efficient use of resources & lower prices for consumers
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Originally posted by miko2d
Animal: he awesome corporation daddy worked for "employed" 11 year olds for 9 hours a day harvesting peanuts in a sunny field for maybe a quarter a day.
Those 11 year olds must be living in pretty terrible conditions if such job was the best option available to them.
miko [/B]
Is that some twisted sort of excuse to validate what is being done?
Quite simple really. You either work for the cartel, or you work for the "legitimate" company.
Both pay the same, and in both you run the same risks of violence. And there is hell to pay if they even attempt to try and organize a workers union.
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Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
In the history of the planet can you identify two countries with free trade between them that went to war against each other?
Loaded question. For there to be free trade, there would already have to be a feeling of "we're one and the same" which would obfuscate the need for war to begin with.
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Originally posted by gofaster
Loaded question. For there to be free trade, there would already have to be a feeling of "we're one and the same" which would obfuscate the need for war to begin with.
That sounds like a good thing to me. :)
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Originally posted by ra
You can't build a wall around an economy. "Greedy" corporations wouldn't have to move overseas if "greedy" consumers didn't prefer cheaper products.
You hit it right on the head.
You also mentioned, in another post, that corporations aren't necessarily an evil entity and I would agree with that.
Too many times, headlines say things like "AT&T Violates Do Not Call List" or "Merrill Lynch Defrauded Investors" or "IBM Blamed for Cancer In Workers". Corporations don't make decisions. Corporations don't have a brain. Corporations are organizations composed of people. Somebody in that organization made a decision and hid behind the corporate mantel of indemnification. It was the person(s) who made a decision to do something that is the culprit. I've never believed that fines against corporations for violations, such as environmental damage, have accomplished anything. Rather, its the follow-on criminal charges that have the most effect.
Corporations aren't evil. Its the people within them that are.
Slavery is a global issue and is not limited to overseas countries. Just ask the fruit pickers who were held under barbed wire and armed guards by the Ramos Brothers (http://www.sptimes.com/2002/12/01/news_pf/State/Fear_and_knowing_in_I.shtml).
Corporations send jobs overseas because they have to answer to the bottom line demanded by shareholders. Nowadays, most of those shareholders are people with their cash in mutual funds who don't really know that they're shareholders. Others own such a small percentage of stock that their voting strength is extremely weak. With the loss of company-sponsored pensions, more people have had to become shareholders in order to try and build a retirement plan for themselves. So don't expect a big outcry if sending a job overseas means their stock portfolio goes up.
Like I said, corporations aren't evil. Its the people within them. If we want to persecute the owners of the corporations, we'll have to persecute ourselves.
I would expect that this "send our customer service operations overseas" trend is an experiment with limited gain. I would suspect that some corporations will change their minds about the operations within the next 5 to 10 years and bring them back to the US.
One more thing: not only are corporations trying to find cheaper labor overseas, they're trying to figure out how to lower their labor costs here in the US by reducing overtime pay (http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/2003/11/10/Worldandnation/Economy_increases_ove.shtml).
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Animal, I want to make one thing clear.
If some people or an organisation is engaged in violence, coercion and illegal acts, I would never condone it.
That being said, let's consider a situation:
I have saved some money with my labor and thrift. There is an undeveloped country where people live in squalor. I am not responcible for them living in such conditions.
I may decide to take my money and invest it into a factory in their country. I would have to offer someone a price for a piece of land and a building that would be better than any other offer he has so he sells it to me.
Then I would offer jobs to the workers on conditions attractive enough so that they would be willing to drop whatever else they are doing and come working for me. If I guess correctly, I would offer exactly as high (or as low) salary so that just enough barely qualified workers show up as I have places. Let's say I get a 100 grade C workers for 100 peso each.
After that I will offer to sell that product domestically at lower price than such products are sold here in order to underprice the established brands but if I guess it correctly, at as high a price as I can to sell all my products.
If I guess correctly, both myself and my workers would be better off because we voluntarily acted on our preferences and exchnanged our previous situation for more satisfactory one. That means an 11-year old does not have to work 18-hour days doing hard physical labor in the fields with no guarantee that the harvest will result from his efforts, but will have an assured 16-hour a day indor job with much less physical exertion and moskito screens on the windows for more money paid weekly guaranteed.
Now, I may have profits left from my operation. Or some other entrepreneur may learn about my profits and decide to invest - it makes no difference. Those profits I would invest into the building of a second shop in the same country. Since at the price I offered previously I could only get 100 grade C workers, I would have to offer higher wage to all my workers - old one as well as new, otherwise the experienced workers from my old factory would just switch to my (or competitor's) new factory. So I now offer pay 105 peso and 100 grade B workers show up. Grade B is better than grade C, by the way, because now I will get workers at 105 peso that would not be willing to work for 100 peso for me.
Obviously I will have to sell all my products at lower price than before so that I sell all of them. I get smaller profit per unit of capital invested
If I had been somehow forced to hire workers at 105, my initial capital would have been sufficient to hire only 95 workers. At that salary, 200 people would have shown up - 100 grade C and 100 grade B, but I would obviously hire only 95 of grade B, thus leaving the most desperate people unemployed and improving the lot of those who were better off enyway. Which is exactly how the wage laws benefit people who are better off at the expense of those who are more desperate and will not gain employment.
We repeat this process over an over again, lowering the prices domesically - which means raising real wages of US consumers - and raisig the wages abroad.
Some domestic workers displaced by my priducts will find better jobs that woudl open because I raised the real wages of the domestic workers. Some of those jobs will be producing goods for my foreign workers.
At some poing the grade A workers will be getting paid so much that they will have investable savings just like I did in the beginning of this scenario. For instance they could stop sending their children (grade C) to work but would rather invest into their education.
As the salaries raise, every peso earned by them will have lower marginal utility than the previous one, while every hour of leisure lost will have higher marginal utility than the prevous one. Once those two become equal, the worker will take one hour off his job rather than extra money - completely voluntarily. And I would have no choice but to accomodate him since otherwise he would go work for my competitor.
Labor is a resource just like any other and if the price is not kept artificially high, there cannot be surplus of it. There will be competition for labor exactly like for any other factor of production.
All in all, we have more total production between our two countries. Our domestic real wages and consumption would be growing while theirs would be growing even faster and unless the government puts a stop to it with mercantilist policies, we will all benefit and eventually the incomes gap would close.
How is that scenario?
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d
How is that scenario?
miko
Beautiful. :)
Well said miko - I'm glad you decided to invest the time to write these posts even though I dont think Urchin will be swayed.
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Wall-Mart is still Evil.... When they move in, they put the mom and pop stores out of business in hometown American by undersellling - even at a loss - every product mom and pop sells.
Once M&P are out of business, prices go up.
Sure Wall-Mart now employs the workers that used to farm the land where the Wall-Mart parking lot now is and probalby even pays better than M&P and the farmer did...
But gosh darn it... do they have to wear those bright blue aprons?
Next will be the company store...
You load 16 tons and whaddaya get
another day older and deeper in dept
Saint Peter don'tcha call me 'Cause-
I can't go...I owe my soul to the Company
Store
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GRUNHERZ: I'm glad you decided to invest the time to write these posts even though I dont think Urchin will be swayed.
That would be unfortunate. He may join a protest campaign that will force a company to forego some profit, cause the US customers to pay a little bit more but will cause the desperate workers in developed country to starve and teh country to lose its chance to develop.
Such people would not provide the necessary capital to those countries but would prevent those who are willing from offering such capital.
One can talk till he is blue in the face about improving the lot of a worker, but the only way to do so is accumulation of more capital per worker.
miko
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DmdNexus: Once M&P are out of business, prices go up.
No they do not - because there is a K-Mart, and a whole slew of other competitors.
miko
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If It's an American Company It should employ only Americans.
Sorry but thats the way I see it.
If these other countries want big companys to work for then build them:aok
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Originally posted by miko2d
DmdNexus: Once M&P are out of business, prices go up.
No they do not - because there is a K-Mart, and a whole slew of other competitors.
miko
K-Mart is in bankruptcy - they filed last year...
Wall-Mart ran them out of business.....
Once the competition in a small town is gone... Wall-Mart prices go up.
Sears, and JC Pencies anchor them selves off of malls now.
Wall-Mart puts small businesses in small town America out of business - not talking about suburbia where there's other chain stores like K-mart.
It is the natural order of things... the big guys get bigger and the small guys get gobbled up... And then the last two big guys share the Coconut Cream pie (Pepsi and Coke).
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Gawd you guys crack me up.
It goes a little something like this:
NZ has pretty much free trade. Lets say someone in India produces a Widget in a sweatshop and sells it to an importer for US$10. That importer doesn't pay any import duties (apart from GST, which is long to explain but its net effect to the importer is neglible). The importer then sells the widget to a store @ US$20. The store then sells it the you at US$30.
Then theres the US. The have import duties on widgets. So the importer has to pay US$20 per widget ($10 cost plus $10 tax duty). He sells it to the store for $40, who then sell it to you for $60.
Still in the US there is a widget maker, but his widgets cost $20 to make. He sells them to the store for $40 who sells it to you for $60.
Now whats the net effect of the import duty? Well in NZ the consumer pays $30, in the US the consumer pays $60. In the US the govt gets $10 tax, and the importer doubles his margin (which means he may be able to bribe or drop his price to get more sales from the store).
At the end of the day import duties only server to protect inefficient businesses or production and create a false economy. The only people who benefit are the goverment and those higher up in the food chain. The consumer loses out big time. So the consumer has less buying power and requires a higher income thus creating another ineffeciency in the US economy.
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Miko, thank you for responding. One question however-
You say "Second, as the unusually high profits attract more companies, the competition between them drives the prices down. That means that the real wages for all US consumers increase. Such increase in real wages allows employers to cut or not raise nominal wages and still leaves the employees better off. With lower nominal wages the price of the US products can be lowered.
With prices, US products become more competitive abroad. "
The U.S. imports far far more goods than it exports, I don't know the numbers but I know it is true. I was also under the impression that for an economy to keep growing, it had to export more than it imported, is that untrue?
Also, I was under the impression that "real wages" had actually fallen since the 1970's. For most Americans anyway, for the richest Americans it is up some absurdly high 3 digit number.
And by the way Grunherz... you need to take off your McD's or Walmart thinking cap and possibly do some thinking on your own. Maybe you'll be able to think up some new catch phrases if you try real hard.
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WTO is about to slap the US with a 2 billion dollar fine for it's 30% Steel tarriffs... .which are ILLEGAL according to trade agreements signed by the US...
I guess the US and it's word doesn't mean watermelon to Republicans.
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Our biggest dealer is in Canada. We export more product than we import from suppliers. NAFTA makes this process relatively painless. It's a good thing for us.
A little side bonus is all the cheap Mexican labor we use. :)
buahahahaha best of both worlds.
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Originally posted by DmdNexus
WTO is about to slap the US with a 2 billion dollar fine for it's 30% Steel tarriffs... .which are ILLEGAL according to trade agreements signed by the US...
I guess the US and it's word doesn't mean watermelon to Republicans.
Sweet! I know NZ was doing the US over some trade breaches (lamb, steel, and forestry stuff).
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You know Urchin I just gotta laugh at that, being insulted on
economic issues by an ignorant communist like yourself... :) as for inmdependanyt thought yoiu are the one sputtering back drivel from yiour communist profhesors, tell me again how evil are those corporations? Anyway dont be too hard on Wal-Wart or McDonalds, they will always be there for you when you need them because frankly you have no chance in the real world if you continue to think as poorly as you do on economics and business.
Still urchin I think your hostility towards me fully demonstartes that I was right and that you really arent willing to learn from these responses. In fact I dont even know why i bother responding to this thread.
But I'm kinda ticked because I did try to give you a real life example of where tarrifs such as you prposed did great harm - but then you come back with insults..
Why ask in the first place if you intend to insult people who respond?
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Originally posted by midnight Target
Our biggest dealer is in Canada. We export more product than we import from suppliers. NAFTA makes this process relatively painless. It's a good thing for us.
A little side bonus is all the cheap Mexican labor we use. :)
buahahahaha best of both worlds.
Wouldnt you be better off if there were huge tarrifs stopping this evil corporate greed?
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Originally posted by miko2d
How is that scenario?
miko
The way you picture it I have absolutely no trouble with, like I stated above, I am pro global economy, if it is done the way you have described.
But that is not the case with many companies.
Take Nike, for example. They are already a hugely profitable company, earning more than 1000% of the cost of manufacture their products.
These products, of cheap materials to begin with, are manufactured overseas by workers who get paid the equivalent of $1 a day, minus $.25 daily for food, if they want to eat during their 12 hour shifts. You see, Nike employees are not allowed to bring anything into the factory, including food, for fear of contraband, just as they are checked when they leave. The food they eat must be purchased at the factory for one third their daily pay. Each worker makes aproximately 40 pairs of shoes daily, at a cost of aproximately $5 each in materials. This product is then sold by Nike, to us, at a price of aproximately $100. For $.75, that worked made Nike aproximately $3,000 in pure profit.
They have been doing this for years. Their prices are still absurdly high - their product costs the same now as it did ten years ago.
Do you consider this ethical? moral?
Now consider this. $.75, what that worker is getting paid, is not enough to mantain a family of four. So the worker has to bring his wife, and one of his children, probably his eldest, to work with him, so that they can together earn $2.25, which would then be enough to mantain the family.
Picture yourself, your wife, and your eldest son (maybe 14 years old?) all together working for the equivalent of $40 a day in the US. Your eldest son cannot go to school, so you got no hope of him becoming a professional and getting the family out of the ditch. Not to mention your youngest offspring, which is probably growing up unattended, to be a criminal.
True, the situation is dire, and there are simply no other jobs for a man like you, and this one is stable, provided you dont miss work three times a year, or meet weekly productivity expectations, you will be stuck with this job for the rest of your life.
Now, when you finally get home and turn on your 12" tv, the irony kicks in: You see Michael Jordan who is paid more than the cost of 5 years operation of your factory for a 5 second TV comercial, dunk a basketball, with a cinematic closeup of the shining shoes you build every day.
This is the reality for many people.
This is how many companies are operating. Few of them operate under your idealistic model. I wish they did, but they dont.
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I think some of you guys have a very false idea of Nike's profits. I just bought a pair of New Balance running shoes yesterday. My first observation is that they cost more-or-less the same price as Nikes. In fact all the running shoes on the shelves tended to be in the $40 to $100 range for a pair. This indicates that all the shoe manufacturers have similar production costs (which seems likely) or that Nike is too stupid to lower their prices to $20 a pair and monopolize the market. Secondly I just looked up Nike stock and their profit margin last year was 7%. Oh my..... that is truly obscene. I also checked Reebok who made 4% in profits, so I guess Nike is kicking their bellybutton but its not like Nike is Making $10 on every pair of shoes while Reebok is making $.05. I'm sure as hell not going to invest any money in a running shoe company, I can tell you that.
The sad truth is that there is no shortage of poor desperate people in the world. You guys can do all the hand-wringing you want but the only way those people move up out of poor desperate status is via industry and development (such as Nike is bringing). In fact there used to be a lot more poor desperate people in such places as Japan, Taiwan and Korea but over the last 50 years or so the cheap labor which was there attracted production which over time seriously raised standards of living in those locales.
Getting payed $0.75 an hour by Nike may suck, but it sucks less than getting paid $0.25 an hour or having no employment at all. The sad reality is that in a lot of places in the world these are the only choices.
This idea about global standards on wages and working conditions is total idiocy. The real effect of requiring Nike to pay $3.00 an hour to workers in Vietnam would not be to raise pay in Vietnam but to relocate their factories to Mexico (why pay to ship shoes halfway around the world if you are saving nothing on production costs). Instead of helping the poor workers you have so much sympathy for you would be condeming them to starvation.
Economic laws are just as firm as the laws of physics. Stalin could not, Mao could not and we cannot alter them by wishful thinking. The 20th century was one long economic equivalent of a bunch of governments outlawing gravity then taking a sight-seeing tour of the grand canyon (the little pink splotches at the bottom are all communists and socialists).
Hooligan
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Originally posted by Hooligan
I think some of you guys have a very false idea of Nike's profits. I just bought a pair of New Balance running shoes yesterday. My first observation is that they cost more-or-less the same price as Nikes. In fact all the running shoes on the shelves tended to be in the $40 to $100 range for a pair. This indicates that all the shoe manufacturers have similar production costs (which seems likely) or that Nike is too stupid to lower their prices to $20 a pair and monopolize the market. Secondly I just looked up Nike stock and their profit margin last year was 7%. Oh my..... that is truly obscene. I also checked Reebok who made 4% in profits, so I guess Nike is kicking their bellybutton but its not like Nike is Making $10 on every pair of shoes while Reebok is making $.05. I'm sure as hell not going to invest any money in a running shoe company, I can tell you that.
The sad truth is that there is no shortage of poor desperate people in the world. You guys can do all the hand-wringing you want but the only way those people move up out of poor desperate status is via industry and development (such as Nike is bringing). In fact there used to be a lot more poor desperate people in such places as Japan, Taiwan and Korea but over the last 50 years or so the cheap labor which was there attracted production which over time seriously raised standards of living in those locales.
Getting payed $0.75 an hour by Nike may suck, but it sucks less than getting paid $0.25 an hour or having no employment at all. The sad reality is that in a lot of places in the world these are the only choices.
This idea about global standards on wages and working conditions is total idiocy. The real effect of requiring Nike to pay $3.00 an hour to workers in Vietnam would not be to raise pay in Vietnam but to relocate their factories to Mexico (why pay to ship shoes halfway around the world if you are saving nothing on production costs). Instead of helping the poor workers you have so much sympathy for you would be condeming them to starvation.
Economic laws are just as firm as the laws of physics. Stalin could not, Mao could not and we cannot alter them by wishful thinking. The 20th century was one long economic equivalent of a bunch of governments outlawing gravity then taking a sight-seeing tour of the grand canyon (the little pink splotches at the bottom are all communists and socialists).
Hooligan
Excellent post, I was looking up Nike's financials just now but you beat me to it. And you make a fantastic point about minimum wage laws as well - they cause unemployment and would do so in a unique way globally hurting most the very people they are intended to "help."
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Nike's lack of profit comes from it growing too large for its own good during the 90's, and shady business practices.
They dont follow miko's economical model at all.
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Originally posted by Animal
Nike's lack of profit comes from it growing too large for its own good during the 90's, and shady business practices.
They dont follow miko's economical model at all.
"For $.75, that worked made Nike aproximately $3,000 in pure profit."
But a few posts ago you were saying they were raking in the dough... So which is it, are they greedy sadistic coldly efficient profiteers or bumbling idots barely staying afloat...
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Ha! ask that to the fat cats in Nike's lavish upper ladder.
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You changing the subject and avoding your contraditory statemetns about Nike profitability.... :)
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How am I changing the subject? I am unable to answer your question. If Nike is not profitable it may be because of their own stupid business tactics - certainly not because they are paying their workers too much, or using expensive materials for their products.
I dont get it Grunherz. I am pro a global economy, and I agree with some of your views, but you defending a company such as Nike shows just how much you care about the global (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=global) economy.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
You know Urchin I just gotta laugh at that, being insulted on
economic issues by an ignorant communist like yourself... :) as for inmdependanyt thought yoiu are the one sputtering back drivel from yiour communist profhesors, tell me again how evil are those corporations? Anyway dont be too hard on Wal-Wart or McDonalds, they will always be there for you when you need them because frankly you have no chance in the real world if you continue to think as poorly as you do on economics and business.
Still urchin I think your hostility towards me fully demonstartes that I was right and that you really arent willing to learn from these responses. In fact I dont even know why i bother responding to this thread.
But I'm kinda ticked because I did try to give you a real life example of where tarrifs such as you prposed did great harm - but then you come back with insults..
Why ask in the first place if you intend to insult people who respond?
Lemme see...
"Are you still going to school?"
"Its the EVIL corporations fault, because they are EVIL."
Looks like typical Grunherz idiocy to me.
Then I think you attempt to "redeem" yourself with
"No it wouldnt work well, for example tarrifs would simply destroy the US economy as other nations would simply deploy counter tarrifs to protect their workers. In fact protectionist tarrifs and retalitory prptectionist tarrifs were enourmously responsible for the Great Depression of the 1930s getting as bad as it did - and the motive was the same - to protect domestic jobs. "
Which would be untrue in the United States anyway, possibly it was true in Europe, I've never studied the depression of the 1930's in Europe. The depression in the 1930's was touched off by the stock market crash of 1929, which was the result of a "bubble" similar to what we had with tech stocks in the 1990's (the crash of which could be seen as causing the economic slump we are experiencing today). The situation was exacerbated by CORPORATE MANAGEMENT (yea, those friendly folks you get all dressed up and cheer for every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday night) who got the economy into a downward spiral by cutting production and jobs and "waiting it out". The more people that got laid off, the less money there was to spend, which in turn led to decreased sales, leading to decreased production, and more lay-offs. Now, were the corporate managers wrong? Of course not. They had a responsibility to their stockholders to not lose money, and everyone assumed that the situation would solve itself as it had in the past. Of course it didn't, but that isn't their fault. "Protectionist Tariffs" didn't have a whoopee thing to do with it. Better luck next time.
And finally,
"And it's really a bad idea to learn your economics from english proffesors..."
Yes, but I'm somewhat proud of the fact that I apparently learned something from my English professors. I, personally, think it is a bad idea to try to learn history from your corporate manager, even if you could find one that wasn't busy pulling his head out of his ass.
And enjoy your career in corporate management- maybe if you are really lucky you'll get to go over to one of the countries your corporation outsources all of its jobs to. If you get a chance, maybe take a quick 15 minute break from beating them to keep the production level high, go check out what your corporate largess is doing for their lives. Personally speaking, I'm of the opinion that "trickle-down" economics is fundamentally flawed... but then again I'm just a dirty communist.
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Originally posted by Animal
How am I changing the subject? I am unable to answer your question. If Nike is not profitable it may be because of their own stupid business tactics - certainly not because they are paying their workers too much, or using expensive materials for their products.
So if Nike has such poor business tactics why havent they been killed by the other shoe companies, why havent their shareholders abandoned them?
The fcat is Niki is profitable, but far far less so than you imagine in your wild fantasies of worker exploitation and evilness.
In fact I'm curious where did you get this info?
"For $.75, that worked made Nike aproximately $3,000 in pure profit."
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Where can you look up information on profit margins and stuff? Do you have to pay to get it?
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I asked you if you were still going to school because IIRC last time we talked about it you said you had trouble with your tution or somthing and I was curious if it all worked out ok for you- I'm sorry if you took it wrong way.
Though the evil corporations thing is my usual sarcastic grunherz crap, yes - just learn to expect it - no harm is intended just a sarcasm... :)
As for the depression it was touched off by the crash, however protectionist tarrifs imposed after the crash (to protect home grown indiustries and jobs just like yu ask for) contributed significantly to making the dpression worse and a truly global phenomenon. Why? Because all nations responded in kind and this hurt trade, less trade means less production output and leess jobs which means less money which means more poverty which means global depression.
And again there is no point learning economics from english proffesors. I liked most of mine and they were great people, kind funny intelligent but they did not understand econmincs as they did not study it and the defibte hard science nature of it did not suit them. I learned to examine literature and compose essays from my english teachers, economics and finance I left to my economics proffesors...
Again I'm not really sure why you posted this thread if you are simply ignoring the answers we are giving you and also insulting me at every turn. Why waste your time, why waster other peoples times?
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Originally posted by Urchin
Where can you look up information on profit margins and stuff? Do you have to pay to get it?
Go ask your english proffesor... :aok
JOKE JOKE JOKE JOKE JOKE
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What is so surprising about a worker producing $3,000 in product value each day? That is normal in companies in the US, why is it hard to believe if its the same with a US company elsewhere? is it hard to believe because they get paid so little? believe it. That is how much a worker gets paid in a Nike factory on Indonesia.
I may have been wrong, those $3,000 are not profit, they are product value. If Nike cant move their products well enough to make ends meet that is their problem - they certainly could during the nineties, when they were at their prime.
If Nike is not profitable now its their own damn fault, and I'm damn glad they are going down.
By the way:
In September, representatives of 57 organizations from around the world met in Germany to discuss codes of conduct, the role and responsibilities of transnational corporations, and strategies and campaigns to protect workers' rights worldwide. A prime topic of discussion was campaigns in support of workers in the sports shoe industry. In June, the National Organization of Wornen (NOW) passed a resolution condemning the global sweatshop; Nike was the only company mentioned by name.
If you think such a company is contibuting to the global economy in any way, you are sadly mistaken, and if you feel the need to defend such a company then it says a lot about your morals.
Nike is drowning on their won piss - they overgrew and now they are goung down because of their greed. Well deserved. As to why all the other companies are also failing? simple. They follow the same business model.
Grungerz, I clearly see you as an exec in a company such as Nike. You'd do fine in there.
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Animal wrote:
They dont follow miko's economical model at all.
But they have to. The laws of economics like the laws of gravity don't care. If you want workers you have to pay them. If you raise the demand for labor, the price goes up. That is all there is to it.
According to the last news story I read on the subject Nike actually pays its workers more than the prevailing local wage. This may be altruism on Nike's part (which I doubt), but most likely it is calculated as a wage to give them the best return for the money spent. i.e. better wages get them better employees, better publicity, etc...
I did a quick web search and found this:
http://www.mndaily.com/daily/2000/02/28/editorial_opinions/o0228/
Maybe it sucks to work for Nike in Indonesia. But apparently it sucks a lot less than working for the textile factory across the street.
Urchin:
quote.yahoo.com nke is the symbol, you might want to click on the "key statistics" and "competitors" links.
Hooligan
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What great justification...
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So now you admit your info is wrong, where did you get it? And you were ademant that it was PURE PROFIT, now its merely product value? I'm sorry Animal your argument is falling apart.
Would people employed by nike in 3rd world areas benefit if nike pulled out and moved production elsewhere?
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Originally posted by Animal
What great justification...
So even if Nike pays there people comporably high wages it does not matter to you? I guess you would preffer that nike pays them no wahes at all and just leaves them with no income - in fact thats exactly what you want. What a strage form of kindness...
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One of my professors told me something interesting (well, to everyone except Grunherz anyway, he'll find it admirable). Back in the 1970s, the average CEO made something like 25 times what your average worker was making.
I did manage to find some neat stuff about Walmart, so lets compare H. Lee Scott, Jr, with some random Walmart employee.
Starting wage at Walmart is $8.00 an hour in Maryland, its probably lower elsewhere in the country since the cost of living is very high out here. This'll skew the results some, but I'm sure they'll remain a lofty goal for Grunherz to shoot for.
$8.00 x37.5 (no 40 hour workweeks at Walmart, might accidentally hit OT.. which they can get around by simply not paying you for some hours you worked... Yea, Grunherz, I'm embellishing. Go look it up somewhere, if you can pry your head away from your bosses ass.)
$8.00 X 37.5 = $300 a week. $300 X 4 = $1200 a month. $1200 X 12 = $14,400 a year. Before taxes.
Sorry I can't break it down all at once for you Grun, try to keep something around your mouth so you can keep from getting drool all over the place when you see how much this gentleman makes in a year. Also, I've got no idea if this is total pay, or if he gets stock options and such on top of it, although I'd bet on the latter.
$17.69 Million a year... so if I wanted to see how many times 14.4K would go into that.... 12,284.72 times.
So the CEO of Walmart makes ~12,285 what your average hourly worker makes in America... I have very little doubt that Walmart employees in foreign countries are paid much less. Awesome. Anyone else got any neat figures handy for other companies?
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CEO pay is out of control, especially when such high pay is not met with peformannce. This is a serious corporate governance issue these days...
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Oh and Grunherz, I've got nothing against you personally. I despise what you stand for, and typically find what you hold to be admirable to be abhorrant, but as a person I think you are OK. I was just responding in kind, as I saw it. You keep it clean, and I will to.
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Thanks Urchin. :)
What do you think I stand for, what do you think my motives are?
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Urchin:
Honestly what has that got to do with anything?
If the closest walmart to you has a job opening and they offer $8.00 an hour are you going to take it? What about $50.00 an hour? $100.00? At some point you are probably going to be interested. If the money is worth more to you than the freedom to use your time as you see fit, who should anybody have the power to prohibit you from taking the job? I don't think anybody should, anymore than anybody should be able to tell you you MUST work for walmart for some specified wage. Likewise I don't think anybody should have the power to tell walmart what pay they may or may not offer you for your employment services.
As far as what the CEO makes, that is the business of the company's owners and nobody elses. If the guy isn't worth what they are paying him they always have the option of looking for someone who can do a better job and will do it for less pay.
Nobody else gets to come into your house and tell you how to run things there so why should anybody besides walmart's owners have anything to say about who is their CEO and what they are paid?
Hooligan
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I do remember one from back in the 80's, when corporate America was telling workers we should be more like the Japanese, (or at least the things they found in Japanese culture that where favorable to them)
one article I was reading at the time pointed out that maybe that would be a good thing as the CEO of the average Japanese communes (at that time, I have no idea if it is still true), made about 10-15 times the average wage in his company. while the American CEO averaged about 1000-1500 times the average wage of all his employees(average was figured after subtracting the CEO and his salary from the figure, so his wages didn't artificially inflate the average worker wage)
unfortunately this was before the option of saving a link to statistics I found interesting so no I don’t have a link, a byline or a video tape of the news program I received the info from.
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http://www.aflcio.org/corporateamerica/paywatch/pay/index.cfm
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It doesn't have a thing to do with anything, I just found it disgusting.
Your example is fine, but writ large the companies ARE telling people how much they are going to work for. You will not find a starting job at any business around where I live that pays more than $9.00 an hour. For example, my friend just got a job as a programmer. The starting pay - $9.00 an hour. And thats professional work, he went to school to learn that. The average worker hasn't got a helluva lot of choice about what he is going to make- he is going to take SOME job somewhere for ~$8.00 an hour. Granted, that is entry level work, I believe entry level managers at most retail places start at ~30K a year or so, less if it is a small store, slightly more if it is a large one. Unfortunately, I despise managers and I think I'd rather eat a gun than take a job as a retail manager someplace.
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Good info Grun, looks like my professor underestimated slightly with the starting ratio... I couldn't remember what he said the ratio was now though.
That kind of thing simply disgusts me, sorry. Maybe it is wrong to be disgusted by that, maybe I should be happy for the guy, but I look at a salary of $17 million a year and I see being able to pay all the average workers in my state enough to live without having to work two jobs.
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Originally posted by Urchin
It doesn't have a thing to do with anything, I just found it disgusting.
Your example is fine, but writ large the companies ARE telling people how much they are going to work for. You will not find a starting job at any business around where I live that pays more than $9.00 an hour. For example, my friend just got a job as a programmer. The starting pay - $9.00 an hour. And thats professional work, he went to school to learn that. The average worker hasn't got a helluva lot of choice about what he is going to make- he is going to take SOME job somewhere for ~$8.00 an hour. Granted, that is entry level work, I believe entry level managers at most retail places start at ~30K a year or so, less if it is a small store, slightly more if it is a large one. Unfortunately, I despise managers and I think I'd rather eat a gun than take a job as a retail manager someplace.
Couple of things:
You are not happy with the $9 wage. Would you be happy if the government mandated a $15 wage level? Beacuse then the employer would have incentives to cut back on hours as the pay rate impses a greater cost on him.
You say you dont want to be a manager. This means you are deciding to willfully limit your earning potential - its kinda irrational.
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Originally posted by Urchin
That kind of thing simply disgusts me, sorry. Maybe it is wrong to be disgusted by that, maybe I should be happy for the guy, but I look at a salary of $17 million a year and I see being able to pay all the average workers in my state enough to live without having to work two jobs.
Like I said CEO pay is questinable and controversial especially when not met with performance. However if the oewners find value in their work then they have right to pay them what they want.
Some time ago I was very upset with the high salaries paid out to actors and athelets - but if you think about it in most cases they earn it all by providing entertainment value to many people in exchange for money, lots and lots of it. So they earn their wages. So I'm not so angry about it now.
Now its not a perfect analoghy as the CEO is only one person in an organization of many but its still valid point to consider. The people wjo sign their checks consider it worthwile.
but I look at a salary of $17 million a year and I see being able to pay all the average workers in my state enough to live without having to work two jobs.
This is scary and unproductive thinking. But lets say you did implement it, where would you put the cap on socially acceptable income?
Also how would you incentivise capable entreprenours to start their own businesses and create jobs if their own income or ownership stake (wealth in stock equity) was artificially limited.
Fourther how would you stop these people from leaving your area to go elsewhere and start their business in an area with no such restrictions.
In the same light how would you stop job seekers from following them there?
Would you build a wall? Restrict immigration rights?
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Urchin:
Since I am warming to the subject...
Imagine that one of these companies with the grossly overpaid CEO is called the "Army of France" right before the battle of Austerlitz.
The CEO is named Napolean and he makes over 200 times what a private makes.
1) Maybe the board should just fire his bellybutton and hire 200 more privates. The additional firepower could possibly be the greatest thing that ever happened for the French Army.
2) Maybe the board should just can Napolean and put Ney in his place (who only costs 25 times what a private costs).
Upon reflection I suspect that both of these choices would be very poor.
My point is that whether or not a CEO is overpaid depends entirely on who that CEO is.
I have no opinion on whether or not CEOs in general are overpaid since I hardly consider myself qualified to judge. Furthermore I don't care. And I don't care because the workings of the marketplace will take care of it over time.
Not all CEOs are of uniform quality or paid uniformly. Some are very good and some are very bad. Over time, the free market will tend to reward efficient companies (i.e. in this case companies not overpaying their CEOs) and punish innefficient ones. Innefficient companies will be forced by their competitors to become efficient (i.e. cut costs, particularly the paycheck of that overpaid doofus in the penthouse office) or to go out of business. Investment money will flow to efficient (i.e profitable) businesses and away from inefficient ones. The system is hardly perfect but in the long run innefficiencies are rather ruthlessly dealt with, which is why we are not all driving Model-Ts, and why the price of computers continues to go down while they advance in power and sophistication.
The only other alternative is to allow some higher political authority (usually with a title like Commisar) in their infinite wisdom to plan the system out so that there is a fair and equitable distribution of work, proceeds and so forth. The alternate system has some minor problems in that is always ultimately involves concentration camps, universal poverty and Beria raping your sister. And the indonesian shoe workers all starve because you can't afford to buy sandwich meat much less running shoes.
Hooligan
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My argument falling a apart? Not at all, you are just avoiding my point and trying to discredit it with a single line.
Crazy how some people are blind enough to advocate such corporations. Whats next, a conversation on how awesome the RIAA and Microsoft are.
See you on another thread.
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You will not find a starting job at any business around where I live that pays more than $9.00 an hour.
go vist your local trade unions and see which ones are taking in apprentices. stating wages for our apprentices is about $20 per hour plus full benifits, schools paid for, regular raises (about $1 per hour for every six months, assuming that your school work is done on time, you don't blow off school, your on the job training is advancing your skills at something resembling a reasonable rate),
all you have to provide is a decent work ethic, show up for work/school, and be on-time every day, pass the piss test once per year and whenever your name gets pulled for a random, and have some loyalty to the other guys in the union who freely give you their knowledge so you can have a chance to earn a living wage.
sometimes the loyalty thing is a written agreement and sometimes it's just understood, but it is expected that under no circumstances will you use skills taught to you by union members to work in a non-union job. in effect using the gift they gave you to compete directly with them for their wages. they looked after you when you where ignorant, you look after them when they are old.
with the slowdown in construction and manufacturing jobs in the 80's they took in very few apprentices in most unions (since there wasn't usually enough work to keep the members they had employed). this left a situation when I got at the end of 88 where they realised the average age of a worker was 54 years old. and depending on how many years you had worked and how many hours worth of contributions you had paid in you could draw your full pention if you retire at 58.
so as we went farther into the 90's the work increased and the number of qualified workers dropped as the older ones retired.
when I started my apprenticeship your average west coast local had 3-5 aprentices at any given time. right now (with about the same number of total members) we have about 25 or so, and some nearby locals have well over 30.
most unions are really hurting for new aprentices with a logical mind, decent math background, reasonably machanicly inclined, and not affraid of hard work.
BTW- union wages in your part of the county are about 2-4 dollars more(with some issolated areas being $9-12 dolllars more but this is the exception). generally east coast locals have a better pension and anuity rate also.
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You keep changing your argument after every criticizm I make or hooligan makes.
And now you decide to run away from the thread... :)
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Wow Hooligan, well put. Really well put.
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Urchin will love unions. :)
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Urchin you wrote:
but writ large the companies ARE telling people how much they are going to work for.
Think about this statement. This is completely wrong. If the companies have the power to mandate wages, why aren't they mandating $.03 an hour? Even with minimum wages, why is it even a penny above minimum wage? The answer is simple: If they pay $8.00 an hour, they don't get enough workers. If they pay $9.00 they get enough.
When Beria comes to your door with a couple of armed goons and tells you that you will work for Walmart for $9.00 an hour (and btw where is your sister), then I will agree that someone is mandating wages. Fortunately however that is not the system of government under which we live (Grun lives in CA I think so I cannot speak authoritatively for him).
Hooligan
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Originally posted by Hooligan
(Grun lives in CA I think so I cannot speak authoritatively for him).
Hooligan
:rofl
Choking on my dinner...
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Animal:
I am curious. How exactly is Nike so evil? Between the part where they build a factory in Indonesia and pay their workers more than any other employer in the vicinity, and the part where the shoes reach the local Footlocker store some great evil is apparently being perpetrated and I am missing it completely. If some international conglomerate opened up a business competing with your employer and tried to woo you away with a 50% salary increase and improved working conditions, would this be equivalently evil? What am I missing?
I am no great fan of Nike’s (I bought New Balance as you recall). Having had some experience with large bureaucracies I detest them wholeheartedly. The Nike Corporation would certainly qualify in this regard and I will not be going out of my way to become more closely acquainted. One thing that I will say in Nike’s favor however, is that my association with them is strictly voluntary. I can choose to buy my running shoes from somebody else or not to buy running shoes at all. Other bureaucracies are not so kind. Unlike say those ****heads at the Sahara DMV in Las Vegas, for whom gross incompetency is apparently a hallowed tradition. All-in-all Nike really doesn’t seem so bad to me. I’ve never seen them invade Poland, force anybody to buy shoes at gunpoint, or send anybody off for political re-education. I find it odd that people who detest corporations wish to call in governments to right perceived wrongs. Governments are far more hideous bureaucracies than Nike will ever be. And you don’t even get the option of “shopping” elsewhere. The bastards come after you with guns if you fail to pay them exorbitantly for products of dubious quality which they often fail to deliver.
Maybe I am missing something and Nike is morally fixed somewhere in that dark region between Darth Vader and Mandobile. In that case, don’t buy their shoes and don’t work for them.
Hooligan
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Nike uses the skins from third trimester aborted Indonesian fetuses for the leather uppers of its more premium shoes. In fact Nike pays top dollar for third trimester fetus skins, and a fetus that can cover a size 17 Shaquille O'Neill shoe will sell at a premium. I don't see anything wrong with this- after all, It's the only way the Indonesians will ever make the NBA.
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warning, this somehow turned into an endless rant with a serious wall of text.
I am curious. How exactly is Nike so evil? Between the part where they build a factory in Indonesia and pay their workers more than any other employer in the vicinity, and the part where the shoes reach the local Footlocker store some great evil is apparently being perpetrated and I am missing it completely.
the evil is that while the conditions and wages may be decent for that area they are no where near what we consider adequate, or require of local manufacturers who compete with these products in our stores. nobody in Nike corporate would tolerate their children spending their lives at such a career under those conditions and for those wages. but it's hypothetical people on the other side of the world that actually enjoy those conditions.
those Americans that find themselves unemployed purely through their own fault, they need to accept workplace accidents as 'part of life' I mean what is the value of a finger, a hand, an eye, maybe a foot, when weighed against increased production and higher profit,, and the resulting value increase of a few cents a share for the share-holders. they should work for a lower, more competitive wage, they did this to themselves, priced themselves right out of a job, I mean as it was before we had a little healthy competition, they where probably making close to a 100th of a mid-level executives wage. what kind of worker is so arrogant as to presume to be worth 100th of the value of a yes-man, corporate potato, whose made the improvement of having his morals removed.
To expect others to live in such conditions, while profiting from their labor and doing little or nothing to make things better for those who's labor provides for their income, and using the products produced under these conditions, in an unfair trade competition with companies that are forced to follow rules and incur expenses that these less than ethical companies aren’t required to conform to.
also these foreign factories usually are not bound by our emission laws(some countries have equal or stronger emission laws but these aren’t the ones that are competing unfairly by not having to concern themselves with things like fair wages, working conditions, health of your workforce, or environmental damage. at it would only be fare if those countries with these stronger standards used the same attitude when dealing with products produced here)
because of the location of the mess and it's distance from those with who make such decisions, they can dump whatever they want, and produce their products under conditions that our society has decided (through our laws) is unacceptable. simply by contracting out production to countries they can let the local sleaze, handle these and other less than pleasant details. by actually hiring him instead of the workers directly you have good degree of deniability, and all it costs you is provide the funding and resources necessary to give him the opportunity to exploit his land and countrymen for some mutual profit.
it's a lie when they call this lack of regulation free or fair trade. it's not fair and it's damn sure not free. we pay the cost daily in our schools, prisons, and courts. how can we ever expect to do away with extreme poverty, and other serious social and environmental. when we reward companies (through lower taxes per unit and virtually anything goes employment practices) for closing down factories that have contributed to our economy and encourage and reward them to take the jobs over seas, where they won't be hampered by basic decency and consequences to treating people like an asset.
because of our lack of control over this situation we have set up a system that rewards Americans for exporting jobs away from their home. we complain about our economy when we let the corporations export jobs, money, and the taxes and support jobs they generate.
I don't advocate purely protectionist tariffs to slam all imports, but I do think adding a tariff equal to (or exceeding if necessary for punitive motivation, to companies who refuse to get the point), the money saved by manufacturing and employee management practices that would not be tolerated in the countries where the goods are sold or owned, including any projected cost of cleanup from environmental negligence (to be fair it would be reasonable to expect like tariffs imposed on imports from the US to countries that have higher standards for pollution, wages and working conditions)
it seems very inefficient to me to penalize people for manufacturing products at or near the areas where they are used. it would be a better use of resources if the competition was made fairer and the products could be manufactured competitively near the areas where people buy them.
to be fair these low wage, low value of human life areas can still sell their products at the cheaper rate since they are being sold in an area that finds these practices tolerable. I wonder how many pairs of air-Jordans (or whatever the 'too-damn-expensive-shoe-of-the-day' is) they would be able to sell to their employees making $.50 a day. How much do they pay a day for a worker? How many shoes does a worker make a day? And how much are these shoes sold for? Does the math really work out to prove that a paying a decent wage for the people who manufacture the product would have enough impact to make any difference in their ability to compete?
it seams fairly clear to me that if in the process of manufacturing your products can't generate enough wages in your employees to provide a significant portion of your customer base, then you are a pimple on the prettythang of the world economy.
the only Americans this type of "free-trade"(and I use the term very loosely) is the very wealthy. they still will get the dividends and profits form the exploitative companies, they will get more merchandise for their buck since they can buy products without taking any responsibility (through the cost being reflected in the price) for the pollution and the suffering of people working away their lives in dangerous jobs for slave wages. they also don't have to face the other costs like pollution or human rights violation because all that (along with our jobs) is done "over their" in a dirty, filthy sweatshop where "those kind of people" like living like that.
plus they get the added power and feeling of superiority because they can point to the poor these policies generate at home and shake their head at how the bums won't get a job, they can feel great about their wealth and life of excess while the unemployed here prove that the poor just won't work, or maybe show a bit of initiative like those hard working people over seas who our CEO tells us are happy to work for a few dollars a week and really love their life and the opportunity we provide them to produce products for our consumption at slave wages and often deadly and usually abusive conditions.
maybe if the rich are really lucky, poor can be deported to that 3rd world country so we can have the opertunity to compete directly for that spare-change wage.
then it would be just the rich here. without any lower class people to start complaining and make a scene. well except for the maid, we'll need her, and gardener, burger flipper and the sales girl at Nordstrom. (and probably a few others who's contribution I have and will continue to take for granted until I have to start doing fo rmyself) and maybe a couple extras just so those with a job don't get to comfortable and start demanding to be treated like people. you have to have a few desperate ones left, to serve as an example to the others of what could be if they make trouble. and to entertain us with them being so desperate that they will do anything for a buck. it would be paradise the
true americans, the wealthy, the only ones that matter could live like kings. they would have plenty of desparately poor people who would do anything no matter how dangerouse or degrading fo some spare change to get by.
that would be perfect, they could set aside our country for the wealthy and their servants while sending all the jobs- that would be distasteful to have to actually witness the conditions of -to the far ends of the earth where the people who matter wouldn't have to be confronted with the cost others who have few options are paying for their lifestyle..
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we could eventually pass regulations to clean it up around here ship out these people that won't 'do their part'. why, we could even solve the homeless problem, just make it illegal to be homeless, after that you probably wouldn't hear near as many people complaining about lack of affordable housing if they were locked up for not having a residnece like all good citizens.
we'd need to just keep a couple around as an example 'for the help', plus it's an easy shot at feeling superior. nothing makes you feel powerful like seeing a man with nothing and no hope. really, what a sad waist of life, it's obviously his fault he lives like this, why none of my friends at the country club have any problem getting by, with a bit of hard work building on the money their parents set aside to 'help out'. seeing how much more you've made of your life than this bum always makes you feel a bit superior.
he probably wouldn't even be in this mess if he's worked hard and studied when he was at Harvard, I did all my work and I'm doing ok, I know what hard work is, my parents made me do a budget and even take a part time job with one of their friend to provide my own beer money, I know suffering and I'm a stronger person for it.
it would be less disturbing, and simpler for all, and allow those who've 'won the ecconomy game' to enjoy their spoils in peace, if we could take these 'dirty' manufacturing jobs and the workers who we don't feel are desrving of reasonable compensation for their work, and shipped the whole process far enough away as to out of sight and mind, and not risk the reality of it tugging at any shred conscience that our new, properly insulated, ruling class might have left.
IMO, much of the deterioration of our country is not being caused by the 'lower class' or 'bums', I think a much larger share of the responsibility has been with it being considered socially acceptable to over look illegal, unethical, or just plain crooked business practices. when a persons worth is judged by the weight of their wallet and not their character you are setting yourself up for living in a human cesspool.
if we (as a society) had any balls at all we would refuse to do business ever again with likes of those who profited from Enron or similar cases of thievery in the form of "creative accounting".
we wouldn't just waiting for a chance to suck up to the point of worship unethical people(or more acurately, their money) who make their proffit and thrive without regard for their impact on the society that provided them with the oportunities or the people who pay the price for their lack of corprate ethics.
we would have refused to businesses with the 'corporate raiders' of the 80's.
when they bought companies that where major employers, providing a wage that would provide for the families needs while leaving at least one parent with time to raise the kids, and a real good shot at coming home with good enough health that maybe you could spend some time getting to know your kids, good working conditions, an affordable health-plan, and chance of providing your kids with a better shot than you had. these types of employers would be bought up and parted out, close up shop, lay off the whole community, and sell the assets for more than you paid for the whole set-up.
in business we toss around words like money, cost, debt, savings and profit as if these words could be used to take the measure the anything around us, that had any true value . we think anything that doesn't have a value that is expressible in a dollar figure as unimportant, and don't let it figure in when making 'bussiness decisions'.
the inconvenient things like - ethics, honesty, character, an honest desire to be a positive influence in the lives of those who you come into contact with, your responsibility to give a damn about your fellow man and how your life-style or business-style effects your community and fellow man, and considering these things when making decisions giving them as much or more consideration than issues with dollar signs in front of them.
anyway, looking up I see that I've been on quite a marathon of a rant and probably should wrap it up.
but I would just like to point out again that to have several companies (and with them the countries, communities, and people who work with or for them), compete in the same marketplace for the same customers, while regulating one (with all of the accompanying increased production cost, that goes along with responsibility) on issues of, pollution, tax paid to the country where business is being done, rate of pay, working conditions, reasonable work hours and a set cost for violating these rules. and allow the other compete free of any sort of regulation, or any incentive or regulation to persuade the unregulated counties or companies to take responsibility for the costs others pay for their production practices. is not fair trade, it's giving a huge advantage to companies with no ethics or conscience, while penalizing those who do business ethically.
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miko's model is great in theory. Unfortunately it doesn't alwas happen in practice. What sometimes happens is that a company moves into a third world nation. They set up an unsafe working environment. People move from rural areas to work in the factory based on unreasonable expections do to the lies that are told to them about earning potential. There is a fire do to unsafe conditions and a bunch of kids die at the factory. Citizens get pissed off and government legislates occupational safety laws. Company moves to the next country without occupational saftey laws ect. Displaced labour in urban areas die of stravation.
Rinse, repeat.
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I am extraordinarily surprised that nobody (particularly Urchin and his english professors :) ) has mentioned 'The Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck. What we have today a global version of what went on then in Oklahoma and California.
Trying to analyse the problem by using economics models alone is not sufficient, since economic models do not tell the whole story.
The free market protagonists repeatedly make the point that sweatshops are better than nothing at all in that the people who work in them earn something. The alternative to sweatshops is not necessarily starvation. By the use of properly controlled and well managed overseas aid (incredibly the biggest oveseas aid contributer amongst western countries as a factor of GNP is Norway - the US comes close to the bottom of the list) we can help the poorer nations on this planet to become a little more self sufficient. In the long term this would assist us financially as one would hope those countries would become more politically and economically stable. It's a tough act to pull off. Corruption in poor states is usually endemic and getting the money to the people who need it the most is very, very difficult. Nevertheless it ought to be a challenge worth accepting.
Another point made was we have the choice about whether to buy goods produced under questionable circumstances. Nobody forces a 'gun to the head' purchase. Of course we have a choice, but consider how many American schools today (I don't live there so you guys will know better than me) are accepting 'donations' from large corporations (Coke and Nike, amongst others) in return for right to advertise in schools. One incident that springs to mind was a Nike requirement at one school, that in return for donated funds, students were to study the construction of Nike shoes. The teachers and students refused. No, they don't put a gun to your head, they just aim to brainwash people - the younger the better.
Witness America's problem with Junk food and its connection with obesity. I believe the US is only now begining to wake up to this. High fat content sells burgers, McDonalds doesn't give a rat's stuff about long term health problems that over indulgence in their products causes. In fact, they actively encourage it.
Ra was right, corporations are creatures of our invention, but like Frakenstein's monster we have let them get out of control and we have only ourselves to blame.
Ravs
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Just one final point.
Much has been said about outsourcing industries from the US to countries which do not have gas emission controls which are as stringent as those in the US.
Well, with 4% of the worlds population, the US manages to produce 25% of greehouse gas emissions.
Further, the Bush administration has consistently refused to sign the Kyoto Protocolhttp://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=143 (http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=143)
which aims to produce international agreement on the control greenhouse gas emissions.
I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with the Bush administrations rather cosy relationship with the oil industry.
Ravs
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Well, with 4% of the worlds population, the US manages to produce 25% of greehouse gas emissions.
very true but when discusing more apropriet standards it always comes back to "american jobs shipped overseas", and how if you want any job at all you'll have to learn to except low-wages, unsafe conditions, and keep your mouth shut when you see polution violations.
if there where teriffs on products from companies with lower standards. this would even things out a bit (at least on what is sold here, wich is really all we have any right to try and control) we could then further restrict polution down to much safer levels and wouldn't have to worry about losing our competitive edge because as our restrictions increase (increasing production costs companies who kept there production local) the tariffs would also reflect the distance between the standards of the manufacturing country and the standards we impose on ourselves.
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Originally posted by Urchin
I understand that they are great for the corporations. They can move their factories out of the country, get foreigners to do the work Americans had been doing and pay them in pennies and nickels instead of dollars, and then sell the finished product back in the U.S. and make an even larger profit then they had been.
What I don't understand is why do Americans think this is a good thing? I guess in four or five centuries, after the corporations decide they can move back to America and pay the starving people there less than the greedy sons of *****es in Somalia, we might actually see some real job growth here.
I think it is time for this whole "globalization" kick to end. Yea, it is hell on wheels for greedy corporate *****uckers, but for your everyday average worker it leads to unemployment, underemployment, and the finished product doesn't cost any less than it would if it were made in the U.S.
Couldn't be more right Urchin ... unfortunately companies like FOX News And CNN are part of these corperations; and they try to make many Americans see thier point of view witch often includes Globalization...... The poor brain dead 'masses' but what else can you say when they eat up that coprate BS .... half the country seems hook line and sinker on that BS
Anyway .. maybe the rest of the world has had enough too ... At Cancun' all the 'small' countries finally stood up to the US, Europe, Japan... ya know .. the gang
They said enf with your "free trade BS" lets see what happens at the next meeting.... bet they don't hold it in the US and Canada tho.... because pleanty of us don't listen to Corprate Propoganda... Remember Seattle and Montreal.... big mess.
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Sorry Capt. apathy, I didn't explain my thoughts in full.
The Kyoto protocol only becomes binding if 55 percent of the nations emitting 55 percent of greenhouse gasses sign up to the protocol. If the US, as the largest greenhouse gas emitter, was to sign the protocol, then it would be a large step towards the target triggering the operation of the protocol to come into effect for all signatories.
Once the protocol has become law and is ratified in member states, those states will be expected to patrol their own emissions and if they don't, other countries can cry 'foul' and get the offending states to put their houses in order.
This ought to provide less of an incentive for companies to relocate overseas in the long run as the places they might want to relocate to will (or ought to) have pollution controls in place.
Indeed, one of the reasons the Bush administration is giving for not signing the protocol is that developing countries are to be exempted from the first round of emission controls which he perceives as unfair. The Bush administration also believe that the studies on global warming which are being used are not reliable. Goodness knows, I hope the Bush administration is right, because if it is not, then we are all ****ed and job exports will be the least of our problems.
The developing nations say that they need the exemption because they do not yet have the technological know- how to control their emissions within tolerable limits and cannot presently afford to buy this know-how from the west.
So....stalemate whilst the planet goes down the tubes.
Ravs
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Urchin: ]Miko, thank you for responding. One question however- ...
The U.S. imports far far more goods than it exports, I don't know the numbers but I know it is true. I was also under the impression that for an economy to keep growing, it had to export more than it imported, is that untrue?
Sure. The scenario I've described is working. The wage pressure in US is lower because the price of consumer goods is lower - in part due to imports.
As for the trade balance it is a different matter. Currently, US imports $500 billion more goods than it exports. In a free market conditions such a situation would quickly end and the trade would become balanced due to change in currencies exchange ratio and domestic purchasing power. A dollar's rate relative to foreign curreny would fall while dollar's domestic purchasing power would raise - thus making imports more expensive to americans and american products cheaper for foreigners, thus establishing the balance.
Unfortunately, there is no free market in US and forreign monetary policy. The dollar exchange rate does not fall abroad because the foreign governments buy the dollar and take it out of circulation as "foreign currency reserves". In fact, they act in collusion with their exporters at the expeense of their other citizens who are taxed to buy out those dollars. Basically, the foreign governments pay subcidy to US consumers to keep their special interest groups in business.
In US the purchasing power of the dollar does not raise because Federal Reseerve prints the dollars.
Such situation of US receiving free goods form abroad would be very beneficial - just like US receiving free rain, sunlight, etc. is beneficial - but it may end any time and in that case our economy will be seriously disbalanced.
I was also under the impression that for an economy to keep growing, it had to export more than it imported, is that untrue?
That is absolutely untrue. A person/family/country needs to buy outside the stuff that cannot be produced domestically as cheap or at all. Someone else does something better or cheaper that we can and instead of trying to do it ourselves (growing oranges in Canada), it is cheaper for us to trade for it. That is what division of labor is all about.
So the country benefits not from exports but from imports! The exports are only needed to pay for the necessary imports.
Any excess export is just resources wasted to benefit foreign consumption instead of being invested locally.
Example: Japanese government taxes their population $100 billion dollars worth a year to buy dollars from japanese exporters. Basically, they are making japanese taxpayer buy $100 billion worth of goods and give them to US consumers for free.
If theys top doing that, they will save peopel $100 dollars in taxes. The export workers will look for employment domestically, the nominal wages would drop but the production would increase and the prices would drop more, so the real wages would raise. The same number of workers would produce more stuff for internal consumption and investement. US would loose $100 billio a year worth of stuff while Japan gains it.
Also, I was under the impression that "real wages" had actually fallen since the 1970's.
Many economists claim that - but I am not about to expound on this topic. I am getting enough flack on this board as it is.
DmdNexus: I guess the US and it's word doesn't mean watermelon to Republicans.
The biggest losers of steel and lumber tariffs are american consumers and workers. With cheaper steel and lumber, the cost of products made of them would fall, which would increase demand, which would in turn increase production - so mor people would be hired making houses, cars, etc. Being cheaper, our products would sell better abroad - helping us pay for that imported steel and lumber.
Animal: The way you picture it I have absolutely no trouble with, like I stated above, I am pro global economy, if it is done the way you have described.
But that is not the case with many companies.
Take Nike, for example. They are already a hugely profitable company...
Good. Americans get return on their savings while the poor foreigners get the capital they desperately need. We would be better off without those profits than they would be without that capital. We all benefit.[/b]
You see, Nike employees are not allowed to...
As I've said - they choose to work in those conditions voluntarily because their alternative options are worse. They can quit any time and there would be others willing to take their place.
Nike did not cause scqalor in their country. All it did is offer them a better opportunity - not great but better than what they had and a step to further development.
They have been doing this for years. Their prices are still absurdly high - their product costs the same now as it did ten years ago.
That is because instead of promoting the compatition the activists deter it. The companies who got hold of the market - especially huge companies with deep pockets to withstand PR and legal assault stay in business while small companies who could give them competition are scared to enter that business.
A single "sweatshop" campaign can ruin a small company while not hurting Nike much. I would not be surprised to find out that Nike is behind those sweatshop campaigns just to discourage a competition.
Nike does not prevent anyone from giving help to poor workers. Nike just offers them jobs and if those workers lived in betetr conditions, Nike would have to pay them more to attract them.
Do you consider this ethical? moral?
Do you consider it moral to prevent a company from offering a job to desperate people and giving them nothing in return? You heart may be bleeding watching them work 14 hours a day (in conditions much better than most people live in that coutry). But your heart is not worried if they die of starvation and desease outside your view. When Nike sweatshop closes under pressure or competitor does not open, those people do not go to better jobs. Those children starve, go into crime or prostitution. Is that moral?
Offer those people a better choice than Nike does. You do not have to stop Nike in order to benefit them.
Ultimately, Nike improves their conditions by offering employment - not as much as activists would want them to but more than the activists do.
GRUNHERZ: CEO pay is out of control, especially when such high pay is not met with peformannce.
No, its not. It's a private matter for the owners of that company. If they are willing to share more of their profits with a manager, why do we care? If you hold shares, youc an vote them to lower the CEO's salary and raise your dividend. Why should the workers care who gets that money anyway - the owner or the manager?
Thrawn: People move from rural areas to work in the factory based on unreasonable expections do to the lies that are told to them about earning potential.
Those people may live in undeveloped countries but they are not stupid. They know what they are getting from people who already working and if they do not like the job after a week or two, they can quit.
miko
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hooligan is correct... what most of you are missing is that some jobs are entry level jobs.. Wall mart is a great job for two people who just got married and have no education or are just starting out... there are many jobs in Wall mart that are above the 8 bucks an hour range or... after getting some experiance... the young couple can move on.
As for the evil sweatshops in other countries... I don't get it... you would rather the company pulled out and let the people starve? Like hooligan.. I buy new balance.. they are made in the U.S. (the ones I bought) they are not any or not much more than nikes but they are comfortable and consistent and last forever... the Nike is maybe comfortable and maybe not... get 10 pairs and one might be as comfortable as any pair of new balance you pick up... and that's not even the point... I bet the low skilled workers in those countries are producing plenty of reject shoes for nike...
My guess is that nike thought they were gonna cut a fat profit and are finding out that they are losing as much as they are gaining but they have a huge investment overseas so can't pull out.
As for CEO's... who cares? well... maybe it would be better to ask why the investors would pay such wages? Some board somewhere must make him accountable... either they are not doing their job or he is making enough money for the company to justifyu his wage.
Why does some sissy worthless actor get paid thousands, hundreds of thousands, of times more than the cameraman?
Certainly giving everyone the exact same wages and benifiets is not the answer... as has been shown... certainly having the government regulate wages is not the answer... what government agency do you see that is working well?
perhaps we should follow NZ's lead and then we could all live with the high standard of living that they enjoy and the low prices they have on all goods and the low taxes they have. We could all be driving 502 big blocks for pennies with their 50 cents a gallon or so gasoline and ready supply of cheap muscle cars... we could be shooting hundred dollar 1911 colts with 2 dollar a box ammo. With such and enlightened government we could shoot thompsons and BAR's..... Land of the rich and the free.
lazs
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Why does some super model get paid millions of times more to wear the sweatshop clothes than the worker gets to produce it? Perhaps we should boycott supermodels?
We just got a Wall mart in town... the little "mom and pop" hardware store in town has been being as rude as they can whiole charging the highest possible prices for 20 years that I know of.. they treat their workers like **** and have used their profits to buy up half the town. They started to be nice to customers when wall mart broke ground.
lazs
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
What do you think I stand for, what do you think my motives are?
Ah... Your diabolical scheme does not escape us GRunhez...
Our informants have observed your activities in the grocery store dairy section. We've seen you purposely take out a whole egg, tap it on the side of the shelf to make a hairline fracture and then place it back into the carton - with the CRACK side down!
Why Grunhezt... why do you do this? Why?
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This is an excerpt taken from a study by MIT on some of the points made above. You can find the whole study here:
http://web.mit.edu/utr/www/consensus.doc (http://web.mit.edu/utr/www/consensus.doc)
• “Any job is better than no job. These people would rather work in a sweatshop than starve.”
Slavery might also be better than starvation, yet nobody advocates a return to slavery. Just because a bad job may be better than starvation doesn’t justify labor abuses such as the beating and raping of workers or the threatening of worker’s families—all abuses that have been regularly documented by independent researchers visiting sweatshop factories (Breslow, 1995; Foek, 1997). While accepting that a bad job might be better than nothing, we should continue to fight the abuse of human lives, and even a basic study of history reveals that most human progress as a society has occurred through such struggles for progress, not through maintenance of the status quo. If we justify abuse under the premise that is better than the worst alternative, we create a slippery slope leading down to the complete devaluation of human life. As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, a vocal critic of sweatshop abuse, writes, “What’s next, employees who’ll work for a bowl of gruel?” (Herbert, 1996).
• “Most companies that use sweatshops are actually just contracting through local producers, so they don’t have a say in the conditions of factories.”
This idea rests on a fundamental fallacy: that large multinational companies (e.g., NIKE, adidas, Jansport) contracting with local producers are helpless entities unable to have an effect on conditions in local factors. Modern evidence, however, disproves such a contention (Ross, 1997). Independent academics have learned that corporations often “squeeze their contractors into paying sub-minimum wages. Large retailers and retail chains pressure contract manufacturers by refusing to pay more than a rock-bottom price for manufacturing orders” (Given, 1997).
Public pressure, history shows, causes many multinationals to pressure local owners to improve working conditions in order to improve their reputations. As Iowa Senator Tom Harkin suggested, in rallying to produce a list of abusers and generate American consumer pressure against them, “Just as human rights organizations such as Amnesty International are able to document cases of human rights abuses and torture around the world, so can the identities of those industries and their host countries that are violating international labor standards…be identified” (Harkin, 1996). In fact, agencies have been created to monitor the conditions of such factories, and monitoring combined with public pressure can result in the improvement of such facilities. For example, reacting to public outrage in 1996, Liz Claiborne, NIKE, Phillips-Van Heusen, and L.L. Bean joined into an “Apparel Industry Partnership” to take steps to end sweatshop abuses (Salomon, 1996). Continued pressure will force the compliance of other companies as well.
• “If companies are forced to increase wages or improve conditions, they won’t simply pay the same number of workers more. They will relocate to somewhere with fewer restrictions.”
The idea that companies will “not like” the improvement of conditions is indeed correct. But, obviously, if corporations were allowed to do whatever they wanted, our world would go to hell. That’s precisely the reason we have regulations to mandate what is permissible and what isn’t--it’s the very reason we have seatbelts in our cars and arsenic limits for our water. The idea that corporations “won’t simply pay” is ignorant of the basic idea of a corporate charter. Corporations, in becoming incorporated, are granted a charter by the state under the edict that they are responsible to the state, just like any citizen. The state sets a minimum wage, but one could say that corporations wouldn’t “simply pay” that either. Because every corporation is ultimately required to be responsive to the state according to its charter, every corporation is required to pay a minimum wage anyway. Common sense and history argue against the idea that it would be best for corporations to act without any guidelines and have free reign over society. Therefore it’s society’s responsibility to determine what we allow and what we require of corporations, and corporations, because of the charter they have received, are just as responsible as regular citizens in having to follow law.
Ravs
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ravells: Slavery might also be better than starvation, yet nobody advocates a return to slavery.
Job is taken voluntarily. If people voluntarily take a job that is associated with abuse, it only makes me wonder how are their alternative choices.
This idea rests on a fundamental fallacy: that large multinational companies (e.g., NIKE, adidas, Jansport) contracting with local producers are helpless entities unable to have an effect on conditions in local factors.
Why should those companies pay extra money to increase the welfare of those workers? Why shouldn't any people with extra money pay for it?
Let them earn $.25 from Nike and get subcidy from whovever else is charitable. No reason to forbit Nike to offer a job at $.25.
But, obviously, if corporations were allowed to do whatever they wanted, our world would go to hell.
That is absolutely not true. Companies do what their consumers demand and they compete for resources, including labor and materials.
The state sets a minimum wage
Minimum wage prevents a worker with low productivity from obtaining any employment.
miko
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GRUNHERZ: CEO pay is out of control, especially when such high pay is not met with peformannce.
No, its not. It's a private matter for the owners of that company. If they are willing to share more of their profits with a manager, why do we care? If you hold shares, youc an vote them to lower the CEO's salary and raise your dividend. Why should the workers care who gets that money anyway - the owner or the manager?
Of course I agree CEO compensation is a matter for the shareholders and board to decide however by my own value system and my own way I would run a business if performance is poor pay should match. Too many proprety rights like guaranteed high pay or too much security lead to stagnated performance and reduce entreprenurial risk taking at all levels of a business including the top management team. I'm looking at it from a business perspective, where it may impact workers is from a morale standpoint but thats a different subject all together.
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Originally posted by Animal
Take Nike, for example. They are already a hugely profitable company, earning more than 1000% of the cost of manufacture their products.
These products, of cheap materials to begin with, are manufactured overseas by workers who get paid the equivalent of $1 a day, minus $.25 daily for food, if they want to eat during their 12 hour shifts. You see, Nike employees are not allowed to bring anything into the factory, including food, for fear of contraband, just as they are checked when they leave. The food they eat must be purchased at the factory for one third their daily pay. Each worker makes aproximately 40 pairs of shoes daily, at a cost of aproximately $5 each in materials. This product is then sold by Nike, to us, at a price of aproximately $100. For $.75, that worked made Nike aproximately $3,000 in pure profit.
They have been doing this for years. Their prices are still absurdly high - their product costs the same now as it did ten years ago.
Do you consider this ethical? moral?
This is neither ethical nor moral. It is fantasyland. If you believe that any company can make this kind of profit producing a product in an industry as competitive as shoes, you live in fantasyland.
ra
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Man, I'm probably gonna get ripped for saying this, but I don't much give a damn about the third world workers that are making $.25 a day making shies for Nike. Or rather, I care about them in the context that if Nike has moved overseas just to avoid paying Americans a decent wage, then they should be forced to pay the Vietnamese or something a comparable wage- simply to discourage the company from moving.
I'm not smart enough to care about the whole world. I can't see cause and effect for the whole world. I can see cause and effect in America, or at least the more obvious things.
And Grun, sorry I stopped responding last night, I went to bed lol.
"This is scary and unproductive thinking. But lets say you did implement it, where would you put the cap on socially acceptable income? "
That is a tough question. For me, basic human dignity requires enough money for a house (or some sort of shelter), some form of transportation (either a good mass transit system or a car), and a job that pays well enough to support the first two. Furthermore, I'm of the opinion that as more parents are being forced to work longer hours (and typically both parents are working), the kids are being rather neglected in some important areas. I'm not sure if this is why our society seems like it is going to hell in a handbasket or not, but it sure seems like it is part of it. So I'd also like to further limit the job statement by saying it should pay enough for shelter and transportation, and leave enough money so one worker could support a family.
"Also how would you incentivise capable entreprenours to start their own businesses and create jobs if their own income or ownership stake (wealth in stock equity) was artificially limited. "
Good question, and one that I can't answer.
"Fourther how would you stop these people from leaving your area to go elsewhere and start their business in an area with no such restrictions."
Well this one wouldn't be that hard. Selective tariffs would discourage industries from picking up and moving. By selective I mean that if an industry was in the region before (county, state, country, whatever), and picks up and moves to some other country then that businesses goods would be taxed at a higher rate than some other business who had never been established here. You can't just *stop* the owner from moving out, but you can discourage him.
"In the same light how would you stop job seekers from following them there? Restrict immigration rights?"
I think you mean emigration, and I hadn't much thought about it, to be honest. I'm all for limiting immigration though- until we have enough jobs for the people in this country, we don't need to import more people. And I'm also very much in favor of strictly enforcing illegal immigration laws. If you are born here, and your parents are citizens, then you are a citizen. If you are born here, and your mom is a Mexican in the country illegally- whoops... you are a Mexican, and you are going home with your mother. Schoolkid in the country illegally? Well, sorry lad, but we are shipping you and your family back to Guatemala, you can go to school there. We don't have the money to provide a decent education to all the kids we have now that are here legally, we damn sure can't afford to spend money on kids that are here illegally.
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Urchin: I'm not smart enough to care about the whole world. I can't see cause and effect for the whole world. I can see cause and effect in America, or at least the more obvious things.
US benefits greatly from getting goods for less effort and getting a greated return on capital than is possible internally. Even if Nike does not lower the price of shoes, the shareholders get more money to spend, etc.
I'm all for limiting immigration though- until we have enough jobs for the people in this country,
Unemployment in this country is a direct result of government-imposed restrictions on employment. It has no relation to immigration. Countries with no immigration often have high unemployment rates.
At the same time there was no persistent unemployment in US througout 18 and 19 centuries despite massive immigration.
miko
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http://www.fortune.com/fortune/investing/articles/0,15114,538834-1,00.html
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US benefits greatly from getting goods for less effort and getting a greated return on capital than is possible internally. Even if Nike does not lower the price of shoes, the shareholders get more money to spend, etc.
well that depends on who you are talking about when you say "the US", if you are talking about people with money, whos earnings will increase as the corperations send the jobs overseas. sure higher divedends and lower prices are great for 'that america'. plus it makes it really easy to find someone to do work around your house for next to nothing, what with all the unemployed and all.
but if you're talking about the US I live in, where the vast majority don't have any money left over after paying bills to even have to wonder what stocks are paying what kind of divdend. that america is getting screwed by these unfair trade practices.
really, what good does it do the guy who's factory closed down to learn how much better off he is now that nike stock pays good divedends and VCR's are down to $35, when he and his wife, live in the back of a stationwagon with their kids.
our gov't is suposed to look after the best interest of the majority of americans. but more often than not they look after the wealthy, maybe not even intentionally, but just because those are teh people they know, and thats who they think of when they think of americans.
the majority of americans will never make 50k in one year. the majority of americans never held more than a couple thousand of their own money. many many americans never held more than a couple hundred of their own money
the majority of americans aren't getting representation by our gov't. most of our people that are benifitting from these trade practices never met an average american (unless they came over to clean their house)
I wonder some times how long it will be before they just admit dollars are more valuable than people. we'll probably be voting on a sort of proxy system- you get one vote at the polls for every dollar of net-worth
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And destroying the economy by restricting international trade will help the average american!!!
BTW whats with you left wingers and this refusal to let go of the 19th century view of class struggle? How come you dont realize that such a perspective led to the horrible failiures of 20th century socilism/communism - which utterly failed at it's central principle of equitable wealth distribution not to mention all the grotesque crimes against humanity.
And this idea tht government only looks after yhje intrestys of the waelthy is utterly ridiculous. If this was the case why are unions legal, why are there minimum wage laws, why is there socila security, why is there unemployment benefits, why is there a progressive income tax, why is there anti trust legislation, why is there consumer safety legislation, why is there workplace safety rules and OSHA? Why? It can be argued that any of these disproprtionately imapct the "wealthy" (BTW define wealthy please) and reduce their income while giving back little in government services they would use. Does somebody who pays $50,000 in income tax really get that much back in services? On the other hand somebody paying nothing in income taxes probable is elligible for welfare or other govt benefits that clearly exceed their tax contributions.
Now please dont answe that the only reasons these provisions exist is because some people had to fight for these rights or had to pressure poiliticans to get them, also please dont say that there are political factions opposed to these programs - why not?
Because saying either of those things will destroy your argument that government serves only the rich - because obviously the very fact that these laws were created though the political process and the fact that "wealthy" opposition groups are not succesful in repaealing them en masse measn there is a competition of ideas in governmet and so a cometrion of intrests. Not just one monolitic evil favoring only one fcation.
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You can allow the US companies to take advantage of the cheaper labor, or you can allow companies from countries with cheaper labor to take the market from US companies.
Either way, the jobs are going to go. The great 'buy american' patriotic scam of the 70s and 80s isn't going to work. Might as well keep some of the jobs by allowing US companies to operate overseas.
As for the exploited countries...ask India how terribly they have been exploited. Could third world countries be improved faster? Absolutely, but don't try and tell me someone with a job in a third world factory is worse off than if that factory not there and they didn't have the job.
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Originally posted by miko2d
Why should those companies pay extra money to increase the welfare of those workers? Why shouldn't any people with extra money pay for it?
Let them earn $.25 from Nike and get subcidy from whovever else is charitable. No reason to forbit Nike to offer a job at $.25.
In order to maintain demand, or face a boycott.
But, obviously, if corporations were allowed to do whatever they wanted, our world would go to hell.
Exactly, the best way to make the corporations change is to boycott their products until they do.
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Originally posted by Fatty
You can allow the US companies to take advantage of the cheaper labor, or you can allow companies from countries with cheaper labor to take the market from US companies.
Either way, the jobs are going to go. The great 'buy american' patriotic scam of the 70s and 80s isn't going to work. Might as well keep some of the jobs by allowing US companies to operate overseas.
As for the exploited countries...ask India how terribly they have been exploited. Could third world countries be improved faster? Absolutely, but don't try and tell me someone with a job in a third world factory is worse off than if that factory not there and they didn't have the job.
Fatty u anus.:aok
True but the polution laws are very lacks which is another big perk and govn't enforcement of any controls is nonexistent at best, just look what they get away with around here. Seems they'll have a good short term monetary gain to improve living conditions but who's to say about long term effects on the health of the workers and locals and if that long term cost out weights the short term gain.
But the other day for $20 CDN i bought two outdoor fixtures for the house, heavy cast iron with bevelled glass inserts the old english stlye, i'm looking at the fixtures shaking my head thinking how the fek can they do this, but then quickly i thank the Lord unions haven't reached the third world yet, cynical but true.:(
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capt. apathy: but if you're talking about the US I live in, where the vast majority don't have any money left over after paying bills to even have to wonder what stocks are paying what kind of divdend. that america is getting screwed by these unfair trade practices.
You are totally ingoring most of what I say, so I will try it one last time and give up.
A country cannot take a market from another country in a free trade environment. There is always an exchange of goods of equal value betwee the countries.
The poor workers in US benefit from cheap imports because it creates more and better-paying jobs in US due to raise in real wages.
The reason why the workers who lost jobs to foreign competition cannot find better jobs quickly or at all has nothing to do with a free trade.
The most severe limitation on free trade in recent history was Smoot-Hawley tariff act in 1929. Did we have a great increase in employment in the next decade?
If you care to discuss every particular point listed, youa re welcome. If you will just parrot teh same line without even reading them you are welcome too.
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d
You are totally ingoring most of what I say, so I will try it one last time and give up.
miko
Lol, no you won't
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The most severe limitation on free trade in recent history was Smoot-Hawley tariff act in 1929. Did we have a great increase in employment in the next decade?
Urchin needs to study the effects of this tariff regime... :)
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The poor workers in US benefit from cheap imports because it creates more and better-paying jobs in US due to raise in real wages.
I do understand the point you are trying to make about 'real wages' as in the fact that your dollar would buy more goods as they become cheaper making the dollars you have worth more. it's all very logical and a sound theory. it probably works out nicely when you take things like average costs, and average income and feed it into an algabra formula
the big problem that occures when reality slams into your theory is, the things that are becoming cheaper through what you are wrongly calling 'free trade'** mostly things that we buy with what money we have left over after we've bought what we need, while things like healthcare and a place to sleep just keep going up.
also where are these 'more and better paying' jobs comming from? if we aren't hiring people here because we can do the work elswhere in a unregulated environment, and then sell them here where people have the money then exactly what are your workers here going to be doing? yes some jobs will be made, there will be the service jobs selling the cheap products to those who can afford them, and the upper management jobs at these corperations.
this type of policy looks good on paper. average income may go up. but it's the wealthy getting very wealthy and workers being unemployed. what are the working class jobs created?
by your formula things look pretty good in in theory
at a minimum wage job today(if you can get one that will let you work 40 hours) you can buy 7 or 8 vcr's with one weeks wages (before taxes).
at the end of the 70's you would have had to save your whole check (again, with no taxes removed) for 2 or 3 weeks to get 1 vcr.
so far so good.
the problem is when you start pricing things that you truly need. because if I have no money for healthcare after spending all my money on food, and rent then the price of things like vcr's, dvds, big screen tv's, and BMW's is not exactly relivant to my economy.
in the late 70's you could rent an apartment or small house for about 1 week of minimum wage pay.
now it takes 2 weeks pay(if you are extremely lucky and have no standards) and the places are smaller, closer together and have no yard.
** again, it is not free trade when one manufacturer is legally required to incure costs that his competitors are not. and since we are not willing (and rightly so) to do away with basic human rights, or even the very minimal environmental and workplace protections we already have, and we have no legal right to tell other countries how to live, the only way you can get true free trade is to add in the estimated costs these regulations add to the price of the product before they are allowed to be sold in the markets we have legal control over. that would be real free trade.
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I think Miko’s right. Like the Bish on a good day, we have reached the stage where we are going round in circles and not really getting anywhere – so one last stab and that’s me done.
Advocating a more enlightened form of consumerism with greater checks on corporate misbehaviour does not make a person any more communist than does advocating an unhindered free market economy make a person a Nazi.
Indeed, we can still have free trade whilst taking steps to make accountable corporations who abuse their workers. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Whilst I agree with some of what Miko says, I cannot agree with his rather clinical view that because poor wages and abuse are better than no wages at all, people should put up and shut up and think themselves lucky and let the laws of economics take their course. I wonder whether he would think the same way if he were one of those workers. I suspect not.
Article 1 of the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which was in a large part modelled on the US Constitution) provides that: 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights .They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.'
If we head towards a world which is driven by this principle, then I believe we are holding the right course. If that involves making corporations accountable for worker abuse, whether by boycotting their products, embarrassing their Directors in public or by some other means, then I say, ‘Go for it.’
Miko asks why large corporations should increase wages to underpaid workers. The answer is really simple – because they can.
Miko further believes that it is not true that ‘the world would go to hell if corporations were not held in check by legislation’, saying that companies simply respond to the needs of their consumers.
Whilst this is correct to a degree it is by no means an absolute truth. Often consumers are not aware of questionable corporate practices, certainly corporations do not publicise them. The biggest source of information consumers are exposed to is advertising which is hardly a balanced view. Legislation is both fundamental and necessary to govern the behaviour of corporations (which are after all legal persons) in the same way as it governs individuals. Legislative failure or the failure to properly police legislation results in incidents like the Union Carbide factory disaster in Bhopal. The point is so trite that I am surprised that a person of Miko's intellect could not agree with it. Dictatorships need not necessarily be political – they can be corporate too. This is known as an Oligarchy.
Finally Miko says that minimum wages prevents workers with low productivity from obtaining any employment.
I infer that he means that the minimum wage would make some workers too expensive to employ. This would depend upon the rate at which the minimum wage was set.
Grunherz makes the point that existence of legislation which does not favour large corporations means that the process of legislation is one in which there are competing interests. Quite right, but we need to be vigilant that the interests of the many are not ridden roughshod in favour of the interests of the few. It took a lot of courage and many deaths in the Civil Rights movement in the US for the state to recognise that Black people were entitled to equal rights to whites and to legislate accordingly.
Finally, let me leave you with a snippet from the Center of Public Integrity:
WASHINGTON - More than 70 American companies and individuals have won up to $8 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two years, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. Those companies donated more money to the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush -- a little over $500,000 -- than to any other politician over the last dozen years, the Center found.
Makes you wonder who is pulling your president's (or any politician's) strings, doesn't it?
cheers
Ravs
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capt. apathy: I do understand the point you are trying to make about 'real wages' as in the fact that your dollar would buy more goods as they become cheaper making the dollars you have worth more.
So far so good.
the big problem that occures when reality slams into your theory is, the things that are becoming cheaper through what you are wrongly calling 'free trade'** mostly things that we buy with what money we have left over after we've bought what we need, while things like healthcare and a place to sleep just keep going up.
The reason why healthcare and living accomodations grow more expensive in real terms has nothing to do with free trade or even free market - in fact it id directly caused by government interference into free market.
Those costs would/will be growing even if USA bacame a total autarchy (no foreign trade whatseover).
Your point was that workers lose jobs to foreign imports. I am saying that with free market the workers get more and better-paying jobs due to foreign imports.
Some worker can lose a job and some entrepreneur may lose a business to a more cost-efficient producer in another country and state. But a country cannot lose jobs to another country under free trade. It is not possible to have a free trade imbalance. Increase in imports causes increase in imports and vice versa.
also where are these 'more and better paying' jobs comming from? if we aren't hiring people here because we can do the work elswhere in a unregulated environment, and then sell them here where people have the money then exactly what are your workers here going to be doing?
OK, read carefully.
Cheap products from abroad cause increase in real wages and would cause drop in nominal wages - under free market conditions. That would increase demand for labor and create more jobs. That would also increase demand for products and exports and create yet more jobs.
The outflow of the currency to pay the foreign workers would drop the exchange rate abroad but raise the purchasing power inside - which would increase exports untill they equal imports, thus creating still more jobs. That is of course under free market conditions inside.
Not only my theory looks good "in theory", it perfectly describes what and why is happening now and happened in the past - once you take into consideration the interference with the free market.
** again, it is not free trade when one manufacturer is legally required to incure costs that his competitors are not
That's true. The costs are always ultimately borne by workers and consumers.
Nevertheless, you punish your own workers and consumers more than you help with job creation while refusing cheap or free imports.
Few hundred jobs saved by steel and lumber tariffs cost US hundreds of thousands of jobs in industries using steel and lumber.
since we are not willing (and rightly so) to do away with basic human rights, or even the very minimal environmental and workplace protections we already have.
Not willing - correct. Rightly so - not. The government propaganda may claim that improvements are due to the legislature. It is not. Without those laws we would have better and safer environments than we have now. Also better and cheaper healthcare and housing and more of it.
miko
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Lol, no you won't
we have a winner.
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ravells: I wonder whether he would think the same way if he were one of those workers. I suspect not.
Here is how it would work if I were a scoundrel - and actually does in all cases.
If I did not have a job, I would be very pissed off with bleeding-heart liberals for denying me a low-paying job just because I could not have a great job. I'd rather work than starve.
Once I got that job, I would try to organise a union and raise the wages, using the bleeding-heart liberals as my propaganda mouthpiece. I would also use violence and political influence - otherwise the company would just replace me with another willing worker.
Considering that the company has already sunk capital into my factory, there is a chance that it would increase my wage as well as wages for those already employed. But it would not create more new jobs or as many new jobs as it would otherwise from now on.
That would mean that pootely-paid people would get better pay while people who are not paid and could have been paid poorly will not be paid anything.
Benefitting better-off workers at the expense of consumers, shareholders and the most desperate workers/unemployed - that's what the unions and political wage laws are all about.
Of course the same government that ensured my higher wage would take them away from me to feed those who are denied work by my actions. With a piece going to the government in the process.
This way we will have less total production because of unutilised labor, burt both workers and unemployed will be thinking they owe the governent their good fortune!
There is a law of supply and demand. You raise price above market rate, you get surplus. Surplus of labor means people starving and less goods produced.
Lower wages, and all will be employed and more goods will be produced and everything produced will be consumed becasue prices for goods would drop faster than wages - like it happened from 1750 to 1930.
miko
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capt. apathy: we have a winner.
Well, you've addressed a specific point rather than ignoring it and I elaborated it just like I promised. Now you can pick apart the details of my elaboration.
miko
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lol!
Chances are you would not get that far because the company or the state would get you first...see below:
Amnesty International is deeply concerned at reports that police in the Dominican Republic raided the office of a local trade union yesterday, 6 August, and opened fire on those inside in order to prevent them from carrying out a protest scheduled for later that afternoon in the capital, Santo Domingo.
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Ravells:
In case you haven't noticed Miko is advocating that economic practices be as free from coercion as possible, while you are advocating coercion as a basic principle. i.e. if some company wants to pay an individual a certain amount for their services (on the production line or as the CEO) and that individual wants to take the job for the offered compensation, under Miko’s preferred system nobody besides the 2 parties to the contract have a thing to say about.
Apparently you prefer a system based on coercion; A system where some government authority has the power to regulate wages. Of course, these government regulations, like all laws, are enforced by the police at the point of a gun. So even though you seem aghast at the Dominican police using force against a trade union, you propose a system whereby this is exactly the end result. I’m sure the Dominican police would be perfectly happy to be strong-arming the company instead of the trade union, if those were the orders they were receiving from their political bosses. A free market system is infinitely preferable to a system where economic negotiations are settled by force and political influence.
Hooligan
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Hello Hooligan,
Every society needs enforceable laws in order to function (for which read 'coercion'), otherwise there would be anarchy.
I cannot think of a single example where a police force has summarily executed directors of a company because the workers told them to do so.
I can think of many examples where the police have been complicit or responsible for causing violence to workers who are trying to organise themselves to speak with a collective voice.
This is because the workers have very few resources whereas trans-national corporations have vast resources. What would be preferable is that in either case, rather than using violence the parties should have recourse to the courts. That's why we have a court system.
Both you and miko seem to think that social justice and a free market economy walk in lockstep. Whilst this is sometimes the case, it is not always the case.
The reason why state intervention is needed where employer/employee relationships are concerned is because there is often a fundamental inequality of bargaining power between employer and employee. A free market system is only 'fair' if all the players taking part have a sufficient degree of education and are able to compel each other to carry out their obligations.
Fortunately, heads wiser than ours at the UN have this September agreed the wording of the new "U.N. Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with regard to Human Rights"
This is a good step to make transnationals respect the basic human rights of their employees.
take care
Ravs
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ravells... you can't think of a single incidence wher a company was "nationalized"? taken over by force by govenrment officials?
again... you can give examples of workers being killed and coerced by government. less powerful government and less coercion would have been best in both cases. Why do you feel that it is allright for the government to control work practices only if they are coercing the company and not the worker?
lazs
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Originally posted by lazs2
ravells... you can't think of a single incidence wher a company was "nationalized"? taken over by force by govenrment officials?
Didn't El Commandante Fidel Castro do that in Cuba?
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GOOD ANSWER!
Yes, you are absolutely right. States do expropriate private company assets from time to time - but not on the say so of the employees of those companies. These days, it's usually done by some dictator trying to grab free wealth or power (I am thinking of the white farmers who have had their farms seized in Zimbabwe).
Less coercion would certainly have been better. Less powerful government? Perhaps so. It is less powerful governments that become beholden to promoting transnational interests, so I guess that there are points that can be made both ways on that one.
The legislation I am talking about regulates the relationship between the employer and employee so they are both subject to it (or if you like, coerced).
cheers
Ravs
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ravells: Every society needs enforceable laws in order to function (for which read 'coercion'), otherwise there would be anarchy.
Right - the laws that would protect people from agression and coersion by others, not the laws imposing such agression and coercion.
Both you and miko seem to think that social justice and a free market economy walk in lockstep. Whilst this is sometimes the case, it is not always the case.
Not really. Free market economy necessarily preceeds social justice. Once the free-market relationships started to develop in class-based autoritarian societies - like England, the personal liberties soon followed.
The reason why state intervention is needed where employer/employee relationships are concerned is because there is often a fundamental inequality of bargaining power between employer and employee.
And it worked great in mercantilist societies of 12-17th centuries, in Soviet Union, China, etc., right? How come only with removal of state controls over economy the conditions of the workers start to improve?
A free market system is only 'fair' if all the players taking part have a sufficient degree of education and are able to compel each other to carry out their obligations.
Right, the workers should not be allowed to make a decision - like accepting employment al less than a union wage - because they are too dumb to decide fro themselves.
Fortunately, heads wiser than ours at the UN have this September agreed...
Are you saying that you are too dumb and in need of a master?
miko
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I don't know... every mexican and south american dictator that "nationalizes" a company does so on the "behalf" of the poor exploited workers. The people are the government after all.
lazs
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Ravells wrote:
Every society needs enforceable laws in order to function (for which read 'coercion'), otherwise there would be anarchy.
Yes this is the only reason we have government. Laws punishing robbery, rape, fraud and theft are good things. Using force to regulate wages, sexual practices among consenting adults, whether or not you can smoke, etc... etc... is a horrible abuse of government power although you seem unable to realize this. If you had your way, soon enough the government will be sending police around to count the number of televisions in your flat, and the tragic/comic nature of this will completely pass you by.
While “social justice” and a free market economy are not in lockstep, “social justice” and a socialist economy aren’t even on the same road. The reality of the situation is that poor downtrodden workers in great bastions of “social justice” like China, Vietnam and Russia are a hell of a lot better off when Nike builds a factory in their neighborhood.
And what do you think happened to all the factory owners in the Soviet Union when it formed in 1918?
Hooligan
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Fortunately, heads wiser than ours at the UN have this September agreed
:rofl
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Hi miko
ravells: Every society needs enforceable laws in order to function (for which read 'coercion'), otherwise there would be anarchy.
Right - the laws that would protect people from agression and coersion by others, not the laws imposing such agression and coercion.
Don't follow you there miko. Can you explain why laws requiring a company to provide a safe system of work for its employees is agressive or coercive?
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Both you and miko seem to think that social justice and a free market economy walk in lockstep. Whilst this is sometimes the case, it is not always the case.
Not really. Free market economy necessarily preceeds social justice. Once the free-market relationships started to develop in class-based autoritarian societies - like England, the personal liberties soon followed.
Agreed. And so did legislation preventing the exploitation of employees. As I keep saying, having a free market economy and protecting basic human rights are not mutually exclusive. All of you consistently miss this point and think that I advocating some sort of communism.
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The reason why state intervention is needed where employer/employee relationships are concerned is because there is often a fundamental inequality of bargaining power between employer and employee.
And it worked great in mercantilist societies of 12-17th centuries, in Soviet Union, China, etc., right? How come only with removal of state controls over economy the conditions of the workers start to improve?
Virtually every nation on earth today has labour laws and most have employment courts. You appear to think that I am saying that a state should govern every aspect of a company's behavior which I am not. I am saying that a state should, by legislation, provide minimum standards of treatment in the employment relationship - as is presently the case in every western democracy today.
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A free market system is only 'fair' if all the players taking part have a sufficient degree of education and are able to compel each other to carry out their obligations.
Right, the workers should not be allowed to make a decision - like accepting employment al less than a union wage - because they are too dumb to decide fro themselves.
Sadly it is the case that many people at the bottom of the social ladder have not had any education and do need to be protected from exploitation. Watch Ja erry Springer show to find out more about what I mean.
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Fortunately, heads wiser than ours at the UN have this September agreed...
Are you saying that you are too dumb and in need of a master?
I am saying that I am not so arrogant so as to think I know more about the subject than people who have been researching it for 3 years or so.
cheers
Ravs
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You may bow to you UN masters now.. Look its Koffe Annan!! :lol
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ravells: Don't follow you there miko. Can you explain why laws requiring a company to provide a safe system of work for its employees is agressive or coercive?
I have my property - equipment and money, and a guy has his property - his body and labor. We should be free to exchange that property/service as long as we do not cheat each other.
By preventing us from engaging in a voluntary private exchange by the threat of violence the government agresses against us.
By precluding us from freely disposing of our property, the government effectively confiscates the property from us.
I may not be able to provide conditions that are satisfactory to you but I can provide conditions satisfactory to that guy - in exchange for whatever compensation he deems sufficient. Forbidding him to accept my offer you do not improve his conditions but rather force him to fall back to less satisfactory option.
If you believe I would cheat him, why don't you just advise him and make him aware rather than forbid him outright from taking that job?
Sure - union peope who already have a job do not want competition from newcomers. And since a company afflicted with unions would go bancrupt in competition, the necessary condition for unions is to promote monopoly in their industry. So the unions and the capitalists join in lobbying the government for monopoly that excludes the most desperate job-seekers from the market and drives prices up for the consumers.
And so did legislation preventing the exploitation of employees.
That is just not true. It helped people already in better conditions at the expense of those in desperate conditions who lost a chance to improve them and sufefred out of sight.
Wages naturally raise as productiviry increases witha ccumulation of capital. The capitalists competed for labor by offering better conditions in order to attract workers - just like they bid for any scarce resource.
It was lack of capitalism, not the capitalism, that caused people live in squalor.
Most people in capitalist countries are paid much more than minimum wages and work in much better conditions than the laws require.
That kind of blows the whole logic of your (actually Marx's) theory that only regulations maintain the wage level above subsistance.
Virtually every nation on earth today has labour laws and most have employment courts.
Also persistent unemployment that was unheard of in capitalist societies of 19th century.
I am saying that a state should, by legislation, provide minimum standards of treatment in the employment relationship - as is presently the case in every western democracy today.
The "third way" between free market and capitalism does not work. Such legislation, driven by special inetrests, causes unemployment, slows growth and causes more harm than good. Every western democracy today is in moral, political, economic and demographic decay exactly proportional to the degree of affliction by socialist policies.
Sadly it is the case that many people at the bottom of the social ladder have not had any education and do need to be protected from exploitation.
Exploitation is coercion. So far there is only a state that does all the coercion. If a person decides what's good for him/her even after hearing your advice, who are you to force him otherwise?
As I keep saying, having a free market economy and protecting basic human rights are not mutually exclusive.
The only human right that really exists is being able to dispose of one's own body and property without agressing against others. You take that right away. When you deny a person a choice you force him into a worse option, period.
All of you consistently miss this point and think that I advocating some sort of communism.
...many people at the bottom of the social ladder have not had any education and do need to be protected from exploitation. Watch Ja erry Springer show to find out more about what I mean.
I know perfectly what you mean. What you are advocating is fascism - separating people into an elite who is entitled to make decision and mindless masses who are not entitled to make decisions for themsleves. Basically the same as communism or nazism but with a slight ideoligical twist. Not sying you do that intentionally, but newertheless...
Would you care to read a book that started many people on the road to knowlege? "The Road To Serfdom" by F. A. Hayek explains very well how the road ty Tyrany is paved with good intentions.
miko