Thanks Bob for clearing that up for me!
Mortgages by Walmart??
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That sounded suspiciously like my wife after a coffee induced rant.
Another ""please bend over" free trader has spoken. The corrupt proletariat forced all our factories offshore because they wanted major medical and more than minimum wage. Where were the voices of reason when NAFTA was signed? Answer: no on cared and no one continues to care. Perhaps we may all eventually be buried in Chinese coffins. It will raise our remaining relatives standard of living......as they deliver pizzas.
Huge strawman statement there. The consumer durable and soft goods manufacturing sectors long ago started a big shift from the unionized North to right to work states in the South and Southeast. The percentage of manufacturing workers that are union members is at record lows.
I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of jobs that are being 'sent to China' these days were non-union jobs when they were in America.
In a heaslthy economy, there needs to be a balance between profits for those who invest labor into the business, and those who invest capital into the business. The old UAW contracts were clearly putting the good of labor at the expense of stockholders, but I think there's been a huge and potentially catastrophic shift over the past twenty years in rewarding the capital investors instead of (and at the expense of) the people who invest their labor into the business.
?Proletariat?? I didn?t know you were into Marx. However, I believe you meant that the corrupt bourgeoisie forced the factories offshore, since that fits your argument a little better. As for minimum wage and required medical insurance, it?s one reason that there are not more jobs here. If companies were free to choose the amount they pay their labor, including benefits, they?d pay what the market would bear. It would be in their best interest to pay a decent wage to their employees so they can retain them. As for investing labor or investing capital, like capital, labor can vote with its feet. No one is working at gunpoint. If American workers want to compete in a global economy, they need some skin in the game, specifically in education or specialized training. In other words, they need to be good at something other than showing up.
6thGen, your relatives were slaveholders I presume. Wages seek the lowest common denominator in a global market. If you offshore your manufacturing base, you gut the middle class for cheap goods. That's the greedy short sighted choice we have made as a nation. It's bad for America, unless you are a stock holder looking at the numbers every 3 months.
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I encourage everyone to watch this show, or read the online transcript:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/
Although saving money at Walmart is perception and not reality, the fact that you can buy a $39 microwave (how can you even ship a microwave from China for $39?) at many stores in America is a result of the Walmart-China joint venture.
While their partnership may not be the only reason America is declining and China is rising, it will be an important chapter in the history of a country that once was.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/
Although saving money at Walmart is perception and not reality, the fact that you can buy a $39 microwave (how can you even ship a microwave from China for $39?) at many stores in America is a result of the Walmart-China joint venture.
While their partnership may not be the only reason America is declining and China is rising, it will be an important chapter in the history of a country that once was.