Personally, I reject the idea that using higher-priced US labor vs. foreign labor must result in significantly higher costs to the consumer. Let’s consider that CD/DVD player. How much manual labor actually would go into the production of that unit? To maintain quality, most of the soldering is automated. Manual labor is really only involved in some of the assembly and the packaging/logistics. If it takes 15 minutes of man-labor per unit, then at $25/hr in the US (total loaded cost) vs. $0.25 per hour in China, the difference in cost is $6.19 per unit. Ok… but what does shipping cost you? You easily can eat up that difference in shipping costs.
Many businesses moved production to China looking only at labor costs, not total delivered costs. Then the execs get their bonuses based on these “savings” which may not save the company a cent. As a result, you do see some companies, like Wham-o, reversing their decisions and moving production back. Wham-o was spending more money shipping frisbees (highly automated production) than they were saving from labor.
And generally when there is an actual savings, the company takes it as extra profit, and does not necessarily pass the cost to the consumer. Look at Levis. They used to make Dockers in the US. Now they’re almost all made in the Dominican Republic. However, for less than they charge per pair, I can mail-order a pair made in the US. For less than the price of a pair of their jeans, I can mail-order a pair made in the US from US-grown organic cotton. What happened to the cost savings?
Personally, I feel that there has been a great deal of collusion between political leaders and multi-national corporations to their mutual benefit resulting in a steep decline in the middle class. The right leaning politics of today condemns the ideologies of socialism and communism while fostering their success at our (working class) expense.
“As a life long (teaching life) teacher’s union member, I can echo your sentiments”.
I’m in agreement as well. I have taught at the same University for 44 years and was a member of the AFT chapter when it was active. We fought hard for the rights of faculty. Unfortunately, some new faculty looked down their noses at us rebels in the union, even though we helped many of these faculty as advocates when they were involved in tenure or promotion hearings. As happened with many universities, my institution has hired more contract faculty who do not have any due process. For the colleagues who look down on me for having been a “blue collar union rebel”, I’ll match my publication record and my outstanding student evaluations against their record any time.
As for the Christmas tree light problem in the OP, I found a solution. The outdoor icicle lights that I used to hang from the eaves troughs had several series loops in the string. If a bulb burned out and the fusible link didn’t melt to provide continuity through the loop, part of the string went dead. This year, I picked up some good, surplus American made Bunsen burners from the chemistry department. I plumbed them in series so that when I light one burner, they all light up. I hooked them to a propane tank and suspended the Bunsen burners from the eaves troughs rather than using the icicle lights. Not only do I not have the problem that I had with the Chinese made light strings, but the Bunsen burners keep the eaves troughs free of ice. Ed Crankshaft in the comic strip has nothing on me!
Waterboy, even though I mostly agree with you, you are on one heck of a soap box.
As I watch Obama and congressional Democrats roll over for Republicans regarding tax policy, it is obvious to me Republicans are winning the ideological war. Today’s Democratic party has lost its way, and deserves to be abandoned. Liberals need their own version of the so-called Tea Party.
Rome is burning. Middle class standard of living has been on the decline for decades, and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, all while the middle class buys into “trickle down economics.” It’s depressing, but you can’t save people from themselves.
Also, I bought LED holiday lights three years ago, and they were made in China. They are great.
You have a heck of a soapbox yourself, not being derogatory! I think sometimes about cotton mills, ensuing child labor laws, unions and where we have progressed. Now given the same machine and a cheaper labor market in China it makes economical sense, unless we have a large population unemployed. I don’t envy anyone who works in a mill, at one point thought good send those jobs to China, but when towns are killed, and people would rather have some job than no job and now contribute to a loss of United States buying power and income as everything is outsourced, it makes little economic sense.
The 2 parties have carved out constituencies of single issue groups; pro/anti-homosexual, pro/ anti-abortion, pro/anti-gun, anti, tax cuts, etc., ad nauseum. It is phenomenal that intelligent people will overlook the more pressing and immediate issues that face us all to vote based on the often phony rhetoric of politicians who offer them empty promises on idealogical issues that will be kept on prime time while we steadily decline off camera.
I actually got the idea when I was coming into Chicago on the train in cold weather after there had been an ice storm. There are little gas burners at switches to heat the equipment so that the switches will operate.
Personally, I reject the idea that using higher-priced US labor vs. foreign labor must result in significantly higher costs to the consumer.
For manufacturing jobs it’s true…that’s why much of the outsourcing in the past decade has been blue-color jobs…Software Engineering is the hardest hit…But there are plenty of other jobs being outsourced too…Tech-support (which I’m sure we’ve all experienced). Many companies have outsourced their HR department to India…Get an x-ray from a hospital in Boston or NYC…and that x-ray is digitally encoded…sent to India and then a doctor in India diagnoses the x-ray and sends the results back to the US…Almost all the major accounting firms outsource tax returns to India…There are now US Law research firms in India to do Law research for law firms (AND JUDGES). People are going over to India for major elected surgery because it’s far far cheaper. Some US companies have that as an option in their health plan…They’ll pay to fly you to India…have the surgery and recoop for 2 weeks there…then fly you back…It’s cheaper then just having the surgery here in the US.
Middle class standard of living has been on the decline for decades, and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, all while the middle class buys into “trickle down economics.” It’s depressing, but you can’t save people from themselves.
What gets me is the number of people I know are at the very bottom of middle class who actually believe that “Trickle down economics” actually works.
The problem with unions is that they sold out in the 1920s and 30s when the leadership of the wobblies were all in jail thanks to J. Edgar Swoop and the alien sedition act of 1917. In other countries, union organizers get killed on a routine basis by assasins funded by US corporations. And that is why chinees alarm clocks are cheep and dont keep proper time. WalMart sells products made by slaves, and the leaders and CEOs of American corporations want to take us back to the good ol days of the Anti-bellum south. The Democratic party is just one more example of how the left sells out to fascism.
It would be nice if outsourcing of medical care could actually drive down costs. My employer just gutted our health plan and we have the option of going uninsured or paying roughly $11,000/year to maintain our family plan.
I really don’t understand why it’s not possible to “see” a doctor in India, Pakistan, etc. over a video conference. While definitely not ideal, it’s better than paying $11,000/year for a health plan with a deductible so high that it never covers anything.
Re the antebellum south, slavery was a terrible institution but often miners and the Chinese railroad workers and children working in mills outside the south in the 19th century suffered equally it not more so than than many slaves. It is such a shame that politicians are so quick to jump on whatever gravy train is available and rationalize its existence.
…and believe that people who default the govt. with poor purchases on food stamps are a bigger problem for our national economy than the Madoffs of the world. The same people who blame those below them for our woes and worship those above on the economic ladder; with total disregard as to how each arrived on that step.
On the other side…I’m tired of paying for people with no insurance every time they visit the local hospitals…They are in part subsidized by us tax payers…
Poor people who defraud the government are a P.R. problem more than anything else. They create a situation that is easily exploited and hurts their cause. The Madoffs of the world do a better job managing their P.R.