DU has been protesting the "Off-Shoreing of Jobs" since 2002

[FreakinDJ]

Any Questions...........


Why U.S. is not competative with China

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMOBqRVDOYQ

[shadowknows69]

1. Why U.S. is not competative with China

Except of course in our nuclear arsenal, which near as I can tell, is the only thing still making people even listen to us anymore. We're a joke on the world stage. Sold out to our own "enemies" or even dumber, creating more by bombing civilians to get a few dozen criminals. But we're a well armed joke. That's why I have no faith that we won't eventually have another world war.

[midnight]

2. k&r.

[pampango]

3. Interesting that manufacturing (as a percentage of the US economy) is higher than in the 1950's, but

manufacturing employment has plunged from 30%+ (of the total workforce) in the late 1940's and early 1950's to about 12% now.

It's no wonder that people think that "we don't make anything anymore". Even though our manufacturing output grows (in absolute terms and as a percentage of the economy), it doesn't concentrate on consumer goods and it doesn't employ as many people as it once did. When few goods in the store are "Made in the USA" and you don't know anyone who works in manufacturing, it's easy to think that "we don't make anything anymore".

[FBaggins]

11. It's the same thing that happened to agriculture decades earlier

We grow more food now than ever before... with a far FAR smaller percentage of the workforce.

Yet there are, believe it or not, people who think "we don't grow anything anymore" because hardly anyone is employed in that industry and so much of the produce they buy says "grown in mexico" (or wherever).

Which is not to say that off-shoring isn't a problem.

[Captain Hilts]

4. There's no way to compete with cheap labor in China. nt

[FreakinDJ]

5. Change the Corp Tax Code

take away the incentive

[Captain Hilts]

6. Yes. It dates to immediate post-war era. But the profit margins are still huge. nt

[whathehell]

7. We used to have something called "tariffs"..which kept prices high

on imported goods so as to protect our own goods.

[FreakinDJ]

12. The Chinese still do have tarrifs on Americam goods

[whathehell]

13. I know...Most countries seem to protect their own products and jobs

Why the hell don't we?....It sucks.

[harun]

8. It isn't just the cheap labor. The gov't will subsidize industries long enough

for them to eat their competitors and get off the ground. They can sell at a loss with the support of the gov't until their competitors close up shop in other places. Then once their competition is gone they can start raising prices and working towards profitability.

I was talking to someone who worked with British investors in creating textile factories in Pakistan. This is what China did to them to put them out of business. They did the math on what China was paying for raw materials and labor, it equaled huge losses. The Chinese gov't was sustaining those losses for them until the plants in Pakistan had to close. Once closed they would sell the goods for as much or more than the Pakistani's were charging.

[Captain Hilts]

10. Yes. Very true. nt

[fasttense]

9. Multinational corporations are allowed to count their offshore

production as productivity. So what you see in the graph, an increase in manufacturing but a decrease in unemployment, is due to the overseas production and shipping of jobs to other countries.

If you were to ship off the manufacturing of major components of a car let's say, then turnaround bring in those major components and put the car together in the US, well then your productivity will increase while your employment in the US will decrease.

The increase productivity of manufacturing is basically mostly a sham.

Here is a link:

http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2006/12/american_manufa.html

There are some other links at that site that break down some concrete examples.