Europe is Doing Better With the Outsourcing Problem

Once you add in transportation costs, costs of relocating plants, costs of displacing the workers, and the intangiable costs of the goodwill of the American people (thousands of whom got fired in said move), the labor costs are simply a drop in the bucket. There are many more costs than these corporations seem to be looking at, but what can you expect when a short term drop in costs adds up to massive bonuses for the executives?

Really? Did you know that Campbell's sells their soup to chain stores repackaged as "generic" brands? They even label them with generic labels at the manufacturing plant. Do you buy Kroger (or Sams, or Randalls, or Safeway) brand when Campbell's is $.35 cheaper?

Personally, I DO buy more expensive products when I know that the company I am buying from employs Americans and does not outsource. I have loyalties that extend further than my pocketbook.

And our executives are lavished with multimillion dollar salaries, bonuses, and stock options at the expense of the workers. I would not advocate for communism or even socialism, but I would argue that letting ourselves move into a new "robber baron" phase will be detrimental to this country in the long run.

 

Good post. Any extreme is unhealthy. It all comes down to a balance, human beings are just all the same, we are all selfish. If you want to have the whole pie, you probably end up with nothing, but if you are willing to share, you can get your own fair share. When I was student in Germany, I loved their labour laws, coz I could make $1000 DM netto (after annual tax return) per week at Robert Bosch in summer holidays just doing simple labour. But after I became an engineer, I complained how come I went through the tough education, still ended up with only slightly more pay? I shaked head to see how strong those unions like IGMetal are. The labour laws didn't change, but I changed, my perspective and standing point changed, all I wanted was the maximum benefit for me. One can always find a long list of reasons to support own view, but we can't forget that the counterpart can do the same thing. So a middle ground has to be reached. That's why I like the compromise they reached at VW years back, when they temporarily kept all the jobs but cut back working time to 4 weekdays.

Outsourcing is a complicated problem. Simply blaming unions or corporations doesn't work, coz they just do what's in their interest. It requires a collective effort from government, corporations, unions, and workers to reach some compromise to keep the economie growing and yet not just sacrafice average workers.

 

Good post. The most important job of a government is to raise the living standard of its citizens, something the Chinese and India government is doing ver well at the moment. In the US the real living standard for most of the people have not increased during the past five years, what is the best way to correct that? I do not know, but I sure hope some brilliant minds can figure it out.

 

How do you know the living standard for most of people in US have not increased during the past five years?

A normal computer used to cost $1500 five years ago, now it costs $500.

 

Gas used to cost around a dollar now it cost over two dollars. What is the point? I do not know about you, but my pay raises have not been above the rate of inflations, which tells me my living standard have not gone up in real term. What is the wage increase vs rate of inflation during the last five years? I guess I could be totally wrong but I doubt it.

 

Well, my question was how do you make an statement like

without having your facts, you just guess?

 

If you look at wage rates for the last five years, they have declined. Inflation is around 3%, which means that not only are wages declining, but those dollars buy 3% less than they used to.

For me, I have gotten one 2% raise in the past 4 years. That means that even though inflation has reduced my buying power by 12%, I have gotten only a 2% increase in pay during that time, so my real purchasing power has gone down by 10%.

That is the same rough area that most of the middle class is in right now. The rich keep getting richer and we just keep getting inflationed [sic] up the arse.

 

No offense, but first of all, your numbers don't compute at all, and secondly, any chance that a) your performance and your individual negotiation skills with regard to your salary might have to do with how large your salary increases are and b) that you are the master of your own fate, especially in the US system - it is easier to switch jobs in the US than in Europe, so have you explored the market for your skills if you feel that your current employer is not paying you market value?

 

Well, facts and stats work best to refute others' false statement. If you could show some data proves that the actual inflation adjusted living standard increased over the past years, everybody can clearly see that he's wrong. Instead, you questioned his statement because you believed otherwise. May I guess that your source was your "guess" as well? He said the gas price was higher, and you said the computer price was lower. Although I would assume the impact of gas price is much higher than computer price for every family, neither of them is a whole picture of living standard.

 

3% inflation times 4 years equals 12%, right? I know that it is a bit more because it is actually 1.03*1.03*1.03*1.03, but I was just keeping it simple.

Nope, none at all. Everyone here has gotten exactly the same percentage increase in the past four years as a result of Texas cutting the budget for higher education.

It is only in the past six months or so that the market has even begun to come back for IT. In 2000, the IT section in the classifieds was six full pages. These days, it is three columns. In Houston in IT, I am pretty lucky just to have a job. I am hoping to make a change and get said raise in the near future, but that hasn't even been possible since Allison, Enron, and the recession hit Houston.

 

Andy will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he works for the State of Texas, whose employees have been incredibly ill-treated since the Republicans came to power in the Legislature. His story would fit that situation to a tee. And if you think there hasn't been a net reduction in state employees take-home pay over the last few years, then you just don't know the facts, SJC. (not sure why you would!) Just the increase in the cost of health insurance has been huge, putting aside almost no state-wide raises, the slashing of agency's workforce to the bone, and beyond... and I could go on.

Fortunately, my significant other, who works for the Legislature, has been unaffected. Quite the opposite. That's strictly due to her personal situation, not what state employees have suffered through in general.

Don't know why I chimed in!



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

andymoon, I am far from talking from a high horse, so my apologies if it might have come across like that. My remark was more of a general nature regarding a situation where someone is not happy with their salary and feels they should be paid more, but I am very aware that, especially considering very understandable mobility restraints, one cannot always take advantage of all possibilities the market might offer, and that sometimes, one is just unlucky to be in a situation where one performs really well, but, e.g. due to a market downturn, the salary is not raised.

 

I actually knew neither where andymoon works nor the special situation for state employees in Texas, so again, my comments were not meant to be disrespectful to andymoon. It is certainly possible for an individual employee to be negatively affected without being at fault by market swings or changing circumstances, in any industry. But unfortunately, that is life...goes for all of us who do not work for themselves...and it is true both in the US and in Europe. I just think that in general, it seems easier in the US to then explore the market as an individual, and maybe get a better-paying job than it is in Europe, where one has more job security (far from infinite either, though!), but less flexibility, so once you are out, it is much harder to get in again.

 

Like I said, I'm not sure why you'd know his situation, and I've probably got it wrong anyway.
What's the European reaction to the Bolton recess appointment, SJC? Some input from you in that thread would be interesting.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

I have seen some articles discussing this, but to be honest, I did not read them, so I can't really add to that discussion...

 

Fair enough.
(read 'em, dammit! )



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

I didn't make any statements about living standards going down for people in US, he DID, what's wrong with asking him to back up his claim?

In related story Consumer spending strong,inflation absent

 

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_06282004

As of May 2004, real wages had fallen back to the same levels they were at in Nov 2001.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0511-08.htm

According to the Financial Times, US real wages rates fell in the last Q of 2005 and the first Q of 2005, so unless there was a huge spike from May to August of 2004, we'd be at lower than the levels in the chart by now.

 

Thanks for the articles. I guess I have seen many relatives friends who do have much of wage increase for the last few years.

 

Why do you want to use consumer spending as an indicator for wages and living standards? Americans are known to live on borrowed credits. I think one could easily find some reports that consumer debts are all time high. If you really want to draw any conclusion, it would be much straightforward to say "consumer spending strong, so are consumer debts, so are real estate foreclosures."