Au revoir, Paul Martin!
POSTED BY: Skywalken
UPDATED: Thursday, February 9, 2006 06:52
VIEWED: 3559
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I can see that part of the problem is that I used the wrong terms I should have said "American Corporations" rather than "American Business" or "American Industry," I suspect your quaintness is rubbing off on me.
It's not that. There are 300,000 corporations in America. There are 15,000 publicly held corporations. There are probably several thousand American publicly traded international corporations whose business relies on an international market. In counting those that benefit from newcon globalization, you would have trouble getting up to the double digits, and in no way would approach the triple digits.
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And no, I'm afraid you don't tend to demonstrate any knowledge of American industry as far as I can see. I loved your comment about Microsoft designing the Mac for Apple, now there's industry research at it's finest.
I did work for a stock broker for ten years, I do understand this industry, and feel no need to argue the point. No offense, but to stem the flood fo your propaganda is not a call for me to waste time I could spend working, please don't force the situation.
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Let me explain it simply. Imagine a company "Apple of the Loom" which traditionally makes textile products in North Carolina where it employs US workers and makes a modest profit. The opertunity comes along to have the same products made in Indonesia at a fraction of the cost. "AotL" closes it's N. Carolina factories and moves manufacturing overseas.
Sure, but this doesn't benefit by neocon policies, this is normal business as usual. The GOP has been the party which has been pushing to lessen the tax burden which makes deserting America profitable. To ban companies from leaving would be protectionist, and just plain wrong. THe effect of such a policy would not be that AotL would stay in business, it would be that it would become uncompetitive in the world market and go bankrupt. We have this argument in the US all the time, it's not exactly foreign territory. The reason businesses leave is that the tax burden placed on a company for each American they hire. This is not just a "It's all the democrat's fault" but it is, all the democrats fault, but that's not the point. The point is we need a way to fix it without withdrawing from the international market. This all has absolutely nothing to do with the globalist agenda, which is all about one world govt. and not about support for American business. It's just blatantly so, as the facts show, businesses and the American economy have suffered under this Administration and these globalist policies, which are anti-competition, anti-private sector and un-American. The only "Corporations" which are helped are ones for whom the #1 customer base is not overseas, or the American people, but one single govt., which for many of these Bush companies represents over half of their revenue, and that customer is the Federal Govt. These are corporations almost in name only. They are not free agents, independent of govt. which are benefiting from Bush.
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ma-and-pa companies that oppose it natural selection favours "pro international business" canidates in both parties.
Nothing is wrong with international business. What is wrong I already posted at length. Break down the cost of hiring an American, and you will find that it costs a company $3 in taxes and federally mandated spending for every $1 that they pay to the American worker. So instead, they move operations overseas, largely to *high* wage countries. The majority of American jobs are leaving for countries where the *wages* are actually higher, but because of favorable pro-business regulations, the *costs* are lower. The cost of labor in South Carolina is nothing. It's the cost of doing business in America which is prohibitive. The lion's share of this cost is going to pay for things like this militant globalism and rampant corruption.
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Some time later when Indonesian rebels threaten the status quo and try to move Indonesia towards an Islamic theocracy threatening the assetNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Sorry that last post was more hostile than it should have been. It's just this kind of attitude irritates me, esp. coming from the pro-govt. types.
In my view, the problem here is that we have fallen off the left end of the political spectrum, and we need to move back to center. People say 'this is too far right, we need to walk left,'
and I think they are missing the point, blaming the wrong people.
Corporations have cured diseases, made efficient food production, transportation, labor saving devices, brought us information and technology which make us capable of much more than we were, they are the instigators of progress.
Govts have brought us war, genocide, oppression and taxes.
Capitalism isn't perfect, and corporations aren't angels. The ones I call pharmagovt. were once good companies, now corrupted. A great great uncle of mine was cofounder of Eli Lilly and Co. which used to do good work curing diseases, and they still do, but they also rob the public till and deal in what has become legal drug trafficking. But corporations aren't inherently evil. The profit motive doesn't drive them to dominate the lives of people. The profit motive drives companies to provide services that the people want. People want to be helped. They do not want to be dominated. They're not going to buy domination. It's not a profitable mechanism unless you have a hand in writing the laws, and then you are govt., and you have the power to oppress.
Captialism at its heart is the truer democracy. Democracy is a fake democracy compared to capitalism. It's the free will of us to do what we want to help one another, to compete for the support of the people. I can be a corporation if I want, I've been part of one before, and then I can compete by finding new ways to help people, make their lives easier, work more efficient, etc.
My point is this: We're not the bad guys. Not America, not corporations, not the right wing. We are trying to help. Our methods may be completely at odds with yours, but we deeply believe in what we are doing, and trying to do.
Neocons are not us. They are their own thing. They deeply believe they are helping, but they're not. They're help requires being in completely control of everyone and everything. They don't want anyone spoiling their 'perfect idea.'
I think they're wrong, and in an environment of no competition and no dissent, which is what they foster, there can be no argument, and my belief that they are deeply and utterly wrong will have no impact.
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
It's not that. There are 300,000 corporations in America. There are 15,000 publicly held corporations. There are probably several thousand American publicly traded international corporations whose business relies on an international market. In counting those that benefit from newcon globalization, you would have trouble getting up to the double digits, and in no way would approach the triple digits.
Really?
Well this isn't scientific but on this page is a link to a list of Companies known to be outsourcing jobs abroad.
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/
I did only a quick count but I got to over 100 just on the "A's." I doubt very much that these companies would be doing this if it wasn't to their economic advantage.
Even if we accept your figures and say that this kind of world trade benefits only 1% of US companies, just how much GDP does that represent? Any governments economic policy favors some over others. If your choice is between policies benefiting a company like Microsoft which contributes say 1% of GDP or 10,000 Ma-and-pa outfits that contribute just 0.001% between them then you favour Microsoft. The numbers of companies doesnt matter. If your "handfull" produce 70% of GDP then yes you'll do what's good for them, even if 1000 family businesses go bust as a result.
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I did work for a stock broker for ten years, I do understand this industry, and feel no need to argue the point. No offense, but to stem the flood fo your propaganda is not a call for me to waste time I could spend working, please don't force the situation.
My wife worked for a Bar Association for 2 years, that doesn't make her a lawyer. I'm assuming that as you say you worked *for* a stock broker and not *as* a stock broker you never actually traded?
As to the "Democrats taxed us until we were uncompetative," tax and regulation is of course a factor but it's only part of the cost base of a country.
Two little stories here.
First a former collegue of mine and Anglo-Indian guy called Amrit. Amrit's folks had come to the UK in the 60's he was born a Brit, never lived in India but every year he went to India for 3 weeks during the summer for various weddings and festivals. He told me that when he arrived in the town where his folks had grown up he would hire a maid and a man servant to look after him while he was there, to run errands, clean his clothes and his room and cook if needed. Cost? About 2 pounds per day which meant he said that in 3 weeks they earned the equivalent of over two months regular pay. At that time my parents spent 2 pounds a day on dogfood.
Story number 2
In a previous job have actually trained my own outsource replacements, two well educated guys from Bangalore. I didn't resent it because the company was in dire straights at that time and if they didn't make savings they would have closed completely. However, I can tell you this, the two kids I trained earned less than I was paying for the modest one bed appartment I was living in. If central government died overnight, if my personal and corporate tax burden fell to zero the savings would not have been enough to have kept that job onshore.
Assuming it's all about Tax is an avoidance of reality and a knee jerk pandering to dogma. If a guy can have a good life on $15,000 in India you will hire him for $15,000, you can not hire an American for $15,000 if that is less than the guy needs to live. That's just reality.
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Nothing is wrong with international business. What is wrong I already posted at length. Break down the cost of hiring an American, and you will find that it costs a company $3 in taxes and federally mandated spending for every $1 that they pay to the American worker. So instead, they move operations overseas, largely to *high* wage countries. The majority of American jobs are leaving for countries where the *wages* are actually higher, but because of favorable pro-business regulations, the *costs* are lower.
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Fletch,
You don't even read my posts, do you. Haven't I said three times, I'm not talking about outsourcing? Outsourcing is not the problem. Outsourcing doesn't gain by invading Iraq.
Since you haven't gotten it, here it is again:
Outsourcing is right, not wrong. Outsourcing is good. These are the good guys. They bring to the third world what socialists and govts. never could: An end to poverty and the drastic unequal balance of the world economy. The old world economy held the third worlders as somehow less than human. Now that's changing. Everyone gets to play. So yay them.
And I'm not changing my tune here. You can look back at past posts and see me say 'yay outsoucing' pretty consistantly. America's uncompetitiveness is not India's fault. This is what the democrats would like you to believe, but it's simply not the case. Yay India, yay China, yay Korea for their striving to compete. Our uncompetitiveness is our own damn fault.
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Assuming it's all about Tax is an avoidance of reality and a knee jerk pandering to dogma. If a guy can have a good life on $15,000 in India you will hire him for $15,000, you can not hire an American for $15,000 if that is less than the guy needs to live. That's just reality.
And yet it is simply not so. American take home pay is often under $15,000. Starting salaries in the US are typically around $26K and the average American pays over half his wages in tax in some form, whether it be fed income tax, soc. sec., medicare, corporate pension plans, union dues, state income tax, school tax, property tax, and then once he actually has the money, he pays sales tax on everything he buys with it. His untaxed buying power is probably closer to $12K.
But it doesn't cost $26 to hire him, it costs around $40 when you add in the govt. mandate spending on his behalf that the company must engage in, like health insurance and other benefits, insurance, etc.
Now, add to this the corporate income tax paid by American corporations, which is about 25%. This is coming out of any business operating in the US and is taken out before he gets his wages, and is uppng the price of anything American he buys.
Now the hiring of the Indian isn't free. Someone has to set up a business in India, and may have to ship merchandise back from India. Now if the goods are to be sold in India, I see no reason why they shouldn't be made in India, Japan has done this in the US for decades. In addition there are taxes and regulations in India, they're just much lighter. I read an article by a CEO who estimated this cost at $5K per worker, so if we add that to his salary, the indian is costing $20K, just about half of what the American is costing him.
Team evil isn't responsible for the US policy of international trade. We've had this set up since WWII, but it's never been a problem until now, because America has been competitive. Flaws in the education system are also to blame, but the largest bugbear is govt. spending, taxation, and regulation. It's like our leaders have been living in a bubble while our nation has been trading internationally.
The real myth is that labor is somehow intrinsically 'cheaper' somewhere else, which is simply not a reality. The productivity per dollar of takehome pay for skilled labor is basically the same everywhere in the world. If cost of living varies, that's only a reflection of the other factors, taxation, regulation, etc., because we can grow food here in America, we can make stuff, build houses, etc., there's no reason the cost of living in America should be any higher than in India, and if it is, that is only a reflection of people buying goods and services from companies which need to pay an enormous tax burden. We know that this is so because religious groups in America do it all the time. The organize their own people to do the labor of covering the basic building of houses and growing of food, and I know because I do it to. My family built this house, grew food, and participate in our nations economy because they choose to do so, because th
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Our principle outsourcee is Canada. Our other large labor partners are in Europe and east asia, particularly Korea, a nation where the take home pay is larger then that of American workers. We used to outsource to Japan but it has gotten too expensive. After that, we outsource largely to China and India, but our outsourcees there classify as high wage markets on a global scale, because they are communities like Shanghai, where wages are high, and not 50c an hour.
The people with sweatshops and the like are not outsourcers, they're contracting partners who abuse their own people, and companies that deal with such people, such as Walmart, should be punished under US law for doing so. But this isn't outsourcing, and sure, I grant, some companies do this, and it's wrong. But in large part, as i said, overwhelmingly, we're talking about people earning normal wages, wages on the scale of my own.
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I do read what you write. Just as I said the moment you start into a TE rant I skip it, because I don't have time to go through the same "everything crap that happens to us is TE" rubbish every time. Stating the same rubbish again and again does not make it a reality sorry. So if you hid the point of your little speech somwhere in the included block of TE spew then yes I missed it.
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Our principle outsourcee is Canada.]
Odd, that's an high tax "socialist" country, if their taxes and regulations are higher than yours (and they are, I've lived there) then what's the story morning glory? Doesn't this prove that American taxation is not the be all and end all problem you suggest?
The countries you tend to cite like Korea are not outsource destinations, they are industrial competitors. Samsung did not start life in a Chicago suburb and then head east. Most of these countries economic muscle was grown at a time when they did pay considerably less than US rates. If rates are higher now that's an inevitable effect of the local labour market, as more and more companies compete for the same worker the worker's compensation improves. Over time US pay rates will go down and Indian ones up until a ballence is reached, companies will then look for other cheaper options. You will already notice that companies in countries like Japan and Korea are themselves outsource to China. in 1983 you might have outsourced to Korea, these days you would go to China.
Let me explain something to you about cost base. Taxes, direct and indirect make up only part of it. There is the cost of acquiring energy, the costs of property and a lot of other factors. If you eliminate all taxes tomorrow would the US be more competative? You betya, without a doubt, but you still can't employ an American at less than his cost base (well unless you legalise slavery.)
When an HMO sends a radiologist in India your CT Scan for evaluation then of course the guy avoids US taxation, but the home he just built outside of Calcutta costs 1/5 what a simular sized US home cost. His education cost a fraction of what his US colleagues degree cost. He lives happily as a professional on $20,000 a year not just because he pays less tax (though that's nice) but because all of HIS costs are lower too.
I'm not against free trade. In fact from what you have writen I suspect I like it more than you do. I'm just saying that in the modern world where US corporate interests are involved in more and more places you should expect both political parties to be internationalist. That Clinton and Bush have similar internationalist tendencies is a product of them living in the same part of American history, not an admission that they are in Cahoots.
Now if without TE references you can explain why Globalisation is anything other than a natural extension of the principles of free trade I'll address those issues. I don't see there is a difference which is why I've been trying to show that this is a natural process. If you think different you have a chance to prove it.
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I do read what you write.
Since my "TE Rant" as you call it contains explanation and justification for my inference about who in in charge in the DNC and GOP, and you "skip it" it will be impossible to convince you of my "rubbish."
Quote:Quote:Odd, that's an high tax "socialist" country
Our principle outsourcee is Canada.
Canada a socialist country? That's news. It's also absurd. Canada is to the left of the united states, but they also have more corporate industry per capita. Canada's main advantage is in it's education system, which is better than America's and as a result, canada
does not have large amounts of illiterates, and so it does better. Since both countries have the same style of education system, it's hard to argue that what ideological difference may exist, which are very slight, have much to do with it. If I credit anything, it's
Canada's military isolationism, which is probably a decent policy.
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their taxes and regulations are higher than yours
I don't know what you paid, but I know what our companies pay when they go there, and this is simply not the case.
The base rate for the middle class bracket where virtually all employees will fall is 26% vs. 28% for the same bracket in America. In addition, since it is Ontario we outsource to, typically from here in NY, but also Il, it's a ON state tax rate of 6% vs. 8% here. Add the
long list of other fex taxes, medicare, soc.sec., (over 10%) and the local taxes, sales, property, school (over 15%) then you have already boosted that 4% savings to 30%. In addition, there is the big big bonus of the canadian govt. has the medical and bennies
already covered. since this cost is as great as the cost of taxes, the savings have been doubled. Finally, because of a superior educated population, the worker productivity is slightly higher, about 10%. The total savings comes out to over half.
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The countries you tend to cite like Korea are not outsource destinations, they are industrial competitors. Samsung did not start life in a Chicago suburb and then head east.
No one's saying they did. Actually, much of our industry does go to Korea, GM has had plants in Korea for years, so have many other industrial companies. The fact that these susidiaries create a skillbase which later becomes a competitor is just how capitalism works.
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you still can't employ an American at less than his cost base (well unless you legalise slavery.
I strongly disagree. American labor is not intrinsically more expensive. Neither is american enery, or american property.
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When an HMO sends a radiologist in India your CT Scan for evaluation then of course the guy avoids US taxation, but the home he just built outside of Calcutta costs 1/5 what a simular sized US home cost.
Building this house cost $20,000. The cost of US houses is a matter of where people choose to live, and the market created by supply and demand. Property in Chicago is 1/2 million a house sized lot because people desire the convenience of living there, it's
over a million in NYC. But you can go to Alabama or even upstate new york and buy land, and build houses, quite cheaply.
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His education cost a fraction of what his US colleagues degree cost. He lives happily as a professional on $20,000 a year not just because he pays less tax (though that's nice) but because all of HIS costs are lower too.
This point I will concede. The rising cost of US education, as well as the falling quality are two non-tax related factors of American decline. I humbly suggest privatizing the industry could give us a radical edge.
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I'm not against free trade. In fact from what you have writen I suspect I like it more than you do.
This is curious. I think there are few more pro-free trade statements then 'yay outsourcing.'
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I'm just saying that in the modern world where US corporate interests are involved in more and more places you should expect both political partieNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:"Education spending per capita provides another lens to view worldwide education spending. Norway leads the group again with an estimated $2,850 per capita spent on education. The United States ranks second at approximately $1,780. The top five also include France, The Netherlands and Canada. Each spent more than $1,200 in education per capita in 2001." http://www.oclc.org/membership/escan/economic/educationlibraryspending
Since both countries have the same style of education system, it's hard to argue that what ideological difference may exist
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However the Canadian (or Canadien) national government heavily subsidizes university education, so college education is not primarily out-of-pocket.
In 2003-2004 the average Canadian college tuition was $4,025. (Canadian, or roughly $3200 US) http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/educ50a.htm?sdi=tuition
In the US tuition for private non-profit 4-year institutions averaged ~ $21,000 per year, public institutions charged ~ $5,500 per year tuition. http://www.collegeboard.com/press/article/0,,48884,00.html
While Canadian primary and secondary education is the province of the provinces, so to speak, the availability of college and graduate programs in Canada creates a pool of college and post-graduate people.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Bored now
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Rue,
Our education system here in the US cost much, but there is a lot of corruption, as in our healthcare, and a great deal of beaurocratic inefficiency. But basically, I agree. The investment in higher education pays off. Even in tax revenue generated by earnings, it pays off. I did this a while ago, it works out like this:
pay $40K for a college degree, and the earning power goes up to $30K, tax bracket goes up to over 25%. Now you have created a cash cow, feeding back at least $7.5K per year more than the zero that would be coming otherwise. In five years, the govt. has gotten tax revenue off of your earning power greater than what it paid for your education.
So, in short, I don't get it. Why would anyone not support govt. funded higher education? Not govt. run, just a $10K annual grant. It would pay for itself in 5 years, and then it would keep paying for another 35. It's eight times your money. The govt. doesn't have any other investments that pay that well.
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