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one theory on Jobs
I read a news article a few months back about a guy who visited China to tour some manufacturing plants there. One plant manager told him that they were going to automate their assembly lines because the Chinese labor was costing too much money!
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one theory on Jobs
YooperPete,
Tawas hasn't had any good jobs in 25 years and probably never did. So in this case some 7.00 to 9.00 dollar Wal-mart jobs are a helluva lot better than the NO jobs that TAWAS has now!!!!! Walmart is good because it makes the "old money" local people quit overcharging for the identical things that wal-Mart sells cheaper. I will guess that the total wealth of private enterprise in Tawas Michigan and Iosco county is held by less than 75 people. As long as these 75 rich people could charge for goods and services with little close competition anything they felt like .....ALL was GOOd. When competition comes to town the good "GOOD OL BOY NETWORK" high priced monopoly has been broken. I got no tears for local greedy merchants of Tawas Michigan. Only thing that was worse was up US 23 to Oscoda where the local merchants charged obhorrent prices to the Air Force at Wurtsmith AFB before the goverment shut it down.
My point here is simple. When you are the one charging the high price for overpriced products to put money in your pocket Wal-Mart is a curse. When you shell out your hard earned dollar to pay too much for a given product and WAL-MArt offers the same product at a lower price...WAL-MART is a blessing. Show me who is doing the complaining and I will show you why.
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one theory on Jobs
Abbeywoods,
Sorry to hear about your back surgery. From my perspective the RH 66 commanche helicopter was a taxpayer waste of money. This stealth helicopter has been in development since the early 1980's and to date after 20 plus years NOT one RA 66 has or will be delivered to the US Armed Forces till the projected year 2008??????? What good is military hardware if it takes 25 years to get to the battlefield. If this length was acceptable I would writing this in German or Japanese since we would have never got weapons systems to the front lines with the speed of the Commanche program!!!! I think that commanche program was a Boeing/General Dynamics program and they milked it for ALL it was worth. A defense contractor NEVER wants to see his weapons program come to an end and unfortunatley the people who work for the contractor suffer when they lose their jobs. This is the human cost of rich people getting richer by having the US taxpayer pay for an undelivered weapons system that lasted 25 years.
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one theory on Jobs
Jeff
I can appreciate your comments, but(IMO)I don't think one can compare hourly rates from two countries as different as China
and the US. Standard of living and costs of living are not
the same.
When we are all playing by the same rules is when we will have fair and free trade.
Personally I go to Home Chepo and Wally -World as few times
as I can get by with.
I spend about $5-10,000 a month at our local lumberyard from
my small remodeling business. I could save probably 10-20%
going to Home Depot but I don't. Here's why, I go to a family owned business(50 yrs old),they have 250 Maine employees, full time help 40 + hrs, with full benny's.
Many of these people I know. Their kids socialize with mine,
they are in my wifes girl scouts.They are on the fire and rescue. I think you get my point.
Maybe some would call me stupid, But on a slow day in the middle of the Winter
when I pull in and spend a couple of thousand on materials there are people who genuinely appreciate it.
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one theory on Jobs
Did'nt want to get into the Wally world, Home Depot debate, but I completely agree with Grinder. As an example just yesterday, they had orderd some steel for a new building for me before the price rise. It's been there for a month now, but the carpenters have had a delay. I told the manager that I'd be glad to pay him for it now and take delivery when we're ready. His response, "Not a problem, the price is locked in, we don't like to deliver till it's needed for fear of damage, pay for it when you get it.". Try that at Home Depot. Frabk.
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one theory on Jobs
Another big part of the problem (strictly IMHO) is what the farming community up here calls the "not me" syndrome. It's kind of a twist on the "not in my backyard" syndrome.
Large farms, even highly mechanised ones like my family's, still need a group of labourers, there's just no getting around it. There will always be physical labour required to farm, especially certain types of crops.
In our area there is a big problem, too many young adults getting into trouble because they are unemployed and have nothing else to do but hang around.
Meanwhile the farms in our area are forced to bring in Mexicans and Jamaicans to work as labourers on our farms. Why, because the local kids would rather be unemployed than 'stoop' to that kind of work. This is not really difficult work, just a hard's days work, physical labour.
Now the problem is a there is a group, recently organized, who are trying to pressure the Gov. to stop allowing immigrant workers because they are 'stealing' jobs. The farmers of course responded by saying 'We have jobs available, nobody wants them.'
Finally a judge jumped in with both feet, in sentencing a young man for stealing a truck from a farm and taking it for a joy-ride he sentenced the man to either one year in jail, or 5 years probation conditional on his getting a keeping a job as a farm employee (read labourer) for the 5 years. His parents blew a gasket and called the judge's sentence discriminatory since it forced their son into slavery!! Now I fail to see how a job paying the same wage everybody else gets constitutes slavery, let alone a bad thing considering the alternative is JAIL TIME. Nevertheless, the parents hired a big-time lawyer who is appealing the sentence.
The more I read about things like that, the more I like my dog.
Best of luck.
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one theory on Jobs
Jeff:
I don't share your love for Wally world, its Chinese products and the cliental it draws. Do you know how to identify a Walmart parking lot? You can tell by the piles of cigarettes dumped out from car ashtrays, baby diapers and expended motor oil cans strewn over the parking area nearest the entrances as well as vehicle parts that have fallen off these wealthy patrons while they have come and gone.
All I know about Burton, MI is its known for it strip joints along Dort Highway at the edge of Flint(armpit of the world). That's all that is left except for auto salvage companies since the car companies have all but pulled out of town. I bet you would like it if Nathan Jay's, DE-JA-VU, the Velvet Club, etc. got all Chinese dancers, that way the lap dances would be cheaper.
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one theory on Jobs
Dear JeffR, how true. When I started on the program, Light Helicopter Experimental (LHX) in 1981, the projected quantities were for 10,000 single pilot scout gunships and 7000 min-utility (like Black Hawk only all composite and smaller). The cold war was still raging and Europe expected that the Red Hordes would be pouring through the Fulda Gap by the mid 90's. When the Soviet Union fell, the military's objectives and planning changed immensely. A good thing because the Mission Equipment Package (MEP) was never fully up to expectations, that is why the aircraft grew to tandem seating to share the workload. The utility aircraft was dropped outright. As you pointed out, the program dragged on and on anyway. Some of this was due to the Army, a lot due to Sikorsky, and some due to our State political agenda who truly desired to keep workers employed.
The aircraft, as it is today is a remarkable milestone in aviation history, and however advanced it may be, it is still a reflection of the Cold War. There is no doubt that it would have value on the battlefield, but at a cost the tax payer can barely afford. That price tag is enormous, and the work is still under development until the contract runs out late this fall. The existing aircraft will no doubt fly as technology demostrators destined for static display in Ft. Rucker's aviation museum. Another factor which led to the Army's about was are the lessons from our fighting in Somalia which focused attention on the frailty of even the most robust of helicopters, the UH-60L, and the ease with which a single soldier armed with an rpg could defeat it.
Be that as it may, the manufacturing segment of industry, especially in America, is determined to reduce its reliance on domestic labor. This may be a natural evolution of business, it is in my opinion, a horrible error. While the profit margin may widen making the sharholder happy, sooner or later, the circle will close because the consumer will no longer be in a position to make a purchase. Is it so hard to see that the consumer is also the worker who builds the product, be it tractors, cars, aircraft or whatever? A service based economy is doomed to failure. Period.
Somewhere in time, those who lead our industry must realize that slow capital growth will win in time, over the get-rich-quick mentality aberrations like the "Dot Coms," and when that happens maybe we will have financial equilibrium. The world stock market hangs in a precarious balance that can be easily tipped over the edge by a small handful of suicidal holymen. But before equilibrium can happen, things will have to get much worse. What we are seeing, and what you all have witnessed, is a transformation of culture which will eventually end in the need for this nation to have a second chance. Hopefully, we will get it right this time.
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one theory on Jobs
grinder,
You are absolutely correct , we can't compare Chiinese standards of living to ANY USA standard of living. I will tell you why.
One of the companies I fix Rockewell machines has a Quality manager who has a mother who returned to her native China to live after a 5 year stay is Michigan. I asked Leon ( LMAO ..LEON ..good chinese name heh?) how the Chinese lived in his mother's town of 16,000 located about 3 hours from Bejing the nations capitol.
This is what he told me. Leon's mother's town is like living in the 1920s USA. 90% of the people have outhouses for sanitation. 50% of the houses are electrified but with low amp services that can's run much other than TVs and lightbulbs. Telehone service is in the town "square" where a half dozen or so old "operator assisted " phones are available for community use. Running water is a hand operated pitcher pump located in the kitchen. 98% of the house have no central heat and are heated by stoves burning mostly coal with some wood. A full time 48 hour job is "SHARED" by sometimes 6 or more people working different days. The roads are rarely paved and people raise a special breed of hairless dog for human consumption.
Want me to go on?? I dont know about you folks....but for Americans to revert to this lifestyle in order to earn a meager living in today's world I would rather go to war.
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one theory on Jobs
Whoa there YOOPERPETE,
First of all, you need to check addesses before you slam Burton, Michigan. Those strip joints are entirely located in the City of FLINT.
Secondly, I would much rather have a working society that can afford the lap dances at those establishments than the welfare-sucking-live-in the woods-low rents that live in the U.P. and Northern lower Michigan. The highest poverty, unemployment, and welfare costs are ALWAYS in Northern Michigan and the UP countiesbecuase there are NO jobs that pay a living wage up in the woods unless you are a school teacher, public servant, utilities worker, or scheming politiician. Retirees that went north do not count.
When Wal-mart comes to Tawas Michigan the people will line up to apply in droves. Since when is that soooooo wrong?
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04-05-2004, 18:22 
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