Globalization

[AlphaKilo470]

born (the USA): furniture, clothing, shoes, PC's, the list goes on... Globalization.

So the Pilgrims and everyone before went around naked and with nothing to sit on?

[christopher_wolf]

Yeah, because that was good old labor before the <SPIN>Globalization Craze©</SPIN> that, oh I don't know, made the electronics industry cheaper and more popular than $10K or $8K a pop for a small number of PCs. Then again, the Thinkpads were designed in Japan of all thing.

Oh so silly globalization...

[GomJabbar]

So the Pilgrims and everyone before went around naked and with nothing to sit on?

I didn't mean it like that. Of course many of those things existed before the Pilgrims. But speaking in regards to our day and age, industries that began in this country are now farmed out overseas. For instance, consider Sebago, Dexter and Bass shoes. There used to be a large shoe industry in Maine. That industry has largely shriveled up in Maine and moved elseware. My Sears Diehard workshoes used to be made in the USA. Now they are made in China. Although the design is "almost" the same, I can tell the difference. They do not fit my feet as well, and the quality of the materials used is diminished.

Town awaits closing of Bass shoe plant with fear, sadness
Close to 350 of the 3,900 residents in Wilton, Maine, will lose their jobs when the G. H. Bass factory closes in June, after 122 years.
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IN 1976, chances were good that the shoes on your feet were made in America. More than half of all shoes worn by Americans then were cobbled in the United States.
Now, it's almost a certainty the shoes in your closet were made overseas; in 1996, more than 90 percent of all shoes in America were imports.
When shoe factories moved overseas they took the jobs with them. In the decade between 1976 and 1986, the United States lost more than half of its shoe manufacturing jobs to places such as Taiwan and South Korea where the costs of labor and energy were cheaper. President Regan fueled the exodus in 1981, when he lifted quotas on imported shoes making it far cheaper for consumers to buy imports.
For most Americans, the removal of quotas was a plus, said Peter Mangione, president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America. Without quotas, American consumers pay less for shoes; and in many cases the jobs that were lost were not good jobs.
"Frankly, this was probably long overdue," Mangione said of Bass's decision to leave Maine. "America has moved on from those old-line industries."
By city standards, the 350 production jobs at the Bass shoe factory are not good jobs. Workers rise in darkness to punch the clock by 6 a.m.; then they stand in the same place doing the same thing, usually for less than $8 an hour.
But by the standards of rural Maine, any work that's indoors and dependable is good work. And in Wilton, work at Bass shoe has been as dependable as the flow of the Wilson Stream that runs parallel to Main Street, the stream that powered George Henry Bass's first mill.
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Wilton grew around that factory, known as No. 1; nice houses rose on the hills, and a village sprouted along Main Street with two white churches, a library, a post office, hardware and grocery stores. In winter the town still looks like one of those Christmas displays of a miniature village nestled in cotton.
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At the print shop on Main Street, owner Pam Woodcock has posted a bumper sticker reading: Protect America's Most Endangered species: Small Business."

http://www.projo.com/words/story429.htm

For similar reasons I do very little shopping at Walmart. They may have the best price, but at what cost? The jobs they create are not near as good as the jobs they eliminate. Globalization is good for 3rd world country's economies and our purchasing power, but it is bad for the jobs it eliminates in this country. Not everyone is suited to white collar work. I would also venture to say that many would rather work in manufacturing than in retail or in restaurants. Not to say there is anything wrong with working in retail or restaurants, it's just that this type of work is not suited to the temperament of a number of people.

[christopher_wolf]

Globalization is *extremely* difficult to start once it has started; this is mainly because, once a country like the US has had a taste of the good popular stuff at lower prices, they aren't going to go back to toiling in a hot place in manual labor for the old save-up-and-retire bit. The manual labor gets outsourced and even the lower white-collar jobs get outsourced, the rest pretty much stays in the US for adminstrative and business means.

The nasty little side effect here is that just about everybody wants to have their cake and eat it at the same time. Want cheaper prices with more goods and the like? Either be willing to work the lower jobs or do not complain about such jobs being outsourced; don't like outsourcing? Then prepare to earn more to pay initially higher costs to keep those jobs here and the people in them happy. Seeing as how the hard way out, i.e. stemming the bloodflow of jobs out, is not likely to happen since that involves proportionally more work for far lower wages (not happening), the only really way to go with the flow is to prepare to work the higher and higher jobs, requiring more background and training, to keep up with the pay. The middleground here is imaginary; it's one way or the other and, with the current attitudes, none of the younger generation will even think about working proportionally harder for less. If people don't want to do such work, yet maintain the price/quality ratio of goods now...they have to either work young or prepare for the higher end jobs.

Then again, there is always these types of posters that actually have pretty good messages.

[GomJabbar]

I agree. Pandora's box has been opened, and is not easily closed. But just because Globalization is the truth today, that doesnt' mean I have to like it.

Maybe if Globalization is demonized enough, the advancement of it will diminish. The problem is that there is always some greedy businessman who only cares about stuffing his, his company's, or his shareholders pockets - the consequences be [censored]. Once that businessman makes the move overseas to cut costs, it becomes very hard for his competitors to maintain the status quo. Yes, Globalization is very hard to stop.

EDIT: Likewise, it is not only the businessmen that are guilty here, it is also the consumer for not voting with their dollar (or other appropriate currency).

[christopher_wolf]

The businesspeople are not to blame here; there is exceedingly little they can do if the costs of labor are cheaper in another country as compared to here. From their point of view, it is fair competition and they have little to no interest in what literally amounts to wasting money here if they can get the same stuff accomplished overseas for much less; either they take flak over this stuff or they let their companies become crippled and take flak from the investors about it; given that the investors are the ones with tht money, they want to keep their jobs and they move factories elsewhere. Consumers share some of the blame for the demand for mass produced goods that are cheaper; although nobody said they had to be a mass of bright people either, business theory certainly doesn't assume so.

Although the workers that claim to be affected by this are, thus far, creating much of ths stir already and, for lack of responding better, choose to take the complaint route. There really is no excuse to sit back, watch a plant get closed, and complain that nobody could see it coming and that they are now locked into some sort of hell because of some greedy business people. The reality of the matter is that the local market is responding and they refuse to adapt by planning ahead. It's great fodder for news shows to display the factory worker in a tragic scene with no jobs but that doesn't give them income even though someone has convinced people that sitting back and blaming others it is the most effective thing to do. There reality that has been shaping up over the past few decades from the old ways of work in a job forever and get supported by the company are now quite rapidly changing; the only thing to ask is whether those affected will adapt or go extinct complaining about being asked to work/train more in the face of the market....Seeing as how the rest isn't changing, it would be best if they were to invest in their future and, just *maybe*, learn better jobs; last I checked, doctors, lawyers, research engineers and scientists weren't affected, too much anyway, and were still in great demand.

All part of adaptation and waking up from the older version of the great American Dream.

[GomJabbar]

I guess I pretty much agree with what you said above. Nevertheless, in the past some average Joe with an average or lower intellect could get a decent job and make a fair living (if he didn't spend it all on alcohol, drugs and recreation) buy a home, have good transportation and raise a family. Now it takes a higher intellect, more looking ahead, adaptability, and so on, for a person not to be squeezed out of the middle class. It's getting harder and harder for the average Joe just to get by. And to compound this problem further; medical insurance, a pension, and other social safety nets have gone by the wayside. Hey, but he can buy a 50" flat screen TV! Does the availability of cheap consumer goods compensate for the other losses? Being able to have a house full of stuff does not make for a quality lifestyle. Personally I would rather have reliable job, a decent home, good medical insurance, and a pension at retirement than to have the ability to acquire a lot of stuff. So in my mind, Globalization has brought down the quality of life for the majority of Americans (and probably Europeans as well).