New life usually comes from death. I wonder what else awaits this city.
Sadly I think Detroit is just the tip of the iceberg.
Sadly I think Detroit is just the tip of the iceberg.
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How did I know you were going to say that? :-)
Sadly I think Detroit is just the tip of the iceberg.\
How did I know you were going to say that? :-)
LOL. I am tediously consistent, or so I've been told.
New life usually comes from death. I wonder what else awaits this city.I hope so. It's just sad to see what once were beautiful buildings destroyed. I wasn't born when Detroit was at its height, but looking at this makes me feel pretty sick and sad.
Don't be sad. I have seen similar things in Brooklyn, ghosts buildings from when we were our own city, and entire swaths of once urban areas given over to wilderness. But from that comes new life and new ways of doing things. Greenpoint is full of hipsters who don't mind living in the shadow of burnt-out buildings, for example, and the attached neighborhoods are starting to come back(I would argue they never really went anywhere, just went into torpor when the manufacturing facilities left town). Something else will follow.
Just today, I saw the photo taken out of the window down the deserted road in a magazine about architecture, with the issue reporting about ruined cities. Detroit has a massive problem as its population is dwindling, from 1.8 million in 1950 to 900k today (central Detroit) and still falling in numbers. Combined with being the most dangerous city in the US, the future of Motor City does indeed look bleak.
The reason in two words: Free trade.
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The reason in two words: Free trade.
Detroit was dying long before NAFTA, I'm afraid. You want a better reason, look at the piss poor decisions GM, Ford and the Chrysler group made in the '70s and '80s, and how quickly Japanese auto makers came up by offering much better (in almost every way) cars back then. Then look as, while American auto market share was falling, the unions still insisted on more money, more benes, more everything.
NAFTA passed in '94 or '95. Detroit was already dead.
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Don't be sad. I have seen similar things in Brooklyn, ghosts buildings from when we were our own city, and entire swaths of once urban areas given over to wilderness. But from that comes new life and new ways of doing things. Greenpoint is full of hipsters who don't mind living in the shadow of burnt-out buildings, for example, and the attached neighborhoods are starting to come back(I would argue they never really went anywhere, just went into torpor when the manufacturing facilities left town). Something else will follow.New life usually comes from death. I wonder what else awaits this city.I hope so. It's just sad to see what once were beautiful buildings destroyed. I wasn't born when Detroit was at its height, but looking at this makes me feel pretty sick and sad.
I don't see a Giuliani in Detroit's future. They keep electing mayors who are either amazingly corrupt or incredibly inept. And Michigan in general is even more business unfriendly than New York. They're going to have to have a huge sea change in the way they think in the Mitt State in general, and Detroit specifically, before they can even think about coming back.
Cleveland is next, by the way. Everyone that can is leaving, faster than any other city in America.
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Don't be sad. I have seen similar things in Brooklyn, ghosts buildings from when we were our own city, and entire swaths of once urban areas given over to wilderness. But from that comes new life and new ways of doing things. Greenpoint is full of hipsters who don't mind living in the shadow of burnt-out buildings, for example, and the attached neighborhoods are starting to come back(I would argue they never really went anywhere, just went into torpor when the manufacturing facilities left town). Something else will follow.New life usually comes from death. I wonder what else awaits this city.I hope so. It's just sad to see what once were beautiful buildings destroyed. I wasn't born when Detroit was at its height, but looking at this makes me feel pretty sick and sad.I don't see a Giuliani in Detroit's future. They keep electing mayors who are either amazingly corrupt or incredibly inept. And Michigan in general is even more business unfriendly than New York. They're going to have to have a huge sea change in the way they think in the Mitt State in general, and Detroit specifically, before they can even think about coming back.
Cleveland is next, by the way. Everyone that can is leaving, faster than any other city in America.
My brother's in Cleveland (well in the suburbs) and he loves it, but yeah, I've seen worrying signs there.
I laugh when I remember Governor Granholm's campaign slogan "I'm going to blow you away." Yup.
Rick Syder was just elected as the new governor, and while he's not the candidate my parents preferred (they liked former US Rep Pete Hoekstra more - my brother actually interned for him in state one summer), he's a business man.
While the death of Detroit (the "Paris of North America") is devastating, it might save the country - its internal corrupt politics have been controlling state politics for years, but it's losing population quickly and Grand Rapids has grown in influence enough that maybe...maybe Michigan has a chance.
I hope so. But it'll be a long haul, either way.
Just today, I saw the photo taken out of the window down the deserted road in a magazine about architecture, with the issue reporting about ruined cities. Detroit has a massive problem as its population is dwindling, from 1.8 million in 1950 to 900k today (central Detroit) and still falling in numbers. Combined with being the most dangerous city in the US, the future of Motor City does indeed look bleak.
I read within the last couple of years that you can buy a house in Detroit for a hundred bucks.
Bad decisions notwithstanding, a whole city depending (mainly) on just one industry is never a good idea. What´s more, industrial production is on decline for decades in the western world, so cities need something else to maintain their financial power. It seems that Detroit firmly closed its eyes on this development.
I don´t see free trade as a reason - if anything, free trade normally helps the industries. If it does not, the industry in question normally has serious problems, like products that are not competitive. There are two outcomes: either the products get competitive in short order, or the companies go bust.
Stefan
This is an article about Detroit (chiefly its crime problems and the failings/corruption of its law enforcement) I read a few months ago that you may find topical and/or interesting.
I was pretty surprised to see how bad the high school graduation rates are, in particular.
Detroit was dying long before NAFTA, I'm afraid. You want a better reason, look at the piss poor decisions GM, Ford and the Chrysler group made in the '70s and '80s, and how quickly Japanese auto makers came up by offering much better (in almost every way) cars back then. Then look as, while American auto market share was falling, the unions still insisted on more money, more benes, more everything.
NAFTA passed in '94 or '95. Detroit was already dead.
You're absolutely right... Mine is more a comment about the 9 other major metropolitan cities in North America that are suffering the same fate as Detroit (and weren't as heavily reliant on the auto industry).
http://www.newser.com/story/108873/american-cities-that-are-running-out-of- people.html
The 1986 Chevrolet Cavalier killed my interest in American cars, FLAT OUT.
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This is an article about Detroit (chiefly its crime problems and the failings/corruption of its law enforcement) I read a few months ago that you may find topical and/or interesting.
I was pretty surprised to see how bad the high school graduation rates are, in particular.
I technically grew up in the suburb of Detroit, Dearborn. We were across the street from Detroit's projects, but that technicality did have some consequences - it wasn't completely superficial. It was very common to have cop cars tucked back a bit on our street. The cops would watch these black Cadillacs with gold trim driving on the Detroit side of the street...waiting for these drug dealers, who'd bought off the Detroit cops, to wander over the city line in Dearborn so they could arrest them in their jurisdiction.
You would not believe the number of bullets my dad got out of our roof when he reshingled the house.
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Detroit was dying long before NAFTA, I'm afraid. You want a better reason, look at the piss poor decisions GM, Ford and the Chrysler group made in the '70s and '80s, and how quickly Japanese auto makers came up by offering much better (in almost every way) cars back then. Then look as, while American auto market share was falling, the unions still insisted on more money, more benes, more everything.
NAFTA passed in '94 or '95. Detroit was already dead.
You're absolutely right... Mine is more a comment about the 9 other major metropolitan cities in North America that are suffering the same fate as Detroit (and weren't as heavily reliant on the auto industry).
http://www.newser.com/story/108873/american-cities-that-are-running-out-of- people.html
The 1986 Chevrolet Cavalier killed my interest in American cars, FLAT OUT.
Yeah, the Cavalier, the Citation, the Chevette, the, well, any car that starts with a "C" that isn't the 'Vette or Camaro, pretty much killed GM.
Six of the seven cities fit the same profile: heavy union membership and Democrat politics. All of those cities, because of the very corrupt marriage between local politicians and unions, refused to change with the times and, frankly, deserve what they're getting. When the very real possibility of having your job shipped overseas pops up, it's generally considered a bad idea to keep demanding more pay and benefits, then having the politicians your union owns pass union protection laws (closed shops and the like). I generally don't feel bad for people with self inflicted wounds.
The seventh is NOLA. Katrina had a LOT to do with their population decrease, and Obama's moratorium on exploration and drilling nailed the coffin lid shut (the same thing that burst Houston's recession "immunity"). Again, bad policy is killing a city. Adding insult to injury, at the same time we were enforcing that moratorium, Obama decided to give $4.2 billion of American Taxpayer money to Mexico and Brazil for, wait for it, oil exploration and drilling in the Gulf and Caribbean.
2012 can't come fast enough, imo.
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I technically grew up in the suburb of Detroit, Dearborn.This is an article about Detroit (chiefly its crime problems and the failings/corruption of its law enforcement) I read a few months ago that you may find topical and/or interesting.
I was pretty surprised to see how bad the high school graduation rates are, in particular.
Are you on the no fly list? ;-)
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The seventh is NOLA. Katrina had a LOT to do with their population decrease, and Obama's moratorium on exploration and drilling nailed the coffin lid shut (the same thing that burst Houston's recession "immunity"). Again, bad policy is killing a city. Adding insult to injury, at the same time we were enforcing that moratorium, Obama decided to give $4.2 billion of American Taxpayer money to Mexico and Brazil for, wait for it, oil exploration and drilling in the Gulf and Caribbean.
2012 can't come fast enough, imo.
While this is all true, sadly, New Orleans was in decline long before Katrina came along - it had just been a lot slower. Extreme political corruption was a huge factor in keeping major business out of the state and the city. So was an anti-business environment - except for the oil companies. Add in a population that was increasingly poor and uneducated, shake well, and there you go. Compared to the other major southern cities (such as Atlanta and Houston), New Orleans was the only one that had been shrinking for years, albeit at a very slow pace. Katrina kind of accelerated the whole thing.
Why do you think I got the f%&$ out?
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I technically grew up in the suburb of Detroit, Dearborn.Are you on the no fly list? ;-)
Heh, no. But when you spend your entire childhood in neighborhoods where it's pretty common for 16 year old girls to be shot and killed by their fathers for wearing blue jeans or you are informed by your Arab neighbors that while the Koran indicates they should follow the golden rule with other people, your status as an infidel renders you inhuman, or when a member of your church converted from Islam and can never go home to Egypt because he will be executed for his conversion...I knew what radical Islam was all about way before high school, let alone 9-11.
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The seventh is NOLA. Katrina had a LOT to do with their population decrease, and Obama's moratorium on exploration and drilling nailed the coffin lid shut (the same thing that burst Houston's recession "immunity"). Again, bad policy is killing a city. Adding insult to injury, at the same time we were enforcing that moratorium, Obama decided to give $4.2 billion of American Taxpayer money to Mexico and Brazil for, wait for it, oil exploration and drilling in the Gulf and Caribbean.
2012 can't come fast enough, imo.
While this is all true, sadly, New Orleans was in decline long before Katrina came along - it had just been a lot slower. Extreme political corruption was a huge factor in keeping major business out of the state and the city. So was an anti-business environment - except for the oil companies. Add in a population that was increasingly poor and uneducated, shake well, and there you go. Compared to the other major southern cities (such as Atlanta and Houston), New Orleans was the only one that had been shrinking for years, albeit at a very slow pace. Katrina kind of accelerated the whole thing.
Why do you think I got the f&&! out?
Well, if you owned a casino company, the City of New Orleans would give you a nice incentive to open shop there, using the money earmarked for levee repair...
Not sure how I should take this thread since I'm working right in the middle of downtown Detroit as we speak and I drive by that abadoned station everyday.
Detroit has ALLOT of problems but things are starting to turn around. The city has a decent guy for Mayor for a change and he is working hard. The Auto companies are starting to come back and the exterior of that building in the picture was used in Transformers 1 & 2 and several other major pictures.
Here is hoping!!!
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Heh, no. But when you spend your entire childhood in neighborhoods where it's pretty common for 16 year old girls to be shot and killed by their fathers for wearing blue jeans or you are informed by your Arab neighbors that while the Koran indicates they should follow the golden rule with other people, your status as an infidel renders you inhuman, or when a member of your church converted from Islam and can never go home to Egypt because he will be executed for his conversion...I knew what radical Islam was all about way before high school, let alone 9-11.I technically grew up in the suburb of Detroit, Dearborn.Are you on the no fly list? ;-)
I dated a young lady whose family hailed from Pakistan back in the day. She had a rope ladder she used to sneak out and hang with me (mind you, we were both in our mid-20s). I'd always try to get her to stay out later than she wanted, always bugged her, until she flat told me if her dad caught her he'd shoot her. I thought she was kidding and laughed, but the look on her face was dead serious.
Blew my mind.
Afterward, I got on the handy internet thing and looked up stories (I seriously thought she was exaggerating) and was flabbergasted by the number of honor killings that are committed in the U.S.
Blew my mind.
I stopped dating her because, as much as I liked her, I didn't want to be responsible for anything happening to her.
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Most of my extended family is in Michigan, so I hope things improve myself. The west side of the state is doing quite poorly as well, as I saw during my visit home this holiday season. I ended up having to bite my tongue to keep from saying things that might have hurt or disturbed my friends and family as we drove through areas that are simply...devastated. I don't have another word for it. :(
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I don´t see free trade as a reason - if anything, free trade normally helps the industries. If it does not, the industry in question normally has serious problems, like products that are not competitive. There are two outcomes: either the products get competitive in short order, or the companies go bust.
The competitiveness of a industry has little to do with a city having that industry.
Free trade means that I can move (i.e) my Cummins factory to Mexico, because 90% of the labor needed is unskilled labor, or to any place that provides me low cost manpower, low taxes/no taxes or gives me incentives (paid by employees taxes); as long as that place has got enough infrastructures an there isn't a war ongoing there.
So, what to do? I would go for having the best skilled labor and not demanding ridiculous salarys (something very popular in the automotive industry). I'm sick of paying 15000 € for a crappy car because a guy that turns screws gets paid more than an senior engineer.
That's the rub (bold part). When you can be replaced by a robot or someone in a Third World country, you really shouldn't be asking for insane amounts of pay, and you really shouldn't be asking for 95% of that pay if you're laid off for whatever reason.
I am seriously amused by people who think the American auto worker should make $78 an hour for work a blind six year old corpse could do just as well.
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I've seen some of these pictures before. Interesting stuff. There'a plenty of scenes like that to see in Rochester (or all over the Rust Belt).
It struck here a little later. Sometime in the 90s Kodak said, "These digital cameras will never catch on. People will always want our film!" And that was the end.
Sorta chicken / egg though....
Union membership originally proliferated in heavy industries and industries where injuries / costs were high. Now, with massively deregulated trade and with outsourcing so prevalent, those industries are and have been relocating to nations / labor pools with no such qualms about wages, safety, and low costs.
Unions, in an of themselves, do not necessarily drive away domestic jobs (see nurses and schools - where domestic supply/demand is mostly immobile because the "goods" created are intangible and not something that can be "built" in China). Of course, I'm not speaking to quality of the goods - simply pointing out that unions are not necessarily the cause for lack of domestic jobs.
I'm not a fan of unions, not by a longshot.... It's serious international trade, with developing countries with massive pools of cheap, disposable labor are the real cause for the lack of domestic jobs - and this also coincides with the post WW2 de-industrialization of the US/West.
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I think, in the end, it's the almighty dollar that talks loudest, irrespective of the other issues at play (labor unions, workplace laws, etc). It is precisely what the devout Free Marketers hold up as the gold standard. Companies will chase lower costs, period. Union or not. Even if you factor in all the other intangible costs involved with emplying union workers, if (VERY hypothetically) a domestic union worker cost a company less in total and overall cost than a foreign non-union member, how do you think the company would lean?
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Six of the seven cities fit the same profile: heavy union membership and Democrat politics. All of those cities, because of the very corrupt marriage between local politicians and unions, refused to change with the times and, frankly, deserve what they're getting. When the very real possibility of having your job shipped overseas pops up, it's generally considered a bad idea to keep demanding more pay and benefits, then having the politicians your union owns pass union protection laws (closed shops and the like). I generally don't feel bad for people with self inflicted wounds.
Since you've included Pittsburgh in with this group, and I live in (and love!) Pittsburgh, I'll rebut...
Despite how this article would portray Pittsburgh, things aren't bad here at all. I'd point you to this article, which is well written and "fair and balanced", to give some factual evidence.
I'm sure I'm reiterating several points from the initial article and from the one I just linked to, but nevertheless these are points to consider:
- Negative population growth is not a bad thing in and of itself. In situations where a city's population is greater than the city's capability to support that populace, the population must by needs shrink. That doesn't mean it's suffering from "self-inflicted wounds" or that Unions are to blame (necessarily).
- Sure, the steel industry left Pittsburgh, and sure, that was due in large part to unionized workers demanding outrageous salaries and benefits, but that doesn't mean that the city has to completely collapse (as Detroit sadly has). Pittsburgh has re-imaged itself as a home of technology and medicine - is in fact world-renowned for both things, especially medicine - and is doing very well. As a throwaway item, because I really don't think it's important whatsoever, it did so under Democratic leadership (Pittsburgh has not has a Republican mayor since the 1930's).
- I'm not sure what this study takes into account regarding suburbs, but the reality in Pittsburgh is that as the city has decreased in size, the suburbs have grown. Professionals are simply commuting to work. The city continues to function - it's certainly not collapsing. Public Transit is in a bit of a bind right now, but I have faith that will be ironed out - why wouldn't I? Pittsburgh has made a lot of right decisions, and I happen to think that will continue.
In short, this situation is like any other. Life kicks you in the nizzuts. Do you lay on the ground, or do you get up, dust yourself off, and rebuild in a new and better way? Around here, we're choosing to rebuild ourselves. I for one do not miss the dirty air and radioactive water that came with the steel industry, even if I could have a $25/hour salary. I'm pretty sure lots of people here agree with me.
In defense of 'da burgh,
J
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Sorta chicken / egg though....
Union membership originally proliferated in heavy industries and industries where injuries / costs were high. Now, with massively deregulated trade and with outsourcing so prevalent, those industries are and have been relocating to nations / labor pools with no such qualms about wages, safety, and low costs.
Unions, in an of themselves, do not necessarily drive away domestic jobs (see nurses and schools - where domestic supply/demand is mostly immobile because the "goods" created are intangible and not something that can be "built" in China). Of course, I'm not speaking to quality of the goods - simply pointing out that unions are not necessarily the cause for lack of domestic jobs.
I'm not a fan of unions, not by a longshot.... It's serious international trade, with developing countries with massive pools of cheap, disposable labor are the real cause for the lack of domestic jobs - and this also coincides with the post WW2 de-industrialization of the US/West.
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I think, in the end, it's the almighty dollar that talks loudest, irrespective of the other issues at play (labor unions, workplace laws, etc). It is precisely what the devout Free Marketers hold up as the gold standard. Companies will chase lower costs, period. Union or not. Even if you factor in all the other intangible costs involved with emplying union workers, if (VERY hypothetically) a domestic union worker cost a company less in total and overall cost than a foreign non-union member, how do you think the company would lean?
Well, unions are part of it. That we have the highest corporate taxes on the planet doesn't help, nor does state and local governments levying taxes on corporations for everything. And slavish adherence to labor laws, building specs that have zero to do with safety, environmental laws that put a minnow ahead of who knows how many workers and their families, unfunded mandates from the government for all sorts of things, amazingly high property tax rates, and a host of other rules, regulations, tax liabilities, tariffs, duties, and the army of accountants and lawyers required to ensure compliance with the myriad of rules, regulations, tax codes, duties, tariffs, etc...
Companies that can't afford to go overseas move to the South, so they can at least escape unions and punitive tax schemes, companies that can afford it just go overseas. A corporation's #1 responsibility is to its customers and stock holders. And they're going to do what it takes to satisfy them.
Look at Toyota. They closed their California plant, but didn't touch their San Antonio plant. California made the cost of doing business too steep to keep those jobs (and they're not a "right to work" state to boot, so the Japanese had to deal with union guys who most definitely didn't put Toyota first), but Texas is very business friendly. And, before anyone claims the workers in San Antonio are being "exploited" or something, the plant there starts high school grads at $21 an hour plus overtime, and after a couple of years most workers are making in the mid $30s per. With full benes and all that. And that money goes a LONG way down here, because, compared to much of the country, things here are relatively inexpensive.
So, there's a lot more going on than the unions, sure, but the combination of unions and punitive government policy is what is driving jobs overseas.
I don't know, but I'd rather be an employed non-union guy in a red state than an unemployed union guy in a blue state.
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[list]Negative population growth is not a bad thing in and of itself.
It is when cities down here get all the people who left there and make it harder for people down here to compete for jobs and what not.
As to the politics thing: Pennsylvania Dems tend to be a lot more "Blue Dog" than Ohio Dems, New York Dems and Michigan Dems. Pennsylvania is a pretty conservative state for the most part.
But, still, I wish people would stop moving from blue states to red states and bringing their politics with them. There's a reason I live down here, and it was to get away from NY politics, for the most part. I kind of like living in a business friendly state, and I would hate for a bunch of transplants to start electing people who are too blind to look at California, Ohio, Michigan and New York State and see what politicians did to those states.
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I don't really understand American politics but it's interesting that some people on this thread seem to have opinions and some seem to have positions.
Just a thought: if the decline of a major city only had one cause and that cause was pretty easy to pin down then we would probably never see decline in major cities.
I am seriously amused by people who think the American auto worker should make $78 an hour for work a blind six year old corpse could do just as well.
This just confuses me. Is this a serious debate or is this just people on the back porch sipping drinks and spouting off?
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I don't really understand American politics but it's interesting that some people on this thread seem to have opinions and some seem to have positions.
Just a thought: if the decline of a major city only had one cause and that cause was pretty easy to pin down then we would probably never see decline in major cities.
It's pretty easy to pin down what happened to the Rust belt cities. They refused to adapt to a new paradigm and it bit them in the ass. Then they continued with policies (except Pittsburgh, apparently) that ensured no one would find the environment friendly for establishing business.
All pretty well documented, even if some people would rather blame corporate greed (which exists in spades, don't get me wrong) rather than really bad political policy.
I could seriously sit here and start listing the laws that exist in Ohio, New York, California and Michigan that make those states very hostile to business, but anyone with an internet and a desire for the truth can do that on their own.
Interesting. So, free trade is to blame for our economic woes?
What is the alternative? Protectionism leads to trade wars. And no matter what we make our tax policy look like, we'll never be able to compete with developing economies on the basis of wages (If/when we can, they won't be developing economies any more).
I could seriously sit here and start listing the laws that exist in Ohio, New York, California and Michigan that make those states very hostile to business, but anyone with an internet and a desire for the truth can do that on their own.
In New York and California's cases, at least, they do have other balancing factors which make them attractive to at least some kinds of business. At some point it doesn't necessarily benefit a state to make themselves more attractive to industry at the expense of other factors.
Ohio I don't know enough to say either way, and Michigan I assume not based on what's happening there.
This just confuses me. Is this a serious debate or is this just people on the back porch sipping drinks and spouting off?
There's a difference? :P
It's macroeconomics at play here.
Houstonderek - Wouldn't you say the US's overwhelming trade deficit the biggest example of wealth redistribution the world has ever seen?
It also doesn't help when the game is stacked against us (the valuation of the Yuan, for example).
It's macroeconomics at play here.
Houstonderek - Wouldn't you say the US's overwhelming trade deficit the biggest example of wealth redistribution the world has ever seen?
It also doesn't help when the game is stacked against us (the valuation of the Yuan, for example).
Interesting. Wealth redistribution is a term usually applied in the case of taxes, etc. I don't think voluntary trade can really be seen as wealth redistribution. Surely both sides are enriched, or they wouldn't choose to trade?
In any event, those are some dreary pictures. :(
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Interesting. So, free trade is to blame for our economic woes?
What is the alternative? Protectionism leads to trade wars. And no matter what we make our tax policy look like, we'll never be able to compete with developing economies on the basis of wages (If/when we can, they won't be developing economies any more).
Raw wages aren't the biggest problem (although the wage structures unions got in the '70s and '80s are crazy for the skill required to perform the labor), the insane benefits packages, pensions, state and local taxes, reams and reams of tax code and regulations that even the politicians who wrote/passed them don't understand and a ton of other factors figure in as well.
Like I said earlier, a lot of companies just move south of the Mason Dixon line to friendlier tax/regulation/labor law climes, still pay a damned good wage (the Right to Work/open shop Ford has in the D/FW area is a decent example, I can list a ton more if I need to), and make a nice profit and keep costs of the products down.
Think about it this way: if Toyota, Honda, BMW and Mercedes can build plants in the American South and still crank out damned fine cars at competitive prices (all while paying, by far, a superior blue collar wage to other blue collar jobs near by), but don't build in places with a workforce they would arguably not have to train as intensely, what does that say? Why didn't they build in Mexico? Or Cameroon? Or Indonesia?
If American labor is so overpriced, why did Toyota shut down their California plant, but left their Texas plant running full speed ahead?
Again, wages are a small part of it. The added shipping costs to bring product back to the U.S. wipes out any savings based solely on wages, for the most part. It's the outrageous wages Unions demand for unskilled labor, coupled with the benes, pensions, local and state taxes, reams and reams of tax and regulation laws that require an army of CPAs and lawyers to wade through, etc etc ad nauseum, that drives jobs overseas.
Interesting. Wealth redistribution is a term usually applied in the case of taxes, etc. I don't think voluntary trade can really be seen as wealth redistribution. Surely both sides are enriched, or they wouldn't choose to trade?
Foreign workers are "enriched" relative to their former positions.
Domestic and foreign companies are "enriched" due to their dramatically lower costs of production.
Domestic consumers are slightly "enriched" due to slightly lower costs passed on to the consumers for the made goods.
However, domestic non-service sector jobs are becoming more and more scarce due to this arrangement. Wages, overall, have remained flat or have declined since the 1970's yet massive consumption, credit overreliance, and borrowing have gone through the roof.
US Unemployment (the "actively looking for work" fudge number of ~9.5% or the more realistic "everyone who doesn't have a job" number of ~16%) is just getting worse.
A consumption based society cannot sustain this trend, as we are now seeing.
If American labor is so overpriced, why did Toyota shut down their California plant, but left their Texas plant running full speed ahead?
Are you referring to the joint 50%/50% Toyota/General Motors plant in Fremont CA ... operational from 1984 until 2010 when GM pulled out completely (due to bankruptcy) and left Toyota holding the bag all by itself?
Raw wages aren't the biggest problem (although the wage structures unions got in the '70s and '80s are crazy for the skill required to perform the labor), the insane benefits packages, pensions, state and local taxes, reams and reams of tax code and regulations that even the politicians who wrote/passed them don't understand and a ton of other factors figure in as well.
Like I said earlier, a lot of companies just move south of the Mason Dixon line to friendlier tax/regulation/labor law climes, still pay a damned good wage (the Right to Work/open shop Ford has in the D/FW area is a decent example, I can list a ton more if I need to), and make a nice profit and keep costs of the products down.
Think about it this way: if Toyota, Honda, BMW and Mercedes can build plants in the American South and still crank out damned fine cars at competitive prices (all while paying, by far, a superior blue collar wage to other blue collar jobs near by), but don't build in places with a workforce they would arguably not have to train as intensely, what does that say? Why didn't they build in Mexico? Or Cameroon? Or Indonesia?
If American labor is so overpriced, why did Toyota shut down their California plant, but left their Texas plant running full speed ahead?
Again, wages are a small part of it. The added shipping costs to bring product back to the U.S. wipes out any savings based solely on wages, for the most part. It's the outrageous wages Unions demand for unskilled labor, coupled with the benes, pensions, local and state taxes, reams and reams of tax and regulation laws that require an army of CPAs and lawyers to wade through, etc etc ad nauseum, that drives jobs overseas.
Wages, benefits, etc.
And while what you say is true for cars, what about software? Call centers? Some products are inevitably less expensive to produce elsewhere. And while other factors come into play (political stability, language skills, etc.), the fact is the U.S. is simply at a permanent disadvantage in many cases simply by virtue of its wealth.
Attacking free trade is an oversimplification, and seems like a call for protectionism. I just don't see how that's the answer.
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Wages, benefits, etc.And while what you say is true for cars, what about software? Call centers? Some products are inevitably less expensive to produce elsewhere. And while other factors come into play (political stability, language skills, etc.), the fact is the U.S. is simply at a permanent...
I just wanted to note that you're quoting houstonderek here, but I haven't seen houstonderek post anything attacking free trade...?