Boycott Mattel

It's time we show show Mattel what we think of their offshore strategies by boycotting all products made by the manufacturer. While they may be the worlds largest toy company, there are plenty of other choices. Pick a product made in the USA.

More Lost Manufacturering Job

The economic data released by the Labor Department sites 16,000 more manufacturing jobs lost in January despite 13,000 Goodyear's employees returning to work. Let's hope the Democraticly controlled Congress will put an end to this madness of fast track free (not fair) trade agreements.

US PC Manufacturer

Union Built PCs offers desktops computers, laptops and servers all assembled here in the USA at reasonable prices. You can find them at http://www.unionbuiltpc.com/.

Featured Manufacturer

Rather than posting about jobs going overseas, it's important to highlight manufacturers that are dedicated to keeping the jobs here in the US. Bill's Khakis, http://www.billskhakis.com/, is one of those. You'll find a retailer near you on his easy to use website.

Remember, you strengthen America when you buy American.

Site Overhaul

I decided to change the look of the site and lost some of the edits I've done over the last few months. I'm hoping I can reconstruct all or at least most of what I lost.

Please check back for more posts later this week. Thanks for your patience.

Concerned

An Interesting Post

While doing some research today I came across this very interesting post by Ezra Klein on new statistics on poverty in the US, titled Our Wonderous Economy.

http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2006/08/our_wondrous_ec.html#comment-21750975

I encourage you to take a look at it as well as the comments that are posted. It's make for an interesting debate.

The Golden Era of Profitablity

Ben Bernanke, the current Fed Chariman recently spoke at an economics conference in Jackson Hole, WY. He remarks were made at a time when congress is at least contemplating tariffs on China for its monetary policy of keeping the Yuan artificially low and many of it's predatory trade practices.

“The emergence of China, India and the former communist-bloc countries implies that the greater part of the earth’s population is now engaged, at least potentially, in the global economy. There are no historical antecedents for this development. “

Bernanke said Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the New World ultimately led to enormous economic change, but it took centuries for the New and Old Worlds to economically integrate.
“In contrast, the economic opening of China which began in earnest less than three decades ago, is proceeding rapidly and, if anything, seems to be accelerating,”

The natural reaction of those so affected is to resist change, for example, by seeking the passage of protectionist measures.The challenge for policy-makers is to ensure that the benefits of global economic integration are sufficiently widely shared — for example, by helping displaced workers get the necessary training to take advantage of new opportunities."

President Bush believes that math and science education will help offset the job losses occuring in the US. What he fails to mention is these jobs too can be offshored to cheap labor unless fair and effective policies are put into place.

One would think that Ben, our chief economist, would look at the details in the big picture he outlines.

For addtional commentary look at this blog, http://zane.typepad.com/ccuceo/2006/08/ben_bernanke_on.html

Trucks

Ford made an announcement last week that plans to speed up closing some factories in the US due to slowing sales of their light truck lines and SUVs. Now imagine that Chairman Bill Ford couldn't forsee that a naation at war with skyrocketing fuel costs just aaren't intersted in buying gas guzzlers. It was also annnounced due to the slow sales of these vehicles that it is ceasing production between now and the end of the year on ten assembly lines due to balooning inventories.

How many more American jobs are being laid waste due to the shortsightedness of our business leaders in the US?

China Exploits NAFTA

As if the NAFTA agreement and shipping off our jobs to China wasn't bad enough for this country, it seems that China has found a way to exploit our NAFTA agreement that we entered into with both Mexico and Canada. China has contracted with Mexico to enhance their deep channel ports to bring goods into the US. By utilizing cheap labor in Mexico's Baja penisula, China will be bypassing our ports, American labor, and our security to bring their goods into our country through the back door. Now that's a trading partner for you!

When will our policy makers step up and promote fair trade...................

I found an interesting blog worth your attention if you want to examine the cost of outsourcing from the point of view of where the jobs going. Check out http://navs.wordpress.com/2006/08/06/economics-of-outsourcing/

Outsourcing Tutors

I came across an article yesterday that really disturbed me. It seems that the tutoring of our children is now being outsourcing to India as well. Online tutoring services are popping up in India. It only takes a video camera attached to a computer to make it work. The article citied huge cost savings. The typical offhshored tutor charges $100/month, where as tutors in the US may be as much as a $100 per session.

I wonder if the parents are actually examining the real costs associated with tutoring their kids offshore. Just to identify a few of the not so apparent cost. The loss of another US job, lowering the tax base, thus affecting the quality of education that their children receive. More importantly, what will the children do when they complete their education since we are continually supporting companies that take our jobs. First it was manufacturing, we were told that's good for the economy as their will be more service and knowledge based jobs. Now their exporting more and more knowledge based jobs. What kind of jobs will be left for our children as congress want to give the service based jobs to the illegal immigrants.

Something to ponder...........

Retirement Accounts

Before recessing for summer vacation, who can tell when they are on vacation when they were in session less than 90 days so far this year, continued the erosion of the middle class. It seems they passed the long overdue pension reform bill. Have they gone so far as to kill company funded retirement accounts all together?

Let's exam some of the key points of the bill. Companies must have there funds fully funded in the next seven years. That means as of today these companies must come up with over $22 billion collectively just to get back to where they should be. Can you see more jobs being exported to fun it?

It give airlines extra time to fund their accounts, all when they are going to the courst to break thier pension funds for the sake of competetiveness, United Airlines is a prime example. Some companie smay have up to 30 years to bring up their balance to proper levels.

It does have a positive aspect when it comes to these over paid top execs, it severely curtails their participation if their company has underfunded thier pension accounts by more than 20%.

Will these requirement meant to protect the worker actually do more harm?

Because It Looks Good on the Books

My brother in law is a VP of Product Management for a major software development firm. They employ thousands across their various products lines. He pretty much knows where I stand on issues of offshoring. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to spend some time with him and I adked him falt out what percentage of his development employees were in India. His first response was "why do you ask." I replied "I'm just curious." Finally, he said about 25%.

I wasn't surprised at the remark interestingly enough, but his next few statements floored me. He said "but they really aren't productive so we really don't save any money, they may evan cost us more in the long run." My next question of course was "Then why do it?" Here's the punch line "because it looks good on the books."

His company displaces thousand of American jobs because "it looks good on the books".

The Courts Continue to Erode Our Jobs and Pay

Last Friday, a Federal Bankrupcy judge gave the green light to tear up it's contract with it fight attendants. It will be ineresting to see how pay and benefits are affected.

Unfriendly Trade Policy

I copied this snippet from the Kansas City Star. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/15060639.htm.

Farm and labor leaders at a summit in Washington, D.C., last week called current U.S. trade policy detrimental to U.S. agriculture.

In a trade summit sponsored by the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Business and Industry Council, farm and labor industry leaders agreed that the World Trade Organization’s trade policy has created an uneven playing field for the U.S. and caused a record trade deficit. The current trade agenda has put American farms, businesses and workers in jeopardy by giving a competitive advantage to foreign producers, they said.

“Across the board, in farming, technology and manufacturing, American jobs are being outsourced,” said Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union.

The union maintains that currency manipulation, labor standards and environmental health and safety standards must be equal worldwide for domestic producers to compete fairly on the global market.

A Senator Steps UP

When research a news bit I heard about Ford laying off 22,000 more US based hourly employees, I came across an article in the Detroit News that I caught my eye. It lead me to a press release by Senator Stabenow (D-Mich). Here's the text from the release-

WASHINGTON -- A federal commission advising Congress on economic policies with China will hear a U.S. senator Monday who will argue the United States can no longer "ignore the fact that China is cheating" in committing unfair trade practices.

The six-year-old U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission will meet at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and will hear testimony from United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and U.S. Reps. John Dingell, D-Dearborn; Sander Levin, D-Southfield; and Thad McCotter, R-Livonia. Also testifying will be Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union.

The hearing, "China's Impact on the U.S. Auto and Auto Parts Industries," comes as Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Delphi Corp. are in the midst of cutting 80,000 jobs.

Automakers are encouraging parts suppliers to consider outsourcing to countries like China that have far lower labor costs, though they also criticize China for artificially keeping the value of its currency low.

"American companies are held hostage by China's requirements and then, receive no recourse when trade laws are violated," Stabenow will testify, according to an advance text of her remarks obtained by The News. "It means jobs are at risk, not because of competition, but because China is cheating the system. China is stealing patents, producing counterfeit products, and manipulating currency markets. These actions are illegal, period."

Stabenow casts the fight as a struggle to defend good-paying jobs. It's the latest in a series of events, largely by Democrats who argue the Bush administration isn't doing enough to insist on fair trade with China. Michigan Republicans in Congress have pushed the administration to take a tougher line with China.

"As a country and as the state of Michigan, we all should be fighting for these jobs. This is our middle class and this fight is about maintaining our way of life," according to Stabenow's text. Last year, the U.S. trade deficit with China hit an all-time high of $202 billion, 25 percent higher than 2004.

The Michigan Manufacturing Technology Council has estimated that the competitive advantage a $10 million manufacturing plant in China has over a comparable plant in the United States would largely be erased by a 30 percent currency revaluation by the Chinese.

The Bush administration has taken some action.

On March 30 the administration and the European Union filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over China's "unfair" treatment of U.S. auto parts.

China's taxes on imported auto parts discourage automobile manufacturers in China from using imported auto parts in the assembly of vehicles, the United States said. China has regulations that impose a tax on imported auto parts equal to the tariff on complete automobiles.The Big Three CEOs have made what they call currency manipulation by China and Japan a top issue, saying it is an unfair trade practice.

The countries devalue their currencies, making U.S. products more expensive there and Chinese exports cheaper, they argue.

Its time that more of our elected officals step up and face what's really happening and quit pandering to big business. Write your congressman today!

A Senator Steps Up

When research a news bit I heard about Ford laying off 22,000 more US based hourly employees, I came across an article in the Detroit News that I caught my eye. It lead me to a press release by Senator Stabenow (D-Mich). Here's the text from the release-

WASHINGTON -- A federal commission advising Congress on economic policies with China will hear a U.S. senator Monday who will argue the United States can no longer "ignore the fact that China is cheating" in committing unfair trade practices.

The six-year-old U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission will meet at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and will hear testimony from United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and U.S. Reps. John Dingell, D-Dearborn; Sander Levin, D-Southfield; and Thad McCotter, R-Livonia. Also testifying will be Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union.

The hearing, "China's Impact on the U.S. Auto and Auto Parts Industries," comes as Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Delphi Corp. are in the midst of cutting 80,000 jobs.

Automakers are encouraging parts suppliers to consider outsourcing to countries like China that have far lower labor costs, though they also criticize China for artificially keeping the value of its currency low.

"American companies are held hostage by China's requirements and then, receive no recourse when trade laws are violated," Stabenow will testify, according to an advance text of her remarks obtained by The News. "It means jobs are at risk, not because of competition, but because China is cheating the system. China is stealing patents, producing counterfeit products, and manipulating currency markets. These actions are illegal, period."

Stabenow casts the fight as a struggle to defend good-paying jobs. It's the latest in a series of events, largely by Democrats who argue the Bush administration isn't doing enough to insist on fair trade with China. Michigan Republicans in Congress have pushed the administration to take a tougher line with China.

"As a country and as the state of Michigan, we all should be fighting for these jobs. This is our middle class and this fight is about maintaining our way of life," according to Stabenow's text. Last year, the U.S. trade deficit with China hit an all-time high of $202 billion, 25 percent higher than 2004.

The Michigan Manufacturing Technology Council has estimated that the competitive advantage a $10 million manufacturing plant in China has over a comparable plant in the United States would largely be erased by a 30 percent currency revaluation by the Chinese.

The Bush administration has taken some action.

On March 30 the administration and the European Union filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over China's "unfair" treatment of U.S. auto parts.

China's taxes on imported auto parts discourage automobile manufacturers in China from using imported auto parts in the assembly of vehicles, the United States said. China has regulations that impose a tax on imported auto parts equal to the tariff on complete automobiles.The Big Three CEOs have made what they call currency manipulation by China and Japan a top issue, saying it is an unfair trade practice.

The countries devalue their currencies, making U.S. products more expensive there and Chinese exports cheaper, they argue.

Its time that more of our elected officals step up and face what's really happening and quit pandering to big business. Write your congressman today!

IndiaInfoIT

If you want a good chuckle, just jump here to see the propaganda blog about offshoring. They show studies about how offshoring is good and India isn't responsible for job losses in the US, its task automation that is the main culprit. If you read down the menu they then list how they are predicted to pick up 79,000 legal jobs by 2015. Which is it task automation or the offshoring of our jobs for cheap labor?

Just as a side note, tragically, this weeks bombing of the train stations leaves one to wonder if the dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir will lead to further unrest in the area. What will the Multi-nationals do then?

Labor Rates in China

Back to the Bureau of Labor Statistics again, in a reseach paper filed by Judith Bannister of Bejing Javelin Investment Consulting Company the real hour labor rates were investigated. In the report she cites the difficuty in obtaining consistant and accurate data across the provences. It's reported that the fully burdened average hourly wage in China is $0.57. Bear in mind this is for an employee that is forced to work 14 to 16 hours a day in often times unhealthy conditions, six to seven days a week, live in employer provided apartments for which they a high percentage of their take home, purchase inadequate meals provided by the employer. These condtions have eeb discussed in previous posts. These same employers rarely let the workers take time off even for marriage or bereavement. So even though they may make $0.57 an hour what is the effective net pay of the average employee?

Is this free trade or free labor for our US multinational firms?

You can view the report here.

A Great Site

While researching today I came across this site. It does a great job of discussing the issues.

American Economic Alert

Please take the time to check it out.