← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Faust
Thread ID: 3179 | Posts: 28 | Started: 2002-10-22
2002-10-22 14:11 | User Profile
| NAFTA: El Paso jeans maker to lay off 1,200 - sends jobs to Mexico EL PASO -- VF Jeanswear, the company that makes **Lee and Wrangler jeans**, will close two plants in December and May and layoff about 1,200 employees. In the last year, VF has already laid off more than 1,000 El Paso workers in a push to cut costs. Most of the layoffs were from the two plants now being closed. Weak jeans sales this year and expected slow sales next year led the jeans maker once again to cut its work force in the United States and **shift more production to VF's lower-cost factories in Mexico, Honduras and Costa Rica** Ref: ** Wrangler Jeans: Made in..Mexico? by Angry White Female ** |
| Local firm to slash its work force - send jobs to Mexico Will lay off half its employees; about 20 of whom are refugees LACONIA ? A manufacturer of packaging components for the cosmetics industry which operates a plant in the O?Shea Industrial Park has announced it will reduce its 80-employee work force there by one half in coming weeks. **Half of those expected to be laid off are refugees. **Risdon-AMS, whose Laconia facility is located at 27 Lexington Drive, recently said it expects to **soon sign a lease for land in Reynosa, Mexico, **on which it will open a 30,000 square-foot assembly plant. The new plant, which is expected to help make the company ** more cost competitive**, is planned to be up and running in the first quarter of 2003, said **Steve Levine**, who is the company?s vice president and senior operations officer. Formerly known as the Franklin Brush Co., Risdon-AMS has been in Laconia for between 20 and 25 years, said Levine, "roughly half" of the plant?s activity will be** transferred to Mexico**, said Levine, which means that only about half of the current employees will be needed. The refugees, some of whom are from Bosnia, the Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Iraq, fled persecution in their homelands. |
| NAFTA: Eaton to close plant, lay off 330 workers - jobs go to Mexico MOORESVILLE, N.C. - Eaton Corp. says it will close its automotive-parts plant, laying off 330 workers and **moving production to Mexico.** |
|
NAFTA: Canadians get screwed - jobs go to Mexico
TORONTO (Oct. 21, 2002) -- Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove
said his union will lobby for auto pact-style sanctions against Navistar
International after the company's decision** to close its plant in
Chatham, Ont., next summer and shift production to Mexico. **
- (NNN-Canada
)
International Truck and Engine to close 1,000-worker plant in Chatham, Ont. TORONTO (CP) - The Navistar truck plant that employs 1,000 workers in Chatham will close next summer as production shifts to Mexico Weyerhaeuser to lay off 70 at Canada mills |
||
| Investors finally got news from Maytag they could cheer today - jobs going to Mexico! The home appliance maker said it was going to close a facility in Galesburg, Ill., and lay off 1,600 workers, or about 8% of its total staff. The announcement sent shares of the Newton, Iowa-based firm soaring by more than 7%. What Wall Street liked was that Maytag (nyse: MYG - news - people ) is finally moving its manufacturing to a low-cost country. **The company said it will transfer its refrigeration production, which has been based in Galesburg, to Reynosa, Mexico,** as part of its "ongoing cost-improvement initiatives," which will enable the company "to produce refrigerators more profitably." | ||
| Motorola laying off or transferring more people at Boynton plant - sends jobs to Mexico Motorola Inc. will lay off or transfer one of every two employees at its Boynton Beach facility, reducing its work force there to 400 within six months. The moves are a result of Motorola?s announcement in June to cut an additional 7,000 jobs companywide. Motorola phased out American production of pagers and cell phones, **making them for less in Mexico. ** |
| Rayovac cutting jobs in Madison, Middleton and even Mexico Battery-maker dropping 630 workers worldwide Rayovac Corp. will slash 630 jobs, including 290 to close sites in Middleton and Madison, with the remainder coming from the **closure of a plant in Mexico** |
| [list] [*]Why we need more illegal migrants and third world "refugees" [*] United will slash 325 local jobs [*] Texas Instruments Cuts Forecast and said it would lay off 500 workers. [*] Indianapolis Life plans layoffs 3 years after merger, insurer will cut 90 to 100 jobs, but reductions will be taken gradually. [*] Look Out, Boeing - Boeing unions are up in arms as the company cuts production in half and slashes 30,000 jobs from the 93,000-strong workforce that makes commercial aircraft. [*] Applied Materials Expected to Lay Off Staff the company was gearing up to lay off between 1,500 and 3,000 people [*] Minneapolis-based Retek lays off 130 [*] No Sunshine In the Valley Sun Microsystems could lay off up to 8,000 of its 39,400 employees this quarter [*]ODU plans layoffs, tuition jump Old Dominion University today will lay off 73 employees -- but no faculty members [*] Canton to lay off 10 clerical workers [*] Company to lay off 20 percent of Binghamton work force BINGHAMTON, N.Y. (AP) _ An international electronics maker will lay off about 20 percent of its work force, company officials said Friday. [*] Saint Joseph to lay off 100-150 Medical center officials blame poor economy [*] Layoffs reportedly looming at AMD Applied Materials Inc., the world's largest maker of semiconductor equipment, has been cutting jobs and is gearing up for a larger round of layoffs to combat a relentless industry slump [*] Livingston Parish officials lay off 16, cite budget woes [*] Duke Power to Lay Off Hundreds [*]OpenTV to lay off nearly half of staff - which will result in the loss of 315 jobs [*]** West Virginia: Special Metals to lay off 12% of salaried employees** [*] HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. -- Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics will lay off 18 employees early next year [*] Capital One to lay off 117 at Federal Way call center [/list] |
| NAFTA: America is finished as a Manufacturer **[Reader reports]** Lincoln Nebraska to cut 480 jobs; they will build a sweatshop in Mexico where they pay the Mexies 12 dollars a day, vs. 18 dollars/hr in America. The company, which has operated a plant in Lincoln since 1943, said it will phase out hose production at the plant over the next two years. Not affected was production of automotive and industrial power transmission belts, which are also produced at the plant. In all, 480 employees with less seniority will lose their jobs to Mexitrash sweatshop workers. Based on the original announcement, the end would come sometime in 2003. Ref: ** As expected, Lincoln Goodyear jobs headed south ** |
2002-10-22 17:12 | User Profile
Do the math. If you make stuff in America your company has to pay a lot of taxes (so do your employees). If you move your factory and company to Mexico then you pay the feds nothing, not even import taxes.
If your factory is in America you have to follow all sorts of expensive regulations, many of them dumb. You have to hire unqualified people to avoid lawsuits for violating civil rights or the Disability Act. You can't fire people who don't perform because the union won't let you, neither will a judge in some cases.
It isn't capitalism moving jobs to Mexico. It's our own government.
2002-10-22 22:56 | User Profile
Devil's advocate one more time: let's say that jeans used to cost $30. Now they cost $20 coming from Mexico.
That extra $10 that the consumer in America saves necessarily goes somewhere. Where? Who knows...probably into other products. Maybe to a ballgame ticket. Eating out an extra time. So maybe the guy laid off at the jeans plant gets a job at the restaurant?
I'm guessing money doesn't disappear and it just re-emerges in another form.
-J
2002-10-22 23:59 | User Profile
Originally posted by jay@Oct 22 2002, 15:56 **Devil's advocate one more time: let's say that jeans used to cost $30. Now they cost $20 coming from Mexico.
That extra $10 that the consumer in America saves necessarily goes somewhere. Where? Who knows...probably into other products. Maybe to a ballgame ticket. Eating out an extra time. So maybe the guy laid off at the jeans plant gets a job at the restaurant?
I'm guessing money doesn't disappear and it just re-emerges in another form.
-J**
Like...maybe in the form of taxpayer-subsidized services for illegal aliens?
They're counting on you not to pay attention to that money of yours they get first grabs at...but not to worry, the gubmint always knows what to do with your disposable cash...
2002-10-22 23:59 | User Profile
Jay, I'm with you. Free trade is a good thing. Hoppe makes this point brilliantly in his Democracy: The God That Failed. The division of labor produces wealth.
2002-10-23 00:09 | User Profile
Originally posted by Mercuria@Oct 22 2002, 17:59 They're counting on you not to pay attention to that money of yours they get first grabs at...but not to worry, the gubmint always knows what to do with your disposable cash...
There's no doubt that the FED GOVT wastes money - lots of it. We all know that. I'm not sure why you diverged on that tangent.
The point is, as MWDALLAS states, division of labor is a key economic concept. Specialization and focus are vital for efficiency and productivity. I am disgusted about the immivasion b/c of cultural and racial problems.
However, I would much rather import sugar cane from Haiti and Happy Meal toys from China.
-J
2002-10-23 00:20 | User Profile
Originally posted by jay@Oct 22 2002, 22:56 **Devil's advocate one more time: let's say that jeans used to cost $30. Now they cost $20 coming from Mexico.
**
Wrong on all points
Those jeans still only cost about $1.65 a piece to make. Instead of contributing to America's stability and industrial ability, Mexican thugs get kickbacks.
Manufacturers have never passed the wage-differential savings to the US consumer. It all goes to stockholders or to inflated CEO salaries.
"Now a jeans-maker works at a restaurant"? Compare salaries of value-added manufacturing jobs and service workers. Who besides President Chimp wants a nation of fast food workers?
Edward Luttwak has written eloquently about the effect of disemployment on former factory workers. The cost in health benefits alone probably offset the godzillions we're "saving" in bluejeans.
"Who manufactures rules." America's strength in the 20th Century proceeded entirely from those of us who cut sheet metal, worked blast furnaces and so on. We're about gone and the Utopia of Information and Service Industries is almost upon us. Notice the Dark Age coming with it? There's a relationship.
2002-10-23 00:34 | User Profile
** Wrong on all points**
On all points? Gosh, that sounds like you are 100% sure. I'm not 100% sure on this debate.
Manufacturers have never passed the wage-differential savings to the US consumer. It all goes to stockholders or to inflated CEO salaries.
Exactly. Americans, I'm assuming. They get that cash and buy things, right? And if these wealthy people hoard the cash, the FEDs take half when they die and distributes it to the lower-middle class.
Who besides President Chimp wants a nation of fast food workers?
I don't know ANY adult fast-food workers. You're reaching here.
Supply & demand. I do see teens and minorities working there. Maybe if all the fat asses in America didn't love fast food so much, there wouldn't be a store on every corner.
-J
2002-10-23 04:24 | User Profile
Originally posted by jay@Oct 22 2002, 22:56 **Devil's advocate one more time: let's say that jeans used to cost $30. Now they cost $20 coming from Mexico. **
All consumers benefit by saving 10 dollars each time they buy jeans. When you add up the savings from foreign products and the competative pressure from foreign products on domestic product prices, consumers are HUGE winners. And, in a competative market, the savings are passed on to consumers.
Also, I don't have too much pitty for some of these union people with low-skill jobs and fat pay who want to keep their sweet jobs and excessive pay at my expense (in terms both of how much I pay for goods and my own job oppertunities).
Still, Free Trade is a bad thing. What's good about it? Cheaper consumer goods? WRONG. The cost of imports has nothing to do with the taxes on those imports (aside from the taxes). If the government isn't collecting taxes on imports then its collecting those taxes someplace else so in the end the consumer comes out the same, Free Trade or not.
Now, consider all the bad things about Free Trade. NAFTA has played a role in erasing the USA/Mexican boarder leading to the flood of Hispanics into America (Free Trade undermines American sovereignty, as well as weaken's boarder control). Free Trade means the tax law favors imports from Mexico over American production thus there is added tax pressue to ship jobs out of the country. Free Trade leaves our economy dangerously vulnerably to events in other countries (a war with China would cost us all trade from east Asia, which alone would devastate our economy and cause much consumer hardship).
I'm all for trade with Mexico. But, instead of saving 10 dollars on a some jeans how about we have an import tax of, say, 10% (of the wholesale, not retail, price). So, now I'll only save 9 dollars on those Mexican jeans but there is a corrisponding tax cut someplace else so I still end up saving 10 dollars at the end of the year.
2002-10-24 00:56 | User Profile
Oh, shucks, I see the error of my ways.
My friends at South Works didn't lose their pensions (some after 35 years hard service) and aren't working as night stockers at grocery stores for just over minimum -- and loosing their homes anyway. Nope. I guess that was a hallucination.
And all the other displaced and over-the-hill industrial folk I know? Damn, I hallucinated them, too. Your right, Jay. Absulutely, Hacker. None of them were on O'Riley so they can't possibly exist.
I guess I better bone up on back issues of The Weekly Standard and get back in touch with the real world, fellas. Thanks for the reality check.
2002-10-24 01:10 | User Profile
Instead of running down all factory workers in this country - the few we have left - as idiots, lazy, whatever, we should be worried about Americans, white Americans, first and foremost. We don't need to be enriching third world potentates, thugs and anti-American swindlers. Spending power in this country is DOWN, period. The entire manufacturing/wage/price system and situation we see here in the US is artificial. The real winners are our government cronies and shareholders in many businesses, not consumers per se. The shortsighted tactics, the greed involved in agreements like NAFTA, GATT, etc. are leading us rapidly down the road to a huge collapse and likely civil war. All for the better, in order to clean things up, and make this country self sufficient again. Once it is self sufficient, then trade can be realistically instituted.
By the way, I don't know what it's like around the rest of the country, but the price of jeans here in Los Angeles keeps going UP, no matter the brand. That's a fact.
2002-10-24 01:24 | User Profile
Originally posted by jay@Oct 22 2002, 17:09 There's no doubt that the FED GOVT wastes money - lots of it. We all know that. I'm not sure why you diverged on that tangent.
Well...you seemed to Wonder Where The Money Went...
...I'm saying that, because of FedGov's socialist redistribution plan that supplies my taxpayer money and yours for benefits for illegals...the extra $10 you save on jeans will probably be redistributed as a service for someone else...and not even necessarily for a needy citizen.
Just giving forth what I know towards the "do-you-want-to-spend-two-bucks-on-a-head-of-lettuce" debate...it just may apply to the jeans? shrug, g
2002-10-24 01:26 | User Profile
My friends at South Works didn't lose their pensions (some after 35 years hard service) **
I don't get a pension. Why did your friends rely on other people to take care of them thru pensions? I'm not counting on ANYONE taking care of me.
and aren't working as night stockers at grocery stores for just over minimum -- and loosing their homes anyway. Nope. I guess that was a hallucination.
Is that your argument? An anecdotal story about some buddies of yours? Stats, figures, or theories please, but anecdotes don't help me follow your point.
And all the other displaced and over-the-hill industrial folk I know? Damn, I hallucinated them, too. **
Over-the-hill industrial folk include my grandfather. And I can assure you, my life is a breeze compared to his. I totally agree that some union people are getting screwed. But our whole debate is.....are we as a whole better off? In terms of work comfort, career choices and purchasing power, there's not a shred of doubt in my mind.
-J
2002-10-24 01:30 | User Profile
Originally posted by Mercuria@Oct 23 2002, 19:24 ...I'm saying that, because of FedGov's socialist redistribution plan that supplies my taxpayer money and yours for benefits for illegals...the extra $10 you save on jeans will probably be redistributed as a service for someone else...and not even necessarily for a needy citizen.
But the CONCEPT of free trade is good and is a proven economic benefit to people. I can't help it if Jorge Bush and Bill Clinton want to take that benefit and give it away to Israel, illegals or affirmative action cases.
I think some of you are confusing free trade with corruption. But I can't stop asking the simple question: if all our poor white brethren are destitute, "losing homes" and the like, why does our life expectancy keep rising and how come all these people are SO....DAMN.....FAT.
I expect impoverished people to weigh less than 250 pounds.
-Jay
2002-10-24 02:10 | User Profile
Ragner, unions are a bigger cause of job loss than international trade. Your friend is blaming the wrong party. I doubt he'll let himself consider this fact.
Roy Batty, I don't claim that all factory workers are lazy or idiots. But, when people with low-skill jobs are making $50,000+ then they need to consider more reasonable pay or justly risk making barely above minimum wage while stocking grocery store shelves. Steel was hit hard because it's much easier to export steel jobs than, say, trucking jobs. Other than this, I agree with what you've said.
2002-10-24 14:47 | User Profile
Originally posted by Happy Hacker@Oct 23 2002, 20:10 Roy Batty, I don't claim that all factory workers are lazy or idiots. But, when people with low-skill jobs are making $50,000+ then they need to consider more reasonable pay
And that's just it: the flip-side of these fat and happy unions is that they raise the cost of goods & services for everyone - including themselves!
In the end, if Joe SixPack makes $25/hr to walk around the factory floor, he has to expect prices at his grocery store to be high, too. After all, Joe has to be consistent and demand that the store shelf stock boy gets $18/hr, right?
No, they don't think that way. They think people like me, who busted my ass to get a great education, are "evil" and as management will be "thieves". The thing is, I have options. These guys have limited skills, yet demand a similary lifestyle while they watch the NFL and EAT EAT EAT.
-J
2002-10-24 17:34 | User Profile
Originally posted by jay@Oct 24 2002, 14:47 In the end, if Joe SixPack makes $25/hr to walk around the factory floor, he has to expect prices at his grocery store to be high, too. After all, Joe has to be consistent and demand that the store shelf stock boy gets $18/hr, right?
It's not just the excessive pay. Unions also prodect unproductive employees and even demand workers not to be productive (works slowdowns and strikes). Unions even force companies to hire unnecessary people.
Many east Asian factories are highly automated. That is, machines do most of the work creating, for example, parts that will be used in PCs. Meanwhile, unions fight automation. Unions resist even letting companies automate through attrition (not fire any workers, just don't replace those who leave). Afterall, the Union's wealth depends on a large number of workers paying dues.
Unions are the real reason why most (unprotected) manufacturing jobs have left America. However, most union members are intensely loyal to these unions. They like that excessive pay. They like that excessive job security. And, the unions feed them plenty of propaganda and do plenty of fear-mongering ("You'd get really screwed if we weren't here to protect you"). So, when a factory closes down, members blame trade or some such thing when their union destroys their jobs.
2002-10-24 17:56 | User Profile
Originally posted by jay@Oct 24 2002, 01:30 **But the CONCEPT of free trade is good and is a proven economic benefit to people. I can't help it if Jorge Bush and Bill Clinton want to take that benefit and give it away to Israel, illegals or affirmative action cases. . . . I expect impoverished people to weigh less than 250 pounds.
**
Free Trade, free commerce of every type, is a benefit to people (lowers prices and creates jobs). The absense of taxes is good, even if taxes are sometimes a necessary evil. Trade itself is good, very good.
But, there is nothing magical about Free Trade nor even beneficialial about Free Trade vs. modest taxes on trade (with equal tax cuts someplace else). I'm against economic protectionism where people who refuse to be competative get the government to protect their jobs and businesses through excessive trade taxes Protectionism is bad for the economy as well as simply unfair.
Think about steel. If you have a car factory and you have an steel mine (iron mine, used to make steel) right next to your car plant. It's actually cheaper for you to mine that iron, truck it to the coast, load it on ships, take it across the ocean, truck it to a steel plant, make the steel (simply mix the iron with carbon), make the steel, truck it back to a ship, bring it across the ocean and then truck it right back to your car factory which is right next to the steel (iron) mine... It's actually cheaper to do all that than to make the steel right at your steel mine. If a local steel plant can't compete with that, THEY DO NOT DESERVE THEIR JOBS. And, I would have no hestitation to refuse to protect their jobs because they want to screw me.
Bush has created stiff steel tax to protect steel workers. So, now if I run a small business that uses steel I have to pay a lot more for the steel so maybe I can't stay in business. So, workers still lose their jobs and consumers pay a lot more for stuff made with steel. Those greedy thugs want to screw everyone then they want my solidarity? Why should I help them screw me? If they lose their jobs, they did it to themselves while trying to screw me.
As for the poor and fat, those hunger in America stats are totally fictitious. America already is a welfare state which pays people to have the idle time to commit crime.
2002-10-24 19:45 | User Profile
Originally posted by Happy Hacker@Oct 24 2002, 11:56 So, workers still lose their jobs and consumers pay a lot more for stuff made with steel. Those greedy thugs want to screw everyone then they want my solidarity? Why should I help them screw me? If they lose their jobs, they did it to themselves while trying to screw me.
Exactly. The steel USERS of America have to subsidize the steel PRODUCERS. Does any pro-union guy on this board really believe that convervatism is built upon keeping dying creatures - steel producers - alive at the cost of other workers?
How does that differ from socialism or welfare?
Personal story: friend's dad is a mail carrier. 55, votes DEM always. Said, "What happens if I lose my govt job? Who the hell is gonna hire a 55 yr old guy?" Selfish prick, instead of learning other skills (computer programming, etc), he just demands Bill Clinton hand him his 50K salary every year.
He's not thin, either. Show me a thin union/govt worker, and I'll fall backwards in amazement.
-Jay
2002-10-25 21:48 | User Profile
2 Textile Plants Closing; 300 Jobs Cut Chiquola Will Shut Down Operations In Honea Path
POSTED: 12:36 p.m. EDT October 25, 2002 UPDATED: 4:59 p.m. EDT October 25, 2002
[url=http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/news/1740407/detail.html]http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/news/174...407/detail.html[/url]
HONEA PATH, S.C. -- About 300 people who work in and around Honea Path will be out of work by January, according to the South Carolina Employment Security Commission.
Chiquola Manufacturing is closing two plants in the area around Anderson County town, one in Abbeville County an the other in Anderson County.
The Abbeville plant closure will affect 70 workers and the Honea Path closure will affect 230 workers.
The employment security commission says the closure will take place over two months and end with the elimination of 300 jobs.
The plants weave fabrics for different commercial and industrial applications.
In this online version, the story does not include the crucial piece of information that the televised version provided: the company announced that the closure was prompted by an inability to compete with foreign imports.
As for Hoppe, it seems he uses what he calls a reductio ad absurdum to demonstrate the errors of protectionism. He states, "Any argument in favor of international protectionism rather than free trade is simultaneously an argument in favor of interregional and interlocal protectionism." (153)
I'm not so sure about that, though--this seems to be a common blind spot that the free traders and libertarians have on this issue--they are incapable of distinguishing between the nation and the rest of the world. International protectionism is not the same as interregional and interlocal forms because the localities and regions in question form part of the nation, which has value and standing in itself.
Only a few economic thinkers have understood the centrality of the nation, such as Friedrich List, a German immigrant who advised the early American Republic and helped set up the system of tariff protection the libertarians deem so evil. List, interestingly enough, is rarely mentioned in economics departments in the Anglo-American world--Smith is always matched against Marx, and that's that. I submit that this suppression of List was intentional, and ultimately not in the interests of Americans.
I have to say I'm even more perplexed by Hoppe's position, since he seems capable of understanding the principle of nationality when it comes to the issue of immigration. The argument above that he uses to defend free trade seems to confuse the notion that "no man is an island" with "no nation is an island" when it comes to the need for commerce and exchange. Therefore, in a sense, the free traders have left themselves open to their own version of the reductio ad absurdum that they would swing as a weapon at their protectionist opponents.
Proponents of free trade claim that more wealth is to be had from their policies than protectionism, and that claim I am not qualified to evaluate, my own training being in politics and international relations than economics. At the same time, I'm inclined to answer to the supposed increased wealth, "so what?" My motivations for supporting protectionism are not limited to worrying about American workers who can't update their skills, etc. My motivation is more in line with the idea that the nation is of more value than the economy, or wealth, or the rights of individuals to engage in whatever transactions they will.
The nation, in my view, cannot be permitted to become further dependent on foreign sources for the necessities of life, and more importantly, the necessities of war. And there you have it: I have always suspected the real reason for the libertarian distrust of protectionism is that it seeks to permanently disarm the state and make war impossible, since no nation will be able to mount any such war if it is dependent on every other nation for the necessary materials. The libertarians have always harbored pacifist wishes for universal peace and brotherhood in the backs of their minds. And they think this Utopia is ultimately possible because of their fetishizing of Economic Man. Everyone, to them, is an equally fit potential consumer and producer in the global market--and that's how they judge and value all human relations. Indeed, the Misesians accuse those who would protest that humans are divided by other attachments, such as to race and tribe, of the fallacy of "polylogism." Is it any wonder, then, that the founders of that doctrine were Jews? Their particular branch of the Tribe may be free of its attachment to that piece of desert in the Middle East, but they have not lost their characteristic (and poisonous) rootless cosmopolitanism.
2002-10-26 14:04 | User Profile
Some related links:
The National System of Political Economy, by F. List [online book] [url=http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/list/national.html]http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3...t/national.html[/url]
How the World Works [url=http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/fall1f.htm]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/fall1f.htm[/url]
2002-10-26 15:53 | User Profile
The big US steel producers aren't simply being put out of business due to foreign competition. Modern, more efficient 'micro-mills' within the US have also taken much of their traditional business.
2002-10-26 17:28 | User Profile
PaleoconAvatar Posted on Oct 25 2002, 22:48
**Only a few economic thinkers have understood the centrality of the nation, such as Friedrich List, a German immigrant who advised the early American Republic and helped set up the system of tariff protection the libertarians deem so evil. List, interestingly enough, is rarely mentioned in economics departments in the Anglo-American world--Smith is always matched against Marx, and that's that. I submit that this suppression of List was intentional, and ultimately not in the interests of Americans. **
The Japanese based their economic resurgence from the end of World War II on the writings of List. Despite whatever present difficulties the Japanese have, they have not moved out of basic industries. They still have the ability to generate wealth.
Unfortunately Americans do not. Rome went the way of a third world nation when they forced small farmers off the land, then the great latifundias grew too expensive to operate. Then Rome started importing much of their grains from North Africa. The average Roman degenerated from a proud citizen of the republic to a slob.
The English after they converted to "free trade" started to have their economy tank along with their postion in the world. The American plutocrats have used Free Trade as a mantra to enable them to move their wealth overseas.
2002-10-26 19:14 | User Profile
Originally posted by Leveller@Oct 26 2002, 15:53 The big US steel producers aren't simply being put out of business due to foreign competition. Modern, more efficient 'micro-mills' within the US have also taken much of their traditional business.
That's negative.
These mini-mills are corporate-political "Potemkin Industries"; known to us in the business as glorified recycling centers.
The fact: America is now dependant on foreign steel suppliers in absolute terms, especially high-end, special grade steel which formerly was America's industrial jewel-in-the-crown. What should make industry-bashers even prouder is that one of the top producers in this area is now Indonesia.
Gibbon's point is excellent:
**The American plutocrats have used Free Trade as a mantra to enable them to move their wealth overseas. **
I would add that American plutocrats have also used Free Trade as a tactic in their favorite sport: Top-down class warfare. Some of the posters here have shown themselves to be quite useful idiots for the plutocrats, I might also add.
2002-10-26 20:11 | User Profile
Originally posted by Ragnar@Oct 26 2002, 19:14 **These mini-mills are corporate-political "Potemkin Industries"; known to us in the business as glorified recycling centers. **
Why corporate-political "Potemkin Industries" ? If firms efficiently reprocess scrap, adding value to create a product that their customers require, is that not a worthwhile and honest business (even if by enabling re-use it reduces the demand for the unreprocessed original) ?
2002-10-26 20:47 | User Profile
Originally posted by Leveller@Oct 26 2002, 20:11 If firms efficiently reprocess scrap, adding value to create a product that their customers require, is that not a worthwhile and honest business (even if by enabling re-use it reduces the demand for the unreprocessed original) ?
As a niche industry, sure. As the whole thing, no.
They've been hyped to death since Nucor started buying up old foundries and spiffing them up, but foundries is all they are. Making steel means pulling ore out of the ground and making steel and anything less than that is marginal, as the industry's own statements have indicated.
American steel was politicized by Reagan, who shipped entire steel plants to China -- cut up as jumbo do-it-yourself integrated mills, starting with the Fontana Works of the old Kaisar Mill in California. That one mill, now in China, has more capacity than all of America's much-vaunted mini-mills put together.
Lots of that American-developed Chinese steel will probably end up in American back yards, BTW. I've worked with Asians (mostly Japanese but a fair sprinkling of Koreans and Chinese also) who are amazed at what American capital has handed them, and bear nothing but contempt for the US. LTV's "bankruptcy" proceeings were a case in point. The new holding companies fired the American engineers and kept the HB1 visa Chinese engineers. It's all political at that level, this Free Market jabber is for Rush's simpletons and no one else.
American plutocrats are eating America and the yuppies still think they're immune.
2005-08-09 14:27 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Ragnar]I would add that American plutocrats have also used Free Trade as a tactic in their favorite sport: Top-down class warfare.[/QUOTE] If present trends continue, this class-hatred will only expand.
If it is to stop, we must first be honest with ourselves about who are these neo-Kahn plutocrats:
[url="http://www.honestmediatoday.com/understanding_antisemitism.htm"]http://www.honestmediatoday.com/understanding_antisemitism.htm[/url] [img]http://www.honestmediatoday.com/UAS2.jpg[/img] [url="http://www.honestmediatoday.com/understanding_antisemitism.htm"]http://www.honestmediatoday.com/understanding_antisemitism.htm[/url]
2005-08-09 15:26 | User Profile
Greeings, Mark.
I call them the "Judeoplutocracy", the union of Wall Street and Zionism.