Re: Globalization
- From: "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:13:15 -1000
<david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:e224d652-6d22-4578-81ba-49a95aceab54@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
How can we have fair trade if the workers in the countries to which
our manufacturing base has fled do not make enough money to buy the
products they produce? It has always puzzled me that those that claim
to be champions of the free market are for the current form of
globalization that seeks to lower labor costs in order to increase
profits without regard to anything else.
Comparing apples to oranges. Also, there is really no such thing as "fair trade" in reality....all of what is now referred to as "fair trade" is really "managed trade". As for what happens to workers, what happens to workers when technolgy makes their jobs obsolete? Think what the computer age has created. No more people working in the hundreds working in accounting departments.
If American corporations had imported American wage scales with the
jobs they would have created a whole new customer base for the
products they want to sell here. Those workers would have also been
able to buy American made products, which would have created better
paying new jobs instead the slow downward economic spiral and a
disappearing middle class.
You mean exported american wages, don't you? "If" everyone made the same wages, then there is no incentive to move your manufacturing to other countries, because that is one real reason companies operate in foriegn countries, i.e. to take advantage of the lower wages.
It is not that globalization is bad it is that it is badly done. Our
Corporations claim to be capitalists and free marketers but instead
they are just captains of plunder and pillage whose only goal is
fatting the bottom line in order to raise the price of their stock
options. There are factories in china that make nothing for sale
within China everything they produce is shipped here or to Europe. It
is not an accident that they are building a new port on Mexico's
Pacific coast to handle the increase in cheap manufactured products
from China.
You can build whatever you want to build, but if you cannot sell it somewhere, you will soon not be building it anymore. Besides, if they are able to sell what they do sell, at a lower cost than someone else, that means the the "buyers" are paying a lower price for the same product, which helps the poor more than the rich....the rich don't need the help....
But in China the average wage is still little over eighty cents an
hour, which means most workmen make much less then that because there
like here wages are heavily skewed to those at the top of the income
pile. If those workers were given a living wage what effect would that
have on the world economy. Certainly the buying power of two billion
people could help fuel our consumer based markets for many decades to
come and even if they could not eliminate the business cycle they
could at least postpone it.
If China propers, then they will follow the example of other countries who have become more wealthy, i.e. the wages of their workers WILL increase. And sooner or later, they will start ot lose the that competitive edge they now have...
But instead corporate greed and short sightedness has forced labor all
over the world into a race to the bottom, while at the same time they
push prices for everything people need to survive higher and higher. I
live in California and according to the Governments own data I pay
forty percent more for everything then the rest of the country. This
includes the food I eat much of it grown within my state. This is
because the market is no longer free. Large interests dictate price
and since the logic goes that California has more millionaires so we
can afford to pay higher prices, but of course like everywhere else we
have many more people at or near poverty line then those that are well
heeled and while the wealthy do not feel this increase in the cost of
living the rest of us do. Just as a flat tax would hit those at the
bottom more then those at the top, a flat economy and high prices are
equally disastrous.
I used to work in California. I now live in Hawaii. Compare apples to apples. "If" you believe you are paying too much for food in California, come to Hawaii, and then you would stop complaining.
We are now in the midst of the longest most costly political campaign
in our history. None of the candidates with the exception of Edwards
is even talking about the rise of poverty in this nation and the
reasons for it. They also have no real solution for the ongoing
medical crisis besides forcing people to buy over priced health
insurance to feed the ever-rapacious insurance companies. Instead
creating a humane, affordable and transparent alternative they opt for
the patchwork system that regularly forces people into bankruptcy of
denies them treatment until it is either to late to help or they are
dead.
What specific proposal has Edwards put forth that addresses the problem, other than tell us there is a problem?
Real wages also go down, when you take away a sizeable part of a persons income to fund government.
All this is happening while real wages are going down and even though
the economy on paper looks like it is growing for many people it
ceased that vital function long ago. It is not the fault of any one
party because they both have had a hand in creating this mess and all
sides must help make it better. Because if we continue to allow slave
wages to be the standard to which all wages are pegged then the future
is not a very bright one. Either you believe in the free market and
the idea of making a good product and selling for a fair price while
paying you labor a wage that affords them the opportunity to buy the
products they make and those that others want to sell or you are just
a thief whose only goal is plunder at the expense of the entire human
race.
.
- References:
- Globalization
- From: david
- Globalization
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