fuzyfuzer

ok i hope this is going ot be pretty open and fair sharing of ideas which is something we have had problems with i think lattely

i want to know the liberal reasons why the demecrats feel that they get to criticize the admnistration for not creating jobs when they are the ones that are driving them overseas

it all went back to mass uninization it improved our society but it also ate away at corperate profits and that is somthing that they have been grumbling over for about a 100 years now but untill recently they havent had an option to go to non union countries

i feel that unions managed to manipulate the demecratics party to get them to better support them if only trade labor had been permited to masivly unionize i think that we would be in a situation a lot like this but it would have come differently and probably be better accepted today

(i know there are going to be a lot of labor union supporters and that is fine but i don't think you have seen it from the same side i have,
my grandpa ran a whoorlpool plant in evansville indiana and there were quite a few labor problems their he had tolled me about the threats on his life that he recieved and in the most extreme case were my aunt was kidnapped untill the strike was settled, no one was brought to justice because of the unions powers so no can say they are innocent)

i think i kind of was ranting about things incoherently but can we please discus and not end up locking ourslves out

thanks

__________________
"The difference between commiment and involvment is like a ham and egg breakfast the chicken was involved but the pig was commited"

"Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

filtherton

I think it is a little odd to cite only liberals as the reason that jobs are going overseas. You're blaming unions for corporate greed and economics.

I sympathize with your uncle, but the history of the labor movement is filled with countless tales of murder and oppression, mostly directed at the worker.

fuzyfuzer

i'm sorry i didn't mean for it to come off like that i just look at the history that i have learned and i see te left bothin my eyes causing the jobs to leave then blaing the right for there not being any jobs maybe i see it wrong i don't know

i thonk i was just venting a person from my school has just been telling me all day how wrong my veiw is and it was pissing me off

sorry if i offend anyone

__________________
"The difference between commiment and involvment is like a ham and egg breakfast the chicken was involved but the pig was commited"

"Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

HarmlessRabbit

You can't just blame the left or unions for jobs leaving, although that's certainly a factor. A few other issues:

- High insurance rates due to the lack of a universal health plan for all americans, mostly blocked by the right.
- Extremely high manager and executive pay. Neither side really at fault, just a fact of american life.
- Extreme safety rules compared to other countries. Again, neither side really at fault.
- Extreme environmental rules. Probably more of a left responsiblity.

I have mixed feelings on the jobs issue. On the one hand, jobs going to china really bother me. The public is oppressed, has little rights, and has terrible health care. Jobs going to India, on the other hand, doesn't bother me as much. The people have decent freedoms and people are working hard to catch up to the USA.

I feel like some sort of "oppression tax" needs to be added to goods imported into the USA. Not a democracy? Tax. Don't have freedom of speech? Tax. Don't have basic civil rights. Tax.

I know this isn't a workable policy, but without something like this I feel like worker's rights will be sacrificed as the USA gets in a "race to the bottom" with other countries.

fuzyfuzer

those are some good points i didn't really think about those and i do like the tax idea i also don't want our jobs in china

__________________
"The difference between commiment and involvment is like a ham and egg breakfast the chicken was involved but the pig was commited"

"Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

seretogis

Unionization is definitely a factor, as you said, and Dems are all about unions. You can't blame Dems solely for jobs leaving the US, but TV commercials blaming Bush for the same thing is equally stupid.

High insurance rates are not due to a lack of universal health-care -- they are due to greed by "Big Pharms." A universal health-care system would not do anything to lower costs for citizens.

How about trial lawyers, money-hungry personal injury lawyers? See where I'm going with this?

Probably.

I think the only defendable position on sending jobs to China is that it would help to Americanize them. I'm not a fan of pumping money into China for any reason, though.

Taxes can't solve everything. It is up to the US consumer to demand higher-quality products (i.e. products made in the US by skilled workers) but until then you can expect to see more cheap shoddy products made for $1 and sold for $80.

__________________
seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

HarmlessRabbit

Heh, you sound like someone criticizing crappy Sony product in the 1970's. I think a lot of manufactured goods coming out of China are extremely high quality. In fact, I think China has far more manufacturing know-how than the USA at this point. Many "top-of-the-line" products, such as iPods, for example, are made in China or Taiwan.

On the other hand, I think the USA could do more to convince people to "buy american" - I was reading that the Indian government has a pretty extensive "buy from India" campaign. I don't see anything wrong with the USA spending a few million to educate people on where their money goes.

In fact, given the current republican administration, I think this would be the proper "free market" way to approach the issue. The government spent many millions on FreeVibe.com and a mostly silly anti-drug campaign, we could spend equally as much on a Buy American campaign.

The main problem would be that there would be entire classes of electronic and textile products in which not a single product would be american-made. Maybe a better campaign would be to focus on "buy from free countries".

james t kirk

You know, there could be a real opportunity there.

Say there was a guy who produced television sets in the USA.

Call them "Amero"

Let's say the CEO of Amero makes some commercials himself and says, "folks, I am making my TV's right here in America. Our plant is Buffalo New York, we hire Americans to do the R and D and Americans to do the production"

"These are quality TV's that yes, they cost a little more, but we are employing Americans, who pay taxes in this country"

Blah blah blah.

Would the American population buy these TVs?????

What if their quality were as good as Sony, but they cost on average $100.00 more. Would people still buy them?

What if you put a big American flag on the box with "Made in the USA" right on the side, so when you go into the store you couldn't miss them????

The walmart side of me says people will buy the Sony that costs a $100.00 less and this guy would go out of business pretty quick.

The idealist in me says that the company would make a bundle.

HarmlessRabbit

Given the following that folks like Rush Limbaugh have, it seems like it would be a sustainable business model. On the other hand, given the popularity of wal-mart, it seems questionable.

I agree, it seems like a good experiment for a rich patriotic guy to try. Has this been tried in the past? It seems like something that would have already been attempted.

But yeah, make american products, get the conservatives to endorse you, maybe even sign on people like Limbaugh as a spokesman, and try to get the attention of the NASCAR mainstream america crowd. Seems like a good business plan.

james t kirk

http://www.polartec.com/about/corporate.php

Malden mills.

Based in Lawrence Mass.

60 minutes did a story on these guys, they are one of the last American Textile Plants. They make Polartec I think.

Anyway, they had a fire back in 95 that burned the plant down and the CEO Aaron Feuerstein continued to pay his 3000 employees out of his own pocket while they rebuilt the plant.

But his products are american made and there is cheaper foreign stuff and a couple years ago, the place went bankrupt.

Now, it looks like they have emerged from bankruptcy protection, but they chopped more than half their employees (down to 1200) and this Aaron guy is no longer in charge.

I guess the beancounters were called in and arguably did what they had to do.

If Americans only supported their home grown industries, there may not be such the problem with jobs going overseas.

Hell, even Maytags are made in Mexico I believe.

seretogis

Actually I was referring more to tech jobs being outsourced to India/Pakistan, and the textile outsourcing.

__________________
seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

james t kirk

Actually, it would.

Because in universal health care coverage, the profit angle is removed (theoretically)

Canadians pay less per capita (at the government level) for full coverage than Americans currently pay for medicare, medicaid etc.

The cost of any proceedure is dictated by the government, not those running the hospitals.

No more would hospitals be able to charge $100.00 per tylenol.

They would get 20 cents whether they liked it or not.

smooth

AFAIK, the FDA doesn't have authority to set prices.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

smooth

I haven't seen it introduced as a business model, per se. But when I lived in some rural, small towns, everyone was painfully aware of the devastation the big box stores were inflicting on the local economy.

As a result, they (the local merchants) always sought other local businesses to meet their needs. Also, people moving into town respected the fact that we were locally owned and operated and would agree to pay a bit more when I pointed out that they would be dealing with a local, established name than if they went with the cheaper products. If they have a problem, they can look the owner's name up in a phone book and show up on his porch, so to speak.

Of the people I knew who shopped at Wal-Mart, most did so out of necessity, not because they liked the products. Sometimes they would splurge on the cheap electronics, but most of the time these people wouldn't be able to afford the American made product or the GemStar.

Superbelt

I have a plan I would like to see a brave politican champion. I think, if all conditions were met, it would do a lot of good, not just for american and other industrialized nations, but for the world over.
I know it's a bit of "social engineering" and protectionism, which some here see as evil themes, but they are on too grand of a scale to really be anything quite so selfish.

Well, here it is:
A worldwide human condition tariff.

The first step is we need to get all G8 nations to agree to implement a worldwide tariff. This tariff is done on a sliding scale and takes into account both human rights and environment.

If your nation has lax environmental standards and you are degrading your environment, a tax gets placed on your goods. We tax you if you pay your workers, for example, 89 cents a day or lock them in unhealthy buildings or make them do obscenely dangerous tasks or any other human rights violations.

The tax would have to be so high as to make it cheaper to manufacture in the G8 nations rather than shitholes because the tariffs bite you in the ass so hard that it becomes counterproductive.

This would have two effects, it would keep jobs from being sent overseas, and it would bring up the standards in those countries so we could reduce the tariffs as they made progress. Eventually the standards in those countries become equivalent to ours and there is no more need for the tax, and there will be no incentive to outsource to that nation specifically for cheap labor.

For this to work all G8 nations have to agree to it and implement it rigidly. The G8 consists of USA, Japan, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada and Russia.
This bloc represents most of the worlds consumption. Once we have this, it would be fairly easy to pressure the rest of the developed world to follow suit and join up with the international tariffs. We could threaten to implement a penalty tariff for NOT joining the group. That should bring in everyone.

I think it would work. The world needs to grow some balls and just do it. Who likes the idea, and who would vote for a candidate that is pushing it?

smooth

Superbelt,

How do we deal with the negative repurcussions that could occur if the tax stymies economic development?

If the nations have lax policies to draw corporations to operate there, why would, or even how could, they improve the economic environment so people still want to do business there?

If we tax, say a company in Argentina, because it allows companies to dump crud in their streams, wouldn't the company just relocate to another nation? That actually seems to be what you want, so they will relocate to a nation that isn't so environmentally lax. While this might prod nations to change policies, it could have serious repurcussions to their economy once industries are forced out by high surcharges.

While this might stem the outflow of jobs from the G8 nations, it wouldn't do much to the economies of the developing nations.

I would like you to incorporate some safety valves into your model. One of the things that might be useful is the notion that companies actually benefit from workers who can buy their products. Market saturation occurs more frequently when you have less consumers. I suspect that staving off that saturation point is the focus of excellent business minds.

And why does seretogis keep getting the last word !)

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

seretogis

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Canada determines reasonable price-caps for their drugs. The same sort of thing could be implemented here via the FDA without federalizing all of our hospitals and insurance companies.

__________________
seretogis - sieg heil
perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most, forgot how it feels well almost
no one to blame always the same, open my eyes wake up in flames

onetime2

Interesting how healthcare costs get boiled down to big Pharma so fast.

The realities of the pharmaceutical industry are a bit different than you all seem to think. First and foremost is the cost of developing, getting approval for, and marketing the drugs are enormous, then throw in the liability that goes along with their production and the inevitable lawsuits when they're used, add to that the countless countries who put price caps on the drugs and what you've got is a recipe for a market where very potential drugs will be pursued and brought to fruition.

As it stands, the US market is subsidizing the Canadian and European drug markets because it's one of the few major markets that doesn't impose price controls. Should the US go that route, you will see a whole lot fewer new drugs coming out into any market.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

damianjames

I still have yet to see any company larger than a single store in a small town take a stance of being All-American. They won't do it, who knows if it will work? Would I pay more for a product that was made for strictly American labor and profit? Hell yes I would.

__________________
Visualize Whirled Peas.

james t kirk

Actually, that is not true.

The reality is that the big phramas spend more advertising their products than they do inventing them and getting FDA approval.

As far as "new drugs" go, the big pharmas aren't interested in coming up for a cure or a vaccine for anything. They only want to sell you treatments. They want you to take a beaker of pills for the rest of your socalled life.

Back in the 40's and 50's when the government ran research programs at the Universities, they discovered antibiotics like penicilin, and vaccines for mumps, small pox, leperasy, and polio.

Please list any vaccine discovered by the big pharmas in the last 20 years that I would say, "wow, thank god for the big pharmaceutical companies"

You won't be able to.

onetime2

The costs are nowhere close to comparable, even when you throw the cost of a salesforce into the "advertising" mix. The average R&D costs (including research on drugs that don't pan out) of bringing a new drug through the entire R&D and government approval process is about $800 million*. You then have to recoup your costs during the patent protected period of the drug before someone else takes your work and sells it. In most cases the patents already are nearly half over before the drug even gets to market.

As far as your big pharma conspiracy theory of holding back treatments in order to make more money, please. Companies pray for a drug which will hit the $billion mark. A cure for any major disease would easily hit that mark.

As far as vaccines in the last 20 years, there have been vaccines for Hep A, Lyme Disease, and rotavirus.

There are countless non-vaccines created by the evil big pharma companies that save millions of lives a year that are one use drugs and do not require a lifetime of maintenance.

*J.A. DiMasi, R.W. Hansen, and H.G. Grabowski, “The Price of Innovation: New Estimates of Drug Development Costs,”

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

james t kirk

Oh really?

Read this.....

http://www.actupny.org/reports/drugcosts.html

and, well, don't listen to me, maybe you will listen to Stanford University.

http://mednews.stanford.edu/releases...aceutical.html

The other neat little thing the pharmaceuticals do is make a small change to a patented drug (once the patent runs out), then get a new patent for a drug that does exactly the same thing.

Pretty neat trick!!!

No, I have no faith in the big phramaceutical companies to "do the right thing", anymore than i have faith in the big oil companies to protect the environment.

onetime2

First and foremost the first "study" you posted includes operating costs of the company under their "administration" heading. I guess the desk I sit at and the upkeep of the buildings is a "marketing expense". Secondly, they include all drug samples as a marketing expense including those drugs given away to those who can't afford to pay for them.

The Stanford study you point to simply states overall marketing expenditures and doesn't even try to compare them to R&D costs. Additionally they purposely are studying the costs of "the most promoted" drugs, do you really think that's a representative study of the industry at large?

As far as your argument around slightly changing around a patent to extend the life of it, absolutely they do it. And, in the vast majority of cases it fails miserably. Doctors, Pharmacy Benefit Managers and Managed Care Organizations aren't stupid and they know this and write and fill prescriptions accordingly.

Drug prices are a minor component in healthcare costs and an even smaller player in forcing jobs overseas. How much do you think hospital stays cost in relation to drugs?

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

james t kirk

I dunno how i got onto the topic of pharmaceuticals.

The link I showed also breaks down the cost of R and D as a percentage purely by itself and you can see that it is quite small.

My cousin worked for Glaxo, and she told me that the guys in the labs are the worst paid of anyone at Glaxo. Ironic cause they are some of the brightest and most intelligent and the ones they depend on. Some big mouth Sales rep will make far more dough than the guy working 16 hours a day doing the research.

But let's just say this, "they spend a shit load on advertising".

And I hate the commercials they come up with, other than Viagara. (On a tagent has anyone heard about the third pill to give you a hard on, Leviatran, or something like that. It gives you a hard on for 32 hours. 32 hours!!!)

It's like BMW for example. $10,000.00 of the sticker price of every BMW goes to pay for the advertising.

james t kirk

whoops

onetime2

I don't disagree with you, they spend a lot of money. There is plenty of room for more efficiency and their business planning leaves a lot to be desired. I've been in the pharma industry for the last 4 years or so after coming from a couple of other industries and I am consistently amazed at how backwards their thinking can be on a number of issues but there's a lot of good that comes from the industry that never gets play. In many cases drug companies help to cut healthcare costs by getting patients out of the hospital sooner by using their products, coming up with regimens and packaging/dispensing that help push compliance, and by giving literally billions of dollars worth of drug to impoverished patients every year.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Phaenx

Haven't we imported more jobs than we've outsourced since starting this program? I'll have to look it up.

__________________
"I went shopping last night at like 1am. The place was empty and this old woman just making polite conversation said to me, 'where is everyone??' I replied, 'In bed, same place you and I should be!' Took me ten minutes to figure out why she gave me a dirty look." --Some guy