China tech eye opener

[Kevatc]

Was watching Nightline tonight and the episode was dedicated to the manufacturing of Apple products in China. To be fair, apparently Dell, Nintendo, and Intel have similar practices. At any rate, Apple is paying it's China based manufacturing folks a whopping $1.73/hour. They work 12 hour shifts, have to buy their own meals from the company store, and try to eat as fast as they can so they can catch a nap before going back to work. They sleep 7 folks to a room. They space they get is minimally better than a submariner but the actual accomodations are a lot more spartan. They also have trapeze like nets strung out along the bottom of the buildings to help reduce deaths by defying the effects of gravity after jumping from "x" floor. These same workers have to work 47 hours of OT just to have any kind of tax taken from them. Some might think this sounds like a deal except they are already working 60 hour weeks.

All in all if Apple wasn't having their manufacturing done in China those $400-500 iPads would probably be going for triple that price.

I don't know what the answer is but our need for relatively inexpensive electronics has repurcussions well beyond the outsourcing of jobs. I know the vast majority of electronic type products are made in China and if you have the want or need to have one then the heck with where it's made. There is no way any of these jobs are coming back. I don't know how you compete with a person who is paid $1.73/hr.

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[Burt Gummer]

That is why there will be no digging out the US economically after our collapse. Unlike the first Depression, and even with all the advantages we had then, it took many years. This time when we collapse, we collapse for good. Welcome to the first developed third world nation. 1) find weaved basket 2) put on head

Peter Schiff's classic "Island" story explains it best:

 

[rufus]

Unlike the first Depression, and even with all the advantages we had then, it took many years.

Are you referring to FDR's New Deal?

 

[Burt Gummer]

No, I was referring to manufacturing and production back then, and a hard working get-it-done populace. Now we have an empty shell filled with lazy entitlement-minded people and real jobs shipped overseas. People living on credit cards, debts, and Ponzis. People can Twitter each other as the ship is sinking.
Perhaps we have a few more months left as the deluded folks cling on to the belief that a collapse cannot happen here. After all, the stock market is 13k. Everything must be ok.

 

[dmancornell]

You can bet there would be electronics manufacturing in the US if the government didn't convince idiot voters that their unskilled labor is worth $40+/hour then force the manufacturing companies to pay those inflated wages at the penalty of imprisonment. The only reason car manufacturing still exists in the US is because of government propping up the corpse with taxpayer money.

As usual, government creates the problem then masquerades as the solution.

 

[rufus]

You can bet there would be electronics manufacturing in the US if the government didn't convince idiot voters that their unskilled labor is worth $40+/hour then force the manufacturing companies to pay those inflated wages at the penalty of imprisonment. The only reason car manufacturing still exists in the US is because of government propping up the corpse with taxpayer money.

As usual, government creates the problem then masquerades as the solution.

Bravo!

 

[Burt Gummer]

I am a contractor and did a public works job recently and it was really an eye opener. It is impossible to do business on a large scale in the USA. The wage laws, reporting requirements, payroll weekly BOLI reports; insurance; bonds -- well, absolutely ridiculous on every level. Competitiveness is killed in favor of conformity. The guy that sweeps up the job has to make $28/hr, more if he lives 30 miles away from the job site. $28/hr equates to about $45/hr to an employer once you dish out all the taxes, fees, overhead, it never ends. The government has to audit everything which means it takes months to get paid.

Americans were sold the lie that competing on a global scale with literal labor slaves was a great idea. The average global laborer makes less than $5/day; a day! not an hour. When I see Steve Wynn or Donald Trump (scumbag) building Casinos and businesses in China I don't think they are 'anti-American." They are just businessmen doing what they have to do to make a profit. After all, the USA is a corporation and profit is king.

Mexico - $3 per day in U.S. Funds!
Bangladesh $0.13 per hour in U.S. Funds
China - $0.44 per hour in U.S. Funds
Costa Rica - $2.38 per hour in U.S. Funds
Dominican Republic - $1.62 per hour in U.S. Funds
El Salvador - $1.38 per hour in U.S. Funds
Haiti - $0.49 per hour in U.S. Funds
Honduras - $1.31 per hour in U.S. Funds
Indonesia - $0.34 per hour in U.S. Funds
Nicaragua - $0.76 per hour in U.S. Funds
Vietnam - $0.26 per hour in U.S. Funds

We're done, put a fork in us. Our domestic production is money printing useless notes out of thin air. Our exports are bombs and death. Very, very sad to watch.

 

[rufus]

So what is the average annual income in, pick one (Mexico). Maybe $3 per day is pretty dang good. What does a house cost in Mexico? Groceries? How can you compare wages on a global scale like that? It makes no sense.

You are right about the ridiculous pay scales for government work. It goes something like this:

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then the government said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then the government said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One to do the studies and one to write the reports.

Then the government said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So they created the following positions, a time keeper, and a payroll officer, then hired two people.

Then the government said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then the government said, "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cutback overall cost." So they laid off the night watchman.

 

[Kevatc]

As usual, government creates the problem then masquerades as the solution.

I don't kow what the answer is but even if there were zero corporate tax I think businesses would still outsource jobs to cheaper labor countries. Are Americans now suppossed to try to live like their Chinese counterparts?

Government does have a roll in finding a solution. If left totally to private business the need for profits will drive any and all manufacturing jobs out of the country. Our country will become a third world place (as someone already mentioned) where nobody will be able to afford the stuff manufactured elsewhere. I believe governments roll is to incentivize job creation here.

 

[dmancornell]

I don't kow what the answer is but even if there were zero corporate tax I think businesses would still outsource jobs to cheaper labor countries. Are Americans now suppossed to try to live like their Chinese counterparts?

Government does have a roll in finding a solution. If left totally to private business the need for profits will drive any and all manufacturing jobs out of the country. Our country will become a third world place (as someone already mentioned) where nobody will be able to afford the stuff manufactured elsewhere. I believe governments roll is to incentivize job creation here.

No, government's only role is to get out of the way and stop aggravating the problem with regulation and class warfare agitation. No amount of government incentive or subsidy can pad the massive difference in labor cost, so it is pointless to try.

The real solution is for first-world industry to either innovate or differentiate away from the third world labor intensive and low capital manufacturing lines. There is in fact electronics manufacturing operating in the US, in the form of very complex computer components such as computer processors, which no Chinese labor pool can match in skill requirements. The US companies do fine without any kind of government assistance, so well in fact one got sued by the US government for supposedly violating anti-trust "laws" in a blatant cash grab, but that's another story.

Another example is the formerly domestic manufacture of high quality smartphone glass, which has since been outsourced to Japan and Korea due to onerous regulation and costs in the US.

Differentiation and quality are the solutions for America, not protectionism by propping up zombie industries with taxpayer money in return for the union/xenophobe vote.

 

[Burt Gummer]

Governments roll is to ruin everything it touches. The Depression of 1919 is one people don't know about because it was so short. Why? Because government backed off. Government intervention, via the parasitic Fed, is the problem.

There is no 'free market' here, that is a myth. Like a giant blood tic, the Fed (private of course, not gov) has had 99 years to bleed us dry and the sucking sound has gotten louder every year. No puppet politician will ever make a difference when the banksters run the show. Yes, we will be on par living standard wise with the rest of the world. No more LED TV in each room, no more than one car, no more extra bedrooms. Malls will be ghost towns because the greatest gift will be food. The 99.9% will be tenants and peasants. The .01% will live in absolute luxury. No more middle class.

These are the last of the good times, so live it up. The party is ending. We can't drive 55.

The following are 55 interesting facts about the U.S. economy in 2012.... give special attn to number 14 ....

#1 As you read this, there are more than 6 million mortgages in the United States that are overdue.

#2 In January, U.S. home prices were the lowest that they have been in more than a decade.

#3 In Florida right now, some drivers are paying nearly 6 dollars for a gallon of gas.

#4 On average, you could buy about 10 gallons of gas for an hour of work back in the mid-90s. Today, the average hour of work will get you less than 6 gallons of gas.

#5 Sadly, 43 percent of all American families spend more than they earn each year.

#6 According to Gallup, the unemployment rate was at 8.3% in mid-January but rose to 9.0% in mid-February.

#7 The percentage of working age Americans that have jobs is not increasing. The employment to population ratio has stayed very steady (hovering between 58% and 59%) since the beginning of 2010.

#8 If you gathered together all of the workers that are "officially" unemployed in the United States into one nation, they would constitute the 68th largest country in the entire world.

#9 When Barack Obama first took office, the number of "long-term unemployed workers" in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is sitting at 5.6 million.

#10 The average duration of unemployment in the United States is hovering close to an all-time record high.

#11 According to Reuters, approximately 23.7 million American workers are either unemployed or underemployed right now.

#12 There are about 88 million working age Americans that are not employed and that are not looking for employment. That is an all-time record high.

#13 According to CareerBuilder, only 23 percent of American companies plan to hire more employees in 2012.

#14 Back in the year 2000, about 20 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs. Today, about 5 percent of all jobs in America are manufacturing jobs.

#15 The United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#16 Amazingly, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been shut down since 2001.

#17 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.

#18 During the Obama administration, worker health insurance costs have risen by 23 percent.

#19 An all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all at this point, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.

#20 According to the New York Times, approximately 100 million Americans are either living in poverty or in "the fretful zone just above it".

#21 In the United States today, corporate profits are at an all-time high. The percentage of Americans that are living in "extreme poverty" is also at an all-time high according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

#22 In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

#23 The poorest 50 percent of all Americans now collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#24 The number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent since 2007.

#25 According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.

#26 Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the number of Americans on food stamps has increased from 32 million to 46 million.

#27 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.

#28 In 1984, the median net worth of households led by someone 65 or older was 10 times larger than the median net worth of households led by someone 35 or younger. Today, the median net worth of households led by someone 65 or older is 47 times larger than the median net worth of households led by someone 35 or younger.

#29 If you can believe it, 37 percent of all U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than zero.

#30 After adjusting for inflation, U.S. college students are borrowing about twice as much money as they did a decade ago.

#31 According to the Student Loan Debt Clock, total student loan debt in the United States will surpass the 1 trillion dollar mark at some point in 2012. If you went out right now and starting spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#32 Today, 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month.

#33 Incredibly, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#34 The average interest rate on a credit card that is carrying a balance is now up to 13.10 percent.

#35 Of the U.S. households that do have credit card debt, the average amount of credit card debt is an astounding $15,799.

#36 Overall, Americans are carrying a grand total of $798 billion in credit card debt. If you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent $798 billion by now.

#37 It may be hard to believe, but the truth is that consumer debt in America has increased by a whopping 1700% since 1971.

#38 At this point, about 70 percent of all auto purchases in the United States involve an auto loan.

#39 In the United States today, 45 percent of all auto loans are made to subprime borrowers.

#40 Mortgage debt as a percentage of GDP has more than tripled since 1955.

#41 According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.

#42 To get the same purchasing power that you got out of $20.00 back in 1970 you would have to have more than $116 today.

#43 When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today an ounce of gold costs more than $1700 an ounce.

#44 The number of Americans that are not paying federal incomes taxes is at an all-time high.

#45 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.

#46 The amount of money that the federal government gives directly to Americans has increased by 32 percent since Barack Obama entered the White House.

#47 During 2012, the U.S. government must roll over nearly 3 trillion dollars of old debt.

#48 The U.S. debt to GDP ratio has now reached 101 percent.

#49 At the moment, the U.S. national debt is sitting at a grand total of $15,419,800,222,325.15.

#50 The U.S. national debt is now more than 22 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.

#51 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.

#52 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.

#53 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

#54 Right now, the U.S. national debt is increasing by about 150 million dollars every single hour.

#55 Spending by the federal government accounted for about 2 percent of GDP back in 1800. It accounted for 23.8 percent in 2011, and according to former U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker, it will account for 36.8 percent of GDP by 2040.

- Credit to the Economic Collapse Blog dot com

 

[EZLivin]

I maintain we are going to revert back to living standards more reminiscent of the 60s, but with modern electronic sophistication. No more McMansion subdivisions where everyone competes with everyone else to see how many expensive SUVs they can fit in their driveway. No more second homes you fly or drive to a few times a year to "get away" (for whatever reason) from your McMansion. Maybe learn how to actually cook or bake something from scratch. What is unfolding does not have to be the end of our civilization, but does need to be the end of an extravagance that hinges on pathological. I welcome a return to sanity here in the US even if it is forced on us (not by gov, but by economics) and hope we can keep from blowing ourselves up (all-out war) so that our system can indeed "reboot."

 

[A.I.P.]

Oh, but the 1960's were "Evile"!

 

[Burt Gummer]

A trip back to the 60s standard of living would be fantastic but it won't happen. We are a bankrupt shell now, in every way. Not possible. When the debt bubble bursts the US will stink like the bottom of an aquarium and no one will bother cleaning up the mess. Tens of millions of people are simply going to starve to death in the days/weeks that follow the collapse.

60s America had everything going for it. We do not. The 60s were the beginning of the end. It has taken 50 years for America to decline, by design. That just goes to show how great and powerful this nation once was ... when the banksters want to bring a smaller nation like Argentina in 2001 to its knees, it takes just months or short years. We are a huge animal and hard to kill, but the goal with us is the end of the US as a sovereign nation and absorbing us into the global collective.

We are like the bull in the arena with dozens of stabs wounds, ready to fall over and die.

 

[swoop]

Oh, but the 1960's were "Evile"!

Best days of my life...Fast cars, hot chicks, good tunes, and .27cent a gallon gas.

 

[jimwsea]

Its the race to the bottom. This country has the furthest to fall, but we're moving pretty fast.

 

[rufus]

Our corporate tax rate is among the highest in the world. Many of you want it to go up? Why? To punish success? In the name of fairness (whatever that is)?

How about making it among the lowest in the world and lightening up on regulations, then sit back and watch the economy soar.

But nooooo: Economists don't like some of Obama's corporate tax plan

 

[EZLivin]

A trip back to the 60s standard of living would be fantastic but it won't happen.

The reason I think it is possible is we still have some big things going for us. We are technologically innovative. We have vast natural resources. Our climate is conducive to producing enough food to feed us (and the world). We have a history of pulling through crisis. We are entrpreneurs. We are not bordered by enemies wanting to destroy us. We have a significant labor pool to draw from.

What we have going against us (at the moment): Elected officials who have destroyed Main Street capitalism. Elected officials who are nothing more than tools of the so-called "investment banks" and conglomerates. Overly litigious society at all levels. Over-regulation at all levels.

All the above are reversible - the question is whether as a society we want it or not.

As a side note: We debate whether or not we can compete with China on things like manufacturing. Well, European and Japanese auto makers must think so or they wouldn't have plants over here. And Germany sure seems to be able to compete on a world class scale. Due to rising energy costs alone I think we are going to be seeing a lot more production coming home in the decades ahead.

 

[Burt Gummer]

Again, Normalcy Bias. People have never experienced things like starvation and mass death here in their lifetimes, or war here (sorry kiddies, it isn't like COD; war, not just for the Middle East), so they believe it will never happen here. Sorry. There will be no soft landing. No simple 'reverting to simpler times.' Just very extreme and painful collapse. The Dominos are all lined up. It is just a matter of when TPTB decide to kick over the first one. The bigger they are, the farther they fall.

Like my favorite bumper sticker: All Empires Fail, but not this one. I'm pretty sure this one will last forever.

Unfortunately, from our conduct, greed, sloth, apathy, and immorality (nothing to do with religious nonsense), no one will really miss us.

 

[Kevatc]

Again, Normalcy Bias. People have never experienced things like starvation and mass death here in their lifetimes, or war here (sorry kiddies, it isn't like COD; war, not just for the Middle East), so they believe it will never happen here. Sorry. There will be no soft landing. No simple 'reverting to simpler times.' Just very extreme and painful collapse. The Dominos are all lined up. It is just a matter of when TPTB decide to kick over the first one. The bigger they are, the farther they fall.

Like my favorite bumper sticker: All Empires Fail, but not this one. I'm pretty sure this one will last forever.

Unfortunately, from our conduct, greed, sloth, apathy, and immorality (nothing to do with religious nonsense), no one will really miss us.

Guess I picked the wrong day to quit smoking, drinking, stop taking my anti-depressants, give up hookers, glue sniffing, huffing, and playing Russian roulette. I'm going to quite shaving, bathing, or stopping at stop lights. I'm never going to mow my lawn again. I am going to quit flusing my toilets and while I'm at it I think I'll quite wipping as well.