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Sorry Protesters: Your Jobs Are Being Sent To China And They Aren't Coming Back
Sorry Protesters: Your Jobs Are Being Sent To China And They Aren't Coming Back
Courtesy of Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse
Did you see the huge crowds of protesters that flooded the Michigan Capitol on Tuesday? They were there to protest two bills there were being considered by the state legislature that would limit the power of unions in the state. Michigan lawmakers approved the bills and this absolutely infuriated the protesters.
There is a lot of passion on both sides of this debate, but I am afraid that both sides in this debate are missing the bigger picture. If we keep shipping millions of our jobs to China, there isn't going to be work for anyone no matter how much power unions have or don't have.
During the month of October, the U.S. trade deficit increased to 42.2 billion dollars. Our trade with China accounted for most of that deficit. Our trade deficit with China in October increased to a new all-time one month record of 29.5 billion dollars. Nearly 30 billion dollars that could have gone to U.S. businesses and U.S. workers went to China instead. Since 1975, a total of about 8 trillion dollars that could have gone to U.S. businesses and U.S. workers went to the rest of the world instead.
Shiny new factories are going up all over China, and meanwhile our once great manufacturing cities are degenerating into desolate wastelands. So what is going to happen when all of the good paying manufacturing jobs are gone? Are we all going to fight bitterly over whether we should unionize the low paying jobs that remain at places such as Wal-Mart and McDonalds? Such an approach is not going to bring back prosperity to America. We desperately need to start building things and start creating real wealth inside this country once again. We desperately need to stop sending tens of thousands of businesses, millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of our national wealth out of the country. Unfortunately, I don't see anyone out there holding protests about our trade deficit. Nobody really seems to care, so our economy will continue to bleed good jobs and the middle class will continue to be destroyed.
The funny thing is that the workers that are out there protesting these union bills actually voted for the politicians that are killing their jobs. Both parties are married to the one world economic system and the "free trade" agenda, and Barack Obama has been one of the worst offenders. He has been pushing for more "free trade agreements" throughout the past four years, and yet union workers continue to support him enthusiastically.
How foolish can they possibly be?
Yeah, let's merge American workers into a global labor pool with workers in third world countries on the other side of the globe that work in absolutely nightmarish conditions for as little as 45 dollars a month. That sounds like a great idea, doesn't it?
Oh, but you don't want to work for 45 dollars a month?
You don't even want to work for 450 dollars a month?
Well, then the big corporations that fund politicians like Obama will just take your jobs and send them halfway around the planet.
Do you think that your unions will save your jobs?
Michigan already has the highest rate of union membership in the Midwest.
It also has the highest rate of unemployment in the Midwest.
Over the past couple of decades, thousands of businesses in Michigan have either closed down or moved facilities overseas.
Did the unions prevent any of that?
No.
If union bosses really wanted to do some good, they would be organizing protests against our incredibly foolish trade policies.
But instead, they tell their members to vote for politicians like Obama and then they run out to the stores and fill their carts with huge piles of products that were made in China.
Union workers need to wake up to one fundamental economic fact - in a one world economic system, the big corporations simply do not need you. They can make their products in lots of other countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.
But instead of getting upset about what is really killing their jobs, union workers in Michigan are screaming mad about a couple of new laws that will take some power away from the unions.
That is kind of like being obsessed with a broken fingernail when your leg has just been sawed off and you are gushing blood all over the floor.
Oh, but union workers did put on a good show up in Michigan. The following is how a Bloomberg article described the protests...
Officials spent days gearing up for crowds brought out by the legislature’s sudden action last week to give initial approval to three anti-dues bills, which exclude police and firefighters. At least one helicopter buzzed overhead today, and mounted police surveyed the protesters. Signs reading “Don’t hurt working families” dotted lawns.
The crowd numbered more than 10,000, according to State Police Inspector Gene Adamczyk, with more buses still arriving. The Capitol was closed when it reached its capacity of 2,000.
The anger surrounding these protests was almost palpable. One state representative even declared that "there will be blood".
Meanwhile, many of those same protesters will buy toys for their kids that were made in China with wrapping paper that was made in China and they will put them under a Christmas tree that was made in China.
Merging our economy with the economy of communist China was one of the stupidest economic moves that we could have ever made. They are systematically taking our wealth, and then we have to go over there and beg them to lend money back to us.
Pretty soon the Chinese economy will dwarf ours. According to the National Intelligence Council, the GDP of Asia will have surpassed the GDP of North America and the GDP of all of Europe combined by 2030.
But if we had never opened up trade with communist China none of this would have ever happened.
Why won't American workers get upset about this stuff?
Do you really want your standard of living to decline to the level of a Chinese factory worker?
You can see some photos of what life is like for workers in China's toy factories right here. This is what the future holds for American workers unless something is done.
For much more on how our trade policies are absolutely gutting our economy, please see the statistics in this article: "55 Reasons Why You Should Buy Products That Are Made In America This Holiday Season".
But no, the big unions will never dare oppose Obama. They love him far too much to do that.
Meanwhile, we continue to bleed good jobs. Large companies have announced the elimination of more than 100,000 jobs since November 6th, and it looks like 2013 is going to be a very difficult year for American workers.
If you are an American worker, you need to ask yourself why anyone would want to hire you in this kind of economic environment. You are 10 to 20 times more expensive than workers on the other side of the globe. In addition, our politicians just keep piling more rules, regulations and taxes on to the backs of the employers in this country. It is more difficult than ever to make a profit from the labor of an American worker.
Honestly, I understand why most small businesses don't want to hire anyone in this economic environment. It just doesn't make sense. For much more on this, please see this excellent article by Charles Hugh-Smith.
And there are signs that things are going to get even worse. For example, the NFIB Small Business Outlook survey dropped like a rock during November. That is a very bad sign for hiring.
And another ominous sign for the economy was that the latest trade report showed that imports and exports are both declining. That is usually a signal that a recession is coming. Exports fell faster than imports did, and that is the reason why the trade deficit grew. If imports and exports both fall again next month, it will be time to become extremely concerned. When imports and exports both decline, that is a sign of slowing economic activity.
The United States will always need to trade with other nations, but we need to do it in a way that is balanced and that protects American workers. Right now there is a one way conveyor belt taking businesses, jobs and money out of this country. If we don't do something about our mammoth trade deficit, we will have no chance of reversing the steady decline of the U.S. economy.
Hopefully we can get the American people to wake up and realize this. Instead, most of the comments at the end of this article will probably be about the pros and cons of unions. That will be yet another sign that most people still don't get these issues.
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The jobs will come back from China - but they will be done by robots rather than 300 lb union thugs. Robots don't need healthcare or pensions, and robots don't take sick days so they can be bussed across state lines to participate in staged protests.
Unions priced themselves out of the global market a long time ago.
If you purchase goods made by $45/month labor, you deserve to work for $45/month too.
Cute article but your point is skewed and frankly, the comments are a bit disturbing. Why are you cursing free trade. That is the one thing I would think to be sacred on this blog. Jobs being outsourced is simply a barometer of a non-competitive workforce. People choose to work in the conditions that are considered so criminal in third world countries. I guarantee you that that is work they are glad to have. To condenm free trade and outsourced employment is not much differnt than supporting the marxists in washington. I expect this type of rhetoric out of union morons but not from most of these readers. Remeber true capitalism invlolves freedom to transact with whomever is the most beneficial and symbiotic relationship. No one makes people trade with other countries except the desire to provide competitve goods and services for a chance at profit. That was the american dream.
Best policy is to trade with all and make war with none. If other countries manipulate their markets, that is their mistake. Setting up tit for tat will only hurt both sides. Both sides includes us, so don't do it. Free trade is the way to go. Currently the US manipulates as well... Look at the FED policies. We need to move to actual free markets before lecturing others.
TIMBO: Can you give me an example of free trade? Certainly not China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, ... All these countries practice managed trade. They do not allow any imports to compete with their home industries. The U.S. is absolutely insane to even deal with these countries. All we need to do is practice tit-for-tat trading and all trade would cease. Fuck our corrupt politicians.
Sorry you are wrong. Trade wars will end in a lot of crying for the US.
I absolutely cannot give you an example of a free trade economy. If you know where one is, I have a passport. This system is far too entrenched to be cleansed. This is heading toward disaster like the last time it got this out of control(WWII). I just hope that I am alive when the dust settles. The real threat, in my opinion, is falling victim to random crime when the masses riot.
I don't really understand some of your comments either. "choose to have"..........really? Ask all the slave labor. "glad to have" really.......ask those jumping out of Apples windows.
If you like the idea of being put on a level playing field then good luck with that. This is nothing more than one more step to world gov't. 10 billion slaves and 4 filthy fucking rich assholes.
BTW the people that do choose to work in those criminal type conditions do so in order to eat. You'd be happy to eat too. Congrats for degrading the human race to canine.
People that "chose" to work for Carnegie and Rockefeller also wanted to eat. They were able to eat becuase a capitalist knew he needed human capital to expand. Otherwise those people could have chose to continue starving in the fields. I suppose Carnegie and Rockefeller were evil too even though they provided thousands of jobs and grew cities and provided cheaper goods for the betterment of the entire population. I guess Ford was a real prick too. You are falling into the class warefare trap and probably cannot escape that brainwashing. Good luck. Your best hope, and mine, is the reset that was mentioned.
People that "chose" to work for Carnegie and Rockefeller also wanted to eat. They were able to eat becuase a capitalist knew he needed human capital to expand. Otherwise those people could have chose to continue starving in the fields. I suppose Carnegie and Rockefeller were evil too even though they provided thousands of jobs and grew cities and provided cheaper goods for the betterment of the entire population. I guess Ford was a real prick too. You are falling into the class warefare trap and probably cannot escape that brainwashing. Good luck. Your best hope, and mine, is the reset that was mentioned.
Call it a choice if you like, but don't pretend for a second it's a FREE choice.
When your choices are starvation or slavery, there's a strong inducement to choose slavery, despite any claim to "freedom."
There is a lot of passion on both sides of this debate, but I am afraid that both sides in this debate are missing the bigger picture. If we keep shipping millions of our jobs to China, there isn't going to be work for anyone no matter how much power unions have or don't have.
OK that's less than half the story. How many firefighter (pictured sign) or other public sector jobs have been shipped to China? What parent wouldn't want to outsource their public school kid's education to say, Singapore?
A certain number as 'americans' can no longer afford living in environments that can sustain those kind of activity.
It is already showing as in the US, contraction is happening and redeployment to cover the strategical areas (aka those populated by the 'american' middle class) while letting other areas a desert for this kind of jobs.
Welcome to an 'american' world in which outsourcing is a mandatory solution.
I'm looking forward when all of those overpaid CEO jobs are shipped overseas to China as well. And why the hell are fire fighters and police officers exempt from this and other so-called right-to-work laws? Could it be because the corporate elite need these union thugs on their side to protect and save them bloody and brutal attacks from an anger mob.
Not sure about fire fighters, but I agree with you, cut the police force money and good luck getting them to fend off the same riots that they would rather partake. When I first hear about this I thought, how are they going to remove the police union? Then I saw they were not going to, yet.
THE COPS WILL BE THE LAST GOVT EMPLOYEES TO BE GETTING PAYCHECKS. after everyone is in the govt is gone the cops will still be there gettin' paid and followin' orders to SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT
Fire fighters, police officers are certainly not exempt of this. 'Americans' are so self centered they manage to ignore what happens next door to them. They can see what happens just in front of their door but next door, it is already too far from their self centered narrowed center of interests.
Redeployment: as the environment grows so rich it can no longer afford supporting work like firefighters and police officers, their number is diminishing and such they are redeployed to cover strategical areas in 'american' nations, that is middle class populated areas.
CEO jobs are not to be outsourced.
In 'american' economics, outsourcing is a bottom to top process: as the importation of wealth and the accumulation of it on a certain area makes it more and more expensive to live on that area, the less rewarded activity is first to be expelled from the area.
At first in 'american' economics, all people can share the same environment, from the sweeper to the CEO board member. As transfer of wealth from the exterior to the interior intensifies, the sweeper can no longer afford living on the zone, has to move further etc
That is the great miracle of mobility as wished and accomplished by 'americans'
What is wrong from an 'american' economics point of view is not so much that jobs are expelled from an area (this is an essential force in 'american' economics) That is that 'americans' no longer follow the job as they used to.
So if for the same reason, work is moved from Alabama to Michigan, 'americans' invite to follow the job.
When work is move from the US to Vietnam, well, suddenly, it should not happen, 'americans' should not move to Vietnam and follow the job.
That is the full glory of 'americanism' for ya.
uh- yeah-they are exempt from this(in the Michigan right-to-work law as well as in Wisconsin's). you see-son- the elite need that ring of protection that the militarized police provide and the cops will be the last ones getting a paycheck from Uncle Sam
The redeploying of security forces like the police, the fire men is performed to favour and appease the 'american' middle class.
The 'american' upper class do not need protection from the 'american' middle class because they are servants to the 'american' middle class. See in the US, the place swarms with guns. And very little ado.
When you are surrounded by people with guns, that is an evidence.
AnAnonymous
Whilst you were larnin' Anglish you might have considered learning reason too. Your continual blatherings might tickle your Chicom handlers, but they always end in non sequiturs.
Let's hear something positive for a change. Like how American Citizenism made China and how China in the usual Chinese way refuses to be grateful for the free access they have had to the American market. By the way, when the warranty bill comes due for all the shit you have dumped into the West, your foreign exchange will evaporate overnite.
Argh... the fresh droppings of Chicom misinformation in the mornings...almost makes me want to watch Dr. Phil...almost...
Your continual blatherings might tickle your Chicom handlers, but they always end in non sequiturs.
________________
Absolutely. And your post makes a wonderful job at spotting and listing them.
'Americans', all for fantasy and propaganda.
overpaid CEOs actually work for soverign nations?
wake up man - even celebrities are bailing their home of origin to avoid austerity.
this article pushes propaganda that leads one to believe it is 'their fault my life sux'
jobs are leaving cause to get one requires more money than it will actually create - this is mandated by the idea nations employ workers - at the cost of what ever the money masters decide is the usury they can take without threatening their ability to make money off of sitting on money
i am the biggest nagger praying other naggers here can get to the root of their problems
Many of our jobs have been lost due to automation, but even more of them have been lost due to globalization. This wouldn't be so had our elected officials NOT crafted a whole slew of trade agreements that are geared towards enrich corporate America at the expense of the American workforce. Even after our corporations have created massive unemployment in the US by shipping thousands, if not millions, of jobs overseas, they still pay next to nothing in taxes and still receive military protection from our armed forces.
Talk about having your cake and eating it too. There's no doubt that our corporations are getting a smorgasbord of free lunches out of the rigged trade deals that we have with low-wage countries like India and China!
Michigan already has the highest rate of union membership in the Midwest.
It also has the highest rate of unemployment in the Midwest.
That's all you really needed to say, ilene. Rest is just noise...
that noise is no where near as loud as the noise that will come when employment stats are fine cause the Foxconn model of employment is sumthing to strive toward
the whole idea of Unions and is about top down control of what your value is thru this pushing and pulling you/we all cheer for
the only thing the US truly needs from China are some fireworks and magnets, all the rest is exploitation and ultimately the destruction of the US workforce and way of life.
Article 1 Section 8 US Constitution
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
Just another US Constitution snippet that 'goddamned piece of paper' calls for that politicians refuse to abide buy despite their hand-on-bible oath of office.
Without China how are we gonna build all the robots that will replace the workforce?
Guess there is a reason for all the jails here.
who need jails when we have walmart. Wage prisons are just as effective.
"Merging our economy with the economy of communist China was one of the stupidest economic moves that we could have ever made."
Clinton\Clinton 2016!
Really good article Ilene. The sheeple are so asleep to the realities.
so no one in America sees China growing?
and you believe this job/wealth transfer has nothing to do with things like the reason you are at ZH?
I agree with the main point. Free Lindsey Lohan.
There is also a natural counterpoint to the job exodus from the U.S. to the third world: A dramatically shrinking consumer base. Take the situation to the logical extreme where all manufacturing is done in 3rd world sweat shops where the workers are paid pennies. The buying power for all these products has been eradicated. And the preliminary signs of this transition are beginning to show up in sales figures for a variety of consumer products.
What a predicament for the Central Planners.
"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day. But a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery." - Thomas Jefferson
The false meme of free trade is exactly the type of thing that Thomas Jefferson meant. Going on 20 years straight, and all the different heads of the 2 headed hydra that is our purchased political system are equally guilty
blame anyone but who you see in the mirror - point of article
the idea 'we' allowed the merger of comminist China and capitalist America is a joke on the nagger who believes nations are soverign - meme that will rot your brain
wake up and understand that there are an infinite number of jobs for the soul who asks "what can i do" - a truth too painful to accept or act on now that the author has laid out the new truth
the very idea that you wont have a job cause of someone/place/thing you will never go to/meet/discover is the very basis for wealth transfer (and the fees that go with it) - who here realizes BRICS is a term Goldman Sachs coined?
who is at least willing to admit we are all GODDAMNEDMUTHERFUKINNAGGERSLAVES?!?!
IAMSLATTERY
Nice piece Ilene! But don't you think blaming Obama for all of this is more than a bit simplistic?
blaming others for your own problems - is that not the very basis of ZH articles and the very reason for interest rate swaps, wars, MBS...
WE ARE ALL NAGGERS WHO UNDERSTAND NUTHIN ABOUT CAPITAL BEING ONLY THE FRUIT OF LABOR.
we know nuthin here except your exact point that "they did this to me"
-nagger
blaming others for your own problems - is that not the very basis of ZH articles
There are still plenty articles with useful information in them. Many these days are just entertainment, tho.
You can see some photos of what life is like for workers in China's toy factories right here. This is what the future holds for American workers unless something is done.
Jeepers. . . after looking at the toy factory pictures, the Chinese workers have a nice variety of clothes, good food, decent housing, and all of that on far less money per month than is required in the U.S. As far as the two folks sleeping under the table are concerned, I've done that here in the U.S. at work many times in the crunch to meet important deadlines. This is not slave labor! At least half the people in these pictures are smiling! These are people elated to have a job that improves their life! These are your competitors and they look pretty good at it. They will work for less than you. Consumers (that's you and me when we're buying) benefit by obtaining BETTER VALUE.
Want to compete? Drop the minimum wage to zero. End all "Entitlements" (to other peoples labor, i.e. theft - Robin Hood style). We'll then have full employment. Take everyone off the Dole, including CPA's, Tax Lawyers, and other above-average minds that have been bribed out of productive activity in order to unravel make-work tax codes. Reduce government by 2/3's as soon as possible and people will become independent and productive instead of dependent and unproductive. If government exists for any reason than to prevent theft of your life and your assets, then government is the thief!
You'll never get away with that kind of incendiary logical thinking!
Too many people in the formerly first world love to bitch n moan about the loss of jobs to unfair trade practices, discriminatory regulations, slave labor practices, and the like, but never stop to question whether the consumerist lifestyle ingrained into the western world's consciousness has contributed more to the collapse in their economies than any of those factors.
And not only will they insist on overlooking the consequences of a populace trained to entitlement, educated to be functionally unemployable by private business, fat, lazy and, I fear, totally oblivious to the very notion of being 'competitive' with the rest of the world, but those same pundits(such as this author)with insist that if you just close the door on them, the hungrier and now better educated people of the 'developing' world will just go away, and leave Jack Horner alone in his lil corner;
what a total joke that is...walking the streets of a mid-sized city in China today, what I saw was a million people busting their asses producing and trading stuff...in a manner long outlawed in the USSA...now the epicentre of 'communist' over-regulated nanny state faux economies...where retail is the exclusive preserve of the crytpo-hebraic corpo-kleptocracy that finances and controls their [s]elected minions in the political-judicial structure and small bizness is now officially enemy of the state as well as tax cash cow...while the epicenter of so-called capitalism has switched to the East because their populace are hungry to better themselves and willing to do what it takes to get there...without an umbrella of social entitlements that the west has now long taken for granted....the nerve of them!
something that this total clown and the dead-end detrius of a dying eCONomic system he is pandering to in writing such witless tripe appear to not be able to fathom. Sorry Mr Synder, they're taking up the space in the vaccuum created by the fall from grace(and the will to hustle)of what was a grand experiment in economic freedom, hijacked and ruined by the relentless drive of the kosher mafia to appropriate the means of production to their own account.
ask any chinese worker if they would switch jobs/countries with any american worker
Maybe they do NOW, but once your plan is implemented, the USA would just be another China.
Here or there, samey-same.
Sometimes, i feel like we are really owned and trained by our Chinese masters. They are buying up the worldand we will all end up punching Made in China clocks and spend or yuan/dollars at the Made in China company store.
so fucking simple I am sure IT WILL NOT HAPPEN; set corporation taxation rates double for all fucking profits non-domestic.
BUT we have the corporation controling politicians via huge sums of donations and lobbyists wrangling and influencing law to game the not so free markets...
capitolism doomed. this form of facism is different than germany when hitler controlled the corp, but here it is the other way around.
not hopefull of significant legislation to change the course we are on.
oh, and what about pegging the waun to the dollar; how about a revaluation tax at the border or would that upset the sheeple to much to have to pay way more at wally world for their fucking plastic junk. ha, fucking ha, not so simple, but i would come to the people and say hey there is going to be some pain, but once we set china straight things will improve dramaticly as you will earn a living wage and we will be making things here in usa!
fuck the rest of the world, bring our troops home, shut down the bases, cut the militay budget in half, do the above, term limits, campaign finance reform major league(notional donation limit of $100/entity, entity being individual or corporation) and clean up government coruption with shrinkage-10 percent accross the board cut with elimination of at least 4 departments of...
could start will a true leader that would say to congress; 10 percent cut accross the board oR veto-you figure it out-DO YOUR FUCKING JOB...
back to reality knowing that none of this will happen.
BINGO!!!!
easy 1-2-3 solution to all this mess: 1 make corp tax rates 0 - 2 throw away the entire regulations book - 3 nix KenyanThugCare - problem solved - nap time
Yes nothing will happen. The problem is greed. You cannot make the other less greedy but you can be free of greed. That is the kind of radical change that will alter the consciousness of humanity. Govts, armies, businessmen, cannot bring this about.
greed is one of the basic instincts of humans, it is intrinsic. it's a remnant of our evolution. you can neither suppress it nor annihilate. there will always be very greedy people and this has nothing to do with human conciousness.
"Free trade" ie "no tariffs" is a figment of the imgagination when currency values are managed relative to each other to beggar your trading partners. We can thank Mr. Rubin et al for the managed dollar of the 90's while American manufacturers were screaming about dollar strength. I remember when both the American Federation of Labor and the National Association of Manufacturers repeatedly petitioned Congress in the 90's that the strong dollar policy was killing jobs. But hey, our money center banks lent to Asia, Latin America and Russia and they were not about to be paid back with a cheap dollar currency, nor were they going to see a weak dollar steal export profits. If the US leadership gave a hoot about the 99%, they would have stepped on Asia's mercantilism via currency manipulation instead of encouraging it by stateside bankers like Rubin whose firms and friends stood to lose billions without a "strong dollar policy." Whatever happened to "The New Economy" and the "The Information Economy?" Was it all BS? Apparently.