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A Paradoxical Framework To Restoring The American Labor Force: Much More QE?
Back in May, Zero Hedge penned "With China Forecast To Reach Wage Parity With The US In Five Years, Is A New Manufacturing Golden Age Coming To The US?" in which we predicted that rising labor costs courtesy of the Fed's ongoing exporting of inflation could easily backfire, and force large, profitable multinationals, for whom dollar weakness goes straight to the bottom line, to reorganize and pull offshore workers back to the US. It appears the theory is slowly shifting to practice. As Reuters reports, Conglomerates ranging from Emerson Electric to Honeywell International feel pressure on margins from double-digit wage increases in China. So have toymaker Mattel, fast-food chain Yum! Brands and computer maker Dell, analysts and investors say..."Input cost increases have been a steady headwind to margins for some time now," Fairchild Semiconductor International Chief Financial Officer Mark Frey said last month. "I do believe that labor inflation will continue high for quite a while," Yum CFO Rick Carucci said on the company's earnings conference call. He called commodity prices another "wild card" for the company." Curiously, China is proving far more adept at pushing labor price increases than America's sad, and largely ineffectively unionized labor force: ""A lot of the wage increase is to keep civil unrest at a minimum," said William Blair analyst Nick Heymann, who said suicides at an Apple supplier and the "Arab Spring" protests have alarmed Beijing. "These guys have watched North Africa and the Middle East with a lot of trepidation."" And as we speculated, the perverse outcome of Bernanke's policy to reward only companies at the expense of US Laborers (i.e., middle class) will soon backfire, as more and more companies end seeing their margins cut, in the process being forced to hire ever more people. "Wages are getting large enough that you start to feel the difference," said Hal Sirkin, a BCG senior partner, who said U.S. companies are looking at alternative manufacturing sites. "One of the answers is to start moving back to the U.S." And when they do, they may, just may, start hiring Americans once again.
More from Reuters:
China this year adopted a five-year plan that calls for 7 percent growth in per-capita income, ahead of earlier targets, and fresh investment in research and development, to boost domestic consumption and modernize its economy.
Manufacturing wages are a fraction of those in the United States but are narrowing the gap, both fueling and responding to China's inflation, now at three-year highs. Between 1978 and 2009, wages jumped almost 13 percent a year, six times the pace of U.S. wage rises, according to BernsteinResearch.
By 2015, wages around Shanghai, adjusted for productivity, will be 61 percent of those in low-cost U.S. states like Alabama, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Transport and other considerations further shrink that gap.
The next few years will bring a wave of reinvestment by U.S. multinational manufacturers in their home base, as rising wages and a strong yuan currency make China a less attractive production center, BCG predicts. Its July BCG paper names 14 companies rethinking where they produce goods, including NCR (NCR.N), Ford (F.N), Flextronics (FLEX.O), Ashland (ASH.N), and Jarden's (JAH.N) Coleman unit.
Where China once had ample labor, and supply was well balanced with demand, that equilibrium has broken down, BCG argues. The change does not mean shutting Chinese factories and firing workers; it means selectively scaling back future expansion or investment. China's size will ensure it remains a major global player.
Another key component to the future success of American labor? The emergence of China's middle class:
Ultimately, the success of that drive to shore up China's consumer base may determine how U.S. companies perceive the risks and rewards of operating in China.
"The customer base in China is just so immense," said Tim Hanley, Deloitte LLP U.S. Process & Industrial Products Leader. "Companies that were in China as a low-cost exporting base recognize they need to be there. That's where demand is."
The paradox in all of this is that while the short-term pain may be acute, the one thing that may eventually restore America's labor force is not just one more QE but many more inflation exporting episodes down the line, until the point where corporations are ambivalent about where to base factories, and as a result start hiring US workers yet again. The other thing that likely be necessary is for China to finally depeg and float its currency, which means that America has to telegraph that the US consumer is finally giving up the ghost making the opportunity cost of continuing China's export-oriented mercantilist model less attractive. Of course, for that to happen, we would need to get our mortgage house in order, whereby Americans once again start paying their mortgages, a process which would massively cut into discretionary purchases of made in China trinkets and electronic gizmos.
Alas, this pathway to actual success for both US and China middle classes is based on the fundamental confidence in respective administrations that there is a future that is feasible for everyone, and not one purely based on rolling off the last days of the global ponzi, which alas is the existing economic model. Until that changes, which is a sufficient and necessary condition, all speculation about how the world may eventually be fixed is moot.
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WTF is this pie in the sky, it would take us 30+ years to rebuild a US manufacturing base the way it once was.
edit- I just read this twice...if THIS is what passes for economic reasoning we are kornholed totaly. What...now that we've sold all our manufacturing base overseas to .50 cent a day labor and promise of free money borrowing to buy their cheap crap, we'll now move those jobs BACK HERE?
This article makes me want to check into a mental hospital.
"One of the answers is to start moving back to the U.S."
I agree with SD-1, WTF? The other answer is to move into another low cost labor pool - Africa.
I told you, the US will get No new good paying manufacturing jobs ever again. NAFTA, CAFTA, and GATT made sure of it.
So tuff shit sheeple.
Im with you dog. So if the labor rate 'doubled', that means it's a whopping 1 - 1.50 /day.
OMFG, they're all going to go broke! Quick! back to the US for 100+ a day!.
I guess the economic turmoil has caused people to become loopy, it doesnt make a bit of sense! Unless theyre talking about new slave state USA with full 3rd world .50 cent wages as the norm...the party is over!
Or .25 cent /hour (illusionary) 'credit' to reduce your time served in the 'correctional' system. Prison labor from coast to coast will be a growth industry! Wait. How to fill those prisons? Immigration, drugs and oh... prison sentences for those up & coming rioters after food prices explode and the food stamp allowances do not. BINGO!! Am I warm here?
Did I win a cookie?
FEMA Camps, FTW
What's not to make sense? This is a market trying to reach equilibrium based on decisions of many individual actors. You know, how its supposed to work? Wages and trade deficits/surpluses should equalize too.
Instead of telling everyone that the FED has decided to keep our wages high and raise those of the chineese. The buying power of those will drop for us and rise for them. It sucks we can't have dudes on a factory floor living in a 5000 sq ft house and driving a 50K pickup truck anymore but neither is it OK that we live like fat kings while little yellow people build trinkets for a bowl of rice a day.
Personally I question anyone that projects the chineese will take over everything like their past growth will continue forever. Playing catch-up is easy when others have lead the way first. it will be interesting to see how creative they will be when their economy is as developed as the west. Judging by all the knock-offs, counterfits and generally cheap crap comming out of there I don't think their living standards and productivity will ever reach parity with ours if they didn't have the dollar reserves to temporarily boost themselves as we have for so long.
there are many on here saying that our system can't escape from reality forever with credit bubbles and financial gimmickery and here is the first sign that its not. This is good news. I never wanted to tell my kid that he should go to business school and learn how to bullshit people or get victimized by the bullshitters. Maybe I won't have to.
"By 2015, wages around Shanghai, adjusted for productivity, will be 61 percent of those in low-cost U.S. states like Alabama"
----------------------------------
Yeah. Three years is too far into the future to plan on possibly taking your company elsewhere.
I see you're not very familiar with the dysfunctional bureaucracy of a typical large corporation....
While there may be some benefit, the bulk of the benefit will go to India, Vietnam, and other low cost labor nations. Unless of course, we go Weimar Republic, then ya, we'll get those low cost labor jobs back.
Um yeah!
Look, Chinese labor also offers unlimited ability to damage the environment, to order workers to work 18 hours per day, 7 days per week, to have 'trouble makers' i.e. those who refuse to do as master says, beaten even unto death, the ability for US Corporate types to escape from crimes ranging from rape to child sodomy by just paying bribes to...well you get the idea.
Mainland China, the labor colony of the American Elite, isn't just about the dollar cost per hour - it offers so, so much more. And if things somehow get to law and orderly, there is always Vietnam or Somali...you are an imbecile if you think 'US' companies are coming back anyway but at the barrel of a legislative gun.
You want 'em back - place a 30 percent tariff on all goods imported by foreign companies where 'foreign' is defined by having more than 15% of labor force outside the US States. Pass a law putting the maximum pay and bonus for all executive suite types at 50 times the lowest paid worker OR contractor working for the company, including overseas 1 dollar per hour workers (Only for publicly traded companies. Private, do whatever you fin want with your own pay.)
Stock options vest only after 20 years, no more of this fucking pump and dump where they rape the company to get the stock up, dump it, and leave a smoking ruin behind.
But hey, what do I know? I just work for a living.
Really chillign thought SD1, the return of wage slavery to the land which exported it, eh?
Well, I'll tell you, seeiign it's pernicious effects first-hand in India, every day, all the time.... it's not pretty and it is inevitable. Cycles, large and small, all con-verging....
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/many-drafts/
The only way any amount of jobs beyond a trickle come back will be if the companies are then owned by the "foreign" interest.
Can't work any other way. Peeps that manage to work then will be working for the man only that man will own this country as well as the jobs in it.
Agreed SheepDog. Eventually high oil prices (shipping) will force manufacturing back to near the end consumer. But that's a very long time off.
How long did it take us to tool up for WWII?
Doesn't the rebuilding of the manufacturing base itself create jobs?
Does not starting to rebuild get you any closer to the manufacturing base of yesteryear?
Maybe the core problem is your defeatist attitude.
+1
Part of the fault lies with free market neoliberalism. It's conditioned governments and citizens into a state of faux learned helplessness.
America could again be an unparalleled society of opportunity and collective wealth within 10 years if it wanted to be. It has the brains, it has the capital, it has the vision.
Why let 100,000 has-been toll boothing corporate and political Kleptocrats stand in the way.
Time to send the kids to Tech school.
And there would be your bottleneck..Skilled trades are NEEDED NOW..People now however would like to work from home doing nothing and make a bundle..Manufacturing will return in the US, but the US has become way to lazy..
OT but OMG
SEC Investigates S & P for insider trading
http://www.businessinsider.com/sec-probing-insider-trading-at-s-and-p-20...
MsC
please try and avoid linking to that site and instead post the link to the primary source
BI = Huffington Post
Yep, ran on ZH yesterday....so SEC is going to ask S&P if any of them knew of a downgrade?
Well of course the answer is 'Yes, we all knew'.
'So, S&P, you KNEW you were going to downgrade US debt then? AH HA! We gotcha'!!
Allrighty then!!
OT: Guizhou Riots
http://www.canyu.org/upload/2011_08/11081201279282.jpg
http://www.canyu.org/n29149c6.aspx
If you can't link it to FOX News, then it didn't happen.
Well, because of the writedown of US, S&P will be a little more standarised and a lot poorer, if the SEC has anything to do with it.
Not going to happen. They'll just go back to the future and start exploiting poor Africans again - this time though they'll do it on their turf, not ours.
docj,@11:14
Bro, too late, the Chinese already beat us to it.........................
"One of the answers is to start moving back to the U.S."
or.... moving it somewhere else again.
Right. Someplace where the labor ain't too damn high.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg5SwyTvAHw
Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos...
These alternatives to China will be the new lowest cost production centers. The U.S. is not going to see any large scale return of a manufacturing base.
You need at least one historical example of a nation that lost its manufacturing base due in part to the greed of inept unions and the unyielding pressure of quarter-by-quarter profit maximization brung about by the financial community you say?
England.
The United States is precisely 50 years behind England - both on the upshot and the downshot- following in nearly identical footsteps. And for many of the same reasons, too.
A corrupt government, a central bank that makes decisions on montetary policy to enrich its cronies, a nation which can't forge a plan to save itself because there are way too many making vast fortunes off its slow decline, nepotism and revolving door hanky panky between government and industry, a corrupt judiciary, lazy and greedy unions, lazy and greedy executives, lazy and greedy shareholders, cultural and societal rot, political correctness to the point of silliness, collective delayal of painful but necessary choices as a society, an us against them mentality by most, rotting and decay of the public education system....
labor is a miniscule portion of total price for most items. the real profit margin is taken by the brand-name white collars. china's focus is not on the west (which is dead and fucked) it's on the markets that the west takes for granted or ignores entirely. when you blow $100 on a waffle maker, you are not buying a product, you are buying a brand. the product itself is only $2... hell i can get it here for a whopping $4 shipped and at my door next day, or $5 a unit in bulk on the ship. like it or not, the factories belong to china, the labor belongs to china... you just make shit here and slap a brand and a price tag on it.
So, my question to you then... is what is your marvelous solution when the chinese partners just continue to crank out product with their own brand name slapped on it and sell it for half of what you can? hell.. china has an entire industry centered around third-party "finishing" so they can slap on whatever label they want to for where it was made.
2 words of advice
dont fight a land war in asia
don't think for even a second you are better at making money than chinese
I disagree, I think labour is 100% of the price of all things.
it's just that some labor is far more productive than other "labor". if the "labor" you are referring to only serves to increase price, it's parasitic and nothing more.
Glorious solution: Buy American.
In fact US companies need to band together and create collective marketing programs encouraging just that.
Thing is, how many 100% US content items are actually out there these days?
yes pretty soon, we can all work for 2 dollars a day.....
Hooray! Economic problems solved! New normal for USA is 3rd world wages manufacturing cheap plastic crap and paper drink umbrellas for .50 cent a day wages, yipee!
Don't hold your breath....there are plenty more countries and cultures to exploit by the multinationals before moving back to the USA.
Yes there are a few, but they not only need a cheap underfed labor class, they need stabilty, (i.e. like not pakistan - where some shops set out and found it was too unstable). Vietnam, maybe some of Africa, but definitely not all. the setup of all necessary conditions is drying up some. And maybe in abou 5 years, the Morlocks American works will be conditioned correctly.
They need infrastucture, reliable utilities (part of infrastructure in the broad sense), and a stable government.
and someone willing or able to buy the crap. buyers getting a bit scarce.
Yes, well, that too...
Hey I know! What if some large US companies that are well connected get the USG to help them work deals with these underdeveloped countries to build infrastructure on credit. Then they can begin making drink umbrellas and shoes to pay it back. BUT they never keep up with the interest and then the IMF allows some big US companies to develop any resources under their little brown feet because they defaulted on the loans! Then we can build a whole domestic economy around packaging domestic debt and all the people in the US can have jobs getting eachother into more debt in exchange for some of those resources the brown people lost in default and everything will be OK again! Man, why hasn't anyone thought of this before?!
South America is ripe for harvest. Political turmoil,military juntas, and coup d' etat have become a thing of the past. Most of these countries have more stability and have infrastructure.
Monthly wages based on minimum wage?
Brazil $350.00
Argentina $444.00
Chile $457.00
Ecuador $264.00
USA $1257.00
Add in the strict labor laws and environmental laws of the USA compared to other countries.....
I don't think too many jobs are coming back
Also american executives are going long on hispanic gals...so that helps in sending US supervisors out there to manage.
The only problem will be their frustrated wives back home. We need a plan B for them. Equal opportunity is a legal obligation even for home sex to wayward, lonely moms.
If you think all labor is created equal, then you've got another thing coming.
I assure you: More often than not, you get what you pay for....
In 2009 Farouk Shami moved his overseas manufacturing to Houston, then ran for governer of Texas.
What is there not to love about this self-made man? Instead, Texas got Rick Perry* again, the man who will soon win the GOP presidential nomination.
*Perry supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries as chairman of the Gore campaign in Texas. Red Team...Blue Team...they are all in the same League.
Hey thanks for the link! My wife buys some of that bio silk shampoo...we won;t be buying it anymore!
Why not? Because it's MADE IN U.S.A. by Americans?
no, because of the owner and his racial remarks about wanting to only hire blacks and hispanics.
"...wanting to only hire blacks and hispanics," you say?
I didn't see that, but my reading comprehension isn't always the best. Can you please point out these "racial remarks" for me?
For what it is worth, my experiences hiring hundreds of employees in Houston over the last 10 years has been identical with those expressed by Mr. Shami. "Wanting" has absolutely nothing to do with the job candidates that apply.
If I am asked, "Why do you hire mostly blacks and hispanics?" I will probably give a similiar answer. Does that make me racist?
In my opinion, maybe it does or at least it shows your guilty(and he is) of sterotyping, which is basically born out of ignorance. I hire people all the time myself, have so for close to 20 yrs and if there is anything I've learned is you have lazy people and hardworking people in all races.
so i don't subscribe to:
Hispanics are hard workers..I've had plenty that were lazy and dishonest
Black people are dumb and strong so give them the hard manual labor jobs
white people are smart give them the office jobs
(just examples)
"Shami stated that he mostly hired blacks and Hispanics because he does not believe that "whites" wanted to work on factory floors. He stated that white people would want positions as supervisors or would want to be paid more than their counterparts."
So he admits that he mostly hires blacks and hispanics because whites don't want to work on the factory floor?
let's reverse that now hypothetically and use a white owner and he is qouted as saying "I hire mostly whites and asians because blacks and hispanics are lazy"
Basically it's my opinion that when you generalize and stereoptype like that it is because of a deeper underlying prejudice. I prefer to judge people individually rather then painting them with a broad brush
Evidently, you cannot point out any "racial remarks" by Shami.
I agree that, "when you generalize and stereoptype like that it is because of a deeper underlying prejudice."
Hedgeless,
I find these remarks to be racial:
"Shami stated that he mostly hired blacks and Hispanics because he does not believe that "whites" wanted to work on factory floors. He stated that white people would want positions as supervisors or would want to be paid more than their counterparts."
apparently you don't and thats cool we will have to agree to disagree!
Peace
Sounds like he's made an inference after making a number of offers to whites at the wages he is willing to pay and being declined. That's not racist. That's statistics.
I won't be buying bio silk anymore because brown people touch it! YUCK!
I'll go back with gold ol'e unilever since they would NEVER EVER use brown people to touch things that will be on my body.
Either your too lazy to read a person's comments or you have major reading comprehension issues. My comments say nothing at all about who makes the product but rather about the owners obvious prejudice with his comments about racial preference in his hiring practices. If he had said he prefered to hire whites I would feel the same way about this.
On top of that...do you know me by some chance? I don't think so, that means you have no idea what color my skin is.
I know you take yourself too seriously. So you're probably white. Or Asian.
Note: This was another joke mocking the stick in your ass about race.
I'll paraphrase a bible verse about planks, specks, and eyes.
Remove the tree from your ass before trying to help your neighbor remove the stick from his...
There that was joke...not so serious
hedgeless @11;56,
"Perry supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries as chairman of the Gore campaign in Texas. Red Team...Blue Team...they are all in the same League."
Yeah, wasn't he a Democrap then?.
Memory serves, so was Regan, until he woke up.
Not that I am a particular fan of the Perry (being Texican myself), at this point, outside Bernake,Geithner,SORO's, I just want BahamaOmama OUT of the Peoples House.
He had less qualifications for being the POTUS, than me.....................
Matter of fact he had only TWO things going for him, being a Democrat, and a Black man.( And he DO know how to Partiiiiiiiiiiiiiii).
Other than that, he's just a Bucket man.
Do you support a run for President by Texas Congressman Ron Paul?
Maybe you'd prefer white Republican Mitt Romney who yesterday agreed with the Supreme Court that corporations are people.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/08/mitt-romney-corporations-are-people.html
Shit they are'nt going to move back to the U.S. They will move to Vietnam or some other hell hole. Is this a propoganda piece?
Exactly
Its a crazy piece, thats for damn sure, it doesnt make a bit of sense. Like reading some insane asylum patients' journal.
alternatively, america just goes back to being a backwater hellhole like it was prior to 1940 and the world is better off without it
The backwater hellhole that propelled the Japnese out your dumbass country that couldn't do it for themselves. And don't forget this backwater hellhole still has 13:1 nukes to use in balancing out 130:100 m/f ratio the CCP has built up over the last 40 years.
And who armed the Japanese? And why was China so weak? Oh yeah, two opium wars, the second one involving and supported by you know who.
Don't blame me for the Qing's inability to deal with the Britsh. We settled that some 80 years before the Qing dynasty signed the Teinstin Treaty. If you can't win the fight, don't pick it. Social Darwinism has been, and will always be in force.
The US was instrumental in the 2nd Opium war. So, are you to blame for that?
Yes of course the US participated in it the 2nd opium war. The fact is they had plenty of time to rebuild and regroup before Japan invaded. But their isolationist, backward social lean prevented them from doing it. The us had almost 50 years between the Civil War and WWI, we rebuilt half a country, extended trade and were ready when the next war broke out. China had 71 to 76 years to prepare for the Japanese invasion, depending if you count the invasion of Manchuria or China proper as the "invasion". Hell Germany lost half it's male population after WWI and was ready to go back at it 21 years later.
China didn't want to plan, didn't have the balls to plan, or have the mental material to do it. By their own account some 4 million of the men in china were addicts. Most historian believe to be signifcantly higher. Youcan't go around blaming your ass whooping on everybody else for ever. Sooner or later you have to accept responsibility and get prepared!
Hahaha. Yeah... and when countries do "prepare for invasion", they are labeled "outcasts", "rogue countries", "terrorist nations". Time to put an end to imperialism on all fronts, because that is exactly what it was in the past, and exactly what it is now.
Too harsh on the oppressed. Have you ever heard of pushers? Ever wonder why they are called that? Now imagine pushers with the full faith and backing of the world's largest colonial power?
You think America's inner city drug menace is the ghetto dweller's fault?
Strange if you do.
ORI
Yes we are all victims with no control over our own destiny......
Yes we are all free to do whatever we want and no one is born with inherent limitations in their environment or upbringing...
Wow...overgeneralization is fun!
Your typical US citizen rationalization. Bully type: "not my fault if I attack first, the other guy was not prepared to defend"
Anon, had you bothered to read the entire post you would understand that I was backing the Chinese government by repelling the Japanese. It is always the one who complains the most without doing anything to better themselves, prepare, and educate that end up on the short end of the stick. Throughout history the underdog has mamed, killed and destroyed the larger imperialist. Quit bicthing and do something about it. If the Chinese hate America so much, fuck us over, stop all exports of steel. The US comes to a halt. The Huns, a small backwater clan willing to do what it took, took over China. That is just one example. The Indian continent pushed out the largest imperial body int he world, and then screwed it up with in fighting.
If you want something do what it takes to get it. Imperial hand on your throat or not. It's just that the rest of the world is the same as the US. They all want everything for nothing. If Bin Laden truley wanted the US out of the middle east, he could have done it! Instead he was in for his own agrandization and benfiet. Again, take responsibility for your actions. A few names that beat the beast: Ghandi, King, Guevera... they knew how to get waht they wanted, oppressed or not! Bitchez!
You can strike Gandhi and King from that list, puppets both.
ORI
More underdogs succeed due to overreach by the imperialists than by their own 'pluck', but that's no excuse to not take the fight to them.
More nukes, but no one is going to use them unless we elect a real crazy man. Conventional warfare, forget it, the US couldn't manufacture it's way out of a paper bag. Police departments in the US have to import bullets nowadays.
I've often wondered what it would be like to live in America when people still thought a dollar was a measure of silver, before the socialists took over and started looting the treasury and converting the US into a permanent wartime control economy. I guess if I ever got sad from being told I live in a "backwater hellhole" I could just take a swim in my bathrub full of double eagles and morgan dollars like scrooge mcduck.
Scrooge MDuck!!! +100
Great News!!
IMF will be providing Portugal with the next tranche
(even though they like Greece have not come close to hitting their targets)
http://pragueinsider.org/?p=3312
Keep digging!
This may be why the GOP is working so hard to break unions. The cost of energy will be the big decider and it is going in America's favour. Cheer Peak Oil its our friend if handled in a smart way, Oh never mind..
But in the mean time, they have built an enormous manufacturing facility complex using US coinsumers as their primary funding source. They just need to now move to manufacturing for their own middle class base of consumers to lift the lower class.
I have said for some time that wage inflation will drive ever more mechanization which will drive more inflation because that is too deflationary for the Fed's liking. As well, older workers, worried about income security, will hold on to their jobs longer rather than relinquish them to new entrants (i.e. the young) creating generational strife. Anyone heard of any riots lately???
Technology is so deflationary, its actually inflationary, and eventually hyperinflationary because the Fed wouldn't want it any other way.
The paradox in all of this is that while the short-term pain may be acute, the one thing that may eventually restore America's labor force is not just one more QE but many more inflation exporting episodes down the line, until the point where corporations are ambivalent about where to base factories, and as a result start hiring US workers yet again.
This kind of thinking is about three levels of abstraction away from Team Obama's comprehension level...as well as their economic philosophy toolbox - which seems to contain only (the hammer & sickle of! ha-ha) redistribution and central planning. However it is right up Bernanke's alley and employment is one of his (original) mandates.
Hey, anything is possible. Who would have thought that in this environment someone would A) start a manufacturing business that B) sells chopsticks to China? http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/06/04/import-irony-china-buys-its-chopsticks-from-a-small-georgia-town/
Fellow Zero Hedgers,
The statistics in this clip are sad and disturbing.
Many of us here, myself included, find it easy to constantly complain about the mess we are in and how we got here. But what does complaining resolve? We have a responsibility to take action, to do more than sit back, trade on this news, and bitch about it. We have a responsibility to ourselves, or families, and those before us who worked so hard to build this country. If a young unexperienced senator from one of the most corrupt states in the union, can swiftly get overwhelming elected to the most powerful position in the union (bernanke unelected), thru a localized grass roots movement, why can't we create our own grass roots movement. I wish I knew a catlyst to motivate others, but perhaps some of the sophisticated readers here, who see the writing on the wall, and are smarter than me, can help ignite that grass roots movement.
-Proud American
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=xOAgT8L_BqQ&feature=player_embedded
Lots of other poverty stricken places full of desperate workers willing to slave away for nothing... oh wait, that would be the bottom 50% of US workers wouldn't it... hmmmmm (and you thought those bankers were up to no good turning the US into a third world ghetto)!
The difference between us and other 3rd world countries is we are still passing out the free stuff. Once that stops then we will trully be a third world country worthy of being exploited.
Another article the ignores the energy part of this "infinite growth" equation. Considering this, I see big opportunity for American energy and agriculture companies. Headwinds indeed.
to sell what?
Well how about that. You can print your way to prosperity. (Sarcasm off)
What is amazing is that it felt like we just went through a 1987 crash, consumer confidence is at world record lows since 1980, economy is still in the tank, yet the SPY is only down 12% and high flyers like WYNN, CMG, AAPL barely touched.
And we rack up more and more debt, Uncle Gorilla notes are downgraded to AA yet the 5-yr. yield is 0.94%.
I'm flabbergasted.
Yep no need at all for any further QE or stimulus at all. Markets are full of sparkle rainbows and pink unicorns shitting piles of tasty Skittles. Ben Bernank will announce at Jackson Hole 'all is well, Im ending ZIRP and raising rates 2%.'
How big are your paper losses on FOSL? LOL...
Never owned any of those IBD high flyers. To scared of them, but I track them to gauge market health.
I only own dividend stocks in the S & P 500, believe it or not, they were barely hit in this correction.
You feel like this little correction is equivalent to a 20% down day? And given the fear you feel, you're surprised that bond yields are down.
Better just flatten out and stick to commenting on last week's gainers. I'll be waiting to hear what your "mom" has to say.
The problem is, that wage increases do trigger investment in more productive machinery parks, robots and so on. As a matter of fact there are some German companies which gave up production in low wage countries and returned it to Germany because to say it simple "nobody can compete in the long run in price and quaility with robotic production". The part wages are playing in the production of complex high tech goods is ever and fast shrinking. So when wages are climbing in China it will simply trigger the next wave of innovation there resulting in better and cheaper products.
You need the money to invest and you need to have the engineers to design and produce complex production machines. This results in the disappearance of low paid simple jobs To say if you want to have higher unemployment you need to invest in innovation This sounds crazy but this is the way it goes all over the world unfortunately. Sorry for not having better news. We have to find other solutions for mankind to be happy.
Super
You are tripping over the problem:
The US is losing capital to China, Korea, Japan, Germany, Saudi, and our trade deficit partners.
Without capital to replace people with machines, we cannot compete. Germany is using its capital to replace labor with machines, that is why Germany can compete in manufacture with China.
People are worthless. Trade unions and trade restrictions will not help. We cannot continue to bleed capital. We need capital for machines. Does this mean Soylent Green? Not if we can spare our capital.
Our big shot banks, politicians and union leaders keep wanting to put our cash into jobs, jobs, jobs. We need money for machines, machines, machines. People are irrelevant to a functioning society. We need enough cash from reduction of labor to create the leisure society that we all want.
To do so, we need to use our minds for creativity, not bodies for labor.
Germany has a large business in machine tools. The demand comes from industrializing countries. China losing ground means Germany losing ground.
The global race to the bottom underscores the need for a global currency (/sarc)
Its not just cheap labor that makes China attractive - they actually have workers who will do a good job, the ability to build factories, run logistics pipelines, etc. They don't have a bureaucracy that hates business, just a corrupt one who tries to milk it for all its worth. Their kids take education seriourly over there. Do you seriously think that in the high-tech world of tomorrow our US education system and narcissistic consumer society will enable Americal to 'rise up and compete'? Dream on. No path except that that runs through extreme adjustment will lead America back to where it once was. Not even a war will do it - do you think we could start turning out ships, airplanes, and willing soldiers they way we did in the earlier 20th century? Have you seen how much bureaucracy and waste has gone into bloated weapons programs like the US 101 or the JSF or Future Combat Systems in the past 10 years?
Brave New World - its definitely a new world and it will take a lot of bravery to face it.
When the bullets fly the bullshit stops. Sure we have a lot of lazy slobs, welfare mammies and over-educated/underqualified youth but there are a lot of people hungry for something else. The current path doesn't need to be straight forever.
I'm not convinced that if labor rates rise in China the labor won't be moved to other sites around the world that still know the true meaning of labor exploitation.
As for organized labor in the U.S., it's dead, as Noam Chomsky quoted in the 80s, Reagan effectively "broke the back" of organized labor. Other than the current slack labor market, this is why we don't see wage inflation along side goods/commodity inflation in the U.S. anymore. If anything you see wage deflation in an effort for companies to offset input costs in maintaining margins.
I guess we're supposed to cheer the Chairistan for giving us world wide wage parity. I personally like economic hegimony. It allows me to buy nice cars and fly to Europe for vacation. A future in which Americans dig through trash on the weekends to make ends meet, even for a delicious iPad, is not one I think any of us should be proud of.
I seriously doubt they'll shift the jobs back to the US, when there are so many other cheap sources of labor all over the world.
Even if the multinationals did move the factories back to the US, they would hire at minimum wage and keep most of their workforce temporary and part time in order to avoid paying any benefits.
I echo this thought. I have a client who works for MMM. For the last 20 years he has spent about 70% of his time in China. This year, due to rising labor costs there, his work has shifted to MEXICO
additional liquidity in the MR has no effect on employment.........i though at least the fed would know basic macroeconomics
The American workforce is passé for any Administration that can coin the term "jobless recovery".
The article is merly stating that real wage rates here are shrinking and will soon be as low as China. Not that prosperity will emerge from such a situation. We will have full employment and nothing to eat.
Why move back to the US when the plants are already built there. Wages may reach parody (seriously doubt it) but other things such as environmental restrictions and capital gains taxes won't. It will still be cheaper to build there.
This is a nice concept but will not happen, even if BCG says so. The article doesn't adaquately take into account elasticity of the Chinese workforce (there are a lot of people available to work, thereby reducing wage demand), and also does not consider the movement of jobs to other areas in Asia (Vietnam) or Latin or South America. So much expertise today is held in robotics and proceses, that a lot of what comes out of China can be easily shifted to other locations throughout the world.
Now if you are talking about Chinese workers making what US workers make in terms of todays dollars in 5 years, then yes, the article is spot on - courtesy of the Charisatan's printing press and impending inflation.
Cheap labor is favorable to profit. The US from the 1800s on brought in ship loads of cheap labor. Labor that would not only work cheap but in bad conditions and long work weeks. The industrial revolution coupled with favorable labor combined with large natural resources, made for huge growth, not to discount the Constitutional based government concept.
China with the above advantages and a dictatorship (making it nimble, unlike the corrupted election system) is now at advantage.
However, more than half of the labor force is small business which is being choked by a lack of loans from banks. Without small business funding/recovery/growth, half of the equation is dead.
Way too many people in China for them to run out of cheap labor this century.
Tyler, this has been my (and my wife's) thesis, theoretical albeit. As former CFO, labor is dominant cost determinant obviously to any profitability for any knid of service or manufacturing. It's management is the general plan A starting point to bottomlines.
End of Cold War saw sudden unexpected one-off massive global abor dump unlike anything in human history in terms of economic activity (their commoditoes also, ala Soviet oil and minerals , got dumped also) . Technology & communications just started to permit such offshoring of labor cost & just-in-time logisitics as mastered by Walmart et al. This is unique in econ history
What has surpirsed many, including me, is how fast humanity (here, PRChina) wants a 'pay raise' whether for real or induced by 'phantom' grievance that are 'real' in wageearners minds, their labor leaders seduction, or media stupidity/bias/attentiongetting, etc. versus true wage slavery, etc. This a big debatable topic but a real factor nonetheless. Perception of greivance is as bad as real grievance .. and then who is to 'judge' ....
Then there is the issue of how safe are your crown jewels, your technology and know-how in an effectively command economy like PRCHina ... not very. So if the wage differential starts to shift dramtically, you may consider Vietnam, et al but the same thing will eventually happen there. Combine that with crrwn jewels at risk, it is not worth it for marginal benefit that is now illusory and trending to equilibrium. So the safest smartest bet is some instances is to return to jurisdiction USA.
That is why Jeff Immelt's decision about shifting GE Medical Imaging to PRChina for 'market share' was off-the-wall nuts. Where are the Directors ... not one challenge?
Finally, as much as I think Jeremy Grantham is a self-infatuated blowhard at GMO, I agree that the days of low-ciost products are coming to an end . Maybe commodity differentials such as seasonality on ag products (weather, etc.) may swing but a global rough labor equilibrium and massive 'middle classes' are going to bring back cost inflation big time (after this credit bust deflation ... let's forget monetary supply factors ala Uncle Miltie). This aasumes that the Fall 2008 credit crisis and its aftermath the West is facing still does not bring down modernity as a whole.
Multinational companies will always maintain a strong presence in China due to the governement policies in place to restrict foriegn imports of finished goods to China. In fact talking with a program manager for an electronics manufacturer in the northwest, he indicated that the actual cost of making the end product is at parity today w/ producing it locally. There is no incentive to move production back to the US though as chinese markets are open to them if the components are built and assembled in China, but would be quickly closed if the production moved back to the US. Go, go, gadget globalization!
understand .... guess that is one defense for Immelt ... there was no choice for the volume h sought
I practice employment law representing only employers.
U.S. employers are stupid if they hire more American workers unles they have very high margins.
Virtually every hire is a regulatory burden and potential lawsuit nightmare, with fake worker's comp claims, discrmination, claims, retaliation claims, FMLA claims, ADA claims, wage hour claims, etc.
A bad hiring decision (and they happen all the time) can prove very costly, and fatal for a small employer.
It's not just paying $10/hour for someone in Asia or $15/hour for someone in the U.S. Add on health insurance, benefits, regulatory burdens and lawsuit risks, and the American worker is a much higher expense and possible time bomb that will explode at some point in the future.
In addition, younger American workers in particular are largely uneducated and lazy. I get complaints all the time about the "younger" generation. They have a sense of entitlement and expect to be paid well for working little. Wants lots of vacation and miss work often. Sorry, but America is doomed, even if the hourly wage differential with workers outside the U.S. is decreasing some.
American employers are afraid of hiring American workers for good reasons, they should be afraid.
was also ChLegal Offcr .....this is the underside no one likes to air out in public which media conveninetly ignores as it does not generate outrage or anger or eyeball time (no readership audience to read bad depressing stufff) .... ...... Not everyone is a Dennis Kozlowski re: CEO (not all companies get to be dominated by such heads) ... but labor forces cannot help but be aggregate compositions of humanity in all cases ....no matter the company ... some exemplary and others not so much .....
remember major hand-holding of highly talented 'key' employee who just happened to be coke addict we discoverd. It was key proejct/customer .....no choice to see things through but the unseen time and 'smoothing' ... took so much time & effort & anxiety.
Is A New Manufacturing Golden Age Coming To The US?"
Sure it is..................
IF you can defang the EPA, the Green Team, and the regulations that cause NO one to be able to start making any thing here,that requires plants, and massive energy consumption.We have agencies with rules, on rules, ALL designed with the best intent(until they went bat shit crazy,and became the NEW Gestapo,and power hungry ,politically federal machines of capital destruction they were designed to be).
Until we WTFU, and start taxing the crap out of imports, and Intl Copulations that are outsourcing jobs ( a lot due to the above fascist regimes,and an insatiable desire for more tax free Corp profits), and more and more Regs/Rules everyday...........
It will never happen, ever.
American manufacturing coming back in 5 years?
Yeah, and I saw a unicorn with a giant erection flying through the sky.
Bring on the peak oil, a new U.S. gov., China de-peg, and magical fairy powder and I swear I'll become a believer.
This article touches on something I refer to as "job in-sourcing" through inflation. By devaluing the USD, you can make foreign labor appear more expensive as foreign currencies strengthen against the dollar. However, too much inflation will drive up the cost of living here in the US. So that's the balancing act ... triggering enough inflation to make foreign labor unattractive while keeping the cost of living in the US reasonably low. This is the end result of globalization where living wages around the world will eventually reach parity. When they do, more jobs will come back to the United States.
Seems to me the 'elite' will stage such 'economic improvement' prior to WW III.
The ghost of capitalism past:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcGeQJbhrV0&feature=BFa&list=PL6BC092F232...
It's all linear thinking. Only small and medium sized US companies will expand manufacturing in US. The multinationals will disappear just like their counterparts in 1930s did. How can global wage arbitrage game last with no 'money velocity' in developed nations?
Wrong! They'll start hiring the millions of ilegals that live here. And there are THOUSANDS more coming over every day. If they do hire americans they will unionize and force employment back over seas. It's a vicious circle.
And then there will be millions more ilegals collecting food stamps, welfare, free public housing, free medical care and free schooling for their US born and non-US born Children. And that's in addition to the americans already collecting these social services.
Currency manipulation is quickly leading the world to the brink of an unprecedented disaster. Sure, nations have fallen in the past by inflating their respective currencies away. But never before in human history have we had such a globablly interconnected economy. Once one dominoe falls, the rest of the developed world will shortly follow. It will be a global reset, likely characterized by war and internal conflict.
U-6 unemployment in the US is 16% ... and that is still possibly too low. Fairy powder? How about pitchforks (which is a metaphor and would more likely entail well aimed semi automatic rifles).
It's a matter of time, since we can't afford to pay for those 16% unemployed, especially as municipalities and the government have to lay more and more people off. Oh, we can pay w/ BennieBux but there's the small problem of inflation, not just abroad where we are aiming those weaponized dollars, but here as well. If Bubba can't afford the gas to go to Sam's Hunting for more ammo he's going to get down right squirrely. He's going to feel cornered.
Chin's one goal has been maximum employment. Transnational profit and China's goal were aligned and overshot in classic fashion as consumption in the developed world far outpaced resources, aka massive debt was taken on. Now political risk in the developed world is rising and will continue to rise as necessary deleveraging continues and the middle class is further impoverished. Profit motives and middle class interests have diverged.
Without jobs, you will be facing dire consequences over the next several years. No one forced the Chinese into a mercantilist position and no one is forcing the Chinese to remain pegged. Growth at all cost has hit a wall, and that wall is the looming death of the American consumer. The Consumer is Dead, Long Live the Consumer! This does not mean that no one is buying, because we are still buying. It does mean that the model has run its course for future growth. The Chinese however have no way to stop the mercantilist machine. Yes, it will bleed off to Vietnam etc. But you are kidding yourselves if you think that there will be a consumer left to keep playing. There is a large gap looming between production and overcapacity and consumption. Unpegging the RMB would help China rebalance but it might also cause enormous unintended consequences. At any rate, the law of unintended consequences if the red line takes another jump up is going to be frightening.
http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp
The labor cost comparison report you cite is bull. First of all, I don't believe that wages will rise as rapidly in China as wage arbitrage forces still exist in other countries with even lower standards of living than China. Labor will move there.
Second, in China and many other nations, there are no worker safety standards or environmental standards nor do I see the development of either on the horizon, especially the latter. That means much lower total costs of manufacturing in such places.
So, the wage and environmental cost arbitrage will continue to destroy US manufacturing and, eventually, manufacturing in China to a lesser extent.
Agreed. This is the main reason why I think hyperinflation will never take hold here in the states because there is ZERO methodology for transferring the inflation to the American paycheck with current global wage arbitrage. Africa is a gigantic continent full of cheap workers that has yet to be tapped. Assuming someone figures out how to keep the savages there under control then that is the next place where I see cheap manufacturing jobs going to. Too many places left on Earth still after China for jobs to go to before they come back home.
A great point, further reinforced by the very powerful forces described in this 12 Aug column:
Hyperinflationists Wrong Againhttp://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/08/yes-virginia-us-back-in-deflation.html
While I'm in neither camp, it really is more of a geopolitical risk of the USD losing reserve currency status, rather than purely economic events, that would/could cause hyperinflation.
I don't think it is likely only because they're waiting with the SDR/global weighted currency basket, and will unveil it during the next true crisis, when people are so desperate to feed their families they won't put up much resistance.
Not to mention that the model is based on a zero sum game and as margins or more importantly the end consumer gets ever squeezed out of existence that zero sum game becomes more aggressively negative.
Manipulation of currency to induce change in hiring habits and consumer demographics are an academic's wet dream. In the end, the unintended consequences are many and don't really justify the means-- it's the current economy built of the corporations that have run their course. Saving an economy built for a time that has passed only prolongs the eventual creative destruction that is necessary in allowing an evolved economy to emerge. In the end, the imbalances are many and exist both on the macro and micro levels. What needs to happen first and foremost is a purging of the debt that exists in the current system, a changing of guard of policymakers, and a focus back to creating an economy that seeks to solve society's greater problems (and these problems aren't more ipads or dunkin donuts or KFC or aricraft carriers or oil) and not add to them.
Get ready kids of America, you'll get to work in a FACTORY!!
Better than no job at all. If it happens.
Once the companies move back to the USA they will hire many Mexicans.
What about all the robots that they plan on adding?
"One of the answers is to start moving back to the U.S." And when they do, they may, just may, start hiring Americans once again.
Right, at minimum wage paid in little bitty dollars...
I do not agree on many things :
1/ The so called "arab spring " : the chinese politburo and not only them ( have a look to the washington blog or to www.voltairenet.org ) know perfectly who make the Arab Spring happening ( CIA & Co. ),
2/ US corporations back to the US ? Not so simple. Try to sell in China ( especially if chinese companies are producing the same kind of goods ) if you do not produce there. Good luck !