Outsourcing is not about competition, it's about maximising dividends

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Leffe, Apr 24, 2012.

  1. Ostap Bender

    Ostap Bender Well-Known Member

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    Outsourcing to Asian cheap countries is a crime against the western civilization and should be sometimes punished as high treason.Millions of our working places have been stolen by greedy managers and laughing Chinese.
     
  2. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    Just like asking companies to not use slave labor and rape the environment is the equivalent of asking Al Qaeda not to murder civilians.
     
  3. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If you can show a companies business practice damages the environment you share, you'd likely have legal standing to shut them down. Similarly, if you can establish that slave labor is being used here or elsewhere there are international groups who would assist you in combating that practice.​
     
  4. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    So how is it that companies are still able to operate freely in China?

    See? There is the little problem with your argument. China only cares about production. US companies only care about maximizing profit. They have a free hand in China to damage the environment and treat their workers like indentured servants.
     
  5. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    Slave labor in China?

    Are people kidnapped out of rural villages, paraded naked across a platform, bought and sold, whipped, and forced to work making iThingys?

    No, they aren't.

    "Slave labor" is a bold faced lie and using those words in this context corrodes the language and further demeans real slaves. There are real slaves in Africa and Arabia, but not China.

    Take your lie elsewhere.
     
  6. Ronald0

    Ronald0 New Member

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    Nope. They are just sweatshops.
     
  7. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    The indentured servitude practiced in China is not really functionally different from slave labor.
     
  8. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There are waiting lists for jobs in some of the best factories. Never saw a waiting list for folks to become slaves. ​
     
  9. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    If your only choices are slavery or starvation, you would probably choose slavery.

    And your argument also implies that those applying for jobs are actually aware of the working conditions.
     
  10. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's not slavery, folks are free to leave those jobs should they find the working conditions unsatisfactory. If you honestly believe these folks have no alternative to these jobs but starvation, I find it hard to understand why you want to take that alternative away from them.​
     
  11. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    No they aren't. You apparently haven't read very much about worker abuses in these factories. Many of them are basically self-contained compounds that the workers are banned from leaving. They can't just quit. If they could jus quit, they wouldn't have record breaking numbers of suicides.

    As for your second comment, I don't want America to be party to it. Slavery is just about the most anti-American thing that can possibly exist, tied with dictatorship in my opinion. If I had my way, all trade between the US and China would cease until they democratized.
     
  12. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Are you referring to the requirement to remain on campus during the work week? That's not the same as forced labor or preventing folks from quitting the company. Medical doctors, fire fighters, and soldiers have similar requirements. Suicide rates are very high among postal workers, this does not mean the U.S. postal service practices slavery.

    A political system other than democracy is not the equivalent of slavery or necessarily a dictatorship. You are free to your prejudice against Chinese, but that prejudice isn't an excuse for dishonestly labeling people as slaves or governments as dictatorships.​
     
  13. Serfin' USA

    Serfin' USA Well-Known Member

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    It's a bit odd how people are defending labor conditions where suicide is prevalent but then are condemning labor conditions where it isn't....

    Folks, let's get something straight here. It's not our regulations that cause outsourcing in low skill manufacturing.

    It's comparative advantage. This is economics 101.

    Protectionism isn't the answer, but neither is deregulation. The answer is educating your workforce to adjust to America's comparative advantage -- high skill labor.
     
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  14. Rexxon

    Rexxon Well-Known Member

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    The only problem I see with this is that not everyone will be able to adjust. But regardless of weather those people adjust or not, they still need to live. They need a roof over their head, food in their bellies, and clothes to wear at the very least.

    And if all our high paying jobs are outsourced, and the low paying jobs do not pay enough to cover these costs, then how are they going to live? Are we going to subsidize those costs onto the American taxpayer? If not, are you okay with telling those people to their faces 'You are boned, we are not helping you'?. Is the cost of not helping them less than the cost to help them?

    Answers to these questions would make the decision a lot easier, in my opinion.
     
  15. Leffe

    Leffe New Member

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    Way to go 100% ignoring the facts of the matter as clearly stated in the OP.

    If the iPhone 4G was made in the US, the phone would still be the most profitable phone in the world.

    Fact.
     
  16. Leffe

    Leffe New Member

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    Exactly the point I was trying to make in this thread. The very people who complain that Obama isn't doing enough to keep jobs in the US, are the very same people as those who support outsourcing on the basis of profit.

    It's not a matter of competition, it's a matter of profit maximisation.

    Apple could still be world leader and make their products in the US, they simply chose to maximise profits by producing elsewhere. They will always do this if there's another country in the world, which can manufacture more cheaply than the US. There will always be a country in the world which is capable of manufacturing more cheaply than the US - unless the US becomes a 3rd world country. These are the simple facts of the matter.
     
  17. Leffe

    Leffe New Member

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    I'm amazed that tech products require so much man-power to manufacture. Aren't these places automated? Don't robots and computers manufacture electronic gizmo's nowadays? Surely the people asspect is in the design, build and maintenance of machines, and in supplying components and warehousing?

    What do all these Chinese people do in an Apple factory?
     
  18. Texsdrifter

    Texsdrifter Well-Known Member

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    The skill level in China is rapidly increasing so more jobs will continue to be lost. I wonder when the white-collar jobs are replaced if the same attitude will remain in the corporate world. To help the country that will replace us as the main superpower within 20 year seems illogical. I am fairly sure they will not repay the favor when they do.
     
  19. Johnny-C

    Johnny-C Well-Known Member

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    Money tends to corrupt! Greed and power mixed with government leads to oppression. People need to accept that, and apply the necessary controls and regulations to what corporations are allowed to do. The FANTASY of unregulated commerce and business, needs to be laid to rest for the sake of this entire society's well-being.
     
  20. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    What lame defenses for the hyperbolic lie of slavery. Have you ever bothered to read Uncle Tom's Cabin or Roots? Chinese workers may have to stay on-campus during their work week but at the end of the week they can go anyplace they like. The claim of "slavery" is just a lie.

    Government oppresses, not the private sector.

    Again, the treatment of a non-profitable GM shows why making as much profit as possible is mandatory.
     
  21. Leffe

    Leffe New Member

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    The point is, in order to compete in wages etc... you'd have to have this practice in the USA and American's don't want that.

    Who the hell is talking about slavery?
     
  22. SiliconMagician

    SiliconMagician Banned

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    Well maybe what over entitled Americans "want" is irrelevant?

    A small child doesn't want to see the tide come in and wash his sand castle away but standing on the beach screaming at the ocean and throwing rocks at it isn't going to stop the tide is it?

    When are leftists going to realize that humanity is not this all powerful force for good and can only do so much in the face of technologically driven economic displacement and change?
     
  23. Leffe

    Leffe New Member

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    Yiou're saying American's are "over entitled"? You had a go at me in the past when I said this. You've changed you mind?

    But we can be, just as soo as we shake the greedy (*)(*)(*)(*)ing morons off.
     
  24. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Which group are the greedy morons is a subjective opinion, and neither side of the aisle has the exclusive right to speak for humanity or to shake the other side out of the club.​
     
  25. Random_Variable

    Random_Variable New Member

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    You're a very silly individual.

    Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder profit. Why is this a foreign concept to you? Obviously they would prefer to move their operations to where they can maximize profit. They could face a lawsuit if they failed to do so. To ignore the reasons why they are more profitable elsewhere is just silly.
     

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