Outsourcing: America's real job killer?

WHAT DO YOU KNOW..??????????????????????????

Black people don't seem to know SHIT about ANYTHING..

 

You've brought it up, and thus you have to provide information. Luckily, I did do it ahead of time and you've oversimplified the whole argument with your usual black-white issue. To correct you, and make it simple for YOU to understand...

Native American interaction with African slaves were more or less mutual. Natives actually shared and befriended African slaves. But thanks to European assholes and influence, Native Americans decided to own slaves, notably five of the tribes. But hey, you didn't bring up this much detail, especially when there were black slave owners too. Let alone, there were Native groups who actually resisted and were against the idea of slavery too. Why do you insist on neglecting all parts of history, jackass?

Read up YOUR history, little racist.

 

I know more history than your entire coon-ass family little dicksucker..

Indians are romanticized beyond recognition...that's why you're more likely to find SHIT about them "sharing":smt042 with Blacks rather than enslaving them.

Truth be told....the saring part is a lot more rare than the enslaving part.

ALL of the 5 civilized tribes ENSLAVED Africans.

Do your own research and stop being so foolish.

 

Such words from a 10 year old enslaved victim. If you keep this up, I'll present to you a rope for you to hang yourself. And once again, your paranoia only shows how little you know or how you love to hide information and expect people to listen to your little "I hate everyone except white women" rant.

Did I neglect any information in my previous post? No. But your stupid ass did. You like to create racial dissonance with your pseudo Neo-Nazi mentality. I didn't neglect the fact that Native americans enslaved African slaves. However, I know better than to think that it was like that since day one. Unlike you, I read details. And for you to disregard blacks owning slaves tells me you like to like to stir an already shitty pot.

You just want people to take your word for gospel like little idiots and expect all of us to just take you seriously. Son, you're far from a history buff and you have a lot to learn before you jump on someone else. Get that dick out of your mouth and stop rubbing your asshole on "Chez Whitey" like Uncle Ruckus in a black panther suit.

You're an embarrassment to black people on this forum and as a group. You're hardly an intellectual, and hardly anyone would want to listen to. Confused as you are, I don't see how you belong to this forum since you act on "racist love."

 

At the heart of this discussion, we should recognize that this is about capitalism. Companies exist to provide a return on investment to stockholders, period. Our tax rates are some of the lowest in the world as well, individually and for business.

The issues of the fading middle class and executive pay have little relationship, despite the seeming unfairness. It should also be noted that senior management is most responsible for the fortunes of the company, and so should be adequately rewarded. Reasonable minds may differ as to what's reasonable, but even a redistribution of CEO pay wouldn't bring about changes in middle class pay dilemma.

The middle class is disappearing as a result of a loss of manufacturing, in all industrial sectors. It's both a result of the reality of global competition and the total employee costs of jobs. In the case of the auto industry, the aging workforce out the industry resulted in tremendous pension liability costs. The costs alone of providing health care for the auto workers amounted to several hundred dollars per vehicle. Contrast that to the Japanese auto companies that have much younger work forces, little pension liability and less health care coverage and you can see why American auto companies began sourcing parts and their manufacture overseas.

This country is in a whole because of the last 20 years of deficit spending, trickle down economics and lack of oversight of the financial markets. The far right interests allowed the dismantling of any semblance of monitoring the financial market place and that ultimately resulted in an environment where credit and worthless securities were created. Those trillions of dollars lost primarily affected the middle class. The debt from the Bush years only exacerbated the problem.


We as a country have never been very nationalist when it comes to products. The plain fact is we want what we want. So, we demand the cheapest goods possible, which is why the Walmart brand is so successful. They source in products from the least expensive places in the world and pass those savings on to the consumer, but at what cost. You want the cheapest products but you don't want to pay the price for comparable American products produced here because those companies couldn't survive, they had to pay their workers decent wages with benefits. So, every time you shop at Walmart, buy a foreign vehicle, purchase produce that's imported from overseas, or purchase an item with a made in any where but the U.S. sticker, realize that you're part of the issue with disappearing American jobs.

Obviously, this isn't a complete analysis but it highlights what I believe are the real issues at hand.

 

Given your forte in finances and what have you, swirlman, I'm curious as to what proposals you would present in order to curb the deficit and debt altogether. You're a respectable and reasonable person, so it would be wise to ask someone with the know-how and certainty to act on all this. Your leadership would be well worth it.

 

Who is 'We' fool!!??lol:smt021

Being AMERICAN means the whole damn EXPERIENCE and the total HISTORY, the GOOD and the BAD and everything in between.

WE dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
WE enslaved the Japanese in internment camps during WW2.
WE fuccin landed on the MOON, biotches!!!
WE invented the PC and the internet.
WE enslaved Black folk.
WE fought a war and freed the slaves.
WE assassinated two presidents.
WE established Ellis Island and brought the leftovers from all across the globe to be a part of this great experiment.

WE is you. WE is ME. WE is the United States of America.

God Bless America. Land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her, through the NIGHT with the LIGHT from above.

I hate it when Black folk try to selectively pick and choose exactly when they are citizens of this country or when instead they're going to try to act like they're just passing through.

I ain't no flag waver, I don't put up the stars and stripes on the 4th.
But I do have a profound bittersweet love for my country.
Even the sumbitches on this board.
Deal with it.

We didn't buy the continental U.S. territories from Sam Walton.

We stole this bitch and slaughtered anyone who got in our way.

 

I totally disagree there's no correlation between exorbitant CEO compensation and the stagnant and shrinking wages of the middle class.
CEO compensation in many cases is out of proportion to the profitability they add to their corporations.

Are you telling me that CEOs are worth 10 times more now than they were in the 1980s??

The inverse relationship between CEO salaries and working wages represents the flow of wealth in our society to the very top as the middle class shrinks and stagnates.
Just a symptom of a much bigger problem.

 

You are free to disagree but it's much more helpful to the discussion if you do it on the basis of concrete explanations rather than assumptions and opinions.

I plainly provided explanations for the the shrinkage of middle class jobs, the elimination of the manufacturing sector that included industrial jobs in the auto, steel, textile and other primary manufacturing areas. Also, the outsourcing of jobs due to overburdened labor and material costs.

The issue is not whether CEO pay is out of proportion. In fact, that's a moot point as their packages are determined by an independent group of the company's board of directors. The shareholders, many of whom are those same middle class wage earners, are free to go to object to CEO, sign petitions, do whatever. Yet, it seems that such activity is minimal. As long as the CEO delivers the goods, stock appreciation, stockholders are happy with their investments. Just ask the original investors or even more recent investors if they are care what Steve Jobs or Bill Gates earned, just to name a few.

Also, perhaps, you aren't aware, but the CEO salaries that you reference are but a part of a senior executive's remuneration. Salaries are large, but not out of place, considering the magnitude of his job.

The largest percentage of his pay is based typically on stock options. In other words, the company awards the executive shares that he may, but is not obligated to purchase, at a specific price. The CEO is tasked with increasing the share price of the company to a level that the board thinks is appropriate, in order for those potentially purchased shares to be of value. If the stock price doesn't appreciate, the options are much less valuable and the executive earn a lot. If he succeeds in pushing the price of the stock up, in agreement with his mandate, he may buy the those options at the lower already agreed upon price and sell them at the then current value of the stock.

This pretty much true for executives all over the world. Often, however, they award CEO's differently in different countries. They may grant him the use of planes for life, very large life insurance policies that have a cash value component and can be cashed in, homes, cars, holidays, etc.

Again, CEO pay or it's creep in value isn't important in the larger scheme because, even if you eliminated it, the problem still exists. Therefore, there's no direct correlation, but feel free to again explain why disagree with something concrete.

Statements like, "its just a symptom of a bigger problem are not responsive to the reasons why there's a relationship, it's only a sound bite.

Corporate CEO pay in public companies could flow in the opposite direction back to workers and you wouldn't solve the middle class problem. In fact, the largest employers of middle class jobs are small businesses. If you want to truly affect the middle class find a way to increase the numbers of entrepreneurs operating small businesses.

I think that small businesses should begin to build local cells of manufacturing again. They can begin to rebuild the lost sectors provide a basis for future manufacturing growth. These entrepreneurs would operate much smaller, meaning not multi-billion, but companies that can grow to multi-hundred million companies. Such companies would focus of maximizing automation, paying fair wages with benefits, continued productivity improvements and profitability.

Even those companies couldn't produce everything that they need to operate, and so you would create opportunities for other smaller companies to be created to feed materials and support the operation of the larger companies.

Do you start to see the picture? You start to get a multiplication effect that results in the ultimate creation of the mom and pop small businesses that also need labor and hire middle class workers.

In the end, you'll have created jobs for workers with a variety of skill levels ranging from technical workers at larger companies to less skilled workers in smaller companies, with variation throughout.

You'll need technically trained workers so you create the opportunity to change the school systems and produce apprentice programs for graduates instead of attempting to make everyone college bound. This means teachers need to be hired as well.

Obviously, this is a macro look at what I think is necessary. It means that the government needs to focus of local areas, possibly starting where unemployment is highest. Identify industries that are necessary through work worth local Urban development agencies and proven entrepreneurs who will be funded, at least in part, by the government, or guaranteed loans through local banks.

In the end, small business will lead the way as it always has, and we can attempt to rebuild a portion of the vital manufacturing base that has been lost. Wouldn't it be nice to know that we had to fight a war that we wouldn't be depending on war equipment made in Japan or China?

 

Swirlman07,

Forgive me if I disagree with your explanations and premises...

While you lay out a convincing text book argument for the reasons of our current global state of economic affairs and deflect any responsibility CEOs of major corporations may have directly or indirectly, while suggesting that the answer to these woes is development thru small business, you apparently closed the blinds on several realities...

You want us to believe that CEO salaries are fair and equitable because of the magnitude of their job responsibilities; that we should overlook how much these same CEOs are compensated and believe that their compensation is only paid in performance based stock options with expressed consent of "middle class stock holders", that the answer to filling the voids left by big businesses who have moved their operations outside the United States is small business...Really???

Unless we live on different planets, corporate culture and corporate mandate, aided by government legislation, has been and will continue to be maximization of profit while simultaneously eliminating competition. Go back in your books and find a small business that has been able to withstand the onslaught and deep pockets of a national/global company that offers the same services for less than the small business.

IMO, small business has no chance of competing in the utilities, mass communications, energy, insurance, health, banking/investment, tech or services sectors, which have become streamlined with a giant few, nor can small business dislodge or compete with Walmart and its genre of one stop-provide all consumer needs giants. Mom & Pop operations' days are numbered, if they haven't already closed up shop.

Are you suggesting that small businesses take over factories vacated by corporations and compete against those same corporations with established brands? If that is part of your solution, where should the start-up money come from? And when those global companies up the ante and reduce prices for their products, what can those small businesses do to compete? If global giants are always finding ways to cut costs by reducing benefits and staff to meet the profit mandates, what recourse do small businesses have?

Based on facts and statistics, education in America is the next lost cause. A country divided by so many issues, America is also entrenched in a turf war over what constitutes valid education. Administrators tell us that costs have spiraled out of control, forcing personnel and program cuts. Tax payers are reluctant to absorb additional burdens and there is no extra money to be found in those state sanctioned lotteries and real estate taxes. Thus students/our children become victims of fiscal policy.

In my book, the bottom line is corporate greed shrouded in a maze of mirrors aimed at further fooling an ignorant and uninformed public... Your cited examples of Microsoft (Bill Gates) and Apple (Steve Jobs) are extremes which work to discredit your argument further. Stockholders in those companies are happy with their investment dollars because their investments and their companies have cornered a major sector of a global market and eliminated the same small businesses you proposed to being able to take up the slack and fill the gaps left by the major company's departure.

 

I welcome your disagreement. However, I can assure you that my discussion is based on my own real world experiences, and not text books. It's obviously difficult to understand the potential viability of a concept if you have no basis of understanding how business is conducted in the real world, save the media or class room experiences.

You are also guilty of selective reading my friend and you clearly misstated several points that I made. Specifically, I stated that CEO pay is a moot point. I suggested that it was moot because you can't draw a a direct of indirect relationship to support any contention that their pay impacts the elimination of middle class jobs, as shown by your comments which offer no more than commentary on the this issue.

I mentioned that CEO salaries, again, you're confusing salaries versus an executive package of remuneration, are fair based upon the leadership and impact that these executive have on company performance. I also understand that executive compensation is an unwieldy topic as its not a topic of every day discussion. Unless you have been intimately involved in these matters as an executive and have first hand knowledge or you have studied this subject, you many simply be unaware. However, with a bit of research, I'm sure that you can confirm that my descriptions of CEO pay are quite accurate and usual in the business world today. You mis-characterize my statement regarding shareholders as well. I said that shareholders, many of whom are middle class stockholders, have the ability to affect CEO pay. However, their lack of action in taking on this as a perceived issue, as a matter of fact, implicitly, demonstrates their stance of this matter.

It's also a reality that small business, as opposed to big business is the largest employer. So, logically, and normally as it has been historically in this country, small business is the key to recovery of the economy. You must take off the blinders though and understand what's meant by small businesses, it's all relative. In my post, my reference to small businesses is a business that has revenues of millions of dollars a years. This is in contrast to large businesses that have revenues of billions of dollars a year. So, to answer your question, really, yes really.

We are indeed on the same planet but your comments about business miss the mark again. It's true that corporate culture and corporate mandate have often complementary roles in business. However, it's an long outmoded concept that most companies are consumed with the elimination of competition. Well managed companies and their managers know that they compete only with themselves. This is not the age of the robber barons my friend. Do you believe that Toyota or GM want to eliminate one another. If you do, you are mistaken. They want to do what they do best, compete in market segments where they can win and do their best to maximize their potential in those segments. Good managers know that if you are spending too much time worried about the other guy, you aren't worried enough about your own company.

I don't have to go to books to look at the competitive environment of business. You only have to pick up the papers, do a bit of research or open your eyes to see that small businesses compete successfully everyday against larger companies by concentrating on niche aspects of business. Large corporations, by virtue of their size, can't compete efficiently in all markets. As a quick example, the fastest growing company in the Greek Yogurt business is a "small" company that started less than five years ago. The company now has a revenue of more than $100 million dollars, despite the presence of multi-national giants. Why have they succeeded? They have succeeded because they captured a segment of the business and have been able to leverage their efficiency and lack of burden costs to create a very profitable business model. This is happening all across the U.S., in may different product and market areas. But, again, you have to understand the concepts of business, competition, marketing, and business development.

There is always room for the right business with the business model. It's completely untrue and absurd idea that Microsoft or Apple have eliminated companies. These companies ushered in a new age in technology. They didn't corner a market, they created NEW market segments, rather than eliminating old segments. But, you also have to recognize that products become outdated as technology makes them obsolete. That's why continued innovation is so important to companies. Those companies that fail to improve, die a natural death, and not from large business. Even very small companies can provide customer focused services that large companies can't provide. Again, as an example, small computer repair companies successfully compete against the "Geek Squads" and other similar outlets of the big box electronic stores.

You, like many people, assume that bigger is better. Big doesn't mean streamlined. Big can often mean, slow, unable to respond to changes in the market place, inefficient in some market segments, not as customer focused, not always as innovative, and often not profitable. These issues provide opportunities for new companies, even as they did for companies like Microsoft or Facebook.

There's no doubt that corporate greed exists and that it's detrimental to the public, in general. But, once you have made that assessment you still haven't shown how it affects the middle class, except through assumptions that I've tried to show you are invalid. People do need to be more informed and not take a superficial view of the issues and problems associated with this topic .

People can make a difference in dealing with the issue of corporate greed that allowed the financial market places to "steal" money from the middle class.
Americans can stand up to the greed that results in unhealthy products and overly processed foods poisoning our families. However, the key to the middle class recovery isn't eliminating this greed, it's small businesses and appropriate legislature to assist those businesses. Small businesses have done it historically, and they will lead the way again. Unfortunately, an uninformed public buys into the sound bites of politics and doesn't look behind the curtain or delve deeply enough to understand the real problems or solutions.

 

When a CEO is compensated for FIRING tens of thousands of employees, then yes it shows there is a distorted relationship between how a successful CEO in the past was graded compared to present day.

WHen a company in the past had to close down branches or cut employees wholesale, usually it meant that a company was about to file for bankruptcy, the blood letting wasn't a sign to investors that a company was streamlining by cutting labor costs.

Successful companies AND CEOs expand growth, they don't contract.

Modern day CEOs as a group are overpaid and are compensated in many cases for what in the past resulted in a CEO being fired by a company's board of directors.

Firing employees to stay solvent is a desperate attempt to balance the financial figures for a company, they rarely are a sign of an effective steward.

 

Respectfully, I would say that you have a gross misunderstanding of business fundamentals as your comments are factually inaccurate.

CEO's have ALWAYS been measured in the same way, maximizing returns to shareholders. Successful CEO's have always employed the tools necessary to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to companies that employ them.

If you truly understood how large corporations operated, then you would know that it's virtually impossible to "fire" your way into profitability. Direct labor costs are a not a sufficiently large percentage of the profit equation, period. There are typically many more areas that you would tackle, including the cost goods items, like raw materials, transportation, the cost of quality issues issues, etc.

It's completely outlandish and illogical to suggest that successful companies don't contract. Successful companies, whether now or in the past, have ALWAYS responded to the market place. Anything else is lunacy. GM doesn't produce cars for three shifts at full rates and burn through cash by storing it as inventory, if the public isn't buying cars. It doesn't matter whether that lack of buying is the result of people no longer being attracted to a particular brand, a reduction in available buyers because of a recession or safety concerns about certain models that impact sales. Companies, DO contract in lockstep with consumer demand. That's another fundamental concept. Companies expand for the same reason, an increase in demand that results in more customers demanding products, whether the release of pent up demand during a recovery phase in the economy or the creation of new or improved products.

In making your claims you ignore certain important facts. Businesses face different problems that businesses of the past. We no longer compete with other companies in the U.S. We compete with other companies in the world. We live in the age of globalization my friend. It's no longer a matter of producing a better widget than your U.S. Competitor who has the same constraints of materials, manpower, and machinery and methods. Now, you must optimize your business in all those area, while providing the lowest labor costs. CEO's have continued to do what's necessary to allow companies to prosper and there's absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise. On the subject of pay, I have already provided my assessment, and yet you insist to the contrary while not offering any substantive explanation other than a seemingly emotional response. In business, there is only room for judgement based on facts.

 

You're proving my point.

Companies in the black with a soaring stock value don't as a rule contract labor.
When an automaker contracts, it's because they AREN'T SELLING CARS. It's not about highly profitable companies shedding labor to become more 'efficient'.

BofA announced its firing 30000 employees over the next couple years. Is that the consequence of a large financial institution attempting to further maximize profits of a highly successful company, or is it a cost cutting move to mitigate losses from their own managerial incompetence??

Cutting labor will save BofA $5 billion in costs, a priority concern considering their debt load skyrocketed after the recent market crash from reams of unpaid mortgage payments.

Cutting labor IMO is almost always a revenue salvaging maneuver, it's not a case where labor has become obsolete or inefficient because of some technological innovation, unless otherwise stated.


Of course you can't 'fire your way' to longterm profitability, but it's still done all the time to halt a downard slide in share value.

Instead of being penalized for poor management and BofA's over-lending of bad mortgages, CEO Brian Moynihan will see an increase in his compensation this year.

 

This I have to agree with. How is it good business to reward behavior that loses money and then covering it up by pushing consequences onto someone else. The only thing I will say its not the fault of the corporation because we already know what their deal is. Profits at all cost no matter who it hurts. Consumers need to see shit like this and stop banking with them. Its very easy just withdraw your money and bank with someone else. It would literally take a couple of hours but unfortunately most people don't care unless it happens to them. So essentially we only get what we collectively choose. We all have to make better choices and take our power back from these loathsome pigs who would kill all life if it resulted in profit and trust me that's not an exaggeration. Life of any kind is worthless to them as long as they can find a way to make a profit.
Greed can be good and so can capitalism but any system or practice that results in a below livable wage and constant instability IS NOT WORKING.
Any system where a debt is considered as wealth is a fucked up one.
Innovation and production is detrimental but so is being conscious of what we produce.

 

damn dudes writing articles and shit

 

This sounds like an obvious misstatement or mis-characterization of a fact. But, I would like to understand what debt you view as wealth?

As to your agreement, I invite you to read my response above.

 

Those who're reading challenged can kindly proceed to rear of the line along with the rest of the apathetic ones.

 

I blame Bank executives for signing off on an institutional policy of issuing HIGH RISK mortgages loans that traditionally have a low probability of being re-paid.

When people who earn less than $50,000 a year are given mortgages on $400,000 homes, or illegal immigrant DAY LABORERS are being issued home loans by BofA, yeah, I blame the financial institutions, not the unknowable, mysterious vagaries of the financial markets.

That's a bullshit line finance professionals spoon feed the civilians.

I've never met someone who works in finance who was STUPID. They know what's going on, and they know explicitly when they're skating along the edges of an economic catastrophe.

You don't think BofA and similar institutions who were selling bad mortgages didn't know what the consequences would be if the housing market fell?? Or if high risk lendees quit paying??

Please.

Privatize the revenue.
Socialize the losses.

Heads I win.
Tails I still win, but now you lose.:smt036