28-01-2003 11:01									#151
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: Only economists are concerned with man hours, because they know that when you produce things with less man hours you have a real increase in productivity. Yeah, and productivity doesn't necessarily mean efficiency. An increase in productivity with the same costs does increase efficiency, but so does same output (even if much less productivity) with lower costs.

Imagine where you would plan to produce the goods if there were no corporations to seek profit and\or revenue. That is the most efficient place to produce the goods. You are more concerned with increasing profits, not the overall efficiency.

	28-01-2003 11:04									#152
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quote: It's their system.

quote: Sure they do, if it costs less to do so. To make up an example, if an American tree costs $50 and an Indonesian tree costs $5, you could waste five times as many Indonesia trees and still make more money than by using American trees.

And why would anyone waste trees? Ok, say we are talking lumber (the first thing I could think of with trees ). They may use one more tree to make the same thing, but the costs are much less with the same output, right?

Resources will count in the costs analysis, and the amount (or lack of amount) of them is reflected in their price.

	28-01-2003 11:11									#153
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You are more concerned with increasing profits, not the overall efficiency.

Yes, he is striving for capital productivity, a component of the overall productivity number.

	28-01-2003 11:13									#154
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Consider buffalo hunting. Only certain cuts of meat and the hide were taken. Massively profitable, but an extremely wasteful use of the buffalo. But buffalo were so plentiful that you could shoot hundreds and merely take the choicest parts. The result, they wiped out the North American bison (for all intents and purposes).

That's what I mean by inefficient. If it takes ten times as many workers to make the same amount of product but with half the labor cost, it's not more efficient but it is more profitable.

	28-01-2003 11:38									#155
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Che -

quote: The next thing that is interesting is that you have changed your statement. From decreasing prices you now have gone to decreasing the rate of increase (and I'll buy the latter). This means, however, that when the savings were first realized, they were not passed along to the consumer. A pair of Air Jordans today cost $150US from Niketown. Not a substantial savings for a pair of shoes that cost approximately $15US to produce.

Decreasing prices is the same thing as decreasing the rate of increase. In general, due to inflation, your dollar will get worth less every year. When the price of one good remains equal from one year to the next, it will cost more. If the price of the good decreases from one year to the next, it will cost less. By cutting costs and going for cheaper labor, the price of the good has gotten cheaper (and it has also slowed down the rate of increase of the good due to inflation.)

	28-01-2003 11:51									#156
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quote: Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia Che - Decreasing prices is the same thing as decreasing the rate of increase.

Only if you ignore time. Eventually the savings are passed on to consumers. In the mean time, the company pockets it.

	28-01-2003 12:58									#157
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good debate, che.
*continues reading *

	28-01-2003 13:23									#158
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quote: Originally posted by DanS You are more concerned with increasing profits, not the overall efficiency. Yes, he is striving for capital productivity, a component of the overall productivity number.

So we have an agreement. You all have been arguing that overseas production increases productivity, and we have been arguing that it decreases efficiency. Both are right. That happens very often here

	28-01-2003 19:34									#159
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quote: Originally posted by DanS Had to have started in the 80s Here you are, in real $... A good 10% increase.

?

No, from 1981-2000 it shows a 3% increase. It only shows a 10% increase if you start at 1991, after a decade of declines.

	28-01-2003 19:37									#160
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IIRC, in the same period corporate profits in the US increased 250%

i.e. capital's moving forward, labour's stuck.

	28-01-2003 21:38									#161
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Che, I compared your first post to everything you said thereafter. They are not consistent. In the first post you said that the globalization movement was not against globalization, but against the autocrats and in favor of the environment.

Thereafter, you simply defend labor in industrialized countries. People in the third world reading your post cannot be too happy. Globalization has done more for the third world than foreign aid ever done. This is a fact.

You failed to mention the environment. But this tends to be a major factor in the move of manufacturing offshore. Enviromental rules alone make some manufacturing in industrialized countries prohibitably expensive.

But the net result is a cleaner environment for America and the West. Isn't that what we want?

As to the environment offshore, at some point, of course, they too will begin to impose enviromental controls as stiff as they are here. At that time, affected industries will move again. There is no way to prevent it except if you had a world government.

But back to your first post. You said the anti-globalization movement was not against globalization - just the autocrats who conducted it? I'd like to know WTF you are talking about?

	28-01-2003 21:48									#162
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Che, A lot of what you post is pure fiction. Consider the disk drive. The move to offshore manufacturing began in the '80s and by the mid '90s was substantially complete. Has the price of a disk drive remained constant? No, it has dropped like a rocket. Why? - because costs are dramatically lower.

Any disk drive company that was ordered by their government or union or whatever to keep jobs in the West would very, very shortly be out of business. Why? - cost.

Note that TV prices are lower today, by half to a third, what they were 40 years ago. This is in current dollars. In adjusted dollars, the price must be 1/6th of what they use to be.

Explain that.

The cost to assemble the TV, plus the cost to make every component in it has fallen. Why? Because production costs are less.

Big labor is the enemy of progress. Big labor is the enemy of the third world. Big labor is an enemy to prosperity. Big labor is the enemy.

	28-01-2003 23:36									#163
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Ned, the thought that the majority of price decreases on any type of consumer electronics have resulted from moving production offshore is laughable on its face.

	29-01-2003 00:12									#164
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Explain that.

As I also wrote, technology is a major exception. This has to do less with decreased labor costs and a lot more to do with changes in how electronics are made. Most circuitry today is designed on computers and etched by robots, rather than with slide-rules and by hand.

quote: Che, I compared your first post to everything you said thereafter. They are not consistent. In the first post you said that the globalization movement was not against globalization, but against the autocrats and in favor of the environment. Thereafter, you simply defend labor in industrialized countries. People in the third world reading your post cannot be too happy. Globalization has done more for the third world than foreign aid ever done. This is a fact.

Globalization has done more to the Third World, certainly. Taiwan's enivronment is wrecked, most of the world's fisheries are on the brink of collapse, bananas are going extinct, tropcial and boreal forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate, etc.

Of course I'm going to defend First World labor. In most cases, that's you and me and everyone else we know. Do you not think you are worthy of defense? Do you think that after our ancestors built up this country and these companies and corporations that they should simply dump us on the street and go elsewhere, destroying environments, corrupting governments, and murdering labor activists?

Like I wrote, I don't begrudge the Third World the jobs. I begrudge the First World corporations the devestation they wreak in both places.

quote: You failed to mention the environment. But this tends to be a major factor in the move of manufacturing offshore. Enviromental rules alone make some manufacturing in industrialized countries prohibitably expensive.

So they claim. Pollution is simply an expense of production that is passed on to the community, i.e., it's an externalized cost. Environmental regulations make the company pay for the cost rather than the community. If you can't make a product without killing your neighbors, you shouldn't be in business.

quote: But the net result is a cleaner environment for America and the West. Isn't that what we want?

In many cases, the damage has already been done. In other cases, I don't belive it's right for us to fob off our problems on some other country. We do not have the right to make ourselves cleaner by moving our pollution to another country. That's just evil.

quote: As to the environment offshore, at some point, of course, they too will begin to impose enviromental controls as stiff as they are here. At that time, affected industries will move again. There is no way to prevent it except if you had a world government.

In other words, the envoironment around the world will get trashed instead of protecting it now while we still can.

quote: But back to your first post. You said the anti-globalization movement was not against globalization - just the autocrats who conducted it? I'd like to know WTF you are talking about?

When there is a trade dispute between two members of the WTO, it is adjudicated behind closed doors, by members who are selected by governments, whose decisions are binding. If Malaysia thinks that it should be able to sell shrimp in the US caught using a method that is outlawed in the US (because it kills turtles), Malaysia goes to the WTO and gets our law overturned or collects from the US monetary damages.

	29-01-2003 00:20									#165
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quote: Originally posted by Frogger Ned, the thought that the majority of price decreases on any type of consumer electronics have resulted from moving production offshore is laughable on its face.

Frogger, if you were a manager of a business and your competitor's manufacturing costs were one half of your own because they had located their factory in a low cost area, what do you do?

I suggest you emulate your competitor or find some other way to lower costs.

C/E is a very broad topic. Let's just pick something that hasn't changed very much in 20 years. Let's pick 19" color TV sets and disk drives for desktop computers.

Twenty years ago, a 19" color TV set would cost anywhere from $400 to $800 depending on the cabinent. Today, those same TV sets sell for $100 to $300 depending.

Twenty years ago, a two-platter desktop disc drives cost $500 + and delivered a whopping 5-10 megabytes of storage. Today's two platter a desktop disk drive delivers 40-80 gigabytes of storage and costs $100-$200 dollars.

Certainly, the essential components of the TV sets and the disk drives then are the same as they are now. They simply cost less and are much better, for that matter.

But, why do the components cost less? They too are made offshore. Circuits, heads, disks, motors - all are made offshore.

What the US does, to the extent it still does anything in these industries, is design the TV or design the disk drive. Today's US worker is an engineer, a draftsman and of course, the sales force, accounting and the like. Gone are the assemblers. Those jobs, to the extent they still exist at all due to robotization, are located offshore.

Yes, even with extensive robotization, the manufacturing jobs will stay offshore for two reasons: enviromental laws and taxes.

	29-01-2003 00:24									#166
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You're ignoring all other changes aside from labor costs.

	29-01-2003 00:38									#167
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Che, it seems to me that the anti-globalization movement is truly an anti-third world movement. Those areas have low cost labor, low cost environmental rules, low taxes. As the left increases the cost of labor in the US, increases the severity of enviromental regulations an increases corporate taxes, business that depend on labor or have high environmental costs will simply leave for the third world. The tax environment is so unfriendly as to no counterbalance the high costs imposed by labor and enviromental laws.

What remains here are the white collar design jobs. But, as the original post indicates, even these are leaving to third world countries that provide an educated workforce that speaks English.

I don't know what to say about the WTO. But I find it interesting that both the left and the far right are against this international organization. How else can one decide international trade disputes?

As to cleaning up the enviroment in Taiwan - isn't that there problem, not ours? As to not burning the forests or killing the bannana's - isn't that the problem of the particular countries invovled. Why are the extremists protesting against the US government? What can we do about telling other countries how to run their governments?

As to fishing rules - shouldn't these rules be negotiated internationally? Otherwise you have the US imposing its views on the rest of the world unilaterally.

	29-01-2003 00:49									#168
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IMO, protecting the environment and people of the third world from businesses and the labor of the developed states from slave labor is best handled through going after the relevant businesses instead of condemning everyone in these states to perpetual poverty.

	29-01-2003 00:50									#169
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Che, it seems to me that the anti-globalization movement is truly an anti-third world movement. Those areas have low cost labor, low cost environmental rules, low taxes. As the left increases the cost of labor in the US, increases the severity of enviromental regulations an increases corporate taxes, business that depend on labor or have high environmental costs will simply leave for the third world. The tax environment is so unfriendly as to no counterbalance the high costs imposed by labor and enviromental laws.

I know you like to bash the left for everything, but let's have a little perspective, shall we? If the anti-globalization movement were anti-Third World, wouldn't that mean that the majority of the movement and its leaders which come from the Third World are anti-themselves? They want labor and environmental protections. They want child labor outlawed. They want to make a living wage. They don't want to be killed for organizing in their workplaces. We support that. How is this anti-Third World except that you keep repeating the mantra?

As for environmental laws, all we demand is that companies pay for pollution themselves. I have no right to destroy your property and health because of what I do on my property. It's unethical for me to hold people's jobs hostage so that I can dump all my garbage in your living room. If I'm going to do something that has the potential to damage you or your property either I should be forced to make sure that it doesn't damage you or that I pay to fix and damages I cause . . . unless I'm a corporation, in which case that's an unfair burden.

quote: How else can one decide international trade disputes?

How about out in the open, with treaties that have to be ratified by each government?

quote: As to cleaning up the enviroment in Taiwan - isn't that there problem, not ours? As to not burning the forests or killing the bannana's - isn't that the problem of the particular countries invovled. Why are the extremists protesting against the US government? What can we do about telling other countries how to run their governments?

It's our problem if our corporations are doing it. We can regulate American's behavior in other countries, why can't we do the same to our corporations?

	29-01-2003 01:13									#170
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Trade Organizations bring up another point of the inefficiencies of globalization. These trade organizations forbide nations from trading with certain other nations where costs might be lower. They are anything but free trade.

	29-01-2003 01:26									#171
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara You're ignoring all other changes aside from labor costs.

How? A major factor, as you said, in reducing costs is automation. A circuit layout engineer is far more productive using computers than drawing the circuits by hand. This reduces labor costs by making whatever labor that remains more productive.

An automatice PCB assembling robot is far more productive than a worker hand soldering components onto a PCB as was done 20 years ago.

All this increased productivity by machine can be done in the US. True. But still there remains the environmental laws and taxes. These are costs that cannot be avoided by automation.

	29-01-2003 01:35									#172
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo IMO, protecting the environment and people of the third world from businesses and the labor of the developed states from slave labor is best handled through going after the relevant businesses instead of condemning everyone in these states to perpetual poverty.

Oh sure.

Ramo, so long as money can move from one country to another, there is simply nothing you can do about businesses setting up in low cost areas.

Anti-globalists truely are the enemy of the third world. While the capitalists bring investment, infrastructure and jobs, the anti-globalists bring lawsuits designed to keep the third world in - a third world state.

There is also the matter of politics.

The only third world countries that are benefiting from globalization are capitalist countries. Those that are run by dictators or communists (other than China) remain in the backwater of history.

	29-01-2003 01:44									#173
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Anti-globalists truely are the enemy of the third world. While the capitalists bring investment, infrastructure and jobs, the anti-globalists bring lawsuits designed to keep the third world in - a third world state. There is also the matter of politics. The only third world countries that are benefiting from globalization are capitalist countries. Those that are run by dictators or communists (other than China) remain in the backwater of history.

Third world countries are not helped by corporations. Some desperate individuals might have to make the choice to work for them, but the countries are not helped overall.

The majority of the citizens are having real trouble providing for their basic needs. Why? Because there is a shortage. Diverting resources away for these needs certainly isn't helping at all.

	29-01-2003 01:45									#174
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Che, I bash the left because they largely deserve it. We are not talking here about a "social safety net," which is something even I support. This is about economics of business and about prosperity. Here the left remains anchored in a vision of the world nearly 150 years old. If you truly want to see the benefits of a state-owned, state- run economy, look to the USSR, to Cuba to North Korea. These were and are failures.

China is an example of a rightist communist government - if we can talk the truth. They have become capitalists.

As to the third world leaders who oppose globalization: I am willing to bet their leader is Castro and their members are countries who have leftist, planned economies. Are there any exceptions?

	29-01-2003 01:50									#175
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quote: Originally posted by DuncanK Third world countries are not helped by corporations. Some desperate individuals might have to make the choice to work for them, but the countries are not helped overall. The majority of the citizens are having real trouble providing for their basic needs. Why? Because there is a shortage. Diverting resources away for these needs certainly isn't helping at all.

Duncan, look at Singapore. Look at Taiwan. Look at Thailand. Look at Malaysia. Look at India. Look at China.

Contrast South Korea with the North.

There are simply too many examples of capitalism creating prosperity for the whole of a thrid world country to believe your statement.

Companies that invest in the third world bring prosperity for the whole country. There simply is no denying it.

	29-01-2003 02:24									#176
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Duncan, look at Singapore. Look at Taiwan. Look at Thailand. Look at Malaysia. Look at India. Look at China. Contrast South Korea with the North. There are simply too many examples of capitalism creating prosperity for the whole of a thrid world country to believe your statement. Companies that invest in the third world bring prosperity for the whole country. There simply is no denying it.

You have only mentioned a few exceptions. These nations have been able to export their way to industialization, but it hasn't been all that great. They struggle to move from being an exporting nation to one that provides well for its own population. There are countless other nations who have not even managed to export substasntially to industrialized nations.

	29-01-2003 02:35									#177
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Che, I bash the left because they largely deserve it. We are not talking here about a "social safety net," which is something even I support. This is about economics of business and about prosperity. Here the left remains anchored in a vision of the world nearly 150 years old. If you truly want to see the benefits of a state-owned, state- run economy, look to the USSR, to Cuba to North Korea. These were and are failures. China is an example of a rightist communist government - if we can talk the truth. They have become capitalists. As to the third world leaders who oppose globalization: I am willing to bet their leader is Castro and their members are countries who have leftist, planned economies. Are there any exceptions?

.

So typical of the right wing. You say that capitalism works better because of the success the Imperialists have had at preventing third world countries from being successfull using Communism. In the same way (and I'm not saying this is you in particular) you assume that white males are superior to minorities. The capitalist nations have had every advantage just as white males have had in America. Furthermore the Imperialist nations have been hostile towards weaker Communist nations just as many white males are hostile towards minorities in industrialized nations. Just because white males have prospered more in our societies doesn't mean that they are superior and just because Imperialist nations have been successfull at exploiting third world societies and determining their outcomes doesn't mean that their ideology is superior. It only means that they have had every advantage. They have had all the resources and all the technology. Third world nations declare war on every idustrialized nation in the world when they become Communist. How can you rate the benefits of Communism just because of recent history?

	29-01-2003 02:42									#178
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Capitalism works for the rich... that's about it. I wonder why people think that the socio-economic conditions in America are vastly superior than the rest of the world. Some people watch too much TV I guess...

Imagine this is Europa Universalis. There's a slider bar for Communism --- Capitalism. USSR on the left, the USA on the right... somewhere in the middle is where we ought to be. Sure, people consider me a leftist, but that's only because everyone else is so far to the right. I want an economy/system that provides health care, education, and ample job/career opprotunities for its people while ensuring health competition and free markets for consumer goods. It's not unreasonable, it's not a pipe-dream, and it just requires a little compromise.

Does absolute Communism work? No
Does absolute Capitalism work? No
Can there be a gray area that ensures the type of dream I described? Yes

But it's just easier to argue with one another instead of working together to improve things.

	29-01-2003 02:43									#179
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Che, I bash the left because they largely deserve it.

You seem to be operating under the assumption that it is wrong to believe and advocate tat people have the right to make a living wage and not live in industrial filth. If people who believed what you say had their way, there'd only be a Third World.

	29-01-2003 02:46									#180
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I don't know why you try to debate Ned, che. He lives in a bit of a fantasy world...

quote: Let's just pick something that hasn't changed very much in 20 years. Let's pick 19" color TV sets and disk drives for desktop computers

This, for example.

"Hasn't changed much in 20 years".