quote:

A company will lay off a thousand workers, those salaries cut benefit the bottom line. This allows the company manangement to appear to have increased the earnings and they can get big fat bonuses. In other words they robbed from the poor and gave to the rich. This kind of behavior is rewarded on Wall Street. It is so wrong on such a basic level that I don't understand how anyone can be okay with this.

quote:

ORIGINAL: eyesopened
A company will lay off a thousand workers, those salaries cut benefit the bottom line. This allows the company manangement to appear to have increased the earnings and they can get big fat bonuses.  In other words they robbed from the poor and gave to the rich.  This kind of behavior is rewarded on Wall Street.  It is so wrong on such a basic level that I don't understand how anyone can be okay with this.

quote:

ORIGINAL: cadenas

quote:

ORIGINAL: eyesopened
A company will lay off a thousand workers, those salaries cut benefit the bottom line. This allows the company manangement to appear to have increased the earnings and they can get big fat bonuses.  In other words they robbed from the poor and gave to the rich.  This kind of behavior is rewarded on Wall Street.  It is so wrong on such a basic level that I don't understand how anyone can be okay with this.

Reality is actually far more complicated. Take the example of Apple from the original post, for instance. Yes, it's true that originally, Apple computers were assembled in Silicon Valley. It's also true that originally, they cost several thousand dollars.

So let's look at what the world would look like if outsourcing to China hadn't happened (and contrary to the article's assertion, outsourcing of the higher-skilled programming and engineering jobs is rampant, to India). It wouldn't just be "more Americans employed." It would also be "the cost of living is dramatically higher" and "the standard of living is dramatically lower".

Now I'm not saying that's a bad thing. In fact, I believe that we'd be better off without the absurdly high-flying economy of the last 20 or so years. What we are experiencing as depression right now is nothing but a return to normal.

Incidentally, another consequence of this fictitious "no outsourcing" world would have been dramatically lower housing cost. One of the main reasons housing is so expensive is that is one of the few goods whose manufacture can't be outsourced. Domestic labor is more expensive. If everything was manufactured domestically, that extra cost would be spread across all goods.

quote:

ORIGINAL: eyesopened

The lure ofoffshoring works the same way for large companies. Byrne of Accenture is working with a "major transportation equipment company" that's planning to offshore more than half of its parts procurement over the next few years. Most of it will go to China. "We're talking about 30% to 40% cost reductions," says Byrne.

Yet no matter how hard you look, you can't find any trace of the cost savings from offshoring in the import price statistics. The furniture industry's experience is particularly telling. Despite the surge of low-priced chairs, tables, and similar products from China, the BLS is reporting that the import price of furniture has actually risen 6.7% since 2003.

The numbers for Chinese imports as a whole are equally out of step with reality. Over the past three years, total imports have climbed by 89%, as U.S.-based companies have rushed to take advantage of the enormous cost advantages. Yet over the same period, the import price index for goods coming out of China has declined a mere 2.3%.

quote:

ORIGINAL: samboct

"o..... what do we DO?"

Here's my prescription-

1) Change the tax structure.

2) Level the playing field on Chinese goods. Fine the companies and the importers that are bringing in Chinese goods that have lead in their paint in toys, expose kids to solvents (seen the plastic balloons sold to youngsters?) and have melamine in food supplies. The buck has to stop with the US companies, since enforcement in China is a sick joke.

3) Make Uncle Sam shop smarter. He's the largest customer on the planet, and he's been buying junk. Time to set some ambitious goals in terms of power generation, space exploration, and health care. Time to quit buying stupid weapons systems that either don't work- or worse, are obsolete and useless. What grew the US economy was the investment in R + D- not banking. Also- get rid of COTS (commercial off the shelf technology) for the military- and make sure that vital materials and products are produced domestically.

4) Quit importing foreign oil- go to domestic sources of energy that don't involve digging stuff out of the ground. We can shift to natural gas for the short term if needed.

How's that?

Sam

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fellow

quote:

Yes.

What's the problem with that?

No problems if you belong to a rich class.

quote:

ORIGINAL: eyesopened

I don't know how we cure greed and selfishness.  It would appear to me that these are the essential elements that need to be changed in order for anything at all to change.  My opinion is that even the ever dwindling middle class looks for short term gains without calculating long-term costs.  We live in a selfish society who cares nothing for their neighbor.  Without a sense of community even on a basic and individual level, how can we ever expect it on a national level.

It doesn't bother me that the rich get richer.  It's the how this happens that bothers me.  Getting rich because you worked harder or smarter or built a better mousetrap is a wonderful thing.  Getting rich because you stole it is heinous.

A company will lay off a thousand workers, those salaries cut benefit the bottom line. This allows the company manangement to appear to have increased the earnings and they can get big fat bonuses.  In other words they robbed from the poor and gave to the rich.  This kind of behavior is rewarded on Wall Street.  It is so wrong on such a basic level that I don't understand how anyone can be okay with this.

What do we do?   I know I'm probably really stupid but it seems we have a lot of intelligent people on these message boards and no one is suggesting solutions, real, workable, solutions that we can implement.  Being miserable and starting thread after thread of sadness, anger and magical thinking, obviously isn't working.

So..... what do we DO?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Servant4Queen

quote:

A company will lay off a thousand workers, those salaries cut benefit the bottom line. This allows the company manangement to appear to have increased the earnings and they can get big fat bonuses. In other words they robbed from the poor and gave to the rich. This kind of behavior is rewarded on Wall Street. It is so wrong on such a basic level that I don't understand how anyone can be okay with this.

YES! This is the one thing that bothers me the most. Layoff workers and all that extra money goes right to the top. How many jobs could be saved instead of some CEO or stockholder getting 3 million in bonuses and salary had they only made 2 million?

quote:

ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie
(Be very thankful for the "rich". There are far fewer of them than the other classes...and they pay well over 90% of the federal taxes. God Bless the Mister Scrooge!).