BCEagle91

I think that we were discussing forcing a 35 hour workweek in the US. It appears that the unions in Germany love that.

I think that the unions in the US prefer the potential for overtime and the attendant higher rates.

At the moment, we have a race to the bottom of labor prices. And the winners right now ... are in Asia.

BigG

BC,

When American companies outsource, they terminate American jobs. Mercedes and BMW cannot terminate German jobs but they can expand production by building new facilities in other countries.

The actions of American companies move existing employment to cheaper venues but result in no net job gain. The actions of German companies,contrained by law from terminating German jobs, create more jobs.

With CEO salaries capped by law at 50 times a line workers compensation, I really don't see how BMW and Daimler-Benz can remain competitive in world makets. No one of real capability will work for that kind of money. It is only a matter of time before they wither and die from lack of "leadership".

coureur

>>At the moment, we have a race to the bottom of labor prices. And the winners right now ... are in Asia.<<

Asia is not racing us to the bottom; they're already there. They started at the bottom and we are racing down there to join them.

BCEagle91

> When American companies outsource, they terminate American jobs.

Rubbish.

A company can just have a policy that all new hires are in India. On a per-project basis. Yes, I've seen it myself.

> The actions of American companies move existing employment to cheaper venues
> but result in no net job gain. The actions of German companies,contrained by law
> from terminating German jobs, create more jobs.

I find it amazing that you speak for all American companies.

Lergnom

If we're racing to the bottom, it's because some idiots think the way to compete is to cut wages & benefits. I don't agree that we are, but it is the ideology espoused by some. In truth, the US has been - until recently, of course - producing more at home even as we've become incredibly dependent on imports. Overall demand was sufficient here and around the world that we could export more while importing even more. It is truly an unfortunate act of total stupidity that some on the right believe as a nearly theological statement that the key to competitiveness is lowering costs.

Most of the rest of the prosperous world long ago recognized that they can't compete on cost with China et al. They invested heavily in technology, training, productivity, etc. France has been mentioned but Germany is now the largest exporter because they've adapted to a high cost environment by making value-added products which they can charge for. People need to understand that European and other prosperous countries are in a host of areas ahead of us in technology and are more productive in those areas. (US productivity statistics aren't bad but they are heavily skewed by the weird way financial industry productivity has been "measured" ... I mean guessed at.)

BCEagle91

> They invested heavily in technology, training, productivity, etc. France has been
> mentioned but Germany is now the largest exporter because they've adapted to a
> high cost environment by making value-added products which they can charge for.

They can invest in technology, training, etc. because they have a better attitude about education - this is seen in the parents. You see a lot of this in asian countries too.

> People need to understand that European and other prosperous countries are in a host
> of areas ahead of us in technology and are more productive in those areas. (US
> productivity statistics aren't bad but they are heavily skewed by the weird way
> financial industry productivity has been "measured" ... I mean guessed at.)

I look at Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Apple, Motorola, Oracle, EMC, IBM, Texas Instruments
and I think that we do quite well in technology and productivity. In fact the EU seems
to be more about suing successful US companies instead of letting their own companies
compete in the international marketplace.

Lergnom

I agree that we do very well in some areas. But what separates many European companies is they apply the same "high tech" kind of innovation to ordinary things like boilers for furnaces, ovens, machine tools, farm equipment - and even barn designs for cows. A lot of the issue is the scale of the US and the history of mass production - from Waltham Watch's interchangeable parts to you name it.

A few easy examples to make a point: Holland is the largest cut flower exporter though the weather sucks for it and all the costs are high. Their competition has been low-end producers with all the natural advantages of sun and cheap labor. Look at leather. Same thing: while some has moved to Asia, there are low-end producers and then the Europeans (and the same for shoes, etc.). One reason is historical; there have been clusters of ceramic makers or leather designers in Italy for a very, very long time and levels of expertise have now been mated with technology. We don't have that history. We had a textile industry in the North but it mostly made bulk clothes - including cheap garments for slaves in the South - and then the South cannibalized it on price so bulk production followed cost South and now the Northern mills are something else if they're standing. Many of our issues are products of our history, which is not something we can go back and change.

BCEagle91

There is value to craftsmanship but in a recession (a real one; not where central banks are printing dollars, pounds, etc. like mad), price does matter.

I bought my daughter a North Face jacket recently - she wears it just about everywhere these days and it is perfect for current weather conditions. Country of manufacture? Indonesia. That's certainly a high-tech product.

The Asians are gaining strength and we're helping them by off-shoring. Sometime we offshore important technological capital. But it's not a panacea. There is always the temptation to move production offshore.

I was in China in the early 1980s and visited factories where there was exquisite craftwork in manufacturing. The chinese can do this kind of work but there has to be a transfer of knowledge. That is something that can happen.

I work with many europeans and the one thing that I take away is the focus on education. They are amazed at our public schools (and that's not the good amazement). We can produce world-class and better-than-worldclass graduates but they are relatively few.

Mr Payne

The growing parasite class in the US population is expanding at such an incredible rate. I'm really gonna be laughing in 20 years when the complete and total failure of leftist education and immigration policies is undeniable. Good thing I'll be laughing from some place outside the US.

coureur

^^Where are you moving to?

Lergnom

Ignoring the intervening uneducated nonsense, BC, again there's a history issue. We have not educated nearly as well at the high school level compared to many countries and that's not new. I remember a Romanian friend in high school incredulity at the low level of math and science here and that was during communism there. But we make it up in college, partly because so many more kids go to college, partly because our college system is - unlike many others - designed to instill creative questioning as opposed to more rote learning.

One of my favorite stories in this regard was a Feynman one about a lecture he gave in S.America. He had two questions and this floored him because his US classes were full of questions. He spoke to the two questioners. One was a student visiting from abroad and the other from local who had gone to college in the US. The local educational product discouraged questioning.

One my kids went to a top Chinese high school for a while. The classes were lecture and kids were expected to sleep in class. Questions? Rare. Learning by rote. Lots of homework. Lots of memorizing formulas and facts. The ordinary math class was at our AP level - and yes some people say the tones in the language make math easier because the numbers can be manipulated in sound, but the math classes in Estonia are also much higher than our average. A big difference: the kids were expected to memorize the material, not necessarily to understand it so it could be applied in creative problem solving. They learned these formulas and these questions and were tested on that. We don't consider that "learning" but it actually is, just not the best possible form. Problem here is that most kids would be better off with rote because they can't understand math well and asking them to do it is torture. (BTW, they do the same thing in painting, etc., which is why all those kids can paint pretty pictures; they learn those pictures or those elements, not the essence of painting but more of a rote form.) Remember, I'm talking an exam school stuffed with a mix of really bright kids and the privileged party / PLA kids.

Oh, the kids slept in class because they did homework, homework, homework. If a kid did poorly on a test, parents might search the room for evidence of a girl/boy friend or, heaven forbid, reading for fun. I knew kids who had secret shelves with Harry Potter and other fun stuff. And the teachers may have had it worse; the volume of homework meant literal stacks of booklets to review every day. Not really an easy life being a teacher at a driven exam school in China.

Final note: the Chinese and many other countries do the opposite of us; they pour money into the gifted while we put next to nothing into the gifted and everything into the challenged. I'm not taking issue with our social goals, but their method - which also has a clear historical basis in finding merit in the Empire - is designed to advance the best as the drivers of society.