LEDGER- DE-MEIN
Let's be careful not to cook the books on this Trade Deficit thing!
I heard an argument this past week which claimed that our un-employment rate has not been, in any way, affected by the steady siphoning of American industrial capabilities to overseas locations. To me, that is same as altering the entries in our book to fulfill wishes rather than economic truths.
That is both dishonest and dangerous.
You will meet with such contentions today in which people claim that we have lost only “unskilled” jobs to overseas firms They hold that the technical expertise jobs are being retained. It is held that the technical expertize jobs are being retained and the only lowly, routine, dull, unpleasant work is going to foreign worker. It is cited as a fact that those foreign works can do the job cheaper, too, because of lower wages scales and poor working conditions. This, to them, at least, seems to indicate that a lower price can be expected on the finished product.
This overly simplistic reasoning complete ignores the fact that these very same people argue that legal and illegal immigration of millions of people Mexico, Latin America and other countries are the one who are filling all these unwanted jobs America are said to refuse to do. They totally ignore the fact that the technical side our economy has, for some years, found it essential to import groups of fifty thousand trained Indian technicians to fill basic jobs in the expanding electronics industries alone. Obviously such advanced techncal jobs are not being being filled with the numbers of American workers supposedly made available by by shipping the their former jobs overseas.
The argument also contents that we are better off, because while the cars and other products are made overseas, we supply the parts with which they are built. We supply some of th e parts, but far from all of them, and in no way can revenue from parts manufacturing to meet overseas needs. It can never compensate for the loss of the original manufacturing facilities. They contend., too that some of the actual assembly plants for cars and other products are, more-and-more, located on the United States.They do not not state that profits from such heavily subsidized operations goes overses. It does no stay in America
My shirts, shorts, sweaters, seats and socks are from Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Taiwan, Mexico, and (insert your own list at this point.)
Shoes for all members of the family come mainly from China, with the exception of one of the oldest and most honored brand names of the nation which have been made in India for a decade or more. It's been years since the last TV sets were manufactured in the United States and that applies to radios, many computers, just about all kitchen appliances and other such “non-tech” products.
A child's toy which is not made in China is a distinct rarity in most stores today.
Many of the foods you eat are often come from foreign sources, as well. Very often our much-praised labeling system tells you where the wholesaler might be who distributes the food product, but not where, or by whom, the food itself was grown and processed.
The American public is far from being aware of the fact that the Economic Invasion of American is well under way. It is past time for us to take a straight-forward, honest, non-political view of the situation.
A.L.M. July 14, 2003 [c581wds]
