Creating Jobs....

[mission vending]

Keep your eye on Waukesha, Wisconsin......

Their biggest employer just moved out. Thanks Jeff, you're a "real" American....give Barrack our Best !!

General Electric is planning to move its 115-year-old X-ray division from Waukesha, Wis., to Beijing, China.

In addition to moving the headquarters, the company will invest $2 billion in China and train more than 65 engineers and create six research centers. This is the same GE that made $5.1 billion in the United States last year but paid no taxes-the same company that employs more people overseas than it does in the United States .

So let's get this straight.

Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation (job czar).

Immelt is supposed to help create jobs.

I guess Obama forgot to tell him in which country he was supposed to be creating those jobs.

If this doesn't show you the total lack of leadership of this President, I don't know what does.

Please pass this on to others and think twice before buying a GE product!!

[Leetvend]

Can you give me some links to articles about this? Would love a good read.

[PerformaVending]

General Electric has been getting a pass from our government because they have a huge chunk of our military-industrial complex. The majority of US fighter jets have been packing GE engines since at least the 1960's. They also have a substantial amount of influence on the media- they own NBC, and it's affiliates. The situation here in Wisconsin is especially perilous, as we're neck-deep in a recall election involving Republican Scott Walker who had the "audacity" to demand State employees pay into their insurance and pensions like everyone else. Should Democratic Mayor Tom Barret win, (he's a solid Obama supporter) I cannot imagine any good outcome for this state. We are consistently behind in terms of jobs and economic growth. My area has relied on the paper industry for over 150 years, but now it's much cheaper to buy paper from China and Japan, who have no regulations to follow, or unions to appease. When a large employer leaves, it's a domino effect which decimates entire communities. A prime example is Port Edwards Wisconsin. Their mill closed, and pretty much every major business is closed now, save a few dinky restaurants and the post office. I can name ten more towns which will all suffer the same fate before 2020 unless something is done to allow new economic development to replace the faltering paper mills. We are in a crisis the likes of which has never occurred before in human history, and we have arguably the worst leader to guide our nation through it. In all honesty, I don't "hate" Obama, but he has made an awful lot of empty promises, given us a lot of junk legislation, and passed the metaphorical buck to every other person but himself. We are definitely running out of time to get out of this catastrophe, and the "captain" is asleep at the wheel. We need a leader who can actually lead.

Vote your conscience this November.

[mission vending]

Can you give me some links to articles about this? Would love a good read.

A couple of minutes with my friend Google.........

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-25/markets/30028879_1_ge-healthcare-jeffrey-immelt-job-losses

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/soundeconomywithjontalton/2015732625_the_presidents_jobs_czar_is_do.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904772304576467873321597208.html

http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-26/business/29817324_1_ge-healthcare-x-ray-business-china-last-year

Hope this helps.

[dogcow]

throw the bums out, its time for new bums

A couple of minutes with my friend Google.........

http://articles.busi...melt-job-losses

http://seattletimes....czar_is_do.html

http://online.wsj.co...3321597208.html

http://articles.bost...china-last-year

Hope this helps.

from your first link:

General Electric's health-care unit is moving the headquarters of its x-ray business from Waukesha, Wisconsin to Beijing to gain from Chinese growth, according to Bloomberg.

The company said only a few of its top managers would move to China, and that it expects no job losses at its Wisconsin office, that has 120 employees. GE Healthcare will however hire 65 new engineers and other staff at the new Chengdu facility.

----

it makes sense to move there china is becoming a wealthy country

they are going to have a growing demand for medical equipment and support

so it makes sense for GE to have a growing presence there to capture some marketshare

the chinese internal market is just opening up , this is a good thing for US companies

who currently have little or not access to the chinese internal marketplace. on the flip side

it also opens up to the posibility of having intellectual property stolen by the government there

so its a tough call, hopefully this is a smart move for them.

there is a lot of debate on how to attract jobs here. i am a pragmatist i like to see the best

solution no matter where it lies ideologically. a lot of the right said we need less regulations

to compete with the chinese. i have been to china ...hk, beijing and tianjin it is a disgusting

cesspool of corruption , poverty and pollution. its like going in a time machine back to the

dark days of the industrial revolution. its not something i would want to see come to our shores.

on the other hand refusing to do business with china or imposing tarrifs makes us worse off

than the current situation because it drives up costs here. its a very tough call hopefully

someone can come up with a good solution

[The Mage]

I hate to say anything to support Obama, but companies that move jobs overseas actually create more jobs here then those that don't, resulting in a net positive. Counterintuitive, but it is a fact.

[Shauna]

I hate to say anything to support Obama, but companies that move jobs overseas actually create more jobs here then those that don't, resulting in a net positive. Counterintuitive, but it is a fact.

How?

[The Mage]

How?

These companies actually do save money, and that money goes back into the business fueling growth, and that growth eventually results in more jobs.

Here is a John Stossel video discussing this:

I will say it is a fairly older video. (Around 2004.) I have seen a more recent one with better information, but can't locate it right now. But this one does have some good information in it.

[musser]

Lol, really??? There are no jobs for two reasons.

Number ONE, technology has made human labor unecessary. I worked for one of this countries largest corps and the very long time I spent there was spent eliminating human labor through automation; at every level, from office to shop floor.

Number TWO, people in this country are a bunch of spoiled, clueless, greedy morons. Take this to the bank; if there are three toasters on the shelf at Walmart, one made here for $18, on from Mexico at $12 and one from China at $10 the only one that will sell is the one from China, and in RESPOSE TO CUSTOMER DEMAND, Walmart will stop stocking the non sellers.

Get over it, the american public is harvesting what it has sowed. Please don't whine or blame others for a system that ALL of us are engaged in.

[dogcow]

Number ONE, technology has made human labor unecessary. I worked for one of this countries largest corps and the very long time I spent there was spent eliminating human labor through automation; at every level, from office to shop floor.

the irony is since globalization took off the trend is reversing

heres a chinese playing card sorter:

[rdendy]

Number ONE, technology has made human labor unecessary. I worked for one of this countries largest corps and the very long time I spent there was spent eliminating human labor through automation; at every level, from office to shop floor.

Number TWO, people in this country are a bunch of spoiled, clueless, greedy morons. Take this to the bank; if there are three toasters on the shelf at Walmart, one made here for $18, on from Mexico at $12 and one from China at $10 the only one that will sell is the one from China, and in RESPOSE TO CUSTOMER DEMAND, Walmart will stop stocking the non sellers.

There is an argument to be made that technology and cheap labor create as many jobs as they kill. Let's take your own example about the $10 toaster; because items get cheaper, we get to purchase more items, increasing the amount of workers needed to produce the additional stuff. For example if I can buy a toaster, blender and cutting board for $100 then I am only providing work for the people who make those three items, now if for that same $100 I can buy a toaster, blender, cutting board, knife set, crock-pot, cookbook and food processor, then I have helped employee all of the workers for those 7 items.

Number TWO, people in this country are a bunch of spoiled, clueless, greedy morons. Take this to the bank; if there are three toasters on the shelf at Walmart, one made here for $18, on from Mexico at $12 and one from China at $10 the only one that will sell is the one from China, and in RESPOSE TO CUSTOMER DEMAND, Walmart will stop stocking the non sellers.

I disagree with your point, you imply because Americans don't buy more costly American goods they are spoiled, clueless, greedy morons. Here is why I have an issue with that, I buy hundreds of items a month for my household to survive, if I had to almost double that cost for most items then I would have to cut back on buying other items in order to afford it. What should my family lose and give up so we can support someone who obviously has a job that someone somewhere else can do for a fraction of the cost? I don't think I am spoiled, clueless or greedy to want to provide my family with the best I can off my own efforts and work.

The problem is too many Americans don't actively try to get skill sets they can use across multiple industries, many don't get either the education to move them selves up and be more employable, or they don't have the work ethic, drive, and ambition to make something for themselves because we coddle them if they can't do it. It is the lack of personal responsibility and the wealth of social nets that have made it easy for many to give up or do the bare minimum to survive, and/or be employable.

[shepherdsflock]

For example if I can buy a toaster, blender and cutting board for $100 then I am only providing work for the people who make those three items, now if for that same $100 I can buy a toaster, blender, cutting board, knife set, crock-pot, cookbook and food processor, then I have helped employee all of the workers for those 7 items.

Yes, but where are these jobs being created? Again, it's a matter of supply and demand. If the market demand is for cheap goods made in China at a price that allows you to buy all those products for $100, then the only workforce growth that will occur will be in regions where labor prices allow goods to be produced in that price range. You would not be creating domestic jobs; you would be adding resources to the expansion of the Chinese labor market.

[rdendy]

Yes, but where are these jobs being created? Again, it's a matter of supply and demand. If the market demand is for cheap goods made in China at a price that allows you to buy all those products for $100, then the only workforce growth that will occur will be in regions where labor prices allow goods to be produced in that price range. You would not be creating domestic jobs; you would be adding resources to the expansion of the Chinese labor market.

You are correct in that we do lose a lot of jobs, but many more are created here. For instance the amount of jobs and the employment index, not counting the depression caused by the housing bust, have risen steadily to match the population increase over the last 20 years. So if we were really losing jobs, we would have a much higher rate of unemployment. A good example is Detroit and Michigan, they have been decimated and almost destroyed by the loss of car and parts manufacturing but on the other hand Texas has seen huge growth especially in the banking, technology and energy sectors. The jobs just got exchanged for different industries once we couldn't compete anymore. The supply and demand you mentioned.

What we have been losing primarily is manufacturing, customer service and technology positions in their respective fields. There is an argument on why it's bad for us to be losing two of those fields, manufacturing and technology, but that's another discussion.

[caserri]

I'll buy a Chinese toaster as long as I can speak to an American when I call the help line after it craps out on me in a week.

Sent from the pay phone at 34th and Vine using Tapatalk 2

[musser]

Gosh, can I argue with everyone? lol. One of my first jobs at a mega corp was installing a machine that required the attendence of two non skilled people on one shift. The machine replaced SIXTY THREE skilled machinists, 3 tool makers, 3 forklift drivers and 3 clean up people. The machine did not require a skilled operator because the "skills" were held within the non human technology of the machine. That was 40 years ago! It was only a very short time that management realized that if the new machines did not require skilled operators the company could locate production in the most backward primitive slave labor countries on earth. THAT is the real future, and NO amount of education will save you because human intelligence is not NEEDED to create goods. Oh sure there are some extremes where human life is so cheap that labor still rules, but even in those places the machines are coming.

Sure we have jobs. But not of the quality and quanity to preserve our "system'. Yes there are exceptions, thank goodness my kids are doing well and have tech orientated jobs. But they are the exception. I would like to think that my telling them that the old system was DOA in 1970 helped them.

Value and wealth come from one thing; the conversion of raw materials into saleable products. Thats where it all starts. Sure there is money made after product creation but that is just passing around the origional created wealth. That is exactly why the Chinese are rich, why we owe them money, and why those among us that have enabled this system have done so well.

[dogcow]

Oh sure there are some extremes where human life is so cheap that labor still rules, but even in those places the machines are coming.

i sort of doubt it, a recent speech given by the ceo(?) of apple they said basically the ipads

and iphones are assembled mostly by hand overseas, because of this they can make changes

very quickly, he said without this process (if they were assembled by machines) the devices would

cost more and they wouldnt be able to get out new versions very quickly. machines cost a lot of money for R&D and it takes a long time

to recoup that investment, once you have a process, retooling the line is difficult and expensive. its easier

to simply retrain the workers. the factory can make ipods then the next day it can make dvd players...

Value and wealth come from one thing; the conversion of raw materials into saleable products. Thats where it all starts. Sure there is money made after product creation but that is just passing around the origional created wealth. That is exactly why the Chinese are rich, why we owe them money, and why those among us that have enabled this system have done so well.

it depends, in most industries manufacturing is the lowest value-add point, R&D (intellectual property)

and branding/sales/marketing/support produce higher value. this is represented by the

shih smile curve. consider a medication for example, to a person with the appropriate training the synthasis

of a drug is a fairly straight forward process, a pill itself costs merely fractions of a penny to produce, but

developing that drug and bringing it to market can cost on average eighty million.

also china is not a rich country, i was there about 5yrs ago its extremely improverished. there is a tiny

tiny class of people there that are very wealthy but you are talking about a TINY fraction of the population

of 1.5 billion. most of the people live in abject poverty unimagineable to the average american. the tiny "middle class" there

would be considered to be very poor by american standard.

[The Mage]

Oops, did I help fuel a debate?

Unfortunately what most people know about economics is not really economics, but politics. Too many people think that it is a zero sum game. That the only way to make a dollar is to take a dollar from somebody else, or the only way to have a job is to take one from somebody else. This is a faulty reasoning that causes a lot of problems.

Here is a simplified example of this. A person owns a house worth $100k. He pays a contractor $10K to update it. The value goes up to $125k, but he sells the house for $120k for a quicker sale.

In this example nobody got screwed. The contractor made his $10k, minus costs of course. The seller of the house made an extra $10k, and the person who bought it ends up with a house worth $5k more then he paid for it.

What this means is that a total value of $15k just came into existence. Everyone benefited here.

Similarly if a job goes to another country, those people are propped up financially, and that money in turn goes not only into their economies, but also back to the US.

China is fairly new to having a middle, and upper class. In fact China has just started outsourcing to other countries.

I'm not a fan of the Chinese government, but I have to admit they are better then they were. (Not saying much.) They found out that Mao's programs just didn't work, and started implementing capitalist reforms. China has a very fast growing middle class right now. And that increased wealth brings about more power to the people there.

Interestingly this has put China in a catch 22. If they kept with their socialist programs, they would eventually fail as a country, just like every other socialist country eventually does. But if they embrace Capitalism, even in limited quantities, they slowly grow weaker as the population grows more wealthy, and more powerful.

Back to the "slave labor" issues, people are so quick to demonize the low wages and conditions, but they never look at the bigger picture, or actually ask the people who are working in those conditions how they feel about it. They are quite happy about the work being available there, and it often pays 2 to 3 times what they could do elsewhere, and while we may complain about the conditions, they are actually the best conditions they have ever worked in. Many of these companies actually fight to get things as good as they are for the employees. One of the big problems they have dealt with are greedy local managers. Some places it has become regular practice for them to demand the employees pay them to keep their jobs. The companies have been firing these people when they find them.

With regard to resources, really doesn't matter. Having resources is nice, but Japan is very week in that regard, and still has one of the biggest economies around. Often it really isn't the resource that has value, but what you turn it into. You can import resources, that isn't a problem. But look at an iPhone. What is the total cost of the resources involved there? Probably less then the cheap $20 car radio you can buy from WalMart, but it is selling for many times more. It isn't the resources that have value, but what you do with them.

Then, as mentioned above, there are intangibles that have value. Things that actually do not exist in the real world, but have value. Angry Birds sold for a mere 99¢, and last I read it sold half a billion copies. What was their portion? Even a quarter of the profits would have been $125 million. On something that really is nothing but 1's and 0's. And the people that paid for it didn't even notice a change in their bank account.

Similarly I sell my bouncy balls for a quarter. (Maybe that's too low.) But we have lost our bouncy ball making jobs to another country. But honestly I don't want to make bouncy balls, I simply want to buy them, and put them into my machine. My costs are down, and my income is up as a result of these actions. Who here want's to trade places, and start making bouncy balls for minimum wage instead of selling them in their machines? (Forget about the times you accidentally spilled them and had to chase them down.)

I have lost plenty of jobs, and not once has it been because of it moving to another country. (I was in double digits before I was in my mid 20's.) But I didn't have financial trouble until I had stable employment. I finally figured things out, and when the financial crisis hit in 2008, I lost plenty of hours at work, but I also suddenly had more money then I ever had before. Living was easier then ever, my bank account was higher then it had ever been, and I was eliminating another debt every couple of months. (This was when, after years, my debt snowball was really picking up steam.)

The big point here is that I was starting to take control. To many people give power over to their employer, and I was finally getting away from that. I spent way too many years being dependent on my job. Anyone hurt by a layoff, or moving a job to another country really has made that mistake of allowing themselves to become dependent on their job/employer. The people who realized they should be independent were the ones who did not get hurt, or hurt as bad.

Maybe I should feel bad for them, but did they have an emergency fund? Could they tighten their belts, or did they have to keep making their new car payment, and credit card payment, and realize their 1 year of no payments on their furniture was suddenly due.

I really quit feeling sorry for people when I accepted responsibility for everything in my life. Not just some of the things, but everything. If I hated my job, it we me that got that job, and kept that job. If I had financial trouble, it wasn't my employers fault, or the credit cards, or my wife's medical condition, after all they don't manage my finances, I do. I choose what I do, where I live, what I buy, and how I live my life. My life is mine, and the responsibility is mine also.

Accepting total responsibility was the hardest thing for me to do, but at the same time it was the most empowering, and liberating thing I have ever done.

(How the hell did I go from an economic discussion to sounding like an Infomercial?)

[PerformaVending]

Accepting total responsibility was the hardest thing for me to do, but at the same time it was the most empowering, and liberating thing I have ever done.

(How the hell did I go from an economic discussion to sounding like an Infomercial?)

If 10% more of the country took your advice, who knows what we could accomplish. A "like" to you Mage!