US States that voted for Trump face factory closures due to Trump's trade war

[deleted_user]

I make 68 and can't wait to kill myself

I make $110k fgt.

Duck makes 220

[n0el]

The repatriation of manufacturing jobs wouldn't lower U.S. wages. Outsourcing those jobs did lower the operating costs for U.S. companies; though, so there may be a concern about rising prices once those jobs are forced back via tariff. There's a balance to be had. Sort of like how a tax can be fairly harmless and just take some money from the dividends a company would normally distribute to shareholders, or a tax can cause serious harm to a company and force them to close shop or raise prices. Tariffs need to be used carefully, so that more jobs are brought back, but companies are able to operate efficiently. The current wage for a car assemblyman is $16 an hour, or 33k per year. Those are jobs worth fighting for.

We should fight for jobs that put most families into poverty?

Don't be stuck up. There are millions of people who would love to earn that much straight out of high school. 33k might not sound like a lot, but it escapes the wage-slavery of most retail jobs. 33k can be straight up good if you also have a wife who works.

I’m not. I’m being realistic. We shouldn’t be pushing for bad jobs, we should be pushing for higher wages. Factory workers make less on average now than they did 20 years ago yet corporate profits have surged and C suite pay is at record highs. As long as we except the status quo, breakeven wages for labor and don’t do anything about the structural issues then we as a country won’t progress and will continue to have major issues.

[spanky4ever]

Show hidden quotes

The repatriation of manufacturing jobs wouldn't lower U.S. wages. Outsourcing those jobs did lower the operating costs for U.S. companies; though, so there may be a concern about rising prices once those jobs are forced back via tariff. There's a balance to be had. Sort of like how a tax can be fairly harmless and just take some money from the dividends a company would normally distribute to shareholders, or a tax can cause serious harm to a company and force them to close shop or raise prices. Tariffs need to be used carefully, so that more jobs are brought back, but companies are able to operate efficiently. The current wage for a car assemblyman is $16 an hour, or 33k per year. Those are jobs worth fighting for.

We should fight for jobs that put most families into poverty?

Don't be stuck up. There are millions of people who would love to earn that much straight out of high school. 33k might not sound like a lot, but it escapes the wage-slavery of most retail jobs. 33k can be straight up good if you also have a wife who works.

I’m not. I’m being realistic. We shouldn’t be pushing for bad jobs, we should be pushing for higher wages. Factory workers make less on average now than they did 20 years ago yet corporate profits have surged and C suite pay is at record highs. As long as we except the status quo, breakeven wages for labor and don’t do anything about the structural issues then we as a country won’t progress and will continue to have major issues.

do you mean 7-8 dollars per hour minimal pay? slave wages? is that what you mean?

[Gendarme]

IKR? It would indeed be great if you didn't have to pay half your salary in tax.

[spanky4ever]

how would you enjoy 7 dollars per hour @Gendarme

[spanky4ever]

https://youtu.be/UqLRqzTp6Rk?list=PLjtT ... _2GmFxEj3U
Trump ass, pretty bad ass, prett ugly azz

[Amsel_]

I’m not. I’m being realistic. We shouldn’t be pushing for bad jobs, we should be pushing for higher wages. Factory workers make less on average now than they did 20 years ago yet corporate profits have surged and C suite pay is at record highs. As long as we except the status quo, breakeven wages for labor and don’t do anything about the structural issues then we as a country won’t progress and will continue to have major issues.

They aren't bad jobs. They pay more than double the minimum wage. $16 an hour is enough to live off of, unlike minimum wage which necessitates living with your parents or multiple roommates. If these jobs are so bad, so unwanted - why are people so desperate to get more of them? Wages are also lower because half these workers are one bad day away from unemployment. Once there is more job security, more places to jump ship to if they're unhappy, they will have more leverage in wage-bargaining. Is it any coincidence that the decline of unions coincided with American deindustrialization? The systematic removal of American manufacturing and blue-collar labor is the main structural issue with our economy. It's the reason executives can pay themselves so much without feeling the need to pay their workers more. I would like to hear your thoughts on the structural issues in our economy though.

[n0el]

@Amsel_ To be clear. I am not saying there is no place for these jobs. There are. But here is where you are wrong, people are not desperate to get more of them. This couldn't be further from the truth. Where I used to work, they paid 16$ an hour, tier 1 automotive production. They were scraping people off the street to find workers. No one wants to make poverty level wages for that kind of work, they'd rather work at fast food or whatever for a few bucks less. Now, these specific jobs at GM, they are great jobs. Most of them pay more towards 30$ an hour with great benefits. Closing these factories without redirecting other work there is purely profit driven, structural issue of the economy.

I do agree with you on your second point. The working class has no bargaining room at the table, and I don't see a way they get that back in the current system without drastic changes. So long as the current structure of short term stock price manipulation and C suite domination exists, we are bound to continue down this path until there's a reckoning. There's a lot of reasons that led to this point, but that might be another topic.

[n0el]

ALso, I should have been more clear before when talking about manufacturing jobs in general. It's impossible to classify them together. Especially within a given industry like automotive, OEM manufacturing jobs are worth double what tier 1 are worth, and tier 1 are worth 125% of what tier 2 jobs are worth. In general i was refering to the lower level jobs, not the OEM jobs.

[Dolan]

It's a myth that Western/USA companies don't want to relocate back to their countries of origin because of the cost of labour. Wage costs are actually not one of the most significant costs in manufacturing. And the reason why so many big companies like Apple are still massively invested in Chinese manufacturing has more to do with supply chains, rather than labour costs.
The labour cost issue used to be important back in the 80s and onwards, when they first started to relocate in search of maximising profits. But things have changed a lot since then.

Most of Intel's fabs (75%) are located in the USA. GlobalFoundries has 3 fabs in the USA. Texas Instruments, Micron, Samsung, Microchip, ON Semiconductor, Maxim, Cree Inc, Analog Devices, Diodes Incorporated, SkyWater Technology, General Motors Components Holdings, Apple (one X3 fab in San Jose), Renesas (Japanese company which has one fab in the USA in Roseville CA), TowerJazz, NXP Semiconductors (Dutch OEM which has one fab in Arizona), Infineon Technologies, Seagate, Data General, Sensera -- all these companies have at least one fabrication plant in the USA, even though some of them are not American companies.

What is more common for these companies is for them to keep the high-tech part of the manufacturing process in the USA and outsource the low-skilled, assembly part of the manufacturing to Asia. That's why China has so few semiconductor fabs and they basically have no major CPU maker located there. It's a problem the Chinese are actively trying to solve right now, because without CPUs, you can't really say you have a self-reliant high-tech manufacturing sector. And the Chinese are painfully aware that the USA could block their companies from using technology engineered in the USA (including CPUs) which could have major consequences for their entire industry.

As I said before, these trade skirmishes don't really have much to do with the economy. The real reason behind these trade conflicts is that the US has started to realise, some years ago, that China is using its economic growth to arm itself, building its own aircraft carriers, growing its naval forces, asserting itself in the South China Sea to the detriment of other states in the region which are US allies (Taiwan, the Philippines). That's why the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was negotiated and hailed by Obama as a way for the USA to contain China economically. This is not new policy, the US establishment has been taking steps to contain China way before Trump even considered running for US president, when he was still seen in the media as nothing but some New York rich rube. But while Obama was using a velvet gloves approach, Trump is putting on boxing gloves before negotiating. Same policies, different approach.

[n0el]

It's a myth that Western/USA companies don't want to relocate back to their countries of origin because of the cost of labour. Wage costs are actually not one of the most significant costs in manufacturing. And the reason why so many big companies like Apple are still massively invested in Chinese manufacturing has more to do with supply chains, rather than labour costs.
The labour cost issue used to be important back in the 80s and onwards, when they first started to relocate in search of maximising profits. But things have changed a lot since then.

Kind of true. Yes, wages themselves are only a portion of the total costs of manufacturing, but there is enough of a difference that in the profit maximization formula it matters. Almost always you'll see US manufacturing operations having substantially more automation than equivalent processes in low labor cost countries. What this means is that they are more capital intensive and thus capital becomes the barrier to US relocation. This seems odd doesn't it? Considering that there's record cash on hand for most global companies. Most of that capital is going to IP and the free cash is going to stock buybacks rather than investment that produces US jobs.

[n0el]

It's a myth that Western/USA companies don't want to relocate back to their countries of origin because of the cost of labour. Wage costs are actually not one of the most significant costs in manufacturing. And the reason why so many big companies like Apple are still massively invested in Chinese manufacturing has more to do with supply chains, rather than labour costs.
The labour cost issue used to be important back in the 80s and onwards, when they first started to relocate in search of maximising profits. But things have changed a lot since then.

Kind of true. Yes, wages themselves are only a portion of the total costs of manufacturing, but there is enough of a difference that in the profit maximization formula it matters. Almost always you'll see US manufacturing operations having substantially more automation than equivalent processes in low labor cost countries. What this means is that they are more capital intensive and thus capital becomes the barrier to US relocation. This seems odd doesn't it? Considering that there's record cash on hand for most global companies. Most of that capital is going to IP and the free cash is going to stock buybacks rather than investment that produces US jobs.

[PeachTree]

If only he put tarrifs on end-use products (walmart products)... Taxing raw materials is pointless and kills more jobs than it creates...

[Amsel_]

@Amsel_ To be clear. I am not saying there is no place for these jobs. There are. But here is where you are wrong, people are not desperate to get more of them. This couldn't be further from the truth. Where I used to work, they paid 16$ an hour, tier 1 automotive production. They were scraping people off the street to find workers. No one wants to make poverty level wages for that kind of work, they'd rather work at fast food or whatever for a few bucks less. Now, these specific jobs at GM, they are great jobs. Most of them pay more towards 30$ an hour with great benefits. Closing these factories without redirecting other work there is purely profit driven, structural issue of the economy.

I do agree with you on your second point. The working class has no bargaining room at the table, and I don't see a way they get that back in the current system without drastic changes. So long as the current structure of short term stock price manipulation and C suite domination exists, we are bound to continue down this path until there's a reckoning. There's a lot of reasons that led to this point, but that might be another topic.

I looked it up and the average GM assemblyman wage was $19. $30 was the high end. But I still think that $16 is pretty good. If you imagine a young couple fresh out of high school, 33k is quite a lot to them. If the wife makes minimum wage then they're up to 50k a year, which is respectable for people in their situation. The assemblyman's salary will also go up over time, and he always has the option to change to a different career. Jobs like these aren't glamorous, but they're important. They're a necessary foundation to moving away from the status-quo wherein going to college is almost essential if you want to be middle-class before you're 30.

[Dolan]

Almost always you'll see US manufacturing operations having substantially more automation than equivalent processes in low labor cost countries.

Yeah and that also means those employed to operate these facilities in the US are not just low-skill workers barely making both ends meet. Which invalidates the argument that if those manufacturing jobs from China were brought back to the US, they would most surely be low-paid jobs. Not necessarily. If more automation is involved in the manufacturing process, they can be decently paid jobs. But that's not the main reason why those jobs aren't coming back to the US.

What this means is that they are more capital intensive and thus capital becomes the barrier to US relocation.

I doubt that this is the case for big behemoths like Apple or Dell. They could very well afford investing in assembly lines in the USA, but the reason why they're not doing that is what I mentioned in a previous post: this is not primarily about labour costs, the reason why they are assembling their products in China and Taiwan is proximity to essential supply chains. Most relevant electronics components are made in that region and if you try to assemble in the US, you will first have to ship every one of them to the USA. And if you need very specific, custom-made parts that need constant refining and testing, that not only can add more costs, but critically can add more delays to your overall product delivery schedule. And this is what concerns hardware companies most. It's not some 0.5% extra costs in wages or some 2% extra costs in relocation of assembly lines. It's the disruption of their cycles of delivery. Clients expect them to deliver new products every 2 years or sometimes even faster. If they miss their cue, they risk becoming irrelevant vs their competition.

Most of that capital is going to IP and the free cash is going to stock buybacks rather than investment that produces US jobs.

I'd say it's different for different companies. For some, most of the profits are going to dividends for shareholders. For others, they might go to buybacks, if the situation requires it.
And actually this is another myth, lots of big companies don't really invest that much in R&D. Apple's R&D costs during the last few years hovered around 4% of their overall revenue.


And they are one of the companies with the highest percentage of R&D investment among US hardware manufacturing companies. Other companies invest a lot less than that. Heck, there might be some of them who spend more on patent litigation rather than R&D.

[spanky4ever]

and @Dolan you are very wrong! the manufacturing jobs are coming back to USA if they can compet with China, or other low paying countries. Guess what that means? The pay check in USA are getting smaller and smaller. Could be good news for you though, living in a country where the wages are very low, But for ordinary USA citizens it is really bad news.

Do you have any data to support this statement or is it just something your heard somewhere?

I doubt that there are any good statistics available at this point in time. Its just to new. But there are plenty of statistics over the last last 5 decades, all showing that wages have stagnated/or even declined in USA. At the same time, Corporations and CEOs are killing it with profits and bonuses.
I would ask you, do you have any data that support the "claim" that wages are hiking in USA, or even going up for the average American manifacturing worker?
I mean, there has been a rise in pay that got Wallstreet scared for a moment. But it turned out that the rise in wages was at the same (or slightly less) than inflation, meaning no REAL wage hike this time either.

Rising prices have erased U.S. workers’ meager wage gains, the latest sign strong economic growth has not translated into greater prosperity for the middle and working classes.

Cost of living was up 2.9 percent from July 2017 to July 2018, the Labor Department reported Friday, an inflation rate that outstripped a 2.7 percent increase in wages over the same period. The average U.S. “real wage,” a federal measure of pay that takes inflation into account, fell to $10.76 an hour last month, 2 cents down from where it was a year ago.

The stagnation in pay defies U.S. growth, which has increased in the past year and topped 4 percent in the second quarter of 2018 — the highest rate since mid-2014.

The lack of wage growth has befuddled economists and policymakers, who hoped that after job openings hit record highs and the unemployment rate dipped to the lowest level in decades, employers would give beefy raises to attract and retain workers. But so far, gains have been slight, and small recent increases are being eclipsed by rising prices.


Inflation hit a six-year high this summer, in part because of a jump in energy costs. The price of a gallon of gas has increased 50 cents in the past year, up to a national average of $2.87, according to AAA. Some analysts expect the climb in energy prices to halt soon, which should bring the overall inflation rate down and possibly lift real wages slightly.

Consumers are also paying more for housing, health care and automobile insurance, the federal government reported Friday. Additional price increases could be coming as President Trump’s new tariffs boost the prices of cheap imported products on which U.S. consumers rely. And many economists warn that growth might have peaked for this expansion.

for more, you can read the whole article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... inflation/

https://youtu.be/sYZLNv9LLzc

[spanky4ever]

more?
https://youtu.be/koS8oeFD3Sc

[Dolan]

I doubt that there are any good statistics available at this point in time. Its just to new. But there are plenty of statistics over the last last 5 decades, all showing that wages have stagnated/or even declined in USA.

You first claim you doubt there are any good stats, and then add that there are plenty of stats on this subject? Which one is it?

At the same time, Corporations and CEOs are killing it with profits and bonuses.

True. And this is because Americans have a very different mentality when it comes to wage hierarchy.

I would ask you, do you have any data that support the "claim" that wages are hiking in USA, or even going up for the average American manifacturing worker?

I wasn't the one making the claims. That's why I asked, because I see lots of people making claims without being able to back up their statements, that's all.

Not sure how you would define a US manufacturing worker in terms of income brackets. Based on US census data, it seems that all income brackets have seen real growth over the last 50 years:



However, if we compare their income to their peak year, we do see that those on the bottom of the ladder saw declining levels of income:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/10/america-wage-growth-is-getting-wiped-out-entirely-by-inflation/

So what's the big deal, real income growth is stagnating in the USA. It's not like we should be crying on their shoulders, considering that they already have one of the highest levels of income per capita and one of the highest levels of income by average wage in the world (above Norway).



And their purchasing power doesn't look that bad compared to the OECD average:

Millenials are broke memeh

And how is this relevant? It's not like manufacturing jobs are the most popular among millennials, they all want, more or less, to be the next startup wonderkid or to work in the services sector.
What they're complaining about is that they're part of the age bracket which is at the bottom of the corporate ladder. And again, this is how American mentality works. They think if you're young you're worth shit and you have to be humble and work your way up until you get the level of pay that you deserve. That's why their top earners are people in the 45-54 age bracket.



It's really something that is intrinsic to how the corporate ladder works in the USA. They have a certain mentality on how business gains (I'm not using the technical term "profits" because wage costs are not deducted from profits) should be distributed across the corporate ladder. So the meanest and leanest suits are those that get the biggest piece of the pie. It's how it works pretty much in most of the Anglo-sphere. They have this mentality that if you're smart and work hard you will achieve more and get paid more. And so, if you made it to the upper echelons in a company, you should be paid as much as the company can afford to pay you. The sky is the limit. Why should your pay be limited by some "foreign", "European", "Socialist" idea of pay fairness? You run the company, you make the rules, you're the success story, fuck the plebs, they are disposable. Americans grow up in a society in which everything is built on this assumption that, if you work hard enough, you will get what you deserve eventually. And if you're not successful, Americans think it's your fault, you just couldn't achieve more.

It's a very different mentality from what you can see in other parts of the world. It's not like CEOs or upper management are paid less in other countries, but in the USA this mentality is most apparent in everything, common people don't even dare question it. At least in Asia, societies are more collectivistic and everyone just falls in line and follows the leader without questioning their pay or their position. But in the USA, which is touted as the land of freedom and whatnot, you might think this is surprising, but on the contrary, they think income inequality is what makes America great and free. What makes the American dream possible. Even their "left-wing" "liberal" whatever political elements they have are still just slightly less lizzard-minded than their most typical right-wing "the market will solve it" sort of people.

America, as a British colony that went rogue, was built on extremes. And since it's always been the "land of opportunity", those who became successful are those who made a run for the gold. If you didn't get there in time or weren't smart enough to outwit others, it's only your fault that you fell down the social ladder. There's no one else to blame but yourself, you made "the wrong choices" (*smug smile*). What? You expect "the government" to fix your problems? Are you some kind of Communist like those Europeans? Do you also expect the government to make you successful? Haha, what a good joke. That's how Americans think.

And I don't know why I should be concerned with the USA, tbh, it's not my country. If I ever write about the USA, it's purely for analytical/comparative purposes. Just like it's interesting to think what happens with Brexit, so it's interesting what happens with Trumps' administration, but beyond that it's really not my concern.

[spanky4ever]

what is the puch line @Dolan ?

[Gendarme]

Dolan you inconsiderate asshole. How do have the audacity to not give a TL;DR?

[spanky4ever]

Dolan you inconsiderate asshole. How do have the audacity to not give a TL;DR?

tbh, you are the ass -hole. Dolan wants to make a real argument

[Gendarme]

could b. As long as I'm not a fuckfase I am content.

[spanky4ever]

Btw, did you pay any attention to my figures and the videoes I posted? @Dolan

[Dolan]

The only figures you posted were those from an article that says inflation neutralised wage hikes in the USA. And I addressed that argument in the paragraph which starts with "So what's the big deal, real income growth is stagnating in the USA. ..."

The first video uses some stats that don't quote any source. Should I spend my day trying to track down whatever source they used for those stats? Nah.

Second video is just some guy broadcasting his opinions, not sure what I should be replying to. He's like talking about some "avocado and toast" memes. But again, I'm not denying millennials are on the bottom of the corporate/income ladder, I've explained why this is the case in my post. And this topic wasn't about millennials, it was about trade tariffs and jobs. Which is very unlikely to have anything to do with millennials who aren't particularly focused on getting blue-collar jobs. So, not sure why you brought this "millennials are cash-starved" in the discussion.

[Gendarme]

Don't you dare insult avocado and toast, you capitalist pig.