Won't that only help for future generations though? Improving the education system that is. Right now you have a huge segment of the country who would basically fall under the less than average education level the rest of the world enjoys. What to do with them? That's kinda the problem we face at the moment.

What the article fails to point out is the exportation of American jobs abroad as many Asian/ Pacific countries can perform the same function at a fraction of the cost. This increases the bottom line to a company which in-turn increases the bonus paid to the executive that made the decision to outsource the job in the first place.

Do you see a nasty pattern here? We are at the beck-and-call of upper management pencil-pushers.

Like this story was news to anyone.....

Citizenship and patriotic duty come a distant second to stock sales, dividends, and bonuses. But why should corporations have any different tendencies than individual Americans. By reading numerous posts I get the feeling that Citizenship now is all about finding ways to not pay your share of taxes.

What happened to the America I knew where people believed in shared sacrifice, and honest work to make their communities work? Was this just propaganda, or did the events of Viet Nam, and Watergate put us on the road to the division that mosts posts on the vines are examples of?

Sadly, FlyNavy, that kind of thinking is now branded as Socialism, by the fear mongers. And as long as it's so easy to sway public perception with simple catch phrases, the America we knew, will continue to be a distant memory.

This has been the trend since the clinton administration exploiting NAFTA.

This outsourcing will only slow down once they start outsourcing management and executive jobs. As long as greedy shareholders chase short term profits and allow for huge executive salaries, this trend will continue. IF they were to cap executive salaries at no more than 10 times the average worker's salary, those jobs would come screaming back into the US. Our outright worship of money is what has caused this tragedy! We run from taxes and then complain that our schools suck! We waste billions of dollars giving tax breaks to the people who need them the least and at the same time fund deadend wars on foreign soil all to line the pockets of defense contractors and oil executives! Our priorities are in the toilet, that's why our economy has joined it there and until our priorities change, that's right where we will remain!

Sacrifice is something a few do for the many. If everybody has to sacrifice, its just a way to cover up the fact that the system cant deliver the goods. It makes people feel patriotic about being in a failed system rather than fixing the system.

@ Mad Mikey: The problem is, our economy is actually rebounding in many areas, but American's aren't any better off for it.

Longhair it was Republicans that forced Clinton into passing NAFTA. Only 24 Democrats voted for it in the Senate while every Republican voted for it. Clinton had no choice as Republicans held the government at a standstill until it was passed.

We have met our enemy, and it is us! The collapse of America continues!

keith, while campaigning Obama and Hillary said that they would redo NAFTA if elected. 3 months after being elected Obama said that redoing NAFTA was off the table, he was not going to do anything to NAFTA, and the left said NOTHING!!!

@ Gary: Republicans fight Democrats, while Democrats fight each other. That models been running strong for quite some time.

American companies and some political people are all for this. They are changing the middle class of this country into the working class of mexico, china, India etc., Here is how they are doing it!

1. Send all manufacturing jobs overseas. Kill unions so no one group can call them out. Who cares if One of 15 million people screams, no one will hear their voice. If they all scream together then people listen. But these people have been duped into believing that by joining a union it cost them their job!

2. Make the only jobs available low wage jobs, and keep it that way for years. Make americans take low wage jobs or the same or a little more that the overseas worker. So Company A can make billions instead of millions.

3. Keep taking the benefits that have help people make it between jobs. Unemployment, Food Stamps, Medicad ect. Force them to work at McDonald's, instead of sprint or GE. Then when they get that sprint job at a wage that is still lower than it should be they will be happy that its not the McDonald's wage.

This is what is happening and now its happening to everyone instead of just minorities. Some I say again SOME people wonder why minorities vote overwhelmingly democrat, because they realize that they will never earn enough to afford to be a republican no matter how hard they try.

We should keep cutting taxes for rich Americans until they create jobs for everybody else. That's the only way to fix our economy. Everything else is "socialism" and that's evil and bad and stuff.

One definition of Republican economic policy is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result.

Bottom line, companies are not hiring overseas because of taxes in this country, hell some tax rates are higher in countries in Europe. They are hiring overseas because they don't have to pay for health insurance in some cases, or for pensions in most cases. Employers have decided that perks are too expensive, and are moving to countries that don't require that they be paid, or where none are expected! This is why so many more people are working as temps rather than full-time employees in this country, since there are no benefits offered and none required, and this trend will continue to increase, effectively decreasing the middle class who need the perks of health insurance and at least some form of pension plan to survive.

We can make this a political argument if me want to, but we do so to our own detriment. Stop giving tax breaks to companies that like IBM and Caterpillar, who continue to do away with jobs in the US in favor of hiring in South America, Europe AND Asia. It is ridiculous to do otherwise, as I can nearly guarantee you that other countries are not offering perks to firms that won't even hire people that live in that country. It's absurd, and must stop!

In the end howdy is right. The beginning of the end for us has been the downgrading of our school system. As far as the concerns of business we turn out a sub par employee whose reading skills are sub par and with math and science skills at some abysmal grade school level. Our school system puts out a student barely capable of working the fast food industry. Why manufacture here when it is easier and cheaper to manufacture overseas?

@ Bsbfankaren: Exactly, if the tax law was based upon a sliding scale which rose or fell depending on what portion of their work force was based in America, it would eventually become too expensive for them to outsource all the jobs, forcing them to keep a parity between foreign and domestic labor.

And if they refuse, yank their ability to do business in the US. Plain and simple.

Tired of McBush,

You left out one other variable. They then make college so expense, and low cost or no cost aid so hard to find, or so little that it hardly matters, and the poor stay poor because they can't educate themselves out of their station in life.

Remember, some Republicans have been threatening to roll back the increase Obama has added to the Pell Grant, something only poor and middle class students are eligible for anyway!

I think we need to eliminate the corporate income tax altogether. Gouging businesses for more taxes as a penalty for overseas migration will just put more nails in the coffin. If anything, we probably need to go the opposite way and kill them with kindness to attract businesses and give a business the incentive to stay here. Maybe the savings in the taxes will more than offset the higher labor costs here? A compromise...maybe come keep the corporate income taxes if the company does more than a certain percentage of their work overseas and eliminate the tax for companies that stay? Needs to be incentives involved. Patriotic duty isnt enough.

Bottom line is, the corporate income tax is the 2nd highest in the world. I, too, would leave.

If demand for US products by US citizens was as high as our demand for Chinese, Taiwan, Indian, Bangledesch, etc. products this would be a non-issue.

We are happy to trade pennies saved on our products for jobs that went away and won't come back until we start buying US made products.

@ AZChzhd: Then leave, there are plenty of enterprises out there who'd benefit from the sudden vacuum a huge company would leave, i they left the US. Small Business has been the bastard step-child for a great long time, under the foot of Big Business. You don't think another company will pop up and fill the void? Or two? Or three?

Why are broadband costs so high in the US? Because we have what, 2-3 major telecommunications giants who have a stranglehold over the market. Promise coverage everywhere, and continuously fail to meet those benchmarks. The government never does anything about it, because there aren't any companies big enough to shoulder the burden, because they're continuously forced out by Big Business monopolies.

I'm willing to go without net access for awhile, if it means the death of Comcast, and AT&T.

That is where Free Trade gets us. Did anyone really thinks that CAT was going to make a 40,000 lb tractor and ship to to a mine in China? Or would they make it in one of the 5 Factory's that they run in China?

Want the jobs back? Dump Free Trade and enact Fair Trade.

China is a slave (forced labor makes up 78% of their work force) state and our Companies should pay the price for their precipitation in the ha-nus Slavery that is CHINA. China is Satan's cohort. If at all possible, do not buy Made in China.

Gary-302710 -

"Why manufacture here when it is easier and cheaper to manufacture overseas?"

Do you honestly believe that a student who scores highly on math and science is taking a low wage manufacturing job? Really? No! The manufacturing jobs are going to folks who are under educated, who will work for less money then those that can go to college and make more. It is no different then this country, accept that overseas the company doesn't have to provide a pension or in some cases health insurance, as it is provided by the gov't!

Don't believe the lies companies put forth to explain away there lack of appreciation for the American worker. No union means no health insurance and no pension for workers at the lower end of the pay scale, and that is what is going to do away with this nations middle class, and drive more people to needing publically provided health care, something that the tax payers will have to find some way to foot the bill for.

AZChzhd

I think we need to eliminate the corporate income tax altogether. Gouging businesses for more taxes as a penalty for overseas migration will just put more nails in the coffin.

You keep thinking that, and see if your mind changes once your job is eliminated, and turns up in Peru, or Venezuela, or Brazil. Just ask the folks who used to work for IBM in Colorado Springs, or in Oregon. They'd be happy to fill you in.

Good comments from F. Hollings - just in last weeks paper.....

Globalization is nothing more than a trade war with production looking for a country cheaper to produce. As governor of South Carolina 50 years ago, I was drafted in this trade war to testify on behalf of the Northern and Southern textile industries before the old Tariff Commission. I noted how Japan closed its market, subsidized its manufacture, sold its export at cost, making up the profit in the closed market. We lost the case, but in 1961 President John F. Kennedy held hearings under the War Powers Act of 1950, determining that, next to steel, textiles were the second most important to our national security.

Then, President Kennedy saved the textile industry with his seven-point program. Competing in the trade war in 1971, President Richard Nixon imposed a 10 percent surcharge on imports when our trade deficit was a fraction of what it is today. President Ronald Reagan protected steel, automobiles, semi-conductors and machine tool production with restraint agreements and Harley-Davidson motorcycles with safeguard measures under Section 201 of the Trade Act calling for tariffs and quotas.

I worked for 38 years in the U.S. Senate with Corporate America to protect its domestic production and jobs. When China entered the trade war, it not only closed its market for all items domestically produced, but attracted investments, research, technology, development, and production. Offshoring hemorrhaged and a substantial portion of the U.S. economy offshored to China.

During the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency we lost almost one-third of our manufacturing jobs. Corporate America switched sides in the trade war, and rather than seek protection for its domestic production, now seeks protection for its China production and calls for "free trade," saying, "Don't start a trade war." Wall Street and Corporate America contribute to the president and Congress to do nothing that would disturb the flow of offshore profits, and the president and Congress do nothing.

After World War II, the U.S. was the economic superpower. We had the only industry or production. In spreading capitalism to defend communism in the Cold War, we called for free trade. But today, even though Japan has put General Motors in bankruptcy with Toyota No. 1, the media still think that Japan practices free trade. Now China, with its controlled capitalism, sets the pace. China has attracted our best of research, Bill Gates' Microsoft, and Andy Grove has closed Intel's Silicone Valley facility and develops the best of U. S. innovation in China

Germany, with its 19 percent Value Added Tax, makes a beachhead in Charleston for green jobs with windmill production. Producing the parts in Germany, the 19 percent VAT is rebated on export to Charleston. Highballing the cost of production in Germany so as not to pay any income tax in Charleston and with shipping costs only 3 percent, Germany can produce green jobs 15 percent cheaper than any U.S. domestic production.

Competition is fierce in the trade war, but people think we still have free trade. You can't blame them because those in the free press, like Tom Friedman of The New York Times, ignore the trade war and blame the loss of jobs on education or innovation. Innovation is good, but the best of innovation is developed off-shore. South Carolina needs to improve its education, but we have enough skills to produce the "ultimate driving machine" for BMW and the "Dreamliner" for Boeing.

Now Washington blames the loss of jobs on the recession instead of 50 years of offshoring. You can't blame Corporate America for offshoring. It has to compete to make a profit in globalization, and production and services can be produced more economically offshore. The task is to make it economically attractive to produce once again in the U.S. As Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of the treasury for Ronald Reagan, states: "The only way the United States will again have an economy is by bringing back the off-shored jobs."

We can bring back those offshored jobs, and the economy can be given an immediate jolt, by replacing the corporate tax with a 5 percent VAT. This tax would immediately stop subsidizing offshoring and eliminate the tax disadvantage that the nation suffers in the trade war. It will boost exports, and best of all you get more money cutting taxes. The VAT brings in $600 billion compared to the corporate income tax estimate for 2010 of only $156.7 billion. This leaves $443.3 billion to pay down the debt.

The international community can be put on notice that the U. S. will now fight in the trade war by instituting a 10 percent surcharge on imports like President Nixon did in 1971. The real task is to enforce the War Production Act, protecting production necessary for the nation's security, and Section 201 of the Trade Act, protecting vital production when endangered and not waiting for it to go bankrupt. In globalization we want domestic production to remain competitive. In protecting endangered production, the entire industry need not be protected.

In textiles, for example, only vital production like camouflage, parachute cloth and composites for body armor need be protected. Subsidizing research is futile unless associated with a competitive trade policy. And China need not be challenged ideologically. China is mature and enforces its trade policy, and all the U.S. has to do is enforce its trade policy.

On a recent "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough exclaimed: "I can't understand why Wall Street is doing so well." It is because of the Washington game he covers. There are two Americas, or two teams attracting jobs -- the Wall Street/Washington team vs. the Governors/Main Street team. The Governors' team struggles to pay for government year-to-year in order to maintain a state's credit rating and works around the clock attracting industry. The Washington team has no idea of paying for government (now studying it) and does everything possible to favor offshoring the nation's industry and jobs. Washington subsidizes offshoring with tax benefits and, fully aware of the trade war, acts like the U. S. must be careful not to start one.

David Gregory of NBC's "Meet the Press" was talking about the severity of the recession and someone exclaimed, "Americans just don't get it." That's because the media don't give it to them. If the media gave it to them by reporting that every nation is building its economy in globalization while the president and Congress campaign for contributions and refuse to compete in the trade war, the fraud of Washington would be exposed, and we could go back to work in America again.

Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings, a Democrat, was governor of South Carolina from 1959-63 and represented the state in the U.S. Senate from 1966-2005.

This is my opinion only. These are just some ideals I have that might bring our business back. It may not bring work from overseas back. If Big Business leaves entirely because parts of these suggestions ever do become law, then we can build our own business's. The Federal Government can build the factories then lease them to companies willing to hire USA citizens to work in the USA at these factories. Federal Control will also prevent someone from buying the newly built factory then cutting it up to sell for profit.

What we need to do to stop this is thus:

1. Wind-Fall profits Tax. 95% tax on any benefits that people make from jobs leaving the USA. That includes stock benefits. Lets say someone has stock in a business that has moved its jobs overseas and is now generating profit. wham that profit wheather via stock or investment is hit with a 95% tax.

2. Billionares and Trillionares tax. Anyone who has $1 Billion or more in investments, savings etc is hit with a 55% tax.

3. Windfall earnings tax: Anyone who earns $1billion dollars via salary, bonuses or work is hit with a 95% windfall earning Tax.

4. Repeal of the Obama tax breaks for Billionares and Trillionares. Anyone who earns 250,000 to 1 million will pay 40% tax. 1 million to 1 billion 60% and then over 1 billion will fall into number 3 above. (This act is needed because big business could lower their earnings to 999 million in an effort to escape 3 above)

5. Any foreign made product will have to pay a 55% tariff in order to be sold in the United States. This includes goods made in foreign nations by United States Companies. Also, the USA needs to leave the WTO, IMF and the World Bank.

6. Fair Earnings Wage Act: Any US Company who has factories and work in other countries must pay their employees in foreign countries $25 dollars an hour. no exceptions. none. the $25 dollars an hour would be paid in the equilivant of whatever currency of the country that the US Company is located in. Say India, a US Company would have to pay the equilivant in rubles that would equal 25 us dollars. This also covers any company that any USA Business has 1/100th investment in or more. Doing this prevents USA Companies from making a local version of itsself in order to escape number 6.

7. Any US Company that fails to follow the Fair Earnings Wage Act will be hit with a 100 Billion Dollar Fine. Paid by the hour till number 6 above is followed.

8. Any US Company that returns to the USA and closes down all its overseas factories (This has to happen with-in 60 days of this package becoming law) will receave a huge tax break and incentives. Any citizen who invest in USA Companies that are still 100% located in USA will not pay the windfall profits tax unless those companies decide to move overseas.

I believe this will bring the jobs back to the USA and will punish those who leach off the mis-fortune of USA Citizens. If Big Business leaves the USA completely, then good, We will make our own factories, steel mills and other things. Mom and Pop stores would return and thrive.

Maybe if Big Business left we would finally be in charge of our Government.

It might sound silly but this is just one idea. It may work it may not work. But at least its something.

Well did everyone get what they wanted for Christmas?, does everyone really think by cutting taxes there was going to be job creations?, Like I've said before this whole mess did not happen by accident, look around your wages will be going down just like the value of your homes, and the winner is your cost of living is going up, soon we will be like other countries where there is only two class of people RICH, and YOU POOR, but everyone did get to vote so stop whining and suck it up ...........Oh remember how much people lost their jobs every week well guess what, they will fall off the Un-employment rolls the same way and then the job losses will start again, the bummer is this time it maybe your job, home, and life that is lost ...... HAPPY NEW YEAR ...... Oh and no one owes anybody anything like a job or living, what they do owe is to make the most money for the owners of the companies that's the real world .. Just thought I would jolt you all with a bit of reality ....

bsbfankaren, you either do not or have not worked in manufacturing. Please let me know when you try to hire an employee for a good paying job with benefits and your young applicants need help just filling out the application? Please let me know when you interview applicants that can barely read, have poor writing skills, or have limited math skills. Try to explain 6 sigma quality inspection to someone who cannot perform simple math.

These politicians and Corporations could care less about this country.

The morons that pass the trade laws NEVER think about the impact to this country.

WE DO NOT SELL TO THE WORLD THEY SELL TO THE CONSUMING NATION OF THE USA..........................

HOW THE F..K CAN THIS CONTINUE?

WE CANNOT STOP BUYING FROM WALMART BECAUSE OUR ECONOMY IS SO BROKEN WE CANNOT AFFORD TO BUY ANYWHERE ELSE. BY DESIGN.......

I agree with this. But it needs to go further. The desperity betweent the educated and non educated is TOO DANG HIGH. It's NOT sustainable. We CANNOT give ALL the omney to the educated. And it's illogical to educate everyone. What they heck are we going to do with 150 million lawyers and 150 million doctors? Who's going to build houses? Who is going to unstop your backed up plumming? Who is going to feed you? Who is going fix your broken car? You REQUIRE these people, but you don't want to pay them enough to survive. I have a college degree, and it doen NOT mean I should be guaranteed ANYTHING. It's not a FREE PASS. I love education, but I HATE what we have turned it into.

Magnum,

Taxing Billion and Trillion aries will not solve the problem. But killing Free Trade Agreements will, as you pointed out in your bullet #5. Fair wage laws won't help either. The companies will simply close those arms, and buy the goods from suppliers vs. manufacture them on their own. But you are close to to something.

I am a manufactuer. Free Trade doesn't work, not because of wages but because of benefits. Greatly needed benefits for the employees. But to force me to compete against foreign goods that don't carry those costs will simply erode the benefits, or force those like me to go out of business. Neither scenerio is good for our county.

Our internal costs of a factory employee is more than just a wage:

We start out factory workers @ $12.00 per hour. (Most basic job no HS education needed). The below is what we consider when hiring a person, or the cost of that persons employment. For our more skilled positions, only the salary / wage increases.

Annual Salary: $24,960

Overtime: $3,500

Unemployment Insurance: $6,400

Workman's comp: $2,200

OSHA/EPA $800

Medical (not Obama's) $22,000

401K + 529 $1,500

I am not against any of these costs, but when you click on the link provided, we are forced to compete on price often against companies like the ones making manholes in India. Tell me, where are the added costs in manholes produced there. This is a prime reason why I belive in tariffs. Corporate profits aren't bad. In fact, they lead to hiring, better incomes, product development, etc. It was the outsourcing that was the problem, in my opinion.

Now, where are those costs in this article?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/nyregion/26manhole.html

Very interesting reading with a lot of solid reasons as to why what is happening here and what should be done. This Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings seems to have had it all in a nut shell for quite a while

So much anger and so little common sense. Everyone needs to stop lashing out and acting with their emotions. All I have read here is a way to destroy businesses and get back at them, not help them keep jobs here. Yea lets tax the crap out of them. Punish them! That'll show 'em!

Meanwhile our government wants to go after the things that help us, like keeping illegal immigration here and suing the Chamber of Commerce. And who do they help? You guessed it, the small businesses. If you want to direct your anger at someone, direct it at the Obama administration for enacting job killing legislation at a record pace in the past 2 years.

Shooting yourself in the foot by pissing off the businesses isnt going to do you any good Murphy. Small businesses do not have the same pay and coverage as a big business can give you. Big and small, they are both needed.

Companies trying to make a profit are not the problem. WE are the problem. A company cannot pay exorbitant health care insurance, cushy retirement, let us work at half steam for 10 times the money as a foreign worker, and stay viable here in the USA.

The REAL problem is that Americans have become dumbed down, selfish, shallow, spoiled, delusional little babies that want everything for nothing. We want our companies and our government to "take care of us" for life. We have even created a government that reflects those tendencies. I mean, look at the debt. Look at social security. Look at Obamacare. Look at the crazy stuff that gets passed through congress to win votes. We're on a downhill slide that ends with a cliff. No one will want to stop until they see the cliff. By then, it will be too late to stop. Enjoy the ride folks.

Howdy, I have never liked calling students customers for that same reason.

I blame our Government for choking these businesses with all their rules and regulations. I cannot blame them (jobs) for going over sea's. It's the USA's own stupidity. So I say to you Obama why don't you just keep trying to tax the rich, that really help. Just remember this, alot of the rich like Wal-mart and all these other corporate businesses do create jobs and if you dare to try to tax them, you'll see lay-offs. Obama's is not business smart and his stupid coronies in Washington. How dumb can America be?

I want to respond to the genius who said he would like to see Comcast and AT&T disappear, would you also like to see the end of the big oil companies? How about the manufacturing and industrial companies? If you think there are no jobs now just wait and see what would happen without all of those evil large corporations. The government wouldn't be able to pay your welfare very long with a 70 or 80 percent unemployment rate. All of the companies you hate so much provide jobs for people who are trying to take care of their families, not only the jobs for that specific company, but for a lot of contractors too. You have no idea what you are talking about and if you had your way we would be worse off than most third world countries.

BBYANKO and Walt...hit the nail on the head! Most here are pointing their fingers at the wrong people.

I hope the Teapublicons are paying attention.

This is what they have voted for the last 30 years.

Education is a related but very small part of the problem. There are plenty of people well educated and skilled enough to do the jobs that are being shipped overseas. It's handy to blame education, but thousands of folks would love to build Caterpillar equipment and semi-conductors in the U.S. if given the chance.

The larger problem is the continuation of the trickle down myth. If you give corporations and wealthy people tax cuts, they do not necessarily create jobs and there is no direct incentive or accountability to do so, much less do so in the U.S. They will claim the demand for products and services is overseas, not here, but that's because the people who have jobs and can buy things are over there where the corporations moved the jobs that used to be in the U.S. jobs.

Trickle down economics doesn't work, plain and simple. Trickle up does. Bring those jobs home and the demand for products and services will come home with them.

some great statements here. I'd like to refute one falsehood in the article...

Rising middle class
A key factor behind this runaway international growth is the rise of the middle class in these emerging countries. By 2015, for the first time, the number of consumers in Asia's middle class will equal those in Europe and North America combined.

They do not make a Western 'middle class' living in those countries. It may be infinitely more than the peasant in the field, but no, not even close to Western levels...

India: http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Information_Technology
US: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Information_Technology
Current exchange rate, http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi?Amount=900000&From=INR&To=USD
Just maddening, for a $100K IT consulting job this is a gap of $80K with India. Corporations get five IT workers in India for the cost of one US worker. The story is basically the same with Eastern European countries and their cheap labor. Corporations make their profits while we loose our jobs and most offshore workers seldom make enough to even buy themselves a used car...
http://www.cardekho.com/used-cars/used-Toyota-cars.htm
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Corporate-Profits-Were-the-nytimes-3994329548.html

Moving on to manufacturing... China manufacturing jobs are seldom over $1.50 per hour. This disparity of wages has existed for years... Western countries competing against $1.50 is no competition at all.
www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2007/jan/wk1/art03.htm

...this meltdown will not fix itself

The American Companies are going overseas because the U.S. Government allows them loop holes for not paying taxes to the U.S. So why haven't they turned this around?? Because money speaks and money buys our Government offices. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., this practice destroys our economy forcing so many people out of work, which makes it necessary for more people to go on welfare type programs that the Republicans want to eliminate. We just get slapped in the face with the door coming and going.

Seriously people.....it is not the educational system or the companies. It is the desire of the people. Students are not as well educated in the US because they lack the desire to excel and grow. Students and professionals in the BRIC nations are highly motivated and eager to achieve what they see the US as achieving. Now the tide is slowly turning as the US has become complacent and unmotivated on average as compared to the citizens in the expanding countries. As for the companies.....they are simply following the open market model. We as stock holders want to see growing earnings.....they are going where the market is and where the motivated people are. We can point fingers all we want, but he US future is scary if we don't wake-up and become a nation with desire and motivation again. We were that way 50 - 60 years ago.

This is precisely why corporations should not have free speech rights and the ability to sway our government with donations to political candidates.

Free Speech is something that is granted to citizens of the United States by their constitution. This constitution is a social contract and there are both rights and responsibilities citizens have to their nation.

Corporations, not being people, do not see that they owe any loyalty to the nation that created the business environment in which they were able to prosper. They are not fettered by the social contract and instead find them restrained only by their corporate charter and the primary and penultimate rule on this corporate charter is to make a profit. All other rules are subservient to this first.

This results in corporations acting like the very worst of people, and getting away with it with little punishment or repercussions. Were I to cause the deaths of scores of people, I would end up in jail, and depending on my state, executed. When a corporation does so, they are fined an amount that can be writing into their business expenses and is often planned for. There is no true punishment.

How does this relate to the topic at hand? It is simple, lacking Loyalty to the nation is part of the corporate charter. Profit is the only and the most important thing to the corporation. As such it will behave like a spoiled child and do exactly what it wants, when it wants, as long as there is profit in the action.

They are ungoverned by human morality and obligation. They do not recognise that the United States, for instance, has created an environment in which many of them were able to grow and prosper unlike any other nation on earth. Those nations that are most like the United States and have followed its example are those that also have the most successful corporations. Some of them, Germany for instance, had their government structured specifically by the United States to ensure their economic prosperity and growth. Except for Germany we also enforced more rules on the corporation by requiring the corporate board to have an elected representative of the workers.

What has this created? Well in Germany we have less disparity and one of the top 3 export economies in the world. A strong middle class and a country many of us Americans would love to live in.

Corporate charters require the nation to enforce a conscience. This is generally basic regulation to ensure that the profit motive does not outweigh the human obligation of the 'fictional' person the corporate charter represents. Its high time we ceased acting like idiots because we think we can somehow participate and succeed via tournament theory and be a captain of industry ourselves and rise to the ranks of the capitalist class.

That is a virtual impossibility.

When you and I, as real human individuals, look at our life we can (or should) see that our lives have not been in a vacuum. We succeed and prosper as a people based on the society we have created and participate in. No matter how intense our individual efforts are, no one succeeds in this nation completely by themselves. To build a business and make it successful and profitable relies on so many things that our nation provides that if it were not for the nation, this success would not be possible.

Corporations deny this, as consciously quasi-people. So they feel little obligation to anything but their own best interests. Those people at the upper echelon of the corporation behave in ways that they do because they know they are insulated from legal responsibility for the corporate actions. They thus lose some of their conscience themselves and through some complex use of cognitive dissonance convince themselves that their own siphoning of wealth and creation of disparity is something they deserve.

So the corporation will continue to act in a way that is inimical to its host nation, because it is best for them. They will survive when America crumbles to dust.

So now we give them the right to influence the vote?

What a nation of idiots we have become.

I love reading to the pathetic babble on here. What you all fail to realize is this: the US makes up a small fraction of the world population. US markets are not growing, nor is the potential for growth there, the way many overseas markets are growing. The biggest misconception we seem to have is that since these companys are hedquartered in the US they OWE us jobs. They owe us nothing. US jobs will continue to disappear overseas as long as that it where the growth is and as long as they can pay their workers a fraction of what they pay us. In addition, many countries do not have the environmental laws we have.

Marylynne,

Taxation really has little to do with costs. The costs of goods contributes more to the decision than anything else. This is because when taking on a project, one doesn't project profits that will be taxed as much as they do the cost side of the equation. Therefore, to me the issue is more in line with Free Trade or what we can import for less costs than we can make ourselves. And since we can import for less we actually make more money and therefore pay more in taxes.

And Brandon. Thanks for nothing of substance, again. And, as most are posting regarding Free Trade Agreements, Clinton started it by signing NAFTA with a Democrat Congress. And Obama is adding nations to Free Trade. And the Reps are just as guility. However, you can't blame the Tea Party. They haven't sat a single day in office. But if it makes you Tuesday better, blame away.

Here is a small snippet of why you guys are off base a tad. Im not going into the details because Im sure the Liberal parrots will go to town. I have two highly paid engineers (for the sake of this discussion) I actually have a lot of engineers. But for the sake of this conversation, I have these two competent engineers one here in the US and one in Germany. Now they both make comparative salaries and thats were the likeness stops. The US employee gets 10 holidays a year and 2 weeks vacation, standard US benefits. The German employee gets 4 weeks vacation and 22 holidays. I can lay the US employee off by putting his name on an HR list. If I want to lay off the German employee I have to pay 6 months full salary and find that employee employment of a suitable nature. All this is mandated by the the European Work counsel which must approve any employee changes. To end this short chat that German employee's wife had a baby in March of last year, he had a mandated 4 months of paternity leave then a 4 week 2 day a week work schedule. Which brought to the holidays when of course he took his vacation So he gets back to work on Jan 3rd after almost 8 months off. So ....the end of this is that even though My German employee has only been productive for 3 months this past year, to reduce costs I would have to layoff the US employee. And its worse in France, Italy and UK.

LittleJoePeep,

But I'll bet when you go to hire, you don't hire a person with obscene benefits before you hire the American......

I work in the school system and we actually cater to the less talented students making sure they can pass the tests that score school performance. Average and gifted students are left out of the mix out of necessity.

We need to return to teaching students HOW to think rather than telling them WHAT to think.

Every adult American is responsible!

We have sat on our apathetic asses as the congress made laws that were not in the public interest without complaint! We have let them take away the law for their own interest, and we will play hell ever trying to get it back!

Magnum, I like much of your ideas, but they aren't Obama's tax cuts for the upper 2%. It was Bush that pushed for them in 2001 & 2003. Obama just caved and allowed them to continue.

@B - It's not so much that Republicans fight the Dems while the Dems fight each other as it is the Republicans stick together 99% of the time while the Dems lack the backbone, gonads and intestinal fortitude to follow through on their own plans. I've never seen so many people afraid of actually succeeding at something. Meanwhile the GOP, even when they know their plan is a bad one, will stop at nothing to see it done, or defeat a good plan if it means the Dems might get a "win" (especially with a black president from the other party).

Now, thanks to five men (SCOTUS) companies are people, and can still send jobs overseas while limiting how much money they pay in taxes (which would be to the benefit of all Americans), yet can spend unlimited amounts of money on ad campaigns to ensure the Pols they like, and who will do their bidding, win election after election.

Does anyone thing Koch Industries, an S-Corporation with two owners, the Koch brothers, really think that the US going green is a good idea, when all their revenue is from fossil fuels? Hell no! Yet these two multi-billionaires get more say in what the US will do politically than millions of voters. Same goes for any corporation.

BTW, some of you may not know this, but a multi-billion dollar company like Koch Industries is considered a small business, and are eligable for all the tax breaks and benefits of being a small business simply because it has only two owners. Our archaic tax code allows for S-Corporations, where the profits are funneled through the owner's income, which 99 times out of 100 is at a much lower rate, and considers not the income/profits or even actual size of the corporation, but simply how many owners their are to determine if it is a small business or not. Many otherwise huge, international corporations, if they are closely held and shares not traded on any exchange set up as S-Corporations are small businesses. Keep it in the family, make it an S-Corp with only family as owners, and you can be as huge and profitable as you want and pay less in taxes than the average middle-class worker, especially if you send jobs overseas, and don't send home too much cash. Plus you get all the advantages of tax breaks, tax loopholes, and tax shelters. Perfect for the upper 2%, but less money goes into the US treasury, so our national debt goes higher and higher. Next time you speak to your elected official, no matter what party, thank them for not doing their job and putting the US and its citizens first.

We must be real , profit (corporations are not non-profit organizations), and growth, is what moves to any company. If a company is harassed by demands of wage, more taxes, more regulations to the point that their costs are not competitive, which determines the price of the service, they must seek for better conditions, and they find these overseas. If the market is limited in this country a company must go to the abroad where it can be expand and place their products. The combination of these two factors has brought about all this changes. If a company or corporation finds a positive atmosphere for a production of goods or services to competitive prices, I do not have doubts that these corporations created more jobs in the United States. Even so these jobs won’t be to a large extent for workers but for people with something of education. Cheap labor is easy to find ,if it is not in China in any other country of the Third World. Our educational curricula in the hand of the left for whom social changes is part of their agenda are putting behind the quality of education needed to face this new reality. Jobs where the labor is the main element in the structure of the price of the final product never will come back. Wake up and see reality instead of blaming the companies and see what we can do to start to reverse this process.

AZCh....you say we should not be angry at the politicians or Big business. You say we should blame Obama. You say we need to make concessions ourselves. You give no solution to this issue except to stop being angry.

YOU DO NOT OWN A SMALL BUSINESS .....I DO.........

We F..King elected these A55HOLES and expected them to protect our jobs and interests here IN THIS COUNTRY and they have failed us,

WE ARE THE BIGGEST STOCKHOLDERS OF THIS COUNTRY... WE MADE THIS COUNTRY... AND YET WE CANNOT GET ANY PROTECTION FROM THESE CORPORATIONS AND OUR JOBS.

I'm mystified by the comments blaming our education system. Say what you want, but we still have the best universities in the world, and if you have kids of college age, you know that the competition to get accepted to the best schools is more intense than ever -- the academic achievements of the applicants coming from U.S. high schools is higher than it's ever been.

Despite having a university system that is the envy of the world, we have far too many unemployed and under-employed graduates. I fail to understand how the quality of our education system is to blame when a recent graduate feels compelled to delete his or her master's degree from their resume, so they don't appear over-qualified for the restaurant job or retail sales job they are applying for -- which of course, are some of the only job openings available to a young person with a lot of education but no real work experience in their chosen field.

I don't have any viable solutions to propose, but I do believe that when my waiter has a master's degree in physics or the sales clerk at the mall has a bachelor's degree in business, the solution is not simply "we need a better education system."

Magnum - that was done in 1934 - What a booming recovery that was - oops my mistake Recovery didn't really take place until 1939 - when because of war, when countries became willing to pay for the high prices for american products.

DB Akron,

I usually enjoy your posts, but believe you are off on this one. In 1934 we were the manufacturing country to the world. Now China is. In 1934 we were a net positive exporter. Now we run nearly 1T worth of deficits. Free trade only works for those that own the importing companies (Wal-Mart) and the exporting countries. For those left in the importing countries, Free Trade reduces wages, reduces jobs and reduces benefits.

Just like we have today. And both parties are involved. Clinton started it with a Dem Congress in both houses, the Repbs put the Free Trade agenda on steroids, and Obama is continuing it. And we've only been doing it for 15 years.

I see in the "short" comments a lot of People blaming the Republicans for this. WRONG!!!!! It is entirely Bill Clintons doing by forcing the NAFTA and revised GATT "treaties" on the American public, with the praise of the Left gor doing so, because to the Left, it was "leveling the Playing field." Well, Democrats, Socialists, Communist Liberal Progrerssive "One Worlders", your man Bill did it all for you, and him, then finished it by forcing Lenders to lower their Standards with his Home buyer "Entitlement" program, draining Sallie/Fannie Mae that had to guarantee those bad loans. NOT BUSH, but Bill Clinton, passed and signed the Treaties the 3 prior Presidents wanted nothing to do with.

Now, Obama is still handing out American Business to Asia, while on his 2010 Give-away tour, the one where Hillary admitted the NAFTA Treaty was "Very flawed, so I guess we should have read it better before signing it." Her exact quote. However, she THEN tries to Blame Bush Daddy for it, because it was "His negotiators" that wrote it. Excuse me, Hillary and the Left, Bill had 11 Months in Office BEFORE he signed it.

I suppose if the Clintons hadn't had to cover their tracks for Bills daliances, Vince Foster's "Bloodless, wrapped in a carpet" suicide, and why Hillary was raiding Vinces Office when they arrived, they could have had some of those Lawyers read that Treaty.

Liberals, the American tragedy happening today is ALL your doing, and there is NO ONE to blame but you. Oh, BTW, when you start to scream about Bushes War in Iraq, your Congressmen voted for it as well as the Right, and it was your two PRIOR Democrat saviours, Kennedy and Johnson, that got 58,000-plus Americans killed with THEIR War in Asia. Your Bush arguement won't work.

Whining and Lableing start now, Liberal Children, but these are the FACTS you can't re-write or spin, you are the blame here, not the Right, so do something novel, like accept the blame for the Lies you perpetrate daily to cover your tracks. Oh, I'll be Censored under the "collapse/delete by community" rule, but the Truth still is there Lefties, and YOU can't hide it.

The real problem here is corporate greed....Period.... We must face the fact that businesses are successful for one reason and one reason only and that is they make profits. The larger the profit margin the more financially successful the business. Why pay payroll tax, Social Security Tax and Medicare Tax (not to mention state taxes in most states) when you can go to another country and not have to pay any of that. A business can go to India and pay a competent worker $15 and hour (for example only I have no idea what the prevailing wage is in India) and the worker is happy, the company is happy and the host country is happy. Where here, (with unions involved especially) the same person would have to be paid $25 (plus) an hour, health, dental and optical benefits, payroll taxes, and matching Social Security and Medicare Taxes. The real culprit is not the businesses but our own Federal and in some instances State Governments which tax these businesses out of the country. Businesses are not going to come back to this country and hire in any significant numbers until the tax code is FIXED to give them incentive to do so.

GREED is this country's number one enemy! Income tax was supposed to be to pay for WWII then go away. You see where that went. The Federal Government found a new cash cow and was unwilling to let it die. How many times have you seen in your own state or local area where they raise the sales tax by a certain percent under the guise of paying for roads or whatever and telling you that once it is paid for the sales tax will go back to normal yet it stays at the increased rate? These are just examples of GREED in this country. Another example is this: When I was a kid my dad was a self-employed truck driver. I can remember a large chain super market's union employees going on strike for higher wages. In the end they got their higher wages. Do you think the super market took a loss in profits? NO! they simply increased the price of their products to compensate. Since they increased their cost many of the other super markets did the same. The end result was the $2,3,4 dollar an hour wage increase the union workers made by striking was more that spent on the increase cost of groceries and in the end the company's profit margin was maintained.

I predict that as more and more parts of Obamacare kick in we will see more and more U.S. companies leaving this country in order to maintain their profit margin. Apparently our Federal Government is too short sighted to see this, or they just don't care, take your pick which it is. The bottom line is as Americans continues to lose jobs, the Federal Government continues to lose revenues. People without jobs don't pay income tax, Social Security tax or Medicare Tax. The cost of running this country will not decrease any time soon so our Federal Government had better get their collective heads out of their collective asses and start giving business incentive to come here, build here, stay here and hire American workers. The consequences of not doing so will be the financial ruin of this country.

cdahl, Like most Manf in the world today we work on JIT work schedule so our customers require that we provide them with parts locally. Most of you are commenting on global business requirements, which are quite different in each area and country. Some of you think we are pushing jobs to India, but the reverse is true. Indian salaries have risen faster than just about any country. I know this sounds painful, but globally we will reach a new living standard. The old american standard of 2 cars and home ownership could be in jeopardy.

Bottom line is it's all about profit. It's not in a company's best interest to be responsible to anybody or anything but their shareholders. They are not going to put environmental protections in unless it's mandated. They would not implement safety rules and equipment without OSHA breathing down their necks. They would not pay a living wage just because that's what it takes for a person/family to eat and have decent shelter.

Corporations are not society friendly because it's the right thing to do. What ever socially responsible we get from them we get because either we mandated it or we forced our hand (think unions) to get them to play nice.

If we ever want our jobs back, we're going to need to make is so that it's less feasible to do business over there than over here. I don't care if they make tv's in china but if they want to get their product into the US, there needs to be a mark up to the same tune as if they had built it here and the only ones who can do that sort of thing is the government.

I used to work with livestock and know that if you want your livestock to thrive, you have to take care of them. You give them good quality food, warm dry shelter and HEALTHCARE. Anything less and not only loose money, but you can face jail time. But here we are saying our corporations don't need to do this. They don't have to make sure their employees have food, shelter and health care.

If we're ever going to get America back, we're going to have to put some rules on businesses. An American company can make products over seas, but if they want to sell it here, it's going to be at the same cost as if it were made here.

http://www.alternet.org/story/149324/america_in_decline:_why_germans_think_we

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA24Ak04.html

After reading the two articles above, I was so upset yesterday that I emailed John Boehner: http://gopleader.gov/contact/ and got a reply to also use:

http://www.americaspeakingout.com/

I respect all of the opinions here, and wish that all of you would write to those who can do something about our current state of affairs. If we do not become more involved in our government, they will make all of the decisions for us, and we can all see where that has been going. Good luck to us all.

LittleJoePeep,

As a fellow manufacturer I'll throw in a future forecast. Our answer over the last 10 years is to move very, very vertical while everyone else in our industry has been focusing on outsourcing to drive costs down. This has lead us to find cheaper alternatives to produce domestic goods.

We can now purchase Robots, fairly sophisticated between $20,000 and $30,000 that will do very mundane tasks. We are seeing a significant trend towards "In-sourcing." And to offset labor costs (those other than just pay) robotics here is a very sound answer. They work weekends, evenings and holidays. This has led us to hiring more engineers in the past, but if others are like us, I do fear for the middle class population.

Thank you for the article Dorfy.

As the ex-governor of South Carolina stated, we are in the middle of a trade war; however, the American people do not recognize it because the media is no longer an independent reliable source for the infomation WE need. Where we are today as far as job creation, was a gradual process and we are just seeing the results now. Instead of becoming emotional, we should start fighting back by educating ourselves concerning globalization and how it affects our standard of living. We should also, where possible, start BUYING products MADE in the USA. If we insisted on USA products, businesses will listen, after all, they are all about the mighty dollar.

After we have blamed the problem on this one or that one, what are We (AMERICANS) going to do to turn things around? What is our solution, what is our plan? Keeping taxes low on the top one percent will not create jobs in the USA; therefore, we need to move in a new direction. We are a country known for innovation, how do we climb back on top?

oskar-1391552... Our educational curricula in the hand of the left for whom social changes is part of their agenda are putting behind the quality of education needed to face this new reality. Jobs where the labor is the main element in the structure of the price of the final product never will come back. Wake up and see reality instead of blaming the companies and see what we can do to start to reverse this process.

Sorry, I'm a technician and don't care for political finger pointing. Anyway... In response, most businesses now chose the cheapest outsourcing option instead of the best quality. One such link...
http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/outsourcing/19528/businesses-disappointed-with-quality-of-offshore-work/

That is my experience as well. That may be building toasters, but my own experience is that banks and investment houses hedge with financial software also. Software which your assets and life savings depend on. They lay off people all around us and fully expect to engineer complex software applications with offshore individuals having 1 to 2 years industry experience (verses 10+ years of experience in virtually all decades preceding this one)... and do so in a business requirements vacuum.

@ Ray: Check your facts, only 23 dems voted for NAFTA, while the entirety of the Republican Party voted for it. Same style of politics as what we see now, they refused to do anything else until it was passed through.

B Murphy,

However, I believe that Clinton still signed it. Either way, since this economic environment is the result I don't see how it benefited our country. And I blame both parties, their greed and desire to get re-elected-taking money from big business and selling out the American population in return.

To D_Loominator:

Your head has obviously have been stuffed full of the Right Wing propaganda of twisted mantra that is now stuck deep in the ground. We, the real workers don't make or write the Laws. But it is the money that buys the Government that pays for the laws to pass. The money for SS that we have paid to the Govt. through working hard all of our lives (and without any company matched funds) was doing just fine until the Government started borrowing funds from it to pay for two wars that we couldn't afford. We didn't ask to go to war with a country with no WMDs. Those purged funds (our SS dollars) and the lies about the reasons for going to war made certain hand picked companies (like Chaney's) even wealthier with prime contracts (not up for bidding), while other companies were not even allowed to submit for the work. So how dare you say that demanding to have SS is being spoiled? We saved that money by placing it into a fund that was later looted by the Party in control of the Government, which was by the way---REPUBLICANS in the White House, Senate, and the House??? It takes a Delusional Flaming Jerk to say we are spoiled, lazy selfish, and shallow!!!It is people with attitudes like yours, the wealthy, and the Big Businesses, who are the real problem. You twist the truth into lies to expand the greed. Those companies are making enormous profits. They do not pay taxes to the U.S., and use the the workers as slaves in a sweatshop paid with only a few dollars that doesn't buy food. They are creating an even bigger chasm between "Haves" and "Have Not" with no middle class whatsoever. The "Haves" are fighting real hard and spending billions to enforce making sure that their way of life is made permanent with us completely under their thumb while we pay the taxes and they do not. Just take a look at all the money that was thrown at politicians by companies in this past election. They could not have done that if huge profits did pot exist. Your Supreme Court (filled with a majority of Right Wingers) has made that possible by allowing the donors to remain anonymous which keeps us in the dark. But it is (by your standards of thinking) okay for the wealthy to be greedy, shallow, selfish and get out of paying taxes through the loopholes. Like you, it is the wealthy Right wingers, who wish to do away with minimum wage salaries, all benefits, and all social programs in order to ensure that there will be even more money placed in their already deep, greedy pockets. Such companies feel no social obligation to our society that helped to make them wealthy in the beginning through production and purchasing.

Imrightnotyou...thats quite a name you got for yourself. Maybe your name should be Icannotcomprehend. I didnt say stop being angry. I said to keep your head on and not lash out. Its human nature in this case to want to lash out and enact revenge on the ones that are hurting us and thats all I hear in these posts. The problem is doing so will just exasperate the problem. Kicking ass is not going to do any good. Its proven that swift, thoughtless punishment is much less effective than reward and incentive in most situations.

Having one of the highest tax rates in the world is not an incentive to keep the businesses here. Passing job killing legislation that creates chaos and uncertainty is not an incentive for a business to stay here. There is only so much you can tilt to the consumer before the businesses just take their ball and leave. Let's not make it any harder. There needs to be a happy medium. I am not sure where that is but it must be found.

howdy -- I agtee with your comment. The key to education is as you say.

You are dead wrong on this issue.

I have a masters degree and 10 years of experience and was outsourced this year by big pharma for no other reason then they wanted to squeeze more money out of our department.

The Indian workers they hire are nowhere near educated or as competent. They cause tons of headaches for the Americans who have to baby sit them and hand hold them to get the work done. They are late to meetings via phone, barely speak English, and have 0 vested interest in whether the company succeeds or not. Turn over is very high, so you end up having to retrain the next new idiot over the phone. Whatever money they are paid is not taxed and therefore does nothing to help the US. Outsourcing is a joke and sending jobs overseas to avoid taxes is un-American and is killing this country.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but how do you all think America was created? It wasnt built on the backs of hard workers, at fair wages, while owners and operators of these businesses collected their fair and adequate, but not outrageous, compensation. The entire history of America is business owners, corporations and the govt exploiting free labor in order to benefit a few. Whether that was in the form of purchased convicts, indentured slaves from europe, african slaves, and or the Chinese, mexicans or Indians...(not natives)

Im sure this wont come as a shock, but when african slaves came in abundance to the america's white indentured slaves began to get the "good jobs" and performed the more skilled labor. Which meant, after their time was up - they had a craft/skill in which they could create their own business on. African slaves didnt enjoy this same benefit once slavery ended.

Of course, once slavery ended - The US still needed cheap exploitable labor, and the chinese came along just in time. Good thing they heard about that gold rush, huh? The feelings of many white Americans about the Chinese at the time was mixed - on one hand they were willing to do the work that no one else was willing to do (sound familiar?)...but on the other hand, they were profitting and moving beyond white gold rush miners...so laws had to be enacted to counter-balance the shift that was occuring. A "foreign miner tax" was imposed, but only enforced on the chinese, not on european foreigners...and the chinese had no legal rights, they couldnt protest anything that was unfair in a court of law because it was illegal for a chinese person to testify against a white person.

Modern times, we've got the mexicans "taking our jobs" and we are literally giving away higher skilled jobs to Indians on visa's (modern version of indentured servitude). The entire history of this nation is that of THE WEALTHY finding ways to keep their wealth, and getting more of it.

Nothing about our nations history is about shared sacrifice, building up this nation for the greater good, or about creating a beacon of capitalism and a model for the rest of the world to emulate. It's simply been about those who have getting as much as they can from those who are so desperate they'll do anything, even if it takes their life.

America is drying up...we've crafted laws that prevent the exploitation of prisoners, or of the poor who cant find work...so until the middle class completely disappears, american corporations have little choice to but to abandon america for greener pastures. Im certain, most are hoping for the complete collapse of the middle class - which will create an entire group of people who are desperate and willing to work any job at any wage, once again. I realize that many are working hard for this reality to occur...they are trying hard to chip away at our educational system. it's a matter of time before welfare disappears, unemployment insurance disappears, peoples savings counts disappear on wallstreet, their 401k's disappear on wall street...and if luck will have it, you're social security will too disappear on wall street.

Once all that happens, then these corporations will be happy to hire americans, once again!

Of course, all that said, im curious as to how long the chinese boom will last. Most of these middle class chinese are factory workers...and many are dealing with hazardous materials that we deemed to dangerous in america...so at some point, their money spent on products, will be spent on curing their ailing health...not unlike america. In addition, the number of drivers will increase, which means the consumption of gas will greatly rise...and eventually, much of their money will be spent on oil...not products.

I suspect this pattern wont take nearly as long as it took in the US...Im thinking 20 years approx?

An Independent Thinker...

So how dare you say that demanding to have SS is being spoiled? We saved that money by placing it into a fund that was later looted by the Party in control of the Government, which was by the way---REPUBLICANS in the White House, Senate, and the House???

I believe it was Lyndon Johnson, a DEMOCRAT, that moved the SS funds to the general fund from its own trust fund to balance the budget in the 60s. The Democrats are the ones that looted the SS funding.

@Jessica, yes and then the gas prices are going to be more than $5 a gallon here, because of supply and demand . . . that is going to KILL our economy.

cdahl

There is no doubt that robotics is a part of for the solution in reducing costs for manufactured products, which would eliminate this factor as crucial to find cheap labor abroad in many cases. That is why I said that education is not well targeted, education just like any other product should be also targeted on the basis of market forces, and that is in the hands of government. Another comparative element with regard to the final prices for products marketed in the U.S. are tariff barriers, which must be balanced without reaching the far side of protectionism, China and other producing countries do.

@ cdahl - Oh he most certainly did, the problem is, the threat of Republican gridlock would've still kept the government from doing anything, had he not signed it. Both sides were wrong.

AZChild "Having one of the highest tax rates in the world is not an incentive to keep the businesses here."

Except, having the highest tax rate...and paying that rate, are two different things. (see google's interesting routing scheme to avoid taxes).

"Passing job killing legislation that creates chaos and uncertainty is not an incentive for a business to stay here."

Such as? Is that like the guy I heard on the radio bemoaning the fact that he had to print a piece of paper that says all employees have the legal right to form unions? It was so "cumbersome" for him to print it up...and when the radio host kept asking "what exactly do you have a problem with this?" and all he'd keep saying "they keep doing this to us"...and then brought up the fact that an employee could sue them if they didnt post the piece of paper, as being the cumbersome part...so the host said "seems easier just to post the piece of paper, huh?"//crickets is all i heard.

"There is only so much you can tilt to the consumer before the businesses just take their ball and leave. Let's not make it any harder. There needs to be a happy medium. I am not sure where that is but it must be found."

Except, they dont want a happy medium, businesses want it tiltled completely in their favor. Id say removing the burden of health care would be a nice tilt in businesses favor, but its apparently socialism if we all pool our money and negotiate quality health insurance. It seems logical that we could buy our health insurance like we buy our car or house insurance, but then companies like Blue Cross couldnt have a stanglehold on an entire state...and would actually have to compete with other companies (is that too far of a tilt in the customers favor to ask them to compete?)

Good luck with calling Businesses SOB's and then getting them to want to stay here.

We are competing with the rest of the world now. We can no longer afford our middlemen of Attorneys, Bureaucrats, and Dependents on Gov't Handouts.

They all take a cut and raise the cost of doing business here.

It's time to cut the size of Gov't.

It's time to standardize legal decisions and awards for damages.

And of course, we can no longer spend 2/3 of every Federal Dollar on Entitlements.

Reducing the costs of these three areas, and thereby forcing those in those areas to find productive work will make us competitive again.

Even so,in the final free trade agreement signed by the Obama administration with South Korea , we limit the number of cars we can export to that country, that's not fair treatment.

And as long as we keep trying to pin the blame on which politician is more to blame than the other instead of identifying ways to fix the problem, then yes we as a Nation are screwed.

So keep up the it's the Democrat, Republican, liberals, conservatives, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, Christians, Jews, etc. fault and lets see how far we can really low we can really get this country folks.

We've got some major problems in this Nation maybe it's time we approached them from the perspective of what's good for the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA for a change and not our OWN INTERESTS, political/religious or economical.

Since NAFTA has sent no jobs overseas, I do not see what it matters who signed it or when. BTW most of the jobs talked of here are for overseas, it would be pretty hard for example to bottle Coke here for Europe, or get a delivery or sorting job for UPS here when the pick-up is in Europe.

Actually more teachers are being layed off and fired at a higher rate, than any time in our history in the last 50 years. The students are continuously tweeting/texting/messaging inside the classroom and under the table, that they are not learning a damn @!$%#ing thing, all thanks to the parents. If the parent believes they should make their child happy by buying them a electronic device, that makes them want to ignore a teacher in the classroom, then who is really happy? If the device is taken away from the student, then the student goes to mom and dad, then mom and dad get a lawyer to sue the school.

So whose to @!$%#ing blame for a student not learning? The people that lay off the teachers, because the teachers aren't teaching, or the students who arn't learning because their texting under the students desk?

As of Nov. 2010, the federal corporate and income tax are about the same.

Both are around 35%.

Individuals get to use certain tax breaks and so do corporations and big businesses.

Tax breaks are balanced in favor of corporations though. Most individuals don't have the money to hire tax lawyers and accountants to find them the loopholes and breaks, that corporations have.

Even Warren Buffet admitted that most corporations and billionaires, pay far less in income taxes(percentage wise), than average working Americans do.

Spare me the crying wolf, on how corporations in the US are over taxed. If anything, they use loopholes to ensure they pay less than their fair share.

Any corporation that wants the protection afforded by being a US based company, should be taxed/penalized for hiring offshore.

If they want to do business here, they best put a substantial amount of their profit money back into our economy, or be penalized for it. If they bring products or services that originated from outside the US, they should pay tariffs.

I'm all for helping out the smaller businesses that operate in the US. They are the ones who should get the most tax breaks for hiring(if they hire Americans).

Gary-302710, please. Y ou know as well as I do that the reason so many flocked to manufacturing jobs, is because most did not require an education past high school, and in many cases those who didn't graduate from High School could get good paying jobs in that same industry! It is the same reason those who relied on those jobs are having a hard time of it now, as they lack the educational background to get jobs that would pay the same as what Union wages were.

I am in no way attempting to put done a manufacturing employee, but to pretend the those folks were highly educated sounds oddly self-serving, and is otherwise absolutely unfair to a portion of American society that is now attempting to make do with far lower wages for the jobs they qualify for, WITHOUT requiring additional education!

Then again, perhaps you are talking about some of those who rise through the ranks, who do have more education. Those folks will and do find other jobs, because they have skills that are easily transferable to other industries. Then again you know that already, but are choosing to pretend otherwise, so that you can unleash the "righteous ignignation" dog you've been itching to let run wild all day!

This has nothing to do with one's level of education.

It has everything to do with being able to get someone in Manila to answer your customer service lines for 9 bucks a day, versus 9 bucks an HOUR for an American worker.

AZChzhd ,

O.K., explain this to me. How in the hell does an illegal immigrant impact how much an employer in this country pays in benefits to said employees? Particularly since illegal immigrants are either paid under the table and therefore paid less than an American worker, or if they work the same jobs as Americans' an employer is paying for all the same benefits, some of which the illegal immigrant will never see as he cannot apply for unemployment benefits or social security.

You really have to take some time and rethink the logic of your statements. I know the "illegal immigrants are bad" argument has been beaten into your head for two years now, but they truly have very little to do with jobs going off shore, especially high paying jobs like in the software industry!

Seriously! This is not a corporate tax issue, but is absolutely an employee benefits issue, pure and simple!

@Magnum

Leaving the IMF, World Bank, and WTO would not be a wise choice. One I would lose my job and two, things we so bad for everything that you would thinks now would be the best of times.

Ending the loopholes and bring incentives to create jobs here would help, but the people (by people I mean the citizens) would have to get their heads out of their rectums and stop thinking that things like pensions (which you earn it not have it given to you) and other things are rights not privileges.

The unions also need to stop thinking about themselves and just work to protect the rights of the workers. The unions are not helping things by being greedy and want more and more for their workers. The workers should be thankful that they even have a job.

@Jessica, what is wrong with having good health care? With good health care, I would probably be either in a lot worse shape than I am in or dead. I want to have good health care so I am not stuck with poor service with my chronic condition forever and be able to keep it under control.

While education does need fixed, not everyone wants to work in manufacturing. I have no interest in manufacturing or warehouse work, since I seen what it did to my parents, now my dad's back is really messed up and my mom's legs are in bad shape. Companies (blue or white collar jobs) need to start hiring former criminals to do work again as well. So those people messed up, they need to start making a life again, and working at a minimum wage job is not going to help.

Or another idea is have work be done in prisons so that those that do get out get some skills so that they can reenter the work force.

bsfankaren - Illegal immigrants depress wages in the US. They are willing to do the same work for less.

So when the American Citizen goes to compete with the illegal, the US citizen has to take a lower wage to get the same job. When the wage approaches minimum wage, the Citizen goes on the dole since our liberal Gov'ts have made that a better deal. However, we still have to pay the illegal wages and many Gov't handouts. We essentially pay 2 people to do one job. That's inefficient.

Only by reducing Gov't handouts do we incentivize work in the US.

Also, people can say that Gov't expenses (and taxes are just the most direct Gov't expenses) do not make us less competitive, but when they pay an illegal worker cash, the company saves alot of money. The difference is the cost burden of Gov't.

OK, so there are a bunch of factors that went into this nightmare.

How do we fix it, change it, or stop the job hemorrhage?

How soon do we get started?

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html?countryName=Switzerland&countryCode=sz&regionCode=eu&rank=93#sz

This is a record from our own CIA. It is a measure of the economic inequality in the nations who have been measured. The higher your GINI index, the more unequal your society is.

Who are our peers?

Now... put on your thinking caps. Because I'm going to make this harder for you.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html?countryName=United%20States&countryCode=us&regionCode=na&rank=11#us

This is the listing of GDP per capita. This is a figure that represents how much of the economy is generated per person in the nation.

Are our corporations serving us, or harming us? We've been religiously removing regulation, restrictions and controls from Corporations. As we have done so, our GDP has remained relatively flat, but our GINI index has approached closer to the banana republics and other dictator states in the world.

Is your congress serving you by paying attention to the campaign funds presented by big business? Are they doing the right thing by allowing business to use globalism as an excuse for screwing the people?

Our business like to say they need to go to where the labour is cheapest to be competitive. Why is it then Germany, as a manufacturing economy, is one of the top three exporting nations in the world? Their labour costs are higher than ours and yet they are competitive.

The answer may be in that their government is set up to serve them, not their politicians and capitalist class. (The top 1%)

Strangely enough, if you reduce the huge amounts of wealth going to the top tiniest percentage of your population you can actually afford to pay middle class wages.

People complain about Auto Workers for instance. They say Auto Workers and their Union were responsible for Detroit's failings. They don't dare point fingers at a management that didn't innovate, didn't provide the cars people wanted, etc.

Conventional idiot wisdom is that it was cheaper to produce cars elsewhere because of the unions and so other companies kicked our butts.

Now, the average starting wage for an Autoworker is less than $15.00 an hour.

Do some math.

That's about 31,000 a year.

Can you live on $31,000 a year?

Can you raise your family on that wage?

Can you send your children to college on that wage?

Can you buy a house on that wage?

My _HEALTH INSURANCE— costs over $1000 a month. That would be more than 1/3 their entire wage.

In 2008, GM's CEO made 14.9 Million Dollars.

Do you think he actually did the work of nearly 500 of his Auto Workers?

Before Ronald Reagan, the executive to employee compensation ratio was about 40 to 1. Since then it has risen to at one point nearly 500 to 1 and sits comfortably now at over 300 to 1.

Yet business performance has not increased in any ratio similar. There is no justification for the increase in pay at the upper levels of the pay scale.

Except strangely enough, lots of money moves from the hands of these people into the hands of politicians.

Some of them pretend to be for you.. the 'real american' (*cough* Sarah Palin *cough*) but they themselves aren't 'Real Americans' and they whore themselves to whoever gives them the most money to ensure they can maintain their grip on their power.

Until we as Americans stand up to this we will have to learn to enjoy our race to the bottom and the pursuit of 'globalism' where the object lesson of those with money is to screw everyone else out of theirs and push the lives of those people who are common folks to the lowest common denominator possible.

Some of you still labour under the mistaken notion you can, by virtue of being born in America, someday be rich like that too, and so you don't want to poke holes in the golden parachutes of the entitled capitalist classes because someday... it could be you.

Disabuse yourself of that notion, and do it fast, unless you find that you would rather have the lifestyle of a Chinese labourer.

And if that doesn't seem so bad. Maybe you should read about this...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/7773011/A-look-inside-the-Foxconn-suicide-factory.html

Or any other number of startling headlines of how our capitalist class treats workers in the rest of the world.

Like this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

etc...

Profit is the only motivation. If you want to claim to be a member of a Christian Nation, then maybe you need to re-read your bibles and see how Christ and his disciples lived and what they thought of those whose only desire was wealth/greed. And then maybe you should stop voting for someone based on a single issue like 'Abortion' and realise that this issue continues to be pressed for the very reason it continues to have you supporting a candidate who cares nothing at all about you, or the aborted children of the world, but wants to ensure you are a slave because your slavery ensures their own prosperity.

Wake up Americans.

TCro,

Very interesting post and worth the read. Although I disagree with some of the slants, I really am on board with the jist of the argument.

Thank you for posting the insiteful research, backing up the arguement and not posting the typical babble found here.

You can thank obama for shipping all of our jobs overseas...hopefully we can start bringing them back in 2013.

Cerebrally Superior,

I think in 2013 you will find yourself to be very disappointed. Maybe you will have the perspicacity to recognise the failing of your logic at that time and redirect your political thinking appropriately.

Or even better, perhaps you can happen upon that insight sooner so we do not have to suffer your ill-chosen votes in 2012.

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/dec10/Misinformation_Dec10_rpt.pdf

You may want to take a look at this, and modify your news sources appropriately.

So I just have a curiousity question then. I generally see a lot of republicans raging against liberals on this board. Being as how you guys have now won, have gotten tax breaks for the top 2% of americans that costs close to a trillion additional in more deficit... What was all that talk about how the lower taxes encourages hiring here in America? It looks like it's just lining the pocket of the rich who A: Caused the recession, B: Used it as an excuse to fire an unbelievable amount of American worker they never would have been able to do at any other time in history, C: Used the recession as an excuse to have very few american workers and send more and more jobs oversees, D: have now secured legislation to guarantee they continue to make unheard of profits. I don't really think a lot of those top 2% spend their time on these boards... so the rest of you who support them... what's you're response?

Oh great...another socialist organization with its link posted in a non-partisan public forum.

Please stick to the story line and keep your personal political agenda to yourself.

Thank you.

Travis

You appear needlessly confused...perhaps I can show you where you are mixed up.

First of all...bear in mind that it will take some time to undo the damage done over the last two years by the obama administration and his henchmen democrats in the house and senate. The tax legislation is just one step of many to right the wrongs heaped upon the shoulders of normal hardworking and God fearing Americans. To expect such a dramatic turnaround is being a bit delusional...patience is what's called for here...let the leaders do their work.

Finally...in your last sentence...it is "your" not "you're".

Cerebrally Superior,

You are not living up to your name. The World Public Opinion.org is an entity at the University of Maryland.

Its findings are from a legitimate and unbiased study of American misinformation during the latest political cycle.

If you had clicked the link, you could have seen that.

Instead, It appears you presumed you knew what it was and didn't bother to read.

Also, you should probably cease using 'Socialist' as a bad word, if you also regard yourself as a good Christian.

Cerebrally... I think you've gotten confused. Last two years have been spend trying to undo the 8 YEARS worth of damage caused by the Repubs. and the hyper-partisan governmental environment that has resulted. If you think keeping taxes at stupidly low levels is going to help anyone, save the rich, then you are sadly mistaken. Maybe you have seen, but the country is beyond broke. Like 13 trillion beyond. I don't care who's at fault, but why not try to follow a model set by the last admin that actually had a surplus... which... conveniently, would have happened automatically if those idiot tax cuts were allowed to expire. Don't give me any crap about how the repubs are going to make it better now. It's very simple math, repubs are socialism for the rich, and dems are socialism for the poor. Clinton was the last admin that actually balanced the budget. I don't want to get into all the other crap he did, but fiscally, it made sense. Yet, when they have the opportunity to go back and imitate that... NOPE! Great.

PS Thanks for the spell check.

Additionally, Mr Cerebrally Superior,

Given that it will take time to 'undo the damage done over the last two years' how long do you think it will take the present administration done by the previous 8 years?

Isn't your argument a ridiculous standard to set? Especially when a good portion of the damage done to the economy is rooted in the Tax Cuts that have been extended when these Tax Cuts were a significant portion of the debt we accumulated while also running two full scale wars on foreign soil?

The prior administration inherited a surplus. We no longer have a surplus. Additionally, the economy hasn't grown stronger in that stated period of time.

I might point you to one of the 'non-socialist' links I posted above for the CIA's 'World Factbook'.

Or you can use the ample resources available to such a gifted mind as your own and use Google to determine the GDP per capita of the united states over the last 20 years.

Strangely enough, tax cuts have not created wealth for anyone in the lower 90% of our economy, and its greatest beneficiary have been those in the top 1% and even greater the top .01%.

But I'm likely just some evil socialist here to press a global agenda of social leveling for the majority *nodnodnod*

Round up the corporate officers of these treasonous corporations and put their heads on sticks. Viva la revolucion!

For all those that see some conspiracy in what CEO's make, think about this one:

If it's all because of Reagan's tax breaks, why do Professional Athletes make so much more money now?

Please tell me how a tax break did that.

The average CEO makes less than the average professional athlete in the NFL and the NBA.

Isn't it just possible that they posses talents that should be rewarded just as much as a guy who throws a ball through a hoop?

For the first 6 years of Bush's term, we were in an economic boom. Unemployment was at 5%, home prices were doubling.

But then, the Democrats took both houses of Congress.

Since then, unemployment hit 10% and home prices plummeted.

So I guess you can just blame Bush, but it has to be noted that the problems coincided with Democrat control of Congress.

In my opinion, too many people got greedy. It was a classic bubble. All I had to see was one figure: at the peak of home prices there was record high vacancy rates. You can blame the banks for loaning the money, but people borrowed the money. The consumer is not blameless.

The dot.com bubble happened under Clinton. Are you going to blame him for that?

There's just no way you are going to fix a debt crisis by borrowing money. 40% of every Federal Dollar spent now is borrowed. 2/3 of every Federal Dollar spent is entitlements.

I cannot imagine Obama tackling 2/3 of the problem, since his party is the biggest proponent of entitlement spending.

But too be fair, Bush agreed with the Democrats on the prescription drug handout. That was the single largest expansion of Gov't spending in US history.

So if you want to blame Bush for running up the debt by expanding entitlements, I can't argue with that.

Who cares how much CEO's make? Once we round them up and intern them in work camps, they won't be making anything at all.

Viva la Revolucion!

First of all, if we could get fat white CEOs and politicians to form their own professional sports league, they would sell out every time. It would be hysterical. Also, since the beginning of time professional athletes were richly rewarded, so I don't think Reagan's tax breaks really helped the Greeks. That being said, I want to only quote one thing you said:

For the first 6 years of Bush's term, we were in an economic boom. Unemployment was at 5%, home prices were doubling.

Hey look at that, house prices were doubling. Hmm... were salaries? Was cost of living going down? Oh wait, that's right, house prices were doubling because that's how the economy was "booming". The banking industry, now deregulated, went freaking hog wild, and screwed us all over. You're an idiot if you think house prices doubling or tripling in a period of 6 years would EVER... I mean EVER ... be the sign of a healthy economy.

Well, you could always blame collective bargaining as a union for the pay of professional athletes.

They are one of the few segments of labour that receive pay commensurate with their contribution to their employers bottom line.

Also, generally when an Athletes performance goes down, their pay does not go up. With corporate execs their pay goes up, no matter the performance of the company.

independant thinker (post 1.44) - Looking up corporate taxe rates on the internet, only Japan has a greater corp. rate than the US and their parliament is considering changing it to the mid 20's. Wow-we the US will be #1 in corporate tax rates, what an accomplishment.! Yes, tax law loopholes does make it possible for corporations to pay less than the maximum. The solution... change the tax codes.

Another consideration is that corporations are just government tax collectors, not payers. To maintain a 5% (as an example) after tax profit for emergencies and expansion, the corporation will merely pass on to the end buyer the increased taxes (costs) the government wants. Hence the generation of many loopholes.

The final consideration lies with the American consumer, They only want low cost products or the latest electronic toy (unfortunately made overseas and not the USA). American based corporations will only see their business volume decline for made in the USA products because their competion has lower overhead and the american consumer only cares about $$$.

In answer to your post 1.68 ... quit being stupid, SS went to pot in the 60's when LBJ decided to place the trust fund into the general fund to help fund the Vietnam war (among other things) and has been consistantly raided since then by the politicians (R & D)

You state...

More like it takes a delusional flaming head up his azz jerk like yourself to not see what many Americans have become because they only want the lowest priced goods, the latest toys and the government to "protect" them from the greed that they themselves promote amongst themselves. IE give me a living wage because I want to buy more low cost products from overseas.

"It takes a Delusional Flaming Jerk to say we are spoiled, lazy selfish, and shallow!!!"

You make some good pionts, but not all overseas jobs require PHD's...a lot of basic factory jobs that the average american can do and do well if not better than anyone overseas. The only difference is lower wages abroad, yet america receives no benefit. We don't even see a drastic reduction in prices on those products produced abroad and sold back in america.

countries like Germany and Japan don't allow their companies to re-import products they produce abroad back into their domestic markets. This insures that factories back home stay open to cater to domestic demand and any surpluses are exported...

We used to have something similar but was dismantled back in the 80's. We should reintroduce this practice if we are serious as a country on protecting and creating american jobs.

If you think the system is working, ask someone who isn't!

Decades ago our government made a deal with Oklahoma State. The deal was, that manufacturers would receive incentives if they would create an infrastructure that put people to work. It was a good idea. The electronics industry in the early eighties was outsourcing work to American assembly houses. The idea was to not be burdened with a large work force should sales drop. When business picked up, the overflow was sent out-of-house to a Ma & Pa company down the street, when sales dropped off it was business as usual and every one kept their jobs. Because not all business slowed down at the same time, thousands of assembly houses always had orders. Their work force was so comfortable with that arrangement that some of them would not work for anyone other than an assembly house for fear of being laid off and losing benefits. I know of situations where competing houses would help each other, along with manufacturers in order to keep product moving and people employed. Now it's every man for himself.

I ask of anyone who reads this to do a task, or favor for me. I wish you to mail your Government representative a Sage Plant, and keep doing it at regular intervals. So long as, you feel it is necessary or within your financial means. Make sure the plant base is secure in its mailing box and the soil is restrained from falling out, and labeled this side up. Please do this for me and our world. Thank you.

A couple of points I'll make of interest. Post WWII, the highest bracket of income earners paid 90% in taxes.

I'll throw this carrot out. I work for one of the world's largest technology companies. I've watched as nearly 100,000 jobs have gone overseas. My company is public, and is 65% owned by 7 brokerage houses. The principal fund managers of these brokerage houses meet with my CEO every month. They demand x$ earnings per share every quarter, and have specified a long-term EPS target. If / when my CEO decides he doesn't want to hit the EPS target, these 7 fund managers can vote him out. So, who do we blame? The CEO or the fund managers?

The biggest issue facing big business is stability. It is not tax cuts vs tax increases, it's not low gas prices vs. high gas prices. It all comes down to stability. If a business knows what they face in the coming years then they can plan accordingly. With the many, many factors facing business in America today this is why they move jobs and facilities overseas.

On one side you have governmental regulations that change drastically with every new set of politicians. New regulations, restrictions, incentives and the like change daily. This leads to the instability that business fears.

Then you unions renegotiating contracts every chance they get. They threaten walk-outs, strikes and labor shortages if their high demands are not met. Again, leading to ever changing labor costs and instability reducing a businesses ability to plan long-term.

Interest hikes, futures markets and other forecasts also lead to an instability that effects businesses in a negative way. Many businesses do not know from one day to the next what their materials are going to manufacture their products. This is the leading cause of business moving overseas.

China has really succeeded because of its stability. So my feeling is, how are they going to maintain this fantastic stability in a very fast changing economic situation. I think this is a challenge we face, how the global region will evolve in stability with such a fast growth. If they succeed to do that, no doubt, in the next generation it will be the major area of the world, economically.
Bernard Arnault

We must create and maintain stability to prevent our businesses from moving overseas. Nothing else will move this country forward and prevent its collapse.

I agree...but that will never happen.

I know, big business has more political clout than most politicians.

Increasing taxation will only move what is left to other countries. When the growth is happening elsewhere, we need to reduce taxes to bring the companies back.

Companies exist, to make money for their shareholders in an ethical way. Creating jobs is only a byproduct for them. Instead of punishing them, we need to make it lucrative for them to invest in US.

Big business IS our political system, and the SCOTUS.

Which will free up space and opportunities for small business and other enterprises whose business model isn't based upon predation of foreign nationals who will accept ridiculously low wages, because they aren't used to things like minimum wage.

In the end, big business will be forced to choose whether they want to deal with another countries taxation laws, possibly losing the vast support of the American government, and putting back into the system they currently reap the rewards from, but pay little to nothing back into.

JASON has a great idea!

The tax cuts for wealthy investors and companies have produced millions of jobs overseas. So lets give them more tax breaks so millions of Indians and Chinese and Vietnamese and others will have even more jobs.

That way when we need more money to finance more idiotic military adventures around the world, these countries will be able to lend the money back to us!

Companies exist to make a profit. If they don't, the banks/debitors close them down. Penalize companies with more taxes/government regulation to the point they can no longer make a profit or break even in this country and watch them close or move completely oversea's.

Don't be naive enough to think for one minute that there aren't other countries in the world that wouldn't give a company (Caterpillar and others) everything they wanted to move out of the U.S.! As life styles improve in other world regions this becomes a bigger possibility.

Jason you are a voice of reason... not anger :) Instead of blaming everyone except of course ourselves and our own greed and resentment of those we "believe" are doing us wrong...... why not try to fix it?

@ Lyndanne - Um, you do realize that 'Big Business' falls under the category of 'ourselves' also. Right? Considering most of them are American, Big Business should be blaming themselves also.

Actually I've noticed there are many company CEO's starting to take up residence in Europe. The last time I had a phone interview with a CEO of a company in the US, he was at his home in Belgium with his family that he moved from TN.

Also raising taxes on companies only increases the cost of products/services which are passed on to someone other than share holders and executive management, guess that leaves just the company employees and consumers.

@ Rick n FL: Then base tax law upon promoting small business, and skew everything to royally rape Big Business. If they don't want to play nice, and fair, then they don't deserve to exist in this country.

Sorry Jason,

But you can't have it both ways - The only way to bring corporations back, according to your logic, is to lower their taxes, give them tax and land credits for staying in the US, etc... When we do that for individuals - the Republicans call it "socialism", wouldn't it be "socialism" to do the same thing for corporations??? The only way to level the "playing field" is to make sure that companies pay the same wages irregardless of where they hire by taxing their profits at a higher rate for markets outside the US. With no financial advantage for hiring outside the US, more companies would opt to lower their operating costs by hiring their workforce here in the US.

Joe, Google the phrase "transfer pricing" to see how corporations move their profits offshore to minimize their tax impact. What I am suggesting is - current tax laws penalize repatriation and incentivize investments outside; if we create a one-time tax holiday for repatriation for investment (not for dividends), may be we can encourage these companies to bring that money into US and create jobs.

We cant hate corporations but demand them to create jobs. They are the reason for US becoming what it is, and they will be the ones that will eventually dig us out of this mess.

see 1.26 above. A VAT on business would resolve this....

Big business has our politicians so enslaved they can't make a decision without big business approval.

Look at all ofthe votes for B Murppy's ideas. Proof positive that Americans are stupid, selfish, shallow, delusional, spoiled little babies. We actually think that the purpose of a company is to take care of it's employees. Do you believe in Santa and the tooth fairy too? What did you do people in school? Smoke dope in the boys room and fall asleep in the back of the class?

@: D_Loominator: Apparently in High School, you weren't taking spelling, seriously, you can't even spell a name presented in front of you properly? Really? That's simply amazing. Only more proof of a failing education system.

And since when are their employees not a company's responsibility? Employee's behavior and work ethic are their responsibility to their company, and yet they see marginal returns for their work in comparison to CEO's. Meanwhile, CEO's have coke parties, sexually harass employees and other workers, and pretty much act like scum. Seems like a pretty strange double-standard really. Especially when they receive multi-million dollar severance packages after being found guilty of wrong-doing.

"Companies exist, to make money for their shareholders in an ethical way. Creating jobs is only a byproduct for them."

Once upon a time, a company existed to make a good or provide a service for their companies.... the PROFIT was the by-product - IF they did their jobs well. Now, it all comes down to greed. The day trader is screaming that by offering fair wages and benefits, the worker is essentially stealing from them.

The profit is never enough, so the company has to cut wages and benefits and finally they cut on quality. Therefore the product starts to suck and people no longer buy it and you the shareholder lose money anyway. But by now, there are no longer any benefits offered and people can't afford insurance so we have no choice but to approve all the social services....which our taxes are raised to support.

So, wouldn't our investor have been better off in taking a slightly less profit on his investment and endorsing better wages and benefits in the first place?

@D_Loominator: Some good ideas you came up with there though, oh wait, you didn't offer any ideas. You should run for office for the GoP, you'd fit right in. Disagree emphatically with anything you object too, sling every possible insult you can, because you know, any American who thinks differently is obviously inferior, a communist, or unpatriotic.

Just because people have a difference of opinion, or have an idea you don't agree with, doesn't make them your enemy. Simply, it's your job to come up with alternatives that fit the problem that we ALL face.

In essence, grow up.

Somewhere we lost sight of workers being an asset to a company. People are the ones that solve problems with products, or fix manufacturing problems.

While fully automated systems can make good quality product at a high rate, they can also make poor quality product a a high rate.

Well said FLYNAVY1. That is too true. You will still need humans to do quality checks.

As a computer teacher once taught us, "GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out" so if a robot has a flawed program, well, out comes garbage.

So 80 years of marching to socialism has left us uncompetitive...

who could have guessed?

Gov't is the biggest part of the US economy in history. They are another cost of production.

The cost of production now exceeds profitable levels in the US now.

Unless you want less jobs, and lower pay, we need to drive down the costs of production here. The easiest place to cut is Gov't.

So 80 years of marching to socialism has left us uncompetitive...

You do realize that the biggest growing market is China, and they are COMMUNIST. That hasn't seem to hurt them at all. How do you account for that? I mean if "socialism" is bad then Communism must be the ultimate evil right?

The fact is that public companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders. If they don't keep costs down and worry about the bottom line they aren't doing their job and the company would eventually go out of business because their competitors will do their job. You want jobs to come back to the US? Put the Fair Tax in place and watch the US economy boom! The current tax system is totally immoral. Businesses are taxed on profit and then the shareholders of these companies are taxed again on dividends. If you don't see something wrong with this then there is no help for you.

China's economy was nothing under Communism, it was only when they switched to Capitalism that their economy started to grow. (The means of production in China are no longer Gov't owned).

Look at the directions our countries are going.

In the US, the economy is going down while Gov't is going up.

In China, the economy is going up while Gov't is going down.

You can get a factory built and product to market in China before you can even get the environmental study done in the US.

We have to look at our expenses, and cut whatever makes our costs too high to compete. Gov't (including our messed up legal system) is a huge luxury that we can no longer afford. We have to get that expense under control.

Why, because you're entitled to a job? Corporations don't owe you anything and you, or I, or anyone else for that matter, do not have a right to employment.

The article clearly states that these moves are based on increased demand overseas. If there is more demand for a product in China than in the USA why wouldn't a company want to expand their operation in China? It's just good business sense.

Your suggestion would only end up hurting the consumer.

Ryan In Texas..... Do you have a background in manufacturing? (not being snotty here)

Just did a capital equipment analysis for my company. The program required a $9.4 million capital investment, and would have paid back in 1.8 years while beating the Chinese competition by a significant margin. It was a series of fully automated systems that had no direct labor involved with it.

It was presented to the board, and shot down because they wanted their investment covered in 12 months. They decided to have the product manufactured overseas. With the loss of that program they saw no need to stay in the market with similar product manufactured in house. They have already announced closing two of the four manufacturing facilities for 2011. I'm guessing the other two will be closed in 2012.

Rather than accepting a slightly longer return on investment, their initial decision to make product in China at a HIGHER cost has impacted 300 workers in two communities. The difference here is the cost to implement. I am very frustrated as this is the typical short sighted business approach taken by US companies right now. Rather than looking for solid long term gains, they are looking to minimize risk and only look 12 months out for return on investment. The life of the capital equipment/product is estimated at 10-12 years, and is flexible to manufacture other similar product.

I'm sure I will have a dozen economists give a dozen reasons as to why the board was right to go to China. In my mind, a big chunk of the problem with American Corporations is that they are no longer thinking long term, nor about capturing market share.

I would like your thoughts.

Regards

FLYNAVY - Sadly, the long term in the US is about 2 years.

Are you manufacturing something that will be technologically changed in a couple of years? Sometimes companies don't want to invest long term because they think the product will be superseded.

You mention a 10-12 year product run, but that assumes someone else isn't out there right now with the next change. Or, that someone isn't about to open a factory making the same thing overseas.

I'm just shooting in the dark on this one. And sometimes people are just shortsighted.

But I am convinced that we could make our country more efficient.

Only 1 in 3 Americans work full time. We have tons of labor available. It's just about getting those extra hands off the remote control and onto some equipment.

I'll give you my breakdown, though that won't really address your question.

1. Make illegals leave by punishing their employers and through checks of citizenship at hospitals, schools, and police. (Ex. - We will give you the surgery you must have (for free), but then you leave the country.) That will free up 15 million jobs, save billions in social services, and nearly a 100 billion a year in remittances.

2. Keep any Gov't handouts below what minimum wage would purchase. There should be no incentive or benefit for being on the dole. If we do #1, there will be 15 million jobs that need filling. By not paying 2 people for the work of one job (the illegal doing the work, and the US Citizen on the dole being paid not to do that work) we get greater efficiency.

3. Flat tax for everyone. We all have equal skin in the game. Plus we save billions in accounting fees and the waste of things done just to reduce tax burdens. Capital gains at the same rate as the flat tax. No corporate taxes unless the profits are not going to become individual income. Tax the money one time, at same rate, somewhere. Gov't of course will still spend on lower income people disproportionately, but this is what equal protection under the law means.

4. Standardized legal judgments. How can we call it equal justice when everyone gets a different compensation for the same damage? We set up tables/formulas for judgements. We could easily save tons of money on legal fees and insurance. For instance, people claim European Gov't Healthcare is great, but you can't sue your Doctor for malpractice there (at least not like here). We could easily set up a system where you waive malpractice tort rights for Doctor's care at reduced prices. The cost of a typical procedure would go down by 1/3. OB/GYN could see prices fall by 1/2.

5. A Gov't that lives within it's means. There are things the Gov't has to do now. But there will be things they have to do in the future. You shouldn't borrow from the future welfare of people to boost the present welfare of people. 40% of every Federal dollar spent now is borrowed. We will have to pay it back with interest. If there is an emergency, Gov't should be able to borrow on a temporary basis.

6. A Gov't that plays by the same rules as business and citizens. For instance, if you are robbed on the edge of a Mall parking lot, you can sue the Mall for failure to protect you. But if you are on the city sidewalk 10 feet from there and the same thing happens, you cannot sue the city for failure to protect you. If Gov't had to endure the same legal system that businesses do, they would change the legal system. (This is more of a get everyone on the same team issue). Right now we have the adversarial system where everyone is against each other (on one side or the other).

6. Education should have the goal of getting students skills for the job market. We try to teach kids in public schools what they need for college, but only 1/3 go to college. The vocational models in Germany work great. Teach them a vocation or two, if they are not destined for college. At minimum, economic survival skills. We spend plenty on education. Education spending is actually going up faster than healthcare spending. The money is there, but we need to change the focus to producing better workers, not just college applicants.

I think we can compete with the world, and still have a safety net (you don't live on a safety net, you use it in emergency and then get off it so the next person can use it).

We just have to be more efficient. Yes, that will mean accountants, bureaucrats, lawyers, and other middlemen will have to find other jobs. Yes, more people will have to go to work who are currently not working.

But the rest of the world is moving ahead. We either compete, or get left behind.

Sorry it's so long, and I really didn't answer your question. But I can't just see this country go down without a fight.

Well and truly said and I agree in principal with it all!

I would stress though that if our manufacturers are going to compete in a world market then they must be forced to produce their products within the US is factories manned by US citizens. In the long ago, one of the corportations that I worked for was a major supplier to the Automotive Industry and the general rule of thumb at the time was every car or truck produced in the US had to have at least 80% US components and 20% could be imported from offshore. Most automotive units now produced in the US are assembled from components from suppliers from all over the world. We at one time had a contract with the Defense Dept that required a special type of steel which we could not get any US steel maker to produce for us under any circumstances. I was able to get a DOD waiver on it and had the steel produced in a German plant and FLOWN to the US for under what the lowest non bid was that I received in the US. And now they wonder why they are called the rust belt! The gutting of our manufacturing sector has got to be reversed or we will flounder right where we are for the foreseeable future--sadly! I am old and long retired and will not live long enough to see the end of this adventure but I see parallels to every great society that has been founded, flourished, peaked, declined, and finally, failed! Our problem as I see it is, does the present population have the fortitude to do what is going to be required to stop our further decline!

B murphy - If the Japanese parliament lowers japans corporate taxes as it is planning to do (according to Bloomberg TV) then the US will become #1 in the world for highest corporate tax rates. If so, then how will making American corporations pay even more in taxes benefit the average American worker?

The American consumer needs to step up to the plate and admit that they are a significant part of the problem, not American business.

If politicians would take the time to read forums such as this, instead of taking advise from analysts who are nothing more that glorified marketers and yes men, we might have a country to boast about. That as a group they chose to ignore the American people only exacerbates the problem.

That's a good idea Paul. The only problem is that most of the products that say Made in USA aren't really 100% made in the US. The rules are tricky and unclear. Basically, it just has to be assembled in the US to be able to make that claim. All the parts can come from overseas. Or only one part from the US and assembled here. I do try to buy American products.

The American people are part responsible for this overseas movement as well. Unions priced themselves out of the market and cut into profits. The government needs to make it more attractive to open shop here and less attractive to move jobs overseas and still be able to call themselves an American company. And the government needs to crack down on illegal workers. Even the legal immigrants with green cards should be cut back. US citizens should have the first priority for US jobs.

Good luck, Paul. As long as stores like WalMart and Target are the top retailers then we will continue to be buried up to our eyes in Chinese made crap.

It is still possible to find American made (100%) goods but you do have to look high and low. Google "American Made Products" and you'll find lists of products.

I admit, these lists are limited right now, but they still have quality goods available.

Demand will drive this home. Don't just go to ChinaMart and buy whatever is there. If you cannot find American made - then do without until you can.

SND66, Your last paragraph on #3.1 was shear poetry . U.S. citizens must have the first priority for U.S. jobs. I found a film I think folks on this seed would find interesting. It is an expose' on the geo-political structure of the global banking industry. This is not a Michael Moore production, as it transcends any of his feeble attempts to piss off the American public. The title may throw some folks, but it is not the primary focus of the film. I have to warn everyone, it is about two hours long, but it bares a viewing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw

This is not a joke or a ruse. Watch the film, then decide for yourselves if it answers any questions you may have of why politicians do what they do.

Sure started out as a ruse! Shut it off after first 15 seconds. Is that a Fox production?

U.S. citizens must have the first priority for U.S. jobs.

Okay, but what do you do if you have two candidates for a job, like a software engineer, and one candidate is a US citizen and wants $150K a year for the job, and one is a legal immigrant from China equally qualified and will take $95K a year for the position? It would be crazy to hire the US citizen when you can get an equally qualified person for $55K less a year. This happened at my company, and needless to say we hired the guy for $95K

I believe on average, a factory line worker in China makes the equivalent of approximately $4,500.00 US for one year. Lets say on average, a factory line worker in the US with benefits is at $40,000.00. That's basically a 90% difference. The US could effectively drop corporate tax rates to 0.00% and it would still makes more economic sense to offshore jobs. For a global economy to truely function on a level playing field will mean our standard of living has to come way down and emerging markets have to come up. Or, as I stated above, make the US label just as important as the product itself. At the end of the day, demand dictates the course of action for a business.

What did you all expect to happen when you bloat the rich and overindulge them? You think they care if millions of Americans end up penniless? They've got theirs and that's all they care about. Greed is a mental illness no one wants to give credence to. American greed is destroying this country. No American CEO can earn in any other country of the world what he/she earns here. That's why they keep a toe in this country and maintain citizenship. That's their version of entitlement.

What I find amusing was all the weeping and moaning about the sweatshops in third world countries back in the 1990s. I remember all the celebrities speaking out against them. What ended up happening? The companies pulled out of these countries and the population, that once had income to sustain themselves, didn't have that income anymore. They then went back to eating dirt. At least the celebrities felt better about themselves. :)

Mike B...Well of course. If CEOs can start hiring Americans overseas, they've successfully demolished this democracy. From offshore, they will retain plutocratic rights to everything. Not surprised at all. Besides, they are safer across the Atlantic from the revolt they will have engendered.

Ironically, the only thing these plutocrats fear is revolt. They keep pushing the envelope, dangling the carrot and think it's all win win because they have no fear of revolt. Communism began because of plutocrats who put people out into the streets without jobs.

ewent, this country is not a democracy, it is a democtatic republic. There is a difference.

hdgnec...Can it. The form of government is a democracy. What you described is the form of nationalism. Read your Constitution, your Declaration of Independence...and the form of government isn't a democratic republic just because you want a little more "republican" in the mix. Get over yourself.

We practice democracy...Or what the hell was Bush pushing in Iraq? A democratic republic? Get real.

ewent,

"We practice democracy...Or what the hell was Bush pushing in Iraq? A democratic republic? Get real."

Genius. We are a Representative Republic. You might want to crack a book or two yourself.

" Thomas Jefferson said, "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

Thomas Jefferson, March 11, 1790: "The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."

ewent knows not of what he speaks. America is republic not a democracy. America is a democracy only when speaking in terms of type of government not form of government.

The intellectual elitists of the left are always good for a laugh, at their expense.

Natalie, A CEO is hired to increase profits for shareholders. He cant make a loss making investment in US just because he is patriotic. You are right, if everyone insists on "Made in US" even at a higher price, then it will automatically be profitable for them to produce here. If we want the cheapest we can get, they need to make it at the cheapest place they can find.

the only problem with this idea is that walmart crushed it 20 years ago. No one will buy a more expensive item made in the USA because they can go and get it for nothing somewhere else.

Jason...Okay...So let's see if I've got this right. Let's increase prices on goods Americans need, reduce salaries so CEOs can continue their greed addiction and never but never demand they take salary cuts.

Oh...and by the way, how much is a CEOs' brain going for these days? A hundred million? a billion? What a crock of BS. 1% of 1% of the CEOs who earn those obscene salaries are worth what they are paid. If their college degrees determine their value, what happens to others with the same degrees? Sorry, cutting throats to climb the corporate ladder to push the envelope, to reach the dangling carrot to win win is more BS.

It's up to Americans to start the same hardliner tactics with Biggie Piggies they are doing with us....rolling boycotts. We are buying imported American goods that are produced by people who earn ten times less than any American. Meanwhile, Mr. Biggie Piggie at the top is salivating over his next hundred million.

Natalie Rosen...Their patriotic duty is to their only god, M-O-N-E-Y. Money can drive sane men insane enough to become criminals...and you think their allegiance to this country would matter a whit?

Jason - it used to be that CEO's were hired to make a profit AND be laders in our communities. Corporate profits were important, but national priorities used to be signiicant considerations as well.

Now - the coporate state has taken over - and this means the ONLY priority is profit and the shareholders. This means a few dictate the well-being of the many. The product and profit are more important than the people making it or buying it.

There is no loyalty to the community, the country, so if we fall as a country - oh well. The well-off get around feeling the impact of this by buying nice homes in gated communities and sending their kids to private schools. WalMart kills American jobs - but Americans flock to shop there - not realizing that they are buying against thier own best interests. WalMart tried to enter in Germany - and the Germans refused to take the bait. They cheerfully pay a bit more for local products, have their jobs, and educate their kids. They export a high percentage of their industrial output - so don't say companies have to produce in India to be competitive.

The GOP and corporations have BOUGHT American opinion, and have sold the line that we pay too many ttaxes - ergo the outsourcing of jobs. Not so. Just a bad plan and selfis interests dictate this.

camzilla...Walmart is dangerously close to becoming a monopoly. They've got their hands in every pie up to and including Big Pharma. It is time for our government to put teeth into anti-trust laws. Obviously, the Biggie Piggies have forgotten they exist.

If their college degrees determine their value, what happens to others with the same degrees?

This has to be the most ludicrous statement I've heard in awhile. While the intellectual elitists of the left think one's value is determined by the degree they hold the business world knows a hell of a lot better. In the end degrees mean little and a CEO's, or really any person's, value is determined by a myriad of things other than their degree. A degree might get someone a foot in the door but it's up to that person, not their degree, to take it the distance. Just because someone has an MBA it doesn't mean they're entitled to a CEO or upper management gig.

You ask too much. Why should they pay you even $10 an hour when they can pay someone 4$ an hour or less to do the exact same thing, just as well, in half the time without having to hold the hand of union bosses or mamby pamby lawyers. You just don't get it do you?

@ Jack - Agreed, but the recourse is very simple, Big Business reaps it's profits mainly due to how the tax laws are setup. Make it so that they can't function in the US, when they perform in this matter...say, make taxes on Big Business a sliding scale dependant upon how much their workforce exists in America. The lower the workforce, the higher the taxes go. The higher the workforce, the lower the taxes. Make it directly parallel to what they make by hiring outside the US. And they have 2 options, leave the country, or change their business practice.

Jack & Jason, the problem is that these are the same companies that like to tout the fact they they are "American Companies" and they certainly don't mind claiming that fact......until they have to pay taxes on their profits and then they are more than willing to exercise every loophole up to moving profits offshore to avoid their fair share.

Most of the adults out here understand how it works in todays current environment, if we ask the companies to pay their share, they claim we are anti-business. If we give them breaks that most in the middle class do not have access to, they collect larger profits that they either re-invest in cheaper labor elsewhere or pocket it in huge executive bonuses. In either case, where does the american public see any return on their investments in many of these companies? They don't and they haven't for nearly the last 30 years. It has taken time for these unethical companies to chop the legs out from the American Middle Class and now they know that the Supreme Court and Congress has their back. I call it economic treason regardless of how you would like to spin it and continue to ask for the American public to give them more of all that we have left here. You can't be American, claim American virtue and then go Benedict Arnold, that is cowardly.

Well, Republicans are trying the "carrot", whereas democrats are trying the "stick" approach. We certainly need the corporations to come back. Since we cant offer much growth anymore, lower tax rates is the only "carrot" we can offer. Hopefully a combination of these incentives and measures to discourage job movement will work.

Jack, American companies will learn over time. Do you really think workers in China are going to be loyal to an American company?

I worked for a company, designing three dimensional GPS tracking software. The company out sourced part of the project, only to have the code stolen, and a new company setup making the same product.

It has happened to IBM, Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. just to name a few. I only hope it happens on a large enough scale to make heads spin, and soon. (Pay peanuts, get monkeys)

Aye....There's the rub of ignorance Big Business does not want to see. Already workers in India are beginning to see how they've been exploited. When they were out of work, they were desperate. Now, they can afford a place to live and ask why they can't live like we Americans do...All's fair in love, war and Biggie Piggieville.

I am all for lower tax rates and incentives for businesses here in the US, but they need to be contingent on keeping people employed here. There needs to be tax penalties for sending jobs overseas and there needs to be incentives for keeping them here.

It is no wonder that there is higher demand and a growing middle class in Asia, the corporations moved the jobs there so now people have money to spend on their products. The corporations created the demand overseas. Since Asia, India, Africa are the emerging markets why would the corporations give a crap about the markets here? We have no leverage as consumers.

Basically we sold ourselves out. We as consumers have supported outsourcing by supporting the companies that outsource, our politicians have allowed them to move jobs overseas so they can make a better profit and offered no incentive for them to stay here in America, and we let our education go in the toilet, so we no longer produce the kind of talent that can be found in other countries.

And take note the growing markets are in countries that have FREE education and health care. And the real kicker is WE AMERICANS help pay for it by supporting all the "Made in China" products, and borrowing money from China that our tax dollars pay back to China for interest on the loans. China is not a capitalist country, and yet they are well on their way to crushing us economically. Maybe there is something to be said for giving people education and health care.

You try working for the same wages they pay in China and elsewhere.With the cost of healthcare,taxes,and living expenses...you would not have enough for food,clothes,or a home

You mean, until the US has a standard of living comparable to that of China or Mexico? There is a reason these companies have their head-quarters in the US.

Mike...And just how do you propose we pay the kinds of rents the Biggie Piggies are charging, the cost of utilities, property taxes, sales taxes, car loans (assuming you need one to get to your low paying job, that is) and let's not forget what groceries and clothing cost these days.

So...While we are busy accepting lower salaries, who's going to clue in the Biggie Piggies that those salaries won't stretch enough for their constant price gouging of necessities?

See? It's easy to say Americans should lower their salary expectation...but...will the Biggie Piggies lower theirs so that prices on goods in this country don't continue to spiral out of control?

Mike...What's happening is nothing remotely akin to capitalism. There has been a two decade struggle by 1% of the population to divide this country by classes. Not in a democracy. Once they got a toehold into dividing the country according to class, you have what happened on the Titanic....those in steerage dying in greater numbers while those in First Class had first crack at the opportunity to live.

Capitalism is merely a balanced measure by which a country maintains a semblance of business enterprise. What's gone from American businessmen's minds is that word, "enterprise". There's nothing enterprising about greed. And everything enterprising about creating a business that takes into consideration it's obligation to the common good.

People don't pay for healthcare in China. Nor, do they have to worry about education. That's a mandate the state pays for.

Mike, could you make it on $1.50 an hour, anywhere in the U.S. ?

Lots of people will make it on 1.50 per hour - when the country falls to crap, and the banks collapse, nothing will have value. When others come to take it for nothing, because they have the money to, it will be a strong in our face revelation for all of the years Americans rubbed it in the faces of the world, their power, riches, and greed.

We will live three families to a home if we must - that, is already happening, and will only get worse. The American dream, is to survive the unthinkable - we will not fail in our fallings, but we most likely will be treated like the Indians - the poor corralled to reservations....

DJ....Check the Dept of Labor Stats on what an average American worker's salary range these day happens to be. ~$80,000 for those in white collar jobs with technical degrees. Then, there's the next tier...$55-60,000.

Now...check out the average CEO salary these days and I'm not talking about our small business CEOs either. They are lucky to clear 6 figures in a good economy.

The real picture is of a corporate world that has taken over to the point where we no longer think about the damage Corporate America has done to small business, once the lifeblood and backbone of industry in this country.

If we don't support our small businesses, they can't grow and then, you have corporate monoplies, something we are pretty close to at the present time.

Jack entertain us, tell us what you do for a living.

Jack entertain us, tell us what you do for a living.

Yeah tell us - I am curious as well

Amen! Unions and the greed of incompetant, lazy workers are killing America.

How about the greed of incompetant, lazy CEO's Bobber. All they want is a quick large profit even if they run the company into the ground they get a big bonus and retire.

Jim...Sorry, I don't agree. Back in the early 1900's unions were established for the same reason you will see more of them rise today...greedy men who placed workers in financial or workplace jeopardy and put a sticker price on the value of their lives.

Where is all the money in this country? Why is it all in one place? And, how long did it take them to rise to this pinnacle of ultimate greed?

You cannot have a CEO earning 500 times what he pays he lowest paid employee without some ramifications affecting the company operation. It is time for CEOs to start facing realities. We cannot support another hundred million for each of the Biggie Piggies. Do they walk on water? Heal the lame? Give sight to the blind? Hearing to the deaf? No? If not...sucker them they way they sucker you.

It looks like ewent has a new buzz word Ive seen "BiggiePiggie" at least 5 times in the past few posts. Care to define what a "Biggie Piggie" is exactly!

LittleJoePeep....You aren't a Biggie Piggie...It's a water cooler expression for the fat man with the engorged gut who is stuffing his face and his pockets by denying raises to his employees, firing or laying off others all so his own salary gets fatter and fatter and fatter....He's the Big Guy at the Helm...And a Corporate Pig who regularly overindulges himself to excess all the while sniffing at the homeless people on the street he made homeless when he increased welfare and unemployment for his own misguided benefit.

Sad but it's True.....The American Workers' Ability, Education, Dedication, Personal Morals, etc have declined so greatly that even American Cos CANNOT find enough qualified Workers w/in certain regions of America. Mix that w/the High Salary Demands and "Slow Shuffle" of Union Workers.....Bam America is no longer setting the Standards for a Leading Workforce. Also some of these Manufacturing Cos are moving to where they're selling more to avoid Export/Import Taxes & Fees. Why produce Steel here in America & Pay thru the Nose to ship it Overseas, when they can save Big$$$ by making it in the Country with the Higher Demand. This Problem is More than Taxes & CEOS' Greed. :-}

Unions can be a bad thing, but then again they can be a good thing. When a company wants to cut it's workforce should they have the right to say : O.K. ,anyone over 40 is gone. We'll keep only the youngest, even if we lose experience that has helped us remain in business this long.

When a company wants to cut it's workforce should they have the right to say : O.K. ,anyone over 40 is gone.

Yes. They should have the right to not employ anyone they [don't] want.

Bill...We had a president who for 8 years was really a Corporate VP of one of the biggest American Corporations - Dick Cheney. He was of that 1950's mindset that giving American tax breaks to American businesses that offshore is a way of gaining a toehold of control in foreign countries. It's no different than what the Nixonians did down there in Cuba and Central America in the late 1950's when they looked the other way at the number of mob owned businesses in those countries. Pax Americana is an antiquated idea that the old fogies of the 1950's just don't want to let go of. All it has ever done is trigger revolutions in the countries America tries to embed itself.

This is the reason IBM wants Americans to work in Thailand and elsewhere. It promotes the idea of a tax free business zone in a foreign country. But, it does something else...it embeds American business into foreign culture in a quicker way than ordinarily would be possible. That's not trade. That's Pax Americana.

Chinese will call in our debt and we will have to enact the draft. Might be good for the economy, but people will not like the end result. The Chinese will look at it as population reduction because, well they can and do think that way.

Mo-mo...And how do you make the Supreme Court face the reality that their decisions to give 2 votes to corporations to your single vote is one of their worst decisions ever? We had Dick Cheney kissing Corporate butt for 8 years, the Supreme Court prostituting itself to corporations with their biased decisions against labor and always for Big Business and Republicans on a state to state basis doing their level best to protect the wealth of those who invest in their campaigns.

Wow! Im at a loss to even comment on that.

LittleJoe...Sorry, I call it as I see it.

concerned-1948531:

Nothing has changed with businesses, they have always ONLY cared to make as much profit as possible. Businesses do not have any emotions (read heart and/or soul)! As to your question of: "when will people wake up?" It makes little difference now, the horse is out of the barrn, too late to close the door! OUR "illustrious" politicians are bought and paid for by the big and little corporations; they will do their bidding because they too are after the almighty dollar. In fact the people are "half" awake and it STILL does, and will, not matter one iota. Unemployment will continue to rise in both sectors, goods and services, of the American economy. Jobs will continue to go overseas and we will become a "runner-up" in competitive world economic models. Not what most people would call a bright future for the "American Dream". In fact it is FAST becoming the "American Nightmare", economically speaking!

And you believe that America's workers care about anything but money? Get real! - Worker greed is more damaging than corporate greed because there are so many out there trying to make executive wages for doing as little work as possible. Until Americans realize that we actually need to do an honest day's work for a good day's pay, we are going to keep sliding towards disaster (and the rest of the world is more than happy to see us heading in that direction).

It's kind of hard NOT to care about money when it's the ONLY form of trade to purchase FOOD, WATER, and OTHER things that are required to SURVIVE. So it isn't that the people WANT to want money, they WANT TO SURVIVE. And it wasn't ME that created the system. Who did?

Bobber--Don't blame the workers for the greed of the corporation leaders. The same should apply to the CEOs and corporate officers that make such incredible salaries and bonuses--what do they really do? Sit in an office and be waited on all day...make "big" decisions...out on the golf course...on holiday on one of their many jets (or the corporate one) heading to one of their many vacation homes...while the rest of the population slaves to provide them with yet more money? Who is really doing the "honest" day's work?

Bobber:

You do realize that corporations and ALL other businesses hire the workers; it's NOT the other way around! The last I heard is that the companies set the wages. Don't give me the "song and dance" about the unions. Union jobs represent only7.2% of all private sector jobs in this country. Unions represent approximately 37% of all government jobs. And as for an honest days work for "good pay", I believe you mean minimum wages, right? Most jobs being created now are minnimum wage, or below, Better find a more reasoned and factual arguement!

nurse....No truer words were ever spoken than your description of what I saw CEOs do for 3 decades. The only sweat they ever worked up was in a CEO sauna up on the executive suite level of their penile shaped buildings. Never saw a single one of them change their own flat tires...always got some flunkie from production to do it for them. Never saw a single one of them sit down and do their own expense reports. Always they handed a list of instructions to the secretary and God help her if she left out a nickle he could claim.

Worse were the CEOs who had that prima dona attitude and couldn't so much as attach a paper clip to a report, answer a telephone or God help them, call out for their own lunches. That movie 9 to 5? Not even close to the realities I saw.

Amen - unions are evil and destructive and must be outlawed.

But they are hiring more people, just not Americans. Greed was trademarked by the richest of the Corporations. Unions may have peaked decades ago, but they helped to keep many companies honest when ethics and morality were completely foreign to the largest of companies. How many more workers would be dead due to hazardous work conditions if not for Union intervention? What about Monopolies? The companies would have owned this nation in the early 1900's if not regulation, intervention, and Unions. But yes, lets hand the nation over to the Business's now, seeing as how they are doing soooooo much to better our nation and the population.

The best way to help Americans is to expel any company that is shown to playing both sides and using unethical and illegal activities to avoid paying their fair share. If you don't like it, feel free to leave the country and bask in all the international sales, just don't expect SH!T from America or the American public. No more bailouts, tax breaks or incentives that come at the cost of our nation.

If anyone here own a business, they would know this for a fact. Does anyone know how much taxes and other $hits you have to pay to be in business? American dream is to watch football and accept handouts. Look around you. The Asians are going to college and working their asses off.

DJ- good for you. Work on that de-regulation and then you can create your own business. How about this as your new American corporate name, Hookers and Hookas?

Actually, many business were created for that exact reason. it wasn't until later that profits were the ONLY thing they cared about. They didn't have Wall Street share holders threatening them if they didn't make a profit. And how many times does a BUILDING eat, or go to the docotor, or need money in anyway? It's NOT the comapany, it never has been, it's the people at the top of the comapny wanting to siphon off as much profits as possible.

DavidF...I so agree. Commercialization in every area of human life is what has really happened. Ask a musician, artist, dancer, actor or actress who dictates what to whom. Music doesn't come from a musician's soul. Now, it has to fit a CEOs description of what is most profitable. How sick is that one? So the David Geffens and others of the world play lord and master to guys who only want to create what's inside their souls and these Aholes tell them when, how and how much. Sell yourself to a CEO devil and he owns you. Have you heard what passes for music these days? Beethoven must be rolling in his grave.

ewent, What capacity were you in to observe such things. Ive been employed by several fortune 100 companies. You could toss a dart at the IT based companies and hit 2 or 3 with 5 tries. Ive been on corporate jets and stayed at the Ritz Carlton the Omni. I have also worked 90 hour weeks traveled to 4 cities in one day to successfully accomplish business. And I cant tell the the amount of actual business that gets done on golf courses. Work does not mean anyone has to pound steel or produce widgets. I understand the jealousy factor when you see what looks like "fun". But work is work what ever flavor it comes in. Just so you know My family owned a Masonry company. I grew up mixing cement and carrying bricks until I joined the military at 18. I busted my butt to complete school and work my way up the ladder.

DJ & Rodney, LMAO!!!! Need an invester DJ??!!!!!

You can thank the Republicans for that one.

Denny I thought the republicans cared about big business?

Did you even read the article? It's reading comprehension like this that is likely killing America's middle class. The article has nothing to do with outsourcing jobs, it's about companies expanding their operation overseas due to the expanding foreign markets. The article isn't about companies shipping American jobs overseas rather it's about companies creating new jobs overseas due to demand. See the difference?

Greedy Corporate America is shipping their work overseas where they do not have greedy, lazy American union employees and burdonsome, job killing American Federal regulations and high American corporate taxes. Why don't you lead the Benevolent Corporate America Job Creation Movement and save our country instead of watching it be destroyed over the next 2 centuries?

People with attitudes like yours are the ones destroying America with your attitude that someone owes you something just because you exist. If America could ship people like you overseas, America would thrive. Place the blame where it belongs - on the selfishness, laziness, and greed of tens of millions of American drones.

So, what do you propose repeal the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts? Don't force companies to be environmentally friendly... After all, that costs money... Let's be like China and allow companies to release toxins to the air and water... All because it's cheaper that way...

Also, do expect Americans to work for $5 per hour? There needs to be a "living" wage paid... Wages need to be high enough to cover our high cost of living.

Finally, not all of the jobs shipped overseas were so-called "union" manufacturing jobs... Many were high-tech jobs. Given the lower cost of living, why not hire a programmer in India for half of what you pay an American worker? An Indian programmer making $25K per year can live very well, whereas an American programmer would find it challenging to survive on such a low salary.

Greedy Corporate America will drive this country to third world nation status, while they continue to make record profits... very sad....

Vinca, yes. Do you think America is hermetically sealed in a air and water tight environment that is not effected by the pollution from the rest of the world? There is a balance that must be struck. Right now the balance is tilted to the environment and wealth re-distribution over jobs. There are too many expensive regulations in the US. You say there "needs to be a living wage paid" what dollar value are you recommending that an employer must pay on top of the regulations he must follow in order to be in business? He will either not open or he will go where a living wage is much less, say IndoChina or Mexico.

Rodney...How greedy where/are American miners who every year end up dead? Your post blaming workers is obnoxious tripe. How many women and children died in sweatshops because of lack of proper ventilation or from 18 hour days with little more than a 3rd world salary?

You blast workers without taking a cold hard look at what's under those $2,000 corporate Italian suits, the $1,000 shoes and the Dolce & Gabbana aftershave, don't you? How many construction workers ended up dead because they had no unions? Your kind wants one and one thing only: slave labor. You want workers? Pay them what they are worth...not what YOU think they are worth to your bottom line.

Some of us complained even then, as the profits still went overseas. The foreign automakes liked to use the P.R. line that they were hiring Americans, but it doesn't matter, it would be like Hitler having American assistants, evil is evil. The longer we put off seeing the economic war that we are in is just that much longer and more difficult to save our great nation.

Unfortunately, some Americans like to tout how patriotic they are while they drive their Prius to the grocery store. I have never owned a foreign car, as Ford has always made what I deem as necessary to drive. Some foreign industry can't be avoided but it shouldn't come at the expense of our country.

@Chris: I agree with some of your points....but one thing you omitted is that your Ford was manufactured in Guatemala (or some other foreign country) to save expenses for Ford Motors...but the end product was still expensive to the consumer and lacked quality. Some of the profits from my little Toyota may have went overseas...but the Americans that assembled it were paid from those profits, not some Guatemalan family of 12.

Until the last YEAR, domestic American automobiles have been largely unreliable and overpriced compared to their overseas competitors. This is strictly from a quality and reliability standpoint. One needs only to read an Edmund's or Consumer Report study to verify this.

NOW...with those companies recieving billions of financial aid, we are expected to pay their debt to the government while they still manufacture cars somewhere other than America?!? Who is the real "patriot" here, Chris. What do we truly support when we buy "American"....a name and a ridiculously rich CEO, that's all.

**NOTE: No Guatemalans were deliberately "hated on" in this post....they just happened to be the first country that popped in my head. There is no data to support my use of Guatemala as an assembly point for American automobiles. Likewise, no Guatemalans were harmed during the typing of this post.

You forgot the part "I'm Active Duty Service Member, and I approve this post" lol!!!

Tom1135481 --- you are right on... and there is no end in sight. There is another bubble in this USA that is going to burst. All the educated poor who thought a college degree and a student loan was the way to go.... they have a tight US job market and they can't pay back their loans. This problem is huge... and the ripple effect is going to be felt. Another blow to the US economy.... maybe we Americans will have to do what the Europeans and others did for centuries.... leave their land and go find work elsewhere... it is an option.

But if American workers are put out of jobs, who is going to buy the cheap crap made by $2 an hour worker? Certainly not the $2 an hour worker! He cannot afford any type of car. What the world doesn't understand is if America goes down the tubes, we're probably going to take the rest of the world with us. We need to protect our own markets and our citizens' interests. I do agree that unions are going to have to give BIG concessions, especially in the wage area, before we are going to be able to compete. What I have a problem with is when the unions do give concessions, and the corporations STILL crap all over the American worker by sending jobs overseas.

Sorry ehf,

Union employees earn about $17 per hour, on average - and you also fail to average in the fact that many of these other countries don't have federal regulations concerning maxium hours, leave, holidays, overtime, pollution, etc. that America does, that's why you have Chinese workers throwing themselves off of balconies at Apple's factory and riots in Japan and Korea. Yes they can make a higher profit by going overseas, but what is the ACTUAL cost that gets paid in terms of human life?

EHF----Where do you get your data, can you provide a link? As an educated Chrysler retiree (35 yrs w/perfect attendance) I assure you nobody on the line (running the rivotor or turning a wrench) was making $40 p/hr plus benefits.

It's people like you, spewing the misinformation that you THINK or feel to be correct that adds fuel to the fire, burning the wrong people. How is the high cost of living the American worker's fault?

Do you work? Do you work for less than minimum wage without benefits? If not then why are you trashing unions and union members & American workers? The demands of unions are what ended sweat shop 'standards' and unsafe working practices /conditions for workers, not to mention child labor, here in the U.S. Sweat shops, slave and child labor still exist and in fact run rampant across Europe and Asia.

We are so screwed as long as this country has people believing in the BS that Unions are the problem! Unions are done in this country, minimum wage is the salary for college graduates and umemployment is now the job. Well done Corporate Welfare, you have now reduced the average American worker to a slave status...Who said slavery was dead!!!