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![]() On 22-May-2004, Cub Driver wrote: Xref: east.cox.net rec.aviation.piloting:387143 X-Received-Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 05:18:09 EDT (news1.east.cox.net) On Fri, 21 May 2004 13:41:41 GMT, "Jay Honeck" wrote: Our American dollar buys a lot less than it did just a few years ago. Factor *that* in, and gas may be cheaper than it's ever been. Oil is priced in dollars, so in theory that shouldn't affect us at all. Of course, the Saudis sell for dollars and buy stuff in euros, and they're not stupid. One reason oil is bumping around $40/barrel is that the oil producers countries want to reclaim their buying power. Another reason--and probably a much larger one--is the huge growth in manufacturing (and attendant prosperity) in China and to a lesser extent India. We can look forward to an era in which the things China produces (sneakers, radios) will get cheaper and cheaper, while the things China consumes (oil) will get more expensive. I dissagree, I think the US standard of living will fall some and Chinas will rise (as you said). But there cost will rise, not fall. My hope is that this will allow the US to start making radios and shoes again. They will cost us more, hence the lowewr standard of living, but I can deal with that. Everyone cannot be in services, and sustain an economy. Les And it is easy to exaggerate the weakness in the dollar. Not too many years ago the euro was launched at $1.18. Now it is $1.20. Big deal. all the best -- Dan Ford email: (put Cubdriver in subject line) The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com Viva Bush! blog www.vivabush.org |
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![]() thanks to the unequaled productivity of American workers How measured? GNP per capita is not necessarily a good measure. How about GNP per salary dollar? That more closely reflects what business is looking at when they choose to outsource. Do you want a high efficiency engine, or a high output engine? Depends how you want to fly. Jose -- (for Email, make the obvious changes in my address) |
#4
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I want an engine I can run either way.
"Teacherjh" wrote in message ... thanks to the unequaled productivity of American workers How measured? GNP per capita is not necessarily a good measure. How about GNP per salary dollar? That more closely reflects what business is looking at when they choose to outsource. Do you want a high efficiency engine, or a high output engine? Depends how you want to fly. Jose -- (for Email, make the obvious changes in my address) |
#5
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![]() How measured? Productivity is measured by the factors that measure productivity. Basically, you divide Gross National Product by hours worked, adjust for inflation, etc etc. Asking how you measure productivity is like asking how you measure speed. You do it with the tools developed for that purpose. Over the past hundred years, nothing like the American growth engine has ever been seen. That doesn't necessarily mean that we can continue to ride the unicycle for another hundred years, but I would rather start down the road on the American unicycle than on any other. all the best -- Dan Ford email: (put Cubdriver in subject line) The Warbird's Forum www.warbirdforum.com The Piper Cub Forum www.pipercubforum.com Viva Bush! blog www.vivabush.org |
#6
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![]() Cub Driver wrote: How measured? Productivity is measured by the factors that measure productivity. Basically, you divide Gross National Product by hours worked, adjust for inflation, etc etc. That used to be the method back when the U.S. was primarily blue collar and work hours were a good measurement. In the "professional" area, productivity is measured by dividing GNP by people employed. In the telecom field, "productivity" went up a great deal just by firing a bunch of people and changing over to a 70 to 90 hour work week for the rest. Actual productivity per employee-hour went down. George Patterson I childproofed my house, but they *still* get in. |
#7
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![]() "G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message ... Productivity is measured by the factors that measure productivity. Basically, you divide Gross National Product by hours worked, adjust for inflation, etc etc. That used to be the method back when the U.S. was primarily blue collar and work hours were a good measurement. In the "professional" area, productivity is measured by dividing GNP by people employed. In the telecom field, "productivity" went up a great deal just by firing a bunch of people and changing over to a 70 to 90 hour work week for the rest. That's become the measure that most of the economy is using. Actual productivity per employee-hour went down. Most businesses still have not figured out that cheaper workers (foreign, recent immigrants, etc.) are cheaper for a reason. How about we find some cheaper executives? :~) |
#8
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![]() "Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message ... Most businesses still have not figured out that cheaper workers (foreign, recent immigrants, etc.) are cheaper for a reason. How about we find some cheaper executives? :~) That reminds me of a Wasserman cartoon where some economists discover some REALLY bad news - that economists could be outsourced. Heck, they send the factories and labor needs overseas, why not just go all the way and send the entire company there? There becomes a point where it is questionable how much a "US company" is really a US company at all. |
#9
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Cub Driver ) wrote:
: : How measured? : : Productivity is measured by the factors that measure productivity. : Basically, you divide Gross National Product by hours worked, adjust : for inflation, etc etc. : http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0412-13.htm Exposing the Conservative Straw Man - "Productivity" "Exposing the Conservative Straw Man - "Productivity" by Thom Hartmann Thomas Jefferson wrote in a September 28, 1821 letter, "The government of the United States, at a very early period, when establishing its tariff on foreign importations, were very much guided in their selection of objects by a desire to encourage manufactures within ourselves." Conservatives don't want you to know this, and - even more frenetically - are working to prevent any discussion of "protectionist" tariffs on labor. Their main argument - a straw man - is that "productivity" is responsible for the loss of American jobs, not a fundamental realignment in the rules of the game of business starting in the Reagan era and climaxing with NAFTA and GATT/WTO. Business publications love to quote 19th century economist David Ricardo as saying, in "On Wages," his 1817 work, "Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price." Thus, they say, it's natural that American wages should have been in a free fall ever since Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and GATT: America's roughly 100-million workers now have to compete "on a level playing field" with five billion impoverished people around the world. Offshoring is simply the normal extension, they say, of Ricardo's classic view of economics. What they forget is that Ricardo also wrote, in the following sentence, "The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution." [snip] "But offshoring isn't the problem for American workers!" conservatives shout. "It's the increase in productivity. American businesses need fewer workers because automation and hard work have made our workers more productive." This is a tragic lie, and it's been bought hook, line, and sinker by most American politicians and even many economists. Productivity is, very simply, the measurement of how many products or services can be produced for how many dollars of labor expended. But offshoring distorts productivity figures in two ways. First, foreign labor is cheaper, but produces nearly identical amounts of product or service. The result is "increased productivity." Second, many corporations don't put offshore labor onto their balance sheets as a labor expense. Because they hire offshore companies as subcontractors to do work previously done by their own employees, they get to reduce the number and cost of their employees while having an only slightly increased line-item on their P&L for the subcontractor. The result is that it looks like their remaining employees are getting more done, because the offshore employees are no longer counted in the productivity figures. But the Indians and Chinese know something you won't hear on conservative "business" programs. While China and India eagerly let multinational corporations move work from America to their nations, they fiercely protect their own domestic industries primarily through the use of tariffs - taxes on imported goods - and the strict regulation of imported labor..." Ricardo's "natural price of labour" is also known as the iron law of wages: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0110-05.htm The Price of Globalization "The Price of Globalization by William Pfaff [snip] The iron law of wages is also simple and logical. It says that wages will tend to stabilize at or about subsistence level. That seemed inevitable to Ricardo, since while workers are necessary, and so have to be kept alive, they have no hope of any better treatment since they are infinitely available, replaceable, and generally interchangeable..." Communist China offers an example of the iron law of wages: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/silic...ey/4597519.htm Mercury News | 11/24/2002 | Cheap products' human cost "ZHONGSHAN, China - Pan Qing Mei hoists a soldering gun and briskly fastens chips and wires to motherboards streaming past on a conveyor belt. Fumes from the lead solder rise past her face toward a ventilating fan high above the floor of the spotless factory..." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2002May12.html Worked Till They Drop (washingtonpost.com) "SONGGANG, China -- On the night she died, Li Chunmei must have been exhausted. Co-workers said she had been on her feet for nearly 16 hours, running back and forth inside the Bainan Toy Factory, carrying toy parts from machine to machine. When the quitting bell finally rang shortly after midnight, her young face was covered with sweat..." http://makeashorterlink.com/?W1C232991 Photo essay: China's hi-tech toxics (child labor) "Photo journalist Jeroen Bouman gets a rare glimpse inside the illegal Chinese workshops where young teenagers work long hours amid noxious fumes, recycling computers from the US and Europe. The industry has turned four villages in Guiyu, Guangdong province, into toxic waste tips. Drinking water is now brought by lorries from 30 kilometres away..." The U.S. may be seeing the start of the iron law of wages: http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/we...chive_01212004 Jobs shift from higher-paying to lower-paying industries "In 48 of the 50 states, jobs in higher-paying industries have given way to jobs in lower-paying industries since the recession ended in November 2001 (see map)..." A friend just returned from a trip to Communist China and reported that the pollution was bad, like the "Smoke Pollution in Benzi, China" picture at this site: http://www.wri.org/wri/wr-98-99/airpoll.htm Health Effects of Air Pollution --Jerry Leslie Note: is invalid for email |
#10
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![]() "leslie" wrote in message ... Cub Driver ) wrote: : : How measured? : : Productivity is measured by the factors that measure productivity. : Basically, you divide Gross National Product by hours worked, adjust : for inflation, etc etc. : http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0412-13.htm Exposing the Conservative Straw Man - "Productivity" "Exposing the Conservative Straw Man - "Productivity" by Thom Hartmann [snip] Conservatives don't want you to know this, and - even more frenetically - are working to prevent any discussion of "protectionist" tariffs on labor. Their main argument - a straw man - is that "productivity" is responsible for the loss of American jobs, That's interesting, consider that's not the arguments I've heard. not a fundamental realignment in the rules of the game of business starting in the Reagan era and climaxing with NAFTA and GATT/WTO. [rest of brushed off version of Marx's "Labor Theory of Value" snipped. |
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