On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 00:33:38 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote in Message-Id:
. net:

"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Tom S." wrote in message
...

So you both consider the only alternatives to be A) $300 billion worth
of
often contradictory regulations, or B) massive pollution??
Hmmmm...!!??


No, what I said is that enviornmental regulation is not a major cause of
jobs moving offshore.

It's may not be THE FIRST cause, but it is one of MANY.

You have to realize that most of your $300B figure is
going to reduce pollution and that is reducing cost somewhere else.

I've seen very good estimates that by getting the EPA and their political
hacks out of it, the cost of cleaning up and keeping the environment
CLEANER
would be about one-sixth the present cost.

I agree (don't know about one sixth though), but the problem is that SOMEONE
has to bear the cost to pollute less and NOBODY wants to do it. It almost
has to be the federal government setting the rules. Or you could let me do
it. I would just pick the areas where I could reduce pollution at the
lowerst cost.

Environmental issues are a reality that is going to steadily grow more
prominent as the world continues to become more industrialized, and
world population continues its exponential growth rate. To expect
anything else is delusion.

The most equitable method I am capable of imagining to generate the
revenue to fund environmental waste processing would be a system
modeled on the tax on aviation fuels; s/he who consumes, pays to
clean-up after her/himself. What could be more equitable? Each
consumer pays for environmental health in proportion to that which
s/he consumes.

Such a tax affects all players in a given industry, and would permit
them to continue competing at virtually the same relative national
positions they are today. But there will be resistance to increased
retail prices by those who figure they'll be long-gone before the
environment becomes as bad as that portrayed in Soylent Green*. And
if only the US and/or EU were to process their waste, not only would
their labor be uncompetitive on the world market as it is today, but
their goods would necessarily be priced even higher than the same
product made in polluting nations. It would seem fitting for the
world's largest polluter to lead the way toward proactive
environmental responsibility, and provide the technology to eventually
work toward more closed systems.

I notice, too, that most states/cities that have emmissions checks on
vehicles cleaverly exempt the worst pollutors. A UColorado/Denver study in
1995 showed that over 80% of pollution (in the Denver area) was caused by
about 10% of vehicles, but under Colorado law, those 10% were largely
exempt).

I agree completely. I asked Willie Brown once why people with ****ty cars
had a right to poisen everybody and he really didn't have a good answer.

If you are talking worldwide, I would guess automobile pollution to be
a result of the resistance to increased cost necessary to prevent it
not being mandated by the sovereigns upon whose soil automobiles
operate.

I stand by my earlier assertion that these aren't the major reasons why jobs
go offshore.

Your logic (in your example below hiring software engineers) seems
reasonable to me on that issue.

I also think that we have to question your numbers particulaly
the $800B one. There are less than 100MM tax returns representing ~$4.5T in
taxable income filed in the US each year. I find it hard to believe that
$8,000 per family or over 15%$ of personal income is spent complying with
various regulations.

If I am looking to hire 1000 software engineers and they will cost ~100MM a
year in the US and ~20MM in India it really doesn't matter much what
additional regulations there are in the US.

BTW There have recently been articles in the Indian press bemoaning the loss
of manufacturing jobs to Vietnam!

Mike
MU-2


Grocery store checkers are on strike in SoCal due to management
cutting their health benefits. Jobs such as these, that have been
largely automated by new technology, are destined to disappear at some
point in the future. What do you foresee as the road to employment
for displaced workers such as these, former Boeing workers, etc. in
the future western world? It's going to be necessary for them to find
new skill sets that don't exist elsewhere at lower rates, I suppose.



* http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/usercomments

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"The true Axis Of Evil in America is our genius at marketing
coupled with the stupidity of our people." -- Bill Maher