Should the government get involved in stopping outsourcing?

[danfromwaterloo]

Try to convince RFD crowd that old Henry was up to something with his "your employee is your customer" idea

Here's the thing: the market is cyclical. If you pay money to an employee in salary, he takes that money and spends it locally on food, cars, clothing, housing, etc. By offshoring that money, you're taking money out of the economy and redirecting it to someplace else. That money is no longer available to support domestic purchases. So, the local economy gets poorer. This leads to less production for the domestic market, which leads to less need for domestic manufacturing. This creates a feedback loop that ruins economies. I think we're seeing that today.

[MasterXan]

Here's the thing: the market is cyclical. If you pay money to an employee in salary, he takes that money and spends it locally on food, cars, clothing, housing, etc. By offshoring that money, you're taking money out of the economy and redirecting it to someplace else. That money is no longer available to support domestic purchases. So, the local economy gets poorer. This leads to less production for the domestic market, which leads to less need for domestic manufacturing. This creates a feedback loop that ruins economies. I think we're seeing that today.

By sending money overseas, the foreigners will eventually have to spend that money on us. They don't sit on the money we give them.

[Agafaba]

By sending money overseas, the foreigners will eventually have to spend that money on us. They don't sit on the money we give them.

Some of it comes back that is true, but nothing close to what was spent on them.

[DearSummer]

Historically, the middle-class has been predominantly from manufacturing and trades. Blue collar workers. That's not to say that's where the future of the middle-class will be, but I attribute the downfall of the middle-class to the offshoring of traditional manufacturing jobs to Mexico, China, and other third-world countries, where it can be done cheaper.

Those days are past. Why would we fight for the jobs that aren't competitive and sustainable in Canada? Globalization has set sail and if we want to succeed we need to move towards higher-value production of services/goods.

[MrKap]

The jobs that are here, aren't necessarily in threat of being lost to overseas production either. Especially in manufacturing.

The manufacturing industry has been mechanizing for the last 50 or 60 years, if not hundreds of years, and the number of people you need on a floor is nothing compared to what it used to be, and there is no job lost overseas when it comes to the cost of electricity to run the machine, to hire local engineers to service machines, versus flying them in, every time the line goes down, ect... Even the cost of shipping is something people usually neglect to mention, as if foreign labor somehow offsets the cost of gasoline, which it just doesn't. Foreign labor is really not that cheap, especially when it's 500 human hands versus a huge mechanized line of robots.

So that is one thing to consider at least. So I've worked on manufacturing lines before, it just doesn't really make alot of sense to me that somehow man hours are beating a giant hole in the cost to deliver robotic-ally manufactured goods. jmo... Product offerings, sure. Not man hours, jmo...


I mean the food industry is largely manufacturing too, that's not going anywhere. I've never worked in a computer parts manufacturing plant, but if someone wants to tell me it takes 300 human hands to dip a circuit board in some kind of finisher and that is the sole reason china and taiwan have huge electronics industries, I just don't buy it. North America never had a huge electronics industry in comparison to China, Japan and Taiwan. They were weren't cheaper, they were just bigger and better.

Does anyone remember the era of the $6,000+ home radio/cassette/8track stereo system? They were just doing it better. Not cheaper, jmo...

These of course are just my opinions. A lot of the electronics companies in North America were bought out by foreign competition in the 70s and 80s (not sure but pretty sure). Like Technics, and Panasonic? Was Panasonic originally North American?

[vaportrails]

Those days are past. Why would we fight for the jobs that aren't competitive and sustainable in Canada? Globalization has set sail and if we want to succeed we need to move towards higher-value production of services/goods.

OK, so let's work with this premise. Globalization means less money circulating domestically, which means a shrinking of the middle class.

So what do we do as a society to help those who are on the wrong half of the divide? It seems strange to be that those who are saying "good riddance" to the middle class, are also those in favour of cutting social programs that seek to help unemployed and low-income individuals and families. Surely there's something wrong with this picture.

[no_username]

I agree that we need good jobs in Canada, and that menial manufacturing is over in Canada. However, some people in our society are only capable of doing menial, low-skilled jobs. What do we do when those jobs are gone? If low paying retail jobs remain, how is our society going to function with a chunk of the population below a living wage? We can't give all of them welfare!

[DearSummer]

OK, so let's work with this premise. Globalization means less money circulating domestically, which means a shrinking of the middle class.

So what do we do as a society to help those who are on the wrong half of the divide? It seems strange to be that those who are saying "good riddance" to the middle class, are also those in favour of cutting social programs that seek to help unemployed and low-income individuals and families. Surely there's something wrong with this picture.

Canada can compete globally. We can sell our products/services anywhere in the world. The point is that we make decisions that increase our competitiveness globally. Globalization does not mean less jobs, it just means we need to increase our trade with the rest of the world. We import textiles from China and export natural gas them, for example. We import cars from South Korea and export digital media to them.

Do we want jobs manufacturing textiles (low value = low pay) or jobs creating innovative technology or providing high value-add services (high pay)?

[DearSummer]

I agree that we need good jobs in Canada, and that menial manufacturing is over in Canada. However, some people in our society are only capable of doing menial, low-skilled jobs. What do we do when those jobs are gone? If low paying retail jobs remain, how is our society going to function with a chunk of the population below a living wage? We can't give all of them welfare!

There are still plenty of no-skill jobs in the service sector. Our goal shouldn't be to find jobs for the lowest common denominator, it should be to raise the lowest common denominator. Our educational attainment in Canada has been on a steady incline for decades and it's showing no signs of stopping.

[vaportrails]

Canada can compete globally. We can sell our products/services anywhere in the world. The point is that we make decisions that increase our competitiveness globally. Globalization does not mean less jobs, it just means we need to increase our trade with the rest of the world. We import textiles from China and export natural gas them, for example. We import cars from South Korea and export digital media to them.

Do we want jobs manufacturing textiles (low value = low pay) or jobs creating innovative technology or providing high value-add services (high pay)?

I get it, but you haven't answered the question. We can't all be CEOs and we can't all be highly skilled engineers. What do we do with the entire class of workers, who traditionally put in a 9-5 grind, and still were able to have a nice middle-class lifestyle with a mortgage, 2 cars in the driveway, etc.?

What do you propose happens to this swath of people?

[DearSummer]

I get it, but you haven't answered the question. We can't all be CEOs and we can't all be highly skilled engineers. What do we do with the entire class of workers, who traditionally put in a 9-5 grind, and still were able to have a nice middle-class lifestyle with a mortgage, 2 cars in the driveway, etc.?

What do you propose happens to this swath of people?

What class of people? People with a high school education only? The middle-class is changing. It used to include a lot of people with cushy unions jobs with a high school education and maybe some basic on-the-job training. Now the middle-class will all have post-secondary education (i.e. analysts, trades people, etc.). The bar is being raised. Just like it is now, people who don't meet the bar will likely not make very much money. Luckily if we compete effectively globally we can support these people with wealth redistribution programs.

[vaportrails]

What class of people? People with a high school education only? The middle-class is changing. It used to include a lot of people with cushy unions jobs with a high school education and maybe some basic on-the-job training. Now the middle-class will all have post-secondary education (i.e. analysts, trades people, etc.). The bar is being raised. Just like it is now, people who don't meet the bar will likely not make very much money. Luckily if we compete effectively globally we can support these people with wealth redistribution programs.

Well yeah, high school education or maybe some of the less marketable college programs, or heck even most B.A. or B.Sc. graduates. These people might be well educated, but not know the first thing about computer programming, or CAD, or rewiring a house.

I don't just mean HS dropouts. University graduates could enjoy decently paid union jobs too.. In fact, many were relegated to those jobs.

If we're going to raise the bar to mean that anyone who wants a decent job needs post-secondary education, we need to do something about subsidizing tuition. Eliminating interest on OSAP would be a good start.

[dealstime]

Should Harper be replaced with Comrade Harper??

[Mark77]

I get it, but you haven't answered the question. We can't all be CEOs and we can't all be highly skilled engineers. What do we do with the entire class of workers, who traditionally put in a 9-5 grind, and still were able to have a nice middle-class lifestyle with a mortgage, 2 cars in the driveway, etc.?

What do you propose happens to this swath of people?

The globalization has murdered the job opportunities for the 'highly skilled engineers' as well. Its not so much that the savings on the engineers' salary is significant, but there are huge savings on all the support staff, real estate, etc. needed to keep an engineer working.

Its become so bad in Canada that even labourers and tradespeople in some engineering-intensive industries (oil and gas) routinely earn significantly more than engineering/highly skilled professionals.

[neutral]

Well yeah, high school education or maybe some of the less marketable college programs, or heck even most B.A. or B.Sc. graduates. These people might be well educated, but not know the first thing about computer programming, or CAD, or rewiring a house.

I don't just mean HS dropouts. University graduates could enjoy decently paid union jobs too.. In fact, many were relegated to those jobs.

If we're going to raise the bar to mean that anyone who wants a decent job needs post-secondary education, we need to do something about subsidizing tuition. Eliminating interest on OSAP would be a good start.

He won't answer because he is generally against anything that seeks to help a majority of citizens. What's more, is that as other countries build their middle classes, and their access to education improves, you will continue to see jobs sent overseas, or workers being brought in at lower pay. It's already happening. Unfortunately we're playing a losing game, and while it can be beneficial, people will have to escape the mindset that expecting corporations to pay more for the right to access to our labour pool and consumer market is somehow wrong.