Drew Dowdell

All of that would be true if the Chinese were actually buying anything that we export. The won't and don't. They won't even buy Buicks made in the U.S. ... and they LOVE Buicks. What you describe is the fantasy world of "free trade". The Chinese are hording dollars. They aren't spending them here. A small slice of that $20 DVD player remains here in the U.S. with some Walmart worker who probably doesn't even have healthcare. The rest flows either into the pockets of the already wealthy shareholders of Walmart or directly into the Chinese economy to remain indefinitely. What on earth was I talking about is the entire support food chain that exists to bring a product to market. By bypassing the American manufacturing system and buying directly from China, that entire employement food chain is destroyed. Yes this happens as industries change. But when it happened in the buggie market with Ford, the employment food chain was replaced domestically. We've cut off the roots of the economy(the manufacturing base). We're watching the trunk die (the middle class). Yet you think the tree will continue to bare fruit forever for the rich. Again, we've had 30 years of proof. Unless you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 and haven told us, you're poorer than you would have been had we not offshore our entire manufacturing base.

1950's General Motors Ford Motor Company Chrysler Studebaker Packard Hudson Nash Willys-Overland Kaiser International Harvester Mercedes Benz Volkswagen Today: General Motors Ford Motor Company Chrysler Toyota Honda Nissan/Renault Mercedes Benz BMW Volkswagen Hyundai/Kia Tata-Jaguar/LR Yup... sure looks like "more competition" today..... Looks like "more competition" from non-domestic sources is more like it.

Your statements are too vague to address specifically... other than your completely laughable N. Korea references. Another Economics course? really? I've taken some. See I know the difference between "price" and "cost". These vast riches you keep referring to.... you cite price but ignore cost. Yes it's just nifty that the DVD players at Walmart are priced at $20... but what is their cost? Their cost are the jobs in the US manufacturing that DVD player.... and there are the costs of the jobs to manufacture the components... and even the cardboard packaging it comes in. All of those are opportunity costs that the U.S. no longer has. The cardboard packaging is a great example since because of it's relatively low price per pound, it is not something that is usually "globalized" since it costs more to ship it than it does to produce it locally. Since the DVD player is produced in China, the corrugated it comes in is also produced there. That just cost the U.S. how many timber jobs? how many paper plant jobs? how many corrugated manufacturer jobs? how many box cutter jobs? (yes these are generally separate industries. How about the front office workers for all of those manufacturing plants? How about the companies that build the machines for the respective industries? Hell that $20 DVD player probably cost Briggs and Stratton the sale of 50 chainsaw engines. So a DVD player is priced at $20 at Walmart, but because it was sourced entirely out of country, it actually cost thousands of jobs domestically. Most people, if they understood the ramifications their actions, would be willing to pay $50 for a DVD player if that meant all of their neighbors would keep their jobs.

Sounds like a variant of HCCI.... but with a catalyst added.

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The gains to everyone else are that they can now buy crap at Walmart for 75 cents on the dollar compared to what they used to pay..... which is good because unemployment checks don't go quite as far as full salary does. The removal of manufacturing jobs has removed the salary floor for office jobs and thereby depressed pay. You have to accept $30k to work in a gray cube because the only other alternative is flipping burgers. Again on average we are wealthier than we were before. But remove the top 1% - 2% wealthiest people and on average our wealth has decreased. The wealth has been systematically transferred from the "have somes" to the "have it alls" and the Chinese economy. We have 30 years of proof of this not working. The evidence is in the pictures at the beginning of this thread. Replacing American workers with automation is fine as long as the automation is also built by American workers. There will always be job displacement. It's when there is a wholesale migration of jobs out of the country without regard for the economic consequences .

I've been with a company going through the "Walmart transition" where everyone but front office staff and a few fork truck drivers are outsourced to foreign countries. Well over 50 factory workers were laid off even though the company was thriving..... those of us who remained got $250 bonuses and cost of living increases that barely broke 2 percent which was fun because the CPI was almost always up over 2%. The owners (all one family) got a new house in Palm Beach, S-Class, SL-Class, 5-series, FX45..... and probably wrote all of that off as "business expenses". So yes.. on average, all the employees were richer. Remove the top 1% earners from the pool, and there were a LOT of poorer people.... on average. I was also there for the recall when half Chinese the product came back infested with beetles.

Well the seats, as soon as sat in them, stood out as really good. They're very supportive and with great side bolstering. I haven't had a chance to really crawl around the interior, but it seems fairly standard initially. I plan to do a "luggage test" on this one. It's going to take some time to get used to the drive. It feels strange not having the gas motor kick in till you're over 47mph.... but you can putter around for a while in EV mode. The mpg indicator was 35mpg after my standard initial test loop. I drive all vehicles on the same loop as soon as I get them. It has two full acceleration runs, a highway run, and 50% city travel.

Don't care. Those buggie makers could have become Ford employees without relocating to Vietnam. Ford created a LOT more jobs than were destroyed at the buggie makers.... and those who were simple laborers for Ford probably made a LOT more (hey, whaddaya know, they can afford a Car now!) then they ever did as a buggie maker.

This Just In: 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid Our first car from the Ford press fleet for an Interactive Review is a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid..... hey, why not start off with the car that was voted Motor Trend Car of the Year? Interactive Review: 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid

Interactive Review: 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid For our first entry from the Ford media fleet, Ford decided to put one of it's best feet forward. They sent Motor Trend's car of the year in Light Ice Blue Metallic. So gear up your questions for our Interactive Review. 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid Photo Gallery

Haha! Really? Maybe I can pick up Henry Ford's old place. For all of his other baggage with minorities, one of the things Henry Ford understood was that his employees were also his customer. How do U.S. corporations expect to thrive if they outsource everything but the board of directors and some secretaries? If there are only boards of directors, a few service people, and all the factories are over seas, who is left to buy the products? 17% unemployed/underemployed. In a "consumer economy", how do you expect the economy to work when 17% can't ..well... consume? We like to make fun of Ross Perot, but he had a point about that "Giant Sucking Sound" during the NAFTA debates.

You just disconnected from the topic. The topic is that real wages for average Americans (not those in the top 1%) have stagnated or declined in the past 30 years. This has nothing to do with cell phones or internet. So... congrats, you now have more you can buy but less money to buy it with. For all of that... there's Mastercard.... so you can transfer even more of your diminishing wealth to the investor class.

If you include all American's in that average... sure we're much richer. Remove the top 400 wealthiest who's wealth has increase 1700% since 1970... and no, we're all actually poorer.

Are we? Or do we just feel relatively rich because we're in debt more than anyone else but choose to ignore it.

Yes. 10% official unemployement, closer to 17% actual unemployment/underemployment. 1 job for every 6 job seekers. Where did all the jobs go?

gummed up transmission fluid? edit: BTW, I'm going to move this to the tech questions section.