post-Essen syndrom
Sweden
Stockholm
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Venga2 wrote: Quote: How does one improve one's lot in life without diminishing others in some way? It is NOT a zero sum game. It really, really isn't.
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Michael Tagge
United States
Arlington
Virginia
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Mondainai wrote: On the contrary! I think everyone should strive for a better life. But when it comes to the political side of that struggle, you shouldn't make it worse for people who are already worse off than you when advancing your own group's agenda. The solution isn't to refuse Indians work. The solution is to have a healthy tax rate, and use that money wisely, in a way that empowers the big masses.
We aren't striving for a better life, we are hanging on to stay where we are (and not doing too well). I am doing ok, but I did take a paycut on Jan 1st, my costs are going up (not to mention fees being added to access my own money), and fixed costs are the same. In a very real sense I am worse off than I was last year at this time. Oddly enough the "1%" are better off than this time last year.
Plus I cannot just take a chance and do something else. As a citizen of the US of A, if I take a risk and something happens to someone in my family, we are financially ruined, while the rich are not since I can't provide insurance for health and other hardships.
Being rich isn't about having a certain amount of assets. It is about being free to make choices in life. While I am probably considered in the 1% worldwide, if I found out today that some environmental factor was affecting my kids where I lived I only have two choices: tough it out or send them to live with extended family until my lease is up. Someone who is rich doesn't have that concern.
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Michael Tagge
United States
Arlington
Virginia
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mtagge wrote: Being rich isn't about having a certain amount of assets. It is about being free to make choices in life. While I am probably considered in the 1% worldwide, if I found out today that some environmental factor was affecting my kids where I lived I only have two choices: tough it out or send them to live with extended family until my lease is up. Someone who is rich doesn't have that concern. To further add, someone who has total assets of $200,000 or who controls a military brigade in Congo does have the ability to make choices and so I would consider part of the 1% even though they might have less assets than I.
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Paul Doherty
United States
McKinney
Texas
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Venga2 wrote: pdoherty wrote: Venga2 wrote: pdoherty wrote: Mondainai wrote: They would not get a 40-hour work week by us not importing from them, on the contrary: when there's food on the table and roof over the head, that's when you are able to start demanding what else you and others need for having a good life You acknowledge this, yet begrudge US workers for continuing along this same continuum in improving their lot in life? No, he begrudges them if they want to improve their lots in life by diminishing other's lots in life, which is what he believes protectionism does (and which is demonstrably so) How does one improve one's lot in life without diminishing others in some way? It is NOT a zero sum game. It really, really isn't.
Nice rhetoric. Got any concrete hypotheticals? According to you just by me having a job I'm harming others so I'm interested in what fantasy scenario you can come up with that improves my situation but doesn't also harm others.
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Paul Doherty
United States
McKinney
Texas
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Mondainai wrote: pdoherty wrote: Venga2 wrote: No, he begrudges them if they want to improve their lots in life by diminishing other's lots in life, which is what he believes protectionism does (and which is demonstrably so) How does one improve one's lot in life without diminishing others in some way? Good question! I sell translation services. In doing so, I "diminish" other translators - they get less work with less pay because I'm there. That's competition. Moreover, it's fair competition. I could get an advantage buy investing in some training or good software. That would be fair market positioning. I could also get an advantage by, through my translator's association, lobby for the government to rule that only certified translators could sell translations, and it'd be up to members of our organization to choose who gets certified. That'd be unfair marketing positioning. I'd diminish others through unfair competition. And if we said people in Sweden are only allowed to buy translation services from translators with Swedish passports, then that'd be discrimination. Against foreign producers and domestic consumers. Do you see the difference from fair competition? Now, you will say: "They compete unfairly by being dirt poor and desperate". So I can just as well reply straight away: You think it's unfair that they're dirt poor and desperate?
No, actually I think they have unfair advantage in that they live in a extremely low cost-of-living environment, adhere to few if any first-world standards and have heavily-subsidized college educations. Why should the first-world wages and jobs be directly exposed to these pressures from these countries? Is it only OK for unfair advantages to be leveraged or sought out if it involves wealth leaving rich places and going to poor places? Does it matter if a tiny minority of those in the rich country get extraordinarily wealthy by doing this? Allowing third-world labor to employ the advantages I described above violates exactly what you're describing in your first paragraph above - unfair advantages not enjoyed by those in the first-world creating an unfair situation.
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post-Essen syndrom
Sweden
Stockholm
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pdoherty wrote: No, actually I think they have unfair advantage in that they live in a extremely low cost-of-living environment, adhere to few if any first-world standards and have heavily-subsidized college educations. Why should the first-world wages and jobs be directly exposed to these pressures from these countries? Is it only OK for unfair advantages to be leveraged or sought out if it involves wealth leaving rich places and going to poor places? Does it matter if a tiny minority of those in the rich country get extraordinarily wealthy by doing this? Allowing third-world labor to employ the advantages I described above violates exactly what you're describing in your first paragraph above - unfair advantages not enjoyed by those in the first-world creating an unfair situation. "Low-cost environment" is very strongly correlated to incomes being low, so that "benefit" is really just being poor. But as I've pointed out, goods and services in the rich world are artificially expensive by this protection. So really, what we have is some sectors surviving not only at the expense of those who could have done the job better/cheaper, but also at the expense of everyone consuming those goods/services.
They adhere to fewer "first-world-standards", yes, simply because "first-world-standards" cost money they don't have. Standards go up as countries get richer. What is interesting is comparing countries at similar income levels. I've elaborated above on why we can't demand other countries match our level overnight.
College subsidies = unfair competition? I've never heard that in my life before. I'd love to hear more on that.
Yes, first-world wages and jobs should be directly be exposed to those of other countries for a lot of reasons. 1) Equal work = Equal pay. If two people are doing the same job, their salaries should be similar - it should not differ because of gender, race or creed, and also not because of nationality. It's unfair, and it's ineffective: if US factory workers are paid too much and Indian engineers paid too much, US will get too many factory workers and India too many engineers. 2) International development - all aid in the world hasn't done a fraction as much to lift people out of poverty as foreign investment and exports have. A person wanting to protect American/European/Japanese markets is in effect a person who want to keep poorer countries down, denying their populations things we take for granted and get outraged if we don't have. 3) As I've explained a million times, the price difference between a protected domestic good and what the imported good would have cost, is borne by the customer. So essentially you're just taxing and subsidizing each other. Someone here complained about stagnant real wages. Real wage = wage - price. So, to get more for the salary you make, you should have global competition on the goods you purchase. Our countries are now investing too much in industries that aren't self-sustainable. Look around in society and I'm sure you see jobs that needs to be done but aren't done because there aren't money for it. Instead of taxing consumers to pay for people to do what could have been more cheaply done elsewhere, you can tax consumers to do what needs to be done, cleaner streets, more adults in school and youth stations, more hands in elderly care and hospitals, more officers in uniforms on the dark streets in the rough areas, and so on.
Is it ok if a few people get super-rich by outsourcing? I'm not sure "a few" people get rich - everyone owning stocks in such companies get richer. But yes, overall, there's no denial that freer trade will widen financial disparities within rich countries. This is an uncomfortable fact, and one that has to be addressed. No, I don't think financial disparities is a positive - it's a negative, it's outright dangerous, leading to poorer health, social (possibly racial) tensions, more crime, self-esteem problems for the lower classes, excessive fear for not "also making it" in the higher classes and so on. And still I want this to happen. Before tax. After tax, the picture should be wildly different. It is to some a paradox (and to me a given) that trade liberalisation needs to be coupled with more active government policy to function smoothly. People will get laid-off, and they need unemployment pay and schooling, and this can be paid by the winners of the game, the shareholders and those in the successful export industries, as these get more money and lower consumer/inputs prices. Sounds complicated? Easier to just keep tariffs high? Well, not even with tariffs do you freeze industrial developments. There will always be creative destruction, there will always be massive layoffs as new technology makes certain sectors irrelevant, and other pops up instead. Export industries will more easily grow and suck up the laid-offs, as they now have cheaper access to inputs that were previously hogged by the ineffective, protected, dying industries. There will be gaps in between for many individuals. You need a system for smoothing those potholes out, so you might just as well get one.
"Is it only OK for unfair advantages to be leveraged or sought out if it involves wealth leaving rich places and going to poor places?"
I hate people who dodge questions, so yes, money going to poorer places make unfair advantages more fair. I'd prefer to lose my job to a poor polluting country than a rich polluting country. As the poorer country gets richer, they can afford the technology needed to clean up. Technology developed in the countries that were first with the high standards, of course 
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post-Essen syndrom
Sweden
Stockholm
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mtagge wrote: Plus I cannot just take a chance and do something else. As a citizen of the US of A, if I take a risk and something happens to someone in my family, we are financially ruined, while the rich are not since I can't provide insurance for health and other hardships. That is horrible. That's one thing the conservatives don't understand: they praise bold people who bet and take chances. But those who fail are not taken care of; they have themselves to blame, for taking chances. That's not how you create the bold, enterprising population of their bedtime fantasies.
But please, don't direct your anger and concerns towards the outsourcing itself. Direct it towards those who get rich from it and don't want to pay taxes. Protection has never kept anyone safe anyway. Only a safety system keep people safe. I'll do my share in supporting you in the presidential election this fall. I don't want my countrymen start whining about us facing competition from a big country that competes unfairly by denying its citizens health care 
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Rich Hussein Shipley
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
By some definitions, gaming is my religion
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mtagge wrote: Plus I cannot just take a chance and do something else. As a citizen of the US of A, if I take a risk and something happens to someone in my family, we are financially ruined, while the rich are not since I can't provide insurance for health and other hardships.
I tell my conservative friends that health care reform will be good for entrepreneurship for this reason and they just refuse to hear it.
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post-Essen syndrom
Sweden
Stockholm
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rshipley wrote: mtagge wrote: Plus I cannot just take a chance and do something else. As a citizen of the US of A, if I take a risk and something happens to someone in my family, we are financially ruined, while the rich are not since I can't provide insurance for health and other hardships. I tell my conservative friends that health care reform will be good for entrepreneurship for this reason and they just refuse to hear it.
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Paul Doherty
United States
McKinney
Texas
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Mondainai wrote: College subsidies = unfair competition? I've never heard that in my life before. I'd love to hear more on that.
What's complicated about it? One (or a group of) nation(s) funds college educations heavily. In another (the USA) citizens must go into massive debt to get the same education. Both competing for jobs that require/desire that education.
Which equals unfair competition for those in the USA. Not only must they bear the many-times-higher cost-of-living in the USA but they must further fund their own education at many-times-higher cost in order to compete with Indians who got their college for free or heavily subsidized. Then the US person must also deal with the fact that US companies would love to send that work to the Indian, who can afford to work for 1/5th the wage the American would need. Which benefits the Indian, India and the tiny minority of rich people who own the companies doing this offshoring of the work.
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Paul Doherty
United States
McKinney
Texas
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rshipley wrote: mtagge wrote: Plus I cannot just take a chance and do something else. As a citizen of the US of A, if I take a risk and something happens to someone in my family, we are financially ruined, while the rich are not since I can't provide insurance for health and other hardships. I tell my conservative friends that health care reform will be good for entrepreneurship for this reason and they just refuse to hear it.
Exactly right - with companies no longer able to lord health insurance over individuals they are free to work for whomever they like (large or small) and even free to start their own businesses without fear of becoming bankrupt overnight due to illness or injury.
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OK since I am the one that posted this and I'm a f@#k'n Canadian...it's peace loving time....take a minute to find the post in chit chat called don't be hate'n i'm canadian ..complete...take a breathe, enjoy a chuckle at your own expence and realize in the end people are people...we all have our issues and our strength, both as individuals and as nations.....if that fails wrap your arms around yourself and squeeze...there a Canadian bear hug from me to you....cheers
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post-Essen syndrom
Sweden
Stockholm
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pdoherty wrote: Mondainai wrote: College subsidies = unfair competition? I've never heard that in my life before. I'd love to hear more on that. What's complicated about it? One (or a group of) nation(s) funds college educations heavily. In another (the USA) citizens must go into massive debt to get the same education. Both competing for jobs that require/desire that education. Which equals unfair competition for those in the USA. Not only must they bear the many-times-higher cost-of-living in the USA but they must further fund their own education at many-times-higher cost in order to compete with Indians who got their college for free or heavily subsidized. Then the US person must also deal with the fact that US companies would love to send that work to the Indian, who can afford to work for 1/5th the wage the American would need. Which benefits the Indian, India and the tiny minority of rich people who own the companies doing this offshoring of the work.
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post-Essen syndrom
Sweden
Stockholm
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pdoherty wrote: rshipley wrote: mtagge wrote: Plus I cannot just take a chance and do something else. As a citizen of the US of A, if I take a risk and something happens to someone in my family, we are financially ruined, while the rich are not since I can't provide insurance for health and other hardships. I tell my conservative friends that health care reform will be good for entrepreneurship for this reason and they just refuse to hear it. Exactly right - with companies no longer able to lord health insurance over individuals they are free to work for whomever they like (large or small) and even free to start their own businesses without fear of becoming bankrupt overnight due to illness or injury.
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