I agree with a. B I'm not so sure. Americans work a ton of hours, more than any other industrialized country in the world.
Putting Americans out of work, good for economy according to Treasury Secretary...
- Thread starter Tenchiro
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yeah. but i know that i'm sure not productive all those hours (this post count doesn't build itself ya know), and neither are many people at companies that i visit. the other people at my company (all 5 of them) are really hard driving every-free-minute-for-the-company kind of people, so they'll do ok in the brave new world i guess
The problem with the Japanese is that in any company the bureaucracy is so bloated that you have hundreds of people eseentially doing nothing. They all work to 7 or 8 every night because that's when the boss goes home and it's bad form to go home before the boss. The boss wants to appear that he is a hard worker so he won't go home early. So everybody just sits around scratching their balls. You see that the average Taro works a 60-70 hour and think wow those Japanese are such hard workers. It's all bull-sh*t. The deadwood in a typical Japanese company is staggering. Typical Japan, a triumph of style over substance, the appearance is all that's important.
Fortunately a few of the younger crew are getting a bit of a clue and are refusing to part of this corporate behemoth.
VB, you are dead on correct. Then there is also "Man by Window." This is someone who had success when they were younger, but it essentially useless now. They end up sitting in their office, collecting their salary, but doing nothing but stare out the window all day. One of my personal favorites...
But, you rarely get the complete idiots in a Japanese company that seem to infest American ones at the higher levels (usually with the initials MBA behind their name.)
But, you rarely get the complete idiots in a Japanese company that seem to infest American ones at the higher levels (usually with the initials MBA behind their name.)
Well if an American is lazy and uneducated then why should they get good jobs? I am not saying that is the case, but that statement doesn't help any argument. The lazy and uneducated worker should be filtered from the employment pool. I know as a manager I do not want a lazy and uneducated person working for me. I will take uneducated and hard working, or a little lazy and smart, but uneducated and lazy... GOOD LUCK!
I know alot of skilled people looking for work. I had been one of them for along time, until I took a job in an unrelated industry. This issue has nothing to do with skill, just dollars. Mainly how many of them are padding a suits wallet.
...me too.
I offer up this observation of our economic history.
1. We used to have a very different style of compensating employees.
a. slavery
b. indentured servatude
c. no labor laws
2. Most monied families are multi-generational and have a legacy of making more money.
a. known techiniques are passed on generationally.
b. people do what works.
c. nobody wants downward mobility.
3. Educated people engage in synthesis.
a. they look at what worked in the past to maximise profits.
1. paying nothing or very little for labor worked well.
A. seek market where nothing or little can be paid for labor.
1. that market isn't in the United States.
a. ship jobs to more desirable labor market.
It seems easy for me to see why this is happening and desirable to a business owner.
The rub is that our government, that is suppossed to be representing the majority of it's citizens, in reality represents a select few who meet annualy at the "Meadows" er... I mean the governement truly represents the ultra-wealthy and their economic holdings.
This situation does have it's merits, we do have jobs, or opportunity to seek education, and all of this happens because there are still enough businesses that can remain profitable with us American workers.
Along with the merits, it's obvious there are some problems. The person who sought education in engineering who was "downsized" and told get some IT training and then "downsized" again is a prime example of a person who agreed to play by the rules and seek higer education and was burned. We have an implied ethos in this country that hard work and education will always be rewarded. Is this still a "fact" of American life?
Here is what it is all about American companies, screwing America.
U.S. Firms Keep Billions Overseas
Fri Apr 2, 9:00 AM ET
By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer
With sales up 5 percent last year, Merck & Co. was not satisfied: To hold down costs, the pharmaceutical giant shed 3,200 jobs as 2003 drew to a close, and announced that an additional 1,200 positions would go this year.
But Merck's picture abroad was quite different. It made 1,300 new hires in 2003 outside the United States, on top of the 900 brought on the year before. Company documents indicate that Merck had a cumulative $18 billion in foreign earnings untaxed by the end of last year, $3 billion more than in 2002. And the company said it had no intention of ever paying U.S. taxes on that burgeoning sum.
"Foreign earnings of $18.0 billion . . . have been retained indefinitely by subsidiary companies for reinvestment," Merck's annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said. "No provision is made for income taxes that would be payable upon distribution of such earning."
Last week, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the likely Democratic nominee for president, made such lucrative income-tax deferrals a focal point of his campaign, asserting that they are driving companies to expand abroad. Merck's numbers appear to back that up, and so do those of several other big U.S. companies.
By the end of its 2003 fiscal year, Hewlett-Packard Co. had "indefinitely" deferred taxation on $14.4 billion of foreign earnings, according to SEC filings, a move that helped lower its effective tax rate from the statutory corporate income tax rate of 35 percent to 12 percent.
Domestic employment at Intel Corp. slipped by more than 3,300 people last year, but it grew by more than 4,300 abroad. By the end of 2003, the company had $7 billion in cumulative foreign earnings, $700 million more than it had sheltered in 2002, according to SEC filings. The semiconductor powerhouse stated that it "intends to reinvest these earnings indefinitely in operations outside the U.S."
The Kerry campaign said U.S.-based multinational corporations are deferring taxation on $12 billion in foreign earnings each year, a figure that may be low, corporate tax experts say. Corporate tax revenue in 2003 fell for the third straight year, to its lowest in a decade. As a percentage of the economy, business taxes last year reached the second-lowest level since the Great Depression. Few doubt that tax avoidance has been a reason for meager corporate tax collections, and the deferral of taxes on foreign earnings may be one of the biggest factors.
"It's probably next to impossible to get a read on how big the number is, but it's fair to say it's a big, big deal," said Douglas A. Shackelford, an accounting professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School who has studied the issue.
Since Kerry announced his corporate-tax-reform proposal, tax experts have debated its impact on the U.S. job market and its consequences for U.S-based multinationals. But liberal and conservative tax policymakers now appear to agree on one point: The byzantine U.S. system of foreign business taxation is in need of major change.
"This is a largely broken system, rife with abuse," said Gene B. Sperling, a former economic aide to President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) who advises Kerry and is an architect of the candidate's plan.
"There is a real problem here," said Gary C. Hufbauer, an international tax expert at the Institute for International Economics, who is skeptical of Kerry's proposal. "U.S. firms doing business in the U.S. are taxed more heavily than many of their foreign competitors. That's demonstrably true."
Under Kerry's plan, U.S.-based companies would have to pay taxes immediately on virtually all foreign profits that are not taxed by another country. Firms could still defer taxation on profits from subsidiaries set up abroad to serve local markets, but if a U.S. company sets up overseas to ship goods back home, taxes would be due in full.
The $12 billion in additional taxes would be used to lower the corporate tax rate to 33.25 percent, from 35 percent. By closing a major loophole used by only the largest multinationals, the plan would bestow a tax cut on more than 99 percent of U.S. companies, Kerry advisers say. Kerry would also try to lure an estimated $639 billion in untaxed foreign earnings back home with a "tax holiday" that would lower the rate on repatriated earnings to 10 percent for one year.
"In any proposed change to corporate tax law, there will be some companies that will do less well than others," said Roger C. Altman, a senior Treasury official in the Clinton administration and a top Kerry economic adviser. "But the preponderance of companies will do better" under Kerry's proposal.
Eliminating loopholes and lowering overall tax rates is standard, orthodox tax theory, said Joel B. Slemrod, a tax economist at the University of Michigan. On balance, he said, Kerry's plan would probably benefit the U.S. economy.
Given their long-standing support for "tax holidays" on foreign earnings and lower corporate rates, some businesses said they were willing to suspend judgment until they see more details of the proposal. Spokesmen for Merck and Intel said their expansions abroad are not driven by tax factors. Merck spokesman Tony Plohoros noted that the company just opened a research facility in Seattle and is building a multimillion-dollar research lab in Boston.
Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman, said Intel's growth abroad is fueled by a simple fact: 70 percent of the company's sales are international. But he did not dismiss Kerry's plan out of hand.
"It certainly deserves serious consideration," Mulloy said.
But even philosophical supporters of the plan see major problems. Leonard E. Burman, a former assistant Treasury secretary for tax analysis, said he understands why Kerry wanted to exempt income earned in local foreign markets. But, he said, separating out such income would be difficult, and could open an abused system to still more abuse.
"It's great news for accountants and lawyers," he said.
More fundamentally, critics said, the plan would only hasten the movement of companies abroad. Some countries, such as France, tax only income earned within their borders. Many Republican tax economists say the U.S. system already taxes companies more heavily than other countries and has pushed companies to reincorporate abroad.
Under Kerry's proposal, "What's to prevent them all from going overseas?" said Terry Holt, a spokesman for President Bush's reelection campaign.
Altman, who is now a Wall Street investment banker, scoffed at that prospect. "If a corporation has a successful foreign investment, I don't think they're going to divest it for reason of changes in the tax law," he said.
But Shackelford, who supports Kerry's plan, suggested that Hufbauer has a point. At least, he said, it would create incentives for corporate mergers that wind up headquartered overseas, just as Chrysler Corp. and Daimler-Benz AG produced Germany-based DaimlerChrysler AG.
"If deferral is eliminated, there's going to be some hurt there, I don't think there's any question," Shackelford said.
Kerry advisers conceded that they wrestled with many of those objections before deciding to push ahead. "This is a tough issue, but I kind of think we came out in the right place," Sperling said.
He said objections to the fine print should not distract from the point Kerry is trying to make: The U.S. tax code is actually encouraging the movement of jobs overseas.
"This is a big deal," agreed Robert S. McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice, who has inveighed against foreign tax deferral for years. As a company, he said, "you may go to India or China or Ireland for the wage differentials -- there's nothing we can do about that. But we don't have to pay you to go there."
U.S. Firms Keep Billions Overseas
Fri Apr 2, 9:00 AM ET
By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer
With sales up 5 percent last year, Merck & Co. was not satisfied: To hold down costs, the pharmaceutical giant shed 3,200 jobs as 2003 drew to a close, and announced that an additional 1,200 positions would go this year.
But Merck's picture abroad was quite different. It made 1,300 new hires in 2003 outside the United States, on top of the 900 brought on the year before. Company documents indicate that Merck had a cumulative $18 billion in foreign earnings untaxed by the end of last year, $3 billion more than in 2002. And the company said it had no intention of ever paying U.S. taxes on that burgeoning sum.
"Foreign earnings of $18.0 billion . . . have been retained indefinitely by subsidiary companies for reinvestment," Merck's annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said. "No provision is made for income taxes that would be payable upon distribution of such earning."
Last week, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the likely Democratic nominee for president, made such lucrative income-tax deferrals a focal point of his campaign, asserting that they are driving companies to expand abroad. Merck's numbers appear to back that up, and so do those of several other big U.S. companies.
By the end of its 2003 fiscal year, Hewlett-Packard Co. had "indefinitely" deferred taxation on $14.4 billion of foreign earnings, according to SEC filings, a move that helped lower its effective tax rate from the statutory corporate income tax rate of 35 percent to 12 percent.
Domestic employment at Intel Corp. slipped by more than 3,300 people last year, but it grew by more than 4,300 abroad. By the end of 2003, the company had $7 billion in cumulative foreign earnings, $700 million more than it had sheltered in 2002, according to SEC filings. The semiconductor powerhouse stated that it "intends to reinvest these earnings indefinitely in operations outside the U.S."
The Kerry campaign said U.S.-based multinational corporations are deferring taxation on $12 billion in foreign earnings each year, a figure that may be low, corporate tax experts say. Corporate tax revenue in 2003 fell for the third straight year, to its lowest in a decade. As a percentage of the economy, business taxes last year reached the second-lowest level since the Great Depression. Few doubt that tax avoidance has been a reason for meager corporate tax collections, and the deferral of taxes on foreign earnings may be one of the biggest factors.
"It's probably next to impossible to get a read on how big the number is, but it's fair to say it's a big, big deal," said Douglas A. Shackelford, an accounting professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School who has studied the issue.
Since Kerry announced his corporate-tax-reform proposal, tax experts have debated its impact on the U.S. job market and its consequences for U.S-based multinationals. But liberal and conservative tax policymakers now appear to agree on one point: The byzantine U.S. system of foreign business taxation is in need of major change.
"This is a largely broken system, rife with abuse," said Gene B. Sperling, a former economic aide to President Bill Clinton (news - web sites) who advises Kerry and is an architect of the candidate's plan.
"There is a real problem here," said Gary C. Hufbauer, an international tax expert at the Institute for International Economics, who is skeptical of Kerry's proposal. "U.S. firms doing business in the U.S. are taxed more heavily than many of their foreign competitors. That's demonstrably true."
Under Kerry's plan, U.S.-based companies would have to pay taxes immediately on virtually all foreign profits that are not taxed by another country. Firms could still defer taxation on profits from subsidiaries set up abroad to serve local markets, but if a U.S. company sets up overseas to ship goods back home, taxes would be due in full.
The $12 billion in additional taxes would be used to lower the corporate tax rate to 33.25 percent, from 35 percent. By closing a major loophole used by only the largest multinationals, the plan would bestow a tax cut on more than 99 percent of U.S. companies, Kerry advisers say. Kerry would also try to lure an estimated $639 billion in untaxed foreign earnings back home with a "tax holiday" that would lower the rate on repatriated earnings to 10 percent for one year.
"In any proposed change to corporate tax law, there will be some companies that will do less well than others," said Roger C. Altman, a senior Treasury official in the Clinton administration and a top Kerry economic adviser. "But the preponderance of companies will do better" under Kerry's proposal.
Eliminating loopholes and lowering overall tax rates is standard, orthodox tax theory, said Joel B. Slemrod, a tax economist at the University of Michigan. On balance, he said, Kerry's plan would probably benefit the U.S. economy.
Given their long-standing support for "tax holidays" on foreign earnings and lower corporate rates, some businesses said they were willing to suspend judgment until they see more details of the proposal. Spokesmen for Merck and Intel said their expansions abroad are not driven by tax factors. Merck spokesman Tony Plohoros noted that the company just opened a research facility in Seattle and is building a multimillion-dollar research lab in Boston.
Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman, said Intel's growth abroad is fueled by a simple fact: 70 percent of the company's sales are international. But he did not dismiss Kerry's plan out of hand.
"It certainly deserves serious consideration," Mulloy said.
But even philosophical supporters of the plan see major problems. Leonard E. Burman, a former assistant Treasury secretary for tax analysis, said he understands why Kerry wanted to exempt income earned in local foreign markets. But, he said, separating out such income would be difficult, and could open an abused system to still more abuse.
"It's great news for accountants and lawyers," he said.
More fundamentally, critics said, the plan would only hasten the movement of companies abroad. Some countries, such as France, tax only income earned within their borders. Many Republican tax economists say the U.S. system already taxes companies more heavily than other countries and has pushed companies to reincorporate abroad.
Under Kerry's proposal, "What's to prevent them all from going overseas?" said Terry Holt, a spokesman for President Bush's reelection campaign.
Altman, who is now a Wall Street investment banker, scoffed at that prospect. "If a corporation has a successful foreign investment, I don't think they're going to divest it for reason of changes in the tax law," he said.
But Shackelford, who supports Kerry's plan, suggested that Hufbauer has a point. At least, he said, it would create incentives for corporate mergers that wind up headquartered overseas, just as Chrysler Corp. and Daimler-Benz AG produced Germany-based DaimlerChrysler AG.
"If deferral is eliminated, there's going to be some hurt there, I don't think there's any question," Shackelford said.
Kerry advisers conceded that they wrestled with many of those objections before deciding to push ahead. "This is a tough issue, but I kind of think we came out in the right place," Sperling said.
He said objections to the fine print should not distract from the point Kerry is trying to make: The U.S. tax code is actually encouraging the movement of jobs overseas.
"This is a big deal," agreed Robert S. McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice, who has inveighed against foreign tax deferral for years. As a company, he said, "you may go to India or China or Ireland for the wage differentials -- there's nothing we can do about that. But we don't have to pay you to go there."
Skilled in what? At one point in time there were probably a lot of Skilled Buggy Whip makers....
Basically anything to do with IT, programming, networking, etc. Personally I had been a computer tech for going on 10 years.
Excellent article and it does bring to light a nasty loophole that needs to be fixed. However the BASIC economic theory behind what each of the companies are doing in the example is sound... They are attemtping to maximize profit to increase share & stake holder value.
I fail to see your point? So you/they were in a fast paced industry that is driven by innovation and change. The industry changed. I am on the financial side of a company, however 30-40% of my time is dealing with IT issues. The facts is a lot of industry technology is getting good enough to where you do not need a dedicated IT/Networking or programmer full time. You just need someone smart enough with some kind of IT Savvy with the #'s to tech support.
This is just an example of middle class jobs bing yanked. Forcing a group of skilled workers out of the industry, and/or into lower paying jobs.
You're right about technology evolving, and needing a smaller staff of people to run things. But that is a totally different subject than the original.
I do not necessarily agree... A lot of people that were in that field took the ball along with their skillsets and ran with it. In my company alone we have an IT guy that is no longer directly involved with IT, but an upper level manager. It forced their skills to diversify, broaden, change, whatever you want to call it.
This is the
right? 
i think this is exactly the original point, and backs up mine too (not about laziness but point a, jobs not being created in the void
). IT was once a viable field but now it sucks, time to move on to these still-mythical replacement-field jobs. i consider myself fortunate to have an IT job since the pickings are slim and the applicants numerous.(but i'm still lazy.)
Ya but.... Although IT jobs are being lost, there is plenty of evidence of Manufacturing jobs coming back. Is IT more important than Manufacturing? (rhetorical ?)Originally posted by Toshi
i think this is exactly the original point, and backs up mine too (not about laziness but point a, jobs not being created in the void
(but i'm still lazy.)
IT jobs are a perfect example of economic basics, but in the reverse direction of the normal cycle.. All of a sudden there was a huge demand and no supply, the result was huge $'s for anyone that had skills. People saw the market place, got the skills, but as they were out getting trained the market place was changing, the the circle came around and all of a sudden the demand was drying up (better IT PRODUCTS) but the supply was huge (everyone and their brother was a MSCE), result.... well you guys know
HAHAHA...cool, put your money where your keyboard is and fire all your companys IT people, then logon to RM in a month or so and tell us how you like talking to someone in Bangalore all day trying to figure out why your T3 line is down...
FYI we are past the T3 route we use a wireless point to point connection on our WAN. (7 remote locations within a 100 mile radius).
I didn't say IT was useless, I said there is no need for as many dedicated IT people as there once was. Our IT Dept is pretty damn good (dispite the crap I give them from time to time)Although our use and reliance on IT related products has increased DRAMATICALLY over the past 4 years, the number of dedicated IT personel has dropped or remained constant.
If our connection goes down I can figure out, with the help of either our off site IT guys, or our ISP what the problem is. You know what I can even reboot a router and switch
I would never jeapordize my ability to read the Heck most of my employees can even figure out that they cant log onto the system if the CAPS lock key is on. They would of had to call IT to figure that out 3 years ago.
