I'm not really an economist but I've had conversations with a few people lately and I think I've decided that sending labor to mexico or china or korea or wherever is actually beneficial to the united states economy. Maybe I'm being a redneck republican but here's why...
Foreign labor allows domestic manufacturers to sell more products at lower prices for greater profit, manufacturers in turn pay their employees more money so they can purchase more goods. I work for a manufacturer with 20 something million in annual sales, our assembly personnel make around $8.00/hr, their entire paycheck likely goes to pay utilities, gasoline, rent, interest payments, food, etc. The majority of our assembly workers drive a small imports, mostly hondas and toyotas, they most likely shop primarily at places like wal-mart and purchase goods produced by companies based in Asia. On the other hand our salried employees drive american made cars, even more so as salry increases, they own homes and pay for services such as plumbing that hourly employees who rent wouldn't, salried employees participate in sports such as scuba diving or hunting that require expensive gear that is primarily sold by small domestic manufacturers, although there are foreign knock offs most don't risk the dodgy quality of foreign goods because the results of poor quality can be life threatening...
I guess as I move up the corporate ladder I see myself in a position to put more back into the economy. Our company can significantly cut costs by outsourcing our manufacturing to Mexico, we're fortunate to be limited not by what we can sell but by what we can produce, our products are in a market that has few enough competitors and we have enough demand to exceed our practical produciton capabilities. If we can cut our labor rate in half, we can produce twice as much product for the same cost which means we'll need to hire more engineers and more buyers and more middle level management to be able to keep up with the increased capability. That means more people with upper level incomes putting more money back into our domestic ecomonmy. Our material cost for manufactured goods is in most cases 10 times the cost of labor, so long as the materials come back into the country for distribution I don't see a significant portion of the companies wealth leaving the country.
Can anybody find a hole in my logic? Like I said I'm not an ecomonmist, bit looking at the numbers, I can't see how we're hurting the economy any by cutting back the lower paying positions in favor of higher paying positions.
Foreign labor allows domestic manufacturers to sell more products at lower prices for greater profit, manufacturers in turn pay their employees more money so they can purchase more goods. I work for a manufacturer with 20 something million in annual sales, our assembly personnel make around $8.00/hr, their entire paycheck likely goes to pay utilities, gasoline, rent, interest payments, food, etc. The majority of our assembly workers drive a small imports, mostly hondas and toyotas, they most likely shop primarily at places like wal-mart and purchase goods produced by companies based in Asia. On the other hand our salried employees drive american made cars, even more so as salry increases, they own homes and pay for services such as plumbing that hourly employees who rent wouldn't, salried employees participate in sports such as scuba diving or hunting that require expensive gear that is primarily sold by small domestic manufacturers, although there are foreign knock offs most don't risk the dodgy quality of foreign goods because the results of poor quality can be life threatening...
I guess as I move up the corporate ladder I see myself in a position to put more back into the economy. Our company can significantly cut costs by outsourcing our manufacturing to Mexico, we're fortunate to be limited not by what we can sell but by what we can produce, our products are in a market that has few enough competitors and we have enough demand to exceed our practical produciton capabilities. If we can cut our labor rate in half, we can produce twice as much product for the same cost which means we'll need to hire more engineers and more buyers and more middle level management to be able to keep up with the increased capability. That means more people with upper level incomes putting more money back into our domestic ecomonmy. Our material cost for manufactured goods is in most cases 10 times the cost of labor, so long as the materials come back into the country for distribution I don't see a significant portion of the companies wealth leaving the country.
Can anybody find a hole in my logic? Like I said I'm not an ecomonmist, bit looking at the numbers, I can't see how we're hurting the economy any by cutting back the lower paying positions in favor of higher paying positions.