BF2S Forums Presidential Election 2016

I agree with your ideas regarding getting companies to train people. I wonder if America's economy is even as bad as people make it out to be though. There are a lot more people employed making our stuff around the world than we have unemployed people here. We have a ton of jobs most Americans don't want to do either. The people who pass them up are no worse off for it in many cases. Our economy grows every year but the increase in wealth is unevenly distributed. Seems more like an issue of distribution and taxation than anything else.

Jay wrote:

Apple's excuse for not hiring in the US was "there aren't any tool and die people left" Ok, well, your company has many billions of dollars, why don't you invest in human capital and train up a bunch that would then be loyal to you?

Ha ha Apple was absolutely in the vanguard of outsourcing to China, well before it was mainstream. They're probably the leaders in killing off local know-how.

There's no shortage of tool and die people, literally the best people in the world outside of maybe Germany, they're all in semi-retirement though.
The problem now is not the people but the machines which make the tools and dies, it would cost billions just to catch up on the machines China has in place now, and their tool and die people are now catching up.
When America's tool and die people die off it would be a mammoth undertaking to get back to square one. You'll have to let foreign companies in, just as you've let in foreign car and arms companies in to show you how its done.
I've worked with Chinese tool and die people for the last 15 years at least, they're still at a low level but they work hard, long hours, in the time it takes for an American company to deliver they can have 3-4 attempts and still be cheaper.

Regulation is not the issue, many countries are far more regulated and much more productive and dynamic.

I would say its relatively high corporate tax and relatively low incentive to invest in plant and equipment, hence you have rusty old obsolete factories and the Chinese have shiny new up to date ones.
That and Americans like to have a nice life and not work too hard, and they're generally conservative hence a handgun designed in 1905 and a motorcycle developed in the '20s are still seen as the pinnacle of technology.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2017-02-27 14:49:29)

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

Apple's excuse for not hiring in the US was "there aren't any tool and die people left" Ok, well, your company has many billions of dollars, why don't you invest in human capital and train up a bunch that would then be loyal to you?

why do they need loyalty? i don't get it. foxconn make the phone already don't they?

Foxconn is already getting out of China due to political and business climate.

Companies don't like it when you're threatened with being nationalised due to having certain political views.

They're already wanting to build factories in the USA

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/23/technol … ent-apple/

We'll just have to wait and see.

Dilbert_X wrote:

To some extent Tim Cook is full of shit, yes China has had an emphasis on manufacturing and churns out a lot of engineering graduates.

Apple was probably the major player in sucking expertise out of America and handing it on a plate to the Chinese so they could get their products a bit cheaper.
Experience, history and knowledge go a long way in engineering, sucking 20 fresh graduates out of university and telling them to figure it out as they go along can work with enough time and money. The shortcut is to send an experienced engineer over to direct them to begin with, which is what Apple largely did.

If there are few tooling engineers left in the US he is probably the one person most responsible.

Mechanical Engineers all learn the basics in school here. I had to take materials courses and machine design and vibrations among other courses. There just aren't many jobs in it anymore. Everyone designs in solid works and then sends the model to China to be built. Then some bean counter comes in, axes the department and outsources the modelling too. What exactly is your company at that point? A brand with a sales team and a product you can barely sell. It's sad.

Last edited by Jay (2017-02-27 18:41:52)

DrunkFace wrote:

Jay wrote:

Because theoretically, you save them a lot of money on both their tax sheets and in compliance costs, money that could then be freed up to be spent to create new jobs.

This is the kind of bullshit that the republicans try to spin. Companies do not hire people because their tax bill will be reduced, they hire people to fulfill demand. Reducing taxes and cutting regulations does nothing to increase demand.

Yes it does, because it puts more money into the private sector where it will be spent.

Jay wrote:

Everyone designs in solid works and then sends the model to China to be built. Then some bean counter comes in, axes the department and outsources the modelling too. What exactly is your company at that point? A brand with a sales team and a product you can barely sell. It's sad.

Yes I know, there are very few people who understand enough about both mechanical design and tooling to be able to design a product, its a long way from being a simple business, and no shortage of bean counters who can't grasp this simple fact.
But the Chinese are certainly catching up.

The government spends on supersonic stealth fighters.
Would the private sector invest in supersonic stealth fighters?

uziq wrote:

jay looks like a suet dumpling, what viking genes? if he were 6 foot 5 with blonde hair and blue eyes and a stereotypical viking then i'd perhaps see what you're talking about. he hardly looks nordic. i'm happy with my french and english genes, though i suppose i'm not american enough to bang on about them in every other sentence why is it more desirable to be nordic than, say, italian, anyway?

you seem preoccupied with genes, dilbert. you've gone on about them quite a lot whilst spouting your pseudo-scientific race hate eugenics theories. is this all just protesting too much? it must be torture being a ginger.

I'm Nordic and Italian, along with other stuff, go me!

SuperJail Warden wrote:

I bought some stock in a defense contractor last month. At least I will probably make some money off of this mess.

Please Mr. Trump, build more of these and send them into Iran.

More jobs in Wisconsin, no problem.

Jay wrote:

DrunkFace wrote:

Jay wrote:

Yes it does, because it puts more money into the private sector where it will be spent.

No one spends more then the government.

As a single spender, sure, but collectively the American people buy, sell and trade about four times as much as the government. When they buy things, jobs are created. Follow on items are created as well, on down the line, generating more jobs. When the government buys a bomb it sits in storage or gets dropped on brown people. No follow on jobs are created, except for a handful of maintenance techs.

So then the best way to ensure a strong economy is to put money into the hands of the people who consistently spend the highest percentage of their income, right?  It's better for the economy if the money is spent, not saved?

And yes, I know where you were going with this and I agree that tax cuts for the poor and middle class go further than tax cuts for the wealthy. I don't have a problem with a tiered progressive tax system. I think Reagan was justified in dropping the top tax bracket down from 80% though.

I like the tax plan that was floated by the Trump campaign prior to him taking office, with the simplified 3 brackets.

uziq wrote:

rather than talking about the poor or middle-class lacking 'fiscal discipline', how about we discuss why the super-rich need relaxed tax and such immense fortunes? trickle-down economics is a farce and it's strange that the economic crises caused by the financial elites are being sublimated as 'oh, the poor just don't know how to budget'. whose fault was the sub-prime lending crisis, really? the overton window for the last decade or so is really quite fascinating.

Why is it a farce? Tesla exists because of people with lots of disposable income. So does BMW and Mercedez-Benz and Ferrari for that matter. Loads of people have jobs that are dependent on there being rich people on this planet with disposable income. The town next to me is full of Range Rover driving idiots that keep the repair shops in business because they bought overpriced shit vehicles that break down constantly. Then there are the contractors that work on their houses, the landscapers etc.

But you're probably more concerned with the super wealthy, right? They're the ones that Occupy was protesting. Well, you know, they perform a function too. They soak up all the excess liquidity in the market and stuff it away in investment accounts. Do they have more money than they could ever possibly spend in several lifetimes? Absolutely. But so what? That money is removed from the economy. It's sequestered. If it were to be taxed and then dumped into the economy as Krugman and other nuts suggest, it would cause runaway inflation and wipe out the incomes of the poor and the middle class. Nevermind what would happen to the stock market and thus everyone's 401k and pension if billions of dollars were suddenly removed. To the average person, the super wealthy don't matter. They have zero impact on their life beyond a symbol for jealousy and a cause for left wing politicians to rally the pitchforks 'round. Is it unfair that a small portion of the world has an easy life and can jet around the globe and live in several houses etc.? Sure, but nothing about life is fair.

Last edited by Jay (2017-02-28 11:22:09)

uziq wrote:

"taxed and dumped into the economy causing inflation". i don't know, increased tax revenues for public services, healthcare, free education, universal basic income sounds pretty good to me. hardly 'dumped'. a lot more productive than parking it in offshore accounts or keeping luxury yacht and tesla coupe production lines busy.

Any time more money is injected into the economy it's going to cause inflation. It's basic supply and demand. As people make more money, demand increases, driving up prices. It's why the $15/hr minimum wage that fast food workers were pushing for across the country is such a terrible idea. All they're going to get out of it, because they are still at the bottom, is increased housing and food costs which will completely erode their gains. Inflation is bad. To a mainstream Keynesian economist, it's a good thing because it erodes savings and forces people to spend, but to your average worker actually dealing with the consequences, it means your salary doesn't go as far as it once did.

Trump and the rise of the far right is the result of capitalism failing to provide the material and spiritual needs of western society.