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mattiasNYC
Guest
I'd love to see the same Krcwell...
Global Trade
- Thread starter Krcwell
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Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:
my bad, while the fast track trade authority bill is more of 2015 issue, while indeed politics.Krcwell said:
On topic I make an electronic drum tuner. Mine may be the only one made in the US while I source many components from off-shore and even had the injection molding tool machined in China (saved me thousands of dollars).
While not apples to oranges all of my competitors are a lot cheaper, and most drummers seem to embrace lower cost over higher performance. This is just life in free markets so I accept that reality.
JR
Pip
Well-known member
Yeah blame organized labor. Sure Unions demand fare wages healthcare and safe work environments. Man the audacity! That hampers "growth" and "profitability" which we all now is like a perfect opamp on paper "infinite gain"! No manufacturer USA, China, Sweden etc.... has their workers needs at heart. They can't afford it.
The economy is broken everywhere. America has one group that believes in a free market economy and I would say that right now they have the upper hand. So far the trickle of the down is microscopic if you now what I mean. China has lead the world for a while now in cheap plastic and electronics manufacturing. But if you really look at what has happened it starts to resemble Americas industrial revolution and the socioeconomic and environmental health aftermath. Whole cities that are cancer hot-zones and billionaire industrialists saying "no way"" the water is safe I swear"! See the article in Wired Magazine on the Chinese industrial health problem and the governments dropping the ball on healthcare. Other mega-industrialists who are starting to invest big time outside their countries because they smell regulation and trouble. New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel now owned by Angbang Insurance Group a Chinese Company with 2 Billion US to spend .
No politician aspiring to higher office is immune to the machines, both media and campaign. The profits for the media industry alone (which audio is a part) for campaign adverts and the related needs are in the billions. I myself as a union person in the media industry live off of this political golden goose.
IMO The day that workers walked of the job at McDonalds and made demands, that lead to the company changing pay-scale, policy and their menu, will be a huge marker on the labor time line, on the level of the day that changed the world! So no Union necessary just organization is all.
EDIT
Check this out
http://nodepression.com/article/story-sam-gutowitz
The economy is broken everywhere. America has one group that believes in a free market economy and I would say that right now they have the upper hand. So far the trickle of the down is microscopic if you now what I mean. China has lead the world for a while now in cheap plastic and electronics manufacturing. But if you really look at what has happened it starts to resemble Americas industrial revolution and the socioeconomic and environmental health aftermath. Whole cities that are cancer hot-zones and billionaire industrialists saying "no way"" the water is safe I swear"! See the article in Wired Magazine on the Chinese industrial health problem and the governments dropping the ball on healthcare. Other mega-industrialists who are starting to invest big time outside their countries because they smell regulation and trouble. New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel now owned by Angbang Insurance Group a Chinese Company with 2 Billion US to spend .
No politician aspiring to higher office is immune to the machines, both media and campaign. The profits for the media industry alone (which audio is a part) for campaign adverts and the related needs are in the billions. I myself as a union person in the media industry live off of this political golden goose.
IMO The day that workers walked of the job at McDonalds and made demands, that lead to the company changing pay-scale, policy and their menu, will be a huge marker on the labor time line, on the level of the day that changed the world! So no Union necessary just organization is all.
EDIT
Check this out
http://nodepression.com/article/story-sam-gutowitz
ruffrecords
Well-known member
Pip said:
It is very easy to generalise but it is usually not very instructive.
In the UK right now we have a lot of immigrants, many from Poland. Very few of them are unemployed. Many do the low level jobs that Brits on benefits are not prepared to do. Some are more enterprising. In the last couple of years a whole host of hand car washes have sprung up across the UK all operated by Poles. They offer exceptional value for money. The point is their work ethic is quite different to 'modern' Brits many of whom seem to think they 'deserve' a well paid job that requires the minimum of effort.
My point is simply that there is more than one side to every story.
Cheers
Ian
JohnRoberts said:
Off topic, I had never clicked on the link in your signature... I've been wanting to get one of those for a while, but I could never find much in the way of user reviews online to solidify my decision. (I've also been blessed with a long string of very good drummers in the studio the past year, reducing the need) Now that I know who makes it, I'll be getting one soon. Coolest drum gadget I have ever seen. [/sidetrack]
Ian makes two very important points. Firstly, conversation is helpful, rhetoric is not. Discourse unfortunately tends to devolve into polarized villification. Talking points shut conversation down, exactly as they are intended to do. Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" is a pretty big eye opener. Here's a summary: http://www.bestofbeck.com/wp/activism/saul-alinskys-12-rules-for-radicals
Secondly, the global trade in labor also works the other way with immigration. It takes a lot of work to immigrate to the US legally, so those who do tend to have very strong drive and work ethic. As lower skilled jobs move overseas, you also have immigrants hungry for success driven to work as much as possible. When I think about the local businesses in my neighborhood, most are owned by first and second generation immigrants. They've sought out and created opportunities for themselves as entrepreneurs. Often this is doing the work Americans don't want to do, as Ian mentioned.
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mattiasNYC
Guest
ruffrecords said:
I pretty much agree with all of that Ian. It does however lead to what I (think I) brought up earlier. At least in some countries the population made great strides in terms of the quality of life with regards to health care, education etc. What people are upset with is that the benefits they think they deserve were, in their opinion, benefits the nation could afford them before. Now, when 'times are bad', businesses can no longer afford expensive labor and look elsewhere.
However, this is just exacerbated through global trade of goods and services. A nation that is "more isolationist" has more control over its policies and economy. So I think the criticism of some is absolutely fair. They worked hard from the 40's-50's to build up a wealthy state with a social security net only to have that dismantled because some politicians decided labour should compete on an international global market. In their eyes it was they who built something that was taken away by others, against their will.
I'm not pointing the finger specifically at the UK mind you.
I have several happy studio customers who appreciate the ability to dial in a drum to the same voicing after a head change minutes ago, or months later to do an over-dub. Ironically precision note tuning is not my primary invention, but a free benefit from using the digital platform. I invented a novel way to fine tweak lug balance for any given note. I measure the phase shift of the sine wave coming back from the standing wave I set up in the drum head, to the phase of the sine wave I send to the drum head. When the lugs are very precisely matched to the exact same phase shift, the drum sound is "clear", less cluttered by multiple dissonant overtones, while the theoretical or ideal basic resonant series of notes (also dissonant) is always present. (Don't get me started talking about drums).Krcwell said:
Yes, that is pretty much the history of the United States built upon legal immigrants who become full Americans. This embrace of immigrants who want to improve their opportunity (or escape persecution) by moving here have always been an important factor in growing our economy. The illegal immigrant situation has been horribly mismanaged for decades with both political parties looking at this as an opportunity to co-opt future voters (democrats more aggressively IMO). Coincidentally at the moment the immigration department has a computer problem (go figure) and can't generate visa's for legal farm workers who can't come in to work crops, doing work US citizens decline to do.
We can make robots to do farm work too... But robots don't have children, buy houses, and eat cheeseburgers, so legal immigration is a win-win for all, but it must be sensibly managed, not a free for all.
JR
I wouldn't say the golden goose is dead, but he is having trouble breathing. 8) From where I sit it looks like the regulators have the upper hand. It is not new for politicians to promise they they can deliver prosperity, and they still can't. In fact the more the government gets involved in the private economy the more they hurt it.Pip said:
It is the nature of capitalism that regulation is required to prevent excesses, but beyond that regulation must use a light touch to do no harm.
Sorry I don't read Wired magazine (are they still around?) I do read newspapers and this has been well covered for decades. I've even travelled to mainland China to inspect contract manufacturers. yes I see a parallel between modern China and colonial America. Now they need to grow up adequate regulation to check industry, and develop a domestic consumer economy.
More like parking capital in other safer currencies. NYC real estate and the US dollar is generally a safe investment (while I suspect the current NYC mayor is not helping the city with his nonsense).
Indeed there is a quid pro quo going on... If campaign spending was ever effectively reduced media would scream the loudest.
You can draw your own conclusions. I see McDonald corporate selling off company owned restaurants. The vast majority of franchise holders are small businesses. The elephant in the room is that after this several years of prolonged unusually weak recovery, employment if finally firming up, so supply and demand dictates the employers have to pay more to fill positions. Simple economics.
I concede that minimum wage has not kept up with inflation since my last minimum wage job in 1966, but it is wishful thinking that these minimum wage jobs should support family head of households. Minimum wage jobs are just the bottom rung on the employment ladder for kids starting out, or oldsters fading away. NOT PERMANENT JOBS.
The government can not magically mandate minimum wage jobs to be worth more than they are... trying to will just trigger unintended consequences, like speeding up automation.
JR
PS: My apologies to anybody that i didn't answer specifically but I have other things to do.
Not to change this back on subject but we are seeing new trends in global currency... dollar is getting stronger in anticipation of interest rate hike expected next month. Oil priced in dollars reflects both over supply and stronger dollar. Chinese yuan has been devalued by chinese government last couple days in an attempt to reverse market declines there...
I expect more softness in China but keep in mind their idea of weak growth is still high single digit, we'd love to break above 3% or return to historic GDP growth levels. .
JR
I expect more softness in China but keep in mind their idea of weak growth is still high single digit, we'd love to break above 3% or return to historic GDP growth levels. .
JR
G-Sun said:
This is very interesting, and exactly the type of stuff I wanted to learn more about when I started the thread. Can you provide further details? I know nothing of Norway's economy.
Has there been a difference in price increase of domestic vs. imported goods?
How reliant is Norway on imported goods? I'm thinking everyday items, groceries, consumables, etc...
Has your currency fallen in value relative to other currencies, or is it primarily strength of the dollar that is causing the 30% increase?
Just some random questions that came to mind. Please, feel free to elaborate as much as you want.
G-Sun said:
Demand for oil world wide is still growing (5%?) but supply seems to be growing even faster. US oil prices are testing lows and the elephant in the room is Iran about to bring a new 1M barrels a day onto the market. So far the oil industry has cut back exploration budgets but is still pumping oil from producing wells, so it's hard to imagine oil not going even lower.
There is an old saying in economics, the cure for high prices is high prices (driving more investment into exploration), likewise the cure for low prices is low prices, affecting oil exploration investment in the opposite direction.
Iran supply may be partially priced into the market and over time the price will firm up, but not today.
====
Re currency it can get complicated, nations generally set their own currency pegs, but then have to defend them in the market when large investors bet they are wrong (not sustainable). Goerge Soros made a bunch of his fortune trading against the direction of the UK currency, as the UK government tried to defend the currency.
Some times a small nation will peg their currency to some other larger nation's currency (like the swiss franc that was pegged to the Euro, until they changed their mind and it floated tens of percent overnight).
In the news there are a number of recent arrests for traders manipulating interest and exchange rate markets.
JR
[edit] an interesting angle on the chinese yuan devaluation is that for years the world has asked china to float the yuan as they artificially held it down to help their exports. Now due to a confluence of changing currency valuations (like stronger dollar and slowing chinese economy) market forces would push the yuan down, where China wants to go, so now because it serves their purposes they are floating the yuan to let it fall. Pretty devious and clever... [/edit]
