Like most people I have many reservations about presidential candidate Donald Trump, but I must concede that he has brought some much needed attention to issues that have been quietly ignored for years.
Specifically I'm talking about the trade agreements we have with other countries that are loaded with one-way concessions....they win, we lose. Too often we're just opening our wallets and saying, "Here, take what you want." Are we dopes or what?
Example: The US has signed many "open skies" agreements with other countries, allowing airlines to fly to and from cities in the US from cities in the other airline's host country (British Airways/London-NY-London, Air France/Paris-Atlanta-Paris, Delta/Washington-Amsterdam-Washington, etc). One requirement is a rather vague statement that says the airlines involved "stipulate certain degrees of labor protections". This should theoretically stimulate fair competition, which is a good thing.
Enter Norwegian Airlines. They are already a "low cost carrier" similar to Southwest and JetBlue....no harm in that, I say. But now Norwegian has set up an ultra-low-cost subsidiary (Norwegian Shuttle) in Ireland *RED FLAG* that will be using Asian (most likely Thai) flight crews on flights in and out of the US.
Norwegian's rationale in simple: Ireland is a low-corporate-tax nation, and they have very liberal labor laws that allow using foreign employees who will work for much lower wages. This is a loophole that you could drive....er....fly, a 737 through! And our trade negotiators couldn't see this coming? DOH!
There are two ways to look at this: If you're a squeaky cheap traveler wanting to get to Europe and back as cheaply as possible, you'll have no problem with the idea of bare bones flights with bargain basement crews, but if you're a US airline employee, you know the pressure will soon be on you to work cheaper if you want to keep your job.
Haven't we learned already that sending jobs overseas will help corporate bottom lines, but at devastating expense to American workers? Sure, Walmart prices are cheap, which is good since that's about all formerly well paid US workers can now afford. If we keep making stupid deals like this, we'll all eventually do nothing but flip burgers and give each other haircuts.
No, I don't want to overpay for jeans or a flashlight or an air conditioner, but I'm willing to pay a bit more to not have to throw American workers under the bus. Trade agreements that will competitively open up markets for US and other countries products are good. But trade agreements that are rigged from the get-go against us, HELL NO!
To me this isn't a liberal / conservative, Democrat / Republican issue, but just common sense.
S
We've become a discount society. In fairness, most of the rest of the world is right on our heals, but I think this is one area where we really are still Number 1.
I doubt Walmart started it, but they certainly epitomize it today. When did this happen? I can remember when I was a kid we weren't so concerned about beating the other guy down into an "I win, you lose" position. We did expect to negotiate on the price of a car, but most everything else was priced fairly straight forward.
We bought most of our clothes at the local "haberdasher" (except we didn't call it that). You wanted a shirt or a pair of pants, you went to Ken's Mans Shop. An appliance, Hollinshead's. Hardware....Plaza's. Groceries....Wyatt's. Our pharmacy was Payne's. They posted an honest price right up front and we paid it. We knew each other, we were neighbors (literally), and we all did pretty well. "Amazon" was still just a river in Brazil.
Those days are gone. Today we buy our clothes at mega-conglomerate superstores (Macy's), appliances come from one or the other big box home stores as does our hardware, our pharmacy is more likely to be a huge national chain (Walgreens, CVS), and our groceries come from Kroger, Safeway, or increasingly, Walmart. Even our shoes come from Discount Shoe Warehouse, and our tires from Discount Tire. They even put "discount" right up front in their name!
To make this theme work, the first discounters, among other moves, demanded employees work for much less than they had before. This meant the business could cut their price, gain market share, yet still make the same profit (maybe more) for their owners. But they were counting on everyone else still having plenty of disposable income to buy whatever they were selling.
Oops. That's where it all hit the fan. It wasn't long before virtually every business became "discount" oriented. It became an all out war. Perpetual "sales" became the norm. Manufacturers were sucked in to the price cut war, too. Wage and benefit concessions, or at least curbs on raises, were demanded from all. If they weren't forthcoming, the business relocated to a new low wage location, often overseas.
At first we loved it. We could buy cool stuff for less than ever. WooHoo! But now we've learned the meaning of an increasingly popular term, "unintended consequences". Now we HAVE to shop at discount stores because that's all we can afford.
This is the age of Bigger Is Better. All the small entrepreneurs I know are just trying to build their businesses up to the point they can sell out. If they get too successful and attract the attention of the Big Boys, they get promptly squashed.
The days of each generation having it better than the previous one are over. At least that's what the 20-somethings living with their parents while they try to pay off their mountain of college loan debt tell me.
I have no answers as to how we can make things better. I doubt there IS a way we can make things better. The genie is NOT going back in the bottle.
The Discount Society has morphed into today's "Settle Society", as in, "I guess I'll have to settle for that".
The takeaway lesson: We really do need to be careful what we wish for. Often times things don't work out as planned.
Hey, it's just an observation. Don't shoot the messenger.
S
I've never been big on making New Year's resolutions, mainly because mine never seemed to last past about February. I think most people fall off their resolution wagon long before they meet their goal, so why bother? Yet here we are starting a new year....again, and all over the blogosphere I see people proclaiming their resolutions for 2012. OK, I'll make one, too.
Well, actually, mine isn't so much a "resolution" but a pledge, as it isn't a black-and-white issue where you either win or fail. *drum roll* I pledge to do everything I reasonably can to buy products made in America, and to avoid as much as possible buying products made in China. Understand, if you want an iPhone, it's going to be made in China. If you want the latest, greatest child's toy, it's probably going be made in China. You just can't escape it entirely, but I think in many instances we DO have a choice, and I'm gonna go out of my way to look for those products made in the USA, and I'm willing to pay a little more for them, too.
I think it's time we face the fact that saving a few bucks on a cheap imported product actually costs us more in the long run than we save. Yes, as you walk out of the store you may feel like you saved $5 or $10 or whatever, but stop and think how many Americans are NOT working because their jobs were "outsourced" so the company could hire cheap foreign labor and make a little higher profit margin. (The stockholders demand it, they say.) Whatever you saved is indirectly eaten up in welfare/unemployment benefits (your tax dollars). At this rate, pretty soon we'll all be either cutting each other's hair or flipping burgers. I say "enough"!
Anyone care to join me?
S
