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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Monday, November 07, 2011 at 23:10:22 :
In Reply to: Re: Mechanical Engineers Question posted by Kaegi [24.16.253.154] on Monday, November 07, 2011 at 21:37:16 :
I'm with you on the tariffs. I don't think we should impose tariffs, but we should definitely push countries like China to eliminate theirs. On the other hand, this would happen if China joined the WTO, but that seems to be a tricky issue for various reasons.
On the unions I know I catch a lot of flak, but from what I can see the unions that are left (a few big industries, plus of course school teachers and cops) are doing this country more harm than good these days. Know anybody who works at Boeing? They call it the "lazy B" for a reason. I knew a guy who pretty much just farted around on the computer all day; "They can't fire me. I'm union." was his attitude and they didn't fire him. High pay and top-notch bennies are one thing, but this attitude of "I don't have to work one second longer or one bit faster than the contract says" is another. I'm all for high pay for hard work, but "work" is the concept that seems to have been forgotten in some (but by no means all) union shops these days. Look at the longshoremen down in Longview last summer -- vandalizing the port and taking hostages because they were mad that a different union got a contract.
Another thing that's really hurt this country is that most cities have lost their industrial areas. You need all the little job shops to support the bigger industries and each other. Once you lose critical mass, every part has to be purchased from far away. That of course makes it more expensive, but it also makes it harder to work together with suppliers and customers to create better products quicker. In China they have entire cities dedicated to a single product. One city makes sneakers. Another city makes electronic gizmos. A different city makes fireworks. All the subassemblies are made near where the final assembly is done and there's plenty of competition to keep those subassemblies economical.
In this country, every city, if they were honest about it, is trying to get rid of their industrial area. Listen to the politicians and planning types. They use "industrial area" like an insult. They call them "brownfields" and "contaminated" and love to come up with drawings and models of how they'll replace it all with "retail", which usually means shops and restaurants on the ground floor and 5 stories of condos or offices above it. Washington and California have pretty high local-option sales taxes, which means cities make money if they can build lots of retail (an "auto row" is best). With manufacturing, all the city gets is the property tax, and that tax is usually pretty low because it's on old buildings that aren't worth a whole lot. Of course the guys working in the "blighted" industrial area were making $30/hr vs $10/hr in the "revitalized" retail/condo/restaurant zone, but that doesn't matter to the city fathers, who are usually landlords and real estate developers besides.
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