tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post288677705380866616..comments2024-03-28T16:22:14.888-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Anybody ever notice this?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-45604408981665169272011-11-11T00:35:34.647-08:002011-11-11T00:35:34.647-08:00Anonymous 1:33: I don't know how it was cost-e...Anonymous 1:33: I don't know how it was cost-effective due to the yen. 1970s $ policy induced more exports from high-tariff nations, though steel/autos, textiles, electronics were already ailing.Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11801154986193443160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-36299261215467244102011-11-10T20:49:13.725-08:002011-11-10T20:49:13.725-08:00Korean companies headhunt Japanese engineers.Korean companies headhunt Japanese engineers.Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15782751961721126661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-85725381981178641532011-11-10T15:12:08.662-08:002011-11-10T15:12:08.662-08:00I had a Toyota built in Derby, UK which was a grea...I had a Toyota built in Derby, UK which was a great car. Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas are all built in the UK for the European market.<br /><br />But I take the point about the parts and engineering. The Honda plant had to halve production for 6 months after the Japanese earthquake due to shortage of Japanese parts.<br /> <br />Laban TallAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-79868653961798585172011-11-10T13:33:06.662-08:002011-11-10T13:33:06.662-08:00No one pointed out that Japanese manufacturers may...No one pointed out that Japanese manufacturers may have moved production to US because of the strong Yen? Wasn't it cheaper to build Hondas in Ohio rather than Japan in the 1980s?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43396742185367036612011-11-10T10:05:19.821-08:002011-11-10T10:05:19.821-08:00My brother-in-law works for Toyota, in Michigan no...My brother-in-law works for Toyota, in Michigan no less, and the particular model that he works on is built <i>and</i> engineered in the U.S. I won't mention the model lest in bring out the haters (I don't care for the model myself as it's almost exclusively driven by ancient people that I get stuck behind on the road).Evil Sandmichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06094558583013380137noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-35067186811776422472011-11-10T08:58:27.922-08:002011-11-10T08:58:27.922-08:00Good article except for this part: "Populatio...<a href="http://nationalinterest.org/article/the-end-the-american-era-6037?page=show" rel="nofollow">Good article except for this part: "Populations in Russia, Japan and most European countries are declining and aging, which will limit their economic potential in the decades ahead. China’s median age is also rising rapidly (an unintended consequence of the one-child policy), and this will be a powerful drag on its economic vitality. By contrast, U.S. population growth is high compared with the rest of the developed world, and U.S. median age will be lower than any of the other serious players."<br /><br />Yes, there's population growth in America, but is Third-Worldization of America a good thing? After all, Africa and Middle East have high population growths, but they are economic basketcases. Would US or Europe do better with more of such people--or with subliterate illegal Mexicans? It's one thing to argue that white Americans and Europeans should have more kids--or create a system of massive cloning of the best, brightest, and healthiest. It's another thing to welcome massive influx of sub-talented peoples from the Third World and expect them to contribute much to a First World economy. </a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-14100297337406653242011-11-10T06:24:56.964-08:002011-11-10T06:24:56.964-08:00That's what the income data for the last forty...<i>That's what the income data for the last forty years indicates. Don't let your emotions towards those fat union guys blind you to reality.</i><br /><br />Transplant worker wages are competitive with UAW wages. Once you factor in union dues and cost of living, transplant workers do far better, really. <br /><br />Overall, in the larger economy, yes, you have a good point, but when it comes to the auto industry, sorry, it's the union to blame. It's the one factor that's persisted through decades of shifting management and cycling economies.<br /><br />Here, it's not even really the pure wages. It's the mess of union work rules that eliminates any sort of production flexibility. Every change, every work order has to pass through a byzantine process of union and shop approval. You can get by in a good economy with that system, but when the economy goes bad, you're toast, and that's what a happened to the Big 3.<br /><br />(Yes, I know Ford didn't go technically bankrupt, but they only avoided it by going deeply into debt right before the recession to give them a stock of cash to see them through. That option won't always be available.)Polichinellonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-84248280276727775562011-11-09T23:31:18.070-08:002011-11-09T23:31:18.070-08:00The immigrant percentage of the population is an e...<i>The immigrant percentage of the population is an excellent preditor of how much wealth the top 1% has(and by extension how much less the rest of us have).</i> --anon.<br /><br />Only in the West, and there, in the West of the West.<br /><br />Brazil, Peru, South Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia have negligible immigration, and much worse income stratification than we do. Racial diversity, or, rather, extreme gaps between races, seems to be the key-- whether it's imported today, imported centuries ago, or indigenous.<br /><br />Really, were the high-immigration Great Plains more stratified than the low-immigration South ca. 1900? I doubt it.<br /><br />However, the commenter is very right, if he's referring to the red county/blue county divide.Reg Cæsarnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-10701574921226043742011-11-09T22:45:20.453-08:002011-11-09T22:45:20.453-08:00Anonymous 8:57: yes, definitely. Importing immigra...<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/802/comparisony.png" rel="nofollow">Anonymous 8:57</a>: yes, definitely. Importing immigrants by the barrel is immensely beneficial to the overdogs while the benefits to everyone else remain fuzzy. So if that was a "simplistic moral argument" version of the dollar-cents breakdown then I hope I would be a judgmental reactionary homophobic denier "moralist"Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11801154986193443160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-24553681064975086372011-11-09T22:39:55.429-08:002011-11-09T22:39:55.429-08:00Don't let your emotions towards those fat unio...<i>Don't let your emotions towards those fat union guys blind you to reality.</i><br /><br />Good point. I do think anti-union bias (often justified) blinded a lot of people to what was happening.Wesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8036897719729281412011-11-09T22:38:32.315-08:002011-11-09T22:38:32.315-08:00David Davenport: actually you were the 4th or 5th ...David Davenport: actually you were the 4th or 5th person to mention it (right-to-work) and the pressure on Toyota, Honda, et al. started long before Carter's reign. cf Smithsonian Agreement.Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11801154986193443160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43669990821505726502011-11-09T21:00:01.858-08:002011-11-09T21:00:01.858-08:00I worked in Japan for a year training Japanese fac...I worked in Japan for a year training Japanese factory floor managers in conversational English for their stints in America and other places abroad. It was an extremely illuminating experience.<br /><br />First off, while America/Canada/Britain was the preferred location for foreign deployment, as you could take your family there, any sort of deployment at all was generally seen as extreme bad luck. Japanese like being tourists, but they don't like living abroad so much, especially if they have families. Three to Five years outside the Japanese schooling system makes kids sink like a stone when thrown back into the "cram it and exam it" Japanese system, and the girls end up "Westernized" which makes them utterly miserable as the whole "nail that sticks up" thing is enforced pretty hard on girls who think becoming a chipmunk-voiced fashion victim is stupid. Even if they were single it meant living in a place where there was no place to get comfort food, and dealing with workers who openly question orders and refuse to work the mandatory unpaid overtime common in Japan (even us Western workers were expected to put in the pre and post work 45 minutes unpaid prep labor and clean up labor for the offices).<br /><br />Offshoring manufacturing makes sense nowadays. If you go to Japan, most of the cars are unrecognizable compared to the models that are sold in Japan. Stuff made to sell in Japan is made there, stuff made to sell in America was made in America. (As a side note, Scions, those toaster cars, are a really popular body style in Asia. Go figure. They look ridiculous to me).<br /><br />As for the lack of productivity in Asia, there's lots of reasons for that. One is that there's a lot of effort put into "appearing busy" in a Japanese office. At any given time, I can garentee that there's goldbricking going on that looks like work. Mine was drawing excessively elaborate situational flash cards for instruction. Another is that in Japan human resources aren't very efficiently managed. They can figure out how to put together a car assembly line very well, but trying to reorganize office furniture layout or discuss customer retention is like a freaking Chinese Fire Drill behind closed doors. The final thing is a very meticulous approach to work. One of the guys I taught was in charge of car door assembly was complaining about having to redo a bunch of door linings on the assembly line because they were 1.3 millimeters off due to robot miscalibration. He said he understood the need for ultraprecision when it came to engine blocks and brakes, but that the door linings being slightly off would not affect door function and moreover be later covered with rubber.Spike Gomeshttp://shinbounomatsuri.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18231148847486382692011-11-09T20:57:21.561-08:002011-11-09T20:57:21.561-08:00"Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Logic HARD. SMAS..."Post hoc ergo propter hoc.<br /><br />Logic HARD. SMASH IMMIGRANTS. RAR!"<br /><br />On that note:<br />http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/802/comparisony.png/<br /><br />The immigrant percentage of the population is an excellent preditor of how much wealth the top 1% has(and by extension how much less the rest of us have).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-78850556976880547792011-11-09T20:53:55.508-08:002011-11-09T20:53:55.508-08:00"Japan as a protectionist heaven is soon to b..."Japan as a protectionist heaven is soon to be history. The Prime Minister is currently participating in discussions in Hawaii to join the Trans-Paciffic Trade Partnership which would reduce all tarriffs to zero between participating nations. Full members currently are Brunei, Chile, Singapore, New Zealand, and prospective nations include the US, Austrailia, Malaysia and Peru. <br /><br />Prime Minister Noda currently has massive opposition in parliament, and very little public support, but is stubbornly pushing on, partly because of support in the manufacturing sector, but mostly because the TPP plans have been the Democratic Party's only way of showing that they can ... you know... DO STUFF.<br /><br />The Japanese have a tendency to fall for sappy mottos: "diversity is strength," "globalisation is the future" etc. Some people have the brains to see through it, sadly they are not the PM."<br /><br />The new protectionism is moving over to non-tariff barriers to trade, and the Japanese have done quite well in that regards already. I wouldn't count them down and out.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-49262684148662697302011-11-09T20:53:46.683-08:002011-11-09T20:53:46.683-08:00Maybe wages are lowered for some, although product...<i>Maybe wages are lowered for some, although products are cheaper overall. But that's a fair point. The costs are not evenly distributed over a society. Many benefit, some lose.</i> <br /><br /><br />More like some benefit, many lose. That's what the income data for the last forty years indicates. Don't let your emotions towards those fat union guys blind you to reality.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30887416738242994542011-11-09T18:08:49.517-08:002011-11-09T18:08:49.517-08:00David,
Maybe wages are lowered for some, although...David,<br /><br />Maybe wages are lowered for some, although products are cheaper overall. But that's a fair point. The costs are not evenly distributed over a society. Many benefit, some lose.<br /><br />I would say it is incumbent on those that will lose from lower wages (and therefore need to make prices on goods higher through protectionism) to at least be nice to the population of people that have to bear higher prices for their benefit.<br /><br />What we saw instead were loud, arrogant, fat, lazy union boys braying that it was the "patriotic" duty of all Americans to buy their shoddy overpriced products. Not a good PR approach. And it failed miserably.<br /><br />I heard a fat, cigarette-smoking auto parts dealer try and berate a woman for buying a Japanese car back in the 80s. He smirked and said, "well when it breaks down you won't be able to get it worked on". She smiled and said, it's not an American car, it won't break down.<br /><br />We have to remember what crap Detroit was pushing on us and the arrogance that went with it. Don't try and hold me up at gunpoint, and then portray yourself as "patriotic". They did and it failed. Maybe some protectionism would have been good, I'm not convinced, but I would be willing to try some. But they have to at least say Thank You to those of us that will have to pay inflated prices.Wesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-21656573159108904972011-11-09T17:34:29.868-08:002011-11-09T17:34:29.868-08:00>I'm afraid this is what most protectionism...>I'm afraid this is what most protectionism gets you: It protects lazy union workers at the expense of the general population.<<br /><br />How is the presumably non-"lazy" general population benefitted by having to work as hard as they do for less pay?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-56915958600685056392011-11-09T17:31:39.940-08:002011-11-09T17:31:39.940-08:00>In China things can get done without a huge am...>In China things can get done without a huge amount of interference from lawyers, unions and government.[...] [Y]you don't have to wake up in the middle of the night worried s__tless that a letter from some gov't agency or lawyer shutting [your start-up business] down will be in the mail in the morning.<<br /><br />Try not bribing the local communist officials lavishly enough.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-11866394426367858872011-11-09T15:18:50.051-08:002011-11-09T15:18:50.051-08:00So we "saved" Harley Davidson with high ...So we "saved" Harley Davidson with high tariffs on motorcycles right? What good came of that? A few fat lawyers get to ride a "hog", and the rest of us have to pay inflated prices for the much better and cheaper Japanese bikes. I'm afraid this is what most protectionism gets you: It protects lazy union workers at the expense of the general population.Wesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61156844092148171972011-11-09T13:18:54.374-08:002011-11-09T13:18:54.374-08:00A number of factors led to the American revolution...A number of factors led to the American revolution, but one of them was that the British wanted the colonies (all the colonies, not only the American ones) to send raw material to Britain, import British finished goods, and not to do any high-value-added manufacturing of their own.<br /><br />Under this scheme of things America would have remained an agricultural economy with little manufacturing base. By an amazing coincidence, that's exactly what the current so-called "free traders" want for America also - lettuce farms <i>good</i>, factories <i>bad</i>. Import barely literate peasent workers? Why not? Export good paying manufacting jobs? Of course!<br /><br />Somewhere Alexander Hamilton is spinning in his grave.Qhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07558322957414189512noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-78796873129969321582011-11-09T11:22:12.671-08:002011-11-09T11:22:12.671-08:00I know the American makers are UAW shops while the...<i>I know the American makers are UAW shops while the foreign makers are non-union. Is that the issue?</i><br /><br />Yes.<br /><br /><i>If so, then why don't the American makers simply fire the UAW and operate like the foreign manufacturers?</i><br /><br />Well, you can't do something that drastic overnight, and it would incur all sorts of political blowback. The Democrats are owned by the UAW, so if any of the Big Three tried to do that (once the contract had expired) they'd face enormous government interference of the sort that would make the Boeing-South Carolina NRLB contretemps look like a church social.Polichinellonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12965789161174943532011-11-09T11:00:42.522-08:002011-11-09T11:00:42.522-08:00Rather than trying to outhustle East Asian sweatsh...<i> Rather than trying to outhustle East Asian sweatshops, the US should invest in automation and innovation to increase worker productivity.</i><br /><br />From what I gather, the nonunion car factories in Ye Olde South have their fair share of welding robots and other industrial automation. <br /><br />Not even the UAW peepul who are trying to unionize these factories claim that the workers there are being sweated in the Henry Ford I, proletarians in suspenders and cloth caps kind of fashion. The UAW's main sales point is that the UAW can get 'em a pay raise.<br /><br /><i> We should also move up the food chain to more value-added products, the way the Germans and Japanese are doing. </i><br /><br />But cars are big-ticket, expensive products with much value added over the cost of raw materials. <br /><br />What other products do you have in mind?<br /><br />Me, I wonder how much un-automated hand labor is actually needed to make laptop computers, cell phones, and iPads. Why must all that stuff be made in East Asia?David Davenporthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03315090179595817174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-55273779035039804472011-11-09T10:36:16.978-08:002011-11-09T10:36:16.978-08:00The first Japanese car factory in the USA was the ...<i> The first Japanese car factory in the USA was the Nissan factory at Smyrna, Tennessee. Work on the factory there started in 1983.<br /><br />No, Honda, Marysville, 1982. These plants are huge operations that require years of planning and negotiation. These facilities were already in the works before Reagan imposed the quotas.</i><br /><br />Marysville, OK, you are correct.<br /><br />And you're right about US political pressure on the Japanese to build cars in America. The much-reviled Jimmy Carter admin. probably started it.<br /><br />Regarding the VW Passat operation in Chattanooga: it's probably cheaper to build Passats there than in Germany. For all I know, assembling Japanese cars over here may cost less than doing it in Nippon nowadays.<br /><br />Regarding domestic content, I think Nissan may claim that the percentage of American made content is increasing. For example, engine blocks and cylinder heads for Nissan vehicles rolled out from the Symrna factory are cast in TN. <br />Yep, a nonunion foundary. Those parts used to be imported.David Davenporthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03315090179595817174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83924399273472547722011-11-09T09:45:45.328-08:002011-11-09T09:45:45.328-08:00Free trade in Britain, which justified the removal...Free trade in Britain, which justified the removal of tariffs on imports of grain from the U.S., undermined the incomes and hence power of the landed aristocracy in favor of the new factory-owning class, whose profits went up because they could henceforth pay their workers less (subsistence wages -- iron law of wages still a fact of life back then).<br /><br />Similarly the liberalization of trade with China under the new rules of GATT in 1994 (and to a lesser extent with Mexico under NAFTA) greatly increased the incomes of capital at the expense of labor (as have, to be fair, mass immigration and refusal to adjust length of the working day to compensate for automation).<br /><br />In other words, tariffs are about power when it is between countries with vastly different relative endowments of the factors of production (in America's case it was cheap and abundant land to grow wheat on, in China's case cheap and abundant factory labor.) It's about Who? Whom? as Steve likes to say.<br /><br />OTH, trade between counties with similar wage rates (U.S., Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia) can be good for everybody concerned.<br /><br />Where are the political economists when we really need them?Luke Leahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11290760894780619646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-9181842372650691982011-11-09T09:24:28.966-08:002011-11-09T09:24:28.966-08:00By the way, elites respect and fear Israel and its...By the way, elites respect and fear Israel and its diaspora because they're winners. They win against the Arabs, their coethnics run the media and banking system of the U.S., they have America's politicians groveling to them every election cycle, they can get people like Mel Gibson and Rick Sanchez blacklisted. Everybody respects a winner."<br /><br />Allegedly weaseling to the top doesn't mean there will be a long stay. The fall will be fun to watch.<br /><br />BTW, being a welfare state supported, defended and built by others, that has a hard time beating rag-tag refugee militias on its own--when it isn't losing to rag-tag refugee militias--isn't exactly awe inspiring.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com