4 ms·

I don't recall anyone but the investor class being happy to embrace offshoring. But it took the economist and investor class the longest to realize the drawback

I don't recall anyone but the investor class being happy to embrace offshoring. But it took the economist and investor class the longest to realize the drawbacks that others knew instinctively. And now you use "we" to describe their opinion and lobbying?

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>I don't recall anyone but the investor class being happy to embrace offshoring. Maybe not quite "happy to embrace" people of a certain political persuasion were doing a heck of a lot to not get in the way of it because eliminating those jobs reduced the wealth of people who opposed them and made those people more receptive to what they were peddling.
- tharne 5y ago
  To be fair, this was a bipartisan lie we were all sold in the 1990's. Democrats and Republicans alike convinced Americans that globalization would result in everyone having better jobs in what is now known as the "creative class". As a country we bought this hook, line, and sinker and are still paying the price, and likely will be for quite some time.
photochemsyn 5y ago
Does every retired boomer living quite well off their 401K retirement plan represent a member of 'the investor class'? How many would be willing to accept a cutback in dividend payouts if it meant corporations would instead invest that money in rebuilding manufacturing in the United States?
- jevoten 5y ago
  The investor class being those that have significant political influence. I sure don't recall any large boomer political movements demanding more offshoring. In fact, a politician promising the exact opposite was quite popular. But because they reap some minor, incidental payoff from a policy they did not choose, you're going to claim that means they were in favor of it??
  - photochemsyn 5y ago
    People want money, in my experience. Cut their money flow and they get upset. Any effort to rebuild manufacturing in the USA will require corporations - major blue-chip outfits that pension funds invest heavily in - to spend billions of dollars building new factories and hiring employees at wages a good deal higher than what it costs in mainland China, Indonesia, Mexico, etc. This will cut dividend payouts to pension funds. Boomers riding their 401Ks off into the cruise ship sunset will get upset about that I imagine.
    - jevoten 5y ago
      You imagine incorrectly - most Americans believe outsourcing hurts the economy: On the one hand, the polls largely confirm that most Americans are mercantilists at heart. The Ipsos poll shows that 69% of Americans believe that outsourcing hurts the country -- and only 17% think it helps the economy. --https://foreignpolicy.com/2004/06/09/public-opinion-about-offshore-outsourcing/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2004/06/09/public-opinion-about-of... I don't understand where you get your certainty from. I've hardly ever seen offshoring referred to positively, the attitudes towards globalization itself are lukewarm at best, politicians ride into office on rhetoric of tariffs and bringing back jobs, but you just know, because some economists claimed stock yields would be 30% lower in the short-term if the US doesn't massively export its hard-won technological and manufacturing know-how, that all this outsourcing was driven by popular sentiment, and that people will revolt against any attempts to stop or reverse it? Based on what? Widespread pro-outsourcing protests and grassroots activism? As for rebuilding manufacturing - it wouldn't need to be rebuilt if it hadn't been exported in the first place. What kind of argument is that? "We did something unpopular, but undoing it would be painful, and pain is unpopular, therefore what we did was popular"?
- tharne 5y ago
  > Does every retired boomer living quite well off their 401K retirement plan represent a member of 'the investor class'? That is an academic argument at best. Just because someone buys a Vanguard index fund with several thousand companies in it does not imply they enthusiastically approve of everything those several thousand companies are doing. This is one reason (among many) why we have laws and regulations. It is simply not practical for you and I as individuals to conduct in-depth research into each and every thing we buy.
causality0 5y ago
Every person who walks into a Walmart or orders from Amazon is happy to embrace off-shoring. Every single one of those products has a label declaring where it was made. We made that decision over and over.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>I don't recall anyone but the investor class being happy to embrace offshoring. Maybe not quite "happy to embrace" people of a certain political persuasion were doing a heck of a lot to not get in the way of it because eliminating those jobs reduced the wealth of people who opposed them and made those people more receptive to what they were peddling.

tharne 5y ago
To be fair, this was a bipartisan lie we were all sold in the 1990's. Democrats and Republicans alike convinced Americans that globalization would result in everyone having better jobs in what is now known as the "creative class". As a country we bought this hook, line, and sinker and are still paying the price, and likely will be for quite some time.

photochemsyn 5y ago

Does every retired boomer living quite well off their 401K retirement plan represent a member of 'the investor class'? How many would be willing to accept a cutback in dividend payouts if it meant corporations would instead invest that money in rebuilding manufacturing in the United States?

jevoten 5y ago
The investor class being those that have significant political influence. I sure don't recall any large boomer political movements demanding more offshoring. In fact, a politician promising the exact opposite was quite popular. But because they reap some minor, incidental payoff from a policy they did not choose, you're going to claim that means they were in favor of it??
- photochemsyn 5y ago
  People want money, in my experience. Cut their money flow and they get upset. Any effort to rebuild manufacturing in the USA will require corporations - major blue-chip outfits that pension funds invest heavily in - to spend billions of dollars building new factories and hiring employees at wages a good deal higher than what it costs in mainland China, Indonesia, Mexico, etc. This will cut dividend payouts to pension funds. Boomers riding their 401Ks off into the cruise ship sunset will get upset about that I imagine.
  - jevoten 5y ago
    You imagine incorrectly - most Americans believe outsourcing hurts the economy: On the one hand, the polls largely confirm that most Americans are mercantilists at heart. The Ipsos poll shows that 69% of Americans believe that outsourcing hurts the country -- and only 17% think it helps the economy. --https://foreignpolicy.com/2004/06/09/public-opinion-about-offshore-outsourcing/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2004/06/09/public-opinion-about-of... I don't understand where you get your certainty from. I've hardly ever seen offshoring referred to positively, the attitudes towards globalization itself are lukewarm at best, politicians ride into office on rhetoric of tariffs and bringing back jobs, but you just know, because some economists claimed stock yields would be 30% lower in the short-term if the US doesn't massively export its hard-won technological and manufacturing know-how, that all this outsourcing was driven by popular sentiment, and that people will revolt against any attempts to stop or reverse it? Based on what? Widespread pro-outsourcing protests and grassroots activism? As for rebuilding manufacturing - it wouldn't need to be rebuilt if it hadn't been exported in the first place. What kind of argument is that? "We did something unpopular, but undoing it would be painful, and pain is unpopular, therefore what we did was popular"?
tharne 5y ago
> Does every retired boomer living quite well off their 401K retirement plan represent a member of 'the investor class'? That is an academic argument at best. Just because someone buys a Vanguard index fund with several thousand companies in it does not imply they enthusiastically approve of everything those several thousand companies are doing. This is one reason (among many) why we have laws and regulations. It is simply not practical for you and I as individuals to conduct in-depth research into each and every thing we buy.

causality0 5y ago

Every person who walks into a Walmart or orders from Amazon is happy to embrace off-shoring. Every single one of those products has a label declaring where it was made. We made that decision over and over.