Intel CEO: Stimulus didn't work

[darkdog]

Yeah, let's ship ALL our factories overseas. A good idea...NOT.

Must have taken a lot of straw to build that strawman. But I'm sure you had it built domestically.

I never said let's ship all factories overseas. Sometimes, it makes economic sense for a company to manufacture overseas and sometimes, it makes sense for them to manufacture domestically. I'm fine with companies acting in an economically rational manner (aka "greeeeeed!")*. I'm all for free trade. I'm not for starting a trade war over it since we import a heck of a lot of jobs, too. I'm all for keeping taxes and regulations down as a way to keep jobs from unnecessarily going abroad. However, part of the reason is simply that the job market is cheaper overseas.

Look at the bright side- countries who perform a lot of manual labor eventually become wealthy to the point where it doesn't make sense to outsource to them anymore. China and India won't provide this level of cheap labor forever.

Then of course there's the other bright side that the whole population's better off when products are inexpensive to buy.

* As long as they do so within the rules of the game and not try to use political influence to rig the rules in their favor to undermine competition.

 

[Beowulf]

Must have taken a lot of straw to build that strawman. But I'm sure you had it built domestically.

. I'm fine with companies acting in an economically rational manner (aka "greeeeeed!")*.

Kind of contradictory, isnt it?

China and India won't provide this level of cheap labor forever.

Says who???

Then of course there's the other bright side that the whole population's better off when products are inexpensive to buy.

Not if they ship enough jobs overseas.

 

[darkdog]

Kind of contradictory, isnt it?

Not at all. What some people thoughtlessly refer to as "greed" is actually good for society. When a company lowers a price on a product or improves quality or adds features, they're acting out of "greed". They're trying to make more profit by making their product more attractive and competitive. That benefits consumers. Why do you think pencil companies don't sell their pencils for $50 each? There's no law against it. It's because selling pencils at $50 a pop is no way to make money. They have to sell pencils cheap if they want their profits that some misguided people believe are evil.

That's good greed. Greed becomes bad when one is willing to cross certain legal and ethical lines. A large company using political clout to get politicians to pass regulations that hurt the company's small competitors while barely affecting the large company is a common occurrence of which I disapprove. For instance, I will never buy a Mattel product because of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Basically, they sold a bunch of poison toys which caused Congress to pass a bunch of draconian regulations that devastate small toy makers who did nothing wrong while barely making a dent in Mattel's bottom line. Then, Mattel managed to get itself exempt from some of the expensive testing requirements. Mattel screwed up and their competitors paid. That's the sort of greed we should rail against.

Says who???

Certainly anything can happen, but if formerly impoverished countries like South Korea or Malaysia are an indicator, manual labor makes poor countries rich, and the quick growth currently happening in China and India shows they're following the same path.

Not if they ship enough jobs overseas.

Are you better off paying $200 for a product or $100? Multiply that $100 savings across millions of people and I would venture to say that on the whole, we're wealthier because of free trade.