Lumbergh Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 Originally posted by arkai88: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Gary T: So please don't give us the line that the US is doing it for the greater good of the world and not its own gain...which of course is true for any country.Actually - I never said anything of the sort, I actually was pointing out that corporate America has turned to the rest of the world as it's slave labor market now that it can no longer find enough cheap labor here in the US. There seems to be alot of economics professors in here that are dying to tell us all why America is much better off by exporting its' manufacturing jobs, personally I don't see it, and don't agree with them. But then again it's America - and I have the right to disagree with them. To them I seem uniformed and uneducated - to me they sound like politicians spewing rhetoric of how they are making a better world for us whether we can see it or not.</font> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grisha Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 Philosophically, I'm all against the use of third world nations to do our manufacturing, but economically it would be a huge cut in profits to do otherwise. Why? Because everybody does it, that is, every company that's looking to make maximum profit. It's not the equipment or the material that eats at the profit margin anymore. It's the human labor. I know, it's sort of a new mercantile colonialism, but that's how it works these days. Human labor is now a marketable item from a global point of view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Sgt. Emren Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 Philosophically, I'm all against the use of third world nations to do our manufacturing, but economically it would be a huge cut in profits to do otherwise. Did you ever stop to consider the difference between exploiting the third world and investing in those countries? The most basic law of commerce, supply and demand, make sure that investments happen in poor countries. The profit argument is not a negative argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SgtMuhammed Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 Well no matter what we do someone will see it in a negative light. If we promote the building of industry in the third world we are exploiting them, if we don't we are being selfish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 About several issues in this thread (speaking as an American): Are most Americans ignorant about the rest of the world? The answer is yes. I have a publisher friend who says he gets his stupidest dumb-ass question from Americans, and the most insightful questiond from (believe it or not ) Finns! The dangerous thing it's the ignorant ones who think they have all the answers, it's the few who have a sense of the big world outside that can see that answers aren't easy to come by... a sentiment that does not fit well onto a bumper sticker. Is America a big, prosperous, isolated, monolingual giant? No. we're not that big (The old Soviet Union had twice the land mass). We're not that prosperous. The super-rich may keep getting richer, but the poor aregetting less and less public assistance and the middle class has been treading water (adjusted for inflation) for a decade. Are we monolingual? All depends on what you call 'we'. The largest (or second-largest) minority in the U.S. is Spanish heritage. That means a sizeable chunk of the population speaks at least two languages fluently. Are we isolated? How can we be isolated when just about every U.S.-based corporate entity has cheap labor sweat shops exploiting children around the globe? [ January 21, 2003, 02:32 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grisha Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 I've already overstepped my bounds, so that's it for me on such subjects. I'm not here to discuss politics or economics or philosophy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted January 21, 2003 Share Posted January 21, 2003 Folks, I think this has strayed far away from any sort of topic that could be considered "on topic" for this Forum. My long standing experience reading such threads is that those outside the US are as ignorant about Americans as Americans are about others. Perhaps not in the same ways, but it almost always comes down to the pot calling the kettle black. And this is why these discussions go nowhere positive. A universal truth... Humans, regardless of race, culture, nationality, or socioeconomic status want to have their cake and eat it too. I have yet to meet a Human that does not fit this description to some degree or another. And certainly anybody reading this message can not claim a higher moral ground since they are using an American based product made with exploited labor. Bitching about a system while using its illgotten gains doesn't impress me too much Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts