Re: To Mr. Cronin (was Re: Offshoring: San Jose Mercury News article)

[k k <turnleftatnowhere -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

> 
> I think you are perhaps choosing to be a bit naive
> concerning the role of
> the CONSUMER in affecting the decisions of the
> companies whose products
> you buy.
> 

They weren't offshoring jobs by the carload back
before the stock market tanked. Why weren't they
taking my buying habits as an excuse for offshoring
back then when money was loose and everybody was
buying? If they had, the improvement to their
cost/profit ratio would have been many orders of
magnitude beyond what they're seeing now. If they had
cut their personnel costs by 40% through offshoring
back in 1997, the execs and the investors would have
been rich beyond the wildest dreams of even the
greediest of them. So why didn't they?

They're offshoring *now* as opposed to then because
now they can get away with it. The current government
is firmly in bed with corporate interests and favors
business over the welfare of individual people (if it
is indeed not a wholly-owned subsidiary). On the PR
side, the companies can plead for pity. With the
economy in its current state, they can say "poor us,
we can't make enough money to stay in business unless
we export jobs." 

Back in the late 90's a lot of people actually
believed the "new economy" cant and thought they were
going to get rich from stock options. If companies had
tried serious offshoring then, people would have
thought they were being robbed of their chance and
they would have raised to much ****. Now too many
people are scared of losing what they have so they
just keep their heads down and hope that by staying
quiet they won't be noticed.

For 50 years American companies paid the highest wages
in the world and at the same time this country was
prosperous. Back in 1960 Americans wanted the best
products available and they wanted them at the lowest
prices possible. And the vast majority of those goods
were made in America by workers getting higher wages
than anywhere else. Same "econo-materialistic desires"
on the part of American consumers back then, and yet
"offshoring" hadn't even been dreamed of. If the
buying habits of Americans were the real driving force
behind offshoring, we would have been having this
argument 40 years ago.




> I consume *globally*. Most of us do. As such, it
> seems unreasonable to
> expect the marketplace not to *produce* globally.
> 
> My desire for the best products available at the
> lowest cost both causes
> and perpetuates the very problem you bemoan. And I
> suspect you harbor
> similar econo-materialistic desires, which produce
> similar effects.
> 

> Let he who is without sin cast the first Sony.

OK, I'll cast that mother. 

But first: I never said I expect the marketplace to
not produce "globally." That was, at best, an
assumption not borne out by the facts. If you are
going to post something that is supposed to represent
my thoughts, please get it right. What I am saying is,
I don't like Americans being put out of work because
companies figure they can make more money by hiring
people in other countries. "Global" production was
going on for a long time before high-paying American
jobs were reduced to an exportable commodity.

I don't even own a TV. If I did want to buy one I
would try to find one made in the USA. I deliberately
buy American products whenever I can - not out of
racism of isolationist sentiments, but because if my
money goes into someone else's pocket I would prefer
that it be one of my kith and kin. It's not jingoism,
it's a sense of community and the sense that any
desire on my part to buy crud is not the most
important thing in life. If I buy "globally" it is
because I have no choice in the matter.

It has been more than 10 years since I knowingly
bought anything made in China. And yes, I do check the
stickers. I absolutely refuse to spend my money to
support the world's last large Communist government
and army. As a logical consquence of this all my
coffee mugs are at least 11 years old.

When Levi's closed down all their manufacturing in my
home town more than 10 years ago, I stopped buying
their jeans and I haven't bought any since. When
Stanley tools announced their decision to move their
headquarters out of the country (so they wouldn't have
to pay American taxes), I stopped buying their
products. I won't give my money to a company that
turns its back on its parent country. 

Yes I am willing to make buying decisions according to
criteria other than price alone. And my feelings on
offshoring, I proudly admit, are not based simply on
economics. I figure there are some things more
important than money. I realize this is a very
old-fashioned way of thinking and because of it I'll
never be rich, and I don't care. Madison Avenue's best
efforts to the contrary, I am a person, not a buying
machine. My thinking on how people should be treated
by their employers, and on the relation between
companies and this country, is not driven by price
comparisons. 

That is how I feel on the subject. Your mileage may
vary. 




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