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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (46357)	5/7/2001 1:36:49 PM
From: Joseph Beltran	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 70976

Cary, If these free trade agreements struck by the clinton (and other) administrations are soooo good for the u.s.a. why are we running (and have been running) a chronic trade account deficit? The u.s.a. has lost its manufacturing base for good. u.s. companies have followed cheap labor overseas... that's not good for us. a day will come when we will not have the manufacturing know-how or capacity to provide for our national defense. If the service jobs leave this country the consumer base of the u.s.a. will begin eroding. our standard of living will begin to decrease and we will not be able to afford to buy those products which are now being manufactured overseas. I read over the weekend that the european union aims to get rid of all national borders among workers. In other words, workers will be able to move freely from one country to another. That's pretty much what the current president of mexico is proposing vis a vis the u.s.a. I have a bad feeling about these winds of change....

To: Cary Salsberg who wrote (46357)	5/7/2001 5:37:22 PM
From: Sam Citron	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 70976

"Hooray for free trade". Your tongue is showing through your teeth, Cary. Who is exploiting whom? Is it exploitation for PMM to offer jobs to Ghanaian graduates at prevailing local wage levels? Is it realistic for parents in the most expensive part of the earth to expect their children to enjoy an anti-competition shield against highly qualified job seekers from lower wage countries? Professional services firms will continue to find creative expressions of wage arbitrage in spite of thinly disguised attempts at protectionism. Who wins and who loses from all of this? Is it really the "exploitation of cheap foreign labor"? IMHO, it is the Ghanaian job seeker who wins, or he would not accept the job above all others. It is the expensive domestic labor pool that loses. It will all come out in the wash, however, as your children's increasing job insecurity will be counterbalanced by the savings you realize on auditing costs of your portfolio investments. But fear not -- future profits will derive more from the exploitation of ignorance than from the exploitation of cheap foreign labor.