The destruction of the Middle Classes commences

marklv

For many people university is the first opportunity to chase the opposite sex and drink themselves silly without having to worry about parental control. I guess that this is a good enough reason for many to go, but it seems a very expensive way of doing it. I only went to univeristy to better my job prospects - maybe I should have taken a different approach.

Linton

Kohoutek wrote: »

The reason that Japanese manufacturers built factories in Europe and the United States is because of protectionism against Japanese imported goods, not because they want to give foreigners jobs.

And because there is a trained labour force keen and willing to work for less than it would cost to employ a Japanese worker.

And a reduction in transport costs.

And government support to build new highly efficient plant.

IIRC some of the UK Japanese car production is exported to Japan.

kabayiri

bendix wrote: »

I fully support globalisation and have absolutely no problem with the middle classes losing their jobs to skilled overseas suppliers, if that is the most effective option. Tough luck - protectionism never works and it is encumbent upon businesses and service providers to find ways to meet service needs in the most cost effective way. It is you lot, after all, who want dirt cheap goods and services.

You can't have it both ways.

You can see how your attitude might change if you were directly affected by something like outsourcing though, cant you?

You may personally be fantastic at your job, but if a company chooses to move a whole function or department elsewhere, you get caught up in the impact of that decision.

I think it's always easier to argue the free market case from a position of comfort, because your line of work remains unaffected.

I think UK people do have the skills to compete, I truly do. I just think underlying living costs are way out of alignment with the countries we have to compete with, and a big proportion of this is providing a roof over our head.

bendix

Kohoutek wrote: »

The reason that Japanese manufacturers built factories in Europe and the United States is because of protectionism against Japanese imported goods, not because they want to give foreigners jobs.

The motivation doesn't matter. It is still foreign companies investing foreign capital into the UK, creating jobs for British workers at the expense of jobs for Japanese workers.

Nobody 'wants to give foreigners jobs' out of the goodness of their heart. They do it for sound commercial reasons.

And as I said, nobody complains when that happens, but our innate Little Englander mentality gets annoyed when we lose out on jobs to the 'pesky little darkies' overseas.

It's the real world. Get over it.

We have no god-given right to be rich or a wealthy nation. We are losing our competitiveness and - frankly - the inflated self of worth and entitlement of our work force - both blue and white collar - has a lot of the blame to accept.

bendix

kabayiri wrote: »

You can see how your attitude might change if you were directly affected by something like outsourcing though, cant you?

You may personally be fantastic at your job, but if a company chooses to move a whole function or department elsewhere, you get caught up in the impact of that decision.

I think it's always easier to argue the free market case from a position of comfort, because your line of work remains unaffected.

.

As I said in another post, the legal industry in which I work is front and centre of the push to outsource, and I fully support it. In fact, I was instrumental in setting up the shared services facility in Manila for my old firm, and I am actively encouraging us to do the same in my new organisation.

I don't know if a role like mine could be outsourced. Certainly some parts of it could.

I'm not threatened by that. It's down to me to continue to demonstrate added value so that doesn't happen.

What is there to fear from competition - it makes you better at what you do

Linton

kabayiri wrote: »

You can see how your attitude might change if you were directly affected by something like outsourcing though, cant you?

You may personally be fantastic at your job, but if a company chooses to move a whole function or department elsewhere, you get caught up in the impact of that decision.

I think it's always easier to argue the free market case from a position of comfort, because your line of work remains unaffected.

I think UK people do have the skills to compete, I truly do. I just think underlying living costs are way out of alignment with the countries we have to compete with, and a big proportion of this is providing a roof over our head.

I agree UK people have the skills needed to compete - the question is who you compete with and how. There is no point in competing with people who can do as good a job cheaper.

That is why we must concentrate on the high tec, highly capital intensive industries and those tasks - eg design - where the value of the output is much higher than the cost of the man-hours put into it.

In this way we will be competing with countries with higher costs than here - eg Scandinavia, France, Switzerland, Germany.

Of course it's tough for those people adversely affected. But millions of people in this country have been through it in the past (miners, dockers, railway men, steel workers etc) and the country has survived. Indeed there are more people employed now than there ever were historically.

kabayiri

bendix wrote: »

And as I said, nobody complains when that happens, but our innate Little Englander mentality gets annoyed when we lose out on jobs to the 'pesky little darkies' overseas.

This has nothing to do with darkies, whities, or other colours.

When I commuted from the North to the South for work, I have had occasions where I have been accused of taking work from the 'locals'.

It's the same thing; economic protectionism.

kabayiri

bendix wrote: »

What is there to fear from competition - it makes you better at what you do

I am personally familiar with this process, possibly more than most here.

I remember in the mid 90s being called into the office and told that my IT job function had to adapt because of the introduction of outsourcing.

I changed my line of work and spent more time freelancing, doing things which are closely coupled with the business and difficult to outsource.

I also changed my ethos to charging. When companies wanted my time and I could justify it, I would charge them more. This was partly to build up a buffer zone for when work goes quiet.

For one client, I saw outsourcing costs nearly treble over the space of a decade. This was because they lost the ability to do the work in-house, and the company providing the service could charge what they want. As others have said it can be a mixed bag.

Kohoutek

bendix wrote: »

We have no god-given right to be rich or a wealthy nation. We are losing our competitiveness and - frankly - the inflated self of worth and entitlement of our work force - both blue and white collar - has a lot of the blame to accept.

The reason we're not competitive with China for labour intensive jobs because is their state led economy policy is to keep the value of their currency low and their wages low. We can never compete in that sense unless we further devalued our currency and lowered wages. In any case, the reason that the UK is wealthy is not because an abundance of cheap labour.

bendix wrote: »

It's the real world. Get over it.

You need to get over your dumb neoliberal ideas – the world is not a level playing field – 'competing' with a country with artificially low wages and an artificially low exchange rate isn't fair competition.

bendix wrote: »

It's down to me to continue to demonstrate added value so that doesn't happen.

What is there to fear from competition - it makes you better at what you do

I'm guessing you don't work in a job that is threatened then....

bendix

Kohoutek wrote: »

The reason we're not competitive with China for labour intensive jobs because is their state led economy policy is to keep the value of their currency low and their wages low. We can never compete in that sense unless we further devalued our currency and lowered wages. In any case, the reason that the UK is wealthy is not because an abundance of cheap labour.



You need to get over your dumb neoliberal ideas – the world is not a level playing field – 'competing' with a country with artificially low wages and an artificially low exchange rate isn't fair competition.



I'm guessing you don't work in a job that is threatened then....

The Chinese authorities (and those in Philippines, India etc etc and all the other 'cheap' sources of labour) do NOT keep wages artificially low. There are no government mandates on what wages should be in those countries.

Wages are controlled by market forces in exactly the same way as they are here. That is why there have been a spate of strikes in places like Honda factories in China recently, and as a result wages have increased substantially.

What keeps wages relatively low in China is the literally tens of millions of rural people ready to take on new jobs at a moments notice. It's classic supply and demand.

Read last week's Economist. There is an excellent article in it addressing just this issue.