China Starts Outsourcing From ... the US
274
hackingbear writes: Burdened with Alabama's highest unemployment rate, long abandoned by textile mills and furniture plants, Wilcox County, Alabama, desperately needs jobs. And the jobs are coming from China. Henan's Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group opened a plant here last month, employing 300 locals. Chinese companies invested a record $14 billion in the United States last year, according to the Rhodium Group research firm. Collectively, they employ more than 70,000 Americans, up from virtually none a decade ago. Powerful forces — narrowing wage gaps (Chinese wages have been doubling every few years), tumbling U.S. energy prices, the rising Yuan — up 30% over the decade — are pulling Chinese companies across the Pacific. Perhaps very soon, Chinese workers will start protesting their jobs being outsourced to the cheap labor in the U.S."
Re:oh boy (Score:2, Interesting)
China's downfall in production will come when the factory workers start having unions that are too powerful.
So it starts...... (Score:1, Interesting)
Soon Americans will be seeking jobs as au pairs in China....
Asia is the place to be. Asia is an exciting place: India, China. If you are young and have not visited these place the best advice you will receive is simply to go. Learn some Hindi or Mandarin. Drop any expectations. Just explore. Your future will be brighter for the experience.
Asia has a youthful population. The culture is alive. The Asian take / mix on American culture which produces endearing results. It is a bit of an over judgement but in America the youth are caught up in vanity, drugs. American youth are generally immature. In Asia the youth are hungry for knowledge. They have clarity in their eyes.
This could be political too (Score:4, Interesting)
The Chinese government is very strategic about creating 'soft power' (political, cultural, economic, and diplomatic influence; as opposed to 'hard power', which is typically military force or economic sanctions). Look up Confucius Institutes and the Three Warfares, for example. China also uses its market power to get what it wants politically; look up how Hollywood studios allow Chinese censors to edit their movies (and not just for Chinese distribution).
It's not a new idea to use jobs to create influence. Government contractors locate jobs in the districts of key members of Congress in order to get votes; when Japan's auto industry was viewed as a threat, the built factories in the U.S.
In the locations where Chinese companies are placing jobs, how likely is it that the people or their representatives will support sanctions, force, or any actions detrimental to China?
(China isn't the only country to do such things, of course, but they have a lot of money, an aggressive outlook, and their government has a lot of involvement with and influence over their businesses.)
Re:Leverage the poor, whoever they are (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't that be "outsourcing to the US"? (Score:4, Interesting)
.
Why, all of a sudden has the terminology changed?
Or we could just stop racing to the bottom (Score:5, Interesting)
Did it ever cross your mind that there is a _reason_ Unions formed? Have you ever heard the phrase "Nasty, brutish and short"? Have you seen pictures of the Mini-Guns used by "private" security employed by mines in the 70s to intimidate workers?
Whatever else you think, you _want_ Unions. You _need_ Unions. Unions are labor organized to seek better and safer working conditions. Nothing more or less. Hell, there's another story on
I could go on, and on, and on, but seriously man. You don't know of what you speak. Go work in a meat packing plant for a decade and tell me you don't need Unions.