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That's just a bunch of garbage. Europe has plenty of business and industry, while the US does not. This weekend I went to a store and bought something made in the EU- motorcycle grips (Italy). The only bike stuff I have made in the US is a Gore-Tex Windstropper bandana (Aerostitch, made in Minnesota... not a "right to work" state) and a pair of rather plain deerskin gloves (which are inferior actually to the gloves you get from Pakistan). My boots are made in Italy, my Knox armor is made in the UK. Sure sounds great for an economic region with a moribund economy with crushing regulation.
Totally unrelated, but I've got a Bodum coffee press made in Denmark, and I bought it at Target, not some fancy boutique store that caters only to rich people. I can't find much else kitchen related actually made in the US. Maybe plastic spoons, does that count?
He is very accurate. My sister in law and her husband have just moved to Seattle so they could open a jewelry business. He has been a jeweler for 30 years in Germany and is considered a master jeweler and designer. He could not open a business in Germany even though he was a citizen. I don't know all the specifics but I have been there a dozen times and that is what I always hear from Germans. They can't believe you can just open a business in the US.
Why didn't you buy all US stuff? Because you got a better deal outsourcing your needs to Europe. Your standard of living is therefore higher than it would otherwise be. Manufacturing your own stuff is stupid, if you could be doing something else with higher value instead. That's true even if you're better at manufacturing than your supplier is. Comparative advantage: it's a wealth-making idea.
That's true and of course is what economists call "comparative advantage". But just what is the American comparative advantage now days? I have trouble seeing it. Spending alot of money and selling overvalued houses? That's not an economic advantage. Even the entertainment industry in the US has seen better days; a steady erosion of mindshare to other countries. Perhaps the financial services sector in the US is still healthy but I don't see how financial services is going to prop up a healthy economy and middle class. If we go down that route, it is time to downsize our population because the standard of living will erode if we keep bleeding off low and medium-skilled jobs overseas.
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They're a lot poorer than we are. That should be a big clue we're doing something right. Never take success advice from somebody less successful than you are.
This actually isn't true. Norway, Denmark, and Ireland have higher per capita GDP than the United States. If you look at non-monetary factors, the European Union is taking leadership roles in science, technology, and the environment, all of those may pay off in the long term.
Why didn't you buy all US stuff? Because you got a better deal outsourcing your needs to Europe. Your standard of living is therefore higher than it would otherwise be. Manufacturing your own stuff is stupid, if you could be doing something else with higher value instead. That's true even if you're better at manufacturing than your supplier is. Comparative advantage: it's a wealth-making idea.
They're a lot poorer than we are. That should be a big clue we're doing something right. Never take success advice from somebody less successful than you are.
Just my opinion of course but much of the stuff made and sold in the US is some of the worst crap made. If you are ever in Europe go shopping. I love to go to hardware stores You wander around and see some of the best products you have even see. Non of it ever imported into the US. You pick up something like a hinge or faucet and it looks like it would last a century it is so well made. Everything is just better quality.
I would be in my sister in laws house or a restaurant and you just keep looking at stuff and are amazed at the quality. In the US it is nothing but particle board junk, you are hard pressed to even find a decent piece of furniture. We love disposable over priced junk and they are more then happy to sell it to us. Im am sorry, I am not a fan or just buy American, I am a fan of quality.
Also something about imports from places like China. Those same factories that build the cheap crap can also build the highest quality available if that is what the buyer wants. Unfortunately the buyers for most US stores buy junk. It has nothing to do with the "Made in China label" it has to do with the customer. They have factories and craftsmen as good as any in the world.
What I make now, in 2007, after 3 years of employment, I made in 1985 when I was 25 and worked in NYC.
Right now....I make $13.65/hour & work in property management on Longboat Key and I'm not an illegal alien.
I have a degree in ADV from Michigan State. My condo association loves me because I am on the ball....however, I was married, came to FL in 1991 with my husband, built a house, had children & then got divorced....
Right to work in Florida means they can fire you because you wore a pink shirt....not right....people can quit a job anytime they want & it doesn't have to be a right to work situation....
we all know that northern states pay more than Florida...it's just a matter of making enough money to get out of Florida to move...hello?
AMEN!!! I can't count how many times I've heard "Well just leave". It's a little hard to do when every dime you make goes to your basic existence.
Back to the "Right to work" thing. I am 38 years old and got fired for the first time in my LIFE because business owner's wife (who came in between 3-5 each day to open the mail) fired me for being too nice to customers.
Long story short, she told everyone who questioned it (including her husband) that I "was trying to pick up men".
No, I don't look or act like a tramp. This wasn't based on appearance or dress. We wore uniforms, I'm slightly overweight with unruly hair that I stick in a headband, and wear mascara if I have time to put it on.
NO One in the office knows what prompted this. And if it sounds dramatic, or it sounds like I've left parts out, consider this:
The HR Manager and the Owner called me a week later to give me their private numbers and told me they would HELP me get my unemployment benefits if there was a problem.
Unemployment Benefits are a safety net if you're fired in FL - unless you've been fired for "Gross misconduct" (which I can't help thinking that's what Dragon Lady was aiming for), like telling off the boss or coming to work drunk.
No, Union's kill companies...take a look at what's happening with the auto industry, they are largely to blame.
I've lived in right to work states for a long time and think they are just fine. An employer should be able to give you the boot anytime and you should be able to quit anytime.
unfortuantely, Managers and Other people in higher position take advantage of The Right to Work Law. I was fired from the Marriott because I was 2 weeks away from giving birth and rather give me maternity leave, they opted to fire me and hire someone else. I contacted a lawyer and it was discrimanation, You can't prove a claim when you are given the right to fire someone without reason. Florida Civil and Work right are few to None! This state still has an old Slavedriver mentally!
unfortuantely, Managers and Other people in higher position take advantage of The Right to Work Law. I was fired from the Marriott because I was 2 weeks away from giving birth and rather give me maternity leave, they opted to fire me and hire someone else. I contacted a lawyer and it was discrimanation, You can't prove a claim when you are given the right to fire someone without reason. Florida Civil and Work right are few to None! This state still has an old Slavedriver mentally!
/DEAR MM/ My daughter recently went through a similar situation. She was fired when her manager found out she was pregnant. There are Federal laws and a specific Florida law to protect pregnant women in that case. If you had No complaints up to the point of you being fired and you were a good employee and can prove your case. Check out the Florida State Statute re: discrimination of pregnant women. I can't give details but she got paid.. Check with another attorney. She had to file a complaint with the EEOC and then it went on from there. Wendyb
Florida has a lot of powerful unions and they are government employees unions..
You pay for their lavish benefits and job security with your outrageous property taxes.
A fireman can make over 100 grand a year in Florida, retire at 55 with a 80 percent pension with cost of living increases built in. And you will be taxed to death just to pay for all this.
Also, where the unions are all powerful, totally incompetent workers are very difficult for their employers to fire. In NYC, it costs the taxpayers $250,000 for the legal work to fire an incompetent teacher. It is no wonder many govt workers in big cities have the reputation for being uncaring and incompetent. They know that they cant be fired no matter what they do.
And the leadership in many unions are corrupt with nepotism, favoritism snd outright criminal, mafia type practices.
I was in a union for several years where your "donations" were not voluntary. The dues were not that bad, but you had to pay 10 times the dues in "donations" to keep off the union black list. Otherwise you could wait for months at the union hall for jobs that never came in while the favored members could sit at home and wait on the phone call from the local union boss about their next job.
The "right to work" simply means that you dont have to join a union to get a job. You can get jobs where there are unions and have better job security though, but most jobs are not unionized in Fla.
What is right almost always has a practical side. So it is with union opposition to so-called right-to-work laws.
Supporters of right-to-work laws make two basic arguments:
They bring “democracy” to the workplace by giving workers a choice of whether to join a union. They create “good paying jobs” in communities.
Both arguments are false. Right to work laws are not democratic. They don’t boost economies either. Unions are democratic and economy boosters.
Unions are not forced on workers. Workers vote unions in through free and fair elections. (Workers also can vote unions out.)
Right-to-work laws undermine unions by prohibiting what are called “union security” agreements between the union and the employer. Under a union security agreement, all non-management workers belong to the union.
Or they*pay the union*a service fee or an*amount equivalent to union dues.
The union supports the workers. The workers support the union.
Thus, right-to-work laws encourage freeloading. Under a right-to-work law, workers at a jobsite with a union contract can enjoy union-negotiated and union-won wages and benefits without joining the union or*paying a service fee or dues. At the same time, unions also must represent these non-union employees when they have trouble with the boss.
Right-to-work supporters want workers to ask themselves, “Why should I join the union when I can get union wages, benefits and representation for free?” Hence, right-to-work laws encourage union members to quit the union and keep non-union workers from signing up with a union.
Obviously, the smaller a union, the less bargaining power the union can muster. Thus, the real purpose of right to work laws isn’t “workplace democracy.” It is to weaken large unions and destroy small unions.
Freeloading isn’t democratic either. Freeloading is based on selfishness and greed, like the right-to-work concept itself.
Indeed, right-to-work laws aren’t designed to produce good paying jobs. They are geared to drive down worker wages and put more money in the boss’s wallet.
Paychecks in right-to-work states are a lot skimpier than in non-right-to-work states. Everywhere, union wages are higher than non-union wages.
Absent unions, wages, of course, go down. That’s why unions call right-to-work the “right-to-work-for-less.”
If right-to-work laws were “democratic” and good for workers, why is it that business and industry groups – not workers -- push them? Employer organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Associated Industries of Kentucky are big backers of right-to-work.
Right-to-work laws are legal under the Taft-Hartley Act, which an anti-union, Republican-majority Congress passed over President Harry Truman’s veto in 1947. The measure was aimed at rolling back gains organized labor made under Truman and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, both Democrats.
The bill’s sponsors were Sen. Robert Taft, R-Ohio, and Rep. Fred Hartley, R-N.J. Both were ultra-conservatives who hated unions.
Joining right-wing Yankee Republicans in passing Taft-Hartley were conservative white Southern Democrats.
They were as anti-labor as they were pro-segregation.
Not coincidentally, every former Confederate state is a right-to-work state. “The labor-hater and the labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth,” Dr. Martin Luther King observed.
In the end,*the greed of the right-to-workers will cost them, too. Here’s why.
The more money people earn, the more money they have to spend – and will spend. The*old Kentucky State AFL-CIO “Union Wages Buy More” license plates were true.
America has the largest consumer economy in the world. There aren’t enough rich people – not by a long shot – to buy the bulk of consumer goods American business and industry produces. By far, most purchasers of consumer goods are workers. ***
What happens when working people can’t afford to buy consumer goods? Read some history.
Employers engaged in union-busting and a race to the bottom on worker wages in the 1920s. The result was the Great Depression the 1930s, America’s worst economic crisis.
A major cause of the Depression was the weak purchasing power of American workers. Many historians and economists believe that America probably wouldn't have*suffered the Depression had business and industry owners paid their workers more money. Then and now, more money in worker wallets translates into more money in store cash registers.
Thus, greed isn’t just immoral, it’s impractical. When workers don’t make enough money to buy cars and other consumer goods everybody gets hurt sooner or later, including pro-right-to-work bosses.*
Unions single handedly destroyed the American automobile business. No one should ever be forced to join a union or pay union dues. If you want to, fine, but it should never be required to work someplace.
Unions single handedly destroyed the American automobile business. No one should ever be forced to join a union or pay union dues. If you want to, fine, but it should never be required to work someplace.
Lily,
You are not prone to stereotypes, so I am surprised at your blanket statement about unions and the car industry. The American auto industry has provided jobs and opportunities to attain a workable wage for many of its workers for decades. It also made many individuals wealthy regardless of how well or hard they worked (management inclusive). The Big 3 is no longer Ford, GM, and Chrysler... Toyota and Honda are clearly among the front runners, but with a unionized American workforce. The difference is the efficient and insightful management at their American plants. It is time to take a look at the "incentive laden/no fault... no accountability" upper management that makes the decisions of what cars to build, sell, and/or refine in the American marketplace. Would you want to have a small fraction of the bonuses this year that the original Big 3 management will receive, despite the significant lower level employee lay-offs, slumping sales, and nonexistent company profits?
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They don’t boost economies either. Unions are democratic and economy boosters.
