Displaying 211 To 240 Of 2,133 Comments @Kesmarn…I was thinking the same thing!!! 🙂 » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 5, 2011 @ 9:27 am BDM…yep. I caught that too…and again…dubious at best. I too worked for family….and again my resume makes it sound much better than what it was…I didn’t have any real responsibility! I was a kid! » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 5, 2011 @ 9:27 am Thanks Bito…exactly! » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 5, 2011 @ 9:25 am I was not aware that some colleges will still allow the major to remain if switching from a BS to a BA. Mine doesn’t. Thanks for the info. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 5, 2011 @ 9:24 am Cher…it’s mind boggling how none of this is known to the average voter. Like anything….facts can be spinned to showcase one thing over another. HOWEVER, hard to spin the SSI he received when his father passed and how it helped him afford COLLEGE. Also, hard to spin the BA, that is listed on all his official credentials, as being an economics degree. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 5, 2011 @ 9:10 am BDM…I tend to agree…the way campaigns are financed is the root cause of the problem. It stands to reason….can’t bite the hand that feeds you. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 5, 2011 @ 9:01 am First of all, I would like to talk about this Paul Ryan for a second. WHAT credentials does this man have in economics, budgeting and finance? I’ll be glad to supply that information….NONE. Just like most of the Right wing, he is devoid of any REAL credentials in any of the topics that he opines so loudly and boisterously about! Both from an academic perspective and from a business/work history perspective the man has limited credentials. He graduated with a BA (in what I am having a difficult time determining, as all sources are saying his BA is in economics and political science) from Miami University in Oxford, THAT’S VERY odd..because economics and political science majors usually result in a Bachelors of SCIENCE…a BS…not a BA. SO question…why is no one questioning HIS academic credentials????? HE WAS a recipient of Social Security benefits as a kid…because his father died when he was 16. SO the man, basically received HELP from the government, that he chastises for helping others and from programs he wishes to undermine. AGAIN…why isn’t more made of this fact???? In addition, his work experience is very limited. For goodness sake he ran for public office at age 28. REALLY, how much in depth work experience can one amass in such a short time. I was 28 once, too, and like most of us, when I look back on that time, I realize I didn’t know nearly as much as I thought I did. MOST people, realize when they get older, that when they were young…they were not all that. http://usconservatives.about.com/od/champions/p/PaulRyanBIO.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ryan http://www.miami.muohio.edu/academics/majors-minors/majors/business-economics.html » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 5, 2011 @ 8:53 am Escribacat….I couldn’t agree more, that is what I hear too! » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 4, 2011 @ 7:55 am Southern Discomfort – Code Red Bob, thank you for writing this story. It is always interesting to read a historical event or an era from the perspectives of one who lived it. I actually prefer such readings, more than the actual historian perspectives. I’ve taken a few interesting courses the couple of semesters, that deal with the concept of ‘public history’, ethnology and the ‘Writing Culture’. Cultural anthropology uses such stories often to more accurately depict the culture of a region and the perspectives of those who have actually lived in those cultural enclaves. If you don’t mind, I would love to be able to use your story in my next paper on the subject, of course I will cite the source! 🙂 » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 3, 2011 @ 2:55 pm DON’T PANIC … It’s Just the C I A. No doubt escribacat…no doubt. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 2, 2011 @ 12:01 pm Free Speech and Commenters’ Experiences at The Huffington Post Indeed Truth. I think that is exactly what it was a schtick. Sadly we fell for it…on the plus side…we all met some great people. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 7:40 pm I must admit, it didn’t dawn on me that the heavy handed moderation was a method of to drive an increase of traffic on the site. Excellent catch! The more I think of it, I think you hit the nail on the head. Of course such a policy, can lead to unintended consequences in the long term…but of course most of corporate America is NOT concerned with the long term, and thus doesn’t think about consequences. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 9:28 am Another great daily rundown….although….all I can do is SIGH every time I read what the GOP has been allowed to accomplish. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On March 31, 2011 @ 12:22 pm Bageant and Webb: Virginia Will Miss’Em Hi BDM, I am with both you and 2CCP…I’m very discouraged and as such have been staying away from alot. I hope you feel better BDM! » Posted By Abbyrose86 On March 30, 2011 @ 6:45 am How Many US Jobs Can You Fit Inside This Cargo Container? Kesman…no doubt, the hypocrisy is astounding! » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 2, 2011 @ 11:56 am HI Choice Lady….I should have phrased my comment better. They (many leaders and pundits) weren’t explaining it right during the health care debates. They framing the argument (in my opinion) wrong. Instead of explaining HOW universal health care or regulated health care systems actually benefit business, and thus help create jobs, they let the other side frame the debate, as a job killer. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 2, 2011 @ 11:45 am And Bob…your suspicions that they can AND DO manipulate the tariff codes would be correct. I big part of my job is helping them take advantage, within the law, what they can take advantage of…as such, I can assure you that the law is inadequate to deal with today’s global realities. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 12:45 pm Bob, I did understand why you brought it up in that context. I just wanted to add it in to the discussion, because I think many don’t realize that the term is quite accurate. I think you did a fabulous job with this piece. I, too, would like to see more jobs created within the US, but I think we have to deal with the realities of our world today, rather than long for times past. I think that the genie is out of the box and returning to the old ways of thinking are probably not going to bring new jobs in the US. I agree with you too, that as long as the major “too big too fail” companies and other large corporate enterprises are simply looking at short term economic gain via higher stock prices vs long term viability, we aren’t going to get anywhere fixing our economic problems or create new jobs. For me, I don’t believe globalization in and of itself is necessarily a bad thing. Nor do I think strategic trade agreements (such as NAFTA) should receive the bad rap that they do, (especially among those who aren’t necessarily well versed in how these programs work or are supposed to work). I tend to think that trade is often used as a scapegoat and to take the focus off of our structural economic issues that REALLY are the problem. Like anything, concepts can be used for a wide variety of motives or agendas. Trade can be good or it can be bad, dependent on how it is used and by whom it is used or misused as the case maybe. I think, our problems with globalization and with many of our trade programs are more because they have been misused and the intent of the ideas has been bastardize to benefit of few at the expense of the many. In addition, the incentives structures, including too little regulation, not enough adequate resources to police the regulations in place, and economic incentives that reward bad behavior and penalize good behavior are at the heart of most of our problems. Somehow…that brings me back to a rant about GOP economic policies since Reagan and expanded upon by Bush….hmmm…funny how that happened! Laissaz Faire and trickle down concepts do not benefit the whole! WHY we keep repeating these bad policies is beyond me! » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 12:35 pm BDM, I was bringing this up a lot during the debates on HP on Healthcare. Sadly, our leaders weren’t! » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 12:22 pm Thanks PW….I didn’t see the article. But that would make sense. There are many variables involved in the international trade process that many don’t realize. It’s not as cut and dry as it looks on the surface. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 12:19 pm Bob, thanks…I love talking about this stuff…so this right up my alley! I do think we have lost a lot of jobs, but I think some of that blame goes to other things and not just trade. Trade has been with us forever. Whenever I start a seminar on international trade, I start it with this question… “Why did Columbus sail the ocean blue?” And this answer…”to find an efficient ocean trade route to India and China.” Trade truly is what makes the world go round, and the argument for or against foreign trade has been going on since the US started. The problem I think is not trade itself, nor is trade with any particular nation. The problems the US has is more structural in nature. The rest of the world has changed, and is evolving…the US is resisting those changes and in such is hurting itself. For example, Universal health care. Large companies who are located in the US, need to offer health insurance to employees. This is a much more substantial cost, than the actual wages they pay. Thus it is cost effective for companies to move operations where they don’t have that cost. Whether it be on the higher end jobs or lower end jobs. Thus a company that needs an engineer is more likely to send those engineering jobs to Germany than the US. It’s not just about wages, its about a lot of different things. Labor costs and labor laws are only one factor that determines where a company sends their facilities. I had a very large European client, that was looking to open a North American facility to manufacture their product that was for the US market. At the time, the company was strictly exporting their product from Europe to the US and paying high shipping and duty costs. The product has a very high duty rate and is subject to quotas. It took them almost 3 years to make a decision. They looked at Mexico, various spots in the US and Canada. They chose Canada, for the following reasons….the potential labor pool was more skilled and better educated than those in the US and Mexico. They would not have to pay as much for health insurance and other benefits, while still having to pay decent wages, and the infrastructure of the region in Canada was in better condition than that of the US and Mexico. WHEN they took ALL their costs and the benefits and analyzed the situation, they felt it was in their best business interests to locate their North American facility in Ontario. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 11:35 am Actually PW you bring up a good point. Many imports ARE not finished goods that are going on to the final consumer. HOWEVER, your take on it was off. THEY do pay tariffs on the goods. AN import is an import REGARDLESS of whether it is a related party transaction or not. So in your example, the motor assembly (highly unlikely a motor assembly would come from China though…more likely Japan) would be imported in the commerce, entry filed with applicable duty paid, and shipped into the US for final assembly into a product for sale. IF the good was exported AFTER production in the states, the importer could apply for a duty refund of 99% of the duty paid on the imported good (manufacturer’s duty drawback). HOWEVER, the duty is payable on such an import at the time of import…unless the good is going into a Foreign Trade Zone. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 11:18 am One other thing, I feel the need to address…the term ‘free trade’ is a misnomer. Truly it is. The term ‘free trade’ means DUTY FREE TRADE.IT does not mean the goods just come and go over borders without oversight. ON the contrary!!! With the duty free status comes MORE regulation and documentation. WHICH believe it or not, requires more people to oversee. So while, a program such as NAFTA (Which the primary beneficiary of that program was CANADA, not Mexico…contrary to popular mythology) may have caused the exodus of some US manufacturing jobs…it wasn’t always due to lower wages, that the jobs were lost, but due to other reasons, such as cost/benefit analysis, perceived value and ability of the laborers in higher tech environments. The high tech manufacturing jobs went to Canada, the low skilled simple jobs went to Mexican Maquiladoras. (The costs weren’t just about labor costs either!, that was a component of why some manufacturers moved their low skilled jobs to Mexico, but the reason many shipped higher tech jobs to Canada has to with with health insurance AND the higher skills of the labor force up north.It is more cost effective for companies to do business in countries where they don’t need to provide health insurance to their employees if the country has universal health care.) But what many forget, is that programs such as NAFTA have created logistics and NAFTA specialists jobs in all three countries and at many companies Company headquarters, as well as more jobs at CBP. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 11:12 am Bob, I’ve been a part of the trade for over 20 years, and am considered an international trade expert. (Really!!:) ). I’m a licensed customs broker, certified customs specialist and international freight forwarder. SO this truly is what I do for a living. As such, I read your article with a different perspective and with great interest. While, it is TRUE, that the United States does import MORE than 2 trillion dollars worth of goods, that number is a relatively new number. FY 2005, imports were at 1.3 trillion and FY 2000 were well under 1 Trillion and before that the numbers were less each year. (I actually have physical documents that provide the trade numbers over the years. Some of this older data is hard to find on line.) HOWEVER, this is not due to NAFTA or specific trade programs per se. It is due to the ideals behind global trade initiatives that were at the heart of GATT, The Uruguay Round Table and the formation of the WTO. The major spike in containerized imports after the year 2001 came from China having been admitted into the WTO in December 2001. Now, with that being said, using the aggregate values of the total imports is misleading. AS a good portion of imports are raw materials, believe it or not, that DO get manufactured into products within the NAFTA countries. Some of those containers you see are NOT just bound for US ports, either. This is important. In addition, some of those containers contain MULTIPLE shipments, that have various uses and final destinations, so not ALL shipments are “full container load”, and thus skew such analysis. In addition, some imported items are very high value goods and can skew the data IF only looking at the aggregate value of total imports for a year. For example, it NOT uncommon to have a container load of a particular imported item,such as a state of the art machine, needed for a manufacturing facility, be valued at many millions of dollars. Thus there may only be one imported article in that container. OR you can have 10 containers that are all part of 1 shipment (entry) that ALL combine together to form one thing. Honest, this happens ALL the time. Thus the trade and CBP, don’t really use aggregate data for real analysis of trade issues. It is much more helpful to look at specific tariff number trade data, and country of export/origin data as well as valuation to determine trade issues. Also, the term import can be misleading to the layman as well. For something to be considered an import for statistical purposes, it must be entered into the ‘commerce of the United States’. ENTRY is what differentiates whether a good is an import or not, and the entry process is where ALL trade data originates. Trade data and the statistics are supplied by Customs brokers who file ENTRY on behalf of importers to CBP, who in turn take the data we supply and provide the reports. TO this day, the US’ number 1 trading partner is CANADA. NOT CHINA, not MEXICO but CANADA. As of 2010, China took the 2nd place. HOWEVER, up until last year, Japan was our second largest trading partner. To make things even more complicated, most products today, are not just manufactured in one country. However, the final country of significant production is the country used to report the country of origin (i.e. country of manufacture) of a good. Two countries data are reported for each type of item being imported…the country of export AND the country of manufacture or produce(country of origin). However, this can get complicated when goods are transshipped to another country, before being shipped to their final destination for consumption. This situation happens quite often with NAFTA qualifying goods. My point in bringing up these variables, is that global trade is not as simple as many think. There are many variables involved in the import process that can create misleading information to those who aren’t aware of all the specifics. I can have a shipment of goods originate in Egypt, send it to Singapore, where it is ‘entered into the commerce'( or not), predicated on what import process is deemed necessary, wherein another manufacturing process is done which then gets reloaded on the container and shipped to LA…where it is unloaded, put in a foreign trade zone, which DOES not get entered into the commerce, which then has another process done to it, and then is reloaded AGAIN onto the container and shipped to Israel. OR that shipment can be entered into the commerce….sent to a facility in the US for a manufacturing process or to be placed in a warehouse for sale in the US or to another country at a later time. JUST because something enters the commerce and is imported doesn’t mean the good is staying or is for US consumption. Often, about 1/3 of the time, goods that are imported into the US are not staying here or being sold to the average consumer. Many times good are entered into the commerce(imported) because it is cheaper for the IMPORTER of RECORD, to utilize a trade program and import the goods which are NOT staying here. What we call ‘cheaper to pay duty’. It’s cheaper to pay the low duty rate than to deal with the costs associated with other programs that allow for transshipping. Those are more complicated and come with higher private industry costs. Something that many forget, when reviewing international trade policy, is that many jobs have been created in this sector (logistics) to provide the necessary services required from trade. From customs brokers and ALL the necessary personnel they need to the dock workers, truckers, railroad workers, airline workers, warehouse workers, etc. WHICH are ALL services and service jobs, that are ALL necessary to make this all work. These jobs tend to be better paying jobs than manufacturing jobs AND do tend to require more training and knowledge. Over the last 20 years, opportunities in logistics have increased dramatically. 20 some years ago, there was no such thing as a Bachelors in logistics management. Nor were there many jobs in fields related to international trade. Today, most large companies have customs brokers, import/export specialists and others related to trade on staff. 20 years that was very uncommon. JOBS such as these, ARE service jobs and do tend to pay well, because of supply and demand. There aren’t enough people who know how to do all this, and the training is quite time consuming. Thus wages tend to be higher. This is a growing field. There are other related jobs that come with this situation and trade as well. However, it does take time and most careers/jobs in these fields are still in their toddlerhood. Now, one of the things I do think needs to be addressed on our US trade policies is a revision of our tariff rates, most specifically our MFN (most favored nation) most of them are too low and are based on old ideas. Another thing I think needs changing is more regulation with REAL teeth and more CBP officers. Right now there aren’t enough officers and I don’t mean those at the front lines, I mean import specialists at CBP, they are severely understaffed and thus don’t have the resources to adequately ensure that importers are honestly assessing their shipments. CBP also acts as an agent for other government agencies that oversee imported products, such as the USDA, EPA and others. While agencies like the FDA also are at the front lines and work WITH CBP on imported products that they oversee, and have their own import policies and programs in addition to those CBP oversees, they could use more resources as well. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On April 1, 2011 @ 10:51 am OH my goodness gracious…THANK YOU CHOICE LADY, for bringing this up! THIS subject, that the rights of a US citizen do not apply when in the employ of a corporation, has been bothering me for YEARS. I say the the whole concept is utter BULLSHIT. I do not think it was NOT the intent of the founders, to cede citizens rights to private enterprise. Most of the founders were anti corporations, so the whole idea that they would limit a citizens rights to a private business entity…is hogwash and that fact that so many BUY into it is hogwash as well. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On March 30, 2011 @ 7:51 am @bzb….as you might know…when I left HP, I deleted myself and HAVE not gone back not even for a moment. I WILL NOT support that organization anymore, in anyway shape or form. I agree with you…those who continue to keep going there are perpetuating the problems over there. Sadly, this is one of those things, people have to decide for themselves. Eventually, I think HP, will have pissed off enough people, that more and more leave as time goes on. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On March 30, 2011 @ 7:47 am Choicelady, as usual I agree with your point of view and appreciated how you articulated your arguments throughout his thread. Thank you! » Posted By Abbyrose86 On March 30, 2011 @ 7:39 am Kesman very well said. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On March 29, 2011 @ 8:21 am KT I couldn’t agree more. » Posted By Abbyrose86 On March 28, 2011 @ 3:26 pm Bravo WTS. Great article. Thought provoking, articulate and well argued. Kudos! By the time I finished reading, I had changed my perception of the topic. Well done! » Posted By Abbyrose86 On March 28, 2011 @ 3:22 pmComments Posted By Abbyrose86
AND if they need low skilled workers, they are more than likely to send those jobs to China or MExico.
You have provided an interesting analysis. I do agree that the problem is bigger than what many believe in some areas (as to the overall economy) but I would argue on some of your conclusions based on the raw data you used.
«« Back To Stats Page
Home Stats