Many TPP'ers argue manufacturing must be outsourced due to costs. Why stop there? Wall Street would

[grahamhgreen]

be cheaper to operate in Vietnam. Why not offshore all our jobs?

[DetlefK]

1. Well, they do put in insane work-hours, but still nowhere near justifying their salaries.

[Human101948]

5. I know where to outsource for the cost of a few Chiquitas...

The average hedge fund has produced a worse investment performance in the first half of this year than a portfolio consisting of a savings account at your local bank and a random collection of stocks picked by a blindfolded monkey.

?uuid=164711b4-1aa9-11e5-905a-00a594574550

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-hedge-fund-geniuses-got-beaten-by-monkeys-again-2015-06-25

[DetlefK]

8. There was an experiment in Germany about 20 years ago.

They pitted an investment-banker, a B-list celebrity with a habit for gambling and a monkey against each other. Investments in stocks were made according to their decisions over a period of time.

IIRC they all faired approximately equally good.



I had a statistics professor who repeatedly told us that the stock-market cannot be predicted with statistical means: It's purely driven by the emotions panic and greed.

[ToxMarz]

19. That doesn't account for rigged and manipulated markets

That's where the money is and the house always wins.

[Thespian2]

13. Another experiment

had a buyer choosing stocks by throwing darts at chart of NYSE stocks...the dart thrower won over the Wall Street experts...

I suggest a savings account in a community bank or credit union...avoid the banksters who gamble with your money...

[Travis_0004]

31. A saving account pays 1%, sometimes less

THe S&P 500 averages 10%. If you diversify and invest wisely, anybody can do better than a savings account long term.

[raouldukelives]

22. I've never felt that work that made things worse for others was justifiable.

For me, the idea of work has always been closely linked with improvement, not the opposite.

For others, the idea of work is only about money. If one is being paid, it is good work. The more the pay, the better the work. No matter if it is drilling teeth or dropping uranium.

Nothing wrong with being successful, just depends on ones concept of success I suppose.

[onethatcares]

29. they put those hours in

coming up with ways to screw the rest of us out of our hard earned money. I feel no pity for them

[djean111]

2. Well, then we would see the usual disingenuous whinging about retail sales, consumer confidence,

and housing startups. I wonder what they will do when the 1% have all the stuff they want, and the rest of us can only buy what we need for subsistence.

[frylock]

26. The 1% will always want more.

[AngryAmish]

3. This is being done.

Exchanges are just servers nowadays.

[HereSince1628]

4. RIght now they seem to be working through "inversion"...

moving their income and taxation to a fake HQ in a foreign tax haven

But the invisible hand will ultimately move on to squeezing profits out of commissions of their employees, and when that happens they will of course move operations to places where those rates will be lower.

[merrily]

6. Thank you for using the term "offshoring."

There is a difference between outsourcing, which can be from say, GE to an American independent contractor or an American subcontractor, and offshoring, which means the jobs left America. It's confusing to me when the terms are used as synonyms; and most people do that. Even the TV comedy about sending American jobs to India, along with a single American manager to supervise the Indian workers, was entitled Outsourced.


BTW, that was cancelled after one season, maybe less. I guess Americans didn't find it very funny.

[Ed Suspicious]

16. Talk about a tone-deaf inspired premise for a show.

[merrily]

23. I know, right?

[Bernie 2016]

33. As an IT worker, I found Outsourced insulting

and to this day, H1-B's has pretty much taken over IT, and I am seriously thinking of retraining while I'm still young... (under 40)

[City Lights]

7. Start with CEOs. nt

[erronis]

18. And right behind let's outsource congress.

Better, let's pink-slip them all and use the team of monkeys to write the bills, and a dart board to replace the supremes.

[merrily]

24. Replace them with the lobbyists. Cutting out the middle man is always a money saver, plus

the overlords of our plutocracy pay the lobbyists.

I kid.

Maybe

[pampango]

9. I am so afraid of foreigners and poor people. I know Swedes and Germans share my fear.

If we 'rich' (in global terms) folks don't create a 'gated community' for ourselves, the poor people and 'others' will take what we have.

Actually, Swedes and Germans don't seem to feel that way about poor foreigners and their way of life is better than ours.

[grahamhgreen]

10. The Germans require 50% of all Board of Dorectors of corporations come from the workers, we should

do that here. That's why they've maintained their manufacturing base.

Or, we could offshore all our jobs... Why not?

[pampango]

11. If given the choice, I would choose the German approach. Basing our policies of "fear of ..." is not

nearly as good.

German manufacturing workers are paid more than American and yet "they've maintained their manufacturing base" in the face of poor Vietnamese and others. Apparently basing policy on "fear of ..." is not necessary or advisable.

[Recursion]

15. We should do that too (nt)

[ucrdem]

12. Who is arguing that here?

Is this something you heard an "expert" on CNN say? Because TPP is really not about outsourcing to China which is not a signatory. It's about a) creating a comprehensive regulatory framework for trade, and b) creating export jobs in the US.

Have you ever so much as glanced at the TPP outline? A real one, not a bogus Libertarian one? Click the link in my sig if you haven't. You'll be pleasantly surprised to learn what it's really all about.



p.s. here's a pretty good rundown of what it actually covers in those 29 chapters we keep hearing about:

https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/trans-pacific-partnership/tpp-issue-issue-negotiating-objectives

[Recursion]

14. That's pretty much already happened

A lot of those HFT servers are run out of India.

[ucrdem]

21. Right, India too, another non-signatory.

Outsourcing doesn't need TPP as the policies that facilitate it have been on the books for some time. TPP is about exporting stuff that isn't easily offshored but also isn't always easily exported, like agricultural products, which run into f local tariffs, and intellectual property, which is easily ripped off and bootlegged, hence the IP chapter that has fanned so much feverish FUD.

[Sancho]

17. Actually, I've read there's already more $'s in Caribbean banks than in NYC now!

You're right. Big corps stash cash and put their "mailing address" headquarters all over the world now because it's cheaper. Some "wall streeters" have houses or fly back and forth from offices in the Islands, Ireland, etc. - whatever the "shelter du jour" happens to be convenient.

I know a kid who turned out to be a "Harvard grad, commodities trader, Wall Streeter" who originally lived in Connecticut and mostly worked in NYC 15 years ago. The family still has a house, but he's often overseas (far East) or running to places with banks (Bermuda) or whatever. The kids don't see him.

From what I hear, the money may be very good (most of us don't feel sorry for 'em), but investor/bankers are getting stressed with the international connections too. If they don't go, some local hot shot in a foreign country will do the job for less.

Don't be surprised if Wall Street doesn't suffer the same fate as American factories.

[PowerToThePeople]

20. Losing job to offshoring is only for peons

The important people are the ones doing the offshoring, they get to keep their jobs and likely get a raise for eliminating your earnings.

[L0oniX]

25. ...and if it gets too expensive for Wall Street ...where will they move to? Hell ...I hope!

[KansDem]

27. How would they be bailed out?

Wall Street would be cheaper to operate in Vietnam

The next time Wall Street fraud and malfeasance wrecks the economy, would we bail out the bankers and brokers in dollars or dongs? And don't forget the bonuses!

Or would we leave that up to the bankers and brokers to decide.

[closeupready]

28. No, they won't outsource those jobs no matter what. They can't, essentially.

Outsourcing the livelihood of members of the 'family' would be the height of disloyalty, almost certainly leading to a damaging civil war.

[ieoeja]

30. I pointed out to bean counters that off-shoring IT was difficult because of its changing nature.

Overseas IT was rather poor and had to be brought up to speed. On the other hand, basic accounting hasn't changed in centuries. So we could more easily off-shore accounting.

You would have thought I dropped a live hand grenade in the room. Excuses why that would not be possible flew faster than a pyroclastic flow.

[kacekwl]

32. I don't know when it became

our goal to be like other countries. Are we not exceptional. We certainly used to be. What happened here ?

[Cryptoad]

34. Not too late....

seems that the Treaty will not be finally voted until after the election in 2016.... better get to work electing people that will vote the right way!