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Originally Posted by Buffy
I agree with that. That's why Dell has begun to pull back their phone support for big Corporate clients back from India to the US....  |
Certainly a step in the right direction, IMHO. I'm personally of the opinion that the whole hyped-up "Globalisation" issue is simply a ploy to bypass local wage restrictions and employment rules and regulations. That's how a company with a high profile like Nike, for instance, gets to use people like Tiger Woods as their public faces, paying him top dollar (ridiculously so) to promote a product created in sweatshops in the third world, the workers expected to live on pennies a day. The entire wage bill is exported to the manufacturing country - as little as it might be. If employment regulations were more relaxed, Nike sneakers could be made in "sweatshops" in the US, callous as it might sound. If an employee doesn't like the conditions, he/she can make another plan. But the wage bill will stay in the US - to be spent there.
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Originally Posted by Buffness
The other interesting proposal is to simply lift restrictions on immigration and *keep* the minimum wages.
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Not too sure what you'd achieve with that. Considering the situation I'm most familiar with, most of the wages earnt by illegals in SA, the excess of the amount they need for bare-bones survival, is simply sent off to their family in Zimbabwe. Their entire social infrastructure is still there, and they end up with the proceeds. So we have a situation where foreigners earn below minimum-wage in SA, living under the radar, and the wage bill still gets exported. That money could have been spent on consumer products in SA, stimulating the local economy. I have a suspicion that the same might apply to illegal Mexicans in the US, simply because it's individuals (for the most part) making the journey across the Rio Grande - they also leave the biggest part of their social infrastructure at home.
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Originally Posted by Buffness Deluxe
There's an argument that they actually can't work for less than minimum wage without contributing to factors that are detrimental to society. If you are going to avoid ghettos and shantytowns, you need to pay people enough to afford a home, whether they're foreign born or not.
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That's certainly true. But also only if their social infrastructure at home is taken care of. If their family
really suffers at home, and little Pedro needs his school money, and uncle Mendez needs that knee operation, then most of the excess above bare-bones survival will probably get exported back to Mexico. Or am I putting too much trust in human nature? It obviously won't be the rule in all cases. Which brings us back to my initial point - stable, progressive governance in the source country! Even if you
do sit with massive illegal immigration, you have to make sure the source country can look after their own, otherwise the wage bill earned in the host country will simply evaporate accross the border, not being spent locally, not contributing to the economy! Damned if you do, damned if you don't!
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Originally Posted by Her Royal Buffness
This will of course *promote* *permanent* immigration--which means that wages earned here are not shipped home to the mother country and therefore to the *detriment* of that neighboring country, like Mexico, and *force* them to invest!
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I agree, provided that the source country can take care of its own - even in the face of massive illegal emigration. But then again, if they
can actually take care of their people regarding jobs, emigration should taper off.
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Originally Posted by Buffmeisteress
I don't think there's a right answer, but I do believe in creative destruction and the notion that trying something new is a good idea simply because the market has not already discounted its value and thus may lead us to an even higher local minimum....
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Interesting thoughts, interesting thread!
