There was just an article in the NYTimes with quotes from Apple executives saying that they can't manufacture in the US because there aren't enough factory workers with the types of technical skills needed to assemble the iphone by hand. What they need is someone who has some engineering skills, but isn't a full fledged engineer, essentially, and that just isn't a class of worker that we are producing, apparantly (Obama even addressed this in the state of the union).
I actually read that article. They didn't actually suggest that the problem is that we don't have workers with "the types of technical skills needed to assemble an iPhone by hand." And trust me, by the way, that there weren't 50,000 people who already knew how to put together an iPhone by hand who were hanging around in Shenzhen hoping that someday someone would show up and offer them a job where they could use their highly technical skill at fitting a glass pane into an aluminum frame to full effect. Regardless of the country, you have to train your workers on how to put together a new product.
What former Apple executives attributed the decision to was supply chain efficiency (most of their parts suppliers are already in Asia) as well as the ability to scale up and down the size of your work force because the labor pool is larger and cheaper. And they describe the folks who actually go about the business of putting the phones together by hand as "semi-skilled" at best. Any technical insight is provided by the industrial engineers who oversee the plant and train the semi-skilled labor on the highly precise process of fitting slot A into port B.
The size of the labor pool also influences the ability to find higher-educated workers. It took Apple a few weeks to find almost 9,000 industrial engineers in China, whereas they estimated that it would take 9 months to find that many engineers in the U.S. Which is not to say that there aren't 9,000 available and qualified engineers in the U.S., mind you, only that it's easier to find that number of engineers who are willing to relocate to a new job within a larger population than in a smaller one.
There's this notion out there prevalent among Americans who have never had to work with their hands for a living that our population isn't skilled enough or flexible enough to keep up with the Chinese. While the flexibility issue is fair -- you can't hope to find 200,000 people who are capable of starting a new job immediately in a population of 307 million the same way you can expect the same thing in a population of 1.3 billion -- the fact is that we absolutely have millions of Americans here who are smart enough to put together an electrical component by hand provided someone shows them how a couple of times. The problem is that none of us can afford to do that job for $15/day.
There was just an article in the NYTimes with quotes from Apple executives saying that they can't manufacture in the US because there aren't enough factory workers with the types of technical skills needed to assemble the iphone by hand. What they need is someone who has some engineering skills, but isn't a full fledged engineer, essentially, and that just isn't a class of worker that we are producing, apparantly (Obama even addressed this in the state of the union).
I actually read that article. They didn't actually suggest that the problem is that we don't have workers with "the types of technical skills needed to assemble an iPhone by hand." And trust me, by the way, that there weren't 50,000 people who already knew how to put together an iPhone by hand who were hanging around in Shenzhen hoping that someday someone would show up and offer them a job where they could use their highly technical skill at fitting a glass pane into an aluminum frame to full effect. Regardless of the country, you have to train your workers on how to put together a new product.
What former Apple executives attributed the decision to was supply chain efficiency (most of their parts suppliers are already in Asia) as well as the ability to scale up and down the size of your work force because the labor pool is larger and cheaper. And they describe the folks who actually go about the business of putting the phones together by hand as "semi-skilled" at best. Any technical insight is provided by the industrial engineers who oversee the plant and train the semi-skilled labor on the highly precise process of fitting slot A into port B.
The size of the labor pool also influences the ability to find higher-educated workers. It took Apple a few weeks to find almost 9,000 industrial engineers in China, whereas they estimated that it would take 9 months to find that many engineers in the U.S. Which is not to say that there aren't 9,000 available and qualified engineers in the U.S., mind you, only that it's easier to find that number of engineers who are willing to relocate to a new job within a larger population than in a smaller one.
There's this notion out there prevalent among Americans who have never had to work with their hands for a living that our population isn't skilled enough or flexible enough to keep up with the Chinese. While the flexibility issue is fair -- you can't hope to find 200,000 people who are capable of starting a new job immediately in a population of 307 million the same way you can expect the same thing in a population of 1.3 billion -- the fact is that we absolutely have millions of Americans here who are smart enough to put together an electrical component by hand provided someone shows them how a couple of times. The problem is that none of us can afford to do that job for $15/day.
So is the main problem supply chain efficiency or cheaper labor?
There was just an article in the NYTimes with quotes from Apple executives saying that they can't manufacture in the US because there aren't enough factory workers with the types of technical skills needed to assemble the iphone by hand. What they need is someone who has some engineering skills, but isn't a full fledged engineer, essentially, and that just isn't a class of worker that we are producing, apparantly (Obama even addressed this in the state of the union).
I actually read that article. They didn't actually suggest that the problem is that we don't have workers with "the types of technical skills needed to assemble an iPhone by hand." And trust me, by the way, that there weren't 50,000 people who already knew how to put together an iPhone by hand who were hanging around in Shenzhen hoping that someday someone would show up and offer them a job where they could use their highly technical skill at fitting a glass pane into an aluminum frame to full effect. Regardless of the country, you have to train your workers on how to put together a new product.
What former Apple executives attributed the decision to was supply chain efficiency (most of their parts suppliers are already in Asia) as well as the ability to scale up and down the size of your work force because the labor pool is larger and cheaper. And they describe the folks who actually go about the business of putting the phones together by hand as "semi-skilled" at best. Any technical insight is provided by the industrial engineers who oversee the plant and train the semi-skilled labor on the highly precise process of fitting slot A into port B.
The size of the labor pool also influences the ability to find higher-educated workers. It took Apple a few weeks to find almost 9,000 industrial engineers in China, whereas they estimated that it would take 9 months to find that many engineers in the U.S. Which is not to say that there aren't 9,000 available and qualified engineers in the U.S., mind you, only that it's easier to find that number of engineers who are willing to relocate to a new job within a larger population than in a smaller one.
There's this notion out there prevalent among Americans who have never had to work with their hands for a living that our population isn't skilled enough or flexible enough to keep up with the Chinese. While the flexibility issue is fair -- you can't hope to find 200,000 people who are capable of starting a new job immediately in a population of 307 million the same way you can expect the same thing in a population of 1.3 billion -- the fact is that we absolutely have millions of Americans here who are smart enough to put together an electrical component by hand provided someone shows them how a couple of times. The problem is that none of us can afford to do that job for $15/day.
So is the main problem supply chain efficiency or cheaper labor?
The two problems go hand-in-hand. If several of your parts suppliers build their own factories in Asia to chase the cheap labor market, it can become more efficient for you to move your own assembly line to Asia in order to shorten the logistical supply chain. But cheap labor is the precipitating factor, and supply line efficiency is why it's so hard to get those jobs back once enough of them are gone.
edit: My ultimate point, though, is that you can't wave your hand at the decline of American manufacturing and ascribe its problems to an undertrained workforce. You can't train up an American worker to the point where he's suddenly cost-competitive again with a worker from a region of the world where both the cost of living and the standard of living are far below what we consider the norm here in the States. And no matter how much you train a manufacturing worker, it won't shorten the distance and time it takes to ship a component from the U.S. to Asia and back again.
There was just an article in the NYTimes with quotes from Apple executives saying that they can't manufacture in the US because there aren't enough factory workers with the types of technical skills needed to assemble the iphone by hand. What they need is someone who has some engineering skills, but isn't a full fledged engineer, essentially, and that just isn't a class of worker that we are producing, apparantly (Obama even addressed this in the state of the union).
I actually read that article. They didn't actually suggest that the problem is that we don't have workers with "the types of technical skills needed to assemble an iPhone by hand." And trust me, by the way, that there weren't 50,000 people who already knew how to put together an iPhone by hand who were hanging around in Shenzhen hoping that someday someone would show up and offer them a job where they could use their highly technical skill at fitting a glass pane into an aluminum frame to full effect. Regardless of the country, you have to train your workers on how to put together a new product.
What former Apple executives attributed the decision to was supply chain efficiency (most of their parts suppliers are already in Asia) as well as the ability to scale up and down the size of your work force because the labor pool is larger and cheaper. And they describe the folks who actually go about the business of putting the phones together by hand as "semi-skilled" at best. Any technical insight is provided by the industrial engineers who oversee the plant and train the semi-skilled labor on the highly precise process of fitting slot A into port B.
The size of the labor pool also influences the ability to find higher-educated workers. It took Apple a few weeks to find almost 9,000 industrial engineers in China, whereas they estimated that it would take 9 months to find that many engineers in the U.S. Which is not to say that there aren't 9,000 available and qualified engineers in the U.S., mind you, only that it's easier to find that number of engineers who are willing to relocate to a new job within a larger population than in a smaller one.
There's this notion out there prevalent among Americans who have never had to work with their hands for a living that our population isn't skilled enough or flexible enough to keep up with the Chinese. While the flexibility issue is fair -- you can't hope to find 200,000 people who are capable of starting a new job immediately in a population of 307 million the same way you can expect the same thing in a population of 1.3 billion -- the fact is that we absolutely have millions of Americans here who are smart enough to put together an electrical component by hand provided someone shows them how a couple of times. The problem is that none of us can afford to do that job for $15/day.
So is the main problem supply chain efficiency or cheaper labor?
The two problems go hand-in-hand. If several of your parts suppliers build their own factories in Asia to chase the cheap labor market, it can become more efficient for you to move your own assembly line to Asia in order to shorten the logistical supply chain. But cheap labor is the precipitating factor, and supply line efficiency is why it's so hard to get those jobs back once enough of them are gone.
edit: My ultimate point, though, is that you can't wave your hand at the decline of American manufacturing and ascribe its problems to an undertrained workforce. You can't train up an American worker to the point where he's suddenly cost-competitive again with a worker from a region of the world where both the cost of living and the standard of living are far below what we consider the norm here in the States. And no matter how much you train a manufacturing worker, it won't shorten the distance and time it takes to ship a component from the U.S. to Asia and back again.
Then Tarriff the company like Brazil did Apple for many years - and watch Foxconn turn from slave runner into "Union Supporting Good Guy." (They Actually brought a Foxconn Branded plant to Brazil.)
There was just an article in the NYTimes with quotes from Apple executives saying that they can't manufacture in the US because there aren't enough factory workers with the types of technical skills needed to assemble the iphone by hand. What they need is someone who has some engineering skills, but isn't a full fledged engineer, essentially, and that just isn't a class of worker that we are producing, apparantly (Obama even addressed this in the state of the union).
I actually read that article. They didn't actually suggest that the problem is that we don't have workers with "the types of technical skills needed to assemble an iPhone by hand." And trust me, by the way, that there weren't 50,000 people who already knew how to put together an iPhone by hand who were hanging around in Shenzhen hoping that someday someone would show up and offer them a job where they could use their highly technical skill at fitting a glass pane into an aluminum frame to full effect. Regardless of the country, you have to train your workers on how to put together a new product.
What former Apple executives attributed the decision to was supply chain efficiency (most of their parts suppliers are already in Asia) as well as the ability to scale up and down the size of your work force because the labor pool is larger and cheaper. And they describe the folks who actually go about the business of putting the phones together by hand as "semi-skilled" at best. Any technical insight is provided by the industrial engineers who oversee the plant and train the semi-skilled labor on the highly precise process of fitting slot A into port B.
The size of the labor pool also influences the ability to find higher-educated workers. It took Apple a few weeks to find almost 9,000 industrial engineers in China, whereas they estimated that it would take 9 months to find that many engineers in the U.S. Which is not to say that there aren't 9,000 available and qualified engineers in the U.S., mind you, only that it's easier to find that number of engineers who are willing to relocate to a new job within a larger population than in a smaller one.
There's this notion out there prevalent among Americans who have never had to work with their hands for a living that our population isn't skilled enough or flexible enough to keep up with the Chinese. While the flexibility issue is fair -- you can't hope to find 200,000 people who are capable of starting a new job immediately in a population of 307 million the same way you can expect the same thing in a population of 1.3 billion -- the fact is that we absolutely have millions of Americans here who are smart enough to put together an electrical component by hand provided someone shows them how a couple of times. The problem is that none of us can afford to do that job for $15/day.
From the NYTimes article:
Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.
Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.
Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.
“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”
I also hear from many business leaders who want to hire in the United
States but can't find workers with the right skills. Growing
industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we
have workers who can do the job. Think about that – openings at a
time when millions of Americans are looking for work.
Supply chain, cost, scale, labor laws, etc definitely factor in here too, but I don't think it is deniable that the American workforce needs to be retrained, or produce different types of workers, if we want manufacturing jobs back. All the tax breaks, tariffs and incentives in the world won't make companies manufacture in the US if the workforce can't provide what they need.
Supply chain, cost, scale, labor laws, etc definitely factor in here too, but I don't think it is deniable that the American workforce needs to be retrained, or produce different types of workers, if we want manufacturing jobs back. All the tax breaks, tariffs and incentives in the world won't make companies manufacture in the US if the workforce can't provide what they need.
Again though, these issues go hand in hand.
The lack of current manufacturing is why a shortage of those trained workers exist.
Yes. They're claiming that people don't have the right skills. The thing is, these executives are known to lie.
Also if you read the article, "speed and flexibility" is shorthand for "these workers let us fuck them over for little pay". The example they use is Jobs deciding he wants a different screen, so they kick all the workers out of their company-owned dorms to spend an extra 12 hour midnight shift installing glass.
Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.
Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.
Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.
“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need."
Do you notice, though, how no one can describe what "the skills we need" are? Or how the associate provost at MIT can say there's a skillset somewhere between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree, but he can't actually describe it or why that skillset can't be taught as part of an employer's on-the-job training? The only concrete example those Apple executives can give about how the Chinese labor market is different from the American labor market is that in China they can wake workers up in the company dorms at midnight and force them onto a 12-hour shift if a part comes in after-hours.
Or how the associate provost at MIT can say there's a skillset somewhere between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree, but he can't actually describe it or why that skillset can't be taught as part of an employer's on-the-job training? The only concrete example those Apple executives can give about how the Chinese labor market is different from the American labor market is that in China they can wake workers up in the company dorms at midnight and force them onto a 12-hour shift if a part comes in after-hours.
Nobody does on-the-job training in the US anymore. sounds almost communist, in fact...
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.
Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.
Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.
“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need."
Do you notice, though, how no one can describe what "the skills we need" are? Or how the associate provost at MIT can say there's a skillset somewhere between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree, but he can't actually describe it or why that skillset can't be taught as part of an employer's on-the-job training? The only concrete example those Apple executives can give about how the Chinese labor market is different from the American labor market is that in China they can wake workers up in the company dorms at midnight and force them onto a 12-hour shift if a part comes in after-hours.
I think your conclusion depends on the assumption that there is no actual skillset at issue. Maybe that is true, and maybe it isn't, but there is nothing in the article to suggest it is the case. It isn't fair to conclude that a question which is not addressed in the article must be one which is not susceptible to an answer.
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
Yes. They're claiming that people don't have the right skills. The thing is, these executives are known to lie.
Bingo. I've thought for years that we should tax foreign companies at a much higher rate than domestic companies. And I only count domestic companies as companies who both have their headquarters here, and have 75% or more of their workforce here. That would take care of all that outsourcing nonsense. And don't tell me it's not that simple. Or I'll get my cane.
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
Do you notice, though, how no one can describe what "the skills we need" are? Or how the associate provost at MIT can say there's a skillset somewhere between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree, but he can't actually describe it or why that skillset can't be taught as part of an employer's on-the-job training?
Trade skills.
There's a bunch of small manufacturers near where I live that are looking for skilled workers but the skills they need are things like "sheet metal fabricator with experience in stainless steel welding" and "glass etcher/cutter with experience in grinding machines". They've been looking for months but they haven't found anyone yet because there aren't any welders or people who know how to use a drill press, etc. And the jobs aren't bad jobs, either. $20-30 an hour.
I'll bet one of the reasons why China is so attractive (aside from dirt-cheap labor costs) is that there's less stigma attached to becoming an electrician or machinist than there is in the US. Almost no one encourages their kid to be a welder, even though there are plenty of high-paying jobs for welders. What few vocational schools there are around here focus mainly on hair styling, cooking, or business. Not a carpentry or tool and die class among them.
Yes. They're claiming that people don't have the right skills. The thing is, these executives are known to lie.
I hope that someday the population at large will realize that business executives are lying sacks of shit. They have a fiduciary duty to their company to lie as much as possible. They do not have the best interests of America (or any country) at stake- all they want to do is line their own pockets and those of their employer. They will never, every admit something like "yeah we could hire an extra hundred thousands workers here if we wanted to but... we'd rather just keep the money for ourselves". They love blaming it on "education" because that makes it sound like it's the workers' own fault for being too dumb to do the jobs.
America has the highest educated work-force on the entire planet. If workers here are too dumb to do the job, I doubt that Chinese peasants are going to do it better.
In most countries, you have strong employment laws which contain substantive protections for workers, like mandatory severance and protection from layoffs, and weak unions. In America, we have weak employment laws and strong unions. The result is that in other countries, workers enjoy lots of protections, and noone really minds the unions, which represent the interests of their members in a variety of ways. In America, most workers have very poor protections, since they are not represented by unions, and everyone hates the unions and wants to avoid having restrictive contracts which their competitors are not encumbered by.
This is simply untrue on every level.
Wait, what?
"Every level" might have been a bit of a stretch.
How about we agree that just the bolded part is 'simply untrue'.
In most countries, you have strong employment laws which contain substantive protections for workers, like mandatory severance and protection from layoffs, and weak unions. In America, we have weak employment laws and strong unions. The result is that in other countries, workers enjoy lots of protections, and noone really minds the unions, which represent the interests of their members in a variety of ways. In America, most workers have very poor protections, since they are not represented by unions, and everyone hates the unions and wants to avoid having restrictive contracts which their competitors are not encumbered by.
This is simply untrue on every level.
Wait, what?
"Every level" might have been a bit of a stretch.
How about we agree that just the bolded part is 'simply untrue'.
It's the "other countries have weak unions, America has strong unions" part that really bothers me.
Other countries have strong worker protection laws because they have strong unions.
The unions in America have, for the most part, been completely neutered.
Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.
Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.
Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.
“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need."
Do you notice, though, how no one can describe what "the skills we need" are? Or how the associate provost at MIT can say there's a skillset somewhere between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree, but he can't actually describe it or why that skillset can't be taught as part of an employer's on-the-job training? The only concrete example those Apple executives can give about how the Chinese labor market is different from the American labor market is that in China they can wake workers up in the company dorms at midnight and force them onto a 12-hour shift if a part comes in after-hours.
I think your conclusion depends on the assumption that there is no actual skillset at issue. Maybe that is true, and maybe it isn't, but there is nothing in the article to suggest it is the case. It isn't fair to conclude that a question which is not addressed in the article must be one which is not susceptible to an answer.
The sort of task self-reported by Foxconn workers in "The agony and the ecstasy of Steve Jobs" revolves along the lines of wiping off the screens of iPhones by hand. So, yeah, at this point if someone wants to rationalize why they can't give an American a job by saying that there aren't Americans who have these skills, I think the burden of proof is on them to explain precisely what these skills are, why you can't be expected to learn them with only a high school diploma, and why anyone who does have some college level math or science classes is somehow also not qualified.
If for no other fucking reason than how the fuck are we supposed to restructure our education system to teach this particular skillset if no one is going to articulate what it is.
SammyF on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Though Americans are among the most educated workers in the world, the nation has stopped training enough people in the mid-level skills that factories need, executives say.
Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said.
Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.
“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need."
Do you notice, though, how no one can describe what "the skills we need" are? Or how the associate provost at MIT can say there's a skillset somewhere between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree, but he can't actually describe it or why that skillset can't be taught as part of an employer's on-the-job training? The only concrete example those Apple executives can give about how the Chinese labor market is different from the American labor market is that in China they can wake workers up in the company dorms at midnight and force them onto a 12-hour shift if a part comes in after-hours.
I think your conclusion depends on the assumption that there is no actual skillset at issue. Maybe that is true, and maybe it isn't, but there is nothing in the article to suggest it is the case. It isn't fair to conclude that a question which is not addressed in the article must be one which is not susceptible to an answer.
The sort of task self-reported by Foxconn workers in "The agony and the ecstasy of Steve Jobs" revolves along the lines of wiping off the screens of iPhones by hand. So, yeah, at this point if someone wants to rationalize why they can't give an American a job by saying that there aren't Americans who have these skills, I think the burden of proof is on them to explain precisely what these skills are, why you can't be expected to learn them with only a high school diploma, and why anyone who does have some college level math or science classes is somehow also not qualified.
If for no other fucking reason than how the fuck are we supposed to restructure our education system to teach this particular skillset if no one is going to articulate what it is.
Won't we find out what these skills are if the retraining plan Obama mentioned goes into effect?
My grandfather was very intelligent, and probably could have been an engineer. Instead, he became a tool and die worker and produced the tools needed to build airplanes. He made a good living, but it was a blue collar job. I think this kind of skilled labor might be what we don't have enough of, due to the decline of the vocational school.
...taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.
Uh, just because something is the average rate for taxpayers in a certain bracket doesn't mean that every taxpayer in that bracket pays that rate. How did that enormous hole slip past the editor?
Uh, just because something is the average rate for taxpayers in a certain bracket doesn't mean that every taxpayer in that bracket pays that rate. How did that enormous hole slip past the editor?
I'm guessing because most newspapers are run by idiots.
...taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.
Maybe it wasn't such an awesome idea for Obama to put her front and center for the speech.
I think everyone knew she made a ton of money. And Obama's beef has never really been with people who make money, especially not six figures, and especially not when it's actually taxed as income and not all capital gains, or kept offshore so it isn't taxed at all.
Uh, just because something is the average rate for taxpayers in a certain bracket doesn't mean that every taxpayer in that bracket pays that rate. How did that enormous hole slip past the editor?
I'm guessing because most newspapers are run by idiots.
In this case it's Forbes, so it's blatant right wing shilling.
But still, the point is not that the secretary is poor (that would make Buffet kind of a gigantic asshole). The point is she's paying a higher rate than her boss, who is one of the 2 or 3 richest men in the nation.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
...taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.
Maybe it wasn't such an awesome idea for Obama to put her front and center for the speech.
I think everyone knew she made a ton of money. And Obama's beef has never really been with people who make money, especially not six figures, and especially not when it's actually taxed as income and not all capital gains, or kept offshore so it isn't taxed at all.
Yeah, I think the point is to say "Rich guy pays less than secretary" and let average people draw their own conclusions, without mentioning that the secretary is also raking in mad dough. Obama's policy seems likely to raise the tax rate paid by the secretary even as he argues that she pays too much.
I mean, he could have said "I want to raise the tax rate Warren Buffet's secretary pays, but I want to raise Buffet's even more!" But he didn't come anywhere near that more genuine construction.
The argument is not, and has never been, that Warren Buffet's secretary's tax rate is too high. Nobody has ever said that. The issue is that her boss, who makes far more money than she does, pays a smaller portion of his income in taxes, which kind of defeats the point of a progressive income taxation system.
...taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.
Maybe it wasn't such an awesome idea for Obama to put her front and center for the speech.
I think everyone knew she made a ton of money. And Obama's beef has never really been with people who make money, especially not six figures, and especially not when it's actually taxed as income and not all capital gains, or kept offshore so it isn't taxed at all.
Yeah, I think the point is to say "Rich guy pays less than secretary" and let average people draw their own conclusions, without mentioning that the secretary is also raking in mad dough. Obama's policy seems likely to raise the tax rate paid by the secretary even as he argues that she pays too much.
I mean, he could have said "I want to raise the tax rate Warren Buffet's secretary pays, but I want to raise Buffet's even more!" But he didn't come anywhere near that more genuine construction.
But the message has always been that Buffet pays too little, which makes her income a completely meaningless distinction, as long as she makes a small fraction of what he does.
The argument is not, and has never been, that Warren Buffet's secretary's tax rate is too high. Nobody has ever said that. The issue is that her boss, who makes far more money than she does, pays a smaller portion of his income in taxes, which kind of defeats the point of a progressive income taxation system.
Oh gosh no, no one has ever drawn a comparison between Fabulously Wealthy Plutocrat and his secretary, and let people fill in the blanks themselves.
Also, he doesn't pay a smaller portion of his income. Please be correct.
The argument is not, and has never been, that Warren Buffet's secretary's tax rate is too high. Nobody has ever said that. The issue is that her boss, who makes far more money than she does, pays a smaller portion of his income in taxes, which kind of defeats the point of a progressive income taxation system.
Oh gosh no, no one has ever drawn a comparison between Fabulously Wealthy Plutocrat and his secretary, and let people fill in the blanks themselves.
You said Obama argues that Warren Buffet's secretary pays too much in taxes. That's complete bullshit.
Also, he doesn't pay a smaller portion of his income. Please be correct.
Be correct yourself. He does not pay a smaller amount of money in taxes. He does pay a smaller portion of his income in taxes, because a portion is the same as a percentage.
If the secratary is making money from capital gains + earned income, then yes, her taxes might be raised if Obama can harmonize the two tax rates. But that's kind of beside the point, since the underlying point that Obama, Buffet, Gates, and the rest of us are making is that 15% is far too low of a tax rate on capital gains that makes up the bulk of the super-rich's income.
Here's the full transcript of the taxation section wherein Buffet is mentioned:
Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let's agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.
When it comes to the deficit, we've already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more, and that means making choices. Right now, we're poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else - like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we're serious about paying down our debt, we can't do both.
The American people know what the right choice is. So do I. As I told the Speaker this summer, I'm prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors.
But in return, we need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of Members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes. Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you're earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn't get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn't go up. You're the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You're the ones who need relief.
Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.
We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich. It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference - like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That's not right. Americans know it's not right. They know that this generation's success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country's future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That's how we'll reduce our deficit. That's an America built to last.
His point is that the rich have managed to game the system so that they pay a lower rate than those who make less than them. Including large portions of the real middle class, which I will admit Warren Buffet's personal secretary is probably not one of. But that's an irrelevant distraction from the actual point, because you cannot argue the point that it's not fair for Mitt Romney to pay 13.9% (for no work!) when a teacher from Michigan is paying 25% (with payroll) without coming off like a bunch of assholes. So I'm sure y'all will try to distract from the basic argument with anything that sticks, because this is not something you're interested in addressing.
The tax code, much like most of our political life, is absolutely rigged. It's time to fix it.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
Oh, the thing about finally getting around to prosecuting fraud? It's going to be headed by the Attorney General of New York, who has been fighting the administration tooth and claw for a more severe punishment for the banks in civil cases against them.
Yes. They're claiming that people don't have the right skills. The thing is, these executives are known to lie.
do you know anyone who has a technical vocational degree? i don't.
i know loads of university-trained engineers who expect to have a white-collar job until they retire, but i don't know a single person who expects to work in a non-managerial technical manufacturing capability.
america just isn't generating a whole lot of these people, it seems.
OK guys. If you don't believe that Obama is intentionally painting a different rhetorical picture than that, I guess I'll step out again. I applaud your dedication to ignoring overtones and suggestive phrasing, and listening only to the literal words.
I hope this attitude will continue and be evenly applied to both candidates in the general. A forum without "what he really means is..." will be welcome and refreshing.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
OK guys. If you don't believe that Obama is intentionally painting a different rhetorical picture than that, I guess I'll step out again. I applaud your dedication to ignoring overtones and suggestive phrasing, and listening only to the literal words.
I hope this attitude will continue and be evenly applied to both candidates in the general. A forum without "what he really means is..." will be welcome and refreshing.
Come back when you learn what a progressive tax system actually is. Also, being condescending while wrong is hilariously pathetic.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
This is how many pages now of spool not knowing the difference between tax dollars and tax rates?
Oh, the thing about finally getting around to prosecuting fraud? It's going to be headed by the Attorney General of New York, who has been fighting the administration tooth and claw for a more severe punishment for the banks in civil cases against them.
Yes. They're claiming that people don't have the right skills. The thing is, these executives are known to lie.
do you know anyone who has a technical vocational degree? i don't.
i know loads of university-trained engineers who expect to have a white-collar job until they retire, but i don't know a single person who expects to work in a non-managerial technical manufacturing capability.
america just isn't generating a whole lot of these people, it seems.
1) Why'd you quote me?
2) That's a confirmation bias thing. We on this forum mostly know people who went to liberal arts or engineering schools, I'm guessing.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
This is how many pages now of spool not knowing the difference between tax dollars and tax rates?
He knows the difference perfectly well. Like every "conservative" shill these days, he's pretending not to because it distracts from the argument he can't win.
I'm kind of wondering if this Debbie Bosanek woman is actually a secretary in the usual meaning of the word. Like, is her job really just to schedule meetings and stuff for Warren Buffet? And he, a man who is fabulously stingy with his money, pays her half a million for that? I'm guessing she's more like a standard business executive and the title "secretary" is somewhat ironic.
Still bullshit that she pays a higher tax rate than him, though.
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Sure, but the point remains that the German model for manufacturing isn't dependent on the euro to work. It just works alot better with the euro.
I actually read that article. They didn't actually suggest that the problem is that we don't have workers with "the types of technical skills needed to assemble an iPhone by hand." And trust me, by the way, that there weren't 50,000 people who already knew how to put together an iPhone by hand who were hanging around in Shenzhen hoping that someday someone would show up and offer them a job where they could use their highly technical skill at fitting a glass pane into an aluminum frame to full effect. Regardless of the country, you have to train your workers on how to put together a new product.
What former Apple executives attributed the decision to was supply chain efficiency (most of their parts suppliers are already in Asia) as well as the ability to scale up and down the size of your work force because the labor pool is larger and cheaper. And they describe the folks who actually go about the business of putting the phones together by hand as "semi-skilled" at best. Any technical insight is provided by the industrial engineers who oversee the plant and train the semi-skilled labor on the highly precise process of fitting slot A into port B.
The size of the labor pool also influences the ability to find higher-educated workers. It took Apple a few weeks to find almost 9,000 industrial engineers in China, whereas they estimated that it would take 9 months to find that many engineers in the U.S. Which is not to say that there aren't 9,000 available and qualified engineers in the U.S., mind you, only that it's easier to find that number of engineers who are willing to relocate to a new job within a larger population than in a smaller one.
There's this notion out there prevalent among Americans who have never had to work with their hands for a living that our population isn't skilled enough or flexible enough to keep up with the Chinese. While the flexibility issue is fair -- you can't hope to find 200,000 people who are capable of starting a new job immediately in a population of 307 million the same way you can expect the same thing in a population of 1.3 billion -- the fact is that we absolutely have millions of Americans here who are smart enough to put together an electrical component by hand provided someone shows them how a couple of times. The problem is that none of us can afford to do that job for $15/day.
So is the main problem supply chain efficiency or cheaper labor?
The two problems go hand-in-hand. If several of your parts suppliers build their own factories in Asia to chase the cheap labor market, it can become more efficient for you to move your own assembly line to Asia in order to shorten the logistical supply chain. But cheap labor is the precipitating factor, and supply line efficiency is why it's so hard to get those jobs back once enough of them are gone.
edit: My ultimate point, though, is that you can't wave your hand at the decline of American manufacturing and ascribe its problems to an undertrained workforce. You can't train up an American worker to the point where he's suddenly cost-competitive again with a worker from a region of the world where both the cost of living and the standard of living are far below what we consider the norm here in the States. And no matter how much you train a manufacturing worker, it won't shorten the distance and time it takes to ship a component from the U.S. to Asia and back again.
Then Tarriff the company like Brazil did Apple for many years - and watch Foxconn turn from slave runner into "Union Supporting Good Guy." (They Actually brought a Foxconn Branded plant to Brazil.)
From the NYTimes article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=all
State of the Union:
Supply chain, cost, scale, labor laws, etc definitely factor in here too, but I don't think it is deniable that the American workforce needs to be retrained, or produce different types of workers, if we want manufacturing jobs back. All the tax breaks, tariffs and incentives in the world won't make companies manufacture in the US if the workforce can't provide what they need.
Again though, these issues go hand in hand.
The lack of current manufacturing is why a shortage of those trained workers exist.
Also if you read the article, "speed and flexibility" is shorthand for "these workers let us fuck them over for little pay". The example they use is Jobs deciding he wants a different screen, so they kick all the workers out of their company-owned dorms to spend an extra 12 hour midnight shift installing glass.
Do you notice, though, how no one can describe what "the skills we need" are? Or how the associate provost at MIT can say there's a skillset somewhere between a high school diploma and a bachelor's degree, but he can't actually describe it or why that skillset can't be taught as part of an employer's on-the-job training? The only concrete example those Apple executives can give about how the Chinese labor market is different from the American labor market is that in China they can wake workers up in the company dorms at midnight and force them onto a 12-hour shift if a part comes in after-hours.
Nobody does on-the-job training in the US anymore. sounds almost communist, in fact...
I think your conclusion depends on the assumption that there is no actual skillset at issue. Maybe that is true, and maybe it isn't, but there is nothing in the article to suggest it is the case. It isn't fair to conclude that a question which is not addressed in the article must be one which is not susceptible to an answer.
Bingo. I've thought for years that we should tax foreign companies at a much higher rate than domestic companies. And I only count domestic companies as companies who both have their headquarters here, and have 75% or more of their workforce here. That would take care of all that outsourcing nonsense. And don't tell me it's not that simple. Or I'll get my cane.
Trade skills.
There's a bunch of small manufacturers near where I live that are looking for skilled workers but the skills they need are things like "sheet metal fabricator with experience in stainless steel welding" and "glass etcher/cutter with experience in grinding machines". They've been looking for months but they haven't found anyone yet because there aren't any welders or people who know how to use a drill press, etc. And the jobs aren't bad jobs, either. $20-30 an hour.
I'll bet one of the reasons why China is so attractive (aside from dirt-cheap labor costs) is that there's less stigma attached to becoming an electrician or machinist than there is in the US. Almost no one encourages their kid to be a welder, even though there are plenty of high-paying jobs for welders. What few vocational schools there are around here focus mainly on hair styling, cooking, or business. Not a carpentry or tool and die class among them.
I hope that someday the population at large will realize that business executives are lying sacks of shit. They have a fiduciary duty to their company to lie as much as possible. They do not have the best interests of America (or any country) at stake- all they want to do is line their own pockets and those of their employer. They will never, every admit something like "yeah we could hire an extra hundred thousands workers here if we wanted to but... we'd rather just keep the money for ourselves". They love blaming it on "education" because that makes it sound like it's the workers' own fault for being too dumb to do the jobs.
America has the highest educated work-force on the entire planet. If workers here are too dumb to do the job, I doubt that Chinese peasants are going to do it better.
"Every level" might have been a bit of a stretch.
How about we agree that just the bolded part is 'simply untrue'.
It's the "other countries have weak unions, America has strong unions" part that really bothers me.
Other countries have strong worker protection laws because they have strong unions.
The unions in America have, for the most part, been completely neutered.
The sort of task self-reported by Foxconn workers in "The agony and the ecstasy of Steve Jobs" revolves along the lines of wiping off the screens of iPhones by hand. So, yeah, at this point if someone wants to rationalize why they can't give an American a job by saying that there aren't Americans who have these skills, I think the burden of proof is on them to explain precisely what these skills are, why you can't be expected to learn them with only a high school diploma, and why anyone who does have some college level math or science classes is somehow also not qualified.
If for no other fucking reason than how the fuck are we supposed to restructure our education system to teach this particular skillset if no one is going to articulate what it is.
Won't we find out what these skills are if the retraining plan Obama mentioned goes into effect?
My grandfather was very intelligent, and probably could have been an engineer. Instead, he became a tool and die worker and produced the tools needed to build airplanes. He made a good living, but it was a blue collar job. I think this kind of skilled labor might be what we don't have enough of, due to the decline of the vocational school.
Buffet's secretary makes a lot more money than you.
She just bought a second home, too!
Maybe it wasn't such an awesome idea for Obama to put her front and center for the speech.
your head.
I'm guessing because most newspapers are run by idiots.
I think everyone knew she made a ton of money. And Obama's beef has never really been with people who make money, especially not six figures, and especially not when it's actually taxed as income and not all capital gains, or kept offshore so it isn't taxed at all.
In this case it's Forbes, so it's blatant right wing shilling.
But still, the point is not that the secretary is poor (that would make Buffet kind of a gigantic asshole). The point is she's paying a higher rate than her boss, who is one of the 2 or 3 richest men in the nation.
Yeah, I think the point is to say "Rich guy pays less than secretary" and let average people draw their own conclusions, without mentioning that the secretary is also raking in mad dough. Obama's policy seems likely to raise the tax rate paid by the secretary even as he argues that she pays too much.
I mean, he could have said "I want to raise the tax rate Warren Buffet's secretary pays, but I want to raise Buffet's even more!" But he didn't come anywhere near that more genuine construction.
But the message has always been that Buffet pays too little, which makes her income a completely meaningless distinction, as long as she makes a small fraction of what he does.
Oh gosh no, no one has ever drawn a comparison between Fabulously Wealthy Plutocrat and his secretary, and let people fill in the blanks themselves.
Also, he doesn't pay a smaller portion of his income. Please be correct.
Be correct yourself. He does not pay a smaller amount of money in taxes. He does pay a smaller portion of his income in taxes, because a portion is the same as a percentage.
His point is that the rich have managed to game the system so that they pay a lower rate than those who make less than them. Including large portions of the real middle class, which I will admit Warren Buffet's personal secretary is probably not one of. But that's an irrelevant distraction from the actual point, because you cannot argue the point that it's not fair for Mitt Romney to pay 13.9% (for no work!) when a teacher from Michigan is paying 25% (with payroll) without coming off like a bunch of assholes. So I'm sure y'all will try to distract from the basic argument with anything that sticks, because this is not something you're interested in addressing.
The tax code, much like most of our political life, is absolutely rigged. It's time to fix it.
do you know anyone who has a technical vocational degree? i don't.
i know loads of university-trained engineers who expect to have a white-collar job until they retire, but i don't know a single person who expects to work in a non-managerial technical manufacturing capability.
america just isn't generating a whole lot of these people, it seems.
I hope this attitude will continue and be evenly applied to both candidates in the general. A forum without "what he really means is..." will be welcome and refreshing.
Come back when you learn what a progressive tax system actually is. Also, being condescending while wrong is hilariously pathetic.
1) Why'd you quote me?
2) That's a confirmation bias thing. We on this forum mostly know people who went to liberal arts or engineering schools, I'm guessing.
He knows the difference perfectly well. Like every "conservative" shill these days, he's pretending not to because it distracts from the argument he can't win.
Still bullshit that she pays a higher tax rate than him, though.