Re: Crownline feels the economic pinch
unfortunately, it works in reverse of the way the govt. (rich fat cats) has told us....
It works both ways and yes the "rich" tend to survive it better, how could they not? They generally have more savings or assets to turn into cash when times go south.
But both ways it does work. When business is good I hire more people which increases employment, taxes etc.
When my taxes are too high the first thing I cut are the costs that I can control. Payroll is on top of that list.
Average income adjusted for cost of living has risen nearly every year... no one has been going backwards except of their own doing.
Higher output = lower costs = more profit = more jobs.
Every manufacturer in this country is facing overseas competition, if you don't keep costs down you're not competitive in the market and you fail.
Look at GM... sold several hundred thousand more cars worldwide this year than Toyota.... GM has lost 47 billion dollars, Toyota earned nearly 30 billion dollars on basically the same revenue... see a problem here? And almost all Toyota's sold in this country are made here.
The difference? Biggest part of it is the UAW and GM's weenie approach to labor and benefit costs in the past.
The same thing happened to our steel industry, ship building industry and soon to our aircraft industry.
While I think "free trade" and agreements like "NAFTA" are partly responsible the other problem is unskilled or semi-skilled workers think they should be living in $250,000 homes and driving $60,000 automobiles.
Cheap imports are good for the same people they hurt, the average joe. Your dollar goes further, you like shopping at walmart or harbor freight etc. but you want to be paid 10 times the wages of the people producing those items to produce similar products here... doesn't work that way and never will.
My "skilled" workers enjoy high pay, live in nice homes, drive nice cars and many send their kids to private school. The assembly line workers do not.
If you want to improve your lot in life then get better skills and elect better government officials who care about this country and not how some third world country who works their citizens at slave labor wages thinks about us.
China has gotten down right rich off of us, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and many other countries have flourished under these agreements.
We've given it too them along with your better pay and benefits because we business owners now have to compete against gov't sponsored companies who pay slave wages and NO benefits other than those provided by their Gov't which amount to next to nothing.
I have a business associate in England... not China who was just told that he's "too old" to qualify for a surgery... and that even if they put him on the "waiting list" he'd likely die before his name came up.... He's coming to MD next week to get the surgery at his expense. Lucky him, he can afford it.
That's govt benefits for you. Talk to some Canadians....
Blaming the people you consider wealthy for your problems is very misguided and fails to consider the cause of your problems (assuming you have any)
Do you realize that over 40% of the people the govt classifies as "impoverished actually own their home? Have more than one car, more than one color TV and more than one computer in their home?
The middle class in most countries that we compete with are in worse shape than what we call "poor"..
Do some travel.... we don't realize how good we have it.
And without the govt trying to prop up the economies of these third world countries by tarrif free trading we're slowing sinking into parity with them.
But the up side is Walmart is cheap...
Sorry for the rant, and definately nothing personal intended, I guess this belongs in a different forum.
