Where has all the freight gone?

[DooWop]

The freight is gone because since 2000, over 2 MILLION manufacturing jobs have disappeared and they are not coming back!! Added to that is the fact that the deficit is fast approaching the 7% of gross domestic product threshold, and you have a recipe for disaster. Much much more is imported into this country than is exported. That means we lose 7% of our national wealth, so to speak, each year. Just go to a Wal-Mart and damn near everything they sell is made in either China or Mexico. That means JIT manufacturing, on which expediting depends, is not here. More companies will go offshore to produce goods because foreigners in these 3rd world countries, including China, will work 72-84 hours a week for 15-25 cents per hour and no benefits. Speaking of benefits, the pension/health care retiree costs for GM is now greater than the value of that company, ditto for John Deere. The figures for GM that I saw is a capitalization of 22 billion, and pension-health care committments of 23 billion. But I digress...
* Ford recently announced that over the next few years they
would import over 1 BILLION dollars worth of parts from China.

The rich get richer, the guy in the middle gets squeezed harder and harder every day. History has shown that when a democracy's middle class is destroyed (for example, Argentina in the 1900's, Germany in the 1920's) good things do not follow.

Regards,

DooWop

 

[RichM]

Same thing happened to the Romans and Greeks thousands of years ago.They taxed the so called middle class higher and higher to finance their military and expoloration expeditions and finally went under. My Brother in law is general manager of a small company in Georgia that makes caps for who ever might want them.They were ready to fold when UPS came in with a new logo and for puiblicity reasons wanted their new hats manufactured in the US. But as he said to me" there are only 3 manufacturing places left in the US that do this work,everyone else has gone to Hati,Jamica,Mexico etc. Now long haul trucking can still do well taking material and goods to and from Mexico but wait till NAFTA finally kicks in and the Mexican drivers who earn>10 per mile start rolling in this country.
The big problem I see is that heavy manufacturing and the iron and steel industries are shutting down.the time may come when we need 2000 tanks and won!t be able to get the raw materials to build them.
On the other item you mentioned,I was listening to XM, and the same economist who predicted the downfall of Enron and Worldcom is saying Ford is next.Their health insurance and pension costs will do them in in about a year. But airlines file chapter 11 and nothing changes so a company the size of Ford will still chug along.We need in this country more politicians to go out on a limb to protect American workers and the Industries that they are in.Hell other countries slap big tarrifs on imports,we should do the same. One of my sons works for the German container company Hapaug Loyld and he said it!s incredible what comes in vs what leaves.

 

[DooWop]

Rich M... well said. And don't forget the Germans protect their heavy industry. For instance Siemens bought Westinghouse Electric's (rememeber them????) transformer division a few years back. Now in the USA it is very difficult to find a domestic built electric transformer, especially for an industrial facility. The French, for all of their faults, have an extremely long cumbersome process to off load non EU made goods in their country. I have read that it will take sometimes as long as 3 or 4 weeks to get a ship load of overseas goods off loaded into France. This protects their workers and industries. Getting back to Westinghouse, in the 1980's management was not content with the steady 5-7% return on their well made industrial products, so they got a great big idea of investing in real estate, and fell flat on their ugly faces. I have seen first hand the collapse of the steel industry, from almost literally my own front yard. It would seem to me that a coalition of business, labor and government could have upgraded the heavy industries in this country if there had been the political will. Sure, jobs would have been lost as the steel mills needed to be modernized. But I would submit that the social cost in literal terms of dollars and cents over the last quarter century has been far and above that which would needed to have been spent to aid heavy industry!!! It sure seems that economic warfare has been waged on the American middle class to bend, break and ultimately destroy it.

Regards,

DooWop

 

[Marty]

Now that Bush's tax cuts are taking effect has anyone noticed how state and local governments are making up the differences by implymenting higher fees and fines. Tolls in several areas are up. Mass transportation fees in several cities has significantly increased. Congress is talking about increasing the fuel tax by 5 cents. Several states and many local governments are proposing tax increases to make up for cut-backs from the federal government. The list goes on and on and on. Who suffers most from these increases? The lower and middle classes, obviously.
Next year the average Joe will save a few hundred dollars in federal income taxes but someone how makes a million dollars a year will save atleast $93,000. The nation's 400 plus billionaires will all save multimillions each.
The Republican believe that all this money that the rich are saving in taxes will trickle down on the rest of us. We will see. In the meantime we will be picking up the tab for this tax break, one way or the other.

 

[Lawrence]

DooWoop,

Very well said. The IMF and the World Bank is on a mission to "level the playing field" with the less fortunate nations.

Also, you can add almost every major retailer to the list of Wal-Mart serving up goods made in China - have you been to Home Depot lately?

The "recovery" this time around will take twice as long for sure.

Since we are on this subject, download this file that's a ZIP file and opens to Microsoft Power Point. It's different pictures of Intermodal shipments, well worth the download.

http://www.expeditersonline.com/downloads/intermodal.zip

or

http://www.expeditersonline.com/downloads/intermodal.pps

Lawrence,
Expediters Online.com


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On the keyboard of life, always keep
one finger on the escape key.
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[scratchplayer]

I believe the free market system will eventually work everything out, but alot of people will get hurt as we continue to go through this long term correction. Our nation's economy couldn't continue to boom and grow through the roof forever without ever plateauing off for a period of time, or even declining for a period of time, to adjust, absorb a growing population, make technological advances that cost alot in the beginning to invest in (but in time will pay off), and to purge the system of fly-by-night industries such as the internet/stock boom of 2000. I spent some time working in a GE factory where most everybody sat on their butts for 8 hrs. making $24.00+ per hour. The union had it set up so that the workers wouldn't have to run more than 2 machines at a time. Sometimes these machines would only produce product once every 15-20 minutes, so in between that time the employee would be on their butt. Then management said "Look, this is ridiculous, we are wasting so much money with this practice, we are going to have to get more productivity out of each employee (run more machines)." And what did the employee's do?? Go out on strike ("We'll teach that big bad mean company a thing or two"). So now what's happening is that GE is building mfg. plants in China to replace the grossly overpaid workforce that won't do what's right and adjust to the cost demands (the market) of that particular industry. This is an example of the free market system correcting itself, only now it's on a global level. I'm trying not to be a union basher here, but most of these mfg. jobs that are going overseas are leaving from union workforces that insist on being paid astronomical wages and benefits that don't match what the free market system can support for that particular job. These things just can't continue on forever without correcting themselves. Imagine how long you would exist if you demanded $3.00 per mile for every load!!!

Sorry for the novel-
Jeff

 

[RobA]

And don't forget the Germans protect
>their heavy industry. For instance Siemens bought
>Westinghouse Electric's (rememeber them????) transformer
>division a few years back. Now in the USA it is very
>difficult to find a domestic built electric transformer,
>especially for an industrial facility. The French, for all
>of their faults, have an extremely long cumbersome process
>to off load non EU made goods in their country. I have read
>that it will take sometimes as long as 3 or 4 weeks to get a
>ship load of overseas goods off loaded into France. This
>protects their workers and industries.

The French and German economies are stagnating. Much of their factory production is being transfered east to Poland, Hungary, Chezch Repulic etc. They are in worse shape because their work force is heavily unionized, unproductive and aging.
That being said, much of our (North American) is being transfered to the East (Asia) because of corporate greed. Ford for example; has demanded price cuts from their suppliers for several years. Has the price of a car gone down by 15% over the past 5 years?

NAFTA = Canadian Raw materials being processed by Mexican factory workers into things for USA yuppies to buy.