By: Roger Knight

Roger Knight — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 03:51:34 +0000

The American people are sick and tired of our jobs being shipped overseas for cheap labor.
The argument I am so tired of hearing is that for every 5 jobs shipped overseas for cheap labor, we develop 6 new and better jobs!
That makes about as much sense as the proposition that flushing a toilet in London, England affects the water quality in Perth, Australia.
But after thinking about for a few decades, I think this is how it works:
We got a little factory in the United States manufacturing tangible things for which there is a market. We can call the product “widgets”. This factory employs 400 blue collar workers actually making the widgets, and about 100 white collar folks: A big boss, a dozen or so little bosses, some engineers, a sales staff, payroll department, a few personnel weanies, and a lawyer or two.
500 good paying family wage jobs.
However, some number crunchers at Corporate Headquarters 600 miles away decides that it would be cheaper to make the same widgets in China and ship them to their markets in the US and elsewhere.
And poof! 500 good paying family wage jobs are gone!
The 600 hundred better paying jobs:
Social workers, support enforcers, divorce lawyers, judges and bailiffs, jail guards, police officers, counselors, psychobabble artists and assorted other such folks hired to deal with the consequences of 500 families being torn asunder because some number crunchers decided the widgets can be made cheaper elsewhere.
Ross Perot is a nutcase, but he was absolutely right about that giant sucking sound.

Comments on: Lou Dobbs: I’m a populist and proud of it

By: Roger Knight