Where Are We Going?

The American economy appears to be in a shambles, but it is not. What we are seeing is a transformmation. The combination of the weaker dollar and outsourcing of jobs can only lead to a resurgence in domestic production. It's the bitter pill that we as a people must swallow in the short run, much as a sot must seek hangover relief the monring after. But we will come back stronger than ever if enough people wake up and see the potential.

The days of high paying jobs are over. For too long have we piled salary increases and benefit packages on the corporations that we presently hold in such contempt, that outsourcing jobs to cheaper wage environments was a no-brainer. Of course they were going to relocate to countries where labor is cheaper. Wouldn't you? It's easy to lay blame on the most visible targets, the corporation, but it doesn't solve the basic problem: Americans' attitude about work.

We the people have brought the current calamity on ourselves. The five-day work week is bracketed by "Blue Monday" at the front end and "Thank God it's Friday!" on the other. Low paying, menial jobs are anathema; let somebody else do them, and there are people less fortunate than we who are more than glad to fill these positions. At the same time we are bringing foreign professionals, technicians, teachers, and engineers to this country because we can pay them less. A triple whammie: unskilled, semi-skilled, and highly educated workers are out in the street.Adam Smith had it right. Laisses-faire economics still works though the appearances may make it seem otherwise. The overall economy will always tend toward full employment, it just takes longer nowadays. In Smith's day economies were largely agrarian, the labor mostly unskilled. The technology was primitive by present standards, so workers could be easily trained to oil machines, operate looms, and work on farms. The labor force was adaptable and mobile. Without safety nets such as unemployment, welfare, and the like, when a worker making fifty-cents a day was laid off he had to go right out and find another job, willing to take less, say thirty cents a day. No choice in the matter. Those who kept working survived and enjoyed a marked advantage over time; unskilled though they might have been, they had more and a greater variety of experience. This is not to extoll the conditions that prevailed in those days: they were hard times, but in essence the mechanics are the same.

The Age of Technology skewed the process. Whereas in Smith's day labor was unskilled and mobile, today it is highly specialized and immobile. People are educated and trained in such closely defined occupational parameters that if their jobs go away they cannot easily secure employment in other fields where their experience might be close enough that they could be adapted to the new job. But that isn't to say that it never happens. My own experience proves that it can.

Years ago I lived in Upstate New York, an economic disaster area. At one point the unemployment rate peaked at 14%; when a job was advertized three-hundred people showed up to apply. It wasn't fun. A company that manufactured air-driven tools had an opening, and I appled for it with my background in electronics. Not a good fit.The interviewer advised me that they didn't have any jobs in electronincs, to which I replied, "Do you think that's all I know?" He said he realized that I knew a lot more than how electrons surge through conductors, and also knew that I wanted a job and wouldn't be deterred easily. He leafed through his book of job listings and told me he couldn't see me doing any of them."Like what?" I asked."Foundry," he replied and I agreed. No foundry."Well, what CAN you see me doing?" He looked some more and finally said, "Handscrew".That took a little explaining but what he was talking about was operating a turret lathe, something I had never done before."Alright, how long do you think it would take me to learn?" Three weeks was his answer."I'm willing!" I said - and he hired me. And it only took one week for me to get up to speed, and from then on I exceeded my quotas every day. It can happen, just don't fold up at the first negative indicator. If you truly want a job, you can get one;it may not be in the corner office, you might not be making big bucks, but as long as you have an income you can make it.

Got preachy that time;didn't I. But I get so disturbed at the intertia demonstrated by so many people, those who think they can pick and choose jobs. The sucker lists of people who have gotten burned with the work-at-home scams testify to the fact that too many people are stll looking for more mone, less work. In that regard our preoccupation with celebrity exacerbates this condition. But let us not lose sight of the also-rans who strove for star status and fell by the wayside. There's a good chance that the waiter who takes your order in a restaurant is an aspiring actor, writer, singer, or artist. Who wants to be a waiter all his life. That brings up another deleterious aspect of Americans' attitude toward work.

This attitude has sucked for as long as I can remember. Aside from the drudgery so often associated with work and the disdain for menial occupations, there is one more way in which the American labor force has sabotaged the economy. Upon my release from the military I immediately went to work for a defense contractor. We built aircraft on a cost-plus basis: most government contracts, especially in the area of defense were contracts of this kind. In almost everyinstance I can recall the watchword among the rank and file was, "Don't kill the job." Work progressed at an easy, slow pace, preserving the job but running the costs into the stratosphere. The prevailing wisdom behind this idiocy was that once the contract was completed there would be no more work. Now tax payers complain of cost-overruns, but few realize how the practice got started.


The Fin de Siecle period at the close of the nineteenth century lamented the demise of the craftsman, the artisan who created fine wares by hand; a good pair of shoes, a Princess Anne chair, a Sterling Silver tea service, and a panoplea of other consumer goods. The Industrial Revolution was seen as the rapacious doomsday machine bearing down on European society, threatening to crush mankind under its wheels and relegating man to the status of slaves, ever tending the noisy, smelly, grimy machines that bore on, never tiring, always needing tending.
Mass production killed the love of honest work and the pride of accomplishment that went with it. People chose careers, not, as at one time, for the love of the craft, but because of the money that could be made. Technology froze a once mobile work force into stangant pools of specialization, categories identifying individuals qualified to work in a particular field, but largely shutting them out of any other occupation group.


Labor unions had their part to play in the economic downturn. A principal feature of practically every union contract negotiation has historically been the demand for higher wages. These gradual encroachments, 3% to 5% increases, over time add substatially to a company's costs, and drive prices higher. Of course it is well to raise wages wherever and whenever possible, when the balance sheet shows adequate profits to accommodate such demands, but often these demands have been made in instances where the companies involved were under pressure from market forces, foreign imports, legal actions, and other distadvanteged positions. The cumulative effect of all this was to drive wages in union shops much higher than in othere areas of the economy, and it was these higher paying jobs that were the first to be outsourced.

In conclusion we may safely predict that the domestic economy will experience a resurgence, but at a slower rate and with lower wages. That is not as bad as it sounds because prices will be lower as well: low overhead, lower prices. Small business will predominate in the is renewed economic drive, and the sorporations that have benefited from outsourcing will experience a new set of problems when the presently low paid labor force starts agitating for more money. Watch for strikes and walkouts in these offshore labor markets. A further downturn in corporate profits will result from consumers buying American made goods; foreign imports from foreign sources and from US corporations operating overseas will become too expensive. The times they are a-changing.