Re: Overseas Job Migrations - one industry's perspective

L Smith wrote:
> 
> Brian G. Moore wrote:
> 
> >I am particularly interested in Rich Lemert's view on this article
> >he's talking about, for two reasons.  One, well it is an interesting
> >topic and I don't have time to read the article :)  But two is that
> >Rich has in the past been mostly on the pro-free-market side of
> >things.  This is something that could (and perhaps is) affect him
> >directly.
> >
> >

big snip

> Personal Opinion:
> 
>   (This is probably the part Brian has been waiting for.)
> 
>   I'm not strongly pro-globalization, but I'm not against it, either. To
> me, it's a fact of life
> that needs to be dealt with. We can impose all the tariffs we want and
> create strong
> global unions, and it won't change the fact that labor in other
> countries is cheaper than
> in the US. The only viable, long-term strategy that makes any sense,
> IMO, is to figure out
> what our strengths are as a country and to push them as hard as we can.
> There will
> be significant disruptions to different parts of our society, but that's
> been true of every
> innovation (think buggy-whip makers, for example).
> 
>   Instead of wasting our energy fighting the changes, we should be
> focussing our efforts
> on helping people make the transition as smoothly as possible. For those
> few who cannot
> make the transition (i.e. too close to retirement for re-training),
> maybe we should consider
> setting up a few "feather-bedding" jobs like they had in the railroads.
> (When they went
> from steam engines to diesel locomotives, the railroad unions got a
> clause in the contract
> that said firemen - the people that shoveled the coal into the firebox -
> could retain their
> jobs as long as they wanted. This despite the fact that there was no
> work for them to do.
> As I understand it, some of them spend twenty or thirty years riding the
> rails doing no
> useful work.)

Kind of like a few tenured professors? ;-)

> 
> Rich Lemert

"Now" on PBS tonight had several segments on the changing American
work force (and what is forcing the changes).  One person said
basically what you said.  There will be winners and losers, but
if the changes in fact increase the size of the pie (which is
what the economists and policy makers tell us will happen when
thay are pushing globalization), then we need to take some of that
increase and use it to help the losers.  It sounds like we are not
doing that well now, IMO.  I fear we won't do it well as long as
the businesses that are getting the bigger pieces of pie find it
more profitable for them to distribute pie to Congressmen than to
displaced workers.

Regards,
Russell