>SNIP
>>- vacating all the factories where U.S. corporations exploit workers and the environment so us "haves" can have fancy sneakers and cheap clothes and cheap toys and...
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>This one bothers me the most. It is a HUGE issue here in NC where many factories have closed and people have lost their jobs that they held for many years. They lost years invested with a company and many cases their retirement investment as well. The factories close because it is too expensive to pay employees what it must in the U.S. economy and provide the benefits the employees demand when it can be done cheaply in other countries.
Yes, and now it is the way many business acquisitions are "designed". For example, the last Hathaway Shirts factory was bought by some investment group a few years ago (2 or 3)in New England. They then set about cutting staff and wages in the name of improving competitiveness to keep the factory open. While all this was happening they were 'transferring' the designs/setups/etc knowledge overseas so that another company could duplicate the work there. Then they shut the factory in New England.
>So the company moves their operations overseas where the host country ALLOWS the company to pay low wages and provide no benefits and sometimes not even a safe environment.
Sure, and it is the payment of bribes and related stuff that keeps the situation going. The government folks involved individually get RICH.
>How is this our fault? We are left here with many without jobs and no place to go. Citizens in the host country get new jobs and NO ONE forces them to work there.
It's not "your" fault as individual Americans (or Canadians when it is a Canadian company doing the same thing) but it is the fault of our corporations (aided and abetted by our governments) and the government officials in the other country(s). Our corporations will do ANYTHING for a few more pennies and if that means moving a factory to China, so what??...shareholders will be happy (though I doubt that shareholders are actually asked, but shares largely being held by investmnent firms, I guess they'd say go ahead anyway). And, by the way, local conditions more or less DO force local to work in those factories. Government officials hold far more sway there than they do here.
>Perhaps if the host countries would require the same working standards that the U.S. does then these companies would not relocate at all to begin with and the jobs would stay here in the U.S. and no one would
>complain about the conditions.
Correct on the same working standards, and that is precisely why the corporations will fight that idea tooth and nail!!! They've got the other side paid off to stay mum on the issue, and they press our officials HARD to remind them that 'sovereign countries ought not be TOLD how to run their countries'. A law could be passed here to say that all work standards and environmental laws and benefits here MUST BE APPLIED THERE TOO for any company relocating (or already having done so) but it would be opposed vehemently and would have no teeth in practicality anyways.
>Of course those jobs would not exist for those host country natives that CHOOSE to work for those companies also. We seem to forget that those working conditions exist because it is ALLOWED by the host country, not the U.S. The U.S. does NOT allow it here. So who is to blame? The host country if you ask me.
Sure it is the host countries' corrupt officials, but on the other hand there would be no bribery if a bribe wasn't offered in the first place. But the excuse on this one is along the lines of 'well France (or UK or Belgium or...) are doing it, so we have no choice but to follow'.
>I don't buy sneakers because they are the 'cheapest' ones on the market. If you can't make them cheaper then they will cost more and sometimes the price is worth it.
Logically, that's the way it should be. But consider this: 7-8 years ago, when Nike shoes were costing in the $100-120 range, the full cost of making a pair and boxing it and shipping it was $11.00 USD landed on U.S. shores. But Nike didn't take the whole difference as profit - that would have been scandalous. What they did was to spend a huge part on advertising, and that pot was so huge that they quickly dominated the marketplace. Now they could have priced those shoes at $22. wholesale and still made nice profiits.

>It is really ridiculous to blame the U.S. for this situation when it clearly is the host countries fault that this is allowed to happen. Businesses are just taking advantage of the situation to make the most profit.
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You certainly can look at it that way, but I think it is a rather naive view. "Business" today has become bleed what you can out of anyone, as fast as you can! The pursuit of MAXIMUM profit has legitimized deliberate obsolescence of equipment so that there is a fat-track to overseas production.
And here's another example of just how bad it is:
The provincial Teacher's Pension plan, the biggest pension plan in the country, found out that their fund manager had invested in a newspaper that is anti teacher's union. So they got together and told their fund manager to divest. He would not, citing that no law was broken and in fact the law obligated him to obtain maximum profits and thsi paper is one that does that". So, you see, the "rules" have become such that people do not even have full control of their own investment money!

All in all, since the demise of Communism, captialism has run amok and we all are paying the price. One day SOON everything that can be made overseas WILL be made overseas. They only started with the easier and more labour intensive stuff first. I heard the other day that frozen meals are soon going to be grow/cooked/packaged in China for sale around the world. When it gets to that, all we'll have left here are banks and construction/maintenance workers and newspaper printing and delivery services and restaurant workers. Sooner than you think.