Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.
Outsourcing
I saw a cartoon today –
A man and a woman were walking out of a mall.
The man was carrying four boxes – a plasma TV marked “Made in Taiwan….a DVD player marked “Made in Korea”….a pair of sneakers marked “Made in Indonesia” and an MP3 player marked “Made in China.” He was wearing a new hat with a tag “Made in Thailand” and a scarf “Made in Cambodia” and a “Made in Japan” cell phone hanging from his belt …”Made in India.
He asked his wife “Why are so many jobs going overseas?”
To which she responds – “Beats me.”
Americans want the benefit of cheap prices but don’t realize they pay for it in other ways – lost jobs being one of them.
What do you think?
Cartoons are supposed to be funny…but this one wasn’t.
But this is what happens when Americans do business in Japan, China, Russia, Cambodia, Korea, India and other Asian countries.
Good joke, and it shows well the media’s view of foreign trade in the US. At the same time Chinese imports alone have resulted in estimated savings of over US$600 billion for US consumers. I have also reccently posted an analysis from the FT, showing that these cheap imports are in any case not the source of US job losses, and that the US econopmy has other, internal, issues to address.
Thanks for your comments, Jeremy.
The US does indeed benefit from many of our jobs being done overseas.
The secret to job loss may be as simple as American do NOT want to work hard for a fair wage. Americans want as much as possible for as little effort as is necessary and now that attitude has caught up with a bunch of them.
OK, just one more cartoon. This week’s Private Eye has a “EU-phemism” as follows:
EU official, holding a headline about tariffs on imported shoes, states: “The Chinese and Vietnamese are destroying competition with unfair subsidies”. The tag line…”Only we’re allowed to do that”.
Long live double standards!
This reminds me of people who run red lights or turn right after the light changes or whatever…rules are for others, not me.
Double standards exist on many levels.
I like the EU – phemism thing.