Believe this or not, Whirlpool received Stimulus funds to create jobs and instead they are closing plants! This is obscene that they are being given funds to create jobs and instead offshore outsourcing them. We should demand at least those funds be rescinded.
It can barely get greedier than this: We're in tough economic times, so Whirlpool receives $19 million in taxpayer funds to create jobs. Then it turns around and announces it will shutter its Evansville, Indiana refrigerator plant and displace the 1,100 workers there. Disgusting.
Public Citizen is requesting all write their representatives to pass The Trade Act. I'll add to that, when, when, when are we going to stop giving away U.S. taxpayer money to these Benedict Arnold corporations which take the funds, the incentives and simply offshore outsource the jobs??? Put that in your letter for me, please.
It gets even worse, Alan Tonelson points out the Obama administration puts another outsourcer in power.
President Obama’s decision to put Honeywell Chairman David M. Cote on the new bipartisan commission to reduce America’s debts and deficits is like putting Tiger Woods on a national commission to promote marital fidelity. And here’s why this unflattering comparison is eminently justified.
Like so many of America’s other manufacturing giants, Honeywell has long been a champion outsourcer, and the strategy has continued under Cote. Since Cote assumed the top job in 2002, Honeywell figures show that its foreign assets have remained at about 20 percent of its global assets. But through 2008, the American share of its workforce has sunk from 55.05 percent of the global total to 45.31 percent, as the company shed 2,000 domestic employees and hired 21,000 foreign employees. Final 2009 figures aren’t yet in, but news reports indicate that last year, Honeywell sent at least 1,100 more jobs offshore – along with the associated production work (in jet engines and elsewhere in aerospace, no less).
Folks, I'm positive you didn't vote for Obama so he could put a host of offshore outsourcers, making policy, in charge of U.S. trade and economic direction. Complain!
Read Lori Wallach's review of USTR policy, it's a glorified Bush Trade Policy Redux.
Republicans will loudly complain.
Never mind that they opposed the "buy American" provisions originally in the stimulus bill.
Donate to Bill Halter and send corporate Dems a message so we can have at least one pro-worker party.
miasmo.com
miasmo.com
who is Bill Halter?
if you see candidates which have great positions on economic issues, link to them give their state, district and point out what we're lookin' at. Myself, I think the only way to beat this is to get the guys who are not bought and paid fors AND somehow pass legislation to stop the bought and paid fors...such a tall order!
Waiting For A Peoples' Moment
With all respect to you personally, miasmo, I see little merit participating in a system so utterly corrupted by lobbyists and their hand-picked whores in Congress that any positive parliamentary initiative simply gets voted down or revised out of existence before it is presented. Halter may be just the finest fellow, but if he's got an R or a D next to his name, he never listened to his mother when she told him that he'd be known by the company he keeps. A system so remote from its citizens that the franchise is made a mockery is a system literally at war with them. Voting in its elections becomes either the act of an imbecile or that of a conscious enabler. You know and I know that an exceptional candidate here or there may keep alive the forlorn hope that democracy in the United States is ultimately remediable but just make sure there's enough food in your pantry while you're waiting for that to become evident. In my view, the only sure way out of the present mess is recourse to mass demonstrations and the general strike. Elections are a colossal waste of time. At one point or other there will be a "peoples' moment" and it may be closer in time than one might immediately realize.
Let me know when the general strike starts.
Until then, I'm going to donate and volunteer for some strategic primary campaigns to try and make some of these corporate Dems soil themselves and think twice before they sell us out. I need affordable healthcare. I can't wait for the Big Revolution.
miasmo.com
miasmo.com
Acceptance
"Until then, I'm going to donate and volunteer for some strategic primary campaigns to try and make some of these corporate Dems soil themselves and think twice before they sell us out."
Well, I suppose I should have realized that one really has to be old enough to stop voting. Acceptance comes slowly in some instances. I was 52 before I stopped voting. :-)
"I need affordable healthcare. I can't wait for the Big Revolution."
I've got five bucks that says the "Big Revolution" gets here before affordable healthcare. :-)
All the best.
He's primarying corporate puppet Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas
He has massive grassroots support. She has massive corporate support. Kicking her ass in a primary will put the fear of God into some of these corporate Dems in Congress.
miasmo.com
miasmo.com
well, it's all policy positions here
So, when I see 'em, maybe I'll look 'em over, so often we get corporate rep. replacing corporate rep. it's just more disguised as one can do with some "liberal" policies ..
I haven't focused on Lincoln but as I recall she was a guaranteed vote for Walmart last I checked.
Something is Structurally Wrong Here
I have a Maytag washer and dryer both made in Germany. Maytag is owned by Whirpool.
Germany has a 68% union presence versus 12% in the US.
http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20070620/
Germany has a similar cost of living and higher taxes than we do.
http://www.expatintelligence.com/expat-germany.shtml
Yet they are taking some manufacturing away from us?
Shouldn't that be the other way around?
question du jour!
This is mentioned in the Gomory piece (see Instapopulist), I've been talking about the motivations to labor arbitrage when it doesn't even add up to cost savings offline, looking for in depth analysis...
It's mentioned also by the AAM, and I don't have an answer for it!
It's so true, there are a host of nations whose labor costs are higher OR the labor costs are so small in comparison to overall costs, it doesn't make any sense to labor arbitrage...
yet that seems to be the goal and damn everything else, including profits!
If you want to take on a research project as to why so many companies are doing this when it clearly does not add up in terms of costs, I think you'll get some interested readers.
IMHO, it happens quite often
IMHO, it happens quite often in mid-size businesses (outsourcing that is) because management simply doesn't understand enough to know it won't be any cheaper (or in fact will ultimately cost them more).
In my career I have twice seen two major IT projects outsourced, with the mid and senior management crowing about how much money it would save them. Fast forward 3-4 years, new management team, and we'd bring it all back inhouse to save money. Then a new management team would come in and outsource it again. Circular, it was. But it made them feel important, and busy, and as if they were in charge.
Cote
I work for Honeywell. Each time an engineer resigns (even for intra-company transfer) we are now replacing the person with someone in India.
Boeing Outsourcing 800 Engineers to India
People see these layoff notices and believe the job is being eliminated.
This practice should be held illegal.
If they love India and China so much let the company move there entirely and see how that works out.
they simply should not get gov. contracts, period!
Government expenditures are Stimulative, that's what it's all about....but not when they give away U.S. taxpayer funds to create jobs in China, India, buy goods from China, India, create jobs in Germany, buy items from Japan.
I've pounded on this and we just saw how air-o-planes was pretty much all of the increase in durable goods, which is all fine, those are huge ticket items...
but it's NOT fine when government expenditures do not require items be domestically sourced (Buy American) and more important, workers are U.S. citizens, LPR (green card holders) because for every report you read about on these companies offshore outsourcing Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, you can bet money there are thousands of importing guest workers on various Visas which are not mentioned. Whether a worker is sitting in Bangalore or sitting in Seattle, Washington, that worker is displacing a U.S. worker!
This Was an Obama Election Talking Point
He may end up getting back to what he ran on after the Scott Brown Senate reversal.
He said he would work to stop tax breaks for companies such as Whirlpool getting tax breaks and sending jobs overseas.
This is happening on his watch. Obama could and should be using this as an example to shame Congress into getting this changed. Unfortunately healthcare is using close to 100% of the 'yes we can' resources it seems. Financial reform which in the long run may be more important is getting short changed.
Your post here is an example fo something that would never make the one way street that exists on Kos if it was linked to Obamas election promises. If this was linked to a Republican Senator it would be rec'd to the top.
maybe you are not aware of this but....
Obama put one of the most notorious offshore outsourcers, Diana Farrell in his cabinet almost immediately. He also just appointed another from Honeywell. So, if he was serious about this, I strongly doubt these people would be given such power.
I Hadn't Made Those Connections
I'm not surprised though. No different than placing Larry Summers in there in another sense since Summers and Rubin pushed Clinton on the CFMA etc.