Quote:
Originally Posted by askjeffro
I don't agree with opinion that just because they employ a lot of people they should be saved, however I wanted to point out that the jobs at GM are generally going to afford a much higher standard of living then a job at Walmart.
That is to say, there is something to be said for maintaining engineering competency and manufacturing expertise in one's country.
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You're preaching to the choir. I like my Home Depot/electric heater story. There's a factory making electric heaters, say in Ohio. Say it's a well known name, like GE or Honeywell. The people there make a decent middle-class living. So the management team decides it's better for the shareholders (and their bonus) if they close the plant and license their name to someone else to put on a heater. So they do that, and the workers get laid off, the plant gets torn down, and they build a Home Depot (or a Lowes, or a Walmart, or a Target, etc.). So now the middle-class factory worker who had a full time job with health benefits has to take a job at Home Depot part time making half the hourly wage he used to with no benefits...and what is his job? Stocking the shelves with badge-engineered electric heaters made in China.
That story is embellished a little, but is based upon my own experience buying an electric heater at Home Depot, and the sorry state of manufacturing here in NJ.
We used to have big long threads about this a few years ago.