Many companies have margins that are so low these companies can not afford to pay workers satisfactory, and these same companies have prices so low that other or new companies can not compete and are run out of the market. The new adminstration must put a stop to this practice. Companies and their owerners/stockholders should not be rewarded if they keep wages down.

Lower prices means that consumers can get more for their money, allowing them to stretch their dollar further (which means more spending). Forcing companies to charge more for their wares will only cause people to find it cheaper elsewhere (the internet, outside U.S. jurisdiction, black market). Making more laws will not fix the problem, and forcing the free market into higher prices is not a good thing for consumers just so employees can make higher wages.

actuslly it does not matter since if they get better wages, prices would go up, and in the end they get just the same amount of things, then we can talk about do they need those things, and mostly not.

the innovation in manufacturing is finding faster and/or cheaper ways of making the same product. This usually means added automation which removes people from the picture.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

You are right about lower prices mean the customer gets more for their money, but the customer is also the worker. When wages drop so low, the customer has no money to spend no manter how low the price is.

If a country can be self-sufficient why would they want imports of stuff they already sell? The US screwed the worlds economy up, now its own economy is in the crapper so deep it can't get out. Well, if they stopped importing everything and anything they might

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"Red Warrior Needs Food Badly"

If a country can be self-sufficient why would they want imports of stuff they already sell? The US screwed the worlds economy up, now its own economy is in the crapper so deep it can't get out. Well, if they stopped importing everything and anything they might

I would suggest you read up on the economics of trade. I do agree; however, that the us should reduce it's trade deficit.

Why do countries trade? Shouldn't a strong country such as the United States produce all of the computers, television sets, automobiles, cameras, and VCRs it wants rather than import such products from Japan? Why do the Japanese and other countries buy wheat, corn, chemical products, aircraft, manufactured goods, and informational services from the United States?

Because countries have different natural, human, and capital resources and different ways of combining these resources, they are not equally efficient at producing the goods and services that their residents demand. The decision to produce any good or service has an opportunity cost, which is the amount of another good or service that might otherwise have been produced. Given a choice of producing one good or another, it is more efficient to produce the good with the lower opportunity cost, using the increased production of that good to trade for the good with the higher opportunity cost.

Continued...

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The shipping of jobs overseas has had the twofold effect of transfering inflation to the counties doing our manufacturing and driving local wages down in the fruitless attempt to remain competitive.

While this seemed like a good idea to the corporate strategists, who have only seen their own salaries increase by unprecidented amounts along with the salaries of CEO's and boardroom types, it's the working class who've seen the darker side of globalization.

Cheap consumer goods is not the answer to an economic model that excludes the well being of working people.

End rant.

The shipping of jobs overseas has had the twofold effect of transfering inflation to the counties doing our manufacturing and driving local wages down in the fruitless attempt to remain competitive.

While this seemed like a good idea to the corporate strategists, who have only seen their own salaries increase by unprecidented amounts along with the salaries of CEO's and boardroom types, it's the working class who've seen the darker side of globalization.

Cheap consumer goods is not the answer to an economic model that excludes the well being of working people.

End rant.

The Chinese are now getting a feel for the Capitalist life. Seems wages were becoming a major issue and factories are now unable to produce their intended goods at the agreed upon price. Such a shame that such a nice country could get hit with wage concerns

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

The Chinese are now getting a feel for the Capitalist life. Seems wages were becoming a major issue and factories are now unable to produce their intended goods at the agreed upon price. Such a shame that such a nice country could get hit with wage concerns

That would be the inflation I spoke of kicking in.
It also explains why deadly additives are being used in consumer goods such as toothpaste and milk products.
They even poisoned our pets last year in the chase to lower costs.

Yup, moving manufacturing to unregulated poverty zones around the world sure has been good for us consumers here in North America.
As an added bonus, we even get all of that mercury and lead in our consumables for nothing.

If we come to the point where we are willing to work for less than an uneducated rural Chinese migrant worker from some destitute backwater town, we'll find plenty of jobs coming back here.
Ironic indeed.

I noticed some comments suggest the USA has a single economic policy. Please remember the USA is made up of individuals each with their own agenda. What is good for WalMart and other Big retailers is not necessarily good for most Americans. This is why government intervention is necessary. There are situations when the needs of the worker must be placed ahead of low prices.

Most likely if WalMart had union workers the government would also be giving them a bailout.

I noticed some comments suggest the USA has a single economic policy. Please remember the USA is made up of individuals each with their own agenda. What is good for WalMart and other Big retailers is not necessarily good for most Americans. This is why government intervention is necessary. There are situations when the needs of the worker must be placed ahead of low prices.

The problem with this "theory" of intervention is a myth. To the government controlled by lobbyists and campaign contributions this just doesn't happen unless you refer to bailouts as the so called interventions. Upper management just does not give a **** about its workforce with the notion the "someone is always looking for a job" and why retain long term dedicated people, we would only have to give them annual raises and heaven forbid, a pension. This is the mentality of the average CEO right after the "my wallet gets filled first" contract clause, after all new hires are cheaper to pay.

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"Red Warrior Needs Food Badly"

At least there could be a national sales tax to pay for the tax refunds/stimulus checks.

You just need to align the minimum wage to that of other countries.
It needs to be based on the poverty level.

The problem with that is the current guidelines that dictate what the poverty level is, is well crap.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh07.html

Taking in account similar environments and prices for general goods (After currecy conversion) the U.S. Goverment thinks that five people can live on the same income and 1 Australian yet the costs of goods are the same (After conversion)

Example is a loaf of bread.
For a named brand I pay $2.30 a loaf
2.30 AUD = 1.48826 USD

So the costs are relative yet the minimum wage for a full time worker (38hrs here) is 3x that of the poverty limit in the U.S. or rather enough to support four Americans on our minimum wage and not be in poverty.

Why keep the poor so damn poor for?
It places undue stress on the health and welfare system AND you generate less taxes.

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I do not know why we keep the poor so poor, but that is why our economy crashed. Many people are so poor that when gas went up over the last couple of years some could not afford the pay the babysitter and buy gas to go to work. There was no money to buy anything but gas. Some people quit work because they were losing money going to work and some were laid off because sales fell. Only the government can fix this problem.

I do not know why we keep the poor so poor, but that is why our economy crashed. Many people are so poor that when gas went up over the last couple of years some could not afford the pay the babysitter and buy gas to go to work. There was no money to buy anything but gas. Some people quit work because they were losing money going to work and some were laid off because sales fell. Only the government can fix this problem.

How on earth can the government "fix" this problem?

BTW if large cities Dallas-fort worth included would invest in a quality mass transit system then maybe we wouldn't have to worry about the price of gas.

I rode the Denver mass transit system. Marvelous system and cheap. gets you from point A to point B and onto point C with little effort. there is something to be said for a transit system that is convenient economical and effiecient.

The DFW solution to mass transit is to add more lanes to the freeways which in the long run perpetuates the problem of freeway congestion. The states solution is to make some major roads toll roads. Thus making it more like a personal mass transit system than actually fixing things.

I live in Arlington texas. We have the Honor of being the largest City in America (300,000+) without a bus line or train system. I would love to take mass transit. It would save me gas and let me get to know some interesting people on my commute

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

"Obama is ratcheting up his class warfare to levels that would make Marxists blush. This self-professed uniter is sowing distrust and divisiveness among Americans by demonizing groups of people and appealing to our baser instincts of envy and jealousy, in defiance of God's commandments against coveting. Obama is sending unmistakable signals that he has an unconventional notion -- to say the least -- about the American dream. It's as if he's saying, 'It's fine to aspire to financial success, but only to a point, beyond which you'll incur the punitive wrath of the federal government.' It's one thing to maintain that upper-income earners should pay higher tax rates because they are better able to shoulder the burden for essential government services. But it's constitutional blasphemy to claim that the tax code should be used as a weapon against the wealthy and that the state should be the tyrannical arbiter of how income is distributed." --columnist David Limbaugh