LAT: Major U.S. companies 'beginning to give up on the American consumer'

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-consumers-overseas-20110808,0,6193915,full.story

Many major U.S. companies are making big plans to expand overseas even as some of them announce new layoffs at home, and there's a chilling reason why: They're beginning to give up on the American consumer as a source of future growth.

For years, U.S. companies went off shore to get cheaper labor and lower manufacturing costs for products to be sold to Americans. Now, as the nation's economy stalls and personal incomes stagnate, they see consumers in Asia and Latin America as offering brighter prospects for future sales and profits.

In effect, as many corporate executives look ahead, the United States has a diminishing place in their thinking.

... Big multinational firms are adding droves of sales and marketing employees in countries such as China, India and Brazil — even as many cut back or hold the line on employment and other spending at home.

...Take the money and run...

"Did you like that? USA; ulcered sphincter of Arse-erica. I mean, what else can you say? Here was a country that had everything, absolutely everything, and now, 20 years later, is what? The world's biggest leper colony."

via tax breaks so they could get out of town with more money? Rescind the tax breaks. NOW!

That's the key to fix this.

so if Apple wants to do that... fine, let's tax them to import those computers until they pull of the US completely, or they open a factory in the US, leading to... hopefully good paying jobs and getting that demand going.

Oh and I said Apple, I could have said Nike, Levys and a few other hundred companies in the top tier that have moved that production abroad.

Of course they decide to move abroad, you got a niche in a new emerging industry that now you need to protect from FOREIGN competition,

you have the niche for mom and pop computer company to do this in the US... with US workers, and US programers. In other words, we start from the bottom.

They want a reset... fine by me. Will be tough, but it will be tough anyway. But the US needs to pull out of free trade agreements at this point.

that the LARGEST middle class by raw numbers is in the Asia market?

Thank you.

Why? Simple. Credit cards have upper-limits... (but since hundreds of million such cards can be issued, it could take some time before every such cards holder will reach it, and then what?).

A couple of decades?

Also, if they don't come out of college with such large debts they may have more room to borrow

they are here...

So, I predict when they MAX OUT their 'freely given' credit cards... they'll find themselves as stuck as WE are... :crazy:

Then what? :shrug:

The Latest On The Wage Inflation Mess Breaking Out All Over China

High wages are reported to do more damage to an economy by pushing up inflation, than high commodity prices. Now, China is grappling with rising wage and commodity prices and a disappearing labor pool.

The situation has got so bad, the Asian giant is said to be rejecting orders from Wal-mart and other Western retailers.

In a new report Williams Inference analyst John Trudigan gives us details on the Chinese labor situation:

Labor shortages have been prominent all over China especially in major coastal manufacturing cities. There is a 555,000 shortfall in major cities in the region that include Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Dongguan. In the Guangdong Province officials estimate a 1 million shortfall.

More

http://www.businessinsider.com/china-labor-market-2011-07

Indians are chasing after fatter wallets, so fast that it could further fuel inflation in an already hot economy.

Expectations of salary increases are back where they were before the downturn froze wage boosts during 2008 and 2009. On an average across the services industry, which accounts for more than half of the country's gross domestic product, Indians expect a 14% increase in their income annually, and up to a 40% gain if they change jobs, according to Aon Hewitt, a human-resource consultancy.


India always has had a dearth of skilled talent despite its large young population, due to an inadequate education infrastructure. The lure of high-consumption-driven growth, meanwhile, has global and domestic companies expanding rapidly. And they are battling for talent by offering juicy salaries and incentives.

It doesn't stop here. Higher wages and multiple options mean Indians are spending less time in one job. "It's getting rarer to find young workers spending even 18 months at an entry-level job," says Sangeeta Lala, vice president at TeamLease, a staffing company.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703786804576138212218225544.html

But compared to here, a 14% increase on what previous BASE?

the LA Times :) Paid daily subscribers now well below 1,000,000. They lost me for good when they fired Bob Scheer. Long gone are the days of Otis Chandler. The bean counters took over and ran the LATimes into the dirt (whence beans come :)

:rofl:

LEECHES!

for small businesses to step in and take the giant evil corporations share of the economy especially if we can really get people to buy only from American companies and American made products.

they'll all go away & leave us to fend for ourselves.

no, it will not, kill free trade.

Lay everyone off, then refuse to hire anyone so no one has any money to buy their products then they bitch because no on is buying their product.... Hmm sounds like perfect republican logic to me....

Much of the crap we buy is just consumer shit we can get along without.

And the stuff we can't do without we will make locally. We will have to create our own jobs rather than expecting big business or the government to make them for us.

Food, shelter, clothing and rock and roll.

are over. Now our highest value will become that of being cheap labor.

It comes as just deserts really as we spent decades living large on the backs of overseas cheap labor, some who were routinely brutalized, and now it has become our turn to fulfill that function.

Karma really is a bitch.

We are all worked up into a frenzy and get the shit scared out of us, and we cut back on spending because we are uncomfortable. But when things do turn around (and they will one of these days), Americans will be sooooo ready to start spending again. It seems to be in the culture, and that will not change in the long run.

The American Dream extended into the Global Dream.
Of course, 13 planet Earths will be needed for the 7 billion consumers.

Somebody stole the real purpose.

You made this mess, and now you're gonna take your toys and find a new home.

How fitting.

:thumbsdown:

:shrug: are they just going to stop selling to us, or are they going to raise prices dramatically?

After they used us up they'll now move onto the next golden opportunity. The cycle begins anew, overseas. Star Trek Episode #35, The Doomsday Machine.

I hope all their efforts blow up right in their faces.

But it IS blowing up in OUR faces first.

(Unless they R 'forced' to pay their fair (1960-1980) share of TAXES.)
(IF they want to 'keep' their 'exceptional' US citizenship... which I have no doubt they do...)

Odds are, they'd be spending it. :shrug: They've been busting unions, cutting wages, throwing people out of work, and shipping jobs overseas for years now. What did they think would happen at some point?

:wtf:

On a Democratic board I really shouldn't need to point out that that's sarcasm, but since Free Trade is now apparently part of our platform, I guess I should.

First they send our jobs away, leaving us with part-time "mcjobs", now it's our fault we can't buy their slave-shop goods.

Oy.