Defiantone.com

First off, I am an undecided voter who is unsure as to what party or candidate that he will be voting for in the general election in November. I am worried about our country as a whole and I am particularly worried about our the education of Americans and our job market. I’ve been reading economic books as a hobby for a while - I am no expert by any means but I’ve got a firm grasp of the principles. Barrack Obama gave a speech today at a General Motors factory and talked about jobs and education. Needless to say, I was intrigued by what he said because I consider him a front runner. So, I checked out his website and found the following excerpts.

Trade that Works for Workers – Obama will end tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas and give breaks to companies who create good jobs with decent wages here in America.

Millions of New Green Jobs — Obama’s energy plan will invest $150 billion over ten years to establish a green energy sector that will create millions of new jobs over the next two decades – jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. He will also provide funding to help manufacturers convert to green technology and help workers learn the skills they need for these jobs.

Ok, Mr. Obama is planning on stopping tax breaks to companies that outsource employees from other nations. In the classical view of economics if you are unable to compete in a market and another company or location can do it better you should let them. Prime examples of countries that do much of the work we used to do in house are China and India. We have moved a large number of technical and non-technical jobs to these companies because they can often do our work for pennies on the dollar. When a company moves jobs out of the country we need to react accordingly to create new jobs left in the vacuum. Occasionally, we must move vertically instead of horizontally in our job choice. Instead of moving to the same job we had before we might need to increase our skill set or education level. Obama plans to help people move vertically with training required to create and obtain “green” jobs. What I don’t understand is why he is planning on penalizing companies that outsource jobs - other markets that can do the job better should do the job. It is in the best interest of the consumer if a product is produced by the cheapest and most efficient manufacturer at all levels. Yes, the unskilled labor will face a crunch at the on set of such a change but if he moves vertically he will be able to get a product at a cheaper price than when he was making it.

Below is an excerpt from a speech he gave today -

I believe that we can create millions of those jobs around a clean, renewable energy future. A few hours northeast of here is the city of Manitowoc [MAN-a-ta-WOC]. For over a century, it was the home of Mirro manufacturing – a company that provided thousands of jobs and plenty of business. In 2003, Mirro closed its doors for good after losing thousands of jobs to Mexico.

But in the last few years, something extraordinary has happened. Thanks to the leadership of Governor Doyle and Mayor Kevin Crawford, Manitowoc has re-trained its workers and attracted new businesses and new jobs. Orion Energy Systems works with companies to reduce their electricity use and carbon emissions. And Tower Tech is now making wind turbines that are being sold all over the world. Hundreds of people have found new work, and unemployment has been cut in half.

Here he is talking about people that moved vertically - this is exactly what we should do in every situation. We should stop trying to prevent outsourcing - even though there is some short term pain it is in the best interest of all to do so. From what I’ve read on his website it almost seems like he is contradicting himself. I’m not quite sure if two separate people are writing his speeches and press releases but it doesn’t make much sense to me at the moment.

I want to get McCain’s take on the whole thing - but, his website is down at the moment - well, I can’t get to it on a govt. computer at the moment - so his website could be working without a hitch.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 8:08 pm and is filed under ahh the news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.