Where The Jobs GoGo

Healthwise, adding 20 mg per week (half the low dose regimen of 40 mg per week) decadron as per the recommendation of Dr. Sagar Loneal of Emory Cancer Center has caused my ANC to rise by about 300 or so which is good when you are teetering on the edge of danger. So, I'll have to tolerate the negative side effects of decadron in order to avert the negative side effects of not taking it :)

I thought I would relate my recent furniture buying experience to demonstrate where our middle class jobs have gone and continue to go. This area of Mississippi (especially around Tupelo) has a history of furniture manufacturing. Lane furniture is manufactured up around Tupelo. We were told by one of the furniture store owners here in Columbus Lane shut down one of their plants so they are down to two now. I think the jobs are slowly going to elsewhere probably China. The store owner's biggest concern when reordering was the hugely increased cost of containers over the last five or six years. Guess where the containers come and go to.

Anyway, years ago, furniture was manufactured in an old abandoned school house at Woodland, Mississippi. That slowly changed over the years and the Woodland location became more of a factory outlet sourced by furniture manufacturers up around Tupelo. Blame it on government regulations sponsored by our politicians or what have you, the furniture store located in Woodland (located close to Houstin and quite a bit south of Tupelo) is now pretty much sourced by goods made in CHINA. I know, I just purchased two tables still in boxes, hauled them home, and unpacked them, and there it was, the label, "made in China," on the bottom of each table.

I told you that to say this, I don't think we should be blaming the government for middle class jobs going to China. I think those folks who worked at the now idle Lane furniture plant lost their jobs to recently employed Chinese furniture manufacturers. That's probably not technically correct but if it isn't, I'm sure it fits a bunch of someone and somewhere elses. Maybe you can boil it down in aggregate to generalized economic pressure caused by disparities between Chinese and American standards of living, government subsidies, terrifs, and regulations, and economic differences.

So, my conclusion is this, I was looking into the faces of those who are responsible for sending jobs to China when I wrote the check and handed it over to pay for my two tables. I'm sure they did the same thing when they purchased a container either directly or indirectly from whoever makes Butler furniture (probably a US front for a factory in China).

And my final answer is this, we are ALL responsible to one degree or another for waving bye bye to millions of US jobs. ALL OF US. It isn't always simple greed but it usually gets around to that one way or another especially the higher up you go in the organization. The little people like me who are trying to make ends meet are every bit as quick to jump on "bargain" aka greed. It just exists on an exponentially multiplied level the higher up the food chain you go.

Lane is still pretty much made here, in Mississippi. It is up to me to make the correct buying decision to keep that happening which isn't always easy because often, I don't have a viable choice except to "Save More, Live Better *." I suppose I could have driven all around the great state of Mississippi looking for similar tables (or whatever) made in the USA. Lane furniture still comes with a tag that has a picture of an American flag on the back page lower right cornet with the words under it, "ASSEMBLED IN THE USA." Translated, that reads, "Won't Be Long Until We Have It MADE IN CHINA."

It is up to Lane management and sales staff to keep production in the USA. It is up to workers to be productive enough to permit competitive pricing and senior management: CEO, board of directors, et. al. who tend to make off with huge gobs of company money which they tend to want to continue to support by laying off workers in favor of purchasing containers.

And that's my nutty outlook on the reason our middle class jobs, created and sustained by corporate America, which by and large support consumer spending which accounts for somewhere around 70% or so of the economy are more and more being MADE IN CHINA. When corporate America lays off workers, responsibility for that 70% consumer spending falls back on corporate management.

Please tell me if I'm wrong about this - I'm sure there is some room for improvement if you move my analogies off the nut shell level. I admit, it is a fairly complicated problem but in a nut shell, I am convinced the root of the problem is essentially greed of us all and more pronounced among those who can afford the most greed.

We need a bunch of folks who are willing to make a quality product in the USA (or at least one slightly better than what we are getting from over seas that consumers will recognize as superior and prefer to buy) and consumers who are willing to shop and locate products made in the USA (not easy with what we have being made available by merchants for us to choose from these days).

If you got a kick out of this and may have liked it in some demented sort of way, some time, I plan on revealing how you and I never escaped living under a Kingdome and in face still suffer the tyrany of the King.