I'm in So. Indiana and our Whirlpool plant just announced they're closing the plant and going to Mexico. Some of the workers are in their 50's and have worked there their entire life. This just makes me sick. Why can't we just make our own stuff?!!!

>>Why can't we just make our own stuff?!!!

Because labor is cheaper in other countries and companies can get bigger profits that way - it's called capitalism. When the government intervenes, they're called socialists!

Here is a link that might be useful: Non Sequitur cartoon

Weissman,

Not quite sure what you're getting at???

What I'm getting at is that some people in this country have been brainwashed so they don't do what's in their own self-interest. A certain political party has so brainwashed their base that they want to shun any government "interference" in private enterprise. Pure capitalism just doesn't work. Left to their own devices companies wouldn't care if a few of their appliances caught fire or some of their cars didn't stop if overall their profits were maximized. This party is so concerned with corporate profits that they call any kind of government regualtion socialism.

Years ago in business school we studied a case of a company that knew it was polluting and causing cancer in children but did a study which determined that it was cheaper for them to keep polluting and just pay off the cancer claims as they arose.

I met a couple recently where both of them had been laid off and had no health insurance but they were dead set against any kind of government plan. They really didn't get what was in their own self-interest.

OK, I'll get off my soapbox now :-)

Weissman,

Thanks.

Will that couple be against a government plan when they turn 65?

My wife and I were having our mail stolen and we were begging the credit card companies that kept sending us blank checks to stop sending them, because they were being stolen and used. We were told that it was too much effort to not send them because while they saw about $20 million a year in fraud, they saw about an additional $4 billion a year in profit from them, so we had to keep dealing with our accounts being used until we worked with the Post Office solve the problem, making things harder for our mailman.

I'm sure Rush is happy! Free Market Capitalism at Work!!!

Weissman, I think you have explained it pretty well. It is wise to understand that corporations exist only to isolate individual owners from personal liabilities incurred by actions of the corporation. Thus structured, corporations operating outside of sane regulation are capable of psychotic behavior in extremis, Love Canal and every other superfund site across the country bears witness to this. Oh, guess who pays for the superfund cleanups now? If you said, the taxpayers, you are right.

Don't get me started. Can we call for a full fleged revolution against large corporations on this website? Weissman's story of the people who were without health insurance against the gov't plan pretty much sums up the sad state of affairs. Wasn't Upstate New York just a big testing lab for GE over the decades? People just are too brainwashed or too stupid to get it. Ok, I'm done.

Weissman et al,

it's not so much that profit is the motivating factor as is the public's insistence on "I want a deal" and its unwillingness to pay the sums needed to fund domestic products for these firms at the volumes required to keep the apparatus going.

I don't think it's fair to blame management for greed. They're trying to make a profit for their stockholders. How many people in this forum have 401k's or other portfolios that hold Whirlpool (and similar large companies) and applaud when their stocks go up? And what about the American consumer who always wants the cheapest thing possible? How often are people willing to pay more money to save jobs in the Midwest? This is not a cut-and-dried issue.

I really can't get WP moves.

They shut a plant in IL because of high labour cost. In the meanwhile they still produce most of the Duets .... in Germany.

The Duet is a niche product on european markets while it is their battlehorse in North America

Labor cost in western EU is rather high too, not to mention shipping costs from EU to north America.

Those big corporations are playing with several thousands families.

Here in IT Whirlpool Europe has its headquarters and many plants (mostly 24" frontloaders and fridges). Also Electroux (as Zanussi) has many plants.
Not to mention Candy Group, Ariston, Merloni, Smeg, Bertazzoni ..... thousands and thousands jobs

In Germany Electrolux closed most of A.E.G. whitegood plants and B.S.H. moved many plants to Spain and Turkey

Whitegoods market crisis is a real pain also here in EU

I agree its not as simple as evil management. One of the underlying problems with the current model of wealth-building, i.e an "ownership society", is that it puts us in the regrettable position of profiting from the misfortunes of our brothers and sisters.

Say you were a small business owner in "luvscritters" town in Indiana, and because Whirlpool was your major local employer you invested in it. Now your friends are losing their jobs, you're losing your customer base, but your personal portfolio is going up. Your bread is buttered on one side, and drops in the dirt on the other. And who are you to protest this change? This is the kind of thing that divides us.

This is an ENORMOUS problem and western Europe is just seeing the beginning. Yes, this is an incredibly complex issue due to so many things being weaved together. Yes, companies need to keep their stock prices up, otherwise CEOs will be booted out, shareholders will revolt, and peoples investments will be reduced, but AT WHAT COST to society in general. We are are so setting up western economies to resemble those in Third-World countries in the not so distant future. Our "new" economic model is not sustainable. How many high-paying jobs will be left? And is it just a matter of time when many of those too, are sent off to cheaper locales? This is a real crisis, and I am afraid there are no easy answers. NAFTA was a disaster, the free-trade agreements are a disaster for the average consumer in western countries. Who cares if you can buy a TV for $100, when you can only find a job that pays $12/hr and not even afford your mortgage payments. Two classes, are all that will be left, and anyone that thinks otherwise is living in the past. Sorry, just how I see it.

Swiss appliance producers still survive, despite of their outrageous prices.
They just produce "little numbers" for their own internal market. Small flexible factories versus monster "town-plants" that "bake" millions of appliances.

Big corporates have to "sell,sell, sell" to survive. To increase sales they have to "speed up" the appliances turnover. Brand loyal customer have ever worse surprises afer each new purchase
This way they lose customers and *worse* brand reputation.

Until some years ago most people here bought "cheap", cause you could buy reliable appliances at a middle price. Miele was a niche brand available only from few retailers.
Today even those mid price appliances have the same poor quality of budget ones. Miele has taken advantage of this situation. Now this brand is pretty common everywhere, despite of their prices. This means people prefer spend double for something that will last four times.

Anyway if miele will not be aware of this "vortex" they will end up in the very same situation. Those service issues in the USA are an alarm they should consider seriously

How quickly we forget:

How many of your parents or grandparents/great grandparents complained about the jobs they "stole" from Great Britain and Europe during the industrial revolution of the early 20th century? Those jobs came here because labor in the U.S. was cheaper plain and simple. It's also largely what made the USA the powerhouse it is today. Britain and Europe survived the exodus and we will too.

That's a very interesting perspective. But there is a difference: most European countries and Britain in particular have a very different social order than we have. While we'll certainly survive NAFTA, we'll undoubtedly not survive it in the same way that Europe survived the industrial revolution. We don't have the same social cohesion, the same respect for society itself, that Europe once had. We thrive on a mythology of rugged Ayn-Rand-like individualism. We even elect people because they wear cowboy boots.

And the industrial revolution in the US may have benefited from immigration, but many of those people left The Old World for non-economic reasons. And then Europe also gained jobs from the industrial revolution, it wasn't just here, and in particular from the Tesla/Westinghouse invention of AC. It started at Niagara Falls, but Tesla's first installs were in Europe and it didn't take long for that to go global.

My point is that these sorts of mass-emigrations of work will likely require us to think about ourselves in a new way. Maybe a little less individualistically.

This is definitly "a sign of the time," And regarding the greedy corporations who will never sit still regarding the bottomline, remember what Harpo Marx said.
" I prefer casinos to stocks, because at least at casinos there's pretty girls serving free cold drinkls." Want to bet there's plenty more "Made offs" out there!!!

So nice to see this respectful, insightful back-and-forth; I'm proud of my fellow GWers. We face enormously tough choices in this country. The only way to even begin to confront these choices (as many of the excellent responses here, either overtly or ostensibly, have pointed out) is to acknowledge their complexity. We are suffering from a lack of honesty and a surplus of demagoguery in much of our political and corporate leadership. A great country--and the USA certainly is one--cannot be a perfect one. Acknowledging our failures and searching for solutions is just as crucial as celebrating our greatness.

Because labor is cheaper in other countries and companies can get bigger profits that way - it's called capitalism. When the government intervenes, they're called socialists!

That is because it is a step toward socialism.

When the government intervenes enough you get North Korea.

Or Cuba.

Bottom of the barrel standards of living.

Capitalism is hard. Life is hard. It always has been with a few years exception for a few countries.

And when the government doesn't or can't intervene enough it's called bedlam. The highest standards of living ever achieved on this planet have always been mixed economies, private ownership of property, capitalistic markets subject to rational and humane regulation and progressive taxation. Every successful economy has socialistic aspects. We enjoy socialized roads, socialized schools, socialized police and fire protection, socialized air traffic control, frequency management, defense, coast guard, etc. Yes, you can wave the "socialist" branding iron around all you want, but some socialist aspects are absolutely necessary. Their privatization would be suicidal.

BTW, regulating commerce, both foreign and domestic, is an express power of the federal government. The ability to tax income is an express power of the federal government. The use of these powers to protect our economy and our markets and our people is a legitimate exercise of the powers of government and is NOT socialism. If it were socialism, the government would own and run everything. This is plainly not the case, nor is it even remotely threatened to become the case except for in the minds of ill-educated bumpkins with no grounding in history or government other than what they can pick up off the AM radio.

"And when the government doesn't or can't intervene enough it's called bedlam. The highest standards of living ever achieved on this planet have always been mixed economies"

No one is advocating anarchy least not capitalist.

Functioning markets require police powers among other legitamte state powers.

The question is what is "enough."

The power to stop Whirlpool from leaving the US if it wishes is way too much government power.

The highest standards of living has always been the mixed economies with greatest economic freedom .

There are the small country exceptions that leach off of bigger countries ie Luxembourgh and Denmark.

Or small countires with massive natural resources like Norway.

When a government puts huge obstacles in terms of wage and price controls and the power of private companies to fire people it leads inevitably to the rathole of low standars of living.

And that is the implied demand made of those lamenting this plant closing.

No one is advocating closing down public roads or public schools.

But it's not "too much power" to allow multinational conglomerates to literally buy legislators who then allow them to write their own laws? Right now it isn't just laissez faire that makes it so profitable for Whirlpool to move all the production to Mexico and then turn right around and ship it back across the border free of duty. Our regulatory apparatus actually makes it advantageous for Whirlpool to do just that from a tax standpoint. IOW, our government is PAYING them to move and invest outside our borders. But that doesn't qualify as governmental interference in the market?

This is a complex subject. There are no easy or perfect answers when it comes to trade law. BUT I will assert that there is no advantage gained by allowing the multinational conglomerate plutocracy to hold our tax code hostage with the willing assistance of a Congress filled with their little corporate butt boys.

This is to some extent the thing that's driving many people, myself included, bonkers right now. And the few people articulating the argument are marginalized by the media. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure we've never seen quite such an unregulated environment of highly protected corporations feeding off of the taxes we pay. Ralph Nader has been warning us of this for 45 years, and here we are. Eisenhower warned of it 5 years earlier. So this isn't an issue of single party, its an issue of an abuse of a practical system but one which is, with enough money, easy to manipulate to private ends.

I've seen genuinely shocking footage of conventions of military suppliers held during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq - where as you may recall we were greeted as liberators - being organized around how to get the biggest chunk of Pentagon funding as we went to war.

In the US at the moment we're subject to an astonishing experiment, in which large private entities get to market inadequately tested drugs and patently dangerous products to us with no system remaining in place to keep this in check. I fail to see how this is ultimately different from the abusive actions that some governments have taken directly against their populations.

Given the free market the only way to really stand against the sort of things that companies like Whirlpool are doing is to bring them down by a solid boycott. Consolidation of media in a few very greedy hands stands against the odds of this, but the internets, for the moment, can be used to support it. But as we see, whenever folks start talking about organizing smaller units to stand against the depredations of larger ones, the word socialism starts being thrown about. And when we do that we lose sight of the single most important thing in the discussion - the WE of We the People. There is a we, and some things are in everyone's interest, and some things are against everyone's interest. Its in that way that we come to define an old concept called "The Commons", those things we all share. Once upon a time in the dark ages it was understood that WE owned the airwaves, that We owned the air and the water. I'll get up in a soapbox for a moment to insist that WE also own the economy, the common space in which we all interact. A private corporation operates to its own financial benefit by the grace us all of us allowing it to.

Of course, a successful boycott would mean that Whirlpool's investors would see smaller dividends and we would see higher prices. Then its up to us to still boycott and the stockholders to stand against excessive executive "compensations". Had this been done in the banking industry a lot of people would still be employed now and you and I wouldn't be paying for bonuses there. This is the business philosophy that lies behind corporate emigrations like this, cost-cutting at the bottom to keep more money at the top.

It was the MBA approach to running business that eviscerated my own industry - music - leaving it so fragile that the internet could take it down finally. Instead of seeking out music a diverse audience would like, the industry was primarily focused on quarterly stock price, because that affects CEO bonuses.

PS - "when government intervenes you get North Korea". Yes, and you also get Sweden and France. So let's keep a little perspective.

My cousins grew up in the 50s and 60s in Budapest, somewhat more free than the USSR, not as free as the US. When I met them when I was 11, and I could speak only English, they could each speak 5 languages. There just might be some small consequence to always believing we are the greatest nation in the world. There are plenty of virtues to other systems.

Many of US policies are recreating policies that have kept 3rd world countries in poverty. Not a single country has ever improved economically following IMF and World Bank reforms. Their can be no government without an economy (Iceland).

Since WWII, the US has backed politicians in other countries that were friendly to US corporations and the word "democracy" was turned into an economic term. Most (or all) of those politicians have been dictators. The coop in Venezuela put a US backed dictator in control who immediately suspended the constitution, legislature and vote. Saddam was once friendly to US corporations until he began accepting EU for oil. Venezuela began accepting other currencies for oil and so has Iran.

History is not subjective outside of the US. 27 of Iran-Contra co-conspirators were in Bush's upper level administration. Clinton's biggest mistake was not prosecuting the previous administration for their "shadow government", hoping it would buy him political capital - and it appears Obama has stepped right in his footsteps by refusing to brand the previous administration with their errors. Obama is anything but a "leftist" or "liberal" (just like Clinton).

Eisenhower, JFK, Martin Luther King all gave speeches warning of the military complex, corporations and shadow government. Now corporations are considered "individual's" with civil rights and freedoms - legally.

Corporations by law are required to make money for shareholders. It is illegal for them to act on ethics, morality or conscious. Politicians should be serving the public - just the opposite. Government interference is not socialism. It's more like a check and balance.

When corporations control government, or the same people are in both government and business, it's communism, or the extreme extension of "free market capitalism" (China).

My healthcare is provided by my doctor, not by insurance. No one has yet to explain what insurance has to do with my health. I haven't heard any politician offering to give up their "evil" government-run insurance. Medicare was extended by a unanimous vote in 2009. That doesn't sound very "unpopular" to me.

This battle has more to do with who controls US government; people or corporations. A primary duty of government is to protect citizens. Many more people die or are disabled from lack of healthcare than from any act of terrorism.

Of course government needs to get involved in healthcare. Insurance companies made a 56% profit this last year covering 2.7 million less people. Some premiums have risen by 40% in 2010 (so far). I am held hostage by insurance from opening my own business. That's wrong and an economic disaster. It's NOT capitalism.