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Japan auto companies triple Mexican pay rather than move to US

asia.nikkei.com

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Re: Japan auto companies triple Mexican pay rather than move to US

#11

Post by cestith »

gurumeditations wrote: post #8
masukomi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mexican workers get a dramatic quality of life improvement. US workers don't have to work for less than market value / cost of living prices. Tens of thousands of US people continue to get cheap cars. Sounds like a great deal.

Exporting working class jobs from a higher cost of living area to a lower cost of living area is on the whole a loss for the vast majority of people who are not wealthy and a gain for those who are wealthy. It’s a blatant wealth transfer from the masses to the wealthy few. So Americans get cheaper cars but no way to pay for them, and wealthy Americans get record levels of wealth. Globalism is a sham and it’s surprisi…

On the other hand, if factories in Mexico competing for that workforce now have to look at $16 per hour, the competitiveness of an LA or San Diego area textile and clothing factory just became very slim until US wage in that sector rise.

Re: Japan auto companies triple Mexican pay rather than move to US

#12

Post by cestith »

samfisher83 wrote: post #4
ixvvqktiwl wrote: post #2

Sounds like a boon for Mexico, good for them. I guess it's kind of satisfying to see these policies have the opposite of the intended effect.

Even triple the pay they are making $16 dollars/hour which is less than whatever an american auto worker is going to make.

That's a lot more than other factory workers in Mexico and still more than some non-auto factory workers in the US. If the best factory workers in Mexico all go to the auto factories in droves, the factory base wage eventually goes up there. The competitive advantage for clothing, toys, and furniture factories there eventually diminishes.

Re: Japan auto companies triple Mexican pay rather than move to US

#13

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

gurumeditations wrote: post #8
masukomi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mexican workers get a dramatic quality of life improvement. US workers don't have to work for less than market value / cost of living prices. Tens of thousands of US people continue to get cheap cars. Sounds like a great deal.

Exporting working class jobs from a higher cost of living area to a lower cost of living area is on the whole a loss for the vast majority of people who are not wealthy and a gain for those who are wealthy. It’s a blatant wealth transfer from the masses to the wealthy few. So Americans get cheaper cars but no way to pay for them, and wealthy Americans get record levels of wealth. Globalism is a sham and it’s surprisi…

What do you think of the argument that foreign imports are just another kind of technology, allowing us to produce things cheaper with less labor? Surely it wouldn't be helpful for us to ban industrial bread machines so that more Americans have jobs as bakers.

Re: Japan auto companies triple Mexican pay rather than move to US

#14

Post by gwern »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #3

The article is making it sound like some kind of backfire, and I'm not really sure why. It's gotta be good in the long run for US auto workers if their competitors' wages triple.

What are these 'wages' of which you speak? Robots do not have hourly wages:

"Auto component maker Piolax, will also raise the hourly wage at its Mexican plant to $16 within the year. The company is also installing robots to mitigate rising labor costs, President Yukihiko Shimazu said."

Re: Japan auto companies triple Mexican pay rather than move to US

#16

Post by Barrin92 »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #3

The article is making it sound like some kind of backfire, and I'm not really sure why. It's gotta be good in the long run for US auto workers if their competitors' wages triple.

Because the US now gets no new jobs but the price for the cars will go up as the labour cost increases, proving the very trivial point that tariffs function as a tax on domestic consumers. If the goal of the policy was to redistribute money from Japanese carmakers and American consumers to Mexican factory workers they've done a great job, very altruistic.

Also it's quite hilarious how quickly the reputation of the US has deterioated. The US is now being treated like an unreliable country.

"We don't want to be whipped around by a policy that we don't know how long it will last," said an executive at a Japanese automaker."

Re: Japan auto companies triple Mexican pay rather than move to US

#17

Post by rasz »

masukomi wrote: post #7
samfisher83 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even triple the pay they are making $16 dollars/hour which is less than whatever an american auto worker is going to make.

Mexican workers get a dramatic quality of life improvement. US workers don't have to work for less than market value / cost of living prices. Tens of thousands of US people continue to get cheap cars. Sounds like a great deal.

Yes, US workers get to enjoy unemployment instead. Brilliant solution.

Re: Japan auto companies triple Mexican pay rather than move to US

#18

Post by jonahhorowitz »

> The center also said U.S. car sales will drop by up to 1.3 million units annually due to the Trump administration's trade policy

This is incredibly good news, if true. We need to reduce the number of cars in the US if we are going to have any chance of confronting climate change.

Re: Japan auto companies triple Mexican pay rather than move to US

#20

Post by gscott »

linuxftw wrote: post #10

Obviously, nobody is going to move a state of the art facility that cost billions just because their labor costs went from 'nothing' to 'almost nothing.' What it will do is prevent more things from leaving the US to go to Mexico. Me being a cynic, I'm fully expecting the employees will have to return some of that cash via forced employee dormitories and such, but we'll see.

Plus paying a person in Mexico $16 an hour is still 50% cheaper then paying an American $16 an hour.
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