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Re: What's that on yer chin?

9/3/2003 4:18 PM
Mark Hammer	Re: What's that on yer chin? I hasten to remind people that one of the many reasons why those kinds of jobs and working conditions are situated there and constantly migrating there is so that people in the west can draw pensions and make money off retirement-related investments. One of the only ways for all those mutual funds and other sorts of "nest eggs" to earn the sort of ROI that will let people retire at 61 or 58 (or younger) is to keep moving jobs to places where the wages paid out will provide large profits to shareholders (or at least the promise of such profits to attract them). I know that things like teachers' pension funds invariably end up being invested in things like that and I would imagine that the rather sizeable pension funds of many unions (indeed the very ones that "fight" to keep jobs stateside) also end up being invested in organizations that ironically do all manner of morally questionable things to provide the sorts of ROI that will guarantee an acceptable pension plan to unionized workers. Think about it. That money during retirement doesn't come from services rendered or goods produced, and it has to come from somewhere. That "somewhere" can often end up being the profit made from share prices produced by the promise of increased profitability once this portion of the employees are laid off, this factory here is shut down and facilities are moved to location X where labour costs are lower. I'm not saying to forego retirement, or to hang your head in shame if you are pondering it. Rather, the fact of the matter is that the "money from simply having money" required for a work-free adulthood can only come from speculation. Ultimately there is always a moral cost to speculation. If you don't mind it, fine. But you can't praise unions and union pensions in one breath, decry the working conditions of foreign workers or loss of jobs to foreign labour in the next, and expect to receive a "decent" retirement income with the next. The three are linked and sadly there are few ways around it.

9/3/2003 4:18 PM

Mark Hammer

Re: What's that on yer chin?

I hasten to remind people that one of the many reasons why those kinds of jobs and working conditions are situated there and constantly migrating there is so that people in the west can draw pensions and make money off retirement-related investments.

One of the only ways for all those mutual funds and other sorts of "nest eggs" to earn the sort of ROI that will let people retire at 61 or 58 (or younger) is to keep moving jobs to places where the wages paid out will provide large profits to shareholders (or at least the promise of such profits to attract them). I know that things like teachers' pension funds invariably end up being invested in things like that and I would imagine that the rather sizeable pension funds of many unions (indeed the very ones that "fight" to keep jobs stateside) also end up being invested in organizations that ironically do all manner of morally questionable things to provide the sorts of ROI that will guarantee an acceptable pension plan to unionized workers.

Think about it. That money during retirement doesn't come from services rendered or goods produced, and it has to come from *somewhere*. That "somewhere" can often end up being the profit made from share prices produced by the promise of increased profitability once this portion of the employees are laid off, this factory here is shut down and facilities are moved to location X where labour costs are lower. I'm not saying to forego retirement, or to hang your head in shame if you are pondering it. Rather, the fact of the matter is that the "money from simply having money" required for a work-free adulthood can only come from speculation. Ultimately there is always a moral cost to speculation. If you don't mind it, fine. But you can't praise unions and union pensions in one breath, decry the working conditions of foreign workers or loss of jobs to foreign labour in the next, and expect to receive a "decent" retirement income with the next. The three are linked and sadly there are few ways around it.

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