Sunday, January 14, 2007

Little Things that go Unnoticed

There was an article in the San Diego Tribune paper yesterday Jan 13, on the new television factory being built in Rosarito Beach in Baja, California. It’s a 600,000 square foot factory with an estimated projected output of high definition televisions at 200,000 per month. I imagine to the uniformed, Baja, California is considered part of the United States (so much for high school geography). It’s rather odd that the word Mexico never came up in the article.

Then today in the same paper, business section, it shows a picture of a large warehouse under construction in Tijuana. It lists various locations along the Mexican border and says that there are presently about 1,236,000 workers in the 3,000 plants averaging $2.30 per hour. Total product for export was just under 100 billion in 2005.

[Double click on the image for a larger view]



[courtesy of San Diego Tribune January 14, 2007 Business Section]

Let me see if we have this right. Daddy is in the United States picking tomatoes in Fresno at $8.00 per hour and his kids are in a Mexican factory producing wide screen TV’s for $2.30 an hour. Right? --Wrong! Most kids are smarter than that, they’ll go with dad.

What do you have? A lot of people in Mexico with absolutely nothing, and this is their first step towards the promised land. A coyote will charge $500 to $2,000 to get them across the border. Go for it!!! One year in the wide screen plant, and the next year, relax in the "California Triangle" (Fresno to Bakersfield to Modesto). Think that I am kidding about the "California Triangle?" Drive the area, and count the number of English speaking radio stations FM and AM—I never get past 3.

What’s it all boil down to? Our labor costs are far more expensive than foreign countries. Manufacturing jobs are leaving the country in large scale. Ross Perot, back in his quest to become President, often mentioned the “Giant Sucking Sound,” in reference to the proposed free trade with Mexico.

200,000 wide screen television sets per month, and everything goes “high definition” in 2009, as per Congressional Decree. Mind boggling isn’t it? Easy monthly payments, and did I mention, they want $500 to mount it to your wall?

I wonder when Boeing will make the decision to move to Mexico?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

...200,000 wide screen television sets per month, and everything goes “high definition” in 2009, as per Congressional Decree
----------------------------

Actually, the mandate is to go digital, not hi-def. Local station can use the new bandwidth either for one hi-def channel or six standard-def channels. Many have announced they will opt for the six channels of SD. More outlets for ads, the potential for more revenue, no need to gear up for hi-def.

Viewers with a cable or satellite boxes will be able to use legacy analog TV sets. The box will take care of that pesky conversion.

If things indeed do crash, money will dry up, and people will continue to watch perfectly good old TVs rather than buying HD LCD sets and subscribing to an HD service.

Jim in San Marcos said...

Hi Vacant Lott

Thanks for the input--from what you say, I guess the 4 regular TV's of mine are going to do just fine.

I've run across two Internet postings from the San Marcos area, that have High Def (and with a 20 foot antenna????), they can get LA with no service provider in the link. Seems like there is a lot of info out there that no one wants us to know.

Got any good links on digital?? Post them here if you do.

Thanks again

Anonymous said...

What's insane is to negotiate a free trade agreement with a country whose people are so impoverished they can't buy any of your products.