"We've got a choice between manufacturing in Mexico - or America" Chairman of 3M.

    Here's a longer version. From today's Financial Times:

    There is a sense among companies that this is a difficult place to do business. It is about regulation,taxation,seemingly anti-business policies .... Politicians forget that business has choice. We're not indentured servants and we will do business where it's good and friendly. ..... We've got a real choice between manufacturing in Canada and Mexico - which tend to be pro-business - or America"

    - George Buckley 3M Chairman and CEO

    Got it?

    Do it George's way or he won't play. What NAFTA means to Buckley is that if 3M prefers, say, safety and health regulations in Mexico - or at least the way that they will be enforced (mordida, anyone?) - it's hasta luego.

    And Globalization means that Myanmar's getting to look pretty interesting. (Flavius's interjection)

    Buckley is not a an outlier. Or a monster. Someone, as the FT puts it whose, "personal story .. is the stuff of a Dickens novel."  Abandoned at 4 months, brought up by a stranger, left a school for the disabled at 15. And now a successful and inspirational leader.

    But one who says what all other CEOs also believe but find useful to conceal. That their only objective is to make money for their company and they'll oppose any Government activity unless it actually helps them do that. (Northrop thinks the Air Force is OK).

    The interests of 3M or any company are in direct opposition to the interests of the Government. Because they must be. If GE cleans up the diodes which poured into the Hudson over decades it will have to add five dollars to the cost of a dishwasher - and therefore lose some sales to the competitor who assembled its machine in an East Asian country where they'd never think of cleaning diodes from a river. Kind of like having them there.

    Liberals relative lack of business experience means that, say, a Bill Clinton didn't intuitively understand that NAFTA was bound to injure this country. It had to lead to a race to the bottom, to a George Buckley saying we'd better become like Mexico or he's going to go to Mexico. 

    And what is true internationally is true internally. Artappraiser speculates elsewhere about the conflict between grass roots input and centralized regulations. And as Moat wrote, that's a subject worth exploring. Maybe local parents should be left to decide how to educate their childen. But OSHA and EPA regulations and, yes, protection of collective bargaining must be subject to centralized regulation otherwise the other 49 governors are ultimately going to follow Scott Walker.

    Comments

    Mexico is in america


    Yup. You know that. I know that. Presumably the FT's Hal Weitsman- who wrote the story-knows that. But Weitsman wrote America  so that's what I wrote.

    I suppose I could have inserted sic.


    I'm pretty sure when the Pakistani officials criticize "America" over the Davis affair, they aren't including Mexico. Should they be?


    kgb: check your junkmail; my birds may be called junk.  ;o)


    I usually assume they're primarily upset with Canada. Especially acanuck and quinn.


    Damn, say it ain't so,  Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, you've always been one of my favorite companies for all the little things you've done.  I love your stuff from Scotch tape to Post it Notes and beyond but you know what, we've got a choice too -- recognize your patents or NOT.  

    I tend to think that overall there is too much regulation but something happens to the back of my neck when I hear naked threats like that.  Screw the MBA's running things.  Go to Mexico, China, whereever. See how long they put up with crap like that.


    Maybe the Mexican people will eventually hate what the Corporations are doing to Mexico.

    The government will receive it's bribes, the people will be glad to have a job  

    But Emma,..... we dont need to tell them to go, they're already leaving and many have already left.

    Why shouldn't the Corporations leave, it's highly profitable, also isn't there some Tax incentives to do so?

    The products they produce,will just be imported into the US without tariffs and duties.

    I thought we had settled the issue of the expansion of slavery,between the slave States Nations and the Free States?


    The products they produce,will just be imported into the US without tariffs and duties.

    Or customers.


    Exactly, and when the customer base dries up?

    They'll force the slaves to produce them cheaper, until the price is attractive enough.

    How low can they go?


    So, you suppose Clinton was just a doe-eyed babe in the woods liberal who never could have imagined the impacts of NAFTA? Even while everyone - on both the right and left - was hollering about them at the top of their lungs? Color me skeptical.

    Let me propose an alternative explanation: he didn't fucking care because he was promised after a lifetime of earning an elected official's salary that he would magically turn into a mega-millionaire within 12 months of leaving office. Which, if you will note, is exactly what happened.


    NAFTA is the business legal kid's excuse for the dog ate my homework. So don't look to Congress for an answer...they're just as guilt as Clinton. If you want to make an impact, the identify all 3M consumer products sold over the counter, mail the list to the company headquaters and let them know you are compiling a list of alternative products from their competitors and will pass it along to you friends, post it on the internet and send out a viral e-mail to get the word out how the public can use the power of the purse to punish 3M. Just hope the US consumer is 3M's biggest bread winner.


    Thanks for posting this... Everyone should read it. It should go viral.


    Yes, it's great that he's being honest, but he's not saying anything that hasn't been threatened before.  But seriously, how bad are the regulations here in the U.S?  Does anybody really know?  Is it a case of any regulation being a bad regulation?

    My feeling about the companies who want to move their operations elsewhere because they can't stand it here is to let them move.  But then they give up any claim of being a U.S. company because they no longer are.  We treat them like foreigners because they already are foreigners.  They've turned against us, they hold no allegiance to us, they feel no patriotism toward us. 

    They are no longer one of us, and they can no longer benefit from whatever perks they got for being a U.S based company.  The U.S government will no longer subsidize them, and we will no longer buy from them.

    I would love to see a period of self-sacrifice, where the majority of us hold off on buying the latest electronics, where we buy our food from co-ops and either wear what we already own or pick out our clothes at the local thrift stores. We need to bring American purchasing power to a grinding halt and then maybe they'll get the picture.  We're important to them;  they're not nearly as important to us.


    Hey guess what? We found something we can agree on.

    Keep spreading the message "Tariffs and Duties on imports, stop exporting our jobs"

    Let the corporations pay off the debt, imposed upon the people, because of the wars being conducted. .

    Maybe then, we won't be in such a hurry to go to war?  Corporations who have the power to influence Congress might hesitate, if they're the ones picking up the tab.


    "Strange days have found us." We have lost our way. No corporation is forcing anyone to buy their products and no corporation is forcing anyone to work for them. Our choices are OURS. Mexico is one of the countries that are facing now the consequences of NAFTA, the same as the U.S., but in different ways. Mexico has really REALLY poor people, working for US$50/week so U.S. citizens (or even upper class Mexicans) can buy 3M (or put any other brand) products to keep satisfying their everyday "needs" (note that this is the way U.S. citizens are suffering; satisfying immediate/materialistic needs). Everything is just a consequence of consumerism and capitalism, and the over materialized world we live in. We really need to start seeing things from the inside and note that no one is the winner in this economic war (because it is a war, and it is just for money). Just for money ("is the root of all evil today"). We all know the reasons. We just have lost our way.

     


    Given my beliefs , the society for which you yearn,  reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon. Two scientists at the black board, one having covered it with equations points to one spot and says "Here's where a miracle occurs"..

    Your beliefs may cause you to think  that you are describing a possible world.

    I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. 



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