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The End of Cheap Labor In China
hackingbear writes "In the past decade, real wages for manufacturing workers in China have grown nearly 12% per year. The hourly cost advantage, while still significant [comparing to the West], is shrinking rapidly. The changing economics of Made in China will benefit both the rich and poor world. Countries like Cambodia, Laos, India and Vietnam are picking up some of the cheapest labor manufacturing left by the Chinese. And there is already evidence of at least the beginning of a shift in manufacturing operations returning to the US. Perhaps we will soon stop picking at 'Made in China' but instead complaining 'Made in Vietnam/Cambodia,' while serving the flood of Chinese tourists stocking up on brand-name merchandises on US tours and Chinese students paying high tuitions to our cash-strapped universities."
'nuff said.
It amazing to watch all of the people saying China is going to take over the world. It is like they have been asleep for the last 20 years. All centrally planned economies go broke including ours. China will be a basket case in the next 20 years.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
To hang who? China? US? I'm a bit weak on brain power.
lol u mad?
But more importantly, poor Walmart!
This is just the latest Western media meme (read: distortion). Manufacturing isn't going anywhere. The lowest-cost stuff will find a new home wherever it's cheapest, and that's how it's always been. But China manufacturing is here to stay. American companies may find that it's cheaper in the short run to bring manufacturing back onshore, but then they're right back to the problems of an anti-business zeitgeist which is probably why they left in the first place. China manufacturing will move...to China. Almost all of the development since the 80s has been concentrated on China's east coast. The costs in Beijing or Shanghai exceed those of many Western cities. There are plenty of inland areas awaiting investment and development. Vietnam? I have a buddy who does a lot of business down there. Says it's like China 20 years ago...shipments can't get to port because a flood washed out the road, generally poor infrastructure for taking care of foreign investments (permits take forever to get, etc.), and tons of other disadvantages. Still, Vietnam can make sense under certain circumstances.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I know of at least two large corporations that are winding down (through attrition) their sw development headcount in China. Both due to the fact that the cost advantage is going to disappear in the next 2 to 3 years, but also because other benefits promised have failed to appear. (I'm being deliberately vague here. Lets just say that the Chinese powers that be made commitments that they have not met, or even begun to meet. Not even a hint of it actually.)
I am a little surprised that everybody seems to instantly assume that the article is entirely true, and unbiased. I have learned not to immediately trust China, the pop-media, or US corporations.
On the other hand, I do not have any specific evidence to refute any it.
Perhaps then they can afford to move into their ghost cities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPILhiTJv7E
When we first started the wholesale export of manufacturing and service economy jobs to China, India and the like I predicted that within a very short time the wage pressure would increase and the environmental law would catch up. At the same time the U.S. economy would be decimated enough so that manufacturing could be brought back here.
I hate when I'm right.
It's no longer a society now of a little chinaman saying
FIVE DOLLAH YOU PAY NAO :p
People move from subsistence farming to factory work, capital investment raises their marginal productivity, employers have to compete for workers, and wages rise. It's the same thing that happened in England and the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Made by Japan was pretty crappy too...
"The changing economics of Made in China will benefit both the rich and poor world."
It won't help the U.S! We keep demanding cheap goods, no matter how poorly made they are, and the only way to get that is to take advantage of poorer countries and manufacture overseas. Of course, that means there are no manufacturing jobs anywhere in the country, so in another few years, the only place in the U.S. where anyone will be able to shop or work will be Walmart.
On the one hand, you have the iPhone--built in China and it's an absolute miracle of modern technology. Have you SEEN one of those things on the inside? Rows and rows of tiny little dots on a board and I can't even guess what any of it does. I'm sure, given U.S. labor costs, it would cost a lot more than it currently does.
On the other hand, I don't know where to buy decent clothes. I bought a 12-pack of socks a couple weeks ago and three of them were mis-sewn. Every time my wife buys a 3-pack of underwear for the kid, she takes them out of the package, washes them, and 1 or 2 will come out of the washer--their first wash, having never been worn--with the waistline frayed.
I'm not saying that everything that is (or was) made in America is automatically great, but wouldn't it be great if people DID give a shit about the quality of what they made, and that the money would stay within our borders? But I think the opportunity to do good has passed. I saw Schmatta a few months ago and that, too, is depressing as hell. It's the story of New York's fabled garment district and it ends with some fun stats: 40 years ago, 95% of clothing sold in America was made here. Today, 5% is.
The only thing America has now is an entertainment industry and bullshit I.P. laws. Oh yeah, and prisons and wars. And a bailed-out, fucked-up auto industry that somehow managed to learn almost NOTHING after they started loosing their asses in the 80s. (They started to regain their composure a bit in the 90s but then they just started making SUVs.)
Maybe I've seen Jerry McGuire too many times but I really would be happy owning fewer things that held together better and I would be more than happy to pay more for that. My parents bought a microwave within a few years of when they first became common (early/mid-80s) and it has been replaced exactly once, and that replacement is still in use. Sure, new ones cost less than $100 at Walmart now, but I've bought 3 or 4 since buying my house in the late 90s. I don't care if it costs less overall to live like this--money isn't everything. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch should make anyone stop and think "hmm, maybe rampant consumerism isn't the way to go."
PS: we also, as a country, need to stop looking down on blue-collar work. Not everyone needs a college degree. We really need to have trade schools at the high school and college levels.
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I'm not so sure I believe this.
When you consider the vastness of China and difference in economic conditions its hard to make general statements about "wages of manufacturing work" applicable to the country as a whole.
With modern, and mostly new, cities which are as up to date (at least in their core areas) as anything in the US or Europe, you also must consider that a great deal of the rural country people are still sleeping with their animals, and don't show up in any wage survey.
These rural people provide a steady flow of new recruits to work in Foxconn model factories, then shipped back home when they start making too many demands. Its unlikely this workforce will be soon exhausted, but what might be seen is a glut of ex-employees of such firms who don't want to return to rural areas, but really don't have any marketable skills.
Put your cursor on any portion of central china and zoom to the maximum extent of Google Earth. Farms and terraced hill sides as far as you can see, with very small dense villages situated close by. Most of these farms are not very mechanized, and while the labor demand is high, there are still millions of excess workers in these areas, which end up being warehoused in cities.
Not even around the coastal manufacturing cities do you see housing developments that indicate the inhabitants have anything but cheek by jowl housing in the most densely packed neighborhoods imaginable. You can almost count the private swimming pools in all of China on your fingers.
These people need something to do, and no signification portion of the manufacturing done in China will move very far before prices will come down. China is a factory, and factories have to have work.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Let's see China pull this off without constantly manipulating their currency to boost the manufacturing while keeping pollution half of what it is currently over those same 10 years. It's okay, because when inflation hits, the sh*t will hit the fan in China (look up the economic trilemma and see where China's weakness is... for the USA, we choose not to peg our currency to fix our trade gap).
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
People who oppose globalization should really think about this. In a couple of decades, the globalized economy has elevated a nation of a billion people from the bottom rung of world socioeconomic status to the solid middle ground. No question, the elevation of China has had some negative impacts on the economy of the developed world, but not so bad, really: the US economy has not collapsed during the process, and its manufacturing industry has been weakened but survives. No question, the process has had some negative impacts on Chinese workers, but nothing compared to the servitude, abuse, and death of the West's own industrial revolution. And finally, no question that political freedoms in China have not changed with the economic times, but I consider the *ability* to communicate a prerequisite to the *freedom* to speak, and the Chinese government may soon realize it has a tiger by the tail in that regard.
And consider on the other hand, the positives. A billion people are now able to live in comfortable housing, free of disease and pestilence, able to travel across the continent and participate in global dialogue. A good chunk of these billion people are now in a position to buy US-made products like World of Warcraft, Ford Explorers, and a million things made in China, but designed in the US by 3M, IBM, and Microsoft.
A rising tide may not lift all boats, and it surely doesn't lift all boats equally, but still, a billion boats is a damned good start.
China seems on good way to actually equalize the incomes a little bit. Creating a working internal Martken is good for them and good for the world.
And we will all have one, whether we like it or not!
Have you actually been there? (I just got back.) Shanghai is an interesting place, that's for sure. Wages for university educated and skilled people there are rising quickly. (You can't use unskilled farmers as programmers.) At the present rate of growth, they will match North American wages for equivalent work in about 4 to 5 years. Now I'm perfectly prepared to entertain arguments that the present rate of growth is unsustainable, so lay them on me... (And explain how they won't also depress wages here.)
Ian Ameline
With technological advances I would hope Chinese workers see some of the benefits from high tech production facilities combined with new infrastructure.
The US has a minimum wage well over $5/hr and for long hours manual labor it's about $10/hr for minimal skill work. In China it's now approaching what? $1/hr? Wow, a whole 14% increase in that per year? So in 15-20yrs their wages will compete with ours. I'm sure the petroleum costs just to ship products here has been a bigger burden to manufacturing companies.
People say they are taking over, yet I still haven't seen anything new from China, it's all designed in the US and Europe. Until we start importing high speed trains, I see China just as a jewel of cheap labor. Let's hope at some point they are developing high tech products for us and cheap manufacturing leaves, but I think it's going to be another 20 years before that happens.
You can look at it at a company level too. You offer 1/4th the price to win the contract. Next renewal you offer 1/3rd etc. Always cheap than other options but getting closer and closer. Not doing that you are just giving away money. You only need to come in low enough to win the contract any more and your throwing money away.
Oh, he mad.
A once-proud nation with a free and well-functioning economy is reduced to a pathetic mess, with a small number of very wealthy individuals and a huge masses of the poor.
I was having trouble deciding whether to mod jcr up or reply to this braindeadedness.
Huge masses of poor? In the US? The only way you can come to that conclusion is if you don't even know what poor is. I don't need to show you, but this is poverty. In America, homeless people are fat, and the only reason they are homeless is because they have serious mental or emotional issues.
In America, we have 'poor' people, as measured by the poverty line, but the poor people have refrigerators. They frequently have cars. They definitely have shoes. I'm not saying that everything is perfect here, or that there aren't people who have money problems (the primary problem people will run into in that case is healthcare), but in America, we have it good. If you don't think so, you really need to get out of the country and see the world.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"...and Chinese students paying high tuitions to our cash-strapped universities."
The United States would have to have internationally recognized top-notch Universities and while there are still a couple considered acceptable internationally for the most part the international intellectual community considers the Universities in the US to be second rate at best. Forget about exporting US education, that ship sailed ten years ago at least.
You can't use unskilled farmers as programmers.
You should be careful with this claim. I've had the misfortune of actually dealing with offshore developers in India who were farmers before becoming "programmers". (I put "programmers" in quotes, because they couldn't actually program worth a damn.)
One fellow in particular was extraordinarily bad at coding. I mean, he had trouble declaring simple variables, and didn't even know what a function was. So I stayed up one night and called him directly. It turned out that he'd worked full-time as a papaya farmer up until he was in his 40s. Then he moved to the city, and somehow was hired as a programmer.
When it comes to offshore developers, you're often getting somebody with no practical education. You get people who have entered the field extremely late in their lives, without having any sort of useful background beforehand. Many of them don't even have what would be considered a primary school education in the US. It's no wonder the software they develop is so shitty.
Chinese wages haven't really gone up -- the US Dollar has been losing value. In other words, the Chinese aren't getting richer -- we're getting poorer. This is why Hu Jintao wants the Dollar to no longer be reserve currency.
"Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two" -- RFC 1925
Huge masses of poor? In the US? The only way you can come to that conclusion is if you don't even know what poor is.
Oh, I see. So as long as there's *some* shithole in the world whose poor are worse off than ours, we shouldn't be concerned about it. And here I figured that since our country has a GNP per capita 10+ times the size of those other countries that it might be reasonable that we not have people starving and dying of preventable diseases like TOOTH DECAY - guess I'm just a DFH for that...
Related question: do you ever get used to tossing the salad of the rich, or did you just love the taste from birth?
Yea... I can see Vietnam absorbing China's manufacturing.
Let's see...
87,279,754 Vietnamese.
1,331,460,000 Chinese (in 2009).
There may be a SLIGHT difficulty here.
Same for eastern european countries.
Now.. Africa has 1 billion people... so far so good.
But it's 54 countries with 54 legal systems.
The rule of law doesn't really hold in many of those countries.
I'd say China will draw jobs from the US for another 4-6 years. Then the bigger threat is automation and robotics. Already businesses are buying hundreds of these things to replace humans and the annual operation costs are about $15,000. They can work 2 shifts for that.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This is where the USA repays its debt (from living on and inflating markets with borrowed money) to the world, Good luck guys, its not going to be pretty.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
...the poor people have refrigerators.
Yeah, but they're in the yard.
Don't count russia out. Moscow is currently the most expensive city in the world to live, and Russia has a decent number of people. The chinese can sell to the russians just fine.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
My guess is quality will go up as manufacturing leaves China, where it is encouraged to do ANYTHING for a buck and isn't unethical to take/gives bribes.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
But it's 54 countries with 54 corrupt legal systems that are easily bought off with pocket change.
There, fixed that for you.
Do you live in the US? What about the huge middle class, sure some consider themselves poor because they only own 2 flat screen tvs but this is hardly a nation filled with poor. You can find some small European countries like Luxembourg that have almost 0 poor but I challenge you to find a large country with a situation like us, we are the envy of the world. The median wage in China is only around 900 per year per capita, they are no where near us. China is a country with very few rich and 100s of millions living in situations the poorest American could only imagine. In twenty years people lime you will be saying that the US is going to be taken over by India and forget about how supposedly China, Germany, and Japan were supposedly going to do this before and failed.
America had a free economy and culture of competion when combined with many hard working immigrants who are the best of their home countries we are an unstoppable juggernaught,
Your government putting a crazy-bigass-TAX on companies who take jobs outside the country would.
FYI: they rest of the world is watching you and wondering WTF is happening over there. And this is one of the reasons among many....
You're quite short-sighted. Free trade has only really taken hold in America over the past 20 years. It's just the very, very beginning of the decline.
Have you been to the Deep South lately? While the Rust Belt states were hit first, they were much better off to begin with than the Deep South. The Deep South has always been somewhat backward, but things did turn around for a while. They did have a lot of manufacturing, but that has since been shipped off to Asian nations or Mexico. The Deep South is suffering now, and it's becoming more and more obvious each year.
The claims you make about the poor do not hold true any longer. Many poor in the Deep South only have a refrigerator because their parents or even grandparents bought it in the 1970s, when Americans still had jobs, and Americans still produced appliances that lasted more than a couple of years.
It's much the same situation when it comes to vehicles. Many of them are driving cars that were manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s, when vehicles were still made in America, and when they were far more reliable than they are today. Of course, America is somewhat unique in that it's totally against every form of affordable public transportation. So anyone living outside of basically New York, Boston, Washington or Chicago needs to have a car of some sort, regardless of their economic situation.
They have shoes merely because shoes are an item that can be produced extremely cheaply in third-world countries, and even cost only $2 to $5 in the US. But that's not the case for refrigerators and vehicles. The near-antiques being used by so many in the Deep South will break down soon. They won't be able to find parts, and won't have the skills or money to fabricate such parts themselves. They won't be able to afford new items, either, and likely won't even be able to afford heavily-used items being sold second-, third- or even fourth-hand.
You need to think beyond more than the present, and beyond more than one or two years. Look into the future. It will be very bleak. What's starting in the Deep South will spread to the rest of the US. It may take a while, but it will eventually reach the more civilized parts of the nation.
BBC - BBC Two Programmes - "Welcome to Lagos" Is the Rags to riches story of the Nigerian rapper vocal slender. He literally lived in a dump and earned a living recycling metal clothes and glass. It is both uplifting and informative. After watching it there can be no confusion about what poverty is.
Chinese wages are increasing 12% per year, while real wages in the US are decreasing every year. Soon it won't matter whether or not China buys us out, because we won't be able to afford their products anyways.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Amen Brother.
and in the past worker safety and better rights happened at the same time fame so now as china moves from the company town / sweatshop / Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire to some better rights the work will just move the a other place where there is less rights. This is where unions started and workers stoped being worked to death and stopped betting forced to use part of there wage to pay off there company store dues.
Now the next low wage place is the prison system.
Outsourcing is like water: it flows downhill, and the landscape changes. China isn't the base of the hill any more.
This is why outsourcing is not a bad thing. It's the global economy attempting to equalize itself. Don't ban it, don't fight it, embrace it.
And then, because 95% of people chose the $50 microwaves, the $150 microwave market becomes unsustainable at that price, so they become $500 microwaves, then $1,000 microwaves, and eventually disappear from the market entirely, leaving nothing but the junk available for purchase. And this is why the consumer electronics market is in large part a race to the bottom, both in price and in quality.
So buy commercial-type equipment. Take the "consumer" out of it
You can get a commercial microwave, made for company breakrooms and convenience stores. They're $500-1500 and they're built like tanks. Some of them are even built in the USA. Same thing with vacuum cleaners, whatever. They're ugly as sin, but they're built to survive daily use by employees who don't own them and don't care whether they break or not.
You won't find them at Wal-Mart, but the internet makes buying them easy.
It's like buying a $100 inkjet vs. a $1000 networked laser printer, or a $500 Best Buy laptop vs. a Thinkpad.
Wishful thinking much? Western economists have been predicting the death of China since the mid 90's. Everything from over heating to under heating, from over population to declining population have been bandied out as the potential causes. There is also blaming China for oil price spikes when it was American speculators who was manipulating the markets. If I am an American, I would not be rejoicing at this news. It means that China is maturing and moving up the tech tree. China also has an advantage that the US doesn't: an autocratic oligarchy, the best form of capitalist governance.
Oh!! you worked for Accenture?
U.S. (and British) universities continue to dominate the international rankings from QS World, The Times, etc. Moreover, at least in the U.S., the top universities are certainly not "cash-strapped." (I only wish I had a fraction of Harvard's endowment.) Public universities are cash-strapped only because their associated state governments are, but their core business (educating students) is performing quite well. Public universities have been able to raise tuition rates without significantly impacting demand. The comparative value of a university diploma continues to climb, and universities tend to be counter-cyclical to a major extent. English has become the undisputed standard language for global commerce, so that also tends to favor American and British universities. And the barriers to developing a strong positive reputation are high because of strong university network effects and the market value of centuries of history.
Even the Washington Post agrees.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/with-executive-pay-rich-pull-away-from-rest-of-america/2011/06/13/AGKG9jaH_story.html?hpid=z1
A good, but depressing, read.
I've been predicting for some time that manufacturing will begin shifting to southeast Asia. There are issues, however, with relocating facilities there. Lack of good infrastructure is one problem. But things of that nature can be addressed with time. Political corruption, general lack of organization and instability are problems that will be far more difficult to overcome. China has many problems, but it's a far more stable environment in which to do business and manufacturing.
Labor costs, however, aren't the only reason to bring manufacturing back to the United States. The cost of shipping raw materials to Asia and then shipping goods back is no longer trivial. The lack of proper quality control is another. The supply chain is too strung out, with too many components coming from too many locations, to the point that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. Some parts supplier screws something up and it will completely disrupt production.
Of course we're probably going to see these cycles for decades to come. Management gets the idea to move manufacturing overseas under the pretense of cost savings. They eventually get replaced by people who have to deal with the implications of those decisions. So those people bring some of it back. Then new people come in and have a bright idea for cutting costs and the cycle starts all over again. It already happens with outsourcing. The difference with manufacturing is that the pace is far slower because of the commitment involved in establishing a new manufacturing facility. And the fact is that the United States doesn't do a particularly good job of attracting business investment. That is something China has wisely been focused on, even with their booming economy.
The problem is that unlike Japan, Taiwan and South Korea they haven't made the transition specialized manufacturing and haven't yet established their own brands. They're far from competing on an international level with their own products. Despite all the strides China has made to turn themselves into a self-sufficient economy the fact is that they're still very much dependent on the West and other Asian economic powers. China is reaching where they can't compete on cost. This means they don't have a lot to fall back on. This means they won't have much to fall back on if everyone abandons them.
So they're trying to change that, but I don't think it's going to change any time soon. In the interim this may prove to be a very big problem for China. Couple that with the various economic bubbles they've got going and there's a potential for disaster. A China with serious economic problems could prove to be a dangerous China. There have already been protests throughout China by people who feel disenfranchised. If that turns into a widespread problem they may fall back to the age old fail-safe. Blame someone else for your own problems.
Oh, I see. So as long as there's *some* shithole in the world whose poor are worse off than ours, we shouldn't be concerned about it.
No, there is a baseline. If you have shelter, running water, easily access to transportation (bus or car), refrigeration and communications (like a TV and phone) then no matter how "poor" you may appear on a ledger somewhere, you are doing OK compared to much of the human population through history.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A guy in China if paid well might get 1.25$ per hour. Let us say someone else is willing to do it for 0.25 in some other country. You're looking at a savings of a dollar an hour. That money is worth it just for infrastructure and a skilled labor force(people should be willing to pay 1$/hr just to do business in a country with good infrastructure/workers). China took it from the USA because the wage differential could be like 20$/hr. 20$/hr buys some pretty great infrastructure and training of a labor force so it makes sense USA lost it to China. 1$/hr doesn't buy so much in relation. It just doesn't make sense China will lose it to a country that wants to undercut them. This is just how I look at it. Maybe I don't have all the data.
God spoke to me
Meanwhile, the top 5% of our population owns as much as the other 95% and more people are joining the ranks of poor but with refrigerators.
That's enough to result in some serious instability if the unemployment checks run out or good new jobs don't start showing up soon.
Move to Cambodia, or Vietnam, or Thailand or Laos and their economies will also grow and you'll see their currency appreciate in value as well, leading to the same issue. In the mean time you'll need to live with greatly reduced infrastructure and shipping capacity as compared to China.
And yes, I do a lot of work in Asia, and live half my life in Shanghai supporting manufacturing in China, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
And what would the economy of the USA look like without manipulating our own currency by means of quantitative easing and record low interest rates?
Much better than the rest of the world had they not done so. QE was done to help China/Europe, not America...
It should never have been done, that I agree with. But the world would be in a bad way without it. As we will see since it only delayed the inevitable.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And look how happy they are now!
I used to weak Nike shoes made in Vietnam that fell apart rather quickly under the stress. It's not where it's being made as much as this reeking desperation to achieve profits that cuts down production expenses at the cost of overall quality and durability. At the same time in the world of population explosion you may not necessarily want stuff that would last you ages. So i guess we just end up with more and more junk that needs to be disposed of some way, "occassionally" poluting the planet that gave us life on a first place.
Just don't call it vicious cycle, that would sound negative...
That's enough to result in some serious instability if the unemployment checks run out or good new jobs don't start showing up soon.
What do you mean by instability? Do you mean riots in the streets, or do you mean, people changing jobs? Both are things that have been referred to as 'instability'.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What doesn't worry me is that Americans won't be able to afford food or will die of ordinary diseases. What worries me is that America's economy has grown by 2/3 over the past 30 years and all of that has gone to the top 10% of the earners.
The "bottom" 90% has seen negligible earnings growth over the past 30 years even though it was their productivity growth (aka "working harder") that grew the economy. This won't go on forever but what scares me is the process by which the trend reverses itself. It may not be pretty.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Why, exactly, does this worry you? Are you worried that someone else might be earning more than you? Every segment of society has gotten richer over the past 30 years.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I wish jobs would transition away from China that easily as the deterioration of cost advantage would suggest: Even if most companies complain about skyrocketing cost of production in China, still 80% of those see it "very unlikely" that they would move their production away from China to other countries. The reason? Infrastructure and huge supplier networks in China. Also, Also, China has money now and it is leveraging it's capital heavily in Asia. For example, when Chinese banks are loaning money to other countries in Asia the funding is ear-marked to be used for Chinese contractors.
Until DHS reduces their heavy-handed border / visa policies, don't bet on a flood of foreign students arriving on US shores...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
I'd say China will draw jobs from the US for another 4-6 years. Then the bigger threat is automation and robotics.
A lot of robotics is coming out of the developed world. It's high-tech stuff. Japan is doing well for the fancy stuff, not sure about industrial robotics though. But it'd surprise me if the US can't hold their ground in that kind of fields anymore. So what threat? Such a development could as well mean a boon for the US economy.
China is suffering massive inflation now, caused mostly because they have tied their yuan to the dollar, disregarding their many many promises/treaties. So, we pushed QE2 to keep us from deflation as well as to hurt China. ANd it has.
China's housing marking has dropped in the last month. One of their numerous bubbles is popping.
Nice troll. Spoken like someone that knows very little about actual economics or China.
China is not centrally planned, per say. Chinese factory output is not planned and rationed. Chinese manufacturers are free to make whatever deal they want with the outside, provided these deals are in accordance with the laws (eg. no buyout of local plant by external entity).
China does heavy regulation of banks to limit the bust/boom cycle of "free market" economy. What China has is what I would describe as a success story. They have enjoyed prolonged growth without any massive bubbles.
They do have a housing bubble, but central government has instituted 20+% reserves at banks and higher interest rates. What happened in the US when there was a housing bubble in 2006? Did anyone care that banks were running at sub-5% reserves? Hell, in Canada it made the news that banks instituted "precautionary" 7% reserves, and Canada's banks are much more regulated than US.
Anyway, this is expected result of a successful economic growth. People demand more money and get paid more. Imagine that! Or maybe you are just jealous?
If Japan is any example to go by, China may end up selling on the basis of quality, rather than price. That's because they'll have more experience at manufacturing goods than others. This of course will ramp up the price, making them less competitive, and they'll start rattling on about "transitioning to a service-oriented business model" when they can no longer sell their goods at the prices they want.
What's more interesting is how fast they'll mine out the resources of good people, such as what's happening in Indonesia and India now. (The sheer number of trained technologists needed is no longer being met. Training infrastructure has to rise too, guys!)
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Wow, so you're an economist now? (We all know you're not an English major after that load of verbal puke).
Well, since I am someone with economic training, let me explain a few things:
1. There is no "rightful" place for work to be done, hence no such thing as "American" jobs.
2. Tariffs are bad for everyone in the long run, as they lead to non-competitive businesses and slowed innovation.
3. If you tax big companies, they will decide it's not worth it to stay in the US at all, and simply move their HQ overseas. Or, they could import workers (which is a good idea, in general).
4. Do you really think most Americans want to work in textile mills and parts assembly plants? There is a reason why these kinds of jobs have little skill requirements and yet wages for them in the US are often higher than minimum wage. (Half of the reason is unions...) At any rate, most of the work that was outsourced is easy but tedious work that most people in the US don't want to do. Likewise go to NYC sometime and look at all the immigrants and what work they are doing. Right, cleaning toilets in the train station, etc. It's not like people just go over from Vietnam and start working on Wall Street as traders or something.
5. Do you really think a company should have to pay someone $25 an hour to snap together car parts? Is that fair to someone who just spent 5 years in college (and probably $100K+)?
Here, try a little thought experiment though:
Pretend that you live in New Jersey, and I sell stuff made in New Jersey to people in New York City and Philadelphia. The stuff I am making needs a lot of space to manufacture, and the land in New Jersey is cheaper than Philadelphia and New York City. The rent (and hence cost of living) is also lower, so I can pay my workers a bit less. As a result, I can make the stuff for 20% less in NJ than I would be able to in NYC and 15% less than I would be able to in Philly. Transportation costs some money, so the total cost probably racks up to 90% of the goods made locally in each city - but consumers are glad to save 10% since my goods have around the same quality.
So...
1. Am I "Betraying" NY or PA?
2. Is this bad, for a whole for NJ, NY, or PA?
3. Is it bad for my workers in NJ? (Since I pay them less than they would make at a similar factory in NYC)
4. Is it bad for the consumers in NJ, NY, or PA?
The only ones you can say it even might be bad for is the factories in NY and PA, and their workers. Then again, maybe that just means that the middle of NYC is not the ideal place for manufacturing! There are plenty of places where NYC can compete but space and labor intensive manufacturing just isn't one of them. Or, maybe they would find a way to be competitive. (Their style could be more original, product bundling, who knows).
One thing is clear, putting a tax on imports from NJ would mean:
1. Workers in NY can keep their jobs (for now).
2. The factories in NY can stay open (for now).
3. The jobs and factories above will become increasingly insulated from the real world, making their certain eventual failure that much more catastrophic.
4. The factory in NJ wouldn't gain as much business, and thus people in NJ would "lose jobs" (or not gain them).
And this is an important place to ask - Do people in NJ deserve jobs more or less than those in NY? What if it was NY countryside vs. NY City?
5. NJ, Phila, and NYC customers would all be punished with higher prices, and eventually fewer choices.
So what in the equation above is different when you change the states to countries? Nothing, really. The fact is that different places have different natural advantages, and should take advantage of what they can to do the work they can do the most efficiently. China has a lot of people and low wages, so they should use that to their advantage for as long as they can. India has the same, but lacks a decent infrastructure - but it does have a better education system, at least for technology related things, and more Indians s
I wouldn't include Egypt in this. All they have is a large population (compared to other Arab countries) and little else. The skills just ain't there. Or else, the bulk of expatriates working in the GCC countries would have been Egyptians, and not people from the indian subcontinent, Phillipines, etc.
All I can see China doing is bidding for mineral resources, and prospecting for oil. Given that that region is pretty unstable - right next to Somalia - can't say I get the logic. If it's just the mineral resources they're after, they could have buddied up w/ Zambia, Zimbabwe and other sub-Saharan countries.
Both China and India are getting expensive, and the next places would be Russia and Eastern Europe. And some back in the US, where a lot of regulations will have to be watered down before a lot more can be enticed.
The bulk of china's population is on their coasts, not their interior. Look @ a population distribution map. China is congested along its entire coasts, but the interior provinces are moderately populated.
For labor availability, India and Russia are good, and both these countries, as well as Thailand, Philippines would provide skilled labor. I'm not sure about Vietnam, but I'm not sure that Cambodia is there yet.
For unskilled labor, sub-Saharan Africa is good - I'm talking countries like Namibia, Zambia, Congo (Zaire), maybe even Tanzania.
I have to disagree with some of these so called experts. Labor cost is one component of a comprehensive industrial system. Labor costs are almost certainly already cheaper in "Countries like Cambodia, Laos, India and Vietnam".
Yet you have to search with intent if you actually want to find goods Made In India here in the west, despite India being comparable in population to China.
And yeah sure, labor cost rising in Japan means the domestic car companies will bitch slap those copycat Jap cars. :BUZZER: Sorry Yanks, that didn't come to fruition by a long shot.
The main reason to move labor out of US and the other Western countries is not wages. It's not wages.
Wages are just a cherry on top of the proverbial cake. The main reason to move production and capital out of the West is because production and capitalism are punished in the West by the forces that are fighting free market capitalism with every breath they take.
Government intervention: income/payroll/capital taxes and business regulations are the main culprits, not wages.
Wages are only a matter of the market demand/supply ratio, and if the jobs were just moving towards the lower wage locations, then this would immediately precipitate to workers increasing the supply and wages would automatically lower, and the smaller amount of dollars in the hands of workers in local areas would push prices for housing down, as well as other prices for products/services in that area.
The prices must come down when there is an oversupply and lack of demand, this applies to labor just as well as to any good/service.
So wages are a tiny, really the least significant reason for moving production capacity out of US and the West. The main reason for this capital flight is the atmosphere that is created by the political system, which caters to the majority of the population - workers, and does this to the detriment of the minority - employers, but in the mobile world, the capital also become mobile, so punishing the employers in this case only causes them to be mobile and to move.
There are basically no private unions left. The reason for it is simple: unions eventually destroy the business. They drive wages up, but worse than that: they cause the business to have too many obligations, liabilities, that make the business uncompetitive. The above-average benefits, the above-average pensions, medical plans, etc. etc. (not vacation time, it's a misconception that vacation time is significant, as it is not the employer who pays for vacation time, it's the employee, who takes less cash home in exchange for more vacation.)
The unions act as a small version of a government, so now they are only left in government, where they are slowly and surely driving the entire government system out of business. In government there should be no unions in the first place, as the unions in government are negotiating with politicians for their benefits, not with employers - tax payers.
Of-course unions are only a small part of the problem, the main problem is the mob mentality, that the politicians are catering to, as they pass more and more legislation, more and more business related laws, which drive competition out of the system, create monopolies/oligopolies, push prices up, decrease quality, inflate the money supply to support the ever-increasing appetites of the monopolies/oligopolies and the mob to the 'free lunch'. So when you destroy the opportunities to do business, destroy ability to compete, destroy ability to save (inflation), destroy ability even to enjoy your business (all the regulations turn a businessman into part of government bureaucratic machine, soulless, joyless), you cause capital flight.
Capital flight is the reason that jobs disappear of-course. Capital is not printed cash, capital is ability to produce. Capital is ability to exchange with others for tools/materials/products they produce so that you can produce as well.
The government has destroyed ability of people to tend after themselves, to make their own living by producing, and instead it pushed people to become mindless consumers living on credit. Realize, that credit should not exist to provide people with ability to buy consumables.
The reason to have credit is to provide businesses with opportunity to invest into more production capacity, not to provide consumers with more money to spend on finished consumer goods. The reason for it must be obvious: credit must be paid back with interest.
Buying consumer goods does not generate interest and certainly it does not provide one with opportunity to p
You can't handle the truth.
'Made in ____' denotes the country where the final product is packed. Once upon a time, it used to be in one place. But not any more, w/ the distributed manufacturing models out there. In the above case, different parts would be available from different countries, depending on the availability. Then, the parts have to be assembled, and then tested, and these two may not necessarily be in the same country. For instance, w/ semiconductors, you could manufacture the die in Japan, do the testing & assembly in the Philippines, then test the package and do the final packing in China. Since the final packing is done in China, that's what the label is.
I've seen products w/ a 'Made in Bangladesh' label, which I know are not made there - things like dinette sets. Only reason they have that label is that they're packed there. Nothing more.
That's also why the EU has '% content' labels on a lot of stuff.
I hate you, your posts make my eyes bleed...
The best thing any government could do would be to eliminate the formation of "for-profit" corporations. Their "it's all about the profit" charters have made them a danger to the planet. They have used globalization to avoid doing the right thing environmentally and socially. They have no conscience because no one in a corporation feels personally responsible for the negative impacts of the company. As they say: "It's not personal, it's just business". Globalization is really a corporate phenomena that takes advantage of foolish people who would rather chase what they want rather than what they need.
That's what China, among other countries like the Soviet Union, once tried. Just didn't work, so what they did was preserve a Communist political establishment but transform their economy into not a Capitalist one, but rather, a feudal economy where initially, their biggest selling point was cheap labor. It was a good start.
Also, it's easy to de-personalize corporations, but in the end, there is no such thing: if a corporation makes a loss, it either has to be sucked up by the owners or the employees or the customers. If it's going to be the owners, they won't stay in it for too long, and soon, it'll just wind up. If it's going to be the employees, soon enough, you'll see all the competent ones who can get better jobs elsewhere leave. If it's going to be the customers, it'll be easiest for them to switch, since they have the least @ stake in such a corporation.
So essentially, when one eliminates the profit motive for a corporation, one also does in its very rationale for existing
Look, if you're going to grammar nazi troll at least do it right- don't go after typos, go after actually stupid stuff like confusion between two, too, and to or your and you're.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
That, and the state piles on its own minimum wage, as LynnwoodRooster noted.
Point people miss is that this is the minimum, not average wage. It's mainly for people who are entering the job market, or @ the beginning of their careers. Like college students who supplement their income by working for Burger King, or delivering pizza. It's not meant for someone trying to support his entire family, including finance his kids' education and all.
People who think it's too low often miss the simple fact that this is to enable newcomers to the job market to get a foot in the door by having some work experience that they can put on their first resume. Aside from that, unions often push for increases in the minimum wage b'cos that's the way to force increase in the wages of their entire membership, and give them the opportunity to hike union dues. In other words, the reasons for them to support hiking minumum wages are political. But that hike doesn't come from nowhere - the company that has to fork it out has to get it from somewhere, and that somewhere is always the customer. And if in the process, the pizza ends up costing more than another brand, the customer will either buy it from the competitor, or bake it @ home - whichever he prefers.
Obviously, $5/hr is not enough. So how is $7.50 enough? If not $7.50, why not $10? In fact, if you base it on need, and assume that one needs $120k a year, then it comes out to ~$60/hr. Add to that taxes - both state & federal, and it comes out to $100/hr. So why not make $100/hr the minimum wage, instead of engage in this exercise every few years?
China has major infrastructure projects in virtually every subSaharan African country right now. They are rebuilding railways, ports, mines, refinement facilities, ect.... Of course, with all the corruption and lack of oversight, many of these projects are behind schedule. N. American and European companies are still there, but they have a lot of catching up to do. As someone who has lived in several African countries for the past eight years, it is disheartening that sustainability and environmental awareness takes a backseat to quick development, but the reality is apparent. China has arrived.
Russia only looks huge - on a map. However, their population is 150m & shrinking. However, they do have a very educated workforce, which is why so many Western companies have R&D there. Costs there can be ameliorated if corporations decide to become more adventurous and look to cities in more remote places like Siberia, instead of expecting everything out of Moscow, which is overstretched as it is.
The only country that can absorb labor demands that China cannot handle will be first India, and then the US, which is now #3 in world population. Then come all the rest. It's probably a good time to get back to basics and start trying to attract all kinds of work, instead of just casting out the work Americans won't do, and try and have a reasonable meeting point b/w supply & demand, so that it doesn't take forever for a global equilibrium to be arrived at.
There is actually a burgeoning middle-class in most Sub-Saharan African countries. Income levels are rising and people are consuming more, moving into cities and away from their rural existence. Somalia is a virtual failed state, DRC is probably a close second. Although, even DRC you have major mining interests. Most East African economies are growing at well over 6%, Southern African economies are doing even better. Even with the horrible poverty and issues such as HIV, there is a lot of money to be made. One has to be in it for the long haul though.
They have ongoing environmental collapse in many areas of the country. Floods, drought.... as many experts say, one failed harvest away from disaster. Inflation has a nasty way of creeping up on you until its too late. If China does not address their structural flaws (corruption, widening gap between rich and poor, rural vs. urban development, inflation, environmental collapse) there will be hard and fast consequences. China does not deal well with internal unrest.
for creating a middle class for the rest of the world at the expense of your own people.
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
US should have linked Outsourcing to Caste system in India and Human Rights in China
That fact does not surprise me. Close to the coast zone the price for a working hour is near to the U.S. minimum. Is time to change country? Yes, I think so maybe smart ceo will look to return home but...
By this logic almost any bad situation can be justified simply by pointing to someone who has it worse. As a society we should aim higher. try to achieve prosperity for all. Beyond the moral reasons it makes people less likely to steal your stuff or mug you if they feel there is some fairness and they have a genuine prospect of earning a living wage.
You should not write the poor off as having mental illness either. The poverty trap is very real and good people can get stuck in it. It is also no coincidence that the children of poor people tend to be poor too. Yeah, if you get lucky you can break away. Yeah, sometimes poor people bring it on themselves. But I still think most people in that situation are willing to work hard to get out of it, life isn't that simple.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Take a look at this article from the economist:
http://www.economist.com/node/18805862 The argument is that wages are rising in china, and no other place has the same combination of cheap and abundant labor and good infrastructure. This, together with inflationary pressure from raising energy costs and food costs might bring the end of the era of cheap goods.
China will rule the world - make no mistake, this will happen a lot sooner than you think. But, the industrial cycle of gimme cheap, cheap, cheap is driven by mostly US values which praise Walmart above all and export US/European/Australian jobs offshore so that a few corporate powerful bastards can get rich at the expense of the mass of gullible ignorant bastards. You reap what you sow... US citizens never understand that pollution in China is attributable to US companies operating there.... that slave labor wages in Chinese factories are pretty well dictated by US corporate need - and that - when it all goes belly up, The US and other western countries can either choose to support their countrymen and pay what things really cost (while re-importing jobs) OR - pay the next lot of powerful bastards who will move their operations to some other peasant oriented society for another generation of sweat shop exploitation... The cycle is historically clear - your sweatshop subjects are going to kick your ass in about 20 years from now... but the powerful bastards don't care - they are already on their yachts....
India has the exact same policy on caste relations that the US has on race relations. Just as in the US, you now have quotas and reverse discrimination on behalf of Blacks and other minorities, similarly, in India, you have quotas and reverse discrimination on behalf of hitherto discriminated-against castes. Only difference is that in the US, there is one party that's largely opposed to affirmative action & quotas, but in India, there are none, since unlike in the US, the beneficiaries of the system are the overwhelming majority, unlike in the case of the US where they are the minority.
But yeah, the US could do well by insisting that China vacate Tibet. Although their policy in Xinxiang would be interesting, where China has its own Uyghur unrest, which is backed by al Qaeda. So which side should the US take on terrorism - al Qaeda backed Turkestani parties, or China?
Actually, many in the US are homeless not because of mental health issues, but because of the justice system, and then leads to mental health issues.
Go to jail, do not ever find a real job again unless you are staggeringly unlucky. What else have you got other than going back to jail or living on the street?
I used to work with an organization that trained homeless in useful work skills and tried to find them jobs and get them on their feet. Overwhelmingly these were men, overwhelmingly they had followed a trajectory similar to "had a good job, went to jail (almost always for drug offenses, and almost always for ridiculously small quantities), got out and nobody would hire them because of their record"
Not to say that your larger point is not dead on - we have SOME poor people in this country, but the vast majority considered poor by our standards are quite well off compared to real poverty.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
1. China is a centrally-planned economy with highly manipulated currency.
2. The US economy stayed solid between 2001 and 2008 because of federal deficit spending not the work of the US private sector.
3. The private debt in the US jumped dramatically in the last decade or so to compensate for stagnating and declining wages.
4. China is substantially more repressive than the West was during its period of rapid industrialization. Extrajudicial punishment and execution are far more common in modern China than they have been in the West since the end of the feudal era.
To put it succinctly, the US is living in denial on credit and China is nothing more than a highly efficient banana republic.
IF there are good jobs to change to, it takes that form. When there are not, it causes rioting in the streets, or if bad enough, rich people get beheaded.
Damn he mad.
US cutthroat manufacturing made you rich, you build lots of bombs now. Now go away.
Seems like everything was Made in Japan for the longest time... which was then replaced with Made in Taiwan which was the case for not quite so long a time... Made in China is going by the way side relatively quickly.
After SE ASIA, there is Africa. After that who knows.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
"Chinese students paying high tuitions to our cash-strapped universities."
Since when do foreign students pay tuition in the US? The taxpayers do that through scholarships. Only US citizens have to actually pay for their educations in the US.
I am guessing you don't care much for Africa as well.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
the Chinese government will just devalue their currency to keep everything cheap for outside nations.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Robotics is fundamentally different.
It's not retiring the buggy whip maker who now has to learn to repair automobiles.
It's replacing the buggy whip maker and there is no new technology to replace it.
Well designed robots are modular. No repair bill.
The number of robotics design jobs is a fraction of the number of jobs robots will replace.
Automation has an equal impact (i.e. no receptionists any more at large companies- 1,000 receptionists (probalby more) replaced by 5 receptionist software and support resources).
I think we'll need something dramatic like reduced work hours or there will be social disorder once the republicans cut off social benefits and people start starving. I just hope they take it to the wealthy instead of burning down their own neighborhoods and robbing their friends.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
When the hell are we going to get simple things marked 'Made in Darfur', or Kenya or some other poor African country? We spend a fortune giving money to these regions because they lack an economy. Why cant they make mechanical pencils or some other low tech industry? It might go a long way to eliminating the conflict there if everyone could afford electricity, television, and beer. The upshot of which would be curbing the tide of china rising to superpower status on the back of cheap labour. They aren't the only game in town willing to work for $3/day.
I see, you are taking the French Revolution as your model.
In general, I think you'll agree people aren't willing to risk their lives for revolutions and the cause of jealousy unless their lives are really bad; it takes more than just jealousy to spark riots and rich-people-beheadings. (According to Marie Antoinette, the poor people had no bread to eat. That's true poverty).
Really, you're better off taking as your model the US Great Depression. There was indeed poverty in those days, too, and income inequality, but riots were few. (For comparison, there were fewer notable riots during the '30s than during the '10s, and many fewer than during the '60s).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
But I still think most people in that situation are willing to work hard to get out of it
It's a matter of knowledge, mainly. One of the most important pieces of knowledge that poor people lack is how to manage money. The number of poor people who waste money every month on payday loans is astounding.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I used to work with an organization that trained homeless in useful work skills and tried to find them jobs and get them on their feet.
Did you have success?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
We vote with our dollars folks believe it or not.
It depends on how you define success.
Most people were able to find part-time, minimum wage jobs that didn't offer benefits. Probably 75% of the people in the program were able to do that.
About 10% - and ALWAYS only the people who were college educated prior to their incarceration and who hadn't developed severe pathology or deep substance abuse after being released - were able to get employment that I would consider pretty marginal, considering their qualifications. By "marginal" I mean at best $10 an hour, usually 2/3rds time, no benefits.
The other issue was stability - most of these people were being hired by not-for-profit organizations, and many of those organizations were incredibly unstable due to funding cuts. Even people who had never been homeless, never been incarcerated and who had graduate degrees (usually MSW degrees) were making about 10-15$ an hour at the organizations.
Most of the people we worked with wound up doing piece-work off the books to supplement their income: washing cars, unlicensed contract stuff, street vendors. Lots would volunteer to help at organizations that would take them (many organizations wouldn't). These were people who wanted to work, wanted to get back on their feet, but just would get ground down and eventually give up entirely.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
"China does not have a incompetent leadership mired in corruption."
"Incompetent leadership mired in corruption" is fairly synonymous with the "political criminal nexus" nicely documented in Misha Glenny's 'McMafia'.
http://www.cic.nyu.edu/peacebuilding/docs/Lima%20Seminar%20Background%20Paper.pdf
I'm certainly not advocating for French revolution, American edition, but the French revolution is an example of how the dynamicis can play out.
There was a fair amount of violence in the '30s, mostly not called riots. However, part of that was likely that they didn't have enough communications to see just exactly how well off the wealthy were while they were not. They didn't have a regular parade of pill popping drunk rich people without a thought in their heads doing just fine on TV while they wondered if they would get to eat today. They heard that everyone had it bad. They didn't get to see that for some, "bad" meant they had to make do with only two mansions.
The various safety net programs like welfare and food stamps have a lot to do with things not erupting too badly since then, but if they get dismantled, there will be carnage. Notably, at the same time that things are not as bad now as they were in the '30s in absolute terms is somewhat counterbalanced by the continuously eroding sense of community and respect for the law.
It is not just Cheap Labor. The Chinese by enlarge still have the spirit of cooperation and are more interested in progress than themselves.
Also please consider a child in China has two parents and four grand parents, that is a lot of resources for that one child. If it was my child i would not let them waist their life in a factory. I would give him or her all that I could.
I see APK is wasting his time behaving like a 3 yo again. I dont give a rats arse what you think of my language APK,
but go ahead and make youself look like an absolute childish moron as usual by all means.
I dont usually see your posts anymore, but as this one of mine was modded up I did but I am glad to know that while you spend time writing such drivel, you are not trolling others or creating malware.
From the top of my karma mountian I get mod points every week, so it seems Slashdot doesnt agree with you at all.
Most amusing are the sigs that you dont see.
By all means waste more time, but I wont see your posts.
Not sure why I even reply to anonymous.
My first language is not English it is just one of a couple of languages I speak fluently, so thanks for the compliment anonymous.
So I am not an "English major" while you have "economy training". Whatever that means in your dicktionary (no, it is not a spelling error).
Moving on.
1. not sure how this relates to the subject
2. republican explanation on how cutting taxes will create jobs, I do not with to comment on this one.
3. yes, when you import workers they most likely spend some money there, keep a household, etc - better than taking it to China. However companies go for profit. They do not care for sustainability or the well-being of people. That is why the government has to make them pay the price, keep the jobs local or kick them out.
4. America refers to a continent FYI, and not the entire America is doing what we are talking about. So assuming we still talk about the US (U.S.A.), I would assume that most of them do not want to do anything anymore. However you cannot have a bunch of people with no education do better jobs than the ones you mentioned.
Either way, the government and unions should make sure, that people get a reasonable salary to survive (food, shelter, water, education, healthcare). It does not, because everyone is in a ridiculous price war that supports the richest 1-2% and their share holders. If the price of the car was based on the best effort to make a lasting car, and people would get a decent wage for their work they could actually afford buying it. Now you produce a cheap product that is bad in every way (does not last, ruins the environment), then sell it for a beefy profit, with only a fraction making it to the actual workers.
Communist thinking? No, democratic thinking.
5. If that's what it takes to have a decent life for every person in your economy : yes. Your product will cost more, the rich will make a lesser profit, then maybe you will regain your dying middle class.
I ignore your example. We are talking about taking jobs out of the Country, not your state. It is called the United States, so what you mention should not exist and is irrelevant.
Taking someone's job away in your country and taking it to an other Country for profit should be taxed because it is WRONG in a society where you have ANY percentage of unemployment.
I don't know, I think that might be a little on the negative side. Prohibition had just ended in the 30s, it's not like respect for the law was at an all-time high. Furthermore, it's not like people are going to drive to Jersey Shore and beat down on Snookie, if they do riot, it will be like in the 90s, with the Rodney King LA riots, where the rioters mostly destroyed things right around them.
We definitely have some bad times ahead. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Ever saw the Grapes of Wrath? The US had its own share of food shortages around the Great Depression as well. Many people left the country to get rich in the city, combined with several bad harvests, major food shortages happened.
Let's hope that doesn't happen again. It would be bad. And yet it wasn't nearly as bad as the French Revolution.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Agreed. I would expect rioting in place as well, though I wouldn't be surprised if some more or less random violence focused on Wall street, in part just because there's a lot of people near it. The actual people would act more as a catalyst than as a direct target.
Profanity-laden & all! "Don't give none,don't get none" on you trolling me, first -> http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2198230&cid=36418054
SO - Who was the 3 yr. old that started it (see link url posted just above)?
Hmmm?? Answer that. Additionally, BEFORE YOU GO APESHIT?? Read the bottom @ least (you will like it, hopefully & it will tell me if you can be reasoned with also, & that's not sarcasm)
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Oh, this is "rich":
"so it seems Slashdot doesnt agree with you at all." - by Falconhell (1289630) on Monday June 20, @08:34PM (#36507836)
Hmmm, I can show otherwise on that account, easily (small sampling of favs. & I am an "AC" - hard for me to get +1 even, as I start zeroed):
---
Roughly 100++ of them & I post as AC (hard to get even +1, as /. hides our posts & we "AC"'s start @ ZERO/0 points, unlike registered "lusers", lol!):
+5 'modded up' posts by "yours truly" (5):
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1901826&cid=34490450
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1872982&cid=34264190
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175774&cid=14610147
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1806946&cid=33777976
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1884922&cid=34350102
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+4 'modded up' posts by "yours truly" (4):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=161862&cid=13531817
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=167071&cid=13931198
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1290967&cid=28571315
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=158310&cid=13263898
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+3 'modded up' posts by "yours truly" (5):
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155172&cid=13007974
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166850&cid=13914137
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175857&cid=14615222
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=273931&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=20291847
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1021873&cid=25681261
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+2 'modded up' posts by "yours truly" (12):
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1139485&cid=26974507
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1361585&cid=29360367
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=245971&cid=19760473
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174759&cid=1
U make his "POST" (between his legs) bleed, get your teeth off it! What made you eyes bleed, was Falconhell's bad writing!
Unfortunately violence, and pretty much any action really, motivated by jealousy ends badly.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Alas, for many it will be simple jealousy. For others it might be a more thought out recognition that the "system" is slanted to favor the few over the many. The question is which motivation will win the day.
Nah, trying to 'fix' the system by cutting down the rich has lead to misery for all in every case I know of. The proper way to fix inequality (in places like America) is to improve the competence of the poor, not to tear down the rich.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yet, somehow, all this automation really has raised the general standard of living. It vastly improved productivity - freeing up labourers that were once doing assembly jobs to do something else. Or with the same number of labourers you can produce a much larger number of products, at lower price.
Sure it may hurt some people in the short term, in the long term this benefits all.
Mind that part of the reason the US has become pretty affluent over the last 100 years is the export of manual jobs to other countries, and the increased international trade (those tariffs and other protectionist trade barriers have the same issues as delaying automation). It hurt some in the short run, that sucks surely, yet overall the people definitely are better off.
In France, they literally cut down the rich. After a predictable period of chaos, things got much better.
In England, the rich forced the even richer king to surrender his absolute power and things got better.
Most of the EU taxes the rich much more than the U.S. and are prospering for it.
The U.S. used to tax the rich a good bit more and all (including the rich) prospered.
It's only when government won't take necessary action that the rabble does it in a much more messy and violent way. That's just because it's the only way they can get it done.
In France, they literally cut down the rich. After a predictable period of chaos, things got much better.
lol you mean after a decade of blood, a war that covered all of Europe, followed by a return to monarchy, and a generation later finally moving on to democracy? Well by that measurement, communism in the USSR was a rousing success!
In England, the rich forced the even richer king to surrender his absolute power and things got better.
Come on man, not everything needs to be seen through the lens of class struggle. The rich king did not have absolute power, and (assuming you are talking about Charles) you can't deny the important religious element of that revolution.
Most of the EU taxes the rich much more than the U.S. and are prospering for it.
? By what measure? Certainly not median income. Typically unemployment is higher as well, in say, France. And Germany has growing inequality.
The U.S. used to tax the rich a good bit more and all (including the rich) prospered.
Hard to say. The median income in the US has increased a LOT since those days, so you might say we are prospering a lot more now that taxes have been cut. Economies are complicated things, and, as you of course know, you can't credit an increase or decrease in the GDP entirely on a change in tax law.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You have to adjust income figures for inflation to make a meaningful measure. In the U.S. we have gone from a single income supporting a family of 4 to needing 2 incomes to do so in spite of the GDP/capita (adjusted for inflation) being 6 times higher now.
Unemployment is higher in Europe, but arguably an unemployed person in Europe is better off than some of the lowest paid but fully employed Americans.
The Magna Carta was signed by king John, who did believe his powers to be absolute. His successor, Henry fought against the Magna Carta for most of his reign, but was ultimately forced to call the first parliament.
And it certainly was a matter of class, it's just that at the time, the classes involved were "king" and "everyone else". Alas, that then required more struggles of "nobility" and "everyone else". That took centuries to work out, during which "everyone else" suffered a good bit.
lol ok, you CAN twist anything to look like a class struggle, but that doesn't mean it is a useful/good way of looking at it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2251248&cid=36509086
YOU STARTED IT, proven there in the url link above
(And you have the audacity to say others did?)
You're a joke &, Your own words & doings defeat you every time, lol!
APK
P.S.=> Funny you note StarKruzr (Jarrett DeAngelis of Arstechnica, was a doctoral candidate last I knew when I met him, & I easily SCHOOLED him and his arstech pals)...
Please - DO ask him if I blew away he & his pals @ Windows IT Pro forums on memory compacting techniques benefits:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/internals-and-architecture/the-memory-optimization-hoax#feedbackAnchor
AND HE AGREED WITH ME ON A GOOD 95%++ or MORE OF MY POINTS LISTED THERE!
(That's Where even a former co-worker of mine, Dr. Mark Russinovich (while we worked for Sunbelt Software in the mid to late 90's) even had to shut up vs. my points... especially on exchange server being unhalted by memory opitimizations!
They HAD to - simply because My points were backed by information from Microsoft no less is why (where he works now)... Before that?
I even helped him correct a flaw hardcode in Dr. Russinovich's work, in pagedefrag.exe, which he thanked me for in email no less, & told him how/why/when/where it failed... NtAPI native api usage & all!
BOTTOM-LINE: The day you are capable of silencing & getting the best of AND EVEN CORRECTING the likes of guys like Dr. Mark Russinovich as I have? Is the day you can call ME, a "joke", goof...
... apk
Adhominem attacks? Please: Do you have a PHD in Psychiatry?? No??? Of course not!
Speak for yourself, you ac reply stalking troll!
PROOF (unlike yourself)?
Ok, tomhudson can tell you ALL about it, himself, & in his OWN WORDS:
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#1
"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1646272&cid=32150544
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#2
HOWTO: trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step
"The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously. And to really mess with his head, reply anonymously to your anonymous post, disagreeing with your first anon post (extra points if you claim in the second post that you're him - that REALLY sets him off). He'll accuse you of being me" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @01:38PM (#35841122) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086424&cid=35841122
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#3
"if you're going to tell this guy to stop spamming his hosts file crap, make sure you do it anonymously" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @12:45PM (#35840680) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086920&cid=35840680
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(Yes, NO DENYING IT, & "3 strikes, YOU'RE OUT" in my book)
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Between THAT above, which you did to myself for a YEAR++ here, & how you & yours from trolltalk.com operate in packs dishonestly no less, trolling & stalking others via AC replies & more?
(Proven here - http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2253808&cid=36519462 , except I *think* for rachel here )
Hey: GOOGLE doesn't lie about your sockpuppet troll countertrolling either (& he's below again next as well in addition to this):
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=countertrolling+site%3A+trolltalk.com&btnG=Google+Search !
You also screw with people, & bogusly cheat to do "UP" moderations of yourselves, during your trolling attacks above, and "DOWN" moderations of those you troll!
Proof?
Ok, countertrolling your sockpuppet again:
countertrolling illustrates the "cheater mechanics" you use to do so:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2245866&cid=36491652
* NOW, all you have to do, is agree like gmhowell did, another of your "trolltalk.com" trollng crew around here on slashdot:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gmhowell+site%3A+trolltalk.com&btnG=Search
to stop trolling me via ac replies
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2251620&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=0
& "alles ist goot", capice?
(Yes, it's THAT simple: Again - YOU & Yours stop trolling me via ac replies as you have for a year or more now, I stop exposing you & your trolltalk.com trollers here to other /.'ers!)
* Above all else here/BOTTOM-LINE:
You only did this
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2250914&cid=36531394
(From webmistressrachel, tomhudson's pal in fact)
I really want to stress this to you apk, (and whilst doing so needle tomhudson about it!) trolltalk isn't a forum anymore. It's an advert for TomHudson - by webmistressrachel (903577) on Wednesday June 22, @01:28PM (#36531394) Journal
That really truly "puts the FINAL nail in your coffins", bigtime - lol, & from "one of your own" no less...
Want more? YOU GOT IT!
Here's more, from your friend Jeremiah Cornelius, another trolltalk.com member, & pal to tomhudson also, from that very same exchange (after webmistressrachel tried to say there's no forums there on trolltalk.com no less):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2245062&cid=36469928
PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCEPT:
"Join us all on Troll Talk, this Tues. ;-)" - by Jeremiah Cornelius (137) on Thursday June 16, @08:26PM (#36469928) Homepage Journal
APK
P.S.=> Proof's in the pudding... Funniest part is the date on Jeremiah Cornelius' post - it's from last week! WebmistressRachel's apparently lying or NOT "in the know" about what's going on there (or they just temporarily shut the forum down to avoid GOOGLE queries etc. (take your pick, but doesn't matter anyhow @ this point from the data above))...apk
tomhudson = GREEDY ADVERTISER!!! Proof's below, & thank-you webmistressrachel:
I really want to stress this to you apk, (and whilst doing so needle tomhudson about it!) trolltalk isn't a forum anymore. It's an advert for TomHudson's...software. - by webmistressrachel (903577) on Wednesday June 22, @01:28PM (#36531394) Journal
QUOTED FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2250914&cid=36531394
This is just like how GMHOWELL's name came up from Jeremiah Cornelius telling me his 1st name was George while JC trolled me no less (that's there in that exchange also)...
MOST amusing how you trolltalk.com fools are "spilling the beans" on one another as I question you people from trolltalk.com, & everytime... lol!
(Hilarious but... that's what you get for being obnoxious trolls whose motivation is GREED apparently!)
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TOM HUDSON'S "FAIL LIST" ON DISPROVING MY POINTS ON HOSTS FILES NUMEROUS TIMES:
(Since HOSTS can block adverts online/adbanners so you get more speed, &, so you are protected vs. malicious content in online adbanners also)
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tomhudson bullshit on HOSTS is outnumbered 30:1 vs. apk evidences:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2087330&cid=35847946
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tomhudson BURNED on DNS vs. HOSTS and CPU cycles/memory & more used on HIS "ideas" vs. HOSTS vs. apk's ideas:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2087330&cid=35879374
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tomhudson BURNED & RAN on HOSTS vs. VIRUSES vs. myself yet again:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2088808&cid=35877448
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tomhudson says "hosts are so 90's" & apk's fellow RESPECTED security person wrote a noted article on them in 2009: (based on his readings of MY posts in forums no less)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2088808&cid=35876806
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And others also...
APK
P.S.=> Which is WHY of course, tomhudson began his tirade to try to libel myself here and stalk me as well on this forums... he hates HOSTS because they can be used to block out adverts online (which in turn, speeds one up massively, and, can protect one vs. malicious code in adbanners too from 1 easily edited text file):
PROOF/EVIDENCES THEREOF in tomhudson calling me the HOSTS FILE TROLL etc. & stating to his trolltalk.com pals to stalk & troll me via AC replies:
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"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1646272&cid=32150544
---
#2
HOWTO: trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step
"The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously. And to really mess with his head, reply anonymously to your anonymous post, disagreeing with your first anon post (extra points if you claim in the second post that you're him - that REALLY sets him off). He'll accuse you of being me" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @01:38PM (#35841122) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086424&cid=35841122
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#3
"if you're going to tell this guy to stop spamming his hosts file crap, make su
Answer YES or NO. We know U do adbanners + stalk & troll others (from "trollStalk.com")
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"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1646272&cid=32150544
---
#2
HOWTO: trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step
"The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously. And to really mess with his head, reply anonymously to your anonymous post, disagreeing with your first anon post (extra points if you claim in the second post that you're him - that REALLY sets him off). He'll accuse you of being me" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @01:38PM (#35841122) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086424&cid=35841122
---
#3
"if you're going to tell this guy to stop spamming his hosts file crap, make sure you do it anonymously" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @12:45PM (#35840680) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086920&cid=35840680
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They should call it "trollStalk.com"
Lets find out if his site is making him anything or just a waste of his time also.