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Economies are always changing. Before China, it was Japan who we feared was taking all of our manufacturing. Before that, it was Hong Kong and Taiwan.
China is already starting to feel growing pains. As their economy grows, so does the pressure on wages. They are already starting to move some manufacturing to Vietnam. The next China might be Indonesia, India, etc. Labor jobs move where labor is cheapest. And most of those jobs are unskilled.
Look at the Barbie doll. She's an assemblage of parts mostly made in Asia. It's someone's job every day to plug her head with hair - is that a middle class job? Barbie costs very little to make, but once back in the US is sold for a decent sum - enough to make millions for Mattel, toy stores, distributors, accessory industries, etc. Mattel is a 7 billion dollar company directly employing thousands of well paid people and indirectly supporting law firms, financial service companies, PR and ad agencies, etc. not to mention those who also make money off their products.
The hair pluggers, lip painters and leg assemblers probably don't make squat, but that doesn't mean we've lost decent jobs to China in the lifecycle of just that one product. The same can be said across thousands of products and brands.
I'd love to own Starbucks, valued at $14 Billion. A lot of people here make a lot of money from Starbucks, from employees to distributors to partners, realtors and all of the other support companies. We never really lost bean gathering jobs to offshore concerns as we've never really had a domestic coffee bean growing industry. This just illustrates how an American company can thrive and create jobs and wealth here even though their core product is produced overseas.
We have a huge and diverse economy that is ever changing and every growing. We've also got amazing creativity and ingenuity, always creating new economies. Look at the internet. 20 years ago the vast majority of people had never heard of it but I don't think most of us could now imagine a world without it. Look at how many jobs and companies have been spawned from that. The bottom line is that the economy is always in motion. It creates new jobs and industries, and some of those jobs will be done in cheaper countries. But if we still control the main product, distribute and sell it - we'll be fine.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,761,129 times
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In the future I predict that America will consist of 4 classes of people. They will not be "Low Middle And Upper" but rather "poor' "worker", " professional owner" and "super rich". The worker class will be those at the bottom of the food chain but just above "poor" in that they will have a job and a roof (always renter of course) over them. But they will make between $22K and $36K a year and will almost never advance beyond their entry level positions nor will their children because the public schools- which depend largely on property taxes- will become even more unequal in coming years. The next class will be the "owner" class. They will make between $70K and $200K a year and they will be those with college degrees doing management and profesional type of jobs. They will be called "owner" because they will "own" stocks and "own" their homes unlike the working class and poor class renters. Their children will attend good public schools and go to college. Then you will have the super rich which will enjoy all the benefits of American life. I just do not see a real "middle class" in the future of America anymore EXCEPT for government workers. Unions are dead or dying off and with the global economy, work will flow to those who can do it for the least amount- whether the work goes overseas or the immigrants come over here (both of which we are seeing now).
you obviously don't work in the I.T. field. I have worked in the telecomm field and I am currently a network administrator. There is no way in hell a average joe could subnet, setup domain, adhere to security standards, set up SANS, NAS or any thing else of that nature. I am not even going to get into programming cisco routers and switches (some of which can take months to do) This stuff is only getting more and more technical so nope it isn't going anywhere. As for VOIP that too needs someone to set up and administer it and again that is not going anywhere. I am not talking about some home network for sharing video with your kid brother, I mean 1,000 plus user networks, with file server clusters, exchange clusters etc. Those jobs can not be outsourced nor phased out. In fact America has a shortage of I.T. people because people stopped entering the field back in 2000/2001. In fact the US Govt did a study not to long ago and stated in the next 10 to 15 years America will really be in trouble as people with the knowledge to handle complex networking will be few and far between.
As for the India theory, again not going to happen. I have friends who are programmers who say code coming back from over seas is coming back poorly written. So much so they are having to re write a lot of it once they get it back. One guy who works for citrix told me they outsource to india not because its cheap but because they can not find enough qualified people in the states to do the job. Its a great field to go into right now.
Wild Style, I can totally understand this. I work in Information Security for a very large company. Some of the things I work with such as routed networking topologies and firewall engineering are beyond complex. For our sake, I hope it stays this way. Infrastructures in large organizations are not just bigger versions of home systems. The whole philosophy of infrastructure has a completely different starting point than home setups.
In the future I predict that America will consist of 4 classes of people. They will not be "Low Middle And Upper" but rather "poor' "worker", " professional owner" and "super rich". The worker class will be those at the bottom of the food chain but just above "poor" in that they will have a job and a roof (always renter of course) over them. But they will make between $22K and $36K a year and will almost never advance beyond their entry level positions nor will their children because the public schools- which depend largely on property taxes- will become even more unequal in coming years. The next class will be the "owner" class. They will make between $70K and $200K a year and they will be those with college degrees doing management and profesional type of jobs. They will be called "owner" because they will "own" stocks and "own" their homes unlike the working class and poor class renters. Their children will attend good public schools and go to college. Then you will have the super rich which will enjoy all the benefits of American life. I just do not see a real "middle class" in the future of America anymore EXCEPT for government workers. Unions are dead or dying off and with the global economy, work will flow to those who can do it for the least amount- whether the work goes overseas or the immigrants come over here (both of which we are seeing now).
Yes, this does worry me a little and I see us moving close to this type of model. Perhaps before we reach this point, the American people will demand of their politicians who are supposed to be representing us that this course be changed. This type of model looks more like a third world structure than a super power structure with a vibrant middle class.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,761,129 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HighPlainsDrifter73
Yes, this does worry me a little and I see us moving close to this type of model. Perhaps before we reach this point, the American people will demand of their politicians who are supposed to be representing us that this course be changed. This type of model looks more like a third world structure than a super power structure with a vibrant middle class.
It is largely a third world structure. The thing that created the middle class in western nations is democracy more than anything else. Third world nations do not have democracy and, because of that, they do not have things like OSHA, unions, minimum wage, child labour laws, environmental regulations and such "bothersome" things to businesses. The USA is a democracy and, as such, can correct any excesses in the down side of free for all economics- just as they did with the election of FDR after the Great Depression but the question is how high our tolerance for pain really is. You have something like 40 million of us now with no insurance or underinsured and yet healthcare is not even showing up as a top concern in the current political debate. Same with the economy as a whole. People would rather debate crap like religion, homosexuality and Brittney Spears.
Wild Style, I can totally understand this. I work in Information Security for a very large company. Some of the things I work with such as routed networking topologies and firewall engineering are beyond complex. For our sake, I hope it stays this way. Infrastructures in large organizations are not just bigger versions of home systems. The whole philosophy of infrastructure has a completely different starting point than home setups.
You obviously have not heard of a H1B pass. If I am right Clinton suggested we need more H1B employees here. You hear talk about how illegals take the jobs Americans don't want to do. NOT TRUE. Americans are educated enough to know they can't make it on those wages. Yes Americans will do this work such as insulating or drywall, They are called union workers. The middle class down fall started when jobs were shipped over seas. I don't think we have enough people in the US that could work all the job if we didn't. I think we went overboard. I know of a few political leaders I would like to send overseas.
as I said, IT and telecomm workers are in good positions, there is a worker shortage world wide for I.T. workers, so our jobs aren't going anywhere. But I hope everyone thinks like you and keeps avoiding our field, that is job security for me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevK
I work in a related field and yes, somebody can be hired to put in the hardware and hook it to a data line (t1, dsl,) and somebody in India can set up all the domains, subnets and troubleshoot the system right down to the desktop level. It is happening more and more. And even if they cannot do it all remotely, they can get H1B visas and come over here and take care of local issues too. Where does that leave the CNA? Probably changing out hardware and software and nobody is going to pay somebody $70k a year to do that. Not when they can get somebody with an H1B to do it for half that much.
Unless you actually work in the I.T. field as a network admin, system admin, network engineer or programmer your opinion on the matter doesn't mean much. As I said, I work in the field and your assessment is far from reality, you have absolutely no clue what it takes to do any of the things being discussed obviously. By CNA I am going to assume you mean CCNA? CNA = Certified Nurse Assistant or CNA = Certified Novell Admin? If its the later, Novell is extremely minuscule. Also if you knew what you were talking about you would know such certs as CCIE is so difficult world wide you are not even talking 500 people who hold it. There is a WORLD WIDE I.T. shortage, jobs like these are not going anywhere.
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as I said, IT and telecomm workers are in good positions, there is a worker shortage world wide for I.T. workers, so our jobs aren't going anywhere. But I hope everyone thinks like you and keeps avoiding our field, that is job security for me.
Huh? No going anywhere but to the lowest bidder. In recent years I have worked with maintenance programmers in India, support desks in Canada, developers in Ireland, and engineers in Israel. All for a large American company supporting business operations primarily in the US.
sigh, lets stop and think for a second. If there are not enough people to do the work in America then who do you think they are going to get to do these jobs? Working at a call center and actually doing the hiring for a department is to totally different situations. I am a network admin, I am partly responsible for the hiring, I conduct interviews. Just recently we had a database admin job open up and we got FOUR applicants and of the four only ONE was qualified. When we called him in to do the interview he declined because he found a higher paying job than what we are offering. I know a senior programmer at citrix and he told me they cant find enough people and are struggling. They have had to out source their work to India and when the code comes back it is in such bad shape they have to re write the code. There was a company here in south florida and they had to close their doors because they couldn't find 20 people to fill the programming jobs they had open. They relocated to D.C. because of the higher applicant pool. Our database admin job which we have not been able to fill in the last 5 months ,we have had to out source to a private contractor. Either way, a google search will bring up more than enough information from govt sites to news articles, to computer science professors commenting on the topic. I sincerely hope a lot of people think the I.T. field isn't viable, that just means more money for me and my friends.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cdelena
Huh? No going anywhere but to the lowest bidder. In recent years I have worked with maintenance programmers in India, support desks in Canada, developers in Ireland, and engineers in Israel. All for a large American company supporting business operations primarily in the US.
It is largely a third world structure. The thing that created the middle class in western nations is democracy more than anything else.
Probably a valid thesis, and working from that . . .
Quote:
Third world nations do not have democracy and, because of that, they do not have things like OSHA, unions, minimum wage, child labour laws, environmental regulations and such "bothersome" things to businesses.
True enough.
Quote:
The USA is a democracy and, as such, can correct any excesses in the down side of free for all economics- just as they did with the election of FDR after the Great Depression but the question is how high our tolerance for pain really is.
Here is where you are getting off track. Not really true. At least not here and not now. Without getting into the civics nerd routine - The US is not a democracy. It is a representative republic. We (sort of) elect representatives, and they are supposed to represent us. That no longer occurs. They now represent the political corporations they run with -- D or R, and the corporations that fund those political corporations and the elected representative. Some examples?
Congress voted for NAFTA -- Corporate Interests. Most people did not support NAFTA. Democracy would mean no NAFTA.
Congress voted to continue the Iraqicide -- Corporate Interests. Most people are against the Iraqicide. Democracy would mean no continued Iraq War.
Congress voted to block prescription drug imports from Canada -- Corporate Interests. Most people would like their fellow Americans to be able to buy low cost medicines. Democracy would allow this.
This list could on for pages. But I think you probably get the point. America is clearly not a democracy, now, if it ever was. It is a marketing (lie) farce.
But I do concur that this path will lead US to the economic dung-heap of the third world. We suffer from the same oligarchy parasites the third world does. Only difference is our parasites use "Inc." in their name as opposed to "Rulers for Life."
Quote:
You have something like 40 million of us now with no insurance or underinsured and yet healthcare is not even showing up as a top concern in the current political debate. Same with the economy as a whole.
Not True. The "political debate" topics are preselected by the corporations that own and control the political corporations (D and R corps, as it were). Heath insurance, medical costs, and the economy are topics the people (democracy) are interested in.
Quote:
People would rather debate crap like religion, homosexuality and Brittney Spears.
Fully NOT true. The news corporations -- fully owned subs of those same corporation discussed above -- will only show stories related to "religion, homosexuality and Brittney Spears." As evidenced by the threads on this site, and many many others, the people (democracy) have little real interest in those (non)topics. However, by continually broadcasting nonsense about such nonense, the news corporations can avoid the real topics under which the top corporations are screwing most Americans.
One day the middle class will cease to exist. Karl Marx was 100% correct about capitalism and its evolution.
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