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Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
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I don't know if we can right now.
I'm just thinking our standard of living is so high. And What we think we should pay to have certain items (house, cars, higher educations) is so expensive. That it forces us to demand incomes at such a level that we have priced ourselves out of the market in a lot of fields. While I have seen some ideas to possibly keep Americans working on this thread. I'm not sure if that will be enough to stop something that I see as a natural progression. Look I just see this as a time for china's standard of living to rise and our to fall a bit. They will make the cheap items and provide the cheap non-local services that we and the other 1st world countries will buy UNTIL their standard of living rises to a level were they become less competitive (even with a controlled economy) and then that manufacturing or what ever services will move to another country (probably India, perhaps Brazil next) where it cheap and the cycle continues. Of course there are some spoilers that could throw this cycle off.
1. another major world war where one country or set of countries bomb others and completely destroy the manufacturing capacity and social fabric of those countries.
2. Internal Political instability of the 3rd world countries who's economy growing. At least to the point where investors will feel that possible cost of losing there investment will outweigh the cheap labor in those countries.
3. The cost of energy to transport manufactured goods will rise to a level where it maybe cheaper to make the product. "closer to home."
Well guys. I don't know maybe there is something we can do to stop the outward flow of good jobs from the country on mass, but I'm thinking overall that for now we have to lower our expectations of what we think we deserve in a material sense and adjust accordingly. But let me just say that that doesn't mean we are going to slip into a 3rd world status or anything of the sort. But the days of having everything all the time are over for now.
I'm just thinking our standard of living is so high. And What we think we should pay to have certain items (house, cars, higher educations) is so expensive. That it forces us to demand incomes at such a level that we have priced ourselves out of the market in a lot of fields.
Yes this is true. Interestingly, take a look at this stat
http://www.apparelandfootwear.org/statistics/usimportsfootwear0810.pdf (broken link)
The number of pairs of shoes imported into the US is around 2 billion pairs a year. That means each person buys ~6+ pairs a year. This is a crazy "standard of living." Just because the shoes are cheap shouldn't mean buying so many, rather than changing the living standard to buy less but higher quality products.
Yes this is true. Interestingly, take a look at this stat
http://www.apparelandfootwear.org/statistics/usimportsfootwear0810.pdf (broken link)
The number of pairs of shoes imported into the US is around 2 billion pairs a year. That means each person buys ~6+ pairs a year. This is a crazy "standard of living." Just because the shoes are cheap shouldn't mean buying so many, rather than changing the living standard to buy less but higher quality products.
Well, we can stop telling kids who go to college that being a well-rounded individual is more important than having an education that can be applied. Parents and teachers can stop babying them K-12 and making them uncompetitive wimps with high self-esteem. We've got enough people sitting around on their high horses ruminating, opining and trying to govern the producers/creators.
I'm just thinking our standard of living is so high. And What we think we should pay to have certain items (house, cars, higher educations) is so expensive. That it forces us to demand incomes at such a level that we have priced ourselves out of the market in a lot of fields. While I have seen some ideas to possibly keep Americans working on this thread. I'm not sure if that will be enough to stop something that I see as a natural progression. Look I just see this as a time for china's standard of living to rise and our to fall a bit. They will make the cheap items and provide the cheap non-local services that we and the other 1st world countries will buy UNTIL their standard of living rises to a level were they become less competitive (even with a controlled economy) and then that manufacturing or what ever services will move to another country (probably India, perhaps Brazil next) where it cheap and the cycle continues. Of course there are some spoilers that could throw this cycle off.
1. another major world war where one country or set of countries bomb others and completely destroy the manufacturing capacity and social fabric of those countries.
2. Internal Political instability of the 3rd world countries who's economy growing. At least to the point where investors will feel that possible cost of losing there investment will outweigh the cheap labor in those countries.
3. The cost of energy to transport manufactured goods will rise to a level where it maybe cheaper to make the product. "closer to home."
Well guys. I don't know maybe there is something we can do to stop the outward flow of good jobs from the country on mass, but I'm thinking overall that for now we have to lower our expectations of what we think we deserve in a material sense and adjust accordingly. But let me just say that that doesn't mean we are going to slip into a 3rd world status or anything of the sort. But the days of having everything all the time are over for now.
But that just my thought.
I agree with gwynedd1 that currency manipulation and the pumping of US dollars back to the US as credit is a huge problem created by primarily the Chinese.
I also agree with you baystater, that their standard of living "should" increase, and ours would stagnant or fall a little. The problem is, is that inspite of double digit GDP growth for the last decade, the Chinese currency is Still pegged to our diminishing dollars (they unpegged it briefly in 2005 and it went up close to 20%, but then repegged it again when manufacturers and exports started to fall/hurt).
So, not only is there the "natural" convergence between developing nations and developed nations - as per the Solow model in economics (like what happened with Japan, Europe, and other nations that caught up with the US as they developed and rebuilt), but also the aide of unnatural manipulation of currencies, government policies, trade policies, and "free" corporate rule zones.
A natural progression also means that ALL their wages and cost of living also went up. Japan, Europe, Canada, and pretty much all of the developed nations are actually more costly than the USA. And they too face outsourcing problems from currency and wage manipulations. Europe is also having a fun time dealing with labor arbitrage.
So, at the end, it's really a matter of currency and policies, and how the developing nations "allow" corporations and countries to manipulate currencies, special tax and "economic" zones, and wages to build the profits up for these mega corporations. From what I heard these special economic zones previously allowed firms up to 30% off in taxes, government subsidies, and pretty much free and clear reign for corporations to do whatever they want. No wonder the small/mid size businesses have a hard time competing (with all this favortism and benefits for large corps that can go overseas) ... everyone is against them including the competition between each other. Special Economic Zone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Quote:
Special tax incentives for foreign investments in the SEZs.
Greater independence on international trade activities.
Economic characteristics are represented as "4 principles":
Construction primarily relies on attracting and utilizing foreign capital
Primary economic forms are sino-foreign joint ventures and partnerships as well as wholly foreign-owned enterprises
Products are primarily export-oriented
Economic activities are primarily driven by market forces
SEZs are listed separately in the national planning (including financial planning) and have province-level authority on economic administration. SEZs local congress and government have legislation authority.
In developing nations they tolerate the environmental, labor capital, and other infractions that wouldn't be tolerated in developed nations. So they use other people's money to build up infrastructure, and feed back foreign dollars back as credit to fuel their exports and pretty much let Corporations have their "corporate" free zone wild west land. Pure capitalism at its' finest - or corporate cartels with their own rule of the land No wonder corporates love it.
I don't think it's an imposible fix. It is just a matter of whether or not China and other developed nations will finally grow up (ie, improve themselves, instead of having other people fund their improvements), let wages and currencies float like their suppose to after double digit growth... and the developed nations to finally grow some balls and see that this isn't good for their respective countries and peoples to let corporations have free reign.
Robotics is not science fiction anymore. Have you seen some of the new warehouse robots? Really cool stuff! If we put some serious investment into developing robots, theres no reason we couldn't lead the world. Through robotics, we could produce just about everything we need right here. We just have to get through this difficult transitional period, and we'll be fine.
I was just looking at some freelance work sites, and it looks like white-collar and professional jobs (Accounting, Document Processing, Business Planning, Tech Development, Engineering CAD and Design work, etc., etc.) are being bidded on by firms overseas at rates that a McDonald's or Walmart employee would make here in the States.
With less than 8 dollars an hour, you can hire a college kid trying to learn the ropes and make a buck here in the States, or you can get a team of people, with years of experience and the educational backing of tech and other firms that have relocated there, from the likes of India, Ukraine, Russia, China, wherever.
So, how are US workers suppose to compete with wages at or bellow minimum wage? Or are we all condemed to work as McDonald servers, face-time "sales" and services, nurses, doctors, and lawyers? (and, btw, as those fields "flush" with people those wages would also go down)
In theory, any "office" work can be done overseas and even "executives" and managers at some point can probably be "outsourced" (especially since their "work" force is primarily overseas anyways).
Without some Real adjustment in the wage and cost disparity between the States and these developing nations, we're going to see almost all of our jobs gone to the cheapest bidder (as they get the experience, education and man power, while we fall behind). The American dollar and our cost of living has to collapse (as they have been propped up for far too long through credit and inflation).... we need deflation. Otherwise, we need to introduce "credit" to the developing world en masse so they can raise their standard of living to get closer to parity.
-chuck22b
This has long been a question of mine, summarized this way (coming at it from a different angle):
"If U.S. workers are expected to compete dollar for dollar in the global labor market, when and how are living costs in the U.S. going to be brought down as well?"
I.e. if you are going to pay us like 3rd world people, are housing costs going to drop to a commensurate level? Or do all workers get exported to India and only the C level people get to live in expansive estates in the U.S. along with their attendant servant staffs?
I'm just thinking our standard of living is so high. And What we think we should pay to have certain items (house, cars, higher educations) is so expensive. That it forces us to demand incomes at such a level that we have priced ourselves out of the market in a lot of fields. While I have seen some ideas to possibly keep Americans working on this thread. I'm not sure if that will be enough to stop something that I see as a natural progression. Look I just see this as a time for china's standard of living to rise and our to fall a bit. They will make the cheap items and provide the cheap non-local services that we and the other 1st world countries will buy UNTIL their standard of living rises to a level were they become less competitive (even with a controlled economy) and then that manufacturing or what ever services will move to another country (probably India, perhaps Brazil next) where it cheap and the cycle continues. Of course there are some spoilers that could throw this cycle off.
1. another major world war where one country or set of countries bomb others and completely destroy the manufacturing capacity and social fabric of those countries.
2. Internal Political instability of the 3rd world countries who's economy growing. At least to the point where investors will feel that possible cost of losing there investment will outweigh the cheap labor in those countries.
3. The cost of energy to transport manufactured goods will rise to a level where it maybe cheaper to make the product. "closer to home."
Well guys. I don't know maybe there is something we can do to stop the outward flow of good jobs from the country on mass, but I'm thinking overall that for now we have to lower our expectations of what we think we deserve in a material sense and adjust accordingly. But let me just say that that doesn't mean we are going to slip into a 3rd world status or anything of the sort. But the days of having everything all the time are over for now.
But that just my thought.
Our standard of living is so high, or so *over priced*?
My cynical side says all workers of the world have to unionize and hold the standard of living world wide to a good level so that there's no price advantage anywhere, thus making exploitation of workers in any location impossible.
I.e. make the whole world a nice place to live, whether the C-level people like it or not.
My wife works at a testing center, and is happy to report that a good chunk of licensing/testing candidates are foreigners.
Most get their license, and go back overseas to make the bucks.
I guess, being a mechanic? electrician? health care, construction can still wield ok pay, but then again, tons of people are going into those fields, and in the most part, if the general populous loses jobs, these activities would slow down drastically as well.
Jobs that make things... well, we all know where those jobs went.
Americans should just default ... causing a huge down draft in price levels and wages.... we'll farm on our land for sustenance, and learn Real frugal living. And then, our workers can be competitive with foreign workers. McDonald workers can work for less than $1 an hour, while white collar workers can work for $8. Phd guys... maybe $10 if your the top of the top. CEOs... pennies :P
Of course, those major multi-nationals would collapse or go bankrupt as demand shrinks to a peanut... and globalization collapses under its' own weight.
-chuck22b
Well, I'd say one answer is to go up the chain. Become a Dr. or Lawyer or C-level person.
But, even the Medical route may get hammered income-wise if the gov't takes over health care.
Bottom line seems to be that the top is intent on making us and all our children wage slaves, forever and ever.
Yes this is true. Interestingly, take a look at this stat
http://www.apparelandfootwear.org/statistics/usimportsfootwear0810.pdf (broken link)
The number of pairs of shoes imported into the US is around 2 billion pairs a year. That means each person buys ~6+ pairs a year. This is a crazy "standard of living." Just because the shoes are cheap shouldn't mean buying so many, rather than changing the living standard to buy less but higher quality products.
Wow, I'm way behind. I think I have 2 or 3 pair and wear each until they wear out. I might buy one pair a year. They sort of go from being "dress shoe" to "everyday at work" to "work on the car, take the garbage" out shoes in stages, LOL!
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No wonder corporates love it.
