Quote from bloosteak:
I don't there's a phrase called competitive advantage in economics, it's comparative advantage. Which says that if a nation has relative efficiency in producing a particular good/service than trading with it will be a benefit for any country to do so.
What happened in the meantime? I don't know. Lots of things.
I see little if anything to suggest that the high-value added part of manufacturing comes from China. China supplies labour and not much else. Most of the machine tools and the electronic components used to make this stuff comes from Japan, while most of the semiconductors come from the US or Europe.Quote from Tums:
China will take over everything
Quote from Susukino:
Manufacturing just isn't that important these days.
Quote from drsteph:
Yes, that's true.
However, eventually, there will be some sort of reckoning and masses of unemployed and unemployable lawyers, stock traders, financial planners, etc... will be pointed at by children's parents with the admonishment, "Don't you be stupid enough to do that. Study math and science, become an engineer, work for the chinese, learn something, and then go off and do it yourself."
There are some trend changes among youth culture currently - there has been a shift in the meaning of the word "dork" or "geek" or "nerd" from meaning a socially incompetent loser to someone who is smart, technically competent, and quirkily desirable. Go check out myspace for posts on "dork seeks dork" or whatever. Kids aren't as stupid as you think. They are instinctually, perhaps subconsciously, learning the score.
Just remember that as quickly as the work is outsourced from us to somewhere else, it can then be outsourced again. Multinationals will have even less loyalty to governments that are not their own.
Quote from bloosteak:
Forget quality? Sounds like something someone would say to decrease their anxiety.
Why would anyone say hire an American programmer when they could hire an Indian programmer who is just as smart but willing to work for much less? (Cost of living is much lower in India)
If Chinese goods were really all that terrible no one would be buying them.
Quote from Susukino:
It's interesting that while everybody is still talking about China, over the past 3 years I have seen a noticeable shift away from further manufacturing investment in China and towards Vietnam because the labour is cheaper than China and because it diversifies the country risk. Wonder that means for China in 5-10 years...
Quote from bluud:
Would a well educated indian or chinese or whatever want (in reality desperately) to come to the States to live and work here, or would an educated US citizen want to give up life in the US and go to china or india or what the fuck have you?
Why?
Do you think that will change in 10 years, how about 100 years or even 1000 years?
[actually as time goes by they become more desperate, and no we do not need slaves here we already have enough, specially ones with illegal residence status and you guess the rest]
US and it's economy is backed by it's military strength, name a second country with such military power, the military strength of a country defines it's stability, a stable counrty is the interest of all true investors.
US will always stay the world power, unless such a thing as free-energy or at least close to free-energy is discovered. Free-energy it just means so much, it means equal power and capability for everyone, it means xom is nothing, and bla bla bla.