“The tens of millions that hold those jobs in China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and here, would disagree with you.”
One could say that even there, productivity growth - especially Korea, Japan and Taiwan, has not translated to similar growth in either wages or jobs. China is a bit different, but an Intel exec friend of mine who goes in and out of China frequently on business - a Chinese American - says that you cannot accept the financial figures of Chinese companies or the government - their books are not trustworthy.
Or, taking your statement as fact, one could say any benefit of the productivity spurt from U.S. companies from the technological revolution was EXPORTED to China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan, with a “screw the American worker and domestic economy” stamp on it.
Yet, in both India and China, robotics & automation/computerization are beginning to slacken in terms of net job creation. The one advantage both countries have for maybe another twenty years is that infrastructure development is only high now because it needs to be to catch up with 100 years of higher infrastructure development in the west. Once they are built out as far as needed, that job engine will be much slower, robotics and automation will be even higher, with even slower job growth, for their 1 bil plus populations.
” a Chinese American - says that you cannot accept the financial figures of Chinese companies or the government - their books are not trustworthy.”
You don’t have to accept government figures if you don’t want. Simply go there and believe your lying eyes. If you had gone there 20 years ago (like I did) and you go there now, it’s like night and day in terms of standard of living. From 30 years ago the change is even more dramatic.
“Or, taking your statement as fact, one could say any benefit of the productivity spurt from U.S. companies from the technological revolution was EXPORTED to China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan, with a “screw the American worker and domestic economy” stamp on it.”
True but that does not counter the point that high tech has created tens of millions of jobs, either here or abroad. If many of them were exported that is a political issue, not a job creation issue.
“Once they are built out as far as needed, that job engine will be much slower, robotics and automation will be even higher, with even slower job growth, for their 1 bil plus populations.”
Of course, as their wages begin to approach ours their growth rate will be more like ours. That is to be expected and has nothing to do with automation. The same thing happened to Japan in the 80’s as their wages rose to our level.