Posted on 07/20/2005 10:20:20 PM PDT by remember
CAN AMERICANS COMPETE?
Is America the World's 97-lb. Weakling?
In the relentless, global, tech-driven, cost-cutting struggle for business, America isn’t ready—here’s what to do about it.
By Geoffrey Colvin
It’s a crisis of confidence unlike anything America has felt in a generation. Residents of tiny Newton, Iowa, wake up to the distressing news that a Chinese firm—What’s it called? Haier? That’s Chinese?—wants to buy their biggest employer, the famed but foundering Maytag appliance company. Two days later, out of nowhere, a massive, government-owned Chinese oil company muscles into the bidding for America’s Unocal. The very next day a ship in Xinsha, China, loads the first Chinese-made cars bound for the West, where they’ll compete with the products of Detroit’s struggling old giants.
All in one week. And only two months earlier a Chinese company most Americans had never heard of took over the personal computer business formerly owned—and mismanaged into billions of dollars of losses—by the great IBM.
"Can America compete?" is the nation’s new No. 1 anxiety, the topic of emotional debate in bars and boardrooms, the title of seminars and speeches offered by the liberal Progressive Policy Institute, the conservative economist Todd Buchholz, and countless schools and Rotary Clubs. The question is almost right, but not quite. We’re wringing our hands over the wrong thing. The problem isn’t Chinese companies threatening U.S. firms. It’s U.S. workers unable to compete with those in China—or India, or South Korea. The real question is, "Can Americans compete?"
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
Apparently it is. Makes me wonder who they are.
Agreed. I don't trust ANYTHING I read in Business Week either.
It gives you a completely different prospective when you try to make a productive workforce with whatever walks in the door.
I agree with ya 100%, BTW, glad to see you posting again!
Yes, as the article says the correct question is likely not "Can America compete?" as many U.S. companies can compete by going global. The question is "Can Americans compete?" given the much lower cost of living in those poorer countries. It does seem that it should be the government's responsibility to set trade policies such that both U.S. businesses and U.S. workers can compete. Unfortunately, those policies seem to be heavily slanted toward that group from which our government officials receive the great bulk of their campaign contributions.
I see, being "business experts" in pricing tires is higher level than being a "coder". I guess being an HMO clerk is higher level than being a "driller" (dentist).
No suprise that young Americans do not want to study engineering.
Agreed. I wonder if we are not in danger of reaching a "tipping point". It was already the case that engineering was a relatively difficult major with a pretty full docket of required courses. And, as the article mentions, engineering has long been seen as nerdish and simply uncool. Now we are reaching a point that it is not even clear that it is a dependable line of work for a technical person who was unfortunate enough to have been born in a country with a high cost of living. We may reach a point where engineering is no longer a rational choice for the great majority of our technically-inclined people. It may be more rational for them to join in a game of musical chairs for those jobs which cannot yet be outsourced.
True. I've heard of cases where the "ultra-rare" talent for which the H1-B visa was given is C-programming. What's even more disturbing is that we may some day look back on the H1-B visas as the "good old days" when we were at least competing against workers with the same cost of living. If those same jobs can be successfully outsourced, we will be competing against workers whose cost of living is a fraction of ours. To quote a former Presidential candidate, that could lead to a "great sucking sound".
The thing is trade has to balance. If we pay some guy in India 50k to program something for us, he then ultimately has to spend that 50k in America.
He can either buy American goods or services, or invest the money and when he gets return on that investmnet he is faced with the same issue. Or the other option is to sell his dollars to some other person which is then in the same position. This is why trade never hurts.
What I think the question really is, is can America continue to be the dominant nation in the world for innovation. And that surely is a tough question as other nations are reforming their systems to be free market oriented, and educating their people.
Good point on genius over education. Innovation is the key.
I think with the h1-b visas there should be no limits, it doesn't make sense to me to turn away educated foreigners who want to become Americans. It seems our establishment is very threatened by allowing in skilled immigrants, but has no problem letting in unskilled immigrants. It doesn't seem like the best thinking to raise the average standard of living.
There is concerns that flooding the labor market with educated immigrants would dramatically lower wages. But that only really matters if it is only in one profession we were bringing in people. The wages are relative if we are allowing in foreigners of many disciplines. However the total knowledge base of America would be increasing.
In such a case how the Americans could justify the college expense (see my tagline)? Unless they decided to chose the field which does not have marketable application. And even then they will do better studying abroad where education is cheaper.
However the total knowledge base of America would be increasing.
Your understanding is that America is not a nation but a marketplace. Do you think that things like Constitution are product of a marketplace or rather of specific national culture? If the last how America can survive in the free market world without borders?
I saw a reply on a similar thread that went something like - replace China (large land mass, large population, militaristic, authoritarian, expansionist and poor) with Japan (small island nation, small population, pacifistic, democratic and rich) and it is exactly word for word.
I would make a correction:
replace China (large land mass, large population, militaristic, authoritarian,
pacifistic and poor) with Japan (small island nation, small population,
expansionist , democratic and rich)
Japan is not expansionist now because she was forced by the USA to stop. Ask Koreans who are neighbors both to China and Japan.
I would make a correction: replace China (large land mass, large population, militaristic, authoritarian, pacifistic and poor) with Japan (small island nation, small population, expansionist , democratic and rich) Japan is not expansionist now because she was forced by the USA to stop. Ask Koreans who are neighbors both to China and Japan.
Yes - till the end of WWII Japan was expansionist. But I've never considered it such since then and the economic reference was to their activities in the 1980's.
Having more skilled people around would reduce the cost of education equally to what it would reduce the wages of whatever else. In reality however I dont' believe it would either decrease wages or reduce education costs. Human beings I believe are a net gain, if you let them unleash their creative energies in a free society.
Without immigrant professionals, a lot of our greatest companies would never have been started. For example google was co-founded by an immigrant. If we'd turned him away another nation might have tooken the lead in search engines.
I think the main problem is you are looking at the economy as set in stone in its size and wealth. So more people means the wealth has to be divided among more people. Which is simply wrong.
He can either buy American goods or services, or invest the money and when he gets return on that investmnet he is faced with the same issue. Or the other option is to sell his dollars to some other person which is then in the same position. This is why trade never hurts.
So trade did not hurt the Indians who, as the story goes, sold Manhattan to the settlers for $24 dollars worth of trinkets? The fact is, the article makes clear another way that foreign nations can use the dollars that they've accumulated from our trade deficits. They can buy our companies, land, and other hard assets. Even for those dollars which are spent on U.S. goods and services, you're ignoring the fact that the next generation will have to provide those goods and services and will receive nothing (except the return of our dollars). If we had balanced trade, then we could leave those dollars to the next generation and they could likewise engage in balanced trade, providing goods and services but also receiving them. Instead, they will be on the hook to provide more than they receive. It will be as though we left trillions of dollars of gift-certificates distributed around the world. Our children will be busy providing the goods and services to redeem them but I doubt that they will thank us.
What I think the question really is, is can America continue to be the dominant nation in the world for innovation. And that surely is a tough question as other nations are reforming their systems to be free market oriented, and educating their people.
I agree that we need to remain a leader in innovation, especially if we want to keep our cost of living from sinking to the level of other nations too quickly. However, I think that we should be looking to develop a global trade system from which all nations clearly benefit. We may try to remain number one in as many areas as possible but we should not be betting our survival on it.
Thank you for the tagline
But American economy will keep growing.
You're welcome. And a very fine tagline it is!
The truth is that large companies do not produce the breakthrough technology that continually expands and renews our economy and creates world leadership and jobs; they generally obstruct such progress in order to preserve the market dominance of the technologies they sell that would be made obsolete. They advertise progress and research, they don't actually do it. People seem to have forgotten what George Gilder pointed out that was so popular in the Reagan years.
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