>There will never be a lack of jobs preparing food for others. Or cleaning washrooms for others. Or doing laundry for others. What I am describing is a lower standard of living than most of us are used to seeing. But that is the economic reality for much of the world. The advantages that freedom and capitalism have given us in the US is becoming available to the rest of the world. Their standard of living will rise. Ours will probably fall.<
The fallacy of your thinking is to believe that some kinds of work will always be there.
How many engineering jobs will there be when there are no plants to build or operate?
How many accounting jobs will exist if there is next to nothing to account for?
How many teaching jobs past basic elementary subjects when there are no jobs left requiring any extensive training?
How many openings for dentists when no one can pay for dental work?
How many MBAs will find jobs?
What are the lawyers going to be litigating?
What the tender-handed, desk bound fail to understand is that by torpedoing the lesser-skilled, they sink the whole. Economically, this country took off only after ordinary people could afford the purchase of a basic car, a radio, indoor plumbing.
Take a good look at the Depression in this country. Most people cooked at home. They did their own laundry. They did not make ends meet as you describe in China. The Depression ended only because of the demands of WW2 and the postwar demand for goods that the US was able to fill because of intact industry.
We've been kidding ourselves for a long time that we'll be the center for innovation while others build what we design. Why should anyone go into technical fields today at present pay rates? Teachers somehow think that everyone else is making 6 figures and driving a Lexus, but you can shut them up in a hurry if you tell them what engineers are making.
The "productivity" of China is based on manufacturing in conditions, both in the workplace and regulatory, that would never be allowed here. A piece of electronics will be cheaper if you lock the workers in and charge them for their food--but to say that is a more competitive form of capitalism is a stretch. I would call it industrialized feudalism.
This isn't about some of us having the "fortitude" to keep dodging the economic bullet, but about a system that is sick, that will ultimately drag us all down, especially if we flood the country with people offering few skills.
What you are paid is not dependent upon the pay in other countries. It depends upon what your skills are worth here. Just because an electrical engineer in Singapore or Japan or Malaysia makes the equivalent of $65k there does not mean they will make that here if there are no openings for them. What was an electrical engineer worth in Shanghai in 1952? In Japan in 1946?
It's like growing vegetables. Throw seeds onto decent soil with light and rain, and they grow. Throw them onto concrete without rain, and nothing happens. The first set of seeds in turn leads to...more seeds, and more growth. The second is a dead end, which is where we are headed faster than I care to think about too long.
What possible motivation would the remaining companies have for moving engineering jobs to Singapore or Japan if the cost here is the same as there?
Jobs are leaving because there is economic advantage to moving them. When that advantage disappears then the jobs will stop moving.
You make it sound like Americans are so stupid that we are all going to stand around whining while our families starve to death. Tell me something. How much less than you are spending now could your family live on? I'm talking just the basics. Food, shelter, simple clothing, medical attention only for serious matters, etc.
Those with the biggest problem will be those with huge debts. Such debts will be very painful for those who overestimate their future prospects. The "things" that some people have accumulated will become much less valuable if there is a serious downturn.
The changes I am describing are going to take place over a couple of generations, not overnight. There will be some fluctuations that will give warning to those paying attention.
Consider what is happening to GM. They are downsizing what, about 25% due to loss of market share? Does that mean that people aren't buying cars anymore? No. It means that they are buying cars from other companies. Just as soon as GM begins making the same car at the same price as those companies, they can expect to have their business stop shrinking.
I have no idea just how small GM, or any other auto maker will have to become before the employees DEMAND that their wages be reduced. But there will be millions of workers who take jobs at wages that are low enough to justify their employment. Let's just pray that the government doesn't try to help with a minimum wage law. Or limits on maximum hours like in France.
I'll ask you again. What do you think will be happening over the next two generations? What do you think will happen to the standard of living? What will happen to government spending? What will happen to the Social Insecurity system?
Still, those with the most useful skills will do better than without them. What would you have people do? A couple of years ago, when the downsizings really got going here, we had a manager who gave us some really gvood advice. He said, "change is coming." You can either take some positive steps and know that you have done the best you could under the circumstances. Or you can do nothing - and someone else will make all the decisions. and I guarantee you won't like the results. It is kind of like the residents of NOLA who spent all their energy whining about what FEMA didn't do, compared to the industrious Vietnamese neighborhood who got out with chain saws and worked together to clear the streets and stack the wood. Both groups went through some tough times. The Vietnamese group fared much better.