Posted on 11/13/2007 7:48:43 AM PST by madvlad
Like a great battleship at sea, the US industrial and export machine is slowly turning around. Within a couple of years, its big guns will be sweeping the world again, ready to silence pious talk about America's trade deficit - and to menace chunks of Europe's manufacturing base.
The fast-inflating economies of China, emerging Asia and Eastern Europe will be reminded globalisation cuts both ways. Jobs can flow from Shanghai to Los Angeles.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
JD Rockefeller said the man who bets against the United States will looze his shirt.
The author also discusses demographic trends at work throughout the world. Japan, Germany and Italy will be esp hard hit as will Russia. Notice the projection for Russia's population by mid-century.
MV
No link to the original article.
good - let’s hope so. Wasn’t too happy about China taking over...
Many things will have to occur for this to become true. First and foremost, and end to globalism. If we remain on our current path and continue to outsource manufacturing jobs, there is no way to regain our position as an economic powerhouse.
Sorry. The link can be accessed at RCP.com
MV
Did you read the article? See it at RCP.com.
He discusses globalization.
MV
If that's the case, then we should rid ourselves of the pesky brat called the internet first and foremost. Then we can attack globalism with full force.
What we do have is plenty of folks who believe up is down and right is left. We do have huge banks and corporations which are no longer loyal to US, foreigners sit on their boards and determine when to move American jobs to their lands; we Americans now worship the dollar, the only question is how much it costs; not where or how it was made. As if a country that no longer manufactures it's own products is somehow better off; as if buying even military essentials from your future enemies somehow secures us. As if borrowing money to pay for todays needs, at a rate unmatched in history, has no consequences.
"If the American people ever allow the banks to issue the currency, their children will wake up homeless on the continent their forefathers established."
Yes, I read the article and stand by my statement. I didn’t say that I disagree with the article, what I said was that in order for America to re-emerge as an economic powerhouse, we need to end globalization.
Case in point - at the end of WWII, America had 60% of the world’s manufacturing capability. Today, we have less than 25%. If we continue to outsource manufacturing jobs and assume a position as the world’s “global project manager”, we will be plunged into economic obscurity. Project management doesn’t have enough positions to employ all working Americans. So, while the fortunes of a handful may rise as global project managers, most Americans will see a significant decline in their standard of living as they have to settle for service sector jobs.
We are seeing gasoline prices rise because we shipped manufacturing and call center jobs to India and China. We are now having to compete with those economies for the world’s finite production of crude oil. With both India’s and China’s economies strengthened by outsourcing manufacturing, we have weakened our own economy. Until we pull many of these jobs back with policies that favor America first, we are dooming our own future.
I’m sorry that so many of the world’s leaders are great tyrannical dictators, but we aren’t responsible for that and Americans shouldn’t penalize themselves for being the powerhouse that we once were due to our strong work ethic and innovativeness. Mugabe has taken Zimbabwe from being one of Africa’s most important agricultural nations to a nation that can’t feed itself, much less anyplace else in Africa. Castro and Chavez have done the same in their countries as has Kim Jong-Il in N. Korea. And, these are only a few examples of the countries we are trying to prop up in addition to India and China. China was always dangerous to world trade and it has proven itself so as a member of the WTO thanks to Bush father and son. India has always had an underclass and, thanks to globalization, that is virtually untrue today.
Again, we have to look at what globalization has and is doing to America and its workforce. The future is not encouraging if we do not make radical changes and stop outsourcing American jobs and manufacturing.
Gee ... ya think maybe USAAF, BBC and Luftwaffe might have had something to do with that?
US manufacturing has been leaving since at least the 1960s.
This is not a new trend. When it isn’t China and India, it was
Mexico and Japan. Taiwan and Homg Kong.
Recall the song by P Revere & the Raiders from ca 1970
Indian reservation:
And all the beads we made by hand;
are nowadays made in Japan.
Just as the US left agriculturally-based economics a century or
more ago, we are evolving away from manufacturing. You are
witnessing economic evolution.
Better not fear it. Better learn to deal w/ it.
MV
It just doesn't take as many bodies to manufacture a car as in the past. Simple truth.
Stop being a rude boy!
Just as we evolved away from agriculture to an industrial- or
manufacturing-based econ, we are evolving away from manufacturing-
based to service- or intellectually-based (innovation-based) economics.
The service-based contribution to GDP has been steadily growing since
the 1960s and the manufacturing component has been steadily declining.
For example, the auto industry has nowhere near the impact on the econ
today that it did in the 50s (As goes GM, so goes the US).
Just as agriculture contributes less to GDP today in %age terms
than it did in 1900, so too do/will the manufacturing sectors
as they employ fewer persons and enjoy greater efficiency and
productivity.
MV
“If we remain on our current path and continue to outsource manufacturing jobs, there is no way to regain our position as an economic powerhouse.”
The idea that we are losing by outsourcing low skill jobs is a myth perpetrated by those who want to save their gravy train of high pay for low skill and effort (unions). It won’t work any more, that’s over.
Yes, we have challenges. We must improve our education system and convince people to learn higher skills than assemble line work that properly trained monkeys can perform. Those empty houses in the rust belt are the result of people moving away to places where the jobs exist. Those states have not served their people well, and are losing population and economic growth as a result. These areas will revitalize if and when the local politicians start working on education, tax incentives, and technical training. Those actions combined with inexpensive real estate can turn things around in the rust belt.
The first generation to meet such challenges usually resists, and loses. The next generation says the hell with that, I’m going to do whatever needed to improve my skills and be successful. It just takes time. And we are faster than other countries at adapting to change due to our economic system.
Hmm, hate to be a curmudgeon, but how will this happen if our government continues to spend as it does and debase our currency? Also, how many of those babies born here are born to illegal immigrants?
I hope this article is correct, but I wonder exactly how it will all play out.
Yeah, one characteristic of gloom-and-doomers is to constantly make relativistic global economic comparisons to 1946, when Japan, Germany, China, and most of the rest of Europe were leveled, and Britain economically crippled.
The root cause of most economic idiocy is focusing not on your inherent wealth but the relative wealth of yourself to others. The rest of the world becoming richer doesn't make the US poorer.
Yes, but in the 60s and 70s, it was a veritable trickle compared to today’s tidal wave. It slowed in the 80s (because the Japanese were buying everything up) and in the 90s, what Clinton didn’t out and out give to the Chinese, they stole. In 2000 through today, Bush rewarded China’s thievery by sponsoring them in the WTO.
You're not serious. The dollar is at an all time low against the Euro and the Canadian dollar, the real estate market has tumbled, gas prices are higher than ever (albeit falling marginally on today's news from OPEC), food prices are skyrocketing due to the high delivery costs caused by high gas prices.
I like to be as much an optimist as the next person, but the economic picture is particularly bleak. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but, all of that combined with a falling stock market does not suggest that we are on the right path economically.
The idea that we are losing by outsourcing low skill jobs is a myth perpetrated by those who want to save their gravy train of high pay for low skill and effort (unions). It won’t work any more, that’s over.
Not true. Union membership has reversed a long trend and is starting to grow once again. In addition, your argument appears to be predicated on the notion that the education system will be corrected in the foreseeable future. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on that to occur, if I were you. I would also suggest that not everyone has the aptitude or desire to hold down an office job. This may come as a shock to you, but some people actually enjoy their manufacturing jobs, or construction jobs, or driving a truck, or providing lawn care or selling clothes.
Oh, and I wouldn't go around telling your friends with manufacturing jobs that their jobs suck - those jobs are the engine that drives most successful businesses and pay for the office jobs that other people have.
FYI: the “dollar at an all time low” is actually a POSITIVE force to stem the flow of jobs away from America. That not only makes American products less expensive for foreigners to purchase, it makes them less expensive for multi-national corporations to produce here.
If your prime interest is more American manufacturing, you need to be rooting for a lower dollar.
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