LOL!
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 ...
Your comment would have validity if we had any manufactured goods to sell to anyone.
LOL!
We don’ make nuthin’, nowheres, no how. (And the basis for my conclusion is that I went to Wal-Mart to look for plastic lawn-flamingos, and all I could find were ones from CHINA).
Given the numbers you gave in YOUR post#10 as accurate, the US does 25% of the world’s manufacturing with our meager 4% or so of the population. Sounds like we have plenty of manufactured goods to sell, in absolute terms, and per capita. -—> my comment has validity.
Posted by Mike on November 12, 2007 11:46 PMDeclinism? Here we go again. Been there, done that. If I had a nickel for every time over the last 40 years I've heard or seen bloviations about The End of American Hegemony, I'd be as rich as Gates. Let's rewind the tape, shall we?
1968: US cities in flames, MLK RFK shot, Tet Offensive victory magically transformed into Crushing Defeat => The End of American Hegemony.
1973-1975: The American Hegemon reels under presidential scandal, inflation, the end of the gold standard => The End (this time, we REALLY mean it) of US Hegemony.
1979-1980: OK, we're not kidding around this time, this really is the end: stagflation, unemployment, interest rates >18% Japanese increasing market share in manufacturing, humiliation in Iran + Soviet Union on the march =>The End of American Hegemony.
1982-83: Hey, this ain't funny anymore. This is the end, honest: cruise missiles, arms race, SDI, Beirut humiliation, farm crisis, unemployment in the rust belt, A Nation at Risk + The Fate of a Nation => the End of American Hegemony and The Dawn of World War III. Run for the hills!
1990-92: Did I say Soviet Union? I meant Japan! The Japs are coming, and boy, is America ever screwed: Japanese juggernaut's buying up Rock Center and Pebble Beach and has Kidder Peabody, Atari and American Motors in its gunsights. Post Cold War-America's a pitiful musclebound giant, its Hegemony Soon to End.
1999: America, the paper tiger, about to unleash World War III in the Balkans, its hegemony On the Wane.
2007: Hey, did I say Japan? I meant China! End of Hegemony Time, buddy. Get ready, I can feel it in my bones.
Isn't punditry fun?
I see it slightly differently. We're evolving away from manufacturing being the main economic driver. Both in terms of employment, *and* output, manufacturing will become smaller as a fraction of the national economy. But this is true of the world as well.
And, by the way, I see this as a good thing as I suspect you do too.
From the article: “House prices are falling in Spain, France, Ireland, the Baltics, and now Britain.”
So the housing bubble bursting IS worldwide? Is that what was summarized here?
Manufacturing productivity is increasing so fast anyway, that jobs would be lost regardless of China. In fact, China has lost manufacturing jobs in the last 5 years. US Exports are booming at double digit rates (for the last 5-6 years in a row). The Trade deficit as a % of gdp is plummetting. If the dollar slide continues or even stays the same, I would expect it to continue.
Source?
Mr Rockefeller would be correct. We are and will stay the greatest nation on earth.
The people that are predicting economic Armageddon are similar to the global warming believers.
They both look at a small slice of time and are convinced that the future will follow the trend of that small slice of time.
Hey Grampa! Over here where they know how to speak in the affirmative tense, rather than just the past tense!!! (wull golly! I guess that makes two tents)(am I just too tense?)
Hey mad vlad! Is zat da saym thang as "lose his shirt?" I thought them Brits invented the King's English for Pete's sake!!!
China never did. The problem with prosperity in emerging countries is that it permanently erodes your number one competitive advantage - cheap labor.
It seems that the people making washers and driers one day aspire to owning one.
We’ve already seen that in Japan, the Little Tigers, and in Mexico.
When’s the last time you heard a story about the vaunted ‘Maquiladora’?
One of my customers told me just today about the fact that all of their major European competitors are opening plants in the US next year.
As I stated, your numbers have validity if we have product to sell. Inherent in my comment (what . . . . you’re NOT a mind reader??!! :-)) is the overriding concern that if we were to become involved in another global conflict on the scale of a WWII, we lack the manufacturing base to be self-sufficient to the extent that we can build and maintain the weapons systems necessary to sustain the war effort to victory.
We have outsourced American military uniform production to China and the bulk of integrated circuit manufacturing that is necessary for the sophisticated electronics used in many of our weapons systems is based in the far East. We also have few to no steel plants in the US, so we would have limited means to be able to manufacture the various metals used for such weapons as artillery, Naval guns, aircraft, tanks, ships, etc. . . . . . . . the list goes on. This is of vital concern because, logistically, we have dug an very deep hole predicated on wishful thinking that , with the end of the Cold War, we will all live in peace together and, should global squabbles arise, we will solve them by joining hands and singing a few verses of “Kumbaya”.
We all recognize that in today’s fast-paced world, we have a very limited amount of time in which to tool up what manufacturing facilities we do have to produce the materials needed to sustain a war. In WWII, we had something of a luxury of time that doesn’t exist today. That is the essential concern that I have about our manufacturing capability. As long as things remain on a global even keel, it’s not a big deal.
However, the environment in which we live today is exceptionally volatile and the patterns that led up to WWII are being rewoven. If we are not vigilant and do not plan for a worst case scenario, our survival as a nation is not assured. That’s why this is such an important issue to me.
We may have the natural resources to sustain ourselves but, if we lack the industries to convert those resources into consummable materials when the going gets tough, we have lost (or surrendered) before we ever started.
No question.
I have lived to see and realize most of that. Was too young re the 1968
mess but I was a Nixon kid from about that time. Somebody told me
that HaHaHa (HH(Humphrey) would make us kids go to school
all summer long. I was a repub after that!
MV
Not really. Given that today’s weapons systems are more lethal, more
destructive and already on point, ie, pre-positioned around the globe.
In addition, launch platforms and staging areas exist worldwide.
A consequence of that DECLINING US HEGEMONY!
1) identify who is most likley to cause trouble over the next 20-xy yrs
2) look at a map
3) pre-posiiton forces adjacent to troublemakers’ borders
4) sit back and export capitalism and the NE Patriots
5) slap a libber-al
Case in point: simply look at US overseas base realignment plans
slated to begin next yr or in 2009 regarding Europe. Europe bin
see-cured; Asia be in play.
MV
What is so hard to believe about 25% of man cap? We hold close to 50%
of total global stock market cap. We have the highest GDP w/ a mere
4% of the world’s population. I expect we also in the aggregate have
the highest absolute agriculture yield w/ declining acreage.
The only advantages offered by a huge population (China,
India) is to a seller of inexpensive goods (sell a 1bill cases
of coke over there) and for cannon-fodder-based militaries,
eg, human wave warfare. Although I expect human wave warfare,
which was virtually played to a standoff in Korea, has been since
negated w/ modern non-nuke force-multiplier weapons systems.
MV
Lose his shirt, lose his ass. Synonymous.
If’n you snooze, you looze!
MV
So, 20 years ago, you foresaw Hugo Chavez and Iran's Ahmanutjob?? You can say yes to Iran and I might give you that one, but no one saw Venezuela and Chavez coming. And, in the 1920s, you would have foreseen the coming of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin?? You would have foreseen the rise of Japan? And, in the 1930s, you would have seen our involvement in Viet Nam!!??
That's a fantastic crystal ball you have there if you answered yes to all of that.
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