Posted on 07/30/2003 2:03:53 PM PDT by leadpencil1
Actually, that would deflate the standard of living...at laeast yours, as I would promptly surround your house with old-fashioned smoke-stack industries, except we would save some money and skip the stacks. We would just put up fans and blow it all onto your property.
Anyways, you have an immense contradiction to resolve: How is it that we can effectively make business regulations so effectual here that they are indeed unavoidably costly...but the same folks in the bureacracy would never have a chance of making an effective software tariff (I will assume that you do admit that hardware tariffs are feasible)?
I guess we should enact the tariff and see.
The incentives for corporations to invest in the R&D to accomplish this degree of automation are also lacking...when it is far cheaper to just pour your production capital into a slave-labor hole like China. Even automation can't compete.
In other words, precisely after the last US factory and software job has not just closed down, but been shipped to China. Then the Chinese will declare 'defeat' by RAISING THE PRICES on the goods they will by then have a monopoly of production capacity on. And we will have no ability to do anything other than pay it. No competing industry left.
Sounds like you better go back to the drawing board.
I agree. Next we'll see Poohbah claiming their will be pistol-packing punk software 'dealers' hanging around outside the elementary schools trying to sell illegal software... "Hey kid, you want a score? I got some Lotus-Notes and Corel knock-offs for you..."
Yep. The ideal is to meld the two into an approach that gives you continuous feedback from the users that you're on the right track.
The fast managers of today who are earning promotions by going offshore will three years from now be earning their next promotion by bringing BACK American developers and blaming the guy who was there before them for going offshore.
The incentive system these days is to make your money and move on before the long-term consequences of your decisions become obvious. The average tenure of a Fortune 500 CEO is now under 4 years. From CFO magazine:
'Short-term results: there is systemic 'short-termism' in the [CEO] market. The average tenure of a FTSE or Fortune 500 CEO is under four years. Ten years ago it was 10 years. New CEOs are given a relatively short amount of time to decide what they're doing and get results. The pressure for quick results comes from investors (especially the pension industry), who want results today. The churn, turn and burnout rate for CEOs is very high as a result.'Lack of experienced candidates: over the past 15 years, large organisations have systematically de-layered from the top, losing anything up to five levels of senior and middle management. Years ago, senior executives probably started their career at the same organisation they ended it [at]. They would be sent all over the world [and] work in different roles - from engineering, to sales, to marketing - before joining the executive ranks. Their future would be mapped out and they would know, if they worked hard and were loyal to the company, where they were going in the organisation and when.
'A CEO who came up through the ranks probably held the No. 2 role for five years before taking over the No. 1 role when the incumbent retired. There is no longer the number and calibre of candidates within organisations that there used to be. And while training statistics will tell you that the investment has increased, in real terms, that is, the training dollars as a percentage of revenue has actually decreased. Not enough grey hair: over the past 10 to 15 years, the average age of a CEO has tumbled 15 to 20 years. Current CEOs have a lot less miles on the clock when they come into the role, and are unlikely to stay long enough to preside over the long-term strategic direction and future of the organisation.
'Help yourself careers: senior executives pretty much plan their own careers now, whereas years ago they had a solid career path, with training, and succession planning within their organisation. Senior executives now mostly train themselves - by undertaking an MBA or similar formal education - and will move around from company to company and country to country to gain the experience they need to climb the corporate ladder. Their loyalty is to themselves, their long-term plans involve themselves, and more and more are leaving the corporate world and electing to work to live, rather than to live to work. They are opting out in droves.'
At which point, it becomes profitable for someone else--quite conceivably Americans--to do the work in question, and China has just priced themselves out of the market.
Sounds like you better go back to the drawing board.
You first.
Wrong. What I do see is undercover sting operations against politically-selected businesses in such an environment. "Use of public-key cryptography" will be listed on an affadavit as justification for a dynamic entry search warrant. A disk of encrypted data with a lost decryption key will justify asset forfeiture.
In short, you'll get all of the wonderful anti-Constitutional aspects of the War on Drugs--the same War on Drugs that I'm not supportive of anymore. And you won't even need the drugs.
The path to totalitarianism involves the continual stripping away of rights and liberties. The route doesn't pass through politically powerful areas -- it goes through politically disfavored areas. Drug users. Child pornographers. Gun owners. Whacky cults. Christian fundamentalists. Groups that are easy for the media to demonize.
The way it works is you invade the civil rights of disfavored groups with things like asset forfeiture, no-knock warrents, warrants issued on the basis of anonymous informants (who may or may not even exist).
Once the precedents have been in place for years, and all challenges have been ruled against by the courts, THEN these same powers can slowly be turned against more "mainstream" groups that prove annoying to the powers that be
Wrong. They will by then own all the capital, after in defeat, they NATIONALIZE the whole kit and caboodle of the US investments therein. They will not be so stupid as to make our mistake and invest in their enemy. And they can then sell all the goodies to themselves as they will then be able to have a prosperous consumer class.
Rather than your learning how to use aa drawing board, I suggest instead, based on the quality of your replies, you learn how to farm in rice paddies. That may be all the Chinese will buy from America.
Those are irrelevant factors to the 'Golden Age'. And your peripheral assertions are erroneous. Regarding 'mass migrations' we have ongoing mass migrations into the country...the real problem is keeping all those third-worlders who want to migrate IN and jump on the welfare-gravy-train, OUT.
As for territorial size that is clearly irrelevant. Look instead for market share. There we are still growing like wildfire in a number of markets. We just have to start producing again to restore the balance of trade...and preserve our defense capability.
Actually, they won't own all of the capital--already, some ChiComs are complaining about CHINESE firms outsourcing their production elsewhere.
They will not be so stupid as to make our mistake and invest in their enemy.
Small problem--if they don't, then all those funny green pieces of paper have essentially ZERO value to them--or anyone else.
Oh, BTW...in your scenario, the Chinese have to hold LOTS of US debt.
The US government would probably declare a "temporary" holiday on paying off ChiCom-held debt. The ensuing cash crunch would be fun to watch from this side of the Pacific.
And they can then sell all the goodies to themselves as they will then be able to have a prosperous consumer class.
Actually, they won't be able to do that--remember all those Chinese banks with nonperforming loans? You just convinced the major source of their income-generating assets--the US--to renege on its debts, AND pretty much ensured that they won't be able to sell a damn thing in the US. The resulting financial crash and mass shutdown of industrial activity puts Chinese workers out of their jobs, whereupon they don't have the money needed to be prosperous consumers...
Rather than your learning how to use aa drawing board, I suggest instead, based on the quality of your replies, you learn how to farm in rice paddies. That may be all the Chinese will buy from America.
And we'll make the SOBs pay through the nose for it in that scenario.
Gosh, you REALLY don't understand second and third-order effects, do you?
You fail to comprehend that they will use those funny green pieces of paper to buy newly-bargain-priced US commodities to feed their industrial maw. US coal, timber, iron ore, etc (again competitive after the dollar's collapse) and likely even oil from Alaska...they will have the political clout to coerce even the Greens into acceding to their Chinese companies drilling in ANWR.
Meanwhile, no US manufactures will be let in, no matter how low your paycheck goes Poohbah, because they will tariff the heck out of them. So learn to stoop. The Chinese will not hesitate to be protectionist even after they achieve ascendancy.
Once the manufacturing base is there, and the associated capital, the state of their banks and the state of trade with the US will become superfluous as the Chinese gradually increase real wages and take over as the primary market for their manufactures. This is analogous to a self-exciting AC motor. It just needs to be energized and started.
The US government would probably declare a "temporary" holiday on paying off ChiCom-held debt. The ensuing cash crunch would be fun to watch from this side of the Pacific.
They would just foreclose on the U.S. They will by then control the WTO, and will force all sorts of policies on us, demanding we pay up, or else the blue-helmeted UN troops with chinese names would swarm in. That will likely prove unnecessary as we certainly have enough quislings willing to do whatever they would say.
And China would have no problems with their banks, as they just bail them out with the Greenback stash they have accumulated. Just as we did with our own when several major banks hit the skids.
Ah, but there are other places to sell than China, and they would either (a) lower their prices, or (b) get undersold.
So learn to stoop. The Chinese will not hesitate to be protectionist even after they achieve ascendancy.
Since being protectionist is pushing them closer and closer to bankruptcy, they aren't going to grab ascendancy.
Remember how Japan was going to be the world economic hyperpower 13 years ago?
They would just foreclose on the U.S.
Ah, yes. Turn a temporary cash crunch into a permanent one.
They will by then control the WTO, and will force all sorts of policies on us, demanding we pay up, or else the blue-helmeted UN troops with chinese names would swarm in.
In which case, Rule .308 would apply, wouldn't it?
That will likely prove unnecessary as we certainly have enough quislings willing to do whatever they would say.
Until the quislings discover the joys of getting lynched by their fellow Americans.
And China would have no problems with their banks, as they just bail them out with the Greenback stash they have accumulated.
Hey, doofus! In case you forgot...
The dollar COLLAPSED in your scenario! So their plan demands that the dollar hold its value, because it's what's going to prop up their banking system!
I knew that if I argued with you long enough, you'd hit an irreconcilable contradiction.
Just as we did with our own when several major banks hit the skids.
There's a BIG difference between us propping up a FEW banks experiencing TEMPORARY cash flow problems and the ChiComs trying to prop up EVERY bank in their country during PERMANENT cash flow problems.
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