Cheap Products vs. High Wages... Americans Want BOTH!

Discussion in 'Economics' started by gnome, Aug 29, 2008.

  1. Looks like I am replying to clowns here that have never seen a university from the inside. "They can say anything". They can, exactly once and then never again. You fool have any idea how research is conducted and what "peer review" is?

    Paul Krugman, Princeton Economist:

    P.S. You know what human capital means is about at all? By the sound of it ("human capital extensive" vs. "capital intensive and labor intensive") you don't. For a list of Becker's publications: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Becker
     
    #21     Aug 29, 2008
  2. Asia Bashing

    In the early 1980s, Japan was blamed for the perceived decline in the US economy, much as China is in the 2000s. One scholar defined ‘Japan bashing’ as “those perspectives that routinely blame the Japanese for the breakdown in communication and refuse to consider that the American side might also be part of the problem.” Japan bashing was a political shortcut that used a scapegoat to avoid forcing America to look at its own problems. [1] Two books on the theme, Akio Morita’s The Japan That Can Say No and Michael Crichton’s novel Rising Sun became best sellers.

    In politics, Japan became an easy means of wooing voters unsettled by US economy's evolution from industrial to service economy. In 1992, one observer asked, “What if America’s trade deficit with Japan is a permanent condition and cannot be eliminated through pressure to open up Japanese markets or short-term investments in domestic competitiveness?” [2]

    Fast forward to the 2000s, and replace Japan with China and it appears that the “bashee” is whatever East Asian nations happens to be the location for manufacturing in the particular period under consideration. Policy heavyweights such as Robert Zoellick and Fred Bergsten have demanded that China grant the US more concessions, under threat of economic sanctions. [3] As was the case with Japan in the 1980s, the trade deficit is the key measure of how “unfairly” the major East Asian economic power plays. The question is “no longer whether to bash China over its trade and currency policies. It’s how hard to bash China.”[4]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_trade
     
    #22     Aug 29, 2008
  3. I don't ask for anything cheap. I'm always willing to pay a fair price for a good product. I'll pay more for an American muscle car any day over a rice grinder knowing my fellow countrymen have employment and they won't be killing my family to survive because of the selfish fucking idiotic treasonous mother fuckers in this country who buy that Asian shit at half price.
     
    #23     Aug 29, 2008
  4. Eventually all these people that buy 3 dollar shirts at wal-mart will finally catch on that those shirts only last 3 washes and if they had bought a 20 dollar american made shirt that lasts 100 washes, they would be saving money.
     
    #24     Aug 29, 2008
  5. Makloda,

    I think your points are very well made:
    - free trade & specialization can and research shows, currently does, increase the size of the pie
    - the pie is distributed to cheap labour and wealthy/strong sources of information/management/skills.

    But you need to consider that the growing pie may grow worldwide but shrink considerably for your homeland.

    Consider that we all saw the shoe factories and clothing factories shut. And thought - its only the low skilled jobs.

    Then the next layer went.

    What's to stop the progression to the point where all that's left in the USA is a sales front end to the remaining rich? No need for Senior management, just in country marketing and sales with a bit of hands-on service (the phone service has gone to India anyway) until your ghetto labour gets so cheap that even the Indian's can't compete.
     
    #25     Aug 29, 2008
  6. one of the more stupid posts on ET
     
    #26     Aug 29, 2008
  7. pneuma

    pneuma

    too many think wealth is a good income, nice car, lush house and good school (and plenty of debt).

    keeping up with the jones' is what is destroying the western world.

    the younger you are the more you will think that you can have the assets of your parents without the 40 years of hard work - change that and you will have a new economy.

    pneuma
     
    #27     Aug 30, 2008
  8. pneuma

    pneuma

    what you say is true, however i doubt that they will realize

    why buy a $20 when you can get a 7 $3 ones.

    I have the same argument with my misses - i buy $100 demin jeans coz they will go the distance, she buys 5 $20 pairs because she can change with the fashion ...

    what is destroying the western economy is a disproportionate level of wealth to population. if you earn $40k pa, then you are 1 in a million globally. count yourself lucky that you are the cheapest bloke in your local community.

    pneuma

    pneuma
     
    #28     Aug 30, 2008
  9. the younger you are the more you will think that you can have the assets of your parents without the 40 years of hard work - change that and you will have a new economy.

    pneuma

    -----------------------

    Good point. You have to pay your dues. Saving is for chumps when you have a credit card in your pocket is the wrong attitude.
     
    #29     Aug 30, 2008
  10. gnome

    gnome

    What about the $20, name-brand shirt that was made in China. How is that different from the no-name $3, shirt?

    Is it not reality that nearly ALL shirts are made in China, regardless of the cost?
     
    #30     Aug 30, 2008