Real estate is a fine business .... Comercial real estate ... not outsourced ... yet. The day may come however when a unified national marketplace occurs for commercial as well. When that niche is fully developed there will be much less need on the commercial side for people .... hope you are on the right side of that wave when it happens .....
Excellent post, we're going to be an economic superpower without producing anything, neither goods nor intellectual property as it's all cheaper to produce elsewhere and as is obvious from your list of available opportunities. We're going to remain a superpower by selling each other real estate, losing money to each other in casinos and flying each other on Delta airline planes. Seriously though, all these opportunities while still available are not new, they've existed for decades together with dozens or even hundreds of other oportunities which have disappeared and have not been replaced.
Crucial point. Wage arbitrage will still indirectly affect you, even if you believe you're "safe" right now. At least that's what logic suggests. Personally, I'm not too worried. Not so much because I'm "safe" (even though I am - as much as anyone is), but because I wasn't banking my future happiness on ever increasing amounts of absolute wealth in the first place. So even though I fancy my chances of surviving with my psychology intact no matter what happens, it still is nicer to be faced with prospects of more wealth rather than less. (Naturally, I still hope for the former, though common sense does seem to suggest the latter.)
When people talk about wage arbitrage it looks like everybody forgets that the process goes both ways. China doesn't have unlimited supply of $2/hr engineers. Even now qualified labor there pulls $10-20K. If the economy there keeps growing at 10% soon they will need many more engineers to support the growing infrastructure, railroads, etc. They will start pulling $50K easily, the newly rich chinese will be flying boeing (or more likely airbus) planes to their las vegas vacation or sending their kids to private schools in the US paying the full price tag. Just because they are the biggest savers now doesn't mean they won't be spending like crazy soon.
If you design products and then make them cheaply abroad, profits will be greater. The design jobs are better than manufacturing. Example, Apple Ipod.
Yes, a lot of these niche jobs have been around for years. But everyone seems to think that no new ones are being created. The great strength of the US has always been the adaptable, economy. Good God, the mere fact of posting on this web site did not exist 10 years ago!!! While you guys are sitting wringing your hands about the possibility that a job may be outsourced, millions of people that are not as smart as you are out making a very nice living, lOL. Commercial real estate has been enhanced by the internet as one is able to reach a very broad array of potential investors for a small fee. Good luck with that attitude SteveD
I agree with dddooo's views. Just because many people in US can make a living nowadays by non-productive jobs (e.g. RE broker), due to the TEMPORARY "kindness of strangers" (for as long as it suits them), it doesn't mean that this situation is sustainable over time. And the hollowing of US economy isn't exactly a recipe for economic and social stability. People should read Paul Robert's opinions [Roberts, a former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former Contributing Editor of National Review, was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan administration]: Let me quote: "Global labor arbitrage is rapidly dismantling the ladders of upward mobility and thereby endangering American political stability." These articles are must-read imo: http://www.vdare.com/roberts/050923_america.htm http://www.vdare.com/roberts/050822_hegemony.htm His entire collection of articles: http://www.vdare.com/roberts/all_columns.htm
Design jobs are characterized by low productivity, which cannot easily be improved. Manufacturing jobs are characterized by high productivity, which can be improved by capital investment and better design. Design income is also dependent on intellectual property protection, which is hit or miss, depending on the legal system. The biggest profits now are outside the system, in illegal drugs, weapons, illegal artifacts and the trade in people for sex work and other indentured work. People talk about this kind of stuff sometimes at http://www.indexcalls.com