Specialization and outsourcing is rather efficient....but price hunting economies of scale and balance would be another thing... Offshoring and trade policy in the scheme of things have nothing to do with a single countries productivity gains and balance or imbalance... Hasn't Dr. Greenspan hinted at this? Short-term views again....... Trying to maintain control and head off detrimental developments to the US economy on a global view seems to be recognized by a few "well educated" economists. The rate of change and slowing it down requires longer views if the USA will lead and control globalization.... Michael B. just goes to show you...when governments get involved in the control of supply and demand, this causes the ebb and flow of things to change....its the "Lord of the Flies"
This system is ridiculous: it maintains third world countries under poverty through high debts so that these people have to accept ridiculous salaries with unhuman work conditions for their countries to repay the interests of the debts and they can use them as a threat to compete with the workers of occidental worlds which work are highly taxed especially in Europe - Since when something that is taxed can be favorised ?. Of course they would disguise that under "sharing" with the third word whereas it is outrageous exploitation of the third world which causes damages to every citizen in the world, exhacerb poor countries against occidental worlds and so terrorism. Only a few men would have interest in this system but they managed to make a lot of people accept this system as good through mass brainwashing and financial advantages for the profiteers. The market is the pilar of this cynical system, I have much hesitated to enter this world for this reason, but I'm fed up to have my hard earned money stolen by this system, I'm fed up of paying huge taxes on salaries that will go to pay debts interests instead of tax going into school buildings and employment, I'm fed up of this whole hypocrisis of people complaining about this or that but that don't accept to analyse the causes.
If not for outsourcing, yankees would still be wrapping meaningless plastic toys in large factory halls, instead of doing intellectually satisfying work in airconditioned offices and the chinese would still be planting rice in medieval circumstances. Is that what you want, anti-globalists?
"There has always been a wealthy elite in this country, and there has always been a gap between the rich and the poor. But the disparities in wealth and income that currently exist in this country have not been seen in over a hundred years. Today, the richest one percent own more wealth than the bottom ninety-five percent, and the CEOs of large corporations earn more than 500 times what their average employees make. The nation's 13,000 wealthiest families, 1/100th of one percent of the population, receive almost as much income as the poorest 20 million families in America. While the rich get richer and receive huge tax breaks from the White House, the middle class is struggling to keep its head above water. The unemployment rate rose to a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June, 2003. There are now 9.4 million unemployed, up more than 3 million since just before Bush became President. Since March 2001, we have lost over 2.7 million jobs in the private sector, including two million decent-paying manufacturing jobs - ten percent of our manufacturing sector. Frighteningly, the hemorrhaging of decent paying jobs is now moving into the white-collar sector. Forrester Research Inc. predicts that at least 3.3 million information technology jobs will be lost to low-wage countries by 2015 with the expansion of digitization, the internet and high-speed data networks. But understanding the pain and anxiety of the middle class requires going beyond the unemployment numbers. There are tens of millions of fully employed Americans who today earn, in inflation-adjusted dollars, less money than they received 30 years ago. In 1973, private-sector workers in the United States were paid on average $9.08 an hour. Today, in real wages, they are paid $8.33 per hour - more than 8 percent lower. Manufacturing jobs that once paid a living wage are now being done in China, Mexico and other low-wage countries as corporate America ships its plants abroad. With Wal-Mart replacing General Motors as our largest employer, many workers in the service economy not only earn low wages but also receive minimal benefits. Further, as the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs soar, more and more employers are forcing workers to assume a greater percentage of their health care costs. It is not uncommon now that increases in health care costs surpass the wage increases that workers receive - leaving them even further behind. With the support of the Bush Administration many companies are also reducing the pensions they promised to their older workers - threatening the retirement security of millions of Americans."... http://www.inequality.org/goinggoingfr.html
...Prior to the enactment of the dreaded income tax, which began only in 1913, the government imposed very high tariffs, which were levied on imported goods throughout the nation's history from its beginnings in the 18th century through the end of the 1800s. These protectionist tariffs laid the groundwork for the American industrial revolution. The system worked. We had the natural resources, the labor markets, the intellectual know-how and the world's largest consumer market, all in one nation. America simply had to produce its own goods domestically to avoid paying the high costs of the tariffs that were placed on French fabrics and English steel. American industry flourished, and the government was funded without a dime of income taxes. This healthy economic policy should be revisited -- it worked then and it could work again. This successful policy slowly changed with the advent of the dreaded income tax, which reduced the government's reliance on tariffs for revenue. And, as with all government programs that once begin as temporary, the income tax grew into the monster we know today, while the historically high tariffs decreased to virtually nothing today. Big mistake. We're now evolved to a point that not only do the few remaining factory workers have low salaries, but, adding insult to injury, they have to pay high income taxes, too. ... Republicans weren't always "free traders." Protectionism was a big part of the Republican platform when the party was founded in the 1850s. Beginning with President Lincoln, Republicans continued as big protectionists throughout the latter part of the 19th century. We need to revisit tariffs and protectionist policies to protect the loss of our jobs and, indeed, our entire economic infrastructure. Free-trade proponents once argued that we were merely trading low manufacturing jobs for the better intellectual jobs in a whole new high-tech era to come. That era has already come, and the high-tech jobs have now gone overseas, too. What will they say now? A country without a manufacturing or intellectual base of employment is hardly a nation. Should the welfare of the many be supported by the labors of a few? Free traders apparently think so. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/02/09/asparks.DTL
No matter what the Economist states - and by the way they are not the most balanced fact filled publication - the situation in the technology industry is crystal clear to anyone who spends any time looking at the facts - or who owns or runs a technology company. The technology industry - here I am talking about software and many type of hardware engineering - is much closer to a mature business and the applications for which software still needs to be written are small. That is, most of the complicated high margin systems have been written and are being sold - every thing from supply chain to HR to you name it. There are lower margin and lower total dollar areas that may produce some growth but these can be largely be serviced by commodity workers, hence the outflow of jobs to the cheapest labor source. I routinely talk with senior executives in leading technology companies as well as the fortune 100. The next steps in reducting labor costs in IT and indeed in the realm of corporate headquarters staff like finance and accounting has already begun and will accelerate with these traditional professional jobs moved to lower cost centers. I see no equivalent replacement for these lost jobs and neither do the executives that I talk to: they dont plan on moving the outsourced/offshored people on to other positions, just reducing their costs period.
The Chinese Civilisation has invented scripture far before Occident: they have no lesson to receive from Occident as for intellectual Capacities. Commerce and economy has not to do with Globalism-Imperialism it has to do with Fair (Optimal) Exchange and that implies means bilaterality not unilaterality !
"In 1973, private-sector workers in the United States were paid on average $9.08 an hour. Today, in real wages, they are paid $8.33 per hour - more than 8 percent lower." 1973...c'mon an oil shock&20 year of dollar free fall separates us from 1973'....what social systeme would have been able to couter those forces ?