Interesting Charlie Rose interview of Goldsmith from 1994. It's about an hour long, but the first 5 minutes and last 5 minutes are compelling - even prophetic, for those that don't have the time to watch the entire video - those ten minutes sum it up well. <embed id=VideoPlayback src=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=5064665078176641728&hl=en&fs=true style=width:400px;height:326px allowFullScreen=true allowScriptAccess=always type=application/x-shockwave-flash> </embed>
Can't say, "nobody saw it coming".. To restore labor and jobs at any kind of standard of living in the US will require protectionist policies. How do we do that when we're depending upon China continuing buying our Treasuries?
Good point. Unless I missed it, I don't think Goldsmith anticipated that. The Chinese-US relationship although damning to the middle class if maintained, would also have negative consequences if the current arrangement is broken. Damned either way. Ultimately, I think that if fuel costs soar, then a lot of trade will suffer and many things will be manufactured locally once again. But that's long term; it's anyones guess when oil production doesn't keep up with global demand and prices skyrocket. However, outsourcing thru telecommunications - from call centers, loan processing and even X Ray diagnostics can be done anywhere in the world. I think the genie is out of the bottle. Middle Class incomes have stagnated the past 20 some years because of global trade. Sure the tech boom of the nineties and Real Estate booms of the 00s compensated to a degree... but those are over now. Now we are experiencing the wage descent and job loss. Add to that, the productivity/efficiences gained thru technology - where today one person can do the job it took 3 people 40 years ago... and now we're looking at population overshoot. Lots of hungry mouths and idle hands. You can't just tack on 4 billion people into the global market that will willingly work for peanuts and not expect negative consequences. See the poverty in India and China? Guess what? We're now importing that poverty and exporting our prosperity. Wealth and Poverty will flow freely around the world. The transnational corporations don't give a shit. They have no allegiance to countries or communities - unless they need a bailout.
Great video. It was like watching Peter Schiff predict the recent crash. Basically everything is coming true except the widespread displacement in the rural developing world due to a lowering of agriculture tariffs. This didn't happen because they were not stupid like we were and they balked at lowering ag tariffs in the Doha round. However, it did happen in Mexico with Nafta and it is one of the reasons why we had so many illegal aliens move up north. Half of all jobs in France are now public sector jobs and I suspect that will soon be the case here in the US. If the private sector is not creating jobs in the US, then someone has to pick up the slack. Globalization leads to big government and big business is comfortable with that. The Republican party is going to split when they realize that the economic half is killing the small government half. FYI, here is an interesting book review on globalization: http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/01/ha...n-globalization-book-review-edward-alden.html