I posted this comment to a member here in response to a PM he sent me and think the reasoning is sound, even if it's simplistic (sometimes, the more simplistic, the better). Please tell me if any of you disagree with the main gist of the point I'm making. I'd like to know if there's a logical rebuttal that can demonstrate that I'm missing something. Please don't raise the issue of jobs as a 'lagging indicator' UNLESS you also go the extra step to tell me what sort of jobs will replace those we have lost and continue to lose, what the wage and benefit structure of those replacement jobs will be, how many jobs will be created (ballpark), what industries they'll be in, and why you're confident the number and type of replacement jobs you speak of will come to fruition. Thanks. Thank you for the feedback and the link to that great article. It's all about jobs and wages. That's it. People get snowed listening to people and all the statistics they cite - it's all useless without jobs and good wages. People buy stuff when they make money. They buy even if interest rates are high. They buy even if there's robust inflation if they're making good wages and secure in their jobs. The inverse is true when they lose jobs, see wages stagnate or fall, or even fear that they will lose their jobs or get pay cuts. They don't spend except on bare necessities, money stops circulating along normal channels, and a vicious cycle is created as more people are laid off. Stockbrokers and fund managers don't want people to know the truth because it would suppress trading and investing, which is how they make a living. This ends badly for the U.S. because unlike other nations that have representatives who do their best for the good of their country, our politicians are for sale to the highest bidder. Unlike some of our competitors, who actually would try and execute a governmental representative who aides a foreign company in overtaking a domestic firm, we actually have a beltway of 'professionals,' who are highly regarded, with the highest contacts to our highest governmental officials (many were high governmental officials), who act at the behest of foreign countries and firms in destroying American companies and industries, even calling in political favors when possible to assist them in this task. Also, unlike some who keep pushing the 'jobs as a lagging indicator' argument, I don't believe this your typical, business-cycle recession, with a temporary dip in consumer and business spending caused by a variety of temporary conditions, but a structural reorganization of the American Economy in such a way that entire classes of jobs and even industries are being offshored, and the U.S. will be a much more service-sector oriented economy in the wake of this phenomenon, with my opinion that the service sector jobs won't be higher wage, but rather lower wage, than the manufacturing ones they replaced. In fact, the green jobs will be few in number, and engineering, financial professionals, legal professionals and medical professionals will be needed in a smaller ratio as there will be less flow up money because of a smaller middle class. Cheers.
"Stockbrokers and fund managers don't want people to know the truth".................just about covers it.
We need to innovate and become more productive. That's how we we became a rich country. Saving jobs in stagnant or dying industries is not the path to increased prosperity. The gov't is hindering the path to creative destruction, which is the <b>only</b> way to a vibrant, prosperous economy.
First of all, most of the manufacturing jobs being lost had inflated wages for the level of complexity of the work due to the power of American unions. In that light, a shift to lower paying service class jobs due to the destruction of the manufacturing industry is a direct cause of the inflated wages in concert with negative global economic forces (cheaper labour elsewhere, manipulated Chinese exchange rates, consumer demand for cheap and low-quality goods). Second, you are likely underestimating the ability of a nation as historically innovative and filled with, by far, the highest-quality and most creative graduate schools in the world to adapt to circumstance. Perhaps the loss of the manufacturing sector will result in a shift in economic and intellectual capital toward technology / medican / computer science and engineering, law, economics / business / financial consulting, etc. How can the majority of an economy be founded upon such high-level service and informational sector jobs? In the age of globalization, a lawyer could be on the other side of the planet and meet with clients via , flying into town for court appearances. Engineers and business consultants and the financial sector doesn't have to be located in the country to be effective. Information systems and computer application design can be located anywhere. This could just be a great opportunity to redirect capital toward investing in the US position as the global hub for management, innovation and consultation. Then again, that would require the majority of children being capable of passing through an already dumbed-down highschool system.
The history of business of the US is to produce and consume automobiles. we are still living the pipe dream, with infrastructure repair, zoning which abhors walking and sidewalks. Zoning which prohibits mfg. Money to lend to unencumbered land (enviromental issues). We are dying a slow death with the status quo.
Actually, the US has been the global leader in the majority of technological, medical, legal, financial (the good ones), managerial and democratic innovations over the past century. That is not to say that automobile and other manufacturing has not been critically important to growth. But the original Macintosh was critical for Apple initially... Then came the i-pod and i-tunes.. Then the macbook... Then the i-phone... etc As long as an economically dominant country has the capacity to re-invent itself, it has the capacity to shift gears and invest capital into new industries and technology creation. The first thing you learn in marketing strategy is that a firm must divest from inefficient industry and invest in comparative advantages. If these are too few and sparse, then you invest in developing a comparative advantage.