If China becomes a world super power, great. It can be better for us in the long term too. It's not like the standard of living went down in Europe after the US became the leading world economy. They benefited from our success just like we will China and others.
If we believe in unions and accepting high wages for simple manufacturing jobs, we deserve to lose these jobs to open competition. Worldwide competition will only make products better in the long run. And the people who lose their jobs have to adapt. Those that do are wildly successful. Those that don't struggle. Sucks for them, but it's a net benefit to everyone overall.
Eventually emerging markets will have labor laws similar to ours. We're already moving closer to becoming European by the minute as we raise taxes and provide more and more benefits to our elderly and out of work folks, move toward universal health care, etc.
If you were European you might look at the US with disdain wondering how a civilized people can live without universal health care. Europeans view health care as a human right. We kinda look like a 3rd world country in some regards. It's next to impossible to fire someone in a European country. And they pay people unemployment benefits that nearly match their employed wages, so the average worker over there is content and not busting their chops to keep their jobs. This is eerily similar to the average US union employee.
In a poor country, people would jump through hoops to have a chance to make a fraction of what US union employees make. Why not take advantage of that and view it as an opportunity to grow America? Harder workers for a fraction of the cost sounds like a win to me. It works better in some industries than others.
WHen the emerging markets implement beauracracy and laws, they will become more like the US and Europe and Japan. And more success around the world will mean less money the US has to invest outside of our borders and the more of the world burden these countries will share. And new markets will always emerge.
It's a net win for us all in the long term. The tough issues you've mentioned are only short lived. And the people harmed are those that can't/won't adapt. For everyone else it's more opportunity, not less.
And the tradeoff of losing a couple jobs in the US for the sake of gaining more outside the US and lifting the worldwide standard of living is a good one imho. I don't see it as the US versus the world. I see it as all of us being part of humanity and lets make the decisions that have the biggest impact on everyone - not just Americans.
Making decisions in the best interest of the world population is what will keep the US in a leadership position in worldwide economics anyway and it will improve our relations around the world lessening the resentment toward the US and the justification for groups like al Queida.
We're probably not far apart on our thinking. I think the differences we're talking about here are short versus long term impact. And I'm in total agreement the short term can suck for people.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Chadman
Bookmarks