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The question I always ask is once the outsourcing happens, who's going to be left with jobs to buy the products?
I have asked the same question to my professors and I have yet to get an honest answer. They are so into the fact that comparitive advantage works, that the only answer I ever got was the gov't is suppose to retrain displaced workers. Well that's grand and all, but what about the jobs left?
here's my opinion. We've got roughly 330 million people. I would surmise we only need about half that. The middle class is a social engine for control. Everyone hopes to get there and hardly anyone makes it out. There are fewer ways to make it into the middle class and they are being wiped out by inflation and debt. The lower classes are doomed as they are in a global labor arbitrage game they can not win since the costs of living are so much higher.
Meanwhile the middle class is getting squeezed like an orange between looking upper class and servicing the debt to do so. In the meantime they are mostly oblivious to the coming disasters. The upper class will always be this way and they are not worried about labor issues as they are now truly global in that many US companies now derive a majority of their revenues from outside this country.
The only snowball in hell's chance is to gain an edge in information and utilize skills that are locally specific. It's hard to say what will happen but planning for what could happen like reduced globalization but you've got to keep in mind paradigmes are resistance to change and we'll find every way to maintain the status quo.
The "Great Education Myth" as Sirota calls it.
cfm in Gray, ME
I keep reading posts about the lack of skilled workers in the energy industry in the US. We have spent the last 30 years telling kids the future lays in computer software. What I'm reading tells me all those kids should have learned welding, mechanics, and construction skills instead. There is even a lack of drivers for 18-wheelers. My brother paid for college by working at McDonald's. He worked for 15 years as a systems analyst. His job was outsourced. He's back working at McDonald's.
There's a great 90 day course to learn the skills to work on a land drilling rig through the Midland, Texas community college. I'd bet money that with a little hands-on experience and his computer skills he could get an extremely good job with any number of oil service companies in domestic exploration and production.
The thing that is really scary is that huge numbers of empty shipping containers are piling up in the ports because the US no longer makes much of anything that the rest of the world wants to buy.
Empty shipping containers?????
One of the most accurate measures of the activity of the US economy and consumer/industry spending is rail freight traffic. The first four months of the year show railroad carload traffic down over four percent and intermodal traffic (containers and trailers) down about the same. Those goods from China are not flowing nearly as fast as they were a year ago. Go to www.progressiverailroading.com and hit the news bar and look at May 4th rail news about rail freight traffic.
On Another Note:
Several posters recently made statements that India did not increase its oil consumption and oil imports last year. WRONG! The above article states that India's oil imports were up over 11 percent year over year for 2006. They are on course for more of the same this year.
Shawnott: Not a problem for the companies. The middle class (consumers) are growing rapidly in Chindia. I am always shocked how most Americans are unable to visualize a world economy that is not dependent upon the American middle class consumer.
The one "good" thing I see coming from this is, as the upper middle class and middle class become devalued down closer to lower class, the political majority will swing from corporate / capitalist to liberal / socialist.
I fear the lag time between elections and lag time for americans to realize they are now lower class will be far too long.
Good insight. I argue with some socialist bent friends about this sometimes. I honestly believe at some point taxes will go up to maintain the regime but it will be cast as a necessity against the acsencion of China which is currently fueled by American and other foreign firms investing. When the engine gets started so to speak, does anyone think the Chinese might not take control of their domestic industries once they are built? They will do it in the name of their citizens who will by then reached a middle class status en mass and would be demanding social change...look at this it's starting already....
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070507090936.m37a86dd&show_artic...
I didnt know that one child policy children could have TWO! Guess that was the compromise. Point is...these people will react like humans do and demand a larger share. So the state will either dissolve into something new and more open or it goes the other way once the power is accumulated on a world scale. I've got a whole idea how they could be working on a big plan to take America financially, but this is finals week so I can't put my effort into yet. Hopefully following graduation I'll have some time to put some effort into it.
I Have NO simpathy for automakers.
Imagine how many EV1's they would be selling today.
If your industry is based building machines that run on fossil fuels, and you dont have the common sense to research the future supply of the fuel for the machines you build, then you deserve to become extinct. Every other dam country's automakers caught on YEARS ago.
for some reason this posted in the wrong spot...sorry
Not to mention their role in deliberately killing off urban mass transit in numerous cities to FORCE people to buy and drive their #%%$# cars .
"I Have NO simpathy for automakers."
I assume you mean American automakers. Thats too bad considering how many Americans are employed by them. And not all of those employed have a say in what vehicles actually see production.
As for the EV1, which was designed to address Californias' assinine "zero emmission" policy not fuel savings, it FAILED in the market. And cost billions to produce.
"If your industry is based building machines that run on fossil fuels, and you dont have the common sense to research the future supply of the fuel for the machines you build, then you deserve to become extinct. Every other dam country's automakers caught on YEARS ago."
As for researching alternatives to fossil fuels GM and others are spending billions on automotive applications using alternatives as fuel. Unfortunately there are NO suitable alternatives for fossil fuels, each having MAJOR drawbacks.
Also the last time I looked EVERY automaker produces vehicles that run EXCLUSIVELY on fossil fuels. Can you name me one that does not?
Daimler Chyrseler makes the GEM.
http://www.gemcar.com
And Honda makes a compressed natural gas Civic that could be converted (by the owner) to bio-methane.
BTW: GM spends billions on PR and advertising, NOT on "researching alternative fuels". And demand exceeded supply for the EV-!.
Best Wishes for the survival of responsible auto companies,
Alan
<"Daimler Chyrseler makes the GEM.">
The GEM runs off of fossil fuel generated electricty stored in batteries. The sources and ratio of electricity can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation
<"And Honda makes a compressed natural gas Civic that could be converted (by the owner) to bio-methane.">
Compressed natural gas is a fossil fuel. I haven't found bio-methane at my local gas station yet.
<"BTW: GM spends billions on PR and advertising, NOT on "researching alternative fuels".">
I have no doubt that marketing and advertisings' budget outweighs Larry Burns', here is a list of just a few of the vehicles GM made in their search for alternative fuel applications. And they weren't done on the cheap either!
http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_tech/400_fcv/fact_sheets.html
<"And demand exceeded supply for the EV-!.">
Not in the North! Having one die on you on the test track certainly gives one time to ponder that particular vehicles shortcomings. "GM's internal research showed very clearly that the EV1's already perilously low range would be reduced by as much as 50% for use in cold-weather states." See here for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EV-1
A Very large market exists where cold weather is rarely or never a problem (and many/most US households have two cars).
US West Coast + Coastal BC
Desert SW
Mexico
US Gulf Coast
Florida
Personally, a majority of my trips are less than 15 miles round trip and it gets below 32 F about twice a year on average.
I see GM research as an extension of their PR department. They are not serious about developing anything (except hiring psychologists to design Hummers for the reptile brain). Small Daimler Benz had their own wind tunnel DECADES BEFORE GM did. Their VOLT has been shown to have just been a publicity stunt (used off the shelf golf cart drive train).
To paraphrase "Engine Charlie", GMs President and Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense; "Wfat is good for GM is bad for the United States".
My first car was ALMOST a Vega (some high school friends did buy that hand grenade of a car). If I had bought it, the financial disaster would have destroyed my working through college and changed the course of my life.
Worst Hopes for GM,
Alan
"A Very large market exists where cold weather is rarely or never a problem (and many/most US households have two cars)."
An automotive company cannot make a car that functions exclusively in those areas and climes. Imagine the headlines (not to mention lawsuits) "Family of four perishes driving an EV1 through Rocky mountain snowstorm"
"Personally, a majority of my trips are less than 15 miles round trip and it gets below 32 F about twice a year on average."
That puts you in the front of the line to qualify as an ideal Volt customer!
"Small Daimler Benz" also suffered the same strange malady as did the rest of the Fatherland. NO DOMESTIC SUPPLY OF OIL! WWII ring a bell? I'll bet, back then, they wished they didn't HAVE to have their own windtunnel.
"design Hummers for the reptile brain)."
No argument.
"My first car was ALMOST a Vega"
No comment (see below) :-P
"Worst Hopes for GM"
That wasn't a very smart comment and it belies the error in your thinking. As if you would be untouched should GM go under! But I was thinking more about the two big flaws in your proposing of light rail systems you coveniently overlook:
1. Light rail had a shot in this country and it FAILED.
2. Train stations are excellent targets for terrorists. Try the Madrid bombing and the Tokyo subway gas attack for example. A couple of successful high profile attacks would put the whammy on ridership.
Around the Detroit area a popular bumper sticker reads "Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign".
Incidentally GM's Bob Lutz was on a local show AUTOLINE DETROIT
http://www.autolinedetroit.tv/# (warning long load time)
calling for a "Manhattan type project" to address both fuel economy and global warming. Sounds like he's getting the "word". I wonder if he's read "Twilight" or TOD?