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An important editorial

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by billwald, May 11, 2011.

  1. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini.../05/10/AFaxZ3jG_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions


    A Boston Consulting Group study released this month on the return of U.S. manufacturing concludes that “re-investment in the U.S. will accelerate” as a result of these trends.

    Great news, no? Well, hold the applause for now.

    The study looks at the change in U.S. and Chinese labor costs and productivity levels over the past decade, and then projects them for 2015. China’s labor costs were 34 percent of U.S. labor expenses in 2005, the study notes, in the two regions the group chose to measure. By 2015, the study reports, the gap between American and Chinese labor costs adjusted for productivity differentials will have so narrowed that China’s labor costs will come to fully 69 percent of U.S. labor costs.

    So what’s the catch? Just this: The two regions that the group compared are the Yangtze River Delta (which includes Shanghai) and Mississippi.

    Mississippi? The state that ranks 49th or 50th in virtually every measure of U.S. living standards? Is Mississippi the new normal for an America that’s competitive in the global marketplace?

    “We made a mistake by picking Mississippi,” conceded Harold Sirkin, a senior partner and managing director at the Boston Consulting Group who authored the study. But the America that the group was measuring, he told me last week, was one defined by Southern labor standards: “fewer work rules, less unionization and lower costs” than other advanced economies. Our economy, he said, is more flexible than, say, the northern Europeans’. “With unemployment at 9 percent, the economy can flex in ways that people wouldn’t have believed. Michigan’s population is declining, while the South is growing.”
     
  2. targus

    targus New Member

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    What makes this editorial "important"?
     
  3. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    China has a governmental form of slave labor and we don't even in Mississippi?

    HankD
     
  4. targus

    targus New Member

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    What the author seems to be over looking is the fact that China has an enormous aging population with few younger workers to support them down the road.

    That plus the fact that China is going to face a food shortage in the near future will most likely derail their economy eventually.
     
  5. Tom Butler

    Tom Butler New Member

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    Yeah, maybe they shouldn't have killed all those babies to hold the population down.
     
  6. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    It is important because it demonstrates that the working people in the USA are in a race to the bottom, not the top.
     
  7. targus

    targus New Member

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    You shouldn't try to equate your own personal lack of ambition in your career to the rest of us.
     
  8. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    (Since you asked) My personal ambition is to enlighten several people on BB or at least pull their chain.
     
  9. targus

    targus New Member

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    Not sure of how much "enlightenment" there is to be obtained from someone who by their own admission spent their career "hiding in the briar patch".
     
  10. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    My briar patch gave me lots of time for reading my books on company time.
     
  11. targus

    targus New Member

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    Excellent example of the union mentality that drove companies to transfer manufacturing jobs overseas.

    Thanks for enlightening me as to the true cause of the race to the bottom.
     
  12. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    It reinforces billwald's unhealthy infatuations with goons...er, unions.
     
  13. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    Thanks for re-inforcing my opinion of the unionist's work ethic.

    Did you enjoy stealing from your employer? Don't bother answering...we already know.
     
  14. billwald

    billwald New Member

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    I wrote my ticket quota and answered all calls, handled everything I stumbled into.
     
  15. targus

    targus New Member

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    In other words - the minimum.

    Hence the race to the bottom.

    Thank goodness not everyone shares that work ethic.
     
  16. Arbo

    Arbo Active Member
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    Sounds like you were in law enforcement(?).

    Any wonder why the anti public-sector union sentiment of late?
     
  17. rbell

    rbell Active Member

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    Targus, thanks for translating union slackard-speech into plain English.

    Operative word in billwald's post: "Stumbled."
     
  18. FR7 Baptist

    FR7 Baptist Active Member

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    The true cause of the race to the bottom is capitalism.
     
  19. targus

    targus New Member

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    Without capitalism the world would still be living in the dark ages.
     
  20. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
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    Unbridled Capitalism, which we have seen growing the past 20 years, certainly played a part. Sadly we, our leaders, have forgotten the lessons learned during the Robber Baron days of the last half of the nineteenth century. Those days made some fabulously rich and kept millions in poverty. The story of the coal companies are good examples of this tragedy.

    The rise of unbridled Capitalism certainly played a part in the economic problems we are facing now. The lack of control of the huge financial industry also played a part ... the unregulated derivatives played a big part also.

    Go too far in either direction .... Capitalism or Socialism and big problems are created. Both need sensible regulation.

     
    #20 Crabtownboy, May 19, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: May 19, 2011
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