If I could pay the China wage in US cities, poverty would disappear

[3chordcharlie]

I have a better idea too - stop letting our domestic money become foreign capital.

We all intuitively understand that immigrants who come to our countries, and take jobs at lower wages than we want to accept are depressing the overall wage level. However, his effect is relatively small because there are serious controls on immigration; even places with significant illegal immigration are a drop in the bucket compared to allowing global mobility of people without restriction.

But direct foreign investment is exactly the same thing as an open immigration policy. Instead of people chasing higher wages here (and lowering those high wages as a result), money leaves the domestic market (lowering our wages as a result) and chases even lower wages overseas.

Predictably the result is falling real wages for the working and middle class, and massive profits for the investment and banking classes (in the domestic market), but little benefit in the foreign market, because profits are not maintained in those markets, and the pool of cheap labour is still decades away from being exhausted.

It's possible, in the long run, that we would see convergence to a global 'middle class' society, but in the long run we will be dead, and our children and grandchildren too.

 

[gingermeggs]

Many of the poor all over our entire country aren't worth hiring even if they worked for free. People in third-world countries work very hard because they appreciate the opportunity; their options are working just as hard for less return, often to the point of having no expectation that basic requirements of food and shelter will be met, let alone wants. People in this country have the expectation that the safety net can become a hammock if needed; we simply won't work as hard because the consequences of not working as hard aren't nearly as dire. That's bad, but it doesn't make third world economies worthy of envy or emulation.

Competing with China isn't as easy as paying Chinese wages. We used to compete by restricting technology transfers, so that we always had a competitive advantage. Clinton changed that, removing effectively all technological transfer barriers. Another piece is that corporations, as they grow larger, are run increasingly without loyalty to country or even employees. This accelerates as American companies are purchased by multi-national or foreign companies. So now we're on a level playing field. Even that is going away, as increasingly the technological edge is moving to China because we've outsourced our highly technical work to them and the Chinese government is structuring its policies accordingly. So to compete with China we'd also have to move to higher density housing (smaller units, fewer detached units, more people per unit), cheaper food (largely rice or beans), less (and smaller) private transportation, and much lower regulatory structure. That last seems attractive because so many of our regulations in the news are stupid, but ignores the underlying regulations that stopped child labor, cleaned up our environment, established a forty hour work week, and generally make our lives better in so many ways.

There is no way to continue with our present level of consumption; it just isn't sustainable. There are two ways to compete with third world nations: reduce ALL our costs (and thus living conditions) to match theirs, or establish barriers (e.g. import restrictions and/or tariffs, technology transfers) and implement policies (e.g. immigration policies that favor highly skilled labor over non-skilled, policies that encourage technical and/or scientific and manufacturing jobs and education over liberal arts) that build a technological society. I very much favor the latter.

There is a third option-
Make them lift their costs, countries like Canada, Australia and Russia could nationalize their mining resources and impose conditions (minimum wage, environment and political standards) and additional cost to the trade of primary goods those manufacturing countries are making their wealth off.

The biggest thing you could do in america is get rid of the corruption and white collar crime, which is unchallenged for the most part.

 

[werepossum]

There is a third option-
Make them lift their costs, countries like Canada, Australia and Russia could nationalize their mining resources and impose conditions (minimum wage, environment and political standards) and additional cost to the trade of primary goods those manufacturing countries are making their wealth off.

The biggest thing you could do in america is get rid of the corruption and white collar crime, which is unchallenged for the most part.

If resources are nationalized, then they are controlled by politicians. As Clinton aptly proved in removing barriers to technology transfer, the cheapest way to get anything is to buy the politicians. Always. No matter the party.

 

[gingermeggs]

In the 1970s, wages were higher, we still manufactured things in America, and people could buy khaki pants.

You know, maybe it's better to make clothes in China. But why are $400 graphics cards being built in China? The labor cost savings is miniscule as a percentage of the final price. I guess this is what happens when you have a race to the bottom in prices. They used to be made in Taiwan, but manufacturers just had to squeeze out a few extra cents of profit. Does Korea even make electronics anymore, or has Samsung moved its operations to China? Remember when "Made in Japan" was a thing? What do they make there anymore besides cars and hentai?

In conclusion, fuck China and whatever financial shenanigans they use to keep their wages so low and screw workers worldwide.

China will get theirs when their water is no longer fit to drink and the place is a toxic waste dump full of people living with malignant cancers.
So maybe what you say isn't about fucking china, but saving it from the greed of their ruling classes. Firstly you must deal with your own ruling classes to allow this to come about..........

 

[gingermeggs]

If resources are nationalized, then they are controlled by politicians. As Clinton aptly proved in removing barriers to technology transfer, the cheapest way to get anything is to buy the politicians. Always. No matter the party.

Dealing with corruption is best thing you could spend money on to fix the economy!!!!!!
All ideas would work in theory, it's maintaining them that's really "the work".
Marx was right always will be.
People need to invest their time into their societies, not just feather their own nests and expect others to do it in good faith for them.......the mantra is greed and getting more then your neighbor, it's an infection, a universal disease of the mind.
Dirty money and the pyramid scheme it always was.