Offshoring statistics.

[Engineer]

Get into the automation field. Last time I saw, robots weren't installing themselves and they're being installed (with other automation) as fast as they can import them!

<---- OVEREMPLOYED and OVERWORKED Automation Engineer! :Q

 

[Zebo]

Instead, the smug middle class and the upper middle class have the credit card type here-and-now concrete-bound mentality. It couldn't possibly happen to them! This couldn't possibly affect them!

The reality is that we're all interconnected in our national economy as much as we might entertain notions of living on our own individual economic merit-based islands. When some people suffer economic losses it's bad for everyone in some way.

Exactly. How many Intel processors does your McJob person buy vs. an auto worker. How many times they eat at Red Lobster vs. your auto worker? Ect ect etc. It's all a symbionic relationship and without a strong middle class there is no upper class and succesful small businessmen anymore since there is no wages to draw thier income from. I know the new Chinese middle class. LOL!! Better believe it will be a cold day in hell before a chinaman will buy any product from an american. They still understand how to be in the black! (nuclear silos and weapons excluded) But how long can those sales last? They steal everything in sight!

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Engineer
Get into the automation field. Last time I saw, robots weren't installing themselves and they're being installed (with other automation) as fast as they can import them!
:Q

LOL Aint that the truth. Every robot I see is either swiss or japanese.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Zebo

Originally posted by: Engineer
Get into the automation field. Last time I saw, robots weren't installing themselves and they're being installed (with other automation) as fast as they can import them!
:Q

LOL Aint that the truth. Every robot I see is either swiss or japanese.

Mostly Japanese here.

It's a great field if you can stand the stress of trying to automation on a shoestring budget and about 10% of the needed time for a good automation job. Rush...cheap....rush...cheap.

Regardless of what anyone feels about automation, it does help KEEP jobs here in the US. Send a factory to Mexico or China and you lose most (if not all) employees of that factory. Automate the factory and you'll keep a few operators, skilled maintenance and engineers, and plant management. Much better, IMO, than losing them all. Almost everyone wins.

Sort of OT, but CNN ran a report this morning that said the the US had lost it's number one ranking of the most college educated (per capita) nation on earth. Also, China was now graduating 10 engineers per 1 in the US (I know population plays a part, but not 10 to 1). Something to think about.

 

[Jhhnn]

Japan never had a prayer of dominating the US in an economic sense- they have less than half the US population. India has over 3X, and the Chinese have 4X...

Both have underdeveloped economies as a result of colonialism, with huge rural populations eager to move to the city, get a better life. India has a very good educational system, and the Chinese aren't far behind.... They'll fill as many jobs as American capitalists will feed them.

We only have just so many jobs to export, and our capitalist system will insure that every one that can possibly be outsourced will be... for greater competitiveness and profit, regardless of the effects here at home. Which is all peachy, if you're a member of the financial elite who are in a position to profit from it all. That's a very, very small % of the population, however....

 

[zephyrprime]

Not even linking the business week article is bad form.

Also, people don't really know how many jobs can be outsourced. Here's another article from business week that says something totally different than what the op says:

____________________Nontradable occupations Tradable occupations
Nontradable industries__50.03%________________10.79%
Tradable industries_____21.64%________________17.54%

28.33% of occupations could go abroad

And what's worse, 70% of professional and business service jobs could go abroad. Those are exactly those jobs which are "better" jobs that the educated are supposed to get.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Race to the bottom and third world wages. While it's a nice that your factory worker can get futher education all those folks who now have that education are competing for a limited pool of jobs which lowers all salaries, simple supply and demand dictates that. More labor pool, for say accountants, than jobs they can pay $30,000 a year which they do nowadays!! They can pay less and less every year as more and more former factory worker get that accounting degree (or whatever degree/profession you choose). Race to the bottom. I've seen this myself. Entry level enigineers and scientists in the company I work for made the exact same 15 years ago as today.. Have rpices stayed the same? Homes? Heck no!

The medical profession is very smart in that they limit graduates and school openings to limit thier supply of labor keeping salaries relativly high. Of course hopsitals and HMO's have lobbied congress to let third word doctors to come in to bypass medical establishments power.

The bottom line is that if you consume more than you produce, as we do, you are liquidating your worth. You can see this everywhere - from national debt to china buying our land, companies, and instuments of debt like consumer loans. They get richer while we get poorer. Mexico, another country with a net loss, also has 10% unemployment, I sure as hell would'nt want to live there. But in Germanies 10% unemployment instead who is a net exporter and pays high for those who work, has high paid manufacturing sector, and has a rich social welfare system for those who don't or can't work.

I should say I don't blame the companies who outsource at all. It's the politicans and consumer who made this possible. Sure in a never ending fight for the bottom line companies are modivated to find the cheapest labor. But the politicans allowed them to pit US workers against third world workers ravaged by communism and still live in a human rights violating police state. Consumers, short sighted as they are, are always looking for best price regaurdless the world around them and tomorrow consequences. 2 million personal bankruptcies a year and insta loan cash centers popping up on every other corner should serve as enough proof what kind of short-sighted thinkers they are.

So what is the solution government should take? Tariffs on all products from 3rd world countries/oppressive regimes/human rights violators?

Although I do agree it's fundamentally unfair to compete against a country that oppresses their people and has no enviromental protection laws, when someone wants action it's often shot down as "protectionist" policy.

 

[Zebo]

Of course. We do it all the time. Iran, Burma, Cuba to name a few. At one time we did'nt trade with half the world (under communism) now we give communist countries MFN.

The powers that be avoid human rights censure (slaughter and persecution in Tibet, of religious minorities like christians, and political activists) because they are making a ton of money! Both politians and large multinationals who fund them which is why the issue is way back burner.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Of course. We do it all the time. Iran, Burma, Cuba to name a few. At one time we did'nt trade with half the world (under communism) now we give communist countries MFN.

Unfortunately, we maybe inextricably economically linked to china now, thanks to federal deficit/debt whoring to China. They own us now. I've always wondered why deficit whoring wasn't considered an issue of national security, IMO it's just as large a threat as so called war on terror, if not bigger.

It would take a leader with serious balls to tariff everything coming in from China and to control federal spending. Such a situation would cause interest rates to shoot up, putting the US in short/mid term world of hurt. But this scenario is probably the best we can do for the long term given the current situation.

 

[Zebo]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=52&threadid=1720124&enterthread=y

Compared to U.S. budget and trade deficits, terrorists are a minor concern. The greatest danger that the United States faces is the dollar's loss of reserve currency role. This would be an impoverishing event, one from which the United States would not recover.

 

[OS]

ran across this

"The War on Terror now costs $7 billion per month. Rebuilding New Orleans costs about $16 billion per month. A billion here, a billion there...pretty soon you're talking about real money...

....

With no longer a commercial advantage to sustain the empire, the whole apparatus of world domination now rests on debt. America now borrows from (still communist) China to keep its bourgeoisie living in luxury and fantasy.

As the kids say in their text messages: LOL."

 

[IronMentality]

85% of Canada's exports are sold to the United States. The U.S. is the world's best customer. The best place to invest capital in for decades now, and still is the United States. No one is going to cut off investment to the United States. Without us, they'd go through a much worse recession. THEY NEED US MORE THEN WE NEED THEM is a better way to put it.

Or as the kids say in there text messages, TNUSMTWNT!

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: dirtboy

Originally posted by: EatSpam

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: IronMentality
If the U.S. offshored every job that could be offshored to India or China, right now today, the unemployment rate would double from around 5% to 10%.

I read that in an old BusinessWeek talking about the emergence of China and India as a consumer economy. Frankly, I am not afraid of this -- all this would do is give us similar unemployment rates then Europe.

The answer? Go get yourself a graduate degree or back in school...

For what job after graduated???

That's a good question, one that I've asked dozens of times of many people and never received an answer. Their solution starts and ends at "retrain", nevermind how people will cover their bills, health insurance for the family, tuition, books, etc, while "retraining".

So all the people graduating today and in the future will never have a job? LOL

Not all of them will.

 

[m316foley]

It's funny, I work in retail and I have a man with a master's below me.... it's really sad. I have some college experience and am still a student, but when I plan on graduating, I, in no way, want to be in his position.