"Revolutionary China, Complacent America"

Status
Not open for further replies.
Disabled Account
Joined 2005
This is an article in 9/15's Wall Street Journal, by Charlene Barshefsky and Edward Gresser. Barshefsky was the US trade representatiive to China, and THE China hawk some years ago.

The article began with a historical look-back: China used to account for 1/3 of the World's GDP, and they considered their status natural and eternal. The emporor thought the arriving Europeans in the 1700s insignificant. "Employing superior technology and military tactics, Europe came to rule Asia in just a few decades" and China's vast states fell away, ensuing period of demoralization that lasted two centuries.

The authors suggested that while America doesn't face as grim of a future, it has significant challenges ahead of it.

The article ended by saying "the plain fact is that our competition has gotten tougher, and we need to match it. Two hundred years ago the Chinese emporors failed. American must act now to succeed".

Interesting read.
 
Hey, when the average American fat *** can no longer afford his McDonalds double cheeseburger, he well want to do something about it.:D :clown: (that was a shot, BTW) We live in a country were over spending will eventually trump the economic advantage of over consumption(bulk is cheaper) and products will become more expensive. On top of that mess, we have Bush's trade plans to import cheaper products because of cheaper overseas labor. It is like letting some of the air out of the tires in order to counter act the worn out shocks or struts to gain a smoother ride. Eventually the steel belts will become weak from heat and expansion and that tire will blow. Then the average American fat *** can't afford his McDonalds double cheeseburger, much less a place to live. Unfortunately, he will be sitting on the side of the road with a popped tire and no jack, because it is still at the factory loading dock over in China.:mad: :smash:
 
Well, all I can say is it costs more to replace the shocks and struts then it does for a new set of tires. IOW, we must figure out a way to keep manufacturing products here in this country. This along side of import tariffs to limit imports and drive demand for US made products in the USA. We could also reduce some environmental hurdles that add cost to everything, but there should be a limit to that. Regardless, the products will cost more and that will make people somewhat unhappy. If you cut your thumb open, you could get it sewed up with a little bit of pain. But if you do nothing about it for a while to avoid that pain, it will become infected and then you have to treat it at the cost of great pain. Sometimes medicine tastes bad but at some point you have to swallow it.:( The problem is our government is filled with internationalist and one world government types and I think this will not happen any time soon. So the problem will just fester, hidden behind cheap imorts sold at Wal-Mart.

This must be a slow process so it has minimal effect on the economy though.
 
It is unrealistic to think that the US or the EU can raise the trade barriers at this late stage. The world is too interdependent and there are far too many vested interests. Neither can Western workers suddenly start working for chinese level wages or start adopting the working standards of a Chinese coal mine. The only viable response if we are to retain local manufacturing is to opt for increased industrial automation. It seems to me that at some point we are going to have to accept that we are increasingly able to do more with less and unless one plans to export to the Crab Nebula or elsewhere in the Universe, full employment is forever a thing of the past.
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2005
CBS240 said:
This along side of import tariffs to limit imports and drive demand for US made products in the USA.

that's essentially what the Chinese emporiors did to keep China strong and foreign manufacturers out of China, some 500 years ago. Precisely what you should NOT do.

We will have to continue to invest in technology, and education so that we can maintain our lead in productivity.

trade barriers only delay the inevitable and give you a false sense of security which is exactly what killed China in the last two hundred years, and what is killing Europe now.

we have to compete.
 
tlf9999 said:

trade barriers only delay the inevitable and give you a false sense of security which is exactly what killed China in the last two hundred years, and what is killing Europe now.



Really. I suppose it is just as well the EU is doing badly. According the the CIA factbook, Germany with a third of the population of the US exports more than the US and the UK and France, each with a fifth of the population of the US, export around half. Even 30 odd miillion Canadians export a third of what 295 million Americans do.
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2005
The news of the sony layoff reminds me of this 'complacency' issue as well.

They used to be horrible. "It is a Sony" was a insult to people 40 some years ago. They were hungary and kept improving their products and came out with great designs. and eventually they ruled the world, especially in consumer electronics. Then they became complacent, they stopped innovating, they refused to make what they customers wanted, they decided to go down market, they hoped that their great band name would save their a-s-s, etc.

They ended up where they are today, because they didn't invest in themselves, like the Chinese, the Europeans, and now some Americans too.

Hopefully, the Stringer kid can bring them back.
 
Just another Moderator
Joined 2003
Paid Member
I read an interesting article a few years about the demise of various empires over the centuries...... interesting thing was that there were patterns in all of them and apparently the US is currently following the pattern. Unfortunately I don't remember what the article was.

The other thing I read was that the US' national debt is astronomical and growing at an astronomical rate that is not sustainable..... I'm not economically minded, just repeating something i read (as I recall) so this is probably worth not much at all ;)

Tony.
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2005
wintermute said:
interesting thing was that there were patterns in all of them and apparently the US is currently following the pattern.


That was precisely the point of the original wall street article. Take Europe for example. The Romans absolutely ruled, followed by the Spanish, the Portugees (?), and then the Brits in the last 200 years or so. They all did it for a while and then it is downhill from there.

Businesses are cheap in Europe for a reason: they aren't as much of a competitive concerns going forward. The Brits got its automotive industry wiped out. the electronics business, avonics in particular, has long gone. The automotive industry is nothing but gone on the low-end of the market. The wireless industry, a leader only a few years ago, is crushed by the Asians: where were Nokia and Ericsson? in the mid 90s and where are they now? etc. As far as being a great power going forward is concern, Europe is as lost as Afirca is.

Why? They got complacent. they stopped innovating, and they banked in the trade barriers to save their a-s-s-e-s.

Every strong culture followed that very same pattern and they stopped wanting it as much as they once did and then they go down in history.

The Charlene article was trying to raise the alarm, rightfully so, so that America will not repeat the same fate.

Unfortuantely, I am not sure if the public at large has bought into her ideas and is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to maintain American competitive edge.
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2005
rfbrw said:



Nokia IS number one with nearly twice the market share of its nearest competitor, Motorola, and Sony-Ericsson is ranked 5th.

You never understood the point of "going forward". If you knew the wireless handset business, you would know the kind of difficulties Nokia has and why Ericsson got no option but to combine its handset business with Sony's (which was struggling as well).

The stock market, for example, valued Nokia at close to 60 dollars a share at peak. Since then, Nokia has lost 75% of its market value.

Try to separate history / presence from future.
 
tlf9999 said:


You never understood the point of "going forward". If you knew the wireless handset business, you would know the kind of difficulties Nokia has and why Ericsson got no option but to combine its handset business with Sony's (which was struggling as well).

The stock market, for example, valued Nokia at close to 60 dollars a share at peak. Since then, Nokia has lost 75% of its market value.

Try to separate history / presence from future.


An overvalued share price is nothing unusual.
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2005
such a typical european mentality: always blame others for one's misfortune, the same mentality that wiped out the Brit's automotive industry and puts Marconi into a non-player in the avonics market, and forced ABB to sell its rail business to service its debt, etc.

the market is trying to tell you something that is foundamentally wrong about you. You could chose to ignore it and let yourself die. or you can face it and fix yourself and come back stronger.

As a competitor, I gives me nothing but tremendous pleasure to see that you are well under way for the 1st approach, :).
 
As long as we deal with finite resources, severe ecenomic imbalances will be the norm.

The sooner we venture into what the pundits like to call 'free energy', or 'aethric' based energy production systems..at that point some form of ecenomic stability will be gained. At the same time as..that which currently exists, will be torn to pieces. Imbalances will occur, that's the norm. The short term boom, will be there, at the least. Like it always is.

The very stagnancy of the economic/political/industrial system is the base of the curse itself. It can't stare at and change it's own a$$... as it will have to understand..that a large part of it will have to go. Ie, dissapear from economic or more specifically 'power circles'. whatever you wish to call them.

Even a child of two days old grasps and clings tightly, does one think for a second that people in so called 'control postions' (at the age of 60) are exempt from that basic consideration? We all know it is seemingly far more complex than that ..but... the base point is that people are in severe need of understanding that they are actually being 'hoisted by their own petards'.

Some might say, 'yes, Ken, that's a great point'... and then go on and ignore that basic fact. And I say, 'hold it, hold it, hold it.. go back to there and understand that..deal with it. Arise within your point of understanding and effort..FROM that point. Maybe you'll finally get somewhere.' Some will feel I'm being an idiot, and that it is perfectly obvious,and that is not something that needs to be directly dealt with,as it is part of the backdrop of human existence. I say..DUH!! My point exactly. Go deal with it! Unsurmountable it may seem, but you will find closure there.

sigh. It is the human condition to get frantic in useless areas instead of dealing with the real issues. We like to forget that,
as it is emotionally more convienient. We also like to forget that as the layering of existence goes, every thought we form comes forth from the hind brain, the emotions rule, and don't you forget it.

It is the base psycholocigcal/physiological considerations that are at root causes. And not much else. Think of the human animal as an issue or problem. Then look at the issue again.

A rule of mine: The more difficult and complex and long term a given issue may be, in terms of 'solving' it, the more base level the mistake is. The more difficult it is to find a given answer, the more basic the mistake in the asking of the question. Go back to the beginning.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.