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2007-04-20 Home Front Economy

The Establishment Rethinks Globalization

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Posted by gromgoru 2007-04-20 12:13|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The problem with his thesis is the axiom of growth.

Once America had accomplished most of the growth it needed, both physically and individually, it reaches a point of diminishing returns. That is, while it may be great to have a two-car garage with two cars in it, how many people would work extra hard to have a four-car garage with four cars in it?

Granted, some would. But it enters into the realm of "marginality" for most people. And the same rule applies both to corporations and to nations.

At the corporate level, how come only a few corporations still want to build "the tallest skyscraper in the world", anymore? Again, the law of diminishing returns. The only real purpose is ego and advertising.

Nationally, it is already hard to sell a manned space program in the US, as a national prerogative. But in turn, corporations now see big benefits in starting their own space programs.

In the long run this will mean that the government will still do space projects, but the big money will be not in discovery, but profit.

Internationally, many other nations have been backwaters for years, but the US is willing to spin off much of our heavy industry to them because we just can't do it as efficiently as they can. That is, nobody in their right mind pays a unionist $50/hr minimum for little more than minimum wage work.

However, if you look at the other nations that have taken over our industries, you see an interesting phenomenon. While they do have boom times for a while, all too quickly their industry reaches its own point of diminishing returns, and the businesses move on to the next country.

Post WWII it was Japan. Then Korea. Then Taiwan. And it continues to move. However the prosperity it created remains behind and finds new purpose.

Even if you look at the US, you see that *if* there is a decline in prosperity, it is mostly due to increases in taxes and inflation. While it can be said that we have "lost 10 million good paying jobs" overseas, many of these were $50/hr jobs that could not be sustained over time.

And our unemployment is low. So the vast majority of people got acceptable jobs, even if they have to work harder and be more educated to get the big bucks.

So what is the future of globalization? Most likely there will be a leveling off of employment standards in the world--not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

Increasing prosperity will have to mean increasing diversity in products and services. That is, why go to another country when you can get the same product next door at a lower price?

Eventually, free trade will keep improving things until there is equanimity. As I discovered when I was in Germany way back when, a dollar in the US would buy just about as much as a Deutsche Mark in Germany, even though their exchange rate was 3.44DM to the dollar. It only mattered if you lived in Germany, yet was paid in dollars, or visa versa.

There was still a lot of trade, but in either country, the only thing you noticed was foreign products available on the shelves.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-04-20 19:56|| 2007-04-20 19:56|| Front Page Top

#2 Unlike anthropogenetic global warming, there really is a consensus among economists that free trade, even if other countries are protectionist benefits all who participate. It's about the only thing upon which they do agree, over 90% of them.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2007-04-20 21:46|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2007-04-20 21:46|| Front Page Top

#3 The CFR says the US is at risk of 50% nuclear terror detonation occurring in next 10 years. Does fifty percent [50%] mean anything in Clintonian Capitalist = Socialist, Fascist = Communist, etal. anti-Unitarian Unitarian, etc. America = Amerika, where CAPITALIST = DE-REGULATED/LIMITED COMMUNIST-SOCIALIST, and FASCIST = LIMITED COMMUNIST type of SOCIALIST AMERICAN = AMERIKAN!? Iff WOT > Limited Communist
vz [Full] Communist, Limited SOcialist vz [full] SOcialist, ................................@etal.,TOMATO vz TOMATOE, IS STILL ONLY 50%??? DON'T THINK SO.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-04-20 22:52|| 2007-04-20 22:52|| Front Page Top

23:50 JosephMendiola
23:45 RD
23:34 trailing wife
23:33 Zenster
23:30 Zenster
23:30 RWV
23:28 RD
23:22 RWV
23:19 JosephMendiola
23:10 Frank G
23:03 RD
22:57 USN, ret.
22:55 Frank G
22:52 JosephMendiola
22:50 Ho Chi Snusoper4439
22:49 RD
22:44 Grunter
22:39 JosephMendiola
22:36 Anonymoose
22:27 JosephMendiola
22:24 RD
22:20 Zenster
22:20 KBK
22:18 Zenster