As we draw nearer to election day this year, I want to reiterate one of my main complaint about the president. He (and Mitt Romney) need to be honest about the jobs that were lost in 2008. In short, they aren't coming back.
Why?
Well, here's a very good explanation.
The middle class in the developing world is rising. The only question is how high it will go and how fast it will get there. About 85 percent of the world's people live in developing countries, yet they accounted for only 18 percent of global consumer spending just a decade ago; today, they account for nearly 30 percent. Consumer spending in developing countries has been increasing at about three times the rate in advanced countries, and we're not just seeing a growing demand for necessities, but also for middle-class staples such as meat, toothpaste, cell phones, and air-conditioners.
When you spend nearly 70 years spreading the word of free markets and capitalism, you get....free markets and capitalism.
So when politicians complain about jobs being shipped overseas (and this is a case where both sides really are the same), it's basically a lie. If you want freedom and prosperity around the world, then you have to be able to put up with the increase in the labor pool which will result in unemployment at home.
The good news for our country is that we are providing much of the world with these products. Granted, the labor is coming from places like China and India but the higher end roles in private organizations are being filled by Americans. Bottom line...if you are unemployed, you need to continue your education so you can be more marketable in the world.
As Thomas Friedman noted last January, it's Made in The World now.
1 comment:
If you'd like something more substantial that TF's standard fare.
First up is the worship within the political and economic classes of manufacturing jobs. In a book that artfully slays myriad myths that cloud the economic debate, Moretti makes the very important point that to “remain prosperous, a society needs to keep climbing the innovation ladder.” As he notes, China and India are moving heavily into manufacturing at the moment, but that speaks to intense poverty that is the rule in both countries. We’re rich precisely because we’ve evolved upward from the prosaic. In short, the capital markets are the source of all funds for jobs, and investors view factory work as something anyone can do. A rush to factory work, assuming investors would fund it stateside, would mark a move among workers to the jobs of yesterday; albeit at exponentially lower pay.
Post a Comment