Chris,
At 14:57 14/04/2010 +0200, you wrote:
> Keith> cognitive dissonance in his head....
> SteveK> internally inconsistent;
> Arthur> RR has been a disappointment.
So, perhaps a FWer can dissolve the dissonance/inconsistency and tell
what is correct...?
I can't begin to dissolve the difference because people like Robert Reich
need to think at a more fundamental level about economics than they attempt
so far. Two of the issues that they entirely overlook are:
(a) there is a growing skill gap within advanced economies. State education
systems are unable to straddle that gap with a smooth gradation of
achievable skill levels;
(b) it may be that the constant supply of new consumer goods (say,
1780-1980) of high status value (relative to class) and high profit margins
(supplying new waves of investment), which motivated the industrial
revolution, has now largely dried up. We certainly have new gimmicky goods
-- e.g. mobile phones, flat screen TVs -- but none of the them have
anywhere near the motivating power that hundreds of new goods had between
about 1780 and 1980 (the last date chosen being when real wages of working
people started to decline and also when dubious credit instruments began to
take off as substitutes for profit).
But maybe it's pretty consistent, because to prepare the "coming cull"
(civil war), it takes both: More immigrants and no jobs...
Even without immigrants we're going to have civil strife anyway -- more
income and skill divides, more automation, etc.
The predators decided to move on to China (cheaper slaves more willing to
obey, without that pesky democracy), so America has to be done away with.
Many, if not most, exportable goods made in China are assembled from
components of high value (and contribution to final cost) made elsewhere.
The cheap labour of China is of only marginal importance. Without China,
goods would have become cheaper anyway -- albeit at a slower pace --
because of increasing automation and increasingly mass production.
With bosses like these, who needs al-Qaeda? (which they made up anyway)
As to the parenthetical comment I partly agree. A great deal of what the
West is up to is provocative, used as a scapegoat for the growing lack of
credibility of Western electorates in their politicians and the
"democratic" system.
Keith
Chris
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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