Ian Fletcher's idea (apply a tariff on imported consumer goods) is
something that will raise international tensions everywhere. His problem is
that he has a huge blind spot. He entirely ignores the fact that America
(and West European counries) are no longer inventing any more new
high-priced, high-profit consumer goods -- such as they did from 1780 to
about 1980 -- that could work their way down from the richest to the
poorest. The chain petered out at around 1980 with the personal computer.
What we have had since such as cell phones, iPads, flat-screen TV, 3D TV
are all embellishments of old consumer goods. And they are all relatively
low-cost very quickly, unlike scores, if not hundreds of goods that came on
the scene between 1780 and 1980 and were able to generate high profits
which were subsequently re-invested in stages decade after decade. Even the
PC is only an amalgamation of previous goods (typewriter, telephone,
library, films, calculator, newspaper, etc) .
America is the most research-intensive country in the world and by far and
away the most inventive country (so far). It makes by far the most advanced
equipment and sophisticated producer goods in the world. In theory it could
be making innovative consumer goods to exchange with the "ordinary"
consumer goods that China, for example, is exporting. But it doesn't.
America is not to blame. Germany doesn't either, nor the UK, nor France or
Italy. As far as time, space and other limitations of urban living are
concerned, we are already satiated.
Free trade is only the messenger of bad news. The real bad news is that we
are now securely locked into an urban environment with no more imaginative
scope for development. The vast majority of us are as locked into daily
city and suburban routines as the hunter-gatherer was into his territory,
or the Medieval peasant to his landlord's estate. Only exceptionally rare
and exceptionally gifted minds might find the possible new technological
'wormholes' that could take us into a new economic world. (I was using
'wormhole' in a modern cosmological sense, but perhaps a biological one
would be more apposite because I believe that a new primary energy and
production system in a new era will be based on DNA technology, but that's
only my guess.)
Keith
At 03:43 13/12/2010 -0400, you wrote:
Here's an item that seems relevant to FW.
HUFFINGTON POST INTERVIEWER:
India's prime minister recently suggested offshoring processes to
India makes American corporations more productive overall. Is
there any validity to this statement?
IAN FLETCHER:
This is a mirage created by the fact that if you offshore the
low-productivity jobs from an American company, the jobs remaining
in the U.S. will have, by definition, higher productivity --
creating the illusion that the company is now more productive. But
jobs have still been lost, and there is, pace laissez-faire
economic theory, no guarantee that the workers who formerly held
them will find new jobs of equal or greater value. What works on
the level of the individual company is a net loss for the economy
as a whole.
http://www.truth-out.org/free-trade-doesnt-work-interview-with-economist-ian-fletcher65810
While I'm here...
For the last several years, the Saturday Globe & Mail's commercial
auction ads have run heavy to machine shops, tool & die makers, metal
fab shops, precision parts makers and the like. This category
represents the infrastructure that supports the rest of industry and
is the place where essential skills live and breed. I don't know if
Canada (chiefly Ontario) is losing several dozen shops of this kind
every year or if hope springs eternal among entrpreneurs who start and
then fail in these kinds of operations.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2010/12/>http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2010/12/
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