this is also the position of the writer on "the next convergence".
Real policy for emerging countries is not laisser-faire, but TEMPORARY protectionism, huge investment in education and infrastructure, support for NEW industry... and reinventing all, breaking the old model, every 10 years. also one key idea is to forget about perfect solutions. Korea nearly missed the occidentallevel of developement because they wanted to enjoy their low-cost economy of the time. hopefully the workers moaned so much that wages increased, and that with education, they could get at a higher level of economy. don't forget that Korea was at a level nor far from East China today. What I see in france, is on one side some broken protectionism, leading to support zombies economy, voters lobbies, economic rent lobbies, and thus to starve the real needed investments, over taxing the new industry and the innovators (as people, and as industry)... On another side the work market is so unreal that there is bad habits of throwing experienced worked (too expensive, hard to control, pretended as outdated)... Pressure of taxes and alike are so high that work have to be very very productive (ve are very productive, too much for most) so it eliminates unexperienced workers (young, not qualified much), and older workers (slowers, obsoleted)or believed so. The gap in working cost is so wide with germany, that companies have quite no benefit to reinvest in innovation, and we lose markets(we have nearly the worst margin in EU). One problem is that it is harder to break a working contract than divorce. I've tested mysef for a small job for repairing house, that breaking a contract because ther is no more anything to do, IS NOT ALLOWED (checked many times with the work law administration). This make the emplyers very selective about employee who have to be perfect and predictable. No possibility to say that you will see if the man is good, if he can be trained... the effect is we have problem of low employment for aged workers, and so for young workers, leading to retirement fund bankrupcy. Young worker start to have a stable job (instability of work in france is very painful, since our mindset is not adapted so. we stress. it is hard to find a rent, a loan). being old in an enterprise start at 45 in france... at 45 you are assumed to be unable to change. at 50 you have to be fired at first occasion(not many), and nobody will employ you anymore. at 55 nobody will expect anything for you, no pressure, no training, no employment, just hope to fire you when a window open. at 65-67 you can hope to have your retirement... in between... and in france it is hard to pay people below that standard, so aged experienced worker are not employed, rather that underpaid... my question is whether LENR and robotic will save us, or if it will simply help Asia to develop, Africa after, letting us locked in our demagogy, until we have to move to Asia, where there is work and opportunities... If things get bad for me, this is one opportunity (not China, which is too locked, but one of the next tiger : Indonesia. still open and where I have a family network). Maybe Africa will be more adapted for most French since we have history and family links there, yet Asian diaspora develop many links since a decade... 2013/1/30 Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> > I wrote: > > unless, perhaps, one is willing to grant themselves a dispensation to >> depart a little from the spirit of market-based solutions. >> > > I should add that Singapore, during its period of rapid development, did > not hesitate to depart from free-market principles. There were trade > barriers and protectionism and government subsidies and so on. I've been > to Singapore, and its economic policy appears to have been wise in > hindsight. China appears to be pursuing a similar policy, and I suspect it > will reap similar rewards in the future. > > Eric > >
