If we can't get imports won't we produce them ourselves?
So, what's the problem? ********************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles. Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 818 352-4141 ********************************** From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 9:14 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Futurework] Your gloom for today Of all of the many things that happened in the rich world during the 20th Century, a couple stand out. One is the shift away from a goods producing economy and toward a services producing economy. The other is the development of technology permitting instantaneous communication and shipment of services from one part of the globe to another. Given the connective technology, it really doesn't matter where services are produced. They can be produced anywhere and instantly delivered to another part of the world. But what is needed to produce them is an appropriately educated and motivated labour force. As another major 20th Century trend, such a labour force has come into being. Approximately 1.5 billion technically and service orientated workers are now available in China, India and other parts of the developing world. And these workers are willing to provide their services and skills at a much lower wage than workers in the rich world. It is not only services that have become internationalized. Goods production can take place anywhere that has an appropriately skilled and organized labour force. In the case of a large variety of cheap consumers goods, the developing world now produces and the rich world buys. But it is not only cheap consumers goods that are at issue. As the developing world becomes more skilled and educated, it will produce many of the more specialized and sophisticated products used by the rich world. Exports listed for China include machinery and equipment, plastics, optical and medical equipment. China is moving up rapidly in automobile and electronic goods production. What might this mean for workers in Canada and the US? In Canada, it would seem to mean a gradual shift out of many lines of manufacturing and services and a greater dependence on the more traditional resource sectors, especially oil and natural gas. This possibility is not as open to the US, and what may happen there is the kind of continuing industrial disintegration typified by the rust belt of the Midwest and the eastern seaboard. Plants producing goods that can be made more cheaply abroad and offices providing communications based services will close and workers will be laid off, losing not only their wages but in many cases also their access to health care and pensions. I could go on and move the prognostication into the longer term when underemployed, debt-ridden America is no longer able to buy from China and India and when Canada begins to find its natural resources less abundant, but I won't do that. I've spread enough gloom for today. Ed
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