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This is a perspective I sure hadn't even considered. On the military-industrial complex, that is assuredly true and one reason is security clearances. Most jobs require U.S. citizenship and then many require a secret clearance, which is about a $20k investment for the employer to get. But the fact the jobs require U.S. citizen is one of the last hold outs against labor arbitrage, especially for tech workers.
$661 billion bucks and a host of major contracts were announced at the end of the year, billions. That said, Boeing and esp. IBM offshore outsource, use foreign guest workers, so a good chunk of those contracts isn't generating U.S. jobs. Still, the situation is way better than the financial sector. They offshore outsourced every job they could in 2008 (and have been offshore outsourcing before 2000, accelerating in 2000 start).
i worked for a company in Connecticut (winchester electronics in case anyone wants to verify how many times the workers they laid off have been given free trade adjustment benefits) that has outsourced virtually everything except the CEO to china...
to make long story very short they would fly chinese engineers to the states to learn the product. This chines engineer says to me in his "broken english" that the chinese want to be just like America. I remember my first thought at the time was "why"?
reading your comments it sounds like they are well on their way to being just like America.
which were the most read posts on EP for 2011. Gez, I had to write up a little PHP script to get this list, so I guess it was most interesting to me as site owner/admin. Oh well.
This is a little biased. We have some posts from December, where if one took the monthly read averages, would be at the top of this list. Seems H-1B, "tech worker shortage" is a huge hit, as is the latest absurdity of the 1%.
This is interesting, Google's funding arm just went to Israel and is buying up, funding start-ups there. VC funds are a much larger story than just immigrant founders or native ones. When looking through the WSJ's "top 50" list I was struck by the lack of innovation frankly. Another online dating site? Yet another video conferencing group, not doing actual signal processing or systems per say?
We should see stuff like battery technologies, new system architecture, advances in materials, new networking technologies, the kind of things which advances to a next level type of thing as startups here and it doesn't seem to be so.
Another point is the VC funds. Most MNCs do have VC internal branches, but are there state funds say from Israel funding companies in the U.S., are there political agendas, family ties....and host of reasons why one company gets funded and another does not and unfortunately, way too often those reasons are not due to the potential success of a business plan.
i have been to China twice and study its language and people. China no longer provides free medical to its workers. It no longer provides pensions to most of its workers. There are still some subsidies, like housing, for workers in state enterprises but even these are disappearing. China has endorsed the worst of capitalism in destroying its safety net.
Is Donald Trump their poster boy???? "Please give, he needs a new hedgehog for his head, the old one's looking a little fake"!!!!
So your problem is that you think $20k is plenty of money not really with any of the facts or analysis in the article. This is all based on a personal anecdote...
Well my ex has an uncle in a similar situation. Dropped out of college, lives with his parents. They pay for all of his bills, transportation, entertainment. He doesn't get any "gummint" assistance, just mom and dad. I'm sure he'd say he does just fine on $10k or so a year. Maybe you have a point.
For those people who want a family and well, everything this country has been providing to previous generations, its a complete letdown.
The BLS has a pretty detailed paper on where they are getting their data and what assumptions they made to estimate labor costs in China through 2008. They are attempting to estimate the benefits and note finding hours worked is tough.
As one who has sifted through China data to find information on trade, the fact they haven't been able to publish a reliable estimate up to 2010 is no surprise. China isn't exactly forthcoming on a host of data points.
Anyway, gives some detail if people believe China and India are not our 1-stop cheap labor depots.
Right but if those are subsidized by the state vs. private enterprise then it still comes down to wages. You bring up some detail though to help explain why the BLS waited and is waiting to do a direct comparison of wages in both China and India and we have just up to 2008. Regardless, it's clear they are mega cheap labor.
How meaningful are comparative labor cost without factoring in ‘cost of living.’ A worker in China making $1.36 per hour is low. But, if housing and food are subsidizes and free medical, no pension contribution, etc. all that has to be factored into the cost of manufacturing. China has specialized industrial cities like the one where all the Apple and other electronic products are made. To know the cost of manufacturing in such cities all the various subsidized cost of living have to factored in. When it is, the cost of labor component of manufacturing is more than $1.36 per hour
Why this article points to legislation. I'm being sarcastic but the China PNTR came into effect 2000 and in less than a decade China has our manufacturing in so many words and is well on their way to become the #1 global economy. Meanwhile our government is bought and paid for by MNCs who have no qualms selling the U.S. down the river to get to that mythical 1.5 billion mythical Chinese consumer market as well as labor arbitrage.
"China has a long way to go to remove the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency."
LONG is not a problem for China - Remember Mao's "Long March". They're still marching one step at a time. What are we doing? Indeed, who is 'we'?
Why is it Germany dominates in exports, manufacturing while the U.S. offshore outsources pretty much anything not nailed down (and that too)? Both have issues with China and India. It's Germany's other policies, their strong labor protections and their manufacturing policies where are making up the difference. We'll leave this to another article but anyone claiming America's labor costs are the highest in the world or we need to lower them is simply dead wrong.
You're right, China-Japan have made a direct currency exchange agreement, removing the U.S. dollar in the exchange. I think it's another attack on the U.S. dollar being the world's reserve currency, which isn't good news in my view. Being a reserve currency gives a lot of privileges, such as running the debt to GDP ratio much higher.
China has been pushing to remove the USD as a reserve currency for some time. Another question is does this help Japan peg the Yen?
China just let a Japan bank into China, allowed to issue Yuan denominated bonds.
Japan just made a small agreement with India for currency swaps as well.
As far as China being labeled a currency manipulator, if one wants to assume the reason the Obama administration is not doing this as retaliatory action by China, well, that seems to be happening anyway.
China has a long way to go to remove the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency.
The whole dollar rmb relationship may be in the process of becoming mute. I’ve read (can’t remember the source) that China and Japan have agreed on a direct exchange between their currency. Thus eliminating the dollar ‘middle man’. As it is now, they have to buy dollars with their respective currencies and then buy the other’s currency with the dollar. Given that they are the number 2 and 3 largest economies in the world, it seems that elimination of dollar middle man between them would lead to a dramatic decrease in demand for dollars with a corresponding change in exchange rate between dollar and each of their currencies. In that situation the exchange rate of the dollar and rmb will also change dramatically without manipulation or legislation.
I’ve read China has been promoting similar non-dollar exchanges with S.E. Asia countries. And, there is continual talk of eliminating the dollar as the basis of world currency. Perhaps we should think more about a post-dollar world economy and how we are going to fit into it; rather than the more myopic view of rmb dollar exchange rate. In the long run, the exchange rate does not seem to be significant. Also, changes in exchange rate will affect the cost of goods sold in US. Careful what you wish for. If consumer prices in places like WalMart increase significantly, the implication for jobs and the economy are not good; especially when tittering on the cusp of another recession.
Best
Tom
You think Kim Jong Il's propaganda is good wait until these jerks get going. "When Leon Cooperman was born birds shit golden eggs. As a newborn he could speak and count to a billion."
If billionaires are doing good thing their "News" networks will tell us about it anyway.
homygawdz .... dear 1% reality called, it wants you back
and since advertising is proven to work so well, they will succeed in making some of the 99% believe their lies. this is their strategy to slow down the numbers of sleeping frogs who are waking up and feeling how hot the pot is becoming.
One of the excuses to displace U.S. STEM is the claim they are not the "best and the brightest". I know this is false, of course no race or national origin has a lock on anything, including spelling. That said, when people cannot write a complete sentence, spell basic words or cannot handle creating accounts and writing comments on various sites....well, the claim they are technical, highly skilled and just being discriminated against loses all credibility.
holy overreaction, Batman!
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