The following discussion clip is from the Occupy Wall Street demand summary list.
The reason all the bickering is going on about the Chinese currency devaluation and sending jobs off shore is that people are reacting emotionally to very shallow claims about what is really going on and political speak designed to stir people up. Neither of these issues is the fundamental issue.
Start with “sending jobs offshore”. This phrase is an emotional smoke screen. What it is hiding is a very different reality. And that is, that as communication and transportation technology improved, global commerce improved. The U.S. was asleep while other countries learned to produce MUCH SUPERIOR products at much lower cost. This began with the Japanese in the ’70s and ’80s. While U.S. manufacturing still thought production defect rates of 2% were “normal”, Japan began shipping product, using “high tech machines” ( not just cheap labor ) with defect rates lower than 1 part per MILLION at 1/10 the cost of American parts. The Irony in all of this is that the Japanese were taught how to do this by an American: W. Edwards Demming. American industry REFUSED to pay any attention to him. NO JOB was actually sent to Japan, just as we never claim jobs are sent from one U.S. company to another, when a new firm out competes an old firm. It’s just pure competition.
The irony is that the availability of better goods at cheaper prices is actually a large BOON for the country that receives the goods. This is true whether the low cost comes from better production methods OR currency pricing. The tragedy occurs when the country receiving this benefit gets lost in its internal corruption and political wars and fails to use the benefits of the low cost goods to IMPROVE its society. And that’s what the U.S. has done! Instead of using the BOON in goods to improve our infrastructure, to clean up the environment for everyone, to raise the standard of living for the poor, to improve education, etc. , the value was converted into $$$ by Wall Street and hoarded by the 1%. And because so many of us got a piece of the action, we went along with it.
The BIG thing the U.S. failed to do was get our heads out of the weeds and try to understand what life could look like with all the new CHANGES: what will “jobs” even look like? What will families look like, or careers? We are still hanging on to old ideas. If we don’t look IN DETAIL at our future and understand world sustainability, we will surely lose it.
