From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Tue Jun 10 2003 - 16:04:29 MDT
Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:
Rafal said:
<<### This is incorrect - almost all Americans benefit from the
globalization
of the labor market by being able to buy services and products at a lower
price. Additionally, the foreign employees of American companies benefit
from American capital and knowledge, which enables them to purchase globally
produced goods.
Freedom is good for you.
Rafal>>
If one has a high-paying job one can, indeed benefit from globalization. On
the other hand, if hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs go overseas,
and those being paid are paid at a tenth the wage-level that the American IT
workers were paid at; there is no way that they, as the "new" workers can
ever afford goods and services offered by American companies.
### The "new" foreign workers buy American grain, movies, machines, American
debt, weapons. A huge part of American export is dependent on the demand
created by increased affluence abroad, due in part to globalization.
Conversely, even poor (especially poor) Americans benefit from cheap but
high quality imported goods. You don't need to have a high-paying job to
shop at K-mart, and without K-mart you would be so much poorer, even with
the same relative amount of cash on hand.
-------------------
In essence, the "new country" employees are not part of the American
economic cycle.
### Yes, they are.
------------------------
Its not, as if, the Parent company which off-shores these jobs, invests in
many new jobs in the US. Why should they, if goods and services are so
inexpensive overseas? This also leads to the de-stablization of American
society because skilled jobs are no longer to be had, because of the
corporation's cost savings. This can't be a good thing and is already and
election issue and a "class warfare" issue as well.
### You can look at from a short-term point of view, or a long-term point of
view. In the former case, you try to maximize return over 1, 5 or 15 years.
Then it pays to keep knowledge controlled and tied to a place, to buy cheap
raw materials abroad, and sell your knowledge-enhanced products at a
premium, to buy more cheap raw materials. It pays to exclude competitors
rather than to improve your own abilities, so you can keep consuming more.
In the short term.
In the long term however, 50 or 500 years, you want to maximize growth, even
at the cost of reducing immediate consumption (obvious to anyone who chooses
between paying off a mortgage and buying a new car when the old one still
runs). Since globalization of the economy increases the effective amount of
resources available for enlarging our knowledge, allows uniform increase in
production capacity, and a uniform increase in demand across the whole
world, including long-term demand for American goods, globalization is the
long-term favorite over narrow, parochial approaches, like mercantilism, and
protectionism. This is why globalization is good for the American consumer,
as well as the European, African or Asian consumer.
Rafal
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