Can America compete?

[Mr Durian]

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/artic...1269-1,00.html

An interesting article I found discussing the issue of international competiveness of America. It states that Americans are increasingly lacking in the technology sector and also in work ethic/wage competiveness which makes outsourcing a very attractive method for companies. This undenialbly affects the standard of liviing in America. It talks about the education system and how immigrants from overseas that contribute significantly to the American Tech sector are now a)studying in the US but moving back to their home country b)just studying in their own home country. It also further discusses the issue that the US education system is now no longer churning out enough engineers. (alot of this can be contributed by culture and media)
This all has an impact on the standard of living which depends on the technological edge that is so much needed to stay on top in the world economy.

Of course I don't mind the concept of spreading the wealth, it will help the world. This means that Americans' standard of living will need to compensate for this new equilibrium in wealth. I'm not so worried about it, but people on other forums don't like the idea and prefer the current status quo.

Discuss.

[Azi Tohak]

Fascinating. I know that Indians and Chinese will work for less, and come here to get their advanced degrees. My own department is an excellent example of that. 15 undergrads in my class. 1 American graduate student versus probably 15 Taiwanese or Indians.

Education is the best chance, we all know that. But the problem is, how to educate the smart ones correctly and not hold them to the standards of the dumb kids. The liberals won't stand for it. For some reason they think everyone is created with equal minds. You have to push kids, not coddle them. We have similar threads to this in the 'failing' and 'wimps' threads.

I'm an engineer in training (one more semester until my BS [what a great acronym]) and yes, I know that being nerdy is not cool. Rappers and pro sports are cool. I always figured "let the stupid people be cool. When I get my degree and they are worthless I'll have my revenge." My Dad ingrained in me from a very early age that society does tend to be full of crap. I daresay most of us know that. But we are so focused on entertainment, for some reason the newest happenings of celebrity X gain more attention from more of the country than the newest non-fiction books about subject Y. I think that is pathetic. And I know I'm not alone in this.

For some reason, parents still believe that basic public education is good enough. It is not. I had a high school education that got me ready for University, but I also did every advanced subject (except for English) my high school offered. And I ignored the stupid people who made fun of me for taking advanced courses. And so did my classmates. To this day, every one of us are still in college or have just graduated. Society can do as it pleases. Some of us will not be bullied into sacrificing our futures on that altar of popularity.

But that still leaves the white elephant of price. Yes, I am going to cost more than someone from overseas with the same degree, but it costs more to live here than it does in China or India. And I don't know enough about econ to know what to do about that.

Okay, back to making myself smrter

Azi

[Byzantine Prince]

I don't think it would take WWIII to derail America. I think a slow and painful decline in it's economy is already in effect. The reason for this is that of course America is not churning out enough engineers and scientists as it should to replace the ones from the preveous generation and to satisfy the expanding fields. It's become a tedeous subject I know, but it's a matter of fact. If we [N.Americans] want to keep up with being the leaders of the world's economies we need to remake our education systems and not have them be 3 or four grades lower then, say, the chinese one. Seriously, in China they learn Calculus in grade 9, Calculus!!! It's no joke my friend, they are light years ahead of us in terms of efficiency in education. We need to kick out those fat old women that run the education boards(I know for a fact they are fat old women), and remake education to be better then the Asian ones. Because eventually that brilliant kid in China will be on the same level as that average kid in California, and that's gonna be a grimm day for us.

[scooter_the_shooter]

Most of the students it seems do not want to learn.

[Azi Tohak]

So be it. Let them do as they please. Send them to crappy schools and send the smart/ambitious ones to good schools. Let the unmotivated children be unmotivated but don't let them corrupt those who do want to do well.

And I do not believe it is hard to tell where a child fits. Grades (acutal grades, based on a rough scale) would do wonders to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I lost a lot of smart friends to peer pressure from the stupid bullies. My friends just did not want to be different and do well. So they stopped trying. One is in prison. One is dead from suicide. Two more work menial jobs. Not one of them should have missed out on college. But the stupid bullies beat the will to suceed out of them.

Azi

[BDC]

If people want to do nothing, that's their choice, that's why you have democracy.

Controlling people indirectly though, is fine. *Glances at the media*

[scooter_the_shooter]

That does make sense now that i think of it. I should want other people to be stupid so when i want a job i am picked instead.

[Ice]

Fascinating. I know that Indians and Chinese will work for less, and come here to get their advanced degrees. My own department is an excellent example of that. 15 undergrads in my class. 1 American graduate student versus probably 15 Taiwanese or Indians.

Education is the best chance, we all know that. But the problem is, how to educate the smart ones correctly and not hold them to the standards of the dumb kids. The liberals won't stand for it. For some reason they think everyone is created with equal minds. You have to push kids, not coddle them. We have similar threads to this in the 'failing' and 'wimps' threads.

I'm an engineer in training (one more semester until my BS [what a great acronym]) and yes, I know that being nerdy is not cool. Rappers and pro sports are cool. I always figured "let the stupid people be cool. When I get my degree and they are worthless I'll have my revenge." My Dad ingrained in me from a very early age that society does tend to be full of crap. I daresay most of us know that. But we are so focused on entertainment, for some reason the newest happenings of celebrity X gain more attention from more of the country than the newest non-fiction books about subject Y. I think that is pathetic. And I know I'm not alone in this.

For some reason, parents still believe that basic public education is good enough. It is not. I had a high school education that got me ready for University, but I also did every advanced subject (except for English) my high school offered. And I ignored the stupid people who made fun of me for taking advanced courses. And so did my classmates. To this day, every one of us are still in college or have just graduated. Society can do as it pleases. Some of us will not be bullied into sacrificing our futures on that altar of popularity.

But that still leaves the white elephant of price. Yes, I am going to cost more than someone from overseas with the same degree, but it costs more to live here than it does in China or India. And I don't know enough about econ to know what to do about that.

Okay, back to making myself smrter

Azi

Dude, I agree so much. I get "Idiot, why do you take AP Physics/Chemistry, its to much work" Gah, well you see moron, if i want to get into Michigan's engineering college and make some money/difference, I have to.

[Papewaio]

As someone with a physics degree who works in an IT outsourcer who also has spent a year in Taiwan teaching english all I can say is that the amount of time the kids in Asia spend studing is massive, but not exactly productive.

They have rote learning down to an art.

Mon- Friday 7 to 5 school. Then private school (which they learn test by rote) till 9pm.

Saturdays is often a half day (morning) at private or public school and if they are studious they go to school on Sundays.

[Lemur]

I should want other people to be stupid so when i want a job i am picked instead.

It's a good point. If enough children get taught Intelligent Design and other faith-based sciences, the rest of us will look like freakin' geniuses. Hello, guaranteed employment! There's a bright side to everything ...

[Papewaio]

No welcome to a Salem lynch mob killing the scientist er witch for stating something outside the holy books...

[Aurelian]

Yes, I ran across that 'Fortune' article yesterday. Unfortunately, our current problems can't be solved by education. The problem is systemic.

While education IS important for individual success... if a company can hire a worker with an equivalent education in India or China for a small fraction of the US wage they will do so.

The economic landscape has changed. Over the last couple of decades, the removal of restrictions on international financial transactions, and advances in communications technology, have allowed corporations to operate wherever they can take advantage of the lowest wages - and the weakest labor and environmental laws.

In essence, the world has become one labor market from the employer's point of view. Economic theory says that when you combine labor markets in this way, wages will equalize. That is not a great piece of news if you are an American worker, because it is far more likely that your wages will be reduced in such a situation than it is that the Indian and Chinese workforce will rise to American wage levels.

After all, there are hundreds of millions of unemployed workers in China and India. Even if they were given all of America's blue collar, white collar, and high tech jobs, there would still be a sizable "reserve army of the unemployed" left over to suppress wages.

It used to be argued that the movement of blue collar work to the Third World was part of a natural process that would see US workers moving into higher tech fields. Unfortunately, the idea that high tech jobs would be protected from the same phenomenon was unrealistic.

The solution to this problem would be to regain national control over the actions of our corporations, and to move towards more sustainable trade and investment strategies. Unfortunately, the reverse has happened.

[scooter_the_shooter]

NO

The solution to this problem would be to regain national control over the actions of our corporations

That sounds too much like communism or socialism. which is bad. Just pass laws that make it harder to out source. But dont have the government take over the comapines

[Franconicus]

NO




That sounds too much like communism or socialism. which is bad. Just pass laws that make it harder to out source. But dont have the government take over the comapines

Good God
protectionism is much older than communism. It was very popular during absolutism.
You may say that communism is good or bad, you may even say that it is criminal; but do not use it in such an indifferent way!

[Franconicus]

The US has strength and weakness. There are still some industries where they are best.

Wages are not everything. If you produce a lot of scrap it doesn't matter that you just make 45 cent per hour. Productivity and quality is key.

[scooter_the_shooter]

Good God
protectionism is much older than communism. It was very popular during absolutism.
You may say that communism is good or bad, you may even say that it is criminal; but do not use it in such an indifferent way!

I Dont want to out law it. Just tax companies that do it into the ground. Sort of like the tariffs bush put on european steel so american companies would make a come back.

[Franconicus]

[bmolsson]

I am not sure this is true. The American educational system have a lot of immigrants, but most of them actually stay in US after they graduated. US has weaknesses, but I don't think high studies is one of them.....

[Kagemusha]

I think this problem is not only concerning only US,but all Western countries and Japan too.It seems to me that with Globalization the whole mass industry is moving to countries where labour is more cheaper.Some people seem to think that a solution to that is if we pull down our labour cost,we can compete with these countries better.I think that wont benefit us at all.Instead it only increases poverty in our Nations.
Globalization cant be reversed. We need to think how can we compete without making our selves poor at the process.The key issue here is that we enhance our education systems more to benefit our industry.Universitys should start co-operating with busines world lot more.
If we cant produce lots of cheap products.We should concentrate on expensive products.I personally believe that in the long run,in the third world countries there will be somekind of middle class too.That wants to pay a good price for high quality products.We can allredy see that kind of development happening in China and other Asian countries.So investing in education now will benefit us later.

[ah_dut]

As someone with a physics degree who works in an IT outsourcer who also has spent a year in Taiwan teaching english all I can say is that the amount of time the kids in Asia spend studing is massive, but not exactly productive.

They have rote learning down to an art.

I would tend to agree with you Pape...In Hong Kong, my cousins spend literally hours learning absolute bullock all...do we really have to do 6 hours of maths a day they ask? you bet...

Then they wonder why most people in some schools get better results in half the time: Rote learning is effective but highly inefficient. I don't think it's very productive in the long term. It takes away initiative to a large degree.

I have never been employed, never employed anyone...in fact never doen anything significant to do with getting a job. But Initiative is jsut as important as anything else right? Life doesn't work by rote...

on the labour market thing...yes, western countries are pretty screwed

[Azi Tohak]

Maybe this is my lovely (by definition racist) pride coming up, but I would love to take on someone who has a BS (lord what a dismal acronym...) in Chemical Engineering (so I finally said my major...I'm prepared for the jokes) from India or China in an exam.

I know what I do. I know how to apply what I do. I love what I have learned. Now let's play.

But besides that, I do think protectionism is not a bad idea. Without it, aren't we targets, as the article said, for India and China's masses? Not communism, but free trade just hurts us.

But to be fair, so do Unions. Good news today on that front!

And thank you ghost908. Nice to know someone appreciates my eloquence

Azi

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

It's a good point. If enough children get taught Intelligent Design and other faith-based sciences, the rest of us will look like freakin' geniuses. Hello, guaranteed employment! There's a bright side to everything ...

No welcome to a Salem lynch mob killing the scientist er witch for stating something outside the holy books...

Nice. It's all the Republican Christians' fault that America is falling behind in education. I'd point out that one doesn't need to follow Darwin to build missiles or program operating systems, but I don't think it'll make much difference.

I am not sure this is true. The American educational system have a lot of immigrants, but most of them actually stay in US after they graduated. US has weaknesses, but I don't think high studies is one of them.....

Really? I'd like to see some numbers, one way or another. I was under the impression that people come to the US, study, then leave to get an American job that's been shipped off. Am I wrong?

[_Martyr_]

I little ironic would you not say? The West expoits the rest of the world, imposing our delightfully profitable version of "free trade" on them. Then when the balance begins to shift a tiny bit against us and we see a glipse of the other side of coin, we start calling for protection... classic.

Would all the actually poor as dirt countries be allowed protect their domestic industries as well, or would still be allowed to rape them?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

The West expoits the rest of the world, imposing our delightfully profitable version of "free trade" on them.

How?

Would all the actually poor as dirt countries be allowed protect their domestic industries as well, or would still be allowed to rape them?

From my understanding, parts of China and India are poor as dirt. And the wages these people are getting are poor as dirt compared to Amercan wages. And yet, as companies out source, those regions experiance an increase in the quality of living, no? So the "imposition" of the evil free trade is benefitting, and not raping those places.

[_Martyr_]

How?

Are you being serious? The entire neo-liberal economic system is based arround expoitation. Almost nothing we consume that was produced in the Third World (and that is a lot of what we consume...) has been payed for at a fair price. Seriously, if you want a more in depth answer I can provide it, but you could very easily find out the vast scale expoitation carried out mainly by Western corporations in the Third World by yourself.

From my understanding, parts of China and India are poor as dirt. And the wages these people are getting are poor as dirt compared to Amercan wages. And yet, as companies out source, those regions experiance an increase in the quality of living, no? So the "imposition" of the evil free trade is benefitting, and not raping those places.

If you honestly believe that sweat-shops make an area prosperous then you really need to find out what a sweat-shop is! They will create a virtually inslaved working class, and an extremely rich class of rentiers. Ask the several tens of millions manufacturing workers (cough... sweat-shop slaves) in India and China about their standard of living... they would tell you about 18 hour days, 7 days a week, being payed about 80 cent an hour at best, doing back-breaking labour,terrible conditions, dangerous equipment, with absolutely no protection from their exploitive employers. Yeah, Im sure they are delighted with liberal free market economics.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

So the outsourced engineering jobs go to... sweatshops?

[_Martyr_]

No... that is not what I was talking about. At all.

What I am saying is exactly the opposite. It is a little rich, and more than a little ironic for us to complain when developing countries start getting our good jobs. As opposed to the situation where we exported all our shittiest jobs to the third world and then lowered the working standards a hundred-fold, so that we, the share-holders of these massive corporations can see a maximum profit and have an ever so pleasant but as we are seeing unsustainable lifestyle. Our very own methods are biting us in the ass. We cant suddenly call for a rule change when we start losing, because we made the rules to suit us. Fair is fair, they are beating us at our own game.

And this is coming from an engineer...

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

It may be ironic, but the situation pokes holes into the "free trade is bad for the Third World" theory. Because of free trade, people living in the Third World are now getting better jobs! Surely you don't think engineering and computing jobs are out "shittiest jobs." And those are the jobs people are complaining about outsourcing. The workers in India and China getting those jobs are getting fractions of what their American counterparts used to make, but it is a whole hell of a lot better than making sneakers or farming. So the standard of living is going up!

And maybe the people who who are "suddenly call[ing] for a rule change when we start losing" really were never interested in free trade by itself to begin with. Maybe, just maybe, they were advocating what is best for their nation - and when what is best for their nation changes, they ask for a "rule change." Maybe I'm not enlightened like JAG's crowd, but I'm for doing what's best for the old US of A before doing what's best for everybody else.

[_Martyr_]

It may be ironic, but the situation pokes holes into the "free trade is bad for the Third World" theory.

No it doesnt. Since when do China and India represent the whole Third World? It would be a little off to label China Third World in the first place. India perhaps, but it is certainly not representative of the rest of this group of nations. On the contrary it is an exception. Most poor contries are getting poorer.

Because of free trade, people living in the Third World are now getting better jobs!

No they arent. A tiny segment of elite Chinese (its a lot of people when the numbers are taken from western engineers, but its tiny when compared with the number of Chinese people there are) are getting good jobs, imported from the West. The vast majority work in terrible conditions for pennies, exploited, making huge profits for Western Corporations.

Surely you don't think engineering and computing jobs are out "shittiest jobs."

Debatable...

And those are the jobs people are complaining about outsourcing.

No shit! Which idiot westerner would want to complain when the Chinese are doing all the shitty jobs and we have all the fun, interesting and stimulating jobs.

The workers in India and China getting those jobs are getting fractions of what their American counterparts used to make, but it is a whole hell of a lot better than making sneakers or farming.

The vast, vast majority of Chinese or Indians are NOT earning a good relative wage. The vast, vast majority do not work as outsourced engineers or computer scientists. Most survive on extremely unfair wages and have to endure terrible conditions. Doing exactly what you have said, making sneakers and textiles.

This is simply le'chatelier's principle in action. Things are out of equilibrium, the West has far too much, the rest have far too little. Slowly the system begings to decelerate for the US in favour of the Chinese.

And maybe the people who who are "suddenly call[ing] for a rule change when we start losing" really were never interested in free trade by itself to begin with. Maybe, just maybe, they were advocating what is best for their nation - and when what is best for their nation changes, they ask for a "rule change." Maybe I'm not enlightened like JAG's crowd, but I'm for doing what's best for the old US of A before doing what's best for everybody else.

We never really had much doubt about that...

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

And our jobs are just going to India and China. And parts of China could be classified as the Third World, I think.

And if it wasn't for making sneakers, what would those people be doing? I'm curious. If there were better jobs, wouldn't they take them?