Obama is making the Americans work for China!

[gaelic cowboy]

i know all about rare-earths, and have appreciated their economic significance for some years, i was trained as a geologist after all, i am merely questioning the rather tenuous supposition that those; "shout endlessly about removing dependence on unstable areas of middle east instead have us be dependent on one of the fastest growing aggressive powers in the world.".........?

It's both sides obviously Liberal/Conservative an Left/Right there all guilty of being short sighted.

The pro-enviroment side would have us dependent through the materials to produce renewable energy and the drill baby drill side would still have us dependent through conversion of the oil to electricity.

An important U.S. high-tech manufacturer is shutting down its American operations, laying off hundreds of workers and moving sophisticated equipment now being used to make critical parts for smart bombs to the People's Republic of China [PRC], Insight has learned.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1433243/posts

Unbelievable think about what the "West" is collectively doing to itself here on the one side we have politicians who tell us to move up the value ladder to compete with China but on the other side the very equipment we would need to add value will be tightly controlled by China.



@ Furunculus I changed the start of my earlier post felt it was not necessary to give the impression of a personal attack on you.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Well they can cut us off from rare earth metals, but that kind of thing works both ways. Just where do you think they'd be without the payments on our debt.

[Furunculus]

It's both sides obviously Liberal/Conservative an Left/Right there all guilty of being short sighted.

The pro-enviroment side would have us dependent through the materials to produce renewable energy and the drill baby drill side would still have us dependent through conversion of the oil to electricity.

Unbelievable think about what the "West" is collectively doing to itself here on the one side we have politicians who tell us to move up the value ladder to compete with China but on the other side the very equipment we would need to add value will be tightly controlled by China.

@ Furunculus I changed the start of my earlier post felt it was not necessary to give the impression of a personal attack on you.

cheers, agreed.

though the worldwide rare-earths industry is still only worth a billion or two per annum, and while that will increase it is reckoned that most countries/industries have strategic reserves that could last for years yet, so armageddon scenarios for western wealth generation are a little wide of the mark.

[gaelic cowboy]

though the worldwide rare-earths industry is still only worth a billion or two per annum, and while that will increase it is reckoned that most countries/industries have strategic reserves that could last for years yet, so armageddon scenarios for western wealth generation are a little wide of the mark.

This would have more weight behind it if the countries in question retained the capacity to process the material and to add value through turning it into goods and services etc.

Todays world prefers to export such capacity in the belief it can move up the ladder but the Chinese will own the ladder or at least the right to use the ladder.

[Don Corleone]

With all due respect to the opinions presented thus far, I think it's a bit alarmist to focus on one particular market and proclaim a lead in it offers China all strategic advantages going forward. Japan is in a particularly difficult position, due to the combination of it's heavy dependence on the electronics market as a percentage of its GDP coupled with the relatively limited natural resources the islands themselves enjoy.

Much more troubling to me are longer term trends that the West in general and the USA in particular seem only to willing to ignore, or possibly even embrace. Today's global economy has shifted since the 60's/70's, and a strong manufacturing base does not infuse the same GDP value that it once did. Most economists would agree that winning in the marketplace of ideas is where forward looking economies should be focusing.

Which is why I find trends in education and intellectual property rights so disturbing. They're 2 separate but strongly linked issues. In the former, our students are proving themselves too lazy to find a way to prove their worth in the market. Engineering is viewed as too difficult, too 'geeky', and doesn't pay well enough. Our students seem to surrender a little bit more of what little aptitude they do possess in science and mathematics each year. At the end of the day, to be fair to the Chinese (and the Taiwanese, Malaysians, Indonesians, Singaporeans and Indians for that matter), why shouldn't they be able to take those jobs? If they're better educated, work harder and offer more insights & advances, shouldn't they be rewarded with the fruits of their labor?

Speaking as somebody who makes hiring decisions in the technology marketplace, I will tell you quite honestly that nobody seeks to hire Chinese or Indian nationals outight. H1B paperwork is difficult, expensive, and the work-arounds to make certain that we don't violate ITAR rules in the process of having foreign national desingers working on dual-use technology just don't make it a preferable course of action. What's more, foreign nationals working in the US make the exact same as their born-and-bred American coworkers.

So why do we continute to hire more and more foreign nationals year over year? Why do we actively pursue shipping design activity to design centers located in Asia? Because that's where the talented labor pool lies. You can drag a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. Despite having the pinnacle of the world's higher education system, the vast majority of our technical post-graduate programs are occupied by Chinese, Indian and other Asian students who have every right and entitlement to those seats. Why? Because they're willing to put the work in that is necessary to succeed in them.

It is this trend that I find far more disturbing and frightenting then the Chinese ability to corner a particular market, or even to purchase debt on the free market for that matter.

As for the gist of the ad, that Democrats are trying to run up the defecit in an effort to enslave us to the Chinese, I say.

Yes, we need to exhibit fiscal discipline. But has anybody forgotten the original Health-Care blow-up, aka Medicare Part D? Last time I checked, Obama was a freshman senator who was just taking his oath offfice when that was passed. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were sitting in the corner, waiting for their chance to shine. It was those guys with the -R next to their name that were running up defecits in the 100's of billions of dollars. First stimulus bill? Bush. Bailout? Bush again. Where was the moral outrage just 2 short years ago?

The truth is, our government is intrinsicly corrupt in ways that would make a Pukhet madam or a Cosa Nostra Don blush. They both have zero ability to reign in spending and even less desire to do so.

I've never been accused of being overly optimistic, but at this point in time, I am genuinely bleak on America's prospects for the future.

[gaelic cowboy]

@ Don

I have basically been saying that in other threads on the org for ages people keep spouting about retraining for a "Smart Economy" and then they go and let the skills wither that will implement it.

True manufacturing is worth less and employs less etc etc but where will our designers get the skills to design if they first dont intern in a bogstandard company that makes widgets.

I have a very bleak view on the future our politicians and financial overlords are happy to de-industrialize but they offer little to take the place of it. We have made it easy for our young people to think they can do other courses to earn a living while failing to understand there will be no service economy with out a bluecollar wage packet.

[Tellos Athenaios]

@Don: What I find, for the USA, to be more disturbing in education/IP trends is the unhealthy focus on “monetizing” patents/IP of questionable value or ownership and the rather horrible standards that the USPTO apparently maintains. (Some of those patents they pass, one wonders whether or not the USPTO gets paid by the number of applications they accept.)

For examples see the SCO saga which is simply depressing, as well as the practice among high profile software companies at least of maintaining a “war chest” (patent portfolio) to assure MAD in case of patent suits... Also remember the game SUN employees used to play: who could turn the whackiest idea into a patent. Plus the usual IBM patents which amount to little more than a meeting during lunchbreak. (That is apparently patented by IBM now.)