Globalization

[Franconicus]

I know there has been a lot of discussion everywhere. What I am asking today is:

1. How has G effected your country?
2. What effects do you think will come in the future?
3. What do you want your politics to do about it?

[Somebody Else]

1. More goods from the worldwide market available.
2. More economic and social development.
3. Everything it can to further globalisation.

[Kagemusha]

1. The low payed industrial jobs are leaving out of the country. to countries with cheaper labour.

2. Negative effects.It will twist the world economy and only serve the intrest of the global investors. Countries start competing who has the cheapest labour and that will lead in more misery and unstable societys.

3. I dont know is there anymore much to do about it. But the trading Unions like the EU can manage to slow it down.

[Kanamori]

1. The US has been made rich by it, and it has changed the nature of our economy.

2. Read Gibson; specialization of goods.

3. Libertarian ideals--free trade is good, and globalization will help end extremism.

[Xiahou]

1. The US has been made rich by it, and it has changed the nature of our economy.

2. Read Gibson; specialization of goods.

3. Libertarian ideals--free trade is good, and globalization will help end extremism.

Sounds good to me.

[Red Harvest]

Globalization is wiping out the *high paid* manufacturing jobs in the U.S. The low pay, low skill jobs went long ago (1st phase.) It is also wiping out the R&D side. (More high compensation areas.) Both of these are things I've observed first hand, both in U.S. operations, and on location for the overseas facilities.

It is this 2nd phase is what concerns me. There is a lot of short term profit, but not long term reinvestment, at least not in the U.S. (and surprisingly little overseas.) The loss of the high skills/high education jobs is not a good harbinger for the future. And what I've seen in overseas operations is very little in the way of R&D. They are run as low margin operations.

The benefits of globalization are a cheaper product for consumers and access to many products we would not have. The long term bill hasn't arrive yet, or at least we haven't been required to pay it yet--we just keep racking up mammoth trade deficits.

This is not to say that we should resist globalization. I think most protectionism is counterproductive (other than preserving parts of industries for cultural/social reasons.) However, I do recognize globalization has its negatives.

Politicians should be focusing on keeping/regaining our edge through measures that encourage research and development IN OUR COUNTRY. They should also be seeking to make sure cheap labor nations abide by reasonable environmental, safety, intellectual property, and free trade standards. That will go along way toward levelling the field.

As for the future: I see a rough patch coming, where the 1st World standard of living decays while the 3rd world wage earners rise. Should rebalance after a time, but the transition looks unpleasant. If we had some great new tech coming, I don't think the high end would suffer. Unfortunately, decades of declining R&D (for the sake of growing profit) has long term consequences.

[Duke Malcolm]

I know there has been a lot of discussion everywhere. What I am asking today is:

1. How has G effected your country?
2. What effects do you think will come in the future?
3. What do you want your politics to do about it?

1. The jute mills and ship yards closed down.
2. The city will get much worse, less jobs, population will decrease
3. Encourage secondary industries to move to Dundee.

P.S. I misread country as city...

[Goofball]

I know there has been a lot of discussion everywhere. What I am asking today is:

1. How has G effected your country?
2. What effects do you think will come in the future?
3. What do you want your politics to do about it?

1) Killed off our weaker industries, strengthened our strong ones; lowered prices for consumers.
2) More of the same (hopefully).
3) Completely keep their damned sticky political fingers out of free enterprise.

[Redleg]

1) Killed off our weaker industries, strengthened our strong ones; lowered prices for consumers.
2) More of the same (hopefully).
3) Completely keep their damned sticky political fingers out of free enterprise.

and

1. The US has been made rich by it, and it has changed the nature of our economy.

2. Read Gibson; specialization of goods.

3. Libertarian ideals--free trade is good, and globalization will help end extremism.

These two statements sum up my thoughts pretty darn well. It has helped the consumer in the United States more then it has hurt the worker. Since they are one in the same. Gobalization of Trade is Capitialism at its best. If we can keep the politicans out of it - it will become even better.

[Xiahou]

Absurd. What do you think would happen if the US went to war with one of our supposed global trade partners? China, for example? They could simply commandeer the massive amounts of Industry we have handed over to them, and we'd be sitting ducks.

Absurd.
They'd doom themselves by doing so- it's tricky to fight a war with no economy.

[Kanamori]

Would you rather have an industrial job, or would you rather be a manager/businessman?

Globalization is also an incentive to avoid war as economies are dependent on one another, and they all know it.

If push comes to shove, the US still has nearly every resource we would ever need.

[Kanamori]

It makes us slaves to the rest of the world.

I am inclined to say it more the other way around, but I see the catch-22. It is what keeps us from war, and w/o money for the nation in question to run, they are just as crippled as we would be except that we have natural resources galore here.

[Red Harvest]

Would you rather have an industrial job, or would you rather be a manager/businessman?

That's an easy one. I would rather have an industrial job, actually produce something, and come up with better processes. Managers and businessmen aren't the ones doing that...they are administrators. You can run a company without much in the way of administrators, but you can't make much without the skills folks.

The type of jobs I've been watching flee haven't gone to Mexico, they've gone to China, where it takes many more folks to do the same job that our experienced hands did...but labor is ridiculously cheap. These are skills jobs that require quite a bit of training and education to be a technician or operator.

The problem with the manufacturing flight in the U.S. is that we haven't exported the "old tech" to move onto making newer things as we have in the past. Instead we've largely quit making things. I'm not too impressed by the idea of a parasitic service based economy as a model.

[Redleg]

Absurd. What do you think would happen if the US went to war with one of our supposed global trade partners? China, for example? They could simply commandeer the massive amounts of Industry we have handed over to them, and we'd be sitting ducks.

And we cancel our debt that they hold. It would hurt them just as much as it would hurt us. If war ever breaks out between China and the United States the economies of both will take a tumble and a beating.

Everyone assumes we will always have this tenuous love-hate relationship with our outsourcing partners, and will fight low-intensity wars with third world countries forever. Those kinds of assumptions get people killed, in the long run.

Who is making this assumption other then yourself.

[Papewaio]

MAD = Mutually Assured Debt.

BTW if as long as the USA is friends with Australia, you will find that China or Japan will find it hard to wage a war without gas or iron.

[Redleg]

lol, that assumption is constantly made. It's constantly used to stop R&D on potentially war-winning military hardware. It's certainly used to keep outsourcing an ongoing deal.

Oh I strongly suspect you pulled that comment out of the air. But tell you what - provide some proof that the assumption is constantly used, that gobalization is used to justify cutting Research and Development, and exactly how it is used to talk about the workforce in the gobal market.

Most of the comments around Gobalization state that it should reduce conflict - not that it will only be 3rd World hot-spots. Outsourcing is part of the gobalization of the market - and that wasn't the assumption you first threw out there. To remind us all exactly what you stated -

Everyone assumes we will always have this tenuous love-hate relationship with our outsourcing partners, and will fight low-intensity wars with third world countries forever. Those kinds of assumptions get people killed, in the long run.


Now some articles that show your comment to incorrect.

http://www.imf.org/external/np/speec...02/092602a.htm

THe first two paragraphs. Read the rest if you care to.

Supporting globalization is one of the best investments we can make to improve today's security environment. Globalization is the process of integration of nations through the spread of ideas and the sharing of technological advances, through international trade, through the movement of labor and capital across national boundaries. It is a process that has been going almost throughout recorded history and that has conferred huge benefits. Globalization involves change, so it is often feared, even by those who end up gaining from it. And some do lose in the short run when things change. But globalization is like breathing: It is a not a process one can or should try to stop; of course, if are obvious ways of breathing easier and better one should certainly do so.

Like any process, globalization has been subject to ebbs and flows. It gained impetus during the period of great discoveries in the 15th century, and in later centuries from dramatic falls in the costs of communication and transportation. For instance, the fortunes of the House of Rothschild were helped by their being the first to use carrier pigeons to carry business news between London and Brussels. The invention of the telegraph and the laying of the transatlantic cable cut settlement times between New York and London from ten days to three days. Stop and think about what it must have been like when the first telegraph wire went through: it must have been as big a breakthrough as the ones in more recent times that we rave about.

Now I haven't read the full report - but it seems to point out that Research and Development does not take a hit with Gobalization.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Nat..._base_book.cfm

Principles for Congress
The following principles comprise the right framework for maintaining access to the industrial resources necessary for the U.S. armed forces in the 21st century.

PRINCIPLE #1: Excessive central control is inconsistent with national security and should be avoided. Generally, national security is hampered by excessive legislation and regulation, which hurts the ability of the military industrial base to produce goods and services quickly and efficiently.

PRINCIPLE #2: Policies on the domestic military industrial base should focus on critical technologies, industries, and skills that are not readily available in the global market. In Congress, debate relating to the military industrial base is caught between free-market trade and protectionism. However, in this policy area, Members of Congress should be concerned primarily with reducing risk for military forces and enhancing the security and defense of the U.S., not protecting local economies or politics.

PRINCIPLE #3: Incentives and open competition in critical technical areas can provide a disproportionate return on investment, encourage the development and furthering of hard science skills, and broaden defense-related industrial capabilities. The U.S. should identify, develop, and sustain the intellectual capital necessary to support a robust and evolving military industrial base. The military industrial base will lag behind non-defense industrial trends without a cadre of vibrant intellectuals that understands how traditional industrial practices must change to fit 21st century defense requirements.

PRINCIPLE #4: A comprehensive divestiture strategy can generate growth in new technology and manufacturing areas.The United States invests too many resources in old technology. By moving beyond or divesting from these programs, the Pentagon can reinvest those resources in new, more relevant programs. With the right strategy, the technology base will not get bogged down by yesterday’s investments and always be focused on the latest technological trends.

PRINCIPLE #5: The U.S. should impose research and development costs and manufacturing costs on potential adversaries. The U.S. should actively look for opportunities to redefine areas of competition through those defense products that industry manufactures domestically. By playing to its strengths, the U.S. can force potential enemies to incur research and development costs as they attempt to counter new or improved U.S. capabilities.

PRINCIPLE #6: Stop paying more for decreasing returns. Procurement policies should support defense-related manufacturing that can remain profitable and competitive. Members of Congress need to view the global defense market in much the same way they view the market for everyday goods and services. If a manufacturer does not produce a defense product that works better at less cost, it should expect the Department of Defense to look for another supplier, whether inside and outside of the U.S.

PRINCIPLE #7: Assured access to the global industrial base is necessary for long-term national security. Industrial independence should not be a national security objective. Maximizing access to the global industrial base and the wide range of products, services, and materiel available advances national security.

PRINCIPLE #8: Not all trading partners are equal. America’s closest allies should be considered reliable trading partners/allies for nearly all defense materials. However, geostrategic military and economic alliances will change, and the U.S. must be prepared to adapt. In developing the manufacturing, supplier, technology-sharing agreements and alliances, the U.S. should carefully consider how global strategic alliances might change over the next century.

PRINCIPLE #9: Greater supply chain transparency is a prerequisite to understanding industrial base vulnerability. The United States must understand where supplies originate and how they are moved before it can undertake any accurate assessments. Without greater supply chain transparency, risk and vulnerability factors are invisible to planners. Primary and secondary suppliers are largely understood, but third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-tier suppliers are often not as well understood.

PRINCIPLE #10: The military industrial base requires an amalgam of approaches to ensure both access to vital goods and services and reasonable prices. Given the diversity of goods and services used by the U.S. armed forces, neither a pure free-market approach nor a protectionist approach is adequate to sustain the long-term health of the military industrial base. Instead, the U.S. should rely largely on markets to determine who provides which military goods and services, except for an extremely limited number of functions that should be sustained domestically.

[Redleg]

Okay, you've got my attention. Now explain to me how Globalization benefits the American economy, and benefits those millions of Americans in the middle to lower class?

Hell its seen everyday in your pocketbook. Lower prices for consumer goods. If your paying attention to what you buy - you have greater choice of product to select from based upon the price you are willing to pay.

The potential is that gobalization will lead to better products being produced - since in a true gobal marketplace the shoddy goods will no longer be an economical purchase.

Now if we could get the governments out of our back pockets and out of the gobalization process of the market, you would notice it even more.

[doc_bean]

I know there has been a lot of discussion everywhere. What I am asking today is:

1. How has G effected your country?
2. What effects do you think will come in the future?
3. What do you want your politics to do about it?

1. Wages don't rise as much as they used, more unemployment, cheaper goods !

2. Lower wages, or more equal wages throughput the EU at least, this might prompt the need for tax reduction (taxes on wages at least) which will force our bloated government to shrink. However, due to the fact that more than half our voters are retired, they will continue to support the draining of funds from the working people, this will lead to a lot of capable people leaving for the newer EU countries. Western Europe will become the EU version of Florida.

3. End striking rights for government workers, seriously attack the power of the unions, lower taxes and/or completely change the way they calculated (In Belgium filling in a tax form is harder than rocket science). Show some guts.

[yesdachi]

IMO there is quit a bit of truth to many of the posts. Globalization, for the US at least is a good thing but it could also be a horrible thing if not kept in check. It has certainly given us more options but it has also weakened us as a country because we are less reliant on ourselves. The part that is most disturbing to me is the fact it has happened so fast, sure it has been happening for years but in the last few, at least in MI, we have suffered major job losses because of it. And although the fat lazy union rapists who have been destroying the price of US manufacturing products for decades (small rant, sorry) had it coming it is a giant economic/job loss for us, and one that will not be recovered in the same manufacturing capacity ever. Basically leaving many very skilled manufacturers without a hope of doing what they are good at and being forced to switch careers into something they will have to learn. Of course we will recover but it will not happen without some painful bumps. In hindsight we should have regulated outsourcing and exporting overseas and south more carefully.

It is kind of like one day the global doors were opened and the factories in the US’s doors were closed.


Thanks America*


*Translated from the Spanish and Chinese.

[bmolsson]

I know there has been a lot of discussion everywhere. What I am asking today is:

1. How has G effected your country?
2. What effects do you think will come in the future?
3. What do you want your politics to do about it?

1. All positive. More export.

2. Even more positive. Less smallminded people and more and cheaper products and services.

3. Keep their hands off.

[Papewaio]

Regardless of having unions the factories will always relocate to the cheaper workforce if the costs of transport is less then the labour cost margin. Big business does not care, it wants a ROI. And it will always be easier to electronically transfer funds then it will be to physically move labour.

If you don't want goods manufactured overseas start supporting your local economy and buy local.

Most of this goodwill stops the moment people figure out that means they have to spend more of their money and they then go and buy cheaper imports.

[Soulforged]

[QUOTE=Franconicus]

1. How has G effected your country?

Can I say simply bad?

2. What effects do you think will come in the future?

Even worst? If there's no proper method implement to achieve real globalization, and not just this laughable fiction that we live today.

3. What do you want your politics to do about it?

You mean politicians? I want them to leave. They'll do what they want anyway. But if you're talking about idealistic wishes, then, I want them not to accept globalization, close economic frontiers (one of the best ways to change the culture), develop internal economy and then in the long term open it again.

If I can say a very personal opinion here, the thing is clear, real, material, globalization cannot be achived as long as there exists an state, or we separate by nation, or race, or social classes.

[Kanamori]

man, your such ;l a downer.

[Wardo]

1. How has G effected your country?

It is the only thing that prevented us from plummeting into an economical crisis, it has also allowed us to become the biggest meat producer/exporter in the world.

2. What effects do you think will come in the future?

As other sectors start to become affected by it, we're going to sky-rocket into economical expansion.

3. What do you want your politics to do about it?

Don't interfere, stop playing games, and negociate ALCA, it's about time we stop loosing and suffering because some politicians are using the subject for their own political interests.

[Franconicus]

1. How has G effected your country?
Well this is the situation in Germany:
Germany used to have a very good economy. After WW2 they managed to be the number 1 export nation, being the leader in mechanical engineering. Germany used to have a very good social system, that kept the social balance and social peace. So German society was very stable.
However, the oil crisis and the Japanese invasion was a shock and in some areas Germany never recovered. For example the mass unemployment could never be reduced.

Since the 70ies Germany had no good Kanzler (at least that is my feeling).

When G came Germany was not bad prepared. As export champion German companies already operated on a global market. Problems came because of the reunion and the unsolved old problems.

reunion - of Germany and Europe. The German reunion took a lot of money and the German government is brike now. (Although we had the lowest level of national debt in Europe before). The fall of the iron curtain created suddenly millions of low cost workers right in the heart of Europe. A lot of jobs just went east.

unsolved old problems: unemployment, age structure, integration of foreign workers

As a result of G the very homogeneous society broke in several parts:
- the rich ones, who could increase their profits
- the employees who still have their jobs, but have to work longer for less
- the people who lost their jobs or never had one.

There are also gaps between people from east and west, people with German and non German heritage. And there will soon be a gap between old and young.

All this increases the tensions in our society.

German government reacted with a decrease of social security and a shift of taxes fronm the rich to the poor.

It also decreased the expenses for military to a minimum. Well, after the cold war Germany does not need a big army any more.

2. What effects do you think will come in the future?
This will go on. There will be more diversity and more tension in the society. Radical parties will gain. Although Germany has no rebellion culture like the French times will become more uncomfortable.

Workers will have to work longer and get less. This will be a boomerang for industry because soon fewer people can afford goods like a Mercedes.
There are other potential effects coming on a global scale:
resources are getting tighter - and will cost more! Maybe there is a point were it just does not pay to ship goods around the world. Then you will have a local production for the local market again.
The weight of the nations will shift. Leading nations will loose their influence others will gain. This will increase the risk of new wars.
There are already movements against a common life style. Religious fundamentals are just one of it. Maybe they will increase.

3. What do you want your politics to do about it?
What can be done?
First of all they should fix the national budget. And they should stop charging the poor ones. If they go on there will be a lot more crime in Germany than we have today. Maybe one day people even want to carry guns
The government should also try to keep peacein a changing world. This might me more difficult than it may sound.
They should raise the education. In the last ten years the time that children spend at school and at universtiry was reduced to come closer to the international standard. I do not know what that is good for. Education is the most important resource we have - infact the only one!

[kiwitt]

Globalisation.

1) Business. Less cost = more profit.

Business locates to where it can produce the goods the cheapest.

2) Consumers. Cheap products = more choice

It's all about volume of units. Make lesser quality goods, where the cost to repair exceeds the replacement cost.

3) Workers. Lower real wages = more cost

Workers wage have not kept up with inflation, thereby everything costs more.

[Soulforged]

It is the only thing that prevented us from plummeting into an economical crisis, it has also allowed us to become the biggest meat producer/exporter in the world.

WOW this is new for me, I belived that we were the biggest exporters. What kind of meat is that?

Don't interfere, stop playing games, and negociate ALCA, it's about time we stop loosing and suffering because some politicians are using the subject for their own political interests.

How many people in your country are against the ALCA? Is there a great number of people making moves to try to stop it?