Lunchin'

underpaidgenius:

Friedman never stops talking about globalization like its the weather: there’s nothing we can do about it, it’s just the way the world is, accept it.

Except it’s not. Globalization — and the hollowing out of American manufacturing — is the result of very specific trade and economic policies that governments have agreed to, and which benefit large global corporations that can afford to take advantage of labor arbitrage.

Friedman never seems to talk about the beneficiaries of globalization, just about how we, the people, should accept the loss of American manufacturing, and get on with working as a barrista, serving coffee to Chinese tourists:

Thomas Friedman,  Imagined in America

China is spending tons of money manipulating its currency downward and, in the process, creating domestic inflation and a real estate bubble, which is weakening its competiveness. Meanwhile, it is hair-raising to hear stories in Hong Kong about the number of American companies feeling the need to transfer advanced technology to China under pressure from Beijing officials — and being afraid to complain to Washington about unfair trade practices. Yes, China’s leaders, fearing unemployment, will revalue their currency at their own pace. But if pushing this bill even marginally slows the pace of American firms shifting operations here, and gives others more time to adapt, it will be worth it.

But, Lord in heaven, do not let the House pass this bill. That would trigger a trade war in the middle of our Great Recession. We tried that in 1930. It didn’t end well. Worse, today it would distract us from thinking about the real issue: How do we adjust our labor market to the simultaneous intensification of globalization and the I.T. revolution, the biggest thing happening in the world today? The intensification of globalization means more parts of any product or service can be produced anywhere, and the intensification of the I.T. revolution means more parts of any product or service can be created by machines and software.

I am typing this column on a Dell laptop that says “Made in China” on the bottom. In fact, it was assembled in China — but the design, memory board, screen, casing and dozens of other parts were all made in other countries. And while the machine says “Made in China,” the lion’s share of its value and profit goes to the firm that conceived the idea and orchestrated that supply chain — Dell Inc. in Texas.

But the fact that Dell is ‘based’ in Texas does not mean that people in Texas have jobs. Those jobs are in China, or Brazil, or India. And the profits are distributed to shareholders, anywhere. What about the jobs?

We are never going to get those labor-intensive assembly jobs back from China — the wage differentials are far too great, no matter how much China revalues its currency.

Who says? We are actively supporting ‘free’ trade, where the costs of transporting goods around the world and the hidden costs of global supply chains — like the unemployment in the US and global warming — are not accounted for. Let’s actually account for them, and skew the playing field the other way. How about trade policies biased toward retaining jobs, and disincenting companies to relocate them?

Krugman and others have pointed out that when you move manufacturing overseas, pretty soon research and development migrates there too. So even the white collar work in manufacturing walks offshore, in time.

And aren’t we supposed to be concerned about the security implications of outsourcing our manufacturing capabilities? What is China doesn’t want to make our cell phones or pacemakers anymore?

And if we aren’t going to have those manufacturing jobs, what are we supposed to do, anyway?

We need to focus on multiplying more people at the high-value ideation and orchestration end of the supply chain, and in the manufacturing processes where one person can be highly productive, and well paid, by operating multiple machines. We need to focus on “Imagined in America” and “Orchestrated From America” and “Made in America by a smart worker using a phalanx of smarter robots.” In total value terms, America still manufactures almost as much as China. We just do it with far fewer people, which is why we need more start-ups.

Except that this requires a far, far smaller cadre of workers. What are the rest of the people supposed to spend their lives doing, Mr Friedman?

But we also need to stop thinking that a middle class can be sustained only by factory jobs. Thirty years ago, Hong Kong was a manufacturing center. Now its economy is 97 percent services. It has adjusted so well that this year the Hong Kong government is giving a bonus of $775 to each of its residents. One reason is that Hong Kong has transformed itself into a huge tourist center that last year received 36 million visitors — 23 million from China. Their hotel stays, dining and jewelry purchases are driving prosperity here. The U.S. Commerce Department says 801,000 Mainland Chinese visited the U.S. last year, adding $5 billion to the U.S. economy. More Chinese want to come, but, for security reasons, visas are hard to obtain. If we let in as many Chinese tourists as Hong Kong, it would inject more than $115 billion into what is a highly unionized U.S. hotel, restaurant, gaming and tourism industry.

Great. More Americans can become bellmen and taxi drivers, servicing the Chinese tourists who want a taste of America The Beautiful. You want fries with that shake?

This is one of the future planks of the movement that will grow from Occupy Wall Street. We must deconstruct globalism, and relocalize work, food, investment, and infrastructure. We will need to build a world where unsustainable labor arbitrage will be banned, because we have learned that it is destabilizing and serves only to concentrate money and power in the hands of the arbitrageurs, not those that win or lose the jobs involved. It’s just a global shell game, moving the pea back and forth, and taking money from workers on all sides.

shameful, how can you praise freedom of speech, and then be so hyporcrital by attacking Assange and the other members involved with WIkileaks? America is interested in protection of her dirty back door antics and nothing else. PR might sweep this under the rug in the eyes of the naive, but not in the independent minds of the antagonistic and the bold.

dank.