Quote:
Originally Posted by ASU2003
I think it is a shift in society. [...]
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You make valid points in terms of how people manage their finances and especially when faced with the realities of less-than-favourable employment stats. Here we have the Chinese with their double-digit savings rate, while in North America we have seen negative rates.
But there is the bigger picture, which I feel most tend to overlook. This isn't just about a shift in society at the household level; it's also a shift in the economic makeup on the national level, and society's refusal to shift along with it. Economies change, for the better and for the worse.
I find it rather curious that so many Americans want to reorganize and revitalize the manufacturing sector so badly when it was this very sector that was the
most vulnerable in a globalized environment, where competition happens primarily on the level of labour cost. Can American labour compete with cheap Asian labour? Much of manufacturing is disposable, and much of this is due to cheap costs and low prices. If a "durable" good lasts only 2 or 3 years, so what? Buy another one. They're cheap enough. In a world of sub-$100 DVD players and "drive new every two" automobile ownership mentalities, what would you expect?
I don't see American manufacturing (or Ontario's even) returning to any "former glory." I think what's happened is inevitable. You have a nation with a high standard of living, and therefore a high cost of living, competing with nations with completely different standards. And a demand for cheaper goods (though not good or bad in and of itself) only drives the problem home. In a way, we did it to ourselves.
If we were so concerned about North America maintaining its competitiveness with regard to making shit, we should have kept in mind the costs and consequences of ensuring that we could continue making shit. You know, you have to perhaps buy the shit we make. If you don't want to pay a premium for locally made shit, whether it's just higher cost, or, perhaps, there is some sense that it's better quality, what do you do? You buy imported goods. This is no surprise, it's been happening for decades, only now such habits have come to a point: we no longer buy enough of our own shit. That, and exporting is difficult when so many make less money than you do.
So what do we do? We compete otherwise. We reorganize and revitalize our economy, not our manufacturing sector alone. How can we compete? With research & technology, various services, cultural products, and perhaps a type of manufacturing that makes sense to our competitive advantages (e.g. it's not easy competing in the electronics industry, so perhaps focus more on automobiles and the like).
Rather than pine for the former days of a manufacturing golden age, we have to wake up and realize that an economy is only as strong as its self-awareness allows it to be. You can't fit a square peg into a round hole. Do what makes sense. Do what you do well. Retrain, retool, regroup: become competitive where it makes sense.