|
|
Posted by Marty on Saturday, May 02, 2009 at 00:19:40 :
In Reply to: PICK 3 any 3 posted by copey on Friday, May 01, 2009 at 11:25:34 :
I'm afraid this is just the tip of the iceburg Cope...& you should know that better than anyone, being Canadian. Shipbuilding...Logging....manufacturing...those days are gone.
North America is not competetive as a labor force. Free trade will even the playing field...one day, but not in your or my lifetime.
What will it take, you ask? It'll take hundreds of years for China, Mexico & India to form unions, improve living conditions & become greedy like North Americans have.
At some point in time, wages will be similar worldwide...at that point, the US & Canada may be able to compete.
People have this goofy idea that we can build stuff better than China, Japan, Mexico...not true. The stuff we Import is junk because North Americans prefer cost over quality. We tell China we want stuff cheap & so China makes cheap the priority when working for us.
In the marine industry, the first barges & ships imported were just crap. So we sent engineers over to oversee production & the barges ariving now are every bit as good as ours...only 40% of the cost.
They don't sandblast ships...they grind & sand them by hand because labor is cheap compared to equipment & material.
The short term future of North America you ask?
Movie Industry, Tourism......that's all I can think of! :)
I bet Boing moves to China within 5 years.
Things are going to get real ugly...this is just the begining of the results of free trade.
The government thought this would be great because big business could really cash in if they could manufacture in China...the part they forgot is that nobody will have money to buy their products!
That's my rant for the year! :)
Follow Ups: