Posted by Mike (Montreal, Quebec) on Thursday, January 11, 2007 at 15:31:21 :
In Reply to: Re: When was the last time OUR gov't listened to US ??? posted by steve from maine on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 19:59:05 :
In 1995, the Canadian government decided to concentrate on the knowledge-based economy of the future: let manufacturing go to emerging countries (some call them third countries) and keep hi-paying jobs like R&D to ourselves. Now more than 10 years later, we find that not only R&D but also lots of services are also leaving for abroad. Bombardier is having it's documentation and translation done in India. Software companies get programmers by the dozen for cheap there also. Air Canada has its customer service centres off-shore. Accounting is also being sent to emerging countries since it's so cheap.
Now that everybody wants to be an engineer or a lawyer, nobody can change a light bulb or fix a faucet anymore! We are currently in a deficit on several trades (ex: electricity, automotive mechanic, aeronautical manufacturing and welding) and since trade schools are not fashionable in the eyes of many parents anymore, there is a high drop-out rate in schools with kids landing on the market without any specialised training. If uncorrected, with the baby-boomers that will all be retired by 2016, the situation is only going to worsen.
Now why is all this? It's not just companies that are greedy. Look how we behave. We want things to cost the cheapest, we want the best returns on our investments and what are most of our investments into: stocks (or funds made out of stocks). What are the companies doing; they are just responding to what the investors want! To increase returns they move production offshore. So one morning one finds himself unemployed as a result of his company’s stock performance needed to be increased to please the investors. The irony is that it may be to please his own performance requirements that the one looses his job or drives his neighbour to unemployment insurance!
After China and India have gone through the cycle (like Japan did between the 70s and the 90s), they will be richer, production costs are going to be higher and the jobs will move to other emerging countries in Asia or Africa. The cycle repeats.
No question, the global economy is changing the rules. What worries me the most is that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, all over the world! You then need to have programs to support the poor even in rich counties like the US, Canada or Western Europe. And here we are now having this exact discussion...
The global economy model may be good for very specialized markets but when farmers loose their livelihood because eggs or grains are imported from the other side of the world, then this is not right. Countries can't feed themselves anymore!
We now need to transport mass amounts of goods and food around the world for no real reason. Since we change our local productions to mass productions to compete in the global economy, bio-diversity decreases and huge amounts of pesticides or fertilizers are needed to compensate! Then we all stand in awe at the results of the environmental impact of all of this. We then have to start talking about global warming...
I get off my soap box (I needed one as I'm not that tall!)
Mike
P.S. I still love my Dodge...I mean my Fargo!
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