Globalization (thus far)

[spurgistan]

For people who want to stop outsourcing: outsourcing doesn't hurt the economy.

You buy a $12 american made teddy bear for your kid.

Let's say you bought a $3 teddy bear made in china. That's $9 you spend at another store, that store profits and hires more people, those people have money to spend, etc, etc. And China also benefits. I know some people are going to say that it takes money out of the american economy, which is true, but it still makes the average person's life better (see scenario above).
To summarize it very briefly.

You do need to compare environmental standards (for one thing, I bet the components for the teddy bear were created in the USA, then sent to China to be assembled. Major waste of carbon there), labor standards, and quality of the bear in making this decision. There's a reason that bears cost $10 to make in the US, it's not just that stuff is cheaper over there. If they make a better product? Buy it. But outsourcing is one of the great things destroying American unions. Unions fought hard for things we take for granted, you shouldn't let cheap imported teddy bears destroy that.

[john9blue]

The introduction of teddy bears to the conversation piques my interest. Carry on.

[thegreekdog]

For people who want to stop outsourcing: outsourcing doesn't hurt the economy.

You buy a $12 american made teddy bear for your kid.

Let's say you bought a $3 teddy bear made in china. That's $9 you spend at another store, that store profits and hires more people, those people have money to spend, etc, etc. And China also benefits. I know some people are going to say that it takes money out of the american economy, which is true, but it still makes the average person's life better (see scenario above).
To summarize it very briefly.

It's sort of a slippery slope argument (that was alluded to). If we keep shipping jobs overseas, we won't have jobs here, and thus won't be able to afford even a $3 teddy bear. I know there are accounting firms that are outsourcing US tax return preparation functions to India. While this is wonderful news for a client (likely a big company), it is poor news for college graduates with accounting degrees.

[Simon Viavant]

For people who want to stop outsourcing: outsourcing doesn't hurt the economy.

You buy a $12 american made teddy bear for your kid.

Let's say you bought a $3 teddy bear made in china. That's $9 you spend at another store, that store profits and hires more people, those people have money to spend, etc, etc. And China also benefits. I know some people are going to say that it takes money out of the american economy, which is true, but it still makes the average person's life better (see scenario above).
To summarize it very briefly.

It's sort of a slippery slope argument (that was alluded to). If we keep shipping jobs overseas, we won't have jobs here, and thus won't be able to afford even a $3 teddy bear. I know there are accounting firms that are outsourcing US tax return preparation functions to India. While this is wonderful news for a client (likely a big company), it is poor news for college graduates with accounting degrees.

Did you read the part about the other store (basically most of my post)?
Your party line agrees with me anyway.

For people who want to stop outsourcing: outsourcing doesn't hurt the economy.

You buy a $12 american made teddy bear for your kid.

Let's say you bought a $3 teddy bear made in china. That's $9 you spend at another store, that store profits and hires more people, those people have money to spend, etc, etc. And China also benefits. I know some people are going to say that it takes money out of the american economy, which is true, but it still makes the average person's life better (see scenario above).
To summarize it very briefly.

You do need to compare environmental standards (for one thing, I bet the components for the teddy bear were created in the USA, then sent to China to be assembled. Major waste of carbon there), labor standards, and quality of the bear in making this decision. There's a reason that bears cost $10 to make in the US, it's not just that stuff is cheaper over there. If they make a better product? Buy it. But outsourcing is one of the great things destroying American unions. Unions fought hard for things we take for granted, you shouldn't let cheap imported teddy bears destroy that.

That's a pretty fair point, but there are plenty of similar things like that, it would be much better to put in a cap and trade tax than try to regulate everything else related to the environment. The quality of the bear I think should be left up to the consumer as long as it's not going to give people lead poisoning or anything. About job losses I still think it benefits the economy as a whole as it gives everyone more spending money than they would normally have.

[Phatscotty]

Ok Ok enough already. 2 pages of theoretical utopianism and not a single mention of Tarrifs, the developing world and its reltionships, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, DEMOCRACY, joint military ventures, currency exchange rates, WTO, World Bank, IMF, BIS, interest rates, global economic growth. It's cool you guys are focused in the super micro, lets step it up into the geo-politcal macro

[Phatscotty]

globalisation has been a fucking disaster, it has just widened the wealth gap between the top 1% and the rest of the human population.

agreed

[got tonkaed]

Ok Ok enough already. 2 pages of theoretical utopianism and not a single mention of Tarrifs, the developing world and its reltionships, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, DEMOCRACY, joint military ventures, currency exchange rates, WTO, World Bank, IMF, BIS, interest rates, global economic growth. It's cool you guys are focused in the super micro, lets step it up into the geo-politcal macro

Obviously there are issues with any or all of these that suggest failures in globalization. If we were grading on an academic scale, clearly very few if any of these issues or groups would recieve a very strong grade. In terms of looking at the movement, I dont think we have to even take a best of all possible worlds approach to know, however, that the system as a whole has not failed. After all, its asking a lot arguably to make utopianish changes in 20 years.

Personally I believe the WTO, World Bank, and IMF were all reasonable and perhaps optimistic ventures when they started out. Clearly there has been a lot of mistakes or poor decision making in the follow through. It does not make sense that the US can blantantly disregard WTO ruilings if it chooses to, and can pile up a massive number (comparatively) of actions against with little or no recourse. Again, without an enforcement mechanism, there really is always going to be a ceiling on what can be accomplished. The devil in those details of course is that the only viable enforcement would probably come from the UN and clearly that is a body that lacks the teeth to do so.

The IMF and World Bank suffered from a bit of a good old boys syndrome in its founding. Though it made sense at the time to essentially put the power in the hands of the leading economic powers, it probably didnt make sense to do it in an undemocratic fashion. The IMF also potentially dropped the ball with its conditionality programs, which from some perspectives can seem like a pretty good idea (dont give someone for nothing). Yet, it reduces quite a bit self governance for the developing nations and somewhat buries countries trying to do good under quite some debt. In a lot of cases, success has been slow (South Korea in 1997) or relatively nonexistent (Mexico). Id recommend Globalization and its Discontents for relatively useful reading matter on the subject. To boil things down quite a bit too much, the greatest issue seemingly with IMF/World Bank was it did not really act in a transparent enough fashion, nor did it engage in enough of a bidirectional dialogue with the developing nations it was supposed to serve.

I think we have to realize some of the lessons we should have learned from the recent "transformational diplomacy" failure in policy making regarding democracy. Countries have differing traditions that do not require the same worldviews. Regrettably, because of the way in which these international systems are set up, the US has caught (and in some cases deservedly so probably) quite a bit of international heat in the way it used its role in managing this global shift. Issues of Terrorism and Democracy have some interrelation, but it does not mean they go hand in hand, which I think is sometimes the American perspective. I think in some ways, the general criticism of American imperalism (soft or hard) is not unfounded, though the reactions to it obvious have in some cases been far worse than we could have hoped for or expected. Democracy is a system that has numerous potential benefits, but it seems to bear out historically that a country has to get to those benefits with a lot of hard work within the country. This is not to say we cannot be there to assist, but there is a difference between good assistance and bad assistance. Too often we seem to choose actions that fall under the latter.

Ill wait for you to post Phatscotty but in essence Id tldr sum this up for you in a few sentence. (regarding economics)

Globalization in its present form is too new to be considered a failure as of yet. There are areas that are not working and criticisms that can clearly be lodged. The issue oversimplistically is we have to find a way to get the developing world to achieve the potential benefits, while seeking out ways to reduce the dramatic inequalities which can arise, in some cases leading to security issues for all varieties of groups. This can be done, but its a lot of hard work and will require a very sober look at the world and how to handle these problems.

[thegreekdog]

Your party line agrees with me anyway.

Yes, it does. I'm not arguing against globalization. I'm simply indicating that Americans may need to rethink their priorities in the future (vis-a-vis work-life balance, pay scales, spending, etc.).

[BigBallinStalin]

ah, Globalization and its Discontents. I'll definitely be checking this out, so thanks for mentioning it, and good job on the informative post. There really aren't enough.

[spurgistan]

Here's my take, refreshingly free of ad-hominem. I couldn't find anybody for mimosas this morning.

Human societies have been globalizing as long as they existed - look at words we take from other languages, trade, the arts... talking of globalization in a historical vacuum can give us the illusion that it's a paradigm we can stop if we want to. Well, we can't, at least not without going into some sort of uber-BNP police regime. To me, this is one of the great failures of modern American politics, the illusion that we could impose massive tariffs or nuke the unions even worse than Reagan (depending on which of the only two political ideologies we're allowed to belong to in this country) in order to bring heavy industry back to the US. While I may love Juan Peron, his regime was an undeniable disaster for Argentina (this is the closest I can think of to what would in effect be heavily government-subsidized private industry) So then what? The real secret I've gleaned from university is that there is no "magic bullet" to make globalization work. In fact, most international organizations that are set up to develop nations end up tying up those very nations with excessive loans. It actually seems to me to me the case that the best thing we can do is empower people to make their own decisions. Kinda like classical liberal thinking, only without the focus on trying to get them to buy our stuff.

[BigBallinStalin]

Does phatscot do this to collect information for something he's working on? All he does is make polls and then insert some bland point and then urges others to get it going. Earlier, he just posted where he'd like the conversation to go...

Just a thought.

[spurgistan]

Does phatscot do this to collect information for something he's working on? All he does is make polls and then insert some bland point and then urges others to get it going. Earlier, he just posted where he'd like the conversation to go...

Just a thought.

This actually makes way too much sense.

/kills thread.

[Phatscotty]

Does phatscot do this to collect information for something he's working on? All he does is make polls and then insert some bland point and then urges others to get it going. Earlier, he just posted where he'd like the conversation to go...

Just a thought.

wink wink

[Phatscotty]

Does phatscot do this to collect information for something he's working on? All he does is make polls and then insert some bland point and then urges others to get it going. Earlier, he just posted where he'd like the conversation to go...

Just a thought.

do you have any thoughts to add to the thread? or is this just the random one you chose to but me out on my strategy to rid the world of dipshit thinking? It will destroy us all, therefore I am a HERO.

[Pedronicus]

Lets go back to the teddy bear and swap the teddy bear for something that requires some intelligence and skill to manufacture ....

China poses a real and ongoing threat to the world economic order, and will continue to grow at the expense of the West, unless the West responds by restructuring of their economies through (real) improvements in education, lowering their cost base, and taking an aggressive approach to intellectual property and fair trade.

One of the key elements in the rise of the Chinese economy has been their very lax attitude to Intellectual Property, which is stolen at a rate that is truly astounding. For example, it is nearly impossible in most Chinese cities to buy genuine computer software for individuals, excepting that which is preloaded on new computers. If we just took the example of Microsoft Windows, we can take a reasonable guess that, at least, 100 million computers are running on the software, and the majority of these are illegal copies. At something like $100 retail per unit for Windows, it is not difficult to grasp the scale of the theft. This is just one example. Multiply this across all of the software, and the numbers start to look truly shocking.

Another problem has been the exchange rate in China. It has been fixed, then moved to a basket with a partial floating rate. In a free trade situation, this is unacceptable. However, the West congratulated China on holding firm on its exchange rate during the Asian financial crisis, thereby hobbling the ability to complain about the problem of the exchange rate later. Had the exchange rate been free, the RMB would have strengthened, making Chinese exports more expensive, and thereby avoided the degree of imbalance that has occurred.

What I am therefore saying is that there was always going to be some pain for the Western economies, but the foolishness/weakness of Western leaders contributed to the scale of the current problems. China always had the potential to grow, but the rise was boosted by two practices which might be described as 'unfair' trade practices. These have accelerated the growth and have contributed mightily to the degree of imbalance that we now see.

[thegreekdog]

I have always found the following interesting:

Many people in the United States find it "wrong" to assert our own power to help ourselves. In other words, if the US invades a country for oil, that is bad. If the US passes tariffs to ensure that the US economy does better, that is bad. Anyway, I just find it interesting is all, especially when some countries do whatever they can to improve the quality of life for their own people.

[got tonkaed]

It is a very difficult issue, the degree to which one should be allowed to pursue their national interests. The initial problem is that so frequently, national interests are not well understood (possibly primarily by the public in advanced democratic societies) or are decided in instability (often the case in more totalitarian states, or in states that are failing). To what end can we attempt to achieve a national plan, when we do not know what the plan is or when we are not sure of what will await us in the short term future? Even if we understand and have rationally put forward a plan that suits us, what of the inevitable interaction that will be required with other groups, especially when it is possible they will have divergent interests themselves?

Obviously a mix of cooperation and competition are always going to underpin international relations. It is part of what has made the China story so amazing in recent years in my opinion. On the one hand, you have an incredible amount of effort from foreign investment to break into China and subsequently massive amounts of assistance give in a cooperative effort. Yet there has always seemed to be a dictating of terms that has heavily favored China. Pedronicus is certainly correct when he suggests there is an almost inconcievable amount of intellectual property theft going on in China. It perhaps is not incredibly surprising as property rights in general are primarily utilized in the "west" so to speak, and having varying amounts of success/use in much of the rest of the world. Yet, it presents a massive competitive advantage for China to get so much assistance and having such free reign at the same time in terms of following the rules.

For the most part though, there is little effort to make them comply, as you rarely hear too much being done to curtail something that some might percieve of as wrong. The exchange rate is another good example, as it has been a nice benefit for china to peg the currency in favorable positions allowing it to continue putting together an advantage that make it difficult for other places. Again very little is done to curtail this, and China is well aware of the favorable terms it can dictate, especially with the US.

Part of the issue is that in many ways, it is not dealing with two different nations, but rather multinational interests giving very nice benefits in exchange for the opportunity to be involved in the massive growth engine that occurs. Often they are middled out in the process, but the allure hasnt stopped people from trying to work with Chinese interests. Its one thing that China can violate human rights so readily with little consequence, its rather another when search engines based in the US, but ultimatly not the US gov itself, give China the technology to carry out things we find objectionable.

In a way China has been the ultimate example of a manifest destiny in recent years. I think in some ways there is a solid and understood belief among different groups that China has the opportunity and the right to rise back to prominence on a global stage. In a similar fashion to the historical crossing of the continent that occured in the US, there are too many factors favoring the group starting from the East, and too few factors assisting those in the rest of the space. Economics need not be a zero sum game, but it is clear there are going to be advantages for China going forward. Whether you think ill of this depends on where you come from i suppose.