04-29-2011, 03:21 PM
I think you'll find that what we've been experiencing in the last 50 years has been a general leveling of the global 'playing field'. It accelerated significantly with the upsurge of blind 'offshoring', which was pushed by a shortsighted Wall Street demanding quarterly growth in profits.
The net effect has been the loss of millions of manufacturing and food production jobs in the US, and the subsequent expansion of the offshore economies (China, for example) and the subsequent increase in those nation's standards of living.
Empirically, as we have moved jobs from our country to China, China has become more like us, and we've become more like China (Economically speaking).
The 1990's theme of 'a service economy' has been proven, time and again, to be so much bullshit. When times are bad, people do not need services. But they do need manufactured goods, food, energy, shelter, etc..
This is why the leading edge of the 2010/2011 economic recovery has been.. yep, manufacturing. Not the 'service economy'.
The net effect has been the loss of millions of manufacturing and food production jobs in the US, and the subsequent expansion of the offshore economies (China, for example) and the subsequent increase in those nation's standards of living.
Empirically, as we have moved jobs from our country to China, China has become more like us, and we've become more like China (Economically speaking).
The 1990's theme of 'a service economy' has been proven, time and again, to be so much bullshit. When times are bad, people do not need services. But they do need manufactured goods, food, energy, shelter, etc..
This is why the leading edge of the 2010/2011 economic recovery has been.. yep, manufacturing. Not the 'service economy'.