"N2EY" wrote in message
om...
"Bill Sohl" wrote in message
hlink.net...
"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , "Dee
D.
Flint"
writes:

And if we get lucky it will perhaps cause some of that business to
return
to
the US over time.

I wouldn't count on it, Dee. Unless the American people get a lot more
choosy
about what they buy.

The Bush Administration is so desperate for good numbers that last
week
they
seriously investigated the possibility of redefining the work of
hamburger
assembly. IOW, they asked why jobs at Burger Meister couldn't be
classified as
"manufacturing". Whether it's a Big Mojo Burger or a minivan, it's
assembly,
isn't it?

"No Millionaire Left Behind"

The reality of things economic is that, like it or not, we are in a
global
economy and that isn't going to change.

That's true to a point. But we don't have to simply accept everything
that comes down the pike as inevitable.

The drastic reduction in costs
of shipping (both importing and exporting goods) as well as
similar reductions for communications makes it cheaper to manufacture
and even provide certain service functions off-shore. That isn't
going to change in the short run.

Only if it doesn't affect buyer behavior. If buyers protest with their
dollars, things will change.

There's no sign that any sufficient number of folks in
the USA are going to boycott non-USA made products
or spend N dollars more to get a product "made in the USA'
as opposed to buying a cheaper imported product.

In the long run, those currently
cheap off shore labor markets will self adjust upwards.

Maybe. And if so, might they not find themselves in the same boat?

Like I said, global economy.

In the short
run, US labor has their head in the sand if they think there's something
either party (Dems or Reps) can really do to stem the shift of
manufacturing jobs overseas. The same thing is going on in Europe.

OTOH, unemployed workers can't buy the goods anyway. So what good are
lower prices?

In the long run, employees must be constantly reevaluating their
job skills and looking at the prospect of how vulnerable their job
may be as to their job being farmed out to off shore labor.

That's true up to a point. But how often is it reasonable to expect a
person to retrain? And what happens to "the wealth of nations" in the
meantime?

You retrain whenever it becomes necessary. There's nothing
mystical about it. If your job skill goes wanting, you'd
better find another skill set.

I don't know of any country that grew prosperous on a service economy
alone.

We still manufacture and produce in the USA, it is just
done with more and more automation resulting in less
and less need for skilled labor.

Cheers,
Bill K2UNK