Quote:
Originally Posted by TheNoodleMan
nah, we're just cliquish so we still post here.
Sadly, Indiana became unprofitable so we exported the post of whipping boy to Peru. <-skipperbob-ish emoticon to make Indy feel like nothing has changed.
Whip me baby, harder you biatch, harder!
Blackize is right about national borders being the barrier to equalisation, there is still an enormous barrier to the free movement of labour, but the barriers to the locations of many businesses have collapsed. And when the workers of China and Peru can use the same technology as US workers, they can be almost as productive, so given their lower cost base, they can produce products of equal quality at a much lower price. For many businesses, the choice is simple - compete with low wage/low cost countries or get out of the business. I own a chinese motorbike - it cost me $630 and is excellent, albeit technologically equivalent to a bike from the 1980s, which means I can repair it myself! At the moment chinese cars and motorbikes are like the Japanese products of the 1960s. We used to use the term Jap Crap. But already China has invested in intellectual property and technology to improve their quality so that soon they will produce vehicles designed by Europeans and Americans, built to the standards of the Japanese, and assembled at chinese labour costs. GM/Chrysler et al have no hope of competing, they have lost their competitive advantage, and will need a new technological leap to regain it. Autoworkers in the US are going to face a brutal future.