Discuss The Economist

"added investment and growth in the exporting country" ...for whom?

ah ok:

"So far as the effects on individuals are concerned, this process does have consequences that need to be examined and, in some cases, softened. Adequate private and public investment in skills and lifelong education is paramount in this new world, and is where attention should be focusing."

being responsible european writers the economist will bring up negatives but then glide over them. "this will be bad for some people and someone should so some worrying about that but really it's nothing to worry about. the children are the future."

these are pig-boring lefty things to say i know; on the face of it i have absolutely no problem with middle-class work being done outside of the euro-american world, rah rah

Yeah, bogus, of course.

"If a car can be made more cheaply in Mexico, it should be. If a telephone enquiry can be processed more cheaply in India, it should be."

Of course, let's not ask at what cost to people.

Curiously, despite its sweeping Alfred E. Neuman tone, it hedges a bit. (No one could have possibly raised an objection against its resounding affirmations, which recoil upon the flat, but they appear here anyway - ) The actual and prospective service-sector migration is small they say.

But what if it becomes large? Eh whatever - trade is a positive sum game! Buck up, America! We can always go back to skinning pelts or something.

Is this better then no labor? (not meant sarcastically)

Would protectionist consumer-electronics policies in the 70's and 80's have somehow been good for Korea or Taiwan?

Not at all. As more people are hired, competition increases and so do wages. But most importantly, jobs create the infrastructure necessary for an economy to advance anywhere.

American people have fought to win laws that try and deny exploitation on a scale most countries are just now attempting. Trade law should recognize that labor rules need to follow capital wherever it goes.

Becuase even if businesses pull out, a transfer of technology still occurs. A country that has relied on dying, overworked land for too long is left with a much better opportuinity to do their own business.

That's not really true. There's more to the thread than what you've written.

I guess all I can say is that if someone willingly decides to take a job in their foreign home country that pays well under the AMERICAN minimum wage (keep in mind our cost of living is a lot higher than most of these places ATM), who the hell are a bunch of white boys and college students to say it is right or wrong?

Also, keep in mind how much prices on everything in the world ever would skyrocket if every company was forced to pay all of its workers on the same basis as say a bunch of bullshit layabout Con Ed union workers in NYC: how in god's name do you expect poor people anywhere to afford to buy anything at all? What happens to them?

I really am far more concerned as to what the pricing implications for commodies would do to people who currently struggle to afford these items than I am about whether or not the pay wages for the workers making the items are fair by western standards, for the simple reason that I think bnw is right: this might not be ideal but a seemingly exploitative pay situation is better than no pay situation at all.

I mean dude, it's a fair point that you aren't really explaining what you think would be a better situation. Like all things, it is an evolving system and there are numerous, numerous flaws involved in it.

I'm fully aware also that I'm not sure if you were responding to me or to Colin.

So you've just been blowing steam? Just because you say you know something doesn't mean you demonstrate it.

Can you name a progressive labor law in any country that's not the result of demands, Colin?

Let's start with services. There's real benefits here for tird world economies. First of all, graduates, who might otherwise have looked to join the brain drain stay at home and earn a good middle class wage. We're talking real money coming into the country and sloshing around the economy, this is going to stimulate manufacturing, importing, etc. its good for everyone, except for the people who have had their jobs outsourced in the first world countries, but it depends on the first world country and as yet no where has gone particularly far down this route so we don't really know. In Britain we have close to full employment, how much of this is due to the explosion in jobs that area vulnerable to outsourcing in this way we shall see. Whether there is an alternative employment out there for these, people, well let’s hope so.

One thing is being evidenced though already India is running out of willing graduates to be call centre operatives, wages are rising and at some point either the Indian call centres are going to have to pick up lower skilled labour or prices will rise so much Idea becomes a less competitive option than, say, Bradford Also skills shortages allow workers to push for better conditions.

Then we have the much thornier issue of manufacturing sent overseas.

All too often the factory's are set up in 'free trade zones' bully out of governments, raw materials come in, no tax is paid they are made into goods, by contractors employing people for tiny wages, and sent out, no duties are paid on the goods brought in or sent out with no duties paid. taxes may or may not be collected on profits depending on what deals have been beaten or bribed out of the local governments. These factories tend to be in areas of high unemployement, high numbers of people in subsistence agriculture, etc. with very few alternatives to subsistence labour for a graet deal of people.

The ammount of money that this type of industry brings into local economies is tiny, it benefits noone aprt from nike, walmart etc and of course the consumerts who buy the artificially cheap products.

The Economist's line is broadly that, a happy wealthy unoppresseed people is more likely to buy stuff, and be stable and a stable world is good for business. When it speaks on third world employement practices it comes out against bad practices, porr wages and conbditions etc. Often, it has to be said, it does ignore them.

(though i know my profession TOO WELL to know that they WILL fuck over the lowly associates if they get any excuse to do so. i just hope it's the BigLaw fuckers that take it in the ass first.)

xpost: Eisbar jesus man, THE YAMS WON'T HURT YOU.

the living wage ideal is an inflationary match in the gasoline and you fucking know it, it's not actually going to help anyone a damn bit

Yeah Tom well you have got to be stoked for the $3 cigarette tax or whatever. They should tax poisonous snakes, too. Tax all things that kill.

Ed, I've never touched a drop of the stuff

and TOMBOT should stop in wilmington, delaware to buy smokes if he's pissed off about DC's and NY's cigarette tax.

And the people who are benefitting from actually having a fucking job have every right to demand progressive labor laws but YOU don't have the right to say they shouldn't have an opportunity to ever get their feet off the ground because the way these companies are run doesn't 100% match your idealized standard.

my point is that protectionism will do NOTHING to eventually even out the gross wage imbalances and trying to pay workers in other countries the same as we get paid over here (eg WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH) is not going to solve anybody's problem either besides devalue the living shit out of currency

First World wages need to become competitive and the cost of living here has to come down to match. Yes, I'm asking for deflation. Big surprise, right?

This whole talk of the cost of living in various "third world" (great term, man) nations being low is ABSOLUTELY FREAKING NOT THE CASE. Because of the fact that the manufacturing/agricultural/industrial infrastructure of many of these nations has been been destroyed in exchange for having to import all sorts of stuff from the west (the impact of the combination of "free" trade and high interest rates in-country), it's bloody expensive to live in these places.

Can't you folks sit down and watch "Life and Debt" already?

Sorry--my angry side is coming out tonight.

Is anyone going to answer my question or do actual, real poor people that you can actually go and see on the streets of the western cities you live in every single day matter less than theoretical issues that you've seen in documentaries and probably never experienced or seen first hand?

You are also confusing the cost of living with the cost orf other things, government, national debt etc. Cost of living is indeed low, admitedly adjusted for wealth and average incomes it is not as low as you'd think but that's what we're getting at, it it low in absiolute terms compared to the devloped world and a decent wage in a third world country is much less than that in a developed country..

I'd also like to pick up on something colin said.

'And the people who are benefitting from actually having a fucking job have every right to demand progressive labor laws but YOU don't have the right to say they shouldn't have an opportunity to ever get their feet off the ground because the way these companies are run doesn't 100% match your idealized standard.'

Just because it to 200 years to get some half way decent labour laws in the devloped world doesn, mean that countries devloping now can't short circuit that process. In the same way that countries devloping now aren't restricted to the canal and the steam engine, why should these countries allow practicves that were outlawed hundreds of years ago. Practices that we no longer deem acceptable. The smae goes for environmental practices.

I do also have to mention that a lot of imported foods/products in developing nations end up being less expensive than domestically produced items due to the fact that trade is simply not free. In the US, for instance, the dairy industry is subsidized up the ying yang. How can the dairy industry in other countries compete with that?

When trucks are coming to drop off foreign produce in villages where a short five or ten years before they were growing the very same produce, that's just fucked.

But if we impose the same labor laws on developing countries, which, in turn, impose the same costs on the businesses moving there, why would they ever move?

I agree 100% that we need to get rid of gigantic subsidies.

Pearson has sold its 50% share to the other owners.

https://www.pearson.com/news/announcements/2015/august/pearson-agrees-to-sell-50--stake-in-the-economist-group.html

Looks like the majority of their shares went to the Agnelli family.

Now fully old-money / oligarch owned.