Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Are we overplaying the service-based economy?
There's a great article in this month's American Prospect about Japan. Japan, not China, is the real threat to the US, because they are dominating high-tech, intelligent manufacturing (and their economy is essentially closed to imports). People talk about the end of American manufacturing with a degree of inevitability, because labor is so cheap overseas. And for uneducated, unskilled, simple labor, that's true. But making cell phones and lens and fuel cells and hybrid engines takes very educated workers that are paid very well. Japan is apparently doing a much better job in the high-value manufacturing sector than we are. Every camera on the market is Japanese. And so many components of Boeing's planes are manufactured in Japan that we shouldn't think of it as an American plane. To catch up and create more high wage jobs, we do not need to keep taxes low on wealth. We need to invest in education, particularly higher education. That is one thing Governor Blagojevich understands. His campaign kickoff and victory party were in the high-end steel mill west of Lincoln Park: Finkl and Sons. So let's not try to compete with Chinese manufacturing with ever-lower wages. Let's compete with Japan for ever-higher quality and wages to match.
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4 comments:
I had several college friends in the early 90's who studied Japanese because "we're all going to be working for them soon." I thought I'd heard the last of that crap when the Japanese economy imploded in 1997-98. Japan has always been great at copying technology and reproducing it at lower cost. But Boeing still has the patent, DJW. That's the whole point. Of course we need to invest in higher education and private-sector R&D. But what incentive does the new MIT grad have to invent the next super-widget if all his wealth is going to be confiscated? I love this line: "To catch up and create more high wage jobs, we do not need to keep taxes low on wealth." Really? That's like my favorite perennial NY Times headline: "Crime rate falls even though prison population rises." - CF
Japanese economy stuck in deflation
By David Pilling in Tokyo
Published: April 27 2005 03:00
By David Pilling in Tokyo
Published: April 27 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 27 2005 03:00
Japanese consumer prices fell for a seventh straight year in the 12 months to the end of March 2005, confirming that the economy remains stuck in deflation in spite of three years of stop- start growth.
The decline in the core consumer price index of 0.2 per cent was far less severe than the 0.8 per cent of the previous two years.
Yeah I really want to compete with that economy. Don't the wealthy create jobs for the economy? So, giving them less money would create less jobs forcing them to go elsewhere DJW?
DJW wrote: "We need to invest in education, particularly higher education. That is one thing Governor Blagojevich understands."
Why don't you ask downstate Universities and Community Colleges if the Governor understands investing in higher education?
I'm glad someone called him on it. One thing Blagojevich does NOT understand is the value of a good education. Not only does he slash funding for higher ed, he's also tried to put the kabash on the Education Funding Advisory Board, dismantled the State Board of Education and utterly failed to provide a capital budget to help either K-12 or universities.
And on TOP of all of that, he shows utter contempt for the education system when he brags about getting C's in constitutional law, a D in algebra and a friggin 18 on his ACT! Ugh. It makes me sick.
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