The American (World) Economy

[chemistry_geek]

I just read in the June 23 issue of Automotive News (http://www.autonews.com/) that General Motors and Ford have told their Tier 1 suppliers that they expect Chinese pricing worldwide, or that they should strongly consider building manufacturing plants in China. AN said that over 1,000,000 US engineering and tool and die jobs will be lost to China in the next three years. Anyone else here think the US economy might be on the verge of collapse? Who is going to be purchasing these cars if the middle class disappears? By the way, this has already been underway in England for two years.

Stupid short-sighted business people can't see past the length of a dollar bill in front of their faces. If the customer base disappears, how will these companies remain profitable?

[serpicolugnut]

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

People have been worried about this since they started making army men in China in the 60's.

Alot of these jobs will be lost to automation anyway. How will the Chinese economy compete with an economy based upon robotic workers? It will either adapt or fail.

It's all a cycle that will continue on and on. Nothing to be frightened of. The US (and Europe) will adapt and change from it, but I seriously doubt the US economy will collapse as a result of it. Maybe if it happened overnight, but this will take 10-20 years to fully materialize.

[chemistry_geek]

There's more at stake than just economy. National Defense comes to mind, both the technological know-how (engineering) and manufacturing. If there aren't enough engineers to design anything and manufacturing to make products, how can a nation defend itself. The predament the US is itself in isn't going to happen over night, these jobs and situation will erode over time. Kinda reminds me of bunching up the entire Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor in the early 1940's for "protection". I think the same applies here too.

[Darkshadow]

Why would people stop being engineers?

[chemistry_geek]

Those jobs are moving over seas to lower employment and labor costs. If there are no jobs for a certain career in America (or insert country here), would you still go into it?

[Darkshadow]

That's true of almost every profession, though, and people are still going into it.

[doemel]

There's more at stake than just economy. National Defense comes to mind, both the technological know-how (engineering) and manufacturing. If there aren't enough engineers to design anything and manufacturing to make products, how can a nation defend itself. The predament the US is itself in isn't going to happen over night, these jobs and situation will erode over time. Kinda reminds me of bunching up the entire Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor in the early 1940's for "protection". I think the same applies here too.

Well, here's an alternative: Stop messing around all over the planet and you won't need your oversized defense anymore. You'll have enough resources for the best education for every American willing to take it and this will ensure you a bright and continuous future.
Your alternative eventually results in a collapse (see history books on a variety of empires).

Yes, this is very simplistic, but you guys should start to realize that something's going terribly wrong before it's too late. It would be too bad...

[chemistry_geek]

Originally posted by doemel
Well, here's an alternative: Stop messing around all over the planet and you won't need your oversized defense anymore. You'll have enough resources for the best education for every American willing to take it and this will ensure you a bright and continuous future.
Your alternative eventually results in a collapse (see history books on a variety of empires).

Yes, this is very simplistic, but you guys should start to realize that something's going terribly wrong before it's too late. It would be too bad...

Even if we did stop messing around all over the planet, which is what I think the USA should do anyway, terrorists would still attack us just for who we are and what we symbolize. Dictatorships and regimes are threatened by democracies because democracies are open societies composed of educated people participating in government policy. A dictatorship or regime cannot sustain absolute power over a population of educated people who can think for themselves. So the regimes publish propaganda and slander to sway public opinion against democracies and international economic commerce.

If the decision was up to me, the USA would no longer provide monetary funding to A LOT of nations, and certainly would not engage in "police" activities around the world. I take a rather isolationist view on world affairs. There's so much more to do here in the homeland than around the world. George Dubya Bush and his "Nucular" goons need to get their priorities straight and fix America first, which I believe is very low on his prioroty list. He's an oil man first and a President second. And I believe that in the end, this Iraq war is going to come back and haunt him one way or another. There likely are little, if any ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda terrorism. I've been hearing this on National Public Radio the last few days. The Iraq war ended more than two months ago. Where the hell are the WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION? The NUKES? The BIOLOGICAL WAREFARE MACHINERY? Don't get me wrong, Saddem Hussein was an evil man, but to associate him with the terrorist network isn't right if there is no evidence to support these accusations. And until Washington coughs up hard evidence of terrorist links, I'm inclined to believe otherwise.