# The American (World) Economy



## chemistry_geek (Jul 1, 2003)

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?


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## serpicolugnut (Jul 1, 2003)

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.


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## chemistry_geek (Jul 1, 2003)

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.


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## Darkshadow (Jul 1, 2003)

Why would people stop being engineers?


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## chemistry_geek (Jul 1, 2003)

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?


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## Darkshadow (Jul 1, 2003)

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


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## doemel (Jul 2, 2003)

_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...


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## chemistry_geek (Jul 2, 2003)

> _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.


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## habilis (Jul 2, 2003)

It all balances out somewhat. If jobs are lost to robots that's OK because people get hired to maintain, repair, build, enginneer, design, and sell the robots. The same applies to most other fields.


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## Perseus (Jul 2, 2003)

As far as military spending goes, the US willingly spends $300 billion on it. What do other nations spend? I think France is like $40 billion; Britain, Germany, and Japan are near that. I am honestly not to familiar with the figures but I believe these are close. I think if the US spends $300 billion on defense, I don't think we have to worry about whether this country can defend itself.

-Perseus


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## toast (Jul 2, 2003)

Comparison is of no use here, for the US territory and use of defense budget has nothing to do with European territories and defense budgets.

As there are no comparatibility criterii between EU and US on this topic, try comparing US defense budgets from one President to another to get a pertinent idea of what defense means nowadays.

PS: France defense is 31.7billion, pensions excluded. It's 11.5% of state budget, 2% of GNP.


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## Cat (Jul 3, 2003)

> who we are and what we symbolize



Please elaborate ...

As I see it, the 9/11 attacks hit a symbol of american economical power, perceived to be imperialistic, and a symbol of american military power, perceived to be neo-colonialist.

They did not attack symbols of democracy or freedom (e.g. Statue of Liberty), nor did they attack "the West" at large. The attacks were precisely targeted at the US and at certain precise elements of the US. 

So I am very curious about what you think "who you are and what you symbolize".


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## Perseus (Jul 3, 2003)

Yeah you are right toast I should have thought of that. The US has 280 million people, Britain etc has 60 million, so proportinately the figures dont matter. 

-Perseus


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## Ugg (Jul 3, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Perseus _
> *As far as military spending goes, the US willingly spends $300 billion on it. What do other nations spend? I think France is like $40 billion; Britain, Germany, and Japan are near that. I am honestly not to familiar with the figures but I believe these are close. I think if the US spends $300 billion on defense, I don't think we have to worry about whether this country can defend itself.
> 
> -Perseus *



Oh, so the amount of money spent on the military should have, by your reasoning, prevented 9-11, The Murrow building bombing, the first twin tower bombing, the USS Cole attack, the embassy bombing in Kenya, hmmm, what else is there?  

Outspending the world on military muscle does not mean that the US has what it takes to defend itself.


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## mr. k (Jul 3, 2003)

"Outspending the world on military muscle does not mean that the US has what it takes to defend itself." --Ugg

Not with the current budget, although if the military spent more on weapons and more on reconnisance and information there would be a much greater chance of preventing attacks, and then there would be much less reason to send troops oversea's to fight back, to retaliate.  There *were* people working for the government who did begin to see the threat of 9/11, and who alerted their colleagues, but the FBI and CIA were unable to react quickly enough, and didn't take the threats of attack seriously enough.  Why not take the strategy of premptive intelligence over premtive war?


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## Ugg (Jul 3, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Perseus _
> *Yeah you are right toast I should have thought of that. The US has 280 million people, Britain etc has 60 million, so proportinately the figures dont matter.
> 
> -Perseus *




The US spends twice as much as France does on healthcare.  That should mean, according to your reasoning, that the US healthcare system is twice as good as the French one.  Recent analysis seems to indicate that France is near the top of industrialized nations when it comes to health care and the US is near the bottom.  What's up with that?


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## toast (Jul 4, 2003)

Confronting rough figures such as budgets or populations won't be enough to make a correct comparative analysis. In fact, a comparison between both systems is far more complex and would take more time to do than to rewrite the totality of this forum's text on toilet paper. And this is only half a joke.


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## habilis (Jul 5, 2003)

I was reading Utne Reader magazine and came across this in an article about our economy. Thought it was funny, and so typical.


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## chemistry_geek (Jul 22, 2003)

More Bad News:

http://money.cnn.com/2003/07/22/news/economy/jobless_offshore/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2003/07/22/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2003/07/03/news/economy/jobs_report/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2003/07/02/news/economy/jobs_walkup/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2003/06/19/news/economy/jobless_rate/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/2003/06/12/pf/saving/duppies/index.htm


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## Perseus (Jul 23, 2003)

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## Perseus (Jul 23, 2003)

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## Arden (Jul 27, 2003)

Dude, stop double posting.

Policies like health care and education are so bad in this country because they are undergoing massive budget cuts and they are often controlled by big businesses.  HMO's control much of health care in this country, and they are only interested in making a quick buck, not providing the best service for the patient.

Both big businesses and the government need to take a good, long look at what the current state of their country is, and what their decisions will do to it, rather than make policies based on money or political power.  I hate reading about politicians enabling some change because it will (hopefully) garner them votes at the next election.  Big businesses need to see what the state of the economy is and analyze what moving their production overseas will do to the current job market, stock market, and economy.  Capital greed benefits only a few people; foresight benefits everyone.


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