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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Monday, December 12, 2011 at 20:13:25 :
In Reply to: Re: More to it than just labor... posted by Marty [50.68.51.62] on Monday, December 12, 2011 at 19:10:15 :
I just read that Chinese wages are going up so much that Mexico is back to being competitive with China in terms of manufacturing. I know that's not much consolation to American workers, but it's getting closer. Plus anything to improve the economy in Mexico is going to help the US.
China has HUGE internal problems with civil unrest, corruption, environmental disasters, and cruel working conditions. The government does everything it can to crush protests and complaints or at least make sure no Western reporters see them, but from what does leak out, they are building up to some big problems.
I think our fear of China is overblown. It's exactly the same thing I heard about Japan in the '80s, and look where they are now. For that matter, it's a lot like what I heard even longer ago about good union jobs in the US midwest moving to non-union factories in the southeast. At some point, the smart Chinese businessmen will move their factories to the next cheap-labor frontier and the Chinese workers will start complaining about "their" jobs being exported to Bangladesh or Somalia.
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