Countries of the world becoming more equal to each other
I saw an interesting short video, Is America the greatest country ?, billed as The Most Honest Three Minutes In Televion History :)), on this Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/terry.reiskennedy/posts/10207564867618598.
I have given below a slightly edited version of the comments I made (my comments only) on this FB page.
Post World War II, Europe including Britain (with its fading empire then) was in a bad shape. USA became the top country for almost half a century after WWII. But over time, not only did Europe catch up but so did some Asian countries like Japan & China. Now the emerging economies from all over the world: Eastern Europe, South America, Africa, Asia ..., are competing hard with the materially developed countries. .... I think the world has not only become a very interconnected globe but countries are tending to become more equal. Sure there are wide gaps materially even today among various countries in the world, but I am saying that they these gaps are lessening. ...... No country in the world today can seriously consider itself to be "exceptional", IMHO.
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I did not mean equal in the sense of "outsourcing" Western jobs to Asia or elsewhere. The govt. of the countries that heavily outsource jobs (service sector import) and/or heavily import finished goods & products (goods import) must solve the problems of its people by more local manufacturing and more local service sector jobs. .... What I meant by more equal is more in terms of manufacturing capability, service sector capability, higher education institutions etc. Even in the Indian domestic market, which is big enough for European and USA companies to compete for a piece of the action along with Indian companies, the quality of goods & services produced in India has seen a tremendous improvement in the past few decades. One can then imagine how great the improvement would be in countries like Japan, China and South Korea. .... Even if all service sector import (jobs outsourcing) to Asian countries by USA and Western Europe countries were to be completely made ZERO, today the Asian countries (China, Japan, South Korea, India) can do quite well based on their own domestic economy and trading with countries other than Western Europe or the USA. That is what I meant by countries across the globe becoming more equal than what it was immediately after WWII.
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[Name-snipped]: Thanks for your views. A long response where I try to address your various points.
1) I would like to clarify that I meant countries becoming more equal with respect to each other, and NOT equality within the people of a country. The latter is a different thing altogether with India today having high level of wealth and income inequality amongst its people.
2) Regarding families getting into financial trouble (going broke, committing suicide) in the West, due to jobs moving to Asia: First, I am very sorry about that. At a human level, such things are very avoidable. However, like you said it is "Not your fault but it is the corrupt corps. who wanted it that way". I think that the drastic reduction of manufacturing and outsourcing of jobs from the Western world to Asia, at the expense of the working class people of the Western world but to the benefit of a few in the Western world, is a major failure of the political and business classes of the Western countries.
Of course, no country's people when offered manufacturing or service sector jobs (as it is cheaper in that country) by any other country, will refuse it. Why should they? It would be foolish of them to refuse it. It is a very competitive world even in trade between countries.
However, I would like to say that even if the Western world had not sent a large amount of its manufacturing and service sector jobs to Asia, Asian countries like Japan, China, India and South Korea would surely have progressed materially though at a lower pace. The oil rich gulf countries have been a source for business for many decades for India. Africa has encouraged a lot of Asian business as they find Asian company products and services to be more affordable than Western companies.
So, even without any outsourcing of manufacturing & service sector jobs from the Western world to Asia, Asian countries (as a whole, and not equality among its people) would have become more equal to Western countries than earlier. I mean, today China and Japan are the two largest holders of USA debt (US govt. securities) both of which are around 1.2 trillion dollars, http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/18/news/economy/china-us-debt/. Without outsourcing of manufacturing & service sector jobs to China and Japan, perhaps China and Japan may not have owned any significant USA debt. But China and Japan would still have been flourishing economies doing trade with the rest of the world (excluding Western world).
Essentially, in a competitive world, it becomes a question of price balanced by suitable quality for products & services offered. I think Asian countries have progressed enormously in the past decades in providing products & services at competitive prices with suitable quality.
3) The Walmart horror stories are well known (and there are some sad stories from Amazon dispatch warehouses too). India has had large resistance movements to Walmart and other supermarket chain stores in the recent past. But that is not to say that Walmart or similar companies will not eventually win in India. Anyway, India has far bigger wealth and income inequality issues as compared to USA, I think. Health care for the poor in India is desperately bad when compared to the West. I mean, it is no comparison, really.
4) About solution to the tough times for working classes in the West (not that it is all that great for all in India and, I think, even China, but for the West it is a decline in standards for the working classes and so that hurts): I agree with produce locally as a general approach. But that in a country like USA (don't know much about Europe in this regard) has become a big challenge as a lot of its manufacturing has been closed down for years (perhaps decades)! A terrible tragedy, in my considered opinion. Now it will take huge money to re-create those manufacturing plants, and then achieve sizeable success with its products for the products not to be too expensive. [While you may vehemently disagree with me, one thing I like about Mr. Trump is how aggressive he is in his talk about protecting American jobs. Of course, matching the talk with the walk is another matter.]
Anyway, I think manufacturing coming back to USA bigtime is absolutely vital for USA working classes to live better than now. Question is who can show the political and other will & leadership to do that. Meanwhile, very unfortunately, USA is quite dependent on a lot of manufactured goods from other countries (e.g. China) as it does not manufacture them anymore!!! What a terrible level of dependence! IMHO, somehow USA MUST break out of this dependence on foreign countries (whether Asian or South American - e.g. Mexico, or elsewhere) for most of its everyday use products.
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... But yes, it is not the corps. alone. The corps. need the big money from the banks. And as I mentioned above it also involves the political class as they should have seen what is happening, spoken to the public at large, and then done something about it. I am not sure about this but I think till the TERRIFYING financial crisis of 2007-08 the political class or their advisors did not really understand how bad things had become, as the real situation seemed to be obscured by a haze of financial statistics which few could understand. I mean, how many people knew about sub-prime mortgage, credit default swaps, financial derivatives and all that. It was mumbo-jumbo for non-financial guys and I think the political class just trusted the top financial guys. But in the post-mortem of the 2007-08 financial crisis, it turns out that the top financial guys also did not really understand how bad things were!!! Everybody was taken for one terrible (and certainly not merry) ride!
-------
... I mean, doing away with the big banks, may be a humongous task. I wonder whether you have read 'Stress Test' by Timothy Geithner, former US treasury secretary and former NY Fed chairman (or something like that). You may dislike Geithner deeply and abhor his policies, but his book does show how vital the big banks were to USA then, and perhaps, are to USA today. Perhaps it is the same with UK as London is a big financial centre. .... I think bringing manufacturing back bigtime should be the first goal and ensure that the big banks help in that goal. ... But then I think some of you may feel that the big banks are THE REAL PROBLEM and that if the big banks go away, it will become easier to solve all the other problems. Maybe you folks are right. I don't know. I can't imagine an India without its top banking and financial institutions as they are the financial pillars of the country. But then maybe I am not being bold enough to view an alternative. ... All the best with your candidate Mr. Sanders. I prefer to stay neutral in this as an interested observer. Thanks.
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Ah! This is more of a break-up of big banks rather than doing away with them. I see it more like the breaking up of a monopolistic company like how AT&T broke up Bell system into baby Bells, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System. Essentially there will be more competition between the banks. But they will still be pretty big, even if they will not be TOO BIG TO FAIL. And I think that may work out well. Instead of four or five mega banks controlling USA financial system, it may become twenty banks being the top banks of USA, and competing with each other. .... Undoing the part repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 by President Clinton which led to less regulation for big banks, seems to be a more complicated issue. I think everybody would support prevention of the kind of wild speculation that big banks got into which led to 2007-08 financial crisis. But how exactly that has to be done, seems to be quite complex.
I have given below a slightly edited version of the comments I made (my comments only) on this FB page.
Post World War II, Europe including Britain (with its fading empire then) was in a bad shape. USA became the top country for almost half a century after WWII. But over time, not only did Europe catch up but so did some Asian countries like Japan & China. Now the emerging economies from all over the world: Eastern Europe, South America, Africa, Asia ..., are competing hard with the materially developed countries. .... I think the world has not only become a very interconnected globe but countries are tending to become more equal. Sure there are wide gaps materially even today among various countries in the world, but I am saying that they these gaps are lessening. ...... No country in the world today can seriously consider itself to be "exceptional", IMHO.
------
I did not mean equal in the sense of "outsourcing" Western jobs to Asia or elsewhere. The govt. of the countries that heavily outsource jobs (service sector import) and/or heavily import finished goods & products (goods import) must solve the problems of its people by more local manufacturing and more local service sector jobs. .... What I meant by more equal is more in terms of manufacturing capability, service sector capability, higher education institutions etc. Even in the Indian domestic market, which is big enough for European and USA companies to compete for a piece of the action along with Indian companies, the quality of goods & services produced in India has seen a tremendous improvement in the past few decades. One can then imagine how great the improvement would be in countries like Japan, China and South Korea. .... Even if all service sector import (jobs outsourcing) to Asian countries by USA and Western Europe countries were to be completely made ZERO, today the Asian countries (China, Japan, South Korea, India) can do quite well based on their own domestic economy and trading with countries other than Western Europe or the USA. That is what I meant by countries across the globe becoming more equal than what it was immediately after WWII.
------
[Name-snipped]: Thanks for your views. A long response where I try to address your various points.
1) I would like to clarify that I meant countries becoming more equal with respect to each other, and NOT equality within the people of a country. The latter is a different thing altogether with India today having high level of wealth and income inequality amongst its people.
2) Regarding families getting into financial trouble (going broke, committing suicide) in the West, due to jobs moving to Asia: First, I am very sorry about that. At a human level, such things are very avoidable. However, like you said it is "Not your fault but it is the corrupt corps. who wanted it that way". I think that the drastic reduction of manufacturing and outsourcing of jobs from the Western world to Asia, at the expense of the working class people of the Western world but to the benefit of a few in the Western world, is a major failure of the political and business classes of the Western countries.
Of course, no country's people when offered manufacturing or service sector jobs (as it is cheaper in that country) by any other country, will refuse it. Why should they? It would be foolish of them to refuse it. It is a very competitive world even in trade between countries.
However, I would like to say that even if the Western world had not sent a large amount of its manufacturing and service sector jobs to Asia, Asian countries like Japan, China, India and South Korea would surely have progressed materially though at a lower pace. The oil rich gulf countries have been a source for business for many decades for India. Africa has encouraged a lot of Asian business as they find Asian company products and services to be more affordable than Western companies.
So, even without any outsourcing of manufacturing & service sector jobs from the Western world to Asia, Asian countries (as a whole, and not equality among its people) would have become more equal to Western countries than earlier. I mean, today China and Japan are the two largest holders of USA debt (US govt. securities) both of which are around 1.2 trillion dollars, http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/18/news/economy/china-us-debt/. Without outsourcing of manufacturing & service sector jobs to China and Japan, perhaps China and Japan may not have owned any significant USA debt. But China and Japan would still have been flourishing economies doing trade with the rest of the world (excluding Western world).
Essentially, in a competitive world, it becomes a question of price balanced by suitable quality for products & services offered. I think Asian countries have progressed enormously in the past decades in providing products & services at competitive prices with suitable quality.
3) The Walmart horror stories are well known (and there are some sad stories from Amazon dispatch warehouses too). India has had large resistance movements to Walmart and other supermarket chain stores in the recent past. But that is not to say that Walmart or similar companies will not eventually win in India. Anyway, India has far bigger wealth and income inequality issues as compared to USA, I think. Health care for the poor in India is desperately bad when compared to the West. I mean, it is no comparison, really.
4) About solution to the tough times for working classes in the West (not that it is all that great for all in India and, I think, even China, but for the West it is a decline in standards for the working classes and so that hurts): I agree with produce locally as a general approach. But that in a country like USA (don't know much about Europe in this regard) has become a big challenge as a lot of its manufacturing has been closed down for years (perhaps decades)! A terrible tragedy, in my considered opinion. Now it will take huge money to re-create those manufacturing plants, and then achieve sizeable success with its products for the products not to be too expensive. [While you may vehemently disagree with me, one thing I like about Mr. Trump is how aggressive he is in his talk about protecting American jobs. Of course, matching the talk with the walk is another matter.]
Anyway, I think manufacturing coming back to USA bigtime is absolutely vital for USA working classes to live better than now. Question is who can show the political and other will & leadership to do that. Meanwhile, very unfortunately, USA is quite dependent on a lot of manufactured goods from other countries (e.g. China) as it does not manufacture them anymore!!! What a terrible level of dependence! IMHO, somehow USA MUST break out of this dependence on foreign countries (whether Asian or South American - e.g. Mexico, or elsewhere) for most of its everyday use products.
-------
... But yes, it is not the corps. alone. The corps. need the big money from the banks. And as I mentioned above it also involves the political class as they should have seen what is happening, spoken to the public at large, and then done something about it. I am not sure about this but I think till the TERRIFYING financial crisis of 2007-08 the political class or their advisors did not really understand how bad things had become, as the real situation seemed to be obscured by a haze of financial statistics which few could understand. I mean, how many people knew about sub-prime mortgage, credit default swaps, financial derivatives and all that. It was mumbo-jumbo for non-financial guys and I think the political class just trusted the top financial guys. But in the post-mortem of the 2007-08 financial crisis, it turns out that the top financial guys also did not really understand how bad things were!!! Everybody was taken for one terrible (and certainly not merry) ride!
-------
... I mean, doing away with the big banks, may be a humongous task. I wonder whether you have read 'Stress Test' by Timothy Geithner, former US treasury secretary and former NY Fed chairman (or something like that). You may dislike Geithner deeply and abhor his policies, but his book does show how vital the big banks were to USA then, and perhaps, are to USA today. Perhaps it is the same with UK as London is a big financial centre. .... I think bringing manufacturing back bigtime should be the first goal and ensure that the big banks help in that goal. ... But then I think some of you may feel that the big banks are THE REAL PROBLEM and that if the big banks go away, it will become easier to solve all the other problems. Maybe you folks are right. I don't know. I can't imagine an India without its top banking and financial institutions as they are the financial pillars of the country. But then maybe I am not being bold enough to view an alternative. ... All the best with your candidate Mr. Sanders. I prefer to stay neutral in this as an interested observer. Thanks.
-----
Ah! This is more of a break-up of big banks rather than doing away with them. I see it more like the breaking up of a monopolistic company like how AT&T broke up Bell system into baby Bells, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System. Essentially there will be more competition between the banks. But they will still be pretty big, even if they will not be TOO BIG TO FAIL. And I think that may work out well. Instead of four or five mega banks controlling USA financial system, it may become twenty banks being the top banks of USA, and competing with each other. .... Undoing the part repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 by President Clinton which led to less regulation for big banks, seems to be a more complicated issue. I think everybody would support prevention of the kind of wild speculation that big banks got into which led to 2007-08 financial crisis. But how exactly that has to be done, seems to be quite complex.
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