RE: Unemployment. Honest debate.
August 31, 2011 at 7:04 pm
(This post was last modified: August 31, 2011 at 7:18 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(August 31, 2011 at 2:58 pm)Jaysyn Wrote: Like when the quality of Asian cars eventually caught up & surpassed American cars?
Yes.
(August 31, 2011 at 2:58 pm)Jaysyn Wrote: How would you compete with nations like India & China & still keep a decent quality of life?
If you don't compete with nations like India and China, in the long run you would be even more sure that your quality of life will pitch through the floor as they invest in competitive industries while we invest in subsidizing uncompetitive ones, until and eventually they do everything that create serious value more efficiently and better than we do.
What do you propose to do then, shut the nation up like a giant version of autarchic North Korea to avoid competition from the now comprehensively superior efficiency of those countries?
If you think competing with China and India now will hurt quality of life, try quality of life that would be left to us by, say 2050, when we might only get to eek out living sweep those spots on the floor of Chinese factories that even Chinese robotic factory machines can't be bothered to wipe because they could literally do everything else more efficiently then we can.
(August 31, 2011 at 4:18 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Competition again. Okay, here's the deal. You cannot compete with someone in anything, ever, if that person is not following the same rulebook.
Let's say you're playing chess, normal rules apply for you, but your opponent's pieces all act as queens. Compete? I think not.
People have no choice but follow the same fundamental economic value rule book, even if they can choose to not follow the same legal rule book. The fundamental economic rule book says efficiency in value creation eventually wins, and given limited resources one ought to invest only in those areas where one has the maximum advantage in value creation compare to one's competitors. We have no advantage over the Chinese in making baubbles, so stop subsidizing baubble makers to baubblogists can make a living wage. We have advantage over Chinese in making airplanes, so let's consider letting recalcitrant baubblogists starve so as to be able to invest in even more efficiency in making airplanes. That way maybe some baubblogists would even change careers. This is the fundamental rule.
The legal rule simply says we want to protect our advantage in making airplanes by not letting Chinese steal the blue prints for our airplane assembly lines. Which is fine. But it doesn't change the fact that we should not be investing in baubbles. Even more importantly, should the Chinese steal our airplane assembly line blue prints, we can't fix that by shifting investment from airplanes to subsidizing baubble makers. We should still starve the baubble makers so as to reinvent an even better airplane assembly line more quickly.[/i]
