by John Brian Shannon
MY COMMENT ON PROFESSOR PAUL KRUGMAN’S ARTICLE BEGINS…
Although I take pains to not indulge in partisan politics especially the internal politics of other nations (which is just bad form for a Canadian citizen), I just couldn’t help myself this time around.
Professor Paul Krugman has written another astonishingly logical article in the New York Times describing how the neo-cons in America keep giving all the jobs to China AND THEN they tell all the NON-neo-con people how good it is for them! Read Professor Krugman’s article here…
Of course, no one on Earth can seriously dispute the fact that corporations make more profits when they send American jobs to China. And, to be fair, eventually those profits DO come back to America. All good there.
The trade-off here is that instead of millions of Americans collecting a decent paycheque, contributing to the economy, paying taxes and living the American dream – what we get from this change-down is comparatively few thousands of corporate stock-holders receiving better corporate dividends.
Compare that to the huge overall boost the American economy gets when everyone IS working.
Since the 1970’s this paradigm-shift has been at work in the U.S. and has constantly – and at an ever-increasing rate — greatly enriched a small number of American people — at the expense of making significant millions of Americans less wealthy.
No leading economist seriously disputes this trend.
Nowadays, Europe is now only slightly behind the U.S. when it comes to off-shoring jobs to China – and is experiencing the same, predictable result that has plagued America for the past 30 years.
The point of confusion is that there is simply no “bad-guy” in this equation. Something is definitely wrong, so there must be a bad-guy. But we are told there is no bad guy. How can this be?
For one, corporations exist to make profit. That is their raison d’être and that is what we and the government have empowered them to do.
Two, who could blame corporate leaders for wanting to make more profit? That is what our system was, and is, built on.
Three, it’s not China’s fault. They are simply doing what our corporations are asking them to do. And frankly, they need the money. Developing nations are growing exponentially these days, which means they need money to build roads, schools, effective legal systems – and so much more.
It’s profoundly in our best interests for developing nations to become more stable, better governed and for them to eventually raise up a middle class able to purchase our decidedly up-market Western goods and services in heretofore undreamt-of volumes. Ka-Ching!
All of which takes time. Maybe a decade or two. In the meantime, we are supposed to suck it up and not complain.
With me so far? If you are, you must be thinking similar thoughts to mine. “There must be a better way to accomplish our shared goals.” And, there is.
It’s a given that our corporations must make profit, off-shoring production can improve profits for corporations, that the profits eventually do come back to the U.S. and that relatively few share-holders benefit from this change-down — when compared to the vast numbers of employable Americans who have become unemployed by virtue of the present paradigm.
How to make it work for the millions of unemployed and under-employed Americans you ask?
There are ways. It should be the next big discussion that we, as a society should be having — and soon.
My next few posts will discuss those very topics. There are a few examples of nations that have dealt with similar challenges and have done so successfully.
John Brian Shannon writes about green energy, sustainable development and economics from British Columbia, Canada. His articles appear in the Arabian Gazette, EcoPoint Asia, EnergyBoom, Huffington Post, the United Nations Development Programme – and other quality publications.
John believes it is important to assist all levels of government and the business community to find sustainable ways forward for industry and consumers.
Check out his personal blog at: http://johnbrianshannon.com
Check out his economics blog at: https://jbsnews.wordpress.com
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