TallyMan wrote:
Sand wrote:
By shipping jobs overseas to gain cheap labor industry has destroyed the market for the
goods, whatever their cost.
That is so true. I've watched manufacturing industries in the UK slide into oblivion over the last few decades as they outsourced more and more aspects of the manufacturing process overseas in an attempt to combat cheap imports. If the identical product is available for half the price produced in a sweat shop in India or elsewhere then people will buy it rather than the same product made in the UK at a fair wage.
It is quite remarkable that the UK-manufacturing industry does not value research very much. I would trace this problem back to the 1950-1990: Vast parts of the manufacturing industry were taken after the war into state control and therefore not subject to the real competition. When Thatcher opened all markets, because it was just not affordable ("Winter of Discontent") this industry died.
TallyMan wrote:
The argument always used to be that the UK has a strong service industry and that is where the money will be. This too has been outsourced. I've been in the computer software industry for thirty years and outsourcing has virtually killed this as a profession in the UK. Nobody want to study computing at university any more because there are either no jobs or they will be competing on salary with someone in India on a dollar a day.
The Western European and American economies are killing themselves with all the cheap imports and outsourcing of services abroad.
The western economies can survive, even prosper, but only by supplying goods and services one else can supply. This means in the first place education, especially in the scientific and engineering area: Attracting bright students into vocational education, by beefing this education academically up. E.g.: On a vacation school engineering mathematics should be much more advanced than on a normal school, because mathematics plays for engineering a more important role.
18 Mar 2009, 10:08 am
