Comments for WAPO's Major Article on the Future of Manufacturing Never Once Mentions the Value of the Dollar at http://www.cepr.net , comment 1 to 6 out of 6 comments http://www.cepr.net Sat, 25 May 2013 20:59:02 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/wapos-major-article-on-the-future-of-manufacturing-never-once-mentions-the-value-of-the-dollar#comment-17510 [quote] Every time the Fed has done a QE, Germany and China have complained about de-valuing the dollar...[/quote] LOL. I don't know about Germany, but the idea that china has a leg to stand on in the "nations should not intervene in currency markets to increase exports" has to be one of the worse jokes floating around this week. - liberal Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:22:45 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/wapos-major-article-on-the-future-of-manufacturing-never-once-mentions-the-value-of-the-dollar#comment-17480 Huh. Blockquotes apparently don't work, sorry... - John Q. Publican Sun, 15 Jul 2012 23:06:45 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/wapos-major-article-on-the-future-of-manufacturing-never-once-mentions-the-value-of-the-dollar#comment-17479 The one rapidly growing area of surplus in services is tourism. Perhaps the future American workforce will be cleaning toilets and making beds for the rest of the world, since we will no longer be set up to manufacture goods. Alternatively, the dollar might just fall so that the U.S. is again competitive in manufactured goods. That is the econ 101 story. Superb article; explains very nicely why the UK and the US are rapidly becoming post-industrial economies, whether their respective governments notice or not. Even if the dollar falls that far, it will have taken America's infrastructure with it. As Dmitri Orlov has pointed out, the USA and the UK are on course for a Stage 3 or 4 socio-economic system collapse. Russia in the 90s had a Stage 4, Sudan right now is in Stage 5 of 5, to give you an idea of the severity levels we're talking about. Life expectancy drops 30 years over the course of 5, the poverty-conscripted military you can no longer afford to employ but who have no productive skills beyond soldiering become private armies employed by organised criminals and state Governors, etc. etc. America might be able to buy their way out of collapse with pure natural resource exports, very much as Africa survived the 60s and 70s; it's what Russia did, and the US has very significant natural resources to exploit. The UK, on the other hand, is *totally screwed*. The underlying infrastructure which more than anything else permits industrial and technological development is systematic, comprehensive and *effective* national education programs. Neil DeGrasse Tyson has said everything that needs to be said about how poor US education, particularly in the sciences, has become since the 1980s. Ultimately, this is about cycles. Everyone gets industrial, fine; why did people assume the world stops there? That the upward curve of development and prosperity was in some way a perpetual-motion machine, rather than a what-goes-up situation? This is the mistake Marx made, and you'd think we'd learned since then. Nothing just keeps going; post-industrial economics need to be seriously addresssed, because for those of us falling off the imperial cliff in the UK and the US, avoiding the collapse is unlikely to be possible. Even if our governments weren't *very stupid*. And recovering from collapse is not a narrative of triumphantly reclaiming world dominance. It's a narrative where India becomes the US and the US becomes, say, Nigeria. It's not like this is new: Spain under the Bourbons used to be a hegemonic world-conqueror like the US in the 20th century, and look at them now... ~JQP - John Q. Publican Sun, 15 Jul 2012 23:01:33 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/wapos-major-article-on-the-future-of-manufacturing-never-once-mentions-the-value-of-the-dollar#comment-17477 China's MPC is around .38. No compelling reason to import. Germany needs to import Spanish/Greek/Italian goods more than American. India? Until the dollar goes lower, there is no compelling. - David Sun, 15 Jul 2012 18:31:23 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/wapos-major-article-on-the-future-of-manufacturing-never-once-mentions-the-value-of-the-dollar#comment-17476 Is completely contrary to G-20 rules and would never be tolerated by our trading partners who could easily take countermeasures. Every time the Fed has done a QE, Germany and China have complained about de-valuing the dollar, even though they are doing nothing to boost their domestic demand. Our strategy should be to compel China and Germany to increase imports of American goods and services. - Paul Sun, 15 Jul 2012 15:15:05 +0100 http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/wapos-major-article-on-the-future-of-manufacturing-never-once-mentions-the-value-of-the-dollar#comment-17475 It's a no brainer that the trade deficit (and thus the real national debt) is a major contributor to the lack of job growth in our economy. In addition, this deficit is causing this country to loose our manufacturing assets and property. Decreasing the federal deficit and income tax structure has nothing to do with our economic prosperity. Don't know why more attention is not paid to our trade deficit. Reducing that would be the biggest job creation program that we can muster. - Patrick Tchou Sun, 15 Jul 2012 14:30:43 +0100