Any economists here?

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Topic: Any economists here?

The Almighty Doer of Stuff Shaper Member # 73

written Monday, November 6 2006 17:49 Profile #0 http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85209/alan-s-blinder/offshoring-the-next-industrial-revolution.html An essay I came across while doing a research project for college. Here's the abstract: This article discusses the effects of offshoring, the migration of jobs from wealthy countries to poor countries. Comparative advantage comes from human effort rather than natural conditions, and can change over time. The information age marks a third industrial revolution, where the easy flow of information has expanded the scope of tradeable services and has altered distinctions between skill-levels in the labor market. As the domain of services expand, competition with other countries for services will expand as well. The increase of service jobs that can be performed electronically will, in turn, effect an increase in jobs that can be moved offshore from the U.S. This trend does not suggest massive unemployment, but instead suggests a massive shift toward the personal service industry in the U.S. Here's a bit more detail: As industrialized countries outsource all their manufacturing, agriculture, and impersonal service jobs, it leaves them with the personal service jobs (such as chefs, physicians, teachers, law enforcement, transportation, and other jobs that would suffer in quality if not handled by someone physically present) taking up the majority of the job market. This is an adjustment that can and must be made, even if it is difficult. Eventually, however, costs of these services will rise so high that demand will fall (because people won't be able to afford them). The essay seems to gloss over that last point, however. Am I correct in my analysis when I say that this "third Industrial Revolution" will result in industrialized nations' economies becoming very internalized and unstable? This would eventually lead to a reversal of the roles we now take for granted, namely that the "first world" countries will suffer economic crashes as countries like India and China become dominant. If the countries where we currently outsource our manufacturing jobs form an international "worker's union" of sorts and demand higher wages (they're bound to think of it eventually, and I'm not saying they shouldn't), and countries like India start directing their rapidly improving education toward the business sector, it seems like this is the inevitable outcome. Is my analysis correct? Is there any way to break the economic cycle that seems to be leading toward massive upheaval, or at least lessen its effects? Maybe if we pour funding into education and pass a government mandate requiring that all citizens working in jobs besides government administration and scientific and educational research work for part of the year in manufacturing, which perhaps would result in greater gainful employment while still bringing back inexpensive manufacturing jobs (probably not, grasping at straws here), it would help ease the problem. Maybe John Lennon was right and love is the only answer to all our problems. Any thoughts? I know I'm probably making absolutely no sense, but I'm tired and under a lot of stress from schoolwork, and thinking about this is only adding to my stress. I guess I'm doing this to transfer some of the hard thinking onto other people so I can stop worrying about it and get some work done. Or maybe I'm just procrastinating. -------------------- My Myspace, with some of my audial and visual art The Lyceum - The Headquarters of the Blades designing community The Louvre - The Blades of Avernum graphics database Alexandria - The Blades of Exile Scenario database BoE Webring - Self explanatory Polaris - Free porn here Odd Todd - Fun for the unemployed (and everyone else too) They Might Be Giants - Four websites for one of the greatest bands in existance -------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Posts: 2957 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00