Chinese wage growth has been tremendous...from 52 cents in 2000 to an expected $4.41 in 2015

[dkf]

The spike in Chinese wages is bringing jobs back home. In 2000, hourly Chinese manufacturing wages were just 52 cents compared to $16.61 in the U.S. BCG forecasts Chinese rates will keep growing 17% annually and reach $4.41 by 2015, compared to $26.06 in the U.S.

U.S. productivity, though, is likely to stay well ahead of China thanks in part to better equipment and more skilled labor. BCG forecasts the Chinese productivity gap to narrow to 38% of U.S. productivity by 2015 compared with 13% in 2000.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/18/a-better-stimulus-idea-training-new-factory-workers/

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. And all of this has been done at our expense. Anyone that disagrees with that, explain

We were lied to about the effect to Americans of all these market agreements allowing the wealthy to outsource without any risk to them.

[MADem]

5. Beats going to war with them.

What goes around, comes around. The tides of trade are starting to turn our way.

The wealthy and their shenanigans are a separate issue, one for the Congress to make laws about for enforcement by the Treasury Department, the IRS, specifically.

Our elected representatives allowed those wealthy bastards to outsource without consequences. We, the People, didn't find the situation onerous enough to swap out those representatives.

[Romulox]

7. Nonsense: "The tides of trade are starting to turn our way. "

Present some evidence to this effect, please! :hi:

[MADem]

9. Ha ha ha ha ha! You certainly opened your mouth and removed all doubt!

Didn't you bother to READ the cited article?

Here's the first sentence:

As China's wages soar, manufacturing jobs are coming back home.

Have one of those nice days!

[Romulox]

12. The trade deficit with China in April 2011 was $21.5 Billion

I'm taking issue with your characterization that "(t)he tides of trade are starting to turn our way," based on those numbers.

"You certainly opened your mouth and removed all doubt!"

And you revealed yourself as someone who is not secure in his argument, that you resorted to namecalling then effectively retreated from the conversation. :hi:

edit: Link

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html

[MADem]

13. One more time--read the article.

Now you're crying that "sufficiency" is the basis of your misguided assertion.

The tides 'are' starting to turn our way--sorry if it's not "enough" to suit you.

Take another sip from that half-empty glass. Have one of those nice days.

[Romulox]

24. Weak. nt

[MADem]

28. Not an adequate rejoinder, but thanks for playing. NT

[Romulox]

29. You've yet to present any evidence for your otherwise naked assertions.

Do you even know what "rejoinder" means? :silly:

[MADem]

31. Now you're just being childish. The argument is in the article--the one you

still can't be bothered to read.

Do you get some sort of strange satisfaction by getting pissy with strangers on the internet? Poor you!

[Romulox]

36. Read the whole thing. Took issue with your flip characterization, which isn't backed by facts. nt

[MADem]

39. The "flip characterization" is in your head.

The facts are in the article.

[Nye Bevan]

33. You really should just admit you were wrong (nt)

[Romulox]

37. Nonsense. The trade deficit with China in April 2011 was $21.5 Billion

:hi:

[MADem]

38. When I am, I do.

I'm not married to the Must Be Right culture on the internet.

The OP article is pretty straightforward--of course, it helps to read it.

I think this guy just likes a fight, facts be damned.

[WCGreen]

34. A lot of that has to do with the decline of the dollar....

[MADem]

42. What goes up, must come down.

Our dollar debts are being paid off with less valuable money, in essence.

When I lived in Japan, the yen was trading at 220 and up.

As you can surmise if you follow currency markets at all, that was a while ago.

The Japanese were not living in hovels then--in fact, their infrastructure and employment numbers were in better shape then than they are now.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

16. We didn't vote for others because what others were there to vote for?

There are only two way to run for office in the U.S.:

Kiss corporate and rich behind for money to run for office; and,

kiss corporate and rich behind for money to run for office.

That's it.

[MADem]

20. To a large extent, yes. These laws that facilitate this sort of conduct are made by

people that are supported and elected by "We, The People."

The only other way to run and win is to be charismatic and get grassroots, "true believer" support. However, that takes a great deal of work and very few people have both the charisma and the energy to make that happen. The late Paul Wellstone comes to mind.

When "We, The People" are sufficiently annoyed, perhaps things will change. The irritation at the system as it presently stands has just not reached critical mass.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

22. Few people know who Paul Wellstone was, and the reason for that is that he was overshadowed

by the ones who got funding from corporations and the rich. Until we have total election reform, I'll expect our country going downhill more each year.

[MADem]

30. The only reason Paul Wellstone is "less known" nowadays is because he's dead.

He wasn't "overshadowed"--he was killed in a critical election year plane crash that many people, even those who don't ordinarily indulge in conspiracy theories, found terribly suspicious.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

41. Yes, but what I mean is we have a population that watches the tabloid media

The tabloid media is the sum total of their knowledge, generally. They don't bother to research on their own, and since our media is not about to instruct them, but merely expose whichever individuals are highly financed by corporations and the wealthy, we are unlikely to get into office anyone who is not owned by corporations and the wealthy.

We desperately need a complete overhaul of our highly corrupt and corruptable system of elections.

[MADem]

43. You can't fix stupid.

Not everyone's stupid, though.

I think our election system isn't too bad, actually--at least on the legislative side.

It's election FINANCING that's at issue, but so long as the Supremes characterize Money as Speech, there's not much anyone can do.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

44. Maybe, but it takes a LOT of time to be doing research simply because our media is tabloid

or because our media is owned by corporations and are busy high-fiving the corporate powers that be.

We need a media that reports reality, not bs.

[MADem]

51. The media seeks a new paradigm. The young people with brains turn away from the old way of getting

news. They don't watch the nightly news at the dinner hour like their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents did, and they're more willing to seek out alternative information sources. I think that trend will continue.

The tabloids are more "info-tainment." They do bombard the public, but they're easy enough to avoid. The "real news" is out there if you want to spend the time looking for it. Before the internet, you had ABC, CBS, NBC...and PBS in some markets, and that was IT. They picked the stories, and you had a half hour to get the details--no rewinds. Now, with the click of a mouse, you can get news from all over the world, from London to Oman to Kenya to Brisbane and beyond. Some of it is BS, some of it is good info, and it's up to the reader to make sense of it all.

The last thing I want in the US is a monolithic "media" that's government-sponsored and government censored. The marketplace does fairly well at giving people what they ask for--they may not do it straight away, but over time they eventually get it right. If they don't get it right, the people turn away from them, and they can't make any money, so it's in their interest to do the right thing in the long term...!

[Sarah Ibarruri]

53. I don't agree with you. There's no way to determine what's true and what isn't on the Internet

If one is not savvy, one can end up believing all kinds of hogwash. The Internet is not reliable unless someone is like you and me, who spend too much time on the Internet. As you said: 'The "real news" is out there if you want to spend the time looking for it.' Spend time looking for it?

Another thing. Reporters once upon a time did research. Reporters no longer do research. They now get information from sources, don't check them out, and report whichever ones are most outrageous and will cause the most people to tune in.

People are overworked, exhausted and have no time to be 'looking for it (real news).'

[MADem]

61. There's no way to determine what is and isn't true from the "MSM"

The victor writes the history books, generally. Sometimes you get the story from the other side, but many times you don't.

Here's an example of an MSM screw up....I was up quite late on the evening that James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger and his companion were captured. For three hours, the "MSM" was saying with great authority that they were hiding in plain sight using the names Rosen and Fein. They weren't. They were in the next apartment over from Rosensomething-or-other and Fein, posing as a married couple using the name Gasko. Small error, you say? Maybe....but big errors are made, too. Look at the initial reports about the death of former Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman in combat. I'll admit I was totally snowed by the initial reports, which were totally false, and spoon-fed to an unquestioning media even when there were rumbles that something wasn't quite right. If it weren't for his PARENTS, we'd never know the truth.

You can go back in time a century or more and find similar examples of MSM screw ups. One of the most notable was "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!" We went to war over ... what? A coal bunker fire? A loose mine? A bad boiler? Or did Spain attack that vessel? No one questioned that they did back in 1898, because it fit the desired narrative.

There are reporters who have been working since the Reagan administration who haven't done a lick of research. Then, there are others who dig in and go for it. After a while, you get to know, from a byline and reputation, who does the work, and who doesn't. If you keep reading crap from a liar, well, you know what you're getting. That's why people who are Republicans watch Fox, and people who are Democrats watch MSNBC--those are advocacy channels, where whipping up the base comes first, and facts (sometimes) follow along dragging their heels.

As GWB once commented--in an idiot savant fashion rather apropos to this discussion, "Fool me once, won't git fooled agin!"

The marketplace is going to decide how we get our information, whether we like it or not. All we can do is vote with our clicks, question stuff that smells funny, and gripe when we don't feel like we're getting good value.

[entanglement]

54. Americans have indeed paid a heavy price, but we are not the only ones

A similarly heavy price has been paid by the Chinese working class. Consider that they receive a tiny (though now somewhat higher) share of the wealth they produce, with the vast majority of it going to Western and Chinese capitalists. Not to mention the health burdens they shoulder due to atrocious working conditions enforced by their bosses. A marginally improved deal for Chinese workers, but a raw-deal nonetheless.

The harm to the American working class is, of course, more obvious. The financial crisis has allowed the bosses to unleash the most ferocious attack on our jobs, wages and living conditions yet. For the past several decades American society has been restructured in a way to remove even the faintest checks on the rapacity of capital at our expense.

However, I disagree with your implication that the Chinese worker is to blame. Your resentment at the (admittedly small) gains they've made over the years is misplaced. Why do workers deserve a poorer standard of living or a less equitable deal just because they were not born in the West? That is the profoundly unjust, selfish and inhuman premise that underlies most nationalist opinions on this matter. It is also self-defeating because it is exactly where the capitalists want us: to blame workers elsewhere for our predicament. It is another, needless line of division in an already utterly divided working class.

Better jobs, wages and living conditions are the right of BOTH American and Chinese people. They must be wrested from the wealthy and the bosses who currently enjoy the fruits of our toils and the vast gains in productivity made over the past century.

[TomClash]

2. That doesn't account for currency manipulation

Which keeps the Yuan artificially low against the dollar. I suspect wages would be double the $4.41 quoted.

[MADem]

3. Good. Pretty soon, they'll be buying crap that we export to them! NT

[dkf]

4. They like our cars.

[MADem]

6. I gotta be honest with ya--I like our cars, too! Always have! nt

[Romulox]

8. Most cars sold in China are made there, regardless of Marque. nt

[sufrommich]

10. Rising wage growth in China will eventually make it the

biggest consumer society this planet has ever seen.Should be interesting to watch.

[Shagbark Hickory]

11. Yeah I'm interested to see how much they can consume on $4.42 an hour

[MADem]

14. Probably quite a lot.

At those wages, in that economy, they aren't paying NYC rents or demanding solo luxury apartments. I'm sure their grocery bills are more in line with their wages as well.

I'd imagine the government subsidizes their electricity and water costs.

It's all about disposable income, what's left over after the bills are paid. WALMART wouldn't be over there if there wasn't money to be made, after all....

[Shagbark Hickory]

17. Well you'd be quite wrong then. The Chinese people complain about housing costs and the rising cost

of food and energy.

[MADem]

21. So do Americans. So do Europeans.

Prices always go up. People always complain about them. That's the way of the world.

That's not to say that the average Chinese doesn't have more stuff-n-crap than they did when Mao ruled the land, and rationing was the rule of thumb. Further, they are able to afford more crap each and every day.

Who's driving all those cars? Ghosts?

[Shagbark Hickory]

25. $4.41 doesn't buy a lot of commodities.

It might buy a few dozen Hello Kitty pencil tops though.

[MADem]

35. They're not paying the mark-ups that you're paying.

When the wholesaler, the shipper and the manufacturer get their cut, the price is way more than it was if it goes straight from the factory to the retailer.

Hello Kitty is a Japanese franchise--they charge a fortune for the licensing rights alone.

They're still doing better now than they were previously. Every year, their disposable income increases:

http://www.worldsalaries.org/china.shtml

[Shagbark Hickory]

47. I knew someone was going to say Hello Kitty was from Japan.

Bad example, ok.
But with the stuff that's making the rest of us broke, like commodities and housing, they're having a tough go of it also.

[MADem]

50. The world is having a tough go of it.

There aren't too many economies that haven't been affected by the "Greed is good" attitudes of the past decade or three. It's caused a lot of people to rethink their priorities.

I remember "Hello Kitty" before she was famous, and simply an amusing oddity in Japan. Back then, as I mentioned, I could buy between 220 to as much as 270 yen for my almighty dollar....those were the days!

[sufrommich]

15. Why would you assume their wages won't go higher? nt

[Shagbark Hickory]

18. Expected to be $4.41 in 2015, per the OP. I was only looking as far as 2015.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

26. If the rate is constant, it means it's about $2.92 right now. -nt

[Incitatus]

27. Or manufactureres would move to another poor country where they can pay workers pennies.

Then China might be in a bit of trouble.

[pampango]

62. "...while other low-wage countries like Vietnam or the Philippines will likely continue to nibble

away, none can rival the scale of China."

"In 2000, hourly Chinese manufacturing wages were just 52 cents compared to $16.61 in the U.S. BCG forecasts Chinese rates will keep growing 17% annually and reach $4.41 by 2015, compared to $26.06 in the U.S."

If wage rates have increased so quickly in a country with a workforce the size of China's, it could happen even faster in countries that are much, much smaller. If China's manufacturers start to move to to "another poor country", wages should increase there even faster than has happened in an economy with what must have seemed like an unlimited supply of hundreds of millions of workers like China's.

[ileus]

19. No wonder we can't get cheap stuff at wal-mart anymore.

[Nye Bevan]

23. Interesting how many US-centric DUers see this as bad news.

I'm happy to see poor people improve their standard of living, no matter which country they live in. Obviously it's bad news for outsourcing corporations, who must pay higher wages, but it's excellent news for the Chinese.

[MADem]

32. I concur. If they're watching their wide-screen TV and buying

the latest fashions, they're not gearing up for war. Also, if they make more money, they become a more viable market for the crap WE make. Finally, if there's no cheap labor over there, there's no motivation for US companies to outsource. No one does it more efficiently than we do, when we put our minds to it.

[Romulox]

40. The trend is less exports to China, not more. Trade imbalances are widening, not shrinking.

2011 : U.S. trade in goods with China
NOTE: All figures are in millions of U.S. dollars on a nominal basis, not seasonally adjusted unless otherwise specified. Details may not equal totals due to rounding.

Month Exports Imports Balance
January 2011 8,078.1 31,349.6 -23,271.5
February 2011 8,437.2 27,278.7 -18,841.5
March 2011 9,518.8 27,601.4 -18,082.6
April 2011 7,971.0 29,567.1 -21,596.0
TOTAL 2011 34,005.1 115,796.8 -81,791.6

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html

[MADem]

45. That simply isn't true. The trend is MORE exports to China.

Check the 2010 export figures, from your own link.

2010 January 6899...which is less than 8708 noted in the 2011 figures.
2010 February 6840...which is less than 8437 noted in the 2011 figures.
2010 March 7399...which is less than 9518 noted in the 2011 figures.

...and so on. If you go back to the years previous to 2010, you see that the export trend is on an upward trajectory.

Trade is not going to be "balanced" overnight. But the trend is in the right direction.

[Romulox]

46. The current year is *2011*, and the data I've linked to shows a sharp DECREASE in exports to China

during the last reporting period, April, 2011.

[MADem]

48. No, it doesn't. You are perhaps having trouble reading your own material?

The data you linked to shows nothing of the sort.

As an example, 8708 (the JAN 11 export figure) is "more" than the 2010 January export figure of 6899. For each month, there's an increase, which adds up to an annual export increase. Go back and actually look at the export figures you're citing.

[Romulox]

49. The US gov shows exports to China DECREASING between March and April of *2011*

You're not understanding what you're reading.

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html

[MADem]

52. Seasonal fluctuations do not a "decrease" make.

You do not understand what you are reading.

The exports in April 2011 --7,971--are GREATER than the exports in April 2010--.

6,599.8

You haven't had much experience reading this sort of data, I take it. You look at the FY, not the monthly fluctuations.

There was a seasonal fluctuation between March and April in 2010, too. The annual totals, though, showed an increase in total exports between 2009 and 2010, and 2010 and 2011.

[TheKentuckian]

55. A month??? Sir/Madam!

[RB TexLa]

60. Cause many of them think the phrase is "God Bless America, and NO WHERE else!"

[Octafish]

56. Wonder how that tracks with American CEO compensation?

I think it doesn't track with American worker compensation.

[dkf]

57. Good question.

[Octafish]

58. Bush cousin was our man in Red China, post-WW2. Bush brother founded US-China Chamber of Commerce.

Reuben Holden, a contemporary of Mao Zedong, was the former gentleman's name.

Of course, the late Prescott Sheldon Bush Jr became the Middle Kingdom's Rainmaker.

[unkachuck]

59. "...Chinese rates will keep growing 17% annually..."

....see what a functional economy and government can yield?....they must be doing something right; nothing succeeds like success....

[kentuck]

63. And I bet the average Chinese can buy more with their measly wages...

than the average American can buy with theirs?