"Products moved off shore can easily be distinguished from products that wont be moved off shore by hundreds of factors. The start of which is the demand factor."
Whose demand? The foreign producer's or ours? The producing country doesn't need internal demand for a product to become the primary producer of that product. The only products whose production won't be moved offshore are those that others can't make, which is where this question began, those that can't be made and shipped cheaper than local manufacture, such as low-demand niche products, and those, such as some defense products, that our govmt doesn't permit to be produced offshore.
"More importantly, economies need to be entreprenuerial in the first place before the business of business becomes their business. How many economies are in that boat?"
How many are not in that boat? Entrepreneurial economies are almost everywhere. In any case, the US can and does often supply the entrepreneur along with the technical ability. What is supplied by the offshore producer need be nothing more than access to materials and a population capable of supplying the necessary labor, at much lower cost than available in the consuming country (US). The problem we have is that the world has been getting smaller in the face of improvements in communications and shipping. The costs of shifting production offshore have been getting smaller as we have been gradually pricing ourselves out of the competitive labor market. Globalisation is, as it should, shifting each endeavor to the most efficient. Problem is, we have nearly 300million people here, not all of whom are capable of being more than labor inputs.
"New products and applications are generated within the economy who needs them, rarely will a process improvement or a new market be cultivated outside the US and imported here. It takes entreprenuers to see this, no government will do it."
So what? First mover advantage is overrated and as globalisation advances becomes less important all the time. Lower cost producers need only copy technology or wait for the entrepreneur to come to them. The asian countries, including Japan, invent very little. But they are good at marginal engineering improvements and low-cost manufacture.
In the case of Japan, and soon Korea, they are also gradually pricing themselves out of the labor market with their standard of living.
"They dont value their own peoples energy, cultivate their creativity or otherwise ask their citizens to be more independent..."
Neither do we. Our cultural permissiveness has devastated primary and secondary education in this country. I live near "Little Saigon" and assure you that most Vietnamese immigrants view our public schools with horror and will make almost any sacrifice to send their children to private schools. Those left over make up a disproportionate share of the public school's honor rolls.
"Russia is truly a unique place in this time, entreprenuership is burgeoning under the flat tax. Will become a key story in the future if the Leadership does not destroy it mid stream."
Pent-up entrepreneurship is burgeoning wherever politics is getting out of the way. As a US citizen, this presents a mixed blessing. As globalisation advances, standards of living will converge. As the old saying goes, "From the top of the hill there is no direction but down". Technological innovation may lift others without eroding our standard of living, but the convergence is inevitable unless the movement to globalisation stops and reverses. |
