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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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To: quehubo who wrote (18155)12/1/2003 11:12:45 PM
From: Dayuhan  Read Replies (2) of 793681
 

So how does a Western worker costing the company $25 an hour compete against an Asian costing the company $2.50 an hour?

Americans, like everybody else, will have to develop competitive advantages. Our competitive advantage has traditionally been based on a level of technology and efficiency that justifies higher wages. We have to expect that our competitors will strive to cancel out that advantage, and if we want to retain it we will have to stay ahead.

We are not “entitled” to stay at the top of the heap, and our workers are not “entitled” to their $25 an hour. We have to earn these things.

The question for the politicians is how do we maintain a decent size middle class in an increasingly competitive global economy?

I’m not sure the politicians will have much to do with it. The key word here is “competitive”. If we want to maintain that decent size middle class, we will have to compete successfully.

The good news is that the more successful other nations get, the more their workers will ask. The middle class and the technology-based industries in these emerging markets will also be readier markets for American goods, and will be far less likely to create the kind of geopolitical instability that costs us so many billions to cope with.
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