<Maybe if they get democracy they'll start voting for fewer hours of work and more pay! Yeah, that's the ticket. And an early pension. Cool. Free medical treatment. Yayyy!!
//You make it sound wrong to want to work reasonable hours, have affordable health, and have a livable pension when you retire//.>
PB, thanks for making my point for me. Of course it's great to work no hours, get paid heaps, retire early on high pay, enjoy perfect health and medical treatment.
But those things aren't achieved by voting for politicians who promise them out of government funds.
I was pointing out the seductive nature of diffuse costs and concentrated benefits and politicians filtering taxation through their sticky fingers. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
There are any number of jobs available, but with welfare systems as they are, so many people are on the take that welfare stops people working. There's an infinite amount of work that needs doing. There's a shortage of people willing to do the work at the pay that the job is worth.
What's wrong with working for minimum wages at Home Depot Mr Snob? Do you look down on people like that?
<I am of the opinion that people other then the Chinese and the Japanese can actually make stuff, and can do a good job. In a natural world, they would be more competitive as they would not have to transport finished goods half way around the planet to sell them. >
Of course that's right, but China is so poor that the extra cost of moving goods is worth it to them. They work for less so the cost of transport still enables the sale.
When their pay rates rise, as they inevitably will, just as they did in Singapore and Hong Kong and South Korea, then they won't be competitive with people in Europe and the USA who don't have the transport costs to contend with, and Europeans will make more things for Europe and Americans for North America.
But transport costs are low, so that'll be a while yet. The relative pay rates and unit cost of mass production will have greater impacts than transport costs.
It's cheaper to mass-produce cars in robotic factories in high-cost Japan and ship them to NZ than for us to mess around making hopeless cars at high cost.
Poor people work for less than rich ones. So of course China and India are doing the work that the rich Americans and Europeans don't want to do. I think it's great that Chinese and Indians are enjoying some pay increases after half a century of penury. With their politicians off their backs, they could do even better.
Mqurice |
