So, when the Soviets and East Germans dominated the '88 games, it was a sign of their stellar economies and infrastructure? Because I could have sworn they were on the verge of collapse and just fielded a bunch of unstoppable professional athletes who were 'roided to the gills.

It sounds to me that just like poor old Harry Reid, you're wracked with some kind of inchoate angst about the future, but to me all this Sinophobia is just a warmed over version of the panic about the Japanese taking over back in the '70s and '80s. Different millennium, same old Yellow Peril. But just to put your racing mind at ease, if you're "stealing" seamstress jobs, it's a pretty good indicator that you're not all that technologically advanced yet. More importantly, trade is not a zero-sum game, but maybe you're simply not aware of basic economics like that.

I actually agree with you on this. It's the only plank of the American Left that i tend to disagree with, its opposition to free trade. My only distinction is that i feel the government should help workers displaced by existing in non-competitive industries.

What? I have no fear of the Chinese. I have fear that we are slicing up our own country and selling every piece to the rest of the world.

And whoa man easy with the retorts like that. Brutal. Anyhoo, we do get cheap labor out of them so we can make more mone...oh wait, I mean so the company can simply use greater income to open up more venues in emerging markets while keeping all the money out of our country.....and all we have to give China is THE PATENTS AND SOURCE CODING AND TECHNOLOGICAL KNOWHOW TO PRODUCE THINGS THAT WERE INVENTED ONLY A YEAR PRIOR. Yes, in exchange for the cheap labor that never sees a single benefit to our country, other countries blossom their own domestic product, creating jobs to produce their own replicas of the products our companies charge us top dollar for a fraction of the price. WOWZERS

I am so happy that apple decided to save 40$ on every iPad they make in China as opposed to making them in the US, post record profits, and keep tens of thousands of jobs, and hundreds of millions of dollars out of our economy, so that they could post a bigger profit than they would have, except for the fact that they'd be putting money into peoples hands who could then buy their product...derp.

You know what's happening here badger? China is disrupting us.

No no, you fools, it's fine...Let them have the seamstress jobs.

Of course, the actual trend is that labor costs are rising in China and jobs are starting to be reshored, and that's only going to accelerate. Most of the people crying about "lost" jobs, like the aforementioned Senator Gollum, would never fucking dream of doing those shit jobs anyway. Despite all the rhetoric about U.S. manufacturing being hollowed out, production has risen about 50 percent in the last decade. That's a far bigger issue - it takes fewer workers to manufacture more goods, and yet I don't exactly see how that's a bad thing unless you think paying people to dig holes and fill them back creates real value and would be a fine thing to build an economy around.

Outsourcing does not create a net loss of jobs. Sure, it means that American workers will have to be adaptive, but it also means an opportunity to learn to design new goods rather than to sit around putting erasers on pencils or whatever. Hm, I wonder what an economy that doesn't outsource even looks like... oh, yeah. North Korea.

I don't understand how the same people on the left who want to open the floodgates immigration wise can push this nonsense with a straight face. As far as I can tell, the only difference between a foreigner doing an "American" job overseas and doing it here is that the one overseas is never going to vote Democrat.

I mean, they always seem to understand that Americans are never going to do the fruit picking all the "dey tuk er jawbz" crowd bitches about. I don't know if this is just pandering to unions and the general sense of angst about a globalized economy or if it's genuine economic stupidity - or a cocktail of both.

There is one huge factor that goes beyond steroids and infastructure though ... Population

Natural athletic ability follows a normal distribution and performance at a high level on an international scale usually is the result of natural athletic ability being shaped by a high level of desire.  When you have a country with 3 or 4 times the population they will have a huge advantage in atletics because they have 3 to 4 times as many individuals at each level of natural athletic ability.

Choice is another component because the stand-out athletes in most nations have to find the sport they're good at and find some way to fund themselves, while China will often force children at a young age into a sport and ensure that they're trained.

It's not just China, I kow they won't be burgeoning for any substantial time, because we'll just move. People have even talked about having manufacturing on the sea to move to whatever country has the lowest pay grade at any particular moment.

However, I'll tell you a secret in that American Manufactories are still alive and well, although simply in a different quality. It's independent manufacture, etsy, ebay, craigslist, people and friends get together as 10-15 people and just make things like jewelry, clothing, consumables, and thousands of other things. They get paid well on top of it, and their companies sometimes take off, sometimes don't. So it's not like people don't want to work manufacturing, it's that manufacturing jobs pay very little, because of a wealth of reasons. Manufacturing is here, and it's run by CEOs who make a fair cut and pay workers fairly.

As for outsourcing, I'm not so ignorant as to be heralding "no outsourcing whatsoever". I'm saying we're outsourcing too much. When starting a business, the first infrastructure design shouldn't include "work: outsource".

Think about things that require immediate work. Cooking, for example. If you go out to dinner, you need the food made right there. You can't outsource a cooking position. But then hold on, preservatives can hold a meal. OK, so now we can outsource the cook. But oh look, natural food industry is growing larger and larger, and more and more cooking has to be done locally, more and more food grown locally. Healthy living has helped local economies. Sure it hasn't helped huge businesses, but it's grown smaller ones...ones that care less about bottom lines and care more about things like community, integrity, quality.

I'm not PRO hurting our large businesses, but I think it would be helpful if we created new opportunities, helped the smaller ones get stronger. Keeping jobs here hurts the BIG company, sure, but it also helps the economy, the quality of life, the consumer confidence, tax revenue (wherein gov may be more lenient in the future), etc. People will be more willing to spend if they understand that they could still find a job if they lose a current one.

I think it's a fallacy to say that what's best for the businesses bottom line is best for the business. Yes using a standard metric like reducing costs improves the business unequivocally, but I think there's been very little research done into the mitigating factors. Taking money out of the economy regardless of pay rate, taking America out of the product, etc hasn't been studied enough I believe. I believe that the effects are greater than previously supposed.

What's weird prof is... your arguments seem to include the counterarguments that tend to invalidate then.

At least in that last post.

I totally agree, and that's why I don't want the government to pick winners and losers. Once they start doing that, it invariably corrupts the system and politicians will always side with the ones who can afford the best lobbyists and toss them the most money: big business. The best way that the government can help small businesses is to take the boot of excessive regulation (written with the help of big business lobbyists) off of their necks and forswear the "too big to fail" mentality forever.

I'm middle of the line that's why. I'm not 100% either way. I want both to have their opportunities. They don't invalidate, they can function together.