China in the future

[oldnslo]

It was predicted by Business Week magazine that by 2050, China will have the highest gross national product on the globe, followed by the US, followed by India, followed by Europe. I don't for the life of me see how we can hang onto even 2nd place, the way we are outsourcing and downsizing, but that is what some "experts" say.
Anybody out there who has been through college math and science courses with orientals knows they definitely have a strong work ethic, and are very quick to learn and apply information. Some elementary schools here in the US are teaching Chinese as a second language to little kids, wisely preparing for the future.

[2wheel]

Its tough to buy anything local, cause all the Big Box stores have put the local, little guy out of business!

[basshole]

Several economist predict a collapse of the Chinese economy starting in the secong half of 2006. And if you don't believe what our government tells you, then you should trust what the Chinese government tell you even less. Word is they have excessive manufacturing capacity and are still building more facilities with no work to use them for. Also, the average Chinese worker makes about $2.00 a week with NO BENEFITS! Oh, and the yuan hasn't been re-valued in years!!!

[scan]

I hope you are right, but I met a young lady who works for my company in China. She makes about $5 an hour and is considered on the well off side. She has her own car and a decent apartment in a major city. I also heard a story about one of the Korean companies making a small car for the Chinese market. It was a basic car and it was cheap. The car sold so well and the market called for an upgrades sporty model the next year. These are all second hand stories, but that mixed with the Motorcyclist China story inspire me to be more concerned than you.

Cheap labor. A US market that won't quit buying (even junk products). Dedicated people who want to live like we do. If that is leading to a colapse I really don't understand economics. I think conservative thinking wants to believe more in our strength, but thinking unicorns exist won't make it so.

[basshole]

I work for a chinese company. Chinese is the primary language spoken here and our factories are in China. I hear Chinese all day long, see chinese writing all day long, see Buddahs and Chinese artifacts all day long. The owner of our company is is a VP for the south coast chinese cultural center. For every person you hear making $5.00 an hour there are a thousand that won't make that in a month. It's a royal pain in the A$$ to get thing manufactured correctly over there and it rarely comes out right the first time. And most Chinese instanly forget and don't understand english when you point out a problem. They love to exploit Americans and their money and will go out of their way to squeeze Americans out of business and replace them with their own. You may contract with a company that has a "legitimate" factory but many of these factories sub contract the work out to sweat shops that you know nothing about. I see more and more businesses that went to China to so called "compete" wish they never went there and want to come back here for manufacturing or Latin America.

[oldnslo]

Sounds a little like Wal-Mart, doesn't it? My son works for a big conglomerate, and spends about every other month in Mexico, where they have mfg. operations. The corp. looked into China, and decided to stay away at this time, considering it no advantage going there. He also tells me it is difficult to get the Mexicans to build the product right, too. The natives seem to like the money, and treat American corporate employees like royalty, but lack either motivation or skills to grasp manufacturing concepts. It is an uphill trip.
I think we all are fed what the govt. and the media wants us to know, so you have to either work for a foreign company or have a personal connection with one to really get a hint.

[basshole]

I have people come to me everyday trying to re invent the wheel and how they wanna go overseas. And i just sit back and ask questions and they always say HUH?? I had no idea. People think stuff just "magically appears" Kinda like the folks that things in the grocery store just "show up"

[scan]

Oh well, its been a great conversation anyway. I know as far as my company goes they've had some problems too with non-US labor. We farmed out a bunch of phone support to South America and India and they can see the pay off is small. These guys who work for peanut are not loyal or technically proficiant, so maybe my rant is a bit paranoid. They trained a group of 20 guys and got them set up with new possitions. 6 months later they left for better jobs. In the end I know our company for one can't affort to offshore all its work, or the companies that buy from us won't continue to do so.

[sv-wolf]

Several economist predict a collapse of the Chinese economy starting in the secong half of 2006. And if you don't believe what our government tells you, then you should trust what the Chinese government tell you even less. Word is they have excessive manufacturing capacity and are still building more facilities with no work to use them for. Also, the average Chinese worker makes about $2.00 a week with NO BENEFITS! Oh, and the yuan hasn't been re-valued in years!!!

One thing that I've learned over the years: never believe economic forecasts. Another thing is that everything changes, empires rise and fall. China looks like becoming the next global superpower. But who can tell. I'm not brave enough to make those kind of predictions. Still, China already appears to have a predominantly Capitalist economy. And there are signs that its current pre-capitalist form of government is already restricting the movement of capital. Anyone want to bet how long it will be before we see a new 'democracy' arising in the East? Be interesting to watch what happens.

[basshole]

Your more likely to see another Tienneman Square before you see a "democracy" in China. I think if China was to become the "next great democracy", you'd see alot more westerners trying to buy property in China rather than trying to exploit the cheap labor. I don't think Chinese people immigrate to the US for the weather!