Should I move to the US?

[Deltaberry]

That's always the hard part reality and control,and another simple way of looking at things is wages in the area's you intend too invest in,as most US based high top 50 companies now use China -India for all their dirty work,The US Blue Collar workers will be faced with the simple facts,if you have 2-3 billion Chinese-Indian based workers working for $$$x,and the same US based workers on sky high wages,then i know who will win..

That's why from what my sister-in law tells me,it's not so much the price it's all about employment,if Ford GM take all their spare parts too SEA
the Blue Collar Workers of US will be back to below 14 bucks an hour from 28 bucks,just something to think about..willair..

The only way forward for America, and eventually Australia, is to rely on high-IQ, value-add industries. IT, biotech, value-add to agricultural products, value-add to dirt mined out of the ground, education export - these are the things that will drive the Western world. Pity our education export industry has just been shot... and the rest of the value-add industries have never really taken off here.

Rather than ship our premium quality beef to Japan and have Japan repackage them and then sell them back to us, we should be doing all the processing, value-adding as well as packaging. Not only do you command a premium doing all this, you create jobs. Our farming should move towards unconventional methods and we should be a pioneer in water-efficient agriculture etc. Instead of investing in all these industries, we are using our mining industry proceeds to build fancy internet networks that no one needs.

If the West still wants to compete on manufacturing, hardware etc, then it should just surrender now and accept the fate of becomming a backwater post. Some people are still very conservative and refuse to embrace products manufactured in developing countries - but usually these are small-timers like sole tradies and the random small-timer carpenter etc. And I guess that's partly because I'm in my 20s and they are in their 50s. Why would they care about the new age anyway...

All I can say is, last time I went to Moran or was it Chesterfield - which I'm sure some of you know make premium brand sofas including the ones used in the current Victoria Parliament - the owner told me he's shutting down his local manufacturing because China is producing just as good a product at a fraction of the price. Time Magazine just again reminded me of India's Tata Car which will soon hit the US market at $7000, oh and it meets all the global standards.

The way forward is fairly staight-forward, yet things like this don't hit home until the bad times come around. Do people really think the blue collar jobs gone in America will come back? They've moved offshore...The problem with the current political system is you need to spin enough so you get voted in I guess... hence none of the leaders will tell you the real solution

 

[Perp]

The only way forward for America, and eventually Australia, is to rely on high-IQ, value-add industries. IT, biotech, value-add to agricultural products, value-add to dirt mined out of the ground, education export - these are the things that will drive the Western world.

If the West still wants to compete on manufacturing, hardware etc, then it should just surrender now and accept the fate of becomming a backwater post.

I think you're absolutely spot on, Deltaberry. With increasing globalisation, the only way we can maintain a higher standard of living is to justify it by having a higher standard of output, and given that we're not known for working long hours , the only way we can have high value output is by doing higher skilled work.

I get frustrated by protests at the closing down of manufacturing facilities in Australia. If Australians want to be paid $25+ per hour, we have to do work that the market judges is worth $25+ per hour. In the past when trade was less globalised, the market could incorporate anomalies where consumers paid big premiums on goods manufactured by local workers, but those days are gone with the increasing ability of foreign products to compete in our market. Even if we want to revert to the "good old days", we can't; the world has moved on.

So if people want manufacturing jobs kept in Australia, the only options are:

1) Australian people will have to pay a lot more for an Australian-made product (either directly, or via taxes in the form of huge subsidies), or

2) Manufacturing workers will have to accept that they'll be paid less and suffer a significant drop in standard of living.

The market has shown that the Australian public is not "willing enough" to pay more for Australian-made products. I don't consider this a bad thing. Australia should be engaging in industries in which we have a global market advantage, not persisting in industries in which "we can't compete but may be able to keep alive by encouraging people to buy based on patriotism rather than the value proposition of the product".

I accept that any significant drop in wages for manufacturing workers isn't palatable, and that's why we need to focus on gradually moving these workers into other industries and upskilling. Keeping Australian factories open hinders that process. Rather than just wish we could continue to be paid $25 per hour for doing a job that an equally skilled foreign worker will do for <$5 per hour - sometimes <<$5 - we need to accept that the only low-skilled jobs which will remain in Australia are those which have to be done here, eg services such as cleaning, wait staff, on-site labourers, etc. The lack of competing cheap labour in-country should keep wages for these jobs reasonable, provided the population as a whole engages in upskilling. If we have the same % of people wanting to do unskilled work, and a lower % of jobs which don't require skills, then wages must go down for these workers.

It's never been more important to get a good education, and our Government really needs to show some leadership on shaping the future of the nation. There's no point engaging in nostalgic wishes for things to stay as they were; it's time to focus on moving forward and redefining our place in the global marketplace.