Sure, China has rocketed forward technologically - but at who's cost?

China has the advantage because they are an oppressive regime with 4.6 million People's Liberation Army personnel - almost all of those military personnel are assigned to control their own population.

China does not recognize international currency standards and plays only by its own rules. China does not recognize intellectual property and goes through great lengths to steal it at any and every opportunity.

The article's attempt to justify China's human rights is a joke. The idea that China oppresses, jails, murders, and tortures and intimidates its own population for the sake of curbing pornography is not even to be taken seriously.

I would rather live free than live under a dictatorship no mater how fast that country is rising in power (economically and militarily).

Of course, just writing those words above would be enough to get me arrested in China.

Fine price to pay for progress, no?

There are many factors involved, and the Chinese are not free by any stretch of the imagination.

But in a nutshell, I would say that the Chinese have discovered that Capitalism is the way to prosperity. The US seemingly has decided that Capitalism is bad, and that only social justice will insure our future as a nation.

So far, I'm not impressed.

Same can be said of Communism, or Socialism, or pick an ism

Hence I always love it when someone cites "human nature" as a 'valid reason' for some abrogation of social conscience.

Whether or not it is "valid" or not is a matter for philosophers. Everything we do is a consequence of our nature and our nature is uniquely human. The character of our nature is complex and multifaceted and not equally developed from one individual to the next and to the degree it is "valid" is a matter of judgement from where one may stand. But if not as a consequence of everything we are and have made ourselves to be then of what is it a consequence? To presume abrogation on the part of another based on our own unique projection of the world may hope to simplify a matter of complexity that can never thereto yield nor would there be any effect to attempt to abrogate something that have never been.

Capitalism is not in the same camp as Communism or Socialism! It is not even in the same "galaxy". You can't compare Capitalism with Comm. or Soc. in how it benefits the people who operate under it's umbrella.

If someone thinks so, it is because they have lost all comprehension about what freedom really is and have been blinded by a philosophy common to many liberals here in this great country of ours, who want a few to control the populace by dictate rather than let the populace dictate through representation. They would rather have a lower level of living; with the people dependent upon them for sustenance (because it makes them feel powerful); than have a bunch of people pulling the cart, making it on their own, without "sucking off the governement tit".

Might save some angst if you read my post in context. It's simply saying "human nature" exists in all "isms".

But; as I see it, the OP is basically asking if, or how, US 'Arts & Law' managed capitalism can compete with Chinese 'Engineer' managed capitalism.

First up, might be realizing it's post 1976 - I.e. neither communism or capitalism exist

Capitalism coupled with military and police rule was re-introduced in a small asian country in 1977 with the blessing of USA.

Remember just because its blessed by the USA, does not mean its good. There are alot of issues going on.

The UN want to have a "panel"of inquiry into "war crimes" based on a video evidence.If there was no video evidence will UN/UK/USA/Russia/China/Japan/India etc say there was no "human rights violation"from 1948 when that country gained independence from Britishers who developed that country "asymmetrically" so that one racial/religious group will become slaves in the hands of another racial/religious group when britishers left and call it "internal affair","democracy" and cover up crimes by "sovereignty of states".

What, exactly, is the point of your argument?

UN/ILO/Interpol should have its TV station and broadcast news and other programs in all languages of the world employing translators, photographers,armed guards etc in important and troubled areas of every nation. Any one who prevents its staff from going to jails,detention centres,conflict areas etc to be taken into custody and sent to Geneva for investigation. When a problem crops up in a nation ,without informing UN if any country try to solve by buying arms or by inviting army from other countries, both nations should be punished by UN. For the expenses incurred by UN it should impose heavy tax on countries possessing nuclear and heavy weapons,having expanded army,spending too much money in armed forces etc. UN offices world wide should accept complaints directly from countrymen instead of accepting only from a government only as all communities or races in the world are not represented in UN. A nation with only about 200,000 people have a representative in UN while a race with 75million living in many countries do not. Instead of United Nations there should be United Communities. Before UN was formed nobody stopped Hitler from killing Jews. Now also Un cannot do anything but it says it is internal affair in countries like Iraq,Palestine,Srilanka,former Pakistan ,Myanmar etc .but in europe they have created many states recently in Yugoslavia,Czech,former Soviet union etc while not doing anything in Chechenya,Srilanka,Kashmir etc

Quite so. It is all written in history that is ignored because people fail to appreciate that greed is not an asset. Karl Marx (and no, I'm not a Marxist) described in great detail the risks inherent in Capitalism. Everything that has happened, repeatedly, is outlined in Das Capital, which was written in the 1400's. Of course he didn't have a workable answer either but he did clearly see the problem.

Corrections.

The 1400s were before Gutenberg, the moveable type printing of the Bible, first.

Das Kapital was appearing between 1870 and 1900. I read it, and it would be a bore, if its effect on the world history could be discounted. Theory, yes. Doing all of it with flat disregard of human nature, aspirations, desires and motivations. Only grey masses exist, and they expected to behave uniformly. Also, their action are invariable, not influenced by external pressures. All patently untrue.

Human motivations are A, if not THE main factor in economic transactions. Other than that Das Kapital is a cornerstone work.

Thanks for the date correction. I live in a time flat world, now, not yet and before, and before is pretty fuzzy. I actually got confused with thinking about a different event that developed in the 1400's.

The same propaganda during cold war?

A Leap Forward is a jump in a ditch.

I agree with AH cost are way too high

And head to head, I believe we are farther ahead by having China copy us.

When it becomes the other way around, we are then losing.

agreed, it's not going to be easy.

It's interesting to note, the history of democracy's. it rarely last for more that 200 years. The down fall, greed and bloated industry.

we are following the trend here where most of the list is checked off,

hope we can avoid this.

http://www.apatheticvoter.com/Article_DownfallDemocracies.htm

We touch off on this with another discussion where there are parallels. #20

Excellent link!

That link sure does sum it up. It's a scary thing. The number of people that have become dependent on the US government doesn't need to grow much more for us to become a one party socialist system.

If we do continue to have two parties............it will be in name only.

Back to jobs and productivity. One thing I know for sure...............if the US thinks for a minute that we are going to get countries that are ramping up manufacturing and production to cease and desist over CO2, we are fooling ourselves.

If CO2 is going to kill us all, I'd rather die with some money in my pocket than rust bucket broke.

We still have hope. If we lose our credit rating and ability to borrow money, we will have no choice but to sober up, face reality, and start cutting back on both citizen dependency and government spending. The sooner the better.

I Guess two things had to be looked at

1. US should be more globalized (to reduce the item cost, cost of living, earning more revenews) by increasing the chances of foreigners to come in and work for US and yield revenew with their support. As labor cost of foreigners are far cheaper than the US citizens who are not affordable nowadays proportional to the cost of living. Indeed foreigners get you good returns with low investment on them

This could be materialized only by lifting the cap of H1B. Make it globally approachable country like UK, Singapore etc.. (where foreigners are the pillars of economical growth)

US also need to have onething in mind, Singapore who is just $1.19 of 1 USD. who were no were in the track to compete with US few years back. Singapore is not bigger than Manhattan City.. How come singapore compete with US economically ? Just "Humans" & Human values..

if not...

2. US should be capable of surviving independantly, make your own products, manufacture it in US and do not Out source to India or China and cry for not being developed whilst those crountries are developing. China survived independantly and now making use of the vacuum created(for low labor cost) globally into their favor.

One vital aspect US should always believe is China is "Not a Democratic country", so as SUDAN. the only difference is Military power is used for their growth in China, whilst Genicide in Sudan.

Now almost every product in US is being "made in China", Stop it .. else stop crying that China is competitor for the Super power !!

Employing foreigners will create unemployment among americans and bring racial problems while outsourcing too creates unemployment. You should come to a compromise by allocating selected jobs only for foreigners without causing unemployment for americans by encouraging them to be self-employed.

I Fully agree with your perspective. I bought exactly 10 items across varities like dress, electronic etc.. Out of which 8 were made in china, 1 in India, 1 in Thailand.

The next day i bought 6, all were made in China.

To make the statement far worse the Souvenir from Empire State building was "Made in China" !!

Out of the Random sampling, I haven't seen a single product being made in America.

I really wonder, What else US had planned to outsource to China ???

Stop Outsourcing as they are cheaper in their country ( you make that country wealthier), indeed bring them here to work for you ( to make your own self a real power).

I am sorry, but when I grew up "Made in America" was not seen as a symbol of quality over here. In general it was seen as a mark of a product with lower first cost, higher running costs and lower safety standards than the European products. At the time of course it was better than than the far eastern products.

There were and are some honourable exceptions to this with some world class products.

I may have spouted off a little too quickly. Everything we made was not perfect. Before the US started shipping jobs overseas, we definitely went through a period in the 70s and 80s where the quality of our products went down.................and I'm certainly not talking about all products, or all companies.

I also have hand tools of my Grandfather's that are still fully functional that were made in the US, and the 3 speed bicycle that I grew up with was a BMW.

From what I gather, Europe and the US are heading in the same direction.............I don't want to see Europe fail either.

We've had plenty of conversations on here about planned obsolescence, and so much of what we buy being, "throw away", garbage. I think the lack of world class products presents an opportunity......................for someone. If the Chinese start turning them out...................all of us are done.

I will expand on my previous comment in case it just looks like US bashing. A similar attitude used to be held over here the the "Made in England" tag with its implied superior quality was enough to sell a product despite the higher first cost and often slow delivery. That was not the case.

I think the moral is that we tend to look at ourselves in a too favourable light unaware of how others really perceive us. A "Made in America" tag is not enough to sell a product, even to American consumers. Everything else has to be competitive as well, price, quality, features and delivery.

Made in USA as opposed to the far east with using your domestic product as a base line?

Study the world history of past.

Nations seldom correct their errors and reach the bad days.

In power don't listen to the well wishers.

You asked an absolutely basic question. Here is my take on it. And I will speak straight.

I grew up under soviet rule, then came to this country. I liked it, more exactly, I love it. Oh, I do not find it perfect. Plenty of things can be improved. Except, that the basic setup is the best WORKING SYSTEM mankind ever devised. Theoretically, you can design plenty better. Particularly, if human nature is left out of the equation. And there is the rub.

No, we ought to do our own "thing", paying attention, but not copying anybody. And getting abused by Washington five ways from Sunday is not the way to get there.!!!

And oh YES, I am quite emotional about it! It is my home, I thought about it, invested in it, worked in improving it. And proud of it, overall.

The first secret is "austerity" in China and India,banning imports and locally produce whatever you need irrespective of quality which could be developed gradually.

Second is military rule-banning foreign correspondents,newspapers,putting in jail and torturing those who oppose the state or officials. This is why China has gone far in front of India.

Third is a disciplined society created by "Mao's thinking"-be prepared to make sacrifices even die for the country.

The americans want to be liberals,democrats,spend too much,spend their wealth in attacking other nations,disliking blacks even murdering Martin Luther King,sending Cassius Clay to compulsory army service,not caring for region damaged by hurricane Catherine etc

You've been listening to too much anti US propaganda.

Aside from our real problems, you've also demonstrated that much of the world has a very skewed concept of the US and what we're about.

I was going to mark you OT, but I don't do that unless it's some scam trying to get money.

Can you publicly talk about your own government and country like that?

In third world countries ruled by Britishers the leaders including the famous Mahatma Ghandi were Lawyers because they can speak english fluently and argue in courts and in parliament. But a leader like Yasser Arafat(freedom fighter) was an engineer which differentiates Palestinians from Indians. Even in US I believe still many Congressmen and Senators are Lawyers who wear coat and tie and make speeches only but engineers can do something very useful for their country.

Hi,

To answer the question "Is it Time for the U.S. to Start Copying China?"

A quantitative analysis: there are 4 Chinese citizens for 1 US citizen.

If we think about innovation in term of resources: it needs capital and people.

So, for the people, how much engineers, scientists will there be in China in 2012? In the USA?

For the capital, where is the money cheaper? In China or in USA?

Will the USA cope with its debt? (the AAA stuff...)? Are the chinese banks solid? (or the chinese debts credible?)

If the USA's federal debt destroys the american economy, will the Chinese economy crash?

As said in the article, California is bankrupt...and Ipad are designed there and built in China.

Next question: what if the two systems are wrong and not sustainable?

Which one will re-invent itself?

As a major first step let's try to get control of the corruption at all levels of government and industry. Profits are great and good but demanding massive profits in the first few years of any project leads us to where we are now. It breeds a culture of corruption.

Well, first, if the USA stopped all imports, China and India would fall economically.

Second, the powers that be in the USA will not allow this because they are banking off of the exported labor. They don't have to pay insurance, reduced taxes, no socialist taxes, etc.

Third, the people of China are demanding more wages and the labor market is getting very competitive according to my uncle who works over there for GE and according to all of the studies that I have seen (sorry I don't have the links to the studies). Once the people are demanding the same as the US and Europe, the manufacturing jobs will go somewhere else. Same as has happened to Mexico. Although, Mexico didn't produce quality parts. Look at all of the issues that GM has had prior to sending manufacturing to China.

My main point: manufacturing goes to the cheapest labor with the least regulations. Those places industrialize and start making regulations to protect the people and the environment. Manufacturing moves to the next cheapest place. It is a continual cycle. Think about these questions: How many countries are left with stable governments and cheap labor? How long will it take for the companies to cycle through and abuse all of these countries?

Does this sound familiar?

Illegals are flooding China from Africa, Vietnam, North Korea, and other countries. Reading some googled articles on illegal immigration into China, it appears that illegals are taking the lower paying jobs that the Chinese no longer want to do.

One article says they are building a wall to keep them out.

It almost seems that some multinationals have adopted 'the tragedy of the commons' as an effective business model.

Regards.

In my view an important factor is being overlooked every where:

The difference between the Business and Industrial ATTITUDES.

Industry invests pre-hand and earns later. Provides jobs, pays major portion of taxes in any form.

Business works under hand, pays least taxes and minimum jobs.

Now in market every body complains of no standards products, no warranty...

They are not concerned of quality but the profit margin i.e. max profit on minimum investment.

This is now international trend.

Innovation sells. It makes money. It takes money to make money and US banks are making money virtually impossible to obtain. Funds are required to drive innovation.

In the past, we took everything we had and put it on the table to fund a project.

Manufacturing and forward thinking thrived.

Automation was utilized to increase repeatability and relieve workers to forge additional responsibilities.

China has done all of the above and American's bought it....hook line and sinker.

America can take command with stronger value added principles and purchasers must be savvy of US companies that take the time and make the effort to get the product to market. Purchasing must identify the 'true' cost of purchasing the China device. If it is superior to US? Excellent quality? Really?? Then US has fallen short. If US is grossly overpriced?? Then it is time to understand true costs. If the total project price increases 5 percent, and the purchaser is assured of a 'made in US' device, can we get a feel good closing on the sale?? I say yes.

Maybe it is a mistake to include banks so intimately in the process. Maybe bean counters are useful as employees but lousy as bosses. Current tax policies and depreciation schedules in particular make it difficult for a business to pay cash up front for new equipment because the deduction is spread over a period of years. Paying instead by a loan from a bank means the payments as well as the deductions are spread out over time, making this a much more attractive approach. I know that there have been some steps in this direction lately, but I think we should look at ways to accelerate the process so that small businesses are not so dependent on the whims of the banking industry to launch new products. A banking system is obviously an important element in fueling economic growth, but we have let our banks gain far more power than they are capable of prudently exercising.