"Ed Huntress" wrote in message v.net...

With a good Chinese worker making $0.80/hr., and with productivity
in their better export-oriented plants and shops running perhaps
2/3 of ours, there was no other possible outcome

There is no way the best factories in China are 2/3 as productive as
even the average U.S. factories, and what I've seen tells me that
they're at best only 1/3 as productive. This may be why Honda has
estimated that its Chinese parts factories will be only 30% cheaper
than those in Japan and North America, despite wage disparities being
much, much greater (rule of thumb: Chinese labor costs are
essentially zero). And even when the factories are identical,
productivity almost always significantly lags in the lower-wage
country.

The prime reason for job losses in the manufacturing sector is
productivity improving faster than sales, just as has been the case
with farming for almost a century.