Maxt

Phinsup, yes I am aware that once the pandoras box is opened there is no going back.. This was what many in Canada were up in arms about when it came to fresh water. They figured that the US was coming in to rob of us of our most loved resource.. It turned out to be a socialist bogeyman tactic, in fact we were suing the US for directing to much water back into Canada and flooding parts of Manitoba..

Every politician up here talks tough about holding America to its signed agreements, but in truth they turtle everytime, no matter what party they belong to..

Anyway I was pondering the thought of what it would take to rebuild the US manafacturing sector and I think the US really only has a couple of choices.

They can bring costs in line which will mean labour pay reductions and union fueds, or they can make up some bullshit manufacturing standard that only the US factories can meet, like an ISO standard that no one else ever can reach. But knockoffer's can print ID stamps as well..

Heavy Industry is done in the US, it needs cheap labour and moves around the world to find it, once those workers unionize and the wage threshold is broken it just finds a new port to call home, just look at ship building as example. Its an industry that transforms countries with relatively poor unskilled masses, into tech savvy industrialized nations. Once it creates enough spin off industry and wealth , it moves on. The US's turn in heavy industry in non war times was nearly a 80 years ago ..Right now India and China are churning out the worlds freighters, after that it will move through asia to africa most likey.

Here in Canada, we will have service sector and production employment basically until the resources run out. The areas that have suffered are areas directly tied to US manufacturing, eg auto in Ontario.

Some societies have become all tech/design based and moved production offshore, its possible to do, but you need all of your population to be highly educated and success driven in order to guarantee most a job, like Japan. If you fall the cracks there you are more or less F'd for life..

The question is , what does America do best compared to other countries? Start wars?

defprun

Start a band.

Maxt

Old school buses and youthful toothey grins?...

defprun

As opposed to after they get famous? Million dollar busses and crachhead-esque toothless grins?

Nateb123

I can see Canada moving to be a purely technological entity Maxt, but the US? I don't think so. There's too many uneducated, unskilled laborers still around. They were all lead to believe that they could live like the middle class and were continually made to seem as though they could with union benefits, payday loans and high-risk mortgages. But as the current economy has shown, their jobs just aren't demanding enough, and the products they create aren't valuable enough to keep them living that illusion anymore. The problem now isn't that there aren't enough unskilled laborers, but that they live in a country with such a broad range of income levels. Every auto worker wants to get paid almost as much as someone who went to school for 4 or 8 years simply because living costs reflect the amenities that the middle class expect. Canada by comparison just doesn't have that living cost/income gap because it's amazingly easy to get a damned decent job here.

Maxt

I agree, part of that has to do with climate, lots of people get paid well just for living in relatively harsh conditions. Even coffee servers get paid well to go to work in -40.

defprun

You dont live in Ontario...its going to **** in a hurry everyones getting laid off. And considering this is the most populated province people working matters...

Nateb123

Ontario is like Michigan II, you guys barely count as Canadian! :P

defprun

Le gasp!