Croc I thought you were smarter than that.
You should brush up on " one belt one road "
It's not about being smart, dumb or otherwise. Just plain ol' observation. China is a low productivity country. The mean annual production of one worker being US$7,318 and the world average of US$18,487 while advanced countries like the US, Europe and Aussie are US$98,990. Chinese productivity is around 7.8% of ours and that reflects their low GDP per capita and hence the remark "enjoy the awesomeness"
http://simecons.com/labor-productivity-in-china/The belt and road initiative requires no brushing up. The strategy is more about maintaining Chinese hegemony in the region than it about economic output. Regional Chinese infrastructure is years behind so the project has benefits but is also costly with a price tag in today's money of US$1.2 trillion. That needs a lot of extra GDP growth to pay for it. A geopolitical problem isn't easily solved by throwing cash at it.
China is building 3 super fast rail networks to Northern Europe.
Central Europe thru turkey and thru Pakistan to the sea.
They are the biggest infrastructure players in Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria. The Sudan and Pakistan.
They recently opened 52 factories in Kenya.
They just completed their 10,000 rail trip to London.
Though of a similar population to India, they are building infrastructure at 12x the rate.
They are constructing a city the size of Perth every fortnight as they urbanise.
They are building a super grid to power all if Asia and Africa.
It would appear the USA is in deep trouble.
It's school system is falling apart.
China has more engineers at university then the USA had engineers.
Yes, I know. I get the odd Chinese engineer for work experience. I often can't fault their theoretical knowledge but they tend to be short on problem solving ability. Unfortunately, China are good copiers but short on innovation. How many patent applications have they made ?
It connects 50000 people to the power grid every day.
It connects 50000 people to running water every day.
They have to start somewhere. It would be difficult to even find 50,000 people without power and water in the US not by choice.
With the use of CRISPA gene splicing, it will soon be able to produce enhanced humans with higher IQ and other skills.
Works both ways. Just as much chance of producing a dud as well.
There is NO REASON whatsoever for Aussie workers to tell themselves a BS story that their labour is worth 5 x that of a Chinese worker.
That isn't true. Maybe in jobs where productivity is low but not otherwise. High wages are perfectly sustainable as long as they match productivity. Chinese wages are low due to low productivity and not much else.
If Aussies want iPhones made in china, then we accept global markets and we MUST accept global benchmarking for wages.
Accept it or it will be enforced upon you eventually.
All jobs with low productivity and limited skill. Jobs being lost to China are all low productivity and lower skills. There is nothing wrong with this. It is not the absolute cost of production that determines whether or not a new location is sought. This decision will be based not on absolute cost but on opportunity cost. There is a world of difference.
The current crop of entitled fools like gweg and knight think they can live 5x above their value because, because,..... Well just because.
We both get that Peccerhead, Nails and co are fools living in a world where gimme might mean something. They haven't quite made the connection between productivity, skills acquisition, capital deepening and wages growth. Their hero, Super Sally is even more clueless.
Guess what, that is a game that is coming to an end very soon my friend.
And you as an economist need to recognise that and the population needs to prepare.
It is always in a state of flux. China has a long way to go yet. Their problems of low capacity utilisation and low productivity will act as a handbrake as worker skills gradually grow. High labour inputs and low productivity don't compete with low labour input and high productivity in the long term.