February 12, 2006
WE LET THEM ASSEMBLE KNICK-KNACKS:
Trade gap aside, a lot still 'made in USA' (Mark Trumbull, 2/13/06, The Christian Science Monitor)
In general terms, the production of consumer goods - often relatively low-tech work in which profits can be tied heavily to labor costs - has been shifting overseas. Textiles, shoes, and those raffia magazine holders are examples. US producers have focused increasingly on higher-end industrial goods, from aircraft to heavy machinery.Posted by Orrin Judd at February 12, 2006 7:53 PMPersonal computers flow in from Chinese assembly plants, but their highest-value component - the microprocessor - often comes from a US factory.
In a posting below, the NYT quoted a Chinese economist:
"The biggest beneficiary of all this is the United States," said Dong Tao, an economist at UBS in Hong Kong. "A Barbie doll costs $20, but China only gets about 35 cents of that."
In most PCs, the most expensive component is the operating system, and the porifits go to Redmond Washington.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at February 13, 2006 11:08 AMThe problem is that if all the US provides is some marketing schmaltz and protected copyright, it is very easy for future arbitrage to remove us entirely because we don't provide real value. Middle-men can be removed.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at February 13, 2006 4:55 PMChris:
That's backwards., Only the ideas are worth anything. You can hire anybody to assemble the gewgaw.
Posted by: oj at February 13, 2006 5:00 PM