I got an e-mail today from some political organization complaining about the Solyndra deal in these terms.
Start with labor costs. Thanks to the influence of labor unions, Solyndra paid its employees an average of about $100,000 per year. In China, a salary of $100,000 is unheard of. Most factory workers get paid about $.80 per hour. Rarely do they make more than $200 per month. America cannot compete in the face of this disparity.
Sure we can. We just won’t do it by throwing labor at problems. We will have to use our brains. A commodity that is more than evidently in very short supply. Especially among the politicos.
Cross Posted at Power and Control
Comments
4 responses to “America Cannot Compete”
“Thanks to the influence of labor unions, Solyndra paid its employees an average of about $100,000 per year”
…and now, thanks to the influence of labor unions, Solyndra is paying its employees an average of about $0 per year.
Consider the paradox:
1. The third world country wonders how it can possibly compete with the first world with all the first world’s education and technology.
2. The first world country wonders how it can possibly compete with the third world with all the third world’s cheap labor.
The answer to both is comparative (not competitive) advantage, which says that nobody is worst at everything.
The economics department chairman sends his secretary to deliver papers to the dean even though the chairman walks faster than the secretary. The secretary has a comparative advantage in walking.
The total income of each country is higher if they specialize and trade, even if one country can do all the tasks better and nevertheless offloads some or all of some tasks to the other country.
We will have to use our brains.
Where does that leave the ‘99%’ we see at the #Occupations? Seriously.
chuckR: MORE seriously: what about the 50%, whose IQ is below 100? rhhardin sort-of alluded to this, in his econ 101 jargon. [disclosure: everyone had a subject they did crap in, in college; econ was mine.]
I think this “we” has to refer to an elite. It’s trust in the majority will of the electorate which brought us into this mess.