Saturday, November 25, 2006

Buying away America

Are you buying away America this holiday season? Well, if you're not, make sure you do your part by using your hard earned savings to buy those plasma TV you always wanted. Wait, what about a brand-new Sony PlayStation 3 gaming console? With this little gadget, you and your kids can spend hours and hours playing in front of the plasma TV! Allowing you some quality time to bond with your kids! Or, what about an iPod-compatible home theater system which you always wanted to play your favorite pirated albums? What about those fancy, trendy-looking clothes which you would always want to wear to go to a party? With such a low price at your local Wal-Mart or malls your dreams may just have come true.

What you must not forget is to say thank you to the countless Chinese migrant workers whom has to endure a meager or no pay to just to make your life more enjoyable. Even better, these workers often get paid overtime, have health insurance coverage, live in nice housings, and their children even get a chance to go to local school! What is there not to like?

Other things you should also be more optimistic is that you are trading away America's future by buying products made abroad. This include an exchange of the U.S. job market with cheap foreign produces. For now, it's ok you're trading away low-tech jobs. Wait until you start trading away hi-tech jobs. Now, that would be something we should all be excited about!

Please, be responsible over this holiday season. Please buy away America this season.

While you're at it you might as well buy away your soul and conscience.

3 comments:

రామ ShastriX said...

SpeedD, am reminded of Socrates who would go window-shopping just to see the many things that he never needed!

Just imagine the fun he'd have had this century.

Unknown said...

Hi Shastrix,

What a lot of westerners don't realize is by buying cheap goods they're also putting pressure on their own economic system through trade imbalance. The effect of which has been researched thoroughly in EPI's article, "The U.S. Trade Deficit, Are We Trading Away Our Future?".

I guess when we look at this we have to approach it from two perspectives: micro and macro-economics. But the aggregation of micro-scale economic would inherently effect the outcome of macro-scale economic. So, we can not just rely on supply and demand. Foreign influence should also need to be examined.

Like what the article mentioned the erosion of job not only effects low-tech industries (i.e. textile), but also the manufacturing, and IT industries. What I'm afraid of is once I graduated from my degree there wouldn't be anymore jobs for me and my friends to take. Because there's always somebody overseas who's willing to work in the same field with a lower wage.

రామ ShastriX said...

Thanks, SpeedD. Please see Debt and the Dollar as well. The US is sitting on an economic time bomb. The situation is too fluid and all we need is just another 9/11 to push the US over the edge. There are some who predict that this will happen in AUG.2007. Let's see.

Regarding jobs getting Bangalored, that's how the cookie crumbles. There were some who felt that India would get clobbered when it opened up in 1991, but the shoe is on the other foot now.