patrick.net

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkgx1C_S6ls#t=1m20s

The actual trace of mfg jobs is a bit different from the prediction:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USGOOD

(though Perot did say the sucking sound would come in 15 years -- maybe he was 100% right)

Mfg Jobs went UP from 22M in 1992 to over 24M in the late 90s, only to collapse with the tech recession, and then get liquidated in the current recession.

I didn't follow politics all that much in 1992 (I was a college senior) but after I graduated that June I was more than happy to bail on the US and try my luck in Japan. I was actually in Japan already when the October 1992 debates were going on.

Turns out I was jumping from the frying pan into the fire as far as recessions went!

The real question is WTH was going in in the late 90s -- what was sustainable and what was a bubble, and how that particular bubble compared to more recent housing bubble in terms of damage.

Theoretically we are not economically damaged by getting out goods a lot cheaper from cheap-labor countries like Mexico and China. We're getting more value for our money, and all the US dollars we send overseas have to come back eventually any way.

The problem comes from the fact that we are losing productive opportunities here at home, basically sidelining millions of formerly wealth-creating people. The real estate boom was a substitution for actual wealth-creation, but as all bubbles couldn't last.

If the Chinese will really work for $1/hr, then instead of paying a factory guy here $30/hr it makes sense to ship the work over there and use the $29 in savings to pay the factory guy $15/hr to play xbox or whatever.

The reason free trade isn't working is that the gains are flowing to the capitalists and labor is just getting utterly screwed, year by year.

Troy,

Thanks again for the information.

I now live in Tokyo and I have been in Japan about 18 yrs.
Did you work in Takadanobaba? I used to...

cheers.

I lived in Takadanobaba 1993-1995, just north of the big park google streetview.

So you've been in Japan as long as I would have been if I hadn't bailed in 2000. Kinda want to go back, kinda don't. Not sure they have their act together any better than we do, they're just ~10 years further down the road.

Tho I do think their more "harmonious" society will be able to move more towards the Eurosocialist model eventually. Ours, dunno, we've got too many religious nutballs here -- 25% of the vote -- that are really mucking things up . . .

Yeah we've got Voters that don't agree with your ideas.
Democracy sucks Ass huh Comrade Troy?