[ashokrajagopal]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

Let me put one point to ponder for all - What would have been the scene of globalization IF the value of all currencies across the world be the same?

In a way EU was the closest to Globalization - free movement of goods, services and people with single currency. And as we can see, one of the Champions of Globalization, UK, chose Brexit!

All the countries cannot be net exporters, unless there is some other universe we export to. There will be more efficient and less efficient countries, all the time.
When Euro was formed, it was basically the German Mark that renamed itself as Euro and all the other countries pegged itself to it. It did not benefit many countries, while it benefited some. With the common currency, a scenario like this can happen.
German car bought in Italy.* The Profit stays in Germany, lets say in some bank.*
If this goes on like that Germany has a surplus of cash.* Euro.*
So, they will lend out to other places.*

After Global Financial Crisis, when everywhere in the world Govts were injecting money into the system, the same thing happened all over Europe.*

German car sold in Greece.* Money comes to Germany.* Greece has not much productivity, which means Germans rarely buy anything from Greeks.*
|
Germany has a surplus of cash.*
|
Germany can lend out to itself or other countries with similar credit rating. The issue there -- low interest.*
|
Greece has smaller credit rating because of existing debts and low output. *
|
The German private banks are interested in lending out to Greece and other broken economies for more interest.*

The cycle of debt ridden broken low productivity countries would continue, with bailouts from the Govt bonds and banks recapitalisation.

In the absence of a single currency, the Central bank in each state would have adjusted the monetary policy to play with the value of the currency to absorb the debt shocks. But with single currency, it is not possible.

The world over cannot have a single currency. Not until we all vote for a sovereign earth.

[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

All the countries cannot be net exporters, unless there is some other universe we export to. There will be more efficient and less efficient countries, all the time.
When Euro was formed, it was basically the German Mark that renamed itself as Euro and all the other countries pegged itself to it. It did not benefit many countries, while it benefited some. With the common currency, a scenario like this can happen.

"Greece has low productivity": It does not stop Greek workers to move to germany and Start working in German factories, earn Money and remit back to Greece. Or better, relocate to Germany - German population increases, putting pressure on public infrastructure (german car purchased by a greek but driven on german roads). Germany becomes cosmopolitan with more non-germans than germans. Democracy (real one) takes over and borders cease to exist (no germany, no greece, one European Union).

I know it is absurd and impossible. But this is globalization in real sense. With restrictions on movement of people, import/export restrictions, tariffs and what not - Globalization is flawed. And hence it is increasing income disparity.

[ashokrajagopal]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

"Greece has low productivity": It does not stop Greek workers to move to germany and Start working in German factories, earn Money and remit back to Greece. Or better, relocate to Germany - German population increases, putting pressure on public infrastructure (german car purchased by a greek but driven on german roads). Germany becomes cosmopolitan with more non-germans than germans. Democracy (real one) takes over and borders cease to exist (no germany, no greece, one European Union).

I know it is absurd and impossible. But this is globalization in real sense. With restrictions on movement of people, import/export restrictions, tariffs and what not - Globalization is flawed. And hence it is increasing income disparity.

The "*" all over my post was to say that this is a schematic example, not 100% literal facts. I missed adding that, and now can't edit it.
I must also add, this explanation above is my understanding of the Greek crisis as explained by Yanis Varoufakis, their ex Finance minister.

In your example above, you have explained a case where Germans and Greeks are not separated by borders, pretty much like a single country. We could put Indian states and it would make sense. People from Orissa coming to Bangalore to work on IT. Cars made in Tamilnadu being driven in Kerala etc. No restrictions, everybody allowed to own capital thru out the region.

But it has to be a sovereign country as a whole with a lot of unity to make that happen. Thats why I said, not unless we all vote for a sovereign earth.
I completely agree, it is near impossible.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Redistribution of wealth means excess wealth moving from rich to the poor. What globalization does is move middle class jobs from high labor-cost countries to low-labor cost countries. Taking away middle class jobs from one country and giving it to another country is not redistribution of wealth. In fact, globalization made middle class Americans poorer, and American companies much richer.

Yes, I know. What I meant was a different kind of redistribution, and that's why I put it in quotes .

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

Assumption: A person riding a cycle 3 KM to work in ordinary traffic is not middle class. A person riding a CT100 3 KM in choking traffic laden with big cars and SUVs is middle class. What is the logic behind this ?

Just because you are using a more expensive tool, does not improve your quality of life.

Quality of life is a subjective thing. Also that we lived in a socialist utopia pre-1991 is imagination. I have quoted World bank poverty figures for India and China elsewhere. Globalization gave decent paying jobs to half the world population (i.e India and China).

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

The quality of life of those lacking it rarely improved, and that is the reason for the social unrests. This is the inequality problem economists around the world ( East and West) are worried about.

Imagine the unrest if millions of Chinese didn't have jobs. Know which country they would have attacked first?

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

Assumption 2: Technology creation by the so called 3rd world countries is not possible. Why can't China create their own phones without Globalization of this scale ?

Well, they can and they do. Globalization just gives a jump-start to the process.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

The second thing that I may not have been clear before is, iPhone has already taken X percent of the market, nearly only benefiting Apple. So, China can create phones, but Apple would have taken over a percentage of the market already, but will move manufacturing out as soon as they find another cheaper place/option.

Yes, Apple will move if they find a cheaper location, but China won't collapse because now they have the skills to build Xiaomi or Oneplus phones. It will be a blip on Chinese economy.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

Chinese websites are taking on American Corporations, why are you saying that is because of Globalization ?

I am just saying that Chinese technology companies have the know-how, skills and wherewithal to compete American corporations. Same for Indian companies (e.g. Tata Motors or Mahindra).

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

BTW, if Apple shuts manufacturing in China now, Apple dies within years. They wouldnt be able to break even. This may change in future.

That is for Apple to decide. All I am saying that it won't affect Chinese economy much if Apple shuts manufacturing in China now.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

Its not just an assumption, a very very long logical jump with no backing. You cant measure an economy by a few decades. Wait for some more years to see how it pans out. I am not stating its otherwise -- I think its too early to say.

Point taken. But my guess is in a couple of decades, a few Africans would be ranting against Chinese owned MNCs and how they took over their economies . Chinese corporations already own a lot of mineral assets in Afghanistant, Central Asia, and Africa.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

It would be really naive to look at Japan and South Korea without the points about US attack on Japan in 2nd world war, and the later Cold war political backdrop. Its not like US put the "Globalization" rule book into play and magically it transformed; they politically played a reparation game to rebuild the economy and consolidate a position against Communism. It was a political need.
The globalization rule book was played on many other countries. African, and South east like Philippines. They did not yield much of a difference. Of course there would be some per capita $X at that time vs $Y at this time, but that has been pointed out many times here that its just a statistic.

Yes, true. Call it globalization or political reparation but it eventually turned out well for Japan and South Korea, so much so that they are now considered "imperialists" and "capitalists" by the leftist press. Whereas North Korea, or East Europe which embraced Communism didn't pan out well.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

There are ways in which business is done and that is what we are discussing here in this thread. All thru, I believe the talk has been about government taking advantage of globalization the way the country needs, and not the way the corporations or another country wants. .....

It is always a two-way street. Nobody forced us to become code-jockeys dishing out s/w at low costs, and nobody forced Chinese workers to manufacture Nike shoes. It is just that the skills, market, and the costs matched.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

Cuba has been the poster child of anti globalization; it has a high HDI. High literacy rate.

All the best to Cuba then. Good luck also to all the Cubans fleeing the Socialist utopia of Cuba.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

I, for one think that PVNR and the Indian governments following him should have extracted a little more from the S/W corporations around the world to develop our skill set. And tried to create a s/w market advantage in India.

I see the glass as half-full here. Indians do have the skill and we are getting there. Software like the ones GSTN, NSE run on are pretty complex, and Indians have written it (though underlying platform may be sourced from IBM or Oracle). Same with the private biggies like Reliance or Tatas or Mahindras; They have huge IT resources working with them (on maybe SAP platform) but still the Indian input is significant. So it is a matter of opinion.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

You are choosing the sectors you have examples in. Domestic small scale industry, retail, garments, shoes, software, electronics, cosmetics, there are tons of examples from the opposite spectrum where the domestic industry has been killed by the invader.

Garments have also greatly benefited by exports to the US (in the case of Bangladesh also). Pharma is one more sector.

[ashokrajagopal]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

Quality of life is a subjective thing. Also that we lived in a socialist utopia pre-1991 is imagination. I have quoted World bank poverty figures for India and China elsewhere. Globalization gave decent paying jobs to half the world population (i.e India and China).

Yes subjective. Basic human requirements on the other hand are not. Human development Index is based on that. There are a lot of studies on this. Decent pay is just based on the conversion rate to dollar mostly, but whether more benefit to HDI could have been brought by better government and its economics is possible is rarely studied because that may dent the corporate profits.

Imagine the unrest if millions of Chinese didn't have jobs. Know which country they would have attacked first?

What makes you think this would not happen with Globalization in place as of now, and jobs move out of China in future with more technology developments ? Political unrests are always a possibility with jobs moving out.

Well, they can and they do. Globalization just gives a jump-start to the process.

May I ask, can you assume a govt policy that effectively clips the profits and works for the people during globalization cannot achieve this jump start ?

Yes, Apple will move if they find a cheaper location, but China won't collapse because now they have the skills to build Xiaomi or Oneplus phones. It will be a blip on Chinese economy.

China would not collapse if Apple moves out. But China would collapse if most of the companies move out. Let me be clear, they DO NOT HAVE TO collapse. But the existing and ever increasing inequality of wealth and quality of life will ensure that the bottom strata suffers the worst and first. Political unrest is the most common outcome unless there is effective government action.

I am just saying that Chinese technology companies have the know-how, skills and wherewithal to compete American corporations. Same for Indian companies (e.g. Tata Motors or Mahindra).

This is valid only for certain sectors, not for all. The existing open market would have killed some of the indigenous players as well. Of course, a domestic corporation can take the place of the outgoing corporation, but the story of inequality will only continue. And certainly, there would be some job losses anyway.

That is for Apple to decide. All I am saying that it won't affect Chinese economy much if Apple shuts manufacturing in China now.

Apple is just a symbol. Many companies together makes the effect.

Point taken. But my guess is in a couple of decades, a few Africans would be ranting against Chinese owned MNCs and how they took over their economies. Chinese corporations already own a lot of mineral assets in Afghanistant, Central Asia, and Africa.

Yes, true. Call it globalization or political reparation but it eventually turned out well for Japan and South Korea, so much so that they are now considered "imperialists" and "capitalists" by the leftist press. Whereas North Korea, or East Europe which embraced Communism didn't pan out well.

In my earlier post, I mentioned other countries that had globalisation played out, but did not benefit. The saga of globalisation is being repeated as it helped everybody. You have chosen two countries which benefited with political background. But there are other countries which worsened, but they are not being pointed at all. And I dont know how North Korea is featured as an argument as if there is nothing in between. Eastern european states fare much better than African and south eastern countries in terms of quality of life. This is evident from HDI studies.

It is always a two-way street. Nobody forced us to become code-jockeys dishing out s/w at low costs, and nobody forced Chinese workers to manufacture Nike shoes. It is just that the skills, market, and the costs matched.

In this thread, I guess we are all saying that the system is forcing us to become code jockeys or anything that moves in that direction. The market for globalisation which creates the platform for all this ultimately drives in this direction.

All the best to Cuba then. Good luck also to all the Cubans fleeing the Socialist utopia of Cuba.

It sounds like the above statement is just pushing the argument of HDI aside and just focusing on the problems in Cuba. Sidestepping is okay for some stuff, but I believe the people are more important rather than any particular ideology -- communism or capitalism. The government has to decide whatever benefits the people, and purposely avoiding the good things from another method is just another type of utopian thinking.

I see the glass as half-full here. Indians do have the skill and we are getting there. Software like the ones GSTN, NSE run on are pretty complex, and Indians have written it (though underlying platform may be sourced from IBM or Oracle). Same with the private biggies like Reliance or Tatas or Mahindras; They have huge IT resources working with them (on maybe SAP platform) but still the Indian input is significant. So it is a matter of opinion.

Okay, IBM, Oracle and SAP. I dont have anything to add here. So, these corporations are selling to Indian government, using the Indian people's labor cheaply.

Garments have also greatly benefited by exports to the US (in the case of Bangladesh also). Pharma is one more sector.

Garments are pretty much like IT. We just build outsourced stuff for foreign brands. Not a single Indian global brand which can compete with the world's leaders. The exchange rate based labor selling has worked for some time like IT.

Pharma - the research is completely backed by Governments around the world. If there is one sector which should never run on a market, it is pharma.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

Human development Index is based on that.

Since you brought in HDI, lets see a few data and trends.

Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/trends

2015 ranking is given in brackets. Period refers to 1990-2015.

1. United States (10) - For all the rants against capitalism and how it does not consider HDI or degrades humans, US seems to be doing very well on the HDI front. In fact, it was 7th in 2010 (see the "Change in HDI rank" column).

2. Cuba (68) - Poster-boy of the left. 68 is not bad but the way the Left portrays Cuba as the utopia against Globalization and Imperialism, I was under the impression it would be up in the single digit rank. Another poster-boy of the left, Venezuela closely follows Cuba at 71.

3. India (131) - Admittedly bad and still a long way to go. But see the trend from 1990 - a period that coincides with reforms and globalization -
HDI has gone up by 45%!! So the claim from leftists that Globalization leads to lower HDI is junk logic.

4. China (90) - Similar to India; In fact, China HDI has gone up very well in this period 47%.

Considering that China and India constitute around 40% of world population, we can reasonably conclude that a lot, really a lot of people in have seen their lives becoming better in this period.


5. Other observation - The top 20 countries are all what can be called capitalism-oriented centrist countries (except the US which may be more right than the others); None of them were earlier Eastern bloc (Soviet aligned) countries. This shows utter failure of socialist/planned economies.

Originally Posted by ashokrajagopal

And I dont know how North Korea is featured as an argument as if there is nothing in between. Eastern european states fare much better than African and south eastern countries in terms of quality of life. This is evident from HDI studies.

North Korea came in comparison to South Korea. You generally compare two countries with a similar background of Geography, History, and culture. That way the differences in HDI/GDP can be attributed to economic/political factors.

That is why Western European countries with Eastern European countries (care to guess who has the better HDI ?); Or North and South Korea is compared. Or Israel with other West Asian countries.
<off-topic> That similarly India is not compared to Pakistan in matters of economy shows how much of an utter failure Pakistan is.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

5. Other observation - The top 20 countries are all what can be called capitalism-oriented centrist countries (except the US which may be more right than the others); None of them were earlier Eastern bloc (Soviet aligned) countries. This shows utter failure of socialist/planned economies.

Interesting... you say none of the top 20 are socialist countries?

Let's look at the top 10 socialist countries in the world. Of them, 9 are in the VERY HIGH HUMAN DEVELOPMENT list you provided. In fact, 5 of them are in the top 10, 7 in the top 15, and 9 of them in the top 25. The only top socialist country country that misses the list is China, because it is a communist country.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Interesting... you say none of the top 20 are socialist countries?

Let's look at the top 10 socialist countries in the world. Of them, 9 are in the VERY HIGH HUMAN DEVELOPMENT list you provided. In fact, 5 of them are in the top 10, 7 in the top 15, and 9 of them in the top 25. The only top socialist country country that misses the list is China, because it is a communist country.

I meant Socialist in a more "traditional" sense of no free market, no private enterprise, economy is totally govt controlled type of countries - erstwhile Soviet bloc kind of countries. I don't consider China as a communist country anymore even though officially and politically they are.

Western European countries do have free markets, private enterprise, ease of doing business, but the govt spends a lot on welfare, health care, and other social benefits to their citizens. Kudos to them and that's how it should be . I called them the capitalism-oriented centrist countries, not extreme right as US Republicans, nor extreme left as Venezuela. If you want to call them socialists then so be it.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

I meant Socialist in a more "traditional" sense of no free market, no private enterprise, economy is totally govt controlled type of countries - erstwhile Soviet bloc kind of countries.

That's called an command economy.

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

but the govt spends a lot on welfare, health care, and other social benefits to their citizens. Kudos to them and that's how it should be .

And that's called socialism.

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

I called them the capitalism-oriented centrist countries

If you just make up a new terminology, and call command economy as socialism, obviously you will confuse all of us here.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Samurai

And that's called socialism.

.

I don't think so, plenty of European countries with quite right and or centre right wing governments over the last couple of dcadesThey are still spending money on social welfare, education and public health care. E.g. prime minister May of the UK and Rutte of the Netherlands are staunch right wing conservatives, but are still spending public money on these topics. I don't think anybody would call them or their governments socialists.

Jeroen

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I don't think anybody would call them or their governments socialists.

They don't like the label, but when government collects high amount of taxes, and then spends lot of it on social welfare and public welfare, they are following socialism. They don't call themselves socialists, probably because that tag usually is associated with communist countries. But socialism is actually an economic system, any country can borrow ideas from it. And many democratic countries do.

These countries may refuse the socialist label, but Forbes or Bloomberg don't have any doubts about it.

In this thread, I often see people confuse socialism with communism, they are not the same. As the preceding link says "A socialist government could control all of the means of production — or it could, for example, use taxes to redistribute resources among the population." The latter is what most democratic countries do.

There are no pure capitalist or pure socialist economies. They are always a combination of capitalism and socialism. Countries that tax high and spend it on social welfare are socialist leaning country, they usually provide free health care, free education, welfare for jobless, etc. But capitalist leaning countries tax less, provide no free health care, make education expensive, etc.

I had discussed this in detail a year before.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Samurai

They don't call themselves socialists, probably because that tag usually is associated with communist countries. .

I don’t think so. Whereas your definitions seem to be pretty absolute, for most people, including politicians, left/right/socialism/capitalism are relative terms. They measure from where they are standing so to speak.

If you had asked our American friends when we lived in the USA what political affiliations I have, they would have told you: What him? The looney lefty from Europe. If you would ask my friends in Europe, they would say: Him, he thinks he is a liberal, but he is just pretty right wing without being extreme.

So whilst their might be economic definitions, it doesn’t mean everybody agrees or has the same understanding. In that respect I don’t think socialism/capitalism are the correct label to capture what is really at stake. It’s down to what individuals feel what role they play in a society. Is it only about me and I need/want to take care of everything myself or do I believe I have a responsibility for society at a large and believe certain aspects of society needs to organised by the state/governement.

I always felt this was the biggest difference between Americans and Europeans. Take healthcare; Americans be it democrats or republicans have a fundamental different view on health care than Europeans.


Just came across this very interesting article on the BBC.

It’s conclusion:

If you’re looking for what makes a country great, it seems, don’t look at its GDP or unemployment rate. Look at its commitment to its citizens – and how long it’s stuck to that commitment for.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2018...-country-great

I think Forbes and Bloomberg are very conservative on how they view economic models. Bit stuck in old dogma’s.

Jeroen

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I don’t think so. Whereas your definitions seem to be pretty absolute, for most people, including politicians, left/right/socialism/capitalism are relative terms. They measure from where they are standing so to speak.

Just like there is no perfect black body, there is no example of absolute socialism or capitalism either. Like the perfect black body, theoretical definitions of socialism or capitalism helps us identify examples that are close enough.

Obama is considered black and Trump is considered white. But in reality they are light brown and orange respectively. Even these are not absolute definitions.

However, when a western government behaves like a socialist government, they refuse to call it socialism. It looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but refuses to be called a duck. That is because of dog-whistle politics.

Bernie Sanders, who lost the democratic primary election in 2016, remained the most popular politician in America even after a year after losing to Hillary. But he claims to be a socialist. That is a dog whistle to people who grew up in the cold war era. That makes them not vote for him, despite they liking all his proposals. Ask an american senior citizen who lived the cold war era, who is now on social security and medicare, about socialism. He will reject it, not realizing he is living on socialistic programs. Such is the power of labels.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I always felt this was the biggest difference between Americans and Europeans.

Bill Maher hilariously explains the difference, and how Americans loves concept of socialism, but not the label.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8SsFkSdG_s

[roy_libran]

Human Development Index is often criticised for not accounting for a country's internal inequalities or for sustainability, apart from a few other factors.
Hence, this may not be a good metric to substantiate claims or opinions.

[alpha1]

Is capitalism long sighted?
What kind of economic value is placed important and taken into account by the participants in a "market economy" while taking decisions?