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To: RightOnline

Automation + energy savings means that most manufacturing will probably return back to a local model. Then there are companies like Amazon building local distribution centers for timely shipping who also may see an upside in local suppliers.

Bottom line, agriculture is now done by 1 to 3 percent of the work force thanks to automation. Manufacturing is now going through the same shrinkage. At some point everything the world needs produced will be done by lights out automated manufacturing centers and probably employ about 1 to 3 percent of the work force. China and India will not be able to compete against this and will follow suit in their own countries.


30 posted on 01/14/2013 9:14:52 AM PST by Gen-X-Dad
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To: Gen-X-Dad
Bottom line, agriculture is now done by 1 to 3 percent of the work force thanks to automation. Manufacturing is now going through the same shrinkage. At some point everything the world needs produced will be done by lights out automated manufacturing centers and probably employ about 1 to 3 percent of the work force. China and India will not be able to compete against this and will follow suit in their own countries.

Wages would have to shrink considerably for that to happen. Port to port shipping costs peanuts, thanks to the invention of the shipping container. Last I heard, it was about $0.10 per pound per refrigerated container. It actually costs less money to ship something from a major Chinese port to any given US port than to ship it from the West Coast to the East Coast. US wages are now about 10x Chinese wages, and about 40x Indian wages. That's such a big gap that it's not really surmountable by total automation. Another problem is that machine tools are expensive and special purpose. When circumstances change, humans can be retrained, whereas machine tools might be sold for little more than scrap value.

Ultimately, as the Third World gets more productive, their wages will rise, and the gap will narrow. But until it gets to the point that Western wages are no more than 3x foreign wages, manufacturers of run-of-the-mill stuff will continuing moving there in order to remain price-competitive.

34 posted on 01/14/2013 2:47:58 PM PST by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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