(OFFLIST) Re: Wal-Mart Bashing...Was Re: Hi

Hi Paul,

This sentence from your consult400 email posting (below copied) is a
conclusion that is based on economic realities.

"--Shifting the economy from one that is manufacturing based to one that is
services based is foolhardy.--"

..and yes, it has already happened.

..and it says a lot about the future of the world. First, people have to
eat. Then, they have to get dressed. For missionaries like Paul, that's good
enough: "With food an clothing let us therewith be content" But for
everybody else, then they need shelter, and that means
residential construction. People need these things to live, even to work at
anything.

After 1.food, 2.clothing and 3.shelter, the next thing necessary is
4.manufacturing of actual hard goods, *_before_* services. Clothes fit here
too, but it's everything else. Phones, pipes, cable, packages and containers
for food, vehicles to move things, prepared construction materials like
steel rods and sheets and concrete mix, air conditioning systems,
compressors, the rest.

Used to be in the U.S. services were self-provided, especially home
services.

In fact, a general said once that one of the obvious reasons that China is
making an export industry of arms is to develop that capacity at home
against the possibility at some point. That plus a lot of the profits of
course. A point ignored in all the press about this also is that there are a
lot of Chinese export companies that are owned by the Chinese Army, the PLA.


Of course strategic capacity development is not just military, it's also
economic. Witness Clinton's strident repetitive mantra of the world's
"interdependence". Bush has not used this now certainly unpopular phrase
much (he still has used it), and Hillary has hidden it under the rug, but
the accelerated dominance of the reality of the word has been cultivated
under both of these recent presidential administrations.

Makes me wonder why people think that anybody at the highest levels of these
parties has the interests of their constituents in mind.

Not that they will always choose what's best anyway.

--Alan

----

On 1/18/06, pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx <pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> If our factories are shuttered, and the blue-collar folks are out of work,
> what need will there be for on-shore tech services? I fear that we are
> creating an entire generation of people who will never have a meaningful
> job in their life. We are approaching the time where the major line of
> business in areas that formerly provided manufacturing jobs is the
> gang-related drug trade. Look at the south side of Chicago, Newark,
> Philly, or the Bronx.
>
> Shifting the economy from one that is manufacturing based to one that is
> services based is foolhardy.
> --
>
> Paul Nelson
> Arbor Solutions, Inc.
> 708-670-6978  Cell
> pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx