China, India rival US competitiveness: Survey

[Say_What]

<clips>
China, India rival US competitiveness: Survey

China and India rival the United States when it comes to business competitiveness, and the Asian countries may soon surpass American rivals in technological innovation, according to a new survey.

More than 300 executives who participated in the study, released Thursday by consulting firm A.T. Kearney, said Chinese companies were nearly as formidable competitors as US firms, particularly in the technology and telecommunications niches.

Approximately 63 percent of US executives surveyed said their competition would come primarily from the United States, while 59 percent said it would come from China, and 45 percent said it would come from India. Nine out of 10 executives polled said the competitive threat posed by Chinese and Indian companies would likely intensify in the next two years.

The executives surveyed were randomly selected members of the Business Performance Management Forum and the Chief Marketing Officer Council, nonprofit organizations that helped produce the report.

Five years of extreme cost-cutting have made many American technology firms downsize research and development departments. American managers have also given foreign competitors a boost by outsourcing important business functions --- from accounting to microchip design --- to workers in low-cost countries, said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the BPMF.

http://english.people.com.cn/200502/25/eng20050225_174681.html

[lovuian]

1. US corporations are helping there future competitiors and they

finally are waking up to it... But heres the dilemna the governments in India and China are extremely corrupt and give CEO's no protection

HA HA HA!!! It is a dilemna Isn't it!!!

Cheap Labor comes with a price tag!!! and all the governments of India & China have to do is entice American business over there and then take them over HA HA HA!!!

[kcwayne]

2. It hilarious up until the point that US corporations want the US military

to intervene to protect or reclaim their assets overseas. Then they trump up a war and send our kids somewhere to fight and die for their sorry asses.

[Igel]

3. My parents found out that expensive, protected labor comes with

a price tag. The steel mill they worked at went from 35K employees to 3k 15 years later. The last ditch effort to finally build a modern, efficient blast furnace didn't work ... they couldn't compete with foreign specialty steels, and cheaper non-specialty steel started rolling in from overseas a year or two later.

On the other hand, my ma with a GED and 25 years seniority raked in over 85k the last year before she retired in '84 or '85. Not bad for semi-skilled labor. Lots of overtime and double time work.

And all those complaints about high profits ...

And the kids who want to major in law, poli sci, English ... instead of science and engineering.

The competition's good. We've gotten complacent.

[jswordy]

6. Not necessarily true

In Europe, the governments there protect their labor with tariffs and trade barriers. Basically, what we have done in this country over the past 25 years is systematically tear down those barriers, exposing our workers to the vagaries of the world markets.

Had we taken care of our own, this could have been avoided. Instead, we sold our workforce -- the most efficient and productive in the world -- down the river by removing barriers to what were at the time inferior foreign products. They only became better as the influx of cash from us buying allowed that, or as we offshored our expertise and technology to them.

Then we simply turned around and told our workforce THEY WERE AT FAULT for making too much money or being too ignorant to produce on a global level. Or being unionized. No, it was the MANAGEMENT and their political allies who were, and are, at fault.

But make no mistake, the countries beating us now are doing so with their own tariffs and barriers to trade. Look at China as Example #1.

So I completely dismiss the argument that we just make too much money. Fact is, we just don't know how to spend it when it comes to protecting our own people's livelihoods. Gone is "USA Number One," except as a hollow slogan spoken by an increasingly impotent people whose aggragate standard of living declines every year and who face the prospect of near-term economic collapse..

[Igel]

7. The Europeans did (and still do) engage in protectionism.

And they do good things like put a punitive tariff on steel imports in order to protect their own production while restructuring, while aggressively pursuing cases in the WTO when other countries do it. This allows them to have high wages. They also pump a lot of money into their corporations when it suits them, and game the WTO rules.

I wasn't out of high school yet and already declared Carter an utter fool, if only for one set of speeches he gave. He praised the virtues of a post-industrial society. We're getting there, thank you.

For all the Europeans' claims, they're highly chauvinistic. They just don't feel like meddling in most places--stability is better. People like to claim altruism in EU policies, but it just ain't there.

On the other hand, a good ol' fashioned protectionist down spiral in trade would also be a bad mistake; it might be useful in the long-term--but it might also shatter a fragile world economy. I also think the world would be worse off if the US insisted manufacturing be done at home.

We'd still be doing better if we actually had more people trained in cutting edge knowledge and techniques that stayed here. Many foreign students stay; others return. An American grad student is less likely to go abroad. And admissions committees are frequently unhappy with the quality of the American applicants to science/engineering programs.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

4. .

[jswordy]

5. Not surprising to folks who follow this stuff at all.

Fact is, China and India are the next superpowers, we are the next has-beens. They will be like us and we will be like England within 20 years if we continue on our present course, and no pol in either party has said or done a thing to change that.

(Fingers in ears)

LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!!!!