Guess the econ stat - offshoring and "inshoring".

[dmallind]

US individuals and companies have $3.2T invested in foreign production of goods and service. Some of that of course is not offhsoring as often contemplated because the jobs/production weren't ever American in the first place. Things like Exxon drilling in the Middle East are included. But that $3.2T certainly does include all the production moved to Mexico and all the call centers moved to India.

So the question is:

How much do foreign companies and individuals have invested in US production of goods and services?

NOTE - neither stat includes ownership of traded equities in their totals. You having shares of Nestlé in your 401K does not count as offshoring, nor does a Swiss person's ownership of Microsoft stock. The numbers instead show direct ownership of the means of production in countries foreign to the owner.

[Mari333]

1. link?

[leveymg]

2. It's called Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) - about $2.3 trillion

[JDPriestly]

3. Do you have a website link or are you quoting from a news item or

a book? Please identify your source not just the name of the report. Who published the report and where can we read it? You give very little information and then don't explain how you got it, where it is from, who published it. We need context.

[dmallind]

4. Sure - but not my intent

I'm not trying to speak from authority or even get very detailed in economic data.

I just post these from time to time usually when I see a couple of assumptions that are not borne out by data. Last time it was the "Chinese owning all our debt" assumption (the Chinese hold about 6% of US debt - the US government itself is by far the largest owner of US debt). This time it's the "We send all our good jobs to other countries and get shit in return" assumption I'm challenging.

I'm trying to see if people know what they "feel" should be the answer rather than test them to see if they can follow links to cited sources. Typically I add a disclaimer that I really am looking for subjective guesses based on feelings and discourage looking it up, because that defeats the purpose of trying to gauge gut perception. My bad for not doing so this time.

The poster above nailed it exactly by the way - and much kudos indeed if they did so on a guess!

So in other words inshoring is about 3/4 the size of offshoring. For every 4 Mexicans and Indians etc working for American companies over ther there are 3 Americans working for German or Swiss or Japanese etc companies over here. (this of course is not really true as the data use normalized dollar values, but is a useful way of thinking about what the net impact is).

But if you want more detail www.unctad.org is the motherlode.

[JDPriestly]

5. Inshoring and offshoring should be the same value.

Ordinary Americans are experiencing a huge decline in opportunities, in compensation and in the quality of goods they are offered in the stores. It's palpable.

I bought a pair of tennis shoes made who knows where right before the 2008 election. I wore them a maybe three times and the seams were out. They were not too small. They were just sloppily sewn and cut.

When Americans did the manufacturing, it was done much better. And don't even begin to talk about the trashy clothes that the stores are trying to sell us. The fabrics are scratchy and ugly and really disgusting.

I note that "how to sew" shops are popping up here and there. That is a good sign. Maybe we will just let those foreign manufacturers sell their trash to each other and start home sewing here. As wages go down, do-it-yourself-sewing is beginning to actually make sense again.

I predict that Americans will balk more and more at the imports unless the quality and American wages and job demand improve.

[dmallind]

6. I'm not sure "should" applies here.

Money will seek the best return, and companies compete on various aspects not juts (but quite often) price. We will see much more inshoring in high-value added high priced items rather than tennis shoes. There is nothing that makes Americans intrinsically better manufacturers of any and all goods than any other country.