"China overtakes US, now has world's largest middle class" -- thanks to the off-shoring of jobs

[uawchild]

"China's middle class has overtaken the United States to become the world's largest, Credit Suisse said Tuesday in its latest report on global wealth. Asia will be the scene for the greatest expansion of the world's middle class, it predicted."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/China-overtakes-US-now-has-worlds-largest-middle-class/articleshow/49342454.cms?

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China prospers, the US declines --- thank you 1% for impoverishing our country.

This ain't your Grandpa's China...



Congratulations to China, but much of their amazing growth has been at the expense of American working families.

They used to say "what's good for business is good for America", yes, but that was in the pre-1980's world where businesses invested here at home. Look at the increasing trade deficit that is sucking the economic life out of our country that is the direct result of the 1% no longer caring where they make their profits. That saying should be updated to "What's good for Business is good for the 1%", and THAT will be true until income inequality and globalization's "race to the bottom" off-shoring of jobs and technology are confronted and rolled back.

[antigop]

1. HRC : "Outsourcing will continue..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090702780.html

When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to New Delhi to meet with Indian business leaders in 2005, she offered a blunt assessment of the loss of American jobs across the Pacific. "There is no way to legislate against reality," she declared. "Outsourcing will continue. . . . We are not against all outsourcing; we are not in favor of putting up fences."

[DetlefK]

2. There's a misconception here. Middle-class in China is not connected to chinese economy.

There. Is. No. Independent. Economy. In. China.

Huge swaths of the chinese economy are concentrated in state-owned corporations. In critical industrial sectors about 90% of the market is controlled by the government. China has actually destroyed chinese companies that got too independent and threatened to put a section of the market beyond government-control.

The purpose of these state-owned companies is not to make money. If they operate on a deficit, they get propped up with taxpayer-money.
The purpose of these state-owned companies is to provide chinese citizens with well-paying jobs so they won't start getting interested in politics and demanding uncouth things like a free press.
At all costs.
No matter what the economy says.

This huge chinese middle-class you are touting... You know who pays them their wages? The state.

And what jobs are this? Well, China has 62 million empty surplus appartments at the moment, it has empty surplus skyscrapers, empty surplus stadiums, empty surplus international airports, empty surplus seaports...
All of this paid for with chinese taxpayer-money.

The chinese economy and the chinese middle-class exist, because the chinese government created them with a taxpayer-funded job-creation program. They will cease to exist once it gets too expensive to prop up non-profitable sectors of the economy. (And this economic bubble WILL burst. There will come a point where China can no longer import the vast, ever-increasing amounts of ressources it needs. There will come a point where the environmental pollution becomes so large it can no longer be ignored.)

[malaise]

7. Do you know the difference between 300 million

and 1.3 billion?

[brush]

3. India's is next. Talk about being third place . . . or is that third world?

All these corps are going to start catering even more to China now.

GM is even making cars over there.

Forget about us here.

[Orrex]

4. Sweet! Soon they'll start outsourcing jobs to us!

[flamingdem]

10. Or we'll go over there

that's the future. Already happened to many people I know, they're paid a lot for their experitise, all male.

[Nitram]

5. A meaningless statistic.

What is significant is the percent of the population that is in the middle class, not the absolute number of individuals.

[malaise]

8. Precisely n/t

[uawchild]

9. I find our trade deficit more meaningful myself. n/t

n/t

[whatthehey]

6. Well, thanks to having 4 times the population really

I'm sure Alabama contains more PhDs than Minneapolis, but it doesn't mean they have a more highly educated population.

[pampango]

11. Exports to the US are 4% of China's economy and 18% of its total exports.

The world does not revolve around the US. China's middle class would be growing even if we had enacted a Cuba-style embargo on China after Mao died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2012/march/tradoc_149251.pdf

[uawchild]

13. hmmm...

I agree that at this point China could withstand any US embargo and continue to grow, but I do feel that the US and European corporations were instrumental in helping to establish China's manufacturing base -- both with direct investment and ownership/partnership in Chinese businesses in addition to being China's first and most eager customer in general.

[YabaDabaNoDinoNo]

12. Let's give credit where credit is due to the GOP and the Reagan and Third Way Dems it would not have

Happened without you!

Pats yourselves on the back you get the credit for destroying America!

Vote for HRC if you want more of the same!