The Water Cooler: Will Rome fall again?

Weekly, Bryan Glanzberg contributes The Water Cooler, a column that bridges the gap between technology and business.

We have been hearing for years that the Asian Revolution led by China will lead to the fall of the United States, but will it really happen? Now that word has come out that Intel has a Vietnamese license for a new $605 million semiconductor assembly and test plan outside the largest city, Ho Chi Min. There is also talk of Apple going into China. On the surface, that can not be good, those jobs are lost jobs that belong to Americans right? Don’t worry about it; you won’t need to move to Canada to save yourself.

Continue reading to learn why we will be ok and should just take a xanax and stop blaming Dubya.

There are three simple reasons why, most American jobs are in the service industry, not manufacturing and according to a survey at our good friends McKinsey only 11% of those jobs could be performed in the foreseeable future outside our borders.

1. First, any manufacturing jobs we lose too cheaper labor in Asia will be offset by the lowering in costs, not overshadowed.
2. Second is the fact that Americans are just more intelligent and skilled, minus the democrats who complain about our president. In reality it will take years to educate the lower classes of the Asian populations, the prospective workers in these new plants, to the point where they are as efficient in production, so not every company will go over there for cheap labor, it depends on the potential rework costs, the more expensive the more likely it will remain in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
3. Finally the supposed rapid globalization in the last decade is a myth. American Prospect Online writes that there a few companies that will be able to globally scale their production and those that do spend 75% of their money in the United States. A job in Asia does not mean one less job in the United States, in fact from 1991-2001 American multinational firms added 5.5 million jobs at home, or 5 jobs here for every 3 jobs in Asia.

So don’t worry about the downfall of our country, take a xanax and stop blaming Dubya.

[This weeks The Water Cooler has been contributed by Evan Cabat]

Read [Business Week]