Great post Club_sharer, I reckon you're right on the money with your thoughts. Whilst you refer to manufacturing, I see the next 'leg' of the Asian action will be services!
Here's one of my posts from the end of November;
'It appears the US & of course other developed nations are pushing back hard against global integration? Why?
Perhaps it has something to do with the success of IT-enabled globalization (Globalization II) & the speed at which the developing countries are utilising the technology to their own advantage?
As Stephen Roach points ouit in his book, 'The Next Asia';
"In Globalization I, it took ships, rail and eventually motor vehicles to facilitate the cross-border exchange and delivery of manufactured goods. It also required time-intensive construction of ports, rail systems, and roads. Globalization II built on this earlier infrastructure but then added a new twist of its own - the revolutionary connectivity of the rapidly growing internet. Where it took at least 30 years for the cross-border network to reach critical mass in the first globalization, this time around it all came together in less than a decade."
In Globalization II so far we've really only seen a small percentage of work going off-shore - call centres, IT help desks & the like however many whom thought their own service industry wasn't tradeable may well have to think again? Over the past thirty years or so countries like Australia have seen thousands of manufacturing jobs disappear overseas well perhaps our government needs to start preparing for the next wave of jobs disappearing the same way? Remembering that around 70% of our GDP is services sector based!
