I recently had a debate on shannons blog reguarding the productivity of the usa. The other person claimed that we had the largest GDP (gross domestic product) and therefore the US was more productive than lesser poor nations. My argument is that the productive people in society are usually the poor working class and so is the case on a country to country relationship. That is the poor countries perfrom the productivity that the US reaps the benefits. When looking into GDP I found that services count in the GDP. So while it may appear we have a large GDP, its really only so big because we perform _highly_ overpriced services for one anther here in the us. So that bellagio valet attendant who parked cars contributed an unrealistic $100,000 to our GDP. Same with the pimply teenagers who charge you $7.99 for your upsized combo meal at Jack in the box. A similar meal would cost you pennies in India and probably be more labor intensive to prepare.
I support my argument by identifying where the various belongings I use everyday are laborously created. Here's my list of what I have today.
Cell phone - taiwan
cell phne battery - korea
watch - japan
blue tooth headset - malaysia
ball point pen - japan
shirt - el salvador
shoes - brazil
jeans - bangledesh
underwear - el salvador
pocket knife - USA (ironic only my weapon is USA)
laptop cmputer - malaysia
scisors - china
coffe mug - china
desk fan - china
even my house was created largely by illegal immigrant labor.
how does your list come out? I would bet that 95% of everything you own was produced outside of our country.
its not that americans are productive it's the fact that americans are in control which makes our country rich.
-brad
