China to overtake US as largest manufacturer

Source: FT

China is set to overtake the US next year as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods, four years earlier than expected, as a result of the rapidly weakening US economy.

The great leap is revealed in forecasts for the Financial Times by Global Insight, a US economics consultancy. According to the estimates, next year China will account for 17 per cent of manufacturing value-added output of $11,783bn and the US will make 16 per cent.

Last year the US was still easily in the top slot and accounted for a fifth of the total. China was second with 13.2 per cent.

John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, a Washington-based trade group, played down the effect of the projections. It was “inevitable” that China would take over on account of its size, he said. “This should be a wholesome development for the US, for it promises both political stability for the world’s largest country and continuing opportunities for the US to export to, and invest in, the world’s fastest-growing economy.”

Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2aa7a12e-6709-11dd-808f-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

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Get to learn Chinese, people.

..and this is NOT a "wholesome" development for the US. It is further evidence of our descent into a third-world economy.

Furthermore, we ought to REFUSE to import Chinese crap and start making our OWN and INSIST that THEY import an equal amount of goods from us as we import from them - or refuse to do business with the communist bastards.

High-value-added products are not as visible as the consumer products in our stores. There is less employment because of automation.

Profiteering corporations are draining our treasury and destroying our economy.

industrial tooling. stuff that goes 5 zeros right in tolerance.
high end telecom
satellite and aerospace

socks, shirts, and towels are not on that list.

best intellectual capital in the world. That has massive value.

they make crap. Some is decent but they dont make microchips, wide body jets, or gps networks.

Oh yeah they dont make a Z06 corvette..

That takes a pretty high order of technology. It is a mistake to underestimate other nations (although a lot of the consumer stuff is shoddy).

system that ran nav on the moon shots.

That technology is 50 years old.

Chip design and adaptive logic, medical procedures and technology, and other design work advance here.

Making socks and shirts and assembling stuff we spec out here is not the same.

That being said they are capable of advancing.

If these stats hadn't been cooked, it'd be revealed that they became the largest manufacturer ages ago.

Who comes up with these bullshit lies?

There's still a lot of manufacturing that the average person will never see: machines, steel, equipment, etc.

Manufacturing != plastic toys

Plastic or not, assembled anything comes from China, and has for years.

Yeah, like this is news?

of 30% again....

Ya had the helm for all these years...now look....we will not be FIRST....but Falling to 2nd...then maybe 3rd....its all your fault...ya wanted DUMB and ya got Dumb....now what?

Dumb Voting results in Dumb Leaders = Dumb Decisions = Dumb Results = Stagnation/Recession = Lower Dollar Value = Poorer Conditions =

Higher Negative Level = Chaos = Depression = FUBAR

VOTE BLUE

Weren't we clever?

starting to teach their students Chinese.

long after my K12 years.

that is very cool. We have the Rosetta program for our students who are learning English.

I think I'd like to learn another language (haven't decided which one yet), and I've heard Rosetta is one of the best ways.

Is it? Do they have trial versions?

edit: never mind. Rosetta is too expensive for me just at the moment.

:patriot:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002/02/19/usat-prescott-bush.htm

"Bush's approach centers on promoting U.S.-China economic ties. That's a course favored not only by his father, the first President Bush, but also by his uncle, Prescott Bush Jr., a longtime acquaintance of Chinese President Jiang Zemin."

one would hope that their economic figures will exceed ours. If their people have a hope (right?) to a comparable standard of living with that of the West their economy will have to grow to a comparable level.

Some may argue that they should have no such hope (right), since that would put too much pressure on the environment or damage our own standard of living too much. (Ahhh, for the good ol' days when Mao made sure that the Chinese economy produced almost nothing, didn't damage the environment and had no effect on our economy.) "We've got ours (and we are trying to hold on to it). Sorry, but for our own sake, and that of the environment, we cannot allow you to live in a way comparable to our own. Thanks for accepting a lower standard of living, so that we can live our Western life style."

products with the Made in China tag on them.

Manufacturing here generally has to pay a lot more for workers, maybe even a decent wage, with some benefits.

Here there are rules that limit the air/water/land pollution. Adherence can be costly.

We've lost a lot of manufacturing factories (and jobs), but the environment is cleaner for it. It's a trade-off.