Looking at the graph of price changes, it looks mostly like things that are cheaper come from abroad. Things that got more expensive are strictly domestic / unoffshorable.
I guess this says a few things even before you get to regulation:
- America outsourced a lot of engineering jobs of all sorts, leading to a lower supply of skilled labour at home. The places that received the outsourced jobs got better at it and do it cheaply. Though also, they provided these services at deflated prices, for a human cost, to make this happen. These eye-wateringly expensive projects in the US, how much would they cost if the lowest bidder from Asia was allowed to do it in an open tender?
- As the US got wealthier, people want to be paid better. Where in the past there were plenty of poor people happy to work in childcare for very little money, now there are less, and they need to be paid better.
- I wonder if a lot if things were cheaper because there was more immigrant labour happy to do it cheaply.
I think an interesting comparison is Switzerland, a wealthy country where everything is eye-wateringly expensive, yet also the Swiss can afford it and have more disposable income, even PPP, than peers. Stuff get built, for massive prices, on budget, on schedule, and in good time.
It is both a very well ran country, and with a huge immigrant population. Also pretty bureaucratic still, suggesting this alone is not the root issue in the US.
Yeah, agreed, I meant idiomatic "happy" as in you could find people who would work longer hours in worse conditions for less money.
Childcare must be the best example, it's expensive throughout the developed world and end user cost is mostly wages, I'd imagine. If it is expensive, it means you can't find people who will do childcare more cheaply.
I guess this says a few things even before you get to regulation:
- America outsourced a lot of engineering jobs of all sorts, leading to a lower supply of skilled labour at home. The places that received the outsourced jobs got better at it and do it cheaply. Though also, they provided these services at deflated prices, for a human cost, to make this happen. These eye-wateringly expensive projects in the US, how much would they cost if the lowest bidder from Asia was allowed to do it in an open tender?
- As the US got wealthier, people want to be paid better. Where in the past there were plenty of poor people happy to work in childcare for very little money, now there are less, and they need to be paid better.
- I wonder if a lot if things were cheaper because there was more immigrant labour happy to do it cheaply.
I think an interesting comparison is Switzerland, a wealthy country where everything is eye-wateringly expensive, yet also the Swiss can afford it and have more disposable income, even PPP, than peers. Stuff get built, for massive prices, on budget, on schedule, and in good time.
It is both a very well ran country, and with a huge immigrant population. Also pretty bureaucratic still, suggesting this alone is not the root issue in the US.