December 30, 2011
This piece reports on a growing trend among major manufacturers to bring factory jobs back to the United States, but at much lower wages than what they had formerly paid. The article shows clearly how the over-valued dollar that was deliberately engineered by Robert Rubin in the late 90s has put downward pressure on wages of large segments of the U.S. workforce. With the dollar having reversed most of its gains from the 90s, U.S. manufacturing wages can again be competitive with wages in China and other developing countries. Further declines in the dollar will allow manufacturing workers to get higher wages and create more jobs.
Most professionals (doctors, lawyers, economists etc.) are largely protected (by policy) from the sort of competition that manufacturing workers face. For this reason they are likely to benefit from a higher valued dollar since it means that they can get cheaper manufacturing goods and pay less for overseas vacations.
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