American Prospect: High Wage Manufacturing

[OnBackground]

While I have doubts about the thesis of Eamon Fingleton's piece in the American Prospect, I found the following interesting:
<blockquote>One important fact ignored by the American media is that Japanese industrial wages are now among the world’s highest. Not only are they far higher than in China (between four and 15 times higher, depending on the region of China), they are actually 20 percent to 30 percent higher than in the United States. Yet Japan’s export industries have not only survived but thrived.

The largely untold story of Japan’s extraordinary manufacturing successes in recent years should inspire a radical reappraisal of fundamental American economic assumptions. Certainly Japan’s trade performance stands as a stunning rebuke to those who hold that high-wage nations can no longer compete in manufacturing. </blockquote>
(the full <a href="http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9540">article</a> is available by subscription only)

[Bonhomme Richard]

1. One fact is that Japanese CEO's...............

are not raping their companies in order to put millions of dollars in their own pockets.
No outrage in this country.

[Warpy]

3. Another fact is that Japan maintains targeted tariffs

to protect both key industries and domestic agriculture.

Our system is broken.

[idlisambar]

2. The full article is here free

I posted this a couple of weeks ago. (the particular article is at the bottom of the page)

http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2005hearings/written_testimonies/05_21_22wrts/eamonn_fingleton_wrts.htm

It is not only Japan, manufacturing wages in Germany are also higher than the United States and they consistently record trade surpluses as well, including large bilateral surpluses with the United States.