M. Adam Davis wrote:
> Much more analysis and information than a 30 second news clip:
> http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/08/19/1272286.aspx

Good article.

[snip]

> I can't add anything to the first article - it simply shows that when
> a country moves towards high-tech industries, the labor rate goes
> higher, and local business that depends on cheap labor must move,
> adapt, or suffer.

And that's great, because the people of the country are getting wealthier. 
The Invisible Hand is doing its job.

However, there is a man-made problem that was touched on by the article, and 
that is that the Chinese government had increased the minimum wage (x2 in 
the last three years), and actually began to enforce it. One of the axioms 
of economics is,

    minimum wage laws = higher unemployment

While often well-intentioned, the minimum wage laws hurt the very people 
they're supposed to help: those at the bottom of the food chain -- the 
young, the unskilled, and the uneducated. The best way for the government to 
help these people, is to educate them -- to make them more productive, and 
thus more valuable, to their employers.

Vitaliy 

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