I have an awful program to code, dreadful spec and lots of ambiguity and
complication in the processing, so let's have a look at this : -

 > Most of what's happening now was predicted by Sir James Goldsmith in
1994:


  > Goldsmith: A leading theoretician of free trade was David Ricardo,
  > the early-19th century British economist. He developed two
  > interrelated concepts: specialization and comparative advantage.
  > According to Ricardo, each nation should specialize in those
  > activities in which it can have a comparative advantage relative to
  > other countries. Thus, a nation should narrow its focus of activity,
  > abandoning certain industries and developing those in which it has a
  > comparative advantage. The results would be that international trade
  > would grow as nations export their surpluses and import those products
  > that they no longer manufacture, efficiency and productivity would
  > increase and prosperity would be enhanced. But these ideas are not
  > valid in today's world.


 They weren't valid in Ricardo's world, either. All through the 19th century

 the developed nations were importing almost exactly the same goods they
were exporting.
 They're still doing it now. And in those days the cheap competitor to
 manual labour paid at "developed nation" rates was automation.
 Still is, isn't it? It's odd that there's more noise made over a foreigner
 "stealing jobs" than over a machine doing the same.

 Peter Drucker maintains that the great advances in wealth occur when
there's a big labour
 upheaval. Mechanisation of farming in the 19th century made labour
available for factory
 work. Big-factory automation since the 30s has released labour to take a
chance on working for the
 small companies that create all the jobs and eventually the wealth these
days.

 Ricardo these days is most remembered for his vision of a perfect labour
market where there
 would always be surplus labour and that workers would compete by
undercutting
 wages, and thus remaining just at the survival level, or perhaps a bit
below it...



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