
Empty Office block shot from somewhere near Union Station, Chicago circa 2010
As an engineer, I’d always like to view the economy like what I understood the physical phenomena in the world of semiconductor. You see, when a diode is reversed biased beyond its breaking point, it suffers an avalanche breakdown. In my previous article, I talked about the reversed biased economy. Now that the economy has been so much reversed biased, I fear that the economic breakdown is imminent. Once that happen, like an avalanche, nothing can stop it until things “evens out” when equilibrium is achieved. Now, what does all that means?
We are seeing the Americans and Europeans losing jobs, their wage lowering, their currency devalued. If things get bad enough, will the emerging economy lose its competitiveness? Companies tend to make their products in low cost countries. Will businesses re-base their manufacturing facility back in the US and Europe if the 1USD is < = 1RM? I think it depends. I think the rules need to be amended to make this world a better place. Businesses need to achieve a balance between the betterment of humanity and personally gain. I believe both has a symbiotic relationship. You can't be very profitable when everybody else is poor.
People must be naive to think that if you win a couple of world wars, the rest of the world owes you a living. Keep printing money and languishing in hefty social benefits while expecting the rest of the world to work for you just won't work. I refuse to believe that there would come a day when push comes to shove, people would create another world war to relive history. We don't want to prove the Mayans right.