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Wages are lower in China. You can't compare the costs directly.
by olau 12y ago
Wages are lower in China. You can't compare the costs directly.
- tartuffe78 12y agoAs are environmental regulations
- jerf 12y agoI doubt wages are why our stuff is so expensive... or, more accurately, I doubt that wages for people actually doing construction is why our stuff is so expensive. Some of the speed China has is that their government is willing to just stomp over anything and anybody in the way and Get It Done. We don't necessarily need to copy that element. On the other hand you can make a damned good case that we are far, far too good at paying very expensive people lots of money for months and years at a time to come up with reasons why we can't do something, and once finally placated, reasons why we have to do it more expensively than we initially planned.
- olau 12y agoWages: so I just googled the average Chinese wage and the first answer I got was around $5000. you don't think a difference of an order of magnitude in wages could explain the difference? Regarding waste in administration: I'm sure the same happens in China.
- jerf 12y agoFor construction wage differences to matter, we have to be actually constructing. Spending billions of dollars on clearing red tape isn't due to construction wage differences. Of course we are paying the people implementing the red tape much better than the Chinese do, that is true. And we probably pay a lot more of them. And please spare me the obvious black & white "oh, so you want no regulation, then?" I want reasonable levels. Not levels that were clearly designed to be punitive.
- Symmetry 12y agoSpain is able to build railroads and subways for only 1/10 as much as in the US. France for 1/5. Neither of those are low-wage countries. Regulatory culture is a lot more important than wages.
- josefresco 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wa... Spain and France are #19 and #20 respectively. Relative to the US these are "low wage" countries. Compared however to China, they are not.
- aidenn0 12y agoAverage is a bad choice for comparing labor costs, as it is distorted by the high earners. Median is a much better choice, and it's $30,932 in US and $29,636 in France: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
- nickff 12y agoIf you are going to use household incomes to compare between countries, you should also give some thought to the differences between household structures. I am not sure what difference it would make in this case, but I have seen it make a big difference in other analyses.
- aidenn0 12y agoOh I agree, but I couldn't find median individual income.
- josefresco 12y agoGood point. Using median income as the measure, France compares closely with the US, while Spain improves but is still ~50% of the US value. The parent point however that France and Spain are able to build railroads at 1/5 and 1/10 the rate of the US needs some reference.
- rdtsc 12y agoHealthcare, housing and education is also lower, so go ahead and compare but account those in as well.