'Faking an orgasm...

...while masturbating' is the ultimate of self deception, Tom U. used to tell me years back. Tom was a colleague and a friend during the 90ies. I remembered his quote this morning again at the reading of this article from C|Net.

So, we smart asses from the west thought that the manufacturing powerhouses in Asia, with China on top, are no real threat to us, because those 'monkeys' can only handle low-tech, the stuff we geniuses over here consider too boring to deal with. Thank God, we have our super-brains to rely on and keep one step ahead of the Chinese or Koreans and Japanese for that matter (not to forget the Indians) as we move ahead towards our welfare futures. That's what we think and that's what the EU Mandarins think too as they launch initiatives like 'Manufuture'. Little we all know.

The one thing that can save our European ass in the future is the consumption lust of the New Europeans and their drive to make-up for lost opportunity and move faster than the classic West. There is some fresh blood and energy to be found there. This makes the current Europe a monolithic consumption market of immense proportions (half a billion people and growing). However, if supply to this consumption pond gets increasingly dependent on the Chinese production powerhouses, based on the premise that they can only supply low-tech, then we are up for some cute surprises. If, already today, Chinese manufacturers reached a capability state for the production of sub 45 nm semiconductor wafers by simply licensing the (IBM) technology for that matter (could be anything else from anyone else in the future) then kiss our future welfare and the low-tech myths good-bye.

Makes you think... faking an orgasm...