The Chinese also adopt an attitude of waiting for their spoils. Another words, unless they can pay cash for something, they will not attempt to purchase it. On the other hand, we in the western world want everything now and in most instances, not a second thought goes into the cost of these actions down the road.

So what are these two distinct differences creating? Well, think about it! Because westerners want everything now, they need to use credit. This overuse of credit is causing massive personal debt, so is it any wonder our average savings rate is only 2%.

The Chinese can save 40% of their income because they are prepared to wait for their luxuries, and they have no personal debt.

So what has this got to do with cheap labour flooding our markets? It has plenty.

If we weren’t so far in debt, we could save more and live on less. If we can live on less, we don’t need to earn as much. If we don’t need to earn as much we can compete with overseas labour. But let me take this a little further, because I can hear a lot of you saying yeah but, just the removal of debt will still not compete with a market willing to work for 5% of the income over here – Yes it will!

You see, when you have a lot of consumer spending, whether it be on credit or not, it will always cause the price of materials to go up. The mere fact that a huge majority of consumer spending is done through credit, only serves to magnify this. In our impatience to keep up with the Jones’s or our belief that it is our ‘god given birth right’ to own everything now, we have created a demand that is willing to pay plenty.