Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
Originally posted by: LunarRay
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: BoomerD
I for one, think this is a GOOD thing.
EVERYTHING that comes from China, but used to be manufactured here, should be hit with VERY HIGH tarriffs.
Seems like the ones who benefit the least from "free trade," are the American workers whose jobs get sent to third-world nations.
FUCK the world economy...I care about the American economy...and American workers.
Oh boy, where to begin? :disgust:
It's just stupid to try to produce everything we consume. It's horribly inefficient. What you see as helping our economy would only hurt it, and badly.
What are the competitive advantages that China has over USA made goods?
We could hardly produce all that we consume in the USA.
The notion that what made the USA strong was its Manufacturing base is true in my thinking. What undermined that was a misguided notion that we could sustain building the world's market to the point where we'd have a world economic reality that would force peace and prosperity with in the scope of that reality. IT won't work in the short or medium term... Long term sure but can we as a nation wait while our citizens suffer today? I say let 'them' suffer short term and let 'them' be incentivised to act in accord with their long term gain...
That's true of the UK and almost every onther industrialised nation too, but most have given up on protectionism nowdays because it hurt more than it ever benefitted us.
In the end, all it did was raise the prices and devalue our currency.
The value of currency internationally is relevant only to the point of exchange. Dollar goes down we have cheaper export goods. Strong dollar more expensive export but cheaper import, etc. It is a mixed bag actually. So much stuff going in all directions at once makes tracking which would be better frustrating. We do it, of course, but lots of other factors stick their nose in.
IF we were totally Isolated we'd have the normal easy to control inflation but mostly low because our Federal and State Revenue inflows would far exceed our budgetary needs. (Full employment expectation)
Until WW2 the US was Isolationistic, but not completely. I recall when seeing 'Made in Japan' meant junk goods. Now Made by Ford means "Fix Or Repair Daily". I think we have to protect that which is subjected to unfair competition. I think we can produce in the free market better than anyone. We are not in a level game. Part of the cost of production is labor. In order to compete under current standards we have to reduce our costs or use better technology. It is almost like the technology is universal while labor cost is not. We have raw material advantage but give that or sell to the folks we'd compete with.
I recall visiting a plant there in Skelmersdale. Those folks could put out a product as well as any of the options I was looking at. We had plants in Skelmersdale (up in Lancashire), Liege, Bordeaux, Cork and San Diego. Had to get rid of two or increase capacity in Cork and dump the other four. The Board opted to build a large facility in Cork and eliminate the other four. Made sense $ wise in the near term but when the landed cost was the same from San Diego to anywhere why expand Cork. Well, short term thinking. IDA grants, tax holidays and like that. Long term thinking over a 10 yrs vista said San Diego. What happened was the wage advantage changed coupled with the translation/transaction rate of the punt v dollar etc turned Cork into a short term B/E and a long term loss.