Posted on 07/28/2012 4:02:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are currently fighting over who is the more patriotic. Obama slams Romney for having outsourced jobs to China during his Bain Capital days. Romney punches back by labeling Obama “Outsourcer in Chief.” The latest is that both John Boehner and Harry Reid are voicing outrage over America’s made-in-China Olympic uniforms. “Burn them!” thunders Reid.
Republicans and Democrats strangely agree that outsourcing is unpatriotic, and that the moral and patriotic thing to do is to “Hire American” and “Buy American.”
Well, no. Not in a thousand years. The fear of outsourcing and international trade is economic nonsense and moral blindness. More than that: this anti-profit attitude is un-American.
Despite the ongoing Europeanization of America, America still symbolizes the land of freedom, entrepreneurship, profit-making, above all, individualism.
But collectivism is the premise of “Hire/Buy American”: we are to view ourselves and others not as individuals, but as units of a nation. Businesses are urged to pay more in labor costs, simply to hire workers who are American; consumers are urged to forgo Walmart’s low prices, pay more, simply because the pricier goods were made by “our guys.” This is not rational patriotism, it is not Americanism, it's primitive tribalism.
American individualism means making buying decisions on the basis of economic merit, giving no regard to the nationality or race of the seller. Let’s not hide behind patriotic-sounding slogans. Let’s name things straight for a change: giving preference to American sellers over foreign sellers is the same mindless injustice as giving preference to sellers who are white over those who are black.
Economic nationalism is as morally outrageous as racism. Buying on the basis of nationality or race is the same collectivist evil: judging men and their products by the group from which they come, not by merit.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Busted. Give it up.
Help me out here, what am I “busted” for again?
If this is what it is, “[my] lie has been exposed, labor is less than 10% on cars,” you have me confused for someone else. I don’t know how much of the price of a car is represented by labor cost, and in my twelve years here, I’ve never bothered to look it up. Heck, I wouldn’t even know where to look.
So you admit that. This is just one set of industries that China has stolen from the U.S.A . but it is a vital set. The supply chains for these products include computer chips, and many other high tech industries all gone to China. Just without these high tech industries the U.S. cannot prosper nor develop the next high tech industries need to remain competitive economically in the world and cannot even militarily keep on top . And if any industries remain in the U.S. what's to stop china or other countries from stealing form the U.S. whatever remains until practically almost everything we use will be made in other countries: and then how can the U.S. survive when not if that happens? Simply it can't and that's why I say we should do to China what China has done to us for decades. It worked for china as their 10% annual economic growth for 30 years shows, moving 500 million people out of the country and into the cities.
This was written about a year or so after the start (4Q01) of the recovery from the Clinton recession. He speaks of the productivity-led recovery's astonishing 6.8% (2Q03) figure and the recovery that now includes global labor arbitrage, offshore outsourcing and a jobless recovery built on an increasingly tenuous foundation of "imported productivity." Then notes: "The real issue is whether this new strain of productivity enhancement is sustainable. I have my doubts."
"[the character of economic recovery] has given rise to a major leakage of domestic income generation. Wage and salary disbursements -- by far the dominant component of personal income -- are basically unchanged in real terms fully 21 months into this recovery; by contrast, at this juncture in the past six upturns, real wage income has been up, on average, by about 9%. The gap between the current cycle and the norm of earlier cycles works out to a shortfall of about $320 billion in real terms, or 4.4% of the current level of real disposable personal income. In other words, the foreign sourcing of domestic demand via imported productivity has given rise to a significant income leakage that already has had a material impact on household purchasing power."
So again, "The real issue is whether this new strain of productivity enhancement is sustainable. I have my doubts."
IMO especially with that major leakage of domestic income generation. Lots of talk back then here on FR about high-paying jobs to replace the buggy whip jobs that no one wanted.
I don't have the figures but I do not recall downturns in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and even the early 90s coming so "fast and furious" -- though the media did speak of the recovery from the George H. W. Bush recession (Clinton's first term) as being a "jobless" recovery.
But "recessions" were mostly business cycles where people were laid-off and called back to work, things seemed to me to change in the 1980s and 1990s. What are the critical factors that made the change seems to be in dispute.
Prove labor is more than 10% of a cars production cost. Or STHU.
If this is some sort of a game, you STHU.
You jumped from consumer electronics to computer chips. We make computer chips here.
Great chart. Thanks.
Well you know now, don't you.
No, I don’t. As far as I can tell, you went all large-font on me because I asked you for the source of your graph.
The larger point is that we are off shoring to maybe save 2 or 3 % on the retail price. The free traitor lie is everything is dirt cheap now, when actually it is only marginally cheaper. When you factor in the damage it doing to the USA is prohibitively expensive. Traitor is a good word.
And I’m glad I asked for the source, because otherwise it would not have been clear to everyone that everything on that graph after 2008 is a prediction.
Hmmm . . . if labor costs are only a small part of the equation, what else could it be that is driving our corporations overseas? I’ve already forgotten what I’ve been saying about regulations and taxes on this thread. Can you remind me? /s
Labor costs are insignificant.Take the three above, and use it as an argument to raise taxes even higher. To save your job, of course.
Taxes are only "somewhat high."
Regulations don't matter.
Last time I checked, comment #332 came before comment #335.
It is beyond simple marketplace arguments now, as well.
China is hardwired to compete. Chinese have stacked the deck and compete on an un-level marketplace,
There is no balance, and we continue to allow this un-level marketplace to exist. Robbing us in a million ways.
Now that China has become the number one competitor, that becomes (very) important. We are number two.
We have lost the advantage, and China is still growing. All of that growth in China, is based on a closed system.
We either cause the Chinese system to change, or we break off relations with it.
Currently we have built a system (there) which is increasingly destructive.
How about removing the impediments we place on ourselves in order to compete even better? Why is that such a revolutionary concept for you guys?
No.
China is a united whole. It discriminates against us.
Once we realize that, FACT, it becomes clear we are building a future of “trade” with China which is nothing for us.
It is all for China.
I am increasingly bearish about our relationship with China.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.