Welcome to capitalism in the 21 st century. The end result of free trade and globalism is to replace high cost labor with low cost labor. Without tariffs and government imosed quotas, middle class jobs in industrialized countries will move to locations where lower wages can be realized. Workers losing jobs in higher labor cost areas will have to accept a lower standard of living and loss of employment security or become wards of the state (if the state is willing to carry them). We’ve seen this play out in the USA over the last 20 years once we made the decision to lower our tariffs and eliminate quotas. The EU is now experiencing the same decline of the middle class.
Spot on, Soul of the South!
Wishful thinking. Tariffs are simply no longer possible. All the imposition of a tariff will do is cause MORE industries to move out, and more rapidly. The pool(s) of capital have gotten so large and so geographically diverse that there is simply no way they can any longer work.
Quotas "might" work, but I haven't seen any evidence of it.
So, given the above, what measures exist that can be applied without imposing an even more tyrannical and interfering government than we now have???
“Welcome to capitalism in the 21 st century. The end result of free trade and globalism is to replace high cost labor with low cost labor. Without tariffs and government imosed quotas, middle class jobs in industrialized countries will move to locations where lower wages can be realized.”
Your claim that this is the result of capitalism is a flat out lie. The Unions in the EU are very protectionist and this one in Belgium is especially so. Manufacturers in EU in general are forced to hire folks that are not needed and then it is very difficult to have any flexibility in the labor force.
Their wage of $40.60 EU$ is the equivelant of $51 fully fringed here. The wage portion of that would be $33 USD an hour to turn a screw. You advocate for government imposed quotas, while blaming the results of government imposed quotas on capitalism.
The reality is that this plant closure is the result of your preference for government interference in the free market. It is not the result of the free market forces.
You speak of decline that is actually revision toward the mean. Capital flows toward profitability. Expensive labor promotes movement to lower labor costs.
For Ford, operating in Belgium was not a good use of capital.
Massachusetts lost the textile industry to the Carolinas for the same reason. Similarly but from competition, the auto industry is growing in the south and taking sales from the union rust belt. GM and Chrysler are marginal companies that will fail unless labor surrenders the stranglehold