Posted on 12/29/2016 3:51:54 PM PST by Timpanagos1
It is axiomatic that if someone is sufficiently eager to disbelieve something, there is no Everest of evidence too large to be ignored. This explains today’s revival of protectionism, which is a plan to make America great again by making it 1953 again.
This was when manufacturing’s postwar share of the labor force peaked at about 30 percent. The decline that began then was not caused by manufactured imports from today’s designated villain, China, which was a peasant society. Rather, the war-devastated economies of competitor nations were reviving. And, domestically, the age of highly technological manufacturing was dawning.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
- Back in 1953 most democrats were still patriotic Americans
- Communists were denounced not idolized and praised
- Presidents didn't praise cop killers
- Welfare was a temporary Helping Hand; not a multi-generational way of life
- Abortions as a form of birth control were illegal
- Adult men dressed like girls who used the girls bathroom received medical care for their mental illness
People tend to romanticize the past. Thanks for mentioning just a few of the unpleasantries of 1953.
George Will doesn’t see the problem. Can’t everyone make a good living as a DC pundit?
“Most modern manufacturing is not labor intensive at all.”
Which is precisely why imposing import tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs to the US will cost consumers more than the resulting jobs are worth.
“I’d prefer Freep ban on George Will...he’s a weenie and Mr Rogers was more manly.”
Why...yes, I am. Hate bow ties. Ride horses, shoot guns, been in combat, raised 3 kids, saved my money and bought my house and voted for Trump and I DESPISE that limp-minded wussie George Will - and the Cheap Labor Express Train he rode into town on!
I remember my parents having their third - me!
Let’s nuke Pyongyong this time.
There is nothing to indicate that the difference in labor costs between the USA and the 3rd world are passed on to the US consumer. Additionally each factory jobs supports other service jobs. A manufacturing employment causes real estate prices to increase instead of the bottom falling out of a lot of ghosted communities. It is an economic multiplier affect. The economic benefits are enormous. You are full of shittake mushrooms.
Not exactly sure what the reference to ‘53 is, except the taxes were exceedingly high, but actually this is a good piece.
Donald does talk too much about protectionism, and it doesn’t work. It flies in the face of natural rights, and anyone supporting this can ultimately hearken back to the Luddite analogy.
right about the time all the countries destroyed in WWII got new or rebuilt factories and the US was still working out of factories some built tin the 1800's
Apparently you don’t get sarcasm
Will has been dead to most people for a long time
Comparative advantage also doesn't work in times of high unemployment. Only 60% of our working age population is in the workforce. And China literally still has more than 200 million more people wanting to come in from the fields to a manufacturing job that pays $2 a day.
High unemployment is one of those exceptions to comparative advantage you must have overlooked in your introductory macroeconomics course.
Even when comparative advantage works and both countries trade an equal amount of goods, there may still be strategic reasons not to engage in trade. One important reason is to maintain a manufacturing base so that you can produce the weapons of war. And an agricultural base so that you can feed your people and an army.
Jefferson learned this lesson. At one point he thought America should remain an agricultural economy and just trade for manufactured goods and anything else we need. Then in his words "the unthinkable happened". Europe cut us of from manufactured goods. And that was the point when Jefferson realized that a strong manufacturing base was critical to the survival of a free state.
--DannyTN
Um being a Luddite has nothing to do with off shoring manufacturing. I am not sure you understand what Luddite means.
We moved to a small town in 1960 and there were no houses for sale and very few rentals. We rented a 2 bedroom house until we finally found a larger one.
I do think we were looked down on because we didn’t own but we weren’t going to stay long because my dad was going to go to work at NASA.
Luddites would’ve loved protectionism, too, from countries that used better technologies, or even preferences for their old-fashioned work over neighboring businesses using the latest.
It’s all interrelated, ultimately.
“There is nothing to indicate that the difference in labor costs between the USA and the 3rd world are passed on to the US consumer.”
Try to find a comparable-quality, cotton dress shirt or leather dress shoe made in the US that cost the same as ones made abroad.
I think that are really two parts to textiles. Cloth making which is highly automated and apparel (sewing factories) which is still pretty labor intensive. And we can throw shoe production in there as well.
There's been talk of textile jobs moving back to the US. We need all the jobs we can get with the aim of moving people from off welfare programs as well as jobs in general for lower skill workers.
But making some serious dents in the one trillion plus spent annually on poverty programs is probably the best way of all to reduce our budget deficit.
The 50’s when college cost $350 a semester but the take home pay was about $16 a day. 11K bought you a decent 3 br home and a new car was about $1200. Now use today’s labor rates, and the cost of a house and car. Nothing has really changed. The change was the population and the media grew. I lived through the IKE years, looking back over all the years, I still have to say, the greatest time in the USA was the 50’s. The hatred of today did not exist as much as it does now. We didn’t have the fears we have now, (Not the Atom Bomb one, my dad knew that the Russians were all talk.) it was a safer time for neighborhoods. Crime, yeah, but it was one gangster killing another gangster. Kids were industrious, and not afraid to work or take on any kind of job. When we did we were proud to have one, even if it was only a paper delivery. It definitely wasn’t a snow flake generation. Dad was still head of the household, and you did what ever he said, and mom often told dad what to do. No room for whiners back then. The greatest generation was still in control. Today??? Just a generation of whiny losers who know it all and experienced nothing..
And I’ll betcha Jefferson didn’t FORCE anyone to build a manufacturing business. In fact, he is an example again about protectionism - he thought farming was so much morally better than “dirty” English-style manufacturing (and he really hated the English, while loving the loser French).
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