Posted on 04/06/2018 1:53:40 PM PDT by Thalean
You own an artisanal bakery that makes the best $2 baguettes in town. Business is booming. In fact, business is so good that a German bakery opens up across the street. You’re not worried: their $3 baguettes are good, but not that good. You’re sure you can outcompete them in good ol’ American fashion—and let’s be honest, who’s ever heard of German baguettes?
A month later you notice baguette sales are down. Why? You walk across the street to compare sales with the German bakery, and you see a sign: “Baguettes Now $1.” How could they possibly afford to bake such cheap baguettes? The lederhosen-clad owner tells you that the government is now paying for his flour—that’s why his baguettes only cost $1. “That’s not fair!” you exclaim. He just shrugs and says, “What can I say?”
A few months pass. Baguette sales are down, and you’ve done everything you can to cut costs: you’ve switched flour providers, fired staff, and worked longer hours. But the cheapest baguette you can bake still costs $1.50—it’s cheap, but not that cheap. No matter what you do, you cannot compete with the German bakery. The government’s pockets are too deep. Reluctantly, you close shop.
A few months later you’re buying a baguette at the German bakery. You see a sign: “Baguette’s Now $3.” Excuse me, what happened to the cheap baguettes? The owner says that since there’s no competition, he can raise prices and make big profits.
Later that night you tell your family what happened over dinner. Your son, an economics student at Harvard, advises you to reopen your bakery. You wince—as if you hadn’t thought of that. “I can’t,” you say, “I don’t have enough savings to reopen the bakery. It’s too expensive to start from scratch.”
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
Once America loses the ability to manufacture certain products, we lose that ability going-forward. It's very hard to "resurrect" dead industries. We've already seen this with most machine tools under $10,000 for example (America just lacks the ability to build them, and relies on imports).
This may seem OK in peacetime, but the moment international conflict disrupts trade patterns, we're going to be in bad shape. Globalism makes America fragile, and dependent upon foreign suppliers.
Yep, Foreign trade is foreign entanglement. And George Washington warned us against foreign entanglement.
Not saying all trade is bad, but we need to be very very carefule about becoming dependent on other countries.
Jefferson learned that lesson. Jefferson wanted the US to remain an agricultural country and purchase manufactured goods from Europe. And then in Jefferson’s words, “the unthinkable happened”. Europe cut the US off from manufactured goods. And Jefferson changed his mind and realized that manufacturing goods in America was necessary if we were going to maintain a free state.
Take off all the business taxes and 95% of the egregious Regulations and YS industry is more cost efficient than even Norway’s. That some industries ar second only to Norway while US industry is burdened by high taxes and onerous mostly frivolous regulationsis an indication of just how efficient and high quality American industry is. It is the same with lower tech industries and third world pennies an hour labor.
Can somebody please explain this to our ideologically pure and pampered US Senator Ben Sasse here in Nebraska.
Conservatism is about prudence, not ideology.
Oh...and MAGA!
Oh, yah, your Professor Sasse?
The one who never had to watch a factory close down and put 1000 workers on the street....
That one?
Yes...that guy.
:-(
Arsenal of Democracy bump
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