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To: looscnnn
What we need is Congress to get up the balls and pass a bill that says that any company that does the majority of production outside the country is considered a foreign company, irregardless of where the headquarters is located. Then their products will be taxed like all imports. I think this would keep a majority of production in America.

I don't quite understand what impact this will have. Under free trade legislation and the WTO we treat most foreign companies similar to how we treat US companies. In fact, many companies move everything offshore to avoid US taxes and restrictions, e.g., environmental controls, labor and workplace requirments etc. If we started levying import duties, we would start a trade war. Bush backdowned on the steel tariff after pressure from the EU and WTO.

What really needs to be done is to examine the economic impact of free trade. For the first time, companies have the ability to move the means of production to other countries and still sell in the same market. We will continue to lose jobs and the only way we can retain a comparative advantage is to increase productivity (which also eliminates jobs) and/or have a declining standard of living so we can elimiate the current advantage countries like China and India have over us. Moreover, the Internet has permitted the outsourcing of skilled and white collar jobs to places like India. Right now, xrays and mri's are being sent to India to be reviewed and analyzed.

50 posted on 01/09/2004 8:00:23 AM PST by kabar
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To: kabar; GigaDittos
If we allow companies to keep moving jobs overseas, the economy will become irrelevant. There will be few domestic jobs left for lots of unemployed people. You know how the laws of supply & demand work. If the supply of workers is more than the demand, then the wages will drop to minimal wage. I do not condone what some unions have done to drive wages up and chase jobs away, but we need to keep the jobs here.

If the standard of living tanks here (we become a third world country) to the levels equivalent to China, etc., what makes you think that the jobs will come back? We would have to go way below theirs to give the companies reason to spend money to move jobs back. During the time it takes to do that, no one will be able to afford anything. We will be living like the Russians during the time Communists controlled the USSR, waiting in line for bread, etc. Of course, that could be the goal of some people that are for what is going on.
57 posted on 01/09/2004 10:51:00 AM PST by looscnnn ("Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils" Gen. John Stark 1809)
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