Replies

"You seem to intimate that business has every right to start up when, where and how they want to in the US but at the same time, Americans have no right to work for that business...Hogwash..."

I have no idea what you're trying to say -- and, I don't think you do either.

If your company is in the business of making and selling shirts, and then selling them in a global market, you have to be able to offer a price competitive with shirts made in Taiwan and El Salvador.

For the sake of argument (I don't know the actual numbers) let's say the total annual cost (wages/benefits/training, etc.) of a seamtress in Taiwan is $20K and in America its $100K. Regardless of the name and nationality of the manufacturer, where do you think shirts are going to be stitched together ??

Its a no-brainer, Taiwan of course.

Do you think its the government's job to hold a gun to VanHeusen's head and demand they make shirts in America with American labor ?? I don't think so. VanHeusen would go broke overnight - just look at Levi Strauss.

That's the reality -- there are no blue collar jobs that are earmarked uniquely American anymore. We have to do what we've always done best -- and that is to compete.

Right now our competitive edge is to innovate.

The Asians build things (electronics, cars, optics) very well and cheaply -- but, we're the innovators that create the ideas.

Right now, instead of sewing soles on shoes (say that fast three times), we have to focus on our unique abilities to be inventors and innovators, the originators of creative ideas.

In a global economy, that is our strength, coupled with our natural resources and our entrepreneurial freedom.

That's reality -- what's your solution ??

Absurd...I will venture a guess that VanHeusen does NOT sell it shirts in Taiwan at the same price it sells to Americans...Now when this company sells it shirts to Americans for what it would have to sell them for in Taiwan, let 'em have at it...In the meantime, we are getting robbed...And losing our jobs to boot...If an American company can not afford to do business in the US with American labor, I'll help them move out...And they can stay out...

>For the sake of argument (I don't know the actual
>numbers) let's say the total annual cost
>(wages/benefits/training, etc.) of a seamtress in
>Taiwan is $20K and in America its $100K. Regardless
>of the name and nationality of the manufacturer, where
>do you think shirts are going to be stitched together ??

Let's be factual. The wage of a seamstress in the United States is around $50 for an 8 hour shift. The wage of a seamstress in Taiwan may be $5 for an 8 hour shift. If she's lucky. It's probably closer to $1 for an 8 hour shift. In an immoral "free trade" world, shirts will be made in Taiwan. My neighbor, who used to be a seamstress in the United States, will be unemployed and on AFDC. Every increasing portions of my upper middle class paycheck will disappear as the government seizes it to subsidize the wage of the clothing company executive. In a moral world, the government will put up radical barriers to the importation of goods from countries with radically different standards of living/currency valuations.

There can be no fair trade with slave labor countries. The problem is not when an American motorcycle rider buys a BMW and a German motorcycle rider buys a Harley-Davidson. The problem is when a Chinese slave, who couldn't afford to buy gasoline for either vehicle puts an American (or a German for that matter) out of work.

The problem with free trade is at heart a problem of disparate standards of living and exchange rates and no amount of philosophical justification on the part of its supporters can alter that cold hard fact.