Not made in the USA

NY Post ^ | December 12, 2010 | MAUREEN CALLAHAN

[Scanian]

Among the number of plant closings announced in the United States this week: A printing plant in Greenburg, Ind., costing 220 jobs; a tomato processing plant in Westover, Md., with 103 people fired; an office-supply facility in Mattoon, Ill., with 129 jobs lost.

[central_va]

let's just raise tariffs now, and deal with all the other taxes later." How retarded is that?

Retarded yes, but the bleeding has to stop. A consumption based tax is years off.

[1rudeboy]

You are stopping the bleeding by opening the wound.

[central_va]

At least the blood flows in, not out.

[Will88]

We, as a country, should be doing high value-added work versus low value-added work. We don’t want to be making shoes — we’re making pharmaceuticals, software, high-tech cars. That’s how you become a rich country.”

Nitwit econ professors and so-called free traders have been peddling that same lie, almost word-for-word, for at least thirty years.

Based on what was being said in the early eighties, by now all Americans should be trained and retrained for the "high tech, high paying jobs of the future". Well, the future they lied about thirty years ago is here and they have nothing to offer by the same lies all over again.

“It is unqualifiedly positive,” says Aneel Karnani, assistant professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

An "unqualified positive" for whom? The citizens of this guy's ancestral homeland?

It's been obvious to any with the tiniest amount of common sense, for years, that all these one-sided trade agreements, and the export and outsourcing of US factories and jobs, would lower the US standard of living and create a new underclass. That is the only possible result of the policies that have been followed, really, since the 1950s.

This will become a major political issue in the near future, as it should.

[Scanian]

We, as a country, should be doing high value-added work versus low value-added work. We don’t want to be making shoes — we’re making pharmaceuticals, software, high-tech cars. That’s how you become a rich country.”

Tell that one to the Chicoms.

[1rudeboy]

You are operating on a dead patient, then. Small wonder you don’t see any problem with raising his taxes.

[Beagle8U]

I think I read that if you remove oil imports from the mix, we still export more than we import.

We need to start drilling our own oil and use coal and nukes for elec power generation. The economy would be booming if we could get gas prices back to $1 gal.

[rbg81]

“We, as a country, should be doing high value-added work versus low value-added work. We don’t want to be making shoes — we’re making pharmaceuticals, software, high-tech cars. That’s how you become a rich country.”

---

Obviously, the guy who said this doesn’t work for a living. If you can make $$ at something, why not do it here? The fact is that we have chased many of our factory jobs away. So what happens to the people that used to fill them? They become clients of the state.

[1rudeboy]

How much lower is our standard of living now, than it was in the 1950’s? I have yet to see a “nitwit” econ professor claim as much . . . and I’ve seen my share of nitwits.

[central_va]

If the “patient” is dead then it was kill by “Free Trade”. Benedict Arnold MBA’s.....

[1rudeboy]

I’m not sure about that, but I know that oil makes-up a significant portion of our trade deficit. We also export more than your typical protectionist cares to admit.

[FreedomPoster]

I understand what you are saying regarding the people sent home by robotics. On the other hand, there is no doubt that 100 years ago those same people’s great grandfathers were looking for a job coming off the farm, due to the mechanization of agriculture and the fact that farmers didn’t need nearly as many farm hands. Somehow it all worked out.

[1rudeboy]

So, if I’m following your logic, it’s my fault you need to raise my taxes . . . and my reluctance to let you do so is impeding my economic prosperity. Brilliant.

[central_va]

This will become a major political issue reason for WWIII starting in the near future.

Fixed.

[Beagle8U]

Unions, OSHA, and the EPA drove the MFG. plants off shore.

OSHA is the biggest job killer in America.

[central_va]

So, if I’m following your logic, it’s my fault you need to raise my taxes .

The beautiful part about tariffs is if you don't buy then you don't pay taxes. It is consumption based.

[1rudeboy]

So if you raise tariffs on steel, for example . . . .

[Will88]

A major point of the article is that living standards have been lowered for an entire class of US workers, and that a new underclass is being created.

Few remain that would dispute that.

[central_va]

So if you raise tariffs on steel, for example . .

Maybe we would have domestic steel production then

[Uncle Ike]

” On the other hand, there is no doubt that 100 years ago those same people’s great grandfathers were looking for a job coming off the farm, due to the mechanization of agriculture and the fact that farmers didn’t need nearly as many farm hands. “

100 years ago, the workers who left the Agriculture Industry were absorbed by the burgeoning Industrial Revolution..

Since ‘labor intensiveness’ is the antithesis of the IT Revolution, what is there, now or on the horizon, to absorb the ‘post-industrial’ workforce??

That’s the structural problem we face, and ‘Somehow, something will work out’ isn’t a ‘solution’......