Obama And Romney Are Wrong: Outsourcing Is Actually America At Its Best

Forbes ^ | 07/28/2012 | Harry Binswanger

[central_va]

So you can agree that labor costs in the USA are not prohibitively expensive? Can you drop that canard from your free trade mantra/dogma. Then we can discuss the other issues.

[Toddsterpatriot]

We must immediately double the price of oil imports!

To better compete with China. FORWARD!

[1rudeboy]

China is a strategic rival (it's amazing I have to say it, because otherwise some bozo will come along and try to explain the obvious to me).

So let's back up a bit and discuss theory: how does one respond to a strategic rival?

1. take away the areas in which it has a strategic advantage, and
2. increase the areas in which you have a strategic advantage.

Someone please explain how raising taxes does either.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

The very same way that strategic rival competes with us:

By using the rules to their advantage.

China even now, does not import America cars - it builds them. In China.

We are losing. Worse every day. Either we change the way we do business with China, or we break it off.

Not some day. Not later. Now.

[central_va]

How about removing the impediments we place on ourselves in order to compete even better? Why is that such a revolutionary concept for you guys?

I agree that is a problem, but while we attack that issue I am not going to let the free traitors sell out the country using that as an excuse. It's almost like the lobbyist make the regs that congress passes to give them an excuse to off shore a factory. This whole thing is an incredible screw job.

[1rudeboy]

China even now, does not import America cars - it builds them. In China.

We exported 5.34 billion dollars' worth of autos to China in 2011.

Granted, not enough . . . and some of those are BMW's from South Carolina, so a protectionist would say they don't count. Also, China recently imposed additional duties on U.S. auto imports. That dispute is on-going.

[1rudeboy]

. . . but while we attack that issue I am not going to let the free traitors sell out the country using that as an excuse.

Of course you can't, that's why taxes need to be raised right away!

[central_va]

Tariffs are easily avoided. Just don’t buy the import.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Exactly! Fight taxes with more taxes. Win win!

[central_va]

It will keep the factories here. Is a tariff as dirty and slimy as moving our factories to a communist country comrade? There is a price to pay for everything friend.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Is a tariff as dirty and slimy as moving our factories to a communist country

Since when do tariffs save jobs?

Did Bush's steel tariffs save jobs?

How many jobs do our stupid sugar tariffs/quota system cost?

There is a price to pay for everything friend.

Exactly! I prefer lower taxes, lower costs and more employment.

It seems like you prefer the opposite.

[khelus]

Re: Imported Productivity. Thanks for the link. This is very interesting and rang a bell. I went hunting and found the link to an article from Business week in 2007 on The Real Cost of Offshoring. The focus is on 'Phantom GDP' i.e. "reported gains in GDP that don't correspond to any actual domestic production".

"But new evidence suggests that shifting production overseas has inflicted worse damage on the U.S. economy than the numbers show"

The article is based on Research by Houseman at Upjohn Institute on jobless recoveries and stagnating real wages.

More Links Found at Wayback:
Detail
Graph 1 - Distortion 2003-2006
Graph 2 - Discovering Distorted Data
Graph 3 - Tracking Global Glitch

...I don't have the figures but I do recall downturns in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, ... But "recessions" were mostly business cycles where people were laid-off and called back to work, things seemed to me to change in the 1980s and 1990s.

I don't recall the 50's, but IIRC until the 1980's forward recessions were short lived and very localized, by either geography or industry. Workers were laid off and called back. Starting in the 1980's entire industries began being gutted, off shored, and out sourced, followed by entire professions.

Contrary to popular opinion we now have lots of well educated, experienced people both white and blue collar under employed, unemployed, or conveniently knocked out of the civilian labor force.

I have strong opinions as to why, but that is another story.

[central_va]

Tariffs work, you know it. You are the economically stupid one here.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Tariffs work, you know it.

You bet, we should double the price of every import, especially oil, and watch our economy bloom!

[central_va]

You bet, we should double the price of every import, especially oil, and watch our economy bloom!

That is the beauty of tariffs, you get to pick and choose which products are subject to a duty. For instance a 20% duty on electronics would be more than justified. Oil, not so much. But an oil tariff would increase political pressure to deregulate, that's for sure.

[1rudeboy]

Unless, of course, the product you buy contains something like oh, for example, steel.

[1rudeboy]

Isn’t it funny? Free-traders, on this thread, are accused of claiming that there is a free lunch, by people claiming there is a free lunch.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: Business cycles had always been where "Workers were laid off and called back. Starting in the 1980's entire industries began being gutted, off shored, and out sourced, followed by entire professions."

Excellent description vis-a-vis labor arbitrage.

Move manufacturing to where there is cheap labor and export to the U.S. (ditto professional services)

.. but it seems to me that free trade that involved producing "over there" would be where our guys found it necessary because exporting to meet the demand "over there" became too expensive. In Europe for lots of examples.

.. meanwhile they continue to produce products here in the U.S. where their products have been sold for years.

OK government regulations and taxes force them to produce "over there" and export to us here.. then how come, rhetorical questions, foreigners come here buying our businesses and establishing their own businesses here? How can they do it and a lot of our guys say that it cannot be done and be profitable? I think that at least 80 percent of our businesses do just fine "stuck" here, BTW.

I believe that there is a difference between free trade and labor arbitrage.

Corporations are free to do both but this is America and I am free to have the opinion that labor arbitrage that benefits the Communist Party of Red China is just plain stupid

.. I really do believe that 1) Lenin was right, corporations are useful idiots in that case and 2) Deng implemented a version of Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP).

I understand that others see Red China transitioning to freedom and democracy -- or simply just "another system."

[central_va]

I understand that others see Red China transitioning to freedom and democracy -- or simply just "another system."

China - Kinder, Gentler Communist Regime™. Faking the stupid round eye since 1972©

[Toddsterpatriot]

That is the beauty of tariffs, you get to pick and choose which products are subject to a duty.

There is a protectionist, on this very thread, who recommended a 100% tariff on all imports into the US. Of course he insisted that doubling the price of foreign sourced oil would have no impact on the price of US sourced oil, so he might not be the strongest advocate of the protectionist mantra.

For instance a 20% duty on electronics would be more than justified.

Excellent! I'm sure there would be no pressure to impose a tariff on the competition of Solyndra, for example. All tariffs would be strictly based on the economic well being of the country.

Like the legislation that causes 300 million of us to pay double or triple the world price for sugar, to help a few sugar cane growers.

But an oil tariff would increase political pressure to deregulate, that's for sure.

Every time the government has crushed our economy with their stupid policies, we've always reduced regulations. Right. /sarc